Hey, at least we didn’t let in 4 goals! We kept a clean sheet but looked pretty toothless up front. It’s almost as if we need a striker.
Here’s how the players rated today in the 0-0 draw with Leicester.
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Sunday, December 22, 2024
Hey, at least we didn’t let in 4 goals! We kept a clean sheet but looked pretty toothless up front. It’s almost as if we need a striker.
Here’s how the players rated today in the 0-0 draw with Leicester.
Walcott was one of our best players today. Tracked back well and created many chances. Very impressed with his movement. Will this stop the hate towards him? No. He could score three and they would say he missed a fourth.
Holding had a great match as did Kos.
Wenger better hold on to Walcott, he’s going to be invaluable for us this season
The worst aspect of this is the theft of hope, Alexis up front is a joke it is a waste of talent which was best illustrated in first half when a cross came in and Alexis was there trying to out jump a 6ft5 defender for a header.
I wonder if a home Wenger is telling his wife they don’t need a new car they could convert the ride on lawn mower?
That’s probably why he’s divorced.
‘Hey Arsene, the cars broke down’
4 weeks later…
‘I’ve bought you this 2nd hand Lada Riva, it was £2 and you don’t appreciate it and new is new an I’m not senile and blah blah blah aaaaarrgjaraggahahajjajajjajajaaaaarghjjjj
He was one of our best, but that doesn’t say much. People seem to have it out for him. Whatever he does, it’s bad. He earns 140k.. its too much, etc… What business is his wage got to do with anything?
I thought Sanchez was awful, be we don’t get on his back.. We blame Wenger instead. Let’s look at players objectively and not put in our personal biases when making judgement.
Wenger playing him where he shouldn’t be playing does play a part too. Are you gonna fully blame Alexis if he ships in 10 goals when Wenger plays him as a goalkeeper?
Hold up, Alexis is world class when playing for Chile as a striker. Who are you to say where Alexis “should” be playing? Give him a few games up there to adjust and he might just translate his international form into Arsenal colours.
There’s few things more soothing in football than watching Ozil repeatedly choose the perfect option with the ball. So good to see him back.
Watching him glide with the ball is great too. He’s deceptively quick across the ground with a ball at his feet, and his head is invariably up. Cuts back and picks the pass when the space closes up. Like poetry his movements are.
Thought Ian Wright’s comments before the game were also spot on r.e. stockpiling under performing players or players Wenger doesn’t fancy (he gave the example of Chambers) In a time when Transfer prices are at an all time high, why not cash in on Joel, Chambers, Gibbs if Arsene doesn’t like them? And Wright also seemed to be having a dig at players who have been here for years without contributing like Walcott and Ramsey which I fully support. That’s not to say I think we should sell Ramsey etc straight away, but what is his incentive to improve if… Read more »
Ramsey not contributing? We need a striker yes and a CB but otherwise the squad is fine. Campbell and Chambers will probably go if a new CB and an offensive player arrive. Would be stupid to sell them eariler and leave you short.
Holding looks like a real find. Xhaka will hopefully need some more games to adjust to the PL. Cazorla and Oz didn’t really impress today. Walcott was okay, was made to shoot with his left on those chances.
Holding is new and as we’ve been told, we love new. All sarcasm aside, AW may have a point as I felt the same way about Gabriel in his first 6 months. Now, not so much. And it isn’t because he isn’t a bright and shinny new player but because he has flattered to deceive as we have seen.
Good forbid Walcott is made to use his weak foot, that’s just not cricket is it?
At least Theo got off two shots with his weak foot. Alexis was six yards from goal and instead of hitting it with his left he did his best Derek Zoolander “I’m not an ambi-turner” impression and dribbled in a circle so he could get it on his right.
Gibbs is going nowhere. Nacho will need rotating, or KG will take over as first choice … shame Mahrez didn’t join us. He’s class. SPEND SOME MONEY
Oh well. There’s always next year I suppose….
