Result: Huddersfield Town 1-2 Arsenal
Competition: Premier League
Date: 9th February 2019
Venue: John Smith’s Stadium
Starting XI: Leno, Maitland-Niles, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Guendouzi, Torreira, Iwobi, Kolasinac, Mkhitaryan, Lacazette
Subs: Cech, Elneny, Lichsteiner, Suarez, Mavropanos, Willock, Nketiah
Arsenal beat Huddersfield Town 2-1 at the John Smith’s Stadium to record their first Premier League away win since November.
Goals from Alex Iwobi and Alex Lacazette put the Gunners in charge at the break and while we were comfortable for much of the second period, Sead Kolasinac’s stoppage-time own goal ensured there was a nervy ending to proceedings.
First half
There were two changes to the lineup that started against Manchester City last weekend with Ainsley Maitland-Niles replacing Stephan Lichtsteiner and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, back from six weeks out with a broken metatarsal, replacing Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. The Gabon international and Mesut Ozil both missed out with an illness that had been doing the rounds at London Colney. To add to Emery’s headache both Aaron Ramsey (slight knee problem) and Granit Xhaka (groin) were also missing. It meant we set up with a 3-4-3 shape, Matteo Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira asked to play box-to-box roles and Lacazette pushed into a central position up front.
In very windy conditions, we made a bright start. Tackles were won, our passing triangles were neat and attacks were launched at pace. Both Iwobi and Lacazette had early chances to find the net, but neither tested the keeper.
When the breakthrough came on 16 minutes, it was fully deserved. Kolasinac, charging down the left wing, delivered a pinpoint cross to Iwobi bounding into the box at the back post and the Nigerian did well to control a first-time volley on the angle down into the ground. Keeper Ben Hamer seemed to have it covered but a slight nick off Kongolo, who’d turned his back, left him wrong-footed. Iwobi and Maitland-Niles toasted their luck by indulging in a celebratory dance. (1-0)
Against a side as poor as Huddersfield, we really should have turned the screw but instead, we gradually let the home side back into the game. They probed the channels, tried long balls, penned us in, made fouls – one by Kachunga on Kolasinac was worthy of a red – and forced errors in possession. Leno got pulses racing chasing after a high free-kick and Koscielny was lucky to avoid being penalised for a shot he blocked in the area with the help of his arm.
For all that, Huddersfield still looked like a side with only five goals to their name all season. They had no real cutting edge. What’s more, every time they pushed forward they left themselves open to the counter-attack.
Lacazette, Mkhitaryan and Iwobi were all a handful for the home side’s backline, despite being ponderous occasionally, and Maitland-Niles’ pace gave us an attacking dimension we’ve missed when forced to field Lichtsteiner.
A minute before half time, Lacazette doubled the lead. It looked as though Mkhitaryan had made a mess of things when a first through ball was cut out, but the Armenian did well to retrieve possession and then to feed Maitland-Niles on the overlap. With players lining up to score, he fizzed a ball across the six-yard box for Lacazette to tap home. (2-0)
Second half
With nothing to lose, the Terriers were menacing in the opening stages of the second half. Leno did well to stop a low shot by Adama Diakhaby, Juninho Bacuna dragged wide and Diakhaby failed to convert Jason Puncheon’s shot with the goal gaping.
In between, Elneny, on for Lucas Torreira on 58 minutes, had a chance to make an immediate impact but headed a Kolasinac cross wide. Having climbed over Lacazette to get to the ball, he got an earful from the Frenchman who was probably better placed to score.
For the most part, we were happy to sit deep and soak up pressure before pushing hard on the break. Iwobi had a great chance to kill the game, but having been put through one-on-one by Mkhitaryan he couldn’t squeeze his effort past Hamer. When the Armenian had a chance of his own, he fell over. A flurry of end-to-end action climaxed with Koscielny bailing out Leno who’d spilt a Diakhaby shot.
