via @Arsenal Instagram
Well, there we are. Liverpool look quite good and Arsenal have some work to do. Who knew?
We were downed 3-1 away from home to the best team in Europe. It was a less than cohesive performance from Arteta, but certainly more worthy than some of the embarrassing post-game shite-takes going around.
I thought the tactical setup for the game was pretty much spot on. It’s easy to have the exact solution after the game, but I think most of the selections could be justified. Ceballos, fancy haircut and all, couldn’t control the midfield against West Ham. If he was in ‘hold-on-to-the-ball’ mood last night, it might have been worse. Auba through the middle is a tired debate, we’ve seen why he’s on the left and we don’t complain when it works. Saka? Not sure he’s making the world of difference. Gabriel? I think experience wins out and Luiz was pretty decent. Plenty more trips to Anfield for our younger Brazilian.
We went there to win the game with limited possession, good defensive structure, and experience in our front 3 to take advantage of the counter-attack. Call that negative all you like, but please, tell me the starting 11 we have that could have gone to Anfield and bossed a game of expansive football, clue: it doesn’t exist.
Liverpool were utterly sublime at times. Their pressing was debilitating and their movement on and off the ball was masterful. We couldn’t match them, though we tried our best. The fact that we went 1-0 ahead said a lot about our doggedness. Lacazette working wonders to turn in a miscued Robertson clearance after we dropped a familiar ‘play out of the back moment’ again.
We couldn’t hold on, Liverpool retaliated with absolute brutality twice within 9 minutes. First, Mane tapped home a spilt Salah shot. Tierney will be having nightmares about the absolute roasting he took in the build-up. The second, Robertson was found totally open at the back post, and he duly obliged. Willian really has too much experience to be letting great players ghost in without a challenge.
The second half we were all expecting the worst, but Arsenal came out swinging as hard as they could.
The two big turning points were Lacazette misses. The first on 59, he beat the offside trap to latch onto a Willian pass, he opted for an optimistic chip, which was thwarted because the chip didn’t go higher than Alisson’s waste. The second, he was slipped in by Ceballos, he tried to cut some space outside Alisson, which he did, but he snatched at his shot, hitting the keeper. Really poor. You felt for him hiding under his shirt when he was subbed off, but a £180k a week 29 year old international should be doing better than that. Pretty sure Eddie would have converted at least one of those chances.
We didn’t have much else on after that. When you play Liverpool, they don’t gift you much. We didn’t make the most of our important spells in the game, then we were punished late on when a Luiz clearance found the Jota on the edge of the box, the exWolves star buried his shot.
So what did we learn?
Well, beating Liverpool 3 times in a row was always going to be tough.
What is clear from all of our performances so far against them is we need better players if we want to play at their level. We simply didn’t have the talent to beat them in that form without a huge dollop of luck. Over those three games we’ve averaged 20 shots a game against us and we’ve only averaged 6.3 shots per game and somehow managed 4 goals.
The criticism of the tactics still feels rich to me considering we’ve not moved the squad forward. I appreciate there’s an inquisition every time we lose a game, but going to the Champions to play the Arsenal Way™ hasn’t exactly been kind to us over the last 10 years. We set up correctly. We played to our strengths. We were always going to have to defend well and deal with the fact there would be an element of us getting battered. My ask in games like these since Arteta took over is that we’re competitive… and we were. We stayed in the game for a long time but we fluffed our lines this time.
Individual errors cost us and hopefully, that won’t always happen.
Tierney isn’t going to get rolled like an u18 every game this season. I also suspect on another day, Mane is red-carded after a rough challenge on Hector followed by a clear forceful elbow to the face of Tierney minutes later. Those are the margins that change big games. If he’s off, we have an advantage, unfortunately, he stays, and maybe Tierney was rattled in the process causing the lack of focus for his mistake.
Bernd Leno might rekindle that form that had us calling him world-class under Bu-mery. I thought he looked fragile again today. He’s not a catcher, which makes him a weak point in our defence. He looked panicked on the ball, it seemed like Liverpool players were roughing him up from corners. His step back from the cross that led to their 3rd goal wasn’t something that would have happened under Emi Martinez. We have to have a solid keeper if we’re going to play the way we play. Bernd has not looked close to the level of Emi this season.
