Weekend finishes on a LOL

by .

Well, I felt pretty terrible about life waking up yesterday morning, but then the mighty Spurs brightened up my day when they gave up a 3-0 lead inside 18 minutes after the second coming of Gareth Bale.

Beautiful stuff. That killed off ‘THEY’RE GONNA WIN THE LEAGUE’ talk pretty fast. Spurs will be up there this season, but contending the title? Have my doubts people.

Even better than that, Emi Martinez kept another clean sheet and Ross Barkley fired the impressive Aston Villa to another win against Leicester.

So, the weekend shook out quite nicely. We’re 5th, level points with Leicester. United, City, Wolves, and Chelsea are all behind us in the table.

Suddenly, losing 0-1 to Manchester City in a very tight game doesn’t look so bad. I mean, not great, but I’ll be the perspective police here and say it could have been worse. City are a very good team, we had good enough chances, we forced them into a cagey response. Games like that should be close and live on a knife-edge… I suspect if we add a little more flair to our attack in those sorts of games, we’ll not have that top 6 away record hanging around our neck much longer.

Additional good news: We currently have the second-best defensive record in the Premier League. Arteta is building from the back, if he maintains this sort of record all season, we’ll be in contention for the top 4.

A lot of fans are throwing around our dismal attacking numbers, and rightly so… but that will develop and if we’re honest, we’ll probably have to buy to really solve those challenges. We don’t have an Aouar or a Grealish in our squad and it is very unlikely anyone is going to develop into the role. The gamble for this season is that if we have a strong foundation, we can live off less chances because we have Auba. A lot of eggs in that basket though. We really need to up our creativity and share around the responsibility for scoring.

We do have a chance to experiment. This Thursday is sandbox time. We’re playing Rapid Wien, currently 2nd in the Austrian Bundesliga. This game is important as it sets the tone for the competition. Arteta will want to win, but he’ll be all too aware that we do not have the depth of quality in our squad to deal with an injury crisis this season. I expect some experience, but I also hope we see a lot of young players. Joe Willock and ESR are the best candidates for more attacking flair in our play… hopefully, they deliver a good performance. This is our back-up for top 4 this season, but we should really be walking the groups with our reserves.

We also have a really big game on Sunday. Brendan Rodgers, top 4 contenders, needs to make amends for the Villa loss. Arteta, will be desperate not to lose ground at the top of the table. It’s a huge game, how will the team react? We shall see.

Short one today, see you in the comments. x

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grooveydaddy

1st

grooveydaddy

And

grooveydaddy

The

grooveydaddy

Tr4phy

grooveydaddy

Nice!

AC

2nd best defensive record is what MBA’s put as title in their exec presentation. Dig little deep into it it sounds BS. We conceded 4 against liverpool and city and it is bad. We played fulham so count that out. Should have never conceded to sheffield united. And very lucky to not concede 2 more against westham.

Kay

Back in the Legrove 1.0 days we used to discuss and get posts that were bullish and we used to have title talk atleast till jan

Now we take solace in spuds and Leicester losing points

Talk of drop in standards
Facepalm

AC

Villa have the best defensive record and that is some achievement because they conceded only 2 so far while we have conceded 6 (big difference). Also they have kept 3 Clean Sheets out of 4 games. While the only clean sheet we have is against fulham …. lol

Too small a sample size for us to be purring over our defensive record.

Tom

Not a bad weekend all things considered.
I don’t think anyone thought we would get anything out of the City game when the fixtures were announced, but I’m sure Chelsea, Spurs and Leicester we’re counting on three points this round.
Chelsea losing points from being up by two at home, and Spurs up by three was simply delicious lol.

Dream10

Our lack of creation and low expected goals are major reasons and concern. Spurs, Chelsea and Everton have all shown they can create and score at a decent rate so far.