Substitute Depoitre flashed just wide and Monreal was forced to hack a clearance off the goal line as more chances came and went for the home side in the final ten minutes. It looked like we might be on course to record our first clean sheet on the road all season, but right at the death, Kolasinac put through his own net. (2-1)
Huddersfield finished the game with six more efforts on goal (15-9), including two more on target (6-4), and having made 20 more crosses and 86 more passes. This is a side who have lost 12 and drawn one of their last 13 games.
On the plus side, the result takes us to 50 points, level with Chelsea who have a game in hand, however, after United’s win against Fulham, we’re still sixth in the table. Attention now turns to a Europa League double-header with BATE Borisov before we return to league action against Southampton and Bournemouth.
‚A lill bit good, a lill bit shit.’
More shit than good in my opinion.
They had more possession and attempts than us. This will end with our way out of his depth manager being sacked. Until then it’s gonna be painful.
You genuinely know nothing!
We won and and now we can play strongest possible team in the one tournament we can win. Never troubled today and Emery strategy worked well. Good manager
Qhat a load of bullshit. It’s not Emery’s responsibility if the of every player on the squad he’s given can’t even play a simple pass to an open teammate. How many times have Mustafi, Kola, Iwobi…etc miss-passed the ball out the park? How can you organize a defense to defend if your players put the ball in their own nets? How will the defense improve when almost every player we have is incapable of tackling the ball or dispossessing the opponent?? It’s an impossible job, and people are moaning and overreacting as if they never saw Arsenal like this before,… Read more »
‘A fleeting glimpse’ … What is the basis of your comment? Do you regularly read arseblog and other intelligent publications? How could you think Emery is out of his depth? Which manager in the entire world would you have instead? Why not offer something intelligent to the debate. Like holding your view and explaining it. I hate that I can’t join in football debates even on great sites without nonsense about Unai Emery being out of depth after an away win. This kind of crazy desire for instant satisfaction is so boring. Arsenal does not exist for your baby-like, ‘world-revolves-around-me’… Read more »
Be patient kingkolo. If you want wisdom and insight read red-sky. He is wasted on here ???
The front 3 looked like they’d never played together before.
I’m not sure if they actually have.
Shit attitude. We needed three points and we got three points. Now there’s even more pressure on Chelsea with their trip to the Etihad tomorrow. Lose that and we’re level, so let’s hope City do us a favour.
I’ve seen more chemistry on love island.
What’s worse, this team or that you watch that crap?
Chill out TB it’s a joke
After giving it a thought – yeap, you’re right. In fact it was as shitty shit as shit can be. Still, threr points was all what mattered today so I take this shit.
I don’t understand the thinking behind people who claim to support Arsenal! ?
Unbelievable how our players can’t play under any pressure, even 5 yard passes became a difficulty. Can’t make even the simplest of decisions. How can anyone blame the coach after this??
No wonder we are regressing.
We won comfortably and stilll challenging for top 4 place and should progress in Europa League. No regression
Part of it is circumstances. The team sheet has been chopped and changed crazily at least since the holiday break. Largely because of injuries, but also because Emery likes to adjust his lineups regularly. The players lack “automatisms”. When they were under pressure too often they didn’t have the chemistry of knowing where someone would be – or where to be for them. Of course this shouldn’t apply to the left side where Iwobi and Kola have played together a ton, but they also didn’t have the Ramsey or Ozil linkage. Mkhi’s first in 10 games. AMN, already a 2nd… Read more »
“Unbelievable how our players can’t play under any pressure, even 5 yard passes became a difficulty. Can’t make even the simplest of decisions. How can anyone blame the coach after this??” Who should be blamed then? Wenger!? This is the exact shit why fans called for Wenger’s sacking. Why should it be different with Emery? Don’t tell me Wenger brought in Mustafi, I could tell you Emery brought in Leichsteiner too. How can you go in with 8 defensive players against a bottom table team expecting slick passing football. His choice of players on the day dictated the crap passing… Read more »
Absolutely agree. This Huddersfield team is as poor as any to grace the bottom of the premier league for years, and not only do we set up without any plan to control the ball or game, we manage to let a team who haven’t scored for 10 hours (!) to fuck up our clean sheet. People are saying give Emery time to let his vision come through, look at Klopp and Guardiola took them a few years, but what the hell is Emery’s vision? Both Klopp and Guardiola had successful styles from other leagues they had to make work in… Read more »
Try supporting the Arsenal in 1975. We were bottom of the league but everybody for behind the team. Yes,Mustafi scares the living s#@% out of me when defending but so did Jeff Blockle back in the day. Stop moaning and support the team through thick and thin and spare a thought for the Huddersfield supporters, who thought their team made an improvement.
