ARSENAL BULLY BURNLEY WITH HIGH BALLS AND SETPIECES – WOT?!

by .

Arsenal signed off for International duty with a carefully crafted win against a Burnley side I thought were very impressive. Vincent Kompany and Mikel Arteta were cut from the same Pep-G-athleisure-wear material and battled it out with two teams leaning heavily into the DNA of the great one.

It was always going to be a rough afternoon with Vincent Kompany, the gulf in class was deep and wide, he admitted as much after when he said you need to be ‘perfect’ against this Arsenal side.

Mikel Arteta went through the same phase of not having the right bodies to deliver on the vision. It’s really hard for newly promoted teams that want to entertain. They rarely have the players to sustain it in a league as Brutal as the Premier League – and once they realise that, the coach is asked to play deep block football by the masses, and the ownership group sacks them shortly after. I hope that doesn’t happen to Kompany. He simply doesn’t have the players to decide to move back to Dyche-ball.

Arteta has been given the money to get who he wants and the players are delivering the results, even in third gear. It was an odd approach that he took to bury Burnley. He decided that they don’t like looped crosses into the box, so we battered them for 90 minutes with setpieces and diagonal balls. I didn’t like it to look at, but it’s hard to deny the success of it.

Trossard scored our first, putting his body on the line after Saka nodded a deep cross at the back post. The Belgian nodded in but took a knock so nastly, even the adrenaline of a goal couldn’t get him off the floor. Luckily, nothing was broken, and he continued the game.

Our second goal came from a setpiece, but that was right after Burnley equalised. Tomiyasu wasn’t strong enough on the ball in the box, the impressive Koleosho nabbed the ball off him, cut back to Brownhill, who smashed a deflected shot in through sea of legs. Almost immediately, Arsenal equalised. Trossard found Bill Saliba for a goal in his 50th Premier League game. The man is a colossus. It was great to see him on the scoresheet.

There was time for one more goal. A loose ball from a corner kick looped up on the edge of the box, Zinchenko sniffed out the chance to do something saucy and dropped a ‘special occasions’ scissor kick into the top corner. Very, very naughty.

There was still time for a little more drama. Fabio Vieira, who replaced a drab Kai Havertz, managed to get himself a straight red with a studs up challenge. He deserved it. Shame that sort of punishment isn’t dished out consistently for fouls like that. But we can’t expect any favors from VAR or refs after Mikel led a one-man charge against the awfulness of the officials.

A comfortable afternoon, tactical perfection, and some upward movement in a Premier League that saw bad results for Newcastle and Spurs.

Kai Havertz didn’t drop the performance we were hoping for. It was a limp afternoon for him. It’s not that he’s poor, he’s just been bang average all season. What you can’t take from him is we’re doing really well with him on the side. You can’t have 10 players and do what Arsenal are doing. What you can say is he needs to find his confidence and produce more than 1 goal and 1 assist in all comps. He’ll come good, I’ve no doubt, just wish he’d go a little faster.

Jorginho has quietly been doing the business. He had a great game in the week and did another very good job against Burnley. The errors have been concerning over the past year, but it does feel like he’s finding his footing in this Arsenal team. He also landed a call-up to the Italy squad.

There’s still a bit of a feeling that our front three haven’t really clicked this season. It’s not bad, it’s just not at the level we know it can be. Again, this is good, because the fact it feels like third gear but the output is a lot of wins means there’s still more to come from the team. I am increasingly of the mindset that we’re going to have to add a forward player in January. We’re a long way from one-dimensional going forward, but we lack a killer mode. In games like yesterday, you’re kind of begging for a Haaland/Toney/Oshimen-like target man to eat up those crosses. We said something similar last year… we play with our food, City strikes like a Komodo dragon eating a baby goat. There’s only one outcome. We need some of that in our game.

Overall though, I’m very, very happy with Arsenal. We’ve had a very rough 3 months with injuries to key players and we’ve adapted really well. No Partey, no Jesus, Odegaard has been out, we’ve played HUGE games without Bukayo, Martinelli has done his hammy… but the results keep rolling in. After the international break, we’ll have Jesus, Smith Rowe, Odegaard, and hopefully Ben White all ready to go. That’s a very good set of players that’ll give us some extra bang-bang over the December period. No one has noticed that we’ve been shapeshifting and winning. That’ll come in so handy in the backend of the season when we can rotate heavily and still hit the heights with output.

Ok, great. What a lovely day. I’m going to direct you to listen to the latest podcast RIGHT NOW.

372 Responses to “ARSENAL BULLY BURNLEY WITH HIGH BALLS AND SETPIECES – WOT?!”

Jump to comment form ↓

  14. TR7

    Palmer is real quality. If he continues to improve his game he can become one of the top mids in Europe.

    Chelsea been better than City but City much more clinical while Chelsea really wasteful.

  15. Habesha Gooner

    GD4
    We must be watching different games. Because Gallagher is playing very well. He is spraying it well. And his shot was the reason for that 3rd goal. Palmer and Sterling are also playing well.

  16. GD4

    @Diss.

    Don’t sweat it.
    It’s the LeGrove curse lol.
    Only Havertz is immune to it smh

    “ GD4
    I had a post ready to go to slam Jackson
    Microseconds before he scored”

  18. Dissenter

    raptora
    “ That handball on Walker was obvious from the last row of the stadium. How the refs decide to not give it is an absolute joke.”

    Because the referee is marooned in space and Uranus is blocking his view

  21. GD4

    “ GD4
    We must be watching different games. Because Gallagher is playing very well. He is spraying it well. And his shot was the reason for that 3rd goal. Palmer and Sterling are also playing well.”

    Habesha my man.
    He is doing the basics.
    No line splitting passes, no forward dribbling runs, just basic stuff. Whenever confronted with pressure or the need for the special he either loses the ball or passes backwards.

    Sorry I’m not impressed

  26. rollen

    PL become parody pretty fast. All refs decisions benefits Man Shitty. More obvious corruption than Italian league.
    And that’s on top of over 100 financial corruption charges covered up.

  42. Habesha Gooner

    GD4
    😂😂😂 He is not my boy. I actually don’t rate him that highly. But he has played well this game. Even Chelsea fans that don’t rate him are saying so on Twitter.

    FFS Rodri. This guy is a fucking Villan.

  53. GD4

    Habeesh,
    My statement was not limited to today.
    All I said is that as long as Pep is there that they will be a juggernaut. That shouldn’t be a matter of debate, no?

  71. TR7

    Chelsea should blame themselves for the scoreline…. wasteful in front of the goal and some sloppy defending although for large parts they were the better team.

  89. GD4

    “ GD4
    Really? Saka is next level to Palmer and I am not even joking.”

    Hab,
    Son pipe down and pump the brakes a bit.
    All I said is that Saka should watch his back because of this up and comer. Lol didn’t say any more than that

  96. GD4

    Left side,

    It’s bad thing to be on the same side of the village idiot when it comes to over reacting my friend.
    All I’m saying is that Palmer is legit

  97. Leftside

    Chelsea been in two very entertaining games this week, albeit for differing reasons. They’re giving top teams a game at home again but lack precision in front of goal so not able to kill games off.