Arsenal: Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Kiwior, Rice, Havertz, Odegaard, Martinelli, Saka, Nketiah
Subs: Ramsdale, Cedric, Tomiyasu, Smith Rowe, Jorginho, Elneny, Nelson, Trossard, Jesus
Arsenal suffered their second defeat in three days after falling 2-1 to Fulham at Craven Cottage on Saturday, despite taking the lead through Bukayo Saka.
Mikel Arteta made three changes to the side that lost against West Ham on Thursday, with Jakub Kiwior, Kai Havertz and Eddie Nketiah coming in for Oleksandr Zinchenko, Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus.
Arsenal started quickly and were ahead within five minutes when Gabriel Martinelli was freed down the left, before cutting inside and forcing Bernd Leno into a save – although he could only palm out to Bukayo Saka who tapped the rebound home. 1-0.
It was quick thinking from David Raya and Kai Havertz in the build up, who acted quickly to exploit space with Fulham right back Timothy Castagne out of position.
However, the hosts responded well after going behind and had chances to equalise, first through Raul Jimenez who shot straight at Raya from 18 yards before Willian curled wide when he probably should have scored.
Fulham continued to build momentum with Arsenal struggling to keep possession, and after looking vulnerable in wide areas all afternoon, it’s no surprise that the equaliser came from a cross.
The hosts did well to work through a half-hearted Gunners press and Tom Cairney – breaking from midfield – found Jimenez brilliantly at the back post who slotted home with Kiwior inches away from intercepting. 1-1.
Arsenal did eventually find their feet again and almost retook the lead through Martinelli whose left-footed effort trickled just wide after nice work from Saka and Martin Odegaard down the right side.
With Kiwior struggling throughout the first half, Arteta opted to bring on Takehiro Tomiyasu at half time who was fit enough for a place on the bench after recovering from a calf injury.
Martinelli was quick out of the blocks after half time and curled an effort wide, but that wouldn’t be a sign of things to come with Arsenal falling back into their sloppy, sluggish possession.
And it was Fulham who took the lead when Joao Palhinha escaped Declan Rice from a corner, with Bobby Decordova-Reid reacting quickest to take advantage of some poor defending and penalty box pinball to smash past Raya. 2-1.
There was a quick chance for Arsenal to equalise when Saka found space at the back post but he blazed his volley over, despite having time to bring the ball down.
Arteta rang the changes with Jesus, Trossard and Reiss Nelson all coming on – switching to a back three in the process – although that only seemed to disrupt any semblance of fluidity with Arsenal struggling to create further opportunities throughout the second half.
Late on, Fulham thought Saliba should have been sent off after fouling Harry Wilson when through on goal, although Gabriel was covering which meant a yellow card was the right decision.
From the resulting free kick, Andreas Pereira smacked the crossbar with Raya unlikely to save the shot should it have been on target.
Arsenal huffed and puffed but aimless crosses into the Fulham box were headed away with ease, and they succumbed to defeat again in terrible weather conditions.
An opportunity to top the table again not taken, as Arteta’s men stay in fourth heading into the new year.
Crap, again
We bottle it, again. Somewhat I don’t feel the pain anymore…
You get immune to it after a while
I got immune after we lost the league to Leicester.
It was awful management and tactics. This is on Arteta for me. He takes off martinelli when it clear as day we need the width. He leaves nketia on the pitch for the whole game. He is shocking. Did Leno have a save to make. Recycling the ball and going fecking nowhere. It’s a battle now for us to get top four me thinks. Liverpool and city will pull away and we are battling villa and scum for top four.
I’m no huge fan of Arteta, but there’s only so much you can do when you have no goalscoring threat up top. In that world, if your wingers go off the boil, you’ve pretty much done for your ability to get goals. That’s where we are, and there’s no money to fix it.
Maybe the manager should not spend all the transfer budget on other positions, then.
I mean maybe. But then we’d be losing because of our defense and midfield. I’d rather have Rice than any of the strikers available to us last summer.
I’d have rather saved £25m in transfer fees and £100k/week on wages and signed Maddison instead of Havertz, but I guess he’s flavour of the month now, so that would’ve been terrible.
