Bernd Leno says Arsenal have to get back to winning ways in their next game as they look to put the disappointment of Saturday’s 5-1 defeat to Liverpool behind them.
The Gunners host Fulham on New Year’s Day knowing that a win will go some way to rebuilding confidence after a humbling afternoon at Anfield. The three points will be a necessity, especially with fourth-place Chelsea able to extend their lead on Unai Emery’s men to five points this afternoon.
Unsurprisingly, Leno was eager to look forward rather than back after the performance on Merseyside.
“Of course today we’re disappointed, but we have to look forward because we have another important game on Tuesday,” he told Arsenal.com.
“It’s the first game of the year and on Tuesday we want to beat Fulham at home. We need to win.
He added: “It’s good that we’ve got a game so soon because today we are very disappointed. Football can change quickly and we hope that we can win again on Tuesday.”
Much has already been made of the difference between Jurgen Klopp’s slick outfit and Arsenal’s disjointed, haphazard, rabbits-in-the-headlights showing on Merseyside. While it’s clear the Gunners are not at the required level to win the title this season, Leno believes that a bit of perspective is needed.
“They are a top team,” he noted. “Last season they reached the Champions League final and today we saw why.
“They capitalise on every mistake and turn it into a big chance. Today we made too many of these mistakes.
“I don’t think injuries were the difference today. Of course, we conceded five goals but I think we as a team made too many mistakes.
“We have enough quality, even when somebody is injured. Today injuries were not the problem.”
Is Leno sucking a dummy or mid-spit in that picture? Agree we have to look forward, but we need to learn to defend. Emery keeps saying we need to get better, but not seeing any of our defence actually doing it.
It looks like he’s just taken a big load, swallowed a bit, realised its not for him, and decided in that moment that he’s actually a spitter and not a swallower…..
Which goes to prove that he’s certainly learnt something important from yesterday’s game!
It looks like he’s chewing a condom
Our defence does need protection.
Elegant comment, Rich. Pity you can’t delete it.
Why would I delete a comment that’s clearly a joke?…
As it stand it seems only 1 in every 5.4 Arseblog News participants has a sense of humour, which is actually a much higher percentage than I’d imagined… .
No need to be uncouth
Hey rich, for the first time I believe you and I agree. Spot on comment mate.
Hilarious comment Rich! Just showed the girfriend and shes wondering when did everone become such prudes with all the thumbs down!
Off topic, but Torreira looked absolutely exhausted yesterday. Barely able to break into a jog. Seems like playing him in meaningless Europa league games has come back to bite us.
I think the whole team is suffering a bit from the schedule. We’ve definitely dropped recently.
Was always going to be the case in his first season and I don’t think we have another option emery trusts there
Guess he drew the short straw.
Wouldn‘t mind bringing Petr back. Actually I’m not sure what Leno has was Petr doesn’t. On the line Pete is better, in commanding the box Petr is way better and Leno kicks them straight to then opponents or in the stands on a regular basis too, what what the actual reason to prefer him to Petr.
Not convinced in the slightest by him. Would kill to have Szczesny back.
Fabianski is going well too, but we have to give him time. I think De Gea and Neuer would struggle with that defence in front of them. We have been getting away with it because Torreira has been covering so well, but a bad game yesterday and it showed just how poor our back four were.
Kicking the ball straight to opponents regularly has nothing to do with the organization of the defense. And errors like the one against sp*rs that actually cost us goals neither. He‘s doing exactly what he did in the Bundesliga. He‘s ok but extremely error prone and far from top class.
I take it you watched Szczesny against Manchester where he did what he regularly did for us lose the plot.
He won the Golden Gloves with us one season and has now become a top class keeper. Total madness to let him leave.
You can blame Wengers ego for that one
We the fans are sometimes to blame for pushing these players away from the emirates. Make a flashback and see how many fans wanted him to go? He even received a lot of abuse on his social media pages. He was called “crap” and all sorts of things, the atmosphere wasn’t good for him until he had to go. Then shamelessly we blame the coach,surely, for me it’s a big NO!
Our problems have nothing to do with goalkeepers. A new manager came in and was only able to buy Lich, Guendouzi, Sokratis and Leno. In fact, Leno was the only acceptable buy and Douzi for the future. In the PL there are plenty small teams that buy better. Unai was ready to accept anything to get the job.
