Arsenal were left to rue missed chances and a howler of a mistake by Granit Xhaka as Burnley came from behind to secure a 1-1 draw on a frustrating afternoon at Turf Moor.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang put the Gunners ahead on six minutes as we dominated the early stages only for Chris Wood to cancel out the strike when he anticipated Xhaka’s pass across the six-yard box.
Both sides had chances to win the game late on. Leno used his feet to deny Wood a second and tipped over Erik Pieters’ looping volley as the Dutch substitute survived two handball claims in the closing stages; one not given by VAR and the other overturned.
Here’s how the players rated.
Read the Burnley 1-1 Arsenal match report and see the goals here
Burnley 1-1 Arsenal – Player Ratings
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Definitely heard that scream all the way from Sydney. Wonder if they heard me swearing all the way back here with all those missed chances 😭
That was embarrassing from Laca, we are still trying to shake the ‘Arsenal don’t like it up em’ bullshit of the last decade and things like that do not help.
I have to question Arteta’s lineup. Pepe motm last weekend, bench this. Where is the meritocracy? Then woeful substitutions yet again that made the team worse. I can’t remember of the last league game we scored past the hour mark.
Not really. referees always respond to pathetic screams. Laca has simply seen them given against us.
The Odegaard substitution drove me up the wall. Take off the one player linking midfield to attack and spend the next 20 minutes sitting deep and lumping crosses into Lacazette against their statues at the back. Wow, great management.
I don’t care how young and inexperienced you are, that was just an incredibly bad decision.
Thank you!
Yeah but that’s just it…he wasn’t actually effective at linking play…in fact he’s was pretty much invisible for most of the game. Not sold on this dude yet at all.
Can’t believe Arteta is getting so much support. Furious about his decision making and excuses
I don’t think he’s a good manager for what arsenal wants to be, but he’s perfect for where we are, 10th, zero ambitions, average coaching and maintaining status quo.
Yeah the manager money spent in league by teams.
Am surprised I just googled ancelloti salary , 11.6 m Sean dyche , 3.64 m Arteta3.5 , , source goal/ times , Arteta the cheapest .
Wenger was on 8/9m, Emery 6, Arteta 3.5…
Owners as well
We’re 10th in the league and deservedly so. It’s where we belong at the moment. If Arsene or Emery delivered a season like this we’d be howling at the moon. It really says something that most of us are pretty ok with where we are right now and that Arteta has our faith.
And I’m ok with Arteta because I understand this is a process. But it shows how our expectations have changed.
At this rate, we’ll be spending the next decade in mid table. I don’t see us making into top 6 in the foreseeable future with the current owner/executive team/manager/mentality/financial situation.
Yes with the mix of everything you mentioned, I am sure we will hover between 10th to 5th in next 2-3 years. During this time we have to make sure to be as financially prudent as possible and not be wasteful as were in past few years and maybe it is the reason why we are here! So it is better to tone down expectations and back the team to get working. The way Arsenal fans howl, I fear all of us will make sure Arsenal get relegated in next few years! Then we all can enjoy championship.
We’ve definitely been more financially prudent recently, giving a 31yr/old Aubameyang a £300k/week contract, a 32yr/old Willian a £200k/week contract and a 28yr/old Partey a £250k/week contract, with likely no sell-on value for any of them.
Also great that we didn’t sell AMN when he had value as a utility player, instead letting him play midfield for WBA and decreasing his value, not selling Nketiah and not sending Reiss Nelson out of loan.
That scream was pathetic. Ive noticed lately he spends aot of time rolling around at the sightest touch. Past his best needs to be shown the door in the summer
I agree on the Pepe comment. For the life of me why he is not starting this game is beyond me. He’s been out most dangerous threat up front last 4 games he’s played.
Not sure which place is farther but I heard it also in Saigon.
My match report:
Grrrarghhhhhrughhhhhgrrrr.
