Good morning Positives,

An interesting afternoon at the Ems I am sure you will agree, and once my pulse had slowed to a respectable rate courtesy of Mr Dean’s final whistle, supplemented a bout of traditional self medication using the traditional method, a game to look back on as genuinely entertaining.I shall take the point.

Needless to say I set myself up for a bumpy afternoon quoting the OneBoro website on Friday concerning the best expectation of the visitors was a good “do-ing”, as their correspondent so succinctly put it. Fool that I am, listening to football bloggers. I was not the only one though. The bookmakers had Boro at 12/1 before kick-off yesterday. In fact the Tees-side club were by no means done. While I guess Karanka and his boys went home thoroughly satisfied on another day, with a keeper facing them less sharp than Cech, it could have been their famous victory. Another clean sheet, four so far, and if he keeps up his average it will be another set of Golden Gloves come May.

Of the game itself ? In spite of the result I thought we played well as a team. As you all saw we faced a well organised side who defended deep and denied Sanchez any space to do his work in the final third all afternoon. Every time we got into the final third we faced a wall of nine blue shirts, a bank of five behind a bank of four, as well as Valdes all day. With our Chilean tiger mostly leashed, and only one scramble and one late burst that got him in on goal, we relied on the players behind him to come through, in both senses. The players behind Alexis I think stepped up, tried to create, tried to take on the Boro defenders and make space and time when very little was available. Iwobi, Theo and Ozil can all take credit for their contribution. My only criticism of them was they perhaps could have tried to get more into the box themselves as targets. I felt that when Perez and the Ox came on we shifted the gear up a notch and for the first time had numbers in the box and the MFC back line wobbled.

The base of our midfield Le Coq and Elneny worked hard and again I did not see much wrong there. We missed the eye of Santi but I would not put down our lack of a goal to his absence, it would be too simple. We did not solve the Middlesbrough puzzle.

Of the visitors  ? Adama Traore was a name that rang a bell although even the Arsenal website had no picture of him. I remember him coming on for the final five minutes in our game at Villa last season, by which point we were home and hosed, and him running past Nacho twice. I remember (honest) puzzling why they had not put the youngster on earlier as he looked deadly. So it proved yesterday, with the boy beating Kosc and Bellerin for speed – THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN! (the only man to beat Hector for speed once was Neymar as far as I know). Bizarrely, until his start yesterday Traore had played only twice, from the bench, for Boro since his arrival in August. A great display of strong, very fast attacking football. And just 20 – I hear the rustling of football agents in the undergrowth!

Teams are accused of “parking the bus”. It is a term of abuse apparently, invented by that Portuguese clown. Accordingly I am not sure what the term means. Boro are not Barca or Bayern. I could see that if they turned up at the Ems, played one man up, held on and celebrated with their fans a 0-0 draw they could be accused of failing to play the football they were capable of, and spoiling a potentially entertaining spectacle. However I don’t really see a team in the position that our visitors are in the PL, with the players they have, rolling up at the Emirates, doing other than they did yesterday.

So as the ashes of one PL game smoulder and gently fades away we have but a short break before Tuesday and Reading. In the meantime enjoy your day of rest and the fresh air of a mild Autumn day.

добро утро (dobro utro) Positive friends and fans of The Arsenal,

Yet another pleasant Autumn morning here in Norfolk as I scribble the further instalment in what is turning into a very pleasant season indeed, on all fronts. Oh yes the pen is flowing across the page like warm creamy custard over a fresh peeled banana.

Of last night’s game Ludogorets came and, for the opening 30 minutes, gave a good account of themselves. They had done their homework and understood that to get something from the evening required a swift smash and grab of a goal, or better still two, then a retreat behind the barricades and let us do out worst. Those opening few minutes I would have to say their tactics nearly came off, with Wanderson, Cafu, Misidjan and Marcelinho ( I wrote the names down so as not to forget) buzzing around our half of the pitch and our defenders, and even Le Coq, hard pressed to keep a grip on them.

On two occasions in the opening 20 minutes Ospina pulled off saves that kept Johnny Bulgar at bay. Yet again the patient Colombian was called into immediate action after games on the bench and responded impeccably. Let in an unexpected goal at home early on CL night and it can be a long, long evening. Looking at the final score line one might forget our keeper’s key saves at a time when the game was very much in the balance. It would be wrong to do so.

Our first goal, delightful as it was, only temporarily halted them back and even then they pushed forward. Up the 41^st minute this game was still a real contest, though one we were gaining a stranglehold of.

Our second goal however, young Theo’s unexpected but deadly strike from 25 yards to the top right hand corner, rocked the visitors. The flicker of hope which had sustained their energy through a bright first half was extinguished. They knew at 2-0 down that there was no realistic chance of restoring parity. Probably the timing of Theo’s goal meant that what would have been an upbeat orange sucking half time in the Ludogorets dressing room at just 0-1, was a much more sombre, “backs-to-the-wall-lads”, conversation.

Goals 3,4,5 and 6. The second half we dominated without, oddly enough, really hitting our best game I thought. As the visitors tired larger and larger spaces appeared and we have players who just love space and know what to do with it. In other games and so comfortably ahead we have sat back more but not last might, and the Ox and then Mesut helped themselves to the next four as we all saw. To a degree part of the shellacking the Bulgarians eventually suffered was down to a couple of questionable saves from the unfortunate Stoyanov but even we occasionally run into a keeper not at his best. An 11 minute hat-trick ? Ridiculous, but enjoy it when it comes to you son.

Match ball for Mesut. Relaxed end to the evening, everyone went home happy, probably even those 000’s who left at 4-0.

