Arsenal lost their third successive Premier League away game, going down 2-1 to Everton at Goodison Park this evening.
In what was a dreadful game overall, Martin Odegaard’s fine finish put us ahead just before half-time, but late strikes from Richarlison – who had two goals disallowed for offside – and Demari Gray, condemned Mikel Arteta’s team to defeat.
The manager’s decisions were questionable, almost as much as referee Mike Dean’s, but there can be no excuses for this awful performance and terrible result.
Here’s how the players rated today.
Read the Everton 2-1 Arsenal match report and see the goals here
Everton 2-1 Arsenal – 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 Aaron Ramsdale. Also, please give the ratings a few seconds to load.
Suggest to put the manager into the rating system. My vote is 2
generous
2 more than me.
That’d be a generous rating. He has to explain the reasoning behind Tierny going off, Xhaka (just back from injury and looking tired after the hour mark) played 90, and WHY the f Nketiah came on?
He learned from one of the best in the game, where’s the pass and move combination play that Guadiorla is known for? Where’s the systematic press?
He seems to have picked up the worst aspects from 3 of the major managers in his career. Moyes’ negative tactics (and mid table finishes), Guardiola’s tendency to sabotage his team in big games with overthought tactics, Wenger’s inability to learn from his mistakes. I wonder who he learned randomly exiling various first team players from?
Mourinho on TV?
Not sure he learnt from Guardiola. He maybe just sat there. There is no sign at all he was on that Man City bench.
That high I would give him one for turning up
Lets give Lacazette a lower rating because our players couldn’t string simple passes together and lost the ball every 10 seconds, with all due respect but what kind of logical thinking is that? the reason why he was dropping deep is because our players can’t pass nor dribble, nor do fucking anything, this was the worst performance in so so long.
The whole team is too deep actually, we probably play about 30 or 40 yards deeper than we should. We’ll be well into the possession phase and our centre backs will still be getting the ball on the edge of their box like it’s a goal kick, instead of pushing towards the halfway line. We always end up passing backwards because there’s not enough forward passing options to support the attack.
How can Arteta not see this? Playing triangles in our defensive 3rd might look nice but its not fooling the opposition… our pressing at the other end was non existent… we look scared… how is this happening (again)?
It’s because the last two games we’ve gone back to slow ponderous doughnut Arteta football. Painfully slow – just give the opposition all day to set their lines before we attack.
That’s not something new. We’ve struggled to create much throughout Arteta’s tenure. Arteta’s Arsenal – the place where strikers careers come to die…
I am desperate to see Saka under a different, world class manager (known for playing attacking football).
He KNOWS how to play football the way it should be played. The give-and-go, his clever movements (which his team mates usually cannot understand), one-touch interplay, etc. He needs people who actually know what they are doing to take his game to the next level — same as Martinelli and ESR. Unfortunately, they are both stuck with average managers for club and country.
Saka would be a beast in a Guadiorla’s team.
He tends to do this – a lot of quick interplay fizzles out because his touch is heavy or he makes an errant pass. To my eyes he was clearly not the only one but he was contributing to the inability to string passes together.
Yeh, a 4 for Lacca when Auba has been worse in every game for about a month now and always given the old “starved of service” treatment…
Laca rating is a joke!
Bloggs clearly favorites Auba over Lacazette, maybe a couple years ago this was justified but as of late its becoming apparent and clouding judgment
That was dismal. I find myself saying to the Mrs, “That was about the worst I’ve ever seen us play” waaaay too often these days!
I have supported Arteta to this point. But now he has to go. That’s it.
Right that’s it Rob!
😡
I’m the same… an Ole Gunnar situation seems to have evolved… he really has no clue… based on our current for & against we’ll net 46 this year… the lowest since 92’/93′ and are on target to concede 55… the most since 82’/83′ he really has to go
right! no progress at all… 😑
Trust the poocess
Yep. Trust it keep giving other teams the kickstart they need and for us to be about 8th or 9th.
Some people seem to want that rather than be seen to be morally bankrupt like other clubs by sacking managers when they are not good enough.
Yet many of those same people didn’t blink an eye when the club was sacking longtime staff on considerably lower salaries. Nor did they care when rookie Arteta was forcing out far more qualified coaching staff like Woodman and Ljungberg in favour of his mates.
Our club is already as morally bankrupt as the rest. That’s just the reality.