Thank you for reading.
Meanwhile Emi has his 15th clean sheet of the season. I’m happy he’s doing well. He deserves it. Hope he gets to start in the World Cup for Argentina and backstop a Messi-led team to a deep tournament run.
Irrelevant
Not irrelevant to crazy people who think Leno was at fault for the goal.
There was nothing wrong with the pass to Xhaka. He could’ve (and should’ve) played it first time to the 3 (!) players available out to the right-hand side. Even then, the pass he was trying wasn’t difficult, and if he though it was he could have passed it back to Leno or booted it away.
Good luck living in past and among what-ifs 😀
Long it may last for you!!
screwed by xhaka, screwed by var, nothing new. same sh*it, different day.
So VAR wasn’t good, but seriously the number of games this year against low to mid table sides where we walk away saying “we got screwed by the ref, bar etc.” should tell you a lot about the team. Good teams don’t consistently draw or lose these types of games. The VAR stuff really only matters b/c we have so many games where we can’t capitalize on a lot of very good chances.
This is it. If we’re being honest, we were poor outside the opening and closing 15 minutes or so. Ponderous on the ball and lackadaisical off it.
This is the weirdest year I can remember. If Arteta turns out to be a great manager he can thank his lucky stars he worked under Kroenke as there isn’t another owner alive who wouldn’t have sacked him this fall. The team looks massively better (very low bar) but baring winning the EL, this season has been pretty poor. We’re wildly inconsistent & have difficulties scoring without moments of individual brilliance. You can see enough signs that things might be trending up, but this is a typical midtable team at this point.
It’s a strange one, the Chelsea game arguably saved his job. Definitely signs of improvement, and on that post Chelsea form we’d just about compete for Top 4. But not sure we’d be able maintain that over a season, we’re too inconsistent atm and I’m not sure if that’s just because of personnel or it’s also tactical.
The team does look better but there have been far too many slip ups to mid table teams (Villa/Wolves/today) to make me think that we’d be genuine top 4 contenders over an entire season. I really hope Arteta succeeds if for no other reason than I think we’re going to stick by him regardless, but he’s done a very poor job this year IMO. Over the course of the entire year the team hasn’t been very good.
I think he’s done as good as can be expected getting rid of the dead wood and clearing the decks for his own vision to finally emerge. Judge him end of next season not this one. Still pissed off? Suck it up and blame the fkn chaos of the late Wenger and Emery eras…if you want real change get rid of Kroenke.
Nonsense. Kroenke just lets the club for the most part be self sustaining (clearly put $ in for Partey). So managers now get 2.5 years before we can say if they’re doing a good job?
That’s true loose cannon, the Chelsea game saved Arteta’s job and cost Lampard’s. A different result that day and it might have been us with Touchel now – and I’m undecided whether that’s a good or bad thing.
Haha keep living dream of having experienced manager because 1. They will not come to a rotting place which is being cleaned up 2. There is no money at Arsenal except you want to take out more loans. 3. We do not have top class players.
So unless someone is very desperate, I don’t see any very good experienced managers joining us anytime soon although I do see Arteta starting next season as our manager so don’t groan, back him up till he lasts.
I completely agree, although it means Liverpool aren’t a good team either.
So in Liverpool’s defense, aren’t they on their 7th choice central defender at this point?
Leno passing the ball in his 6 yard box toZhaka with 2 men closing him down was stupid. I spend/waste more time shouting/swearing my head off at Leno than any other player.
Blaming Xhaka is just lazy.
Leno did have a part to play, the difference is Leno is allowed a rare mistake when he makes save after save and has only improved since he arrived. Xhaka has been mediocre since day 1 and the frequency of these mistakes is unacceptable at Arsenal. Ship him off Schalke so he can join Mustafi’s mutiny over there.
Xhaka is top in all 4 divisions – for goal-causing errors: he’s made EIGHT!
