Oh hello Buzzfeed headline 2014. Here’s a quick run down of what I’d like to see this evening.
1.A lite version of what our future attacking structure could look like
It’s dangerously close to the end of the transfer window. There’s no Aouar yet. There might not be. We are absolutely toothless, still.
What I can’t have is that there is no way to play attacking football this year without that one player. If we are really going into the season with the least creative midfield in the league, that is pure negligence. I would LOVE to see a lite version of where this process is heading. Is there a young player that can play in the pockets, like ESR? Will we give Saka a role at #10? Is there a system the younger players will be put in that can at least guide the way this evening? I hope so. We can’t pin out hopes on Auba all season. Leeds are out signing Cusiance from Bayern. If they can shower teams in shots on their budget, we should be able to do something.
2. The future of our CB spine
Tonight, one would assume, we’ll get to see Willy Saliba and Gabriel in the centre of defence together in their first competitive match. This is exciting on many levels. The two of them are very capable with the ball at their feet, they have the requisite height to make us hard to attack from setpieces… the question is, do they have the power and wherewithal to deal with an explosive Premier League team this early? We shall see. We’re mostly here to see where Saliba is in his development, hopefully he surprises everyone with an elite performance.
3. The future of the #13
I can’t remember the last time we had a #13 back-up keeper. Manninger? It almost feels a bit quaint. I like it, but will I like the keeper wearing the jersey? He’s handsome, no doubt. But good? Who knows. Arteta and his coaching staff took a big gamble binning off Emi Martinez. Tonight, we’ll get a glimpse at whether Iñaki Caña, the keeping coach, has good taste in students. Runar had some pretty grim stats from his time in Ligue 1 last season. Are we rescuing a diamond in the rough, or are we making the mistake City did at the beginning i.e. signing a keeper who can play passes like Pirlo, but couldn’t catch the ‘rona in an emergency ward sneeze box? This game will be a huge baptism of fire, longballs, and shots… will it be Massimo Taibi? Or Alex Manninger? We’ll soon find out.
4. What is a Willock?
Arsene liked him. Emery liked him. Freddie LOVED him. Arteta likes him.
What is it about Joe Willock they all love? Because I’d really like to see some of it on the box tonight.
We know he makes excellent runs off the ball. We know he can dribble. We know he can move at speed. We know he is capable of goals and assists… can we see it happen at some point? If he splutters again this season, he’ll be out in the summer. This is make or break.
Time to shine, Joe. We believe in you.
5. How quickly can we adapt to being found out?
I pontificated before the last Liverpool game over whether teams in the top 6 would suss us this season. We are very well drilled now. We defend better, our off the ball movement is great, our pressing is very good. However, we’re a bit robotic. Klopp knew how we’d try and attack down the left in the last game and he tried to deal with it (we still scored from the left). We need some new party tricks, we can’t get by on the same one all season. Now Liverpool knows where to double up and over-commit in the press, what is the plan? Could we do something mad like play down the right? Are we going pure long ball? Would we dare play through the middle? We were sussed the other night. There needs to be some innovation in how we play or the same will happen tonight.
Oh, how about a 6th point… WIN 4-0. Amirite? Of course I am.
Enjoy the game, I’ll see you in the comments. Come at me with your bullet points!
P.S. Congrats to Saka on his England call up. To commit to the three lions on Nigerian Independence Day. Man is going to the very top. Cold as ice. A natural killer. What a talent!
Kolasinac is balls. How surprising.
Bernd Leno show.
Leno
Just filthy.
And again
Kola is a joke of a defender against Jota.
Thank you London, I do sincerely appreciate your response. Having recently lost my wife to Covid, this does remain a sensitive subject to me and equally, I also apologize for my harsh response. Thank you for your understanding.
Whoaaaa that was a class save there. No matter what your bias.
Another great save
Midwest lol
Leno doing what he does best ..good shot stopper
This game should calm all the needless sniping at Leno
I too liked Martinez but he’s gone now, ain’t coming back.
Leno is all we have, lets get behind him. The reserve goalie stats suggests that he’s an accident waiting to happen
Fuck me we’re absolutely boring to watch.
Leno is a good borderline great keeper, excellent shot stopper, just not great with his feet.
