Another early game, hopefully the last NLD at Wembley (in the league). A perfect opportunity to right the ship after 2 dodgy losses. All areas of the field need to improve, compared to those games. We can't expect to win games with a toothless attack and defensive nightmares. For all the doom and gloom, though, we have never had more points that this, at this stage in the season. Arsenal's road record is not good this year but they come into the game in form, with 5 wins out of 6. That is all I care to say about them. Jan and Winks are doubts, Dele and Dier definitely out.
Funny how history repeats itself - last year before the NLD at Wembley, they came in 4 points behind us after a 5-1 home win...
I don’t know what to think about this game. Poor performance. Kane should have been called offside. One-one was fortunate, but that 90th minute penalty save made it feel a bigger result than it was.
Thought Rose in the center of the park was bad on the day, but saw signs he could grow in to the role, but surprised Super Jan wasn’t asked to do it, his distribution was better on the day. Maybe Poch was hoping the Jan would whip in a few crosses to Llorente.
Draw. Could be worse. Right the ship boys. It's not completely out of reach. But, the rich getting richer is a horror in the PL nowadays, and even great teams can't keep up with these monstrosities.
Yet another schoolboy goal conceded in a big game, our chronic bugbear! Where were two-thirds of the back 3 and the holding midfielders? What on earth was Sanchez doing? Sigh. But that was not as bad as the disgraceful decision of Anthony Taylor to give a penalty in the last minute on a guess, which capped an otherwise inept performance by the official. Just like at Burnley, Poch made bad substitutions and the wrong change in formation after we had equalized, rendering our game ineffective for the final 15 minutes. The Llorente for Son change was pathetic - if you are going to take off Son, bring on Moura, remember him? Now that Kane is back, there is no need to play Llorente, unless we are 3-0 up with 5 minutes to go. He did nothing to affect the game at Burnley and did less than nothing today. Then moving Rose into central midfield and pushing Jan up the pitch in a back 4 nearly cost us a point, as Rose kept giving the ball away and Jan got caught way out of position in the build-up to the penalty. Once again our passing was dreadful, with constant giveaways, underlining how big a miss Dele is for us. The only positive to take out of the game was that we didn't lose and that they blew the chance to win the game at the end, which at least avoids us having to listen to the gloating of the Woolwich support. All in all, a very bad week, especially when you consider Burnley got done easily by Newcastle and Palace, after we capitulated there last Saturday.
Some interesting talking points in the aftermath of this game. The Woolwich support are convinced that they were robbed of the 3 points, but they are entitled to have the wrong opinion... 1. Was Kane offside on the penalty incident? My normal instinct would say yes, but then I have heard some ex-referees saying yes and others saying no - good luck when VAR comes in, because they have all been saying offside is a black and white issue. I think they could resolve a lot of these issues by not allowing attacking players to line up in an offside position on free kicks. 2. The missed foul by Xhaka on Kane, was it a sending-off offense? Again, I have heard divergent opinions from the ex-referees, even if VAR were in play. 3. Rose's yellow for booting Leno in the midriff (good on you Danny!), should it have been a red? This time the ex-referees were in agreement and said the yellow was sufficient. 4. The Aubamayeng penalty award. Again, more disagreement; Peter Walton, who was a pundit for Sky, said it was (although he was one of the worst referees I have seen in the PL), but Chris Foy said no (and he wasn't exactly brillian in his day). Interestlingly, Foy thought that had it gone to VAR, they still would have given it, although to me it was never a pen. 5. The Vertonghen encroachment, should the penalty have been retaken? Acording to the letter of the law, yes, but how many times do refs give that? And after incorrectly awarding the pen, there was NO way Taylor was going to let them retake it. BTW, Iwobi, who was the first Arsenal player to touch the ball after Hugo's save, was also encroaching.