PL L FA Premier League

Arsenal 3:1 Manchester United

Post-match discussion


Sun, 03 September 2023

Have to say that the offside looked very tight from the little we were able to see. Not sure what EtH was able to see.

It was a mm offside based on an image by VAR with lines that were about 6 mm in Arsenals favour. It was comfortably onside.
 
Just seen Garnacho again - his hand is the only thing beyond the defender's head. you can't score with your hand therefore, for me anyway, onside. Not sure it's a penalty but the foul on Evans is clear as day

Same here just to make sure and I came to the conclusion that Garnacho's left shoulder is beyond the last defender's head. You can score a goal with your shoulder, technically speaking, so by the letter of the law the call was correct. Gut-punching but those are the rules.
 
That offside is dubious as well. The defenders head looks like its playing him onside.

The margins - get that goal and we win the match. Having said that we still would not win the PL and neither will arsenal going by today.

We are in trouble as well with our injuries. International break cannot come quick enough.
 
It's a really tough loss to take this one. Think we were very effective in our game plan for the majority of the game.

Injuries and just bad luck took that away from us.
 
As opposed to us giving them the ball and being under pressure? The players didn’t pick the right passes on the ball when there were options to pass forward. However keeping the ball frustrated Arsenal, we needed to be better at moving off the ball, Hojlund second half made a big difference up top to help with that.

As opposed to having Rashford run in behind the defence and playing the ball into his run. Something you dont need Onana and Lindelof passing to each other as Arsenal attackers try to pinch it off their foot in our own box to achieve. We've done that for years without a "ball playing Goalkeeper" and CBs signed to play the ball out from goal kicks.
 
Didn't think it was a particularly dreadful performance for the most part, couple of key moments that could've swung it against Arsenal...problem is there are so many elements to this team and the way it's set up that just feel quite average above all else. The squad has quality in some places but severe deficiencies, ETG's clearly not a terrible coach but isn't really doing anything spectacular either. It's a side that'll push for CL football but not much more than that beyond significant changes.
 
Some of you clearly need to take breather and sleep on the result.

Out of the top 4 race? Have you seen how shite Newcastle and Chelsea have been? Liverpool haven't been all that either, and Arsenal despite winning weren't exactly flying.

If that offside decision went our way we would have ended up with 3 points IMO. We also have rotten luck with injuries atm.

On the plus side we seem to have a proper target man who's a handful, and a proper midfielder in Amrabat to blood into the team.
 
As opposed to having Rashford run in behind the defence and playing the ball into his run. Something you dont need Onana and Lindelof passing to each other as Arsenal attackers try to pinch it off their foot in our own box to achieve. We've done that for years without a "ball playing Goalkeeper" and CBs signed to play the ball out from goal kicks.
There wasn’t space in behind when there was, Rashford was played in
 
I haven’t watched the game yet. Any positives? Sounds like we played better in the second half?
 
An interesting game... was good for us in many ways. I did not see the first half, I understand that it was pretty even, neither side really taking control the game. Second half, I thought we looked far more solid and organised. Eriksen (I keep saying...) is such a good football player and is so important for us. Maybe can't play every game, but who can.

We were comfortable, hope Martinez is ok, not sure why Lindholf was taken off. He has been superb for us, towards the end of last season, and this season. Dalot was brilliant, absolutely brilliant today. Rashford does what he does.. but, but....

... I do worry, because we just lack that quality up top. Rasmus looked promising, energy, physical prescence, so pleased to see him. But, but... Sancho, Martial and Antony will not trouble teams, they will not. Look at our rivals ( and I mean Spurs, Brighton, Newcastle..). They have more balanced, more talented, more complete attacking units.

Long season ahead. ETH better recognise.
 
We have lots of reasons to be positive, yes we lost but mainly down to bad luck and decisions going against us. We finished the game with our 4th and 5th choice centre back pairing, Eriksen again had to complete 100 + minutes which he shouldn’t have to do. We weren’t at full strength we still could and probably should have beaten one of the best teams in the league away from home. The international break is coming at the right time, we need to reset and look forward to the rest of the season. Also we have 2 of our most difficult fixtures out of the way now as well. Be positive.
 
There wasn’t space in behind when there was, Rashford was played in

You have no idea, the camera was firmly fixated in our own third not showing Arsenal's CBs. There was plenty of pitch for Rashford to run into at a speed that Arsenal's defenders cannot match
 
Do people complain if the small benefit of doubt such as a hand perhaps being a little offside as opposed to a goal being disallowed for the same reason?

