I dare not write the review because it would be very much against the spirit of Positively Arsenal,so our friend Mills has put pen to paper for today. Thank’s Mills .

First half was a bit slow for us with Palace taking the lead, on what promised to be a warm, hopeful, sunny afternoon with the Arsenal gunning for 3rd place in the table. Even at 0-1 down it still seemed possible we could win with Leno pulling off a great double save before HT.

Second half and AMN and Iwobi came on and things seemed to go out of neutral, and up a gear or two and Mesut scored, and the collective Arsenal heart got pumping again and the noise level went up a few decibels until another mistake meant 1-2 to Palace. At this point we seemed to go into a fog and wandered around the Emirates heath with King Lear.Then this was added to by Palace which seemed to drain all hope away. Bye hope.1-3 seemed a really shocking score line at this point. Nothing like a warm, sunny afternoon and feeling really frustrated and angry!

The PEA pulled one back and hope walked in again stage left, but Mr.Moss decided otherwise with some eccentric reffing, and Palace wasted a bit of time at the end and the Arsenal couldnt grab the equaliser.

I havent gone into the details as you were there, tortured either by watching it or listening in and therefore know what went on, if not Im sure you will see it later.Plus isnt that the point of the forum to the chew the fat deposit and its dirty details? After 41 years of supporting Arsenal I still wished I could be morel level-headed, but Im stuck in my early conditioning, sure is hard sometimes to be mature.
Oh well on we go, Wolves up next. It feels kacki now, but theres a good chance we will bounce back, and maybe Chelsea will slip up too. Got to love hope, its all we have?

COYG!

Well how best to sum that game up? Perhaps that we played well without anyone playing outstandingly well? That’s not to say they all didn’t perform well, they did. It was a good set up and well executed.

If I take my tinted glasses off I would say that they had a stinker. But that’s not our problem.

Once Lacazette scored it was game over. Napoli had 70% possession and their goal threat was woeful. 20 shots with only 2 on target.

I’m not a fan of having 30% possession, but I can live with it if we keep clean sheets and win.

I think if we had kept a midfield 3 of Ramsey Torreira and Xhaka on the field we would have had much better control than we did. But we lost Ramsey ,I just hope it’s not the last we see of him.  His replacement, Mkhitaryan, was not at his best, or anywhere near it. Then Xhaka was removed and ElNeny, tidy as he is, is a step down.

On the positive side, AMN had a very impressive game.if we are going to persevere with a back 3, I think he and Hector are ample going into next season. I know he is supposed to be a midfielder, but you take your chance where and when it comes. I love the kid.

What is outstanding, is we have kept another clean sheet away from home, the upturn is coming just at the right time for us,i’m more confident of a top 4 finish now than at any time of the season. All in all it was a decent defensive performance.

With Aaron out for at least a few weeks it gives Ozil a clear run for what could prove to be a great end of the season.

Have a good night positives.

Let’s start with the positives, this being Positively Arsenal and all. We won away from home, got 3 very valuable points and we are in the top 4. Fantastic, Marvelous.

Aubameyang did wonderfully well on 10 minutes to close down Foster and was brave to hang out a leg and get the goal. It was real Emery stuff. So that was great as well.

Troy Deeney, almost immediately decided to show five foot five Torreira, what a hard man he is. He deliberately elbowed him and was rightly sent off. That was more than fantastic, Deeney is a prick.

Mesut came on for the second half and exerted a little bit more control, but it was just a little bit.

That’s about it for positives because ,truth be told, that was a woeful game from Arsenal. In fact that might be me being kind, dreadful is more like it. I mean 83 minutes against 19 men and we were by no means the dominant team. Well I say 11 vs 10, but I thought Iwobi and  Mkhitaryan barely added up to a man between them.

I’m going to say no more because the sooner this game is forgotten ,the better.

Well that was quite fun.

A nice two goal lead to take to italy and no away goal. By no means game over but we should be favourites.

Ramsey was magnificent, Ozil was glorious, Torreira tenacious and young AMN played a blinder.

We played really well in the first half and adequately well in the second half. Many people were questioning why Ozil and Lacazette were substituted when playing so well, but I thought it was just Emery wanting fresh legs for the last 20 minutes. To be fair Iwobi and Mkhitaryan were not as effective as Ozil and Lacazette had been, but they might have been more effective that they would have been running on empty for the last 20.

No point me rambling on about a game you will all have seen and judged for yourself. Suffice it to say we play better with Ozil and Ramsey and that was what Emery served up to us. So well done to the head coach. Credit where it’s due.

I was going to leave this review until tomorrow, because I didn’t want to do it whilst angry, but I realised I’m not angry, just very disappointed. So here we go………….

That was very poo……………..r, I joke, it was a bit worse than poo, it was stinking diarrhea.

When I saw the team and the first two substitutions at half time, I though, fair enough. I can’t fault the manager today. His resources were limited. I had no intentions of being critical of Emery, then I started to think (always a dangerous thing for me to start) and I thought wait, actually he’s had a mare.

Five at the back can work well, we’ve seen it work well, but it needs two players in center midfield that can keep the ball and progress it through midfield. Namely Xhaka and Ramsey,but they were both unavailable to start. ElNeny and Guendouzi just can’t do that.

Now of course I am entering the realms of hindsight management. The easiest of tasks. Still, bollocks to it.

We should have gone with 4 at the back and put an extra man in midfield.Poor Matteo had an awful game. ElNeny did ok so I was surprised that he was substituted rather than the youngster. I would have left them both on, brought Ramsey in to help them out and replaced Mkhitaryan , who was having a worse time than Matteo, with Aubameyang . Gone 4 3 1 2.

Finally Emery brought on Iwobi, who along with the Ramsey substitution, did make a marginal improvement, but Ozil was the last person he should have replaced. Mesut, while not creating much (due to the set up IMO) was playing well. I mean , if you need a goal, why take of the best player and the man most likely to fashion an opening?

This is the first time in over 5 years of this blog that I have written a blog suggesting what should have been done. Perhaps doing what I suggest would have made no difference, but lets be honest, it couldn’t have been worse.

I’m presently watching the game between Wolves and Watford, and if I’m honest, I don’t fancy our chances at their grounds. It may turn out a very unhappy end to the season.