Arsenal vs Forest: Player ratings and Match Reaction

[Letters]

He has to be sacked.

You are properly bonkers, aren’t you?
You predicted we’d finish something like 5th last season.
We finished 2nd, had the first proper title challenge for years, contrary to everyone’s expectations, including yours. And you’ve spent every waking hour since we fell short last season frothing at the mouth about Arteta. Including ranting and raving about Saturday’s game which we won!

Do you do this at work if you line manage anyone? Set them a target and then when they massively exceed it obsessively focus on anything which fell short of perfection and demand they’re sacked? It’s not rational.

Expections are obviously higher this season and with the investment we really need to deliver. But judging by this place and social media the jerking has started ludicrously early this year.

[HCZ_Reborn]

He’s spent 600 million in just under four years. Yes we finished 2nd last season but it’s clear he’s taken us backwards from there not forward into being genuine title challengers. Maybe open your eyes a bit, watch a live game or two then you’ll have a better idea. I’m not saying you’ll agree with me, but when we’ve been able to spend money and it’s just been wasted on positions we don’t know where we have to play people out of position and look completely unbalanced. No I’m not going to be happy about it. Yes I don’t think we should indulge that anymore and instead we need to move on and get a coach who buys what we need and does the basics right

[Letters]

Yes we finished 2nd last season but it’s clear he’s taken us backwards from there

No it isn’t. We’ve played 1 game, which we won.
By all accounts we rather stumbled through it, but a win’s a win.
You don’t really get a sense for how the season is shaping up till Christmas.

Maybe open your eyes a bit, watch a live game or two then you’ll have a better idea.

Well this is fair comment. But you are clearly one of those people who moans excessively about every setback. I’d once again remind you that we massively exceeded your expectations last season. And in the middle of last season when we had our Wobble you wee wringing your hands about us not even finishing Top 4 when it was apparent that we were miles better than everyone bar City last year.
You have a tendency to overreact. You’re doing it now. It’s 1 game. You might be right but we need to get further into the season before we’ll really see how this team are performing. Now I’d be the first to admit I’m too patient with managers. I certainly was with Wenger (although I continue to believe he was never quite as bad as some made out). But given your posts on Arteta my feeling is even if we did replace him, you’d soon be moaning about the new guy after a brief honeymoon period. Unless we started properly dominating I guess, but with other clubs having spending power as big as ours if not bigger that will be difficult for any coach to achieve. Pep has done it with a club backed by a nation state. That’s very much the outlier though.

[HCZ_Reborn]

No I don’t expect us to dominate, I expect us to spend money on the correct players not stack us full of defenders and neglect other areas of the pitch in the process.

How can we have spent so much money and not have a proper striker and not made any attempt to get one. How do we lack a number 8 and are trying to shoe horn players we didn’t need to buy in the first place like Vieira and Havertz in there.

Saturday showed what’s likely to happen when we come up against a better side than Forest. It wasn’t a case of players performing badly (although a lot of them did) it was about insistence on playing a system that leaves us vulnerable to conceding without having the right players to score at the other end.

In fact it just confirmed what I feared before the season started. It was nice to think I could be wrong and that Havertz could perform out of position, that Martinelli wasn’t going to be isolated, that Odegaard wasn’t going to revert to type that our defence wouldn’t be caught cold by a single headed ball but all those things did happen.

These kind of things are acceptable when you don’t have the money to address the issue, but as I say we’ve spent 600 million and largely quite poorly

[Chippy]

No I don’t expect us to dominate, I expect us to spend money on the correct players not stack us full of defenders and neglect other areas of the pitch in the process.

How can we have spent so much money and not have a proper striker and not made any attempt to get one. How do we lack a number 8 and are trying to shoe horn players we didn’t need to buy in the first place like Vieira and Havertz in there.

Saturday showed what’s likely to happen when we come up against a better side than Forest. It wasn’t a case of players performing badly (although a lot of them did) it was about insistence on playing a system that leaves us vulnerable to conceding without having the right players to score at the other end.