We improved so much when Ozil replaced Cazorla. A lot of people were clamouring for Santi last week, but maybe no.10 just isn’t his thing anymore. Impressed with Ox first half but he did fade after that. Very true on Bellerin and Walcott’s lack of understanding, you can tell Bellerin simply doesn’t want to play that in behind ball Walcott really wants. I was screaming “TRIANGLE + L1 YOU PRICK” at the TV! Xhaka was a big improvement on Elneny today, really impressed with him and the question is who should partner him. Coqulein who played well but very very… Read more »
The need for a striker is downright horrifying. It’s a real pitty seeing Alexis struggle in an awkward position for him. As for the midfield, I kinda think that Jack would be awesome next to Xhaka as soon as they gel properly.
Wilshere-Xhaka has huge potential (and my personal choice 😉 ) but sadly I think Wenger is more conservative than that and might go for Cazorla instead and maybe Coq if it’s a big game
I couldn’t help having a good laugh at your last sentence. Sorry. I’ll show myself out!
What is a triangle + L1?
It’s how you do a chipped through-ball on FIFA and PES on playstation
Santi was not played in his best position. His best position is deep,as the pivot taking the ball from defence and turning defence into attack, as he showed last season before he got injured.
Second point, we seem to be going through the motions at the moment, just drifting. If we want to challenge we need to be firing straight away as a team.
Let me ask again….
Between the choice of Van Persie returning or no striker as it is; which would you pick?
Vote up to bring back that skunk (who’s past his peak but sadly probably still better than what we have) at a decent cheap price, vote down for no striker at all.
I d rather drop from top 4 than having that scumbag back
I’d take him back but only if he melted the premier league medal he got with United!
He also has to melt the 30 pieces of silver too 😉
I still have a soft spot for RVP but is that seriously what we’re left with? A striker well past his best now. And before we compare him with the Henry return he was hardly Henry to begin with, and would be playing a much more important role than Henry did when he returned.
Rvp would not be a popular re-signing.
Plus he’s 32 I think , so hardly the future . We need a striker who will last a few years and is younger.
And rvp is a massive arsehole.
If wenger doesn’t get a striker we are super fooked.
Don’t want to endlessly pick on him, but the lack of development of both Ox and Theo whilst they still received preferential treatment over the likes of Campbell is in a microcosm everything that’s wrong with Wenger’s current tenure.
I think Joel is a better player than Theo and the ox
I don’t want to be too negative, but we must consider ourselves very lucky to have such a world class midfielder in our team. He feels like a big fish in a small pond. Almost a waste, if I’m honest
It’s crazy – Santi is probably our best player in terms of pure tekkers, but Ozil’s combination of tekkers with awareness and athleticism put him on a different level. Love Santi but we’ve never been able to get the best out of him at #10.
We rely on him waaaaaay too much, strange for a team with so many attacking minded players
How on earth did we get Rob Holding for just over two millions.?
It’s time to talk about Sanchez. He was absolutely dire again today which was a continuation of his form for most of last year. He gives the ball away so many times and no it isn’t because he is “high risk” it is because he is predictable and one footed. With clueless Walcott next to him we are woefully short up front. Problems are deeper than we want to admit.
Need to buy 3 players (CF, CB, Wide Attacker). Will probably only get one.
Indeed. He’d be near unstoppable if he could dribble both ways. Unfortunately as you’ve said, it’s either cut inside onto his right or it’s bust for him. Just so predictable and seemingly easy to nullify if the opposition have done their homework.
Which is why I prefer Sanchez on the right. Gives him the option to stay wide on his right foot or cut in.
On the left, all he does is cut in.
He was 2nd top scorer last season and missed quite a few games too. He’s not the problem at all.
Bonus rating: Arsene ‘pay the staff’ Wenger 10/10 for showing he’s still got love for the streets
Admittedly, it wasn’t a humiliation (as last week threatened to be) but this was not a good performance. By the end of the game we had the entire A-team on the field but still never seriously threatened Schmeichel. Wenger’s plan to play Alexis as a striker is simply not working. I am not sure how long he will persist with it but it’s blindingly obvious that we need a striker. Likewise, Koscielny’s return highlighted just how shaky we are at the back. His presence made a huge difference but we can’t expect him to carry our defense every week. The… Read more »
Firstly, without Kos we would have lost for sure.
