Result: Arsenal 2 – 2 Fulham
Competition: Premier League
Date: 26 August 2023
Venue: Emirates Stadium
Arsenal: Ramsdale, Partey, White, Saliba, Kiwior, Rice, Odegaard, Havertz, Martinelli, Saka, Trossard
Subs: Raya, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Vieira, Smith Rowe, Nelson, Nketiah, Jesus
Arsenal had to share the spoils with Fulham at home due to errors leading to goal. A misplaced pass allowed Fulham to score within the first minute.
The Gunners hit back with 2 goals after the second half (Saka penalty and Nketiah tap in) thanks to inspired substitutes in Zinchenko, Nketiah and Vieira changing the course of the match.
However, poor defending late into the game allowed Fulham to equalise from a corner. Despite the 9 minute stoppage time, Arsenal couldn’t find the third goal despite coming close with multiple attempts.
Pre-Match
Arteta rang some changes to the team that held off Crystal Palace on Monday night. Tomiyasu was serving his suspension so Kiwior took his place on the left side of defence, with Gabriel still only making the bench amidst rumours of a transfer to Saudi Arabia.
Despite scoring 2 goals in 2 games, Nketiah was replaced by Trossard as the focal point of the attack. Gabriel Jesus made the bench after an early return from injury.
First Half
Arsenal continued to play their high risk, highly mobile backline. It looked from the outset that Partey was at right centre back who stepping into midfield while Ben White was out wide at right back.
This unusual movements bamboozled Arsenal’s own automatisms – Rice rushed his pass to Saka who misplaced his back pass to the gap left by Partey. In ran Pereira to steal the ball, drive into space and striked from afar to catch an backpedalling Ramsdale off guard at his near post. It was 0-1 to Fulham, all within the first minute.
The rest of the half was a picture of urgency and high tempo by both teams. Arsenal chased the game and hustled to make the runs and win the ball from Fulham. Martinelli was a ball of energy down the left and exchanged positions with Trossard to find gaps in Fulham’s organised defence. The Brazilian had a few attempts on goal but often had his attempts comfortably saved.
Havertz often threatened with his movement from deeper but always seemed to be a fraction off with his timing and connection with his teammates. Saka, too, went close with a close range header that bounced off the turf from close range but bounced up and over the cross bar.
But it wasn’t all Arsenal. Fulham were very alert to pounce on loose passes by the home side and were dangerous on the break – a Jimenez overhead kick almost making it 0-2 as it slightly missed the top corner.
The half ended with another near miss, this time by the languid Havertz. Put through behind the defensive line down the left, he cut back for Odegaard who razed in a daisy cutter into the bottom corner from the edge of the box. Again, Havertz was a second too early with his run, getting caught offside and had the goal ruled out.
The idea with his runs are always there, but unfortunately, the timing was always off.
Second Half
Arteta called for more firepower and it was Nketiah who came on for Trossard at the start of the half. Arsenal missed the Belgian’s connectivity as both Havertz and Nketiah were more focused in off the ball runs.
A change of direction was needed and Arteta made his next substitutes on the 55th minute. Partey and Havertz made way for Zinchenko and Fabio Vieira as the defence shifts right to accommodate the inverting and playmaking Ukrainian.
The movements and passing were sharp from both the subs and it was Vieira who was decisive on 67 minutes. His overlapping run drew Tete in for a tackle. The Fulham defender caught Vieira’s legs and the ref had no choice but to call for a penalty. After a restart, Saka made no mistake from the spot. 1-1 Arsenal
It was Vieira again who was influential just minutes later. Arsenal robbed Fulham’s defence of the ball while they were calling for a stoppage due to an arm injury by Bassey. They was no whistle and Saka distributed the ball to Vieira on the left wing. With a curved pass, he expertly found Nketiah who calmly tapped in to take Arsenal forward and make it 2 goals in 3 games. 2-1 Arsenal
Fulham chased the game but Arsenal stood strong under pressure, distributing the ball calmly when they regained possession. Come the 85th minute, the game should have been done and dusted as Nketiah raced onto a clearance and was caught by Bassey for his second yellow.
