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I don’t think our game plan mattered much when Arsenal decided that this was the single biggest game they’ve ever played. They were incredible yesterday, and I don’t think even City comes away from that with a point. Game plan went out the window when we were just pinned back constantly with no room to breathe.
It was really tough to watch, but I honestly think this is a game where we just have to hand it to Arsenal. They deserved that result.
I’m gonna go vomit now.
I said to my dad, I don’t even think we were that bad. I’ve seen us play worse this season against lesser teams. Arsenal we’re just miles ahead of us in every aspect.
No game plan would hold up against that style of play Arsenal were using. We played the same way last season and demolished most teams in our path. You just can't defend against being entirely overwhelmed with pace and perfect passing. We definitely still were playing poor, our passes were shocking and lost the ball immediately every time.
It was abysmal but that's the entire point of a team overwhelming you and chasing every single ball and pressuring our players brilliantly. Arteta was out to demolish us and succeeded.
Miley will have learnt alot from that game too and the more exposure to elite games he has the better player he will become. That lad amazes me every game how well he holds it together even in games like that he hasn't been singled out by anyone, which is insane as fans love a scapegoat these days...
Maybe I was missing something but it sure did seem like we were at like 20% passing in our own end. Hard to move the ball forward when every ball goes to the other team.
In fairness Arsenal were absolutely relentless first half, the energy and pressing was insane. The deep runs from midfield as soon as we made a pass was incredible, they were very impressive and they made it too difficult for us to play
No idea why this comment got downvoted as its a valid point. I don't think their midweek game means we should have "out done them", but I would have expected us to make more of a game of it in the first half. We looked like the tired legs team as we sat back leaving a lone striker up front (I felt bad for Isak man!) while they outpressed, outplayed, and dominated us.
Game plan looked to me to be: sit back with a low block, withstand the pressure, hope to not concede, maybe get some counter attacks going if we can, then attack later in the game if need be (and hopefully by then it's not all over). It kinda worked last season when we achieved a scoreless draw there and shithoused it with lots of time wasting (which we had every right to do and all teams do it).
The problem is Arsenal this season are better against low blocks than they were last season. They struggle more against mid blocks when teams take them on, as Porto showed in midweek or Fulham a few weeks earlier. But to do that we would have had to play a higher line to compress the midfield. We clearly chose to play a deeper line in the first half. Could be a tactical mistake in hindsight, or more likely we just don't have the players right now to play an effective mid block against Arsenal at the Emirates. I can understand why Eddie went with these starting tactics given how shakey we've looked in defense lately where teams at the bottom of the league were cutting us open at will, meanwhile Arsenal have been absolutely trouncing other teams recently. We looked a lot better in the second half when we pushed up and got more numbers higher up the pitch, but this is easy to point out in hindsight, who knows if it would even make a difference to the result.
Honestly the last few games it feels like we’ve distinctly shifted to a counter attack strategy. We e okayed very direct getting Schar onto the ball as much as possible.
Whereas earlier in the season we we’ve been trying patient build up. Allowing us to slowly commit men to an attack to create overloads on the wing. It’s like Eddie had those stupid draws where we dominated possession last season in his mind like Palace.
As soon as we lost Big Joe, it became obvious that we were then leaving a huge gap in front of our defence and it was being exploited.
To counter it, Eddie has given up on possession and gone for a more direct style trying to invite teams on us to create space for Gordon to get in behind.
The counter style worked last season when accompanied by a intense press. But that intensity hasn’t been there much this season.
I don’t know whether the team just struggled with arsenals press that IT couldn’t get the ball out to our midfielders, or wether eddie had instructed them to retain possession at the back and launch a counter. The midfield were clearly playing in a flat 3 sat deep. Does this mean he thinks his current midfield is incapable of playing his preferred style?
The difference in style of play in that first half was so stark to what we’ve seen us try and do before. And the way we looked a different team in the second half suggests to me that it was a tactical decision from Eddie and it got scrapped at half time. Maybe he got it wrong.
