A lot like last week, many of our players had good games and yet the team played some turgid stuff. We dominated possession and yet made few chances. I’ve long said that scores mask performances and this is yet another example. I can’t think of a single Arsenal player that wasn’t decent, but our team play was laboured and uninspiring.

We eventually won the game when Ceballos stuck our a foot and the ball fell in Aubameyang’s path, he then did his Aubameyang thing and scored a brilliant goal. Just like last week we relied on a moment of individual genius rather than cohesive team play.

Again, I feel mean spirited, given we won and have 6 points from our opening 2 games, but eventually, results will reflect performances.

I thought Ceballos was excellent and Luiz added much. Pepe looked like he could add a lot but ultimately fluffed his best line when he played a really poor ball behind Aubameyang , when a decent ball into his path would have been a tap in.

I have to give Mike Dean a mention as he was at his incompetent worst. He allowed Burnley players free hits after the ball had gone and punished us for the mildest infringement at every opportunity.

Now don’t get me wrong, we have been the better team in both games and deserved the points, but only bod just.

A hard fought 1-0 win has us leaving our first away game with all 3 points and a clean sheet. I know, A CLEAN SHEET, imagine that?

Given how many of our better players were unavailable ,for one reason or another, and given our poor away form in recent years, that was a very good result.

I have watched the game twice now and I have to say that no one had a bad game, and some had quite a good game. Of course the usual suspects (at least in Mustafi’s absence) Xhaka and Mkhitaryan came in for their customary stick on twitter, but I thought that although Xhaka looked a little loose in the initial 20 minutes, he was top notch in the rest of the game. Also Mkhitaryan did some really good stuff, but having done it he mostly messed up the final ball. For me this indicates that he is either short on confidence,or he is trying to hard, perhaps fearing for his place in the team,or at the club even.It’s a shame, because he is a very talented player.

The problem is, that given no one had bad games, and the opposition were poor, why were we not much better as a team.? Normally it’s a struggle because some of the players are having an off day, but no one did, and our team play was turgid.

I think the young lads all did ok, none of them did enough to make me think they will force their way into our best 11, but they don’t have to do that, all they have to do is let no one down when they come in, and they didn’t let themselves or anyone else down.

The team will look altogether different when Lacazette, Ozil, Pepe and Luiz are in it, so there is much to look forward to.

It would be rude to not acknowledge that Emery got a result with a much depleted squad, so well done him.

At 5 P.M. yesterday I was quite pleased with our transfer window, Despite the upsetting news that Iwobi had been sold to Everton, I thought we had mad a decent fist of slightly improving the squad. Then the more twitter posts and blogs I read, the more confused I became. People were celebrating like we had won the Champions League. Claiming it was a 10/10 window ,the best window ever, Raul “the Don Raul” (ffs) had done madness.

I wondered what I had missed. As far as I could see, the only real improvement over last years squad would be if Pepe proves to be greater than the sum of Danny and Iwobi. We have lost Ramsey, the best box to box midfielder in the league, and lost our captain,the best center back we’ve had since Sol.

Let me stress, I think it was a decent window, I think it gives us enough to get top 4, but great window? The best ever? Madness? Have a word with yourselves.

Then I saw a post from Eddy and I realised that people were looking at the window with no balance whatsoever.

“Nicolas Pépé from LOSC Lille, Outstanding Winger with goals and assists or is it the guy who flopped at the ACON

William Saliba from AS Saint-Étienne, best young CB in Europe or is it the guy who is not yet ready for the BPL as he hasn’t 20 games in France under his belt

Kieran Tierney from Celtic FC, the rightful heir to Cole, Winterburn and Sansom, or is it an injury plagued guy from a one horse league that is about the level of League 1.

David Luiz from Chelsea FC, the experienced ball playing central defender we’ve needed for a decade, or is it sideshow bob, the cheating, diving disruption that CFC were only too glad to get rid of despite being under a transfer ban

Gabriel Martinelli from Ituano Futebol Clube the hottest young property in Brazil, or is it an untried callow youth from the 4th tier of Brazilian football

Dani Ceballos from Real Madrid, the star of the wonderful Spain U21 team, or is it the 23 year old who has failed totally to hold down a place in the worst Real Madrid side for a decade.”

God help these new players if they are not the world beaters they have been built up to be by fans desperate to justify their fascination with winning the transfer window.

We love a new player, right up until the gloss wears off and he becomes deadwood.