Liverpool away was always a write-off game. If you genuinely feel aggrieved that we didn’t win, you have expectations that far outweigh reality. They, along with Bayern, are the best team in the world. We’re nowhere near that level. The best we can do is hope to compete and catch teams like that on an off day (which we have shown we are capable of doing).
The good news for our season is there aren’t many teams like that in the league. I’d argue that there’s only one team like that: Liverpool.
What is apparent is that our midfield needs both Partey and Aouar. We lack creative guile and mobility. It’s been clear for a very long time, this isn’t new, but Xhaka and Elneny (4 forward passes all game) against quality sides is only going to take you so far. We need to do better. Our desired targets at least move us into a new realm of possibility. The starting 11 yesterday was basically the same squad Emery crashed to 8th with last year bar Willian.
Regardless of my upset at the result, I was still impressed with the way we came out for the second half. We showed fight and bravery at times. There’s a resilience Arteta has instilled that wasn’t there before. I was also pleased with how energised Klopp was with his team in his post-match interview when he threw serious shade at Roy Keane for calling his side ‘sloppy.’ We asked a lot of questions of Liverpool. He called their performance ‘perfection.’ They were made to think. You haven’t always had to reach perfection beat Arsenal away from home, you’ve mostly just needed to turn up. We might not be at the level of personnel we need to be at, but I think the coaching and attitude is there. Klopp has had 5 years to develop that sort of devastation, Arteta hasn’t clocked a year yet. Trust in the process seems a tired line, but let’s be honest, we have seen more than enough to justify it.
Plenty will disagree with me and I’m here for it… buuuuuut you need to be aware that the new ‘perfection’ merchants are generally the folk that had no standards over the last ten years. I suspect they have a work TikTok dance video they did for a ‘laugh’, think their best life stage was ‘the carefree years at school’, and they’ll have a ‘can’t miss’ opinion on home brewing.
Let’s see what Edu can do to move the midfield forward, then see how we play against the rest of the top 8. Nothing will be harder than that, until we play Liverpool again on Thursday. Then it’s a kind of clear run. Plenty of opportunities to pick up more points, regain confidence, and bed in two world-class midfielders (PLEASE GOD).
Yesterday was a slap back to reality. There’s still plenty of work to do to return Arsenal to the top. Some good recruitment in the next week will give Arteta tools to show he’s the man capable of doing that. We move from there.
Over to you, Edu.
P.S. If you are still enraged, this Phillipe Auclair tweet thread was good.
La sévérité de certains commentaires aperçus ici sur la performance d’Arsenal à Anfield ne devrait pas me surprendre: l’art de regarder un match (celui que possèdent ceux et celles qui vont au stade) se perd. Mais lire de telles âneries…d’où ce bref fil.
— Philippe Auclair (@PhilippeAuclair) September 28, 2020
*PREZZER*
CG on fire!
andy
I don’t think Rich was suggesting it was I think his point was that you can protect those who are high risk without causing the entire economy to seize up.
“What exactly is CG nailing? ”
Pedro’s girlfriend last I heard!
Doubt it.. Pedro’s gf isn’t a washed up old French girl is she?
Dissenter, You were definitely not the only one. All of that stems from the fact that Leno can’t chip accurately the ball 30 yards away to an unmarked player. As Holding is as bad as Leno in that exercise, Liverpool knew that if they closed down David Luiz and tracked Elneny, Arsenal would have to go long and lose the ball. Time and time again, you could see that AMN or Bellerin were free, but the ball never reached them. The only time we beat the press in the first half, AMN was released free and Lacazette successfully messed his… Read more »
Anybody who think that people without underlying condition cannot be severely affected by COVID-19 is seriously mistaken. I have seen healthy people who 3 months after they have been discharged from ICU have still not fully recovered their pre disease breathing ability.
In fact I think that more than the death of numerous people that will the true cost of COVID-19 in the UK. About 20,000 to 100,000 people with severe and in some case permanent lungs damage.
The more we play the anti footballer the tougher it will be to get it out of the players and play positive football.
englandsbest
“My confidence in Leno sagged”
My confidence in Leno started sagging a long time back.
Never mind, some on here feel we should not concern ourselves too much with having a substandard keeper.
Apparently, it won’t affect the team or the teams morale and let’s not forget there are more pressing matters to attend to.
