The MIGHTY Arsenal powered through to another win, climbing the table to crazy nosebleed heights. Yes people, we are 4th, a mere two points off the top of the table and it’s October. Wow, wow, wow!
There was a lot to enjoy from our trip to Craven Cottage, firstly, Emery rotated his squad hard leaving key names like Ramsey and Auba on the bench. Mesut Ozil didn’t even make the squad for some reason. Surely he’s not ducking Fulham away? I know it’s only minor, but Wenger really was poor at rotating his squads. He played the same team over and over in the league, which led to December breakdowns. It was great to see our manager trust some of the fringe players, and the gamble paid off.
Same story, a first half that wasn’t really much to write home about. We took the lead when Lacazette made space for himself and scored on the turn. We then slipped up just before halftime after Nacho Monreal gave the ball away, Schurlle took the chance, chipping Leno.
The second half we really found our feet. Lacazette scored a second with a blistering shot from about 25 yards. Things started getting sexy when Auba and Ramsey came onto the pitch. The Welshman scored an unbelievable goal that broke from our goal area. There was a sexy backheel from Bellerin, there was a header from Ramsey. A beautiful swept pass from Mikhi. Topped off with a perfect back of the heel finish. Goal of the month contender without doubt!
If that’s what peak Emeryball looks like, feed me it to me all day long.
There was still time for Auba to bang in two goals. One came from a tight angle in the box. The other was him breezing onto a through ball.
5-1 was a rout. Fulham really did get outclassed and outworked in the second half. I think what was most satisfying about it was simple: we should sweep sides away like that, and we did.
There were still concerns. We’re porous at the back. Fulham had some great chances in the first half, easily getting in behind us. Lucky for us, they had an off day in front of goal. However, outside a few dodgy moments, our midfield looked very good. Torreira and Xhaka looked very comfortable sitting at the base. Arsenal reverted to a 4-4-2 for this match, which looked like a 4-2-2-2 at times. We looked at ease, and that was resting three of our best players.
The keeper is growing in confidence, he made a really good save in the first half, and his skill on the ball really is exciting to watch. The defence looks more comfortable with him at the back, let’s hope he keeps the confidence going so there’s no way back for Cech.
Lacazette was excellent again. He’s such a grafter up front. What he lacks in physical presence he more than makes up for by being a constant pain in the backside. His two finished were world class. More to come from him as the season cranks on.
Finally, it was great to hear the fans sing ‘we’ve got our Arsenal back.’ I found it super weird that a section of the fanbase were up in arms about that song, because for once, it seems the fanbase are unified behind the direction of the club. People are happy, the team is winning, and the club is progressing in the right direction. Top 4 feels like a realistic target this year. Let’s just hope Mourinho stays at United past December, and let’s keep ’em crossed Spurs continue to look average.
9 wins on the bounce. The head of steam is gathering. We’re going to be in good shape for that Liverpool game if we can tighten the backline.
Un
The only ones wound up are you and dale
That’s the best part haha
Joe
I’m semi retired at 33…….haha
I should be in Mississauga sometime soon joe, what’s a good pub to catch the Arsenal early morning to mid day? 🙂
Hey joe, where you going with that hose in yo hand??
I’m gonna s-q-u-I-r-t my old lady, caught her messin round wit anudda man.
‘I’m just leaving my $1.2 million house to go for a ride on my $5500 mountain bike during one my 4 days off this week. Wonder what I should do with the rest of my time off :-). Can’t wait for my 3 months of vacation time either.’
Tony D finally has some competition on Le Grove
Both Un Na and Joe have severe inferiority complexes, it seems. Can’t stand the thought of being seen as less than, even against a faceless specter on the internet.
Keep your early retirement and business and money, both of you. I’d hate to be either of you, seriously. Joe is not even that bad, seems like a nice guy. Just incapable of sitting one out.
Looool
There has been a meltdown on this blog about Joe being fireman.
Who gives a fuck haha
Dude chill out
University Challenge question.
“Your starter for ten. Why have the likes of Gabriel, Ospina, Coquelin, Walcott, Oxlaide Chamberlain shown signs of improvement since leaving Arsenal?
“Kingsman, Kings College Cambridge”
“Did it have anything to do with them thriving in a positive environment?”
CORRECT!
