Quote Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn View Post
To me it looked like all signs of improvement from prior matches disappeared in this one. Very much back to the Arsenal of old. No tempo. No confidence on the ball (excluding Saka and Martinelli). A really ponderous transition from back to front, often involving repeated sideways and backwards movement. Very sloppy mistakes across the team. Suicidal moments in defence again. Ozil back to his old tricks too. Disappointing performance that derails a lot of the building hope that maybe Arteta could do something with the current bunch of players. Maybe they are too set in their ways for any sustained progress.
Maybe you've forgotten how bad it was under Emery!

I thought Torreira was as good as he has been lately and that Xhaka (a silly moment or two aside) was solid. Ozil struggled to really impact the game but I counted at least 3 tackles he made AND won the ball so he is at least trying. There was a game recently where we pressed like maniacs and yet was pretty ineffective. In the second half Arteta just got them to press higher. All sorts was said about hair dryer treatment, being arsed, running around and the usually lark, but I think when it came back to it, the key difference was that we pressed higher up the pitch.

Martinelli should have basically played every game this season and Saka though clearly targeted against Sheffield whatstheirname held his own. Even Laca is still trying very hard but is awfully ineffective right now.

I don't actually think we will get much better defensively than we are, so unfortunately we are going to need to score a lot more bleeding goals.