Never mind, at least we now have a great #2 keeper as back up.
From the Sun
LYON have agreed a deal to sign AC Milan’s Lucas Paqueta, giving the Gunners a mega boost in their pursuit of Houssem Aouar.
Paqueta plays in the same position as Aouar and is expected to be officially announced in the next 48 hours.
If not Partey then whom? I think its time to pull the trigger on that person….
These new guys will need at least a week or so to get adjusted too.
GoSF – Yes, we have to start closing out deals now. Last minute agreements are no good to selling clubs who would not have time to find a replacement, that has killed deals before.
Kaz
Where are you?
Help me out here.
Andy
Indeed, the Tomas Lemar fiasco was a clear example of Wenger waiting for the last minute and being told no,no time to find a replacement.
Totally amateur business on our part. Wenger of course.
I thought Martinez had Wally Pipped Leno as well.. He was better, imo.. However, it’s also clear our owner isn’t willing to put 50 or 100 million directly into the player transfer kitty. So to raise funds they had to make tough decisions. Martinez is just about the only player we had that wasn’t on outrageous salary and had value. I’m not happy about it but it isn’t the first time we sold a player we should have kept and it certainly won’t be the last. Every manager ever has made these bad decisions.. Ancelotti sold Henry to us if… Read more »
Andy1886 The sooner COVID passes through the healthier and younger demographics, the sooner vulnerable demographics become a little safer. The idea that you lock everyone up, until you find a magic pill or injection, then inoculate 66 million people, and every person who enters the country, is far fetched. We have a vaccine for the flu, but 60,000+ died of the flu two years ago. There’s no value in locking everyone down, and if you want lockdown? But are happy for supermarket workers, food producers, emergency workers, delivery drivers, factory workers etc to assume risk, but your not willing to… Read more »
Guys, let’s not start covid stuff, we all know where that leads and it is boring and disappointing. Bit like Marc’s banter
Liverpool have a squad stacked with world class talent.
We have a team with players who would probably be on the bench for Everton and compete for places at wolves.
Have some context you cunnts so far arteta has done a wonderful job and if wasn’t for lacazette scuffing a 1 on 1 we would have finished with a draw which would have been a fair result.
By and large im feeling very positive about the manager but worried about the team.
We need three more players two super quality one young promising talent.
Pedro I’m sorry hunny, please don’t ban me again, I’ll be good ❤️
You did start it though, bring up empty stadiums
Just saying……
Rich
Last week 115 people died of Covid
Last week 1250 people died of flu
That’s with wearing face masks and as you say having flu jabs.
Madness.
Half the uk in southern England the rate is less than 20 people per 100,000 and we have to wear face masks and walk around like zombies.
m
Madness
Leeds showed that Liverpool have weaknesses.
We showed Liverpool too much respect and could have done better with a more positive approach.
Wait for it………………..
By sitting deep, Leno’s weaknesses were exposed. Klopp knew this and he also knew that Liverpool’s high press would put added pressure on the Arsenal defence, especially Leno.
Other teams will do exactly the same.
Ceballos should have been on much earlier because when he did come on he opened Liverpool up a couple of times.
We need a proper goalkeeper keeping coach.
Leno really needs to be trained on the basics of marshaling his box and how to deal with crosses its not related to physical weakness but poor instincts and lack of understanding. He needs to be educated and educated fast.
Didn’t see your comment Pedro
Stadiums filling up in Germany.
Rich, it’s the government’s job to protect the vulnerable from the stupid. That is people who are not prepared to be inconvenienced and pass it on to others who then die. If people had followed the relaxed rules back in the summer then we wouldn’t have this problem now. We all know that a large proportion of the general public went back to their bad old habits and now we’re all paying for it. And I’m pretty sure that 60,000 people did NOT die of ‘flu two years ago – see below: “In June, Public Health England published updated figures,… Read more »
Rich
Your covid-ology is seriously lacking. You don’t approach a pandemic with a “let everyone else choose the level of risk that’s right for them“ sort of approach.
It’s a ‘get over your me, me, me, POV and do what the rest are to tackle an issue for the benefit of everyone’.
What Klopp has done has been magnificent, other than VVD, he’s signed no big name players.