The game came to life with Ozil.
If u think we don’t have a striker problem, clearly u were watching the game with your grandmother’s glasses (if that is a saying).
I watched ManU play against Southampton, n lemme tell u we better get our squad sorted out asap
Bonus rating : 10/10 for all of you who are still optimistic about this season. Proud of you. I just can’t do it.
5 points off the pace after two matches. Should have been 6 with the lucky penalty no calls. We were not even close to scoring a goal. Wenger out. He’s completely sucked the joy out of supporting this club.
Although I’m also very sceptical of Wenger right now. I’m even more sceptical of the club as a whole. The club seems to be turning into a typical company more and more. Decisions seem to always be based first around how we’re going to earn as much as possible in five years. The football seems secondary. I want Highbury passion back ?
what a boring match this was. when did we become so boring? What happened? And not saying he was terrible today but what the hell happens to Ox when the season starts? Where does pre-season Ox go?
I just assume it’s because defenders actually care in a regular season game…
Congratulations to the team on proving so successfully & without words:
Game 1 clearly showed that we need another CB.
Game 2 clearly showed that we need another striker.
Now if we could just somehow get the manager to pay attention & listen…
Did think Kos & Ozil were fantastic today & their quailty showed.
Fuck sake Wenger give me some boots, I’d make a better centre forward than Alexis. He really doesn’t work there.
Wenger is stale, obstinate and deluded. We are far from a club of choice now. Whilst Wenger hangs around we will only be able to attract mediocre players or the odd good up and comer like Holding.
Have to say spot on about Ox. He would have loved that 20 minutes in the end when space finally appeared in the Leicester half. Pity we have a manager who f***s up 90% of his substitutions.
Otherwise, the season has started even better than I expected. 1 point from our opening 2 games is pretty well done for a team with no backbone or direction.
Too lucky that coaching staff guy who got put the balm on Giroud ? was so weird to watch
Hmmph! I miss Alexis, kinda bored with Lawrie……….
One for the older heads
Did anyone else get thanked for pooping when they voted?
Watched the game live & initially thought we at least weren’t terrible. Then saw some extended highlights of today’s other games…& oh boy that brought it all home. Just can’t see a good season for us this year. Things just aren’t clicking for us, & I believe it goes deeper than transfers. All predictable, & perhaps worse all preventable. 2 games in & I’m sorry to say that I’m not liking what we’ve become…
Agreed. Our problems are so much deeper than a new striker. For an attacking and possession-based team, our creativity and passing outside of Ozil has looked laboured and poor post-Cesc. It’s a combination of Wenger incisting on building a passing team on previously poor passing players (Hi Ramsey) but since Cesc, we’ve just looked like a vision less, lost team, with no discernible identity in our style of play. We neither look good in possession, or passing or countering, and certainly not defending. Maybe Wenger’s typical style of play is based solely on the individual quality of players he has… Read more »
So its Cesc and RVP then? back to the future 9/11? Surely that could not work …
I must of missed something, I thought Jack played well when he came on. His passes were accurate and he brought a positivity to our game that wasn’t there in his absense. Hopefully we see more of that in the coming weeks, along with some better decision making in the final third.
Wenger out.
Come on you guys .
Wake up ,smell the coffee.
Robin, is that you?
Watching Theo today really gave me a headache. Hes so bad. Can we please send him to Sporting instead of Campbell (who really could have made a difference today imo)? Please
And no matter what Theo does Wenger never takes him off. Baffling stuff
Also I’ve noticed that Wenger has absolutely lost it recently. Says something batshit crazy in every conference. Yesterday about Real Madrid and today about paying 600 people staff every month. Bloody hell we’re not Portsmouth ffs ?
Walcott in front of Bellerin doesn’t work well on the right, that’s where Campbell I felt did so well there as he had a tendency to really drift into the middle (or even Ramsey there) leaving that outside channel for Bellerin to get up the field.
