Spurs should have won. You rode your luck. 2 shots at home all game until the 80th min? A massive deflection and a handball decision that shouldn't have been given if they're being consistent.
Arsenal 2023/24 - Born to be runner up
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Placing the blame on Arteta for dropping points yesterday.
Jorginho is obviously gonna be a scapegoat but Arteta’s line up and subs were dumb. Enough with Eddie Nketiah. Can’t believehe shunted Jesus to the left just accommodate invisible Eddie.Perfect opportunity to finally give Smith Rowe a start on the left and keep Jesus where he’s most dangerous centrally but Arteta mucked it.
And viera wasn’t amazing or anything but bring on Havertz to partner with Jorginho was dumb. And leaving Eddie on the pitch for so long was mystifying too. Just a weird one from Arteta for me.
Really need Partay back andhopefully Rice isn’t sidelined too long
Jorginho is obviously gonna be a scapegoat but Arteta’s line up and subs were dumb. Enough with Eddie Nketiah. Can’t believehe shunted Jesus to the left just accommodate invisible Eddie.Perfect opportunity to finally give Smith Rowe a start on the left and keep Jesus where he’s most dangerous centrally but Arteta mucked it.
And viera wasn’t amazing or anything but bring on Havertz to partner with Jorginho was dumb. And leaving Eddie on the pitch for so long was mystifying too. Just a weird one from Arteta for me.
Really need Partay back andhopefully Rice isn’t sidelined too long
You may be right, though I'm not one for trying to closely compare one season from the next, or try to make predictions. This season has a significant new challenge - the CL. It may be expected that we'd struggle to compete on all fronts. It is a challenge our squad (except the ex City players) and manager have no experience in. Though I'm enjoying it as it's been so long since we've been at the highest level. And other clubs like Liverpool and Spurs look much better. At the moment it is looking like City will run away with it.Probably you don't understand.
The problem is not what points you have after 6 games, but what points you will have after 19 games.
By 19 games last season you had 2 draws and 1 loss ( To United at OT). So beating United in emirates happened last season also.
So for any resemblance of last season, you guys need to lose only 1 game and win the next 12 games till game 19.
Is that possible? You know it's not possible.
I have always maintained the 2022-23 first half of the season from Arteta was such a big anomaly. A 50 point in 19 games is such a big anomaly. Arteta is a 30-35 points manager in 19 games. As it happened in the second part of the last season.
And all the pointers point to it being as business as usual for Arteta in this new season.
If "business as usual" is top 4 (and hopefully doing decent in CL) then that's undoubtedly a significant improvement over the last several years. Here's hoping.
not to mention they should have easily been down to 10 men, if Anketias tackle is on anyone else other than your keeper it’s red all day.
No one said the point is where we are after 6 games. In fact, person saying that our start to the season is reflective of our level is *checks notes*... you.Probably you don't understand.
The problem is not what points you have after 6 games, but what points you will have after 19 games.
By 19 games last season you had 2 draws and 1 loss ( To United at OT
So for any resemblance of last season, you guys need to lose only 1 game and win the next 12 games till game 19.
Is that possible? You know it's not possible.
I have always maintained the 2022-23 first half of the season from Arteta was such a big anomaly. A 50 point in 19 games is such a big anomaly. Arteta is a 30-35 points manager in 19 games. As it happened in the second part of the last season.
And all the pointers point to it being as business as usual for Arteta in this new season.
I merely pointed out that if this if this is indeed our level, we'd be looking at an 89 point total.
I'm curious, what your obsession with 19 games. It's a pretty arbitrary number.
Arsenal supporters on the forum.
How do we feel about Kai Havertz?
How do we feel about Kai Havertz?
I don't get it. He's managed to become incredibly expensive backup to Vieira within six games.
Yeah my thoughts excatly.
Looked better in CL, so I'll try to remain positive.
Had he been £30m-£40m and had we not had:
- Xhaka
- Vieira
- Smith-Rowe
- Trossard
I think most fans were like WTF when the club signed him, but I was willing to give him a chance and trust that Arteta knows what he's doing. But even after just a handful of games, it already feels like he is destined to be a giant waste of money. I always knew he had an Ozil-like nonchalant attitude, but I thought he'd at least be able to back it up with some Ozil-like silky skills. But I've yet to see one thing, one piece of skill, one pass, one anything that made think he'll eventually come good on the 65 million price tag.
I hope I'm wrong but I don't see him lasting long at the club. And he doesn't seem to have the type of personality to try and fight through it. Hope the club can get something for him in the future but I fear he'll be our Harry Maguire and refuse to leave because no german club will match his wages.