10 men Fulham vs a full Arsenal team who now have brought on Jorginho for Odegaard. Surely the game was over but slack defending during a corner saw Palhinha sneak in to score an equaliser late in the game. 2-2 Fulham
Jesus came on for Rice on 90th minute and there was a full on assault for 9 minutes of stoppage time. Arsenal pushed hard, with a sensational overhead attempt by Vieira saved and another long ranger from the Portuguese tipped over the bar. Kiwior was also a fraction of a second too late with a point blank attempt though the complexion of the game could have been different had a blistering Adama Traore counter not been saved by Ramsdale.
In the end, Arsenal had to settle for just 1 point despite all the hustling due to a lack of concentration during crucial moments of the game. If they were to challenge for the title, the Gunners need to be sharper through the 90 minutes.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My reaction exactly. WTF was that.
Why on earth do we start getting afraid of holding onto the ball or pressing soon as we get the lead? It’s a problem we have had since last week.
Being a man down, Fulham should NEVER have had the chance to come near our box again, not to talk of getting a corner kick opportunity.
And oh, one of the massive reasons we were strong at corner kicks (attacking and defending last season) was because of Gabriel — you can always hear him shouting and see him organising on corner kicks. This his sudden bench role HAS TO END!
Havertz should score 2 in the 1st half. He is still having that mental blocking in front of goal. Should start Vieira instead vs manure.
Gabriel and Xhaka. Vieira, as good as he was, is not Havertz or Xhaka defending corners.
True, greater teams increase pressure when on the lead
How on earth Arsenal play like a bottom five team beats my mind, just imagine Arsenal sitting back when leading by a goal and a man,,, SMH. Same thing happened on Monday, it was only a matter of time before this attitude was punished, and punished we have! Never this from City!
Crazy. That would literally never happen with City. We drop back soon as we take the lead mid or late in games. It’s frustrating when it’s against smaller teams (no disrespect to them).
Look at the subs though..it’s clearly what Arteta wants. Bring on Jorginho to “slow” the game down after the lead and takes our captain and playmaker out.Clearly the intent is pragmatic and not about trying to get another one
There were only 6 mins of normal time left. Makes sense normally.
Every other game has 10
mins of injury time added on these days so that’s 16 mins vs 10 men Fulham at home up by one goal, we definitely should be going for the kill instead of seeing the game out IMO.
Especially if you consider goal difference will be a factor come the end of season either for title or even a top 4 finish.
Now there are top managers all over, Brighton (no disrespect!) keeps pushing when they are a goal up, in fact they come alive when they are up, just like City and gradually sp*rs even keep going when they are up, this problem has festered for too long and Mikel should have done something about it long before now, considering it cost us a league title last season. I am just annoyed 😖 and devastated!
I called Vieira “the manager’s wonderkid who will solve everything”. I am taking the sarcasm back.
Damn we are shit.
Look worse than last season, that’s for sure.
Not surprising that as soon as Zinchenko came in and we switched to a proper back 4, we became more fluid. Food for thought.
Hopefully that tinkering nonsense will stop.
Don’t forget it was Zinny who gave away the ball that led to their corner which led to their second goal – with 10 man.
Zink is to sloppy. Really like him but there’s always a couple of dangerous turnover every game.
We are basically trying to play a back 4 in defense, and a back 3, with an inverted fullback when in attack. When Partey is at RB, he’s inverted. When Zinny is on, he’s inverted. So, Arteta wants that flexibility. BUT… in Zinny’s case, it means the left sided CB needs to provide extra cover, because Zinny is a liability in defence, BUT, a massive asset going forward because he doesn’t invert as a DM (Rice or Partey already doing that), he inverts as a deep lying playmaker who can also make overlapping runs for his winger. It’s a good… Read more »
He wasn’t the only one, just too many stray passes from too many players. It’s disheartening honestly.