I assume Giroud will be back next match, but pray we get another striking option in there before the window shuts and get Sanchez back wide left.
It is easy to blame Walcott, but where was Santi? He never got in the game at all. Many roasted Wenger for picking Ramsey ahead of him against Liverpool, but it seems he was right. Santi is just not quite cut out for the #10 role. So with an ineffective #10 in a system which much of our forward play relies on, we all focus on 140k / week Walcott who did get into some good positions – as he always does. On another note, I am gutted Campbell was loaned out, but if you want to start comparing goal… Read more »
Jesus effin christ, just pay up already for the players needed! Shove £45m down Lyons throat for Lacazette and be done with it already. The guy’s on fire.
Wait another year and he’ll become top scorer and valued around £65m.
…and then we go ‘oh look, he’s too expensive. We can’t pay €65m for a player we almost signed for €30m’
Fuck all the wenger talk about the signing upgrades on what we currently have, we don’t need a WC striker, we jst need someone who offers something different to what w have.
People blaming Alexis for not being a centre forward. That’s cos he’s not a centre forward.
Give him a break, hes not a centre back either.
Wrong. Alexis is a CF and he is a damn good CF for Chile. Why are most Arsenal fans under the illusion that the idea of him playing there for Arsenal is crazy!? He could start our next game against Watford there and bag a hatrick. He hasn’t had a run of games there and has all the qualities to be an Augero type CF.
For me, he needs to stop chasing the ball back and wasting his energy. For Chile he seems to have more team mates who can bust a gut as much as he does.
Only if we could have been a little more decisive and got the lucky goal in the dying moments like manu
Congrats to Arsene Wenger on the signing of Rob Holding. Now let’s have a couple of quality signings before the end of the month so the fans can restore a bit of faith in you.
A couple? Good joke
And a cynical 10/10 to the ref for screwing up in our favor.
Clattenburg yet to give a penalty against us – long may he continue.
We play with no sense of cohesion, none of the beautiful free-flowing arsenal (which we haven’t really seen since the days of cesc and rvp in all honesty). We used to be fun to watch even when we produced poor results and patchy form, this Arsenal feels like nothing more than a decaying dream of a manager who has lost touch of his vision for football and how to bring his vision to reality.
I wish I could up vote this 100 times. We look like shit. Everyone talks about the attractive football we play but I haven’t seen it in years. It just isn’t fun watching us play anymore. Sure the game was an improvement on last week but we created pretty much zero chances and never looked like winning. Is that really a huge improvement?? We tie a game and now Rob Holding is a Messiah? Last week you told us we lost due to lack of experience and now he’s the second coming. Our team looks lost, passionless and leaderless. We… Read more »
We’ve started with two tricky games but made more difficult by team selection and approach. Yes, Barcelona play well with small players up front moving around but they also have players who can all control and pass the ball – we haven’t (Ozil and Cazorla excepted). Sanchez and Theo could look good at Barca up front but not in PL.
We could buy a dozen top scorers but still not score goals if we’re not going to give them the right balls. Hopefully the return of Ozi will sort that and Giroud, for all his faults, must be there too.
Depressed. Miss the off-season already. That’s not good
Don’t hold your breath for anymore signings, because wenger says we have Holding who played well for one game and we still have Sanogo with us, and he’s “top top quality”. We’re doomed…
No excuses for Arsenal to be undermanned and unprepared. The money is there, and there are some decent players, but some useless dead wood. Walcott, Ramsey, Chambers and Gibbs have all regressed under Wenger.
Oxlade-Chamberlain 6
LOL
he was dreadful, killed our attacks every time he got the ball. Just a much worse Gervinho, no idea why people keep making excuses for this guy. Championship level player
Not often I weigh in here, but here goes:
I thought we were drastically improved when Ozil, Giroud and Wilshere came on. Seriously. Alexis was disappointing but I was seriously impressed with Holding and thought, to be fair, that Walcott tracked back well. Decision to leave the substitutes so late was just infuriating. I love this club with all my heart and soul but if something doesn’t change soon, and it pains me to say it, we could very rapidly fade into mid-table obscurity just as Liverpool have done over the past few years. COYG.
