Morning all.
It’s fair to say that one of Arsenal’s current standout players is Emile Smith Rowe but for a change it’s nice to be to say he’s one of many. Of course he and Saka will always be talked about more because they’re both still very young. I read that our ‘Croydon de Bruyne’ is shy which does kind of come across when he’s interviewed but who wouldn’t be at his age and just months into his proper senior Arsenal career. I liked what Karen Carney said about him: ‘‘If he is shy, imagine what he will be like when he is confident. It is scary.” Isn’t it just.
ESR wasn’t part of the squad when Arsenal faced Aston Villa earlier in the season. The 3-0 loss was nothing more than Mikel Arteta’s team deserved, in fact the defeat could so easily been much heavier. Arsenal were awful and as a team, simply didn’t turn up. The defending was dreadful, but not only that, everything Arsenal did, or rather didn’t, was shoddy. Grealish was allowed to run the show, Barkley too but it was Arsenal fan Ollie Watkins who scored the goals. Well, two of them, Saka scored the other.
Since then, Arteta has ditched playing three at the back, he’s brought in ESR and our defending has vastly improved again. Pepe has suddenly begun to show signs of having settled in the League and Saka is just a joy to watch. Partey finally appears to be over his injury problems and Lacazette is playing like a twenty year old again. At the back, Holding has been a rock and thankfully, Gabriel and Mari are back and ready to play. I’m still seething over the sending off of Luiz but I’m not fussed that he’s missing for today’s game. Unlike Leno, who serves his one match ban and Tierney who remains out through injury. A bit of good news came yesterday afternoon as Mat Ryan not only trained but has been declared fit for this game.
Villa were thumped 3-1 by West Ham during the week. Right back Vladimir Coufal stuck to Grealish like glue. Stop Grealish and much of Villa’s attacking play is nullified. Same goes for Barkley, someone has to keep him out of the game. Hard work off the ball is crucial.
Arsenal were superb for 47 minutes against Wolves just a few days ago. We took the game by the scruff of the neck from the off and played some of the best football yet under Mikel Arteta. The only thing missing in that first half was goals and we could so easily have have two or three. Yes, we lost but the way we played showed what we fans can expect from Mikel Arteta’s players/teams going forward. I think he still has more to do with the squad as far as moving a few more out and bringing in players who fit his style of play. More like Tierney and Partey, less like Willian and Xhaka. That’s not a criticism of either it’s just that pace, skill and athleticism seems to be his style of football. Plus a lot of hard work on and off the ball.
Chris Kavanagh Is officiating this one, the man who flashed his red card at ESR during our FA Cup fixture against Newcastle. Thankfully though, he had another look at the incident on the pitch side monitor and changed his mind.
See you in the comments.
Arsenal XI: Ryan, Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Cedric, Thomas, Xhaka, Saka, Smith-Rowe, Pepe, Lacazette.
Substitutes: Ceballos, Odegaard, Willian, Runarsson, Aubameyang, Chambers, Pablo Mari, Elneny, Martinelli.
Good Morning Rico and everyone
Morning Rico/all
The loan has really worked for Smith Rowe – and for Arsenal. He’s really taken his chance, and it’s great to see.
I’ve just seen the team, looks like only 2 changes, Ryan in for Leno, Gabriel in for Luiz.
I see we have 8 days after this until our next game. Klopp will be accusing us of having a mid season break.
COYG
Morning all.
You have to admire a referee who can admit error and make amends.
Shame we don’t see more of it.
A win shows the Wolves game was just a hiccup, so let’s hope that’s the case.
Having said that ESR is in a different class to the rest of our players save Saka , I believe that with the risk of burn out we need to use him sensibly and with Odegaard here now a case could be made for 60 minutes and change.
The Dutch kid obviously impressed enough to enable Willock and AMN to be released and he will need playing time . Hopefully we will get to a position after an hour to rest the young ones and bring Odegaard and martimelli on .
Hi Rico and all Looking forward to day’s match lets hope we can bounce back
G’day all that looks like a strong starting eleven, three point please.
If it wasn’t for bad luck we’d have no luck at all(deflection)
Big mix up between Cedric and Gabriel before though.
Morning Limey, Geoff, all.
The worse start possible. Plenty of time left though.
Drifting to a narrow defeat. No energy
Didn’t enjoy that half..
Only one shot on target, loads of possession though..
If rotational fouling was a sport, Villa would be league champions…
We looked more like the team pre Christmas in the first half but it doesn’t help that Villa keep fouling as we break away.
Not the most auspicious start to Mat Ryan’s Arsenal career, but the goal was absolutely not his fault.
We need to lift and stop them trying to take Sake out
Do we have a throw in coach? If so he needs to spend time with Bellerin who has not learnt how to throw the ball to a player wearing a similar shirt to his own. That is when he manages to take a legal throw in.