He knows the profile of player he wants, what characteristics they need to possess, and then he drills them into a high octane pressing machine, that doesn’t give you time to breath, they’re relentless, and barring a serious injury crisis, they’ll walk it this year.
I’m not sure anyone would have classed Milner, Henderson, Salah, Firminho, Mane, Robertson, as world class.
Klopp has just made them world class
Leicester just had their offer of €35 millions plus €5 millions of add-ons for Wesley Fofana accepted by ASSE.
So in two transfer windows they sold Maguire and Chilwell and they still end up ahead both financially and from a players pov.
I may have to start agreeing with Bamford about Leicester power ranking. The force is strong in their recruitment cell.
There were over 50,000 excess winter deaths in England and Wales last winter, the highest recorded since 1975/76, according to data released by the Office of National Statistics (ONS). The increase is thought to be a result of the prevalence of flu last year, alongside ineffectiveness of the flu vaccine and colder than usual temperatures in the 2017/18 winter period, according to the ONS. The excess winter mortality rate, which compares the numbers of deaths between December and March to the average number of deaths across the rest of the year, continued to be the highest in females and people… Read more »
If I wanted the BBC i’d be there.
London Gunner, There are things that you should not have to teach an experienced goalkeeper. Also by Leno’s age, you cannot change fundamentally how goalkeeper plays. It is not like a golf swing where some pro can completely reinvent theirs. A lot about goalkeeping is also about instinct honed after years of practice, hence older goalkeepers are better than their younger version. If you can’t judge the flight of a high ball, do not have the instinct of knowing when to stay on your line and when to go for it, those new skills will not be picked up in… Read more »
The G
“”””””So in two transfer windows they sold Maguire and Chilwell and they still end up ahead both financially and from a players pov.”””””
And only 3 days ago.
Man City 2 Leicester City 5.
Follow them Foxes.
They know the game and Our Dopes simply do not!
Covid is really going to destroy things for millinals and gen z. I left uni during the recession period around 2013 it set me back for a decade. I kid you not it was awful. I’m only earning good money as of this year as an analyst and that was through sheer hard work and huge dollop of luck. I took a job in customer service for a huge tech company and managed to work my up but it was a fucking slog for a long time. However it could have easily not happened for me and I could be… Read more »
Much respected infectiologists such as Pr Perrone, Toussaint or Toubiana keep repeating the governments are handling this crisis in the worst fashion possible.
Masks give people a false feeling of safety. They’re pretty useless the way people use them anyway.as far I’m concerned.
Not even mentioning the cheap efficient drug which has been banned after Sanofi ( big pharma ) required it from the french government when it has never had any bad effect on people’s health in more than 30 years !!
Fed up with this already
The amount of folks that get giddy over every misstep Arteta might have made is astounding to me. There were people like that for Emery as well. Like that for Wenger.
It’s one thing to criticize the manager and the club in areas you think they can do better, that’s your duty as a fan, but it feels like most of those that comment negatively about Arteta on here are more preoccupied with getting Pedro to acknowledge he was wrong about something.
VaL
The Leicester approach is simple
The buy promising players at good prices, don’t overpay them in wages and sell them to bigger clubs for lots of money.
That model works for them.
Our model is complicated by these veterans we keep signing that block the path of our meaningful signings. Ideally this should be Pepe’s season and Saliba should be taking a center stage.
“5.An Arsenal Blazer”
Emery took all the blazers, that fashion icon, he!
Luteo
The Emeryites bloodlust for Arteta is something to behold, goes beyond the club into a twilight zone of “being right”.
Embarrassing stuff.
“I say lock up the old and vulnerable and don’t punish the rest of us.”
I will trust this to be your attempt at humour, London?
Valentine I tend to agree with your points by and large. When a player/person is young there brain is wired in a certain way over time, you create patterns and synaptic rhythms. A lot of this can’t be learned later in life. But I tend to give Leno the benefit of the doubt as he has come from another league and maybe we can’t full convert him to a WC keeper on crosses but satisfactory one. Its not about a full upgrade but a 20% improvement. I think either way the arsenal team need to focus on this weakness of… Read more »
Sure Leeds played progressive as they always do… Leeds also gave up 4 goals to Pool. 3 to Fulham recently. They are exciting to watch but it’s a trade off. I’d imagine their fans are edge of the seat just about every match. As for Leicester they are the opposite, boring as fuck, but long balls over the top to Vardy and sitting deep are working for them so far. Got outshot 10-5 versus City.. But Vardy is a much better striker then anyone starting for City right now. Didn’t Wenger try to sign Vardy? probably.. add him to the… Read more »
We keep Leno and sell Martinez
We keep Xhaka and sell Torrera
We sell Mikhi and buy Gervinho MKII in Pepe for 72M
We bought absolute duds such as Sokratis, Lichtsteiner etc.
