Match Reaction v Waterford (home).

[Power n Glory]

It does make me wonder whether a part of Emery’s brief is to (at least attempt to) extract as much value as he can from the club’s big investments before writing anyone off? Which, unfortunately, might mean persevering with certain players past the point where they merit it, and shoehorning them into roles they don’t really fit?

It’ll be interesting to see how long that perseverance lasts, if / when results start to turn...

We should be trying to assess all positions and make use of all the best parts in the team, I agree with that but I don’t think that’s happening. Three of our top performers aren’t playing in their natural position. That’s a concern because Emery is sticking with it despite all three not performing well and I now also see him doing the same thing Wenger would where he’d allow players to drift into the position they want to play or have them interchange during parts of the game. I can’t stand that. I’d prefer we play a formation that gets the best out of everyone.

The Ramsey contract situation is telling. Emery came in with a plan for Ramsey and emphasized his importance to the team. Where Ramsey was part of the original plan. Despite news of his contract offer being withdrawn, he still picked him to play that position and I doubt it came as a surprise to him that the club were going to withdraw the contract offer. So why still play him? I don’t think Emery had anything to do with Ramsey’s contract. He still rates Ramsey. Initial reports on the deal for Ramsey said the deal had stalled because of the Ivan Gazidis situation. Now that Ivan is leaving and Raul Sanllehi is taking over, I think it’s Raul’s decision to withdraw the deal. We’ll soon see if he continues to play Ramsey.

[Marc Overmars]

Cech out for a month.

Big opportunity for Leno now.

[Özim]

Cech out for a month.

Big opportunity for Leno now.

That's forced his hand, good to see as we need to know if Leno is up to it, Cech at 36 hasn't got many years left at the top so we need to be looking for someone good enough to become number 1.

[Letters]

All in all it's not been a bad start, I guess the acid test will be Liverpool, but for me we still have far too many Wenger players involved, hopefully next season and fair few of these will have been phased out, as it stands because of the sub-standard personnel from the previous manager I just don't think we're really able to go toe to toe with the better teams.

You lose points for not putting "Wenger isn't our manager" as a Positive

Overall agree with your assessment but I don't think Liverpool is the test right now. I don't think we're serious title contenders right now and I wouldn't expect Emery to make us into ones this quickly, even allowing for City going mental last year we were miles away from even 2nd. That said, we are at home and I think we should expect us to go toe to toe with them and give them a game. With our defence I fear for us.

[Marc Overmars]

We’re very unlikely to be challenging for the title but you at least want to be confident that we can take points off the top teams. So far it’s fair to say no one is filled with confidence on our ability to do that.

Emery has to make us hard for the top teams to beat, otherwise we’re never going to achieve anything with him.

[Letters]

Correct, but I think it's a bit early to be expecting that. I'd say there's a bit of a gap between us and teams like Liverpool and City, we need to close that but Rome wasn't built in a day.
I do want to go into these games expecting something, the Liverpool game will be an interesting test of where we are but unless it's a complete thrashing I won't be over-reacting.

[Özim]

You lose points for not putting "Wenger isn't our manager" as a Positive

Overall agree with your assessment but I don't think Liverpool is the test right now. I don't think we're serious title contenders right now and I wouldn't expect Emery to make us into ones this quickly, even allowing for City going mental last year we were miles away from even 2nd. That said, we are at home and I think we should expect us to go toe to toe with them and give them a game. With our defence I fear for us.

My bad sorry, how could I forget!!

It's important in a sense it will show us where we are, I agree we're not serious contenders and that it's early days, but we should be able to put up a decent showing, some smaller teams give these bigger teams a game so I don't see why we can't with the likes of Lacazette, Aubameyang and Ozil especially at home.

But yes our defence is a worry, to frustrate top teams you need a decent defence and sadly I don't think our defence is much good.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

On one hand I think Liverpool will tell us little. We know we aren't title contenders and we know we are much worse than Liverpool.

On the other hand it will tell us how much we've progressed since the first two games of the season. I'm kind of just looking forward to a proper contest and an enjoyable match.

The defence is slowly improving though and I do think we should stop seeing Holding as a kid. He's Torreira's age at 23 (so perhaps slightly older) and is not kid anymore. Frankly he should be taking Mustafi's position in the team and is more than old enough to be included if he is playing well enough....and he is.

[fakeyank]

On one hand I think Liverpool will tell us little. We know we aren't title contenders and we know we are much worse than Liverpool.

On the other hand it will tell us how much we've progressed since the first two games of the season. I'm kind of just looking forward to a proper contest and an enjoyable match.

The defence is slowly improving though and I do think we should stop seeing Holding as a kid. He's Torreira's age at 23 (so perhaps slightly older) and is not kid anymore. Frankly he should be taking Mustafi's position in the team and is more than old enough to be included if he is playing well enough....and he is.

I am looking forward to the Liverpool game with the hopes that our defense gets a lot better by then. I would like to see Guendozi and Torreira play so that they can shield the back 4 in that match. Like Letters said, I think it'll be a good barometer to see our progress since the first 2 games of the season.

[Letters]

It will be, but let's not throw our toys out of the pram (I'm looking at you, FY) if there hasn't been much.
Early doors yet.
At least for now we've been winning the games we should be winning, last year we weren't even doing that, not away from home anyway.