Most ridiculous👿👎! I commented on this same attitude from Monday’s game. I can’t believe us sitting on a single goal lead, as if we are a bottom 3 team that took a lead against the run of play. This is worrying! And for those saying we should look at somebody’s off the ball movement, for f**k sake, we also want to see what they do with the ball, Arsenal is a potential league winner and that means we should have the ball more within a game, so I’d rather go for a player with better on the ball impact than… Read more »
I will not comment on Havertz except yo say look at how Vieira performer when he came on, all I hear is someone had covered the most distance someone’s off the ball movement! Off the what???
He wasn’t good, but I think you may be ignoring how much better the change of formation made *everyone* look.
It beggars belief my Brother. We want to see what you can do with the ball not just off the ball.
Arteta was total shit today. Doesn’t mean one has lost faith in him. But today was a terrible mistake by him.
Same story last 3 games!
This was another unbalanced line up, and when you have an unbalanced line up, it’s more difficult to straighten out matters when things go wrong. There little shit to argue about that !?
Gabriel should come back and Partey on the wing has to stop!
My take from this game and Uniteds is Man city will win the league this season unopposed…
Little too early to give up my friend. Things will change, Artera knows what he’s doing 👍
Hard to give Arteta a pass on this one.
If you’d like to test the faith of your fans – and your players – drop points by changing the best-playing XI that Arsenal have had for two decades for no reason. Everyone was available.
Just unnecessary points dropped.
He’s pragmatic to a fault. The guy is so afraid of playing expansive football, that I have a feeling he’s only comfortable doing it to get a lead, or while chasing the game. As soon as we are up, he immediately switches to slow, side to side passing, possession football. I stead of going for the kill and dispatching teams, he just wants to maintain his 1-nil. Such a small-team mindset for a coach who’s already spent more than Wenger did his last 10 years with us.
A smart coach just need to overload our weak side with runners and we’ll get beat.9 out of 10 time.
Hope that’s the last time Arteta plays that back 4. Not sure what point he’s trying to make
More like I hope we go back to playing a back 4!
Hopefully, this compulsion of playing Partey, rice and havertz in one team seems forceful. Havertz integration reminds of Arteta trying to integrate Willian in the team, it never worked but he still kept forcing it. Kai is better than Willian needs to be integrated slowly in the team. But the whole team was off today.
It’s annoying and boring.
I’m afraid big Gaby is still being targeted by other club, hence benched. I truly hope I were wrong
We sell Gabriel we ship 50 goals this season. Need to be scoring 110 to finish top 4
That’s absolute nonsense. How does it make sense to bench a player because another team wants him?
If we sell Gabriel this late in the window after Timber’s injury surely we have a Spurs mole in the board lol
Because buying club wouldn’t want an injured player this late in the window.
I don’t think so. I think Arteta is going to try to play the “lesser” teams who will play defensively against us with one centre back. That’s what Saliba looks like to me over long stretches of the match, a lone centre back. I guarantee whe we play United next week Gabriel will be on with Saliba.
I think the Partey at “right back” thing is a reasonable idea, although thus far doesn’t seem to work. I’m sure all here can see it’s an a
Reminds me of how he tried to shoehorn Willian in to the sacrifice of fluidity to the team and Havertz is getting the same treatment as a new 65 million signing.
That was on Arteta. Enough tinkering now. On the positive, we might go back to a normal line up.
Yea too much overthinking, I think we forget Arteta is still a very green manager and this might be one of those trying to do too much instead of letting the lads go out there and perform how they were last season.
Yes, very much fantasy team tinkering but in real life!
This is noe a titler team.
Need to be told why Gabriel and did not start that match with a left back and white at right back? Also why no Eddie? Arteta overthinking and tinkering. You can’t afford to drop such points at home if your going to win the Premiership
Fans were LITERALLY calling for Trossard to start. Y’all won’t stop complaining.
There were many of us singing Eddie’s praises tbh.
well then they clearly weren’t talking about you were they
As my old man always said… Never change a winning team.
