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.

Today’s article is from our very own Gf60

Neither offside nor handball as clearly shown by this image, courtesy of Arsenal.com

Andy Nic chose a very good weekend to visit the D Day memorial in Normandy.

Even his cultured prose would have had problems with this game.  As Steww mentioned in his preview regarding fans’ superstition of travelling North of Watford after a Euro game: “The best we can hope for is to survive and nick the points…”.

By the way, where did all those virgins go Steww?

Superstition 1, Steww 0.

Having watched most of our ‘1-0 to the Arsenal’ games it is no lie to say that this was probably the closest finish we’ve experienced, with no time to even kick off after Kos’s winner… or was it Ox’s winner? Whatever it was, it must be termed our scrappiest goal of the season and Burnley supporters will argue that off-side and/or hand-ball should have been called.

Incorrect of course, it was 1-0 to the Arsenal and that is never wrong.

No changes to the side from the Basel game, bar Petr coming in for Oosp, but we definitely saw a change in tempo. Perhaps a return to planet Earth was due and the stygian gloom of the North-West would not have helped. For sure we seemed to be playing at half the pace seen during the previous eight days and it took us some fifteen minutes to acclimatize.

Even then, it was noticeable that our midfield was a bit heavy-legged, nobody doing much wrong but having nowhere near the control that we’d previously shown.  Fortunately our back line was working well and despite a couple of chances were holding Burnley at bay. The Koshodra partnership was very sound as was the covering for any defender caught upfield.  Petr made some good saves when needed, one particularly special in the second half.

Up front, Alexis was running around like the butcher’s dog but not getting the reward his energy deserved.

He’s such an unselfish player and had a few shooting possibilities that were laid off to others. Time to get the selfishness back Alexis? You did that on Wednesday as well trying to give Theo his hat-trick.

Theo’s good work in defence continued. He really has improved in that area. Pity that his shooting let him down, as was the case with Oz. Theo however was responsible for the header that led to our goal so he can be forgiven.

Oz just had an offish day.

Now for yet another interbloodynational break …

Let’s hope all the guys called on come back fit and ready to eat some roast swan.

Keep the faith.

Good morning Positives old and young,

There is a concept much bandied about by the punditti of “Winning Ugly” which, on most occasions as far as I can see, involves a team playing poorly, having a slice of luck, clinging on like grim death to fortune’s undeserved award and making off with the points.

Well last night I think our lads may have coined/created the new concept of “Winning Beautiful”. Let me elaborate. I have in mind Arsenal were playing football of the highest quality from the start of the match, dominating the opposition all over the pitch for 92 minutes, scoring two delightful and entirely deserved goals. There was no fouling, diving or cheating, and we earned an entirely justified reward. Every man of the 14 who played was a credit to the club, to the fans and to their old Mums. So Mr Shearer, Mr Murphy and Mr Lineker poke that up your collective pipe of inane jargon for future reference.

Of the game itself I had the advantage of not seeing it live and suffered no distractions from social media. Santi buzzed like a hornet and I doubt he has had a more influential game in the past three seasons. Hector showed an attacking, creative flair that makes me wonder whether a Philip Lahm style move forward into midfield might not be in his future ( if of course we did not have such a plethora of talent across our middle regions). Another defensive masterclass from Kosc and Mustafi, with it taking an hour for the Swiss to land a shot of goal, and even that was from outside the box. Credit to Ospina, called from his slumber just once but his sharp Colombian hand saved the one decent effort from the Toblerone toilers.

But you are waiting for me to come to the two men on whom our evening pivoted, nay I would say “pirouetted”. I think we now all know why Arsene decide to persevere with Alexis as a striker don’t we ? The system just about clicked perfectly into place last night, with balls wedged over the top of the Basel defence to the Chilean, not too hard, not too soft, just perfect. And when it did not go over the Basel defence, Sanchez dropped short and went through them. It has taken five/six games to really work as well as it did last night, and for Santi, Mesut, Theo and Alex Iwobi to find the right wavelength but the reception as clear as a bell last night.

And top of the class our reborn right winger, the man of the moment, who can’t stop banging then in Theo Walcott. He absolutely terrified the Swiss left back Traore from the first whistle. The visitors never found an answer to his running. What struck me is there was so much confidence in the player last night, a certainty that when he took on man he would pass him, or hit a shot it would be on target.

For our visitors Vaclik was outstanding and the reason a 2-0 win was not 5.

It would have been pleasant to see a score that reflected our dominance, and the one irritation of the evening was the number of presentable chances that were not converted. Sanchez hoofing the advertising hoarding in frustration on 89 minutes indicated that he was not satisfied. That may however be a feature of “Winning Beautiful” – less is more.

Highly competent referee – young chap, just 33 – Danny Makkelie – I bet we hear more of him.

So onward to Turf Moor on Sunday and no doubt a rousing, meat and potato pie throwing welcome from Lancashire’s finest. A little rotation in order you ask ? We shall see. One tinkers with such precision engineering very carefully.

Enjoy your week.