Are you awake?
I SAID ARE YOU AWAKE?!
That was dull stuff as we came back down to earth a bit after a 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace. We never really looked like the team which beat West Brom 4-0, and had to Bernd Leno and the crossbar to thank for a goalless first half.
The only real positives are a clean sheet, and the return of Thomas Partey who made his first appearance in 10 games.
Mikel Arteta will be looking for a lot better when we face Newcastle on Monday.
Read the Arsenal 0-0 Crystal Palace match report
Arsenal 0-0 Crystal Palace – Player Ratings
The ratings are 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, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
Come back Tierney!
…how much we need natural left-back cover for Kieran Tierney…
Haha
We’ve just let him go.
How about finding a Tierney for the right. Bellerin is not the answer
We missed Tierney but why is it when a good player is out and we have a bad result we immediately think it’s because of that one player who didn’t play or was missing. Not everything is down to a single individual same with Tierney same with Martinelli these players can change games and obviously thats why they’re good Tierney would have given us that extra attacking threat Same with Martinelli but who knows if the outcome and result of the game would’ve been drastically different. Palace defended well. sometimes thats just down to good tactics and good performance by… Read more »
AMN got into the same positions and then repeatedly overhit the crucial pass or gave the ball away. The system we play uses Tierney as a key provider to our strikers and without his quality in that position we lost half our threat.
Palace are much better WBA and maybe we wouldn’t have won. Nothing is guaranteed. But I think we would have been a hell of a lot more likely with Tierney there.
6/10 for Pepe?
He is really good at beating his man with his back to goal from about 40 yards out. I mean, he doesn’t really beat him. But he confuses him for about 2 seconds before the defender turns round and realises that Pepe is still not goal side.
I like the drop shoulder feint he does when he gets the ball out wide followed by immediately turning backwards to shovel the ball to the CBs. To be fair not the only one tonight.
Ceballos is probably THE MOST OVERRATED player at arsenal right now. Between him and Pepe our fan base think these two are world class or going to be world class. Truth is neither of them are good enough for arsenal right now, and neither of them will become world class in the future.
Gervinho in disguise
Pepe is a form player. Most explosive wingers are but he seems to be especially. Thing is, are we prepared to stick with him when we have so many better options in the hope that he finds some form?
Without regular football Pepe will not get any better. But he doesn’t deserve a regular place in the side.
We are going to have to sell him for £20m, give that money straight to Lille and then make another £20m payment on our non-existent winger next summer.
Thanks Raul.
The only time you’ll ever see an “explosive” Pepe is if he suffers from Covid related diarrhea.
This utterly lacks taste on numerous levels.
Also feel like he’s a counter attacking player and would have better fit in palace side last night.
Him playing against a low block isn’t effective. By the time the ball gets to him in the final third, he’s always against 2-3 players.
Gervinho had a bigger impact
Do you mean just because they are both Ivorian and lack of end product?
Because they have opposite play styles and attributes.
No because they both suck at football.
Both wide attacking players bought from Lille for a sizeable fee, play for the Ivory Coast, and seem to not really have made the impact on the pitch they were expected to?
Ceballos started the first 10 mins as an 8 with flashes of excellence from that first game against Burnley last season, and slowly but surely fizzled out until he was a mere 5 before being hauled off. Such a shame
He was caught out defensively and not tracking his man into the half space.
Some of his movement in the first 20 was magnificent. His final pass let him down and the from four became very stagnant as the half wore on. That didn’t help.
He was poor a 4 at best. Lots of passing accuracy though, especially backwards.
Should have taken Auba off and kept Nketiah on the bench, they both don’t provide anything to the buildup play.
Harsh on Leno…!?
Very worrying when you realise captain Tierney is our best attacking outlet!
Which is not to take anything away from him,he’s ace
Bit harsh on Leno…
0 shots on goal, 0 assists, 0 key passes, 0 aerial duels won, 0 dribbles.
Just not good enough.
missed the /sarc.
A very sloppy game by us with so many soft, poor passes that were easily intercepted, far more than I can remember in any other game. I know the weather wasn’t the greatest, but even with that was still a rough performance.
Tierney showed tonight with his absence just how important he is to the team, cannot be replaced by anyone on the roster when he doesn’t play.
True, but he looked knackered at the beginning of the last game. When a man has a 1,000 yard stare before the game begins it bodes ill.
Little harsh to give Leno zero, no?
