Arsenal made it eight wins out of eight as three first time goalscorers, Sokratis, Emile Smith Rowe, and Matteo Guendouzi, gave us a 3-0 win over Qarabag in Baku this evening.
Read the report and see the goals here.
Ratings
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Expected win, but nevertheless delightful. The Arsenal had a few shaky moments, especially in the first half, but all in all a good game.
“Few” shaky moments..
Mate are you taking the piss? Leno Pulled of a 10/10 this match to spare our bushes.Could’ve easily been another 8-2.Emery looks like the wrong candidate so far imo.Look at Sarri at Chelsea if you disagree.Should’ve gone for arteta or even Brendan.
What bushes? “Could’ve easily been another 8-2”. Excellent analysis.
Don’t think you actually watched the game mate..
Leaping from a 3-0 victory to continue our 8 match winning streak to calling for Emery to go and be replaced by Brendan Rodgers was ambitious, but you did it, congratulations.
Ram = Troll
Too bad I love the bushes!! oops I’m blushing now..
Don’t feed the troll.
Cleansheet with convincing scoreline is always welcomed. We still have homework on the defensive side, but at the very least we know we have agood goal keeper who can save us points. Happy for the youngsters with the goals, although wellbeck wellbecked his golden chance. Let be prepared for Sunday guys….
Are there any officianados of german football able to identify the difference between bundesliga team of the year Kolasinac and ours?
Confidence is an obvious one
He was a wing back and not an LB. He’s a poor defender. I said it on here when he was first signed. Convert him to a winger or a CB. He isn’t a good LB.
He played a lot of football at LB for Schalke
I wish he was still playing a lot of football for Schalke.
Schalke played in champions league if I’m not mistaken.
Why would you convert a player who is poor at defending into a CB?
Ah yes, the classic am I a wing or center-back conundrum.
Hopefully he gets better with more uninterrupted game time but in saying that really hope Monreal’s injury isn’t too nasty
I don’t remember him being this bad at simple stuff in terms of defending. But then again I didn’t watch every Schalke game and mostly remember the good stuff, i.e. loads of assists and a few long-range screamers. Probably doesn’t help that he is injured so often.
In terms of positioning and turning I thought he was poor yesterday. Looked like he played there for the first time. Going forwwrd I like him a lot though.
The silence after the goal was amazing, I thought it must have been called offside but turns out we just had no fans in the stadium (I’m sure there were some)
Reports I read said about 200 were there. F
I think there were some from Iran among those watching the Arsenal live. Glad that they got to see a win. and it’s unlikely that a couple of hundred Gooners in a stadium of 60,000 would be heard however loud they were!
Imagine travelling all the way to Baku so that you can be on your phone for the entire game. DT- you are a colossal twat.
Who’s DT?
It’s better you don’t know.
Dohn Terry
He’s the guy that looks like Cam off Tracy breaker
“what a magic”
Ah that moment in the 58th minute (I believe) when Ozil tried a dribble was dispossessed extremely easily & just stood there despite the fact we were outnumbered defensively.
Or that other moment when pretty much through on goal decides to pass it to their defender & then have the audacity to have a go at one of our players.
The guy gets 0.5 from me, it was obvious as fuck he didn’t want to play.
From the Arseblog live commentary:
65
Sub: Smith Rowe off, Ozil on.
Agenda?
Sorry 68th minute, knobulis
Knobulis? If that means what I’m thinking then, ha ha!
Agreed, he was piss poor. Watching him at the Watford game I was eating my words ( I’ve been calling for him to be shipped to China) as he was impeccable. Solid in the challenges, excellent distribution and even dribbled passed players. But yesterday I saw the Ozil of the past 2 years. Easy to dispossesed, throwing his arms in the air to no avail, wrong decision making. I really hope Unai can bring the Ozil from Watford as he was outstanding and made me shut up. And I like to shut up when I’m not talking.
Surely a 10/10 for the qarabag defender calling for offsides on sokratis goal as he stands on the goal line.
Solid back-up!
Skhodran of Qarabag!
Sounds like the most terrifying lieutennant in the orc army. But every now and then he somehow stabs himself in the balls.
Iwobi was my MOTM. He’s playing with a lot of confidence. Still not as smooth as he was when he made his debut for us. I’m confident he’ll be a starter by the end of the season.
Leno was good as well. We say some of the good things about him.
Elneny playing on the right wing was the most bizarre thing
Monreal not injured, confirmed by emery. Just tactical switch.
Good!
Arseblog is a little kind to everybody tonight. In particular, I think Kolasinac, Lichtsteiner and Elneny were very rusty, probably for lack of match time. Torreira is not very good at this “play out from behind”-thing. He does not make himself sufficiently visible to hard pressed team mates (he is not the only sinner in this respect, however). But Iwobi is the Lazarus of the season, and Özil was VERY good when he came on. Guendouzi and Smith-Rowe are going to be fantastic for Arsenal. All in all well managed from Emery: When the meagre winter sets in, we are… Read more »
I agree about Elneny not being great. Blogs was quite accurate about Lichtsteiner, and giving Kola the benefit of the doubt is fair (though I’m still not sure about him). Completely disagree with your views on Torreira. We play out much better when he’s on. Cb’s go wide, he drops in between them and makes the turn. He’s probably the most press-resistant player we have. Also miles better with the ball than Elneny, and more progressive with his passing. I thought Welbeck was pretty poor today. His movement as the lone striker left a lot to be desired. Didn’t pull… Read more »
Agree.
