Ok, so, let’s set the tone here.
It was Dundalk.
Every time some praise triggers you in this post, remember the above line.
Ok, here we go.
THAT WAS SO GOOD WILL WE WIN THE LEAGUE?
Just jokes…
Looking at a game like that, you have to unpack what’s going on in training. For me, the performance was impressive because it looked like there was a very aggressive attempt to get the team firing. We attacked with intent and purpose. Things didn’t always work, but we didn’t shy away from experimenting. I haven’t felt we’ve been purposeful like that in a while.
The addition of Willock and Reiss really added something different to the attack. Both players were very direct, they ran at people, tried to stay on their feet, and they both took chances.
Joe Willock had 40 odd appearances last season, I didn’t realize that, which tells you something about his form to date. Yesterday was a glimpse of what could be possible if he raises his level in the moments that matter. He’s fast, he loves to run, he can play on the turn, and he shoots. He might not be perfect, but his ability to act as the glue between midfield and attack gave us an extra dimension last night. I thought he read the moment for his goal really well, he took a chance on the run, controlled the blocked shot, then finished like a demon. He has a lot of energy and he was also big into the tactical fouls we were dropping on Dundalk every time they tried to break… no doubt that was practice for the United game.
Reiss Nelson was also pretty decent. He looked like a player that knows this is his last chance. He didn’t look scared, he wanted to stay upright, and he wanted to make things happen every time he had the ball. His decision making was far more promising than it has been. It was a good step forward for him.
Nicolas Pepe was a bit of a mess, but you can see he’s trying to develop his game. The goal he scored was outrageous, especially as it was with the foot we didn’t think he had. An absolute rocket. Overall, he played like a player struggling. He was selfish, and last night was all about him finding some form he can take into the big games. I am happy he was shooting, I am happy he kept on pummeling away at crosses, I am happy it worked out in the end. There’s a long way to go, but I will take a player that doesn’t hide from their form. You know a player like that? Adebayor. He never gave up. Eventually, after a while, it clicked.
The team still doesn’t know how to play with Eddie. He’s not balls over the top player, he’s too small for high crosses into the box, and I’m not sure he’s quite cracked tight spaces. He’s a guy that lives off scraps, but to make it at Arsenal, he needs to find a way to find more of the ball. Still, he scored, so that was nice.
Granit Xhaka as a centre back when we have 52 real centre backs on staff was amusing, and exactly the sort of thing Pep G would try. I would be very, very worried if we did that at the weekend. Imagine Granit facing off against the pace of United? We are in trouble though if Mustafi doesn’t recover from his knock. I don’t want to see Kola anywhere near our starting 11.
Folarin Balogun made his debut. I am very excited about his potential. He has all the ingredients to be something exciting. He has elite balance, he’s fast, strong, technically really good… and he carries himself with the air of a man that thinks he’s going to the top. I really hope he’s chomping at the first team by the end of the season, it was great to see him play.
Runar also had a solid start. He didn’t have much to do, but he dealt comfortably with the ball at his feet and he looks like he’s a catcher. He is very expressive though. A concern. I like keepers that are dead behind the eyes. It shows that football is all they are thinking about. Runar’s twitching is a worry. The question is, will the keeping coach address this? Can we have a calmer face next time? We’ll see.
Ok, that’s all I have for today. The big one is this weekend. What did YOU learn about the game?
I think United usually raise their performance for us too Chris. There have been moments including under Emery last season where they were on a poor run of form and we were expected to put up a decent showing there. They played quite well that day although we came away with a point.
I was watching the under 23s last night and I am becoming a bit worried.The bench isn’t full and its 5 matches without a win.At the moment it looks like a mix of players from all over the place there isn’t any chemistry…though I still think Miguel Azeez should be fastracked into the first team be is class and the new boy Moller has some serious height. I think Bould should be sacked and I don’t understand what qualifies per to head our academy
It makes no difference whether it’s home or away atm ..no fans has so far favoured the away side.
Emery has 5 pts in 3 games vs Manure. Not a bad record from 1 home and 2 away games.
Arteta is with 3 pts in 1 home game.
Let’s see how tomorrow goes.
