I watched the game from the discomfort of my armchair and believed I had watched a good hard fought sporting encounter between two teams ,although quite a bit below their best, providing a decent game. Little did I know that I should have been booing and cursing at the manager and the players.
I have to admit that I enjoyed it. I don’t think we played anything like our best, but it was a real fight.It was entertaining because it was a contrast of styles. Arsenal had most of the ball and controlled the game on the whole. There was a real lack of quality in the final third though. Sanchez was poor, at best. Its clear why Arsene so quickly gave up om him a a lone central striker. The Ox looked dangerous running with the ball , but ultimately the runs led to nothing. Of the three strikers I thought Theo looked most likely to make a breakthrough. In fact I felt Theo did himself a few favours overall.
Santi seems to be at his creative best when playing deeper and was not anywhere near his magic best in the number 10 role.
However, the back four ,and Cech, all had solid games with Le Coq and Xhaka doing a fine job and anchoring and controlling the midfield
So in summary, back good, front bad.
If I was being balanced I would say Francis should have been dismissed and Hector was lucky not to give away a penalty. But there were enough occasions when Mark didn’t book LCFC players when he could have, and there is an argument to say their player deliberately stuck out a leg (Vardy like). So bollocks to being balanced.
I saw enough from Holding to think he is the bargain of the summer. Or perhaps the ElNeny of this window, if you like?
So that’s about it. I think a draw was a fair result, and I am happy enough with it.
Sorry it’s me this morning instead of the usual treat of Andy Nic. Hopefully everyone will be back to full fitness next week and our stars will return refreshed .
Positively Arsenal 
Do we think Akpom could play upfront, especially seeing that some are not ready. The young man scored a lot in pre season and always looks dangerous. I like him a lot.
LikeLike
well it seems joel campbell got out while he could
LikeLike
I like to think so Paul.
I imagine he’s in the league cup squad with a view to loan in the second half of the season depending upon what happens with Campbell, Gnabry etc.
LikeLike
now that giroud is back it puts akpom down the pecking order, and if we do manage to bring in a new striker, i’d say chuba will be sent out on loan for the season, we might wait till end of january if danny is back or close to being back.
LikeLike
CAMPBELL JOINS SPORTING LISBON ON LOAN
Joel Campbell willl join Portuguese Primeira Liga side Sporting Lisbon on a season-long loan.
The 24-year-old scored four times in 30 first-team appearences last year, having joined the club in 2011 and enjoying previous loan spells at Lorient, Real Betis, Olympiacos and Villarreal.
The forward will be hoping he can help the Portugese side win the Primeira after their second-placed finish last year and gain further Champions League experience.
Everyone at Arsenal wishes Joel a successful season in Portugal.
The move is subject to international clearance and formal ratification.
Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160821/campbell-joins-sporting-clube-on-loan#uSDWSkpxiUrAuOBl.99
LikeLike
cue fake outrage from the malcontents over the loan of Campbell. For them his 4 goals and one great assist in the cl means he was far better than theo and his 9 goals.
for me the emergence of iwobi, and the return to fitness of ox and jack means he was very unlikely to get much game time this season, the only surprise is that its a loan and not a sale
LikeLike
‘HOLDING HAD AN OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE’
By Lloyd Webb
Arsène Wenger says Rob Holding had an “outstanding performance” against Leicester City’s talented attackers on Saturday.
The young defender made his second Premier League appearance against the Foxes, and Wenger is impressed with how his signing has acclimatised to the top flight.
“I think he did remarkably well against top-class strikers today,” he told Arsenal Player. “For me he had an outstanding performance.
“He’s 20 years old, he’s English and it’s a great reason to be happy. As long as players don’t cost a huge amount of money, people don’t give them any qualities.
“We have to be stronger than that and just acknowledge how good he is. Koscielny added to our stability today and I’m very pleased with that. We still have to look around to strengthen our squad. Overall that’s what we tried to do.
“We still lack a little bit of decisiveness in the final third but overall it’s still a positive game. We have shown that we can respond under pressure which will be a very important quality this season.”
