@LaboGoon and Season’s greetings one and all.
Arsenal is travelling to the South Coast this afternoon to take on Brighton & Hove Albion at the AMEX Stadium; a win would lift us into top-four to add a bit of pressure on Chelsea going into their game vs Watford directly following ours.
If the Gunners think they had it tough last time we were on the road, a 3-2 defeat at St Mary’s, also down at the south coast, the Seagulls are the definitive “difficult to play against” side at their home, of the teams outside top-six; something we know all too well about being beaten there 2-1 last season. Chris Hughton’s team is usually well-organised and play from a strong defensive base; 26 goals conceded, two more than us, this campaign into their second season in the top flight is impressive.
They aren’t without issues though and comes into this fixture following three straight defeats, but despite that it’s hard to imagine them being dragged into the relegation battle, so there’s little Chris would need to change about their style. With 6 out of 24 defeats since last season and 13 of their 20 PL goals this campaign at the Amex… the Seagulls is now a pucker middle-class Premier League outfit.
The manner of our win against Burnley was important for Unai Emery and the boys; Özil’s vision for the opener, giving the Clarets as good as we got in the physical challenges and putting the game to bed just as it look like they were putting out all the stops ensured that our players’ confidence and ability weren’t questioned following the back to back defeats.
Our most recent league games against Huddersfield, Southampton and Burnley reminded Unai that there’s no easy games, ergo nothing should be taken for granted. With our next fixture an expected high intensity one against Liverpool in three days the make up of the team will be interesting; ie to rotate or not to rotate, or to just go in with a strong XI to give yourself the best chance of winning and build momentum leading up to the trip up north. Ooh to be Emery.
Chris Hughton’s main concern though will just be whether his team should venture out and attack, or if they should sit in their own half to absorb pressure and rely on counterattacks.
So hard knowing where Premier League managers’ mind are at these modern times.
What we do know is that the Seagulls have one or two attackers that can cause defenders numerous problems, are extremely disciplined and far from comfortable to play against in front of their own fans; and for that reason we will need to match their resilience and take our chances. Today certainly is going to be a different test and I suspect a close encounter to be on the cards.
Positively Arsenal 
Iwobi on for Ozil who never got into this game
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So, that yellow red card there, Taylor is sooo bent.
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slow sterile possession
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we are so open at the back, why is Torreira playing so high up the pitch
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Midfield struggling.
Best British midfielder kicking his heels on the bench. Not exactly an Alexis character.
Somethiing about that equation doesn’t add up.
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lol Glen getting the Harry treatment from Papa
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COYG
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Ramsey on Lacazette off, I’d have taken off Guendouzi
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we’ve had loads of corners today and not come within an asses roar of getting on the end of one of them.
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This is not the Arsenal I enjoy watching……
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My God we’ve been poor today
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Maitland-Niles on for Koscielny with about 20 minutes to go
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we’ve gone 3 at the back, Lichtsteiner, Sokratis, Xhaka
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AMN should have done better there
Lichsteiner gone down holding his leg, I do wonder when will we get caught out using up all 3 subs so early in games
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PEA with a heavy touch there when a chance looked to on
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10 minutes to pull this out of the fire, but little to suggest we will
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we pass backwards more often than a rugby team
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Pokes out lower lip
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Well at least we know now that Emery hasn’t a clue.
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FT: Brighton 1-1 Arsenal
a poor display, after taking the lead, gave away the softest of goals too, open at the back, sterile in possession and really the draws are killing us, we have now had 5 draws in our last 10 BPL games, plus a defeat, its is awful form and is the reason we are only hanging in there in the race for top 4 and not challenge for a much higher spot.
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Wasteful, self inflicted and poor on a day when we really needed something.
Basic errors and lacking creativity
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Controlled large parts of that game – not enough killer instinct. Best keep the boys on short rations this week – get them hungry for Anfield.
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it seems Torreira may have got booked today, commentator said it was Kolasinac, but many sites saying it was Torreira, if he did then he misses the LFC game on Saturday.
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I thought there was one defensive error and even that was of dubious origin. That was about 3-4 better than usual. Good 70 from Kosc. Nice cameo from AMN. Leno had nothing to do today.
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anicol having possession for large parts of the game is not really the same as controlling the game, it was sterile possession, we created very few chances, did we have one at all in the second half, can only think of two in the first half, our goal and the PEA chance, seemed to me that Brighton had far more chances with their limited possession.
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Certainly not enough chances – as I say lack of killer ie goalscoring instinct all over the field. Did we have one long range shot on or off target today ?