Except Ozil. Over complicated things at times and not sufficiently committed when challenging for the ball.
He needs to step up to justify the salary still. He can be much better.
And Elneny. Don’t think its just rust, its about where he is in terms of capability.
Did the kit manager forget the white shorts at home?
The red shorts look hideous..
My wife pointed out the very obvious bulges in the fashionably tight shorts.
Awful. Can’t wait till Puma contract is up.
Not sure why we can’t wear first kit. PLUS our kit is iconic, there should be no reason to tinker too much (first kit at least)
Interesting different perceptions. I didn’t see the match, relied on The Guardian’s minute-by-minute. From that, it appeared that Kolasinac had a very strong game, very instrumental in many of our attacks, that Iwobi and Smith-Rowe were both very good, that Monreal and especially Lichsteiner had big defensive problems. I’ll watch it tomorrow and try to keep an open mind.
I agree with Monreal and Lichsteiner, though the latter showed some very intelligent use of his body to retain possession on a fair few occasions. If he can impart some of his game management and decision making on bellerin’s physical attributes we could have a helluva fullback. Kolasinac had some nice moments but he was repeatedly caught out by the same simple if nicely executed diagonal ball (I counted four or five at least) over his head, which really you should wise up to pretty quickly. Thought holding was comfortably our best defender, seems to have gained a couple of… Read more »
Welbeck’s miss was a return to first season a-tenth-of-a-second-too-eager Welbeck. You could see him scolding himself afterwords. I think he is an elegant and galant player and wish him the calm and command his striker role requires.
I think we sadly must all accept he’s never gonna get there and just take him for what he is now!
Still useful to keep till next summer IMO.
Beating this team aint a big deal. A win is still a win nevertheless.Hopefully
the gunners can go on a sustained unbeaten run to fight for 4th place.
The gunners have qualified many times for the cl with Wenger but often
fizzled out .The worst was getting destroyed by BM 5-1 twice. Criminal.
That was because the fm didn’t bother about the defence.
Hopefully Emery being a Europa winner knows what it takes to stiffen the defence.
Considering we were against Qarabag…we made heavy weather of it. Still in context, Emery was experimenting with a 3-4-3. BUT we never really looked comfortable as a collective even after we switched back to a back 4. 1) Leno – I thought he did very well. A couple of very important stops. We’ve been plagued with crosses whipped in and he could have perhaps come out for one or two of them but overall it was the right thing to start him and keep him sharp at this point. 2) Lichsteiner – HAd some tough moments. The Qarabag lads were… Read more »
We’re seeing a change of guard with the Brit core (which was already evolving with Wenger last season)
Gone Walcott, the Ox, Jack prob soon Ramsey.
Coming in – SmithRowe, Holding, AMN, Nelson (when back from loan)
undecided as yet -Chambers and Welbeck.
Plus – Iwobi and Bellerin are Academy products so somewhat part of the local product line.
Emile Smith Rowe.
I love the name, I like the player.
Nothing further.
Champion/10 for Sokratis. On the TV coverage, did anyone else notice him signal his teammates to go over to the away fans to thank them after the final whistle?
Keep it up lads!!!!! 8 in a row!
Is anyone else insanely excited about Smith-Rowe and Guendouzi!? I honestly feel that these two will be what Wikshere and Ramsey (and im a huuuge Ramsey fan) promised to be for so long… I’ve not seen this type of composure on the ball for a decade or so. Awesome ballers, already. Plus, props to Elneny; soooo underrated by a lot of Gooners, but such a strong player. Does his job, every time…
Elneny is alright.. but sometimes he thinks he’s Ozil
At one point, when Guen lost the ball I was almost mad at him but when you see him, you know that he cares with all his life. He ran like a man possessed – even during the dying moments of the game, even though he was out of breath he ran from our box to theirs and was doubled over.
These 2 kids are really promising and I hope they turn into superstars for us. I hope both of them learn quickly and are given time by our fans until then.
Is anyone else slightly in love with ESR, Iwobi and Gendouzi right now?
Thought ratings were fair, had the same for most of them except for Elneny and Kolasinac I thought they were poor wouldn’t rate them more than a 4!
Bonus Rating: 5 bazillion/10 for Santi’s 96th minute equaliser
Too much weed is not good for you.
Surely 0/10 for that all red outfit. Ugh.
Thought I’d hate it more than I do tbh.
Leno, Papa, Holding and Iwobi excellent. Everyone else, not so much.
ESR better than Iwobi? He scored a goal but made mistakes and lost the ball several times especially in the first half (look at the pass to Monreal). Leno and Iwobi were the best performers of the night imo.
Iwobi has an assist, played an excellent game by your own account, and he gets a 7?
These avatars though