These people aren’t superfans, relativity shows us that they are a cog in the workings like anyone else. The idea of the superfan means (in their minds false identity) that they know the club the best, they love it more than anyone else, their opinion on the workings of the club is the most accurate and valid as to its direction and embodiment of values. They think they are the only ones who can dictate its policy and Politik, they think they are the Arsenal, and because they go to more games and spend money on replica kits that they could never wear any other way, means they are “the one”. Well sorry pseudo Leos, the Matrix was wrong about that too. Everyone is/be The Arsenal. To think you are the ‘one’ is a psychotic state and misunderstanding life, and how the whole interplay in sport (and life) works .

These people in one sense are the biggest parasites: Arsenal can survive without them, but they cant survive without Arsenal. They think they are the first, or the real thing but others came before them, travelling up and down and over seas and back again. Others stood on the North bank when there was no cover and at the clock end, when it really was the clock end, and stood in the west stand and stood in the side embankments ( always a top view of the game I thought). Others were at the Manor Ground, others at the Sportsman ground at Plumstead common, others at the Invicta Ground, and the terraces still exist in peoples back yards of that stadium as a testament, years before any idea of Invincibility (which is an odd one as they were eventually) and the social media enabling of the pseudo superfan.
And then the ghosts of the old boys who booted the ball around in the yards down at the Arsenal itself. Seemingly gone, but its not so.

All is just an experiment of what can be, all is just and opinion, that doesn’t ever cover the whole phenomena of what anything can be, how can it? How can it ever incorporate ever nuance or element of what makes the whole. Arsenal is now a global brand of entertainment, that cant be ignored, but screaming out loud, demanding from the club something back ( what kind of attitude is it that thinks a football fan its a customer???) because they think they hold some kind of authority is misplaced in its understanding of the game, and the relationship between club and supporter. Yes its more than that, but only because we attach our emotions and lives into it but there is no clause that says we get dividends.Surely we have to take emotional responsibility for this?
Some supporters don’t want to shout and scream and have a melt down because we’ve lost, although we’ve all been there, but to do it professionally stinks of more insincerity.What next, awards? Best fan? Best meltdown? Most money spent? Best transfer elaboration?
I like to think that social media started off as some kind of nice idea that could bring people together (how quaint and naive of me), now its a politikal tool for manipulation, perhaps its the same with the pseudo superfan? Seems that way to me. Those who have the way do not have the way?

What frightens me though is the power these people can wield to manipulate other people, vulnerable people- and as we have seen, and see daily, its easy to bullshit and lie and get away with it. Its bad enough with the established media outlets doing it.

The greater the sensation, the more pretending to be in the know, the more clicks. More clicks the more money and pseudo authority, and on it goes (fins concise statement sums it up the best for me, see his other posts).What right do any of these people have to Diktate? None. Fascism (authoritarianism) stinks and is really tedious and insane. Yes, they have the right of democracy and being in a liberal society to express themselves, I agree, but what about the ethics that enable democracy and liberty to survive? These are being exploited and ab-used everyday. They would deny this, but they don’t seem aware of their actions and the outcomes or what they are even doing. Theres a real lack of responsibility, all lost in “me me me me me”. And I want. Well you cant always get what you want.

So this leads us back to the ethical questions of the superfan selling their own merchandise. Is this valid or not? What if its directly undermining the players or club? Of course it can seem cool (sick) or on the spot but all things have a consequence, even if that seems uncool or old fashioned. Plus what if certain blogs & vlogs have adopted a tabloid and WR Hearst ideal: ” when in doubt ,make it up”? Seems then they are more use to the opposition fans/teams than us? What kind of supporter undermines the club? I don’t think anyone’s holy, but deliberately leading people up the garden path is something else, what place does it have in football?

And don’t forget this, for one to be on the idea of top, this needs others to be on the idea of bottom, otherwise all this doesn’t ever hang together. That’s why sportsman(person)ship is so important.

But all that comes spouting forth from the pseudo superfan are just opinions, not absolute statements. Opinions caught up in flux, lost in tomorrows winds, but we are always dealing with a legacy of some sort…what will be the legacy that has to be cleared up from the pseudo superfan?

Mills

For gf60.

Last season following the opening 2 games Arsenal went on that unbeaten incredible. Yet it always seems as if we were there for the taking as our defense was all over the place, but thankfully Auba and Lacazette were in good nick and truly spared our blushes. This was also the time where Özil and Ramsey were being “used sparingly”.