Trossard was crap today. Havertz is crap right now, may grow into non-crap but now he is crap. Midfield should be Rice Partey Ode.
Nope
We had Harvey man extra leg occupying the space he normally thrives..
Crap No, confuse? Maybe.
Starting Trossard was not a bad idea, except that Eddie had earned the CF spot in the first two games. Trossard for Martinelli might have made more sense.
But as an attacking winger, his best moments were when he drifted to the left! And trust me he is better on the wing in a low block than Martinelli. We’ve seen it severally, against Fulham away last season, against Brentford home, and many other moments!
City droppe points at home to Fulham last season and won the title. Just saying. Though I really dislike this setup of the team.
City without the best player in the league for 6 months will still win the league with ease because they have the best manager by far.
With Timber out for the season we have no chance because Zinchenko brings creativity/fluidity in attack at the cost of defensive errors.
Also the moment we are up by a goal we seem to chill the f*uck out, have learnt nothing from Liverpool and West Ham away last season where we dropped points and the league title after being 2 goals up
Three games in may be a little early to call the race over. But Arteta needs to learn fast. What he’s doing is not working, and the players know it.
I didn’t see the game. Was the finishing streaky? Are we missing chances?
Did City drop points against 10 men?
Not even City should get a draw against us at the Emirates with a man down with less than 10 minutes to go.
NEVER, did they even drop points when leading??? I don’t remember…
Such a stark difference in how Palace played after Tomi was sent off and how we played after Bassey was sent off.
It can be argued that Palace were looking for a goal to earn a point, but sitting back to hold on to victory isn’t the ideal strategy for us, particularly given what happened a couple times last season (Liverpool and West Ham).
For a team potentially going for the title? That sounds s**t actually!
Things learned:
1. We only have 1 truly inverted Fullback and that’s Zinny not Partey
2. Havertz is not ready for the first team and needs to come off the bench ( he will come good just not right now)
3. Early subs do change games
We do have two inverted fullbacks but one of them did his ACL unfortunately :/
Yea, one “active” inverted fb
In Summary.. Two points dropped
This one is on Arteta I’m afraid. No need for it. We lose white over lapping saka not plaing him right back. Just play the system we played last season. There’s no need to fuck about with it. Honestly feel he is trying to be too clever. Doesn’t need to.
Got what we deserved. Arteta needs to be taught a lesson that he can’t get away with playing Partey at right back every time. Break the partnerships of Saka and White, Saliba and Gabriel to do fuck all in the first half.
If Harvertz absolutely has to play, just drop Partey. At least it will be less disruptive to the team and give us a better chanve.
And to even think they should have won with that last attack from Traore,,, very depressing indeed!
Just like Pep would be with champions league matches. It was evident last season Partey doesn’t work at right back.
Exactly the same comparison I made to a friend recently, that’s how Pep used to screw up the champions league previously.
It’s maddening watching Arsenal with Partey at RB, we are so poor, no threat, no penetration, just lots of the ball pointlessly.
Arteta trying to bamboozle the opposition but our players look more bamboozled.
Hopefully we’ve seen the last of this experiment today
What is the point of Kai Havertz? We already have ESR and Vieira. He was ponderous and out of step with the rest of the team. 65M, Chelsea fans having a laugh.
^This – 100%
Havertz signing looking very strange. Didn’t think I would miss Xhaka so much. He defended so well for us as well.
Sell Gabriel or play him. The back line is a bloody mess.
I think we are asking too much of Partey at right back.
Slack passing from Zinchenko cost us the corner, and then the goal. We were lacking aerial presence with Jorginho and Zinny in the team, especially as Kiwior isn’t as dominant as Gabriel. Fulham will only ever threaten us from set pieces surely? Baffling from Arteta, disappointing from Zinny. Hubris all round.
Hope that puts a rest to those who were crying that Trossard starting will save us. Very good player. Not the messiah.
Probably time to try Gabriel again. And Havertz, I really think he will be a good player for us, but maybe time to give him a bit of a rest and let him adapt slowly to our system. Give Vieira and ESR a chance, the former has definitely shown he deserves one.