The Maddison who has fewer goals than Kai? I get it, you’re having a tantrum because we’ve lost, but the money is zero-sum. There weren’t high level strikers available last summer so we spent elsewhere. This squad is not good enough to win the title, but it has been a step in the right direction.
I have lots of issues with Arteta and one big one with Edu – their signings are probably the bottom of the list.
I haven’t down-voted you, but I don’t appreciate your characterisation of me as a toddler because I disagree with you (and haven’t all season, not just after one loss).
And by the way, Maddison has 3 goals and 5 assists in 11 games. Havertz had 4 goals (one being a charity penalty) and 1 assist in 19 games.
I haven’t downvoted you either, but the thrashing around for “it would all be fine if we just had x” instead is so childish. The squad is a few players away, and it was going to be no matter what we did this summer. They’ve taken another step closer, but I don’t understand how people are only realizing at this point that we aren’t going to win the title this year – and we weren’t going to spend all season running at defenses which didn’t know what to expect like last year. I have big issues with Arteta’s tactics, I… Read more »
If you think we’d be better off with a striker instead of Havertz I’d say “maybe so.” Or another midfielder instead (but probably one who’s actually setting the world on fire…) I’d say “maybe so.” There simply was not enough money for all the things that would take this team to a title last summer, and that’s fine.
Oh yes that’s it. Let’s bring in another injury prone player
Rice yes, Havertz and Raya? No.
How many chances were created for our striker today? There’s no service for goodness sake. It’s the midfield, it’s still the bloody midfield!
I think it’s both.
Nketiah at the 22nd minute sum it all. He is in the centre, he has the ball with 1 to 2 defenders and he pass the ball to the frank. Absolutely no confidence.
I’m done with Eddie and don’t expect Jesus to score anymore.
Let’s give Bouremouth an offer they can’t refuse for Solanke
Goodness has it come to that
After our 1st goal we hardly managed to appear on their half.
After their leading goal we haven’t have a single shot on target.
I wonder if Arteta is unable to recognize these situations or… unable to do anything to change it?
No, and no
Like most people he finds it hard to accept he is wrong sometimes. Eddie is a case in point. Will never top 15 league goals, rarely assists, but Mikel has given him a contract and he to be seen to be backing the decision.
Absolutely. The amount of games he has started and there’s no fluency and connection with the front four. It’s not a one off. I recall some fella saying on here nketia was a beast 😂. Areta is trying to prove something. Play havertz up top and we can cross some balls. Nketia is Blackpool standard. He should not be anywhere near an Arsenal Shirt. Worrying he has been given a new contract.
I’m not saying Eddie is the answer, but I’m pretty sure he’s above Blackpool standard… I’m pretty sure last season no one would suggest solanke, things just happen with age
I don’t understand how people can say this about Nketiah, but not see that Arteta is doing precisely the same thing with Havertz and Raya. Absolutely terrible transfers they were!
Not necessarily, we’ve been awful at selling and by giving out contracts we’re in a stronger selling position which I see as a good thing. Fully agree that Eddie isn’t the striker to take us forward but would rather sell him for some money than let go for peanuts.
Poundland pep caught again!
A bunch of shady deals, dropping Rambo for political reasons, not convincing Xhaka to stay back, not buying a striker, almost selling off Gabriel plus the never ending obsession to imitate Pep. All these have contributed to our current predicament of being absolutely crap. He is in the same boat as Ten Haag tbh!!!
You mentioned A lot of factors, and there are some half truths in all of them
Very curious to hear what the politics of changing our goalkeeper were.
The double speak, we have two number 1, I can rotate or sub the keeper at 65 minutes, but even though Raya had a few howlers he never lost his spot, that and the fact that Rambo is a fan’s favourite
Fans like you are embarassing
Ok
Ten Haag is a difficult act to follow.
Ten Haag has ostracised a couple of mu players, MA has marginalised quite a few
Despite all this, we were top of the table a couple of days ago. If we were able to manage that with Arteta being as shit as you say, perhaps if he were any good, we would have already won the league by Christmas.
This has been coming for a long time. It’s been slow and ponderous all season, but we’ve got lucky at times.
I don’t see the point in a keeper good with feet and playing from the back if we break so slowly. The opposition are always fully set and ready by the time we’ve ambled down the pitch.
We removed a defender and brought in a forward player, only for the 3 remaining defenders to play passes among them for half the remaining game. Amazing!