That’s eight goals which he has single-handedly given our opponents…
Partey received the ball under a very similar double press – really early in the game, and yet he danced out of trouble (helps that he plays with TWO feet) and then set Willian off on the counter that led to our goal.
That’s the stark contrast between CL level players and mid-table mediocrity – plain for all to see.
Ah, give Xhaka a break. He conceded the goal and got a right-angle rip in his shirt all on the same day. The guy needs a break–and he apologized, by the way.
I have no issue with Xhaka the man. But he simply should NOT be making this club’s first team atm:\
not if we want to seriously regain top 4 status
not if we want to play CL football
not if we want to regain those intangible but wonderful things that, over decade upon decade, have been so hardwon by this club, by so many hundreds of great, good and poor players, so many thousands of fans, freezing through late January nil-nils on the old Highbury terraces.
That move is a pattern of play practiced on the training pitch as a way to beat the press. We’ve done it numerous times sometimes multiple times in a game this season to good effect. Xhaka knows he needs to play that first time but even when he takes a touch he looks up and still hits wood! How do you as a professional player look up to play a ball and still hit the man. Had he not looked up i could understand thr mistake more. 95% xhakas fault.
Yeah, the reason I feel like Xhaka deserves more blame than Leno is that he had an easy out–maybe this was what Leno was thinking–if he simply hit the ball with his right foot right when it was passed to him over to Chambers. But instead he had to do his old routine of pausing, slowly shifting the ball to his left foot, looking around, and then drilling it right into the Burnley man who by that point was right in the way. Ever since he returned from his latest red card he’s been much better than before at moving… Read more »
Oh, puh-lease.
The fault is that we choose to play like that, because these mistakes happens. Hopefully statistics will learn managers that this new form of possesion in your own penalty erea is anti-football, and not very effective. I look forward to that day when they realize this.
By this logic, we would never have scored and Man City would never be gliding above everyone’s head. To put it simply, your logic is flawed and biased.
Creating a dangerous situation with a pass to a deep teammate is one thing.
Creating a situation where the opponent literally scores off a touch from your ball means it’s your fault, period. It wasn’t even some desperate clearance. He took his time to play that pass.
Xhaka looked right at the guy. Giving up a goal that way is shit.
Leno is a great shot stopper but he makes such bizarre decisions regularly. Big big mistake not keeping Martinez.
Not that there’s any way of testing this theorem, but I’d imagine we’d be no better/worse off with Martinez as first choice.
I guess in a way that means it would have been better to keep him, but only if we sold Leno for a similar amount. Martinez is home-grown and presumably on less than Leno (but that might not be true – Aston Villa are financially doped, even though nobody mentions it).
“Xhaka far from Arsenal’s only culprit, even though the scale of his error outweighed the Gunners’ other individual failings.
He has made more errors, eight, leading to goals than any other outfield Premier League player since the start of 2016-17 and few, if any, will have been as glaring as his ill-judged and ill-executed miscue here.”
Enough said.
Has Arteta been made aware of Xhaka’s unwelcome stats or does he refuse to acknowledge it?
He is the only one in time right now who can make forward passes better than others except Partey:
So, being fair to Arteta, he is his main man for CM at this moment (plus Partey), maybe in future it would change but at the moment Xhaka is the best we have.
b-b-b-but everyone needs to get of Xhaka’s back!!! He’s been unfairly treated by ungrateful fans and he’s a star midfielder! He’s just misunderstood! Xhaka is who we thought he was – a mid table player or Bundesliga player. Get the fuck out of our team.
“We live in a land of VAR referrals and bad calls that set in, shat on by referees, shovelled up by Xhaka…”
We pass it around at the back to draw out their players. But when we then move it forward it is so slow the opposition has plenty of time to get back behind the ball……
This is probably the biggest frustration of all. To be fair, it looks as though the coach knows it, all the clips from the training ground are of one touch fast passing.
