Arsene Wenger says he doesn’t really care who scores, once somebody does, after two of his summer signings helped the Gunners to a 4-0 win over Nottingham Forest last night.
Granit Xhaka cracked in another long distance belter, while £17m signing Lucas Perez scored twice as he opened his Arsenal account. It must have pleased the manager for the new boys to contribute so well to the win, but he seemed keen to stress the collective effort as most important.
“Honestly, for me the most important is that we win the game, not who scores,” he said. “It’s not so important.
“Individually, it’s good because he can convince people that he has the level to play for us and it will help himself as well to grow in belief.”
And the Frenchman was pleased with the way his team, after 11 changes, performed against what might have been tricky opposition.
“I think everybody was focused to play the way we want to play football, sharp movement of the ball, great mobility in our team, always quick to move the ball and overall it was a convincing performance,” he said.
“Overall I felt that technically we played well, our combinations worked well and we played at a high pace and that’s where we made the difference in the game.
“We had some young players who did well and Lucas scored as well so it’s a positive night.”
“We had some young players who did well and Lucas scored as well so it’s a positive night.”
give the Xhaka lad a bit of praise boss!!!
What if it’s an ego thing? He knows he is going to be huge, but Xakha has a bit of a character, strong personality, and he wants to ease him slowly and not throw out his favourite players out of the 11 for him?
Xhaka’s long range shots will make some defenders less comfortable to sit in their box and wait for us to try and walk it in. A double threat, the shot and the possibility of forcing defenders to come out and close him allowing other forward players more space. Do not coach it out of him please Arsene.
Exactly that. All he’ll need to do now is shape like he is lining one up and they’ll have to come out to him.
Hey presto, space in behind for Perez, Walcott, Sanchez, The Ox, Giroud (stop laughing), whoever to exploit.
Unnecessarily stupid comment in brackets, but I agree with the gist of what you are saying.
I don’t see Arsène stopping Xhaka from his ranged efforts. It’s clearly something he wanted to add through El-Neny, but with more consistency in terms of end product.
Its nice how both our new deep lying midfielders have a ping shot. definitely more by design than accident.
Maybe one of them could teach Santi how to do it. Never fully understood how such a talented guy skewed so many shots.
Spot on, I’ve been saying this for several seasons.
Someone that technically good, with both feet too, should be better shooting from range.
@Goonercatchthisflop, you can make 4 millions as a pundit. Think about it.
Nah, he obviously doesn’t have the Narrative understood that Arsenal is always supposed to be crisis talk.
No offence Goonercatchthisflop, I agree, but it won’t sell!
Ask Thierry, he’s been coached in the narrative.
Alas I’m far too prone to shouting wanker at the television when we play, and they don’t really encourage that in pundit school. Pity.
Yes, they insist you call them ‘Ref’! 😀
I only care about who scores when I triple captain Alexis in fantasy league. Sorry Iwobi but those points were tasty om nom nom.
Of course it doesn’t matter who scores, it’s winning that counts, but on a related note how the goals are scored is important and i personally was happy with the more direct approach of Xhaka’s and Lucas’ 2nd goal.
Let’s hope it continues because we’re a far more dangerous team when we take a more direct approach.
^^ This.
The fact that we can score that direct type of goal givs the opposition one more worry, and makes it more possible for us to be able to construct something like that beautiful fourth goal when they try to shut down the direct approach.
Arsene doesn’t play fantasy football
A bit odd because if memory serves me correctly, wenger has stressed the importance of goals coming from different positions as opposed to them coming only from, say, strikers.
I may be reading too much into this but I hope it’s not a justification for benching Xhaka and Perez.
I don’t envy Wenger though, all those midfield options, must be hell coming up with a first 11 week in week out. Can’t imagine how much more difficult it will be when Ramsey cones back from his injury.
Well I think he generally wants to have the threat of goals from all over the pitch, any manager would, but from which threats the goals actually materialise in a given match, or even over the whole season, isn’t so important as long as opponents know the threat is there.
We don’t need Ramsey (unpopular thought I know) but he unbalances the team. Plus where is he going to go?
For once we have a midfield made out of Granit.
Thanks pal,…here to please!
I always believed Granit would look good on the counter.
It doesn’t matter who scores but the victory we get on every game. Keep it up Xhaka we have been looking for someone like you at Emirates
If we won every game 1-0 due to an own goal I would be happy. It’s all about winning.
I’m happy when we win 1-0. I’m happier when we win 4-0.
George Graham days are gone bro, let them be gone…
I’m glad Xhaka heard me shouting “SHOOT!” all the way from London last night.
I don’t care who scores
where is Fat Gunner now, am sure his waiting till Arsenal loose a match and bring all the negativity out. COYG
Eating.
There are a few others picking up his mantle, who moan even when we score four goals away and win.
I dare say last night was a close to a perfect performance. I can’t think of the last time a new signing scored a 30-yard screamer with his both of his first two opening goals for Arsenal.
By the way, where was Debuchy?
and dare i ask, Sa-no-goal?
Injured.
It’s interesting how we’re increasingly converting more of our chances. That’s 17 goals in 7 games (including UCL and EFL games) – an average of almost 2.5 goals per game since the start of the season. Long may it continue.
Some teams want stones in their squad- we’ve got granit!!
ElNeny is the cleanest passer of the ball that I’ve seen in a very long time. When we’re 2-0 up and u want to bring in someone to just keep possession and add strength to the midfield, who better than our new Mr.Reliable!
Also so proud to hear all the positive chants for Bendnter. Made me feel so good about us Arsenal fans
Anyone recall Elneny relaying the message he got from Wegner? “stop shooting from distance”. He’d done it at Basel, but not really yet at Arsenal, and was nonetheless told not to. Interesting change with Xhaka.
But hell, a goal is a goal.
He wasn’t told to “stop shooting from distance”. He was told to pick his shots intelligently, so as to avoid unnecessarily breaking down attacks with a wild and selfish shot.
This is a very competitive team Wenger has built. As I mentioned, Wenger has made his fair share of mistakes in market but he generally bought low minimising impact to our bottom line and the growth of the club (in fact his purchases have generated income to grow the club from humble financial start back when he first took reign) When he has b ought premium recently he has bought very well – Ozil, Alexis, Cech, (Santi), Mustafi and now Granit Currently we have two players for every position : CF – Giroud, Lucas, (Welbeck) RW – Alexis, Walcott LW… Read more »
Im not reading this too much…there is something goin on netween Wenger & Xhaka. The manager somehow is not happy with Xhaka!! I cant pinpoint what it is yet. But the player made it worst with the finger to the lips gesture after scoring. Tell me who is it directed too? Its to Wenger and the manager knew it. It is so obvious with hos statements after the game. Why never mention Xhaka goal then?
Don’t be an idiot
Withdraw your comment immediately before it makes me vomit, Xhaka was directing to the opponent fans and I wrote earlier that he meant keep cool more goals are coming
What a revelation!
I think AWesome means he doesn’t MIND who scores rather than care, as long as we get the goals and the points we deserve.
That thing will be a regular thing. We will see a lot of it. We better give it a name. I propose we call it a Xhaka Boom or a Granit Strike
Xhaka Khannon