Needs the right team around him.

Qwiss as anyone does. Even at his worst, he makes a few moments of magic. Least of our problems.

Coombs he had 7 key passes today. If we'd finished 2 of those we'd be praising him for a great game

I saw a stat that he created 10 chances today? didn't watch the game myself, but he can't have been terrible if that's true?

Either his ankle isn’t right or he’s not fully invested.

Didn’t know he was a new dad., but as one myself I totally understand if he’s finding it hard to reach prior peaks at work.

Gazza M — he created some decent chances, but he didn’t run the show. We never got consistent influence from him. We still look at odds going forward and he’s not doing enough to dictate how we attack.

I can understand why fans didn’t think much of his game today.

Should have scored his penalty but his overall performance was solid enough. If we actually had any finishers on the team he'd walk home with two or three assists.

Qwiss he had 7 key passes today. If we'd finished 2 of those we'd be praising him for a great game

Ode had some phenomenal passes today. We fucked around. I thought he played really well. He’s not the Roy of the Rovers scorer that some folks want. What he is is consistently one of Europe’s most creative players. These guys need to finish the chances he was putting on a plate today.

At the end of the day if we have 1 goal in last 8xG, the conversation shifts from the creatives to finishing.

Of all the games he's played in the last 1.5 months, this was one of his better. Penalty miss was a good save too.

naz Of all the games he's played in the last 1.5 months, this was one of his better. Penalty miss was a good save too.

Agreed. Our actual performance compared the the last few was much better. At least around the point the red card happened until the end of the swcond half. You could see there was an injection of directness in the way we wanted to force the issue. We were just shit again when we found ourselves in and around the box in taking our chances.

he's back to loan spell ode. overly passive and prone to bad decisions. to me it looks like a fitness/ confidence issue that's come at the worst possible time

His football is still good. His leadership seems to be evading him. We are missing that a little. He is no Dennis Bergkamp like some were comparing earlier in the season but he is a damn good footballer who has lost his mojo a little for some reason. This is where a manager needs to earn his bucks.

He's not been great but he's also being asked to be the fulcrum of a pretty duff team just now.

He looks unfit and lacking sharpness. I've no doubt in my mind if we weren't struggling as we are he'd have had another couple of weeks of being eased in and likely be all the better for it.

He seems to be struggling with the chemistry of those around him, as the rest of the team is. There were a few moments in the game where him, Jesus and Timber all seemed to be gravitating towards each other without any real purpose or incisive movement in complete contrast to the Odegaard/Saka/White patterns we've seen. You wouldn't expect it to be anywhere near the understanding of those three, but it looked completely clueless at times.

MistaT congrats dada.

Martinelli has to take a shot there, the ball probably didn't carry through as much as he wanted but a near post shot is on there.

Then you consider the chance Odegaard put on a plate for Rice, it isn't his fault they didn't put them away. The penalty is just bad luck, it was a good penalty but excellent save.

So harsh to put too much blame on Odegaard and this is coming from someone who is having some serious doubts about him long term!

Odegaard needs to play with more freedom. His right sided bias works when Saka is fit but without Saka he needs to use the full width of the pitch. Move horizontally across. He is a much better player when he does that. Wenger would just love him.

Ideally Jesus / Trossard should be in that space (left-side biased) and combining with the winger on the other side. It must be hard to change the pattern suddenly with all the injuries.

Funnily enough although he missed the pen I thought yesterday was the first time we saw him back close to his best. And even then he took a lump at the end of the first half and was limping for the last few minutes and wasn't clear he'd come back on for the 2nd half. He's the least of our worries.

Much better today as everything went through him, he really dictated play in a big game for the first time in a while. Reallly needs to remember how to score a goal though, that miss at the end could have been so costly.