Sancho
I’m the best. What can I say?!
Sancho
The irony is they are both fairly similar.
Probably would actually get on really well in real life
Hahah Dissenter, it was when Alexis was on fire it was an ode to him.
Dale, funny you mention Frimpong he had such a poor attitude. I remember meeting him during one of them open training sessions years ago. Wonder where he plys his trade nowadays.
N5 i’m considering! Lol its not bad at all
Michael
Has Walcott improved? I don’t follow the other two but ox is injured and Walcott seems to have gone backwards
Frimpong is currently a free agent, he last played for some poopoo club, couldn’t hack it there either..
Signing 2 year contracts that doesn’t last even a year…lol, poor fellow
Joe’s done a runner…..
na, it’s lunch time at the fire house…
Poor Frimpong. He had a great attitude, he just wasn’t very good.
Stay Dench!!
Joe will get word to your local fire brigades not to respond to emergencies at your places.
Lets see you fight fire with fire.
Atlanta United and the MLS have a pretty good scouting network as any organization should,
Quick question what does the MLS actually have to do with clubs signing up players do they actually help clubs out? Also Atlanta were formed in 2017 they’re not even a year old so I’d warrant a guess that the scouting network isn’t all that
Marko, the MLS isn’t my cup of tea, but my curiosity leads me to the following: 1. MLS handles a lot of the contracts, the league is very involved with player transactions. 2. Atlanta may be formed in 2017, their infrastructure was present before the formation and they didn’t go into it not being experienced or hiring experienced professionals. 3. The league uses a draft system like most US sports league (NBA, MLB, NFL), Allocation and overall scouting to benefit the league as a whole (see point 1) 4. referencing point 2, some of these teams started as division 2,3,… Read more »
Joe will get word to your local fire brigades not to respond to emergencies at your places.
Lets see you fight fire with fire.
Jesus wept…..don’t add to his messiah complex
Michael
““Your starter for ten. Why have the likes of Gabriel, Ospina, Coquelin, Walcott, Oxlaide Chamberlain shown signs of improvement since leaving Arsenal”
you forgot to mention the likes of Sanchez,Wilshere,gibbs,perez,chambers all shown a massive improvement…..haven’t they?
https://arseblog.com/2018/10/tactics-column-emerys-arsenal-click-with-two-up-top/
Lovely little read
Not sure if this has been said, I’ve not read all the comments but after watching the game, the idea of Rambo as a false 9 looks pretty good. He looked pretty good when he slotted in behind auba. I wonder if Emery clocked that.
Shame he’s most likely to go.
One thing that is plainly obvious too is how casual Xhaka is. He rarely breaks into a trot.
Joe’s done a runner…..
DaleDaGoonerOctober 8, 2018 19:25:34
na, it’s lunch time at the fire house…
You struggle with reading comprehension?
I was out for a bike ride you mong
Dale
Sorry , I live on the West Coast. No idea where to send you in Ontario. Even if I did, probably send you a spuds pub 🙂
Anyway
As fun as that was.
Back to the football and the lovely 2 week break
Pierre
Frankly there is not a single player that the club has offloaded in last 3 transfer
windows that I regret losing.
Sanchez was of course a major talent, but he became disruptive in the last 12
months and he was also far too “self centred”.
Oxlade- Chamberlain might well have improved under Emery, but he is injury
prone and is likely to be out of game for most of this season.
The rest of the players that Michael and you listed are nothing to write home
about and were towards end of Arsenal careers “squad players”.
Feel good to be an Arsenal fan again, we deserve it as we’ve suffered for too long. I never doubt Laca but Bellerin has improved a lot, it’s time to tie him down to a longer contract before Barcelona come sniffing again.
We are interested in Hector Herrera apparently, there were rumours about us watching him several weeks back but they’ve intensified again.
Plays in a two man midfield and seems to be a well rounded midfield player. Could be the player to replace Xhaka and play alongside Torreira. He is also 6ft which means we keep a bit of height in there.
Herrera, Almiron and Pepe.
At least there is some interesting scouting going on with us as well.
Okay this was an embarrassing read
Come on Joe have some restraint.. It’s the way you conduct yourself that’s bringing this place down..I thought everyone here was at least in their late twenties, very soon we might start bragging about our daddies
Pierre
I knew that would be a good conversation starter.