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the draws are killing us, 5 draws in our last 10 BPL games, 3 clean sheets in the 19 games, only failed to score once, and not kept an away clean sheet. Only led at half time once.
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Absolute crap…..
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Terrific decision to take off Ozil. Not as if he has the ability to spot a pass and make a difference. Likewise Lacazette and his goal threat. And to not start Ramsey is plain daft. We seem to have settled for mediocrity.
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Hmmm. Always distrustful of my feelings in a game, especially when guzzling booze, but didn’t enjoy that one from about 25 mins on in first half.
Good start, and all seemed set fair to keep going, then…pllllp, died away as threat a while before they scored, and it never got good again for me.
Is it some lesson in how an injury hit defence can upset rest of team, or…I don’t know?
You just hope we have some huge plans if there’s the possibility of Ozil not being far behind Ramsey out the exit door!!
I like all of Xhaka, Torreira and Gunedouzi a lot, ditto Auba and Laca, but there are surely missing links about how to make it all work well.
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Be honest, maybe it adds to the not good feeling somewhat that Liverpool and Spurs flying, Utd suddenly feeling too close for comfort…
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You’re right Tim – Alex Iwobi had as much impact after half time as Ozil did in the first half. None. Emery should have given both of them the day off. Surprised Laca was replaced by Ramsey although when AMN we had a bit more spring going forward.
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Rich I’m not sure what Guendouzi actually adds, lots of running about, but he is not adding either goals or assists, and passes sideways and backways a bit too much for my liking, when Elneny was doing the same we were told he was not good enough, but this lad is a fans favorite so its all right.
How Ramsey is not getting in our starting 11 I really don’t know.
I’m also not sure what Nketiah has to do to get some game time, it certainly seems like Emery don’t rate him.
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“Injury hit defence” Rich ? I thought that was a good defensive performance compared to plenty I’ve seen. I can’t see Mustafi or Hector would have made any difference.
We let in a goal from a breakaway – Leno’s Only other serious save when the ball was kicked out of his hands.
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Right then Watford – roll the dice.
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It is an injury hit defence, isn’t it? Holding, Mustafi, Bellerin, Monreal all out.
General terms, always feel older defenders- kos, Lichtsteiner- much happier if team tend to play deep with good midfield screen; and that if you’re going to push full backs on, you really want two excellent athletes who gobble up ground easily at centre back.
I’ve no idea what part it played in our performance today, but maybe the few alarming moments when they got in at us easily 1st half- goal and another moment when Kos had to run to try cover Kola- got in our head and affected midfield play.
Feck knows. It wasn’t good, but nor was last year’s game there and plenty others on the road.
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Emery says he interested in salaries, but seems Ozil has much less margin for error than other players, with Lacca a fairly close second in those stakes, unless there is some reason they were hooked we don’t know about. Guess managers do have their favourites.
Annoying we have let teams overtake us but that is life I guess, we had it good but in the league at least have had a relatively poor two and a half seasons. But Liverpool can spend what we cannot, and Spurs will lose their manager this summer, and while not wishing such terrible things, surely both are due to sort of injury crisis we tend to endure, at some stage?
I cannot cite anything other than guesswork, but suspect Unai might not advertise the fact but is going to take us in quite a different direction than the Wengerball we are used to, there is a new manager and regime in town now, and if he is doing that, it will take time, as it did with Klopp, Poch and even Pep with all his money, as he replaces the sublimely skilled for another style of players out there, who may well be talented, athletic, hard working, can be drilled, a bit direct and maybe just a little nasty compared to what we have seen in the last decade.
This year was never going to be easy I guess, doesn’t make some performances any less frustrating though.
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the affect the loss of Bellerin most likely had on our performance was what he brings to our attacking options, Lichtsteiner for me brings nothing at all going forward.
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Garbage absolutely garbage. At Southampton we made three huge errors but the performance over the 90 minutes was good, today on the other hand was good for about 15 minutes then absolute dross. Unai playing both Xhaka and Torreira higher and leaving just Matteo the front of the back four squashing the space for both Mezut and Laca in the process
Time and again the CBs were left to try and find the killer ball from the back totally wasting our flair players.
Movement was poor today and that in turn was partially the reason for the amount of backward passes but also fear of losing the ball further up the park. The result was durge and I am left wondering how anyone who criticized Arsene could possibly defend today’s performance even the goal was a collective nightmare. The ball forward not closed down Stephan’s misshead, Leno (who is in the team for his ability as a sweeper keeper) mistiming his run and then Matteo the only midfielder chasing back in a game they were supposed to be thinking about taking a greater defensive responsibility, that was downright lazy.
