Odegaard needs to hit three gears higher. He's terrible these days
Brentford vs Arsenal. Saturday 17:30 UK time.
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Relieved we got the maximum. Can imagine a touchline ban incoming after the hearing because they hate our guts, and if that happens who knows how we fare for the next few.
Offensively, here's hoping the front four of Ødegaard, Jesus, Saka and Martinelli string a few hundred minutes together now. and cultivate some threat.
Qwiss
It is concerning that in the game we pretty much controlled from start to finish we still cannot create quality changes, and Saka stopped attempting to take on defenders. What is a big positive though, is the fact that we stopped this lethargic build up from the back that was creating more problems than good opportunities to attack.
He’s just come back from a month out - give him a break.
It’s Dec and we are top of the league, it’s like 2022 all over again 
swider Saka and Ode are both way below their best but we still won, we had a very marginal VAR call against us, we are solid as fuck. I choose to believe we can only get better. Need to be much sharper and move the ball quicker though, thats the key to creating more. Have to stop letting the oppos get back into their shape.
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Qwiss Arteta also cannot be so utterly averse to the occasional fullback overlap.
Everyone's grandmother knows Saka and Odegaard are going to shape swing one in on their left foot and can barely do anything on the outside.
Saka in particular doesn't have enough pace. I really, really hope we make a major wide forward signing in January.
Trossard and Odegaard ran more than anyone else in the team.
Nketiah ended his Arsenal career this eve.
lorddulaarsenal 
what? How?
Yes and we always suck after the international break and at 1730 KO’s away from home for some reason.
Got a good run of games now so hopefully we will be a bit more fluid with our football.
He ended it about 9 months ago when he forgot how to score after his ‘good spell’
Tragically bad.
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Qwiss no Arsenal player should even think about playing that attack like he did. School playground stuff
Exactly. I was delighted to see him start in midfield but he only proved how difficult the role is to execute.
lorddulaarsenal bad decision but if that was enough to end his Arsenal career Zinchenko would be gone a long time ago.
I was actually thinking when he came on he reminds me of Hojland. Only Eddie's off ball movement, first touch and ability to find goal is better.
I think we had to play we did due to the way Brentford were set up, multiple bodies behind the ball and no space down the middle. Crossing was our best option and we were expecting Jesus to be on the end of them, problem being that our crossing is not particularly good but we did get the offside goal first half and obviously the winner at the end. Probability wise we were hoping to get a good chance or two to score from the many crosses and thankfully we were able to convert one of them.
Credit to Brentford who are set up well without being complete thugs.
Not gonna lie, beating Brentford with a Kai Havertz header from a cross is quite likely to end up being one of my favourite results of the season. The notion we would turn up today and simply batter them was fanciful, they're as strong as anyone at home. This was apparently the first London Derby they've lost at the Gtech since we beat them just over a year ago.
They've lost 2 league games since last october at home before us
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lovely 3 points
I'm close to accepting this is simply how we're going to play this season.
on the pep-moyes scale, it's heavily skewing towards moyes. it's one of those things where it's fine as long as the results are there, which - for now - they are.
if our defense starts creaking or we start picking up key injuries back there, we don't have much else going on as a team
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not this boring. his teams may be structured and predictable, but they do create chances and have the werewithal to play between the lines
Havertz makes us better, despite his personal issues. Trossard is good, but he doesn't have that vertical running power, and he's a bit more dribbly and slows things down. Kai is an accelerator.
Coombs he also combines well with others. Doesn’t get the credit for that though as he makes it look simple
lorddulaarsenal yep, he immediately made us better in the middle third, and while he is still too conservative, a lot of his simple passing is only possible because he's there to do it in the first place.
lorddulaarsenal Amen.
Talk less of one who is fresh and fit and sharp.
Just a mediocre player for me. Hope we dump him soon - if we are going to be elite then Arsenal deserves better. He'll definitely have suitors we can recoup a major portion of the Kai Havertz transfer fee from.
Also was thinking. With the way we play what would an Ivan Toney offer us?
Toney? Well he is physical so can occupy defences, he is good in the air and can link well with others so he’d be a good target man. Also carries a legit goal threat and gives us a different option up top.
Probs not my first choice but he’d certainly improve us.
Has a spikey determined attitude too.
Nketiah’s Ramsdale moment
lorddulaarsenal so common for him. One of the most Tunnel vision player ever. The anti Joel Campbell
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lorddulaarsenal seeing that today made me just as angry as it made me last night. I legit would have subbed him off for that. Just basic stuff man...and then the "shot" he took. For me, Eddie should be 4th choice behind Jesus, Trossard & Havertz. Hell if all the above are out, I would probably play Nelson on the wing and Martinelli as a 9 before playing him
Kel Varnsen I hate this positional play style. There is no improvisation, flexibility or individual originality up front. Players just run to their designated spot and wait. We have to keep a certain amount of players in each channel and each zone and blablabla.. arteta is a fraud.
Hate the way we play. Ugly and rigid football. An example. When Martinelli gets the ball out wide, and unless he has an outstanding match, he'll nearly always pass the ball to Zinchenko. Positioned 10 metres further in and 5 metres further back. Zinchenko will then pass the ball back to Martinelli, 10 metres further in and 5 metres further back to Rice, or 15 metres further back to Gabriel. I get the idea. Wide angle triangular intersections. Connecting vertices (or effective tesselation) and cover most space most efficiently (shortest passes). But it is predictable and easy to defend. Why don't Zinchenko just sometimes leave his position and try to improvise something with Martinelli? Be more flexible and let players express themselves. Arteta has taken a good principle and absolutely destroyed it.
Don't think I have seen an opposition manager praise us so much before. Almost every match we play against Brentford Thomas Frank is in awe.
Clrnc he wants to stay in Josh's good books, just in case.
Arteta's 22/23 and 23/24 teams are amongst the best 20 xGa since this stat came in 2017
I don’t think they are told to be that rigid in the final third. Saka and Martinelli just have immature movement and positional sense. There were several occasions where Saka was doing exactly as you suggest, he came inside to escape being doubled up on, but picked up some really poor positions and half the time just stood on Odegaards toes.
I guarantee you there’s nothing stopping Martinelli from trying a give and go with Zinchenko, but the instinct to make a run is much harder to come by against a deep block.
The opposition has basically figured out 90% of our threat comes from the wide boys so a deep block that doubles up on them is what they’re going for.
We just need to get better at exploiting the space it leaves in other areas and swing in crosses relentlessly, so they realise it’s a bad idea.