Morning all.
I love a good headline and Sky Sports certainly had one yesterday evening. ‘Man Utd held by under strength Arsenal’. But it’s true, Arsenal were missing Tierney, Saka, Mari, Ceballos and Aubameyang. Utd however had a full strength squad.
If they are seriously considered to be good enough to win the league then my aunt is really my uncle.
Fred had the first real chance from distance by Leno tipped his shot round the post. Fernandes too saw his shot stopped too and apart from Cavani right at the end of the game, that was pretty much Utd’s best efforts.
Lacazette crashed his free kick against the woodwork, Pepe went close twice plus Maguire blocked another, Willian and ESR had shots blocked too. The period after the break was our best of the match with the only thing missing was a goal. Although a draw is not a disaster, I do feel we missed a golden opportunity to beat them for a second time this season.
Utd might be a few places above us in the league table but they are no better than us in terms of where both clubs are on the pitch. Not in my opinion anyway. A fully fit Arsenal V a fully fit Utd, my money is on us coming out top every time.
Whilst pundits and commentators chose to ridicule Luiz for his celebration after heading a Utd free kick away from danger, I thought it showed that he and those around him simply didn’t want to concede a goal. Arsenal have been mocked by the very same pundits and commentators for being weak, porous and easy to score against so perhaps it’s time to praise such a reaction instead. I thought Luiz was excellent yesterday, as were the team in general. All that lacked was a goal but bearing in mind we either hit the woodwork, missed by centimetres or had a shot blocked/saved, perhaps it was just one of those days when nothing favoured us in attack. Perhaps Aubameyang would have scored, but I doubt he’d have ran full speed back into his own penalty area to nick the ball away from Rashord with his head. Horses for courses eh.
VAR and Michael Oliver were disappointing yesterday because in my opinion, Fernandes got away with one. If raking his studs down Xhaka’s achilles is deemed acceptable, how could Cedric be booked for a ‘nothing’ incident? I don’t like this players sticking their backside into an opponent to send him flying stuff either. Lacazette did it to a Utd player, Maguire I think and then he did it to Lacazette late in the game. Someone is going to get hurt. Badly hurt.
Performance wise, Arsenal were hit and miss at times as passes went astray too often. The biggest culprit being Partey but he more than made up for it with the rest of his game. Xhaka looked slow out there but even so, his work rate cannot be faulted, nor his passing which was spot on. Cedric was all over Cavani late in the game, he forced the striker to fire his chance wide. Willian, well he was ok which for him is better than usual but he really does slow our attack down. ESR, what is there to say, I love him and love watching everything he does. Pepe put in another good performance too, well, much better compared to the first half of the season. That’s two on the bounce now so hopefully he’s finally arrived. Luiz and Holding, very very good, in fact as said before, Arsenal were pretty good all round apart from finding the back of the net. That’s football sometimes.
We move on to the next game which is on Tuesday against Wolves. Hopefully Tierney and Saka will be back. Aubameyang too but I’m not sure when his self isolation period is over.
See you in the comments.
The Mirror reckon Arsenal are hoping to sign Patrick van Aanholt from Crystal Palace today.
Good player and has an eye for goal. Could do a lot worse for a ‘back up’ full/wing back
Left hand side we have Tierney and Martinelli that seem to be getting about 60% fit and then dropping out for a bit . A deal of this nature makes sense , providing that we are going to juggle our non English quota for another Dutch player . He is 30 so there is little sell on value but is at the end of his contract at Palace so should not be overly expensive either.
Apparently van Aanholt is registered as UK player (with Palace) as he’s been there since he was 17 yo.
Apart from a 2 year loan spell in the Netherlands.
Leicester are rumoured to be in for AMN.
Surely though, Cedric can cover for Tierney, AMN for Bellerin. Seems odd to me to let AMN go if we do.
Yes he joined Chelsea in 2007 so was only 17 at the time, perhaps Abbramovic’s buy em up and farm em out policy might work in our favour.
Good morning Rico.
AMN has only been a bits and pieces player for us, fill in here, back-up there, with no settled position and no opportunity to cement a place in the starting eleven. He’s young and a full England cap to his credit so he should be worth a goodly transfer fee.
If we sold him now, this minute, it’s doubtful that we could use his fee to buy a player in this window. Perhaps a loan deal till the end of the season would be a better option when, with luck, he will have enhanced his reputation and be worth a higher fee.
Palace paid fourteen million for van Aanholt he’s thirty, thirty one in August, but is an established left back. Just what we are looking for.
Morning Cicero, I agree re AMN. Strange though after finishing last season so strongly. I do wonder if there’s a reason Arteta turned his back on him so swiftly.
A thumbs up for the Palace guy then?
Van Aanholt is established & could do a job this season as cover no doubt but so can Cedric if needed & has proved very capable.They should be all over Mitchell who also has just six months left.A far better player.capable of slugging it out with Tierney who is injury prone.palaace trying to play hardball as usual & refusing to let him go this month.Wait for the summer then for free.
👍
I know it’s easy after the event but when Martinelli went off, why not switch Pepe and bring on AMN on the right?
Don’t get Willian thing at all.
Rico. I can only think that Arteta is trying to justify buying the guy in the first place. Frankly I cannot understand why he thought the bloke was worth a place in our squad.
Cicero, I hope not re justifying his place because that was a flaw of Arsene Wenger imo. Every manager makes mistakes with signings and yes, in hindsight, Willian was one.
Van Aanholt would be a good signing, second choice now at Palace, although I see he played yesterday. A solid player, perhaps a similar deal to Cedric can be done, he is out of contract in the summer.
Two more good results for us, could be three if West Brom hang on to their lead against Toots. West Ham and Leicester beaten at home.
Liverpool aren’t too proud to sign a Champion player then. £2m for a centre/left back Ben Davies from Preston.
Nice one Seagulls
I’m afraid that I see absolutely no point in signing a 30 year old left back from Crystal Palace, he’s rated at £7.2m by Transfermarket, he’s probably gonna get a 3 year contract and be on big’ish wages.
I can’t see van Aanholt demanding high wages, he’s currently on £52,500 per week. I expect we could afford that sort of money. He’d probably accept an eighteen month contract with an optional extra year.
Good news from the South Coast this evening. I wonder who Mourinho will blame for this latest defeat.
So we get to keep Mustafi, Liverpool prefer to sign 25 year old Ben Davis from Preston North End for £2 million.
Morning all.
New post up