Un na and Joe were going at it hammer and tongs, so I thought a bit of controversy would help alter the flow.
Reiss Nelson with two goals already for hoffenheim. I think he’s going to do well.
Micheal
More like I was dangling the bait and my little pirhanna bit.
Receding
Out of all that you chose to call me out?
Did I Un?
You think quite highly of yourself
I was laughing at you two wankers the whole time
Dumb and dumber chuckling at themselves
How big of a loser do you have to be to claim you won something on a blog
Hahah
Charlie genuine question following on from a discussion we had about Giroud not deserving a call up over better inform strikers I wonder if you feel differently considering the great form of Lacazette compared to the poor form of Giroud and yet Deschamps keeps calling him up. And also I get the whole target man argument but isn’t that the same argument one makes for Laca over Auba? Deschamps reasoning: “There is competition for each position. When the players who were at the World Cup are performing well… It is not a question of the type of player, but of… Read more »
Marko
Giroud does so much more for a team
He may not be a #1 striker for a top club or France but he’s a great option to have coming off the bench
I’m not sure that’s a good enough reason anymore. It’s all well and good saying he’s a good option off the bench but then why does he start? All I know is that as long as Deschamps is France coach no matter how well you play as a striker and no matter how poorly Giroud does as a striker he is getting the call and you ain’t. Which is bollox really. There isn’t a facet of forward play that Giroud has done better than Lacazette in the last few months. None
If laca keeps this form up he will get called up
It’s also nice he gets a rest
Cesc
What about the Paraguay player we will buy for 11m from Atalanta
RSPCA
That is Almiron.
Seems that both Herrera and Almiron are hard working players as well.
Emery will want to build that sort of work ethic into the team and replace the players that cannot or will not do it.
If there is genuine interest in Almiron I could see him ending up as a RM or LM as opposed to a CAM.
Cesc
Future looks good
Sven working hard.
RSPCA
I still think Emery will go after Banega in January, it just seems like he is a player that he thinks a lot of on and off the pitch.
If this 4-2-2-2 is something Emery is going to go with then Xhaka has to be replaced, I don’t agree with Pedro at all that he looked comfortable. Torreira was outstanding but Xhaka looked panicked in the midfield and his lack of mobility really is painful.
Best thing about the season is we are the underdogs. No one expects anything from Us after the shit show of wenger the last decade. If we keep trucking along beating teams we should beat and not drop too many points v the lower half of the table and pick Up some points v top 6, we could just have a sneaky good year! We will drop points. That’s inevitable. So Will the other top 6. It’s all about how We rebound and go on long win streaks after. Emery will instill Ze mental strength in this squad and a… Read more »
Cesc
Toreria is like a Yorkshire terrier…
Snapping away …
Great signing.
‘Best thing about the season is we are the underdogs’
Yeah we are basically where Spurs and Liverpool were a few seasons back, when you say Arsenal as any sort of serious team in the league people roll their eyes because of what we became over the last 10 years.
That is great, a chance to work out our squad and slowly build from below everyone else.
Always liked the look of Hector Herrera in tournament football for Mexico but the question is why has he stayed at Porto for so long why hasn’t anyone snapped him up before now? At 27/28 too. I hope our scouts that were at Porto Benfica recently were watching Diaz the CB he’s red hot
RSPCA
His work rate even at the end of the game was something else.
I do think we are better off letting him have a bit more licence to move forward which he seems to do when Guendouzi is on the field.
Cesc appeal
Hector herrera is a bang average centre midfielder. I don’t see the benefits of signing him. He’ll be 29 in april. Is he better than what we have? No chance to sell him in the future. He’ll want large wages as its his last big contract. Not the kind of signing we should be making imo
Pat
I have no idea, just know we’ve been linked with him. So far our scouting hasn’t been bad.
I still think Emery will want Banega though.
It could be we’re going after someone older and not regarded as great because we want to pay less and also have an eye on Guendouzi, Maitland Niles etc.
