If I heard one person say it after the game I heard a dozen saying the same thing with James Collins and Sky ‘pundit’ Phil Thompson among them.

The received wisdom  tonight (Sat) appears to be that we are too dependent on Dimitri Payet who of course scored a goal from our dreams against Middleborough today.

But hold on a minute. Isn’t that why we gave him a massive rise, isn’t that why the board would never be deterred from getting him in the first place and are determined not to sell him and isn’t he doing exactly what he did for France in the summer Euros.

Put it another way: This is what he does at every level of the game!

The manager summed it up better than anyone else when he said that we weren’t playng football which created many chances but that the Payet goal is what you expect from your top world class player.

If I had any complaints is what that after such an extraordinary piece of skill you would have though the Irons would have been giving him the ball on every available occasion – that didn’t happen and had it done we would probably have won!

I think the entirely inept Gokhan Tore saw as much of the ball as Dimi in one of the most forgettable performances ever by a Premier League player.

And that begs one big question: How on earth can Dimi Payet and Gokhan Tore find themselves in the same squad. Quite ridiculous and an example of the imbalance in the Irons squad.

The ‘one man band ‘ argument doesn’t hold up to very close examination anyway given the improvemet we saw today with special mentions for Winston Reid, Alvaro Arbeola, Michail Antonio, Pedro Obiang and a slowly improving Cheik Kouyate.

It wasn’t a great performance but the squad had much more about it and with Carroll and Cresswell on the way back after the international break we had a display which at the very least gave us hope!

COYI