They could place a pass forward
What is the point of our kick offs where we play it back to Raya to launch forward? Very cultured!
Well said. Every team knows exactly what we do before it happens.
A genuinely irrelevant criticism. For what it’s worth, a lot of teams do that, because it allows the target men to be much further up the pitch. I doubt it ever creates much of an advantage, but it certainly never does any harm.
We need a progressive passer in the middle. Partey has always been our most important player.
And now Rice is taking that tole by himself, that’s not enough, either okay Kai next to him or Jorginho, you need a midfield duo in front of your back four
I wonder if Arteta will encourage his players to, you know, pass the ball forwards, and hurry up a bit. If not, we’re toast.
It’s Zinchenko who plays this role when Partey is absent (which is this entire season). All the stuff about his defensive liabilities are far less important than what he brings to the middle of the pitch.
It’ll be an interesting combo to see TP and DR in mid – who can counter that
Yup. The midfield has been broken all season. Kai Havertz is a passenger who can’t even dribble or attack with the ball. Declan Rice just isn’t a bloody pivot! There’s no squad rotation and one starting XI that’s set in stone, regardless of how poorly a player performs. And the idea that the fullback should also be a midfielder that makes through balls and creates chances from a central position is just so stupid. There’s a whole world of football tactics beyond pep guardiola, Mikel. And don’t get me started on how it’s somehow okay to take risks in your… Read more »
KH is no passenger. He sees the game more than most
That was a steaming pile of shit wasn’t it?
Two weeks ago we looked like champions, and now it looks like we might slip out of top four.
Life comes at you fast eh?
Don’t be deluded. We never looked like champions. These problems were blatantly obvious all season. Arteta has categorically made the team worse compared to last season and he can’t even begin to fix it because he’s still in denial! What a joke.
Against Brighton, we looked like Champions, let’s be real now.
We looked okay
Agreed Henkamp, we were brilliant against Brighton….but that is very much an outlier in our form this season
Buy Willian
Agreed. We’re kidding ourselves if anyone thinks is a title winning form.
This team hasn’t looked like champions since 40 mins into the Liverpool game at Anfield last season.
Champions don’t play 22 home games and win 14 of them. City have won 2 more home games in 2023 and played 2 games less. Our home form in 2023 is worse than Man Utd’s. That’s not signs of a title winning team
Agreed. But what I don’t understand is how you can have this opinion, but then not question Arteta and his tactics, transfers and squad management? I understand that from our perspective as fans, there’s a lot we don’t see around the day to day that he does. But his subs have always been a problem since the time he first arrived. There’s always been zero squad rotation. At least once every season there’s been a major goal drought and we just don’t look like scoring and can’t create chances or shots on target. And it’s pretty clear that if Saka… Read more »
Arteta has taken this team from the lowest of lows so I can’t go too hard on him yet. Yes he makes subs far too late. He doesn’t rotate near enough, as you said. However, when big players are always injured, and the backup are not up to the standard, his hands are tied.
The manager can’t be blamed for stupid mistakes like Saka sleeping on the ball today, constantly bottling leads (to some extent) or the odd dubious VAR decision. Luckily January begins in a few hours
But but but he rotated Nketiah in for Jesus today, that worked out ok, right? Probably should have rotated out Saliba for White and played Tomi at right back. Rotation, yeah!
*Don’t mind me, just venting after a disappointing game*
Way to ruin the evening and end 2023. Cheers lads.
Guys don’t let this match ruin your NY party!
Too late 🙁
We were ten times better than last year…
Irony mates
That went over everyone’s head lol
That was by far the worst Arsenal performance since our last performance
Setting new records for piling shit
That was some feeble shit. Fucking woeful!
Played far worse than we did against the Hammers. Next week is massive now as the FA Cup is our best chance of a trophy 🏆
At this rate, Liverpool will turn us over. The confidence of this team has plummeted to its lowest ebb.
Trophy? Not the way we are playing. Every part of the game is getting away from us. Poor defensive shape, especially against counters. Toothless possession. Wasted free kicks and corners for us, gift goals for opponents. Arteta is making these players worse. It’s torture to watch our games. Mid table form from a Champaign squad. Rice must be wondering why he wanted to be part of this.
