Are you NOT entertained?
*throws empty can at wall
The Europa has delivered again. Peak entertainment in a world of MANY choices. Arteta’s Arsenal do not know how to lose. Three wins out of three. This is how we do it.
The starting 11 drew the usual grumbles. It was quite senior, there weren’t many kids, and it felt a little bland.
Things didn’t start well. Lots of possession, terrible in the final third, same as usual. Then Leno fired a long pass out the back, Molde found Martin Ellingson, he then picked out the bottom corner from 25 yards. Not a distance you expect Leno to be beaten from, not a good look for him… again.
We always had too much for them. In fact, we had so much mental sauce, we did the school playground equivalent of asking Molde to ‘stop punching themselves.’
Yep, we extracted TWO own goals. The first came when Xhaka found himself the further player forward, he waited for Eddie to run past him, he then hit a low cross at Willock who forced Haugen to finish it for him. Outrageous mind games.
The second goal was more Willock. He played a one-two with Xhaka, tripped, kept his composure, the ball dropped for him, he controlled it, fired it across the box and Sinyan accidentally bundled it in. Unreal humiliation.
Nicolas Pepe continued the good time with a goal of his own, this time from Saka, the low cross to penalty spot was perfect for the Ivorian to sweep across goal.
The final goal of the game was for MOTM, Joe Willock. Nicolas Pepe, in the middle of the pitch, fed a central ball into a run from the left, Joe controlled it and smashed the ball into the top corner. Wonderful.
So what did we learn?
Errrm, well, we can create when we fancy it? We were depressingly awful in the final third in the first half, but we still managed to come out of the game with 16 attempts, with 5 on target. The interesting thing is the system isn’t the problem… the problem is that our players are just very out of form when it comes to being decisive in the final third.
Nicolas Pepe scored a goal and had an assist, but he didn’t really look like he was a cut above the Molde players. I thought Willian looked poor again. He just doesn’t look like the efficient machine he was at Chelsea.
The player who looked really interesting was Joe Willock. He isn’t clinical with his final ball or pass yet, but he is always in the right position. That’s 75% of the battle. Composure comes later. He had a great game, he ran hard, fast, and he never hid. If he can translate that into the league, we really have a player on our hands.
So overall, not much to learn against a bad team, but at least we won convincingly, and a player we’re all interested in put on a show.
Right, see you in the comments!
‘That Europa League against the likes of Molde is our level of competition’
Yes cos we’re in that competition Upstate what’s your point?
Of those 9 pens he took,he won like six of them.
CC “Instead of leveraging these realities you’re far more interested in talking about how Arsenal are a shitty attacking side and that Arteta isn’t using him correctly. Haven’t seen much of a breakdown of the players responsibilities in all this which is telling” Ok then… Not interested in going over this for a couple of hours with you Charlie boy, I know you never concede any points and I didn’t get much sleep last night due to the game being on in the middle of the night here. Arteta is perfect and all our attacking players just decided to be… Read more »
Part of the apparent problem with Pepe is that he is told by Arteta to be stationed wide left in order to attract opposing defenders in order to create an inside channel for Bellerin to run into.
Result: Bellerin is top of the Arsenal charts for assists, and Pepe’s stats look shit.
I agree with Pierre. Eddie and Willock have similar style of play. We should play them more often together. They could grow into an effective attacking pair.
Freddie You’d have a point if I said its all Pepe’s fault and it’s all on the player, but I haven’t. But while I hold each player responsible for his outputs, you’re offering Arteta’s tactics as an ‘out’ for Pepe. If you think Arteta is marginalising particular players be my guest, I happen to think he’s taking the approach he deems ‘best’ for the collective performance – not all of which I agree with or like that much. But, by taking that approach he’s having to bench Pepe because he’s a player that fundamentally is poor at the basics of… Read more »
Sorry – should read wide right not wide left!
https://arseblog.news/2020/11/arteta-we-need-to-score-more-goals/
“As things stand we’ve only hit the back of the net in the league on nine occasions – a tally matched or bettered by 14 other sides – and have taken just 60 shots, three more than Crystal Palace who have the worst record in the top flight.”
It’s that damn Pepe’s fault I tell ya.