Once we have fallen to 8th or lower and the pressure of being considered a good team is off we will string together 2 or 3 results and then idiots will emerge again , see see you just hate Arteta, trust the process, Arteta is a great manager.
This is literally @Futsboller. He’s always letting me know how much I hate Arteta.
haha I see what you did there!
Our players need to learn some street wisdom.
Last game, Tomi was pulled back by Maguire, if that had been one of our defenders on the 80M fridge, he’d have made sure the ref knew about it by rolling on the floor until VAR took note.
We really are so nice to play against.
VAR did check but didn’t make anything of it.
AMN’s last game in midfield for Arsenal: MotM, Dropped to the bench, eventually dropped from the squad. Lokonga’s last game for Arsenal: MotM. Dropped to the bench Arteta convinces Balogun to sign a contract extension by constantly including him in match day squad. Balogun signs the contract: Restricted to U23 football where he has scored more goals than games played. He prevented AMN from joining Everton but has barely used him. Prevented Rob Holding from joining Newcastle but has barely used him Recalled Nketiah from Leeds and prevented him from joining Newcastle on loan in January, but then never played… Read more »
Holding is rubbish though, be honest.
AMN is no world beater. He’d be a marginal improvement on either partey or xhaka.
Our midfield options are god awful.
The rest of you post, spot on. WTF was MA thinking?
Its not just that we’re not improving and have no attack to speak of. We have no midfield to speak of. Partey is a huge bust. And our football is terrible. Terrible. Terrible.
I’ve seen enough of MA. He needs to go.
No Arteta criticism here. He beat Villa and Leicester.
Add Saliba to that. The way he treats people is for me even worse than what he does on the pitch. Which is saying something.
Starting to wonder when others are going to see that Mikel really isn’t that good…
Can anyone honestly say Arteta has made any of the players he inherited two years ago better? They’ve either left the club or regressed badly. A sign of a great coach is the ability to work with what you have and improve those around you. Arteta has done neither and it’s time we moved on. He appears wedded to a style of football he neither has the players to execute or the experience required to make it work.
Liverpool, City, Chelsea, Utd, and even the scums down the road now have proven managers with pedigree… until we get a top manager (like Ten Haag) who has a CLEAR style of play and knows how to get the best out of the players at his disposal, we are going to continue playing catch up.
Since Nketiah rejected the new contract, he’s moved ahead of Pepe in the pecking order.
If that is not a sign of a manager completely out of His depth, I don’t know what is.
Oh Arsenal! How are the mighty fallen!
Hes putting him the shop window….But Nketiah is bringing his own value down with misses like today.
I wonder is he playing him to convince him to sign a new contract. Playing him makes absolutely no sense.
Hard to argue with any of that. He’s definitely going to be here to the end of the season, might be wise not to bring in any players in January.
The other thing is to look at what Emery accomplished at Arsenal with the squad he had. I’m not his biggest fan but one wonders how Arteta would have done with that squad and how Emery would do with this one.
Not an Emery fan, but Mikel seems a far worse manager.
What’s the real reason why we haven’t been able to go for it and kill off a game after taking a lead? Given, we hardly deserved to start the second half 1-0 up, but there was practically zero momentum in trying to build on that right out of the blocks.
And Arteta was out of his mind letting Xhaka stay out there for the full 90. First game back from serious injury, on a yellow, looking absolutely gassed, literally ticks all the boxes for a sub to be made.
If a certain flaw keeps repeating itself questions have to be asked about the coach. What do you guys do on the training ground?
It’s a glaring issue. It was the same against Burnley (we managed to escape with the points), Crystal Palace, Watford (so toothless, they didn’t threaten), United, and now Everton.
Arteta plays with the handbrake on. That’s why we stroke the ball around the pitch in non-threatening position. He seems to have transferred that mentality to his team.
Teams reflect there manager afterall. Arteta was shit by the time he came to us, slow safe passing side to side.He was a leader though..Maybe why he likes Xhaxa so much.
I was SCREAMING at xhax on the build up to the Gray goal….But it wasn’t his fault.
With Xhaka 2020/21
5 games played – 1 win, 0 draw, 4 losses; 3 pts – 12 goals conceded, 4 goals scored
Without Xhaka 2020/21
10 games – 6 wins, 2 draws, 2 losses; 20pts – 10 goals conceded, 14 goals scored.