The game played in the right spirit. No cards, no diving, no obvious rough stuff. Hard but fair from both sides. Referee Dias a good effort. Who knew that Ludogorets have a London fan club !?! I see them as well able to steal third place from Basel. The only jarring note last night was some bizarre punditry on BT. I will not bother to name names or repeat the absurdities. You know who they are.

Two days break before Boro, a team whose confidence has sunk like a stone since a couple of decent opening results in August. A fragile opponent. I fancy our momentum will continue onward and upward. Whose to say when our scoring spree may end.

Enjoy your Thursday

I wanted to put in words my feelings on the whole Xhaka red card malarky. It’s hard, because when I tried on Twitter it came across that I thought he was a bad lad and I agreed with the sending off. Neither of these things are true. So when I saw  comment from our very own Arsenal Andrew, that perfectly summed up my feeling about not just that incident, but the overall state of the team and our position, in typical fashion, I thought “I’ll nick that”. 

Also, Andrew has been conspicuous by his absence (a bit like me really?) on the articles front, so this is my way of forcing the shirker out of his slumber.

“I’d be surprised if we see much more of Moss in the future, his ‘display’ left everything to be desired and had he succeeded, sorry, had Swansea succeeded in scabbing the draw we’d have never heard the last of it, and rightly so.

It’s rarely a single incident that riles fan rage but a culmination of confounding decisions that eventually add up to a deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the overall refereeing performance. And so it was on Saturday with Moss’s reckless ignoring of two Arsenal head injuries ahead of his joyous sprint to over-punish the over-stretched Granit.

Personally I love it when cheats are punished and would happily see all such unfootballing activities dealt with via the red card. But they so rarely are which makes Moss’s over-the-top intervention, in the context of his earlier tolerance of Swansea’s thuggery wholly confounding and ultimately unacceptable. Hence the outrage.

Which was a pity because refereeing shenanigans aside it was a thrilling game, thoroughly enjoyable and a terrific win for Arsenal. Except come season’s end, it won’t be remembered for that, will it?

And what of Arsenal’s wider form? As Shotta reminds us from time to time, we appear to be in the midst of a statistically significant run at the moment, though we have all been here before, right?

Our traditional Autumn Run tends to derail itself with a pile-up of injuries that clear themselves up in time for the end of season express train run-in. The difference this season, if any can be expected?

This will become manifestly clear over the next 8 weeks but to me we must be perilously close to having genuine strength in squad depth across all positions. Surely no team could absorb a loss to the side such as that presented by injuries to Ozil and Sanchez? I’d suggest that, brilliant though both clearly are, neither have hit top, top form which suggests the rest of the side – and the replacements in the wings – must be pretty decent.

I’m quietly confident.”

Bore da pobl y Positives,

What a cracking game yesterday. One that will stick in my mind when the record of the 2016/2017 Premier League season is published.

Of the game itself? I admit I anticipated an easier afternoon, against a Swansea team in the bottom three, not won a game since the opening day of 13^th of August in any competition, who have struggled this season on their travels, and who rolled up at the Ems with the unknown Mr Bradley in charge. What threat could they provide to an Arsenal side that has been flying of late, a virtually fully fit squad, quality all over the pitch and the Ems a relative fortress with the Scarfists silently peripheral in their misery as winning game follows game.

I should know better although until the 38^th minute everything proceeded as I expected. We dominated the ball, passed well, slipped in the first with Theo showing the strength of a young Hercules, then doubled our lead. The visitors really did not have an answer. They chased us desperately but were always a yard behind. “Welcome to the PL Bob, this could get a bit tricky for you though”.

And then in the 38^th minute that silly error from Granit, the ball given away needlessly which Sigurdsson slotted beyond Cech. That was a hell of a finish from a player who is not supposed to be a striker. Over those few seconds our dominance faded and/or Swansea sniffed the possibility of recovery from what a moment before had been a serious beating. One of THOSE moments.

Thereafter for the remainder of the match we found ourselves in an even contest, lots of energy, Alexis buzzing, cut and thrust, both sides playing a good passing game, their man Barrow a constant pest, both sides attacking con brio. We eased a little further ahead with an outstanding ball from the Chilean and a super finish from Mesut. And then, damn them, SCFC managed to drag us back to 3-2.

I could sense the manager’s unease when he put on Le Coq in place of Iwobi. This was going to be a hard last 25 minutes, the points were far from safe.

Moss’s choice of card colour was, as Arsene said, “harsh”. Whether Barrow was in fact injured I don’t know. A trip would not normally cause an injury but he appeared to be limping afterwards and exited ten minutes later so perhaps he was.

The final 20+ minutes were end to end stuff. Swansea had most of the ball, we defended carefully, solidly, cleanly, and kept them at bay. Our earlier looseness in defence was replaced by steely efficiency. Much our credit we also were (almost) deadly in our counter attacking, with two more chances for Theo that would and, in the case of the second one, should have finally hammered the Swans to defeat.

Of the result ? Very, very important. We stumbled in the 38^th minute but managed to stay up. We had less possession than Swansea, and ultimately less players, but we had we used more effectively. Three points on a day when our rivals slipped up. Three points in a game decided by a pass and a finish from our two world class players. As you may gather from the photograph above the game took it out of me.

The significance of the game and the result ? Our sixth Premier League victory and we settle on the shoulder of the blue Manchester team, breathing lightly on the shiny dome of Pep. As I said in opening on such days are League Championships won, and lost.

Therefore enjoy your Sunday and we shall see what the champions of Bulgaria have to offer later in the week.