Mikel Arteta’s first game in charge of Arsenal ended in a 1-1 draw with Bournemouth. The Gunners fell behind to a goal by Ryan Gosling’s brother, Dan, but pulled one back in the second half through Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
There were promising signs in terms of how we played, how we passed the ball with more confidence, and the way we found space in the first period, but there’s still clearly a lot to do.
The new boss would have loved a win to kick off with, but a point away will have to do, and maybe we can take all three against Chelsea on Sunday.
Read the Bournemouth 1-1 Arsenal report and see the goals here
Here’s how the players rated this evening.
Ratings
The ratings are now hidden by default until you vote, but if you just want to view the ratings and the comments, flick the switch at the top above Bernd Leno. Also, give the ratings a few seconds to load.
Love the ratings post as always. Thanks for it. Dude not that the secondary window that scrolls through the ratings makes viewing on mobile more difficult. It’s challenging to switch from scrolling the whole page and scrolling that interior window.
Ugh. Not “dude not” should have been “side note”.
Disagree, Arsenal is a place for dudes and sirs alike. Nothing wrong with that post.
Sometimes the autocorrect is truly amazing.
Yep scrolling this page is v difficult on iphone
Gutted we didnt get the 3 points but saw some promising improvements..
Laca in the past could be relied on to put in a shift; today, he was so ineffectual. The positive thing about his performance is that it would almost be impossible to replicate his dire form today in another match…Very sad news about Goonerholic which Blogs shared yesterday.
What happened?
He passed away yesterday. May he RIP
Good day in the office, better days a head.
Nelson was poor today. Pepe should have been subbed on earlier in the 2nd half.
I thought Nelson was ok, good movement and dribbling. Never hid or shirked his defensive responsibilities. But he lacked in end product, you never feel like he believes he will score when he strikes the ball. And physically he doesn’t seem as developed as Saka or Martinelli. But the talent was there, hoping he gets a bit of a run.
Probably because Niles played as an inverted full back and Nelson is a traditional winger. On the other hand Pepe likes to cut inside, so he needs a full back who ovelaps. Arteta had to choose between Auba and Pepe. I think it is quite possible that we will see Niles on the left in the next few games and Bellerin on the right with Pepe.
Sorry loose cannon must of been watching a different game to me.Nelson should of been hooked long before the 80 min.Dreadful crossing and decision making.To be honest really ineffective in these last 2 games.Needs to buck up his ideas or I feel he will not be given many more.
I tried to downvote you twice which demonstrates what I thought of your opinion…however it’s your opinion and you’re welcome to it.
I’d really like to see Pépé given a proper go under Arteta. I think he can thrive under Arteta assuming Arteta is going to mainly adopt Pep’s system of having wingers who cut in and shoot.
Pépé is definitely doing his part by putting the effort in. He looks like the one who is trying the hardest every time he comes on lately. I’m still very excited about him.
I think he’s being played because he offers his right back some protection whilst Pepe doesn’t. I thought he was average (not poor) but did close down space quite well.
Not true, there was a point in November when Pepe had the most tackles out of anyone in the team.
Nelson wasn’t poor at all. He fluffed some chances but he put a shift in and I thought he was more energetic than Pepe when he came on, although to be fair to Pepe it’s hard to play with two broken legs…thanks to inept refereeing.
Nelson was 90% ineffectual… simply running around and either squaring or reversing the play is not ‘putting in a shift’, it is wasting one of 11 key roles in the team. His crossing and through balls were poor, very little effort to break up early attacks starting in their half, and his usual enthusiasm was generally lacking yesterday – he could (and should!) at least have clocked the King threat to Niles and helped his team mate. He didn’t.
Xhaka,Ozil,Torreira played well today…Laca was very poor today….another day or if it was Auba in the middle we would have won the match..Willock wasted a very good counter. Good point though,it looks like eventually we will get better with Arteta.
I can’t believe Auba ran into the crowd like that after scoring the equaliser! That’s how far we’ve fallen. Much preferred Martinelli the other week picking up the ball and running back to the centre circle
I don’t give a single care how he celebrates. There are many signs of how far we’ve fallen but the manner in which our best outfield player celebrates one of his many goals is not among them.
It’s only a problem when Giroud does it right?
Jeez the bias people have.
I gave u both thumbs up.
And the red shade on the new London buses is slightly off from the originals – terrible isn’t it?
Pedant!
