Fucking we fucking play tonight. 8pm.: Page 14 - The Arsenal discussion community: One More in the Tolly

Fucking we fucking play tonight. 8pm.

Tam

RocktheCasbah I'd dispute Burnwinter's point or that we've done 'pretty well'. We haven't really faced anyone of note in those games where we've kept 11 on the pitch.

Last night we could and should have been three up at half time but we weren't and it was edgy until the end.

We could and should have been a million goals ahead of Leicester, but we weren't, lost a bit of control at one point and it was edgy until the end.

Good performance against PSG but subbed a few players, somewhat lost our grip with subs and gave over the control we had on the game.

Atalanta, best forgotten.

Spurs - good win but for the stats lovers we had only a third of the possession in the game and conceded 15 shots. Those aspects are important when they are in our favour so can't ignore them when against us.

Some of those results might be a decent outcome but the performances are way off the mark. We're dealing with injuries, suspensions and disruption, but I'm not seeing the same intensity, desire, or style in this team we had last year.

Clrnc

Tam Agree with all points. Performance wise it's actually quite a similar trend to last year first half where we constantly stunk up the place but grinded results through set pieces. So here's to hoping we have a similarly great 2nd half of the season again.

That said, I would be over the moon if we performed like shit again but come away with a victory over the weekend.

awooga83

Tam totally echo these points. I think the point about having lots of chances and should have been more goals ahead of something we've seen consistently under Arteta's tenure and with little change about it in my view so just seems to speak to how we go about playing football and that are attacking quality isn't as much of a focus as perhaps it needs to be. The Leicester, Southampton and Shakhtar games are against poor quality opposition that despite having plenty of chances we went into the latter stages quite marginal and with the games still in the balance for far too long.

That is a problem for better teams because if you leave games marginal your subject to a bit of brilliance, error or bad luck costing you points. Over the course of the season that will likely do enough damage to prevent you winning the big trophies. That's also why I think it's more concerning not that we will totally crash and burn but we've seen what competing with a team like City is like and a few bad results, even if you put in a near perfect string outside of that, can sink you.

That's where we are now we've had the time to build the team and it's about winning the big trophies and that's the reason the judgement is going to be tougher if we haven't built a team with the resilience to deal better with what comes in the course of a top level season that's on the recruitment strategy and those involved with it.

But got to get a grip and find a way to get a result against Liverpool I think we need to do that to show we have more about us then might appear right now or we could get cast adrift very early.

Burnwinter

FEBravo I agree, my view is while Ødegaard is out he should be playing the last half hour of any match where we're chasing the points.

I think that's the best use of him at this time, gotta look after the kid physically as he's young but he's also shown he's good enough to change games.

Qwiss

MistaT So he should be good for Liverpool....meaning Zinchenko vs Salah

If that was the case wouldn't he have brought Zinchenko on last night to get him up to speed?

MistaT

Qwiss -- good point!

Against Salah, who would your preference between Zinchenko and MLS?

Sicario2 - Tier 1

MistaT
MLS. Physicality important v Salah.

Can’t bring back Zinny for his first game in a game of this intensity.

Qwiss

MistaT MLS, we've seen what happens when Zinny faces Salah.

Clrnc

Definitely MLS. No brainer

lorddulaarsenal

I think many are doing Shaktar a disservice thinking we should have slapped them. They had a lot of players who were technically solid and they were in good condition

Clrnc

lorddulaarsenal They are 4th in Ukrainian league currently, not on course to qualify for Europe entirely next year. Not even conference league.

Look at their story. It's really quite insane for people to say we have a lot injuries so we can't perform well against a war torn team

awooga83

Atalanta won "away" 3-0 against them and I was at the game they were pretty terrible defensively there was plenty of weakness to exploit if we had been better going forwards. It wasn't the case they defended really well in my opinion.

Big Willie

awooga83 yeah, at least from my view inside the stadium as I haven't seen highlights of the game. First half was really a good opportunity to put in a few goals. Our attack was creating many dangerous situations and Partey was running the show. Jesus had the beating of their left back quite often but, especially with Jesus, he beats his man then cuts back then either loses the ball or misplaces the pass. The space was there throughout the first half.

Second half however, with Partey at RB and the Merino/Rice pivot, we lacked the ability to play out and control the game and ended up ceding a lot of possession and territory.

Claudius

Big Willie hi Willie. Like this summary. That first 30 minutes was the issue. It’s a recurring theme we’ve had where we dominate territory but don’t capitalise

MistaT

Big Willie -- Jesus had the beating of his man, but did almost nothing with his delivery after. Which makes sense as he's not a winger and I wish he would have kept dribbling forward when in the box instead of spamming in crosses that weren't on.

Claudius

MistaT you start somewhere. We’ve often seen Martinelli perform similarly before he started getting into the box more and creating more threat. A lot of these players need to get into playing shape. Same way we played Martinelli and Partey back into shape. Think back to the commentary regarding Partey end of last season. Now he’s one of our best players.

lorddulaarsenal

MistaT he needs to be on the left not right if playing wide.

Claudius

Second half yesterday, we played with none of the 3 guys who’ve been instrumental in making our right flank so dominant.

This Saka break is the first time in 3 years we’ve played without both him and Odegaard.

awooga83

Claudius we should still have enough in our team to beat teams like Shakhtar. That's what we should have been doing building the squad over the past 3 seasons.

Burnwinter

awooga83 Yeah but … we did beat Shakhtar? Even if it wasn't convincing.

It's not that we don't have a depth issue on the right when Saka and Øde are both injured, but on the other hand, if we hadn't farmed out Vieira, I know I would've moaned about it all season. This way at least we didn't "kill" Nwaneri.

These are the first matches we've had both these two stars injured in years. It's bad luck, but planning extensively for this contingency isn't a great use of resources. Saka still might get passed fit for Liverpool apparently.

awooga83

Burnwinter sorry I meant beat them without it being a struggle. Fair enough if your playing top sides losing Saka is going to be noticeable but against this level we should be able to be much better. I also don't think we miss Ode as much as Saka, he's our elite player pretty much contributes in nearly every game he's involved in whereas Ode does have some off days. I think just losing Saka massively hurts our attack act it's why I think we need to improve that element.

flobaba

awooga83 the team relies heavily on Saka. It's a domino effect. He is unguardable one on one. So teams drop back and double up on him (and he still manages to be impactful more often than not), creating space in the midfield for others to exploit, and when you have Odegaard in there too, you have a master at using or exploiting space and creating good quality chances. That's how our attack works- it is designed to revolve around those two individuals, and corner kicks. And both are also two of our best set piece delivery experts.

Odegaard alone is a massive blow. Both Odegaard and Saka for an extended period of time means our title challenge this season is effectively over before it began.

Burnwinter

Yep I get it, but like I said further up thread, I do think we could possibly chill out a bit.

Firstly we've pretty much dropped points during this stretch when we've been proactively screwed by the refs, otherwise we've been maximising fairly well.

Secondly we've only dropped one more point than City despite that—who've also looked ropy as fuck in a couple of their other fixtures where they've been lucky to get the points.

I would like us to record a few more dominant and straightforward wins at some stage, but I am still pretty sanguine about recent performances given the conditions. I just want our first choice players back from injury in good health and without rushing or recurrences.

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