(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 3)

Yea I was thinking the same. While I still think that Liverpool were the better team, we were unlucky not to make more of the game. 
Agree on Ceballos, he got caught out early and then that made his head drop and you could see him struggling to look up and find players after that. 
Still really impressed by Wilock. I didn't expect him to start in this game (or the other two), but he regularly was involved with linking and breaking up play. Hope he keeps it up. 

Ceballos strikes me as a home crowd player initially... keen to start him at home but perhaps not in the away games for now, at least until he is up to speed with the style and pace of the game. He might go well in the derby this weekend, seems a passionate sort of player, at his best when the crowd is behind him and the team are pumped. 

I thought Emery's tactics were risky, given that Liverpool's usual style is for the fullbacks to get it in the box from wide areas, but it did actually work. The fullbacks crossed poorly and they never really looked like scoring via that route. In the end it was a poor defensive corner and two individual errors that cost us the goals, but more importantly it was our own finishing that really cost us a result in the end. Auba or Pepe could've changed the game by finishing those early chances. 

Liverpool clearly the better side, but Emery came up with a plan with what he had, and on another day it would've earned him many plaudits. We're a way away from Liverpool's level but it took Klopp time, and it will take Emery time. 

This weekend is big. 

Monreal departs back to Spain. Going to miss that bastard, very dependable player with bursts of sublime quality. Loved that season where he seemed to be scoring every other game! Good to see Arsenal being ruthless and moving older players on, it was either him of Kolasinac after the arrival of Tierney.

My pick for tomorrows derby
Leno

AMN Sokratis Luis Kolasinac

Torreira Xhaka

Pepe Ceballos Aubamayang

Lacazette

My thinking is the backline picks itself given injuries and departures and I think we need to start with our firepower ready to go. When you've got forward like Auba, Pepe, and Laca in the same team we need to look to use them to put the opposition on the back foot and put them to the sword quickly and efficiently. I think we need Torreira protecting our back line, and the experience of Xhaka over Guendouzi.

Oh and Elneny has joined Besiktas on loan.

Just need one S Mustafi to make a departure and it wraps up one of our best windows.

Never forget Elneny's top trolling of Sanchez

I was gona post the same suggested lineup brumbys, reckon that has to be it tonight. 

On the injuries front Holding is nearly ready, Bellerin and Tierney are training again. 

Monreal leaving is bonkers considering he's our best left back by quite some distance until Tierney gets up to speed.

Guendouzi ahead of Ceballos but 10/11 isn’t bad. Fizzing to see Pepe, Auba, and Laca together. Hopefully Auba/Pepe spend a lot of time tracking out. Went to the Armoury an hour before kick off to buy a men’s large home strip and eat Laca on it - sold out!! Now I’m stuck in the stands in a dark blue t shirt with small white flecks on it - this really couldn’t have gone any worse ???♂️

Well Guendouzi was the guy I didn't pick to start, and he was absolutely outstanding this morning.

2 bad defensive errors. Leno has done pretty well for us so I can forgive that to some degree, but Xhaka, geez mate, what was that. The guy can do so well for 99% of a game sometimes and can still come up with something like that. Brainless. 

I thought Spurs game plan was similar to ours at Anfield, but they did it so much better. They looked so dangerous on the counter. I actually quite like Son, he's a player. Very good at cutting in and shooting, or going to the byline and crossing/cutting back, such a danger, you can't shepherd him one way or another you just have to win the ball or you're done. 

Kane was Kane. Mostly well martialed by Sokratis (who I think is pretty good against Kane), and yet still gets a goal through a peno, takes a few dives, the usual. I think VAR helped us as the ref may have given that last one, but seemed happy to play on and leave it to VAR to double check. 

We also had two good peno shouts turned down, which on another day could've been given, and wouldn't have been overturned on VAR. 

Good spirit from the team to fight back, 2 really good goals, coulda won it, but coulda lost it, take the point and feel ok about that overall. Work to do, errors made, players to come back and strengthen us, but feels like progress for the most part. 

