Arsenal 1-0 Ipswich Town - Player Rating and Match Reaction

Raya 6 - Can’t give him any higher because he was a virtual spectator


Timber 7.5 - Didn’t let anyone get past him and was dynamic coming forward


Saliba 6 - Almost let Ipswich in with being casual on the ball start of the second half


Gabriel 6 - Less said about that miss the better


Lewis-Skelly 7 - Marshalled Hutchinson well


Rice 7 - Unlucky not to score


Odegaard 6.5 - Was atrocious first half, but probably our best player second half it evens out


Havertz 6.5 - Good strikers finish, but some poor touches and giving away too many fouls


Trossard 6 - Good assist for the goal but that was the extent of his achievements


Jesus 6 - Back to the indifferent and peripheral figure we’ve come to recognise


Martinelli 6 - Indifferent performance, I don’t know if he’s lost half a yard or just lost confidence


Subs

Merino 7 - We did flow better when he came on


Partey - Wasn’t in the game enough to be worth giving a scoreline to


An entertainer this wasn’t, as usual the build up play was too slow. To the point where a couple of times players seemed to unilaterally go more direct (and who can blame them). I think this game was summed up best by Trossard receiving the ball and passing back to Odegaard rather than taking the shot on. I’ve seen worse performances than this under Arteta but not many.
No one was terrible throughout, but no one was more than meh either
Frankly I think this is the sign of a coach as stale and bereft of ideas as his team when the opposing team does not want to come out and play.

Confirmed that Saka had surgery on his hamstring and will be out for 2-3 months.

We’ve got to try and sign a forward in January now surely?

Gabriel's refusal to almost ever pass the ball to the left is driving me insane - it's not Leo's fault if he can't do more because despite regularly putting himself in space on the left he never gets the fucking ball

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Originally Posted by Mac76

Gabriel's refusal to almost ever pass the ball to the left is driving me insane - it's not Leo's fault if he can't do more because despite regularly putting himself in space on the left he never gets the fucking ball

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Glad you also spotted it. He seems to be the chief culprit of this behaviour as when he was injured there was actually an improvement in the CBs distributing the ball over there.

Anyway, Arteta just need to sort it out, seeing as there is less need for this with Saka out.

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Originally Posted by Mac76

Gabriel's refusal to almost ever pass the ball to the left is driving me insane - it's not Leo's fault if he can't do more because despite regularly putting himself in space on the left he never gets the fucking ball

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As has been observed many times, whoever is on the left needs to get more service

I think Martinelli needs to go back on to the left, and Jesus needs to move right as he tends to shift that way and especially against a team that is defending deep he isn’t good enough at holding up the ball to play in the centre. We played a lot better when we took Havertz out of midfield and put him up front….although Merino is not good enough on the ball for me to play at 8. Which means for me we either need to abandon the no 8 position (something Arteta presumably would sooner die than do) or we play Partey there with Rice behind him

Also I think we are in for a big disappointment if we think Brentford or Brighton will come out at us in the way Palace did, that was just naive on Palace’s part. Brentford last season played the deep block and we needed the set pieces to undo them.

Whilst I like Lewis Skelly I think he’s less confident on the ball than Calafiori so he needs to start in order for us to get the ball forward more. And whether it’s Trossard or Partey, if we assume Arteta is too stubborn not to have someone in at 8…we have to have someone who is not Rice and not Havertz in there.

Team id play

Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Rice, Partey, Odegaard, Martinelli, Havertz, Jesus

Keep Trossard as an impact sub and if he sulks let him sulk

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Originally Posted by Marc Overmars

Confirmed that Saka had surgery on his hamstring and will be out for 2-3 months.

We’ve got to try and sign a forward in January now surely?

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That is a massive blow. Saka is our best attacking player who creates and scores. We won't buy anyone in January because the market is shit that time of the year. :rose:

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

Raya 6 - Can’t give him any higher because he was a virtual spectator


Timber 7.5 - Didn’t let anyone get past him and was dynamic coming forward


Saliba 6 - Almost let Ipswich in with being casual on the ball start of the second half


Gabriel 6 - Less said about that miss the better


Lewis-Skelly 7 - Marshalled Hutchinson well


Rice 7 - Unlucky not to score


Odegaard 6.5 - Was atrocious first half, but probably our best player second half it evens out


Havertz 6.5 - Good strikers finish, but some poor touches and giving away too many fouls


Trossard 6 - Good assist for the goal but that was the extent of his achievements


Jesus 6 - Back to the indifferent and peripheral figure we’ve come to recognise


Martinelli 6 - Indifferent performance, I don’t know if he’s lost half a yard or just lost confidence


Subs

Merino 7 - We did flow better when he came on


Partey - Wasn’t in the game enough to be worth giving a scoreline to


An entertainer this wasn’t, as usual the build up play was too slow. To the point where a couple of times players seemed to unilaterally go more direct (and who can blame them). I think this game was summed up best by Trossard receiving the ball and passing back to Odegaard rather than taking the shot on. I’ve seen worse performances than this under Arteta but not many.
No one was terrible throughout, but no one was more than meh either
Frankly I think this is the sign of a coach as stale and bereft of ideas as his team when the opposing team does not want to come out and play.

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You were very polite in summing-up that dross from last night. I am old enough to remember the style of football under Terry Neil and Don Howe, and this was it, fucking terrible. Tippy tappy bore fest with zero end product. Not sure how we are second in the table tbh.

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Originally Posted by Chippy

You were very polite in summing-up that dross from last night. I am old enough to remember the style of football under Terry Neil and Don Howe, and this was it, fucking terrible. Tippy tappy bore fest with zero end product. Not sure how we are second in the table tbh.

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I think it sums up the game well, there were no good performances but no terrible ones either. Apart from Gabriel there was no missed sitters, not a load of missed placed passes, we weren’t playing ourselves into danger loads. We were just bang average and dull to watch and I think this reflects that

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Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn

As has been observed many times, whoever is on the left needs to get more service

I think Martinelli needs to go back on to the left, and Jesus needs to move right as he tends to shift that way and especially against a team that is defending deep he isn’t good enough at holding up the ball to play in the centre. We played a lot better when we took Havertz out of midfield and put him up front….although Merino is not good enough on the ball for me to play at 8. Which means for me we either need to abandon the no 8 position (something Arteta presumably would sooner die than do) or we play Partey there with Rice behind him

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my point is it doesn't matter who's where if they don't get the ball from the left-sided CB

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Originally Posted by Mac76

my point is it doesn't matter who's where if they don't get the ball from the left-sided CB

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I wasn’t disagreeing with you, I was emphasising the point many of us (including yourself) have made about how the left is denied service. Gabriel for me is actually better with the ball at his feet than Saliba so why he is not passing out either directly forward to Rice or to his left I don’t know.


But either way what I said was more of a preamble to my issues in general with how we set up

Seems like this was a decent enough win given Ipswich took the break seriously and went on to secure 3 more points.