lorddulaarsenal I'm equally sick of Odegaard NOT being the creative player with testicles that this Saka-less team sorely needs.
To be honest at least Martinelli never hides.
Arsenal v Newcastle 7 January 8pm Carabao Cup Semi Final 1st Leg
Bring Back Kerrea Gilbert thought Martinelli was one of the few bright spots last night. Played well and was really unlucky not to score. I thought Trossard played well too. I think you are right about Odegaard and add the rest of midfield too, especially last night where even Partey shat the bed. There is just no real creativity coming through the middle. No one even really occupies space in that hole behind the striker when we attack and it makes us easier to defend.
I think Odegaards dip in form is really showing us how lacking in imagination and guile the rest of the midfielders are. Jorginho was a breath of fresh air when he came on last night because he's actually unpredictable and inventive with some of his passing.
JazzG I assume HomeSteak's point is that if something happens a lot it makes sense to consider the possibility that we aren't just perpetually unlucky.
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I thought it was a big mistake going full strength. It's the Carabao Cup ffs, we should have continued to play our backup XI like we had done in all the previous rounds. I get that he probably wanted to win the trophy, but it's the Carabao Cup ffs.
Qwiss Didn't think he was good at all but refrained from commenting as it would appear driven by bias against him. Also thought he was poor in the last game, especially in the last few minutes of stoppage time where he played a ridiculously overhit pass to gift it back to their keeper, launched a cross straight out for a thrown in on the opposite side, and played a poor pass into Odegaard which was someone turned into a freekick.
I think the only two games that I've missed out on entirely the past two years were this game and the West Ham home game last season. My bad, guys. I'll try to do better moving forward.
daredevil
Who are we to put our noses up at a trophy given we haven’t won anything in 5 years.
The metric for Artera this season is not to ‘challenge’ or to ‘push’ whoever eventually wins it close. It’s to win some silverware.
Yes winning the Carling Cup would hardly be open bus parade stuff but it’s a start and would at least mean this team, that hasn’t won anything, had something against their name on paper.
All good managers (Jose, Pep) have won the league cup before dominating. It’s important for our ‘winning mentality’ and to lose the bottle/hasn’t won a trophy in x amount of years tag.
Getting knocked out of this simply means more pressure and scrutiny in our FA Cup and CL campaigns.
It was a low hanging fruit silverware to win. I hope we prioritise the second leg, most important game of our season.
I don't particularly care about the League Cup or even the FA Cup. If the FA Cup meant something, Wenger wouldn't have had airplane banners demanding his resignation. If the two trophies meant something, Ten Hag would still be in a job.
It's a nice to have, not a must have. Competing for and winning the PL and CL is what I care about and deep down even the domestic trophy hunters care about. If we're competing for the two and we're getting close or winning it, then I'm happy. If we fall off for more than 1 or 2 seasons and end up no longer competing for the two prizes, no amount of FA Cups and League Cups will change that he might not be the right man to get us over the line.
daredevil
We need to walk before we can run.
Winning the carling cup would massively, massively help us win the big two. Taking pressure off in March (by winning league cup) when going into a CL semi final in early
May is a different ball game.
Going into a CL final not having won a trophy in 5 years v going into a final having won a trophy 3 months prior is a game changer.
I think you get my message.
JazzG -- I'm struggling to see how anyone thinks this team could score 4-5, yet alone, 2+ based on our current form and players. I don't care what our xGF is game to game, nor do I care it thinks we could have scored 4 goals when those chances were Martinelli breakaway, Timber's header, and Havertz's header....none of those players are regular/confident goal scorers and they're snatching at chances.
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Academic now, but curious as to what people made of the atmosphere last night. I know it's kind of governed by what happens on the pitch, but it seemed really flat and the Ashburton Army boys were conspicuous by their absence - especially compared to the last round where they seemed to have been moved, but were still present.
Cold weather a factor in that too
RocktheCasbah I know it wasn't included in season tickets allowance so maybe there was more churn in who went. I know I didn't purchase my seat for this match. Also going to be impacted by how the game goes.
DiabyKungFu I think the only two games that I've missed out on entirely the past two years were this game and the West Ham home game last season. My bad, guys. I'll try to do better moving forward.
We are nearing the business end of the season man, can't have you slacking like this!
QuincyAbeyie this is only the second game where we have hit 3.5xG and failed to score. It was an outlier event.
Just look at our results last few weeks. We scored 5 off about 2 xG. Didn’t score off similar. Sometimes it be like that.
What is true is what we all know. That we need to get our mean xG up and volatility down.
I still think we’ll get to the final. We could get at Newcastle often - it’s just guys like Odegaard, Trossard, and Havertz all had stinkers
QuincyAbeyie I'm not sure I agree, I firmly believe that the main factor is the performance and the wins and goals will follow from that. Against Brighton second half we hardly created anything but we had more than enough good chances to win this game. We need to be more clinical and need to sign an attacking player but this game is an anomaly, if we had stats and chances like this game we'd win 99 times out of a 100.
Look at our last 13 games in all competitions, we've won 9, drawn 3 and lost 1. Is that now classed as bad form or our team is suddenly not very good?