In their Arsenal-West Ham review for the #UncensoredArsenal, both Shotta and Blackburn George are critical of the goal-scoring impotence of the Gooners despite their massive superiority in possession. They both agree that it is time for a change; either a change the system or an upgrade to the strikers
64 comments on “Arsenal Couldn’t Burst Bubbles.”
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Positively Arsenal 
We have a very competent striker but have never given him a chance.
Eddie should never have signed his present contract and would of done better playing every week for someone else.
Mikel has never rated him and has always constricted him minutes.
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Lets be clear I never said we could just go and get Solanke.
I was answering a post from Ed which said about the rumours about Toney. I just think Solanke is a better all round player.
My first choice would still be Eddie as I said above
I think what Jesus gives to the team as opposed to what he takes away has been in the negative for a long time and way before this season started.
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The slower build up, the cutting inside rather than taking on the last defender, the too many touches and overplaying has been a feature of the season and certainly not something we can say was ltd to west ham.
We have relied on goals not from open play to get us home in many matches this season and it is very frustrating.
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Saliba may be considered a world class player but only him and Saka could even be considered and B is not at his consistent best at the moment.
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Fortunately Fulham are ripe for the picking and we will win there.
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Oh and although is a good defensive ariel player he not as good as Eddie at attacking the ball in the opposition box.
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Apart from that excellent pod guys
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we are currently down to 4th in the table, with city, villa and pool above us, we are a full 10pts worse off this season than at the same point last season, and the worrying thing is that in each season under Arteta we have had a late in the season meltdown, so for AFC to win the title we are going to have to have an almost flawless second half to the season. So don’t build up your hopes.
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ian I agree with you that Nketiah should not have signed a new deal with AFC, nor should Nelson have done so either, neither are ever going to be first choice under Arteta. I would say Smith-Rowe has to move on too, there are big rumors that we are willing to sell him to Aston Villa in January
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the lack of open play goals, the fact sub Eddie is our top scorer with 5 goals, correction on how many points worse off than last season, it is 7pts not 10pts, and we have scored 9 less goals, and conceded one more than at this point last season. The lack of goals has been a constant theme under Arteta, he is far more concerned about not conceding than about scoring, he even when behind never takes risks, he is petrified that he will take a big hammering, he knows that it was the big losses that turned so many against wenger, and I recall last season Arteta proudly saying the most we had lost by under him was by two goals.
After the loss to West Ham, once again Arteta comes out with the same old nonsense that we only lacked taking our chances, that everything else was fine, the build up, the domination etc etc, he seems to fully believe that any game we create two good chances should be more than enough to win.
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FT: Nottingham Forest 2-1 Man Utd
utd have lost 9 of 20 EPL games this season
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Hi Ian. My apologies for misquoting you on the Solanke issue. My main omission however was not revealing your long-held opinion that if Nketiah got more playing time he would prove to be a superior striker than Gabriel Jesus.
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ian will be pleased, Nketiah in for Jesus today
Raya
White, Saliba, Gabriel, Kiwior
Odegaard, Rice, Havertz
Saka, Nketiah, Martinelli,
subs: Ramsdale, Tomiyasu, Cedric, Jorginho, Elneny, Smith-Rowe, Nelson, Jesus, Trossard
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3 former Arsenal players start for Fulham, Leno, Iwobi and Willian
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a real must win game today for Arsenal, we have only taken 4pts from our last 4 games and with our next EPL game not till January 20th its important to end this phase of the season on a high
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a full year since Nketiah scored an away league goal
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Shotta, please realise I love you and you like most people on this platform never have to apologise to me.
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I sure there will be lots of the fan base who will judge Eddie on one performance today. I’m sure if he had the same game time as Watkins, Solanke, Toney he match them all easily.
Fuck me, the old toilet boy, Jamie Redknapp has just said we are missing Xhaka.
As George said, it’s funny how people are missing him now he has gone.
No Zinchenko today so we will lose a bit in midfield but we should be stronger at the back especially with Tommy on the bench.
Happy new years to everyone and COYG.
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Saka makes it 1-0 to the Arsenal
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fucks sake, 1-1
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1-1
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Nkeitiah like Jesus has different strengths and weaknesses.