Xhaka looks like Edgar Davids compared to this bloke.
All new players deserve a bedding in period.
I wouldnt be afraid to start Trossard over Havertz, i think he is way better.
Agreed. I would choose any one of them over Havertz, particularly for Arsenal. I'm a big Arteta fan, but I really don't get it with Havertz. Hopefully I'm proved wrong. He does look like he just needs to score one off his backside to get his confidence going. His time at Leverkusen proves there's a player in there. Somewhere.
You never know, but he has already played some seasons in Premier League but new club and new playstyle. You never know.
I've seen a lot of Arsenal fans try to discredit this result saying Spurs scored through mistakes, I find that ironic when Arsenals 2 goals came from a deflection and a penalty that could just have easily not been given. (Romero handball from Garnacho's shot an example of this).
Over the course of the game a draw was probably a fair result. I think if Madisson and Bissouma stayed on Spurs would have knicked it.
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They are no way looking like a title contenders. Very fortunate to not lose against Fulham, fortunate to win against United, and even yesterday got two lucky goals. 200m plus spent so no longer can play the underdog card as well.
Arsenal fans won't want to admit it and I've had this debate plenty of times with some of my Arsenal mates but the problem is Rice.
You are competing with them as well as City. That was the point.
Aye a draw was fair. But we also had Rice come off and I think if he didn't get injured we also may have knicked it. We lost the midfield when he came off. If Jesus buried his chance it would have been 2-0 and I think we would have been more comfortable. It was a close and frantic game as these derbies tend to be. I'm pretty pleased with our week in general - wins against Everton and PSV and a draw vs Spurs. Just disappointing to go ahead twice and get pegged back, especially Jorginho's brain fart.
Now I hope Rice's injury isn't serious as Jorginho and Elneny in midfield doesn't inspire much confidence, especially with City coming up.
Have to disagree. Partey has missed 3 of our games so far (United, Everton and Spurs) and we won 2 and drew one (where Rice went off injured). Up until Rice arrived, I used to brick it whenever Partey was out. We haven't missed him so far due to Rice. He has been very good for us in the 6 role. Sure he hasn't transformed us going forward but that's hardly his main purpose, especially with Partey out.
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They tried to sort it by making all Handballs a Pen and that was even worse. The only Solution I can see is to just just not allow VAR to get involved in penalty handballs, that way you can at least live with it because we know every Ref is different so can understand the different decisions in different scenarios, the decisions should also be consistent with each ref at least seeing as though they will always be using their own metrics rather than who ever is sitting in the van, similar to how each ref handles fouls and bookings slightly differently (some more lenient than others)
The problem now is people forget that VAR is still just humans ultimately making the final decisions and not some robot that knows and follows the rules perfectly, people expect (and rightly so) every decision to be the same when VAR intervenes which is clearly not the case.
Regular reader of the forum but don’t post here much.
I did not think Havertz was a good Xhaka replacement, but if Arteta feels he is the guy then was willing to go with it. I felt he could have been eased into the team instead of starting every game, since we had a very settled line up . We had options for Xhaka's position with Trossard, ESR, Vieira and Rice (when Partey was fit).
I thought he was pretty good against Everton considering his previous games. Against Spurs the whole team was below par, so difficult to judge him.
He desperately needs a goal to life his confidence, still willing to give him time. I would probably bench him and bring him on as a sub, but dont know how feasible it is now with the injuries.
They dont seem as solid as last season, specially defensively. I think at the moment I'd say Liverpool are better than them. They will definitely get top 4 though.
Funnily enough, we're actually statistically stronger defensively than last season. We giving the opposition far fewer chances... unfortunately the chances we do give them are gilt-edged as the are often the result of a catastrophic individual error (like Jorginho yesterday).
They aren't as good as last season. Not yet anyway.
Nice to hear your view.
It can be a confidence thing, hard to know sometimes!
Just have to give him to to adapt,if not you tried.
Every team have buys that dont work out, look at 75% of our transfers since Ferguson left
Nah I don’t think it is. The problem is Odegaard. He’s massively underperforming and a lot of that is down to the positions he’s taking up which is a result of them playing Havertz/Fabio Vieira who take up similar positions but aren’t anywhere near as creative. Odegaard isn’t really playing in the hole anymore so he’s further away from goal, reducing his ability to create. Partey not being in midfield is also a considerable issue. Not sure why Rice is so disliked on here but it’s worth mentioning that he replaced Granit Xhaka…
Watching arsenal drop points is almost getting as fun to watch as Liverpool, I thought they would have learned their lesson after last season spectacular choke not to over celebrate and be dickheads but no.
