Arsenal: Cech, Maitland-Niles, Sokratis, Koscielny, Kolasinac, Xhaka, Torreira, Iwobi, Ramsey, Aubameyang, Lacazette
Subs: Leno, Mustafi, Monreal, Lichtsteiner, Elneny, Guendouzi, Ozil
–
Arsenal followed up a great and somewhat surprising win against Chelsea with a not so great and somewhat predictable 3-1 defeat against United as the away team set up to counter attack against an Arsenal side with a worrying streak of back luck when it comes to defensive injuries.
Emery made two changes from the two nil victory over Chelsea with Iwobi and Cech replacing Guendouzi as they kept their 4-4-2 shape that worked so well in their last game.
The home side started the brighter in the opening 10 minutes, with Ramsey buzzing around in midfield and a low cross almost being controlled by Lacazette in their six yard box, and some loose touches by Aubamayang cutting short our attack in dangerous areas.
Some slack defending by Maitland-Niles almost led to a chance for Man U but the final through ball was well smothered by Cech. The home fans were roundly booing Sanchez every time he got the ball, which was great to hear to be honest.
Then on the 30th minute, Lukaku played a cutting through ball to Sanchez and who beat the offside trap, rounded Cech and curled in from an impossible angle. Replays show that Maitland-Niles was slow to step up on the offside trap but it just had to be fucking him didn’t it, 1 nil.
There was no time to dwell on that though because almost instantly United broke quickly down our right and Lukaku picked out Lindgard who had all the time in the world to pass it into the near post. 2-0, and embarrassing defensively.
Then our relentless attack down their left hand side finally paid off when Ramsey’s cross trickled into the path of Auba at the back post who was completely free to tuck it in. 2-1, game on.
Arsenal finished the half really strong with a couple of crosses that really should have tested their defence more but it went in at the break 2-1 to United.
We almost started the 2nd half with a goal in the 45th minute when an AMN cross was headed at pace near post by Ramsey but their keeper was up to it.
We definitely had our second half heads on in the first ten minutes and were all over them in their final third but there was just no end product.
The game then slowed right down when captain Koscielny took a painful looking boot to the face from Lukaku while he was on the floor. As bad as it looked for Kos it seemed pretty accidental.
In reaction to Kos limping off, Emery for some reason brought on Guendouzi, with Ozil replacing Iwobi at the same time, and although we kept pressuring them in their final third, we didn’t do anything of note except a Lacazette shot that stung the hands of Romero.
For large spells of the second half the only thing we really had was patient build up and Lacazette being a pain in the arse for their defence, but he really was being a pain in the arse, knicking balls off them left right and centre and putting himself about really well.
But when they brought on both Martial and Rashford against our makeshift defence with us chasing a goal there was only one outcome, and after Pogba’s shot bounced in front of Cech and Martial was there to tap in the rebound. 3-1, the fatal blow.
The third goal really took the wind out of our sails, and the game basically petered out into mindless passing around, even with 10 minutes of extra time.
In the end it was the same old story playing United of late: it feels like we outplay them for large parts of the game but they set up to counter us and finish their chances extremely effectively. In the grand scheme of our season it’s probably not the worst result in the world but that’s now two back to back cup knock out defeats at home for Emery, and both against traditional rivals too.
Ugh. Injuries, missed opportunities, free goals – classic Arsenal.
Can’t say I’m too fussed though. Priorities for this season clearly lie elsewhere and this is likely doing us a favour in the long run. Just hope the injuries aren’t too serious because it is looking very bare bones at the back right now.
Priorities??? You mean no trophies not even a HINT of a challenge. Fans like use ruin this club
Half our team out with injury and no financial backing from the owner. We were never going to win everything in Emery’s first season – we need to set realistic aspirations and that’s getting back into Champions League. It doesn’t matter whether that be via the Premier League or Europa League, we need to be back in. Not only is there monetary reward for doing so, but we need to be able to attract top talent without offering exorbitant wages we cannot afford. Sure, it’s nice to have a trophy in the cabinet, but in the grand scheme of things… Read more »
Really? For me it’s the fans that go around attacking each other.