Signs of improvement today… I thought Xhaka & torreira, in particular, looked good. Maybe a former cm can get the best out of them?
Ancelotti celebrates win today. Did Arsenal choose well?
Judging something on the first chance is not usually the wise choice either
Yes, yes we did.
This isn’t a good unit of measurement, I actually celebrated a good performance. I will stick by my Arteta any day, come to think of it, you can yourself to Everton.
Ljungberg before and now Arteta have to change our identity completely from whatever Unai played to proper football. What Unai did can’t be fixed overnight. On the other hand Everton won’t change theirs under Ancelloti. Their philosophy stays very much the same. That is why Ferguson had such an impact because the only thing they needed was a motivational boost. We need much more to be back on the level we used to be.
no
You need to chill out angrybird!
Ferguson won his first match in charge of Everton. Maybe they should have ignored Ancelloti and just retained Big Dunc on basis of that?
I’m excited to see what we’ll look like under Arteta a few windows from now when Edu/Arteta are able to make the squad fit the style he wants to play. In the short run just having Torreira as our dm dramatically improves the team although it appears he will be playing at the expense of gendouzi. Looking forward to seeing how Ceballos fits into this – can he be a more mobile version of Xhaka or will he compete with Ozil for the 10? We quickly need to figure out if Auba and Lacazette can co-exist as shunting Auba out… Read more »
At this time in the season must choose whether we are fighting for the league’s top spots or we are fighting against the drop.
Any confusion in our objectives may see us lose both battles God forbid.
i wouldn’t hold your breath for “a few windows…” A little run of bad form and the entire fan base will be down on Arteta and anxious for the next guy.
Hope Martinelli is back soon, to me he should be playing ahead of Lacazette which would allow Aubameyang to be up top.
You have to give a 10+ to Arteta’s hair for holding up in the heavy rain as it did.
Lego is designed for all conditions.
Nelson can do better and given Arteta’s coaching reputation, I expect him to improve. At times our passing was too slow, but some good forward passes.
Felt like I was watching a different team today. Some poor finishing and obviously a number of players lacking confidence and form, but it’s the first game in a while where I felt like they had an idea of what to do and how they should be playing. I also actually enjoyed watching the whole game which is a change!
Early days but content with that performance, all things considered.
That’s the key point. Pleasing on the eye. It’s been far too long since Arsenal have looked like a possession based team. Let’s not get carried away of course, Bournemouth allowed us the ball, but we played football in their half, which we haven’t done for over a season.
A major problem is that a club like arsenal players like sakai, nelson (again) and willock should ne making their mistakes while on loan. That they are playing shows how bad this squad is. Our bench is so weak which is a major concern because our starting 11, other than Leno and Auba, wouldn’t start for any other top 6 team, which we are not going to be.
We need world class players. That’s how you win. You never win anything with youth.
Tell that to Sir Alex Fergusson!
said alan hansen, famously, right before Fergie’s Man Utd won the double with a team full of youth…
maybe you should consider supporting another club. there’s a few lean years ahead without too many world class players getting added. we survived and i survived the seventies and eighties when it was lean, and i’m ready to do the same again. #coyg
We had a pretty young squad that won the title in 89. Just sayin’.
AMN positioning was really interesting today. He was essentially coming into midfield to make it a three, while Saka pushed on on the left. Could be signs of Arteta’s early influence because it’s similar to what City do with their fullbacks.
Ainsley was really good I thought, probably one of his better performances.
Harsh on Xhaka. He played a brilliant pass through to Auba that led to the goal. Was also involved in everything.
Interesting formation already from Arteta. Xhaka drifting left and Niles drifting central creates a 3 across the middle to keep the ball and protect the defenders on any counters through the middle. Work in progress but looks promising.
Xhaka can always hit some pretty long balls but he was seriously bailed out by two giveaways in this game that very nearly put Bournemouth directly through on goal, the most egregious one late in the game when Luiz stepped in to save us from a 2 vs the keeper. His disasters are always there; we don’t always get punished for them. It’s honestly hard for me to enjoy games he plays in at this point.
Don’t worry he’s leaving soon so you won’t have to be miserable for much longer!
Honestly, if we got a good price for Laca, and were pretty sure we could keep Auba, I’d strongly consider selling Laca in January, using Martinelli and a recalled Nketiah, and re-investing Laca money in the mid-field and/or defense.
