It’s very tough to take too much stock in Boxing day or New Years day games. I know the players aren’t out until 5 in the morning licking lamp posts, but there’s always a weird flat vibe around the stadium on the day, and quite often, our play on the pitch is flaccid.
We weren’t at our best yesterday, but we bulldozed through with an on-paper spanking that’s tough to moan about. Fulham gave it some in the first 45 minutes and cut us open far too easily. We were literally being shoved about and stretched by the second worst team in the Premier League. However, we at least had enough about our game to take our second lead into halftime. Granit Xhaka of all people ghosting into the Fulham box to pick up a nicely worked Iwobi cross, which he chested down and guided into the bottom corner.
We doubled that lead in the second half, with more good work down the left from Kola, Auba and Iwobi, the decisive pass found Laca with space in the box which he calmly took with a canon of a shot down the middle of the goal.
We of course took time out to concede, a car crash pass to Torriera freed up the ball in midfield, Fulham made it all the way to our goal with Kamara breezing inside Kola to tap in.
Emery reacted tactically, bringing off Lacazette for Ramsey. The crowd booed the move, which seemed really odd if I’m honest. Lacazette made a bit of a scene out of that, obviously feeling very awkward his teammate was not getting a good reception.
Anyway, Rambo had the last laugh. Within 4 minutes he’d found himself in the right place when a Auba shot struck the post, his tight control and quick shot lifted the score to 3-1. Well done him.
Final goal of the day fell to Auba, he took a simple pass in space from Kola and lashed his shot in off a Fulham shin to make the game a rout.
So how much analysis can you put into a game like this? We put in a shift. We didn’t play well. We came away with a win and ramped out our goal difference.
A few things did spring to mind. I think Arsenal fans are growing a bit tired of the shabby performances. We’re 6 months into this project now, and outside the mega run, which was fun but heavily pumped up by a lot of luck, it feels like we’re yet to see a real game of Emery football.
I mean, that’s the only excuse I can see for the fans grumbling all game, and oddly booing a perfectly reasonable sub (hardly Eboue vs Wigan, right?).
The game lacked intensity for me. We are still incredibly sloppy at the back. Conceding 4 BIG chances to Fulham at home is embarrassing when you’re dominating possession. The coaching staff hasn’t moved the defence forward, and though people keep highlighting individual errors, it seems clear that the problem is structural. The coaching needs to improve. Absolute basics like failing to track runners isn’t acceptable. Even that pass from Koscielny was outrageous (for their goal). Do we need to be playing passes of that length from the back to a player under pressure?
I also think something that likely irks fans is my view of our play is that Arsenal play like they’re nursing a hangover. We are consistently ok. Each game is a chopped up version of: A very slow start, some intermittent nice attacking football, some shocking defensive errors, half-arsed pressing, extreme efficiency in front of goal.
We haven’t seen many showpiece games. The football is hard to fall in love with because I don’t believe we’ve had enough “OH MY I SEE WHAT THIS IS’ types of games. Early days Klopp and Pep might have been inconsistent, but at least you were given a taste of what the good life could be. Emery has yet to pitch the fans the vision of the future, and I think that’s why you’re seeing empty seats in the ground. It’s boring football.
Just a few other pointers before we go. It was sad to see Aaron Ramsey bang in a goal again. Our midfield really could do with a focused him. He’s not a £300k a week footballer and never will be, we can’t afford him, but right now, he looks like a prime bit of well-cooked steak on a plate when he’s running around on the pitch.
The e-mail that Arseblog has been sharing around which is a plea from the club to make cost savings is an absolute hoot. It’s a shame we don’t have specifics, but when a company as rich as us is making statements like that, it’s a worry. What sort of expenses could the general soldiers be running up that could make any sort of meaningful impact on a club that splashes our over £200m on salaries? Also, football clubs are supposed to project power. Asking Sally in accounts to wash her hands once a day reeks of smalltime mentality.
