Arsenal cruuuuuuuuuuised to an exceedingly simple win against a totally outclassed Sevilla FC. How can these young Arsenal men be acting out in the Champions League like they’re seasoned veterans?
We are not talking enough about how this rebooted Arsenal group of players are strangling sides like Homer Simpson on Bart before it was deemed uncool to strangle kids in cartoons last week.
Sevilla had one shot on target all game and that was their entire catalogue of attempts at our goal.
ONE SHOT.
This is the Champions League, those sorts of numbers shouldn’t be possible against quality sides known for European football. But look, this is a pattern. We might have lost against Newcastle at the weekend, but we had the richest side on the planet patting the floor trying to find scraps – they didn’t get a corner for an entire game.
This is a different Arsenal side defensively. We have more control, we have more physicality, we have players that feel more attuned to the type of football Mikel Arteta wants them to play.
William Saliba continues to look like the best centre-back in the world. He is a control master – he reads the game like a 30-year-old, but he has the superpowers of a prime VVD. He has all the tools you’d want in that position and he’s still a baby by centre-back standards.
Declan Rice is so good it’s getting boring writing about him – he is every inch a £105m. How many players that go for mega fees have their fans feeling like the deal represented value? Not many. The problem with going up against Declan is he’s everywhere. He’s not human, he’s a horror movie bad guy, you look over your shoulder, he’s not there, you turn back 2 seconds later and he’s savaging you. The only weakness in his game is you still feel there are levels to go… what’s going to happen when he starts shooting?
It was great to see both Bukayo and Martinelli have positive impacts on the game after being clogged up by the black and white deep block boys at the weekend. Martinelli was terrorising Sevilla all night long, constantly beating his man, and constantly getting into dangerous positions. Could the final ball be a little bit better with the cutbacks? Yeah. But he probably needs a striker to make those work more consistently. He still managed a glorious assist for Bukayo Saka who scored a very Bukayo goal.
Our OG Starboy also had a great game, he looked far more comfortable playing up against weaker fullbacks who let him run the game. The goal was great, so was the assist for Luther Van Tross. The injury wasn’t serious, according to Arteta, so let’s hope he’s in the starting 11 for the game this weekend.
There were some other notable performances.
Zinchenko, who has been training as a midfielder for parts of this week, showed up in the Jorginho role and did really well. The guy is an outrageous technician but he’s being outdefended this season. Maybe midfield as an 8 or a 6 could be the future for him? I certainly prefer him in advanced positions over Fabio Vieira.
David Raya kept a cleansheet.
Kai Havertz had a very good game again. Is he starting to find his feet? I think so. We’re also starting to learn what his game is about. I’m watching Granit Xhaka with more power and pace… and better at the one touch connective passing. Kai offers us a lot of hard work off the ball and eventually… he’s going to give us an edge in the opposition box with final passes and goals. He’s getting better, those that wrote him off, get ready to bow down to those that kept the faith.
Ok, that’s me done. Have urself a lovely day. Listen to the pod. See you later! x
Mikel
Yeah we have been solid even though not spectacular. Just hoping we are within touching distance of City till March-April and then we will need all our big guns to be firing together on all cylinders in the last 10-12 games to finally beat them.
I think we will need Partey, Jesus playing at the peak of their powers. Saka, Rice, Martinelli etc. are all very good but Partey and Jesus have that extra sauce which raises our game to another level when they are both playing. Hopefully my boy ESR comes in to his own by then. Timber too will probably have a say who knows. Arteta needs to pull off a couple of good value signings in January like he did with Trosaard and Jorginho last season.
City look as brilliant as ever. Doku, Alvarez are making their attack look more potent than last season. So yes we will need to really raise our level to beat them.
Shaking my head at watching these stats. https://www.whoscored.com/Players/326413/Show/Kai-Havertz
Really matches up with the eye test.