Arteta out luiz in as player manager for rest of the season.
Luiz is the leader of men this club needs.
??
Kia?
Mrs Luiz?
jimbo aka willian borges
You absolute lunatic! Kinda like your style.
Exactly! And tell him to keep his hair and get his hair twin back!
Xhaka still moving more sideways and back than forward allows oppo defenders time to regroup. He will have good passing stats doing that. Deteriorates when Partey is not alongside him.
We are generally too slow to move forward and it’s costing us every game.
His first instinct is always to go backwards. It’s infuriating especially when we have such talent on the break, yet he dwells on the ball shitting his pants.
I don’t agree because I see a lot of forward passes from him, concerning thing is he takes way too many touches before releasing the ball and hence killing the momentum and he is pressed and ambushed too easily.
Really upset the girlfriend with my response to this one. It’s the hope that kills you. Going to have 0 expectations for Olympiacos and just hope we can buy replacements for Xhaka and Luiz in the summer.
how about prioritising europa league so that we do get cl and hence funds to replace the likes of xhaka
and the only game we should prioritise at this point in the league is spurs cuz bragging rights lol
Seriously, this team and manager are not winning the Europa league not a chance
Agreed. Can’t even rely on the coach and his team to see out a lead till half-time. Happened against Wolves, Benfica, West Ham and freaking Dundalk to name a few.
We might not be the most star-studded team but Arteta has not been the slightest bit convincing
Well good luck with that, I can put a tenner on us being in final and going by the track record of Arteta, I believe we can snatch it. It also says that, sadly we are no more than a cup team since last 4-5 years.
My money would be on both Luiz and Xhaka getting new contracts
I don’t know what Arteta did in his past life to earn this karma, but it must have been some evil dastardly shit.
He earned this karma by starting willian and dropping pepe and laca after a great match against Leicester. Ok, willian played well against Leicester but nobody but Arteta though willian would repeat the feat.
Your ratings are generous for a subpar performance, not even taking into account the mistakes by Leno and Xhaka. Luiz slows everything down, when we need intensity and up the tempo. Arsenal allowed Burnley to take control of the game and forced us to play their game in the 2nd half. So instead of dominating we play as if we winning by 2. Lacazette for Ødegaard replacement wrong, detracted from creativity.
Agree about Luiz, he slows the game down so much. And he won’t even play a good pass after that. Also don’t know why he is starting at all, considering this season the league is a write off I would like to try Mari Gabriel partnership. Let them make mistakes and learn from it. I hope we are not considering giving Luiz an extension.
Is it because they both like to play left side? Worry is that Holding falls behind Luiz even though Rob prefers right side.
There was very little creativity from Odegaard…Jesus can everybody calm down about this guy who is behind ceballos in the Real Madrid pecking order ffs!! He starts Pepe doesn’t…makes fuck all sense to me.
I think a lot of people see what they’re told they see, with a bit of reputation thrown in for good measure. Odegaard and Partey were a yard off the pace and there was absolutely no creativity from Odegaard, both he and Partey gave away a lot of sloppy passes.
Not saying he was amazing, but was he/is he worse than Lacazette as a #10? I thought Laca would go through the middle, with Auba moving left and one of Saka/Willian going central – surely that makes more sense?
How many times? How many frigging times can the same player cost us points with moments of utter stupidity?
I don’t why this is even a debate. Even when he plays well, as of late, in no way does it compensate for all of the points he costs us with stupid actions, stupid red cards, stupid fouls, stupid penalties and just being f$&king stupid. There is no way this club can progress until we rid ourselves of this man, plus Willian, and Arteta if he doesn’t bloody see it.
If we start next season with xhaka and luiz in the team we are going no where.
I had high hopes arteta woud clear out these ageing average players but he isnt the man to do it.
He has already wasted a year of deveoping saliba guendouzi willock martenelli to play luiz xhaka and wilian and where has it got us 10th in the league.
