Newcastle v Arsenal May 7th 1630 PM GMT KO: Page 16 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

Newcastle v Arsenal May 7th 1630 PM GMT KO

lorddulaarsenal

Jesus did well yes but sometimes it’s be nice to have a physical bully up top

Jorginho and Xhaka were so smart drawing fouls - rendered Newcastle’s huff puff and roughness useless.

RocktheCasbah

lorddulaarsenal problem is, you want - or Arteta likely will - a physical bully who can play. Who is that, where do you find him and how much will he cost?

Sicario2

Question. I know this is theory but let’s say we were still top yesterday (going into the game) and City were breathing down our necks would we still have won?

Don’t want to discredit yesterday but how much of it was down to us having effectively no pressure?

If Everton grab anything v City on Sunday will we wobble again v Brighton like we did with Southampton…

Having said all that I like how Arteta has changed the narrative to us now ‘digging’. Maybe it suits us chasing than being chased.

Panda

Missed this was flying. Delighted we won really didn't think we had it in us. But God did we really throw the title away against West Ham & Southampton? 😭 Or would we not have been able to handle that today if we were still feeling the pressure? Guess we will never know.

But proud of the team for how they've bounced back from the City loss and still fighting to take it all the way to the last game. If we finish on 90pts and don't win it all you can say is fair play to the other team. I'll still be proud of our season though.

Happy to see we kept a clean sheet though it looks like we needed a little luck. How was Kiwior? Glad to see him getting these games now they'll serve him very well next season.

Sicario2

Panda

Imagine if we beat West Ham and Southampton but drew to both Chelsea and Newcastle. Same result really.

Anyway in an odd way we can take more comfort of those dropped points v West Ham and Southampton if City win their remaining games as it would make those lost points immaterial. So no ‘what if’s’.

Jed

Cannon Without Xhaka we wouldn’t win that game. Massive player for this team.

daredevil

It's ludicrous how little credit he gets on here. He was brilliant against Chelsea too!

The general consensus in the summer was Xhaka needs to be replaced and Partey is the single point of failure in the team. In the end, Xhaka has turned out instrumental and Partey has somehow been usurped by Jorginho who by most accounts was a bad signing, yet people are now saying he should have played more.😂

Mirth

Surely the conclusion is both Xhaka and Partey have had generally good seasons but neither are title winning quality. This isn't a criticism as they've exceeded the expectations we had from last summer but there's a reason why we're planning on spending the bulk of our budget to upgrade our midfield.

Big Willie

Mirth but neither are title winning quality

Lets wait until the end of the season for confirmation.

Qwiss

Mirth I think Partey has been one of our best players this season. It should be obvious to us that he's not been 100%, we were sending club doctors with him on international duty. You don't do that with a fully fit player. I think we'll have a huge job on our hands finding someone who can replace him. Its no coincidence that our league form improved substantially this season along with his fitness being mostly fine until the last month or so.

Clrnc

Big Willie You are the most optimistic poster here. I give you that.

Keep my hopes up as well

RocktheCasbah

Big Willie well, I think we can probably say neither would be starting games for Manchester City without fear of contradiction. Be very strange, although we would all obviously be delighted, if we did somehow end up being the benchmark for the a Premier League next season.

goon

Partey has had a better season than Xhaka overall and has been outstanding for most of the season. Bit of recency bias going on here.

It’s also clear that as good as Xhaka has been, it’s a big area of improvement for the team.

Qwiss

Tam yeah absolutely. We've shown a good degree of bouncebackability this season and its very positive to see it in full effect in one of the toughest away games of the season after such disappointment. There is plenty of character in this team, suffering the loss of the title this season will just provide more hunger next year.

Burnwinter

Qwiss I think we'll have a huge job on our hands finding someone who can replace him.

Controversial topic but I would like us to get a fee for him this summer, then solve that problem too.

Leaving the off field issue of the three plausible rape allegations against him aside for a moment, Partey's "specificity" is what structures our current midfield formation and I don't like the idea of keeping that structure while he declines on our books.

We've been (arguably up till right now) tactically inflexible in part due to Partey's rare traits. What he can do helps us by releasing the rest of our midfield for duty further forward, but it also hinders us in certain ways.

Burnwinter

Cannon I thought that was a wonderful performance. So many players showed up and took responsibility. I could see how after the jittery first 10 mins or so we started to compete. Every player seemed to grow in confidence after the first goal. Ode, Jesus, Saka, Xhaka stood out for me. Frankly almost everyone contributed. BIG BIG win for the players and Arteta.

Spot on. It was a milestone win in the longer term trajectory of things, set up that way for the players beforehand as we've heard, and it was good to see them sharing the importance of the moment with the away support for a long period after the final whistle.

We were a bit fortunate from a certain perspective but we also demonstrated we've got gears to our football that Newcastle don't—they're just a single speed monster truck with no reverse.

Qwiss

Burnwinter I don't think Parteys traits are all that rare, he just performs them at a high level.

If the club want to sell him due to his off the pitch issues I'm happy with that but I don't think anyone serious is having this discussion without them.

Gurgen

Jorginho is better at everything football related except being fast and strong. Surely there's someone out there who can replace him.

Don Pacifico

I think we'll change the way we set up in midfield - the burden of responsibility is too high on Partey (or realistically anyone trying to play that role) because it basically includes covering for Xhaka's lack of mobility as much as trying to do his own thing.

If we bring in Rice and/or Caicedo, our midfield will not be operating like we do now and hopefully it will enable us to be more tactically flexible.

Big Willie

Qwiss don't think Parteys traits are all that rare, he just performs them at a high level.

The way he can completely bamboozle someone without even touching the ball, just with a drop of the shoulder, or a feint in the opposite direction. It's crazy.

Burnwinter

He's typically very good at drawing and beating the press but we've been over how the high risk plays seem to have downside when he's off it.

I want Partey gone for the off field reasons personally, but for similar reasons the decline of his football could be steep. Arsenal shouldn't be dependent on him tactically once it's in progress.

Tam

Burnwinter I wonder if those unresolved off field issues might prevent us getting rid of him, if we wanted to. Would you want to take a multi-million punt on a player who might at any point become unavailable due to criminal charges?

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