Aubameyang has six shots in five full matches. Believe Mahrez had six shots yesterday.

raptora

Saint-Etienne manager Claude Puel is baffled by the treatment of the centre-half, who has been left out of Arsenal’s Europa League squad and may face the same exile from their Premier League squad. “It was short-term [thinking], even for a young player,” Puel told L’Equipe. “A superb player like William, to whom I wish the best, has not even made it to Arsenal’s Europa League squad. Where is the logic, if not financial?” The logic of not playing Saliba would be financial? I guess we’d owe Saint-Etienne money if Saliba was/is to play games this season? We are not going… Read more »

Graham62

Tom

One slight problem.

Based on where MC are at present, we should/ could have got something from Saturdays game.

Other teams dropping points is irrelevant. It’s what we do that matters.

shaun

well as much I have respect for Arteta and what he done for the team defensively he made a massive fuck up in selling Martinez on that everyone can agree except the idiots of course , personally I by him back in January but ofcourse now that would cost you 60 million , Leno is not going to stop flapping at crosses or parrying the ball into dangerous areas as that is his game and always has been he is a bit like XHACKA AND MUSTAFFIS for me as he has that goal mistake in him and simply is not… Read more »

Pierre

The argument against Arsenal improving defensively, is that any team would improve defensively if they take no risks whilst playing through midfield . I said previously that it appears that Arteta is happy to play high risk football in and around our own penalty area, but plays no risk football through midfield into attack. Arteta is convinced , as pep was , that playing out from the back at all cost is the way forward……i will trust that Arteta is right as at times we have shown we can play our way out, plus our mistakes are less frequent. I… Read more »

Dream10

raptora

“We are not going to play the boy and tamper his progress just to save a million or two? No way, right?”

You damn right the Kroenkes are willing to save a couple of million at the expense of development and team results. After all, they pushed Arteta to pressure the players to take a.mandatory.pay cut. The only team in the PL who have. The manager in turn praises the owners for “backing” him in the market on the regular.

Left testicle

Agree with Kay at 9.26am
Sad state of affairs when we have to take solace in other teams downfalls.

Left testicle

Can’t the goalkeeping coaches teach Leno to catch the bloody ball and not to palm it into the danger zone?

Maker

Pedro Why you not criticizing Arteta for playing Willian as a CF instead of Laca. Willian had no effect on the game. Arteta is still living off the FA Cup and his football is so bad it stink. I would rather go to te Etihad and lose 5 nil and play attacking football than play the way he set out that team on Saturday. We wont make TOP 4 mark my words. I think Aston villa will make top 4 not Arsenal. NO IDENTITY IN OUR PLAYING STYLE AND IF YOU TELL ME TRYING TO GET THE BALL TO AUBA… Read more »

Graham62

Just a quickie to say kudos to NZ for knocking Covid on the head. Seeing 46000 crammed into Eden Park at the weekend was fantastic.

Jacinda Ardern has done a phenomenal job and although they have certain advantages in respect to their demographics and have more sheep than people, I applaud her and the rest of the NZ population for following the correct protocol.

Can we loan her out?

Bravo NZ.

Left testicle

Why would we have to pay St Etienne if Saliba plays this season? He is our player.
I don’t get the argument?

Pierre

I said it a few weeks ago , the reason Saliba ( and Ozil) are not playing is to save the club appearance money.

Seems i was right ..

shaun

Agree Graham but the difference now is the keeper plane as day doubt we would have won the fa cup or charity shield with Leno in goal and we all no Emi would have caught the shot that leno passed to sterling really realy poor goal keeping , we should have or at the very least came away with a point from the city game . the defending wasn’t great from Bellarin but then for me he is a bang average RB He got sold to ASDA on the particular move….. cheap, lets hope he stops the shopping trips with… Read more »

Tom

“Why would we have to pay St Etienne if Saliba plays this season? He is our player.
I don’t get the argument?“

Appearance fees?!?!

Pierre

Leftie
“Can’t the goalkeeping coaches teach Leno to catch the bloody ball and not to palm it into the danger zone?”

It’s all about confidence in your own ability..

Graham62

Pierre

Good post.

I harp back though to our GK situation.

Playing out from the back is high risk but with Leno in goal it borders on suicidal.

End of.