Why bring on Willian when Martinelli is on the bench.
Well played Mat Ryan on his debut. Aubameyang and Willian were awful.
Ødegaard looks a tidy player.
Too many wasted passes
Peter Walton is a prick!
So Aston Villa, like Wolves, have done the double over us this season. And despite the fact that we have a very good defence, in fact its the third best defence behind City and Spuds, the fact remains that we are toothless in attack.
Whilst it was a mix up between Cedric and Gabriel which gave Villa their goal in the first two minutes, the lack of punch in our attack meant that we finished with nothing.
Its useless having a very good defence if our attack keeps being toothless. Watkins, a boyhood Arsenal fan, is fast becoming similar to Drogba/Kane against us, or Pires/Henry vs Spuds. he has scored 3 goals against us this season.
Saka kept being fouled all the time. And all those passes around their box did not help us. Yes we had a large 63% possession. But if we don not have players who shoot on target from a distance all that possession is useless. We also had a stonewall penalty against LAca by Martinez. And Konsa should have been sent off…..but it was not Luiz or Xhaka making that foul on Saka who would have been on goal if he was not fouled.
Its about time that we gave up trying to walk the ball in the net. We are not Barca in their pomp, we are not Arsenal of seasons 08/09/10. Teams have figured it out that Arsenal will not shoot from a distance so they just make up walls of defence in front of their penalty area. They get their triangles spot on, they dont give us space and since we do not have players who can get at the end of crosses and thump it in they just give us the flanks as well.
Saka and Pepe had a good game. However Pepe, although he stayed on for the whole game could have done better with the end product and final balls.
As in the Wolves game, and as many games this season, and many seasons before……we only have ourselves to blame. If we remain toothless in our attack these talking points would be irrelevant. Because in the Wolves game, had we taken our chances in the first 30 minutes we would have been out of sight.
We need to create more.
We need to allow teams to get two banks of walls in front of their goal.
We need to take our chances and score more.
Simple isn’t it.
Joe Willock has just scored on his debut.
Isn’t it just Devil.
with regards the previous comment I said……We need to allow teams to get two banks of walls in front of their goal.
It should have said……. We need to STOP teams time enough to get two banks of walls in front of their goal.
That’s easy, just break quickly and keep the speed. Not tippy tippy passes once we get into their half.
Totally agree about Willian/Martinelli, it’s now like Arteta is trying to prove a point. To be fair I before the season started I thought Willian was a good signing.He is so predictable, never takes on a player, checks back inside every time.
Unfortunately I get the impression that Arteta doesn’t really rate Martinelli.
At least Southampton are losing.
We seem to play a lot of short, backwards, sideways and diagonal passing. Yes that gives you a lot of possession and having that means that the opposition do not have the ball. Yet, all they need is just to string together 4 or maximum 5 passes and suddenly they are 1-0 up. And then they retreat into their shell allowing us all the possession in the world. They give us the flanks, they give us midfield areas and our own defensive third to enjoy playing with the ball. But they do effectively what we fail to do….protect their goal.
We are not Barca in their pomp with the Tiki taka playing culture. That needs a fucking 11 players, yes 11, who constantly float around and are difficult to mark. They keep finding spaces, work the channels, are artistes with the ball, had Xavi, Iniesta and Messi, plus world class players all over, had and still have quite a few cheats who work the referee to their side, had one of my favourite players in Ronaldinho, and vociferous support all over Spain and also in the corridors.
A change of footballing culture is needed. We are not Barca or even Ajax. Yes we have a good structure, we have a great academy and financially we are sound. But we need to change the footballing philosophy and also mentality. We need to play direct football and focus less on technical players who prefer to play sideways passing.
Limey wrote the comment……..Unfortunately I get the impression that Arteta doesn’t really rate Martinelli. I tend to agree with him and the reason is that MArtinelli is direct and he goes for goal. He does not pass sideways and move to form intricate triangular passing.
I was the same re Willian. Thought he was a smart signing, however…
How can any serious manager not rate Martinelli though?
Very disappointing, we never really threatened Martinez in goal. The d**k head of a referee fell for all but one of Grealish’s dying swan acts. Pepe seemed to have fallen back into his old habits, to much negative passing and then when he could have found somebody in the box he chose to shoot from a ridiculous angle instead.
The more I see of Willian, the less reason I can see why Arteta signed him and worse still why he keeps putting him on the pitch.
Oh well, it’s almost time to watch the England Scotland game. Lets hope we can give the Jocks a tanning.
Don’t like to whinge (honest 😆) but that really was poor – I expected so much more!
10 losses in 23 games… awful
Back to reality of where we are scrapping for a mid table finish . The ship steadied but getting it to move forward is a lot more difficult.