3 Takeaways:
1) 3 points are 3 points however you get them
2) We hate clean sheets so much we have to score one for them.
3) Am I the only one who wants to punch most of our players in the face?
With your name I’m sure you could walk into our first team right now
I was going to say I’m old, slow and turn like a battleship…but then I remembered Lichsteiner.
If this was a Chelsea or man u game this team would have played better, I think something is wrong,the players are kinda lackadaisical when they are not under pressure to produce…thankful for the three points,now let’s get DAT top 4 and europa
Cant understand why these gob shytes are practicing frikken dances for after goals do they really think they are that good… I’d shove that robotic effort up his you know what
Honestly if you’re going to play that many defensive players it’s just going to invite pressure. Absolutely embarrassing conceding a goal. You could see that coming from a mile away.
They hadn’t scored since last year. Ridiculous defending.
If they had a striker that was half as good as Laca then I think we lose that game. Was Ozil sick or ‘sick’? I really thought this would have been a good game for him.
On this occasion I would blame the players over the manager. So many opportunities to finish off the game.
Pressure what pressure?
If they’re trying to edge out Özil, they are going the cowardly way about it. Idiots.
Look, he s not going to play away from home. Accept that and save yourself some angst.
Ozil is ill…. And I’m not sure he’d have started if he wasn’t, and whilst there’s always a chance Ozil could have hit us with a 10\10 performance…. those type of performances are the exceptional and not the rules, so by the law of averages, it’s much more likely he’d have delivered a 5/10. I thought Mkhitaryan was very good, but faded in the second half, and whilst I love Torreira+Guendouzi, it was the type of performance that you’ll get from a 19+22yr old. We won…. but judging by some of these comments, you certainly wouldn’t have guessed it. It’s… Read more »
At the start of the season, if you offered this, you can be sure none of the ‘Emery out’ brigade would have refused our current stance in the table with 1 point of the 4th, and with the easiest schedule to come, out of our rivals.
Given all the difficulties we’re in with more than half of our best XI injured or ill.
I agree with your main point.
But I also downvote any comment with ‘brigade’ or ‘fanboy’.
Why manufacture a fight out of nowhere? There’s plenty of real comments to disagree with if you’re so inclined.
What would the “white knight” way be?
Punch him in the teeth
does anybody have any idea or insight as to why we are generally very good at home but always weak, timid, boring, lacking creativity and disorganised away? Where goes the moxey?
I am still trying to comprehend why Elneny jumped over Laca for header?
“My time to shine!”
Because he was headed toward goal attacking the ball in the air and not backing up underneath it. I know he has scored zero goals but that ball was his to go for. Laca got in his way.
im not a fan of ozil but surely he would do better than iwobi?
I don’t know. But I remember when all the fans used to say the press are wankers (which they are) for saying ozil doesn’t ‘run arrrraaaaand’ but now it’s fine that he is sidelined for not ‘running arrrraaaaand’ even though he does ‘run arrrraaaaand’ as proved by stats
In the least surprising turn of events ever, we concede in the last minute to wipe away our clean sheet lol. Either way, it doesn’t matter. We needed a win and we got the win. Well done!