Take a few deep breaths and calm down. Because launching on here and saying everybody is shit isn’t working.
You’re absolutely right. It’s the same at the ground. I was at the game today and it’s almost like people just turn up to have a moan. I honestly believe that the negativity is palpable at times. It can’t be great playing in front of your supposed supporters when all you can hear is the away fans, and when you do hear your home fans they’re groaning at every missed pass.
Completely agree with this most games this season I have been too result in our fans moaning and only chearing the team on when we are winning. It’s quite a sad state of play
No fight, no money, no players …. Unfortunately I don’t see light at the end of this tunnel. We’ve had a whole month to bring in a player or two and even the Board is showing no urgency.
I hear we have to get back in CL positions soon to sustain this club. Wake up guys, Arsenal is the new Everton.
You can criticise our finishing but to say no fight is ridiculous. The work rate of the team was prodigious but there was no cutting edge. We outplayed Man Utd for long periods and losing 2 centre halves must have played a part. I’m disappointed but certainly not as disheartened as you were. Did you say that last week?
Emery could have set us up better against United.. but the gulf in players was painfully evident today. United *should* be spanking Arsenal with the players theyve got and the money they spent.
We are just suckers for the counter attack and make it easier by giving the ball away. Several times tonight players tried to be clever rather than the obvious and away went United.
We certainally had the opportunities earlier in the game to win it but we always seem to shoot ourselves in the foot by being too clever in front of goal.
Someone upstairs doesn’t like us. How else can you explain why all our defenders keep getting injured. Emery has got a heck of a job to patch up the defence with no players coming in.
Honest squad evaluation. How many of the squad are good enough for a title winning team in any of the top 4 leagues in Europe? – Cech – No Leno – No Bellerin – Maybe Jenkinson – No Lichsteiner – No AM-N – No Kos – No Sokratis – No Mustafi – ROFL Holding – Potential sure Monreal – No Kolasinac – Maybe as cover Xhaka – No Torriera – Yes Guendouzi – As squad player yes Elneny – No Ramsey – No Mkhitaryan – No Ozil – Yes, in the right setup he has his uses sure Iwobi –… Read more »
A painful read but – on reflection – I agree with everything except Ramsey who is a “yes” for me
The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Always.
Yeah it works both way. The sum of a lot of mediocre parts is often even more mediocre than the sum of all those mediocre parts.
Youre actually saying we should sell 20 players and buy another 20? Been playing too much FIFA mate, be realistic…
He’s not saying that. He’s just giving a fair assessment of how few of our players are top flight.
Not sure why you are so heavily down voted. I agree apart from Ramsey
Too Drunk is absolutely right. However, you left out one key element.
Emery – No
agree with the post except ramsey, as juve are a title winning team and they are taking him.
We’re a piece of shit club that deserves no better
I am fussed. Getting sick and tired of this act of tiki taka bullshit. Arsenal is the most pretentious club on planet earth. Defining our self by some bullshit philosophy we’re not near good enough to implement. Play from the back, keep possession, million short pass around the opp box, million sideways, million flicks and back heeled, million missed flick heels, million times ball lost in transition, million times attacking all out every player darting forward from minute 1 as if we’re some eupropean treble champion trying to prove a point. Well, here’s a reality check, YOU’RE NOT GOOD ENOUGH… Read more »
A lot of spuds fans on here it seems
Childish.
torreira is not mobile enough for English football. Emery is not good enough for Arsenal football club. we desperately need some signings this January. we need atleast one bug signing or else NO TOP FOUR again. im sick of this club. Im sick of Emery. Ozil out aswell and Kroenke
What are you thinking of? like a mosquito? or are you leaning more towards a speed beetle type signing?
I feel your pain dude lol x
Thanks Nathan. We ain’t finishing top flir. WE WILL FINISH 6TH. get ready for a few years of pain. Wenger’s was a better manager
“Wenger’s was a better manager.”