*2021/22
That’s very simplistic; there are many more variables involved. Tierney, if I am right, has been involved in a higher percentage of games we have lost this season, why are you not blaming him? Xhaxa was not involved in the walloping we got at Liverpool nor the spanking we got at OT. The common denominator is Arteta and no one else.
Xhaxa is our ‘best’ midfielder. Building the team around him is what was thenail in the coffin to Wenger and keeping faith with him was the hill Emery died on. But your right about Arteta
Xhaka in fact is our best midfielder. You’re not suggesting it’s Partey, are you?
Its the same for his career at arsenal too, but that’s too simplistic too. When you consider the red cards… Too simplistic. When you consider the errors leading to goals… Too simplistic. When you consider the most pens conceded by a midfielder in EPL history… Too simplistic. Him being slow… Too simplistic, useless against counters… Too simplistic. Too left footed… Too simplistic… Easily negated through press… Too simplistic. What about considering them all together?
Come on mate, I don’t think Xhaka is world class or anything but today is not on him.
If he goes over and tells Arteta he can’t do it anymore, he’s vilified for being weak and not up for it.
It’s up to Arteta to see he absolutely is on his last legs and sub him.
We are stuck with Arteta. Xhaka wants out the Arsenal but no cub in world football is willing to pay more than 12 million for him. He plays every game he’s fit and Arteta talks complete bollocks about how important he is to us. Nketia who is not good enough anyway and refuses to sign new contract comes on in front of Pepe and Aubamayang. What a fun king joke. Where’s Futsbioler with his wisdom to make us all see we are over resting and need to trust Arteta 😂😂
I’d love to know what Arteta’s plan is for Pepe – has he completely given up on the player? He’s not the world-beater we’d hoped, but good managers have got use out of far worse players. Klopp had Shaquiri and Origi playing important roles for his team and we’ve just been beaten by a guy who sold for £1m by a mid table german team in summer, yet Arteta seems to think Pepe is unusable against a team that plays Andros fucking Townsend
Thats the norm in this league…Look what the managers of Brighton, Palace and Wolves are getting out of their players. Look at the difference in our performance at Anfield and Brightons for example. and that’s over 3 or 4 seasons.
My reading of it is that Arteta is an egomaniac who isn’t that good a coach. He always has to have a fight going on and battle of egos with a player. Don’t get me wrong, I think some players respond well to that, but others, like Pepe perhaps, don’t. It is bad man management. You need to know how to make players respond. He seems to want complete control of everything and always to be in conflict with someone. I said it two years ago and I say it again – Arteta reminds me of Gary Monk. He looks… Read more »
I admire Futsboler’s positive outlook and the younger players are more exciting to get behind. However we still don’t really have a coherent plan to attack as we’re in year 3 of the process. There are building blocks for the team, but until we change the speed of our play and try to become less predictable, we will continue to be another top 5-10 team who usually contends for Europe & occasionally makes the CL.
Somebody told in the press a couple of days ago that he thinks at the moment: it is the team that is carrying Aubameyang (not the other way around).
And today during the game I heard that none of our last 9 goals was scored by a player older than 23.
Maybe we should let this “the experienced players should step up” phrase away…
I was disgusted with Everton. Passing forward quickly is not very sporting at all, how are our defenders supposed to get back in position?
Great comment. I chuckled out loud to this one…
LOL. At least we’ve learned the lessons of the Watford game. We gave them the ball back from our throw in and they scored.
Thomas Partey me balls… it’s Alex Song back to haunt me
That’s an insult to Alex Song actually. He did much more in an Arsenal kit than Partey has….
How poor is our midfield now that we are crying out not even for the real legends but guys who were not deemed good enough back then. I would kill to have Wilshere , Ramsey and Song. Even a disinterested Ozil who would play a couple of good through balls every now and again,
Can’t have a Party without a Song.
Pre charlton loan Song…
Song Billong.
Eddie Nketih = Crap never up to premier league standard
Aubameyang = past it
Partey beyond = terrible
Xhaka= deja vu same as usual average
Arteta will be under immense pressure if he does not get a result on Saturday Southampton will have nothing to fear when they face us as we are too predictable .
Yeah the experienced players are the ones letting us down badly.
Laca was rubbish too.
Forgot to mention laca also🙂
Midfield is awful and Attack is non existent.