It is difficult to comment of the refs poor performance when ours was worse. I know I am disspondent straight after such rubbish but it is difficult to see how we could possibly get anything at anfield and at this point in time get in the the top four but fortunately football is a funny old game and things can change, at the moment it can’t come quickly enough.
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Can anybody ask the arsebloggers and Le moaners when are they starting the Emery out campaign?
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I think our best chance of the top four is rivals having the amount of injuries to key players that we get, and that doesn’t seem to happen, for whatever reason, though I suspect persistent fouling and lack of protection for our players.
But until we improve on the basics of defending, or at least get a regular set of defenders out there, we will often face uphill battles, and uphill battles sap more strength and stamina, than say going into half time with a three goal lead.
Unfortunately, this is going to be a season of serious transition for us, as will the next for our universally loved rivals who we recently beat 4-2.
Not sure we will really see what emery can do until he has more of his own choice of players, no matter how much we may rate some in the squad.
Almost as if he made some substitutions out of fear of losing this game, if so, not only is that worrying, it suggests a lack of trust in his squad
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from football.london
Emery on what went wrong
I think the key today was the first 45 minutes. We controlled the match like we want, we scored and had two good chances from Aubameyang to get the second – but their keeper saved.
But then they equalised. From then, it gave us the second half to try again to control the match, create chances and be able to win – but we didn’t do that. We didn’t create a lot.
On why his changes didn’t work
Tactically some matches I did that. I wanted to control better the positioning on the pitch, but in the second half we couldn’t do our ideas on the pitch to impose.
We created less chances in the second half.
Emery on whether he regretted taking off Ozil
No. It was only tactically. We did before, in other matches also change the idea from the first half with other players. And today I did it with Mesut, that is only tactically, not another problem.
Emery on kicking a water bottle into the Brighton fans
I said to them apologies because I kick the bottle after a disappointing action for us in the last minutes. It wasn’t hard, but it touched one supporter for them. I said to them I’m sorry.
On another mistake costing a goal
It’s football. We are in our process. We are improving. It’s a difficult moment for us because we have some injuries, but I want also to look at other players playing in the big games like today, Saturday another match in Liverpool.
On team news for Liverpool
Saturday is another match. We will recover the players, we are going to look at how Koscielny is and if Mustafi is OK. While we are close to top four, I can have big motivation.
Today for me was very important. It was a very important three points, but football is like that and in 90 minutes we draw.
On why he took Lacazette off
I think Aaron Ramsey deserved to play. He deserved to take the responsibility because he wants to help us.
I think Aaron played a good match today in this moment.
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well ian the odd thing is that probably our best performances have come v the top sides, we lost to city, but didn’t play badly, we actually played very well in our defeat at CFC, really should have won, but an Emery trait did show itself for the first time in that game, he went all conservative in the second half, we were very good v Liverpool, and spurs, and were good at utd, but having said how well we did play, we only beat spurs, drew with utd and pool and lost to city and cfc.
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If we are going to play 4-3-3, I do not understand why Ramsey is not one of the midfield 3. This match was crying out for the kind of movement he offers from the center of the park.
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Can only conclude Ramsey is off in Jan?
If Ozil really is being edged out, and I am not saying he is btw, then it’s bye bye Wengerball. But is it even emery who decides who stays, leaves or is bought any more?
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well Mandy I can only see Ramsey going in January if its a swap with PSG for Rabiot, as Rambo would be mad to forgo the Bosman bonus waiting a few months would get him.
I see many saying this evening that we should not complain about results till Emery has another two or more transfer windows, you know he needs 6 or 7 if not more of “his own” players in before we can judge, but that seems to be overlooking that if we bring in 6 or 7 say by next summer, we will also be losing the likes of Ramsey, Welbeck, Lichtsteiner, Cech, Monreal and more, also we would be looking at several of the squad being the wrong side of 30 and not far away from needing to be replaced too, after the clear out last season, we really will have to find a lot of gems in the transfer window if we are to actually improve in any meaningful way
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so just the two more games till we can sign new players,
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I think our best chance of making top 4 is when we are dominating the game stick at least two goals past the opposition Mandy. Saves all the bollocks about grinding out a 1-0 win. That is so 1991.
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Or two games until Arsenal can sell any who fancy a “new challenge”.
No idea what the transfer window holds. My guess is very, very quiet for every PL club. Not a time for spending.
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chelsea win so we are now 2pts off 4th
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