You forgot about Torreira altogether you twat
Nothing acceptable to have a keeper as error prone as Ospina. The only advantage he has is that he’s taller with a greater reach. Bring back Cech and sign a first class keeper
Not to mention Petr is probably better at organizing the back line due to his experience and ability to communicate with defenders in their native language (well not Sokratis or Kolasinac, but both spent years in Germany and Petr is fluent in German so should be ok)
Since Bournemouth, UE puts 7 defensive players (5 defenders + 2 defending midfilders) and 3 attacking players. Özil out. Since then what do we have: Spurs at home that is always a very special game. Apart from that: Burnley with Özil on 2 of our 3 goals, and nothing, the quality decreases, the defence is still awful despite 7 players. Özil is attacked for not pressing, ok, fabulous football brain that says it….. The attacks is without any threat. Against Brighton, Guendouzi was walking on Özil’s feet, for what? He was running everywhere, for what? We’re the first running team,… Read more »
It’s too early in emery’s tenure to make 5ese sorts of generalisations. Auba and Laca would certainly start together if welbeck were still fit and Wenger eventually reverted to a back 5 to account for our atrocious defence and it didn’t work for him either. Emery has never been a 10 players behind the ball manager but without defensive reinforcements that are actually better than what we have (no more Lichtsteiners please) its understanable that he’s searching for, and struggling to find, balance in the side. There was always going to be short term pain.
Odd the manager went away from the lineup that went on that great run. He’s overthinking. Maybe believed the hype that hes a great tactician.
Or maybe holding, welbeck, Mkhitaryan, monreal and Bellerin are all injured and that’s affected his lineups…
Spot on. Too many people type before putting their brains into gear. Once Welbeck got injured everything changed. It really affected the players too to see their team mate in so much pain. Then Holding got injured with a long term injury and the list of Bellerin, Monreal, Mustafi etc is bound to affect the way the manager lines the team up. Of course he hasn’t always got it right, but he is learning this League and I think it’s a massive learning curve for him if truth be told. Still I trust him.
It’s a good attempt by Alex to camouflage but to anyone paying attention this is still unmistakably #AlexlovesOzilbutdoesntappeartocaremuchabputarsenal
And to point out : a) in the 22 game unbeaten run Ozil started 9 & came in as sub in 2 and b) the ‘beautiful game of Wenger’ was gone long before Arsène was. You can’t seriously suggest what we saw in the last 2 or 3 seasons was beautiful.
Going back to the Leno we all know from the Bundesliga. Some on here said he was better than Allison.
I
Really? Well some people were talking up Hector yesterday as if he was the second coming of Christ. I guess we can be a little over optimistic at times.
We miss Hector. This season is starting to look the player we expect
Better than Allison? In what? Chess?
Biggest disappointment for me was the fact we couldn’t even hold on to the lead for 5 mins. I expected a drumming but to be so brittle so quickly after a good goal really effed me over. And then just shipping goal after goal. Still like Emery tho, we need to keep things in perspective and give him time. That’s my 2 cent for all it’s worth.
I don’t care how this season turns out in respect to qualifying for the Champions league or not. Come these two transfer windows, I want us to have a much revamped defence. Need to see some new faces in the defence. Some people have been heavily criticizing Sokratis as well. Although criticism for the Liverpool game is warranted, you must not go overboard with Sokratis. I have been very satisfied with his showings overall this season so far. You have to keep in mind that defenders tend to improve much faster when they have a stable, consitent defensive pairing, plus… Read more »
Good summary. Totally agree Emery needs at least two more transfer windows before we see ‘his team’. Until then he has to try to get the best out of the players available. Yesterday’s result is a massive wake up call that I hope we learn from. Hey, at least the spuds list at home yesterday…
*lost at home
I agree, except for one thing – qualifying for the CL this season really does matter. A third season in the Europa sends a big signal that it’s not just a blip in form, and we’re a team on a real decline. The reality is the longer we spend out of the top 4, the more we will be seen as a “smaller” club and the less money we’ll have to buy our way back up. And we need the money, since we’ve mismanaged player sales/contracts and there’s no chance the owner will spend any of his money. Liverpool refreshed… Read more »
We need to be in CL. Those who so conveniently derided our 4 place pot now make it a huge point that Spurs have been in it two seasons running. Some idiots were happy for us to win the now named ‘Carabao cup’ not too long back instead of going trophyless and they would ahve prefered at expense to CL. Wenger made a point that 4th spot was more important than some of these piddly cups. In any case he did deliver 3 FA cups to boot. BUT we are no better this stage of season than last season and… Read more »
Wash your mouth out like Leno mate … Jenko is not rubbish. Neither is Nacho.
I’m not sure about this.
Arsenal in or out of Europe will present the Kroenke’s with clear profits.
Signing rubbish like Lichtsteiner will be a cheap as chips option for squad “strengthening” – hence why we are being linked with Gary Cahill (33 years old) and Ever Banega (30 years old) – hardly ones for the future…
I could be wrong about this of course but past history and knowledge of Kroenke’s total disinterest in investing suggests nothing much will be happening at Arsenal…
Very much doubt we will make top four. United will overtake us soon as well. They are clearly benefiting from the special cunts departure. Emery on average conceded 50 goals a season at Sevilla. Get use to it gentlemen.
