The performance was meh and not only from our highly anticipated signing Victor G. The back line looked shaky, midfield didn’t control the game like we do, and the front 3 was so poor Mikel had to sub the striker and the LW in the 60th minute. Havertz was on the pitch in place of the Gyokeres and Madueke got his first game in Arsenal shirt.
There was nothing positive to take away from the game except those 3 sweet points and a clean sheet. Raya was superb and did some brilliant saves to keep us in the game. The United fans were furious for the goal they conceded, counting as a blatant foul and obstruction, but they ignored the same thing happening at the other end when Raya was surrounded but he made it to look like an easy one by punching the ball away comfortably.
I get it, the first game of the season, away from home at Old Trafford, it’s always going to be difficult. Plus, the new signings from them in Cunha and Mbuemo were ridiculously good – so good that they both contributed an equal amount of shots on target that we managed as a team, which made it worse for us. We lacked cohesiveness in the midfield and Zubimendi will take some time to deliver what Partey used too. Our captain was poor, Saka was not at his best, Martinelli had to be subbed, White wasn’t having a good day and Saliba looked shaky as well.
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News of the hour is that Kai Havertz has picked up a knee injury and it looks to be pretty bad. There’s no official club announcement yet Ornstein has reported it and he is usually right about Arsenal. He also said that we are now looking to address the Havertz’s unavailability by going back into the market. I don’t understand why we are after replacing a back up player but not my circus, not my monkey.
There’s another one of its kind development around Trossard. We have renewed his wages but not the contract. I don’t know who comes up with these kinds of ideas because we are talking about a player who we should have sold this summer to raise money. Now, it’s even more difficult to sell him because he earns more per week. It can mean two things though – either our LW reinforcement is over or we are going to sell Martinelli and didn’t want to have 3 new faces and the left wing. Still about 10 days to go, so we will know.
There’s another breaking news from some journos – Mikel was seen switching Saka and Madueke on the wings in training. I doubt he is going to play the best right winger in the world, out of his position. It could just be a tactic for more flexibility in the game where the wingers switch positions to create more chaos. Usually, Saka is surrounded by defenders and switching him to the LW can cause confusion to the opponents.
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Right, that’s all for today. We have a game coming up this Saturday and I will be back before then.
I look at Eze as a Nasri/Pires /Hleb type player who plays with his head up and glides across the turf, he can play wide, inside left or deeper , he scored goals and assists for palace with limited time on the ball so the expectation is that playing for a club with more possession he should be able to have more influence on the game.
I see no reason why Eze can’t play wide left as under Arteta our play is designed towards providing the 2 wide players with as much of the ball as possible.
I think it’s fair to say that Martinelli has disappointed recently, mainly because he is a head down player who basically relies on his pace, whereas Eze always receives the ball with his head up and will bring something extra to the side.
The downside for me is Arsenal resorting to a more long ball game v PSG and more recently against United at the weekend, we need to have belief that we can play out from the back and then the likes of zubimendi, Odegaard, saka and Eze will flourish.
Gyokeres looks a willing worker but hitting long high balls to him is not going to bring the best out of him.
There can be a problem starting a number of new players as there is no guarantee they will click, the expectations will be higher meaning a failure to blow away the likes of Leeds this weekend will bring over the top criticism , half the problem is Arteta fills the new players heads with too much tactical information which doesn’t always allow a natural footballer like Eze to play with the freedom that he has had at Palace.
I take it back – an awful lot of talk this morning about how we’ve gone in for Eze and the Spuddie’s are furious that they’re going to miss out.
He’s a very good player – no issue with signing good players I just couldn’t get my head round where he’d fit in and then it came to me its obvious!
Arteta has not signed a left back this summer because he’s moved on to collecting players for the left wing.
Eze – reported fee to be £68 million
Martinelli
Trossard – new contract
Madueke – £50 million
I was getting worried Arteta had got his shit together and was going to stop collecting bodies for a position but I can sleep easy now knowing normality has been resumed.
The Daily Telegraph is reporting we’ve agreed a deal with Palace.
“Tottenham agreed to Palace’s terms for the deal on Wednesday and also struck terms with Eze, who was ready to join them. But Palace would not finalise the transfer because they want the forward to play in their Europa Conference League play-off against Fredrikstad on Thursday night.
That allowed Arsenal to enter the race late on Wednesday afternoon and also agree to Palace’s terms over a total package for Eze worth an initial £60m plus £7.5m in add-ons, with sporting director Andrea Berta leading the pursuit.”
Sounds like Berta can get things done when he wants / needs to and is about to make himself very popular with Arsenal fans by pissing of the Spuds!
Just skimming through the Eze reports online, and it seems he had a meeting with Saka and another arsenal player, which I assume has continued while Spuds were making their play.
I wondered if articles were just our way of fcuking with Levy’s plans to buy Eze by pushing up the price, but apparently we re using player power as MA’s sway isn’t enough to have Eze salivating enough just yet, at the prospect of being tutored/mentored by MA. The England player connection looks to be the route the club has taken.
However, given a flat choice between us and Spuds, then Eze won’t be taken in by the water down European trophy Spuds won last season: their only cup for decades, and would choose us.
