The Arsenal v Monaco, Weds 2 August 2023 @ The Emirates

I'll be watching this one though only on TV

Arsenal line-up below (sorry for crap formatting i just copied it from the website)

Balogun not even on the bench - i guess they're protecting him for a sale, but still pisses me off to see Eddie starting instead

1
Ramsdale
18
Tomiyasu
12
Saliba
15
Kiwior
12
Timber
5
Thomas
41
Rice
10
Smith Rowe
21
Vieira
11
Martinelli
14
Nketiah (c)


Substitutes

30
Turner
31
Hein
4
White
3
Tierney
6
Gabriel
16
Holding
20
Jorginho
29
Havertz
8
Odegaard
7
Saka
27
Marquinhos
19
Trossard

Monaco line-up

16
Kohn
2
Vanderson
3
Maripan
4
Camara
19
Fofana
34
Matsima
41
Magassa
44
Ben Seghir
17
Golovin
12
Henrique
10
Ben Yedder (c)

Substitutes

1
Majecki
9
Boadu
14
Jakobs
15
Matazo
18
Minamino
21
Akliouche
27
Diatta
29
Lemarechal
31
Volland
43
Valme
45
Efekele
46
Bery
50
Lienard

Watching Arsenal without either Zinchenko or Xhaka is so stress-free... :)

0-1 Fofana

Arsenal have been pretty shaky in defence tbh

1-1 Eddie - he's been very hit-and-miss so far, mainly miss but did ok here, though just a tap-in really

1-1 HT

not brilliant though Rice has looked good playing the left 8 position and combined well with Martinelli at times

Timber looked good at times

but we're just a bit shaky at the back

still it's not like against Sevilla last year where we played the full first team

Vieira was good at RW, Martinelli, Timber, Rice and Saliba also played pretty well, the others were mostly average

Timber looked very solid (no pun intended), much more business-like and purposeful than Zin, also didn’t keep giving the ball away. I could actually start to believe in the inverted LB if he was playing there all the time

Eddie was a little better than usual but still wasteful

ESR was pretty quiet and wasted the opportunity really

Trossard and Jorg played well when they came on, the other subs were anonymous

There were pels at the end - Ram made a good save for one of them, Gabriel got the winning pel :lol:

Feels like us playing the high line is anticipated by other teams

Would say we lacked a proper striker but I don’t feel we even created all that much

Not a pre-season that leaves one feeling particularly encouraged about the season ahead

Oh and Jesus likely to be out for a few weeks

Maybe worth keeping Balogun now if Jesus is out…