We are looking at Gary Cahill and Eric Bailly. That will be your revamped defence. The top four sides shop at Harrods and Arsenal shop at Aldi’s And then they will tell you we are competitive. So you sleep peacefully. This is not an attack on your opinion by the way and I agree with a lot of what you say but if you believe Arsenal will invest in top quality defenders they will not – the risk of spending money to attain the wealth of CL football is far too risky for the greedy and unambitious Arsenal Board and… Read more »
I don’t understand these comments. You do know that Arsenal have spent buckets on players like Auba, Lacazette, Ozil…. Why wouldnt they spend on a defender? I genuinely am curious as to where this narrative stems from.
Well, certainly I do know that Champions league football attracts big names, and so it can be crucial from a transfers point of view. But, I believe that people like Sven were specifically brought in to buy cheaper or at least not as expensive signings who are either young future gems or good players at a cheaper bargain. That’s why I don’t think we will be purchasing players such as Gary Cahill or Ever Banega. I see us purchasing a relatively younger CB, and if we do purchase a midfielder this season, someone in their mid twenties or 28-29 at… Read more »
Then again, I could be dead wrong as well ?
Terrible self-harming bunch of defenders.
An average keeper. Hardly an upgrade on what we had.
Sad.
You’d have to be looking at one of the greatest goalkeeping performances of all time yesterday just to have kept the score at 1-1 (two penalty saves plus everything else), he’s not at that level, but I don’t think any other keeper in the world is either. The problem is what is going on in front of him. He’s part of the team so takes some responsibility, but I don’t think he was even amongst the 5 worst performers on the pitch yesterday.
Leno stopped it from being about 8-1
This is the issue with all these simplistic ‘critics’ who like to imagine the Flaminis or Mustafis or Granits or Ozils are the ones to blame. Point in case Iwobi. Some people laying in on him when truthfully he was one of our best performers in the game coming up with the assist and affecting several good chances down the left. BUT some people only have an eye for every niggly mistake he makes and refuse to see the positives. It makes a shite and skewered assessment of the team as a whole. Same with Mustafi. Sure he isn’t the… Read more »
If Leno had Liverpool’s back line in front of him, we’d be calling him one of the best in the world. Leno isn’t at fault for our recent embarrassing form.
The judgement was in overall. Don’t know why you all thought it was about his latest performance only.
Leno is an average keeper, he’s not bad but he makes some bloody awful decisions and is no better with crosses that David Ospina. We are always going to be signing limited players because we aren’t going to afford the really good ones.
We have some money. The money went on. At one time we had 90 million war chest which wenger and Ivan did not spend. This 90 million was same amount as all premier league clubs savings combined . In days when 20 million was a big transfer. But then man city inflated market , but also the clubs trying to keep up and then the new tv deal. Equalled it up all the balances of clubs so our 90 million didn’t seem so big suddenly. Then Wenger spent 60 of it on pea. Last January. The other 30 on Ozick… Read more »
Auba is absolutely fantastic but, if I’m honest, if the club never bought him and actually strengthened the back 4 we’d be better off… arguably though we should be doing both
We may have some money but are we going to afford the good players? I’d rather we signed two top class players and a couple of youngsters for the future than five bargain basement players. If we lose out on top 4 again the top players won’t want to come as we will have become a Europa League team and as we have a self-financing model it will be very difficult to move up from there. I agree with every word about Wenger and Gazidis, the season when we only bought Cech, and then only because he basically knocked on… Read more »
Indeed, it is as you say.
They called it ‘saving some powder’ if i recall.
Mismanagement of the highest order.
Glad we saw the last of these 2.
That Leicester title winning season was the worst. We had opportunity to build on FA cup success and an up turn in fortunes on the pitch. Wenger finally put together most of the missing pieces from the Denilson era having reconstructed the team with more experience starting with Per and Arteta. It was a slow painful process and we seem to finally be getting results and we took our eyes off the ball did not invest beyond Cech. If for any reason, Wenger showed he was past his best, it was for decisions made in this particular season.Thereafter, it was… Read more »
I would go for Inter Milan Skrinjar or Sampdoria Joachim Andersen, or both of them. Nothing less.
