Hello all.
On the latest podcast the aging trio prostrate themselves at the alter of Arteta and beg the forgiveness of him and the heroes that never doubted his magnificence, following a decent result and performance against the mighty West Ham. Are you having that?
Oh and we briefly look at the smashing we are about to give to Leeds.
Pedantic George
Positively Arsenal 
Mikel has to take some credit for the best performance of the season in fact the performance of maybe his whole tenure.
But before we get carried away we have to ask how long it has taken him to drop Auba and Pepe our two most under performing players and trust the young players we didn’t buy.
Our place in the league and the performances are very fragile, the toffees proved that. We are stuck between the youngsters getting right and trusting a set up in Mikel, Edu and Vinai that have got so many things wrong in the past and could quite easily get wrong again.
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You’re nitpicking, ianspace. Arteta has had a few “best performances” at Leicester, against Spurs, Southampton, Chelsea and Liverpool in the FA cup and shield, respectively and in that Old Trafford win last season. You guys just keep raising the bar, that’s all.
No one is getting carried away. No sane manager drops his most expensive player(s) because of loss of form only. You give opportunities and keep trying till they show that it is an irredeemable situation before you act. I’d give Arteta credit for even doing so; it’s not as if we’ve not seen a bit of what Pepe can produce (as he did towards the end of last season). Auba was only dropped for disciplinary reasons; otherwise, he has worked hard for the team despite not scoring enough and missing a few sitters (form issues). Very few managers would boldly deal with a player of that caliber that way.
You should just give credit and move on.
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I also thought that West Ham were poor, theyre in some terrible form,of course they had a load of players out on top of the bad psychology theyre carrying, but Im not sure how we could have coped against the Irons that beat Livercrutches? But all spec is a waste of time, and a bet in the dark.And won we did.
The league table is a bit of a red herring too, what the teams with games in hand etc. Often we see ourselves helped by other team poor performances? One thing that worried me was seemingly being dominant, not all the time but a lot, but then heading into the last ten only 1-0 up, and WH are the sort of team that could have pulled off a draw. The second was a mighty relief.
Anyway, fork it, glad we won, and we did some great pressure work and often winning the ball high up in the pitch which seemed to make West Ham get even more dreamy as if they were transfixed by the allure of Christmas pud.
Talking of Everton, I was looking at some drone footage looking at the building site of their new ground, if thats yer bag it was pretty interesting.
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Some of those “best performances” we played well in patches and including Southampton in there is laughable it sounds like you are commenting on the result and not the performance.
Pepe has never played a full 90 minutes well for us and saying that Auba has been dropped for only disciplinary reasons is a real I see no ships moment.
I understand fans.want to believe the best for their team but you have to look with a bit of reality remember Everton was not that long ago.
I really enjoyed the win against West Ham and describing it as our best performance in ages is hardly nit picking.
I believe we will beat Leeds comfortably today but does that mean I think we will come fourth of course not.
Reality is not something we should just ignore.
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You stated it was “the best performance of his whole tenure”. That’s what I reacted to.
The fact you don’t find even one point to agree with me on confirms it is just nitpicking. Southampton was a good performance, other than the first 15 minutes, or thereabouts. We completely dominated them scoring one of the best team goals you’d have seen this season. But, it’s okay if you don’t feel 3 goals and a clean sheet is a good performance.
Pepe is not living up to expectations, I agree; probably something to do with his hefty fee and wages he’s come on. But, you need to refer to Pepe’s games leading to the end of the season 2020/21. He was scoring, giving assists and was generally being a menace to defences. I’d like to see what he has to add after the AFCON before we make a decision on him.
If you “understand” fans just want to believe the best for their teams, why don’t you, if you are a fan? Trying to degrade the players’ efforts under the guise of being realistic Is a bit plastic.
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We are the only game in town!!!
What a chance to pick three points with Leeds unfortunately decimated by injuries.
Let’s hope it’s not the case of the plucky under dogs giving us the proverbial up the arse!
Arteta seems to have settled on his team but I hope we get the opportunity to give players like Pepe a chance to play themselves into form.
Glad to see Tierney back and solid.
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Arsenal: Ramsdale, Tierney, Tomiyasu, White, Gabriel, Xhaka, Partey, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Lacazette.
Subs: Leno, Chambers, Tavares, Cedric, Holding, Elneny, Pepe, Smith Rowe, Nketiah.
Leeds: Meslier, Ayling, Drameh, Koch, Forshaw, Dallas, Harrison, Klich, Raphinha, Gelhardt, Roberts.