“It’s that damn Pepe’s fault I tell ya.”
Yep, Pepe’s Arsenal career is being judged entirely on the 7 PL matches from this season.
CC Maybe not but you’re making a big deal of him not having much impact this season when all our attackers have been ineffective, mainly because they’re being misused, or sacrificed for defensive stability, that was largely the case last season too and only Aubas incredible hitrate saved our goals for column then. We’ve been even more conservative thus far this season but at least there’s hope that’ll change with Partey in the mix and no Xhaka playing. Pepe has one start in the league, our attack is verging on relegation numbers and he’s still the one getting picked on… Read more »
“Maybe not but you’re making a big deal of him not having much impact this season when all our attackers have been ineffective“ No I’m not; I’m making the point that he continues to show he’s nowhere near the level expected or anticipated. It was teased last season, and it’s been steadily confirmed the longer he’s been here. The main criticisms of Pepe are his basic involvement in matches, not his goals/assists. What does being our “top contributor” even mean or say about the tag? He’s not being trusted in PL games and playing against part time electricians where he’s… Read more »
I just can’t understand how any honest person can defend a narcissist fascist fool like Trump, I mean you may be a hard core republican, you may be loyal to what’s the party stands for, and you may cherish it’s values, but come on Trump and values don’t go together
The world is better without his idiocy!
G8
Nearly half of the United States don’t agree with you.
What if we play a 442
AUBA – PEPE
SAKA-PARTEY-MO-WILLIAN
TIERNEY-GAB-ROB-HECTOR
LENO
I have all time for Willock, but I don’t think Nketiah would make it at arsenal. He is just not good enough.
Willian and Pepe were awful, but at least Pepe had a goal and assist to show for it
Kola is the gift that keeps on giving! Say no more!
Left, yea that’s why I am confused!
But I take the other half any day!
I think its fair to say that If Arteta was incharge before we bought Pepe, he wouldnt have signed him . Arteta is tryimg to integrate him into more of the defensive setup that he has made at Arsenal, Pepe should try to change his game and play more like Salah , rather than trying to be Hazard ( just a comparison).
Words on a BlogNovember 6, 2020 14:35:45
Part of the apparent problem with Pepe is that he is told by Arteta to be stationed wide left in order to attract opposing defenders in order to create an inside channel for Bellerin to run into.Result: Bellerin is top of the Arsenal charts for assists, and Pepe’s stats look shit.
Pepe and bellerin plays on the right flank
Words on a BlogNovember 6, 2020 14:35:45
Part of the apparent problem with Pepe is that he is told by Arteta to be stationed wide left in order to attract opposing defenders in order to create an inside channel for Bellerin to run into
Pepe and bellerin plays on the right flank
Due to the amount of personnel change in the previous 2 years, the players have struggled to build on field relationships. The academy players are fine, they have played together for years and there is a certain amount of trust and respect for eachothers game. Saka came on yesterday and immediately linked well with willock and Eddie. Willian always looks like a little lost boy on the pitch at Arsenal, he has no real connection as yet with his team mates . When i look at Aubamayang and Lacazette , they seem to have their own little private bubble, players… Read more »
Chen,
Yeah, I’d already corrected my erro!
Freddie I don’t judge Pepe on goals or assists alone. As a matter of fact I was bringing up his numbers in debates all of last season to show that he wasn’t doing too badly, especially in comparison with Zaha who isn’t so impressive either in my opinion. I’m looking at his movement, first touch, dribbling ability, passing ability, vision, and and half of these have been average if I’m being charitable. I can look at a player over a period of games and say with a high level of certainty that I’m looking at someone special regardless whether they… Read more »
Tom Like I said he’s been disappointing in his allround play, that’s pretty obvious, what he does have is end product though if we can manage to get into more advanced positions and not hugging the touchline. His dribbling has deteriorated since he joined, still got decent vision and passing I feel but it’s clear he’s low on confidence, you don’t go from terrorising VVD to being Yaya Sanogo with the ball overnight. Of course he has to take responsibility to how he’s performing but so should the manager, especially when all our forwards are underperforming. Just hope we get… Read more »
Joe always looks good against poor teams, nonetheless he has talent but needs more body weight to cope in the premier league, get him on the weights asap. As for Pepe have come to the conclusion he is simply not a wide player at all, his two contributions of note last night were from central positions, my view is that he is more like a Vardy than anything and just maybe we are not using him to best advantage.
