Sunbury Fox

And a number of kick offs, no doubt....

This lopsided formation with no winger on one side is just not working. How can Cooper not see it?

Embarrassing.

This nonsense tactic of having 1 winger tucked in is preventing us from stretching the play and limiting our attacking options. We just look unbalanced and easy to defend against. It reminds me of the relegation season where we had no right winger so we played Maddison tucked in from the right and it never really worked.

I think even if we lose tonight he'll get Arsenal and Bournemouth. If things go badly in those 2 (likely on the basis of what we're seeing), the board will then act during the international break, I suspect.

My God, that was terrible. Can we just take pens now to avoid having to watch another 45 minutes?

Don't blame him, if so.

He clearly sees Fatawu as a left winger as he described it as a like for like change when he brought him on for Stephy on Saturday. Yet again not happy with his team selection. Why Reid instead of BEK or Alves in the 10? Why Fatawu out of position? Why Soumaré full stop? Why ostracise Vesty when we only have 4 senior CBs and Coady has been useless for us, including in the Champo? Why Ward ahead of Iversen?

I assume Ipswich are the only team below us for xG, shots and touches in the attacking third and penalty area - and they have played both Liverpool and Man CIty in their first 5 games so their stats would have been skewed significantly by that.

Hard to believe that we are dead last for carries into the box when we have started either BDCR or Ayew in every game so far.

Imagine how “adventurous” Cooper will be in this one!!! I’m expecting something horrific like: Mads Justin Faes Coady Okoli VK Winks Skipp Ndidi Reid Ayew

On the ball I didn’t think he was bad yesterday but he was so far tucked inside that it gave Young a free pass for the whole game, which is 100% on Cooper. In games like yesterday’s , I think he might be more useful as a central striker with 2 flyers either side of him, as he can hold up and lay off the ball effectively. He obviously won’t score many goals, though.

This 1000%. It was driving me mad at the stadium. How could a professional manager not see this? Even when Fatawu came on, he was put on the left. Just utterly bizarre.

I've never minded he's ex-Forest, but I have minded that he is their cast off. How can a manager deemed not good enough for them be did enough for us? Bobby Reid warming up on the pitch so assume he's coming on as the first sub. FFS.

Agree he'll stick with the same 3 in CM but don't think he'll make either of those other changes, sadly. It will be an unchanged team.

Agree that was very poor from Kimber. At least go out there and try to hang around, even if you're injured. If I was Wood or Currie I would be furious that my efforts to at least make a game of it were thrown away like this.

The Ricardo thing is genuinely baffling. On Saturday VK stayed back more, whilst Justin played higher with Ayew tucking inside (the average position map confirms this). So the argument that Justin has been preferred because he can tuck in as a 3rd centre back doesn't even apply as surely Ricardo would offer more than Justin in this more attacking role? On the face of it, it also seems unlikely that Ricardo would have fallen out with Cooper personally, given that Cooper seems to be a good man manager and Ricardo seems to be the archetypal professional. But Ricardo is a highly technical player and loved playing under Maresca, so is it possible that he may have voiced concerns about the less sophisticated playing style that we now seem to be deploying, upsetting Cooper in the process? Either way, Cooper is clearly cutting off his nose to spite his face in not using Ricardo even as a sub. Will be fascinating to see how things play out moving forward; would be a real shame if Ricardo's time at the club ended in the way that Cags' time did.

Another defeat incoming then.

Jeez, that's even worse than I thought.

I know you're joking but, seriously, I would not be surprised to see Cooper fielding this team at Arsenal in a couple of weeks.

Been trying to buy tickets for the Southampton game but the website is not allowing me to select individual seats after I select an available block. Is anyone else having the same problem?

Looks like the season is going to peter out miserably, which is a shame, as in many ways we've had another decent, competitive season until the last week or so.

Has Rahane baled out now that our promotion chances have gone? He's not starting today anyway.

I think it would be fully in character for Cooper to retain the same starting XI as at Palace. He’ll probably stick with Ndidi in the 10 because his pressing there worked so well at Selhurst Park. The problem is that, unlike Palace, Everton will be launching it long at every opportunity so having Ndidi in this role is unlikely to be anywhere near as effective as it was against Palace. Also expect we will see Ayew instead of Fatawu; Cooper just won’t be brave enough to play both Fatawu and Mavididi in the same team. Let’s face it, this game is going to be a crime against football, given the 2 managers in the dugout.

Agree. Would take Moyes in a heartbeat in our current situation. Not exciting at all but knows how to get results in the PL with limited teams.