118 Comments

Forest are Not a possesion based team. This is a game for Trossard. Martinelli isnt good at keeping possesion he will expose us.

Not a game for Jorgino, we need midfielders that keep up with Elanga, Odoi, Gibbs playing 2nd balls from Wood.

Our CBs can handle Wood.

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Martinelli against Forest:

3 games, 3 wins, 1 goal, 1 assist

Arsenal without Martinelli against Forest:

1 game, 1 loss, 0 goals scored (Trossard started)

Admittedly, the sample size is very limited.

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We have to score early tomorrow, to quieten the nerves

This is not the game for "being patient"

The longer it takes to score, the more Forest will grow and the Emirates crowd groaning will worsen.

This will be a pressure game, similar to the Chelsea game of December 2021.

This can't be the game where Arteta selects a starting 11 to grind out a result.

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Anything less than a win tomorrow is unacceptable

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I'm inclined to agree Sid.

(Wonders, have ceased.)

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Nov 22Edited

Arteta interview -

- on how we stand with injuries after the international break:

There’s been some positives, some others not so. Trossard seems to be OK, he trained this morning and seems to be feeling good. We will assess everything with the doctor right now, as he was able to be part of that session, so that's good.

- on how Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice are doing:

They have had their first partial session today, so very good as well.

- on Ben White:

Ben is going to be out for months. It’s been different kind of struggles, it’s never been the same thing, but we had to make a decision in the last few weeks, unfortunately.

- on how Riccardo Calafiori is doing:

Ricci trained today, so his rehab is going really well. He was able to do certain things last week with the physios, and trained on the pitch this week with us and today, so he will be in the squad.

- on Kieran Tierney and Takehiro Tomiyasu:

Kieran - not yet. He had a couple of sessions with the team but is not ready yet to be with the team, and Tomiyasu is going to be out as well for a bit.

https://www.arsenal.com/news/every-word-mikel-artetas-pre-forest-presser-0

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Geez. Not enough good news in that presser.

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16 PL clubs did the right thing by keeping the APT rules.

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👏👏👏

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Arda Guler should avoid taking photos with Erdogan

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Arda Guler should avoid Mesut Ozil too.

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I get the whole blood in teenagers bit. But sometimes, you have to throw them in. Our balance in midfield was atrocious till Odegaard returned at Stamford Bridge.

Nwanneri will feature here and there anyway. Not giving him Southampton was a mistake. Trossard was playing like crap for weeks. And in that scenario you throw the kid in because you need to win.

It isn't like we are United with Kobbie Mainoo where we are expecting Nwaneri to be the savior. We just needed him to cover Odegaard for a few weeks with him being the only natural like for like replacement.

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I don’t fully agree. I get that young players lose you points because they’re inexperienced, physically developing, overawed by pressure etc but if that’s true why do 27 year olds lose you points? They’re in their prime, experienced, mature. I think no matter your age you just have different problems to overcome. Older players likely have children, family bereavements, retirement planning etc that also influence how they perform. I think it’s simplistic to stay young players lose you games because of their age. When trossard shanks a pen, we don’t say it’s because of his age. Olatunde said it best. Teta didn’t get a chance as a young player and I think that’s scarred him

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The question for me is , why Arteta doesn't buy a proper , goal scoring

center forward ?

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He has tried to. The first striker he wanted was Vlahovic. And last summer he wanted Sesko too.

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Is Sesko a goal scoring striker? Vlahovic I was behind. But we didn't even make an approach. There was nothing anywhere that said we did that wasn't click bait

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Sesko is a potential. That is where the value is before players become 100m players. Isak was the same before he exploded at Newcastle.

And we were serious about Vlahovic. Reliable journalists confirmed our interest then. We tried but he wanted to go to Juve.

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Isak atleast had a goal scoring break out season that showed the promise. I'm not sure any body has looked at Sesko and thought he could be a goal scorer. Maybe I just don't rate him at all but I'm sure we don't need him. Even if he were to develop we need to wait for years. You want to win or not?

