Brighton (A) Saturday 26th August 5:30pm live on Sky

chicagohammer

Definitely one of his better run outs from the bench, to be fair, I was calling for Fornals

But what do I know 😉

Bazshuayi

Happy for the season to finish tonight. No need for anymore football nonsense

(brilliant control and finish by Bowen!)

claretandbluesky

I thought Alveraz looked to have potential also and seemed good at exactly what you want a DM to be good at. He wasn't going to trouble for man of the match today but looked solid enough and seemed to settle quickly and be very motivated.

IronHerb

What a great coach trip to the coast. Excellent all round performance from the team and a wonderful result. I thought JWP was MOTM for his all round contribution and Bowens goal was just sublime, his touch and flick sheer class.
Upwards and onwards. ⚒

IronHerb

https://twitter.com/HLTCO/status/1695518555557519746

buffybegood

Admittedly it was only one game, but it was so nice to appear to hold a threat when countering. I don't mind us having 30% possession if we actually appear dangerous when we do have the ball, like we did in 20/21 and the first half of 21/22.

That was where we were lacking last season imo. To start with we tried to implement a possession based style (and failed) which meant when we had possession, it was slow in the transition to attack, and then we were generally useless in attack anyway 😂🤣😂. Today we actually looked threatening; although Antonio did well for the first goal he actually had 2 good chances to score himself before that, so with more clinical finishing from our CF it could have been even better.

alderz

I’ve been texting Spurs and Arsenal fans a screenshot of the league table and telling them to mind the gap. The lords work.

epsom_bubbles

I spoke to an Arsenal friend, who firstly congratulated West Ham, then bemoaned that (he who shall not be named) is slow, and doesn't go forward enough. That doubled my pleasure at a great win

PrestonHammer

The thing is with Rice is he's very effective in our set up because he has to do alot of defending and mopping up which he's excellent at. I think when your team has alot of the ball, then he doesn't look so effective because he doesn't have anything to do. He doesn't score enough. If you look at him for England, because most of the time we have a lot of the ball, he doesn't have alot to do. I think in time, he'll end up at centre back.

thornburyiron

From the little I’ve seen of Arsenal so far this season it seems to me that Rice is back on point duty ie he doesn’t have as much to do so wanders around pointing to what he thinks everybody else should do.

MrsGrey

Isn't it nice to be able to watch MoTD and hear nothing but praise for the manager, the team effort and discipline, tactics, recruitment strategy and individual players.

Enjoy it while we can! :-)

Lukerz

The effort of the players to execute the game plan, yet continue to put in maximum effort despite knowing that was going to be an unforgiving game, where we basically ran & defended, yet still every player was committed to the performance. It’s never pretty watching that style of performance but it always helps when you score 3 goals & win.

Yeoldhammer

The touch for Bowens goal was great and so was Antonio's

Kuchinghammer

I couldn't watch the game til after I'd read the comments... and it was way better than the Chelsea game, every bit as good as hoped, and three very special goals. I'll see you all in the Positive Corner 😁😁

BubblesNeverDies

Yeoldhammer said:

The touch for Bowens goal was great and so was Antonio's

Bowen's touch was immaculate, but I don't think enough credit has been given to Benni's crossfield pass, it was almost space shuttle docking precision.

PrestonHammer

BubblesNeverDies said:

Yeoldhammer said:

The touch for Bowens goal was great and so was Antonio's

Bowen's touch was immaculate, but I don't think enough credit has been given to Benni's crossfield pass, it was almost space shuttle docking precision.

Totally agree. Now if he could play balls like that more often, how good could he be?

secrethammersfan

Just watched the match. My worthless thoughts:
1. Moyes finally has the players to realise his vision, and it seems to be working
2. JWP and Alvarez are ideal signings for the team’s playing style. (Declan who?)
3. Benrahma’s pass to Bowen for the goal should be hanging in the Louvre.
4. Areola once again made a lot of crucial saves.
5. Why did Areola have to make so many crucial saves?
6. When you have a new system that’s working, and you change the system, the team is very vulnerable until they have settled in to the changes. Lehrer came on, and suddenly nobody knew who was supposed to close men down.
7. I predict beating last years final league position. I’m old and tired enough to know not to aim higher than that (I still subtract points from 40 after every match!)

ASLEFshrugged

secrethammersfan said:

5. Why did Areola have to make so many crucial saves?

Maybe because Brighton are a pretty good team, averaged more shots (16.1) and more shots on target (6.1) per game than any other team last season

secrethammersfan

8. We should buy Evan Ferguson in two years.

IronHerb

As good as Areola was I think we would be annoyed if any of those bar one had gone in.

alderz

secrethammersfan said:

8. We should buy Evan Ferguson in two years.

Better start saving up. That guy will be going right to the top, IMO.

PrestonHammer

Callum Marshall and Divin Mubama will be up and running in a couple of years.

MrsGrey

Kuchinghammer said:

I couldn't watch the game til after I'd read the comments... and it was way better than the Chelsea game, every bit as good as hoped, and three very special goals. I'll see you all in the Positive Corner 😁😁

At this rate, we won't all fit in a corner.

ValiantIron

IronHerb said:

As good as Areola was I think we would be annoyed if any of those bar one had gone in.

I agree with this, which is not to put down Areola's performance at all. xG I've seen suggests they did enough to score 1-2 and that feels right. We kept them at distance, outside the box, at least until the last 10 minutes.

Talking xG, we underperformed from the numbers I've seen, which were 3-4! So we weren't ruthless as the write ups suggest, we just made a lot of very good chances. Again, no criticism, that's great.

Still, is that two in two from outside the box for Antonio?

IronHerb

MrsGrey said:

Kuchinghammer said:

I couldn't watch the game til after I'd read the comments... and it was way better than the Chelsea game, every bit as good as hoped, and three very special goals. I'll see you all in the Positive Corner 😁😁

At this rate, we won't all fit in a corner.

We're gonna need a bigger pub! 🍺

buffybegood

ValiantIron said:

Still, is that two in two from outside the box for Antonio?

Pretty sure they were both from inside the box.

Expat_Hammer

IronHerb said:

MrsGrey said:

Kuchinghammer said:

I couldn't watch the game til after I'd read the comments... and it was way better than the Chelsea game, every bit as good as hoped, and three very special goals. I'll see you all in the Positive Corner 😁😁

At this rate, we won't all fit in a corner.

We're gonna need a bigger pub! 🍺

The Boleyn Arms still has a big gazebo in the cellar, preferential rates for posters on 606

MrsGrey

ValiantIron

buffybegood said:

Pretty sure they were both from inside the box.

I'm going to pretend I never saw this and just remember what I clearly imagined!

Bazshuayi

We were top of the league, we were top of the league! (can we all just hate Moneychester City)