Best Cech in a while..Nice turn on Ham roll. Well and truly fucked if anything happens to Koscielny. Thought Holding was much improved, only got skinned by Vardy on that one occasion. I love Bellerin. But he seems to always choose the wrong crossing option despite getting in behind numerous times. I thought Xhaxa and Coq were sloppy but also pretty solid and they provided a defenisve unit with Kos and Holding. Poorest game i have seen from Santi..Got Clattered by Morgan early and didnt look up for it after that, Ox had a decent first half an then just… Read more »
For all the pre-season success, we look like such a disassociated team at the moment. Particularly up top. I’m not sure if the Alexis striker role is working at all. Nor Walcott shunted back out to the wing. I feel like Wenger is trying to accommodate Walcott (At Campbell’s expense) We were very slow breaking out of defense. In some ways psychologically, we look like we were as much playing not to lose given the capitulation against Liverpool (which as we have seen from today’s result against Burnley are frankly nothing special) Again Wenger was a bit slow to ring… Read more »
Even Mike Dean has only given 3 pens against us. Beware Martin Atkinson though. Mind you, Dean would have sent Coq off without second thought!
There were a few positives to be taken from yesterday, but I think ultimately more negatives. Holding looks very good, and way ahead of Chambers after only 2 games. He’s a proper CB. Having Kos back was great, but we do need that other world class CB in case he gets injured. Sanchez is wasted as a CF. What I don’t understand is why we are letting Campbell go out on loan when he has performed well and is defensively very good whilst keeping Ox and Walcott in the team. I think Campbell is making way for Gnabry but I… Read more »
I agree with Wenger had Holding being signed for 55m pounds everyone will start praising him as a good signing
We never threatened them, we deserved to be down to 10 men, and they were cheated of a well deserved penalty, on top of the threat they made in the first half that ended in the razor close no penalty. The tie flattered us, and allows AW a little more breathing space for his nonsense. I’ve said he was fresh out of ideas, but then he came up with a self defence that included comparing to Real’s transfer season and looking out for 600 employees and I stand corrected! No movement off the ball up front has been the story… Read more »
Sanchez’s talent all but wasted playing a lone striker. He needs to go back to playing in the wings. Wenger needs to wake up the fug up.
The “big name” managers have arrived – and Chelsea, ManUre and Man City all looked better organised and motivated, with some players more effective, and new quality signings making their mark. Meanwhile, our team plays Sanchez out of position, Walcott in front of Bellerin – which will never work – and still has blatantly obvious gaps in defence and centre forward. Then, with our very best creative player left out on game 1, and on the bench until near the end of game 2, we spend over 70 minutes getting the ball up to the Leicester penalty box and then… Read more »
The sooner we lose Theo the better we become. Even Campbell, though not the best is better than Theo. The only reason Theo plays ahead of Campbell is because he is British. We want to support the team but we are not blind or stupid. Gazidiz n Wenger change tunes so much it’s difficult to know what is going on with them.
For those claiming 5 points off the lead is like a lost season….is kinda like claiming being tied for lead means winning the season.
Not all is lost. We don’t need to sign anyone. Yes, the first half of the season is buggered but when Danny, Per and Gab are back we’ll make 4th again. And the joke will be on the clubs that spent all that money because we’ll still have ours. Happy days.
The problem is so glaringly obvious and has been for ages – every single one of our attacking players gets to the opposition final 3rd and then just stands at the edge of the box…yesterday there were at least 7 moments when our player had space out side to send a cross in but not a single one of our players bothered to make a run into the bloody box!! A couple times Ox beat his man with a cut in but all he could do was shoot from distance or pass sideways because….no one ran! AW (and I’ve always… Read more »
Would you do a Griezman for Alexis swap?
He seems perfect for Athletico. Alexis is capable of brilliance but too often holds the ball too long and gives it away. There’s no excuse for being quite so shit as a striker.
If he wants to get on the ball he should be able to.