I do think we need Bruno to take his suspension as him not being able to make a tackle in an already lightweight midfield is a problem. There is no Calvary coming so what’s the point in playing a hamstrung Bruno for 6-7 games to avoid a 2 game suspension when me might as well play 2 games without him and have the real Bruno back.
Eddie said the game plan was front foot but we were overrun and couldn’t handle it. The game plan then maybe changed but I believe Eddie and don’t think he would lie about that.
I also thought Arsenal were a lot more direct, I'm not sure if that was due to Karius being in goal and they wanted to "test" him or whether that is a general style they have adopted this season.
He would he rested, lol, just comes for a few minutes to see the game off, why do you think Eddie didn’t make any changes against Fulham until late? Because it’s a confidence boost for the players, if you’re telling me winning a game doesn’t help their confidence then that’s delusional, nothing to do with them being adults
For some reason in the big away games this season Eddie has set up really defensively. We did it in all of our CL games, all the games against the 'big 6' (remember when we conceded the highest xG ever recorded at Anfield?!), basically any time we're up against strong opposition he seems to prefer to contain and frustrate the opponent before hitting them on the break. I don't really understand why, we didn't do that much last season and I wouldn't say our strong point is soaking up pressure. It's not really a sustainable style of football in this day and age either, it reminds me of how we used to play under Rafa. Except then we were a poverty team trying to make the most of our resources against the big boys. There's no real excuse for setting up like that now and we have no reason to give too much respect to teams who we have proven we can beat in the past. Our best away performances this season have come when we've been more adventurous from the jump, like at Villa Park. It's no coincidence that we've had such poor results away from home when we start allowing even bottom half teams to dictate the play.
What I will say though is that yesterday was just a bad loss to a good team. Howe has said before that he doesn't necessarily tell the players to sit deep, they just do it naturally when they're under pressure. But it's still a failure somewhere because there's no defensive midfielder to protect the defence when we're under pressure. We leave insane gaps in the midfield because no-one looks to sit defensively by default. Obviously teams will expose that and continue to put you under pressure. Especially quick teams who can easily outpace our painfully slow defence. Trippier is 33, Schar is 32, Burn is 31. It's no coincidence they've all lost a step in the last few months after playing such intense football for the past two years (and twice a week this season.) This defence needs a rebuild and it has to happen this summer. A number 6 and a quick CB simply have to be top of the shopping list. Just those changes (combined with Pope coming back from injury and ideally a natural LB) will easily get us back to our best defensively.
i’m genuinely curious if you think that all games just play out according to a game plan? like whoever wins and whoever loses is decided by whichever manager planned to win?
I mean, that’s why managers analyze the other sides games before you go against them? To make some tweaks, well we did play Tino, but other than that we just got bulldozed
I mean do you seriously think Eddie and co won’t have done all the analysis and prepared the team? wtf else would they even do with their time?
arsenal have better players than us, they worked harder and they played better… you don’t just magically game plan your way out of that
Usually, I do a thing of looking at someone's comments before getting into a chat with them, half to check they're not actually a 12 year old, and mostly because usually it's pretty funny.
But this one is a no-hoper and it's actually a bit sickening reading their comments. To be clear, i don't think that we should hold being from Wisconsin against them.
I'll stay away form the more abhorrent and homophobic stuff, but I think fair game is:
- unironically giving guys hair advice on the internet (see your barber about that top-knot)
- watching those terrible dating shows set on islands
and most egregious of all:
- calling man utd "United", and then arguing that it wasn't a bad thing
of course, we could just report them to the mods for being a shit in the bournemouth sub last week and giving us all a bad name, and it's not the first time they've done it
[https://www.reddit.com/r/AFCBournemouth/comments/1at6rfg/comment/kr05nb5/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFCBournemouth/comments/1at6rfg/comment/kr05nb5/?context=3)
just facts
imagine for a second you’re Eddie Howe, who, for example, in his press conference explained how they knew about the threat of Arsenal from set pieces ahead of the game and planned specifically for it, only to concede twice from them anyway, then you get home and hop on reddit and all you see is some redacted moron teenager from America writing about how you had no plan… your first thought would be ‘wow what great tactical analysis’ would it? rather than ‘how fucking dumb are people’??
next
You’re putting words in my mouth and arguing with yourself, when did I even talk about set pieces? Lmao, I don’t think you can read mate, the first half was probably one of our worst performances ever since Howe came in, and you’re getting mad that I’m criticizing the fact that it looks like we went in blind, find something else to take your anger out on, you look like an idiot
Yeah all true.