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160820/-holding-had-an-outstanding-performance#KM2086hOw8YS32oE.99
LikeLike
it’ll be fun when we sign Mustafi this week, and Holding keeps his place for the Watford game.
LikeLike
Good luck to Campbell. I always remind myself of his brilliant he was in the last World Cup. A real talent.
I hope Akpom stays and at the very least get a run in the league cup as you say Finsbury. I think he offers us something none of our other strikers have. He knows how to work close to the goal, a real goal poacher. He just knows how to be in the right place at the right time.
LikeLiked by 4 people
As far as the second pen shout. If you fling your foot in front of someone you have created the contact. Or I could simply be biased.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Get German Football @GGFN_ 3h3 hours ago
Shkodran Mustafi has been included in the Valencia squad for tomorrow’s LaLiga fixture against Las Palmas
LikeLike
I think Chuba was unlucky that Iwobi and Ransey had those knocks (hacks in Ramsey’s case) that meant there was only one sub left.
Happy to guess that given Sanchez’s even greater lack of fitness last week (he really was struggling second half) that he’d have been thrown in for the final ten at least against Liverpool and my own instinct was that the extra energy would’ve made some difference at that moment.
LikeLike
< That was a chance for Chuba to pick up minutes in the PL at CF. Will be harder now that the Euro crew have returned.
Is he good enough or advanced enough that like Chambers he now needs just a sequence or even a season playing regularly to take the next step up? I don't know but Steve Bruce though highly of Akpom and that Hull squad were not exactly rubbish, as all can now see. Understandably as they were pushing for promotion the loanee had to take a back seat to the decent senior players in that squad. So sometimes even a good loan is not good enough, unless you have Slurgus' sly influence with the likes of Poolis and other sycophants or worse.
Safe bet to say Chuba will be in the league cup squad.
LikeLike
When Brucie bought through Welbeck at Sunderland he had less good forward then he did at Hull?
Ah Welbeck, few young English players get the chance or have the skill to make their mark on the PL at that young age, no wonder he is England’s leading striker when fit* (albeit Sturridge is the better finisher, he’s suffered from poor management and even bigger fitness woes then poor Welbeck)
*oif you won’t tell Greg Dyke and his chummy chums neither will I!
Mum’s the word. Harry Blessed Kane and all that. Why ruin a good joke?
LikeLike
since rvp last played for us we have found Giroud, Podolski, Welbeck, Aelxis, but that does not sound as good as we have not found a striker since rvp left.
LikeLike
can anyone tell me if their is a second Joel Campbell at Arsenal, cos the one being described all across arsenal blog world and social media is not the one I watched last season. The blog/twitter one, is a cross between Mahrez, Alexis, agureo and has a bit of parlour in him too, he is a workhorse, with incredible speed, shit load of goals, and masses of assists, he has the speed of Henry, the guile and vision of Bergkamp, the tackles of Vieira, and the goals of Pires.
now it might just be me, but I suspect that some are slightly exaggerating his ability, so as to have a dig at the manager, the club, and certain players. I was told by one such fan that Wenger wanted rid of JC cos he works hard and play well and this shows up other players.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Joel was a very likeable guy and a good squad player, but would he be good enough for Arsenal is were serious about titles or Europe?
You could say similar about a few other English players in the squad too.
LikeLike
Bilic has picked Nordtveit in the position of D**M.
Not much he could do about the error from his CBs that just gave Ibe a big chance.
Not sure if that huge gap between the crowd that great, cons of having an Olympic stadium I suppose.
Bournemouth playing the better football so far? I might possibly be biased but I think they need to get Afobe on.
