Hello everyone, how the hell are you?
It’s a big day for supporters, or fans, or whatever the f*ck we are supposed to call ourselves these days, and it could be a good big day. If we beat our North London rivals we would likely find ourselves in 11th place and poised to leap into the top half of the table! Won’t that be a thrill for us all? Of course we have to win first, but we are at home, Spurs are on a bad run and we have won our last two games, so it really shouldn’t be beyond us.
The problem is that we have played 5 league games and we haven’t played a good game or beaten anyone placed above19th in the table. I think we can win, but we will have to play a lot better than we have up until now.
The main problem I see is that to hurt Spurs we have to both control and attack through our midfield, something Arteta seems to have little interest in doing. This in itself begs the question of who Arteta will play in midfield? Xhaka is available again so will he start? I know we have won our last 3 games without him, but Norwich, Burnley and Wimbledon could have been beaten with just about anyone, and realistically none of our midfielders even managed to stand out against such weak opponents. Personally I think it would be madness not to start Granit.
Partey seems to be fit(ish) and as we paid £50m for him I suppose he better start as well. There is an argument to say Sambi has done nothing to suggest he should be dropped, but I think he will make way.
The back 5 I expect is Ramsdale, the Emperor Hirohito, White, Gabriel amd KT. So thats 7 of 11 picked, all we have to do now is pick the front 4. (isn’t this fun?) I believe Aubameyang will play either from the left or through the middle, but he will play. 3 to go. Exciting, isn’t it?
I’m suck here though. I would play Odegaard, Lacazette and Pepe. But there is a decent case for ESR or Saka.
Now you see having listed all those players I’m making myself fell quite confident. I figure that’s the problem with us at the moment, our team play is much worse than the quality of our players. but that can change, and what better game to change it in than this one?
Ok, that’s it, if you want to listen to more of my nonsense give this a watch, and if you would be so kind subscribe to Shotta’s channel.
Enjoy the game. Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
I see a report that Per Mertesacker has got David Seaman in to do some coaching with our u23 and U18 goalies
LikeLike
Smith-Rowe seems to grow in stature with each game and certainly is an exciting talent. It was interesting looking at the team at the weekend.
I realised that we could once again have a few players representing England in the national team and it has been a while since that has happened.
I am enjoying the moment but let’s see if this is sustainable progress.
LikeLike
Team news: An update on Granit Xhaka
Arsenal Media 29 Sep 2021
Granit Xhaka
Further to injuring his right knee during Sunday’s match against Tottenham Hotspur, assessments and scans have confirmed that Granit Xhaka suffered a significant injury to his medial knee ligament.
A specialist consultation took place in London on Tuesday evening which has determined that Granit does not require surgery.
Granit’s recovery and rehabilitation programme will start immediately and we are aiming for him to be back in action in approximately three months.
Everyone at the club will now be supporting and working hard with Granit to get him back on the pitch as soon as possible.
Copyright 2021 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.
LikeLike
Today’s game is difficult to predict as always this season. Brighton have been playing well but Bissouma is a doubt and no one knows how good or bad ARSENAL are because of performances of other teams and indeed what ARSENAL are going to turn up.
Normally we should be confident but I literally have no idea, a win would propel us to dizzy heights but a loss would bring back the doubts about a mid-table finish.
Personally heart says win head says draw interesting whatever COYG.
LikeLike
Enjoyed the latest podcast, thanks.
–
Ignoring the Xhaka at LB madness and the serious mismanagement all over the squad last year it seems arteta’s ideal team is not too different to the one he played in here. Which is interesting. I will still hope that he is more then a Pep clone.
In complete contradiction to the clogging blaggers and plonking podcasters out there with the new defenders and keeper settling in ok and Gabriel hopefully and naturally progressing in his second season then Arteta’s biggest challenge in the months ahead is replacing this key player in midfield (whose contract he recently extended). Good luck to Albert, Niles, Odegaard and the others who will try to make up for Xhaka’s absence.