I’m really starting to take notice of Ndombele at Lyon, he is some player. If we’re looking at a serious player for CM then that is one option.
waiting in anticipation for the Jan transfer window. I believe we will sign one if not two of the players we are linked with and at reasonable fee too. I’m beginning to feel top 4 is attainable going by the way each of our players is trying to make good use of the play time opportunity given to them. Emery has really beaten my expectation for him and gooners’ spirits have been lifted. untold really surprise me going by the way he has been supporting emery in the few articles I read on the site. Same cannot be said about… Read more »
Pierre October 7, 2018 21:59:57 “Why do you have such a problem with un liking Wilshere…it’s one of my biggest regrets in recent years that the injuries that Jack suffered prevented him from becoming the world class player that he was destined to be” This actually made me laugh. How is it your regret that Wilshire was injured? How do we even know without the injuries he would have fulfilled his potential. The only thing that is true with Wilshire is that he never has or will fulfil his potential, and by and large was shit to average at best… Read more »
Goober
It was the same with Jenkinson.
“ wenger should sign him on because he’s a true gunner”
“ he’ll bleed arsenal red for the shirt “
“ he comes from a gooner family, his passion will make up for his deficiencies”
He was shit from the start. And we are still paying fir him
How much did he cost us when supposedly wenger had no money? Same with jack. Diaby. Etc
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-6253891/Secrets-Unai-Emerys-revolution-loves-high-octane-training-banned-sugary-drinks.html
Great article
Cesc Im reasonably happy too. But need a winger baaadly in my opinion. I get what you’re saying about getting someone older and not elite,but that to me stinks of a lazy play safe transfer policy. Especially if that player isnt going to markedly improve the squad. Mr diamond eye is paid big money for a reason,time for him to earn it. Buying a young player with great potential for 20m from the continent is little to no risk at all nowadays. If he progresses you triple your money in a year 2 years. If he doesn’t progress as well… Read more »
Jenkinson, Wilshere, Walcott, Gibbs, Ox. Our so called English core, the brainchild of Wenger. A bunch of average, overhyped and/or overrated players that Wenger used to massage the nationalistic side of the home fans as a means of keeping them on his side while he drove Arsenal to the ground. After he no longer had the French connection to cover his deficiencies he had to go this route along with the 4th is like winning a trophy mantra to cover his ass. So refreshing to watch Arsenal now. Yes we will lose games and drop points, but there is a… Read more »
Joe, Jenkinson although on Charltons books was playing for Eastbourne non league when we bought him! if that doesn’t ring alarms god knows what does. He was young but god, he was loaned to a non league team that are absolute garbage.
I remember him in Europe the following year and the commentator saying I can’t believe this time last year Jenkinson was unheard of in the lower leagues and now look at him.
Who ever scouted Jenkinson and Sanogo especially should be fired into the sun from a canon.
N5
I think he was. At the end of last season :-)))
Ha! Sanogo was a sackable offence on its own. I wonder where he is now? I wouldn’t be surprised if he lives with Wenger somewhere.
I’ve just checked and he’s a striker at Tolouse, I had no idea! He’s played 18 league games and scored 6 which is 0.22 goals per game!! For a fucking striker!!!!!!!!
N5
Can you believe someone actually said he will be a 50m rated striker Hahahaha
Started him v Bayern
No wonder we were a laughing stock under the previous regime
N5
Was that the higuain year? Or Suarez?
Where we went from one of them to
sanago
You could not make it up.
Didn’t feel higuain was worth 30-35m and yet he sold for 70m afterwards
If it was the Higuain year that would be real salt in the wounds. We could have had a great striker but got a postman that couldn’t hit a fucking barn door.
50m striker. I wouldn’t pay £50.
It was the Higuain year. 2013.
Fucking hell. I know hindsight is 50/50 but we all predicted this in 2013 and we’re not scouts for a massive club!
20.20 I mean.
Great eye for talent they said…
Let higuain, hazard . Etc go for 5-10
M each.
Denilson over Alonso
Cesc with Alonso, rvp up front, you’re and vermaelen at the back would’ve been killer
Vermaelen was quality. Shame about his injuries. Evidently we sold at the perfect time
When you discuss building a Squad the priority is of course your top 18-20 players who should be good enough to play in starting eleven in all major games in both EPL and Europe. This should allow for injuries and rotation. The problem at Arsenal in last 8-10 years under Wenger was that we accumulated far too many ‘squad’ players who were essentially ‘bench players’ . These included Gibbs, Gabriel, Coquelin, Wilshire,Ox, Walcott and even Giroud. Most were on grossly inflated wages. Where a player reaches the peak years of his career e.g. 25+ with no prospect of playing regularly… Read more »
Another category of player that Wenger kept on books were the age 30+ players
who were often injury prone e.g. Rosicky, Arteta, Mertesacker and Cazorla.