Some serious delusions. He’s responsible for filling the ranks with mediocre, overpaid, mentally weak, technically average bunch of let downs.
effectively destroyed arsenal for years to come.
You’re both correct. Wenger is responsible for a lot of these shit players. He is also a much better manager than Emery will ever be.
Poor performance, and the worst part is that Sokratis and Kosc are injured…
Oh well, can only improve from here (hopefully)
COYG
We will get worse mate
I’ve voted up both ‘…We can only get better…’ and the ‘we will get worse’ comments!
That’s the conflict between my heart and mind.
Maybe we can catch Chelsea but can we keep Utd behind us in the league table?
Only thing I know for sure is, our weekend is ruined.
If both are sidelined for long, then this will be a fun 3 month to watch…
Ozil hopeless when he came on. There’s a good reason Emery doesn’t pick him.
Yes, bench a confidence player, talk about him subliminally to the press then chuck him on at the 65th minute to salvage a game we are chasing. Brilliant.
Why are you making excusing for him? He’s clearly not worth his £18.2m annual salary.
Ahh come on Ozil isnt a delicate player. His media team plays the Twitter game a peach but he’s a professional earning a lot of money. He didn’t do anything when he came on, and when you’re the top earner it’s natural people expect the most from you.
? He was involved in just about every forward movement we had after he came on.
People really see what they want to see. He didn’t influence the game, his placement to receive the ball on Lacazette’s flick was piss poor and cost the 3rd goal. If you look closely He doesn’t attack the space where Lala clearly set the ball. Also got dispossessed in dangerous area and his attempt at a dribble remind me of my 8 yo nephew. £350k /week well spent
You’re blaming Ozil for Lacazette trying a little flick in that situation? Then yes, I agree, people do see what they want to see.
To what end,
?
Or maybe Emery was giving him 25 minutes before Cardiff. He hasn’t played in a good long while now.
We lost our two center backs at 2-1 down.
And you’re blaming Ozil.
Why not? It’s cool and fashion, no?
No but you’d expect more.
Do you believe Ozil is why we lost the match?
So, you’re saying Ozil came on and played shite because we had lost both our centre backs?
Bizarre argument.
Argument? Who needs argument when Arsenal lose and Özil was on?
Explain to me how he played shite.
And no, I’m saying we LOST because of our defensive situation. Not because of Ozil.
He was poor. Inaccurate with his passing and lethargic.
for the 3rd goal yes
Ridiculous. Lacazette misplaced his pass as Ozil was clearly running up toward him. Nothing Ozil could do about it.
He worked hard and put through some good passes. I personally would like to have seen him on earlier. Why is he always the scapegoat?
Lack of imagination. Or ability to see clearly where the problem lies.
Really? A number of sloppy passing errors and lethargic. 4 out of 10
Put him out to pasture. He’s past it. Germany know it, and so should we.
We are at sad times when a player is so despised when he hasn’t put a foot wrong. To blame that result on Ozil is nothing short of ridiculous, he came on he did ok we were already losing and ended losing end of.
?Same old Arsenal! Always failing to capitalise on a great performance! ?
Not much has changed with Wenger gone has it, on and off the field!
Nah. Gonna take at least a decade
What tune is that to? Oh yes the same old tune.
Sorry fella but what great performance were you watching? I saw a team that looked threatening enough but not really special. I saw Iwobi make some nice dribbles and then invariably make the wrong decision. I saw Xhaka have the ball, six players in front of goal, and he skies it into row Z. I saw Lacazette doing back flicks to no one. Though I don’t want to pick on one of our top class players. The problem isn’t in that department – it’s behind that.
We should all just stay hidden under our blankets and refuse to get out of bed
…just like our players in the last 20 minutes?
Why does this keep happening I will tell you why because Arsenals squad is not enough. No signings equal no change in our fortunes
Why doesnt Kolasinac when, he is so clear on goal?? He’ll probably be our top scorer or at least injure some of these goalkeepers. Anyways, once again, our 350k player cant rally his troops..SAD.
