Match Reaction v Bournemouth (away).

[McNamara That Ghost...]

Ninth draw of the season in the league. :lol:

:sleep:

[Xhaka Can’t]

A good performance today. The finishing just wasn’t there.

Pepe should have been brought on earlier but with the way things were going for us, it would probably only have resulted in more missed chances.

Leno was good when we needed him.

Ozil had a good game, especially in the first half.

Hopefully we can build on this and are ready to climb out of rock bottom.

[Penguin]

I thought the build up play was much better but as soon as we got into the final third everyone lost all their brain cells. We got into decent situations, 4v2, 3v3 and Laca 1 on 1 with the keeper and wasted all of them. If it was City or Liverpool they would have made those chances count and walked away with an easy vicory.

Ozil was good, Pepe was lively when he came on. Laca had a bit of a mare and probably should have been subbed off too if we had a decent option on the bench. Is Martinelli injured?

I don't really like Auba on the left, he offers nothing in the build up and is probably best getting on the end of chances than getting involved in the moves building up to them.

[Marc Overmars]

Arteta OUT!

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

The team worked hard today, probably harder than they've worked all season.

Arteta's starting lineup was worse than anything Freddie put out but because they worked hard, it ended up being a good performance.

Ozil had his best game all season and it showed with Auba and Laca wasting chance after chance.

Xhaka was unrecognisable, a really good game.

All in all, the new coach didn't allow them to drop the pace... I just wonder how long they can keep it up (they did the same under Emery in the beginning).

Arteta seems to be an improvement on Freddie but thats not saying much.

[AFC Leveller]

Arteta has only coached them 2-3 times but there is definitely something there and a good basis to work with. If you compare this game to our other away games where we were absolutely battered (even against rock bottom Watford) then there is improvement for sure. We kept the ball and didn’t concede too many shots as usual. AMN has a mare, most of their play came down his side. Xhaka has a really solid game and sprayed the ball about really well.

Ozil found acres of space and should have had a couple of assists had it not been for Laca and Nelson stinking the place up.

All in all, a decent point and one of our better performances this season.

Chelsea at home will be tough, they seem to play a lot better away from home.

[Mac76]

Hopefully Arteta will put the rigid insistance on playing from the back to bed, a real shame to give that goal away.

Ozil was very good, but laca has lost it at the moment.

A real mistake not to start with Pepe IMO, may well have made the difference if he'd started

Xhaka played the odd good pass but also showed his usual self a few times with petulant outbursts and wayward passing, so no way i'm going to go overboard on him

As for the defence, we absolutely have to buy at least one CB in January....

[Globalgunner]

Seems all Xhaka has to do is not be entirely shit for 90 mins to earn some praise. Calamity of a player in this league

[McNamara That Ghost...]

He had an alright game to be fair. Passing out and forward was a lot better.

Nearly had the inevitable cock up late on of course.

[Mac76]

He had an alright game to be fair. Passing out and forward was a lot better.

Nearly had the inevitable cock up late on of course.

But saying it's a 'lot better' is exactly globalgunner's point - xhaka's set such a low bar he gets credit for stuff any PL player should do

[Letters]

Seems all Xhaka has to do is not be entirely shit for 90 mins to earn some praise. Calamity of a player in this league

Or, he’d play brilliantly all game, misplace one pass and people would be slaying him :shrug:

[Marc Overmars]

But saying it's a 'lot better' is exactly globalgunner's point - xhaka's set such a low bar he gets credit for stuff any PL player should do

I feel like you could apply that to the whole team. There are different levels but shit is still shit.

[Globalgunner]

Some sites saying Xhaka to Herta Berlin is a done deal. Hope so. Need to get better in there. Hope Arteta has his wishlist penned already

[Bumble]

Performance was ok. Think it will be a long road back. Its hard to tell if the team played better or bournemouth allowed us to plat better by continuously trying to play ball out of the back and losing it.

Chelsea next so its winnable as the rookie manager is having rookie results.

We are 11th. So not expecting trees to be pulled up rest of seadon.

[AFC Leveller]

Performance was ok. Think it will be a long road back. Its hard to tell if the team played better or bournemouth allowed us to plat better by continuously trying to play ball out of the back and losing it.

Chelsea next so its winnable as the rookie manager is having rookie results.

We are 11th. So not expecting trees to be pulled up rest of seadon.

Chelsea play much better away from home, it will be tough.

[Bumble]

Our next 5 league games
Chelsea
United
Palace
Sheff utd
Chelsea

Thats not easy.

[Niall_Quinn]

Proper first half. Forward passing. Players getting into the box. Some tempo to the play. Then drifted back into the shitty stuff in the second half.

Good to see Auba and Laca start though. They'll need a few games to get the understanding back.

Decent from Ozil, our most important player.

What we need in the middle is a battler. Which is Torreira. A battler who doesn't give the ball away and drift out of position. Which is not Torreira. Fortunately Xhaka was less suicidal today so between them they managed a very average performance, which is a huge improvement. I'd drop both and play AMN and Gwen in there.

Not horrific in defence, but so stupid on the goal we conceded. Might as well have kicked it in our own net.

BMouth pretty poor really. Howe gets a lot of credit for keeping a very average team competitive. Deserved, I suppose. But I can't see him taking that team anywhere significant. They play a very basic game, which suits them. But no indication they can step that up. Glad we didn't bring him in as manager.

Leno seemed to be a lot more vocal. Another good game for him.

If we can replicate that first half as a basic standard and get our fullbacks fit again I'd say we can push on to a top 10 finish.

Some positive signs. Not bad for Arteta's first outing, considering the long standing mess he's having to confront.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

Think he needs to really get hold of Pepe and make that money work for us. He had his arm around Nelson like he was his Dad......I hope that isn't a sign he's Arteta's man.

[Marc Overmars]

Nelson has looked very average, I really don’t see what he brings to the table. Too lightweight and doesn’t really have one particular strength to his game.

Maybe needs another loan to sharpen up.

On another note, 5 wins out of 19... :haha:
Let’s hope we sort our lives out for the second half of the season. Only the bottom 2 have won less games than us FFS.

[Chippy]

Performance was ok. Think it will be a long road back. Its hard to tell if the team played better or bournemouth allowed us to plat better by continuously trying to play ball out of the back and losing it.

Chelsea next so its winnable as the rookie manager is having rookie results.

We are 11th. So not expecting trees to be pulled up rest of seadon.
Six points off the relegation zone.
How are we getting 40 points? 🙄