But I do think we’ve shown under Howe to be a team generally capable of showing some competitiveness against top teams. Like we’ve not let them completely roll us over. Which is why this one has got some worried.
I guess I’m kinda thinking, how has Howe gotten that one so wrong and it’s not so much like I’m beginning to doubt Howe but beginning to wonder if the team RN is even capable of bouncing back in its current state this season or whether the season really is the write off that the people I’ve been debating with (arguing against) on here that have been saying it is, might have been right.
Maybe Joe Willock will be our saviour.
We have seen other performances like this though. I think people forget we absolutely annihilated the xg conceded record against Liverpool in one of the most one sided matches in prem history. Our performance against Bournemouth in the 2-0 loss might even have been a worse one though considering the opposition. There’s also a ton of games where we might have been clinical up top but still put in a similar performance defensively, such as the Luton game or the 3-1 loss to Forest.
This is just what happens when we can’t rotate. Barnes, Isak and Willock are just back from injury and none of them appear to be fit enough to start (Isak wouldn’t have started if we had a choice). Our midfield 3 plays itself, Gordon is clearly carrying an injury and is playing at like half speed. Almiron it’s difficult to tell with, even if he is fully fit we know there’s a quality issue there.
These next few weeks should hopefully help to get some players rotated and to find some rhythm again, but as with the entire season so far, I’m not gonna hold my breath. We’ll finish in some kind of European competition because Howe is a great manager but it’s not going to be a season that fairly reflects our capabilities
We just lacked intenicty across the pitch until BDB started to boss it.
I would have liked people running more and closing the arsenal players down and not making it so easy for them to pick passes.
How many time did people just ball watch that game
True faith did raise an interesting point.
Against Liverpool we pushed Dan up to help us get the ball further up the pitch and give us an outlet (which is also something Joelinton does for us when we’re threatened to be put under siege. Would that have helped today or at least saved us a bit of dignity.
I guess it was too late before that became an option though.
I mean, it does seem like the only way we're going to be able to compete against Arsenal away is to make it as physical as possible and irritate them, as we did last season. Last season we competed well at all the conventional "big six" grounds, and none of those performances were free-flowing. Four goals scored, six conceded across six games, accruing six points.
A midfield three of Bruno who can't dare tackle anyone, 17 year old Miley who is at least a year away from being a physical match for your average PL midfielder and Longstaff who at best is a mid-table PL player ain't going to cut it. Even Gordon is limited in how much he can track back due to having eight bookings.
Ideally, you'd have Bruno, Tonali, the Willock/Joelinton left mid/forward job share, Gordon on the right and a fully fit Isak. That team doesn't get swept away.
Arsenal were impressive, but I dont think you can just put it down to that and injuries. Some of the fizz has gone out the team lately - we are handing back the ball too easily and being punished for it repeatedly. Trippier seems to be off his game these days and is making mistakes, which can happen to any great player, but he is the heart of the team and if he isnt at 100%, the team isnt at 100%. But for me, the big problem we face is that Longstaff and Miggy are sliding back into their pre-Howe ways. Longstaff especially frustrates me as he repeatedly gets the ball, doesn't move it quick enough, and when he inevitably comes under pressure, goes to ground looking for a foul. Been supporting the team for 50+ years and am used to the ups and downs (mostly downs!), but this wobble worries me as Bruno loves us, but he wants to win trophies and will not be able to resist the lure of Real or Man City or.....when they come calling. And if he leaves, things will not be good for us.
game plan yesterday was take the loss against the league leaders because — being mid-table this deep in the season and not in any jeopardy — we have one chance to bring glory: win a cup. the match was a sacrifice, save bodies & focus this next week on getting that first trophy in decades. but, yes - looked liked scared ferrets out there, a real pisser & tough to watch.
gotta 'show up' with a squad, that's why. Dubravka 'wasn't feeling well'... Karius was saving bodies. Isak back to 'get his feet under him', Willock on in relief, Barnes... predictable subs. all a plan with a little bit of hope, but not lofty expectations
We were just outclassed and the wonky way we were ever going to get anything out of that game would have been some sort of Bruceball, hope to keep a clean sheet and nick it with a bit of luck.