Hands and arms are not considered in an offside call, though. I came to the conclusion that in this instance, Garnacho's left shoulder was just about in front of the last man's head. Since you can technically score with your shoulder (I know, what the feck, right?) then VAR made the correct decision.
 
You have no idea, the camera was firmly fixated in our own third not showing Arsenal's CBs. There was plenty of pitch for Rashford to run into at a speed that Arsenal's defenders cannot match
Ok
 
The squad was too thin today to win away at Arsenal.

Shaw, Malacia, Varane, McTominay, Mount and Sancho out beforehand.

Martinez injured during the game and possibly Lindelof if his sub wasn't tactical.

Hojlund wasn't ready to start yet and Amrabat was unavailable.

Full strength we definitely don't lose how we did at the end. Tough to take today as we were a hairline away from winning, but from the managers perspective the international break comes at a good time.

If we can get the players back healthy and Hojlund and Amrabat ready for the Brighton game we can try and do a job on them. We'll desperately need the CBs back asap and Maguire and Evans can't be trusted for sure.
 
Someone please show me a definitive image that Garnacho is offside?
 
Love this forum, win or lose, always entertaining to follow the posts. I wish rawk was as interesting to follow, even as a liverpool fan.
 
It's a forum, and it's a short period of time after a super gutting defeat.

A defeat at a ground we lose at every single season, usually looking utterly hapless, where for once we've looked reasonably comfortable.
A game in which we've looked like we've implemented a classic smash and grab, only to be gutted that a win would only be a draw.

And then see that draw not only turn to a loss, but a comfortable looking 3-1 loss.

If you don't expect moans of frustration after that, I don't know what to tell you.
I meant Arsenal players, coaches and fans. Not us.
 
Well there was some good and bad in that one but ultimately i can't see either of these teams getting near City. The difference is Arsenal are meant to be much further along than we are so make of that what you will.

Positives:
  • passing from the back- Onana is the big difference although i'm not sure if we might have made a trade for someone who is excellent with his feet but not a great shot stopper
  • Eriksen proved there's a very useful player still there. Personally was my MOTM
  • Rashford is frustrating as hell but he's a player that can get a goal out of nothing.
  • Antony was really good, especially defensively.
  • Dalot played well
  • Team showed fight and spirit and could have won the game if not for a marginal offside

Negatives:
  • Martial offered very little
  • We ended the match with Leicester City's centre backs
  • The link between midfield and attack wasn't quick or effective enough for a 'transition team'
  • As good as AWB was with some of his tackles and defensive headers it hinders us to play lightning fast transitions with a player that often needs 4 touches of the ball to set himself up. It's not going to improve and i don't think people are seeing this.
  • We're going to finish the season with a poor goal difference yet again. There's not enough goals in the team and the defence isn't strong enough
  • We're reliant already on Holjund and how quickly he settles as being key to our season.

I agree with a lot of what you said.
The passing from the back being as good as it was tells me that we are going to be much better in away games than we were last season. We nullified Arsenal without truly being under the cosh for most of the game due to this. This is a massive positive and confirms that De Gea was actually our biggest problem when it came to this.

Our depth was short today due to injuries, but the fact we could miss the amount of players we did and still pull out a good xi was great. Fans need to understand that we've been really unlucky with injuries so far this season. Most teams don't have three of their top cb's get injured around the same time. Most teams don't even have a 5th choice cb. So being forced to need it has far less to do with recruitment and more to do with the injuries.

Another massive positive was Hojlund. Not just the energy, but the fact that immediately you could tell how much we've been missing in regard to movement up top. I actually believe Hojlund is enough for the goals. What's been hurting us has been the lack of movement up top. It's made it difficult to link up well in the final third, take central runners out due to a threat and actually have a scoring threat in the box. I believe we have a lot of goals in this team. Rashford, Bruno, Hojlund, Mount, Garnacho...plus we also have Amad too. Antony isn't a scorer but even he can contribute. The issue we have in terms of goals has been a lack of movement in the striker position. I believe with Hojlund as a focal point, Bruno especially will get a lot of goals. For me, the next step in this team would be to get a solid rotational striker, because its quite clear, Martial isn't and was never going to cut it as a striker.

In terms of the link between midfield and attack, understand that we were playing Arsenal. Arsenal were playing a really tight box in midfield, so Bruno in particular was marked out of the game. Martial and Antony's lack of movement made it really difficult for Casemiro and Eriksen to find them. We needed to go down the flanks as a result, but due to Antony ( who played well) not being much of a threat, and Dalot( who also played well) being on his weaker foot, it meant overlapping opportunities weren't there. Amrabat or Mount might have been able to progress play with runs/dribbles if they played, but with Casemiro and Eriksen, we could only do this through passing.