Pepe showed some good signs again, and I was quite enthused by the front 3 operating from the start like that for the first time. Best bit was that Aubameyang was a real threat from the right side, and also from the left when they swapped over. I think Pepe is going to be excellent once he gets used to the league.

I love Lacazette. Love him. I think he's my favourite Arsenal player at the moment. Been meaning to get me the new home shirt, I think I might get Laca on it. Hope that niggle isn't serious. We got the international break now and once again France haven't picked him, so that works out nicely for us. 

Couldn't bare the thought of wearing blue and white through the match so went for a stroll and found a merch shop and snagged their last shirt! Laca 09 definitely getting printed at Villa match, and the away kit's going to get Torreira, although Guendouzi is a strongggg contender too.

I thought both teams were kind of shark but it made for an entertaining game. We should've won. This Spurs side had no real clue; completely disjointed. If Pepe had any kind of decent shooting boots we'd have pulled through.

I am so torn on Pepe; he does some crazy things, but I don't think the basics are really quite there. A bit like a Gervinho or something. We'll see; hard to judge yet.

I think Pepe needs a goal, a tap in, a scrapper, something to take the pressure off. The front three had flashes of quality but missed the support of an Ozil or Ceballos player behind them. That's the key part missing for me. Additionally a bit more time to understand each others movements. It's not surprising the Laca goal came from build up with Auba and Auba's came from Guendouzi - partnerships and understanding take a bit of time to build.

Mhiki out the door today to Roma on loan, which makes bringing him on over Ozil or Nelson a realllly odd one. Roma are rumoured to be covering ALL of his wages which is a huge win. Thus ends the Sanchez debacle for us, and thankfully we're not stuck funding our dead weight - nice one there Woodward ha!

Still can't believe Mustafi has survived. Hopefully Emery gets behind him like he did Jenkinson last year and spend some time helping him develop. Still think Mustafi/Ozil now have a lot to fight for, prove, and rebuild their credibility this year. I'd hoped it was at a different club but if it's here then I hope they show what they can do.

Oh and did anyone see the sh*t going around Twitter about Mourinho taking over at Arsenal? I couldn't think of a COD I'd want there less.

But he's a proven winner!

(Insert Spongebob meme)

I cant stand the cod and would struggle watching the gunners if he was in the hot seat. Hopefully it never comes to that. 

Its a weird narrative, seemingly prompted by him giving some insightful and complementary analysis on british tv.

So mkhi has gone but mustafi remains. Overall a very successful window in both incomings and outgoings. I guess at worst Mustafi is a pretty solid 5th choice...... hahahaha
Pepe is the goods, no question marks for me, I've seen enough to be very excited, hopefully doesnt take too long to fully acclimatise.

yea i was thinking the same thing. We have shipped off fair few deadwood players or ones who weren't progressing anymore (i.e. Iwobi + Bielik). 

In all 16 players have left this window which is huge and while we haven't replaced all of them (i still think we are a #2 GK + CB down), but Emery is starting to shape the squad he wants and move further out from Wenger's shadow, which a good thing. 

Oh and shark, I forgot we signed saliba(sp?), I cant wait to see what he does. hope he has a injury free season!

I saw somewhere we've gotten rid of 45mil squids worth of wages. A decent effort.

Would be 145mil squid if we got rid of Ozil :)

Win by 11 and we go 2nd tonight lads
COYG

Bit of a blow having Laca's ankle injury flare up. leaves us with just Auba as our striking option until October. I wonder if that means that young brazilian will come in for some mins. Surely Auba cant be tasked with playing all the games between now and then.  Or is Pepe an option? I thought he was a wide player, but it might fill a gap in some europa league games, or a cup tie. 

Ffs.

