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

I'm not too bothered by that Leno flap. I feel if he stayed on his line, yes he would've given himself a chance, but it would be so small from point blank like that. I think Austin still scores, 19 times out of 20. I honestly felt he needed to try and touch that in the air to give himself the best chance of stopping it. 

Still, as we saw, he couldn't quite reach it, so technically the correct goalkeeping decision would've been to stay on the line and make yourself big, so it does go down as an error, but it honestly doesn't bother me, I think they score regardless of Leno's decision. 

We gave them far too much space to get those 3 crosses in, and Koscielny was probably most heavily at fault for the strikers getting clean headers on them. If we had our first choice defence all fit (or even Koscielny after a few games rather than his first league game since the injury), I think we have a good chance at preventing all 3 of those goals. 

Interesting noticed that we have scored same amount as goals as Liverpool (37), only City has scored with 48. we have let in 23 thou which isn't great. Hope we can sort out our defence quickly

Terrible team to lose to but S'Hampton has been our boogie team as well, we are still within striking distance of 4th. If we can sneak back into Champions league this season i'll be stoked 

The big one for me is Carabao cup on Thursday. Losing that at home wouldn't be great for the team or the fans. Good shot at a trophy if we can make it through, although likely Chelsea and City in the next round too.

Don't give a shark about winning the League Cup. Meaningless.

What? It's a trophy that we have to get through Sp*rs and probably Chelski and C*ty. With this current squad it would be an incredible achievement for Emery in his first season in charge.

I wouldn't say meaningless but it's pretty low-level. I would be playing the kids on Thurs. 

Top 4 is the goal. Keep players fresh for the weekend please. 

Yup i agree as well, esp heading into the busy xmas period we need to have keep the boys fresh as possible

Will be interesting to see how Bellerin, Mustafi, Lichsteiner, and Kolasinac all come through. Only leaves us Sokratis, Kosc, Monreal, Jenkinson as proper defenders, with AMN available to drop in at a scratch (hopefully we keep Xhaka through the middle!).

These kind of defensive shortages should be moments for Chambers and Mavropanos, but with one on loan and the other still injured Medley and Pleguezuelo will be the likely candidates to get the central call up.

I wouldn't be surprised if he plays Sokratis against Spurs, along with Elneny and Cech, and perhaps even Lacazette/Ozil as well since they haven't been starting lately, to put some experience in the side, and then plays kids in the other positions. Sort of like against Qarabag last week. 

Worried about the risk though... Sokratis and Lacazette need to stay fit, especially Sokratis...

Yup. Kosc probably needs a breather after 2 games in quick succession. Could try something like this:

                          Laca

    Smith-Rowe    Ozil    Nketiah

                Elneny    Ramsey

AMN   Monreal    Socratis   Jenkinson

                    Cech

Give Ramsey the armband for his last NLD at home.

As the season progress the more i actually want Ramsey to stay

If we kept Ramsey and purchased a winger at the expense of Ozil & Mhiki I'd consider it a large improvement for the club.

I'm still hoping the club explains why they pulled the pin on Ramsey's contract at the last minute.

It's interesting isn't it. 

A couple of months ago I was like yea, seems like a good business decision, his only real role in Emery's system is as the back-up to Ozil in the 10 role, and we can't pay elite money for that. 

Fast forward a couple of months... and now it looks like Ozil is having issues with Emery, he doesn't look like he really fits the style, we are mostly playing better without him, and Ramsey all of a sudden looks a lot more productive in Emery's system. 

Emery has put out a decent side.  Make shift at the back tho due to the injuries. Xhaka at cb again. No ozil at all...  Apparently left out for "tactical reasons"... Is this the end of his arsenal career?

Surely. If you're not playing him away to Bournemouth or SOTON, nor at home in a NLD (twice), and he's your highest paid player, why TF is he even there?

Hopefully we have some transfer madness where we sell Ozil to Dortmund, Dortmund sell Reus to Atheltico, and Atheltico sell Saul to us.

Down 1-0, this game is helter skelter, both teams with high lines and makeshift defences, we've missed some big chances

Well that sucked

Went on to Bein to watch the full match and their home page defaulted to news rather than logging in so discovered the result and just watched the highlights. Is it fair to say that it was much like Southampton where they took their chances and we didn't? In both their goals it looked like our back 3 just sat off their strikers under the high ball which seemed mental. While both Xhaka and Kosc were guilty for both goals keeping players onside.

Can't believe Ramsey didn't flick in Lacazette's shot onto the post, nor Mhiki not burying that chance. The Mhiki one in particular was appalling to not score from. Just role that into the bottom corner far post and it's 1-0, rather that trying it on near post. Especially since it's the left hand side of the box on your preffered right foot. ARGH.

We need a huge response on Saturday. Home to Burnely, need to put them to the sword and return to goal scoring ways.

As gutting as it is, it's not too damaging. The finishing and defending weren't great, but the defence was very makeshift, and we did have more of the ball, more shots, etc etc, the overall performance was not something to worry too much about at this stage. 

Typical spurs really - to beat us in the 4th most important comp, which they won't win anyway. 

The main negative is that we played so many first teamers with a must-win coming against Burnley this weekend. 

Gotta get back on that horse now. 

I'd like to see the rotation continue this weekend:

                    Laca

Smith-Rowe   Ozil    Nketiah 

              Xhaka Ramsey

Monreal  Kosc  Socratis  AMN/Jenko

                     Leno

Torreira, Guendouzi, Iwobi, Mhiki must be all due a break. The latter 2 to hopefully spark some quality again if not for fitness. Auba's also played a lot while Laca's due a start.