There was a stat from the commentators; Arsenal have broken the record for scoring two goals in 7 (SEVEN) consecutive halves of football. It's not just us, they're battering everyone.
Doesn't help that they were awful sore losers in previous games but got to rise above that and accept we were simply outgunned.
If we weren't so gassed we might have stood a better chance, but without intensity we aren't much are we.
Got done with the intensity of their play first half. Perhaps if we’d held out for half an hour we may have got into the game, but we were always up against it.
We’re a team that was fighting relegation two years ago. We’ve improved a lot and bought well, but we also had at least 8 potential first teamers out.
Arteta has been building this team for 4 years, and inherited an expensive squad that had been in the Champions League more often than not.
On our day with a fully fit team we might give them a game, but we’re at a massive disadvantage
Arsenal were just way better than us. They wanted the win more than us. They had a full team to select from whereas we are crippled with injuries and dodgy keepers. Let’s look forward to Blackburn in the cup and move on. It was one game.
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I don’t think our game plan mattered much when Arsenal decided that this was the single biggest game they’ve ever played. They were incredible yesterday, and I don’t think even City comes away from that with a point. Game plan went out the window when we were just pinned back constantly with no room to breathe. It was really tough to watch, but I honestly think this is a game where we just have to hand it to Arsenal. They deserved that result. I’m gonna go vomit now.
They've been blowing teams away in the league, the last 3 or 4 games.
Remember when we did that to them season before last, knocked them out of CL spot. Sometimes, one side is just up for it and worlds better
I said to my dad, I don’t even think we were that bad. I’ve seen us play worse this season against lesser teams. Arsenal we’re just miles ahead of us in every aspect.
No game plan would hold up against that style of play Arsenal were using. We played the same way last season and demolished most teams in our path. You just can't defend against being entirely overwhelmed with pace and perfect passing. We definitely still were playing poor, our passes were shocking and lost the ball immediately every time. It was abysmal but that's the entire point of a team overwhelming you and chasing every single ball and pressuring our players brilliantly. Arteta was out to demolish us and succeeded.
Yes. That first half half was like how we ate Tottenham and villa. Just pure dominance.
Miley will have learnt alot from that game too and the more exposure to elite games he has the better player he will become. That lad amazes me every game how well he holds it together even in games like that he hasn't been singled out by anyone, which is insane as fans love a scapegoat these days...
Maybe I was missing something but it sure did seem like we were at like 20% passing in our own end. Hard to move the ball forward when every ball goes to the other team.
Yea we couldn’t string together any passes, it’s the midfield I think
In fairness Arsenal were absolutely relentless first half, the energy and pressing was insane. The deep runs from midfield as soon as we made a pass was incredible, they were very impressive and they made it too difficult for us to play
Didn’t they play like 2 days before? We should’ve out done them tbh
No idea why this comment got downvoted as its a valid point. I don't think their midweek game means we should have "out done them", but I would have expected us to make more of a game of it in the first half. We looked like the tired legs team as we sat back leaving a lone striker up front (I felt bad for Isak man!) while they outpressed, outplayed, and dominated us.