Levy is rather stymied here because Eze clearly feels his career is better placed with The Arsenal in the long term. I’m sure his agent has told Eze that MA needs to win the PL this season for his further longevity at the club.
I’ve pounded my Eze and Olisse views here enough, so I hope we finally land Eze who would be a better false 9 than Havertz any day or the week or play and score from right, center and left AM positions, especially from outside the box. Eze is a great set piece specialist, so again that will water down Rice’s free kicks I imagine.
I’m wondering if the ‘Rice at 8 experiment’ is under review by MA with maybe Bertha raising concerns? I and many here will seriously hope it is. Rice at 6 is probably top 5 in the world below Rodri.
Then, that beggars the question I’ve raised before of why buy Zubi and Noni? Although, to be fair, I could see Noni being useful if played to his strengths being the Swiss army knife midfield and up front player to rotate or cover for injuries.
Ethan and Dowman have the perfect player in Eze to learn from, as I honestly see no downside to us adding Eze to our squad. Eze could also unlock VG if played in the right role and take the pressure off Ode, as well as teaching Ode to shoot.
Now, if we were to buy Eze and Isak? I can still dream and I think the Bar Codes would rather sell to us than Pool. Unusual for that to happen I know, but…….
I don’t think even MA could screw that up where we’d possibly have a Wenger “go and express yourselves” kind of tactical plan and leave it to the leaders on the pitch.
That I could live with if we played fast, one and two touch football through the lines/channels, and or through parked busses and on pacy counters.
Play Ode – Rice (at 6) – Eze in midfield with Timber at RB, and the LB to be tailored to who we are playing from Kiwior/Skelly & Broccoli playing a high line, and I feel we will be capable of making a challenge of some kind.
However, whether that can be sustained will be dominated by MA’s tactics, injuries and loss of form challenges.
MA being the architect of 3 capitulations, it will be his tactics that will be under the microscope again if we are fighting for 4th place this season. 852224 is not good optics for manager who keeps telling everyone who will listen that he’s a winner. and improving all the time. Er not with these stats that can’t be massaged even by the great leg-end (in his mind) Pedro-Pete.
I seriously hope we buy Eze: now and for the future, where if we bought Isak as well, then, we really would be in with a serious fighting chance against City and Pool with more level playing field squads.
Question is who would be the better manager with such a squad?
Pep, Slot or MA?
Marc
I’d love us to buy Eze and Isak just to read your following posts. lol.
Seriously, though, we all wanted Bertha to clip MA’s wings with immediate effect, which in all honesty was never the right thing to do.
I think if we buy Eze, then I feel Bertha is slowly influencing proceedings behind the scenes by talking sense to Messers Lewes and Stan & Josh Kroenke about a missing football identity we still don’t have after almost 6 years, which Pedro was banging on about all the time about Emery having no playing or tactical identity after the 22 steak without loss.
Is Bertha smarter than the average MA type manager?
I think the next 12 months are going to be very interesting and illuminating with how Bertha operates at the club, and how MA figures in Bertha’s plans or is it still how Bertha fits into MA’s plans?
22-game without loss streak*
Marc
Arsenal could always do with a few more left wingers. It’s been a Tory citadel for ever. 😄
Personally, I’ll be delighted when it’s made official. Other teams watching our boys take to the pitch will be shitting themselves from now on (with LFC the only possible exception).
Kroenke
Very good!
Tony
I’ve no issue with Eze he’s not only a very good player but an explosive influence on the pitch – something we lack.
I just couldn’t get my head round where he’d fit in – I’m still wondering but maybe we’re going to see Martinelli sold. If not we’ve got a lot of expensive attacking players competing for a few spots.
Where this will also be excellent news is it won’t give Arteta the usual ready made excuse about injuries or can’t compete with Liverpool because they’ve spent lots of money.
The way the fanbase are crowing , it is like we have signed Messi.
Its Eze from Crystal Palace , who no cunt wanted for weeks.
We are not a serious club anymore. Bayern Munich. PSG, Liverpool Inter Milan, Man City are serious clubs, We are a fucking big soap opera where 95% of fans who simply don’t understand team sports and its dynamics, especially football.
So Eze who has played underdog counter attacking football all his career is suddenly at 27 going to be turned in Salah under our genius. Heard the same bollocks from the same slags when they signed Willian and Sterling and Gykores and the rest.
These same cunts wanted Watkins a while back and the little cunt who is banned from Chelsea. They know fuck all.
I have now lost count who we sign and how much we waste these days, but I do know Liverpool pissed the league without signing anyone last season.
That because they dont have a fucking fraud in charge, or frauds behind the set up
And if thats not giving off the right positive vibes, hard fucking luck.
Art, would you rather Rice stay at 8 or Merino? We know we have no chance of getting elite players, so to us Eze is the better option we can afford.
Had we had the choice Reijnders & Wirtz were the AMs we really needed.