COYG
LikeLike
Arsenal: Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, White, Gabriel, Tierney, Partey, Lokonga, Saka, Odegaard, Smith Rowe, Aubameyang
Subs: Leno, Holding, Cedric, Pepe, Lacazette, Martinelli, Maitland-Niles, Elneny, Tavares
LikeLike
Brighton: Sanchez, Duffy, Dunk, Burn, Veltman, Gross, Lallana, Cucurella, Trossard, Maupay, Moder
Subs: Steele, Lamptey, Roberts, Mac Allister, March, Richards, Connolly, Locadia, Sarmiento
LikeLike
seemingly heavy rain and strong winds for the game
LikeLike
https://twitter.com/i/status/1444329124584120327
LikeLike
I’m glad Xhaka is not holding back our midfield today
LikeLike
As the pitch has got more soggy Brighton have taken the ascendancy incredible that it is still scoreless tbh
Coming from Italy the emperor struggling in the conditions which is fair enough
Partey giving the ball away falling over and blasting over from forty yards not really making up for Xhaka’s absence so far.
Ehab’s description of how the Gunners and opponents would play holding true so far.
Are Arsenal hanging on for HT?
LikeLike
HT: Brighton 0-0 Arsenal
and we are lucky to be nil, and as long as Partey is the main one shooting it will remain nil
LikeLike
Most of all Ehab’s description of where Auba is at was bang on.
LikeLike
A torrid first half comes to an end. We’ve been under the cosh for the most of that half and lucky not to concede. But we ended the half strongly and unlucky not to score with that Smith Rowe cross which Auba just took his eye off.
Probably Tomiyasus hardest game so far and though combative he has been targeted and lost a number of duels. Ben has also has a jittery time but made an important interception.
Gabriel is developing to be quite the defender though.
Our best player so far is Saka.
Has been bright and positive.
This Brighton team can be got at if we up the tempo and get at them. We just need to get a foothold in the middle of the park and force turnovers or catch them on the break.
They edge the half and we have battled and created a couple of really good chances.
LikeLike
I should say they dominated large spells of the half rather than edged it
LikeLike
Arsenal women have just taken the lead away to aston villa women, kim little with a shot from just inside the area, in off the post
LikeLike
If you offered a point now I’d bite your hand off!
Fingers crossed the Gunners sneak a goal here somehow and Brighton continue to miss the goal!
In these conditions the pitch will get even more soggy passes stuck and legs will get zapped. Substitutions will be needed and will be key.
LikeLike
I’ll take a point in this conditions
Three points will be massive though
LikeLike
Brighton actually play pretty well going forward. But they are aided by an absolutely useless referee when defending. So many fouls not punished. They Duff should easily be on a yellow. Our even sent off for that deliberate and dangerous foul on Ramsdale.
We need to up the pace in attack. Plenty of space of we get past the midfield with a couple of quick passes. Unfortunately we can’t seem to make 2 passes in succession without giving the ball away.
LikeLike
I also think we switch tactics too much.
Sometimes it seems like the players are told to play or from the back. Today Ramsdale has been going long with every kick. Auba cannot hold up a ball to save his life. Brighton seem to be marking in such a way as to encourage Ramsdale to go long and he is falling for it. We need to play it out along the ground. Then again the ref doesn’t seem to want to give any fouls. Better to lose the ball at the half way line than just outside the D I guess. Hehe.
Ridiculous game plan.
LikeLike
This game has zero entertainment value. Most of it down to the shit refereeing.
LikeLike
Anyone else missing Xhaka?
LikeLike
Totally forgettable match.
Brighton will feel hard done by but as poor as we were in midfield we showed some resilience in defence. And a massive save by Ramsdale to claw away the ball kept us in it as the shitty Maupay closed in.