For him to be a regular starter over Jesus he needs to work on his work rate, linkup play and decision making. Jesus needs to work on his finishing and positioning when in the box. I would have kept Balagun as another option.
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Tomiyasu on for Kiwior
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another pathetic performance, fulham now lead 2-1
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as things stand we are now only one point ahead of spurs
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martinelli and white off, Trossard and Jesuson
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Nelson on for Havertxz
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spurs now three up
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FT: Fulham 2-1 Arsenal
4 pts from 15,
spurs just a point behind us, Aston Villa above us
Arteta’s team, arteta;s squad, arteta’s tactics, trust the process
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Oh dear,
Eddie’s work rate is just as good as Jesus but he doesn’t come back and take the ball off the CB’s which I don’t believe any top team needs.
When Jesus came on that was the end of Eddie’s involvement, he just got in Eddie’s way it was another poor substitution.
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a lot of this season has the feel of the sort of thing we seen in Emery’s first season, when despite the results being good, the performances were not, and when results matched the poor performances it all came tumbling down.
If ESR can’t get minutes when we are behind and playing shite then what future has he here, would he even make the bench if everyone was fit, like eddie and reiss, our emile should move on for the sake of his career
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after 20 games last season Arsenal sat top of the table on 50pts, with man city 5pts behind, everyone else 9pts or more behind.
this season arsenal sit 4th, one point above spurs, we are only 2pts behind both liverpool and aston villa and level on points with man city, but both liverpool and man city have a game in hand.
10pts less is a massive drop off, in fact its double the amount of points we had dropped at this stage, think about that, we had only dropped 10pts at this stage last season, we have dropped 20pts so far this.
So what has changed, after all we spent big, really big in the summer, no one will argue that Rice was not a great signing, but we are weaker so far. Raya and Havertz, was either signing needed, can either signing be said to have been a good signing. Would we be any worse off if we had signed neither, yes we were very unlucky to see our other signing Timber get injured so early in the season, when he was looking a good addition, but we don’t know how that would have worked out without injury, we wait and see when he returns.
But for me its clear that we did not replace Xhaka, let alone upgrade on him, and should the havertz money have been spent on a Jesus upgrade. On Jesus, or should I say an upgrade for Jesus, does it actually matter, under Arteta we have seen Aubameyang, who is still banging them in, Lacazette, Nketiah and Jesus all fail to be regular scorers, so the question is, system or players, for me its the paint by numbers arteta football that is the problem, and even if we were to bring in mbappe we will struggle to score unless the system is changed and I think only way system is changed is with a managerial change
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Peter Rutzler
@peterrutzler
Big celebrations at the Cottage. First win over Arsenal since 2012. First win from a losing position this season. Now that’s how to wrap up the year.
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last season after 20 games Arsenal had dropped 10pts, this season we have dropped 20pts, so just to match last season’s points total which wasn’t enough to win the league, we can only drop another 10pts in the remaining 18 games.
we had a 5pts lead after 20 games last season, and lost the league by 5pts, if Liverpool win tomorrow they will have a 5pts lead over us
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the transfer window opens tomorrow, who if sold would we not miss from the first team squad, for me as they don’t get a look in or much of a one, Cedric, Elneny, ESR, Nelson, not to mention the constantly injured Partey, could go and no one would notice, then there is Ramsdale, only way he is going to be first choice again is if Raya gets injured. Kiwior is only getting game time recently due to injuries to others.
Whatever about January, come summer we have to look to move partey, zinchenko and tomiyasu on due to their inability to stay fit, you can’t build on players you can’t depend on them being fit, ESR and Nelson also have this same problem, as does Vieira, and thinking about it, Jesus has missed a lot of games through injury too.
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When considering your position in football you can never assume you are as good as your best and never assume you are as bad as your worst.
We are not as not as bad as our last couple of games but the slight change in style this season has definitely hampered our attacking style.
Last season our fixture list added points to our early season total and the momentum and confidence helped us to our mid season total.
It is true we haven’t replaced Xhaka, who was a massive player, but it’s more than that, the trauma that Mikel suffered in concerning a few easy goals at the back end of last season has taken him back to his natural cautious set up.
With a very difficult run in it was always going to be a difficult end to the season. The problem is we need to get back to high performance ARSENAL that see us deservedly beat city at home and the away form of last season.