Sad, depressing day yesterday, wasn’t it? Liverpool provided us with a massive dose of reality. Remember Paul Merson predicting that we’d get hammered by a top side and then being slagged off for it? Yet again the Merse was spot on. The question now is: where do we go from here? As I’ve said before, the root of our problems lie on the other side of the Atlantic. We have an owner who is a cynical businessman who has no love for or understanding of “soccer”, as they call it over there. He bought Arsenal because it made huge profits… Read more »
Never mind Dick Law and Wenger who brought us Santi and Koscielny but also Andre Santos and Gervinho. Current regime in Mslintat conspires to do pretty much the same. Lichsteiner is a band aid. Mhkitaryan was not what we needed last January. The owners won’t sanction spending to match current reality. We cut our clothes to our cloth but in truth we need to invest beyond bc the squad has some truly mediocre performers worse than Mustafi that we need upgrading. Not holding my breath on it this January. Hopefully they give Unai at least 2 players but we will… Read more »
‘Soccer’ is a word coined by the English. Let’s be fair.
teach a man to fish.. and he’ll take the drive thru
We will get nowhere with this defence and we will not be replacing it in January. It’ll be firefighting until the summer when internal solutions will be sort unless we get some cash by selling someone (who though?). It’s time we all accepted this instead of going batshit, that’s the reality under this owner. Anyway is it too early to start drinking for new years eve..
Defense has been patched up with band aid solutions. Sokratis is short term cover for the out going Koscielny. At 29yrs, he will likely hold for 3 seasons or so max. Mustafi has his flaws but is hardly the worse option at the back. HOlding has a bright future ahead. We also have to consider Bielik in the summer plus there is Chambers unresolved (likely gone) Mavropanos frankly is untested, and may be best on a strong loan. Monreal is another player feeling age, Lichstiener has no future beyond this season. Therefore we have space for another long term player… Read more »
I honestly believe Guendouzi would have been much help with level headed passing to break the press today. None of our midfielders or defenders seemed capable of doing it.
Guendouzi secretly does bring bits of Arteta’s skills which both Xhaka and Torriera don’t naturally have. Playing simple balls right specially in face of organised pressing.
Ramsey hardly helps in keeping possession and not losing the balls, but does help going forward.
Its a myth that we are that much stronger with Torreira. We have the same tally of points more or less as last season. Clearly Torreira has also hit the wall over the last 2 matches. Last game, he was robbed several times off of the ball and made a poor pass leading to a goal. BUT its not popular to point this out. I agree much of this is bc of fatigue issues in the engine room but also I feel other teams are beginning to suss out Torreira. Frankly we need at least 4 quality players competing for… Read more »
The squad has hit the wall. Unai has had us punching above our weight but truthfully we are but 1 point better off than this stage last season. And we are still no better against Liverpool away (4 nil pasting last season with Wenger if I recall) We need to reinforce. Mslintat has not done his job well contrary to popular opinion. There have been some hits like Torreira but the midfield is thin and he has been pants last two matches. Yesterday he was beaten 3 times in the first half (just breezed by). Never mind 7amkickoff and his… Read more »
Why are we still making mistakes?
Mustafi did not make any high profile mistakes yesterday so you have to ask the question.
Granit did not misplace the pass leading to the goal by Firmino.
Ozil was not on the pitch to drag us down with his creativity.
Iwobi was one of our better performers who got us the assist.
Wenger is gone.
So why are we making mistakes still and being plastered?
Honestly one of their goals was complete luck, it just hit our player on the back and rolled for a tap in, 2 more were the softest penalties I’ve ever seen. We had a stone cold pen denied. To me its a 2-2 draw. lol joking but you know, 5-1 seems so bad but if you wanna comfort yourself a little…
Aubameyang only made 13 touches all game according to BBC, 6 of which were from kick offs.
That’s pretty poor for a “world class” player.
Would have preferred to see Lacazette alongside him to exert more pressure on the Liverpool backline.
Frankly a back 3 would have also been more secure. We may have issues behind our wingbacks but at least they would not swamp us through the middle as they did with both Firmino goals following mistakes by Torreira.
Transfers – we are not going to sign any world class defenders in the Jan transfer window.. we are not in the champions league and most prolific cb’s are still playing for teams that remain in the knockout stages of the champions league. Would you join a 5th in the premier league club if you already play for the elite? We have to strengthen what we have got, hope for better injury luck and plan behind the scenes for the summer transfer window.
Hmm… Having digested the comments herein, there’s one significant truth that seems to have eluded us all… With Liverpool quite better at hunting in packs over 3 seasons, Arsenal learning to play from the back on a strict basis and Michael Oliver being a cunt(as usual), that kind of result was always going to be a possibility this season. (Watch out for City too)… Let’s try to stay as realistic as possible, however entitled as we may desire to be. It was a disappointing and embarrassing result but this team under Unai Emery are surely headed in the right direction.… Read more »
Completely agree the club is heading in the right direction, unfortunately not everyone will have patience BUT we will have to otherwise negativity will fester!
Happy New year