Our excellent efficiency has certainly papered over the fact that Brighton have been good and this has not been an easy match by any means even when it was 4-1. Now we're 4-3. Yikes. Hold on boys,
Brighton's 3rd ruled off by VAR. Fortunate for Arsenal. Jeepers Christmas. Come on, lads. It's as if they neglected to recall Brighton is in the top half of the league for a reason.
and if we've had that VAR check against us I'd be pissed. VAR is muddy and strange and for every good thing that comes of it, something terrible always seems to be waiting in the shadows.
Get in! FT BHA 2-4 ARS We were the better team, and each of our front 4 were clinincal when it mattered. BUT we were also wobbly at times and truly scary in the last 10 mins. Our defensive frailty let them back into the game when it should've been done and dusted. That'll have to be worked out if we're going to truly challenge for this trophy. Still, let's take stock in our beating a tough bogey team away. Bring on the Geordies!
So basically Arsenal played 60 minutes and won a 90 minute match. Not a sustainable strategy, but for today the fates were on their side. Take it and move on. 43 out of 48 possible points. Damn.
They definitely didn't work out as planned. But to me, it looks like a loss of focus more than anything else. That could be a function of guys just not being in sync, of course. Maybe this particular late game configuration hasn't worked together enough. It's still up to the players to have their heads in the game whenever their number is called, though. That was just bad over the last 25 minutes or so.
Biased of course (and not necessarily all his fault) but man is Ramsdale completely average at best these days.
Last season I asked the question, "will Saka reach a Salah level, will Odegaard reach the level of De Bruyne?" in refernece to our project bearing fruit. The garden is blooming before our eyes.
Yeah I guess. But that's all the more reason why the defense, and especially or 2 CB's have to tighten things up so as to minimize whatever liability that our GK might present.
Only Newcastle have allowed fewer goals in the PL, only City have a lower xG allowed (not yet updated for today), let's not overstate the defensive fragility of this squad. Someone invite Mudryk to join us in the next matchday thread, assuming he hasn't been signed yet. Mykhaylo Mudryk, again here watching Arsenal game and mentioning “two top coach” for Roberto de Zerbi who had him at Shakhtar Donetsk……and of course, Mikel Arteta who’s pushing to sign him ⚪️🔴 #AFC pic.twitter.com/6hQVGR86lP— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) December 31, 2022
I think they often look fragile in defense. A lot of balls get played into dangerous areas that we're conditioned to freak out about because of years of mediocre CBs. But Gabriel and Saliba (and White, for that matter) are very good at dealing with them. The defense is set up to allow those balls in, knowing that we're going to deal with them far more often than not. I usually find myself surprised at how low the opponent xG is because of that, but we really don't allow a lot of truly dangerous chances unless someone ********s up.