AFC Forever

Well done Tom, a nice positive comment unlike the crap we get from the usual suspects. I have come to the conclusion and talking Arsenal down has become a sport. What a great way to go about life. Losing one nil away to a heavily invested fair play cheating club who are several years and £800 milion away from us, doesn’t seem to shoddy. It just goes to show that Arteta has raised expectation levels, why else would that be a ‘bad’ result. Last few seasons we have been soft. What happened to Spurs yesterday was the sort of thing… Read more »

AFC Forever

*Typo alert, sorry.

Rich

Pierre I’m assuming Arteta wants to invite sides to press, so he can create overloads in the final third, and make the most of our pace in our front line. It’s when sides sit off we struggle, if you look at what Pep did on Sat, he condensed the midfield, rather than consistently pressing our defenders. And we had very few answers to that dilemma. When sides sit off us, hold a good shape and allow us to play, we’re impotent, we’re relying on keeping it tight, and then being efficient in the few chances we do make. We’re at… Read more »

AFC Forever

Pierre
“said it a few weeks ago , the reason Saliba ( and Ozil) are not playing is to save the club appearance money”

Interesting. I wonder if that was part of the. deal Arteta had to accept to finance Partey?

andy1886

@Tom, presumably Saliba as with most other players have bonuses based on appearences etc, which I think is what Pierre is on about. I doubt though that it’s enough to make even the slightest difference to our finances though. That said, they did sack the mascot…

Sid

The reason we play out the back is a facade to pad our passing stats because passing between our forwards and or midfielders is non existant.
Diet Pep isnt that naive. Our defensive 3rd is where he feels safer for the passing to happen.

Im telling you for free!

SpanishDave

It’s not the fact we lost this weekend but the way we lost.
Our play is slow and laboured.
We clearly lack creativity and have no players to overcome this problem.
Arteta is a rookie and is making basic errors as our manager, so we have to suffer the learning curve.
We are not making 4th unless we start to score more goals and up our scoring chances. this will not happen with our slow tippy tippy style that Arteta seems to like.

Habesha Gooner

claude puel comments were aimed at saliba, not at arsenal. He was talking about him wanting money instead of playing time I think. And pierre dont start with ozil crap again. he isnt playing because he is not putting in effort. Saliba is not playing because arteta thinks he isnt ready. So dont drive agendas. Any way I think spurs have enough in attack to get top 4 now. If mourinho integrates both ali and Locelso that will be trouble for us. We are better at defending now than most of our competitors. But we need a creative edge. I… Read more »

AFC Forever

Rich. Yes, Man City without the ball are how Arteta is coaching us.. They also play out from the back to beat the press and exploit the spaces that open up, During that game good chances were few and far between for both sides, we sort of cancelled each other out. Considering their players are years ahead of us and more familiar with that system, their creativity is superior but you would expect that. Not by a huge margin though on that performance (and the FA Cup semi) because we still had two great chances with Auba and Saka. Difference… Read more »

andy1886

AFC Forever, some fair comments there, I doubt any non-City fan would disagree that they are financial dopers (to use a Wengerism) but no need to slate fans or question their loyalty really. Some are naturally pessimistic by nature, many are probably frustrated, if performances improve I’m sure most will come around. In the attacking sense I’m sure we could do better even with what we have without necessarily impacting our defensive improvement. For example, simply encouraging players to shoot rather than try to walk the ball into the net would help. Our ‘shots for’ stats are awful, if you… Read more »

AFC Forever

Sid

“The reason we play out the back is a facade to pad our passing stats ”

Ha ha, that stuff you’re smoking is far too strong Sid.

