Also we found out today why City weren't too upset about letting Jesus go. We should have had 3 by HT, instead its 1 and we repeat last weeks poor 2nd half and get punished.
same guy, lyanco, swung his arm at gabe jesus - i actually missed it the first time but @NorthBank caught it - twice. there is no excuse for that not being carded. caleta-car bear hugged jesus twice. in the box. i actually think the point being made about certain plays not being shown because they might have shown referee's incompetence is 100% valid.
i mean, haaland is basically T-1000 and you'd pretty much let anyone else go to give him place. some of jesus' misses were disappointing but i thought he largely did well otherwise even if he, like the rest of the team, looked out of gas.
wait, someone is saying this was the referee that let villa scored on the corner when they manhandled ramsdale?
The cool thing about supporting 2 Arsenal teams is that when one of them has a flat disappointing performance you can switch to the other one and see the opposite. I'm up to 23' of Arsenal Woman at Liverpool (Tranmere actually) and we're up 2-0 with 2 stunning goals and shoulda been 3-0 if not for the post. And that's while we're still without our dominant CB duo both injured. I highly recommend following our gals these days. p.s. They made it onto CBSSN this week so my DVR picked it up, which makes watching it a breeze... without spoilers.
Yeah it’s not great but hard to fault anyone when the entire team looks exhausted. Subs maybe weren’t the best but oh well. We move
I know Arteta wants to play the same starting 11 for every match to wrap up the Europa league but its no surprise for two games in a row we have been dead in the 2nd half because Arteta isn't rotating the squad and we are burning out bad. We are better off playing a week 11 against PSV and giving our best 11 a 7 day break before we play NF because it would be a ********ing disaster to lose to them.
Thought Partey was really good in the first half and equally bad in the second. I don't blame the 23 minutes he played at PSV. He has a pattern of fading in matches and not being able to go a full 90 regardless of how often he's been playing. Elneny is fine as a backup if Arsenal have a lead and he just needs to run around and defend (if he was healthy). But Arteta doesn't have an answer late in games when Partey is knackered and he needs a goal.
i was thinking that. and, because the game was so tight and they were constantly threatening, you couldn't bring in lokonga today. :-/
Also seeing discussion that Tierney should have started and they looked better when he came on, I think that's a bit due to game state as his overlapping was needed when they were chasing a goal. But I do think they are missing Zinchenko, he's better at supporting Partey in the middle. Was hoping he'd at least be back on the bench today.
I’m not sure Gabriel Jesus was exhausted, I think the problem was he was manhandled. When you have a referee that lets defenders drape their arms all over attackers with impunity, it’s always going to be tough to score. Not every referee lets defenders get away with this (if that was Xhaka) but far to many do. This is an argument for adding a big, Plan B, striker that defenders can’t lean over.
That was 100% a foul. I've seen argument that it should have been a red + direct just outside the box because the mugging started outside the box and prevented an obvious goal scoring opportunity. That said, I think the reason the ref and VAR opted to not give a foul/penalty was because of the way the Jesus "flops". He needs to find a better way to go down and not look fake. In this instance, taking a swipe at the ball and letting himself be pulled backwards to the ground while shooting would have gotten us the pen call.
We've played 990 minutes in the league this season. 3 players have played every minute (Ramsdale, Gabriel, Saliba), 3 have played at least 945 minutes (Xhaka, Saka, Jesus), and 1 more has played more than 900 (Martinelli - and he's at 943). White and Odegaard are both over 800, Partey is around 700. Nelson, Cedric, Marquinhos, Holding, Smith Rowe, Elneny, Nketiah, Vieira, and Sambi have combined to play 607 minutes in the league. This was a tired performance, so too was Leeds. Arteta's unwillingness to rotate is his biggest weakness as a manager, and it bites us on days like today.
We should have been more clinical in front of goal, especially in the first half. So I'm not going to blame the ref for the poor result. But geez, I've never seen a center back be able to just use their arms and mug guys with impunity like that. Ridiculous.
100% agree. We should have put that one away in the 1st half on our own but we have a legit case for 1-2 penalties and 1-2 reds against Soton.
Yes to your first point. And I think that whether rightly or wrongly, Jesus may have developed a reputation for going down easily so the flagrancy of the foul has to be very high for him to get the call. That said, I think the bear hug tackle from today shoulda been called. On your second point, I'd like to have a big Plan B striker, but I don't really think Mikel is thinking this way. Unless of course he looks to his old employer and sees how well their new, more direct style is working with Haaland. But still I don't think he's the kind of manager to switch styles easily or fluidly to such a Plan B. So I would really like to see a seasoned potent ST signed in January, but I wouldn't expect that to be a big man a la Giroud, but rather someone more similar to what we have now. And I'd be happy with that just from a coverage/depth POV. However, I am NOT actually assuming it likely we sign another ST.
Some quotes from Mikel post-match from BBC... "It's painful because we wanted to win again," Arteta told BBC Match of the Day afterwards. "Credit to Southampton as well. There are no complaints." "We created big chances that we didn't put away," Arteta said. "In the Premier League, when you don't do that when you're on top, you can pay the price. "We were really good in the first half and totally controlled the game. In the second half we stopped doing the simple things right. We gave ourselves problems with the amount of giveaways, especially in possession. "We ended the game on top and we tried to go for a second goal, but we didn't find it." I would add to that last sentence that he and the boys left it way too late to wake up and go for that 2nd goal. That shoulda happened well before they equalized. Then once they did, to Mikel's credit he did make 2 subs within a few mins that were I think intended to get that game winner (along with planned rotation?) but obviously they didn't really work that way.
I was saying this back in the summer. Felt that Jesus & Eddie were too similar. Still think they are too similar but very happy to have Jesus. I would be extremely surprised if we get a Jan ST unless one of the current guys goes down for an extended period. Think there were promises made to Eddie to get him to re-sign and Arteta is not gonna go back on those promises this season. If Eddie doesn't start showing more as the season goes on, I think we could be on the lookout in the summer. I mentioned it in the Jan transfer thread but we should take a look at Marcus Thuram. He is back from injury, playing ST exclusively under the new boss and has 7g 2a with pressing numbers better than Jesus. His contract expires this summer so he could be a cheap Jan signing but I'd bet he will be looking for a FA move in the summer. I'd start talking with him in during the WC and see if he has any interest.
not one but two swings. 🤔 How was this not even looked at? https://t.co/lsxVoDCKA8— DailyAFC (@DailyAFC) October 23, 2022