Xhaka was good. Look I don’t care if a player gives away a ball as long as it’s not careless. We have so many cowards in the team who play stat padding football. I don’t know if this stems from Arteta over coaching or a lack in confidence but it absolutely kills our attacking game. So many times in the game your just screaming at the tv “pass the ball now” but inevitably bellerin/Pepe/cabellos whoever take two extra touches and the space is gone. We have the players we just need to up it about 3 extra gears and stop… Read more »
I agree for the most part, but I thought at least a few of Xhaka’s giveaways were of the careless/very poor variety
In fairness that occurred to be when I was typing, but I wasn’t arsed going back to the start!
*me
Auba has only finishing and pace neither of which he’s displaying at the moment which means we’re pretty much playing with 10 men with him at the moment. He needs to be dropped.
Xhaka was good but the mindset of our backline and midfielders needs to change. Like you said I am not sure if it’s over coaching or lack of confidence but almost every time we manage to win the ball back in the middle of the park Xhaka, Luis, Cabellos, Ballerin will always play safe mini one-twos with the closest teammate and wait for the other team to get back into position before looking to pass the ball forward.
Our problems lie when auba plays I’m afraid, not our best lw and on form not our best striker
I’m terrified that we’ve just signed an aging player at the end of his prime to a large contract who doesn’t really fit our evolving style of play. Worried that history has repeated itself.
Most players will struggle with our style of play, it’s all too lethargic, side ways passing, too many touches, no quick pass and runs. By the time a players had his third or fourth touch the opposition are settled in their positions. Most goals weve scored recently is because we moved fast, passed quick and made quick movements. Auba and Laca are making runs, but the passes arent coming because they’re doing what Arteta used to do during his career, side ways and slow passes. Also to add, Arteta hasn’t shown much tactical know how, he barely changes the tactics… Read more »
Add Willian to that as well.
Surprised with the amount of people who thought Xhaka and Ceballos had good games- maybe I would agree had we been playing against a team setup to attack, but against a team setup to defend and counter, I felt they (along with Luiz) were still a little slow on the ball, a little static off the ball, and didn’t play through the middle to ESR or Laca often enough- instead passing ball out wide where we struggle without Tierneys crossing. No surprise that we looked most threatening in first 10mins of second half where those players did start playing the… Read more »
Surprised how many people thought Xhaka had a bad match. He made some great forward passes, vital tackles, and generally was very positive. It seems that he will always seen as a scapegoat no matter how well he plays. Personally I thought he was our best player tonight.
Agreed Martin. I find watching without fans, and generally not watching games with other people, really distorts views on matches. Thought Xhaka was immense defensively at least, and people are slating him here
I thought Xhaka was easily the best player on the pitch and after reading everyone else’s comments had to check to see if he really did do all the bad things people were saying.
Not sure what game other people were watching ….
Xhaka was really good, Ceballos was really bad.
I don’t think he had a ‘bad’ match at all. But against a team setup to defend I don’t think he had a good match either. If this had been City or Liverpool I’d have sung his praises- but against a more defensive team like palace you need your central midfielders to be sharper and more dynamic going forwards. And I think the 3 players I mentioned just took too many touches, thereby slowing the attacking game down and allowing palace defenders to get back behind the ball.
For me, this was a really weird game from the players, individually. I think scores of 6 all-round (other than for AMN, who had a poor game) make sense – everyone else on the pitch seemed to swing between good and bad a few times over. Even ESR and Saka had moments where their control/passing/shooting were bad. Xhaka probably embodied that more than everyone else, but I thought Ceballos had a similar game – really good at the start (most of what we did early on came through him driving the game forward) but fizzled out as the game went… Read more »
Do you guys think that since we missed tierney’s crossing ability, we maybe could have played Cedric on the right to get the same effect from the right? He’s no Tierney, but his crossing is somewhat decent. I don’t think hector is the crossing kind of fullback.
Please there should be no Luiz in our next games, he slows the game too much, doesn’t realease forward pass quickly enough.
Maybe tell the players up top to provide the outlet. Soccer is not pinball; you don’t just pass for the sake of the pass (aka, nobody available to retain possession).
Four wins on the trot with Mari and the streak ends with Luiz (though credit where due, clean sheet kept). I imaging MA was anticipating the low block from Palace and thought Luiz would bring a little more in the attack from deep, but I agree that there’s something about our pace of play with Luiz that isn’t exactly right.