Sid

Un naai/Don/red army i know you handwriting

AFC Forever

Andy1886 Of course but the priority has been to fix our biggest problem which was how we play without the ball. That was essential. Now he has to work on the transition but my own feeling is we are missing someone to play through. As I mentioned earlier City have Bernardo & Dr Bruyne. It could be that Partey resolves that issue. He’s essentially working with players he inherited so beating him up is pretty ridiculous. The problem is some people only look for faults or the negative they aren’t interested in the bigger picture.. I recall Liverpool fans moaning… Read more »

Stonerose

Ive been reading Grove for a good many years now, and I have to say, Peters writing has improved considerably over the last year, so respect to him. I gave up reading the comments a long time ago but yesterday I made the mistake of going back to them. Jesus, what a bunch of back biting cunts that troll the place. Look at the hysterical reaction when Tottenham went 3-0 up. The infidels are committing suicide on the walls of Ashburton Grove, Kane and Son are going to make sure Spurs win the league by Christmas, Mourinho is a reincarnated… Read more »

Rich

AFC Forever I agree, I think Pep didn’t commit to sending too many players to press us in the final third, was a sign he recognised the trap Arteta was setting. The worry is, I think we’re becoming predictable to play against, and outside of Saka, nobody in our team consistently carves open chances, once teams learn to just sit off us, let us have the ball, I don’t think we have the personnel to be a consistent threat. I love what Arteta is doing, my concern when he came in was he’d be an ideologue, and we don’t have… Read more »

Dark Hei

Martinez vs Leno again.

The reason why Matinez is sold is because he is sellable.

Can we sell Leno for 20m bucks? Not with that wage packet I assure you.

Graham62

1. Arsenal have, 100%, improved under Arteta.
2. Better drilled and far more compact without the ball.
3. Transitions though are too slow.
4. We lack creativity in the final third and consequently don’t see enough of our potent players.
5. We have stagnated since Leno came back into the fold.
6. We wouldn’t have won the FA Cup or Community Shield with Leno in goal.

Marks out of ten for Arteta, to date – 7/10.

Are these opinions or facts?

andy1886

AFC Forever – It’s true we do have a lack of midfield options but there are things we could try. Saka in a more central role for example, Auba centrally as has been mentioned many times. A midfield three of Partey, Ceballos and Saka with Saka at the head could prove more dynamic than what we have right now.

Hopefully we’ll at least see some experimentation rather than stick with the same old underwhelming system over the next few weeks because I’m not convinced that we’ll be spending money in the January window to solve our problems.

Leftside

Martinez again, tiresome. Going to be a long season on here when you add in the knee jerk such as Villa being top 4 and crowning Sp*rs champions before a grand 3-3 draw with West Ham.

Stop shooting your loads so early.

shaun

ha ha real funny, so it is not so bad that we lost to a financially doped 800 million team , what a load of bollocks .We .lost because that cunt won’t stop flappin and punching when he should just catch the fucking ball, again frigging basic goal keeping , someone needs to put leno straight , he needs to stop playing the action hero with all these over dramatic dives and flicking his hair at the same time and yes I am harping on about as it is costing us points and will cost us more unless addressed

Graham62

Dark Hei

Well we’re prepared to fritter away millions on other things.

You don’t sell your best players.

It’s as simple as that.

Massive mistake and it will cost us dearly, both on and off the pitch.

Certainly far more than £20m.

Kiril

I think one of the main problem is when David Luiz is playing, the defenders tend to back up after we lose the ball up the pitch. Now Ceballos and Xhaka aren`t the fastest footballers and if they lose the ball up the pitch then they have to run back. Even if Arteta doesn`t instruct them to play safe, lets say, then after couple of lose balls up the pitch and running behind , then they automatically starts to play it safe I think. If the back line press higher up and are not afraid when the ball goes behind… Read more »

AFC Forever

Rich

Sort of agree. As I said we he age been missing that link player, not sure we have it. However, perhaps the Partey signing will release Ceballos to play in between or him and Partey.

I don’t think predicability is a problem. Everyone knows how City and Liverpool set up. It’s about quality of players and their ability to function in that system. It’s still early days, Artetas had one transfer window & we’re expecting too much with the players he inherited imo.

AFC Forever

I am a massive Martinez fan but Leno saved us many times last season.

Pierre

Habesha
” Saliba is not playing because arteta thinks he isnt ready. So dont drive agendas.”

If he’s not ready to play in the europa league then we have problems….