I’d almost forgotten how much better Miki makes us look. Excellent game from him, especially when you consider it’s his first back from injury. Iwobi was great in the first half, pants in the second.
At the risk of sounding churlish, bit dissatisfied overall tbh with that second half. We lacked finesse, was very disappointed Kola didn’t play in Suarez for a great opportunity towards the end – what a start that could have been!
Look, I know we won. 3 points, job done. But let’s all be honest here. We play 11 points Huddersfield, who sit at the bottom of the league and are as good as relegated. And what is our managers’s game plan? Defend and hit them on the counter. We let the dominate possession. They have numerous chances to score. They eventually do score (which they seem to never, ever do). We look dismal during 90% of the game. We give the ball away carelessly too many times. But they are terrible, so we win. Come one. Can you be satisfied… Read more »
Boss : I am trying my best for first clean sheet in away game.
Kola: Hold my beer!
God,that slick passing football went away with our dear wenger 🙁
Thank fuck that we are moving away from the notion that we have to play beautiful football all the time, and trying to build a team that can win ugly as well. It will take time to get the balance right but at least that’s where we are heading.
yep. we win ugly and we lose ugly. thank fuck…seriously.
Yes, thank fuck. Emery is trying to build a culture where we work hard and become hard to beat and that takes time. Whether he is the right manager to take us forward, I don’t know. But at least he is moving us away from the fragile teams of the last few years of Wenger.
fanboys prefer Wenger to Emery because the former would play all the Ozils of the club in one formation with no regard to our defense, team balance, match physicality …etc
Just ignore ’em.
Thats the problem…though grateful for the win, but both win or lose is plain ugly right now, there should be good football days and bad football days..flipping Huddersfield played slicker football at times than us today…you can feel the fan base, myself included, beginning to feel uneasy with this☹
Playing good nice football and being shit, or playing shit and being shit.
It went away fron Wenger roughly ten years ago too.
Harsh! The last two years of Wenger though
Forget about when Wenger’s slick football went away, when did it start?
We won our first Wenger title playing rigid 442 but we didn’t see real Wengerball until about 2-3 seasons later. Have some patience guys
Sure, but what is Emeryball? And is it worth a 2-3 season wait?
It went away way before Arsène did
No, it’s gone away with players that take a risk and aren’t positional robots like the chaps out today. Aka ramsey and ozil
Ramsey & Ozil played plenty of away games last season that we were just as rubbish to watch in as we were today.
Yep, people have short memories. Thinking of the disastrous Europa League semi as well
“Aren’t positional robots” could also so easily be described as “do whatever the fuck they want” … truth lies somewhere in between
Last few years of AW’s reign were anything but slick.
Same dross if not worse.
Cynical?, tongue in cheek?…but sadly true☹…i am hoping there is too much Arsenal DNA floating around for this to last…c’mon Emery?
We looked pretty good when we beat Spurs
3 points those are 🙂
But how painful it is to watch Mustafi trying to play football……
I find it terrifying
What’s terrifying is 35 MILLION POUNDS !!!!
That’s the GDP of Tuvalu.
Valencia robbed us.
That was dour dour football, all farts and no poo
It’s three points but any other team in the division would have blown us away with that performance.
That must rank with the worst performance by a winning team this season!
We were so sh*t, but still won. Terrible passing, poor defending, no chemistry, outplayed, Mustafck can’t kick a ball…we dont deserve to go to the champions league with this sort of negative performance.
Man are we a bang average team now. I mean, I know we won, but this was against effectively a championship heading team who have scored 5 goals at home all season. Every win is crucial, but we look bereft of talent, seriously. If Koscienly wasn’t playing this game, we could have conceded more. Mustafi needs to come out this team, he has no confidence and he is just not good enough – get shot of in the summer. I’d ween Mavro in now or at least until Sokratis returns.
A horrible win, but a win nonetheless.