Still thought ESR was excellent but we lacked rhythm & a touch of urgency tonight ? Errr David Luiz in particular !!! Jeez how good is Tierney ? Nice touch to see Hector wearing mini shorts in his f**ck the cold honour !
ESR was poor today, stop sugarcoating these kids.
Not easy for him to find space when the attack was generally so slow, but he worked hard, did find space (albeit out wide) and did still create chances. Not sure what more we can ask of a kid who’s only played a handful of premier league games? Especially when more senior players and still playing worse.
I appreciate that. Say he was decent, tried his best etc etc. Just dont say he was excellent, because he wasnt
Surely 10/10 for Roy Hodgson’s shorts? The legs, they are the only highlights of the game.
That wasn’t Roy, He was bundled up in the stands.
Auba was just awful again, but all his fans will say he did “alright”. He needs to be dropped and made an example of, but it won’t happen as Arteta was too scared to drop Willian after 13 games of poor performances.
He just signed a massive deal with us, no way the board will let Arteta drop him
He’s been piss poor and it’s looking an increasingly poor decision to have signed him up.
We likely could’ve got £30m for him.
He brings so little to the team.
He won us an FA Cup and was quicker than anyone to 50 goals. Yes he’s been bad and he does look lost right now but let’s calm down
I’d definitely be in the Xhaka had a good match camp. He worked hard and had a number of crucial interventions. And one of the giveaways the announcers attributed to him was actually Ceballos…it was Xhaka who tracked back to correct that mistake. As far as the rest, this looked like some of the matches in poor run we had, where we again struggled to break down a parked bus. The difference was that there was a higher effort level today, which was good to see. A couple of times I did think players waited too long to pull the… Read more »
I seriously can’t remember a league game where Ceballos started and we played well or won. Being “bright” doesn’t mean you are contributing to a side that is greater than the sum of it’s parts.
He’s the MF I’d like to see relegated to cup duty or gone.
Should have started Saka at left back. We were useless down left hand side. AMN should not be the option at left back when we are playing “smaller” clubs, he is verry limited there and he cant produce any final product. I hope Arteta saw that tonight.
Auba and Maitland-Niles combined on the left today like orange juice and toothpaste. I really like both players but they seem out of sorts and unable to link play at all consistently. We have so much more of a threat when there’s Saka on one wing, Tierney bombing up the other.
Blatantly our quality falls off with one or two key components missing. Those available coming off the bench do not bring much. The two biggest missed being Tierney and Martinelli If we can gamble/add one creative/technical player from market (on loan bc we have no money) I’d do it. 1) Leno – Nothing wrong with him. Fantastic save again to keep us in. BUT illustrates the main concern this window, we need a reliable experience back up. Heaton or Ryan either one. 2) Bellerin – Some good moments going forward but then a number of stray passes and poor decisions… Read more »
It’s a bit pants that the winning formula at centre back was interrupted for Luiz to get another game
I hope Tierneys ok
Fortunately I am now Covid contained in the US and we don’y get Sky, only NBCSN which has pronounce problems (you can’t believe how anything ending in ..chester sounds).
What is covid contained? Hell I am in Michigan home of Gov. Witless. I go wherever I wish except to the tavern, she closed them.
I thought I was watching the slo-mo version of the game. The front players were making runs but the midfield (mostly Luiz) was just too slow to spot them and then pass backwards! The pass were rolled out without any zip …mind numbing stuff!
Roy’s team brought out the worst instincts in me tonight, was almost as frustrated as that viceRoy of the Trade Fedaration in the Clone Wars…
Firstly, I congratulate C. Palace on a great away performance, as they had set up almost perfectly to contain Arsenal ‘s attacking prowess. Going by the ratings, I would seriously give a shout out to bench, a number of the seniors,,, namely Auba, Laca, Pepe, and bring on our youngsters, Nketiah, Balogan, Martinelli, Saka, KT, and put in the mix with Xhaka, Partey, Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Luiz, Leno, one of the most glaring weakness is when in possession we are a tad two secs slower in releasing the ball, and the other when defending, they fail to read the opposition… Read more »
No idea what was wrong with the players tonight. They all seemed half asleep. Xhaka was getting caught in possession but at least he was winning the ball back. Laca got very little service . players weren’t showing for the ball enough, Too many passes to crowded out players. several times I saw Xhaka around the middle of Palace’s half with the ball at his feet looking around for a run toward Palace’s goal no body even made an attempt. Too many sub standard performances tonight.
Noticed alot of games where Xhaka is yelling at his players to make runs.