Xhaka is world class only when he’s not playing…
Don’t know why we dropped so deep and for so long after the break. We were very negative throughout the game and we deserved to lose.
I also have a genuine question… is Pepe really that bad…?
What is that damn Nose spite face quote again. Pepe strikes me as the off the cuff type of player. Arteta hates those types.Not to say Pepe has lit the world on fire but damn Nketiah getting on before him..
Because Arteta ball is having our defenders hold the ball for ages whilst trying to figure out the perfect pass to completely unlock the entire opposition defense from deep inside our own half. This is practically all we ever seem to do. At the same time, our wingers have to be good defenders, our center midfielders must be static recyclers of the ball, and our goalkeeper and CBs must have the vision of Dennis Bergkamp. Meanwhile our center forward must press like a center midfielder, and no-one over 23 is permitted to innovate enough to score a goal. Tongue-in-cheek. But… Read more »
We made some very solid signings this summer, but they’re going to look like yet more money wasted soon enough if they continue to be poorly coached and played under these submissive tactics Our strikers look bereft of confidence because opportunities in front of goal are so few and far between, there is so much riding on each one. Our defence is starting to look shaky because they know 1 goal conceded basically = we don’t win the game. It’s always the way with teams whose tactic is to limit games to small margins, confidence plummets when those tight margins… Read more »
I understand we’re all deeply disappointed, but let’s not overlook the bright spots tonight of a very young team. Tomiyasu, Odegaard, and Saka all deserved more than just a rating of 6. They fought very hard and played very well.
Odergaard scored a goal, worked like an animal and tied the whole shit-show together. An 8 at least. Ditto Tomiyasu.
MO was not deserving of an 8. He was walked past in midfield about 5 times. He scores a good goal and I swear I’d love him to score more but this team has been crying out for a creative influence even a heartbeat for years and he clearly isnt it. Since he arrived we’ve been average in attack at best he does nothing for our attack or tempo, intent…
MO is the most feeble player in the team. You can literally knock him over with a feather. “Worked like an animal”…lol…playing him is playing with 10 men.
Anyone who actually watched the matches or looked at the stats could tell the emperor had no clothes. Arteta’s “Emery-esque” run is over and now everyone around us has made positive moves for the future, while we are stuck with someone who has never been up to the task.
Arteta at the wheel.
Mike Dean is a cunt. Arguably the late plunge into Nuno’s ankle was a ted too.
He enjoys watching the opposition hurt our players. I think he’s bent and someone should be investigating how he and others get away with being so utterly useless and influencing results. Strange when “intent” becomes the decider when it’s against Arsenal but it’s not mentioned in the rule book, a reckless challenge is reckless if intended or not, and I believe that stamp on Tomi’s face was definitely intended. We ended with and Bukayo and Nuno hurt because they weren’t protected by the referee. Mike Riley puts Mike Dean in charge of our matches to try to skew the outcome.… Read more »
I truly believe this started when Arsene used to go in on the Refs back in the day,
VAR should have picked that up even if the ref missed it. I reckon they let it go because of Richarlison’s offsides.
Then they’re cheats or bottlers, my money’s on cheats.
That does cunts a great disservice
Two lowest scores for two most experienced and expensive signings. Drop Partey. Would rather see AMN and Sambi.
He genuinely looks like he’s turned 35 since signing for us. I don’t understand if it’s the Premier League or the London lifestyle or maybe we just scouted him badly, but he’s quickly becoming a liability for the team. Wtf was that shot in the first half?
Max Allegri has 5 league titles in the bank. 4 domestic doubles in a row. And he’s under pressure to keep his job because he’s at a “top club”. Now ask yourself, are we still a top club?
No, we’re not. But with the talent at Juve, Allegri should be in trouble this year.
ITS TIME TO GOOOOOOOOO
Our most important signing in the summer has to be a proper manager.
Don’t worry, a late streak of results in April/May to get us from 8th to 7th will keep him in the job for another season. “Give him til Christmas” will be the call again from the deluded fans.