We’ll get a lucky CL trophy
I could settle for that!
Congrats guys! Back trying to win the trophy we most realistically can win. The famous TOP-FOUR-TROPHY!!
That will take some going, we are in free fall now
I repeat, Nketiah is not good enough for Arsenal FC.
Not a single cross into the box, and the moment Havertz is hacked off, MO lobs one into the box. On to the next one.
Hes not good enough for any team in the pl with ambitions to win anything.
He’s fucking shit
Agree. Easy with hindsight but should have offloaded EN before giving him a fat new contract. Brings very little to the side: half-arsed pressing, and the goals, such that they were, have dried up.
Agree. Easy with hindsight but should have offloaded EN before giving him a big new contract. Brings very little to the side: half-hearted pressing, and the goals, such that they were, have dried up.
Jesus was anonymous and ineffective too.
Jesus was at right back at one point trying to win the ball.
Because we were playing a 3-1-6 formation. 4 years later Arteta still hasn’t figured out how to make subs.
And he won it. He got the passion everywhere.
If you cannot see that Jesus offers way more than Eddie, it is pointless discussing football with you.
No rotation, no ideas, tired players, bad results.
I like Arteta, but a higher level manager is badly needed here.
The lack of speed in possession is just shocking. If we don’t get a bit of Odegaard / Saka magic, there is no plan B.
Arteta has to rethink our offensive approach, because everyone has figured this one out.
This. If Saka & Odegaard don’t make something happen we’re basically fucked because we have no other ideas going forward.
This was as bad as it gets. For all people moaned about the West Ham performance, we could, and should have won that quite comfortably, but here we were second best all over the pitch and not one player deserves anything over a 5 out of 10. The way we played so slowly from the back you would have thought we were winning and running down the clock.
I think 5 would be a bit high for a lot of them!
Nketia would get a 2 from me
Thing with Eddie is apart from his so called eye for the goal he offers very little else. And that bloody eye for goal has given us just 2 goals apart from that hat-trick.
The thing with Nketiah is that he gets no fucking service! What’s so hard to understand about that!? Criticize his goal scoring, by all means. But you’re acting like he’s supposed to win matches all on his own. He’s not Thierry Henry ffs.
Nobody expects anyone of our players to win us games single handedly least of all Eddie, but you expect contributions. Eddie when he does not score does nothing else, and he scores rarely is my entire point!
We played only marginally better against WH, we didn’t lay a punch on them, wh gave us shots to nothing but people here think that because we had 30 shots we did well, we’ve been crap since the villa game
Bottlers. Average players overall. Need more rotation. need to have better players with winning mentality to push on.
Plus a better manager.
Beginning to feel there is no competition, the players play no matter how bad they play, bench players are beginning to believe they are destined for the bench and no matter what happens, they won’t start and that is sad. As I mentioned in another post, at Brighton more than half the 11 is not assured of a start, they must all compete and everybody is giving a chance, at Arsenal it’s almost certain who will start. Saka has been playing bad for sometime, Martinelli same, even Ode had also been bad, bad almost all of them are guaranteed a… Read more »
I think we’re very close to the players starting to turn their back on the manager. I think there were a few whiffs there today. And considering it looks like we can only play in one style (which every club has figured out how to play against), I’m worried.
We don’t play one style. We did that last season. There is a bit of variety to us this season, but it’s hard to win games if the players simply look like a shell of themselves. Martinelli misplacing passes for fun, with terrible decision making in possession isn’t down to tactics. He’s just been poor. Same could be said for the rest of the players. Being unable to kick a corner over the first defender isn’t a tactics thing. The likes of Trossard, White, Martinelli, Saka (to an extent), and Jesus have been very very poor. That’s not down to… Read more »
Odegard can’t move the ball fast enough
He does that to pull the opposition towards him and create space. He still creates loads of good situations that are just never finished. There was another good one for Nelli today that he just scuffs.
I have to say, it’s hard to believe someone who has watched football for any length of time could say something like that.
We need good depth so we can rotate without much of a drop off. The energy just isn’t there.
