I'd actually like to go back to that season he failed to score in 15 straight games and see where the exact problem was. Was it Giroud or was it Aubameyang.

I say this just because there has been a lot of recent anxiety about how useless Aubameyang is but when you look at the raw numbers, Aubameyang's main problem is that he isn't getting enough chances. He's remained one of the most clinical strikers. Just gets less volume of chances than every other big name striker. Scoring is a volume game. It's that simple. Kane rose to the top by just shooting on sight.

goon wrote:

He was also part of the Montpellier team that won the French league. He's had an extremely good career all things considered.

Claudius wrote:

I'd actually like to go back to that season he failed to score in 15 straight games and see where the exact problem was. Was it Giroud or was it Aubameyang.

I say this just because there has been a lot of recent anxiety about how useless Aubameyang is but when you look at the raw numbers, Aubameyang's main problem is that he isn't getting enough chances. He's remained one of the most clinical strikers. Just gets less volume of chances than every other big name striker. Scoring is a volume game. It's that simple. Kane rose to the top by just shooting on sight.

Auba as a top striker has to be able to co trol the ball some of the time its played up to him. It was like watching mert up top against city. If we want a greater hold on the game for more chance creation we need the striker to make the ball stick at least sometimes. If you have forwards only interested in scoring your chance creation will plumet.

In the 2 years they've played together have auba and pepe had a single pice of nice combination play? Pepe is learning to play football just its hard work watching it. Auba has been completely disinterested in making thing happen most of the season. Especially through the dip he wasn't going into any 50:50s. Arteta gave him a little time off and he came back and played forcing things to happen against Leeds. Suddenly he's taking players on, Knocking people over in 50:50s he played like he did last season with responsibility for the performance not just the goals. 

If auba and pepe just play to get goals for themselves we naturally end up with really low chance creation in games. And its all just saka and Tierney down that left flank. 

There is an upset on the cards tonight as an injury/covid hit Real Madrid travel to Atalanta.

Madrid only have 12 first team players available tonight with rest of traveling party picked from their reserves.

I think Atalanta will do them too. Real's highest goalscorer after Benzema (who's missing tonight) is Casemiro...

speedy wrote:
Claudius wrote:

I'd actually like to go back to that season he failed to score in 15 straight games and see where the exact problem was. Was it Giroud or was it Aubameyang.

I say this just because there has been a lot of recent anxiety about how useless Aubameyang is but when you look at the raw numbers, Aubameyang's main problem is that he isn't getting enough chances. He's remained one of the most clinical strikers. Just gets less volume of chances than every other big name striker. Scoring is a volume game. It's that simple. Kane rose to the top by just shooting on sight.

Auba as a top striker has to be able to co trol the ball some of the time its played up to him. It was like watching mert up top against city. If we want a greater hold on the game for more chance creation we need the striker to make the ball stick at least sometimes. If you have forwards only interested in scoring your chance creation will plumet.

In the 2 years they've played together have auba and pepe had a single pice of nice combination play? Pepe is learning to play football just its hard work watching it. Auba has been completely disinterested in making thing happen most of the season. Especially through the dip he wasn't going into any 50:50s. Arteta gave him a little time off and he came back and played forcing things to happen against Leeds. Suddenly he's taking players on, Knocking people over in 50:50s he played like he did last season with responsibility for the performance not just the goals.

If auba and pepe just play to get goals for themselves we naturally end up with really low chance creation in games. And its all just saka and Tierney down that left flank.

Auba and Pepe have started 2 games together this season in the league. Kind of hard to build good combination play with each other. Also the idea that Pepe just plays for goals isn't true he had the highest xA in the team last year.

Qwiss! wrote:
speedy wrote:

Auba as a top striker has to be able to co trol the ball some of the time its played up to him. It was like watching mert up top against city. If we want a greater hold on the game for more chance creation we need the striker to make the ball stick at least sometimes. If you have forwards only interested in scoring your chance creation will plumet.

In the 2 years they've played together have auba and pepe had a single pice of nice combination play? Pepe is learning to play football just its hard work watching it. Auba has been completely disinterested in making thing happen most of the season. Especially through the dip he wasn't going into any 50:50s. Arteta gave him a little time off and he came back and played forcing things to happen against Leeds. Suddenly he's taking players on, Knocking people over in 50:50s he played like he did last season with responsibility for the performance not just the goals.

If auba and pepe just play to get goals for themselves we naturally end up with really low chance creation in games. And its all just saka and Tierney down that left flank.

Auba and Pepe have started 2 games together this season in the league. Kind of hard to build good combination play with each other. Also the idea that Pepe just plays for goals isn't true he had the highest xA in the team last year.