This season their are more clubs in the mix, so top four is certainly not guaranteed.
As far as players leaving is concerned, squads never change much in January so I can’t see many players going especially as Mikel believes we are light in numbers. So more likely one or two coming in.
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Ed is 100% correct in the list of strikers who have not flourished under Mikel.
As Shotta and George suggested the system is designed to share goals around all of the front three, the midfield and the back up of set piece routines.
Unfortunately when some of the team are a bit off or our tempo is just to slow, which it has been a lot this season, the system is easy to block and break.
Rice and Odegaard will probably not play as bad in consecutive games ever again.
I have always thought Jesus had a bigger influence off the pitch than on it and he has to be given major credit for our step up to the higher echelons of the division but I think his time has run it’s course and we need to change.
I don’t think changing our striker is the solution there are many tweaks needed to bring us closer to city and simple form of a few influential will get us winning again.
In the long term tempo, systems and accurate subs are needed to take us forward.
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a concerning stat doing the rounds today is that Raya has not kept a clean sheet in any game he has faced more than one shot on target
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Our first choice Goalkeeper, Right Back, Right CB, Left CB, Central Midfielder, Attacking Midfielder, Right winger, Left Winger and Striker are all fit.
We are not in an injury crisis, we are in a tactical crisis.
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Thomas Partey has been left out of the Ghana squad due to injury, and their manager Chris Hughton described it as a big injury, in fact as the biggest Partey has had. Doesn’t look like we will be seeing him anytime soon, it was madness that he was not moved on last summer, he has been an injury nightmare since he joined us, missing massive chunks of every season hes been here.
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its being reported that this transfer window Arteta wants to bring in a left back, a midfielder and a forward, and if Ramsdale leaves a goalkeeper.
A quick glance at Arsenal.com and our first team players, and we have 4 Arteta signings, Runarrson, Tavares, Lokonga and Marquinhos out on loan, as well as Okonkwo and Tierney, that is 2 goalies, 2 left backs, a midfielder and a forward, and as I said 4 of whom are Arteta signings, our manager really has world class player ID, doesn’t he.
Said it before, our transfer policy under Arteta and Edu is a very simple one, sign some players, if they don’t work out sign some more, rinse and repeat
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It is quite funny how because of FFP we couldn’t buy Raya and had to take him on loan, but the media still think we are going to buy four players with large fees.
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some of the Arteta comments in his presser today
on whether a left-back is a priority in the transfer window:
We are open in the transfer market but again the emphasis is on making the most out of the players that we have. We will work together with the club to understand whether there are any possibilities and if we have any good options, but first of all focus on the players that we have.
on whether we may do no business at all:
That is a possibility.
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That may reflect the amount we have spent in recent years and how close to the wind we are sailing with FFP.
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Today needs to be very much back to basics.
Higher tempo, accurate passing, intelligent running off the ball, looking before crossing or pulling back and first time balls rather than mucking about with the ball.
I hope Mikel has now realised not to believe the west ham stats and 30 shots on goal is no good if they don’t trouble the keeper and 400 touches in the area are no good if they are not meaningful.
I am quietly confident we will up our game today but we need someone to get close to Trent and stop him playing direct balls front to back and our back line and Aaron need to be alert to those balls if they do come.
At the end of the day I think it will be all white on the night and our academy front three will come out on top COYG.
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a big game today, the FA Cup probably is our best chance of winning a trophy this season, we are currently on a run of only one win in five games, fail to win today and it goes from a blip to a mini crisis, which is not good going into the winter break, a draw would mean a replay in the winter break making it no longer a break
jesus, zinchenko, vieira and partey all out injured, nothing new there, fuck wenger and his out dated training methods causing us to have injury prone players, what
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Ramsdale; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Kiwior; Rice, Jorginho; Ødegaard; Saka, Havertz, Nelson.
Subs: Raya, Cedric, Walters, Sousa, Smith Rowe, Nwaneri, Trossard, Martinelli, Nketiah
I see we have enough senior subs so don’t expect any of the youths to get on today
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HT: Arsenal 0-0 Liverpool
should be about four up, havertz has wasted several really good chances, he want a little more time that is available
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Martinelli on for Nelson
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gobshites
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