Teams around us rotate/bring on players like Nunez, Diaz, Doku, Alvarez, who are capable of changing a game. We have Eddie and Reiss (who’s good enough to start 1 game in 3 years and inconsistent Trossard
This is arguably our worst performance all season. Little creation. Slow, tentative, predictable and timid in the final 3rd. This is not a dip in form. This is a slump. This team even without any January additions certainly can go a notch higher in performance. This big question is – For all the good Arteta has done for which we are super grateful, does Arteta as a manager really have another gear to go up to or are we are looking at a manager who’s reached his tactical zenith?
Hard to say, we are living the bet on our skin
That, I am afraid, goes the title charge. It is not the losses; it’s the toothlessness; the apparent lack of ideas in the final third and the sudden tentativeness in defence. City and Liverpool will storm past us, and that will be that.
Slow as a glacier, and we’re melting too…
Horrible. The way we put 5 guys up against their defenders without any movement whatsoever, while 5 other guys pass the ball sideways until someone tries a nothing pass to feet, the ball is intercepted and the opposition break 3 v. 4. It absolutely does my head in. Like many people have said, it’s been like this a lot this season and we’ve often gotten away with it, until now. Can we put some balls over the top, find some runners? Maybe even a decent cross or two would be nice for one. Fulham’s back four might has well have… Read more »
That was nowhere near what is expected of these players. Every single one of them look like a shell of themselves. Unsure passing, shooting, and general decision-making. I’m sure all those who like to jump on Zinny’s case can see clearly what we miss in build-up when he’s not in the side. We also need Partey back badly. Rice makes us pedestrian and predictable in the build-up. He never attempts to pick runs. He just moves it from side to side. There is no incision. It’s impossible to win the league on a form like this one. Impossible. Not with… Read more »
Our worst performance all season. For all the great things he’s done for arsenal as a manager, does arteta really have more to give or has reached his peak?
Straight to the point! Thats all he has unfortunately!
Only plus is that it offers clarity about the January transfer window. No point in doing a budget-busting Hail Mary for Toney or some “clever” short term deals a la Jorginho / Trossard; we’re not winning the league this year, so we need to plan long-term.
Start play more of ESR, develop some academy players, let go of Rambo if he’s not going to play him, his know what happened to vieira
I’ve heard the sound before; the sound of wheels coming off. Lose away to Fulham (and at home to West Ham!), say goodbye to the league.
Xabi Alonso’s name gives a nice Arsenal anagram. Third Basque lucky? One can but dream. Start Nketiah, get what you deserve.
(Another incompetent or bent referee allowing constant tackling from behind and frank assaults on Arsenal players; but we come to expect it, no?)
That was nowhere near what is expected of these players. Every single one of them look like a shell of themselves. Unsure passing, shooting, and general decision-making. I’m sure all those who like to jump on Zinny’s case can see clearly what we miss in build-up when he’s not in the side. We also need Parteeey back badly. Rice makes us pedestrian and predictable in the build-up. He never attempts to pick runs. He just moves it from side to side. There is no incision. It’s impossible to win the league on a form like this one. Impossible. Not with… Read more »
I beg to differ. Rice does not make this team pedestal. The decision by the coach that he no longer wants exciting explosive beautiful football but rather that he wants dull ponderous ineffective control is what made this team pedestal. The signing of Raya was the coaches intention statement and since he got on the control singsong all our forwards have painfully drop off in productivity. I would rather a team longing to win and coming short line we did last season to this team inhibited by a fear of losing so great we are almost afraid to step out… Read more »
we play, the oponents fight, thats the difference…
What an absolute shambles… If this is all we have until the end of the season we can kiss goodbye even to the top 4. I’m not even overreacting. We were scraping narrow victories that papered over the cracks in earlier results. We’ve only turned up a few times and really played decently, the rest have been narrow wins. Now its going against us it’s levelling the playing field and we seeing the truth of how average we really are. The front 3 have not been rotated, despite them playing dreadful together. I think the reality is, that if we… Read more »
Half hearted press
Being very kind
Did we just forget to play football or something. It was horrendous today. We spent more time passing back and forth in the middle of the pitch waiting for the right moment, by then 11 fulham players were alrd behind the ball. And this has been happening too often this season.. really poor. Arteta needs to find a way to attack. Really flat and no sense of urgency or crisis at all. Continue like this, even 4th position will be tough to meet comes May.
Our achilles heel has certainly been found out. Villa, Liverpool, West Ham and now Fulham getting goals through allowing width.