Bloody hell we just love to gift goals don’t we? Poor Huddersfield, how can we let them go for so long without scoring. Let’s give them some confidence! ?
you know what, we won, fuck everything else
Anyone still thinking we have a good squad able to get top 4, after watching this torture of a football match???
I defend the manager a lot but that was just awful awful
Not far off a whole first team missing. A win is a win.
Sevilla were a shambles defensively whilst Emery was there. 50 goals or more shipped every season in the league. He failed to win Ligue 1 in 16/17 at PSG, which should be criminal in itself. Why did we go for a manager like that, when the manager who actually beat him with few resources (Jardim) was easily gettable, and has a better track record for youth (Mbappe, Silva, Fabinho, Mendy, Bakayoko), and is a very good manager at coaching how to defend? Time to admit we’ve completely fucked up this appointment. We’re fucking joyless to watch, Huddersfield had 15 (FIFTEEN)… Read more »
Jardim who was sacked after dragging down his club into the relegation zone??
Jardim who had to sell off a whole team of superb talents after 2017?
Yeah, him, the guy who outfoxed our coach who had all the money in the world yet failed to win the title in France in 16/17. There’s a reason PSG binned him off.
Emery had to sell his top players year after year at Valencia and Sevilla, and he overachieved in all seasons regardless. Including a historical Europa League hattrick.
Emery had great players at Valencia, and this was before Atleti became a force. He did nothing special there. At Sevilla the bloke went a whole season without winning away from home, after what we’ve seen this season, that does not surprise me in the slightest. 50 or more goals let in every season in La Liga at Sevilla which we’ll comfortably surpass.
If you ask anyone with a little knowledge of football they’ll tell you Jardim is a better manager than Emery. Attacking wise, and defensively.
No anyone who know football would tell you Emery is a better manager by all means. Much more Successful and proven in more teams than one, worked in less favored conditions, lost his stars more than once.
No comparison on the European trophies front of course. Emery is historical coach. Jardim is one season wonder.
He’s already got more away wins this season than Arsène did last season.
Jardim was my choice to take over from Wenger, but your analysis of Emery is awful, one-sided rubbish. We don’t analyse Wenger’s career by talking about how he lost 6-0 to Chelsea and 8-2 to Utd and let Spurs beat him to the CL twice. Because that’s not analysis, it’s trolling. Proper analysis means don’t ignore the bad stuff, but at least mention the good stuff too. European titles at Sevilla, 7 trophies with PSG and a title won with over 100 league goals scored. PSG let Emery go because they’re trying to buy a CL trophy, not earn one.… Read more »
A PSG team should ALWAYS be scoring more than 100 goals in that league. And for the record, Monaco in 16/17 scored 107 goals in the league
Right, Monaco also scored 100+ goals when they won a title. They also trashed Sp*rs at Wembley and knocked Pep’s City out of the CL that year. Because they were an excellent team. That’s why they beat PSG to the title, on their own merits. That was also the year Zlatan left PSG for Utd, so Emery had to teach Cavani how to play as a no.9 again, which he hadn’t done for years, and it took him a while to find his form. The same script you use to attack Emery was used to attack Wenger back in 96-97.… Read more »
Need to add this for the record – some of you didn’t deserve a coach like Wenger. He suffered through hard times and good times for 2 decades and now people think success grows on trees. The man was completely wasted on some of you.
.
That is a terrible argument. Jardim was stripped of almost every first team player as Monaco went into a full fire sale. Jardim would have been a much more exciting appointment, and I can guarantee the football would have been 100x better.
Yeah, not too sure about that.
I begged Arsenal to appoint Jardim on here. Great coach, but let’s not pretend he’s a masterful attacking coach. He’s more of a methodical counter-attacker. He beat us with Monaco and Olympiakos using classic European performances, keeping it tight and countering, not expansive attacking play.