Really want Pepe to do well here, but I’ll be damned if he’s out the door after two seasons when the same 4/5 players who are detrimental to the club seemingly can’t be given away for free.
If you had to spend 70 million on either player
Pepe or grealish
Pepe’s got to stop looking at his new boots.
The media are now taking the piss on Pepe now,tagging him as the 72M man every now and then, almost like he’s being found out
Can see his already fragile confidence taking a fatal blow if not protected well now,Arteta should leave his ass on the bench to relief the pressure,simply put he’s now in massive danger of becoming our very own 72M flop.
That’s the one real question mark against Willock.
He only seems to play well against the weaker teams.
Can he deliver at the higher level?
That remains to be seen.
Leftside
There are people on here who’d see Xhaka given a contract extension.
Pepe did nothing of note for best part of the game only to deliver a well taken goal and a wonderful assist
Victorious, not sure you put a 72m winger on the bench… you play him in the small games to help his confidence.
The thing is the English media are ruthless, they’re looking to have their itching fangs on someone else now after effectively destroying the 73M chavs goalkeeper Kepa even though he’s shit.
Pedro
He’s also in danger of losing minutes even in the small games when you factor in his overall performance which frankly has been very poor
I think he wouldn’t have started last night if Nelson was fit.
72 million should buy confidence Pedro.
Partey naturally fitted in and that’s what you
should be buying for that wedge.
Dropping a player because his confidence is low is just plain daft – especially if it’s because the media are getting on his case because of his cost.
The media will just see that as a sign of weakness and look for another player or even coach at the club to go after.
“If you had to spend 70 million on either playerPepe or grealish” Is this a trick question? Not only is Grealish a complete player he’s also a leader. How many elite profile players win a pen in dying minutes of a game that’s already been decided and not take it themselves to pad their stats? 70m for any import is a huge gamble and much less so when you’ve seen them perform at this level in the Prem already. Mane, Wijnaldum, Milner, VVD, Jota , or even Salah who had a decent PL showing before he blew up at Roma.… Read more »
Marc,
I know and that honestly terrifies me.
Willian is also becoming a big worry,he’s had just one decent performance since joining and that was against a shocking Fulham team, you know the situation with Pepe is very bleak right now if this very poor and out of form Willian still gets the nod ahead of him
Martinelli can’t comeback quick enough to effectively relegate those two to the bench,very powerful and direct winger with an absolute eye for goal. Just what we need right now
Pepe has been tried in the middle and in a 4-4-2 at Lille, both under Bielsa and to say that he was underwhelming in those position is an understatement. Lille was heading toward relegation. Galthier came and moved him to a right inverted winger. Pepe cannot played as pure CAM. He does not have the vision to be a No10, and being very one footed means that there is a lot of angles and passes will be easily blocked by opponents rendering one side of our attacking irrelevant. That does not make him a bad player, just a limited one… Read more »
Victorious
I don’t think the English media had anything to do with Kepa being an absolute prick.
Going back to his petulance in the 2019 League Cup Final when he refused to be substituted.
“There are people on here who’d see Xhaka given a contract extension.“
Automatic ban for all those people!
Leftside
That happens and 2 things will follow – 1) I’ll be 100% Arteta out – as will quite a few fans 2) that won’t matter because we’ll never make top 4 whilst he is a fixture in the team so Arteta will end up getting sacked anyway after next season..
Chris
A ban isn’t sufficient for people so warped and deviant.
Graham
I’d forgotten about that – one of the craziest things I’ve seen in a football match.
We all know Pepe is not a £72m player.
It’s not his fault though that we were stupid enough to throw that sort of money around.
Graham
Hahahaha, very true, that was indeed some weird shit the coach was made to look an absolute mug by Kepa, absolutely hilarious.
Marc
I’m hoping amongst all hope that yesterdays team selection is an indication that we will be moving with the midfield pairing from Sunday going forward.