Football is so crazy, some one on here was recently saying Trossard should start etc but do not give him corner duties !! I am sure they had justified reason to say that, however at least for Burnley his corners were perfect today. The guy Havertz needs some kind of sports psychologist, he had a fantastic opportunity to score when ball on his feet and instead of aiming at the goal and believe he would score a glorious goal and announce his arrival, he passed the responsibility to Trossard, who was near Burnley player in much worse position and prompt lost the ball !! It is very very frustrating to have a player like that fearful of making any mistakes and then withdrawn early any way.
Reasonably comfortable performance, but the glaring Elephant in the Room remains Havertz. How long do you give someone who is clearly not fitting in? Where do you play him to gain maximum results, because it appears no matter where Arteta plays him, he’s got the unmistakable traits of a busted flush?
Coneteta
“When you’re on the fringes you simply cannot afford to make brainless contributions like that. ”
what’s your excuse ?
Got to mention that the look on Ange’s face after Spuds imploded….priceless for the mug that he is.
Viera – that was me based on failing to beat 1st man in multiple occasions against Newcastle and in mitigation he’s extremely dangerous edge of the box. TBF he was pinpoint today wasn’t he
Ern
“Where do you play him to gain maximum results, ”
I said from day one ، put him in central midfield if anywhere، he is not a final third player despite what many think.
I also said، his attacking heading technique is poor and his shooting technique is poor .
Everything about his game says centre midfielder as he is lacking a change of pace، he likes to keep it simple، he is a no risk player and is abysmal in front of goal.
In saying that he was actually decent in general play today but his contribution in the opposition box left a lot to be desired.
Are we turning into George Graham’s Arsenal.
Orcs from Tyneside losing to Bournemouth. You love to see it.
2 nil. Come on. A good day today.
The players didn’t complain there but VAR is doing everything possible to cancel that goal
What a beautiful day people !
Howay the lads
That’s a nasty tackle,
Lucky for Bournemouth player his leg was off the ground
Just keeps getting better…. this weekend.. still no idea what a handball is though.. and neither does the Pgmol.
I’m not sure that there’s a team that does more holding and shirt pulling at corners than Newcastle?
Middy, it’s always depended on the ref.
If only Chelsea and Brentford can do us favors tomorrow. It would be a near perfect weekend.
I always thought if you used your hand to control the ball it was handball.. like the one disallowed goal one in Liverpool match in the CL. But no idea in PL something about unnatural position or something..
Middy , any contact with a hand by a goal scorer is an automatic handball and no goal.
In a build up though , it’s up to refs discretion, and once they call it certain way chances are it will stay that way.
Looks like Newcastle’s CL involvement will be very short lived.
Group stages one and out.
You can’t call it , if it happens so fast you can’t see it .. though.. the whole point of Var. Anyhow,,.. didn’t really matter.
Using Newcastle’s Jamaal Lascelles own words from last week towards Arsenal and applying it to themselves this week…I’m Glad They Lost!
“ In saying that he was actually decent in general play today but his contribution in the opposition box left a lot to be desired.‘
I’m sure somehow Pierre, Pedro will see it differently.
Some more of Eddie Howe whining about how their broke.. in the media probably and they need to get a deal from the Saudi League, apparently.
Great set of results and thoroughly enjoyable trip to Emirates today. Just got back
Havertz still showing he is a complete waste of money. Gutted that we could have used that money to buy someone decent. I really thought Xhaka leaving was a huge opportunity but we have massively downgraded
Bid doubts too with Vieira
Let’s hope Patino Nwaneri and Lewis Skelly all mature quickly
I find it infuriating that our academy players like Willock, Riess and to an extent even ESR is declared not good enough without giving proper mins. For.instance the amount of time William was given before he was cast off should be the baseline. Give that many mins to Riess or a Willock and then decide. The fact of the matter is that these players gets better when they play more mins with the first team. The amount of pressure Nketia is out under compared to the scraps that we are looking in Kai to declare him a success is just difficult to understand.
@madhu…totally agree its a bloody joke none of the kids would be worse..
Didn’t Willock play almost 30 games for us one season? Got 1 goal and 1 assist.
Anyhow, The weird thing about the Havertz deal is how we can get a signing like Trossard and Rice so right and then turn around get that one so wrong. At least on current evidence.