Partey, odegaard and Tomiyasu struggled a lot. Sambi was okay but he often sat too deep.
Auba worked hard but this is not the game for him.
What I hated was dominant and Brighton were in the air and getting the second balls.
How can they easily pass the ball from the back and we couldn’t???
All in all I take the point and Arteta lives to fight another day.
LikeLike
I missed the second half, as a neighbour called in and wanted to go for a walk, it seems I missed nothing of note.
LikeLike
Good point in horrid weather. I umpired a hockey match earlier and felt for the players. Not surprised we looked a bit lightweight in the conditions, given the relative youth of our side. And of course we missed our best midfielder. Personally I’d play Maitland-Niles alongside Partey, but what do I know.
LikeLike
The Arteta “projekt” rolls on with another experiment in not that much, rummaging around collating data on what its like to be mid table ( its bloody exciting)…and the south coast Seaweed come out of it more happy, as are all the other teams in the league as we flounder on. Going to be an exciting post match presser, full of nuggets, Brighton are a top half team and we show grit and determination to grab a plucky point.
Some bs reffing.
Now we can have the exciting international “break”.Stop start.Stop start. Exciting!
Cant wait to have a masochistic moment and watch aftv later and hear what the team should have been doing (yer gotta love hindsight; especially when its being screamed at you-if only them Arsenal players had it and could see what we see in them stands eh, everything would be alright shurley, Im mean thats logical, isnt it?)and that a point is better than no points and its all part of the projekt . I wonder who the scapegoat of the day will be ?
LikeLiked by 1 person
A great point gained, Brighton a much better “Team” than us and certainly better technically and a better footballing side.
Some positives in the fact we were playing a better side away from home in terrible conditions and Aaron didn’t have to make a real save until the 80th minute although Brighton were wasteful.
Again the biggest worry is after all this time of Edu and Mikel’s tenure our best players were academy players Saka and Smith Rowe, where the fuck would we be without them.
LikeLike
paint by numbers football again
LikeLike
I did not see the match so cannot comment on the game, but from what I have seen it was “as you were”.
It simply reinforces my view that the win against the scum was an aberration due to them being even worse than we are.
To give an excuse that Brighton is a “top half team” is laughable.
They at least managed 22 shots, if only 2 on target.
We are back to our usual of 8 shots and 2 on target.
But of course, Partey’s name must be the first on the team sheet. He is so wonderful, isn’t he?
The problem with so many fans is that they see a win and rave about how wonderful we are, when, in truth, it is usually against a much weaker team or one that is having an off day.
Under this management, we are likely to see no improvement, because they are incapable of coaching improvement into our players.
The longer they hang on with Eduteta, the harder it will be to recover.
They held onto Emery too long and it is clear we have still not recovered only regressed.
I dare say many will hate what I am saying but week in and week out, it becomes clearer that there is truth in it.
LikeLike
7 games played, and we are 6pts off top, could be 7 by end of play tomorrow, and we are 9pts off bottom,
we are 4pts off top 4, and 7pts off relegation place,
7 games in and we have scored 5 goals, and conceded 10, we have failed to score in 4 of the 7 games.
LikeLike
Yes, so after 42 games, at the same rate, we will be 36 points off the top, having scored 30 goals and conceded 60, and failed to score in 24 games.
Isn’t statistics wonderful?
Statistics can always be manipulated to support virtually any theory.
LikeLike
jjgsol, our lack of goals is not new, its been the problem under Arteta
LikeLike
Truth be told Brighton though dominant in spells are not that good. They were lucky to escape with a point against palace and if we had managed to pass the ball quicker and more accurately in midfield we have won easily. They press really high and take a huge risk as they have no pace at the back. The few times we bypassed their midfield they were horribly exposed. If Odegaard and Partey were on form it would have been curtains for them. And they don’t have quality upfront to be honest as their finishing was wayward .
