Match Reaction v Waterford (away)

[Marc Overmars]

Apparently this win is our first away from home against a top half team (at the time of playing) since November 2017 when we beat Burnley.

[Letters]

Apparently this win is our first away from home against a top half team (at the time of playing) since November 2017 when we beat Burnley.

Bloody hell. The stats are really damning. As I said above that was our first away clean sheet of the season in the league. It's pretty pathetic.
And it was what, 3 away wins all season last year, for a side with pretensions of a top 4 finish? Nowhere near good enough.
Sort that out and we'll be easily top 4 with our home record.

[SMatthews]

Bloody hell. The stats are really damning. As I said above that was our first away clean sheet of the season in the league. It's pretty pathetic.
And it was what, 3 away wins all season last year, for a side with pretensions of a top 4 finish? Nowhere near good enough.
Sort that out and we'll be easily top 4 with our home record.

Which would make us the third best team by some distance and we all know we are not that good yet. We’ve played one less game than Utd and Chelsea away from home, win that and we’ve only got 3 and 4 points less than them away from the Emirates.

[Mac76]

Without checking, Im guessing the overall ball possession was at least 50:50 if not in Watfords favour.

66% Arseenal actually - you weren't paying attention, there were periods where we passed it around quite comfortably - it's only when we tried to create chances and made a mess of it that they got the opportunity to come forward and then, while they did get in the area once or twice, we actually didn't defend that badly IMO, notwithstanding that Mustafi doesn't actually know how to defend at all...

they did get more corners than us apart from that the stats are all in our favour:

Possession
Home34%
Away66%

Shots
Home11
Away19

Shots on Target
Home3
Away6

Corners
Home6
Away4

Fouls
Home12
Away8

[Mac76]

Which would make us the third best team by some distance and we all know we are not that good yet. We’ve played one less game than Utd and Chelsea away from home, win that and we’ve only got 3 and 4 points less than them away from the Emirates.

quite - i think people on here are getting carried away about Chelsea and Moan U - we're holding up well given the disparity in squad costs especially with Man Ure

[Letters]

Which would make us the third best team by some distance and we all know we are not that good yet. We’ve played one less game than Utd and Chelsea away from home, win that and we’ve only got 3 and 4 points less than them away from the Emirates.

We aren't that good yet but our home form is miles better than anyone's bar the top 2.
City have 48 points at home, Liverpool 47, Arsenal 44. Next best is Chelsea with 38 - all with 17 played.
The bit I don't understand is how our home form can be that good and our away so mediocre. Last year it was a complete car crash, this year has been better but it's still not good enough and it's what is holding us back from a confident top 4 finish.

[GP]

Horrible performance but hey the points are in the bag.

I don't think it was horrible. We missed a few big chances and defended quite well.

[SMatthews]

We aren't that good yet but our home form is miles better than anyone's bar the top 2.
City have 48 points at home, Liverpool 47, Arsenal 44. Next best is Chelsea with 38 - all with 17 played.
The bit I don't understand is how our home form can be that good and our away so mediocre. Last year it was a complete car crash, this year has been better but it's still not good enough and it's what is holding us back from a confident top 4 finish.

I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as that. For whatever reason, each team has their good and bad points. The reason four teams are battling for 3/4 is because those pros and cons seem to have equalled themselves out across the board. One of ours is away from home (although I don’t think it’s quite the disaster everyone is making it out be). Statistically, our improvement away from home compared to last season is the reason we are where we are right now. Emery’s squeezing every last drop out of this squad, as most of us expected to be in 5/6th. I couldn’t see us being way ahead of Spurs or closer to Liverpool.

[Letters]

I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as that. For whatever reason, each team has their good and bad points. The reason four teams are battling for 3/4 is because those pros and cons seem to have equalled themselves out across the board. One of ours is away from home (although I don’t think it’s quite the disaster everyone is making it out be). Statistically, our improvement away from home compared to last season is the reason we are where we are right now. Emery’s squeezing every last drop out of this squad, as most of us expected to be in 5/6th. I couldn’t see us being way ahead of Spurs or closer to Liverpool.

I think for a first season Emery has done pretty well. We've got a good chance of progressing to the Europa League semi-final and who knows what happens then, we have a chance in that competition.
And we're in the hunt for a top 4 finish. Our away form could yet mess it up for us but last year we weren't even in the hunt so I think overall it's been OK.
If we can sort out our away form and defence - it's frankly ludicrous that last night was our first away league clean sheet of the season - then we could push on next year.
There's a huge gulf in class between us and Liverpool/City but we were never going to bridge that in one season.

[Marc Overmars]

It's been a mixed bag at times but Emery has done well. Could yet be a great season depending on what happens in the Europa but it's good to have some excitement back.