Thoughts on some players: —Auba: I thought he had a great game. A player of his quality should’ve that open goal in the first half. Overall very good and one of our most dangerous player. —Pepe: had a lot of promising moments. Would’ve been nice had he scored during the 1 v1 especially considering the price tag we paid for him. Van Dijk was all over him during the game. —Ceballos: hasn’t acclimated to the premier league yet and this game showed it. Liverpool pressured him out of the game. He also played a very risky ball which could’ve cost us. —Willock: had a lot of promising moments. Ih I can recall, he nutmegged a Liverpool player and created some dangerous moments for us. lacazette would’ve been more effective in a game like this. —AMN: he was just ok. Gave the ball away a couple times in dangerous areas. Hope to have bulletin back soon —Torreira: love his heart and commitment when he came on —Nacho: don’t know if he is eyeing a move away or just getting old but Liverpool was running all over him today. Or Liverpool attack is just that good as made nacho look average —xhaka: only be used as a squad player in big games please
Losing away to Liverpool, who are one of the 3 strongest teams in Europe, isn't something to worry about. We didn't embarrass ourselves as we usually do, and with some better finishing from Pepe and Auba, we could have sneaked a draw the way Spurs did last week against City. This was full an almost full strength Liverpool, at home, against a side that was definitely not at full strength. Most of their first 11 are entering their third season playing together. If we had an acclimated Pepe and Ceballos, and a fit Tierney and Bellerin, there is a very good chance we get something from that game. That said, we are definitely in that third tier duking it out with Chelsea, United and possibly Wolves for 4th.
Wolves isn't even going to be in the Europa League places, unless they lose against Torino next week. Those extra matches are going to take a ton out of them, and I don't think they have the squad depth to compete on multiple fronts.
Interesting how the performances of ceballos and pepe flipped in just one week. Pepe was arguably our most dangerous player. IMO. And I was really surprised to see him go a full 95 mins. VERY promising outing! Ceballos was surprisingly quiet. And when he did do something notable it was too often on the negative side of the equation, e.g. the giveaway(s). Other than Luiz, my biggest concern in 1T was the number of times (6?) that they marauded down AMN's side and then put in a hard diagonal in the box, that slid past everyone, usually including our CB's. LFC clearly outclassed us. There's a big gulf between us and them. I hope Josh and Stan were watching.
AMN can’t play FB vs top teams, at least in a back 4. Said it after seeing him in pre season vs Bayern. We just don’t have any other option at the moment.
Another small positive... Very nice to see Torreira back in the action, and making it slightly more respectable by scoring our only goal on the day.
After 2nd goal I wus have liked to see Emery show some cajones! I wud have switch quickly to a 4 -2-1-3 and gone for it. ABA. Laza. pepe Mickey Gouz. Torreria Nacho Luiz socratas Niles I'm i I crazy? Put pressure on them w attack. Hell at one point I think I saw 9 reds on our side attacking.
Really need LT instead of Xhaka in there. I'd prefer Ceballos as the organizer, and Lulz from deeper. Xhaka is redundant now,
And as a result we now have to put all our hopes in a 23YO guy who hadn't quite established himself as our future before he ruptured his achilles. As good as the window may have turned out, we still neglected to address what was widely accepted to be our most pressing need.
Honestly I wouldnt be opposed to giving Arteta a go. Probably the only former player id be ok with at the moment. Wonder if he would be interested. There were some claims that he was upset about "being spurned" when AW was let go. If I recall correctly we contacted him about the job and then changed directions when we felt we could get Emery.
I do not get this infactuation with arteta He has 2 years assistant experience and that’s it Pep would literally of done everything g there with his Barca coaches Arsenal have an average squad, most manager would of done badly imo
Oh yeah. My bad. Maybe i was thinking of hudson odoi? Or (shudder the thought) laurent koscielny? Agreed, ACL should be quicker and more straightforward recovery.