Of course he’s ready , Claude Puel called it right .

raptora

Probably we would trigger some bonuses in Saliba’s contract that we’ll have to pay Saint-Etienne. It seems the only possible reason for him not being included even in the Europa League squad. Even if the bonuses are £4-5m, to send a starting CB in a Ligue 1 team to the U23 squad for basically a year, is so, so harsh. I hope I’m wrong and he gets to play for us this season, but a 30m player not being part of the Europa League group phase, a competition he’s already played in, is already a failure on our side. What… Read more »

Tom

Andy , yes they did sack the mascot, and fired all the scouts as well.
Just because they did throw some serious money at Auba ,Willian and Partey, it doesn’t mean the club isn’t strapped for cash.

shaun

but he also made game altering and by that I mean loosing the game mistakes like the chelsea game and while our over all defending has improved massively which in my opinion it has instead of that school boy shit we used to see which was frankly making it embarrassing to be an arsenal fan . Arteta needs to fix the defence completely as we are not playing the Arsenal way going forward which is beginning to erk some fans as we seem a little to defensive , so for me Leno is not a bad keeper but I just… Read more »

Pierre

AFC “Sort of agree. As I said we he age been missing that link player, not sure we have it. However, perhaps the Partey signing will release Ceballos to play in between or him and Partey.” I’m not sure Ceballos can do it. To be the link player and a passer between the lines the player needs to be a good clean striker of the fiotball, who can strike the ball with his instep, top of his foot and outside of his foot….Ceballos, although decent , is not that player.. He only strikes the ball with his instep which means… Read more »

Dark Hei

Graham

No Martinez sale means no Partey.

Simple as that.

The equation comes down to the improvement to the squad of Partey vs Elneny and Martinez vs Leno. Which option gives you the bigger ohm.

raptora

He played in Europa League for Saint-Etienne already. Started both of the games he wasn’t injured. To say he isn’t ready to play vs second rate teams, when he has already done it, and is worth 30m euro, is such a bullshit excuse. Fofana comes and plays very well for Leicester. Saliba is something and everybody knows it. It’s bullshit excuses.

Paulinho

The top midfielders know when to go wide when the defender comes out with the ball and they also know when to stay more central and receive it in those tight central areas and then go wide 10-15 yards forward in the final third. Our midfielders constantly go wide from the off and so we end up emptying our midfield too early, and going wide far too early, which makes us far too predictable and easy to defend against us. The opposition crowd us out and make us pass backwards and we end doing the same thing on the other… Read more »

shaun

It seems people are beginning to look at how Arteta is managing the players as most people are left thinking that’s a little harsh and there are grey areas

Freddie Ljungberg

Don’t think we’re not playing Saliba because he isn’t good enough, probably just giving him time to grieve outside the spotlight. Don’t want to send him out infront of the baying mob if he’s not mentally ready, our fanbase are retards after all, case in point the scrutiny Leno is under now, it’s ridiculous.

No harm in giving him time to sort himself out. Unless your only human emotion is rage, like GoH, it’s hard to not feel for a 19 year old that’s just lost his mom, professional or not doesn’t really matter.

Freddie Ljungberg

Partey should help with our transitions, right now we can either choose to have a gap between defence and midfield or between midfield and attack thanks to slow poke Xhaka in there, not helped by the fact our CBs aren’t the quickest. Gabriel helps with that a little but still weak in the other position if we want to keep a high line. Think we’ll see Partey starting games from now on, can’t really blame Arteta for not starting him after 2 days in the country even though I wanted to see him more. He needs to sort out his… Read more »

Words on a Blog

Pierre, Agree with your comments at 9:58:44 am, which represent a thoughtful and well made summary of what Arsenal still lack right now. Putting it in a different way, our improvement under Arteta has largely been focused on the times in a match when we don’t have the ball, which on average represents just under 50% of the time. I would say that, relative to Wenger’s last 10 years and relative to Emery’s time at Arsenal, there has been a very significant improvement in Arsenal’s structure, positioning and pressing (when to press, how to press, when not to press and… Read more »

Guns of Hackney

Losing 1-0 or 1,000-0 is still a loss and a deficit of three points. Sorry, there are no heroics in ‘only’ losing 1-0. This is the bullshit mantra Wenger had you all believing for a decade and it appears Arsenal are still inflicted with this ‘plucky loser’ mentality. Shut the fuck up. We’re a billionaire football team from London with stinking rich owners who fork out a £1,000,000 a month for a guy who doesn’t play and a further £2,000,0000 a month on a couple of 30+ clowns. We should be crushing most teams with the tools at our disposal… Read more »

englandsbest

Could the Ozil horror story be entering a second wave? Might he be contagious? Is Auba, having acquired a lucrative contract, following in his footsteps? Perish the thought!