Pepe is shot!
He just has to be moved on in the summer.
His presence was not felt at all.
He didn’t attempt to beat any man.
All he did was safe passes..
Colossal waste of money.
CP defence must have been terrified when they saw Eddie coming in. Auba is wasted when there is no space to run. His technical ability on the ball has never been his strong point. As mentioned ESR was cleverly isolated, dropping Laca as a false nine, put auba up top and have another real winger like nelson/willian ( yes I said willian) would have been a bolder approach. Just an opinion. I was bored until Eddie came in, then I was frustrated. MA ( who I support) is still scared to make real decisions
Saw many moments when arsenal player seems afraid to make a through pass, but easily lose the doing many regular passes in the final third.
I’m not quite sure I would agree it was ‘dull’. I thought overall we played well in the second half, good movement, passing and purpose. It just didn’t fall for us.
First 10 minutes of the second half I agree we were asking questions of Palace. But we did not sustain it. The remaining 35 were not much better than the first half and the substitutions made zero impact.
Really? I thought we were good for much of the second half, if not all of it. Intent, movement, crisp passing. Just lack of end product.
Is this the return of Artetaball?
Playing Luiz & Cabellos together is a really bad idea. Both guys kill our transition of the ball into the attackers, by over hoarding it and trying stupid things.
It’s not the fault of attacking four, they simply weren’t supplied enough.
I agree Luiz has a good long ball on him, but trying it everytime? He can be a weapon when we play against teams who dominate the ball like City, Liverpool..
Arteta needs to realise this, give the ball to the guys who makes things happen.. pls it’s as straightforward as that :/
Arsenal have fallen as a top club the last ten years. It will stay that way
until they are prepared to invest in top quality players throughout the team.
Sponsorship is the name of the game. If Arsenal continue to flounder,
it could attract less sponsors and soon it be just another London club.
If only we have bough Zaha instead of Pepe.
Boring Match, poor quality like before, thanks to Xhaka & Leno who save the match
I thought Bellerin messed up a lot of combinations high up the pitch.
Xhaka took too much time and was dangerous every time he tried to tackle Zaha. But he did put in the effort.
I know it’s not ideal, but using Saka as backup to Tierney would work better. He can still influence the game from there and would keep that side of our attack very dangerous.
I’m pleased about the upturn in results but the performances against Brighton, Newcastle and Palace were uniformly poor. The only difference being we took what few chances we created and the opposition didn’t in those first two fixtures. Newcastle could have (and maybe should have) knocked us out the FA cup as Carroll missed a nailed on shoo-in. Palace would have been good value for being two or three ahead today at the break. Let’s not kid ourselves that Palace have now become our ‘bogey’ team: when you are mid table at least half the league is a ‘bogey’ team
Breaking the ceiling would be crucial in the next games. Our attacking section just doesn’t seem to have the guts to create individual actions which is highly related to their lack of confidence. Frankly, don’t tell me Bellerin, Auba, & Laca are not capable of dribbling the ball towards the goal. It’s just this poor morale that is currently in the team. Problem is idk whether these young lads Saka, Tierney and ESR could really break this ceiling considering their age and their position in the club’s hierarchy. Takes time for sure…
Holding was his usual dependable self and therefore MOTM for me. Too many sub-par performances tonight but FFS everyone, lighten up, we would have lost this game a month ago (Burnley anyone…). We clearly have deficiencies in midfield, Cebellos needs to go back to Madrid and then end up at Vigo or Valladolid (which is about his level) while I kinda like Xhaka but recognise he’s not really what we need or want in the long term. We’re not a great team just yet, and while I’m not 100% convinced by Arteta, I’m not sure we should/could do anything to… Read more »
Our senior attacking players are a real concern. We looked pretty inept once Saka was moved to left back, highlighting the gulf in influence he has on the pitch compared to Pepe; and Auba really isn’t good enough on the ball to compensate for a lack of ingenuity on the right or to create something on the outside (which he’s seems to be tasked to do when playing with AMN). Granted having a left footed left back (Saka or Tierney) gives Auba the licence to come inside, run into space, receive the ball in dangerous ares and cause havoc, which… Read more »
anyone suprised? lego hair in not a competent manager. Playing hungry youngsters did give him a few good results recently but youngsters are inexperienced and won’t always be consistent
AMN has one bad game, after a spell of neglect and all of a sudden a backup LB is a must requirement… What is the point of a utility player if we have backup in every position… Give the Iceman a chance!