Playing Cedric at left back is not the answer , he is right footed and his back pass cost us the game .
There are certain teams that we can’t score against and they don’t have to be particularly good just organised.
Our build up play is too slow and movement in front is Laboured .Today Lacazette was double marked , Saka was a foul magnet and as long a we were halted outside the box Villa were happy. ESR was being forced into blind alleys and we were toothless.
We have to find a way to speed things up until we do we are looking at a lot more of the same .We will win a few ,lose a few ,and probably draw some as well as we stagger to the end of the season . Then the Arteta revolution has to become ruthless and more have to leave because theee are a number holding us back.
I struggle to understand the changes Arteta makes and not only in this game.
More like Partey and Tierney Potter. Pace and a footballing brain.
Rico, 2.45, that’s probably his issue, small willy syndrome….
imo we should have won against the Mancs, Wolves and Villa. that is 8 points. We should be tied with West Ham in 5th place.
Yes we can blame the referee. but at the end of the day we had enough chances in each game to win them. and if we dont take chances we will not win
I bet Southampton wish Bednarek’s red card hadn’t been overturned 🤣🤣
You know, most of us in the real world have to deal with the odd family crisis, an elderly parent or child or relative/partner who gets ill, maybe worse , but we just have to get on with it, we can’t sit at home and feel sorry for ourselves we have to still go to work, pay the bills, put bread on the table, we can’t depend on a boss being sympathetic, we have act like adults and carry on…
No so footballers it seems….
When the f*ck is Pierre Emerick Aubameyang going to get his head out of his arse and start playing again?
Of course if he finds he can’t then maybe he should refuse his salary until he can?
Likely? You decide?
😂 Kev
Kev, if Aubameyang has stuff going on, he should sit games out and not inflict it on the team. His crap performances haven’t just started, he’s been dire since the beginning of the season bar the occasional few minutes..
Rico, we all have stuff going on, I mean do nurses and doctors sit it out?
We dont sit it out Kev. I still have to go to work everyday (like you and everyone). I have my own stuff going on, my own demons to contend with as you quite well know. And still will not change my job for anything in the world. if anything it is therapeutic as it helps my mind keep a perspective upon my life.
There are countless situations where people had death in the family, kept mum about it and still played. Still scored.
A few months ago I read an article (cant remember the player though) whose son had died the day before he played. He scored and burst into tears.
I also read an article about a player whose dad died a few hours before the game. he kept mum, played and scored and then broke down when the players were celebrating.
I cannot criticize Auba as we are all different. But when you are paid so much, I need to work 10 years to get his weekly salary, then you cant sit out a game.
The player who played and scored after his son died was Billy Sharp of Doncaster Rovers against Middlesbrough.
As Rico pointed out…….Auba’s ‘crap performances haven’t just started, he’s been dire since the beginning of the season bar the occasional few minutes.’
Hi Rico and everyone,
Very frustrating watching Arsenal this season. Today, lots of tip tappy but no end product.
How does Willian even get a place on the bench? He plays with no confidence. Aubameyang looks so disinterested…
Only player who should draw his wages today is Matt Ryan.
Hi all,
Was Partey a sick note at Atletico? He seems to be a typical Arsenal player, more sick days than games played.
What does Willian do at training because he doesn’t do anything positive with the ball only turns back and gives a safe pass.
Agreed on Matt Ryan MoM.
Apparently Partey had missed just 6 games throughout his career… and then he joined Arsenal 😫
I keep reading around the Internet, people saying Arsenal were the better team, shouldn’t have lost.
Some realism please, how come Mat Ryan was our best player? Certainly we could have been more clinical, Villa defended well though we are so ponderous sometimes.
They aren’t a team to warm to, roughouse tactics, time wasting, and I haven’t seen so much diving since the Olympics.
It’s going to be tough now to finish up the table, we have played more games than most.
Perhaps a year without European football would do us good.
No Kev, no they don’t.
Hi Marinello, agree re Ryan. Without his saves, we’d have been thrashed.
Ryan looks like a good second string ,
Be handy if we can keep hold of him .
I think we can safely say that keeping is not going to be a problem for a bit.
However now is the time to look at what slows us down and the players responsible and if that doesn’t keep us up all night we have to look at the tactics
The best part of the match was when Sake kicked the ball into Grealish face shame it was not harder, Mat Ryan 8/10 MOTM and Grealish 10/10 for diving and ref’s pet
What I liked about Ryan was that he managed to settle down and not let the goal worry him and showed us what he can do, Now Leno may have some one this year to challenge him which can only be good
Things could be worse,both Kolasinac and Mustafi played for Schalke yesterday – they lost 3-0
……and Willock scored for Newcastle as they won 3 – 2.
Morning all.
New post up now