At the same time, I admit to deep suspicions about other Wenger’s faves, notably Xhaka and Bellerin. My hope was that both would be gone this summer. Coached and cossetted by the great egotist, I fear their flaws are indelible.

raptora

Ceballos will not be the solution to good, fluid attacking football. He can move the ball forward, yes. And he is very good at it. But he is good to make that pass that releases a player in the whole between the defense and midfield of the opponent team. There, another player needs to take the ball and create the chance or shoot. From what I’ve seen of Dani he doesn’t like going inside or around the opponent’s half much. He is happy to orchestrate the attack from deep. He is happy to do that job and he is very… Read more »

Guns of Hackney

Auba is a cunt. Against any team that has a living, healthy defender…he looks lost.

Our £100m forward is a flat track wonder.

Tom

The Leno/Martinez theme is something to behold for sure.
Martinez had a stroll in the park of a game against injury ridden Leicester while Leno was under a lot more pressure from City players, but to hear some talk one might assume Leno cost us the game and Martinez won Villa theirs.

Insanity

raptora

From what I’ve seen of Dani he doesn’t like going inside or around the opponent’s box*** much.

Nelson

” Joe Willock and ESR are the best candidates for more attacking flair in our play… ”

I find Eddie and Reiss are more advanced in their development as attacker. Is Reiss Nelson injured?

Valentin

Pierre,

I doubt that the reason Saliba does not play is because of appearance bonus. If true he deal that Raul negotiated with ASSE is even worse than I thought. That would mean that we bought a player that we can’t afford to play! I don’t like Raul and his dealing method and power grab, but nobody would be that clueless.

Who is stupid enough to buy Ferrari and then leave it in the garage, because he/she can’t afford the insurance and the petrol?

AFC Forever

Guns
“We’re a fucking joke”

What a pathetic comment.

Rich

AFC Forever Partey allowing Ceballos to play further forward and with more license is a good idea. My point about predictability is If you Press City, City can beat the press and create overloads, which is what we’re doing. But if you stand off City, they have Foden, Silva, De Bruyne, Mahrez. Where we’ve had over the past 2 years, Guendouzi, Torreira, Xhaka, Ceballos, who was settling in, Saka who was 18 last season, and Pepe who punches numbers, but who neither Emery or Arteta seem to particularly trust. We don’t have the creativity to break sides down, when sides… Read more »

Valentin

Tom,

One keeper made difficult saves look like routine by catching and then quickly and accurately releasing the ball to kickstart attack, while the other weakly palm away a basic shot back in the middle of the penalty box.

So in short one keeper helped his team keep a clean sheet insuring at minimum a draw, while the other cost his team a goal that resulted in a narrow defeat.

Other than that Leno has been great and saved us again…

AFC Forever

Pierre

I’m not saying Ceballos is the answer, long term he is not, I don’t think we have that link, Ozil a few years ago.

I’m pointing out the fact that we don’t have anyone like Bernardo or David Silva. You need those types with the way Arteta is setting us up. This is my point Artetsma inherited a group of players he did not buy & which may not suit the way he wants to play Hence the reason why it’s ridiculous to blame him for problems he inherited, as some fans are.

Tom

Whatever the reasons for Saliba’s exclusion we have two young CBs coming into the PL from France, with Saliba being the more highly rated of the two, yet Fofana getting a league start first.

I wonder where these two are on their trajectory in two years time.
Fofana probably going to Man U for 80m , or City for double that.