In the middle part of the season, following a few poor results Özil and Ramsey got drafted back in. We immediately got our season back on track, beating both Valencia and Napoli handsomely in Europa. For a time there we went 7 or 8 games conceding just one goal. Then after we lost Ramsey old habits crept back in with our defense once again having to carry more of the workload.

Now I know it’s fancy to say our defense are poor and that Mustafi is the cause of all that. If you point out his high defensive numbers, they say it’s because he’s “a busy player”.

Now when Özil and Ramsey was together in midfield our defense weren’t that busy. Which brings me to this.

Didn’t the high turnover of possession in midfield contribute to to us constantly playing on the back foot… and there’s only so much our defense can do. I mean, do we really expect Mustafi to put in 10 successful tackles per game, 10 interceptions per game or 10 blocks per game when the likes of VVD, Laporte or English treasure Harry Maguire averages around 6 or 7?

So for me, if we fix the problems in midfield and make possession a priority, jealously protecting the ball to not needlessly giving it away, it will take a lot of the burden off our defense and maybe then we could see what an attack boasting Auba, Lacazette and Pépé can do if we keep them on the front foot.

I know our defense are not the best in the world but I also don’t agree that they are rubbish. Last season they were over burdened and that needs to end.

A few years ago one of the greatest contributors to this site, Stu Black, wrote a lyrical piece about the end of the season and the onset of summer. ‘Goals dismantled on recreation parks, bare pitches turned fallow, thoughts turning to days of ease.’ His message was clear: time marches on, seasons come and go and the rhythms of the year lie just under all we do. If players need a break to allow spent bodies and minds to recover, then so too do football fans. And for me, never more so than the end of what is now thankfully last season, a season that initially promised much, but ended up under-delivering.

There were some exciting moments, of course, but also times of frustration, disappointment and downright bewilderment. The first year after Wenger was always going to be a difficult one, for players and fans alike:  some couldn’t wait to usher in the new, some couldn’t imagine life could ever be as good again. It must have been hard indeed for Emery to impose himself on a dressing room full of senior players who had learnt to play the Arsenal way, but hard also for players learning to dance to a different tune. The answer to begin with seemed to lie in hard work: more training, more running, more pressing, more tactics. And up until Christmas, that approach seemed to be working in terms of results, even if the strong suspicion lingered that at times we were unsustainably lucky. And so it proved, the turning point the away trip to Southampton where old familiar weaknesses resurfaced. And that was pretty much that, for despite the promise of an Aaron Ramsey-led revival in January and February, that too fell away, and the final stages of the season were dire. I felt that the players by then were exhausted (all that early pressing maybe), bewildered (by constant tactical tweaking) and disheartened (as the goals dried up). It was pretty dismal, and by the time the league season finished I had had enough. Unfortunately, so too had the players, failing to turn up for the second half of the Europa Final, having squandered reasonable chances to put the game to bed in the first half.

And so I turned my attention to all the other things: family, dog, work, reading, cricket, netball, holidays. And I did wonder whether football (and The Arsenal) would come back into focus, and all  the more so when I realised that the Transfer window was open and that I had never heard of the players I was told we had to buy, apart from Zaha, who was always going to be too good to be true (and what would be the point of signing a suspected diver when we don’t get penalties anyway?).

And I’m still not entirely sure to be honest, but fortunately I (or was it Stan, or Josh) was asked whether I cared, because apparently lots of people who have behaved quite despicably in denigrating the club, have now decided that, after all, they do care. And perhaps they do, in their own way: perhaps they do want to get whatever version of their Arsenal they hold most dear back; perhaps they do want to win all the trophies; perhaps they do want the shiniest new players to win them bragging rights once more. Perhaps they even want to cement their positions as the most important of all the fans, but goodness me, what a strange route to fame and fortune that is. And I guess that that is fine, and it is not for me to judge, as we all have our different reasons for doing anything, let alone for supporting a club whose fortunes we absolutely cannot influence.

But I realise that I do care. That I do want it to be the start of the season again (though not quite yet), that I do want to catch the train and then the tube to Holloway Road. That I will want it to be November with the smell of bonfires and burgers. That I will want to have my heroes. That I do want us to be the greatest team the world has ever seen and that I will be Arsenal ‘til I die. In short, that I will allow myself the temporary madness of belief and hope and love, with all the heartache and the joy that comes along with oohtobeingagooner.

Now, what about those signings then? After all, we’ve got a League to win.

Tim Head

@foreverheady