I also think all this news about our future transfer policy is scary, David Ornstein telling the world is loans this January. People asked why I wasn’t keen on Pulisic the other day. Now, I think the player is fantastic, well done Chelsea. But if we’re to follow my post from the other day, as a club, we have to be realistic about who we really are.
We. Are. Skint.
We can’t go out and spend huge sums on players Dortmund want rid of anymore (also, let’s leave them be and craft our own path). We have to be taking the earlier punts. We have to be digging out the players where the value is. We should be sniffing around the same markets as Dortmund and Atleti. We need to be growing £60m players. We cannot be the 3rd highest net spenders in the league in 5 years time. We should not have a higher net spend than Real Madrid over 10 years (we do). We need to find better efficiencies with our confused transfer strategy. More Torriera’s and MG’s. Less Mikhi and Mesut’s moving forward.
I really, really hope we take a hacksaw to the squad in the summer. Ship out all the old players on big contracts, move on the failures and replace average squad players with young upstarts who have a high ceiling, and lower our crazy wage bill to something that frees up cash.
We have to start again, that’s not going to be with £60m players, unfortunately.
Considering I stated as a fireman in 2006 you’re wrong about that as well Nice to see you’re willing to give the new manager a chance to make the team his own Like I said good thing Liverpool and man city owners weren’t reading this blog in their first years as the football genuis’ Like yourself were laughing with Klopp the flop and fraudiola jokes Like I also said I don’t care if emery gets sacked next Jan and we haven’t seen the improvements we all wanted when wenger was sacked. He deserves a few windows to make the team… Read more »
‘Not able to give a new manager more than 6 months after over a decade of shit’
I’ll finish with this dopey, show me a single post that I have made calling for Emery to be replaced.
Fuck me, pretty boy Floyd puts your reading comprehension skills to shame and he’s yet to crack a sentence of Harry Potter.
Well you sure like whining like a little bitch about emery. what other assumption we meant to make from the sniveling drivel you write
China, Agreed with your assesment of Holding. Very stable so far. I do cringe when you state, he is one on one with a fast striker. He loses that footrace all the time and his last ditch tackling can be a red card in the making. I do think that our defense issues can help resolve that- when teams play the long ball to the lone striker etc. Too bad he got hurt. Sokratis so far is the best at reading the attack but is slow, and he always has his hands on the attacker- we paid for that in… Read more »
WE My point is we had pace on the flanks before, we don’t have that now except from Bellerin and Kola which leaves us exposed at the back. Yes, our strikers are much better now but their service are terrible, almost completely dependant on cutbacks from our fullbacks. We also have no one in midfield that can control a game and hold on to the ball for more than a couple of seconds + 0 creativity there. That puts pressure on the defence. Our defenders and Xhaka are also pretty terrible on the ball (Xhaka gifted the ball to Fulham… Read more »
Like you say we need dribblers, and a proper CAM just as much as defenders, the better quality players we have across the pitch the better our defence will become.This will take time to fix.
No no no. It must be done NOW they say. Why hasn’t emery done it yet they say
Why should Ozil And mkhit track Back they say
Who do AMs have to do with defence they say.
