Arsenal finished the Premier League season in 8th after two goals from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and first Arsenal strike from Kieran Tierney gave us a 3-2 win over Watford.
At the other end, Troy Deeney’s penalty and a goal from former Gunner Danny Welbeck gave the visitors hope of avoiding the drop, but ultimately Mikel Arteta’s men ran out the winners and this poxy league season is over.
All the attention now turns to Saturday and the FA Cup final against Chelsea.
Read the Arsenal 3-2 Watford report and see the goal 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 Emi Martinez. Also, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
Can we all agree that Dean beard is officially the worst look in the Prem?
Aside from that…yuck…FA Cup final here we come.
I disagree. The less we see of his expressive mug, the better
Dean is a c**t but now looks like a hairy 70s c**t where it’s all bush and no lips.
Hahahahahhahaha
Hairy Mike Dean – Mean Hairy Dike
You do the math
So henceforth, it’s officially Dike Mean on this forum then?
His chin looks as if it has been abducted by a family of possums.
Can we all agree it was weird seeing Welbeck as an opponent again? I miss dat guy and I hope nothing but the best for him
Probably welbeck’s best game at the Emirates
The thing i loved most about this season is relegating troy deeney after he said it was easy to beat us as we have no cohonas. Karmas a bitch
Cojones. In case you need to use it again…
Ceballos is one of the only players that gets the ball and drives forward a bit. Something that Ramsey used to do which we hardly see anyone else do now
Too bad the off season is so short. I’m sure Dani would like to put on a little muscle to compete a little more physically.
I hope we keep him next year even if it’s a loan.
Mike Cunt Dean’s face is insufferable.
Did you mean Mike Dean’s Cunt face?
Aye but it’s still preferable to his refereeing.
Yes he is a colossal bellend but that 2nd half was as poor as it gets from us. I am seriously worried about next season.
We were shit in the second for sure but I take solace in what Arteta has done with what was a hapless squad when he took over. If we can move on some of the less reliable players and bring in a few upgrades then I think we have an exciting season ahead of us.
Ha
well that caps the end of perhaps the worst premier league season we’ve had in at least 20 years. onwards and forwards – here’s hoping for smart, decisive signings in the transfer window and an arsenal mentality that exceeds anything we’ve seen in the last 5 years. COYG!
Please make that “in the last 10 years.” With the likely average quality of the squad, we will need extraordinary mentality to finish top 4. Not trying to sound negative, but I think it’s true. And I think Arteta can help foster that spirit but knows he needs some winners to come in and help.
Even though we finished higher than in the Stuart Houston season this one somehow felt worse.
Mike Dean looked like he had been told off by his missus for asking to do something kinky, could see the absolute disappointment in his wince lol
Too harsh on Eddie. He did what was right in a meaningless game for Arsenal apart from helping Auba get the golden boot, make him all happy and sign da ting.
Boy, we need him for next season. This team is defensively a shambles and creatively a paint job waiting to dry.
I know Eddie meant well, but… if he had scored and made it 4-2, Watford might have lost hope. And if that happened Aubameyang might have gotten more chances, rather than needing to help defend the one goal lead. All ifs and buts, of course.
I was going to make the same point. A possible hat trick by Auba, and him knowing his teammates want to help him, made it worth the pass. And it wasn’t a bad pass — a cheeky dink over the keeper by Auba and Bob’s your uncle.
Wow, that was stressful. Emi is no.1, Willock needs a loan, Torreira and Holding should be sold, and David Luiz was an accident waiting to happen. AMN and Nelson were solid, Tierney was good and that overhead kick from Auba while he was being dragged over was awesome, it’s a pity he couldn’t get another goal, even though Eddie was doing his best to help. Good riddance Troy Deeney, delighted to see the back of him.
Holding may still come good; he has had a lot of injuries and suffered from an inflated reputation (not his fault) and therefore unrealistic expectations, a common problem for young English players (Harry Winks, anyone?).
No one, thanks….
I think to be fair to Holding, defensively he didnt do much wrong today. Made a lot of headers from what I saw which was always going to be crucial against Watford. Luiz seemed to be at fault for most of their chances. Holdings problem for me is his passing and funnily enough I don’t think it’s something he cant do, I’ve seen him play some nice balls, but he seems to play the wrong passes quite often, going for something too difficult in the wrong moment. Hopefully that’s something that’ll improve with experience
Think if you watch back the goals and the match in general, you might have a different opinion. Holding was shocking today. His misplaced pass lead to their first goal, did not track Welbeck for the second, misread a lot of situations (e.g. a long throw around the 50th minute), etc. I have all the time for him, always liked him, but I’m scared that he isn’t ready for the final. Lets hope he repeats 2017 final’s performance.
Luiz conceded more penalties than 10 PL teams !!!