Anyhow, joint League Leaders for now.. so may not be fatal error.
@mid….its baffling isn’t it, ridiculous that arteta keeps giving him a start….
He did get the hook early.. so it might be starting to set in.. but then Vieira did what he did in replacement. So.. then your like what the hell is going on Shouldn’t be this difficult to find a replacement for Xhaka.
Or maybe Xhaka wasn’t shit after all
Either that Tom or we need Amazon to come back and put Kai in a reality show. Just spit-ballin here.
“ Or maybe Xhaka wasn’t shit after all‘
He never was, but he did rub some people the wrong way and they never wanted to see past that.
Madhu well said mate
I don’t think you can count Willock as an example of one we didn’t give minutes too.. we did.. He just did it under two managers in a tough season at various positions. Now you could use him as an example of bad talent ID maybe when he did so well at Newcastle on Loan and we decided to sell while he was hot. And that sale helped fund the following spend the next season as well.
ESR I think we would have given more minutes until injuries hit him like a ton of bricks.
Nelson… I’m with you… but he isn’t gonna beat out Saka and Marti for starting time. In that situation I think it’s more a case of not rotating enough as has been discussed on here for a long time.
Some intern is being handed their P45 lol…
https://x.com/skysportspl/status/1723438798464319622?s=61
Haha that kid has got some moves.
Havertz reeks of an Arteta vanity project. Like a woman who thinks she can change a man, Arteta thought he would be able
To get Havertz firing.
It may be Havertz ends up a cog in a wheel like Georgio Winjiunmimum or whatever his name was for Liverpool. Few goal contributions but more of a ticking over kind of player.
Great result, but again, watching Arsenal with Havertz in the team is actually becoming a painful experience. Literally every time the ball came to him the play broke down.
We spent £65m on an attacking midfielder who has played well over a thousand minutes for the club and has the grand total of 1 assist and 1 goal, which was a gifted penalty. This is also a guy who has played in this league for 3 seasons already.
There is no doubt in my mind this is this worst signing in our clubs history. Serious questions need to be asked. I don’t feel sorry for the bloke one bit, I just wish he would piss off and stink out the place somewhere else! And breath!!
The funniest thing about Xhaka is that it was him who dumped Arsenal for Leverkusen and not the other way around, while taking a massive pay cut in the process.
And now all Xhaka haters have to put up with Havertz, his replacement.
We’re doing alright, hopefully we get the win at home to Lens, so we can put the youth team out away to PSV, we don’t want to be going into Match-Day 6 needing a result, we got schooled away to PSV last season.
We’ve got 11 games in our next block of fixtures, before the 2 week break in January:
Brentford Away
Lens Home
Wolves Home
Luton Away
Villa Away
PSV Away
Brighton Home
Liverpool Away
West Ham Home
Fulham Away
FA Cup Third Round.
We got 17/24 points from those league fixtures last season, if you replace Luton with Southampton…
Would also be nice if we can get into the last 16 of the CL, and not feel like we’re just making up the numbers.
Tom
Exactly
Be careful what you wish for
Always said xakha was a lot better than he was given credit for
No Messi but very capable player who offers us great value in his last two seasons more than any
‘’ mid….its baffling isn’t it, ridiculous that arteta keeps giving him a start….‘’
Actually he isn’t.. before the recent injuries Arteta had already dropped him to the bench
Madhu Willock had enough chances for Arsenal, right decision in getting 25 mill for him
As for ESR he’s never fit and Reiss has Saka in front of him
Man anyone Deen the documentary about the fire in Sydney
Christ it’s hard not to cry
Those poor children
The dad with his two sons
Awful
Un
What documentary is that?
Exposed
The ghost train fire
On Netflix
Can people for once stop talking about the great Xhaka, if we were to be patient as we were with Xhaka I can promise you for free Havertz will eventually will come good too. Every body has forgotten the many awful moments we had with Xhaka and now because we have Havertz sized crisis every one is praising Xhaka. Xhaka was over all a very limited player due to his lack of pace, however a solid leader with unparalleled availability. Now any one can have ago at Havertz with out reverting to bloody Xhaka ! It was fantastic move to get rid of him and getting money Arteta was just an arrogant dictator and started to believe in his own stupid hype and decided he will reinvent Havertz and now we have this ongoing Xhaka praising nonsence on here.