Agreed, and when he makes a less egregious error, as he did against Leicester, his pathetic recovery speed sees them punished far more than other deep midfielders. Tielemans carried the ball faster than Xhaka could sprint back and scored.
I’m not even saying that Tielemans goal should go down as an “individual error” like today’s blunder will, but he’s just a liability.
Leno and Xhaka were decent overall but both get major points deducted for playing like puddings around the back for their goal. As professional footballers what on earth is going through their minds!?
A bit harsh on Leno.
Agreed. He saved our arses from a loss (even if this draw feels like one!) with at least two massive saves, that I can remember. And he does it so, so often, people seem to forget how crucial he is and has been for seasons now.
Hes a good shot stopper but he is very poor on the ball. He is a major reason why we are so poor at playing out from the back. He takes too long and seems unable to play a chipped pass to either fullback. I dont understand why he always plays it to the man in the centre like he did today.
I don’t think so. Right to blame Leno for the xhaka fck up…why he didn’t boot it up the park and avoid putting Xhaka under unnecessary pressure is unfathomable
Hey Blogs,
Just wanted to suggest that you also start rating the manager in this column. At least will help us vent our frustrations on him! What a terrible choice right from his starting 11 (his love for Willian, starting Chambers at RB when we had Hector fit) to his subs ( too late, not giving Pepe who’s is terrific form more game time, not playing Gabi at all, etc.)! These dropped points are in a big part due to poor choices made by our manager!
Chambers was not a bad choice considering the aerial threat of Burnley so I don’t think that was bad.
Yea, I get it you want to drive the Arteta out narrative home..
at one point i think we can reach the european places
next week arsenal crush my hopes with another shot on the foot
hard to think of any team that can play so well and at the same time hit the axe on their own foot whenever they get the chance
regarding var, i don’t think other leagues witness such levels of controversy, english referees suck balls
deja vu all over again
Even the chances of St Totteringham’s Day have been wasted in games we should have won.
On VAR, we were all told using technology would be the saviour from poor decisions but the problem is it still relies on humans (if I dare call refs humans 😃) who interpret in differing ways for whatever reasons. TBF, the sending off handball was a correct decision but the one not given was 💩
Even the chances of St Totteringham’s Day have been wasted in games we should have won.
On VAR, we were all told using technology would be the saviour from poor decisions but the problem is it still relies on humans (if I dare call refs humans 😃) who interpret in differing ways for whatever reasons. TBF, the sending off handball was a correct decision but the one not given was awful.
I though Calum did well in his first start after such a long time, Odegard and Partey looked about a yard off the pace, some good stuff from them but not yet up to speed, Auba was getting into some good positions but the through balls weren’t happening. The pitch was dreadful, by design, which clearly impeded our players and the scrappy, rubbish, head tennis game suited Burnley. We played into their hands by being so slow. The disallowed penalty (the first one) was a stitch up by Kevin Friend. The mix up to gift them a goal was a… Read more »
Agreed – partey looked incisive for the first 10 mins, but then made a couple of sloppy passes and got skinned down our RHS on one occasion by rushing into a tackle he didn’t need to make (hope Granit isn’t rubbing off?)
Am I the only person who is frustrated by Xhaka moving more sideways and back than forward and allowing the opposition to regroup. No wonder his passing stats are good. Luiz also but less so. Thank goodness Kolasanic has gone otherwise we would never go forward.
Xhaka is the absolute personification of this team: Excellent for spells, shit for spells, always has a horrendous error in him, sometimes looks world class, mostly looks average.
Sometimes looks world class? Possibly, but not on a football field.
He never ever ever looks world class. Wash your mouth out.
Might be in the minority here, but I didn’t think Leno was really at fault for there goal. Looking at the replays, Xhaka has enough time to play the ball, but he takes a very poor touch and then plays it blind. Saying that, I’m not pinning the result on him, we were complacent for most of the game and that’s been an issue we’ve had all season.
