WELCOME BACK: The Arsenal v. Sunderland, Saturday August 18th

That is until Dempsey refuses to play for us. Honestly we dont need another attacking mid. Lets get that DM spot sorted now, thats all I want.

i can't wait until sept 1rst and peple can stop wishing Dempsey was in an Arsenal shirt.

We were today at least. That said he looked more lively than I expected. If he showed as much pace before, he might not have slid as far down the totem pole as he has.

Yeah, Gerv was pretty good. Still sloppy as hell with distribution but he beats his mark at will.

So we're doomed again, huh ?

We complain all summer about want away players like RVP and Song and you want to bring in a guy who is refusing to play? No way I want him after this stunt.

Obviously we need more players, but this club needs to find it's identity and get a core we can rely on for the next 4 seasons. The lack of consistency in the squad has been murder for us.

Either he's not in sync with his teammates or they don't trust him. If we're in a game like today where we have a lot of uncontested position in the opponent's third, he should drop after the opponents get their numbers back. He should be about five yards in front of the halfway line to serve as an outlet for a backpass and to get goalside of any counterattacks.

As it was, he was hanging out 20-30 yards away from goal, often unmarked even, but we still didn't pass to him because he really couldn't do anything valuable to threaten Sunderland's goal. If he drops back, Verm can get forward and he can blast 'em in from 25 yards.

Is Podolski German for Chahmakh? There seems to be a lot of focus on this thread on a new DM but I think the forward situation is pretty bleak.

Yeah no shit. He'd be a bargain at twice the price. I'd shudder to think where we'd be without him.

Probably where we were last year without Arteta...

To be honest, it's not so much about Dempsey in as Walcott out. For a player who plays as much as we intend to play Theo, we need way more production than we're getting.

Think of the front line today. Gerv's passing is bad, that's a known bug but pretty clearly he does a lot to create dangerous situations for us. Luke seemed to be way to deep for me, but I'll cut him some slack 'cuz it was his first competitive game for the club, and that sort of thing has to be ironed out. Olly had one horrible miss that he'll probably do better with in the future.

The problem was Theo. He gave us nothing all game. It was bad enough to where I was happy to see AA come in for him.

Better or worse than Sagna?

So, Now that the first game is done with. Are you more or less optimistic about this season than you were yesterday? I'd say probably slightly less, mainly due to the forward play. But it is only the first game and it's been said they're not at full fitness yet.

Much worse. Sagna can actually pass the ball forward and make intelligent runs.

The forwards aren't on the same page as the wingers yet. Theo's performance today was a little scary - he was almost completely invisible.

You guys are lazy with your observations. Jenkinson was fine today. We need to give this team a few games to gel. Gervinho is frustrating. He can beat a lot of people but his passing is poor and he seems incapable of delivering a cross that isn't on the ground.

Santi Cazrola was an outstanding footballer today against Sunderland. He could have an excellent 2012-13 season provided he's in a "strong" form.

Separately, Gunners hopefully does well against Stoke City.

'Much worse' is a bit of an exaggeration... I would give Carl a pass, but I don't believe that Sagna is a consistently good attacker either. That said, I'd rather also not see Jenkinson getting too far forward at this point in his development. Obviously Sagna is a much better player.

That's the reason Darke always tells you exactly when he's going to give you the scores. He says 'Score update the next time the ball goes out of play' so you can mute him if you don't want to know.

Should've been 6 minutes. 6 subs accounts for 3 minutes, and the time wasting every time Mignolet got his hands on the ball and on every free kick should've been 3 more easily.

I think people are being a little harsh. We had opportunities. We didn't finish them but that shouldn't surprise anyone. It will always be difficult to break down a sound defense playing a bunkering system.

It is going to take a few games to get players comfortable with each other.

Cazorla's numbers today (From the ever reliable FourFourTom).
He was just sensational. We should have won the game for him. With him around, we will be very good this year.

Who Scored' gave Cazorla a rating of 8.3 for his debut - for a bit of perspective, David Silva and Juan Mata averaged scores of 7.5 and 7.3 last season in the Premier League.
Cazorla is known for his attacking play, but made a defensive contribution which is well above the Premier League average. He made 3 tackles and 2 interceptions, making one foul in the process.
Offensively Cazorla was almost flawless. He made 3 successful dribbles, had 4 shots on goal and made a phenomenal 7 key passes. No other Premier League player made more than 2 key passes today, whilst the entire Sunderland team made just 3 key passes.
Over the course of the game Cazorla made 77 passes, with 72 of those finding a teammate, giving him passing accuracy of 93.5%. That also means around 10% of Cazorla's completed passes were key passes.

I think this is why people are so frustrated. 2 points dropped today. another 2-5 points dropped to get comfortable and we are already 4-7 points off. A lot of ground to make up. It's bad enough we have half a new squad at the beginning of every season, but that is exacerbated by waiting so long to get all our business done and having a shit preseason.

It's not all doom and gloom, but if we can't find some consistency in the squad we can't expect consistency in performances.

Has Barca started tapping him up yet?