FL
Good post. Too bad it will fall on deaf(clueless) ears
We need a strong dribbler ala mane
Who can stand up defenders and take them on with ease. Someone with trickery and skill with pace. We have iwobi who dribbles into dead ends and whose feet move faster than his brain
Mane is a great example of someone who is so dangerous and strong in the ball zaha is another and theee are others
Pace trickery and off the ball movement
Any attacker with the last three letters being ANE would work
Sane skills are sick too
Yeah, I don’t really get this idea of looking at the defense in isolation to why we’re leaking so many goals. Pretty logical imo that if we had 2 proper wingers our fullbacks could stay back and not leave our CBs exposed all the time. Likewise in midfield, Xhaka keeps giving the ball away constantly, Ozil creates very little nowadays and doesn’t control games at all so the ball keeps coming back. The CBs are poor on the ball and Ozil and Xhaka doesn’t want to receive it deep so we just keep playing back to our keeper. Only Guen… Read more »
Mane
Kane
Sane
🙂
Zidane
Xhaka tries to thread passes to kick start the offense but many times are intercepted
2 wingers with pace tricks and strong effort off the ball moving constantly is what we need. That is how you penetrate defense and create chances. Too often we are getting predictable
Bless kola without him we would be really hurting
Bamford United beat Huddersfield, Bournemouth, Cardiff and Newcastle
4 goals, 3 assists and 2 MOTM performances in 4 apps for Pogba since Mourinho was sacked, of his 3 PL goals up until that point under Mourinho, two of them were penalties.
Pretty telling.
4 goalz 3 assists agsinst cannon fodder.
Let’s judge after he faces a decent team.
I think that it is now fairly clear that Arsenal will finish this season no better than 5th-6th in League. The first three positions are already out of reach and I think that both Man Utd and Chelsea are likely to finish ahead of us. Arsenal’s weaknesses are the same as last year apart from the arrival of Torreira. We lack solidity in defence and to date have conceded more goals and fewer clean sheets than last year at same point of season. Our midfield is still weak with lack of midfield general and the problems we have got with… Read more »
Arsenal have just as much a chance as Chelsea and United do of finishing in the top 4. Not a foregone conclusion by any means.
Joe Your passion towards Emery is commendable but don’t go overboard on it. Arsenal are a different group of players, in a different league that have been totally mismanaged for many years. Sometimes you have to adapt your methods and philosophies. It’s a juggling act in some respects. My own take on things is simple. Emery has come in and changed things and although we have done ok results wise, there are still obvious weaknesses/flaws in the way we play. Yes, he needs time and the chance to bring in his own players but he also has to understand that… Read more »
Graham 62 There has been a lot of discussion on Le Grove about Emery. Emery is not in my view a “top line” manager, but he is probably the best and safest appointment that the club could have made in the circumstances we find ourselves. The current management regime needs to get fundamentals of squad and youth programme back in order. It is unlikely to happen overnight, but a start should be made in offloading players who are being paid inflated prices and do not offer value for money. Let’s leave aside for a moment Ozil, because frankly the chances… Read more »
Anybody got a link to the email being shared by Arseblog on cost savings that Pedro refers to?
Graham It’s obvious that a majority of the match going fans have the same opinion of Lacazette as you and I..the reaction when he was subbed confirms that. In trying to analyse why Emery has lost confidence or feels the team performs better without Lacazette, I am struggling to come up with a plausible reason for either leaving him out of the starting line up or continually substituting him. There is nothing on the playing side or results when he is in the side that explains why this is happening. 1) we are unbeaten with Lacazette in the starting line… Read more »
Pierre
We do need rotation over the Xmas period, but I agree that Emery should not
be subbing Lacazette as often as he is doing. Lacazette is a hard working and more importantly decent goalscorer and should be playing on a consistent basis.
Until such time that the club recruits a top quality winger who adds goals to his overall game the club needs to keep both strikers in team.
@Pierre I have a different take on Laca issue. I start to think that Emery is very stubborn to play his style of football. But he inherits a group of players who are used to a different system. It’ll take awhile for him to replace some players and have the remaining players fully functional in his system. In the meantime, I hope that he can be more flexible and utilize the strength of the players available. He wants to play high press, high defensive line and 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3. Up to now, our defenders are not good enough to play… Read more »
I see the Paedophile Millionaire Fireman is still causing issues.
Swiss Ramble has published interesting breakdown and analysis on how clubs who have played in EPL are being funded.
Only two clubs who have played in EPL have received no financial support from Club owner or major shareholders. One is Middlesboro who now play outside EPL. Guess who the other is? Yes it is Arsenal with zero financial investment from Kroenke.