It’s hard to figure out what exactly is wrong with this Arsenal team. We were cruising in the first half, two nil up and looking menacing on the break. In the second half we seemed to sit back and invite them on to us with them having nothing to lose. Bad idea. We needed to up our tempo and blow them away rather than spend most of the half defending. A win is a win but against Huddersfield, 2-0 up in the first half, this was poor. Then Kolasinac flicks it into his own net and the last few minutes… Read more »
Emery has said that the team must be better to hold on to the ball. As most managers, he likes his team to be able to “park the bus”, so that they can win quite comfortably after having scored one or two goals. I think today’s second half was in its totality an Emery exercise in bus parking. The cautious Elneny instead of Torreira, the rather angry gestures at players taking any kind of risk. It might have succeeded, was it not for our eternal bird of misfortune, Mustafi, whom I like, but who again happily let his man run… Read more »
Thought Koscielny was OK. That’s all I’ve got.
Koscielny was excellent, not ok. If not for him we would have lost this game.
Koscielny for me was more than excellent, the only ray of light in this awful footballing spectacle..after the 3 points of course?…the boss is definitely back, we need him now. Before his injury, he was one of the best in the pl, and he dosent seem to have lost any of his pace or aggressive pro active defending either…amazing!
Imagine how good it will be with him and Sokratis (when he’s soon back). Damn, that might be the end of our defensive worries? At least a big improvement
We defended balls in to the box very well today.
But with three CB that’s just about the minimum we should be doing.
I forget sometimes I’m watching Arsenal. Even though we got the win, we got 3 points, its a sad day when we’re riding our luck against the worst team in the league. We were not the better team today. Our quality helped us take our chances, but the football was absolutely dreadful. Our front three were never really in the game. There was no connection between defense-midfield-attack. Besides Leno and Koscielnly are defense was terrible as well. If we’re going to set up so defensively, shouldn’t we expect our defense to actually perform? What’s the point then? We might as… Read more »
We’re an absolute god send to teams low on confidence! We have such a talent for making shit teams look decent!
A team bottom of the table, having only scored 5 goals at home all season should be expecting a thrashing from us… instead they’re filled with confidence thanks to our inability to kill a game and our shambolic defending.
Totally agree. Cardiff hadn’t scored in the league, we went there they scored twice! Ibe hadn’t scored for Bournemouth – he scored against us!
We do ride our luck!!
It’s so hard to not hate this Arsenal team. I get it that we are decimated by injuries but.. man… that was so hard to watch
That was difficult to watch. Along with the flu that spread through our team equally contagious was giving the ball away.
And I don’t imagine there was one arsenal fan who believed we’d keep a clean sheet.
Can’t wait until the summer when the club buys a few cheap players and refuses to spend enough to solve our problems.
With injuries and illnesses and “tactical” issues we have not been able to have a settled team. Our players don’t know who is playing alongside them each week, let along getting used to each other! This can’t be easy folks!??
Furthermore remember the Man U transition from Sir Alex and how that went and they were the champions! We were 6th last season and we are still 6th this season so far. What did anyone expect? It’s a work in progress…COYG!
Borussia Dortmund 3-0 Hoffenheim. Reiss Nelson comes on. Borussia Dortmund 3-3 Hoffenheim.
I fell asleep at half time, so don’t know how bad the 2nd half was. What I’m sure of is that Arsenal paid Valencia 35 million for Mustafi and sold Gabriel for a 1/3 of that price. Wow!
Iwobi is the worst shot on goal since Alex Hleb.
Except for when the whistle’s already been blown
I’m forgetting myself for a moment I thought I was on Twitter because the amount of negative comments on here are similar. People need to start asking themselves if they genuinely support Arsenal or if they just enjoy complaining about Arsenal.. I know which camp I’m in!
Given the amount of chopping and changing, the lack of chemistry is not surprising. Emery has brought resilience to the team.
Resilience? We gifted a team a goal they couldn’t find for 10 hours! Resilient we are not.
