Playing out from the back is great if you can do it. Clearly Tomkins can't. Mix it up a bit with the odd ball over the top to beat the press. If you just roll it around at the back it will encourage them on without worry. The odd ball over the top will make them think. Check out the goals Liverpool concede over the top of the high press. Without the speed of Van Dyke at the back they fell apart to the long ball last season.

Ended up arguing with a guy behind me on exactly the same subject. He kept saying, can’t you see what we are trying to do”, without realising that when a team is pressing, bypassing the pressing players turns defence into attack, not passing it back and back and back until the keeper ends up hoofing it or we lose possession.

Put ourselves under way too much pressure tonight because we played into their hands. Kouyate was out of position and can only play central defensive midfielder not where he was tonight. Gallagher was tired without a doubt and Eze should have come on to replace him.

Still a work in progress without doubt, some good, a lot of bad. Still if we reach 19 games with say 23/24 points I’d be reasonably happy

A few things that I noticed over the past couple of games.

We play better with both Benteke and Edouard on the pitch. Edouard is very good at reading the flick ons, has great feet and presses better. Tekkers is a better outlet and better in the air.

If Ayew could finish, we'd be a much more threatening prospect. It sounds like an obvious comment to make but I've also been guilty of criticising him without appreciating what he actually does outside of putting the ball in the net (or not). He does bring a lot to the team defensively plus we seem to pick up a lot of free kicks to relieve pressure. I think having Olise off the bench works better. The games that Olise has started, he has not has the same impact as him coming into the game later on.

Hughes looks a great buy and definitely a future replacement for McArthur (if not now I'm afraid to say). He allows Gallagher to play a few yards higher up the pitch where he is more threatening.

Wilf is Wilf. Moments of brilliances along with moments of frustration. He doesn't seem to run at players as much this season and I can't work out if that's because he's lost a little pace or because he's been told to pass the ball more.

I can almost see us doing a West Ham. We'll be a work in progress this season, then once it completely clicks and with a few specialist players (free kick/corner takers), could kick on towards the end of the season and into next season. My only concern is that most of the goals we concede are due to our own faults rather than teams simply playing better (Maybe that's even more reason for optimism). We keep the ball very well but, as has been mentioned, pass the ball too much around the back sometimes and get caught out. Also, as much as there's been a drastic improvement, we still need to work on better service to the front players. We still don't play to Benteke or Edouard's strengths still IMO. Edouard is a natural finisher and we don't create space enough to allow him to shoot more. We also seem to lack the ability to get the ball into areas that Tekkers can attack the ball more in the air. When Tekkers gets good service, he scores. Simple as. How we don't score more from set pieces with the players we have is beyond me.

I also can't decide what players we need in Jan, if any. If I had the choice of signing Gallagher and no one else, I'd take that, but I still can't help feeling like we're a few players short of where we want to be.

I'm still very optimistic at the moment and the team are a millions miles better to watch compared to previous seasons. I'm really enjoying watching us at the moment and actually look forward to coming to Selhurst. I can't wait to see how Vieira tries to slot Eze into the team once he's fully fit/on form as he's a talent we need to use. Also, to see is Ferguson will play any role at all now that he's playing in the u23s.

If it was that easy to bypass a press people wouldn't even press. It's absolutely fine to go backwards and sideways until the right pass opens up. Unfortunately last night Butland and Tomkins sh1t themselves whenever they got the ball and went long. We'd lose the ball and then it would come straight back at us.

So many of our fans have been watching poor 'defenders defend' for so long now that they expect defenders to clear it when under the slightest pressure.

How often goes MG just aimlessly punt it long? Literally never. Guy is a Rolls Royce.

Made as many mistakes as the others.