Can’t understand the substitution at left back at all. Tierney has been back from injury for some time now, he’s relatively fresh, looked fresh enough to carry on, delivered a nice assist and was not having too much trouble with their attack. Tavares came on and was sloppy a few times. It was not an easy time as well with the crowd getting more noisy. That said, he had a poor game (and definitely not a 5/10 as rated). A defensive throw-in has to go long to the striker down the line in such situations. He threw it inside on… Read more »
I’ve been saying for weeks that it’s been madness to me that KT isn’t playing. Tavares is very promising (he has a tremendous ability to go by players from a tricky position) but his passing is just really poor & defensively he is very naive. (understandably, he is very experienced) The substitution tonight was very much a public show of a lack of faith in KT. He will be back on the bench on Saturday. I don’t know what is going on but I don’t like it.
I think he was subbed off to carry xhaka, Tavares had fresher legs to make recovery runs? I dunno I’m trying to think why.
I think it’s as simple as he was subbed off because the game was in the balance & Arteta doesn’t trust him.
I thought not subbing Xhaka was what really cost us today – he was knackered (understandable) and from the 60th minute onwards was a very obvious pressing trigger and a liability in midfield. A proactive manager brings on Lokonga/AMN early on and we probably just about win that
Feel sorry for Xhaka today, people will be quick to blame him for everything and today wasn’t his fault.
Arteta let him down.
Arteta let him and the team down by picking him and then not subbing him.
I was screaming at my screen for Arteta to sub Xhaka off as soon as he picked up a yellow. If we sub him off for Sambi, we get better expansiveness in midfield alongside defensive security in Tierney if he makes a mistake.
Instead, we got Nuno’s risky possession play (which can be a good thing in different circumstances) coupled with Xhaka’s inability to run or defend any more due to being knackers/on a booking. It made absolutely no sense.
He was puffing hard after that yellow, everybody could see it. Had to be taken off. Nketiah playing winger is just so baffling as well. I’m thinking it must have been some ploy to add value to his price tag in the hope of unloading him in January.
Watch the last goal again and see whose too tired and slow to make a tackle in the middle of the park.
He was on a yellow, with Mike dean reffing. He couldn’t make that challenge unless he started 10 yards ahead
Think he’s talking about White.
White has previous for just backing off while attackers just run towards our goal but again i give him the benefit of the doubt as it was a worldie. I was refering to Xhaxa.
Which is why he should have been subbed….For one of the 3 CMs we had on the bench. I dont even blame Xhaxa, first game back after a serious injury, rusty and tired on a yellow….and Arteta keeps him on…Thats the point.
We should just play all young players, drop auba, laca, xhaka and partly, unfortunately it’s the experienced players letting the team down consistently. Yeah young players make mistakes, but they’ll learn from them and they offer more commitment
We tried that at Brentford. It didn’t end well.
Didn’t even have half the players we do now against Brentford. And what balogun should never play again because he struggled a bit in one single game?? Plenty of experienced guys at this club have struggled in lots of games and keep getting picked
It would be hard for balagoun and martinelli to be any worse than the level aubameyang and lacazette are playing at.
Almost impossible for Lokonga and AMN to be worse than Xhaka and Partey tonight or Partey and Elneny last week. And probably hard for you and I to do a worse job at managing the team than Arteta has done the last two games.
Some strange decisions last couple of games.
This coach and this team will take us no nowhere tbh. It’s easy to speculate on whom played and who did not, it’s clear the coach’s ideas are not working. Why play a half fit xhaka and an out of form partey. Arteta simply has to go!!!!
Partey, Aubameyang, Nketiah, Tavares, and Lacazette were all poor tonight. It’s becoming clear who we need to bench and who we need to let go in January.
Remember, 4 is Partey’s norm.
He was below that today.
I have no new words to say about Xhaka.
This one’s on the manager.
You can’t blame Xhaka for having to play 90 minutes when he’s dead on his feet after coming back early from a bad injury. Cmon…
Xhaka’s been blame free for a couple years now. We all know what we’re going to get. A whole lot of average. Temper tantrums. Errors leading to pens/goals. Immobility. Inability to kick the ball with his right foot. And an endless disappointment/redemption cycle. It 100% on the manger. Xhaka ain’t changing.
Nothing to do wtih Xhaxa. He is never at fault. The fans have been scapegoating him since he arrived for no reason. (Today actually wasn’t his fault).
”This ones on the manager” A fully fit , confident Xhaxa is barely decent. The condition he was in today he should have been subbed.
I haven’t blamed him.
I haven’t said anything.
It’s not necessary.
He is who he is, he provides what he provides (very little), he always does stupid shit and I’m done with him.