SHOOT*
I agree. He likes pulling back the ball instead of shooting!
Noticed this also in recent games – he always looks to square it or cut it back. I can only assume it’s instructions form Emery because he’s been ruthless in front of goal in the past. Even if the keeper gets to it, he hits it with such force that it can easily rebound into the back of the net, either via our players or the opposition.
Unfortunately, it’s our sole attacking move – cut back from by-line – and it’s so easy to defend against when the opposition know it.
All needed too much time on the ball and don’t look to shoot.
This loss is hard to understand. Those 2 early goals are so hard to understand. I mean, they are very arsenal, but c’mon…
As soon as Sokratis went down it totally interrupted our rhythm and it was all downhill from there. Only we could get bad luck like that.
I don’t think it helped that both him and Kos took forever coming off. I’m not blaming them, they both looked in real pain, but it definitely killed any rhythm.
I really dont buy the excuse of injuries. Arsenal is just poorly coached! I really doubt if Emery is the answer.
He stood transfixed throughout the match. The few ideas he had are gone! He has nothing new to offer! He signed a 2 year contract and I dont even think he will see the end of his contract
Ugh, here we go again…. Please.
Emery is a good coach working with a limited squad with very little depth across all positions. Kos and Sokratis were anchors in D vs. Chelsea. Sokratis has really stepped up as a leader of late. His loss was in my opinion immediately felt as mentioned above.
And also, he has a 3 year contract.
We are what we are. Probably the 5th or 6th best team in the league. Absolutely miles away from being a contender for the title with a lack of investment and no sign of that changing. Worrying times for us.
Hats off to Ramsey again.never been his biggest fan but our best player yet again. How much to replace him and almost an entire defence. We are a club going nowhere sadly
Gave the ball away all the time like vintage sanchez.
If you’re gonna keep trying and make things happen, your’re always gonna give the ball away as well. He was involved in many dangerous moves, especially in the first half.
Why is it worrying? We are already shit – things will just carry on as they are.
They are simply better than us, fucking horrible to admit but when it comes down to it we really don’t have any great players anymore… playing a second rate Barcelona style will win fuck all, pace and power is how we had our greatest team and the way forward and we have neither pace for power
Just look at the two benches tonight to realise that they had more in reserve than us and their second string was already beating our first.
Having said that, the loss of Sokratis was key as the defence had started well.
We don’t have the squad to compete on all four fronts or the defence. So not too bothered. The players looked knackered. On the plus side, Ozil is back. Though Ramsey wasn’t in the game when Ozil came on. We need to start attacking better because right now we can’t defend. We really need two signings.
Really hope KosSok are just bruised, we could really do without the long term absences
Kosratis no?
I prefer KosSok myself
Lets keep our heads up. Focus on top 4 and the Europa league. At least, we know the f**king bosses arent buying us any top players now, hence we dont need any extra FA games (we are already 13times winners) CHAMPIONS LEAGUE should be the AIM. COYG
We now have no defence left…
We mostly put up a good fight, and where very unlucky with the injuries, but that being said, how is it possible that we once again concede two goals in rapid succession during the first half of a football game? Tottenham, Liverpool, now this. Not to speak of the times we concede immediately after scoring. After their second, United basically did to us what we did to Chelsea. Still, we got one back, and while we didn’t look consistently dangerous, we could have grabbed the equaliser. Then they scored their third… and I have to say – and I don’t… Read more »
I joked before that we would probably lose all four defenders to injury and Sanchez would score the winner. Wasn’t far off was I? Arsenal are the footballing equivalent to Murphy’s Law.
For us to play as poorly as we did (at Home) tonight and to only score a solitary goal from a bloody tap-in, is unacceptable. This was realistically our only chance of a trophy and we’ve blown it big time. I still fully support Emery and I know he’s going to need time but he’s made a hash of the domestic cups. I struggled to work out what his plan was for this game – especially for the forwards who looked lost & muddled at times. After the great game against Chelsea, I’m extremely disappointed with not just the result… Read more »
We had control of the game and lost it after Sokratis’s injury. What does that say? It says we need players.