Arteta is a cnut and Saka trying to take the piss out of an international team mate yesterday was cnuty too.
Hope they win feck all.
Arteta is a cnut and Saka trying to take the piss out of an international team mate yesterday was cnuty too.
Hope they win feck all.
Odegaard is further from goal because we're missing the balance Xhaka provided. Partey - Xhaka - Odegaard really complemented each other well (until Partey's form fell off a cliff in the run-in). It was a real 6 - 8 - 10 combination. I don't know why Arteta has decided to deviate so far from it this season.
Our tactics weren't the problem - our squad depth was. I think minor tweaks to the system plus a few signings that meant injuries no longer completely destabilised the team would have been great. I know Guardiola spent large portions of last season fine-tuning his setup, but he can always count on finishing strong with the depth of the squad at his disposal. Once we fall behind, we have next to no chance of catching them.
It's more to do with how over hyped they're because they went form crap to very good. Because of the massive leap everybody lauds them as great when they're not, they're very good.
We're horrible at the moment and if we had to play them next week I still think we could get something, the same as the other week when we played them and the same as I felt last year when we played them but when we have had to play Liverpool or City over the last few years (a great team) I genuinely feared we would get hit for double figures. Arsenal are nowhere close to that level and never have been yet get talked up like they 're all the time.
The only reason Arsenal made a fist of it last year was because City didn't really know how play with Haaland for the first half a season, once the world cup finished and they binned off Cancelo for the new formation Arsenal couldn't lay a glove on them.
They're obviously mates and just winding each up other seeing as though he did it to Rashford as well. They probably told each other they would do it in a WhatsApp group or something just to rub it in.
Even last season you didn't achieve 89 points
, you think this season you can achieve that? Anyway.The Obsession with 19 games as you say it.. Is and I have said it countless times here, if you remove the first 19 games of 2022-23 season in Arteta reign at Arsenal it all comes down to a very standard range of around 30-35 points since 2019.
Most of Arsenal fans live off the first 19 games form of 2022. This is the main problem I have had in this forum. Remove it. Arsenal level through 4 years is almost identical.
So the same pattern is almost being replicated here now. In 10 games range - win 6, lose points in 4 games then Arsenal level over the years will be maintained.
I apologise. I should've been more specific as reading back my post made it seem like I said Rice is a bad player. I don't think Rice has been bad or Arsenal have been bad overall, it's just of my opinion that Rice isn't as good as Partey at finding the space through the lines to play in Odegaard, Rice is an incredible player but he's much more of a safe passer than Partey is and not as good at playing those passes forward. I think Odegaard is suffering because of it and I also think that Partey was purposely played by Arteta as an inverted fullback to try and make up for Rice's deficiency. Arsenal still dominate and still control possession and are still an amazing team but I feel like you aren't as cut throat and creative as you were last season due to this. I think it's the main reason Odegaard has struggled so far (compared to last season).
See my above post. I don't think Rice is a bad player and I do agree that Odegaard hasn't been as good as last season as I explained in the post above. Arsenal's ideal midfield 3 in my opinion would be Partey, Rice and Odegaard with Partey as the 6 and Rice as the Xhaka replacement. I'm not saying Rice is a bad player but he's not a 6 like Partey is a 6 and you can see why Odegaard thrives more with Partey behind him.
Messi is a failure in World Cup tournaments and his pattern throughout his entire career is identical… once you remove his form of 2022.Even last season you didn't achieve 89 points
The Obsession with 19 games as you say it.. Is and I have said it countless times here, if you remove the first 19 games of 2022-23 season in Arteta reign at Arsenal it all comes down to a very standard range of around 30-35 points since 2019.
Most of Arsenal fans live off the first 19 games form of 2022. This is the main problem I have had in this forum. Remove it. Arsenal level through 4 years is almost identical.
So the same pattern is almost being replicated here now. In 10 games range - win 6, lose points in 4 games then Arsenal level over the years will be maintained.
You can make anybody look bad if you arbitrarily “remove” the times they perform well.
So I’ve got this straight, our start to this season isn’t indicative of our “true level? And the 19 games from the first half of last season isn’t either?
Only the 19 games from the second half of last season count and we must ignore the 25 games either side of it?
That’s some serious cherry-picking.
They are missing Xhaka (last seasons version) in midfield.