Nice post Pedro. Its amazing that a club with over 100 centrebacks is worried about mustafi recovering from a knock and whether xhaka will play centreback lol..If we put xhaka,kolasinac and mustafi on the pitch together then we all know what will happen
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/football/that-1980s-sports-blog/2020/oct/30/arsenal-manchester-united-old-trafford
This reminds me of the save Lehmann pulled off against Solskjaer. I was convinced that was going in.
Not very optimistic about tomorrow’s game.
As I said last night, Arteta has to show some balls with his selection and game plan.
If he reverts to type, I’ll be bloody angry.
Cosidering Mikel will be making sure we’re defensively solid and United don’t kill us on the break, I would go with this team:
———————Leno———————
——-Mustafi—Gabriel—Tierney——–
–Bellerin—-Elneny—-Partey—-Saka–
——————-Willian——————-
———-Pepe—————Auba———-
Elneny adds more to the team than Xhaka and Ceballos isn’t in the right form for a match of this type. Elneny also gives more freedom to Partey and Willian can have a freer role as well. Pepe playing a similar role to Auba, but on the right makes him more effective than his usual position.
What do you guys think?
“ It makes no difference whether it’s home or away atm ..no fans has so far favoured the away side.”
It has undoubtedly led to some topsy turvy results but to say it favours the away team as a whole is debatable and probably needs a larger sample size. I would be interested to see perhaps an increased percentage of away points across the league at seasons end.
I think elneny is better than xhaka.
How many fuck ups has xhaka been responsible for?
What about elneny near zero?
A case could be made for xhaka as he had more progressive forward passing with his long diagonal ball but eleneny has added the split the defence throughball to his game usually through to bellerin on the right.
Elneny is no athletic beast but he has more mobility and less errors on his game that xhaka and he doesn’t hold up the play.
I was impressed with Nelson the other night. Again, you have to caveat the performance with the opposition but he looked sharp and willing to try and break lines and his directness is something we have been missing.
Graham
“If he reverts to type, I’ll be bloody angry.”
I’d make sure your blood pressure tablets are to hand then.
1-3 to The Arsenal. Auba. Auba. Pepe.
Don’t ask who scored for Manure.. Cos i don’t give a shi*
Chris
“It has undoubtedly led to some topsy turvy results but to say it favours the away team as a whole is debatable and probably needs a larger sample size. I would be interested to see perhaps an increased percentage of away points across the league at seasons end.”
So far in the premier legue
Home wins 20
Away wins 26
Xhaka has a bad habit to use the hand when he is bypassed by an opponent. He needs to make sure that he is not inside the box when he does this.
I find that in the past Mustafi put his leg out when he was in trouble. Recently, he just let the opponent goes. He also stops those sliding tackles. But he still has occasional brain fart.
Pierre
There’s no doubt that not having crowds in the stadiums has taken away a degree of home advantage but to claim it now favours the away team is basing an argument on 6 rounds of fixtures.
You do have a habit of seeing what you want to see.
That spurs result was a cause of Mourinho firing them up only coz it was his old team . He wanted to win at all costs . We should play with that attitude also , instead of the usual conservatism . Not that I mind . I just want us to win . This is the only fixture against top6 I believe we have a chance to win away.
Team selections without Xhaka is fanciful, you have to include him as he will start all games unless he is physically unable to.
Mikel Arteta says it is proving difficult to build his project at Arsenal without the support of the club’s fans in stadiums.
It is always the fault of the fans. He should visit Le Grove if he requires criticism to perform.
Nelson
I’m not sure Arteta would want to hear what the fans would have to say with some of his overly cautious displays.
Arteta may not have that much capital left with fans because he’s losing people every time he has a press conference and keeps making these predictable selection/tactical mistakes.
I’ll still give him till next season to sort out his shite but it seems I’m in the minority on this issue.
It’s like an anti-Arteta dam is about to break.
Arteta needs someone like HighburyLegend to give him encouragement.
He’s back hahaha
Oh for God sake.
I’m gonna keep reminding you Bamford that Pedro outed Dariano as you so you can stop that weird shit your about to do
Man United’s problem has been their inconsistency.
They have had good performances and impressive results for a good few seasons but follow it up many times straight after with a below par performance so that’s something for Arsenal to cling on to.
Of course Man United are the more likely winners because of one their record of beating Arsenal at Old Trafford and two Arsenal haven’t looked convincing themselves recently.