At the attacking left he is better than any of our players at creating chances, even today his best moments came when he drifted to the left, go watch the match again, don’t play him out of position and judge him, he is our best on the left hand side
Really, you think he’s better than Martinelli?
I can’t remember last time we dropped points with a man advantage. Poor setup from the start. Partey should never play on the right. Ben White should be our regular right back. Terrible performance, lots of poor passes, mainly in the first half. Criminal to drop points at home against Fulham at home with an extra player. Dog 💩💩💩
Fulham deserves the point today. i have no idea why we don’t go for the kill. They are one man down and we are at home!! the players are like, the game is won now!! lessons from last season haven’t been learnt!!
anyways, onto the positives and Viera never looked so good. he surely deserves a place instead of Kai.
Not on the players. We came from 1-0 down to go 2-1 up at home v 10 men, we were all over them. Bringing on Jorginho tells the players the job is to sit back & hold on. We lost all momentum from that point. That one’s on the manager for me.
Jorginho’s job isn’t to sit back, it’s what he did last week, to hold the ball and organise. Didn’t work this time but I don’t think that was the fault of this substitution.
Why are we holding the ball and organizing up one man, at home? We’ve already been through this last season. The last thing you want is to put your team under unnecessary pressure, hoping that you can somehow just withstand it and score a lucky goal on a counter attack. He’s spent hundreds of millions to assemble arguably the most talented squad since the invincibles. Why is his fist instinct to sit back and defend after taking a lead? This is the mindset of a small club with no resources, not Arsenal having spent hundreds of millions in the last… Read more »
You’re not making any sense. We just said Jorginho went on to help us keep possession, that is absolutely not “to sit back and defend” and it’s not hoping to “score a lucky goal on a counter attack”. Keeping possession is pretty much the opposite from those things. Jorginho isn’t a defensive midfielder, he’s a deep-lying playmaker. He helps us move the ball into space and start plays that lead to chances. I feel your anger but I don’t think you’re making any coherent arguments.
Don’t think bringing on Jorginho was the problem. When you have a lead with an extra man and less than 10 minutes to play, we should be comfortably seeing it out. There was no need rushing forward and risking exposing ourselves to counter attacks. The players lost concentration in a split second and Fulham scored a very good goal. You could say it’s avoidable but things like that just happens in football.
But Fulham were barely able to get out of their box in the 2nd half. Then they have a man sent off. Bringing Jorginho on changed the momentum. They were hoping to leave with 2-1 after the sending. Once they saw we were happy to play keepball rather than keep doing what we were doing, it gave them the green light to try to sneak a 2nd
they should not see the shadow of the ball with 2:1 and 11:10!!!
agree they deserved it, fighting like crazy and we only scored on a penalty and when they had a player injured, they got a harsh red card, I mean…sometimes you just don’t deserve it (the win).
Not only lessons from last season but we did the same thing in our first 2 matches and it nearly cost us. We got lucky. Today our luck ran out.
We DID NOT deserve to win the game. Shocking how we just lost steam the moment we went head. This is recurring to often and I’m not sure Arteta is able to do anything about. We were at home for Christ’s sake!!!!
Shocking!
9 shots on target to 3 though
Of course Arteta can do something about it. He just won’t. The players do what he tells them to. He clearly wanted us to go passive at a time where it was insane to do that.
He’s the one who instructs the players to sit back. it’s a tactic of his, and has nothing to do with the players. no player in this squad is doing anything that they haven’t been explicitly instructed to do by the coach. They get shipped out or permanently benched. So i don’t want to hear anyone criticizing the players for this tactic
If Kai Havertz had gone to any other team for 65million from Chelsea , we would all be in hysterics. This tinkering needs to stop now . Harvertz needs to be benched and for gods sake put Partey back in midfield where he belongs .
You reap what you sow. We didnt deserve a win out of this. Fabio was outstanding though.
Since we are into playing players off their best positions and not to their strength lets go ahead and play Nkietah at RB Saka at goal Odegard at CB why the heck not?!! So so so damn annoying to see the backline shuffled at Partey at LB faaak!
