Laivasse

Dismal. No new faces in, and the only defender who's started acceptably looks likely to leave the club. This is only going to get worse.

Dunne should have got tighter, quicker... Le sigh.

He was getting right stroppy as well, as if they weren't seeing his brilliant point, whatever that was I think they just cut his arms off with the jaws of life in the end.

Hilarious. Hart and a couple of the Everton players gone over to no doubt tell him what a bell-end he is.

Give Venables another shot.

Cracking cross for Clark only to head straight at the goalie. Wasn't the only one either. He put in a sweet one from the right towards the end but their CBs were well positioned

Well that's just where we differ. IMO he IS running back because he's crapping himself we have no RB there. Yes, it's what he should do, but it's what he wouldn't have to do if Hutton didn't go missing. While it was a foul, 'awful' is overstating it... a couple of inches faster minimises the contact and it's a very good tackle. Stupid to go for in the first place, but he saw Koscielny (not RVP, my mistake) running down a big hole in our side, towards a nervy CB. That situation didn't have to happen in the first place, but it did because of Hutton.

I was simply saying that he shares a large portion of the blame. The people who make the final tackle/screwup aren't always the people most to blame for the goal, which is why I think the first goal is as much Cuellar's fault, for not cutting out that ball, as it was Dunne's. Still, you can't just ignore that it was Hutton's terrible decision making that turned over possession in that instance. Second goal, Hutton shares primary responsibility with Dunne or Warnock, take your pick. The defence is occasionally going to have to deal with goalmouth scrambles, so clearances can't be as brainless as that. No one would question that it was a bad clearance if it had cleared Walcott and just gone back into danger (likely). Third goal, Hutton all over. If you have a RB actually doing his job in that position you don't get strikers crapping themselves and feeling like the defence rests on them. I agree with you that Bent, Gabby, etc stank in the second half, but it's not as if Hutton's bad play happens in isolation. In one of Arsenal's more toothless passages I remember seeing him needlessly close down an angle that nobody cared about, when Ireland was hassling a player on the halfway line. As a result, Hutton lost the player behind him (his responsibility) and so Cuellar had to drift out and pick him up. All needless, because Hutton's change in position was utterly pointless. No need to go into the shocking tackles, handballs and mostly non-existent attacking play he's been responsible to date.

I thought he was good in the first half despite a small error or two. He put in 2 nice ground balls, one of which should have had Bent one on one. I saw him being nice and accurate with his long passing too. Second half, he was poor. Didn't look too sharp whenever the responsibility fell on him to make a tackle or interception. I think he and Dunne still outperformed Warnock and Hutton, not that that was difficult. He's a better option than Collins and I think he'd play even better when chosen with less irregularity.

I reckon he gets more stick because he's McLeish's signing. I think you've got it backwards. McLeish gets stick because he signed Hutton, among other things.

All those players do get stick. Hutton gets more because he does even more wrong than they do. The difference between him and the rest of the defence is that the rest of them, even Warnock, occasionally do good things to relieve pressure and win some credit. With Hutton I never see him do anything except the most basic of 70/30 challenges, while his errors probably double the pressure that the rest of the defence feel. It's like we're carrying him for his attacking prowess, which doesn't actually exist yet somehow persists as a myth. The commentators were even talking about it pre-match.

That's nonsense. 1st goal - Hutton RAN that ball into that dead end when he didn't have to. 2nd goal - even taking a fraction of a second longer to find a clearance that wasn't blocked by bodies could have saved us. 3rd goal - truly dismal positioning, don't know where he was or where he was running to, but he looked like he was running through treacle... couldn't get back to cover and so Bent panicked and made a bad last-ditch challenge. We've conceded goals like that before, with Hutton waddling back into position way too slowly.

His errors and bad positioning play contributed to all three of their goals. While Warnock has been bad, I don't remember the last time he helped us concede three in 15 minutes. Just a terrible FB. Please sell him, he makes me want to cry.

I have a sinking feeling McLeish is going to somehow see this as justification for Collins keeping his 1st team place.

Pretty certain it was Hutton. I might be thinking of the first goal.

Seen the Best and worst of Bent in this game. He's put away one top class finish, but his touch and hunger throughout have been well suspect.

Petrov enormously frustrated there, was it with Bent?

Commentators giving Arsenal a nice bukkake now, even though we sold them all their goals for a handful of beans.

Peach of a cross from Ireland just there. If gabby would only wake up I think we could equalise (and then concede another 3).

Harsh penalty, but that one's on Hutton again. He's making Warnock's bad first half spell look acceptable. Terrible, terrible signing.

Thrown this game away.

Cuellar and Dunne screw up simultaneously and we instantly concede. All our fortunes basically hinge on our defence. Hutton also at fault for the turnover.

I read in here that Collins is injured.

Agreed with this. When playing to the counter attack, there's not much of a gap between canny play and utter pointless dross. More confident touches in attack and just a slightly more competent defence changes everything.

Credit to Petrov also, cute backheel to Keane on the corner and wasn't it Petrov who fed Ireland in the buildup for the second?