Spot on. Xhaka had plenty of time to do something with the ball other than clump it across his own box in front of an empty goal.
Yeah he could have spanked it out for a corner or Leno could have thumped it upfield. Either was preferable.
Or just give it back to Leno to clear.
He actually looked up and saw where woods was. He was trying to lift it over woods but he miskicked it because he cant play a pass with his right foot.
Arsenal central midfielders since 1996: Vieira-Fabregas-Cazorla-Xhaka. Guess when our decline started.
How could you leave you the unsung break-up meister… Gilberto!
Wooow I’m shocked at the Saka rating, if we managed a win sureley he was gonna get or provide it, he’s so direct with his pace and one two’s, yet can slide a pinpoint precise pass at full speed also. Just such a good leader of the attack…and to rate your best player on his fouling ability istead of praising the fact he get’s into defensive positions at any point of the game is bewildering to me.
You’re probably unaware that he’s done this to us EIGHT times… eight goals directly handed to opponents through sloppy or stupid or reckless errors. More than any other player in all four divisions… and that includes the part-timer carpet-fitter playing DM for Marine!!!
I dislike Pepe…
when played on the right, it’s too induldging to his habbits and so predictable. Leave Saka on that side every secound he plays!! Don’t care if that means Pepe don’t play
I truly comprehend why Xhaka is the scapegoat here? I appreciate his fuck up and all but when you miss chances like we did you’ve got to admit we had a shitty day all round.
Truly can’t*
No, you got it right the first time.
The problem with us ,we play so slow. Take too many touches on the ball . Almost every pass from Xhaka is back or sideways . Its almost like walking football . We play with energy and tempo for 20 minutes a game and then ask why we didn’t win . THE NEXT WEEK WE DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN .
Agree we are a very boring side to watch this season.
The only mistake leno had was trusting xhaka to not screw up. We have been doing those kind of passes multiple times a game but no one really realized it because they usually went well. The goal is 100% on xhaka.
Arteta keeps starting Willian over Pepe. Pepe offers more in the final third and is more of a goal threat. Yes, Willian is better now but does not justify his place on the line up. We would have been 2 nil up no doubt was it Pepe on the left from the start the way we absolutely controlled the 1st half. Favouratism over quality will kill morale.
Although he did air-kick an absolute tap-in!
tallest dwarf competition
Our best front formation is Pepe on the left, ESR in the middle, Saka on the right…and Auba/Laca leading the line. Easy. Arteta needs to stop the tinkering so much…
We are our own worst enemies.
Xhaka has been good lately but has always got it in him ‘to xhaka’ at any moment
Should have won the game. I’m constantly thinking how haven’t we got a result.
The improvement since Christmas has been good. No doubt we must strengthen in the summer though. We can’t challenge with players like Xhaka, Elneny and over the hill Willian
Pepe for Willian all day every day and twice on Sunday please.
About Xhaka taking too long on the ball, isn’t that our main problem with Arteta? Players are always thinking twice about what to do.
You cannot seriously be that myopic as to blame Arteta for the fact that Xhaka is (a) ponderously slow; (b) absurdly one-footed; (c) recklessly hot-headed?!
He’s done this under Wenger, Emery, Freddy… 8 times with today’s bit of brilliance included.
well arteta keeps picking him. guendouzi torreria willock M.niles, elneny. id rather see any of those next to partey
You lost me at guendouzi…lol
You miss my point. My response was directed at the comment that Xhaka taking too long ‘to think twice’ is somehow Arteta’s fault? That is a patently ridiculous assumption, Xhaka is simply mediocre in a number of areas, speed of movement and thought being arguably the worst.
Does Arteta similarly ‘order’ Partey, ESR, Saka, Odegaard, etc to dwell on the ball?
Whether Xhaka should be picked is another discussion entirely – on that I agree with you (although I’d rather not see Guendouzi in an Arsenal shirt until his finishes puberty).