Arsenal hemmed in their own half since the restart when will Mikel make a sub to address that
The old Xhaka duck.
Can’t be telling me Pepe needs a run of consecutive games no questions asked. He doesn’t deserve them with his levels over 90 mins.
His 90 minute performances have been awful
Leno is literally keeping us in the game, 5 world class saves so far and yet we still moan Martinez departure.
We don’t have a midfield fit for purpose and as usual toothless upfront!
Pepe is a 72m waste of space.
And another go on Leno shut this lot up
Leno is really saving our arses with some excellent saves here.
Matter of time now. Kept in the game by the absolutely “awful horrific” Leno.
Pepe is a 72m waste of space
Whats the point of Niketah and Willock? The only promising youngsters we have our Martinellu and Saka
Ish, I think we’re going to have to accept that not only is he not very good, he doesn’t seem to care about it.
Emi better at catching the ball , don’t think he makes some of the saves Leno has made tonight though
Can we finally put the Martinez v Leno debate to rest? Leno is a very good goalkeeper, albeit not very good on crosses. He more than makes up for it with other strengths
Leno is playing very well.
However it’s against the Liverpool kids.
Where was this composure against the men?
Now Eddie should have his chances now without VDD.
Xhara made a half hearted attempt to track but did not jump. Ball watching.
Arteta won’t be at Arsenal for long, this is not good enough.
Elneny is about the only midfielder we have left.. and he gets his warmups off.
“Pepe has been a disaster so far.”
First Ozil, then Guendopy, and now Pepe – its going to be a rough ride for Pierre.
Mo-naldinho stripped and ready
Useroz why do you call Xhaka xhara ?
Guendouzi would have done 10 times better than xhaka and willock
Again Xhaka is still in an Arsenal shirt.
We can’t advance until he is gone.
He must give the managers some grade A blowjobs.
Give it a rest GunnerDNA, you have the coldest hot takes every time.
Egyptian Messi. I prefer.
Pedro
Have you heard anything about Pepe on the training ground? You don’t get James Milner vibes from him, that much is clear.
Why Pepe stops running. He doesn’t look remotely close to the one shown in that video.
Kaz
“Leno is playing very well.However it’s against the Liverpool kids.”
Not a very sensible comment.
Soooo fucking boring.
We are Sam Allardyce, we are Tony Pulis.
I fucking hate granite xhaka…what a nothing player,,I watched denilson and Alex song and in my opinion those two are better than xhaka
Elneny still having an Arsenal shirt on. Why??
No club shells out £5m for Elneny and Arteta thought he’s new found gold.
ffs… great save from Adrian
It’s amazing to think it’s another one of those games for Willock and Nketiah and yet nearly 70 mins and no sign of them being subbed
Saka should one time the shot.
Great cross from Pepe. Holding should have buried it
Lol at saying Arteta will get sacked what foresight
Arteta has had one transfer window that has not finished yet and you are talking about the sack ffs
Gigantic miss by Holding. If he shoots anywhere else but in the center of the goal, he scores…
Good chance there, great switch, poor touch when it counted
Good counter that time.. ohh.. Holding had a chance.
You’re right Pierre, how silly of me, the intensity and pressure is clearly the same 🙄🙄
23 mins left and Arteta took off the only source of creativity??!!
Ernest
Really sorry to hear that and your response wasn’t actually harsh and was completely reasonable considering the circumstances. Once again Apologise for being a total wally.
Anyways pleasure hearing your football opinions and agreeing and debating you on them in equal measure.
Eboue was better than Pepe.
Great pass by Gabriel btw.
Arteta has quite the 5 O’clock shadow going!
You look at young players like marco grujic and you have to wonder why our fans overrate people like willock,I dont care if he scores a hat trick but the guy is bang average. I mean do people here genuinely believe that Willock is better than guen ?
that Adebayor-esque first touch…..
Holding should of headed that down. Went for power instead.
I love Nketiah, but he is not good enough to be our second striker if we hoping for a top 4 finish..
Holding unlucky there!
Front 3 all .5 seconds off the pace.
Wot a save. Holding point blank header saved.
Pedro,
“Give it a rest GunnerDNA, you have the coldest hot takes every time”
Where is all the sauce you was twerking about? Getting outplayed by Liverpool kids 😂
You are a good man, London.