Noticed all the ‘fans’ leaving 5 mins before the end. Ah well, least we got our Arsenal back.
Always frustrating to see as someone who can’t get to games. It’s almost impossible to get a ticket if you’re visiting England and I don’t know if those fans appreciate how lucky they are.
and they are the first to attack the players for not showing love to the badge.
Of course Alexis scores and Lukaku has a man of the match performance after being sat on the bench for eons; just another classic arsenal follow up performance after a big win.
So all eggs in the europa basket if we’re to end this season with a glimmer of trophy hope. These injuries are killing us
Worry is after big performance v Spudz we went on poor run; big won v Chelski and we start another.
I thought Auba had a poor night and Torreira wasn’t at his best. Iwobi still moves well but then stops and loses it.
Ozil got to go. Sorry Ozil fans, he is not the hero Arsenal need right now.
Emery needs funds.
Sorry, but heros don’t exist.
Tell that to utd fans atm…
I don’t get this unhealthy obsession some seem to have with Ozil. He has nothing to do with today’s result.
We lost Sokratis, went two goals down in quick succession, and then at 2-1 we lost the Boss. We’re already without Bellerin who we just lost last match, and Monreal isn’t back full yet.
Ozil had absolutely nothing to do with us losing this match. Nor the ones he was out for over the Holidays.
Sure, criticize Ozil, but when it actually makes sense.
Totally agree and he is the scapegoat. But he is also – while a wonderful player for a top team – the final leadership disaster of the Gazidis era….a contract which means we can’t use him properly nor sell him. Ozil must be as frustrated as we all are
No club that can afford his wages needs him and no club that needs him can afford his wages To pay him off to leave and get what 10M? For him Even if you aren’t a fan of his or don’t think he fits the team you can’t replace him at this point. It’s basically sunk cost at this point. Emery is suppose to be a tactical genius. He should figure out how to use one of your best players. His man management skills suck. To switch from a 442 to a 4231 after the massive success against Chelsea is… Read more »
We never had a plan…period. and M. Niles should stop thinking he’s Cafu
you look at Arsenal and you wonder why is such a mediocre team trying to be a Barcelona.
This supposed “arsenal way”of playing like some hotshot european giant killed us off.
If your defense is shit, then park the bus, and don’t give the opp acres of space to massacre you.
Naive and hopless.
Once Mustafi came on it was game over. The second and third goals came right down his channel and he did nothing. Watching the replays. Absolutely nothing. Let them run all the way and not even an attempt to tackle.
I think our keepers have the most touches compared to other g.keepers
Also to add that Lacazette needs to work on first time finishing. If he’s already facing goal there’s no time against better defenders to touch it forward another few feet. A few great chances were missed because of that. They had their backup keeper in goal and we didn’t test him or unnerve him nearly enough.
Alexis goal was his fault as well.He watches his run all the way then decides to try and play offside.
The minute we lost Sok and Mustafi came on I knew it wasn’t going to be our night.
We were the better team. United were nothing special but the difference between them and us is that they knew how to defend. We forgot everything we learned last week and reverted back to hopeless naive defending. I just hope the two injuries aren’t too bad.
Without serious investment we’ll continue to go nowhere.
Mustafi..
…gonna Mustafi
Cunts
I just don’t understand why the heck it is so damn difficult for our players to get the ball in the box. For the last 20 minutes or so, all I could see was Xhaka passing sideways to Guendozi, him to Kolasinac, rinse and repeat with different players. And then suddenly 2 opposition passes later the ball is in the back of the net. Why why WHY has it always been such an arduous task for us to score like every other club scores against us? How difficult could it be? Why can’t we be equally good at counterattacks? The… Read more »
You could have picked a random Arsenal vs Manchester United post-match report from the last decade, copy-paste it here, and it would have been 99% accurate (the 1% would be the players’ names).
