Arsenal v PSG Champions League October 1st 2000 PM KO: Page 11 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Arsenal v PSG Champions League October 1st 2000 PM KO

Sicario2 - Tier 1

They reminded me of latter day Wenger sides. 11 midgets good on the ball and amazing passing moves but trying to pass the ball into the net.

Lucky we faced them without their superstars of the last few years.

Sicario2 - Tier 1

HomeSteak

Was just a precaution.

Timber is the new Lauren.

RocktheCasbah

daredevil does he get back in when fit?

I'm kidding, I'm kidding... But yeah, I had the same thought earlier this evening. No wonder Mik looks so happy and relaxed in interviews now, the mentality of his players is top class. No Odegaard, no fuss.

Side note, wasn't the hug between Arteta and Luis Enrique lovely? Great to see such affection between two competitors. Well, I thought so anyway.

awooga83

Strange match for me.I didn't think we looked all that great but managed to make the most of those 2 moments and it looked reasonable comfortable although they came close on a couple of moments. But got the result which was important thing ultimately.

Still have worries about Martinelli and more so Jesus..They both don't look quite at the level we need from our forwards and certainly Jesus just looks a shadow of what he was like when he joined us. More and more feeling we need a proper upgrade between the 2 of them.

Panda

I was there in the Clock End upper tier thanks to the red ballot. It was great! The goals were right in front of us ❤️🤍

Timber was absolutely dominant in the first half. Locked down Barcola. Hope he's ok. Arteta said he felt something muscular and he didn't want to risk him which is good that they being careful with him 🙏🏼 Was good to see we could bring Kiwior on and I was confident he would be fine due to his run in the side there last season.

Calafiori is like an excitable puppy running around everywhere and I noticed Gabriel, Rice and Saliba giving him direction on who to cover defensively. I think he seems a bit slow for a fullback too and has a defensive lapse in him but hopefully it can all be ironed out. In his defence he is still very new and not as familiar with his teammates.

Martinelli was great just needed the goal, ran his socks off as always. Havertz is also so good at holding the ball up. He has really found his place in the team. I was so happy he scored in front of me.

Generally, I thought we absolutely dominated their midgets in the first half and the whole team is so switched on defensively with a lot of communication on who is covering who.

Their CF Lee trying to challenge Gabriel and Saliba who were giants in comparison was quite funny. Poor guy didn't stand a chance. The team really is just a joy to behold and that was all without our captain and most technical midfielder 🥹 Very happy with the win. Couldn't have asked for more for my trip to the Emirates 😃

Gazza M

gab and saliba ate and left no crumbs, to use the parlance of todays yutes. crazy horse cal needs some fine tuning in defense but he's very likeable

anyone tempted to deploy the full dyche - partey, rice, merino midfield. i reckon artetas moyesian roots are gagging for it

Asterix

Will be very interesting to see what midfield he picks against Liverpool at the end of the month - could well be Partey, Rice and Merino. Go for total duel winning control.

TambourineMan

Asterix I have a sneaky suspicion that Odegaard will be back by then.

Don Pacifico

Asterix as I expected, having Merino on the pitch saw more positional interplay between him and Rice compared to playing Partey. I think that is a sign of things to come once we have a fully fit team.

More to the point you made, if we continue to get results with this setup (and as others have mentioned, the fluidity and chaos we get from Havertz and Trossard really confused PSG), I can't see Arteta changing it (ie. we'll rotate Partey and Merino until the latter settles).

TambourineMan

Also, can I say that I hate this new format. There is almost zero jeopardy and today felt like a massive nothing burger. We should be enjoying a 2-0 win against PSG a lot more but no one really cares because it means so little in the grand scheme of things.

I initially liked the idea but watching it play out has changed my mind significantly.

invisibleman18

TambourineMan I think it feels like less jeopardy because we won. If we'd lost or drawn then we're behind a bunch of teams who have still only played once and are close to the cutoff for going out so suddenly the next couple of games become must win. Ideally you want to go through avoiding the extra round of games. Winning the early games should take the pressure off later rather than being in a situation where everything is riding on the last one. This was a good team we beat - semi finalists last season and currently top of Ligue 1. We don't often beat big teams in Europe so this is a great result.

awooga83

TambourineMan it was always designed to be this way, to make it easy for the big teams to sail through because you play enough lower ranked teams for you to have to be pretty atrocious to exit here. That's why it's never interested me from the outset. If you are decent European side you are going through yes your path might add a couple of games but even that is seeded so those teams should still get a reasonable chance to progress.

Claudius

The jeopardy might arrive in rounds 7 and 8 if teams care about top 8. Certainly will be there for the laggards who care about qualification to knockout. This is the odd table as it stands
https://www.skysports.com/champions-league-table

Claudius

invisibleman18 we not only beat them, we held them to their lowest xG ever. We have the meanest defense.

Clrnc

Sicario2 - Tier 1 i get what u mean but we utterly dominated Napoli that match.

In this match especially in the first 10 mins and 2nd half they pinned us back and was unlucky not to score at least 1

Segway

Clrnc Ref was great which was really nice for a change.

goon

awooga83

As opposed to the old group stages where big teams always crash out?

Qwiss

goon in this format I think even United would have gone through last season.

JazzG

First half was literally men against boys, that is what teams used to do us. Pressed them off the pitch. When Timber went off we lost a bit of control but PSG only really got a foot in when Partey went off and Ruiz and Muani came on. Otherwise was a really solid and dominant performance. We let them have the ball for a lot of that game and they didn't create much.

Another positive is we look a lot more self assured in the CL this year, last season you could sense it was the first CL experience for a lot of players and they looked nervous.

Don Pacifico

JazzG agree with this. This isn't the same PSG as we've seen in years gone by but I still think this was our best European performance for a very long time. I honestly can't remember the last time we looked this impressive in Europe, certainly not since Wenger.

On the other hand, we were pretty disappointing against Atalanta - less the result and more the performance. So I'm wary to get ahead of myself but some very positive signs that regarding a (hopefully) newfound tactical flexibility and creative fluidity.

goon

Qwiss

I said big teams.

Jokes aside, it does give the odd big team a lifeline. But there's a hell of a lot more teams who had no hope of finishing second last year who'll be in a shot of getting through to a knockout/playoff game too. It's slightly less jeopardy for United, but significantly more interest for many others who'll have the chance to knock United out in a play-off instead.

And you could still get the odd surprise eliminations. Milan look to be on shaky ground.

Claudius

Qwiss exactly. It gives 24 teams a way through to the next round. Whereas before it only gave 16 teams with 8 being demoted to play a variety of Spartaks. So it’s bad from that perspective. But this is what uefa has to do to lick the balls of billionaires.

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