Leno is one of the best shot stoppers in Europe.
Whose better oblak and Allison. Can’t think of many.
Putting it int o context this is another poor performance against a Liverpool side with maybe two first team players in it. On paper we have the better side but on the pitch we’re second best by a long way. The sauce is wearing thin…..
Found Pepe quite often loses the call in between his feet!!
People find this game boring? hahaha We are supposed to dominate Pool? It’s on a knife edge anything but boring. Big chances on both ends.
Getting outplayed by Liverpool kids 😂
Yeah be happier about it why don’t you? Cunt.
Agreed that Xhaka holds us back. But we’ve had a few chances last few minutes.
Andy, the whole board is pretty shocked we’re the second best team against Liverpool. Thanks for clearing that up.
GunnerDNA
Where are you from?
So it’ll go straight to penalties if score holds?
CC, he’s from New York.
Absolutely desperate for Arteta to fail because he humiliated himself for the first 4 weeks of his tenure.
Our fullbacks are absolutely terrible.
You can see outside of his crosses from deep Cedric first instinct is always to pass it backward.
The less said about Kolasinac the better if today he is not stinking the pace as much as he usually does.
Now Jota is gone. They subs out their best player.
I miss the Wenger years.
Stubborn old git and his refusal to spend.
You find this entertaining? 😂
Pepe Has a great curling shot when he gets the chance to unleash it and decent pace. His dribbling skills aren’t all that as he seems to lose the ball alot. For me we give him as much game time as we can without sacrificing points and then see how he does over the season. If he doesn’t make the grade sell in the summer. My main fear with pepe is he hasn’t played a full good 90s minutes just had a few quality minutes not matches. I was listening to some pundit on arseblog and they were saying how… Read more »
Too far out for that header. one of these counters needs to connect.
I love it the “Liverpool kids” started Salah, VVD, Milner and Jota. Have subbed on Wijnaldum and Origi.
Joe Willock padding those mins stats and fuck all else.
Sal, also forgetting to note that this is not our first choice as well.
Willock is a nothing player.
The disconnect between midfield and attack in this team is incredible. I think if the midfielders passed to the forwards as much as they pass to the fullbacks there wouldn’t be any fucking problems.
Kaz wishing for the Wenger days where we’d be 4-0 after 15 minutes.
far cry from last season fixture but hoping we go by penalty this time
I’d rate areta an A- so far. Has far outperformed by expectations i thought he was a joke hire. A bad joke… But this is his first gig as manager and he seems to be fitting in and rising to he occasion. We will probably see some excellence from him and rawness and plenty of mistakes as well. My prediction is we will be in contention for top 4 all season and then fail by a single point and end up fifth which imo will be a good job done with this squad and with a rookie manager albeit one… Read more »
So can we confirm… penalties if Lacazette doesn’t win it for us?
Pedro thanks for the sarcasm, might have a point if we were playing their full first team. Have they had more than two first XI players on the pitch at any point today? Piss poor excuse, and not remotely valid.
Anyone surprised Reiss can’t get a game?
London, what’s the fail here? 0-0 with a second string team with 9mins to go against the Champions.
This game last year was 10 goals.
Kaz if your only entertained by us dominating a game and winning it 2 or 3 nothing.. everytime then yep I guess your gonna be bored for awhile then.
I feel Laca needs a redemption chance.
What is willock still doing on the field, for 88 minutes he’s been so confused
It’s actually unbelievable everton just went out and bought a whole new midfield and look at them now. They started from the first match and have played all pl games together from day one. None of this ‘gelling’ nonsense 2020 and we are still having a xhaka and elneny midfield for crying out loud. Even if we do sign a new midfielder,how long will it take for him to be ‘eased in?’
Pedro
Not shocked, New Yorkers have a weird view of sports in general. Loud fuckers too, so ticking all available boxes there haha
Lacazette masterclass incoming
Ive said Willock doesn’t have much about him at all
Reis’s got a knock he is not fit
Was Eddie nikita playing tonight? bang average championship bench warmer at best.
Andy,
Liverpool > Champions League/Premier League winning depth of squad
Arsenal > Finished 8th last season
Snarking about sauce? Embarrassing. We’re 0-0 away from home against the Champions.