At the Burnley game, our fans were going 'OOOOOOOOOOOOOHH' when the VAR came on for our goal, like this is some kind of joke pantomime. He's behinnnnnnd you! I found that weird and unsettling.
The VAR call today I assume was correct though, so no issue with it myself. The implementation is fishy though.
Couldn't agree with you more on the squad and TBH I really don't get why people keep on with this pity me attitude of "oh we don't have the players" or "Emery's doing the best with a poor lot" blah blah blah.....
Well to put things into perspective, the Premiership's most expensive front 3 was unveiled today and yes they all had gunner badges on their chests! So yup, our 170m front 3 dwarves anything Citeh or Liverpool have ever started with. I think only Man U might have ever put on the pitch a more expensive front 3, but with Lukaku gone (and doing rather well where he is now) and Sanchez on his way out, the chances of anyone taking this title away from us for a while looks unlikely.
So the question remains, did we really need to focus all our spending and more importantly our efforts on "improving" the attack?! I mean at the end of the day it's still the 2 usual suspects brought by AW scoring all the goals. Emery chased out the other goal outlets like Ramsey, Welbeck and Iwobi; he's frozen Ozil out, Mhki's continued with his autistic streak and Pepe is going to need time understandably to get use to the league. So really, was the attack strengthened or are we operating an Autopilot system created by AW that any dummy could keep running as long as he had the common sense not to tamper with it- unlike Emery in the Liverpool game.
I think we are all in agreement now that our efforts this summer should have been on how to fix our broken defence. I don't think that the return of Holding and putting Tierney and Bellerin into a team with this sort of psyche will change much. Toreirra is easily our best defensive player and has been used poorly and sparingly by this joke of a manager who seems to be in awe of Xhaka's inordinate ability to stink the place up. Weird and silly selections plus strange strategies and obsessions with meaningless intricacies continue unabated in this Emery era.
To keep things short, I'm not sure that even if Emery had the pick of the World's best talent, just like he did in PSG, I'm not sure he'd be able to deliver what we all want from this team- a fundamental change in the way they approach games and deal with setbacks/pressure.
Under a really decent manager, led by this special front 2 (hopefully 3 soon), this squad is more than enough to give both Citeh and Pool a run for their money.
Anyway, as for the game itself, Emery continued to true form.
He set us up again to contain their attack with the 3 deep lying midfielders and as usual that worked brilliantly with they going 2 up in the first half in no small part due to the special contribution from his favourite! Now what irks me about this manager, is he clearly knows our defending is a problem, so how does he solve it? Maybe a transfer strategy that puts the defence first...... nah too simple. Why not overcompensate by having us play an unnatural style that weakens our attack (our only strength) and play 7 men behind the line marauding around with no proper organisation. And even then he has to ensure a Xhakalike Mustafiat will be in the team for a fixture like this to give away our obligatory penalty/foul leading to a goal for the opposition.
It was more than stupid not to start Ceballos in this game. Easily he should have been on the pitch ahead of Xhaka. Also taking off 2 of the 3 players who have actually scored this season while we were still behind and chasing a goal was also something quite laughable.
All in all we should be happy with the draw as thats the best we can hope for from Emery in any top 6 game. We better get use to this because he'll soon start showing this sort of deference to the likes of Leicester, Everton and Wolves soon- which means half of the league will be unbeatable in Emery's small mind.
Plus sides are that I did feel will would get a goal before half time, our front players are quality. 3 defensive midfielders and yet we cant defend still. Xhaka should just go.
But if we don't finish top 4 then Emery should be sacked. The Chavs and United are dropping points all over the place against the more average teams. I just cant see how we will finish below them, our attackers will have enough to compensate the defence against the lesser teams.
Do what?
Last year we drew with Liverpool at home, lost away.
Lost both games to City.
Beat Chelsea at home, lost away.
Beat Spurs at home, drew away (should have won that one)
Beat Utd at home, drew away.
In a top 6 mini-table pretty sure we were only behind the top 2
Disappointing result again, we were at home Spurs were out of form and very poor.
Emery got it wrong again, he's really showing why he's not a top class coach, playing Xhaka was a shocker, he seems to love the guy despite him offering nothing to the team and being a liability, the midfield was way too negative, we needed some creativity in there in the form of Ceballos or Willock. IMO the midfield should be a combination of Torreira, Guendouzi, Willock and Ceballos, Xhaka should be nowhere near the team, 3 of those 4 listed are the ones who should play every match.
Spurs could have been out of sight in the 1st half (and maybe should have been) to be honest. Subs were shocking again Ceballos on for Torrerira, really? Xhaka should have been off and and taking Lacazette off was a joke, the guy got us back in the game, was sharp throughout and we needed a winner, for Mkhikitaryan no less who never does anything.
Defence was shocking again, our summer transfer business didn't help that. Also terrible error by Leno for the 1st goal, really was a poor save, but again we were way too sloppy tracking back.
The more I see of Emery the more he disappoints to be honest, set up the team poorly, poor lineups and poor subs this guy won't get us competing, if not for the quality of Laca and Auba we'd have been buried yesterday, it's just lucky we have two top strikers, always said top strikers are worth their weight in gold as they can rescue a game for you out of nothing, special mention for Guendouzi too who was decent.
Last edited by Özim; 02-09-2019 at 08:32 AM.
Agree with all the above except Laca was the one who asked to be subbed. He must have picked up something. Xhaka will be the death of this manager at Arsenal. He effectively cost us CL last season in the game with Brighton and will cost us points every time he is picked. Thoroughly useless lump that Emery made captain. Laca is brilliant by the way, such quick feet to lash that goal in yesterday.
Make 2mrw better than 2day
Agree about the midfield and picking 3 of Willock, Guendouzi, Torreira, Ceballos. Even Ozil yesterday wouldn't have costed us in the way Xhaka did who also should have been red carded.