The Arsenal v Liverpool, Emirates stadium, 4.30pm Sunday 7 Januaey

[HCZ_Reborn]

Maintaining the same position as evidence mounts up against that position isn’t consistency, it’s madness or cognitive dissonance. I get annoyed when politicians endlessly double down on their positions as it’s shown more and more clearly they’re wrong, I’d have far more time for them if they admitted they got things wrong and changed tack.
I may be overreacting in the heat of the moment but I’ve seen a few games recently and it’s bloody painful. How can we spend this much money and be this shit? I called it at half time, it was obvious we were never going to score and Liverpool would probably do so at some point when they got their act together.

No im simply pointing out that you finger wagged at other people who called this problem a few games ago


Now did I panic at the beginning of the season? For sure but somehow as autumn came we were getting results that belied our performance.

The irony today is that this was the best we’ve played in months. But after the West Ham game and the Fulham game those of us who could see the writing on the wall were belittled by you.

I’m not even angry about today. Take away the fact that Arteta should have been more proactive with his substitutions the performance was improved from the last two games.


But we’ve all cried out for the need for a striker, not just for going for the title but simply because we knew it could not be assumed that Martinelli, Saka and Odegaard would repeat their feats from last season. We’ve scored five goals in the last seven games….and this is not a recent thing…both in 20/21 and 21/22 we had these same goal droughts. And despite this we have never bought an out and out striker. Jesus? Trossard? Haven’t (that was predictive text but thought that seems appropriate) none of them are strikers.

[Marc Overmars]

As IBK noted the other week, the problem is less Saka than it is Martinelli. You look at how many teams have doubled up on Saka and that Argentine thug McAllister smashed him in the ribs today. But Martinelli has more space but he isn’t using his pace to good effect. I don’t think Arteta started Nelson today simply to give him game time, it’s abundantly clear Martinelli is bang out of form.

We did have an option with Pepe, but ultimately I think the priority was to get him off the wage bill.

Martinelli even from the start with Arteta has had to earn his place. Saka is untouchable and quite frankly I don’t really care that he’s given special attention by opponents because on his day he’s more than capable of winning games for us. So if you stop him you’ll stop us more often than not.

I’m just sick of the front line at the moment, it’s excruciating to watch how feeble they’ve become.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Martinelli even from the start with Arteta has had to earn his place. Saka is untouchable and quite frankly I don’t really care that he’s given special attention by opponents because on his day he’s more than capable of winning games for us.

I’m just sick of the front line at the moment, it’s just excruciating to watch how feeble they’ve become.

It’s really nothing new is it, we have gone through these spells under Arteta constantly because he hasn’t prioritised signing Attacking players/strikers. Don’t get me wrong I’d have dropped Saka for today, but we’ve also been crying out for a striker and a winger on the right side.

[Marc Overmars]

It’s really nothing new is it, we have gone through these spells under Arteta constantly because he hasn’t prioritised signing Attacking players/strikers. Don’t get me wrong I’d have dropped Saka for today, but we’ve also been crying out for a striker and a winger on the right side.

It’s not new but after last season I felt we had developed a sharper edge that these guys would carry on with. Guess that’s looking like a bit of an anomaly now.

[McNamara That Ghost...]

I'd rather have Martinelli up front than on the wing right now.

Not really a long term option I think but I seriously doubt we'll do anything significant in January, transfers in.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I'd rather have Martinelli up front than on the wing right now.

Not really a long term option I think but I seriously doubt we'll do anything significant in January, transfers in.

We can’t, we don’t have the money and unlike city or Chelsea we aren’t going to cheat our way around FFP

[Marc Overmars]

Brentford will pull our pants down for Toney so I’d rather we just kept the powder dry until the summer. Though of course we run the risk of missing out on the top 4 if the form continues to spiral but I don’t think Toney is necessarily going to be a game changer for us. We’ve suspected all season that we don’t have enough up front to win the league and now that’s become quite obvious.

Osimhen would represent a real departure to what we’ve been used to signing up front so if there’s a possibility that could happen I would like us to push the boat out for him.

As for the remainder of this season, Arteta needs to find some way to make it work again because although they’re horribly out of form, majority of our forwards are capable of much better.

[Mac76]

I guess when you’ve just spent £65m on one you have to back them.
Honestly, the amount we’ve spent and we have no one of quality up front.
BBC pretending we’ve been good

The money we spent on him is exactly the problem, if he'd been £20m it wouldn't have been a big deal

Me and others actually at the game thought we were good in the first half apart obvs from failing to score, Nelaon , Ram and Jorg were all good to see

But we need to buy a striker, it's glaring now

[Mac76]

Brentford will pull our pants down for Toney so I’d rather we just kept the powder dry until the summer. Though of course we run the risk of missing out on the top 4 if the form continues to spiral but I don’t think Toney is necessarily going to be a game changer for us. We’ve suspected all season that we don’t have enough up front to win the league and now that’s become quite obvious.

Osimhen would represent a real departure to what we’ve been used to signing up front so if there’s a possibility that could happen I would like us to push the boat out for him.

As for the remainder of this season, Arteta needs to find some way to make it work again because although they’re horribly out of form, majority of our forwards are capable of much better.

I think we ahould break the bank for Toney, he'd bring us more goals immediqtely I think, Jesus isn't a striker, Havertz is poor and Eddie is shit

If we can shift some crap like Suaraz we could maybe do it

[Letters]

No im simply pointing out that you finger wagged at other people who called this problem a few games ago

Well, yes. We were top at Christmas, thanks to an excellent performance at Anfield. A well deserved point away at a team who are widely tipped to be title contenders. So the West Ham result, while very disappointing, was no reason to lose our collective shit and push the panic button. Early in that game we were spanking them, the somewhat controversial goal allowed them to sit back and our lack of quality up front showed. It was a bad day in the office for sure, but it was but one game. If we over-reacted to every individual result or performance, good or bad, and we'd be all over the shop every season. I even said to you in the ensuing conversation that if we dropped points at Fulham I would probably take a different view. I didn't see that one but it was a poor result and by all accounts an awful performance. So the alarm bells starting ringing. And then there was today. With the players they had out they were there for the taking. And as we discussed earlier in this thread we were actually playing quite well. It was a better performance than West Ham. But the end result was the same, for the same reason. We had so many chances today - much better chances than we did against West Ham. And we just couldn't score. It's bloody awful. There have been ongoing concerns this season about the lack of quality up front but we seemed to be getting away with it. As I said, we were top at Christmas so we were doing something right. So I continue to believe that the reaction to the West Ham result were premature. Sure, you can pat yourself on the back if you like that I'm coming round to your way of thinking but you've got a shit-ton of predictions wrong this season. And it's not hypocrisy because I'm reacting to a run of results, not a single one. I may still be over-reacting, but we were so painful to watch today and against West Ham. Confidence seems to have been completely drained from the team.

We all knew we needed a striker. Arteta put a lot of eggs in the Havertz basket and now he has football pie all over his shirt. #partridge
Overall I like where Arteta has brought us. He made us into proper title contenders which we haven't been for a long time. But he's spent a lot of money and we've gone backwards since last season.