Here’s how it works: When Partey plays badly it’s because he is not 100% fit. When Xhaka plays badly it’s because he’s coming back from a long lay off through injury.
(to be fair he was OK today until he got tired) Arteta is responsible for selecting them both and leaving them on the pitch when they are clearly not up to the task.
We can’t deal with pressure in defensive third, only so many times you can botch a clearence before you pay, and eventually we did dispite VAR’s best effort’s…but we mustn’t send everything to hell after to L’s in a row, Saka is great, Nketiah did well, maybe he stay’s after all, there’s still ESR, defense is great still, but we NEED new up front, the two senior statesman will take us no where!
“Nketiah did well”
Huh???
Nketiah did well, maybe in training. It is not about sendung all to hell after 2 defeates, it is about lack of tactical knowledge, managerial inconsistency on and of the pitch and failure in getting bare minimum out of the potential we’ve got. The only constant in MA Arsenal career is inability to connect defense, midfield and attack in any meaningfull or productive way. It is utterly painfull and most of the time borring to watch us play. Only right thing to do is to let MA go come and of the year and bring in somebody who actually can… Read more »
Nketiah deserves more than 5.
He was our most lively player, unlucky to hit the post, made two key passes to Ode then Auba which both should have scored, and he was the only player willing to actually run at defenders (even Saka was cutting inside every time).
Nketiah and Nuno having the same rating is as good decision making as Arteta’s
Nketiah is at best, a Championship striker feckless enough to have turned down a new contract from a club that are miles above his own ceiling
If this Nketiah over Pepe decision does not cast bright light over other terrible decisions, then nothing will. 1. Saliba deserves a place in this team (even if on the bench) 2. Torreira and Guendouzi (as fighters) deserve a place in this team(likewise even on the bench). 3. Martinelli deserves a run as our main Striker (no 9) 4. I don’t see any difference between Ozil and Ødegaard except in age 5. Arteta is responsible for this team’s sitting back after scoring the first goal and our not creating many chances 6. He is using the players he has to… Read more »
100%
The way White has played over the last month Saliba deserves to be starting.
No point in rating the players anymore. Arteta has sucked the joy out of every player. He is picking up conflicts with his major players and continues to shoot himself and the team in the foot. 2 years and this team has no identity. His only consistency is picking up conflicts with players, dropping in form players and making stupid substitutions. Underlying stats don’t lie. He is absolutely fucking joke. Needs to be demoted to assistant manager and spend another few years learning under a top manager on how to manage players not exclude them. If he was my boss… Read more »
So what was said and done on the training ground between the Man utd loss and today.
Arsenal the gift that keeps giving. Need to break a losing run…Haven’t kept a clean sheet in a while. Striker is on a drought…Well step on up and play Arsenal.
How on earth was Godfrey not sent off?The FA must take retrospective action to punish such thugs. As for the ref ,the less said the better.
To give the Everton guy the benefit of the doubt is akin to saying you are forgiven for murder.
If Godfrey were an Arsenal player,I guarantee he would be off.
Do they send you to jail in Malaysia for kicking someone during a football match?
Having Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, Tierney, Saka and Ödegaard all peaking at the same 6 points isn’t exactly impressive use of your scale today, Arseblog. I agree with your readers here, Ödegaard stood out over the others today by at least half a point.
Arseblog has been biased against Odegaard for a while now.
Odegaard gets a free ride every week on here. Starting him results in defeat every time.
You watch games, do you? He scored in the two latest matches, and hardly the right man to blame. As most of Arseblog’s followers recognize he was easily our best player yesterday, and statistchs confirms this. You not liking the player doesn’t change anything.
Lol, do you watch the games? He directly cost us the match against utd and since he’s been starting instead of on the bench where he belongs, we’ve lost last three games straight despite being on a decent run before the Liverpool game.
Most overrated player in the squad.
Well… that was our worst performance since Brentford for me. Three points well and truly pissed away. Again, no Pepe. I just don’t get it. Poor decisions by Arteta tonight and we didn’t get a big decision that should have made things easier. Shouldn’t have to rely on that though to beat a team that was so out of form. We should be 4th after the last two games. An opportunity well and truly spurned. Gotta sort it out fast.
Yes, we stank the place out especially first half. Given the fine margins afforded by VAR, Everton could have won by far more and Pepe is not the answer. He’s a 20 million winger we paid over 70 million for.