Obviously the club had an obligation to honour current contracts, but what
became infuriating was the extensions offered at top dollar wages.
Dale, Un
We had Duck Confit at the fire hall tonight
Was to die for. Soooo good
Good read…
https://pmanalytics.wordpress.com/2018/10/08/forced-changes-enable-emerys-system-to-finally-click-into-gear-as-they-wipe-aside-a-disorganised-fulham/
Frankly I’m not sure ozil is good enough to play for this emery setup. No time for passengers anymore. A few good passes a game isn’t going to cut it as we look to improve and get ready for tougher opposition.
Ozil and Ramsey are both unsuitable. The Fulham squad was far more suitable for the system even if less talented. I think it’s time for emery to start making some tough decisions with this ego players who are underperforming
Whenever Ramsey and ozil are on the pitch our transitions from back to front are labored and there are huge spaces between our defensive players and our attacking players At the most one of them might be able to survive in this system but playing both of them seems out of the question. One with no discipline or concept of where he is on the pitch and the other performing his vanishing act save for a few nice passes Accommodating one is maybe possible but both together fucks us not only going forwards but also it heaps pressure on the… Read more »
For the record if we’re going to accommodate one I’d give ozil a shot as least he’s running more this season and hasn’t had a proper run at n10. Also Ramsey is presumably fucking off so might as well save him as an impact sub for Hollywood wonder goals like Fulham lol
I’d say our first choice 11 right now should be along the lines of
Leno
Bellerin-holding-papa-monreal
———torreira-xhaka
Iwobi——ozil——-auba
————laca
I also think auba and iwobi should periodically swap sides as this is a hugely under utilized tactic imo
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/10/09/exactly-has-changed-arsenal-unai-emery/
Worth a read…
Bob N16
Paints a stark contrast but confirms what many are saying here regardless of acronym bar the usual suspects.
I’m expecting some points from Pool, Utd & Chavs .
Change for the better is clearly here now. The hope is continued improvements coupled with sustainability over the season.
If this happens qualifying for CL will no longer be a pipe dream, especially if we buy well in the Jan TW.
It’s good to see the team playing the ball wide and crossing in, rather than trying to thread it through the middle all the time!
Great result. Players look like they are having fun. Still work to do with some holes to plug but trending in the right direction which is all you can ask for really.
“Arsenal have confirmed that they have signed a new kit deal with Adidas – to start from the beginning of the 2019-20 season – with the German company paying the Premier League club in the region of £300m over five years.”
If true (because we’ve seen these confirmations before) that is a massive win for Arsenal. Especially after the last two poor seasons we’ve had.
Don’t know how anyone can be upset at Arsenal fans singing “we’ve got our Arsenal back”.
The club was held ransom by a greedy old man that refused to leave despite the writing being on the wall.
TM, were people actually moaning about it irl, or are you referring to comments on here?
Does anyone know what our existing finances are looking like?
How much are our operating costs etc?
60m a season sounds like a lot (and it is) but I doubt that’s all going in the transfer kitty when we have wages like ozil’s to pay for
Also what’s our current deal per season?
We really shit the bed with the Ozil contract. He’s earning easily twice what he should be.
Don’t think we have a single player worth more than 150k a week.
Jamie every top clubs in Europe has 2 or more players on more than 150k a week.
China Arsenal’s financial report can be googled. The last published figures were in November last year and the full year accounts should be published shortly. The November 2017 half yearly accounts showed a downward trend in our revenues due to our no longer playing in Champions League. From recollection it has been suggested that not playing in Champions League costs the club about £25 million per annum. Another issue for Arsenal is that in financial year 2017-8 we sold a lot of players whilst in the current financial year we have sofar generated virtually no transfer revenues. That will have… Read more »
Freddy –
Perhaps. We don’t have any players who are worth more than 150k a week though.
Jamie is right: the Ozil contract is a massive waste. We don’t even need him, yet we are now paying him a sum that could finance two good players. Watching Sunday, one couldn’t help but think: are we missing Ozil in any way in this match? No, we weren’t.