Willock’s decision making on the break is not great, which is clearly important for a player in that position. Unfortunately, I think that is much more a matter of instinct than knowledge, hence I’m not sure he will ever be able to get up to requisite level for Arsenal. However, I hope I’m wrong and Arteta can improve him significantly here. On the other hand, the small glimpses of ESR i’ve seen suggest, he could probably slot in for Willock and be an upgrade. But there must be a reason why ESR was loaned and Willock given play time. Perhaps… Read more »
8th. The lowest Arsenal will finish in the league this century
The last time we finished lower was in Graham’s last season in 1995 when we finished 12th.
That’s a rather negative attitude. How many more seasons of these defenders do we have? There’s still time…
Though a bit lethargic but good win. What was Holding thinking about misplacing that pass to Watford which led to their first goal? I thought Welbeck had fired the shot @ Emi before Golden Luiz kicked him for the foul. I REALLY hope we would be better switched on for the FA Cup final.
*David Luiz
Interesting debate on their pen: not to say Luiz didn’t once again screw the poodle (coiffure symbolism fully intended), but Emi already had ball in his hands once Luiz crunched Welbz?
It was a crap challenge, certainly. But did it affect the play – in had zero effect on the shot which was always a toe-poke at best as Welbz was stretching for it whilst falling backwards.
Mike Dean had to even things up, he hated it when VAR overruled him and forced him to give us something.
focussing on the positives
– we’re 8th, which is better than 9th or even 10th
– kt got his first goal for arsenal
– we relegated troy deeney
– we can still make spuds have to go through el qualification and thereby shorten their preseason if we win the fa cup
– no new injuries
couldn’t have hoped for me more (apart from a better performance, united or chelsea not making the cl and tottenham getting 7th place)
I don’t think we can really shorten the pre season of Tottenham, because the 2nd EL qualification round is scheduled for Sept. 17th and I believe the PL starts earlier. Also all qualifying rounds will be played in only one match, so if they wanna qualify for the group, they unfortunately have to play only 3 games instead of normally 6. However, I think there is still a chance that they could miss out on Europe. If I am not mistaken, in case Wolves win the EL tournament in August, they will receive a CL spot, so England would have… Read more »
For the first time, I see an Arsenal squad, full of players who are not good enough for the Premier League, forget about Arsenal quality.
Scary times ahead, if we dont spend much next season…
How did we manage to assemble these players?
For the future, Arteta needs to know that winners generaly have bad attitude. They are often unhappy, blame teammates and aren’t favorites in the dressing room. It doesn’t seem like what Mikel is looking for.
What the fuck do you know about what he’s looking for?
Because he went on on good attitude or whatever.
What a load of bollocks.
Yeah like Ozil reeeeaaal winner
Yeah a lot of mediocre players barring few world class. In a team which had world class players at almost every position for such a long time, this is unacceptable!!
When? Talking complete bollocks.
Henry, Vieira, Bergkamp, Ashley Cole, Sol Campbell, Pires, Seaman.
weve been shocking in the transfer market for so long now,
just buy a few players who are proven in the league and can go straight into the 1st team. targets should be identifed already but no doubt we will spent the whole window pissing around making low bids for players and haggling over a couple of million here and there.
That added to the fact we are a seem to let our best players contracts run down and leave for nothing these days tells you why weve become so shit
Now you see that? Did you start watching Arsenal this season? I think we’re at the end of a long miserable period not the start
Reasons to be cheerful:
1. We scraped up to 8th when 10th was looking likely. Eighth is poor & clearly not good enough but not sure I could have taken finishing tenth..
2. We’re in the FA Cup final; real chance of trophy and automatic qualification to Europa League
3. Mikel is our manager
Hit me with your rhythm stick!
Was hoping someone would twig the reference ?
We just had more cojones today Hahaha!!!! Suck it Deeney
9 for martinez??? on the wellz goal he made a right mess of it
If it wasn’t for the brilliance of Martinez we could have lost this match. I really cannot see where he was to blame for the Welbeck goal. I think 9 might be too low
Mate – the red thumbs say it all but just in case you didn’t notice them:
Welbz ghosted through less than 1m of space between (a) Luiz who had only just checked back to see where he was, and then clearly fallen asleep; and (b) Holding who was facing Welbz, saw his move but reacted like a traffic warden carrying too many Tesco bags!
Emi had ZERO fault for that goal.
Throughout the 90 minutes, checking on how other teams were doing, seeing united get CL, sp*rs finishing above us is just so painful. Next season, I just want my Arsenal to play really well and get that CL position comfortably and I don’t care about anything else. I don’t have to care about other teams, CL just seems like a distant memory for us and it hurts the most.
I tend to forget their existence at times like this. Makes it easier to cope.
Thanks friend, but I guess there’s no way to forget them in the Internet era.
