Arsenal v. Everton, Sunday February 23 2020, 1630 GMT

OMG, they've had 2 super dangerous chances right in front of our goal. We need to get the ball off them and get in their half. And SCORE a 4th goal!!

 

Arteta makes his final sub: Guen for Ozil. (who gets another great round of applause) Matteo out of the dog house finally. COME ON!!!!

 

Leno comes up big again. Asking too much of him.

 

Ugh! We press them high and they cough it up. Eddie has a GREAT shot, but hits the bar. Ugh.

 

Guendouzi and his fresh legs doing work

 

WHOA! Leno with a hugely risky block/clearance on the 25 yard line. Once again he's probably our MOTM.

Edit: BUT he seems to have hurt a toe or something. He's gonna soldier on. But pray for him, pray for us.

 

Gave me a heart attack

 

OMG there's another Everton chance from 6yds. DCL heads it 1yd wide. 2 mins of stoppage to go!!!

 

PHEW! 3pts it is. But just barely! We were taking constant incoming fire in the last 10-15 mins.

Not as convincing as last week but it's 3 wins on the trot. Maybe just maybe this will be a defining turning point.

 

A nervy one at the end but that wouldn't be Arsenal if they didn't try to gove their fans a heart attack. Eddie and Aubameyang played incredibly well up top. Without PEA where would we be, hope Auba wins the golden boot. Saka is just amazingly good at such a young age. Turned the game around.. everybody did well imo expect Luiz got caught out by DLC on several occasions. Everton really is an enigma they have some really talented players but overall they are just meh average they are like the England NT of the EPL..

 

Arteta said point blank in his post-match tunnel interview that Auba is our most important player. Duh... but it's not every day a coach/manager will admit that.

To retain him, I'd say that we'd have to qualify for UCL, which is a pretty big ask. I suspect he might not be content with another year of UEL, and definitely not if we miss out on Europe altogether.

He's pretty hot and has led the EPL golden boot for a few years. His attitude is not disruptive as were the rumors coming out of Dortmund. Bigger clubs are going to want him. La Liga?

Arteta knows all this, so if he likes him enough, maybe that'll be a little extra motivation for the boss to pull this rabbit outta the hat.

 

How many times has it been proven. Pay them enough they forget about Europe. That is all that matters not that I blame footballers one bit for it.

 

Yep. Need to offload Laca. If you can retain PEA, do it. Otherwise cash out and find another vet to lead the line and let Nketiah & Martinelli fight it out for primary backup.

 

I feel like earlier this year and going back to the last few Wenger years this one would’ve ended as a draw at best. Arteta really has them fighting!

 

‘Poor’ is a pretty strong term.

I love the guy, but he is going to be useless at some point in a nearer future than any of us want. If we are trying to win the league next year, sure. If not...have to get something in return for him.

 

Ceballos is the key player to our goal output. If he's in the lineup and playing well, we basically can't be pressed.

There's all the same options there were when he wasn't playing, plus the possibility that Ceballos can carry the ball forward 10-20 yards, maybe under pressure or maybe not. That happens a few times our passing lanes look a lot wider, we can routinely get behind the pressing defenders and in general create possession in the opponents' half. And then our finishers will probably do a pretty good job of converting whatever chances they get.

This game felt to me like some of the better post-Invincibles Wenger teams in decent form. We always looked that we could create threats for Everton if we needed to. It was almost a disappointment that we only scored three goals.

Leno was great again. Bellerin looked disappointing to me. I fear we're going to have to look for an upgrade at his position unless he recovers some of his pre-injury pace back.

Mustafi looked good again. He's a weird one. I feel like of all the problem children, he could actually still have a future at Arsenal. His baseline standard of play is actually pretty good, he just makes so many mistakes. But if those can be reduced or eliminated through confidence and good coaching, he actually can play a little. On the other hand, I suspect that Ozil, Xhaka, Chambers and maybe a couple others aren't good enough on their best day to play with the fluidity we're looking to show.

 

There may be reasons that ultimately Ozil doesn’t fit the way Arteta wants to play, but a lack of fluidity in his game is not one of them. With respect to Xhaka, Arteta appears to like him, a lot. Under Arteta there were games when I thought he was the obvious choice of the midfielder to be substituted, but instead Ceballos or Guendouzi or Torreira came off.

 

Ozil's a weird one. He _can_ run, I've seen him do it. He just doesn't. So in that sense I don't think it's that much better than if he couldn't. At least now he is contributing decently well enough, and I don't think anyone else will pay his wages, so we'll just have to ride this out for one more year.

 

IOW a player who can be quite brilliant, but also needy and not particularly versatile.

That said I like a WHOLE LOT MORE what I've been seeing in recent weeks from him, while Arteta has tried to work things out.