Stones and Laporte are good in that regard Gomez has promise as a passing cb Luiz has a great long ball though
I'm o i'm only advocating a Sokratis Holding pairing against teams that punt everything to their big center forwards in the box. I'd prefer Luiz against teams that favor playing the ball on the ground to quick forwards, like United, City, and Liverpool. Luiz is probably going to need some games off, Emery needs to schedule those games off against teams like Burnley.
Sokratis is also better than Holding, by a lot. I like Holding a great deal but the hype is ridiculous. Can’t wait until Tyne fans turn on him.
I'll withhold judgement on this until VAR catches Sokratis with both hands on the forwards shoulder and awards a couple of PKs. Then we'll see how he adjusts his game.
We were definitely better than Burnley, but not crushing. The finishing was unlucky, by what we've come to see in the PEA-Lacazette era of Arsenal, but still good enough to win. We had clean pretty decent hits on target from PEA, Torreira, Guendouzi, Reiss Nelson, plus at least two marginal offsides from Monreal and a bad pass from Pepe in a 2 on 1 break, and got nothing from the lot of it. 3-1 would have been a fair scoreline. Next weekend is as good a time as any to be playing Liverpool away. I think a number of our fans will be okay with a bad result there as long as we don't get embarrassed 5-1 or something. I'm just the opposite. There's enough reasons to be optimistic about the direction of the club, at least in the short term, so that one bad result shouldn't derail us. Liverpool was way better than us last year, and probably still better than us now. But the difference is, we've upgraded the roster enough to where we should be looking to beat them against the odds instead of trying to find positives in losing.
Ceballos *swoons* So many wasted years persisting with guys who lack the skillset of an elite central midfielder
He's good enough to find tiny pockets of space. He also looks very dangerous from the D shifting to shoot or playing a ball through
How did Wilock and Nelson play. Missed the game. More key is what's our line up at Anfield going to be midfield wise.
Willock was pretty good, very involved. If Ceballos hadn't been as good as he was, Willock would have stood out more. Nelson was a non-entity and was rightly subbed off at halftime.
Willock does a lot of hard work from the front of midfield but I think at times it confuses things because Ceballos runs things better My guess is against bigger teams, Willock will make way for LT Hopefully this means less Xhak-attack
Ceballos is the first player I have been really excited about since Ozil was signed He just oozed class. Of course if he keeps it up, he will walk into the Real midfield. Early days but I think there are signs of critical mass with way more quality to choose from. Since peak 2013 we simply lacked enough class players.
I think the change at half time was pre planned. Emery has to integrate his club record signing into the team at some point. Nelson didn't make a huge impact, but he didn't badly either.
He is still only 19. In the Bundesliga last season, at 18, he averaged a goal every 90 minutes. He is not going to be a regular starter at Arsenal this season and probably next season too (though he wil, get plenty of cup games), but I wouldn't write him off. Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang, and Ozil are all 30. Lacazette is 28. At some point. In the next two or three years I would expect them to all be replaced, some sooner than others.
Nelson is 19 and was good at Hoffenheim last season at age 18-19. Historically, players that can play at the top level as teenagers and not look out of place tend to have above average careers, assuming they don't get hurt.
Yep Ozil was playing at Bremen at that age - though obviously he was a hot talent who would never stay there
Reading about Wilshere in the G reminds me of how many years of failure were tolerated with him Hopefully Xhaka is the next midfielder to go.