I have to say I fundamentally disagree with you regarding sending him off on loan. He definitely needs to be a bit more decisive when challenged on his ball collections but he was flying all over the place and constantly involved with the play. Perhaps I would rather not have him out there against the big teams but he should be a regular in the squad if he plays like he did today.
As for other players. Özil had a poor game. Offside too often. Didn't really make key passes. Auba was mostly a non-factor because he wasn't getting much service. Ramsey had a couple of moments but also invisible. Miky also was uneven. Not shocked by the performance or the result. New coach. Several new players.
The lad has talent and passion but he made many mistakes in his positioning and on ball pressure . Aguero should have scored after his massive misread of ball .... he will get better but nothing special today
This year is going to be a rebuilding year. I was pleasantly surprised to see how many good pieces Emry has to work with. We're not going to win anything this season, but there's hope that the ship will get turned in the right direction.
The muff on the ball that Aguero seized was a team failure. He should not ever be last man standing. Of course that was a mistake as well by him but I don't think we should overstate it.
It was from our corner. He was a there on instruction, not because he got hung out to dry by our lack of discipline. He failed. It happens.
I'm not too disappointed with the game today. We faced the best team in the league with a team that had a lot of work to do, and a manager that seems intent on doing the work. Chelsea next week is a different story though as that is a team we should be matching up against a lot better.
Re Ozil, I recall a number of times in the first half when he was back helping Bellerin and for most of the second half he was the10. That said, his lone tackle was as many as one of the defensive mids. Xhaka was basically invisible. Tactically what I found interesting is that in Emery's system the 10, Ramsey in the first half and Ozil in the second, was at the point of the press.
To add to this, Bellerin, who I believe was the other player back, should have begun dropping to cover, earlier.
Aw man I wish there was a readily accessible word to describe what just happened here. It was almost like you embarrassed him by having sex with his sexual partner, but in a racialized way.
I just wanna say I'm happy that the poster who walked, talked, and quacked like a neo-Nazi got run off by everybody. Well done.
Like I said earlier, I don't think we should make many judgments at all from this game. It's probably the hardest start to a season we could have wanted to avoid, and all things considered, we didn't make ourselves look awful. Lots to build on, but lots to work on as well. Xhaka will be fine with Rambo next to him and Torreira sitting behind. He's much better as an 8. Torreira's brief stint showed what he is going to bring to the midfield. Guendouzi is gonna get a lot of minutes, but I doubt he starts next week. I'll probably be proven wrong though. Cech will get every opportunity to lose his spot, and one he does that we will look a hell of a lot better playing out of the back with Leno. Nacho should be back next week as well which should help out. I'm optimistic. I think we will win something, whether it be a domestic cup or the Europa. I think we push for top 4, but might fall just short this season. Really depends on how we kick on post Chelsea.
Losing to City isn't that big a deal. To finish top 4 we gotta demolish the bottom half and try to get some draws against the other non-City contenders.
I was wondering about that. I hope that's true. I trust Nacho, even if he's lost a step or two. That said Lichsteiner did a good job at LB... I was pleasantly surprised to see him do so well on the left side, when he was bought for the right side AFAIK. It was sad to see AMN go down. At first glance it doesn't look like a speedy recovery, which is sad for him because he was looking to get some minutes back there. Someone above mentioned multiple injuries from today's match. I only recall Ainsley. Where there others??
Agree. I like the Emery setup I think. Ramsey further forward I like for sure. I watched it in the pub so not as observant as at home, but ozil had some good moments in the press so maybe he is buying into Emery. Duzy was a mixed bag. I think you could pin at least majority share of one xG=.90 and one xg=.40 on him defensively, but that’s probably no more that xhaka often last year. We were never keeping them out of goal with a new system, new players, and missing LBs, but to not score 1-2 goals with an 800k/week front four is a bit frustrating. So I’m laying most of my disappointment with the front 4 for not scoring and xhaka for failing to pass to red shirts. If anything is clear it’s that torreira has to play against Chelsea. I’d play him over xhaka until he scrapes off the rust and see how duzy does with some defensive awareness alongside him. On the positive, I thought Sokratis and mustafi did better than I expected. Leichsteiner seemed to slot in at LB so that’s seems positive. Hope AMN is okay, but based on today I’d rather have the veteran.
We started the post-Wenger era really well I thought, but this last month has been the worst plausible scenario. It would have been nice to get a result against City, but I wasn't expecting that. It's more that there's too much uncertainty about what we're building toward. It seems to make that there was a pretty clear blueprint for moving the club forward post-Wenger. We had a decent record and talent base moving forward. We're going to get all the goals we scored last year and a few more by improving improving the understanding between the forwards and creative players and maybe buy one quality wide player. On defense, we're going to improve a lot by upgrading the personnel and work on the training pitch. Now, I'm not sure how much we're doing on either end. It seems to me like a 3-1 loss would have been a fair result, and considering who we played that's maybe not so bad defensively. But I wish we could have shown some more offensive punch. Primarily, Ramsey's contract situation has put us in a really bad spot, and the club has allowed that to remain an unresolved issue, which means that we have a lot more questions now than we should. Because we have Ramsey, we're playing a pressing-ish 433, which means that we're relying on the the "system" to create goals for us instead of simple player quality. Ok, then what do we take from today, where Ozil was not especially valuable or noteworthy? How much blame do we put on him? He's got a big contract, and it's going to be hard to move him out of the club or to the bench. It's different for Xhaka, say, where we have good young players threatening his place, and if one of them takes it, I don't think the team will be negatively affected. City is better than us, there's no shame in losing. But looking at the performance, how confident are we that Arsenal is moving from a 60 point team to an 80 point team?
I didn’t take a lot from today. Lots of teams are going to lose 4-0 or 5-0 to City. We weren’t terrible nor very good. Chelsea is a much better barometer. Win or draw. Loss not acceptable. Wake up Ozil!! Ab and Lacazette must start together. Today didn’t upset me. A Chelsea loss would upset me.
Meh today just confirmed (for the 15th year in a row)how far we fell off the top level. Bright spots Guendonzi and AMN prior to injury and at least a semblance of a tactical identity. IMO this is a multi year rebuild with a lot of youngish players coming in with the idea of building a team that grows into a contender. Also that dude sounds like on of them incell types
Watched most of the replay after missing the live version. Can't say I'm surprised or thrilled, not much I can add to the (football) commentary here. Biggest concern is that the model to beat Arsenal seems cut and dry - Press and attack the Gunner's meager defense and force the alleged firepower of Arsenal's attack to play on their heels. Obviously not every team can do this but certainly all (Chelsea?) of the big 6 and the better teams in the Europa League. So if Arsenal is to crack the Top 4 or via for the EL trophy then they better sharpen their ability to push back. All that talent has to be MUCH better at holding the ball and learning to build possession in the face of a high pressure attack.