Pierre

In a nutshell , we have gone from a team that played with little or no discipline inder wenger , in that he allowed players like Ozil and Ramsey to make their own decisions on the pitch , to a team that is totally disciplined , where the players look scared to make a decision of their own as if they are in a straight jacket. Arteta needs to find the balance and then we should be ok . Taking into account that he took over a side that was totally lacking in confidence and discipline, it is understandable to… Read more »

Paulinho

City didn’t really drop off that much. They still didn’t let us get into their final third, and made sure to keep the gateway to that area locked, and because we are incapable of playing through a press (consistently), we had Tierney and Bellerin needing to make thirty yard runs with the ball just to gain some territory(rugby parlance but applicable to football sometimes). Something they failed to do. We are lacking against teams that adopt a medium press (City Sat) and teams that completely. drop off. Only a couple of times against teams that pressed us aggressively high up… Read more »

Steveyg87

Spent 2 days away from Le Grove for the dust to settle. As you know, this place goes to shit after a loss or during international breaks. Obviously it sucked to lose to MC that were there for the taking. But, I’m going to stay positive as there is plenty to be positive about. 1. We had 2 clear cut chances that we should have buried. Put one of them away and the whole mood would be different 2. On paper, our 2 most difficult fixtures are now behind us 3. While we only saw a snippet, Partey looks like… Read more »

Tom

Valentin, I’m a big Martinez fan and he and Grealish are two reasons I will be watching all Villa games, but if you think for one second his saves against Leicester were difficult than you’re nuts.

Valentin

Like I suspected, Torreira is doing brilliantly at Athletico with a MoM performance in his first game. It just prove what I have been saying, any DM can look half decent in a defensive setup. At Athletico Madrid, if you can run and tackle, you will look like a world beater. I wonder what people will suggest if in one year time, Torreira has better stats over there than Partey ever did. Partey will need time to adjust. His combative style may appeal to many, but that it also lead to a poor disciplinary record. Be prepared for a fair… Read more »

AFC Forever

Rich
“Arteta is doing what he can with what he’s got, and he’s doing a good job”,

In a nutshell.

Recruitment will be key. Ultimately it’s about quality.

AFC Forever

Steveyg87

Good post mate.

Steveyg87

“In a nutshell , we have gone from a team that played with little or no discipline inder wenger , in that he allowed players like Ozil and Ramsey to make their own decisions on the pitch , to a team that is totally disciplined , where the players look scared to make a decision of their own as if they are in a straight jacket” While its not pretty, I think we should give Mikel the benefit of the doubt for now. He doesn’t have the resourses required to have a proper go at the big dogs yet but,… Read more »

Rich

Pierre

Would the benefits for giving Xhaka, Elneny, Pepe and Aubameyang more license.

And having 2 of Luiz, Mustafi, Holding, Chambers, Sokratis on our halfway line

Be worth the offset of losing the team structure?

Do you really believe our team is designed to play an aggressive, attacking, possession based style?

We’d get picked off week in and week out, sides like Palace, Villa, Spurs, United, Liverpool would be rubbing their hands together with glee with the amount of pace they have in their forward lines.

Pierre

Dark Hei
“Graham
No Martinez sale means no Partey.”

Could have sold AMN….just saying ..

it’s all about priorities, time will tell if the right decision was made.

Valentin

Tom,

It is not just the fact that Martinez catches the ball instead of palming away the ball, but it is also his contribution to quickly AND accurately release the ball. Have you ever seen Leno do the kind of passes to put one of our attackers in position to run unopposed directly at the opposition defense.

When was the last time we scored a pure counter attacking goal from an opposition corner or free-kick?

Guns of Hackney

Aghhh. Arteta has chosen his own players. Correct. Arteta choose to extend and keep certain players. Correct. He also chose to get rid of certain players. Correct.

Arteta is making some bizarre decisions. Sorry but he is and he must be held accountable for them.

Anyone that thinks Partey is going to turn this team around is cray cray. He’s a DM. Not a 30 goal forward who creates all his own chances.

In a good machine, I’ve no doubt Partey would be fab but he’s coming into a rusty lawnmower engine with dull blades.