Saka and Smith Rowe are going to be superstars and to have them step up from the academy means we can build around them.if we get a few more players stepping up we will have an arsenal DNA running through the team.
Ian Pepe came on and he added some positivity and creativity.played in Smith Rowe with a lovely pass which could have led to a goal.he probably did more in the short time he was on than Odegaard.
Special mention to Sambi he really played well defensively and as I have said before his positioning is superb.i feel he can offer more going forward.
I also think we need to vary our attack especially when pressed high up. I would replaced Tomiyasu with AMN as he was struggling and didn’t offer match going forward. AMN would have exploited the space left on the right hand side as Brighton had four five players pressing high up the pitch.
LikeLike
Aston Villa Women 0, Arsenal 4. Little 2, Iwabuchi, McCabe.
LikeLike
Mikel Arteta said a point was a much as we deserved against Brighton, at a sodden Amex Stadium on Sunday.
Read on for a full transcript of his post-match conference
on the result…
I think it’s a point gained because I don’t think we deserved anything more than that. If we did deserve that point it’s because we defended really well the last 15/20 minutes. But in general we never felt in control of the game, we struggled to break the press and get good sequences of passes in the final third. They made it really tough for us.
on the frustration at failing to break Brighton down…
Yes, because the way they pressed if we had made better decisions with the ball there were bigger spaces to attack and we had a real threat to do that. But we weren’t bright enough to do that and we didn’t show enough quality on those duels to break that press and then become really dangerous in open spaces.
on if we’d been missing a character like Aaron Ramsdale…
I don’t know. The way we decided to recruit Aaron was [after] going through a big process where we wanted to know a lot about his personality, his character, the way he can handle playing under pressure at a big club. He is showing he is ready to do that and I’m really happy with his performances and what he is bringing. That’s one of the reasons I think defensively we have been really difficult to concede goals.
on Ben White and Gabriel…
Yeah [I’m impressed] because they’ve never played together and because they have struggled a little bit with the language and they didn’t have any time to work together in pre-season either. They’re getting a really good connection, good chemistry, and I think their qualities match and complement each other really, really well. I think both of them today were terrific.
on Sambi Lokonga’s performance…
I think he did really well. I think he had one of the best performances from the players on the pitch. He shows a lot of character and all the time good positions. I think his defensive work and understanding is getting better. It was a really difficult game because it was all the time one v one duels all over the pitch and it’s not the game that really suits him the most, but I think under the circumstances, he did really well.
on Bukayo Saka’s injury…
He’s fine. He got a knock but he should be fine.
Copyright 2021 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.
LikeLike
katie mccabe’s wonder goal today
LikeLike
Brighton might not be “good” but under their coach they are better then the Arsenal and we all saw it 18 shots to six is strong score in their favour for Arsenal fans in denial about the decline. they can run but we can’t hide.
If those numbers are not to taste try digesting the following: 8th, 8th, 10th. 50M each on the Ghanian Frimpong and a back up CB for Saliba (who cost 30M). Somebody is taking the berties and is not me!
Hugh Whizzy calls it as it is: if you give Potter or as we’ve been saying even contrasting defensive Benitez or attacking Rodgers this Arsenal squad:
you’d see a big improvement in the football. Simples. It’s not paint by numbers with Mikel it’s more like watching paint dry.
LikeLike
A young Odegaard plays Away in a turgid attacking team like an aged and injured Ozil. And that’s no slur on Martin.
As we saw last season during the Xhaka to LB madness if you take Xhaka out the midfield then there is no midfield!
Nuno’s big error last week, like Shotta haha, was that he did not expect to see Arteta return to this favoured formation and line up after the Norwich and Burnley, but really he had no choice to rely so much on and to play Xhaka if Partey is going to be dropping turds like the stinky one at Brighton.
Oh my god we actually have blaggers and plonking podcasters telling us that the cart horse Thomas for that is how he played yesterday improved Xhaka last season (when he was injured or off form or just not playing!) so let us be fair and kind: by their own words these people know less then nothing about the football!