Partey, Odegaard, ESR, Saka, they all dwell on the ball for long parts of the game. Difference with Xhaka being not only the points you brought up, but that they actually speed up, but in specific moments. Maybe it is not myopia, but your TV that is speeding the game up. For the rest of us who take 90 min for a full match, it’s evident the team thinks too much before taking actions in vast sections of the games. Pay attention to how scarcely players go “one touch”. They either play long or think 3~4 seconds before playing someone.… Read more »
The players are good enough for a lot better, but it is hard to argue with our mid table position.
Can’t believe that we didnt get a penalty but we should have put the game to bed in the first half.
My expectations for this group of players is to high…. its as simple as that.
You’re not alone
Xhaka was a menace today, and not for the first time. But the disappointing thing is the team’s mentality dropped. We showed the correct mentality against Leicester City but today we wilted after the Xhaka cartoon. It’s the inconsistency of our mentality that is causing us to stay at 10th place. There was never much to play for in the Premiership but I still want to use these remaining games to perfect our mentality. We clearly still do not have the level of talent we need but we can improve our reaction to events like today. After Xhaka’s mishap, we… Read more »
3/10 Mikel Arteta
+ Prefer to play his favorite Willian over an in form Pepe
+ 65+ minutes sub
+ Auba and Laca cannot work in the same team, we learn this 2 years ago but not our idiot coach
Enough of this. Xhaka and Luiz out in the summer. I don’t hate them, but I don’t care if they play well for 5 or 10 games in a row, we all know they will ALWAYS end up ruining everything at the worst time.
And please stop this leadership nonsense. Young players can find better examples to look up to.
As Blogs has pointed out before, Luiz and Xhaka shouldn’t be in the same team. They both slow things down far too much…
On Xhaka – “Seemed to struggle with the pitch more than most but did complete 78/94 passes – the most of any Arsenal player.” – who cares if he made 82% of his passes? (not that 82% is great anyway). He gave the ball away cheaply last weekend as well but we won the game so he got away with it. I’m with Thierry Henry on this one. Xhaka should not even be a back up midfielder at a club like Arsenal. We keep talking about his passing accuracy like passing it mostly sideways or to the keeper is going… Read more »
Xaka mistake aside, I think arsenal were pretty slow in the build ups and in interplay. The idea of playing William and odegard to get things ticking didn’t really work, and think that Pepe should have been introduced earlier if he is not a starter course he offers more direct play and he would have been playing against Burnley fullbacks that are not blessed with speed. After Laca came in I was curious how would we set up and thought we’d go with 2 upfront to try make things uncomfortable for Burnley backline trough crosses from the wings but that… Read more »
The way we continue to play (Telegraphed) from the back and around our suicide box pays due dividend. I don’t see many teams do this on a more consistent basis than us besides City of course but then they have assets we don’t. Why do we keep playing in our half so much? We are not going to be scoring in our 6 yard box. More likely someone WILL make a mistake. This is an indictment of the Arteta ‘system’. We have not changed much. Still in 10th when we had a perfect opportunity to push upwards but Arteta a… Read more »
‘How the midfield can progress forward quicker and without recourse to mucking around our box is the main issue. Other teams do it. Why don’t we?’ Your Xhaka-love continues to mystify… the reason we can’t/don’t transition faster is all about Granit – 8/10 balls he receives either get squared or sent backwards. And then there’s his lightening, two-footed speed… You make the comparison with Partey’s misplaced passes – fair enough, But compare also then the moment – just minutes into the game, before he’d even warmed up – when Partey received the ball on the edge of our box with… Read more »
Xhaka should add an “e” to his first name, because all too often it seems as if his head is made of it.
We are what the table says we are, bang average. Accepting that makes watching us much easier.