I don’t think the new regime has got good eye for players.
CG be nice if you fucked off and supported Leicester
Middy
Exactly right. Leeds are built (type of players throughout their squad) to run and run, press and hassle. They can handle a Liverpool side with those kind of relentless pressers, but we aren’t built to counter that tactic particularly well at present.
As you say though, while in that 90 mins against Liverpool they could ask more questions and match some running, they conceded 4 and then another 3 at a club with little fire power.
My viewpoint is simple – we need to get Auba to play in the centre and willian and pepe on the wings. Arteta cannot afford to make the same mistake that unai emery did – one of playing boring football….even if its to win games
If a team like leeds can play the game that they did against Liverpool – then we shouldnt keep thinking that our squad isnt good enough to take on liverpool
Vardy wouldn’t have come to Arsenal under Wenger.
No way.
# worst possible fashion.
I mean, the people that should be tested are old ( and younger ) people with symptoms but it’s currently taking 10 days to get a result because the stupid secretary of Health’s anxiety inducing speeches make people sometimes have 3 tests in the same week !
He didn’t Graham, reasons remain with him.
On a serious note I’ll be glad once the window has closed. Hopefully we get our targets but either way it’ll be a relief to not have to talk about it anymore.
Dissenter, RB Leipzig and Leicester have the same approach. No player above the age of 25 years. Players above 25 must come first as loan with an option to buy at an agreed price limiting the risk of failure/ over pricing or must be of well established star quality to help the club take a step up. With that approach, we would never have bought Lichsteiner, Sokratis, Pepe, nor Willian, nor Luiz. It is the right approach, but that required a man with vision and group of competent dedicated people working toward that goal. Arsenal did not have that for… Read more »
Ousman Dembele to United
Think this can potentially kick start a transfer merry go round
Get in a couple of midfielders and a potential deadline day move for another Zaha? Eduoard? and we’re in great shape.
TR7
Very curious to see how this next weeks pans out, understatement really as we all are as it will signal much.
Edu and Arteta only really involved in the GKr deal there. Which is certainly not ideal for me as it went opposite of what I’d of liked but we all know why it happened, to help fund more needed areas.
Hopefully we see that and are surprised.
Avi
We’re not buying Zaha really don’t know why people keep bringing it up.
Graham
Its not always about Wenger, thinking there might be some truth to people labeling you as one with a Wenger obsession,that must not be healthy.
Marc-
If we don’t sign anyone else there will be talk about the transfer window for ages.. I’m still talking about the window we only signed Cech and Elneny….ffs . hahaha But if you mean all the speculation and rumors then yeah .. I wont miss that.
Avi
we have to sell Laca, I really think before getting Edouard.
Also, Zaha would give our attack a turbo boost. Imagine a Gooner getting his dream to play for us.
He aint no Jenkinson
Zaha, Aouar and ? DM is fine with me
Massive clear out is needed,
mitland niles
willock
Nelson
Eddie nikita
Rob holding
chambers
these players won’t even make the bench for any of the top6 sides, so why is arsenal accepting this bang average crap.
London Gunner,
I am not saying that he can’t learn and adapt.
I just think that will take about a full year before he is fully comfortable with that changes and that Arsenal cannot afford to indulge him for a year.
So Arteta will have to make an hard decision pretty quickly. Changing system or changing keeper.
I would not be surprised if Arsenal were to try signing a goalkeeper in the winter TW.
Marc
72M Pepe can’t take a decent corner and Willian has played like a 40yr old in our last 2 matches
Lacazzete isn’t a 20/goal a season striker, simply put thr team doesn’t seem to have enough goals in it to really get a top 4 spot
If Auba goes a barren spell, it could get ugly.
Guns
Got to feel for Laca as the camera zoomed in on him after the dippers game
He knew he could have earned us a point there, really bad misses from him.