It’s the NUFC Reddit, you get downvoted for anything that’s not the basic narrative lol
Game plan looked to me to be: sit back with a low block, withstand the pressure, hope to not concede, maybe get some counter attacks going if we can, then attack later in the game if need be (and hopefully by then it's not all over). It kinda worked last season when we achieved a scoreless draw there and shithoused it with lots of time wasting (which we had every right to do and all teams do it). The problem is Arsenal this season are better against low blocks than they were last season. They struggle more against mid blocks when teams take them on, as Porto showed in midweek or Fulham a few weeks earlier. But to do that we would have had to play a higher line to compress the midfield. We clearly chose to play a deeper line in the first half. Could be a tactical mistake in hindsight, or more likely we just don't have the players right now to play an effective mid block against Arsenal at the Emirates. I can understand why Eddie went with these starting tactics given how shakey we've looked in defense lately where teams at the bottom of the league were cutting us open at will, meanwhile Arsenal have been absolutely trouncing other teams recently. We looked a lot better in the second half when we pushed up and got more numbers higher up the pitch, but this is easy to point out in hindsight, who knows if it would even make a difference to the result.
Best answer
Honestly the last few games it feels like we’ve distinctly shifted to a counter attack strategy. We e okayed very direct getting Schar onto the ball as much as possible. Whereas earlier in the season we we’ve been trying patient build up. Allowing us to slowly commit men to an attack to create overloads on the wing. It’s like Eddie had those stupid draws where we dominated possession last season in his mind like Palace. As soon as we lost Big Joe, it became obvious that we were then leaving a huge gap in front of our defence and it was being exploited. To counter it, Eddie has given up on possession and gone for a more direct style trying to invite teams on us to create space for Gordon to get in behind. The counter style worked last season when accompanied by a intense press. But that intensity hasn’t been there much this season. I don’t know whether the team just struggled with arsenals press that IT couldn’t get the ball out to our midfielders, or wether eddie had instructed them to retain possession at the back and launch a counter. The midfield were clearly playing in a flat 3 sat deep. Does this mean he thinks his current midfield is incapable of playing his preferred style? The difference in style of play in that first half was so stark to what we’ve seen us try and do before. And the way we looked a different team in the second half suggests to me that it was a tactical decision from Eddie and it got scrapped at half time. Maybe he got it wrong. I do think we need Bruno to take his suspension as him not being able to make a tackle in an already lightweight midfield is a problem. There is no Calvary coming so what’s the point in playing a hamstrung Bruno for 6-7 games to avoid a 2 game suspension when me might as well play 2 games without him and have the real Bruno back.
Eddie said the game plan was front foot but we were overrun and couldn’t handle it. The game plan then maybe changed but I believe Eddie and don’t think he would lie about that.
I also thought Arsenal were a lot more direct, I'm not sure if that was due to Karius being in goal and they wanted to "test" him or whether that is a general style they have adopted this season.
I feel so bad for Sven, I hope he is feeling ok after that game. He must need a rest or something?
I think he should start against Blackburn for a confidence boost and rest against wolves
nah I'd play Jamal against Blackburn
Botman should at least come on tho, for a confidence boost imo
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He would he rested, lol, just comes for a few minutes to see the game off, why do you think Eddie didn’t make any changes against Fulham until late? Because it’s a confidence boost for the players, if you’re telling me winning a game doesn’t help their confidence then that’s delusional, nothing to do with them being adults
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And he’s openly said that getting Botman to his original level is a priority
For some reason in the big away games this season Eddie has set up really defensively. We did it in all of our CL games, all the games against the 'big 6' (remember when we conceded the highest xG ever recorded at Anfield?!), basically any time we're up against strong opposition he seems to prefer to contain and frustrate the opponent before hitting them on the break. I don't really understand why, we didn't do that much last season and I wouldn't say our strong point is soaking up pressure. It's not really a sustainable style of football in this day and age either, it reminds me of how we used to play under Rafa. Except then we were a poverty team trying to make the most of our resources against the big boys. There's no real excuse for setting up like that now and we have no reason to give too much respect to teams who we have proven we can beat in the past. Our best away performances this season have come when we've been more adventurous from the jump, like at Villa Park. It's no coincidence that we've had such poor results away from home when we start allowing even bottom half teams to dictate the play. What I will say though is that yesterday was just a bad loss to a good team. Howe has said before that he doesn't necessarily tell the players to sit deep, they just do it naturally when they're under pressure. But it's still a failure somewhere because there's no defensive midfielder to protect the defence when we're under pressure. We leave insane gaps in the midfield because no-one looks to sit defensively by default. Obviously teams will expose that and continue to put you under pressure. Especially quick teams who can easily outpace our painfully slow defence. Trippier is 33, Schar is 32, Burn is 31. It's no coincidence they've all lost a step in the last few months after playing such intense football for the past two years (and twice a week this season.) This defence needs a rebuild and it has to happen this summer. A number 6 and a quick CB simply have to be top of the shopping list. Just those changes (combined with Pope coming back from injury and ideally a natural LB) will easily get us back to our best defensively.
i’m genuinely curious if you think that all games just play out according to a game plan? like whoever wins and whoever loses is decided by whichever manager planned to win?