Pierre

Rich
“Do you really believe our team is designed to play an aggressive, attacking, possession based style?”

I’m not sure I’ve intimated that.

Valentin

There is an happy medium between going gung-ho without any plan against the big teams and playing like lower league happy not to take a pasting. Also setting defensively against Liverpool and ManCity make sense, but using the same system against Fulham, SHU and WestHam smack more of small club mentality. Chris Houghton was sacked by Brighton, because his constant play with fear approach was just boring fans to death and they started to vote with their feet. Arteta is lucky that games are behind closed door because otherwise his ears would ring with boos. The native in the stadium… Read more »

Marc

We really do seem to have members of the top 6 dropping points every weekend – I hope it continues it’s certainly making for a more exciting PL this season. On another subject Souness has apparently come out and called the Pickford tackle “an assault” – it wasn’t great by any stretch of the imagination but do me a favour I don’t remember Souness and the like being so vocal over the tackles on Ramsey, Eduardo, Diaby etc which were all far worse. As I remember the general reaction was between shit happens and it was the Arsenal players fault… Read more »

Gommit

Just a reminder, one year ago most of us were giving up on football because of how our team was playing.. Things are much better now, and if you need more to lighten up take a look at this very short video 🙂
https://www.facebook.com/100008455809547/videos/2546660562292446/

AFC Forever

“We could easily have thrown caution to the wind on Saturday and grabbed a result, but it could easily have gone the other way” This. Imagine if we had attacked City, opened the game up and lost 6-2. The very .same fans bleating about our lack of creativity would be asking why we weren’t more conservative. Arteta can’t win. Every defeat will be dressed up as the end of the World, every win will be discredited with the opposition being poor. These aren’t his players, so let’s just give him time and try to understand how team building works rather… Read more »

Havyn

Valentin

EMI is the better GK no doubt
Leno takes a long time before he release the ball by that time the opponent has recovered
He flaps at crosses and he chooses to palm the ball into play, often resulting in goals/defeats

Is history now and he’s No. 1 so we should support him

Marc

I think Valentin is not far off – the Arsenal fans in the stadium tend not to over react but I do agree the patience would be running thin.

Marc

“Just a reminder, one year ago most of us were giving up on football because of how our team was playing.. ”

Actually a year ago any real fan was finally seeing the light – was it that Emery was on his way out – NO it was Xhaka was going to leave.

Unfortunately he stayed and we still have no midfield.

Pierre

Gommit
Nice one .

I managed to name my 2 boys .

Oldest born 1991 ..named George ..Georgrn Graham may have had something to do with that.

Youngest born 1996 …couldn’t name him Bruce , too cruel , so it had to be Liam , after chippy Brady ..sad but true.

AFC Forever

Valentin, your comment is ridiculous. Fans booing? Fulham, West Ham & Sheffield United was 9 points out of nine.

You lot are a funny bunch. I’m going to cheer myself up and get back to work while you lot spend all day telling us how shit Arteta and Arsenal are. Have fun

Graham62

Pierre

Please don’t let it be ten years.

Tom

Valentin, yes Emi is better at catching and distributing , but by saying we don’t play counterattacking football because our keeper is slow to release the ball you are simply blaming one player for inefficiencies of the rest of the squad.
Every long ball from Leno towards Auba or Pepe in the City game resulted in quick turnovers because neither showed enough grit to fight for winning and keeping it.
That’s just one example.

Nelson

“their ability to function in that system”

I know as a fan we should support our Manager/coach. I’ll reserve my judgement on Arteta’s “system”. Up to now, the excuse is he doesn’t have the players for his “system”. Now that he has convinced KSE to buy Partey, I can’t wait to see how his attacking system looks like.

Pierre

““We could easily have thrown caution to the wind on Saturday and grabbed a result, but it could easily have gone the other way”

Through my eyes, in the 2nd half , city were not interested in scoring 3/4//5/6 goals and maybe our coaching staff should have recognised this…

City were happy to see the game out one nil , they didn’t commit players forward which is unusual for them , so maybe just maybe we could have shown a little more belief.

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