Arsenal’s best performance of the season saw them make it nine wins from nine as two goals each for Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, as well as a goal of the season contender from substitute Aaron Ramsey dove the Gunners to a 5-1 win over Fulham at Craven Cottage.
Read the report and see the goals here.
Ratings
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Really pleased to see a response from Ramsey after starting on the bench. Lacazette is looking really well adjusted to the league now. Good to see Aubameyang picking up his goalscoring again too, that will do him a world of good.
Not Ramsey’s biggest fan but I liked his assist for the Auba goal as much as his role and finish in the 3rd. If he’s going to play at 10 that’s his primary job to link midfield to the attackers. Usually he’s just another one of the attackers but this time he found space in the pocket and the pass was perfect. More of that please Aaron!
That Rambo goal will go down as the EPL goal of the season. The buildup was hilarious – header after header after header…what a back heel!
Didn’t miss Ozil at all today, we were so much faster on the attack!
Dead weight Ozil.
Totally useless overpaid flop. No club gonna buy him because everybody knows that he’s a flop.
9/10 for wins in a row. Kind of frustrating as I would have rather had ten wins from the last nine games, that would’ve earned a 10/10 from me. But it’s a work in progress, so no complaints here. After the Interlul I’d really appreciate us improving further, getting ten points from the first three games, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
Not a maths genius by any stretch, but how do you get 10 wins from 9 games…
his math worked for me. i’d like those points too
The game today counts as two
Or 10 points from 3 games. Still..like the enthusiasm
By putting in the fabled 110%!
The important next step is to kill the game off before the third half. It’s our best hope of finishing higher than 1st place in the league.
If we can just get 32 more league wins this season, we can literally beat ANYONE.
Obviously we have to be careful all the other teams in the league don’t win every single one of their games… then it gets tricky.
9 out of 9 for wins in a row.
Bellerin and Mustafi both impressed me today, I’ve been critical of them in recent weeks.
Leno was solid too
What a great result, some really great football. I wouldn’t say Mustafi had a bad game but for me he has a lot to make up before I trust / rate him. Separate from that some great Arsenal football there, I’m genuinely excited now, god how I’ve missed my Arsenal.
City have De Bruyne, David Silva and Bernardo Silva competing for spots AWAY FROM CM and they manage them brilliantly. We have the same scenario with Mkhi, Ozil and Ramsey. Surely we find a way for them to coexist rather than ship one out. Ramsey is too good to loose. I doubt he’d be asking for absolute mega wages like Ozil, I just think its the fact that Emery is not convinced with him. There’s too many games in the season for rotation. Losing a player the calibre of Ramsey AT THE BEGINNING OF HIS BEST YEARS would be a… Read more »
Same for auba and laca. Both must be kept in the team
Unai is now finding a way to play 4-4-2 with Iwobi involved and Granit/Torreira looking more solid in midfield (or Guendouzi)
That means we can accomodate a Welbeck/Laca partnership or Laca/Auba or indeed (less so) Welbeck/Auba.
Or we can play with one of them up topand have the hole behind supported by Ozil or Ramsey.
He could only do this when he sorted central midfield and with the option of an Iwobi to throw in as well.
Emery is doing a great job in keeping the squad fresh by constant rotation. My only concern is for Nacho though. He seems to be playing each and every match.
Kolasinac soon come fam
Welbeck put in a shift and held the ball up and played laca in many times. It’s almost like no one notices him because he doesn’t score prolifically.
Sell Ozil, he’s literally an overpaid sloth. Considering his wages, he’s the biggest flop and overrated mess of the century.
I’m turkish and I hate Ozil hiding behind “racist accusation” to hide is incompetence. Ozil been shit for years, Hoeness is 100% correct.
Might want to change your name there so…..
Ozzil, Hoeness was doing an excellent job of diverting any of the blame away from all the Bayern flops from the World Cup, there were plenty.
Oh, well, seeing as you’re Turkish and all, you must be right!
As has been pointed out, Hoeness must have been watching a lot of Ozil’s matches from prison. I think Bayern and Germany (and Ozil) did okay while he was gone.
We have Auba, Laca, Welbeck competing for places up top. Ozil, Mkhi, Ramsey, Iwobi for the attacking midfield roles. Total 7 players for 4 slots, which means at any time we may have 3 awesome attacking players on the bench.
Xhaka, Torreira, Guendozi, Eleneny for the two defensive mid slots…and there it seems we are a bit short…but in a pinch, if you ask nicely, Ramsey should be able to fill that slot.
Third goal is everything we love about Arsenal – tha past one and the present …long it may continue
Ramsey has scored some beauties and very important goals (FA cup Chelski) for us over the years.