The crossing was awful, but can’t complain much about the youngsters. That said, I’d probably start Pepe in the next match…he needs to start justifying the transfer fee.
Laca is the superior player. Dribbling, passing, hold up play…he’s a complete forward. His finishing last term was superb. And, keep in mind, he’s not been starting or playing that much. He’s barely match fit or sharp. A couple games, and he bangs a two of those in. So, whatever…. Sure, we love Auba. And he scores goals, though, TBF, he’s been ice cold lately. He ain’t what the club should be building around, especially given his age. Martinelli is young, and raw. Sure he’s flavor of the month, but he’s a gamble. Same with Nketiah. Sure, Ian Wright likes… Read more »
Hell, I can’t imagine what this site would be like if we sold either of our strikers and then had a game where we didn’t score. Mikel needs to see what he’s working with and find a way to get the most from them. Remember at Citeh even Aguero had to work his way back into the team.
Extremely frustrating watch this afternoon.Clearly the better side but our lack of quality in the final third had me tearing my hair out.Nelson extremely fortunate to last 80 mins.I feel Nelson seems to be going down the same road as Iwobi.His lack of final ball is criminal which was one of the main criticism aimed at Iwobi.Practice your craft guys, stay on the training ground until it’s dark if need be.Do you honestly think David Beckham’s crossing and general set piece taking was perfected by going home at lunch time to play PlayStation.On a more positive note great to see… Read more »
Relax. One game, 20 year old player what the hell do you expect? For him to be Beckham from the get go? I guarantee you he is working on his game but it appears you have as much a video game mentality as you accuse the youngster of having. Improvement, takes time! And we are talking time in terms of months and years. Nelson is a premier league rookie, we keep forgetting. Nice little run on loan in the Bundesliga but even then this is a game of men and once he was figured out he cooled off, now he… Read more »
We are going to have to respectfully disagree on this one Dawdler.
I found myself frustrated alamd moaning at our lack of decision maling in the final third and realised I’d not been upset like that in a long time! It’s actually an improvement lol
Laughed at the Dan Gosling comment and then thought, “Wait. Is he actually really Ryan’s brother?”. Actually googled it to check.
I won’t tell you if it’s true though…
I thought David Luiz played really well. Bit annoyed that we conceded by faffing about at the back again though.
Did exactly the same, laughing included.
Pepe put the brakes on himself and… With that, the counter-attack is out of the question. Still, I’d love his style.
I love*
And what about yer man leaving the ball behind him and crashing into an Arsenal player………..free kick Bournemouth ?????
It’s only a game in with Arteta, but it was a promising display, I liked that the players were a lot closer together which allowed us to move the ball a lot quicker than we previously had.
Anyone else noticed that we barely win balls that are lumped up by either teams. I feel that we lose a lot of pressure and put pressure on us by losing these small battles.
Although we drew, I’m excited to see how we do with Arteta, he’s definitely saying the right things!
Nelson and Willock are awful awful footballers at the moment and should not be anywhere near first team. At best they are Championship midtable rotation players.
Awful may be a touch harsh,but they are definitely not good enough to play for Arsenal.Go and reinvent yourself elsewhere would be their best bet.I believe Martinelli is younger and a far better player than either of those two.
Abu got Arsenal out of jail yet again.Yet he could be off in January.
Shd it happen where will the goals come from ?I shudder.
Arsenal have scored 28 goals which aint good enough for a team
aspiring to greater heights.
As for trying to get 4th,the gunners wont be able to win the cl for the
next 5 to 10 years.Its just to fill the coffers to maintain the self
sustaining model of a club ,a premium one soon to drop out of
Europes list of 10 top clubs if they cant challenge.
Ozil must playing full time and saka out. Including three midfielders..torrera ,gundo…xaka..1,4,3,3
Some effort today but clearly still punching below what we should be considering this is a poor Bournemouth side bereft of many senior players (To put things in context) 1) Leno – Thought he was decisive on many occasions coming out to claim the ball and we will need that from him. 2) AMN – Decent. In a right battle with King. Physical enough, was instructed to keep slightly deeper and allow Nelson to push wide in front of him as AMN lined up in a midfield 2 or 3 with either Torreira or Torreira and Xhaka providing better screening.… Read more »
Did anyone noticed Mustafi’s wild lunge at the sideline? Totally missed the tackle which could have ended in a goal conceded.
Can we buy giroud this January?