Good day one all.
Arsenal host Bournemouth at the Emirates Stadium this afternoon on the back of a very busy week, before heading into an international break.
A scrappy draw away at Manchester United on Monday night saw us crept back into top-four, then a brilliant opening 20 minute spell vs Standard Liège in Thursday’s Europa tie, was enough for a comfortable 4-0 victory.
Now one could be forgiven for thinking the ease of the midweek wins would be great momentum going into league games, but it hasn’t quite gone that way has it? You see the ‘cup team’ play with freedom, control games that they can even afford taking their foot of the pedal as games goes on. You see our depth in talent, the potential in this team and it raise our hopes, but then we get to to the Premier League and it’s as if everybody are in their shells as we adapt our play to the strengths of our opposition, including those we are expected to brush aside without much fuss.
That’s the frustration many have with Unai Emery’s methods, because there is good reason to believe this team can go toe-to-toe with any team if he just take the shackles off. But alas.
It’s been tight schedule of late but I don’t think fatigue should be a concern with Emery likely to revert to his regular league starters after giving the young uns and fringe players a Europa run. The injured returnees Bellerín, Tierney and Holding were again impressive, also Mustafi amongst the senior ones. Making good cases for ‘call ups’, but with the short turnaround it may be an unnecessary risk to play them so soon. However, Emery will have much to ponder about during the inter-break.
Bournemouth had a bright start to their season, sitting just one point behind us on the table. They have scored in each of their games played thus far, which should be very encouraging for Eddie Howe, however, having not yet keeping a clean sheet should be a worry as that all too familiar is being asked… what’s going to happen once the goals dry up?
The Cherries are still winless against the Gunners in seven previous meetings. Last season we beat them home and away, with a 5-1 scoreline at the Emirates.
They may fancy breaking their duck today, playing their brand of open and attacking football, which of course will work in our favour and I can already see Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, our resident flat-track bully, looking at their leaky defense sporting the largest grin.
I’m predicting one of those entertaining games where both sides get on the score sheet, with Arsenal coming out on top to move up to third on the table.
This is the first in a nine-game run against teams outside the traditional top-six sides, giving Arsenal an opportunity to string together a run of decent results before the mid-December peak.
Com’on Emery… you know we can do it!
@LaboGoon
Positively Arsenal 
two efforts on target all game for Arsenal, but our head mini bus doesn’t think we need Mesut Ozil, even in our 18 match day squad. Sound right, doesn’t it.
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We are however 3rd. And 1 point off 2nd. So he probably knows what he is doing.
Just hope the football quality increases because it’s been terrible to watch.
Chambers was very good. Bellerin might find it difficult to get in.
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I know the coach sees the players everyday and knows them much better and how they work, but I can’t see how Ozil can be left out of the squad completely.
Especially with Laca out, I would at least play him instead of Saka.
Saka can come on when the defenders are tired of being pulled out of their place by Ozil.
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Unless they have had some argument between them and it’s just not gonna happen.
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something is wrong when we have the attacking talent we had on display today and the best that could be said of any of them is that the “worked hard”, and that our head mini bus is probably delighted with that and very happy for it to remain that way. jose lite
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That 95 minutes spent was liking watching paint dry… except the paint never gets dry.
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an in game comment I seen on twitter sums it up
we need to bring on Tierney to give us a creative spark
what has it come to if our only hope for some creativity is to bring on a Left Back, what does that tell us about the tactical plan of our head mini bus.
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JB
™️
@gunnerpunner
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10m
1 point behind City. 1 point ahead of Palace. Pick your #perspective. Answer is that it’s October, and unless you’re trying to win the league, performances matter way more than points right now.
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Glad we won and are decently positioned in league, with boost to come hopefully from returning 3 defenders.
Also glad Chambers getting a run and doing well (not seen but heard he made key intervention today). Also a plus that youngsters have had reasonable game time so far.
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Apparently another unconvincing performance today, though. When weighing up the day, do feel it needs taking into account if we were denied very strong pen claim. That stuff matters, to say least, in exact same way as in previous era when those things went against us with ridiculous regularity at key points in a game.
2-0, we’d have been in commanding position; 1-0, and it’s obviously tense and nervy. Rivals invariably get their strong claims for instance, and even their weak ones, and they often change games/ results
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Hope we were at least better than Utd by the way. Yet again looking poor first 30 up at Newc.
Surprise surprise surprise not playing with half the manic aggression as against us on Monday.
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‘what we’re hearing from Andre Marriner [VAR], not directly I must add, is not enough force applied for red’
Tyler in commentary just now, 10-30 secs after VAR official looks at incident for potential red. So who are sky/commentators indirectly in communication with to relay direct VAR official comments in that time period?
Certainly not something they’ve disclosed previously in the rare official VAR updates from pgmol
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Jeez Ashley Young is a dirty fuck. Very uneccesary elbow to opponents face just now. Might have spoken too early about Utd not being as dirty. Still a way to go though, not hacking any time within distance in this one
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Well how bloody awful was that. If you can’t make a game against Bournemouth exciting then it’s difficult to think where we will.
The sad fact was football wise they were better than us and at home as well.
Set pieces were our main threat today and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen that.
In a weekend where we have won and the spuds have been spanked I should feel on top of the world and full of adrenaline but actually that performance has left me a bit flat.
Unai seem to take an age to work out we had lost the midfield and the first sub showed he hadn’t worked it out bringing a forward on when we had no supply was pure folly and that was shown by how long it took for him to have a meaningful touch of the ball.
It wasn’t until both Torreira and Willock came on that we got a good chance from open play but unfortunately Auba missed it.
Having said that on first glance I thought the ref was right on both pen shouts but having seen the VAR replays I think they were both pens. Any foul in the area is a pen whether the ball is there or not. How many times have we seen shirt tugs in the area giving as pens when the ball was nowhere near.
Our position is good, our play is not.
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New post is up. sorry
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ian I agree about the penalties, I just had the feeling that both would be given against us if our defenders done those exact same things.
After today’s game I just can’t shake the feeling that we are at the exact same place we were in Emery’s first season, this is so like the 22 game unbeaten run, our finishing is hiding the poor performances, the handbrake play, we are not creating a lot of chances, we look open at the back when any sort of pressure is put on, and the football is by and large boring as fuck. Ozil is being left out as he and Ramsey were last season, we are 46 BPL games into our head mini bus’s era and we have not been 3-0 up in any of those games yet.
we lost 10 and drew 7 last season, so far this we have lost one and drew 3, for me the reason for so many draws are down to Emery’s negative tactics, we are inviting teams to get a foothold in games, we are conceding midfield, this leads to opponents attacking more, having more shots, and does lead to dropped points. I said it last season, and I think nothing has changed, but its the Draws that kill us, we have drew or lost so many games against what we would consider smaller clubs, is the reason why we are not in the CL this season, and if we fail to make top 4 this time around it will be the reason again. And the reason for the draws and loses to lesser sides is how God damn negative our play is. Today we totally dominated the first 45, got the lead, but never looked like getting a second goal, we actually never created a single clear cut chance, and but for a few outstanding last ditch clearances from Chambers and one from Guendouzi we very well might now be talking about dropping points today. Emery is afraid to go for it in the BPL. The odd thing is that he seems far less negative in the EL, or maybe its that the opponents are much further below us than any of these BPL teams, or is it that Emery just thinks they are.
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