No ifs ! No buts ! Arteta was to blame for that today ! ESR again no participation ditto big Gab ? This I’d say is breaking down the spirit in the side & it’s not keeping fans onboard either ! 3 matches & piss poor so far Let’s hope this improves rapidly & well done Viera today ! Best player in the park when he came on !
The curse of Paul Tierney
Conceding from that low cross is really unacceptable. Think it was Jorginho who pushes the player who clatters into Zinny to make him miss the ball.
Martinelli was poor today. Odegaard was poor. Saka was poor. Havertz was atrocious.
People are saying this system isn’t working but we’ve been creating a boatload of chances. Could have easily scored five today were it not for the misses and poorly struck shots.
Really positive from Viera. I hope he gets Havertz minutes when or if we revert to a back four.
I don’t know if Havertz was any worse than the others but he definitely doesn’t look confident in front of goal. I’d sit him now and give him starts in the cups and CL, hopefully he can find his footing there and gain back his swag
The system makes us toothless going forward, questionable when out of possession/dispossessed. The players at times seem unsure. Genuinely haven’t played particularly well in the 3 games this season, of course we won the 2 at least.
We are dreaming if we think we’ll challenge for the title after a pre-season and first 3 games like this. Arsenal have to improve A LOT and stop gifting average teams 1-0 leads in the first minute at home.
Its clearly not working, this attempt to be unpredictable. The players look confused as to where they are meant to be playing in the different moments. We were efficient last season by not over thinking things and this season it looks like we’ve took a huge backwards step. Sorry the Havertz shoehorning has to stop also. He can’t play in midfield because he isn’t aggressive enough or progressive with the ball. How many he gets the ball and just passes it straight back was infuriating. That give away in the 2nd half probably made Arteta take him off. All in… Read more »
What we were last season took a full season of coaching to effect.
New systems take time, but after the players nail it, they become unstoppable. Look at City last season. Similar story.
We are not building a team for just this season, Arteta has said.
Mikel has shoehorned all his new signings into that setup and lost all fluency because the team is unbalanced. Nobody looks as though they know what they should be doing. The new system effectively stops all the partnerships and automatisms that made us good. Without Big Gabi there’s no leadership at the back, he’s also good at covering those mistakes that are made and he’s the one organising and shouting at corners. Saka and Martinelli are isolated. We’ve signed better players and become weaker because of the way Mikel has just chucked them all in, they should be introduced more… Read more »
Last season we complained of player over use, lack of rotation, many said Arteta has to learn to make rotate and make subs early, well he looks like he is learning and we are still here complaining.
Mistakes happen in football, but Arteta made great calls with his substitutions, we played well, were not clinical enough but we sure did make chances and alot of them. The goals will come, chill.
Last season, he played the same players over and over again, so people were rightly calling for him to rotate. What he’s doing this season is not just rotating players though; he’s playing players out of position and tinkering too much, while abandoning a system that so obviously worked so well last season, all for no improvement. We are looking worse than last season
Rotation is one thing, the new system with Partey at RB and the team controlling the ball but not really threatening/scoring is something else altogether
Spot on, absolutely!!!!
Last week I was wondering if we are a team on the up not quite firing on all cylinders or a team which has peaked and going downhill.
This week probably provides the answer and the next week definitely will
On a positive note, Viera showed up and hopefully this is his breakout game and breakout year.
Pretty sure I’ve said this here before, forget about the title this year. We’re probably a younger team than last year and clearly a work in progress.
There are gaps in many places and Timber’s injury hasn’t helped. I’d expect it to come together in the 2nd half of the season and have a real go at the cups, including the big one.
Can we just admit there’s a mental fragility in this team when it comes to seeing out games? No matter if a man down or up. It happened for the entire second half of last season was well. How many games did we finish with 5 at the back and 0% possession in the last 15 minutes.
The silver lining is with Zinc and Jesus back we can now end the fucking Havertz experiment and just play the same best 11 as last season with Rice in for Xhaka.