We have 3 players in Ramsey, Ozil and Mhki (to some extent) who are similar. One has to go.
Problem is Ozil’s salary scares off most suitors. So Ramsey is the most vulnerable to a sale at the moment bc of contract.
Loved how Emery celebrated it. The passion is back at the Arsenal! Still buzzing!
COYG.
Gonna give them all 10 on 10 (after I post this comment), including Mustafi whom I dissed in the Line-ups article. 😛 Also Ramsey showed us what exactly we’re going to miss about him. That goal scoring instinct in him, that deftness in front of goal…he’s the best goal scoring mid we’ve had since the days of Pires/Ljunberg, and its going to be hard to replace that. Right now I think he works best as a super-sub (although Emery has a penchant for getting all his subs right pretty much every time). Starting with him I don’t know so much…just… Read more »
Personally I’d rather keep Ramsey than Ozil bc of salary and age. BUT I don’t think we will have a buyer for Ozil as much as we would for Ramsey so it may be he will have to be sold. If so, we need to balance the team. The action predominantly comes from left side with Iwobi close to the only thing near a winger we have at present. We need someone out right. No surprise Bellerin was less able to join the fray first half. It was only ins econd half when they were a bit more open that… Read more »
You and your pavon. Are you Argentinian by any chance? Don’t think so cos that way; you would know from the World Cup the guy would need time to settle down in Europe. Plus, don’t think Arsenal can afford spending 44mil on someone like him at the moment, it would be too big a risk. Go for cheaper options like Almiron or someone, 11 mil quoted.
It feel silly trying to criticize a 5-1 win but the old “game of two halves” was definitely accurate for yesterdays performance. Fulham would have hardly had a sniff if we never gave the ball away trying to play out of the back. In the first half all team who use the high pressing tactic are full of energy and running. In the second they fade. We gave them two gilt edged chances by playing the ball low across the face of our penalty area which they intercepted and almost scored. As others said, top 6 teams will not waste… Read more »
When PEA was through on goal for the 5th you just knew it was going in. Haven’t had a player that made you feel like that since my childhood man kroosh Henry!
He’s not Henry quality.
Nor Laca.
But combined and with Welbeck, we have plenty of goals and they are starting to look less forgiving.
Torreira, what a beast!
He wasn’t the only one.
If anything, Torreira has some limitations bc of size. BUT he never backs down.
It’s a team performance today and it started with Laca up top. He was the real beast coming back to support defense.
Yeah, our very own little Verreira
Verrati and Viera combined. Small but..
I remember when we got Lacazette and some of us didn’t know much about him. Somebody here said he’s a lot like Theo Walcott. If you are that person, you deserve 6 strokes of cane.
He wasn’t particularly good last season.
BUT Emery has got the best (beast) out of him.
That’s bc Emery tweaks to play to the player’s strength where Wenger left out those details.
Case in point starting Welbeck with Lacazette. He knows we were going to be under great physical pressure.
Auba would not afford the sort of retention Iwobi gave on the left and we needed the added support to Laca to hunt the ball down higher up.
But then play opened up and they started to tire, he put on Auba to exploit space which he is good at.
you realise he underwent surgery last season?
LoL… He’s actually my favourite Arsenal player atm. I’ve always heralded his qualities on Arseblog if you’ve been paying attention. He’s the definition of “lethal”.
One thing was very apparent today. Torreira was built for English football. He was spectacular today
Its not just Torreira. Granit was solid today too like Granite.
We had to weather them through first half.
The score does not betray how difficult they made it.
Its not a one man performance today. The midfield was largely more competitive with 4 across.
And defense stood solid, yes even Mustafi.
How dare u vote him down that much, was thinking of outvoting you alone. But it ain’t possible
4-4-2 and then 4-4-1-1. Emery started players bearing in mind Fulham were going to be strong coming at us first half. NO surprise we get more joy out of second halfs when teams start to lose a bit of their enthusiasm. And that’s when the likes of Auba and Ramsey had more space to exploit and go at tired legs. BUT first half we needed to be resolute and strong and THAT (not the goals alone) is perhaps the most encouraging aspect of this win. 1) Leno – From strength to strength. Kept us in with a good save, came… Read more »
ugh, tough crowd
Might not agree with every point, but a big upvote for a thoughtful and well articulated post. Tough crowd indeed… cheers for the time and effort.