Subs: Klaesson, Bate, Greenwood, McCarron, Jenkins, Moore, Kenneh, Gray, Summerville.
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Albert Sambi Lokonga has tested positive for Covid and misses Arsenal’s clash against Leeds
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any stream for the game
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The Arsenal babes do it again!
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1-0 to the Arsenal, Martinelli with a powerful first time drive beyond the keeper from just inside the area
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get fkn in there! COYG!
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2-0 to the Arsenal, Martinelli again, with a neat finish from a Xhaka through ball after Xhaka intercepted near the half way line
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Martinelli’s second goal was Arsenal’s 7000th ever goal.
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Xhaka running that midfield for both teams in this half and Saka simply amazing
I agree with Ian that the west Ham game was probably the best performance of Arteta’s tenure not least as it came soon after the two late defeats in the two important Away games
This contest against depleted opponents could be an opportunity to boost the GD.
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3-0 to the Arsenal, Saka with a deflected shot, the ref did not allow the Arsenal players to celebrate it as the leeds fans are cunts and it would upset them
by the way its claimed earlier in the game leeds fans racially abused the AFC subs when they were warming up
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xhaka should have got a yellow for that tackle, not sure why he didn’t, VAR checked for a red,
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leeds player gets yellow for similar challenge as that of xhaka’s
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we have lost our way this half, let it get very scrappy
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leeds get a penalty
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leeds score it, 3-1, we’ve let them back into this game by being so passive in our approach this half
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ESR on for Saka, we brought on Cedric for Tomiyasu about ten minutes ago
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former arsenal academy player Greenwood on for his EPL debut for Leeds
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Ed, do you know why Tomi was pulled off? ( I havent been able to see the 2nd half until now).
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ESR makes it 4-1, a fine finish from an odegaard pass, it was our first shot on target in the second half
tavares on for odegaard now
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xhaka booked for taking too long to take a freekick, silly stuff
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jim beglin is a bias bollocks
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Nice.
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FT: Leeds 1-4 Arsenal
Martinelli x2, Saka and Smith-Rowe with our goals.
totally dominated the first half, played superb football, and then were awful sterile the second half, got bogged down in a scrappy game, let leeds back in with a penalty, before smith-rowe ended any chance of a comeback, and we strengthen our grip on 4th for the moment, 4pts ahead of 5th placed WHU, and we are now 5pts off 3rd placed CFC
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Tom Ede
@TomEde1
·
5m
This is the first time three players aged 21 or under have scored in the same league game for Arsenal since December 1986 – @TonyAdams
, Niall Quinn and Martin Hayes vs Luton
but all we kept hearing from the commentators was how young leeds were
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ESR is our top scorer with 7 goals so far this season in the EPL
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Chris Wheatley
@ChrisWheatley_
· 1m
Bielsa on whether the game should have been postponed:
“No, no. The rules don’t contemplate the amount of injuries for a game to be suspended. Even if we had 10 players less, one was through suspension, one was illness and the rest through injury.”
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https://twitter.com/i/status/1472284848299646983
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Brilliant away win. Leeds were plucky in the second half but the game was over as a spectacle in the first half.
Smith Rowe goal scoring machine rolls on
Martinelli – simply magnificent!!! The skill the pace the poise, the finishing, what a talent!
Odegaard is purring in midfield
Shout out to Partey first half who had an excellent game.
Xhaka apart from the stupid tackle played well too.
I am glad Saka scored hes had God knows how many near mises!! He too had a brilliant first half.
Laca only lacked a goal to cap his overall excellent performance.
I would have loved a clean sheet but it is what it is.
Tomiyasu wot a player though-the Japanese Sagna!!!!
I had forgotten Cedric existed!!!!!!
Let’s hope our next two games don’t get cancelled and we are able to field our best team.
Norwich and Wolves if we get 6 points then for sure we can start really talking about 4th place.
Talking about Wolves wot the heck has happened to Traore????? He seems a pale shadow of the player he was a while back!
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Goonereris, as soon as you start saying someone is not a fan just because they disagree with you is very plastic and shows you are not sure of your own argument.
Just to be clear I’ve been a supporter for over fifty years and some of those times have been really difficult something you probably couldn’t imagine so please don’t question my loyalty I’ve paid dues you’ve not even started yet.
One thing I’ve learnt is fans comment on results and not about performance and as far as slagging players is concerned saying they are not performing or in Pepe’s case not for a whole 90 minutes is not slagging them it’s making an observation based on my opinion.