LikeLike
I did like the changes off the bench though they were too late with Auba not bothering to come out to play after HT. As Ehab says with such a piss poor set up being schooled by Brighton: who can blame Auba!!!
I do prefer ESR at ten and I like to see Pepe on the left over the right in the PL Away games but ESR can’t play there every game and it’s great that there are two players who can play at ten after that horrible forgettable first half of the season last year.
So the pluses are the two Hale End kids, a creative midfielder being signed and a new keeper who as Andy Cole highlights for those still in denial, he’s better then Leno and that late save was class but he’s simply not as good as Martinez! Not when passing it out or when scaring opponents…
As Ehab notes as Shotta highlights with spending figures: this must be the worst run club in the sport.
LikeLike
It is funny though when you think about it.
Partey the player who “improved Xhaka” will be lucky to keep his place in the next game alongside the new signing Albert.
Albert was OK yesterday which is what you’d hope for from the new young rookie player in the league. The less said about Edu’s big expensive midfield signing the better but I suspect Edu & Arteta will be grateful to Nuno for the rest of the season.
How many Pepe’s & Partey’s will it take for the little big blaggers to muster the footballs to call it as it is?
LikeLike
Tfl,
If I am reading your assessment of the game correct you need to take off those red and white tinted glasses. Brighton were technically better than us and murdered our midfield, to say if our players had been better we would of won easily is like saying if we had Arsene and the invincibles we would of won easily.
I’m sure Brighton fans would be saying if we were a little more clinical or had our three best players we would of won easily and they would be right.
The facts are however they were much better than us but are shit in front of goal and yes Pepe started well and did play a lovely ball through to ESR but that was when he was on the left and as the world and his wife seem to have noticed he always looks more dangerous there as soon as he switched back to the right he reverted to losing the ball at every opportunity.
We have now played three teams who didn’t look like they could score if they played all night and while I agree some of that is down to better team defending more of it is down to poor finishing.
If we are honest we are progressing in some areas but also have only played well in the first half against the spuds in seven games.
I think yesterday highlighted that Auba is gone as a first choice player when closing down Eddie will always put enough pressure on defended to either win the ball or make the pass rushed so we win it then. Although Auba looked like he was doing alot of running never put enough pressure on any player to have them worried. The less said about when he rounded the keeper and still let the defender get back to him the better, yes he was offside bit he didn’t know that and he basically fucked up.
Yes we did look like we would get opportunities from the counter but that was because Brighton were going for the win and were pushing further and further forward and taking risks, that won’t be the case in most games so we are going to have to be able to control midfield and look better in attack.
LikeLike
Ian I looked for the rose tinted glasses but couldn’t find the them as I don’t wear one.
The key word in my post is If. If we had done this or done that but obviously we didn’t. And we didn’t play well at all. And if Brighton had taken their chances it would have been different. But they didn’t.
LikeLike
As expected another naive performance from Artetas men. It means win against spurs was a one off. Spurs current form was another reason we won easily.
So are we going to see what happened last year?
ANOTHER 8TH position finish despite spending millions.
Wonder had we spend that much money under Arsene Wenger we would have been top of the league year in year out.
LikeLike
With respect, Rosicky, what have you seen over the 7 league games that would justify a suggestion that we are even good enough for 8th?
The gloss has come off our new right-back, who, so I see was made mincemeat of by the Brighton attack.
How long before Ramsdale makes his first howler and his domination over Leno falls apart?
We spent a lot of money on average players, who do not seem to be capable of taking us any further in respect of the quality of our game.
Please excuse the pun, but I suspect that the “Partey” is over.
Please let us have a new manager before the deterioration becomes irreversible?
LikeLike
A new post is up
LikeLike
Great post George….I had never learned of the word Marmite until I started following Arsenal blog boards
LikeLike