I kind of struggle to see how this is on Leno. Xhake runs/sprints towards Leno looking for the ball. We’ve seen these lazy passes before further up the pitch. The extra touch is something we’ve also seen before. The stats shown by BT Sport of Xhaka having 8 mistakes leading to goals well above second/third place (5 mistakes). He’s had better games recently and he’s not a terrible player. A good goalkeeper saves you a number of points over a season compared to an average one. Similarly, a midfielder shouldn’t be causing you to lose so many points regardless of… Read more »
it sounded like I was only accusing Xhaka , he is only part of the problem . A lot of our players take too many touchers on the ball and it makes us slow , even boring . we have a lot of good players but an average team . I suspect we will have a bit more intensity against the spuds , well I hope so . But what does that tell us . p.s. Arsenal for life .
A week or so back I described this team as a team of ‘moments‘… seemed like a good idea at the time, but I must say I didn’t realise just how good. This match summed that up completely. The first moment of excellence from Ice-Ice Partey, (and, dare I say it) WIllian’s clever run and lay-off, capped by Auba’s double step-over and finish. Then the moments of sloppy finishing, when we could – and should – have gone 2 or 3 up and killed the game. And then Xhaka… aah, Granit – our undisputed Man of The Moment (with Luis… Read more »
Just a word on Ice-Ice Partey and the standard we will need if we’re to get back to CL football:
compare his calm, deft transformation of their high-press on him on the edge of our box, into a text-book counter-attack that ended in us scoring… with Xhaka’s chaos in the same situation. It should leave no-one in any doubt as to the standards we require to get back to where we belong…
Standards to which Granit – bless his grit and thunder – will never be able to rise.
He’s a mid-table player. We should NOT be a mid-table team.
Partey and Odegaard both made their share of sloppy passes, Partey is by no means blameless when we give the ball away all the time.
Football as a game is a game of as you put it moments so surley any team is a team of moments. what a load of tosh
Glad you agree on the ‘moments’ analogy. But perhaps you missed my point that Arsenal, currently, are a team of wildly inconsistent ones – see-sawing between the sublime and the ridiculous. The underlying point being that it’s not all doom and gloom – at least we have a number of players who’re able to rise to those moments of excellence – rather, it’s simply a question of ironing out the troughs whilst maintaining the crests. And that comes down to individual player’s skills and decision-making… we need to keep that sharp focus on those moments as it allows us to… Read more »
Any team with xhaka and luiz in it is bound to have a number of ohh for fucks sake moments every season.
On that, we agree!
While xhaka made a mistake that was awful, why in the world was willian playing. An assist for Auba then doing his thing. He’s had 2 good matches all season yet played ahead of pepe.
If barca hire arteta for finishing 10th, hopefully arteta will take willian with him.
The most amazing thing about this team is that for some reason I still expect to win a match when playing against a bottom half team. Silly me.
Good to have you back. Much love to you and your family, Blogs.
Surely first choice midfield must be Ceballos and Partey now?
I do think Xhaka is better than given credit for but we can’t sustain his errors.
Xhaka always is an accident waiting to happen
Xhaka was good until his meds started to wear off (almost did the same in the 2nd half: once bitten erm…twice bitten) We can’t be too hard on Saka given he’s still stinging from his first shave but they need to work on his finishing. I thought Chambers was excellent and he completely nullified a potentially tricky customer in McNeil. Odegaard is an old Norse word that is difficult to translate but ‘ineffectual’ is probably the closest fit we have in English. Partay still has a lot to prove to justify that release clause being met. His first half chipped… Read more »
Leno was not at fault for the goal. Arsenal has been trained to play so. Fault is on Xhaka. Period. Arteta’s line up was weird. Leaving out Pepe was criminal.
Just an observation — but it is easy to criticise the manager etc, but if we took our chances, even ignoring the rubbish penalty handball refusal, we shoulda, coulda won comfortably.
Disappointing draw, although I don’t see HOW that Erik Pieters handball was let pass without a penalty.