Burnely have only scored 15 this season but conceded 33.

One might argue it's better to go balls to the wall against them to gaurantee 3 points, while sending a rotated side to Anfield acknowledging the quality gap and odds of a result much harder...

plenty of rotation today. Got the job done but not too convincing regardless of the scoreline. With United winning having Chelsea lose was helpful.

Injuries are mounting up with Mhiki now out for 6 weeks. Our already limited wide options are reduced further, while our defenders are looking worse for wear and not seeming to recover.

Hopefully we play 2 actual CB's tomorrow and revert to 4 at the back so poor old Granit can actually get back to midfield. Surprised we haven't seem Ramsey much, I'm wondering if the contractual situation is hurting his game time? He's still top 4 for EPL assists on just a handful of starts - just don't understand why we aren't offering the $$ to him or at least playing him as much as possible to maximise the rest of his contract.

EDIT: Also looks like both Guendouzi and Torreira are 1 match away from a suspension. Be good to find a way to mitigate that this weekend, especially for Torreira as he'll be critical for us v Liverpool.

bollocks

Well. That was pants. Let's not take up the option of another season with Lichsteiner. Thankfully no bookings for Guendouzi or Torreira, but we lost Kosc. Expecting we'll go 3 at the back away to Liverpool, but hopefully AMN comes into RWB and we play 3 proper CB's, assuming they're all available.

well that was shark. we got our arses handed to us

In my desperate search for a silver lining; all I've got is the hope that removes any doubt that we require a squad overhaul - particularly at the back.

That was simply abysmal.

Torreira looks tired.

Backline is a shambles. Badly missing Holding, Bellerin and Monreal. We peaked at Spurs then the defence all got injured or suspended. Mkhi was hit and miss but we are missing him now. 

Need to get some of these guys back and grind out some results. 

Race for 4th with Chelsea and a resurgent ManU, and perhaps Spurs if they go spursy. 

Am away on holiday so avoided result all day to watch now in bed so switched off at half time. Defence every bit as calamitous as under Wenger and still totally out of our depth against the top teams. Backline may as well not have been on the pitch and we couldn't have done any worse. And fudge me what a donkey Lichsteiner is. If he plays another minute it will be too long. Was desperately hoping we'd pull out some miracle to keep the Unbeaten season ours alone but difficult to see anyone beating that team this season now.

When.

It's easy to overreact, twitter is a ridiculous place to be, stopped reading the arsenal carry-on for now. 

A smashing at the hands of the league's form team, at their ground, is not something to be too stressed about in our stage of development in my opinion. 

We all know the defence needs serious work and it will take time to sort that out, perhaps even longer than it took for Liverpool to do it, given we're unlikely to throw 140m pounds at 2 players to fix the issue. We also know that Emery actually got it into a decent shape towards the end of the unbeaten run, with 3 at the back consistently in the form of Mustafi, Sokratis and Holding, and with Bellerin in cracking form. Holding got injured, Mustafi got injured, Bellerin got injured, Sokratis got suspended, and ever since we've had a makeshift defence with Xhaka, Lichtsteiner, Maitland-Niles and Monreal all filling in out of position for various games, and Koscielny being rushed back in for big minutes after a long time out.

Hoping to see a signing for the defence in January, some clarity on the Ramsey/Ozil situations, and we move forward from there. Really need to grind out some results until we settle on the defence for the rest of the season. And we need Bellerin back......

Thank fuuk sessegnon(sp?) cant shoot, otherwise they would have been out of sight before we woke up. 

iwobi played well, his variation of balls delivered into the box kept everyone guessing. 

i like our little tactic of overloading the sides of the box and slipping little balls into runners who are angling into the box. quite cool to see and Fulham left plenty of space there for players to work in. 

disappointed in their goal. Pretty clear foul leading up to their goal, but they pressed us easily and we gave them the opportunity to do so. thought that was poor for our central 3. 

Kola cant defend, thats pretty clear. But he is very useful on attack. 

Yea in a back 5 kola is starting to look absolute dynamite, but don't trust him much in a back 4 when defensive work is needed... he's good in the tackle, and in one-on-ones, but his positioning is woeful, he gets caught out all the time... 

Emery seems to be slipping into Wenger last year, constantly changing squads etc trying to grind out results.

Not that I'm suggesting it's time to go, it's more just highlighting how bad the squads gotten.

Iwobi today was so frustrating. He's playing the Ozil role, purely because he's putting in more effort than Ozil would in terms of tracking back and physicality. Would be so amazing to see how Ozil could be in there instead of Iwobi.

I really liked that Xhaka started running into the box more. It's the Ramsey type run and it was half of our goals today. Just need to figure out how the hell we'll deal with Ozil/Mhiki's big contracts while losing Rambo.

Rumours are Juventus on a Bosman or PSG this summer. Would prefer the latter if it meant we could sort out a defender this window.

Ozil and Mhiki need to be moved on. Lichsteiner, Cech, Welbeck, Koscielny too. 

As funny as that is, no player by the name of David Dicks ever played for Arsenal. Whoever made this up should have used Julian Dicks of West Ham.

^ the pic is Liam Brady, in the 70s......

It is indeed. One of the most gifted players I have ever seen. Vision, brains, skill, everything. I got to see him play for Arsenal at Chelsea once, a 1-1 draw. 

Santi Cazorla banged in 2 against Real Madrid this morning. Little Magicians still shining <3