First five: Page 4 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

First five

Qwiss

Burnwinter Don't think it's alarm stations just yet by any means, but a big result against Liverpool would be a superb boost.

Next 3 league games need to cement our position as title challengers because if we drop more than 2-3 points we are done. Liverpool at the Emirates followed by Newcastle and Chelsea away. Its going to be incredibly nervy. I hope Saka is back this week because without him we are screwed.

Burnwinter

Qwiss Massive matches but they're also huge for these opponents, and we have the pedigree and the quality not only to compete, but to win all three. That's what it takes these days.

Liverpool have been doing well but Maresca's Chelsea are the toughest opposition they've faced all season. Liverpool beat them, so I guess either they're incredible or this Chelsea are not actually that good.

It would be fucking sweet to be going in with the five or so extra points we'd have if we hadn't been arbitrarily fucked three times by the refs, but that's the league.

Qwiss

Burnwinter Liveprool are very good going forward but their defensive record so far is a bit of an illusion based on their fixtures IMO. Chelsea are a similar case but even worse at the back. My worry is we end up over emphasising neutralising their attacking strength rather than punishing their defensive weaknesses. Newcastle are the opposite, very little attacking threat but still a bit of a bogey team for us so always a challenge.

Burnwinter

Qwiss My worry is we end up over emphasising neutralising their attacking strength rather than punishing their defensive weaknesses.

Right. I think Arteta is marginally over-managing our mini injury crisis at this point. We need to play our full game to produce our fullest performances. The negatives of our adaptation for Bournemouth outweighed the positives.

RocktheCasbah

A message from my mate, Chelsea Ray after the game yesterday "Will be interesting to see how you get on against - epithet redacted - next week. Dull team to watch but very difficult to break down."

Given that Chelsea apparently have "the best player in the Premier League", I guess we should worry if we don't at least have Saka available to us next weekend.

HomeSteak

RocktheCasbah We should worry if we don't beat them. Being 7 points behind Liverpool already would be bad. Being 6 behind City would be terrible...

Claudius

RocktheCasbah lol @ best player in the league. When City have Rodri and Haaland - absolute forces of nature.

Burnwinter

RocktheCasbah Given that Chelsea apparently have "the best player in the Premier League"

Really? But that's so obviously Phil Foden mate 😆

RocktheCasbah

HomeSteak

Oh God, I can see the forum meltdown coming already...

RocktheCasbah

Claudius not my words - hence the quotation marks!

HomeSteak

RocktheCasbah but I mean, early days but yes, it is hard to make up 6 points on the pricks. We had 5 in front and it did not work out....

Qwiss

RocktheCasbah I can tell you now if we lose to Liverpool on our own pitch I am melting down and melting down hard!

RocktheCasbah

HomeSteak I know - but as we saw yesterday, City are far from guaranteed to just steam roller their way through the league. Obviously, I would rather we're not 6 points behind them come Monday morning, not least cos that means I'll have stood in the Clock End and watched us lose to fucking Liverpool, but City still have to go to to Anfield, they still have to come to us. There will still be 87 points to play for over the weekend..

HomeSteak

RocktheCasbah They are not guaranteed but by the looks of it, they are more likely then us to do that. Anyway, we shall see. We need tonk Liverpool, that would be fun

Clrnc

HomeSteak no big deal if we lose. At least we can focus on other competitions early

daredevil

I read a stat that no club has ever improved its points tally 6 seasons in a row (We've managed 5 so far). The second half of last season felt like the big push, and I wonder if we're now seeing the drop off.

Panda

Arteta needs to figure it out. We could all see that team he picked on Saturday was an absolute joke. He has enough tools at his disposal and these are all the tools he picked so time to get creative.

An Odegaard injury was always gonna fuck us after the summer window so of course it happened but he needs to do better with the team selections.

Burnwinter

Panda Arteta needs to figure it out. We could all see that team he picked on Saturday was an absolute joke

Honestly it's easy enough to say that, but the way Arteta sets up, he generally plans to change the game after the hour if plan A isn't working. Then with Saliba off we were pretty fucked.

Claudius

Clrnc you don’t quit the league race in November. lol. 😂

Clrnc

Claudius with mancity and the corrupt league you do

Coombs

Claudius I dunno, man. This really isn't very fun. Maybe it would be nice to no longer be the main challengers for a while, let Liverpool and City duke it out while we quietly win the CL.

awooga83

I think the Liverpool match is a big test of us and what we are about as much as Liverpool. Prior to Bournemouth there was a lot of talk on podcasts etc of how they have it all to prove but based on how we've started this season I think there are some big questions for us as well. We haven't managed to be as defensively strong this year and Liverpool look to have a better attacking set up so will be an interesting match up.

For me they've done way more even now then I thought they would as I guessed they might struggle to gel under a new manager and show consistent results even against some of the lesser teams but they've done it so far and a win against us and I think you would have to feel they would be the team leading the charge against city. That 10 game mark is where I start looking at the league more seriously about the kind of seasons that may be playing out.

Panda

Burnwinter The problem against Bournemouth was that he picked the wrong plan then.

« Previous Page Next Page »