@Tonerl gets us off to a cracking start, and this is good revenge on Forest for knocking us out of the FA Cup. Can't see how they stay up this season. 5 goals? Clean sheet? No suspensions or red cards? Great day. Hope Sakas ankle comes up good we will need him to help exploit Chelsea.
Only for Morgan-Gibbs. First time we have won 11 in a row at home in 5 years, and first time since 2018 we have put 5 goals past a team.
Well done, lads. Well done. So long as Saka isn't badly hurt this was a near flawless performance. Glad to see the boost to the goal differential, as well. Now need the B team to do the job midweek, and then show real grit in the trip to west London.
2 points clear on City, 5 clear of Spurs who played an extra game. A win against Chelsea is big coming up, would have us 13 points clear of 5th (unless United win today, if United win we would be 8 points clear of 5th after 12 games). Building some nice gaps on our opposition. Really really need to get the 6 points from the Chelsea and Wolves games.
I don’t really mean to keep pounding you on this, but Jesus had 7 shots, 4 key passes and 2 assists today. His goal scoring form is bad at the moment but he’s just nothing at all like Lacazette.
Reiss Nelson has been directly involved in the same amount of Premier League goals in the space of eight minutes vs. Nottingham Forest as Jadon Sancho has in 10 Premier League appearances this season (3). 🙃 https://t.co/cN9BUrAwGS— Squawka (@Squawka) October 30, 2022
i don't know if it's wanting to give nelson an opportunity in a low pressure game or acknowledging after PSV that vieira on the wing (at least while looking to attack and not just maintaining) doesn't work for our setup but i dig it. marquinhos, i think, might have been a better like-for-like but nelson has more experience so i think it makes sense for a game that's still in striking distance, even if they weren't truly threatening (outside of our own screw up). plus marquinhos just got back from injuries.
i didn't quite understand that argument, either. henderson struggled with it because it was too weak and easy to catch? WTF?
i know mcnicholas touts his ability from the right but you can see the immediate spike in his play as soon as he switched to the left. i still think his greatest strength is his composure in scoring position and we saw that today. i think he can be of help this year.
cedric on the bench vs PSV was one of the sadder footie moments i've seen. BIG props to him for coming to celebrate with the team for partey's goal. i think someone lesser might have sulked. i'm glad he got to have extended game time.
gabe jesus is offering goal threats in addition to everything else he does, including setting up teammates. he's in poor form and not finishing, sure. but he's threatening and that will work itself out. lacazette did not offer any goal threats outside of penalties - in fact, it would be ridiculously easy to go back to the end of last season and see how many people said after just about every single nketiah goal, "lacazette doesn't score that" - and, while he put in a shift to try to bring others into play, lacazette did not offer the playmaking threat jesus has either. and i say this as someone who likes lacazette.
weirdly, in recent games, we have wholly switched our attacking play when tierney is in. he provides the nominal width and, as you said, LW moves inside to make room for him while xhaka drops deeper to partner partey/receive the ball from defense in the zinchenko role/cover LB. that sort of work with jesus as LW. it might be worth a shot seeing if vieira works better as LW in that setup. it's mediocre with martinelli as LW and neutralises his greatest strength. it's works horribly with nketiah as LW. i'm not sure why arteta has switched to doing this in recent game as well as with having jesus stay at CF and nketiah take LW. at the start of the season, tierney was asked to play the same way as zinchenko and gabe jesus was the one who flared wide to make room for nketiah.
I recall seeing KT play inverted at the beginning of the season and thought he handled it fine. My best guess is that he isn't comfortable in that role so Mikel is letting him do what is comfortable. The problem is that we essentially have to play a 4-2-3-1 when KT is playing rather than a 4-3-3 with Xhaka getting higher up the pitch. Hate to say it but if KT can't adjust we may need to move him on in the summer.
Reiss motm. The was this moment where Martinelli controlled a long ball in a congested area and the entire backline immediately dropped off. Tremendous compliment of his ability. I chuckled.
To put a fine point on this, Lacazette had 12 shots on target last season, including penalties. Jesus has 19 this season in half the minutes.
yeah, it seems weird to me, too. like, no, he wasn't as good as zinchenko but he was trying. other thing with flipping to the 4-2-3-1 to accommodate tierney is he is not nearly as threatening running at defenders as martinelli is so that neutralises one threat. i like dude and hope he stays but his attacking move consists of one hesitation move before kicking the ball past the defender and hoping to reach the endline in time to cut the ball back. also, beyond just not being the same threat outside, the combination of tierney+inverted LW is not nearly as threatening as xhaka+LW. :-/
In a 4 man back line I greatly prefer the idea of inverted FBs because of the general concepts of A) attacking players are generally better in attack and B) FBs that play inverted generally cover less distance on the field (not bombing up & down the sideline) which should afford them the ability to play a full 90 far more often.