All down to the coach. The players aren’t suddenly forgetting how to play attacking football. They are being instructed by the coach to drop back. Arteta doesn’t play players who don’t follow his instructions to a T, so if it was on the players, you would have seen him going crazy on the sidelines and it would have been fixed by now
I just lowered my expectations for the season after this game. There’s no way we’re winning any league conceding goals like these.
It’ll get better. Arteta won’t continue this galaxy brain stuff much longer
We ´might’ be 10 points behind by then unfortunately. You don’t make mistakes when it’s Pep’s City you’re competing with
Managers often get stubborn when it becomes apparent that their brilliant ideas aren’t working. Wenger did it, and Arteta is doing it. This is three games that prove that Partey at right back is not a good idea, Havertz isn’t doing enough to start, and we need Gabriel at the back. The one thing Arteta “learned” from the first two games is that Eddie, who earned his spot up top, should sit on the bench. Awful.
Artata has to get out of his way. His need to prove how brilliant of a manager he is will eventually cost us. You had a team that was flowing last season and got tired . Why would you want to change that for no reason ? Playing Partey at RB and anybody but a real left back at left back is just baffling. I am not a fan of Havertz but we definitely shouldn’t be trying to play him as an 8. If he thrived at Bremen playing in Odegaards position why not use him when you want to… Read more »
Arteta out!!!
Time for a new boss!!!
Well that’s an overreaction
No it’s not!!!
ARTETA DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO DEFEND!!!! TINKERING AT THE BACK HAS BEEN DISASTROUS!!!!
WHERE IS GABRIEL!!!!! TIERNEY!!!!
WE HAVE LEARNT NOTHING FROM LAST SEASON!!! WE KEEP CONCEDING AT HOME!!!!
Arteta is a top-four manager but not a title-winning one!!!!
TIME FOR A NEW MANAGER!!!
Who would you get in that’s realistic or available?
Well. I’ll try to keep my assessment more measured, after the flak I caught on Monday. But I wish I knew what Arteta’s plan was, because the players don’t seem to. This is kind of what I was saying after the Palace game, that this team is so passive. As soon as they get into a lead they just back off, there’s no killer instinct, no drive, nobody pushing them on to keep the pressure on. If somebody can tell me what Arteta sees in Havertz I would love to know, because essentially dismantling the platform we built so much… Read more »
I have a feeling Havertz looks worse than he actually is, because with so many midfielders and fullbacks playing in midfield, how is he going to be on the ball long enough to make an impact as a creative midfielder? Him and Odegaard should be competing for the same position, not starting in the same team
Man city’s winning the league this season…
I wonder what the team talk is when we go in the lead…it seems like we’re in two minds about whether to play “100.000 passes” or go for the kill- it would almost been better if we had gone down to 10 in this match and not Fulham, at least we would of defended for our lives and had a clear mental focus.
We look worse than last season
Masterful observation
Need to sit Havertz and let Viera or Trossard get the start in his position. Nketiah definitely needs to start next match as Jesus does not look close to 100% yet. Havertz makes great runs, that is all we’ve seen of him. No impact on any match yet and just doesn’t play with the intensity level the others do. So tired of the mentality of sitting back and absorbing pressure once we have the lead especially when we’ve been all over them the whole game. The time to really pick them apart is when they open up knowing they have… Read more »
Best centre half partnership last year by some distance was Saliba and Gabriel.
Not starting together this season is just ridiculous. Hope common sense is used for the next match.
Dave on here has got a manual to explain all this check it out ! Apparently us like minded fans are stupid ? Hmmm ??? Then I look at your post & my world becomes clearer & I veer away from stupid as I just completely agree !!!
Pure conjecture, but I wonder if we might be missing Steve Round a bit, as an influential voice close to Arteta to push back against some of his flightier ideas. Maybe it resulted in a better balance last season
Being someone who spent so much of his career working alongside David Moyes, I can’t imagine he’d be keen on the plan to ditch conventional specialist full backs on both sides
A very interesting point. Was a reason ever provided for his departure?