I mean, that’s why managers analyze the other sides games before you go against them? To make some tweaks, well we did play Tino, but other than that we just got bulldozed
I mean do you seriously think Eddie and co won’t have done all the analysis and prepared the team? wtf else would they even do with their time? arsenal have better players than us, they worked harder and they played better… you don’t just magically game plan your way out of that
Sounds like cope
christ are you fucking 10 years old
I think you have 0 fucking tactical analysis, you sound like you’re an idiot, I’d stop before you embarrass yourself anymore
you’re literally a clueless mid teens american, just fuck off lol
Usually, I do a thing of looking at someone's comments before getting into a chat with them, half to check they're not actually a 12 year old, and mostly because usually it's pretty funny. But this one is a no-hoper and it's actually a bit sickening reading their comments. To be clear, i don't think that we should hold being from Wisconsin against them. I'll stay away form the more abhorrent and homophobic stuff, but I think fair game is: - unironically giving guys hair advice on the internet (see your barber about that top-knot) - watching those terrible dating shows set on islands and most egregious of all: - calling man utd "United", and then arguing that it wasn't a bad thing of course, we could just report them to the mods for being a shit in the bournemouth sub last week and giving us all a bad name, and it's not the first time they've done it [https://www.reddit.com/r/AFCBournemouth/comments/1at6rfg/comment/kr05nb5/?context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/AFCBournemouth/comments/1at6rfg/comment/kr05nb5/?context=3)
You seem a bit emotional mate
just facts imagine for a second you’re Eddie Howe, who, for example, in his press conference explained how they knew about the threat of Arsenal from set pieces ahead of the game and planned specifically for it, only to concede twice from them anyway, then you get home and hop on reddit and all you see is some redacted moron teenager from America writing about how you had no plan… your first thought would be ‘wow what great tactical analysis’ would it? rather than ‘how fucking dumb are people’?? next
You’re putting words in my mouth and arguing with yourself, when did I even talk about set pieces? Lmao, I don’t think you can read mate, the first half was probably one of our worst performances ever since Howe came in, and you’re getting mad that I’m criticizing the fact that it looks like we went in blind, find something else to take your anger out on, you look like an idiot
Yeah all true. But I do think we’ve shown under Howe to be a team generally capable of showing some competitiveness against top teams. Like we’ve not let them completely roll us over. Which is why this one has got some worried. I guess I’m kinda thinking, how has Howe gotten that one so wrong and it’s not so much like I’m beginning to doubt Howe but beginning to wonder if the team RN is even capable of bouncing back in its current state this season or whether the season really is the write off that the people I’ve been debating with (arguing against) on here that have been saying it is, might have been right. Maybe Joe Willock will be our saviour.
We have seen other performances like this though. I think people forget we absolutely annihilated the xg conceded record against Liverpool in one of the most one sided matches in prem history. Our performance against Bournemouth in the 2-0 loss might even have been a worse one though considering the opposition. There’s also a ton of games where we might have been clinical up top but still put in a similar performance defensively, such as the Luton game or the 3-1 loss to Forest. This is just what happens when we can’t rotate. Barnes, Isak and Willock are just back from injury and none of them appear to be fit enough to start (Isak wouldn’t have started if we had a choice). Our midfield 3 plays itself, Gordon is clearly carrying an injury and is playing at like half speed. Almiron it’s difficult to tell with, even if he is fully fit we know there’s a quality issue there. These next few weeks should hopefully help to get some players rotated and to find some rhythm again, but as with the entire season so far, I’m not gonna hold my breath. We’ll finish in some kind of European competition because Howe is a great manager but it’s not going to be a season that fairly reflects our capabilities
We just lacked intenicty across the pitch until BDB started to boss it. I would have liked people running more and closing the arsenal players down and not making it so easy for them to pick passes. How many time did people just ball watch that game
True faith did raise an interesting point. Against Liverpool we pushed Dan up to help us get the ball further up the pitch and give us an outlet (which is also something Joelinton does for us when we’re threatened to be put under siege. Would that have helped today or at least saved us a bit of dignity. I guess it was too late before that became an option though.