No, it’s nothing to do with Xhaka and everything to do with your outbursts about transfers.
First off the braindead comments was in reference to people talking about Emi Martinez after a game like last night. Secondly you trying to police the blog again? Look it’s pretty simple bitch if you don’t like my “outbursts” on signings and wanting a better squad (dunno why that would bother anyone) you can always just skip and not comment on it. Look let’s be honest with ourselves here you saw Xhaka being shit talked and you saw red and that’s it.
That is the thing, Laca needs to put those away. France striker with a huge salary, needs to be doing the work.
He scores the hard ones and the easy ones he misses. Kinda weird
Avi
If Auba gets injured we’re screwed but the simple facts are we have no money and a load of players who can play in the wide positions.
If we get the 2 CM’s we’re linked to I’ll be ecstatic and pleasantly surprised.
Avi
Thats a good start Dembélé to United for roughly £70m get the ball rolling, will now know if Depay is Barca bound, if not he can come to the Arsenal.
Jay
You can add a number of other players to that list.
Maybe Diawara is a good option: tall, strong, not bad with the ball, pass looks decent, who knows….
Sorry mini rant incoming.. As much as last night’s game hurt, l think we should be mindful of the fact that Arteta is learning in his role, he is not going to be perfect. Last night he made errors selection wise for sure. For me l say this based the team l picked to play yesterday before the game, starting at the back, l really for the life of me can’t work out why he choose to drop Gabriel? he had to drop Holding, l know Holding hasn’t been awful this season but at the same time he hasn’t been… Read more »
“f we get the 2 CM’s we’re linked to I’ll be ecstatic and pleasantly surprised.”
Not sure they will get over the finish line Marc, somethings got to give as negotiations are crawling and sellers don’t appear in any rush to deliver the bargains that Arsenal desire. Cant say Arsenal should be surprised because shoe being on the other foot tells the exact same story, they cant move theirs either, unless for bargain basement prices, such as free (cause their weekly wages are so atrocious).
Honestly I’ll like Depay, not sure how feasible it is Considering Lyon have a player we’re already struggling to close a deal for
Think he’s Barca bound! But I’ve got this feeling we’ll make a move for a final third player before the window closes
Roma apparently in for Laca,Let’s see
How many genuine positives, in respect to our players, have we had at the club over these past two years? You know, where we can all agree that they’re extra special and important to our future.
Auba✔️
Saka✔️
Tierney ✔️
Martinelli✔️
Martinez ✔️
Oh sorry, did I highlight Martinez?
My mistake.
What do I know.
All I’ve seen in the 3 matches this season is a top 4 aspirant team playing like relegation fodder.
Pierre posted Pedro’s post from last season, after GW 3, what a similar situation to be in. One of the lowest shots to goals combined with facing one of the highest shots, its almost like emery never left.
Ernest
That’s my concern – we just won’t manage to move on enough dross to have the money to buy both.
Hopefully we’ll both be proved wrong and we’ll have a shiny new midfield for the away match at City.
Leno was clearly at fault for at least 2 of the 3 goals conceded yesterday. Almost gifted a goal away in our first game too. His inability to catch the ball gives opponents more chances and doesn’t allow our defenders to take any breather and reorganize themselves. Absolutely dreadful decision to sell Martinez for a pittance and persist with Leno as no 1. Gabriel, Saliba, Chambers, Tiernney are all very young. Except Luiz there is nobody who can provide leadership at the back now that Emi has gone, very concerning.
Wesley Fofana going for nearly 40 million makes Saliba a bit of a steal
If ManUtd buy Dembele for £50 millions, Depay will join them.
Depending on how much they raised with Depay, Lyon’s need to raise cash may be alleviated which would play into Aulas’s hand.
At the very least it would show true intent to supporters, Marc.
TR7
Another one to join the club.
I agree totally.
What do I know.
Considering that I’ve only really ever seen you talk passionately about Martinez and how bad Wenger was I’d honestly say fuck all
Saliba will be a steal if and when he proves himself at Arsenal. When we signed Pepe it was told we had signed one of the hottest young players in the world. In a few months at Arsenal, it became clear he was not good enough.
Only could Arsenal supporters turn a 10 year backup keeper out to be a martyr. You know things are dire enough when supporters resort to that.