I don’t think so just ‘mutual consent’.
He’s alongside Moyes at West Ham again
Obviously I don’t want us to play Moyesian football. But I would have thought it’s good to have influential voices who have a different understanding of the game, who are more likely to be able to point out the holes in the manager’s plans. After all that’s what the opposition are doing
Horrible team selection and sloppy, Partey is never a fullback, Trossard is never any good when he starts. The defence is all over the place without Big Gabi organising, he might’ve put one of those corners away too. This one is on Mikel, trying to be too clever and making the team unbalanced and unsure. We’re doing everything the hard way.
This is so hard to take. Two points needlessly dropped at home. I hope the tinkering has come full circle. I hope But much more than that, the biggest decision which could define our season is what to do with Havertz. He destabilizes our midfield, soft on the tackle, too casual with the pass, tepid in front of goal. As long as he was on, we were down to 10 men. I don’t see the point in playing him.
Vieira should start the next game. We are not as fluid as last season and we are defensively weaker too. We needed to create more big chances after Fulham went down to 10 men.
I am tired of this. WHY is Gabriel on the bench? WHY? What is the rationale?
Why are we trying so hard to fix what’s not broken?
Why?
😭😭😭
“what’s not broken” looked pretty broken when we lost the title last season. And if you tell me that’s just because Saliba got injured then you either didn’t watch or completely forgot how we looked. Trying new things and innovative solutions should be commended, it takes balls. It hasn’t worked so far, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth trying. The two points hurt but there are still 35 more games to go.
We also had leads against Liverpool and Westham that we lost because the coach wanted us to sit back and defend, instead of continuing to do what got us those leads in the first place. We’re still doing that this season
Nope!!!
What “broke” last season wasn’t our system. Towards the end of the season what told was player fatigue/injury and pressure for a team of mostly youngsters
This was a good result for Arsenal in the long term. A win in the 99th minute would have, once again this season, papered over the cracks. Mikel needs to clear his head and start over again with a sensible approach.
Agree with this, play the best team not who arteta thinks are the best 11 players.
Continuing this glass half full perspective, two positive things happened in this game that we have been looking out for this season:
– Vieira stepped up to contribute to two vital goals that swung the match and points (albeit only temporarily) into Arsenal’s favour
– Eddie scored after coming on as a sub
Just hope these rumours of Gabriel going to Saudi Arabia do not come to fruition.
Vieira was very good, I thought it was strange paying 35 million for him last year, thought it wasn’t a position of need. I agree with keeping gabriel. Hopefully we play our team from last season vs utd. only change would be rice for xhaka. If Jesus not fit enough to start play Eddie, it was good enough to beat them last year.
Actually a defeat would have been much better for the long term. It would have make him come to his senses.
Fabio Vieira will get the plaudits and hats off to the kid he deserves a lot of them, but the guy who made the difference was Zinchenko. He came on, bam, we’re moving the ball through the thirds, we’re finding Odegaard in pockets, he’s making things happen. I hope this is just teething problems – I mean I’m sure it is since we’ve restructured our entire midfield. But what Arteta is trying to do seems quite unorthodox rather than a tried and tested thing you can look at and say “yeah this is a blueprint that will work eventually”, and… Read more »
yes, I agree
Their corner from which they scored came from poor defending from Zinchenko that gave the ball away. He added to fluency but those defensive errors add to giving the ball away at crucial times. Arsenal look like they learning – and I can only hope they fast learners – because at this rate we mid table level
We look much worse and less fluid than last season, despite making massive investments into the squad. In a way, Arteta reminds me of myself. I have clear strengths, and there is a clear path for me to achieve my goals, but I always find a way to shoot myself in the foot by overthinking things, and trying to look smarter than I actually am.
why try to shoehorn 4 ballplaying midfielders in the same team? Why do we always shrink and turn into a Mourinho team as soon as we get a lead?
Arteta is so frustrating
The Kai Havertz horror show