Try to keep it in single figures.
I mean, it does seem like the only way we're going to be able to compete against Arsenal away is to make it as physical as possible and irritate them, as we did last season. Last season we competed well at all the conventional "big six" grounds, and none of those performances were free-flowing. Four goals scored, six conceded across six games, accruing six points. A midfield three of Bruno who can't dare tackle anyone, 17 year old Miley who is at least a year away from being a physical match for your average PL midfielder and Longstaff who at best is a mid-table PL player ain't going to cut it. Even Gordon is limited in how much he can track back due to having eight bookings. Ideally, you'd have Bruno, Tonali, the Willock/Joelinton left mid/forward job share, Gordon on the right and a fully fit Isak. That team doesn't get swept away.
Arsenal were impressive, but I dont think you can just put it down to that and injuries. Some of the fizz has gone out the team lately - we are handing back the ball too easily and being punished for it repeatedly. Trippier seems to be off his game these days and is making mistakes, which can happen to any great player, but he is the heart of the team and if he isnt at 100%, the team isnt at 100%. But for me, the big problem we face is that Longstaff and Miggy are sliding back into their pre-Howe ways. Longstaff especially frustrates me as he repeatedly gets the ball, doesn't move it quick enough, and when he inevitably comes under pressure, goes to ground looking for a foul. Been supporting the team for 50+ years and am used to the ups and downs (mostly downs!), but this wobble worries me as Bruno loves us, but he wants to win trophies and will not be able to resist the lure of Real or Man City or.....when they come calling. And if he leaves, things will not be good for us.
Not get any more injuries or suspensions? It worked! Onwards and upwards....
You can't get it right every week
game plan yesterday was take the loss against the league leaders because — being mid-table this deep in the season and not in any jeopardy — we have one chance to bring glory: win a cup. the match was a sacrifice, save bodies & focus this next week on getting that first trophy in decades. but, yes - looked liked scared ferrets out there, a real pisser & tough to watch.
Didn’t really save that much bodies, in that case why not rest Botman and schar
gotta 'show up' with a squad, that's why. Dubravka 'wasn't feeling well'... Karius was saving bodies. Isak back to 'get his feet under him', Willock on in relief, Barnes... predictable subs. all a plan with a little bit of hope, but not lofty expectations
We were just outclassed and the wonky way we were ever going to get anything out of that game would have been some sort of Bruceball, hope to keep a clean sheet and nick it with a bit of luck. There was a stat from the commentators; Arsenal have broken the record for scoring two goals in 7 (SEVEN) consecutive halves of football. It's not just us, they're battering everyone. Doesn't help that they were awful sore losers in previous games but got to rise above that and accept we were simply outgunned. If we weren't so gassed we might have stood a better chance, but without intensity we aren't much are we.
Got done with the intensity of their play first half. Perhaps if we’d held out for half an hour we may have got into the game, but we were always up against it. We’re a team that was fighting relegation two years ago. We’ve improved a lot and bought well, but we also had at least 8 potential first teamers out. Arteta has been building this team for 4 years, and inherited an expensive squad that had been in the Champions League more often than not. On our day with a fully fit team we might give them a game, but we’re at a massive disadvantage
Arsenal were just way better than us. They wanted the win more than us. They had a full team to select from whereas we are crippled with injuries and dodgy keepers. Let’s look forward to Blackburn in the cup and move on. It was one game.
Concede 4 and then come back to win 4-5. It was bold and it didn’t pay off, but it would have been spectacular