I have seen ARSENAL nearly get relegated and win the league without defeat so please don’t personally attack me just for being realistic.
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our next game is due to be in the Carbao Cup, at home to Sunderland on Tuesday, a win would see us through to the semi finals, in the new year. I’d expect some rotation for this game
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After back-to-back home wins against Southampton and West Ham, we ended an excellent week with a 4-1 win away to Leeds United.
It was our first victory on the road since beating Leicester at the end of October, and consolidated our place in the top four of the Premier League going in to Christmas.
It was another game in which our front players particularly shone, and the boss reserved special praise for Martin Odegaard, who created five chances during his 85 minutes on the pitch.
Here’s what he said to the press after the game.
on the result…
I am very, very happy with the performance and the result, the week that we had and the direction that this team is moving forwards in.
on taking advantage of a weakened Leeds side…
Yes. It’s always very difficult to play against them when you look at any game that they’ve played. Obviously, at the Etihad, it was a different story but when they played at Stamford Bridge… Opponents they play this season know the game that they are going to face. It wasn’t any different [today]. They never gave up in the second half and it’s a team that I really like and I’m pleased because it’s not easy to play the way that we have done today, in this atmosphere and against this opponent, so I think it was a very strong statement from the team.
on if he’d rather have more points or more games in hand at this stage…
The points, now we have them. The rest they have to have them but we know that now we are going to play like this [with disruption] and it’s part of the league now.
on if they’ve put down a marker in the race for the top four…
We are there now, but it’s still a long, long season to go ahead with a lot of unpredictable things probably that are going to happen, but we are there. We want to continue that and we want to continue improving and playing better and better and then let’s see where we get.
on similarities between Martin Odegaard and David Silva…
That’s a big name. My opinion is David is the best I’ve seen playing between the lines for the last 20 years. Martin has got a tremendous quality and the capacity to unlock situations and put players through to generate open spaces in tight areas. I’m really happy and now he’s improving in his goal threat as well so we have a big player there that is very willing to become one of the best, but it’s still very early.
on the importance of timing and patience with Martinelli…
Well, we see the player every day and we know where the player has to be to be able to appear in the right frame, and then sustain that level into the season. We’ve started to use Gabi more and more when we thought that was the case. There’s no point exposing a player even when there’s a lot of opinions that it has to be done because it won’t be beneficial for the player. And in the end we are here to protect the player and develop the players that we have in the best possible way. We judge every day with what we see and I’m really happy with him and the way he’s performing.
on Martinelli’s development in terms of his positioning on either wing…
He’s come a long, long way because his energy, his passion, his commitment, it doesn’t get much better than that ever, but there are other aspects in the game that he’s had to develop and maintain the ones that he’s exceptional at, like today, because when he has chances he puts them away. Again, he’s in the right direction.
on allegations of racism towards our players…
Unfortunately I can confirm that and it was reported to the stadium manager and now the authorities will deal with that.
on whether one of our substitutes heard the racism from the crowd…
Yes, it was a player sitting on the bench. One of the players heard those comments.
on the alleged incident…
I don’t know exactly who it was [directed at], that is why they will have to be interviewed and they will deal with the authorities in that case.
on Tomiyasu going off injured…
No, it was more of a muscular injury. He’s got a big load on him because he’s played every single minute since he’s joined us and even this week he’s been struggling a little bit. We decided to take him off, he wasn’t 100 per cent confident to continue in the game, and hopefully he’s not injured.
on why London Colney had to be deep cleaned earlier this week…
Pure precaution. We had some cases in the staff and we wanted to prevent any issues. Everybody that we’ve seen around us had a few cases and the cases have risen, so we wanted to protect our people and Gary [the club doctor] and the medical staff made the right call to close it for a day, make sure that all the tests from everybody was negative and make sure that when we’re back, everybody is safe.
on Sambi Lokonga having Covid and whether there’s anyone else…
We have another player as well, Pablo has Covid, so unfortunately they will be out.
on unvaccinated players…
I’ve already mentioned that we can suggest and guide players to get vaccinated, but it’s a really personal thing to do, and I don’t think that you can push any further than that. You have to educate them and try to give them the right information, try to understand the different cultures that we are involved in in football and after that we’ve done really well so far and hopefully, we can continue like that.
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.
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Wonderful to see the young players making a such difference in the pitch, Xhaka and Tomi excellent, odegaard improving by the game , a good week, a good win, points in the board , whatever is going on with Auba doesn’t seem to be hindering them, and a good recovery after Utd and Everton, and may it continue
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mandy not having auba in the team is a blessing, as many of us have been saying the way we play under arteta does not suit PEA, he does not have the attributes required for the role. Lacca has more of what is required, but he lacks much of what is needed too. We need a high energy robust target man with speed. Now where can we find one of them. And how much will it cost.