In fact it just confirmed what I feared before the season started. It was nice to think I could be wrong and that Havertz could perform out of position, that Martinelli wasn’t going to be isolated, that Odegaard wasn’t going to revert to type that our defence wouldn’t be caught cold by a single headed ball but all those things did happen.

These kind of things are acceptable when you don’t have the money to address the issue, but as I say we’ve spent 600 million and largely quite poorly

I must agree, we do seem to have spunked quite a bit of money on positions we didn't really need to. Especially Havertz, wtf.
In addition, the set up for the Forest game was a bit odd. Thomas at RB?

[Marc Overmars]

Havertz for me is either a stroke of genius or an utter failure that could be detrimental to Arteta’s tenure.

Happy to back him because he’s quite obviously moved the club on from the dire end of Wenger, Emery and the lockdown seasons but the expectations are real now and this season will be quite significant I feel.

[Niall_Quinn]

He’s spent 600 million in just under four years. Yes we finished 2nd last season but it’s clear he’s taken us backwards from there not forward into being genuine title challengers. Maybe open your eyes a bit, watch a live game or two then you’ll have a better idea. I’m not saying you’ll agree with me, but when we’ve been able to spend money and it’s just been wasted on positions we don’t know where we have to play people out of position and look completely unbalanced. No I’m not going to be happy about it. Yes I don’t think we should indulge that anymore and instead we need to move on and get a coach who buys what we need and does the basics right

Backwards?

Your views on Arsenal are as valid as your learned judgements on the kangaroo cases hopping around America.

You've obviously got a short memory. Go back a few years and, if you could recall, you'll see one of the worst Arsenal teams ever to foul the PL, or Div 1 or 2 for that matter. A bunch of prancing ponies on top dollar that could barely kick a ball. A hopeless bunch of second raters who made watching them a penance.

Now, at least, they can kick a ball. And there are signs (tentative) they may even be able to do more than that.

Don't get me wrong. It's still a shittier than shit can be team (relatively speaking when compared to decent Arsenal teams of the past). But compared to the pile of shit that constitutes the PL (the best league in the world), Arsenal are genuinely second best now. Before, our dreams of being second best were just that, dreams. Now we're genuinely also-rans, instead of never-rans.

It's progress whether you like it or not. And the gypos are so shit that we literally had to hand the title to them. So there's even a chance we could be best of an appalling bunch.

You can only beat what's put in front of you.

[Niall_Quinn]

FTR, didn't watch the game, don't care, but well done the lads for the sake of nostalgia.

[HCZ_Reborn]

FTR, didn't watch the game, don't care, but well done the lads for the sake of nostalgia.

You didn’t watch the game but are content to question my view of things, you don’t care but still churned out half an essay

I’d expect nothing but a dossier if by chance you do happen to watch the game

[Mac76]

You are properly bonkers, aren’t you?
You predicted we’d finish something like 5th last season.
We finished 2nd, had the first proper title challenge for years, contrary to everyone’s expectations, including yours. And you’ve spent every waking hour since we fell short last season frothing at the mouth about Arteta. Including ranting and raving about Saturday’s game which we won!

Do you do this at work if you line manage anyone? Set them a target and then when they massively exceed it obsessively focus on anything which fell short of perfection and demand they’re sacked? It’s not rational.

Expections are obviously higher this season and with the investment we really need to deliver. But judging by this place and social media the jerking has started ludicrously early this year.

On the one hand it's true it's only one game etc but, while my feelisgs aren't as extreme as HCZ's, I too have low expectations given there's no sign Arteta has learnt any more about how to set up a team, it's literally like watching a kid playing with lego

I think our transfers this time around have been highly questionnable, we paid too much for Rice when we should have been targetting Caicedo, Havertz is unnecessary and as people have pointed out his price tag means we have to play him which means Trossard, whose only crime is to be a second-choice transfer bought for a reasonable price, is consigned further to the bench

And now we have this Raya thing which I'm far from sure about, I don't buy into this two-keepers-fighting-for-a-starting-place thing, just let Ram get on with his job ffs instead of undermining him - what message does it send opposition forwards if it looks like we don't trust our 'keeper?

And lastly the complete failure to see we need a striker will come home to roost - we can't rely on deflected Eddie shots and Saka wondergoals every game