Morning all.
Well that wasn’t very good. Mistakes at the back, disjointed and toothless in and around the box. At times, the team looked like it was day one of pre-season after having six months off. Utd on the other hand looked quicker, sharper and more organised. It doesn’t concern me too much though because pre-season isn’t about results, it’s about preparation for the new season.
I was disappointed not to see Flo Balogun get an opportunity against a PL opposition and even more disappointed to see Fabio Vieira on the pitch. At least I think he was on the pitch. Gabriel Jesus, when he came on, was still dropping deep in search of the ball and going to ground far too easily. Marquinhos and Nelson missed out too which was disappointing.
Mikel Arteta on Balogun and Nketiah’s futures:
We had some options up front as well and we wanted to load some players, that’s why some players today didn’t have any exposure, but they will in the next game.
Utd seemed determined to cripple our players with both Martinez and Maguire the stand out nasty players. Thankfully, every player came through unscathed. Why Arsenal play against a club like Utd in pre-season I don’t know.
Whilst I hate Arsenal losing any match, it was just a pre-season friendly. A game which is more about fitness, learning and final decision making. For our three new signings, it was another game to adjust to playing alongside new team-mates.
In two weeks time, Arsenal will be going head to head with Man City in the Community Shield at Wembley but going by last nights nights performance, a lot of work needs to be done before then.
At the end of the game, penalties took place although why, I don’t know. It was pointless in my opinion. Vieira was the only one of the nine players involved to miss the target.
Bukayo Saka:
It’s obviously tough to take, whether it’s a friendly or not against United. We’ll learn from it and you can’t really give two goals away like that against a team like this because then it’s really hard to come back. We just need to learn from it. Physically we want to get to a level that we were at last season and then go to another level and keep increasing that. Tactically we need to integrate everyone. We need to understand our game plan and how we play and keep progressing in each game so that when we come to the first game we’re ready.
The final fixture of our tour of the USA is against Barcelona in the SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles in the early hours of Thursday. (3.30am UK time)
Catch up in the comments…
Losing Balogun will be a catastrophic failure similar to letting Gnabry leave.
Paulino, I’m of the same opinion.
I agree with you completely. Don’t understand why Vieira is still in Arsenal shirt. No strength; no speed. His vaunted skills yet to manifest. Sadly Arteta is blind to these and is hell bent of making a gooner willy nilly. Vieira just doesn’t have it. Ready to wager on EPL has any need for him for free.
Realize that Arteta is an amateur. Buying Havertz for big money shows he is an amateur among many other mistakes Arteta does. Arteta does not have the character to become a good manager.
Pal, have to totally disagree. Havertz has barely kicked a ball yet and you’re writing him off? Arteta, for all your amateur opinion, came second in the league behind City. How is that failing?
I hope you don’t mind Rico but I’ve repeated my comment from earlier this morning…
I’ve nicked this from Thom Gibb of The Sunday Telegraph……
Everyone is talking about the new Arsenal men’s away kit. This is great news for Adidas, until you hear what they are saying.
The traditionalists hate it, the kit cognoscenti are not convinced, nor, most worryingly for Adidas, are many younger fans. This seems a shame for a usually well-presented team with a proud away kit history. Charlie George in Wembley yellow, Dennis Bergkamp resplendent in gold and navy for Wenger’s first double and Andre Santos, in 2012/13’s proto-banter era, wearing the purple and black stripes of a suburban My Chemical Romance fan.
How will this kit be remembered? It is an aggressively ugly colour, the polka dot and wavey-lined patterning is obnoxious and no-one aspires to look like a new rave zebra. Perhaps it is in the lineage of kits which seem deliberately terrible, so bad they are good. Care to spend £80, or £110 for the body-shamingly tight “authentic” version, to test the theory?
Of course there is the usual spiel from Adidas and Arsenal which reaffirms the need for some sort of polyester guff ombudsman. “The design features fluid black lines inspired by the map of Islington,” we learn. Ah yes, Islington, the only place where maps use black lines to denote roads. These also represent “the journeys supporters make out of the club’s home borough for away days on the road.” Sure. Sure they do.
Then an inevitably excellent launch video which adds a radio theme. This is an excuse to wheel out musical Arsenal fans including Rapper AntsLive, DJs Sherelle and Scratcha DVA, the Islington Youth Choir, the bassist out of Wolf Alice and Spandau Ballet’s Martin Kemp. No, that last one is not a joke. No demographic itch has been unscratched.