In all honesty, I just feel like I don’t enjoy watching Arsenal play anymore. I remember Unai saying that he’d rather win 5:4 than 1:0, and then he puts 8 defensive players on the pitch time and time again. I still want him to succeed, but this is a little disappointing
I know what you mean! The last 2 games I went to (2-1 v Cardiff & 1-1 v Wolves) although we didn’t lose, they were very underwhelming performances. There have only been a handful of games this season where we’ve been superb!
It’s hard for me to decide whether our generic level of play that seems pretty average in the league especially in the attack is more down to Emery and his tactics or the players. It seemed that even when we weren’t playing well under Wenger we still had a much more dynamic attack which often came at the expense of our defending and we would be the dominant team in terms of possession, attempts, shots on goal, etc.. Of course that wouldn’t always lead to 3 points, but you usually felt Arsenal was the stronger attacking team. However, under Emery… Read more »
I see this as just 3 points. This is a team that was struggling to win away from home, what did people expect? That the “handbrake” would suddenly be released? Away win after long, take it and move on. Hopefully performances pick up.
Happy for the 3 points, but god damn are a mess of a team, disjointed, no creativity whatsoever, and just plain boring. I’m really starting to think Emery might not be the best choice, but I’ll reserve my final judgement till he have one year of work, but as of right now the signs aren’t positive…
Iwobi is such a frustrating player. Yes he scored but my God can he at least try to maintain composure when on the ball. Loose passes, no skill to pass his man, trying impossible passes. Get you shit together man.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the goal isn’t later reclassified as an own goal as it was going wide
Watched the game at the Emirates on the screen and this report is an appalling reflection of the match, we were awful! On the plus side Got to see Robert Pires and the guy is as classy off the pitch as he was on it
At same stage as last season (week 26) we are definitely better 1. 50 points instead of 45 2. 18 points away, last season total 16 3. 8 points against other big 5, last season total 6 4. 15 points away from top, last season 24, 5. If chauvs win, we are 3 points away from top four, last year we were 5 points away. 6. and in case you wonder we lost game 27, 28 and 29. 7. by the time we reached 51 points, at game 31, we were 13 points away from 4th spot. so sit down,… Read more »
Still in 6th
This season the top club isn’t running away and all the other clubs have also gotten better?
Plus the injuries…
When he pulled off Torreira we lost the midfield. Emery is obviously worried about burning him out for the EL and League run in. Ozil was sick not dropped and I believe he would have played. Mutafi is in there because Sok is injured. It looked horrible because we played 5 at the back against shit opposition. Everyone was in everyone’s way and hence the own goal. Until we get the unfit players like Sok and Xhaka back, we will look disjointed. Emery hasn’t got many options when injuries strike, He just have to ride it out best he can… Read more »
True Torreira was holding it down the best he could and did pretty well considering on the whole, but I think it was a bit of a structural problem too. 3-4-3 with Kola and AMN both staying out wide will always leave us outnumbered in the middle of the park.
I’d like to thank Emery for bringing my focus back to getting good grades this semester , Engineering Mechanics is more exciting than what he serves right now.
Also it’s understandable that you play deep and with effectively 7 defensive players to stabilise your defense and counter the lush tiki taka side that is Huddersfield , but atleast be defensively solid and not look lucky to get away with a 2-1 against the mighty Huddersfield Town with their managers who is Lichtsteiner’s age-mate.
With just 4 mins of injury time to go, the commentators start talking about Arsenal getting their first clean sheet away from home. At that point you knew they were going to score! Well we scored for them actually.
The football is just shit to watch. Stoke City may even like us a bit now
We struggled in midfield today. All these detractors that prefer to blame the defense, well apart from the lack of concentration at the end, much of the problem today was largely due to our failure to impose ourselves in midfield and hold the ball. We did not retain possession for long stretches and (but for the poor quality of the opponents attack) we put the defense under unnecessary and prolong duress. Eventually, there will be the odd chance of something leaking in our end. Inconvenient truth to some people who prefer to imagine otherwise but I feel we have missed… Read more »