I don't think this game was a reflection on anything we are going to do in attack aside from get the balls to the flanks. But the fact that a. we can hold the ball in the backline and b. have an energetic striker with good off the ball movement and hold up ability means we will be a far better team than last season, we just need to actually get into the season to see it. Unfortunately we got Arsenal and Spurs away to start the season.
 
Weirdly I feel a lot more positive about the season. The game confirmed to me that Arsenal aren’t that amazing and they’re probably the second best team we’ll play (maybe Pool if Klopp gets them firing again), we were unlucky (was it even offside!?) and Rasmus has made me think we can have a really good season.
 
Because blocker tactics seem to be a bit of a loop hole, often missed.
And no VAR ref is going to dare go out on a limb and call that on 96mins at the Emirates!

Crazy. Imagine if it had been us benefitting from such a call (or lack thereof). They would be talking about it for weeks on end.
 
I’d assume we’re not even in a top 4 race.

Nah too early to say. Think of the International break as a silver lining so we have time for our defence to recover from injury and Hojlund to reach match fitness. Honestly believe with him up front and a fully fit defence that we will get on a good run. Lots of games to go.
 
I haven’t watched the game yet. Any positives? Sounds like we played better in the second half?

Hojlund was good. An actual striker, unlike Martial who is barely a footballer these days. Guy could hold the ball up, and played a part in the Garnacho offside goal. Having Onana means we're more comfortable dealing with high presses. We played the game how we always used to play against Arsenal, and almost came away with it.

We had to bring on Maguire and Evans because Martinez and Lindelof got injured. Rotten luck. I'm kind of worried about Casemiro's form and fitness but lucky we got Amrabat in.
 
Crazy. Imagine if it had been us benefitting from such a call (or lack thereof). They would be talking about it for weeks on end.

I'm glad the manager called it out and a few fans are mentioning it now, as it looked pretty obvious in real time. Yet wasn't much buzz about it.

The offside, none of us ever really have a clue if they've stopped the clip at the right place, and they never give the right angle either.
 
If Martinez and Lindelof don't get injured, we win that game.

Our entire build up changed when Maguire (ffs) and Evans came on.

Every time Maguire got the ball he hoofed it, every single fecking time.

At one point, Onana decided to play the riskier pass to a covered Casemiro instead of Maguire who was open and standing 5 meters from him.
 
I’d assume we’re not even in a top 4 race.

Luckily top 4 allows quite a few losses.
And this year it'll probably be top 5 as long as Spain and England keep their top dog statuses.
 
We played like the underdog, passed it around our defence for so much of the game. looked slow going forward when we had the ball and arsenal sat back like we didn’t know what to do with it. Had a few chances from playing on the break. Was a hard game to watch.

hoijland looked fast and strong and as if he can be a bit of a handful for defenders, hopefully he will have a chance of a shot sometime soon
 
If Martinez and Lindelof don't get injured, we win that game.

Our entire build up changed when Maguire (ffs) and Evans came on.

Every time Maguire got the ball he hoofed it, every single fecking time.

At one point, Onana decided to play the riskier pass to a covered Casemiro instead of Maguire who was open and standing 5 meters from him.

So many injuries is concerning though. Why do we have so many players out?
 
I haven’t watched the game yet. Any positives? Sounds like we played better in the second half?
I would say that in the first half we played like we did under LVG. Looked to control possession and tempo, but did it with a lot of sideways passing in the defence that didn't really go anywhere. Which I'm actually fine with in the short-term, as long as it's the first step towards developing better movement and interplay throughout the team instead of only in the defence. Especially since we were against Arsenal away, looking to control possession and tempo helps take the sting out of the game.

Second half we played more normally and were more open, which bought both the positives (more attacking play around their box) and negatives (more dangerous situations around our own box).
 
If Martinez and Lindelof don't get injured, we win that game.

Our entire build up changed when Maguire (ffs) and Evans came on.

Every time Maguire got the ball he hoofed it, every single fecking time.

At one point, Onana decided to play the riskier pass to a covered Casemiro instead of Maguire who was open and standing 5 meters from him.

It's really worrying that we started taking goal kicks longer the second Maguire came on, rather than try and pass to him!
 
Unpopular opinion but I thought we were OK today, much more compact unlike the previous 3 games where teams run right through us.

Thought we'd won it a real sickener when it was ruled offside. The 8 mins were a joke but shouldn't of been surprised its play till they score at the Emirates.

Hopefully the break does us some good.
 

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