I do wonder if the modern pressing game has become too much for Auba and Laca. They are putting in a full shift but don’t have the energy to defend from the front and make the lung-busting runs into the box.
That’s why, if Martinelli is fit, he should be playing up front. He has the energy to do the pressing AND make the runs AND the pace to worry defenders.
You can’t seriously be blaming Tavares for that header? He took a throw in to partey who was 3 yards in front of him and partey basically tried to chip him. Fucking inexcusable shiftiness you wouldn’t see in Sunday league
Arsenal never spent more money in one summer, but the result is that we”ll be lucky to match last years finish.
Learned nothing new really. Seems quite obvious to me that Arteta is underperforming with this group of players, and the team hasn’t had any tangible, consistent, long term improvement under him.
He has to go, but I doubt it’ll be before the end of the season, and even then I worry it’ll only perhaps happen if we finish outside of the top 6.
This isn’t an instant reaction to the result, but simply confirmation of long term worries and trends.
Ben White’s rating is to generous. He was shit.
On the back of his last game where he managed to make a meal of things twice for man U’s first goal. For 50mil you’d expect a little better. Brighton certainly are not missing him.
Been shit for a month. Was awful against Liverpool and hasn’t recovered. Looks scared.
TBF, he’s still developing and has clear potential.
Give him time.
So does saliba, whites older and anyway had infinitely (literally) more opportunities and from watching him in champs league saliba looks better. Maybe white and lokonga in midfield next year saliba and Gabriel at the back.
Learned nothing new really. Seems quite obvious to me that Arteta is underperforming with this group of players, who I think are actually quite good, and have played better for different managers and their national teams. The team hasn’t had any tangible, consistent, long term improvement under Arteta. He’s never convinced me, but I hope it’s now apparent to most of the fanbase that he has to go. Unfortunately I doubt it’ll be before the end of the season – so that’s another one wasted falling further behind – and even then I fear it’ll only perhaps happen if we finish outside… Read more »
It’s time now… arteta isnt it. Time to go.
I think the time has come for Martinelli to take up the central striker role and Auba relegated to the role of impact sub. That might help shake things up goal wise. Auba might become more useful against tired legs late on in games. Could be a temp solution until we get our new main guy up front in the transfer window. Dont know whats going on with Pepe but I suspect there are major issues behind the scenes which we are not privy too hence the decision with Pepe. Whatever the case, if Newcastle want Pepe per the rumour… Read more »
As poor as Auba has been for a while now, both Laca and Martinelli have been used as the replacement central striker with similarly underwhelming results
Whether you like xhaka or not, I think everyone who watched that match knew xhaka was spent, and needed to come off. How the manager couldn’t see that is beyond words. What’s Artetas deal with AMN and Sambi. Hell, put elneny in to give xhaka a rest. Someone. Anyone. I disagree with those who say we don’t have an identity. We half-press. We sit back. We move the ball slowly. And we can’t sustain more than a few minutes of positive football. We also look amateurish when we have a throw-in, and comical when we play out of the back… Read more »
Agreed if El Neny is the answer it must be an extremely peverse question
We are showing our true colors.
With more difficult games to come we should be worried.
I mentioned before that the gut feel of Xhaka being rush straigh in the starting 11. I was really hoping Sambi would play in place. Think he deserved his place after his short ups and downs over Xhaka. Cant see what he brought in today. But to be fair, the system didnt work today, as with his parther Partey. Maybe time to give him a short break
This for me was a throwback to when we didn’t have Smith Rowe playing for us. Too many back passes and sideways. Thomas Partey is simply awful at the moment. Doesn’t offer anything in midfield so our defence always seem vulnerable. Laca in front of Auba was strange. Yes he missed a chance against Newcastle but how many chances did Laca execute? There just wasn’t anything there. Laca seemed slow, reluctant to press and that gave time for Pickford to play without pressure. Odegaard, despite scoring was weak. He had the best chances and squandered 2 of them by choosing… Read more »
I’ve seen some rather strange comments on various fan forums about the Godfrey ‘stamp’ on Tomiyasu stating that ‘he wasn’t looking at the Arsenal player so it wasn’t a red card’. If he wasn’t looking where his feet are in danger of injuring an opponent then isn’t that a textbook description of reckless play deserving of a sending off?