But there is always hope that Man United’s inconsistency comes to the fore again tomorrow.
Arsenal is a hot mess at the moment. Gazidis hired a dream team, he ran off leave them and now they all got fired. We’re now in the hands of novices. Vinai, Edu, Mikel, Per and SB are all out of their depth. If Arsenal continue to struggle under Mikel I don’t think there’s anyone at the Club who’s brave enough to say ‘look this isn’t working”. This is looking like another wasted season for Arsenal where we will take comfort in other team draws and loses.
Worse case scenario we could be in 15th place at the end of this round. If that can’t motivate the players I don’t know what else could!
Arsenal only had two periods looking top notch: one when Chapman managed the team and the other with Dein pulling the strings. Other than than we had spurts of quality.
This is how important it is not to be run by a bunch of amateurs and/or rookies.
Right not our top brass is utterly gash. Do we have a single outstanding professional at the top? Bollocks we do.
About the man utd game.
If there is one game to absolutely not play Auba at LW,this is it.
Aaron wan bissaka is probably the best rb itw defensively.
Our gameplan should be to overload the flanks and play cutbacks a lot.
Defensively do what we usually do. That’s fine.
Best chance of winning.
Worried about mike Dean and Utd’s tendency to win penalties.
Of course Banford is Dariano. There is literally no chance that clown actually has a friend.
Hearing that Anthony Martial is out through suspension. So that’s a little boost perhaps.
“Worse case scenario we could be in 15th place at the end of this round. If that can’t motivate the players I don’t know what else could!”
Well the manager for a start otherwise what the fuck are we paying him for?
Jamie
Don’t imaginary friends count?
Marc –
“Don’t imaginary friends count?”
For Bam, that’s sadly all he’s got. He’s just testing his alias to make sure he can gloat here tomorrow if his favourite club beats Arsenal.
Yup
Gooner joe
“How much of an impact has Thomas Partey made so far? How much of an impact do people expect him to make tomorrow?”
Piffling to zero because he has been isolated on his own in central midfield.
As was said on here the other day he will be making his record requests for Desert Island Discs if Arteta continues to isolate and leave him on his own so much in central midfield.
Jamie
“He’s just testing his alias to make sure he can gloat here tomorrow if his favourite club beats Arsenal.”
Well both you and I know how Pedro should deal with that – if he makes any such comment delete it and then ban him (under whatever identity) for life.
“How much of an impact has Thomas Partey made so far?”
Well bearing in he’s made 2 PL appearances with under 100 minutes played quite a bit in getting pissed off with us not making more progressive passes.
Wonder how long before he’s doing his nut at Mustafi or Xhaka?
MC’s attack reminds me of peak Wengerball. Those were the days, my friends. Sign!
LeGrove favorite Buendia with a great goal.
Bielsa has Leeds playing an attacking/progressive brand of football.
The clock is ticking Mikel.
Sean Connery has passed away.
What a legend he was.
Graham
We’ve got them in 3 matches time – can you imagine what they’ll do to Xhaka?
@Jamie –
“Of course Banford is Dariano. There is literally no chance that clown actually has a friend.”
I believe Pedro confirmed this a few days back.
Bernardo Silva’s body looks so small. But it contains so much energy. He can float around the pitch with ease.
Prediction for tomorrow – 3 nil or 3 – 1 loss with ManU getting 2 pens – 1 correctly with a Mustafi or Xhaka special, the other a dive and Gabriel to get a red card that VAR fucks up. We won’t manage more than 3 shots on target.
My prediction for tomorrow. Manure 1 and Arsenal 0. In the post game interview, Arteta is proud to lose just 1 – 0.
We’ve got Mourinho on the brink of a full on meltdown – slagging off his own players and backing himself into a position where he’s got to play almost first choice in every match, he’s also started the press war with Levy moaning about needing more money and more players. What do we have – Loss tomorrow, beat Villa at home by the odd goal and then Leeds will run us ragged. Arteta’s on Soccer Saturday earlier using no pre season as an excuse for the losses against Liverpool, City and Leicester. Everyone had the same preseason as well has… Read more »
United had a shorter pre-season than we did so no reason why we shouldn’t kick their arses then!!
New post!
Rich, if we could get Isco firing, that’d be something… I don’t know what his underlying issues are, but damn, what a player in his prime.