LikeLike
what fins, afobe not good enough for afcb, don’t tell the malcontents, they think he is another TH14
LikeLike
a serious question guys,
it has been done to death, the whole Arsenal need a world class striker (how ever you dress it up, world class, top quality, lethal, 30 goals a season etc etc), so even if we go only as far as saying we need a striker who is clearly better than Giroud, or even goal scoring forwards, so this begs the question,
who is on your list of strikers/forwards that are clearly better than what we have
for the record here is my list
Lewandowski
Aubameyang
Suarez
Aguero
Messi
Ronaldo
Neymar
Bale
Griezmann
LikeLike
also on the topic of top quality strikers/forwards, is there any young player breaking through out there that you have seen that stand out and look like they could be top quality soon enough, say like how Suarez did when at Ajax, or Lewandoski at Dortmund, or Aubameyang at St Etienne or even Alexis at Udinese. Someone we could take an expensive punt on. Is Lacazette that guy, I’m not sure, but there does seem to be a shortage of even top young potential attacking wise out there
LikeLike
anyone see the story earlier in the week that Big Fat Sam want to bring in one of Arsenal’s fitness coaches to the England set up. Takahiro Yamamoto who worked with sam at Bolton and West Ham and also worked with the Italian World Cup squad in 2014, the Welsh FA and club sides Roma, Parma and Bologna in Italy. He is a strength and conditioning coach.
Isn’t it odd that Arsenal have guys like him and Shad Forsythe, in charge of our players fitness regime, yet the twitteratti think they know more.
LikeLike
Mathieu Flamini and Emmanuel Adebayor are set to join Turkish side Caykur Rizespor according to the club. Flamini wanted a 3 year contract but they turned it down, and have offered him a shorter deal.
LikeLike
Guillem Balague claiming that the only way AFC will sign Mustafi is if we pay his release clause of €50m(£43M), that Valencia don’t want to sell, and he will play for them in their league opening game tomorrow.
LikeLike
Good – tell Ballbag to fuck off and take Mustafi with him Zzzzzz
LikeLiked by 1 person
well going on ballbags record, its nailed on afc will sign mustafi for about £20M
LikeLike
I see the irish olympic ticket scandal has taken another twist with the brazil authorities taking the passports of a whole host of the irish officials, and looking to take the passports of a few more, including John Delaney one of the head men of the Football Association of Ireland
I know the parents of one of the Irish Olympic team, and they went out to see their son compete, and could not get tickets from the OCI to actually see their son’s event, thankfully for them the family of another competitor was able to get them tickets. Many of the OCI’s board had no trouble getting tickets for all their family members, for any event they wished to go to. usual bullshit from those at the very top of these big sporting associations, corrupt to the last. I really hope the Brazil authorities get to the truth, and if any wrong doing is proved, that those involved get the maximum punishment
LikeLiked by 1 person
jeez, Wenger has revealed that Koscielny almost didn’t play v lcfc, as he pulled out of training on Friday with a back injury, and the decision to play him was only taken on Saturday, and that is why bielik traveled with the squad, as he would have been a sub and chambers in the team if kos had not recovered enough to play.
I’m sure this will be another bat to beat wenger with
LikeLike
Eduardo…going back to your cf debate,
I think you should add higuain cavani dybala and di maria to ur striker/forward list. Many might not say dybala but he looks top quality already.
In terms of young talents with promise, I think Milik who just signed for napoli looks like he could be top quality in a few years, especially as understudy to lewandowski in the polish national team. I also think morata could grow in to a worldclass player in a few years. I personally don’t rate lacazette that highly, he could become world class but he seems to score a lot of penalties and tap ins, as well as playing in a relatively easy league. I would rather not sign a striker than sign him just because we couldn’t get other targets.
If draxler could convert to a cf he could be incredible, not that much of a goal scoring record but he has the pace height and technical ability to be able to do it very well and he’s only 22. Germany need a striker aswell. Obviously Lukaku could be the next drogba but he could just as easily be the next benteke or balotelli, wasn’t very impressive in the euros.
Icardi, i’m really not sure about he could go either way. Similar to lacazette in the way he plays and similar physically but he’s a few years younger and generally plays against harder defenders in italy so i’d prefer to sign him than lacazette were we to sign a striker.
In terms of this window though I would actually only want wenger to bring in a striker if he were one of the elite list or someone like morata who looks very promising, I would prefer we use giroud who could have his best season yet at arsenal and wait til next summer to sign an elite player or a new star who emerges during the season.
LikeLike