I think Pepe shows a little more in each match that he will (probably–you can never be sure) be a very important player for us for many years. Great pace, great technical ability, very intelligent movement. Was doing good defensive work today as well. Obviously has been inconsistent, but all the signs are there.
Thought he looked switched on and determined defensively too. Just hope it’s an understanding that this should be the norm and not just because he wants to play in the final
Those are all the plaudits you should be saying about an 18 year old who is coming up through the youth system, not the most expensive player in the history of the club.
Agreed…Premier League is a different beast altogether and we have seen even the best (Salah, Kevin Debryune) have inconsistent first seasons. With Pepe one can see that he has the talent and the steps…baby as they maybe…appear to be going the right way ??
I love when Mike Dean suffers. It means Arsenal are doing great.
Why are we wearing next seasons home shirt this season?
Because it’s July.
To be fair, I thought it looked better in action than the photos. We’ve had far worse shirts in the last decade.
We gave David Luiz a new contract. Why? Seriously, why?
K.I.A.
Going to be a strange season next year without CL or EL football.
At least there will be more saturday home game to go to. Saturday games are always better than sunday, better atmosphere few more beers after etc…. oh i forgot we still probably wont be able to go to home games next season.
Ceballos / Tierney / Emi bright spots
Torreira and Kolasinac have regressed, Torreira’s mind/heart/career is not in London
Table position bothers me less than the loss to Spurs.
Midfield overhaul is required, we don’t have an omni-directional midfield passer, a metronome is desperately needed
Pepe has more skills and has done more than given credit for, but his impact has fallen short.
Hate to say this, but next season should not begin with either of Ozil or Guendouzi on Arsenal’s books.
Agree with all of the above. I was a huge Torreira fan and was excited to see him come to Arsenal, but he never reached the heights we hoped for and has gotten worse. He puts the effort in, but is clearly unsettled and we could make some money off him. I would add that Holding needs to go as well. Sure, he can head the ball, but that’s not enough. His positioning is terrible (except when he blocked with his face today). We can’t afford to keep waiting for him to “meet his potential.” Get some money from him… Read more »
Have we forgotten that he has just recovered from a nasty injury? Everyone wants to give Hector more than enough rope to hang himself but give Torreira no slack at all.
I hear you on the Torreira injury, and I would like nothing more to have him be our ongoing solution to sit in front of our defenders, but I think if we take the last 2 seasons as a whole he’s been very inconsistent. His passing is not good enough and decision making under pressure with the ball has been suspect. The fact that people are blowing by him could definitely be the injury taking its toll, but the other stuff has been a problem for awhile. If we could get 2 creative midfielders (or even 1 and just keep… Read more »
You could add Elneny to that list, especially if we don’t play EL and don’t need a very big squad.
As for the Miki situation, I am puzzled. Could we sell him or have we effectively let him go for free to be rid of his wages? After his comments regarding his time at Arsenal, I don’t think there is a way back from the club side and I don’t think he’d even want a way back anyway.
If only..but how the hell do you suggest we sell Özil? We’re stuck with him
I thought Torreiera benefited greatly when Arteta took over and paired him with Xhaka, that he was another of the players like Xhaka himself and Mustafi and Ozil who imporved tremendously under the new manager. But he has looked very poor since the restart. I suspect you are right–that Torreira does not want to stay in England; perhaps the lockdown was harder on him emotionally than on a player who was better settled, knew the language, etc.
Eddie trying too hard to make amends for robbing Aubameyang of the outright golden Boot on the last day of last season. He should have cut it back so Auba could complete his hattrick against Burnley in the 94th minute that day.
Right. And, come to think of it, Mr & Mrs Nketiah had gotten married 2 years earlier, Eddie would by now have more experience and would have made the right decision. And if Raul hadn’t hired his mate Unai…
And if Santi hadn’t gotten that terrible injury…. (sighs and exits stage left)
I’m glad this season is over to be honest, it hasn’t been great viewing – hopefully an FA cup win can salvage some of it. I’m looking forward to Arteta’s project but it may take 2-3 seasons till we see a competitive Arsenal team.
Agree. There were times I thought we actually might be fighting off relegation! We need Raul, Edu, and the crew to have a much better off season than we had a playing season. Hoping for the best.
The rebuilding this squad requires is actually scary. Torreira and Holding aren’t good enough. If we can raise about 40 million between the two of them, they should be sold. I think we need a centre back to partner Saliba, one defensive midfielder(Partey) , an attacking midfielder and a winger(young prospect) and retain Ceballos before we can challenge for the top 4 let alone the title. Chelsea finished fourth and have already added Ziyech and Werner. United are bound to spend money.
