I'm starting to wonder if Arteta's game plan tonight was "let's sleepwalk for 90 minutes and go to Manchester"
To be fair its the same for us with City after watching them against Inter. We will hold them to 0 goals the issue is we can't score any ourselves.
Win at home, draw on the road and you advance to the next round. That’s all I have to say about this match.
No question, the result was far better than the performance. We were 2 stellar stops by Stone Cold David Raya away from coming home with zero points.
I wanted to mention that I thought Calafiori brought a lot of energy when he came on for Timber. He even made a direct run down the middle of the pitch into their half in the 79th minute. After passing to Trossard, he suddenly bursted toward the box, calling for the ball. Trossard had other ideas, but I love that he made that run and tried to be a difference maker.
It’s 100% a pen. That was my initial reaction in real time and confirmed on replay. Partey was terrible in that sequence and owes Raya approximately 1 million beers.
Me too. But we have to play better than this in order to challenge for a trophy. Both while we’re without MO and once he’s back. Our defense was pretty good, especially Raya (earned us the point TBF), Saliba, maybe Timber. But the others seemed less than their best. Onward…
Weird, pre-match if you told me we take a point from a strong team away in the CL I would be happy, but watching the match is cause for concern especially without Ode.
Ehh, I thought it was a bit soft, but I wasn't up in arms about it. Partey got roasted and then got grabby and when that happens if the dude goes to the floor, you can't complain much about light contact bringing him down. Speaks to a bigger problem though---Partey just has to sit deep in order to not get bypassed and even sitting deep if he gets isolated, he's in trouble. He's still good with the ball for the most part, but he's more of a liability.
It is 16 points, top 8 go straight to round of 16, 9 through 24 play a knock-out round to advance to the round of 16. 16 points would definitely get you 24th, but probably not top 8 guaranteed.