Seems like I have watched this match 100 times.
Anyone notice that Lingard pulled a Michael Jackson celebration in defiant support of the singer upon new revelations of his abuses on small boys? Adds to his pantomime villain status. I. Hate. Lingard. So so much.
nobody cares how Lingard celebrates.
Lingard knee in the head on Ramsey and knee in the ankle on Sokratis which unbalanced him and caused the injury. Should have been given a second yellow but the ref bottled it. Lingard is vile.
Not terrible, but build up is too slow. Arsenal politely waits until the whole opposition team are back in defense.
Mustafi is ball watching for their second goal. We are not close enough to Pogba on their third.
Disappointing, but Tuesday is another day.
Yes we outplayed them for large parts of the game etc,etc.Until Emery speeds up the attack it is still Wenger style : trying to outpass the opposition with more shots at goal than the other team. The latter has one shot and scores and wins. Who cares about possession,shots at goal,etc So its no wonder the gunners concede . Why. Common sense. When you try to pass in a crowded area with 9 defenders ,sorry 10 or even 12 players including mo,the other side of the coin is you give time to defenders to crowd you out . That’s why… Read more »
To be honest, I think if we’d not had the injuries we’d have won.
We had no options from the bench as was forced to make changes. Our two best defenders both coming off, just fucking unlucky and completely weakened us.
Dare I say it, Man U looked strong also, swapping their two forwards for two more established ones, that’s going to fuck anyone up.
Onwards and upwards, Iwobi looked fucking at times so not all bad
Auba has been rather pathetic as of late. He hasn’t been as clinical as how some billed him to be.
Also Iwobi has no fucking “football” brain, despite all his runs. Even though our defensive deficiencies have been under the spotlight, it’s actually the absence of direct attacking players that are needed at Arsenal.
Just look at our bench. No attacking threat other than ozil whatsoever!!!
I think the problem with Auba is hat he’s best as central striker or in the left channel, but he keeps getting shunted out right. But somehow he’s still got 17 goals on the season.
That said, it’s near impossible to leave Laca out with his hard work and performances, and I don’t know that Iwobi has been convincing on the right.
He and Ozil (and Mkhi, and Welbeck) have been used as a stopgap for what we don’t have on the right.
When was the last time we had a true right sided attacker?
I have been more impressed with Laca. He was helping out with the defence, as well as drawing saves from Romero.
I would much rather start Laca week in week out than Auba.
As for the number goals Auba scored. Yes, he’s up there with the highest goals scored in the league, but look how many misses he has done.
He is not clinical!!!!
Pussies.
Fair play to Ramsey. Never been his biggest fan but his attitude and performance have been the mark of a true professional. Angry but there are good excuses for this game in isolation. The biggest one being Mustafi had to come on. Just watch him on all 3 goals and come to your own conclusion. I dare Santori to defend this hapless guy. We need 1or even 2 ball playing Cms. While Xhaxa and Torreira are a good pairing neither is that great with it. Xhaxa has awful feet ( Cant even work a yard for himself under pressure) while… Read more »
Why did he switch to a 4231 for this game? What’s wrong with emery that he can’t just go with what worked and tactically change it a little to suite manU? Emery looks like a bad hire. This guy doesn’t belong at a big club. He has a small club mentality where he feels the need to constantly change formations or/tactics. Man management skills suck. If he couldn’t succeed at PSG with funds and domestic dominance how was he going to succeed here? His idea is to being in saurez or EB? He needs to be at a smaller club… Read more »
Agree with red sky. Until Emery gets to grips with the epl,Arsenal will be at most a top 5 or 6 team. Of course Guardiola is a different guy.First he has immense funds .
When you look at how other epl teams play and score,you wonder why the gunners
cant be like them.
If you want to play like Barca,do it in Spain where all the other teams beside RM,and Am aint competitive unlike the midtable to lowly teams which will fight and tackle robustly.
Shit night. Let’s focus on PL and EL now. Onwards and hopefully upwards!