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😂😂😂

Isak scored 44 in 132 games when he "broke out" at Sociedad.

Fans like you don't see trajectory. That is why you will cry about a superstar we should have gone for rather than finding the next one.

I want to win. But the market also decides what you can do. And there are spending rules too.

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That's the problem with fans like you that see only trajectory and resale value.

Isak scored 17 goals in 34 la liga games at lowly Sociedad while being a stand out player in terms of skills. That's a break out season.

He's gone on to sustain that when he moved to the PL, horned his skills better and has MATURED already into a ready striker. Arsenal should be buying ready strikers to lead the line not project players that could come good in 2/3 years.

They are spending rules, the market decides, yes. We can navigate all those factors and still get ready players to take us where we need to go.

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Think the bigger question is why are people in football like Pedro and then very many of our fans lapping it up?

A coach can be out of his depth in squad building, that's normal. But why are fans justifying or making excuses for him?

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Arder Guler isn't the one we take. He'd incredibly limit Nwaneri's chances who's as talented (not like Arteta has consistent plans to develop him anyway). Who we take is Brahim Diaz. He's very gettable and uber talented as well.

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Now that Pep's signing a new deal, I guess we have push back our expectations further eh. Cos our plans for EPL domination was hinged on Pep leaving eh.

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Pep isn't getting tired, or he plainly just hate to see arteta win anything.

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🤣🤣 was silly for Pedro to even suggest that in the first place

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Chelsea also had 5 years to come up. At the moment they SEEM on our level already lol

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On our level.Are you pissed?

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The Talent spotting at Madrid is second to none. Any Madrid player is worth taking a punt on. Even old Dani C did an OK job for us. Guler is another animal altogether. We need a CM CAM that can dribble like a mother F er. He is it.

We could have shelled out coin for Dani Olmo too. Imagine that?

A CAM RW / Striker is needed badly

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Madrid don't really do talent spotting. (Almost) everyone they sign as youngsters were previously known child prodigies. They just throw the most cash at them and sell the Madrid dream.

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talent spot youngsters

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I would take Arda Guler any day. Why did we get Raheem then? Should we have not pinged Madrid for Guler? Again, the Raheem thing was a panic loan. Guler more is going to be world class. A kid with something to prove. A super Ozil. sheesh. If there is any truth to this, I would take him on. Any Madrid player for that matter aged 16 who cares

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We need the positivity fanboys to come to Pedros rescue. He is having it rough here.

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Here,here Sid.” It’s very hard to win an argument with an intelligent man.But it’s damn near impossible to win it with a stupid man”.We ‘ fanboys’ realise this.But appreciate the heads up.

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The issue with giving kids game time is they lose you points all well and good 5 years ago when we had a bunch of shite players doing F all

It's much higher stakes now

As long as they get plenty of minutes in the cups and maybe 15 mins in games we are good.

I also think that with our best players back and playing the lesser teams the young guns will get more mins. Especially if we are 3 up

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If young players are going to lose you point, then play them in the easy home games or games you have already won not Newcastle and inter Milan away. This doesn't add up

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Pedro your comment below is a straw man argument. We must not concern ourselves what what other premier league teams do and must instead ask ourselves are our kids ready to play a bit more than they have - I suspect most people would say a resounding yes. Your argument below was used to justify Arteta’s fear of using Saliba ‘how many young CBs get games at this level???’ Whilst he was out there winning awards left and right on loan and was clearly the exception to the rule. Nwaneri needn’t be expected to start every game - we just need to stop looking first and foremost at his passport as a decider for whether or not he comes off the bench or starts games here and that. Nwaneri is clearly an exceptional, prodigious talent playing in a position where our star player has been injured most of the season. If that doesn’t say ‘give him a chance here and there’ then nothing does. Pep or Klopp would not be frightened of giving him a chance sometimes. There’s good reason for that

‘Only four teams in the league gave more than 1,000 of them last season. So why do you, a fan sitting there eating your morning Pop-Tart, think that 80% of Premier League managers are getting it wrong?’

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