That it took an off the field problem for Auba to be dropped, despite his awful form, has me a little concerned, cos if our boss was the iron fisted manager he is being made out to be over this, he would have dropped Auba long ago.
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I guess being the captain and, perhaps, our truly established goal scorer played a part. I’ve also thought we needed a striker with qualities Auba can’t give. Martinelli does look the part though. Early days, I. Know.
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Eddy, Auba’s shortcomings have been clear for 2 years+ We seem to be forgetting Arteta begged him to sing a £350 pw contract. He can’t sidestep that fuck up, it was his.
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Nine goals in three games further underlines Ian’s observation. it’s not subjective but objective to assess this as the best spell of league football from Arteta’s teams. At least since Ozil was in the team haha!
This was never a poor squad.
Dropping a player even his own teammates could see was struggling when there were options available ( Auba still looks underweight compared to before his malaria battles!) took too long and I agree with those above who conclude that a more experienced coach would have been able to make the call sooner and with less hoo hah (as they say) in the media but that is the Arteta we have got to know both on and off the pitch, he can pick a fight with the Kop End all by himself sometimes at the Wrong Moment.
And: It was Arteta’s call to drop Xhaka as captain and make Auba the wrong choice the captain, and because he couldn’t drop his captain he found himself in a pickle.
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It’s nice to see that some of the big blaggers as they rip off and belatedly mirror content from George and Shotts have consequently been taught how to read the league table.
Well done those sad bad big blaggers it only took them a decade or longer of expert podcasting to work out the use of the GD column in league tables as appreciated by most football fans on this planet (there’s a reason why they’ve been published for fans for about fifty odd years…).
The Arsenal have scored 1/3 of all their goals in the PL in the last three games!
That’s a big increase and if the team can keep it up against mid to lower table opponents then as someone who has been enjoying the less frequent goals whilst hoping for better football the rest of the season may be better then what came before! Fingers crossed.
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Finsbury, fair comments and I can’t argue with that. But while you referred to a “best spell”, Ianspace referred to a best performance in the West ham game. He is entitled to his view however, I feel we had good performances before at Old Trafford when we beat them and even vs the Spuds when we beat them, this season.
It is about viewpoints and nothing else.
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goonereris, we had good spells in those games. and some very bad spells too. The West Ham game was , by a country mile, our best game for 18 months. Ian was right.
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And I say I don’t agree. Let’s agree to disagree. Thank you.
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That’s a devout declaration of belief and I don’t want to tell you it is wrong but no matter where you stand or how you change your view the league table won’t change. the GD column would look the same.
The only thing that changes the table is: goals.
It’s the reason I started this season with the simple focus and low expectation of enjoying goals as a quick glance at the previous season’s table could inform me that I would not be watching a good team for a bit until the style and form of the team improved.
I enjoyed the Tottenham game. A lot. Especially the goals from the academy kids. Saka scoring after the Kane tackle is the kind of stuff from which legends are born.
The Football for 90 mins against West Ham was a far better performance then the first half against a Tottenham team whose coach was a few days away from being sacked. The evidence and appreciation of this can be found in the understanding that Moyes is still in a job today!
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Conclusion:
The team is playing it’s best football of the season with an out of form albeit star player now belatedly dropped and the senior midfielder returning to the team helping the misfiring Partey with his game and controlling that midfield against mid to lower league opponents. Which makes sense!
Thanks to Ehab for explaining the slight shift in position & tactics that saw Partey go from even his biggest supporters wanting him dropped alongside Auba to some acceptable performances from a midfielder over the last few games though you do feel sorry for Niles not getting a look in over the greener though promising Albert. We won’t get such quality and interesting content on any of the other podcasts. Unfortunately.
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< in that sense if we reflect on the NLD as a showdown between two under fire coaches whose teams were under performing then the NLD was a more important game as in the end Arteta secures his job for the season and Nuno got the sack.
The NLD was a slightly more important result then the six pointer against West Ham.
And the performances shows us that the team has, as hoped for, been able to literally kick on since the derby result.
Keeping things ticking over in Xhaka’s absence was a big moment and plus for Arteta, Albert has been appreciated since he arrived and he could go on to be a top midfielder once he has some more experience. With Partey it is hard to disagree with Ehab!
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England captain protected by the referee again
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