The worst thing about the match, even worse than how god awful the team played, was how with 10 minutes of added time the team had already given up. They played the final ten minutes as if the knew the match was over. i get injuries got in the way. But to move xhaka to CB with so much time left was absurd. we all knew a counter attack goal would come. monreal has played CB before. He’s at least a defender. The coach is in over his head or thinks way too much. Pathetic team. Pathetic owner. The years of… Read more »
it’s yet again déjà vu. The basics of fotball is to attack open spaces in offence and deny space in defence. We play into close space in offence and leave huge gaps in defence.We do this over and over again, thats the most frustrating with this team they we dont learn from our mistakes.
Laca was our best player papa was playing really well until he went off Ramsy should of scored beginning of second half Torara was non existent, m niles had a really good game xaka looked off the pace. Centre of midfield we flopped.. oh and abam completely out of the game maybe because played out of position?
reading these posts. wow. glad it’s the moaning fans that are at fault for bad performances rather than a crap defense, stupid decisions by a manager (cb injured put xhaka back there and bring on matteo) or an owner who refuses to invest in the club so it has a chance to win. Other important things to do like get in the top 4? why? so we can lose in the group stage or final 16. Or becauae it will help us sign top players who will surely come to our club to make 20 percent less than top players… Read more »
Yes agree, an owner who is only interested in the US model, turning over a profit, not going to be successful in the EPL. 2 of the guys that appointed the coach are now gone – shambles. We are the new Valencia or Seville oh for more Thursday night footie.
Agree with Zuhair. Scoring goals is becoming very complicated for Arsenal. Wengre with his all day passing and now Emery.To me its one pass to many.Its not the defeat that makes fans angry. Its the manner.Remember NU 4 Arsenal 4. The gunners have been conceding goals like this since Wenger vs red face. Why not like some fans say park the bus and hit on the break. If the gunners play like this they will lose the epl game against Mu. I know Emery is still finding his way but he wont be give 5 years let alone 22 years… Read more »
It’s just that we go by a certain ‘neat goal’ tiki-taka philosophy that is all well and good ONLY and ONLY if you have the players to implement it!
The invincibles could, Bayern could, Barcelona could. But the fact is that we CAN’T. Even though it’s Emery now, the laboured passing is very similar to Arsene’s era. Just get the damned ball into the net, man!
It’s amazing how quickly our fans turn on Emery after only half a season when we put up with Arsene Wenger’s mediocrity for 10 years.
Anyone forgetting the season when Leicester won the title and we bottled it in the last few games to not even put up a proper title challenge?
Our fans are toxic, both online and at the Emirates.
Not worried about being dumped out. We have to rely on the likes of Chelsea or City or Liverpool now to deny them the satisfaction of drawing level with us on wins in the FA cup. Bigger concerns will be how we will sustain the rest of the season with our self imposed transfer market limitations and with a constantly depleting backline. The lack of consistent selection has been a problem. At least when we had Mutsafi-Sokratis-Holding together for a stretch, there were still jitters at the back but we went on the 19 game run. If we don’t get… Read more »
This is an unbalanced team. It has been for some time without proper resolution. ALL our attack came down the left from Iwobi and Kolasinac. Teams will know this and simply shut us down on that side. We have lacked balance from the right for some time now since we had Alexis but lost the Ox, Gnabry and the limited Walcott in quick succession. Yet nothing was done last January. nothing is being done as we speak besides panic loan and even that is a remote possibility only and seems directionless. The transfer team do not take what Unai and… Read more »
On reflection we started brightly, as Man Utd just sat back. We had a few good attacks down the left, but once Man Utd realised that we seemed unable to switch the play and attack their left flank, they filled the holes on their right and we ran into dead-ends. They tactically adapted we didn’t. Their first goal was pretty good really, though I think Lukaku shouldn’t have had that much room on the edge of the box. A bit surprising that he managed to play a delicate pass, but still we didn’t react. Sanchez was anonymous all night, except… Read more »
Wenger out. Oh wait!