Marc
Remember watching that and thinking it’s a good job Ferguson or Cloughie weren’t around.
He’d be dead meat.
Marc,
When you have very bad nightmares, is the person you see in them always Xhaka?
Asking for a friend.
Arsenal fans can be a funny bunch anyway, happy to put up with absolute shit from some players and very demanding and ruthless with others. Where is the consistency?
Has Trump been fired yet?
WOAB
Yeah it’s that terrifying dream where you’re being pursued by something very slow that never stops, just keeps going year after year after year.
Graham
Can you imagine – you’d have Fergie chasing the guy round the pitch.
Marc and Ishola are like 2 peas in a pod when it comes to Xhaka, can’t just let go of the man made with granite.
Has anyone ever seen anything like what’s going on in the US at the moment? The TV networks cutting away from a Presidential news conference saying he’s lying.
LOL, no one wants to see a cry baby sore loser…
Leftside
Yeah it can’t be ignored that Elneny who is a decent squad player but no more made Xhaka look 235th rate.
Just think where we’ll be when we bring in a new permanent partner for Partey.
SF
Precisely what I said earlier. Good on the networks for having the balls to do it.
Looks like Elneny is this season’s ‘almost like a new signing’ player, the guy is having a stormer season in that midfied so far, pushing Xhaka and Ceballos to Europa duties
What a guy.
Victorious
If Arteta from now on drops Xhaka as a first name on the team sheet and assuming we don’t have a run of catastrophic injuries and we’ll make top 4 this season.
Xhaka ends up back in midfield and it’ll be 6-9th. He’s that bad.
Victorious
You haven’t smoked him a kipper have you?
Guns of SF
Marc thinks we have a King and that the privately owned news networks are his pigeon carrier bird.
Dissenter
Eh?
Arteta on Jack Grealish: “He is a top player, great talent, a player who can make a difference at any moment in the game. He has this personality against any opponent, at any ground, to take the ball in any area of the pitch and make the difference, so we have to look after him.”
The heart wants what the heart wants.
I don’t envy Edu and Arteta, some of the choices they have to make are difficult.
Elneny has been average forever and just when his contract its about to expire, he starts to play like a £25-30 million midfielder.
Do we extend his contract … or do we let him leave?
Very tough call to make.
Marc
duh?
United States have negotiated with terrorists before and I think they should do it again.
Pelosi and McConnel should go to Trump and offer to pay off his debts of he agrees to give a concession speech every president to date has given to try and unite the nation.
You know Trump would take it and 400m would be a bargain too.
Of course he would have to sign one of those NDA’s he’s been giving everyone else to sign.
Dissenter
I have no idea what you’re going on about – there are those on here who’d say you don’t know what you’re going on about either but I’d never say that.
Marc
You were vexing that the TV networks cut off TYrumop during his press conference where he was gratuitously lying about the integrity of the voting process.
Were you not whining about that and glibly talking about a “coup”?, whatever that means.
We have 400,00,00 registered firearms in this country. Anyone who thinks it’s okay for a president to casually put gasoline on fire needs to be certified
I love how Trump is becoming more unhinged by the minute.
Look at his supporters! If they start to get violent, then it just says it all. There messiah is no more. Sore losers
Trump supporters praying on their knees at the Arizona ballot counting office. LOL
Biden been very measured, classy during this chaos.
Its like a death by 10000 paper cuts for Trump…. its so fitting for what he has done.
This slow ballot counting is just classic. I love it actually, its making him cuckooo!
i must not have been watching the same game. i turned in at about 30 mins and what i saw was pure benny hill, specifically our front line. willock to me looks probably the most dumb, pepe has the most flair for physical comedy and eddie is still coming in to his own. really enjoyed his work in the goal called offside. eddie definitely has potential to become a frightening striker but it aint gonna happen if hes playing alongside pepe and willock. Those two had the ability to net easily 3-4 goals each against a team like that and… Read more »
Meanwhile at the white house.
https://i.imgur.com/rXGTCyT.mp4
Dissenter My coup comment this morning was taking the piss out of how long it’s taking to count all the votes. I haven’t criticised the news channels – I said it was something I’ve never seen before (as in how fucking crazy is all of this) and a good thing. It’s also takes a lot of balls bearing in mind these are commercial operations and Trump has picked up the 2nd highest number of votes in any Presidential election and looks like he’s going to lose. If someone had told you on Monday evening that Trump would get the second… Read more »
“Biden been very measured, classy during this chaos.”