If they combined more they would be playing together more. And we've seen them play plently of times. Pepe plays for moments, certainly himself if he runs as much as 5 yards without getting the ball he sulks and stops playing. He'll just become static and stand palms open looking up. Often while were being killed on the counter.
And he has good delivery so lots of your Xa stats are corners and free kicks? Hes getting better like i said but he was such a head down player.

Atalanta is done. Harsh sending off in my opinion

UEFA refs at it again. Always favouring Real and Barcelona. Never a red card.

speedy wrote:
Qwiss! wrote:

Auba and Pepe have started 2 games together this season in the league. Kind of hard to build good combination play with each other. Also the idea that Pepe just plays for goals isn't true he had the highest xA in the team last year.

If they combined more they would be playing together more. And we've seen them play plently of times. Pepe plays for moments, certainly himself if he runs as much as 5 yards without getting the ball he sulks and stops playing. He'll just become static and stand palms open looking up. Often while were being killed on the counter.
And he has good delivery so lots of your Xa stats are corners and free kicks? Hes getting better like i said but he was such a head down player.

Pepe assisted Auba 5 last year, particularly with that in swinging cross from the right. You could see Auba make that run as soon as he would shape up to swing it in towards the back post. Ironically he's probably the one player he did form a connection with.

I think your general description of Pepe is more accurate of when he first joined. He's probably among the hardest workers these days.

I think a red could be justified there to be honest. It's one of those where you probably expect to get away with it, but he'd have undoubtedly been one on one with the keeper if he doesn't bring him down.

I thought the Madrid player's last touch was veering him significantly off the course of goal. I would have VARd it and thought about a yellow.

The touch is influenced by the foul imo.

KingslandBarge wrote:

I thought the Madrid player's last touch was veering him significantly off the course of goal. I would have VARd it and thought about a yellow.

That's what I thought. He was fully expecting the yellow you could see when the ref approached him. Then again, he did play with fire and allowed the ref to make that decision.

It's definitely the David Luiz school of defending.

City are all over Gladbach, so would be typical of their CL outings to let a goal in now.

Cancelo, KDB or Gundogan for their player of the season?
Can we have just one experienced player of this quality

Clear 2nd yellow card for diving for Casemiro not given. ๐Ÿ˜†

Hope folks can see that this is a tough team to break down. Even Gladbach only got 2 shots on target.
On to the JV league tomorrow night

Madrid have pulled it off tonight. Mendy scores a great goal from outside the box.

Claudius wrote:

Hope folks can see that this is a tough team to break down.

Claude, I really don't think anyone needed to see this game to learn anything about City. They play in the league every week. ๐Ÿ˜†

Thereโ€™s actually been a fair amount of despair about our inability to break them down. Not just here but elsewhere across the Arsenal universe.

That Alassane Plea's back of the foot attempt, that was cool.

Claudius wrote:

Hope folks can see that this is a tough team to break down. Even Gladbach only got 2 shots on target.
On to the JV league tomorrow night

It's very hard to put them on the back foot, I agree 100%. But as soon as you do, they're still ropey as hell. I wouldn't be so quick to praise Ruben Dias, good as I also think he looks, until City stop controlling games and suffocating opponents 70 yards from goal - and we know that will happen when their form drops. And don't be suckered in by John Stones, he's a fundamnentally stupid footballer. It was the same things being said when City were last playing like this. He has almost no defending to do.

Re your point about our game with them, we exposed them in the 15 minutes before half-time because we actually managed to engage their defence in a meaningful way, but in the whole match, that's the only time we could do it.

12 days later

Juve concede a daft penalty. 1-3 down on aggregate after 20 minutes.
End of the Ramsey era.

I shouldโ€™ve bet on Haaland scoring tonight. 1-0. And theyโ€™re 4-2 up.

Dortmund have been awful so far as well, Sevilla all over them.

But Dortmund have a killer press. When they turn the heat up, Seville look like us.

Dortmund looked basically the same in the first leg too. 30 percent possession both then and now. Terrible ten men behind the ball football. Makes you wonder what Lopetugui could achieve if he had Dortmund's material to work with instead of Sevilla's.


19 goals in first 14 apps. Crazy Haaland

Firmino knew how to score goals?

๐Ÿ˜† Firmino scoring 11 in his first 14 and has then scored 4 in 26 since then.

WTF was that goal? Heโ€™s a force of nature

What the hell! How did he score that goal! Freak of nature Haaland

๐Ÿ˜† VAR cancelled that goal to give a penalty to Haaland instead

This is hilarious. What the fuck is the referee doing here? ๐Ÿ˜†

And Haaland misses. The ref has totally lost it. A perfectly good goal got cancelled out because he was supposed to get a pen first ๐Ÿ˜†

Another daft rule. Have these referees ever kept goal before and tried to get good lift off?