Today was terrible though, time and again their wingers were given acres to work in.
Really poor going forward again. We have too many players in poor form and no one to trust in replacement. Need to recharge the batteries after the cup match in the short break that follows.
Willian and iwobi running us off the park. Embarrassing. They should be docked wages for that
Iwobi outsprinted. Martinelli twice,
Congrats to Fulham. They deserved to win. Our play recently is so predictable, slow and stale: Get it to Ödegaard and Saka and hope they do something.
Dissapointing end to the year but we are still in it if we can get our mojo back asap!
Seems like we have bottled the title chase barely half way into the season. Seems were getting very good at the Bottling Job
Ok so the wheels are coming off. No surprise as the team once again looks spent. A bit earlier than the seasons before but now we have CL football so Arteta doesn’t rest key players at all.
Someone needs to sit him down and ask why he doesn’t trust Jorginho, Nelson, ESR… why can’t they play against Fulham or west Ham? This is Artetas team and he needs a wake up call from his boss. Don’t want Arteta gone but he has to be held accountable so we don’t get another late era Wenger situation.
The late Arteta era has already started
Vent vent vent vent vent vent vent vent CUNT CUNT!
First time our players got to have a day off on Christmas Day. Looks like they all had a bit too much pie.
Tactically predictable, static in attack, timid and uninspired everywhere else. That’s all there was today.
Somehow in twelve months we have turned one of most dangerous and blistering pace attacks in the premiership to a slow ponderous sluggish slow coach all at the whim of a coach who wants control. Well control that! Happy new year people.
Bunch o’wankers
Spurs?
Copy paste from the West Ham game, but worse. Just passing the ball around their defense until we lose it. Even Gabriel’s poor clearance onto a teammate was a deja-vu. Hope we can turn this shitty streak around soon.
We’re not winning the league, at least not this season. Maybe the FA, or miraculously the UCL lol.
We’ve regressed since last season, not acceptable
We can’t beat Fulham, how in the world can we expect to beat Bayern or Real Madrid. FA Cup or bust unless we do a major selling in January with huge signings but chances of that are as high as us winning treble now.
At least we had control, right Arteta?
Boring and predictable sadly.
Eddie. I like him but i cant say i like him in the team. Contributes nothing. We need a striker badly if we want to stay top 4.
Well, what is the use of a New Year. I can see us getting spanked by Liverpool 5-0 next week in the FA Cup. Plus subsequently we will loose to Palace, Forest and Liverpool again. At least this time we don’t have to worry about the title anymore. Bottlers…
Did not watch the game but guessing Eddie was completely in effective? Sadly he isn’t a solution up top except for bringing on something new at the end point of a game.
I’d just like to use this occasion to thank Mikel Arteta and the entire squad for throwing away the title nice and early this year rather than waiting for the final quarter of the season before bottling it.
This has saved us fans a great deal of heartache.
Thank you
I rarely agree with your posts but this made me laugh 😂
This was the month defined our title race, we needed to be ahead of city and pool before the end of the year, or level. We are way back and played one more game
A title win was always wishful thinking.
The sad truth is that there is just too much wrong with this squad to be champions this season.
From a second-rate manager who won’t address the glaring faults in the squad, to a lack of quality, heart and grit, to a lack of leadership on and off the pitch, we were never going to overhaul both City and Liverpool.
Last season should have been ours: instead we bottled it. And We are a worse side this season.
We need a new manager now – and some new players.
Enough is enough.
We are too easy to play against. Fulham was better on the day and deserved the three points. It’s pointless to single out poor performances; this is who we are now, and top four might even be beyond us the way Arteta has prepared and set up this very talented squad.
People will start to think I’ve got a vendetta against Trossard.. shite corner again and offered absolutely nothing. Why’s he preferred to smith Rowe in a game where we’re not getting in behind.
Why do we take Havertz off and then decide to start crossing it? Literally the only attacker who’s decent in the air?
If in doubt, the following always applies: because Arteta signed him.
Never mind the fact ESR saved his job playing as a wide forward/#10, he’s now not good enough to play the role Arteta has assigned him, that he’s never looked like playing well.
I hope Arteta is making the “we need a top class striker in January” statement. If not, top 4 possibly.