Actually he forgot they’d been an election.
Guns of sf
Who was that silly bitch spitting in the cops face supporting? Not trump. Trump supporters, anti trump supporters you’re all the same, you’re all cunts but think you’re holier than thou.
You and your country are an embarrassment to the world.
Our country is going to shit but we’ve got a long way to go until we get to where you are.
Valentin
You made my day with that video lol! Ive shared that a few times just now….
Someone else is becoming unhinged. lol
love it.
Guns of sf
Who was that silly bitch spitting in the cops face supporting? Not trump. Trump supporters, anti trump supporters you’re all the same, you’re all cunts but think you’re holier than thou.
You and your country are an embarrassment to the world.
Our country is going to shit but we’ve got a long way to go until we get to where you are.
Marc the reason its taking so long is partially because, as you m ight have noticed sometime in the last six months, we are in a pandemic. if this looks like a coup to anyone it is because
a) they don’t know what a coup is
b) they don’t know that american politics allows for a coup-like event like this every 4 years
Guns
was that really something marc wrote? that’s pretty ugly stuff.
zacharse
Don’t be a twat. I made a joke this morning that I was bored with the election and a military coup was a perfectly reasonable alternative.
The fact that you seem to think that elections are a surprise to me says a lot more about you than it does me.
zacharse
SF wasn’t referring to one of my comments you moron.
MArc
first thing. I’m not someone you can tell what is and isnt a joke. thats for you to do with your imaginary friends on LG. second thing, you don’t have the first clue what i think about this election and if you wanted to know this was certainly the wrong approach.
” willock to me looks probably the most dumb,”
Was that your benny hill comment
zacharse
I couldn’t give a fuck what you think about anything.
Maybe you should try and read other peoples posts before commenting on them.
wow. i rest my case.
marc super fun to come on here and talk about arsenal again with you. you’re a real credit to the comments section.
Marc
Cheers
I was unnecessary tetchy.
zacharse
You attack me for a post that you haven’t actually even read and then suck when you are shown up.
Are you American?
Zacharese
Someone named SuperRob posted that thing… I think that is what you were talking about?
Dissenter
No worries. The whole thing’s bordering on surreal if someone wrote it into a comedy sketch it’d be thrown out for being to outlandish.
Gun of SF,
Glad that I made people laugh.
I posted to a WhatsApp group and one of less enlighten lady complained that it was not nice that people filmed the president without his consent. The rest of the group was: Ugh?
Somebody had to tell her the truth. that it was a joke movie. That was not the real Donald or Mike Pence.
Welbeck has been the standout performer for BHA along with Lamptey. His Achilles’ heel will always be his finishing. Could have scored a brace already.
Valentin
That’s priceless – and a good argument for controlling who should be allowed to breed!
I mean I read what Trump Jr said in a. press conference yesterday so I fully understand why the networks yanked off coverage from the president.
Trump’s son urged his father to “fight to the death” and “go to total warfare”.
I thought it was “America first”, not Trump first.
Trump nominated one of his cronies to run the Post Office, who immediately started dismantling sorting equipment and cutting back on employees overtime( to streamline the operations of course) in midsts of elections and once in a century pandemic. And now ,when 7 out of every 10 mail in ballots finally tallied have been for Biden ………Republicans are screaming fraud. Oh, and did I say the guy who was kneecapping the UPS was also talking to the Trump campaign? If a Hollywood script writer pitched an idea like this to a studio just four years ago , they would’ve told… Read more »
Welbeck is such a shit head when it matters most.
Brighton are one of the best footballing sides to watch shame they don’t get the results their play deserve.
It’s always trump first for the trumps.
The justice department is coming when they lose.
Welbeck could have been on a hat trick. Instead score is 0-0.
” willock to me looks probably the most dumb,”
That is a racist comment.
Tom
I’d feel a lot better if I thought America would learn from this however I’m fully expecting Trump to run in 2024 and take it close.