As something of an afterthought the kit was then seen in an actual football match, against the MLS All-Stars on Wednesday night. Predictably it looks far better on professional footballers than the nice chap from the indie band. But how often will we see it in that context? Man Utd had a similar shade of luminescent green on their third shirt last year. They wore it twice in their opening four games then put it away before one final outing at Bournemouth in May. Wolves wore their away kit twice all season.
Aside from whether you despise or merely detest this new Arsenal shirt, the galling thing is the gap between the brilliance of its promotion and the abjectness of the product. Really that is the central conceit of advertising, that spending 80 quid will make you as cool as AntsLive, when actually you look like a tribute band version of a minor Spandau.
No great tragedy there, but it is the fans to whom kits really matter. They literally pay for the excesses of crass designs. Football’s independent regulator may have more urgent business like malevolent owners, ensuring Southend do not become an Essex Bury and gambling advertising persisting like Japanese Knotweed but there is a change it could make here with no clear downside.
Force clubs to stick to two-year cycles for their kits. Alternate between home and away each year so there is still something new to sell, but give each kit a chance to make memories. Watch the designs improve when clubs and makers know that they are stuck with shirts for more than a handful of games.
Maybe given time this new strip could be another ‘bruised banana’, the fabled yellow and black 1991-93 kit which was reviled at the time but is now so beloved the Arsenal shop sells 42 products in the pattern. But the ‘traffic warden marble cake’ will have such little exposure we will never know. New kits are ever more shocking, but now leave as much lasting impression as Watford managers.
No problem Cicero
Isn’t this our third kit though and very unlikely to be worn much. Fans are buying it though as I saw in the stands in yesterday’s game. With the cost of living as it is, I can’t see many shirts of any colour being bought by the ‘ordinary fan’. Adidas could print one in gold but I still wouldn’t part with my money.
Made my comments last night just as the match finished , nothing that I have thought of has changed my mind .
2 pints of milk and a packet of biscuits for Vieira is a good deal and I am afraid that Havertz does look to be a gamble , very weak and bullied last night by an United midfield that completely over ran him . Even his one chance to use his much vaunted height went astray as he hardly jumped and got under the ball and ballooned his header about 2 foot over the bar.
Last night bought up so many questions and those who think that we are stronger because of the money that we have spent are in for a shock .
In my opinion we looked more like the last 9 games of last season that the previous 30. We look like a one trick pony , shut down Saka , Martinelli and give Odegaard a good thump and we have nothing. Jesus seems to spend more time in the midfield , Eddie is too easily cut out , we had little or no creation and I don’t remember a shot on target apart from two from Martinelli that got cleared off the line after a double save. Vieira looked scared to take his penalty and I and the commentators knew he was going to miss.
The looks on the players faces last night said it all as they left the pitch , when we play them in the league , we are beaten before we start.
My glass remains 3/4 full regardless of last night. If we’d just played our first or second proper fixture like that then I’d be worried but until we face City at Wembley, I don’t think much can be learned from pre-season. Vieira though? Utterly disappointed in him and would be even more disappointed if he’s still at Arsenal in September.
I’m still happy to support our new players, however I still don’t know why Arteta keeps giving ESR a big rap yet doesn’t give more time on the field in these practice matches. Vieira to me needs more time in the gym to strengthen up.
Potter.Very doom n gloom for a friendly where the boys & Tets didn’t get the memo that in fact it wasn’t.Manure served up their usual tactics with a hefty dose of roughhousing.It may well have done us a favour in reminding Tets to expect more of the same in 4 wks time.But something tells me it will be a totally different ball game next time & the boys will be ready.
Geoff, he was injured last season and only just back from a summer tournament with England under 21’s. It’s good management to not overplay ESR at this stage of pre season.
It’ll definitely be a different game when we face then Pete. Different officials too, although I’m not sure they’d deal with the thought treatment any better..
@Pal, I beg to humbly disagree. Mikel Arteta is not an amateur as purpoted by you, neither is Havertz a gamble like you’re trying to insinuate. However I’d begin to get concerned if the teammates don’t gel by the time of the season opener.
I think that’s the logical approach Kyalo. Only because it’s how I feel too. 😆
New post up now.