The effectiveness of our play from the back took a nosedive the moment Leno came back into the team, coincidence? I think not
He’s got flappy hands too, Martinez certainly wouldn’t punch that Salah’s shot into the path of Mane for a tap in
Diabolical to sell Martinez really considering all the above
The very fact we rejected 20M for a sqaddie in AMN too?
Think there are agents within the club looking to bring the club down., just no one excuse for some decisions they seem to make
Ernest
The frustrating thing is I think we’ve got the foundations of a decent team – we get CM fixed and I really think a serious crack at top 4 is on.
Arsenal have always played breathtaking attacking football. The fact is that without a midfield that is dynamic, creative and athletic we will not make top 4.
Honestly, what is wrong with getting Zaha? Pepe holding this up?
I mean seriously, as someone mentioned a few days back, in order to take advantage of Auba, we need to make a run now, and not later….. players with immediate impact (ala zaha) would fit the bill.
Aouar and zaha, would add a ferocious attack… what we so need.
You did watch Martinez’ howler yesterday, right Avi? Ever so lucky the goal was VAR’d back to cover his poor play. Interesting how that one is overlooked, not that it will be the last one either.
I like Dembélé a lot but that injury record would worry me.
When you realize the anchor of the defence is with Luiz, you know the challenge ahead is a big one Marc.
Arsenal paid €32 millions for Saliba and €5 millions contingent add-ons (unlikely to happen, Arsenal is not going to win the Champion’s League anytime soon) and then get a loan fee which with all the rebate means that the overall fee was about €30 millions. Saliba at the time had less than 1 season of experience in Ligue 1.
Leicester is paying €35 millions with €5 millions add-ons (unlikely to happen Leicester have to win the Premiership …) but get the player immediately.
I would say that ASSE is still the happier of all three clubs.
SF
We don’t have the money for the CM’s we’re chasing – where are we going to get the money for Zaha?
It’s all well and good putting together a dream team but reality is it’s a waste of time.
Valentin
You haven’t been paying attention Arteta’s going to win the CL within 3 seasons!
Any firm news on Mustafi departing? I heard this past weekend that personal terms were agreed to. Nothing further?
Regarding Liverpool last night, when I look at them as a team they really have bought very well by and large for the past three years now. The majority of players that they bring in are skillful, strong, fast and have great engines. Tehy press hard and high and just suck the life out of teams. They are light years ahead of us on player recritment. And that is the bottom line. Are they spending more than us. I don’t think so. We just buy away too many duds and then can’t get rid of them because they are on… Read more »
Think there is something up with a potential Nelson Zaha swap deal bubbling just under
Would be a great move if it comes off
Ernest
I think we’re in a strange position. We get the 2 CM’s and we could be looking at playing a different formation – we really don’t know what Arteta’s preferred formation is if he has the payers he wants.
Avi
What do you think Palace want for Zaha and how much do you think they’d value Nelson at?
Marc
Give Palace a younger Reiss, offer Pepe, we have Guen,
we have some pieces to offset a lowered price for zaha.
Id love for the club to try and get a player who actually has loved this team and has tried to make a move to us.
a show of some soul.
SF
Yeah don’t think it’s going to happen.
Agreed Marc, a limbo status for sure until things are clearer. As it stands, you cant have aspirations for high level success with the current presentation of players, that midfield is not sustainable.
Marko “Look let’s be honest with ourselves here you saw Xhaka being shit talked and you saw red and that’s it.“ Swear this is your default whenever I say something to you, do you think mentioning Xhaka invalidates a view I have or something? I just had to scroll back and see what you even wrote about Xhaka, utterly irrelevant as usual so why the fuck you feel compelled to talk out your ring there is beyond me. You spent months denigrating AMN when he was performing superbly so I’m not getting hot under the collar about your scorching take… Read more »
Balague saying United not at all interested in Dembélé.
Avi
Have you read more about a swap there with Zaha? He’s not a fave on Le Grove but I think he’d be superb for us. Very open to that being a last minute effort from us this window.
CC
that was bandied about on here a few days ago
Swap Reiss for Zaha… id throw in Guen too just to make it happen…
Sal
Fuck me Balague has been quiet on football for a while hasn’t he? Turns out being an arrogant windbag wishful-ITK isn’t that endearing I guess, who knew..