That confirms that Arsenal is run solely as a business without any financial commitment or passion from Kroenke.
“I see the Paedophile Millionaire Fireman is still causing issues.“
*has issues
Fixed it for you.
“That confirms that Arsenal is run solely as a business without any financial commitment or passion from Kroenke.” If that’s true it’s an embarrassing indicator. You can skip the “Kroenke was adhering to self-sustainable” bollocks. The guy has full control, he can do as he pleases – do me a favour hiding behind faux principle. We’re a dream club to have with a modern history of never seeing ANY payment from owners into the club. Eventually people will come to terms with the inevitable ‘law’ of business, leadership starts at the top of the hierarchy. This notion the top guy… Read more »
Stroller I understand the need for a winger but I think if you look at Kolasinac contribution since December in the final third , I would doubt there is another player in the prem who has created as many big chances in the last 4 or 5 weeks or so. Could he play as an attacking wide player …his final ball and cut backs are superb , the timing of his runs into the box are very good, he has power , pace and strength and looks unstoppable when he gets behind the back line . His last line defending… Read more »
“Mesut Ozil’s agent says the German playmaker wants to stay at Arsenal until at least the end of his contract in 2021.”
We’re so glad to be stuck with wenger’s hidden son.
Just like his father, a true leech he is.
Kolasinac would fail badly as an attacking mid.
Big difference between running from deep, overlapping an inside run, and actually having to play 1vs1 with a FB.
He doesnt have the ball control, skill or acceleration to do it in these situations.
Like when people said could Vermaelen be a DM because he can tackle.
Nelson
Though I understand what you are saying I don’t agree that playing Lacazette and Aubamayang hasn’t worked
Unbeaten this season when starting together …scoring over 2 a game …..conceding less than a goal a game…
Emery needs to start them in more big games ,starting with chelsea…
Pierre Play him as often as possible( because we need him) and also start to bring in Nketiah alongside either Auba or Lacazette. Aubameyang may be scoring more goals but sometimes his ability to read a game is limited and he is absolutely useless when it comes to leading the line. I know it is not always possible to play the two of them together but please Mr Emery, give Lacazette a fair crack of the whip. Lacazette is more dynamic, far more aggressive and is prepared to work harder than Aubameyang. Emery must see this. If he doesn’t, then… Read more »
People used to say the same about Bellerin. Play him on the right wing, seemingly forgetting you spend half the match with your back to the opponent’s goal when you play high up.
Then there is the constant calls for any midfielder that can strike a football with pace to be turned into a striker.
New post gents
New post
I think Emery has probably correctly come to the conclusion that neither Lacazette, or Auba are good enough as creators to play both together.
I actually think Lacazette may go in the summer, if we can find a top class AM that can also play upfront a la Son.
Timo Werner maybe, I seem to remember he plays wide a fair bit doesnt he?
In recent years, under Wenger, I didn’t give a shite about tactics and formations. It just wasn’t worth the effort and hastle to discuss things that even a twelve year old could see and sort out.
Under Emery, it is different. We need to see him, YES even now, utilising those players that can cause optimum damage and especially those players and mindsets that are geared to giving it their all.
Lacazette is definitely one of those players.
Kolasinac may or may not work but it’s worth a try …..if he has a full back in front of him he plays a one two with the striker which he is very good at. .
The situation for our 3rd goal v fulham is a play that Arsenal use a lot under Emery and is very effective whether it’s Kolasinac getting behind on the left or Mhkitaryan has done often on the right …getting to the by line and either cutting the ball back or across the face of the goal.
Isn’t timo werner another 50+m player?
Timo Werner?? Fuck me gambon….
gambonJanuary 3, 2019 11:13:29
I see the Paedophile Millionaire Fireman is still causing issues.
Ha Ha Ha….me and gambon sometimes agree on some “issues”