Jesus that was appalling. His version of 4-3-1-2 isn't working, as it's leaving us over exposed out wide. It's like we press the backline when we lose possession then fall into a zonal marking version when one of our midfield three supports out wide, and leaves the other flank totally exposed. The problem is none of our midfield run fast enough to make that work, leaving it way too easy for the opposition to play around us.

I also think Emery royally f*cked up his substitutions. At 2-0 at half time he should have made the change then for Ozil off Nelson on and given the kid time to come into the game not desperately trying to win it for us. Next up was Torriera on for Ceballos to help us keep the pace up in midfield and control it. Finally finish with Willock on for Guendouzi to help counter. Doing it the other way round was a fudgeing disaster.

Also given we had 3 let off's in the first half trying to play out for the back why would you continue with it? I would have thought Leno would have made the call to stop it for a couple of plays and force Watford back.

That was so painful to watch, God knows how we'll go away to Frankfurt on Tuesday.

yea what the fudge was that. totally absent in the 2nd half. Watford set so many traps for us to play into and we happily did. gah!

I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing us play:

                 Lacazette

  Aubamayang Ceballos   Pepe

              Xhaka Torreira

Tierney Holding Sokratis Bellerin

                    Leno

Ozil's done man, we can't afford to cover him as he never offers anything off the ball. Ceballos will run himself into the ground for this team. Put Auba & Pepe wide and ask them to contribute defensively, then run their tits off on the counter.

Still on holiday in USA so haven't managed to see the last 4 games, but it's absolutely no surprise to me that the addition of Luiz seems to have resulted in the defence becoming even more shambolic than it already was. Going to be another long season.

Hope the holiday's been good AJC.

With a view to Frankfurt and the beginning of our experimentation I hope we try something like

                Martinez

AMN Chambers Mustafi Kolasinac

          Torreira Guendouzi

     Nelson Ceballos Sakho

                 Martinelli

Ideally Bellerin, Tierney, and Holding get some time off the bench, and likely more time for Willock & Ozil too.

We've got an HSV front end and a Camira rear.

I'd suggest when you can bring Bellerin, Tierney, and Holding into the backline we'll at least have a Commodore back there.

Have any of you guys subscribed to the Athletic? There's some good insight and analysis into the team coming out of there at the moment.

Being a hardcore Holden man and HSV owner, that made me laugh

Are you the red one with the gooner number plate in Wellington G4L?

No, not me sorry. I think I have seen that plate before though.

Interesting squad for Frankfurt. No Ozil (no reason given), no Sokratis (having a rest, seems legit), Holding travelled (YAAY), and Auba travelled (hmmmmm).

Still hopeful we don't have to play Auba, would rather we trusted Matinelli/Pepe with it.

Good result. Performance a little less so, a lot of opportunities given to the opposition again.

We've got a good crop of youngsters at the minute. 

good result. But worried about the workload on Auba. Also yet to see Pepe stamp his mark on a game. Hope this happens soon. 

Pepe looks like a man in need of a goal, hopefully he can get that monkey off his back and the magic begins for him.

Our youngsters finished strong but MAN were they bad in the first 20 minutes. As a team we had a no control due to the frequency with which they lost the ball, made errant passes, or couldn't connect with the movement that the senior players needed from them.

Stoked that Martinez got a clean sheet away from home in his first competitive start, that'll do his confidence a world of good. Luiz, Mustafi, & Xhaka all behaved themselves. I thought it was one of Xhaka's best games in an Arsenal shirt. Did a lot of work defensively, set off a number of attacks, and I don't even think he got a card!

Last night it looked like we were playing more of a 4-5-1 and it was noticeable in the wide areas as the full backs got out faster to shut down the crosses, but they could do this because they had the support of a winger & normally a midfielder.

We still got dribbled through too easily but it did seem to be a step up from last weekend.

Fizzing for Aston Villa, the good bastard I sit next to has seats next to me and has sold me both for the match so I can take the mrs & a visiting mate - fingers crossed its a goodun!

I have no faith in Emery and I'd be shocked if he was here next season.

Feel like we could keep posting this all season tbh.