I get both sides of the Eze equation…on the negative side, where the fuck does he play, especially on the heels of the stupifying Tross re-up…if Tross was sold off Eze could have easily been deployed as the Belgian’s replacement, as that tucked inside version doesn’t require the same pace…on the positive side, he brings something that’s been largely ignored during MA’s tenure, goal fucking scoring…so the biggest takeaway for me is that should MA shit the bed again, as he’s under incredible pressure now to prove he has the tactical nous to get shit done, the signings of VG, Eze and Noni will undoubtedly encourage ownership to bring in a replacement who knows how to employ a more direct brand of football…most of MA’s other buys, 27 defenders, 14 Keepers and a whole host of supposed DMs, would have required us to find another defence-first manager…that’s a big fucking silver lining for me
maybe Berta was always at odds with Simeone regarding the style of play and wanted to come here to rewrite his narrative…Atleti’s overreliance on a more defensive brand of football did enable them to compete at times against the bigger spenders in La Liga, but it typically left them in the 2 or 3-hole…this might explain why he favoured the more direct VG, Noni and now Eze, all of whom don’t really fit MA’s script during the past two seasons…by the sounds of things Diego wasn’t in favour of the Alvarez move, which might explain why he seems to be available, for the right price, even after he lit things up last season…let’s hope that Berta was given assurances by ownership to have some autonomy when it came to certain personnel decisions, which makes some sense as this was the reason why most feel Edu cut bait and ran (this is likewise why Gazidis left for AC, who btw brought them back to prominence in relative short-order—fuck me, is our club actually learning from their past mistakes for once!!)
Tony, TRVL.
Everything starts from having a quality manager. And quality executives above that.
And trickles down.
Without that you are simply pissing in the wind. Sage old cunts like us, know this.
PSG were pissing in the wind buying all sorts of shite before Enrique got there.
This moronic cunt in charge believes his job description is simply to spunk millions on 5 players he takes a fucking shine to every fucking window.
His actual fucking job is to create a title winning team playing attacking football blitzing the opposition with goals , shots and comers.
And if you cant manage that within 3 years, you will not able to do it.
AF—you know we’re of the same mindset on most things, which is why I’ve tempered my expectations for the now and focused a bit more on the future…I’m excited that the profile of the players coming in has changed, at least in part, since Berta’s arrival…for me this is the best sign thus far that if our tactical simpleton of a manager can’t win some major siverware he will be the odd man out…the fact that they’ve invested quite heavily in several players who are known for their direct play will undoubtedly play a major role in any future managerial recruitment process, as I very much doubt our absentee landlords will want to go scorched earth anytime soon…Cheers
Art
Eze is a good player – world class no but he’s certainly decent.
I think you’re coming at this the wrong way. I hate Arteta with a passion and want him gone and Enrique would be amazing for us but the more the everyday fans gets high on this the bigger the expectation for Arteta becomes and the excuses won’t be there. Our net spend is higher than Liverpool’s this summer and they spent fuck all last summer.
Arteta’s got nowhere to run and the press is circling like a pack of hungry sharks.
Marc
I agree with every word of that. He’ll be having some sleepless nights over the season. And if he does fuck up, it’s questionable whether other big clubs would be interested in hiring him afterwards.
I’d be interested to know what you and others would see as acceptable this season.
CL final.
Winning one of the two domestic cups.
If not getting ahead of Liverpool, then staying within a few points for the entire season (we should really be winning it but overall, everything has to get better and performances be more consistent. Trophies more important for me than any improvements in style.
Kroenke
Personally for me its the PL or the sack, the FA Cup is great but it doesn’t really demonstrate a top team. The League Cup is pretty much mickey mouse and its best use is what Mourinho used to use it for a springboard for the final sprint chasing down the league.
This may sound backwards but I want our first CL to come off a PL title – winning it after not winning the league for 20 plus years just isn’t how a club like Arsenal should win their first one.
I do want to see us playing better – winning the PL with a dozen 1 nil wins with all the goals from a corner is really not a record a club that still remembers the Invincibles should aspire to.
I have a theory that may be ‘controversial’ but deep down, we all want that don’t we..
Eze is coming to take the Odegaard’s position.
KP
One of the Premier League or Champions League titles. Winning FA cup and making it to CL semi finals, finishing another 2nd in the league doesn’t do for me.
We were bored as fuck from qualifying for Champions League and having a run and winning FA cups under Wenger. We ousted him, spent on 2 managers, spent a billion dollars to build a team and a back up to it, to get back to doing that again?
A title, and it better not be the Carabao or FA cup. I think the Kroenkes are going all IN. We spent on a back winger 52m dollars, Havertz was a back up and got injured for 3 months? They went out and bought a replacement for him in 24hrs.
Gyokeres is here. We suffered last to last season when Saliba got injured, so we have got Mosquera who can cover.
They spent money on Partey replacement in Zubimendi. While Rice can cover that position and rotate with him while Merino and Havertz plays that AM role, they got Norgaard.
Lets assume that the best team we can play, played against Man Utd. Some of the players who were sitting bench were
Havertz
Madueke
Timber
Merino
MLS
Trossard
Nwaneri
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And we are adding Eze to this list.
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Club is making a statement that we are going for the trophy. If we don’t do it, there will be firings i am sure.