You should wonder why you get so many down votes. Your comments sometimes doesn’t necessarily typifies what actually happened on the pitch. Bellerin had to be careful overlapping too much cos he got a very fast Sessegnon to worry about with Mikhy being Mikhy. He needed to time his runs well which imo, he did to perfection. And about Granit, don’t even get me started, guy put his heart out yesterday. In fact, I wouldn’t mind having him as permanent Captain if he’s gonna keep playing like he did yesterday’s. At a point in the first half, when laca got… Read more »
Actually, I think he gets so many down votes because his posts are so long, and he assumes that we need to know his opinion about each player after each match.
I really am not sure what made today’s performance much more complete than the earlier games. There were too many changes up front to point at it exactly. Using Welbz, Iwobi and Mkhi of course gives us people who naturally love the wings – a complete deviation from Auba, Ramsey and Ozil who love the middle. Was it the availability of one or two wingers in the team? Was it the absence of square pegs in round holes a la the shoe-in of our stars? Was it just that Fulham was shite today? Or was it just the fact that… Read more »
we just missed Fulham. They were always lovely opponents. Play a high line, three at the back, and try to attack us, bless them. They dont push and shove and kick too much and try to play the ball on the ground. Perfect opponents as always. We sure missed them while they were out of the PL
I think these scores are inflated by the second half, The first half was characterized by misplaced passes and inability to deal with the Fulham press, leading to more than a few Fulham chances. Once again I’m left feeling that a team of City or Pools caliber would tear us apart. That said, 10/10 for the second half maybe brings up the average. I wonder if Fulham ran out of steam after pressing so much in the first half, after we went 3 up they basically gave up. Regardless of our worries about the defense and conceding chances, this winning… Read more »
Oh and 2pts off 1st place, what a magic!
First half we should have really scored at least 2 and constantly got in down their left. Wasn’t as good as the second but it wasn’t exactly poor.
First half poor? As much as I would agree with everyone that yesterday’s performance was our best so far this season. Don’t think an opponent trying to play to less effect should mean we were poor. No we weren’t as good as in the second half. One thing people should understand around here is; no matter who you play, at a point in the game they would get their chances too, what differentiates a good team from a bad one is how often or less you concede clear goal scoring chances. People agree we were good yesterday bcos we didn’t… Read more »
Iwobi looks totally transformed,every time he gets the ball now he just wants to attack his man. That’s nice to see considering how ponderous he was on the ball last season
What a great luxury to have Ramsey and Auba to bring in off of the bench. Really like our attacking options with Auba and Lacazette when either is center striker or when they play together, both are great finishers with either foot and work hard for the team to do what is needed (esp Lacazette with your he is constantly dropping deep to help defend or be an outlet for the team). Love the way Torreira has been playing, what a great addition he’s been and is the type of player we’ve been missing in the engine room. The big… Read more »
2 goals each from laca x auba but I’m still quietly waiting for their partnership to really blossom. Once that’s a given, the team would have earned some respect from opponents. Their worry to stop our attack would outweigh their focus to press on our relatively troublesome defence. I can honestly see 20+ goals 30 goals each from both of them.
I think the rating for Bellerin is way too high. He played well in the build up for the two goals but other than that his touch was awful and he gave the ball away in dangerous positions multiple times in the first half. He hasn’t been great this season, would love to see the Swiss international get a few games instead.
10/10 Torreira gets a song, a little star is born today for the away fans
I know that dreaming about the title is dangerous business, but if we can keep this up against the lesser teams and manage at least draws against the top four, we could be in a happy place come May.
well, the last young foreign manager we appointed didnt do too badly in his first season. This might not be so fanciful.
Iwobi was my man of the match with Laca a close second. Welbz did well too.
Outstanding. Loving our away performances so far.
Some of that passing out from the back though – not good for the heart! Hopefully it will improve as we go on. More first touch passing would be a good start.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but whenever he’s on, Miki’s been heavily involved in nearly every goal we’ve scored.
Oh yeh, that was nice.
Blogs, when was the last time we won 10 on the spin?
It would be nice to shove a blue wkd up the hoop of Vardy and co on the next outing 🙂
Oh, and I just want to add 10/10 for Steve Sidwell’s colour commentary.
A bit raw, sure, but a hell of a breath of fresh air after the Gales of this world. More please.
The potency of our striking options is just grand. I really wasn’t sure about letting go of Giroud when we did, as I fancied him as the foil for Auba in the way he does for France, and have always felt his link up play is amongst the best in the world, but my word… The difference in having strikers that you know can finish half chances with ease or can make something happen with a moment of dynamism… It’s great – I’ve missed that without really realising it. It also makes things a lot easier for the midfield, whose… Read more »
Top 4 is the maximum for us this season
No laca no party
That third goal is something out of this world.