At this stage Xhaka was a hundred times the player Havertz will ever be for us. Even when he was making mistakes and rash decisions, he never hid.
Vieira
Pipe down you wiener
The football we are playing is not exactly exciting، I would call it functional، which is not necessarily a bad thing as it brings results.
I would say we are very difficult to play against، though Burnley did manage 5 shots on target today، all dealt with admirably by Raya except for the deflected goal.
Apparently 50% of our goals have been from dead ball situations which is a testament to how we have become an imposing side in the air..
The question is ، do we need more flair to be title winners ، is functional enough to win the league.
What I will say is watching us play at the moment I don’t feel we are going to concede more than one or 2 clear chances during a game and whilst we are defensively solid we will always have a good chance to win the game.
Arteta should be given credit for the way he has us competing so well with so many players out injured، if functional is the way forward then functional it is، I’m sure with a fit squad we will be more expansive ، the problem is will expansive make us more open to the counter.
To be honest it does work well with jorginho as a 6 and Rice and Havertz as 8’s but I’m sure once the untouchables are fit they will be back in the side .
We need young Partey like player in midfield and our attack will improve a lot.
Havertz is God’s little joke on all the Xhaka haters over here at Le Grove.
I include myself as a one-time member of that group.
I have to say after a big dose of divine Havertzian retribution, I accept that I was a sinner and I repent.
China,
I’m mostly in agreement with you on Havertz. I came to see the comments on LeGrieve at halftime.
It was a giant barrage of Havertz shite. You would think that there were not 21 other players out there today. A sick obsession that’s so tiresome.
Totally unnecessary crying about a guy who had an OK game, and has been good lately.
Now having said that…..
…….as his biggest defender here, and I’ve said many times, that he WILL come good…..
One counter where Rice slipped Kai the ball at the D with very few defenders around, Havertz passes the ball to the left, instead of running straight towards the goal and taking a shot.
That play really bothered me. No way he should’ve passed there.
Unless there’s a physical reason I don’t know about, I think his sub was a strong message from Arteta.
So I’ll admit that he may be trying Mikels patience.
I’m sure everyone noticed all the high crosses yesterday. Nothing like our usual style.
Anybody here who says Arteta and his staff arent doing homework or gameplanning is a clown.
We obviously saw something when studying about Burnley that showed a weakness in the air.
We were putting in crosses all day, uncharacteristically- and all 3 of our goals came from balls in the air.
This is no coincidence. Our manager deserves all the credit for this win. Give him his due respect.
I’ll say one more time… there are MANY aspects of the game in which Trossard is better than Martinelli. Look at where he was delivering those corners yesterday. Martinelli wastes too many of the corner kicks he earns.
Trossards crosses and passes in the box are always near finding a teammate, and his shooting with both feet in the box is the best on our team except Saka.
I love H.D. Martinelli (head down) .. his effort, tracking back, desire, pace…. but Trossard has more dangerous tools to find the net. There needs to be a better distribution of minutes… and of course I’d always choose Trossard as a false 9 over Eddie.
Basically, Trossard needs to be playing more. This is not a new opinion for me..
We really need to start discussing saka and martinelli and their effectiveness in the game. These are the players who were contributing an assist or goal a game. Yes, they are being marked by 2 men but they are the duo of robben and ribery who terrorized defenders.
We need a solution for both of them and fast.
Nigel
Eddie.Basically, Trossard needs to be playing more. This is not a new opinion for me..
I don’t agree with you often but I’ve been saying the above for ages. Can’t remember the idiot that use to bash Trossard again. The boy is so good and so different from our other attackers. And he can play 8,, 10 and false 9,whats there not to like.
PGMOL binned this referee, then they brought him back to officiate the biggest game of the weekend
Chelsea players were down, one was holding his head and yet Taylor didn’t stop the play.