Fortunately adding ziyech and werner doesn’t make them better in those positions. They need defenders, hopefully they don’t get them
Holding is a decent squad player hes only 24 so can still improve. we really need a top class centre back but i dont see us signing one why oh why we gave luiz another year i dont know. sokrates will leave. mustafi and chambers are out long term. so we will have luiz holding saliba with mari coming back late september. our squad is too bloated for us to make many signings. i would have ditched luiz and mustafi but it looks like we are stuck with them now. im honestly dreading another season of luiz what an awful… Read more »
Just when you think that cunt couldn’t look more of a twat if he tried, hey presto, the fucking idiot rocks the ‘escaped gnome’ look.
He wouldn’t need to escape – no self-respecting Gnome-Home would have him!
Hope there is no ‘Holding’ back by our defence against Giroud et al!! Would not mind AMN to Bellerin purely on form as well!
100% agree on AMN playing. Feel Holding is being a bit unfairly targeted. Don’t remember how many times he cleared the ball today while Luiz stiff about ducking crosses.
Winning the FA Cup will be an amazing achievement precisely because it is quite unlikely. Chelsea, and it pains me to no end to say this, are miles ahead and should win the match easily. But, this is football and strange things (like our win over Liverpool) do happen. So I’ll get seriously drunk before the kick-off, watch the match through a thick haze of Arak and check the result the next day.
I’m on board with this style of cup final viewing. Cheers!
I liked Nketiah’s behaviour. Showed a great respect for a leader who could have won an individual award. Great from the youngster.
I am really sad with Joe’s performance.
My opinion is that he can slot into the midfield trio alongside Xhaka and Ceballos as a more athletic one…but this match showed that he is far from.
His decision making must improve in order to make a leap forward.
Can MA help him became a homemade Partey?
There are many examples of mediocre young players growing into excellent adult players. But, sadly, I agree with you that Willock probably won’t make it to that elite status.
We dont need him to be KVB. Some one like Milner. Filling the void in the middle.
I thought we looked a lot worse once he came off. Remember, he had to cover for Pepe too so not sure what you expected him to do. Pepe hasn’t found anyone on the right he can play with yet…Ozil, Willock, AMN, Bellerin, Cedric, Ceballos. It’s a Pepe problem not a Willock problem.
Yes, unfortunately I see the same for Willock. His decision making is not great in the crucial split second moments when he could release Auba, Laca, or Pepe on their runs. I’ve noticed it in at least 4 games this season. I’d be delighted if he added that to his game, but my fear is this is not something someone just develops so much as they naturally have an eye for those passes. I think ESR might be a decent upgrade to Willock next season.
Ceballos miles ahead in terms of quality than every other outfield player on the pitch. Always has a picture of what’s around him and the options available. Tries to do everything at pace only to have everything slowed down once it arrives at someone else feet
Up 3 to 0 don’t play out of the back, or at least if you have any doubt kick it away. Holding doesn’t look good which is worrying because he’s supposed to be our future.
When your best defender is Mustafi. Enough said.
Sadly Torreira, after a promising start here, is looking more like he just doesn’t fit in to what our needs are. Looks hesitant on the few occasions that he goes forward, gets knocked around, loses possession and gets out of position. So I think that’s why his only tendency is to pass sideways or back, which doesn’t help matters. And is collecting yellow cards. Time to sell back to Italy for about what we bought him for and buy a more suitable and sizable replacement.
There are about 4 watford players that can make our first 11. Can we take a couple of them? Sarr and Dacoure?
Sarr looks right proper. But we certainly won’t bet the only ones who noticed!
Win or lose the FA Cup this team needs some serious reinforcements.
I detest Mike “LOOK AT ME” Dean as a referee. Any decent referee doesn’t want to be the centre of attention
Good result against a Watford side who fought back so well in the 2nd half.. aaaaand against Mike Dean, who should never ref a game again. His bias against us is shocking. Still.. 8th Is where we are THIS YEAR. Floating around 6th, league wise, from when Arteta took over. Give him the summer to start gelling HIS team, and we’ll be good.
Have to say I’m shocked at the Holding rating. He was clearing everything that came into the box while Luiz ducked and hid. Yeah he had a couple rough moments but the stats will show how much work he did today.
Glaring problems naturally still there and laid bare. Nothing new. Some players have impressed others appear indifferent, others IMO failed in audition for next season, and I’m not trying to be harsh : 1) Martinez – One shining light since restart. 3 very solid stops to keep us in it especially the quick reaction against Welbeck. He also seems to relish trying to start us going quickly but our players ahead do not show for him enough or are not as good retaining or competing for the ball so invariably we play the dangerous 6 yard box game. BUT a… Read more »
Deeney will now be weighing his cojones in the championship
How many signs are Arsenal expecting?
Arseblog should make changes that enables the readers to see the users’s vote even if they choose not to cast any vote. I want to see the users’ average vote but don’t want to cast votes myself.