John Wade says…
An excellent performance — even in defeat
Can’t argue that we deserved better than that.
Arsenal are the masters of the dark arts and they came away with three points having been outplayed for a decent percentage of the game.
Our defence looked solid and restricted them to very few chances but in the end, they did the job.
Granit Xhaka rules the roost
Xhaka was in a class of his own in midfield and Declan Rice looked like an apprentice in comparison.
Brian Brobbey got the better of their world class defenders and they resorted to cheating to try and match him.
Poor finishing lets Sunderland down
Our finishing
when we have a foot on the throat is not what it should be.
I don’t blame Enzo Le Fée at all for missing the penalty — decent strike, great save then a sucker punch two minutes later
Reinildo’s red card, but a chance for Dayann Méthalie?
Reinildo getting a second yellow isn’t great but that’s tempered by the fact that Methalie will start in his absence.
I’m looking forward to that, and if he does well, I’m not sure we see Mandava start ahead of him again unless rotation is required.
John Wilson says…
Relish the big occasions!
We must never take these sort of games for granted — we should relish and thrive on these matches.
Yet again, a superb atmosphere, a fighting spirit and a team to be proud of, regardless of the result.
Brian Brobbey makes his mark
Brobbey was immense for me, and that’s the best he’s played for us.
His hold-up play and layoffs were great to watch. We also saw him partner Wilson Isidor for the second week running.
Refereeing confusion reigns again
Every season, a new law gets brought in to improve some element of the game, and referees contrive to ignore it or abuse it, and the latest for me is their inability to count five seconds.
They bend their arm to let everyone know they’re counting, but it seems their one second is really two seconds.
I’ll add it to my list of ignoring foul throws, shirt pulling, not knowing what a yard is and being conned by divers, but to be fair, John Brooks did award the penalty for the usual wrestling in the box.
Is that all you’ve got, Arsenal?
Not sour grapes, but Arsenal really are a whinging, soft, cheating bunch.
So annoying to watch. What a pity we couldn’t pinch something, which I think we thoroughly deserved.
Mark Ryan says…
Sunderland show their potential
Logic says that if we keep playing the defending champions and current top of the table as we have, we should be able to reach great heights.
This is a good, talented squad that can make a lot of noise.
Positive signs in an attacking sense?
The attack is better than a year ago.
The improvement we saw at the end of the year was not a fluke, but the start of something real. Last season, our total xG after four matches was 3.42, whereas this season, it’s 5.53.
That’s inflated a bit by penalties (made and missed), but we’re putting the ball in dangerous places with consistency.
A lack of threat in front of goal
That said, last year we scored five goals on that low xG while this season we’ve only scored three, despite the improvement.
Like I said a week ago, we have to be ruthless with the opportunities that present themselves, both in front of goal and to earn points.
Not playing to Brian Brobbey’s strengths
We keep trying to play the ball to Brobbey in the air in the box, and there was at least one time he was pleading to for it to be played into his feet.
The best chances at Brentford came from feeding Brobbey and letting him lay it off for teammates — a much more difficult prospect with his head.
Tom Albrighton says…
The Lads give their all
You can’t fault the effort: they gave everything and whilst I have all the time for Régis Le Bris, I can’t help but think on nights like this, a lot of that endeavour is wasted.
Agreeable prices for pre-match liquid gold!
The Navy Club and two snakebites for £8.
Can’t go wrong there, chief.
Sunderland’s bluntness in attack
We didn’t lay a glove on them.
Yes, they’re the champions but to me they’re the worst champions we’ve had for a long time.
We’re absolutely toothless going forward and it needs to change soon. Whilst Brentford was a positive, last night felt like a backwards step and I can’t recall a point in the game the ball went into the final third and it felt like we were a threat.
We may have got away with it last season but with Robin Roefs picking the ball out his net at an increased rate there’s a real fear the delicate balance we struck previously has tilted against.
Reactive substitutions from Régis Le Bris?
For me, the subs were too little, too late.
Missed penalty aside, Enzo Le Fée and Thomas Meunier had a torrid time and it wasn’t until the game was flowing firmly against us that either were changed. Le Bris is a great gaffer but his loyalty sometimes costs us dearly — and this was an example of that.
After doing the hard work of making Mikel Arteta blink first, to throw it away by sitting on our hands until Arsenal got going was an error in my book.
