Did anyone genuinely think we'd get anything from our first 2 games?

I didn't expect anything less. We have played the likely champions and a team that are now established in the PL, who were in the last 8 of the CL and can afford to pay £15m for a defender (on a different point, Maguire looked excellent yesterday).

There are some interesting stats from last season for what I hope are comparable teams to us that do give some crumbs of comfort. For example, Stoke only had 3 points after their first 7 games; Swansea won their first game of the season and their second win was the 13th game later at the end of November (with 3 draws in between), and Bournemouth went 8 games (gaining 3 draws in that time) without a win from Jan until 11 March.

It doesn't alter the fact that we are currently looking a bit toothless going forward and that surely will change before the end of the transfer window. But... it was always going to be tough.

Agree with many others on here that I wasn't expecting much, but hoped we would look like we might be able to score.

I don't buy the fact that the team isn't up to it - yet. You have to give the likes of Stephens a chance as we would have no idea if he could cut it or not.

What I still don't get is why, with 2 weeks to go before deadline day and 2 lost games into the season, we still haven't got that striker absolutely everyone in the world knows we need. The thing that has struck me most is the speed of everything in the Premier League - and we just don't have enough pace.


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Farehamseagull said:

No I didn't. But I also didn't expect us to look like a plucky league 1 side in a cup game in our first two games. We look out of our depth.

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Sadly this is exactly how we have looked except the plucky cup team normally carve out a couple of decent chances over 90 mins.

I didn't expect much but I have still been disappointed with our complete lack of attacking intent when losing.

I'm a Liverpool fan although have looked out for Brighton for a while as it was my first choice uni a few years ago.

Right now you have absolutely nothing to worry about. You were defensively outstanding in the first half against City and they only broke through with a mistake. With Leicester, it was yet another mistake and a set piece goal. I think you'll lose at Watford prompting the footballing world to write you off, but even then it's way still too early to start worrying.

There are plenty of relegation candidates in the league this season. Palace have been regressing for years and even with Benteke could easily go down. Burnley, having lost Keane, are extremely poor squad-wise. If Swansea don't reinvest the Sigurdsson money well, they're in trouble. Bournemouth may have Defoe, but as we learned last season even he may not be enough to save a mediocre squad. And as much as I love Benitez, there's only so much you can do with the team at your disposal, and Newcastle's squad isn't too good either.

Basically I'd be surprised if you weren't in a relegation dogfight, but you shouldn't be alone this season.

HOWEVER, I say all that assuming you bring in a striker before the window closes and I pray to god you do. Even with a solid defence, if you don't have enough goals, you're going down (ie Middlesbrough last season). Murray and Hemed are not cut out to be first choice strikers in the Premier League. I don't see it happening but you should go for Danny Ings. He's 5th choice at Liverpool and shouldn't cost too much considering he's not regularly played since 15/16.

Also don't be too harsh on Ryan, we're seeing more and more goalkeepers have shaky starts to their Premier League careers.