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

Arsenal looking like a different team without Ozil and Sanchez. All over Chelsea for the last 30 minutes of that half, unlucky not to be ahead.

You chaps are unlucky to not be ahead at the break, Lacazette caught slightly on the hop but should have put his chance away.

that Montreal foul on Morata put it 8-1 Arsenal:Chelsea on fouls. When have you seen us that up for it!

I'm also enjoying our front 3 not pressing the keeper, keeps us with men behind the ball and avoids many easy outs for the keeper.

we're in for a cracking finish - although Chelsea look resurgent

Nek minute Sideshow Bob red card!

Man we really ran out of steam at the end there. When we're chasing a win with only a couple of minutes left in a game we still keep passing it around. Wish we'd just relentlessly pump it in the box - especially when Giroud is in there.

Happy with that. Could've won it, could've lost it, just thankful to see a strong, disciplined performance with everyone putting in a shift across the pitch. 

Gutted for Welbeck and his injury, he was starting to hit his stride. 

Iwobi was pretty disappointing, we missed Ozil in the attacking third, other than that was happy with the individual performances. 

I'm not sure I would describe Iwobi's shift as disappointing. When he got on the ball he wriggled away from defenders well and rarely gave up possession. He set a few moves up with incisive passing but also put in a shift getting back. Given his age, I thought he did well trying to play the Ozil role. I was genuinely surprised he stayed on when Lacazette was pulled, thought Wenger would simply go for pace & put Chelsea on the back foot. I also enjoyed Elneny coming on and felt he could have started to enable Ramsey to play higher up.

One from twitter for the GoT fans;

"Genuinely thought Kolasinac had broken his leg. How stupid of me to forget he's made from Valyrian Steel."

Welbz looking like he's out for 4 weeks with a groin strain. Poor bugger. Looking forward to seeing a good chunk of rotation again for cup match against the mighty Doncaster Rovers.

Gutted for Welbeck, he was really looking good this season. At least it times in nicely with Sanchez' return to fitness I guess.

I still think he looks off the pace. Maybe it's that he's better starting!

I thought he was just starting to hit his stride - important in all of our build up play and works his ass off.

Yea I thought he looked like he was hitting his straps again in the Cologne game. 

Expecting big things against WBA. We can struggle against Pulis, will need his magic to break their defence. 

Wenger on Debuchy being involved against Doncaster;

"No, no"

Guess that's him at Arsenal finally done. How on earth did we not get rid of him in the window? Must go in Jan. 

Good to see the curse of the Ox continue. Apparently he was shocking in his first start this morning. We haven't lost and they haven't won since he moved.

1-0 Walcott

Starting team was;

                       Ospina

    Holding-Mertesacker-Chambers

Nelson-Elneny-Wilshere-Maitland-Niles

                Alexis-Walcott

                       Giroud

Weird that Sanchez starts, be interesting to see what this means for the team against WBA this weekend. 

shark we are making hard work of this. Giroud and Sanchez look as if they've had a disagreement and dont want to work off each other

Job done. Wasn't pretty but good to see a number of the squaddies get a run. I didn't think Chambers was that bad in the first half - any reason he was pulled? How did Da Silva go?

I thought that was pretty pathetic to be honest. A team of sanchez, walcott, giroud, mert, elney, iwobi and to a lesser extent jack, couldnt unlock the defences or finish their chances against a team 50places lower than them. That is just not good enough for me. 

But i agree that it was good to see some of the young lads got a run. 

got Norwich in the next round at home

All good. 

I don't expect much when we throw together guys who aren't playing together a lot, just happy to get the win and move on.

Interesting half time sub. I'm assuming we must have changed to four at the back?

I read that he had a recurring hip injury which was why he was taken off at halftime

Here's a good piece from Tim Stillman about where we're at from a personnel perspective; and where we need to be going: https://arseblog.com/2017/09/under-the-influence/

Raises some salient points... change is coming, ready or not (and evidently, not).

Yeah just read the same. I'm both sad that he's injured but pleased it wasn't performance related. Looking forward to seeing him & Holding grow old together.

I really do think that Chambers is a better player than Holding; if he got more game time (and less injuries), that is.

Giroud nominated for the puskas award for that scorpion against palace

Interesting line up this morn, assume Ozil not quite ready to start, so Wenger brings in Elneny, looks like Ramsey will move further forward. No room on the bench for Iwobi, but there is room for Wilshere.

                     Cech

    Koscielny-Mustafi-Monreal

Bellerin-Elneny-Xhaka-Kolasinac

           Ramsey-Sanchez

                 Lacazette

This subject has come up in the press again with Wenger mentioning off hand that not many players improve after they leave Arsenal. Here's an interesting piece someone wrote on players that have left;

http://www.planetfootball.com/in-depth/investigati...

I've been wanting to see Rambo further forward for awhile, will be good to see how he goes.

Also Mustafi just got done on the counter and almost gave away a huge penalty - credit to WBA player for getting up and playing on which saved him

1-0 up

Sanchez freekick hits the bar, Lacazette following up with the header

We're playing well and creating a lot of chances, but making some really dumb giveaways in midfield, we have gifted them some huge chances they should've taken, Monreal just made an absurd clearance off the line. 

1-0 at HT. Not sure how WBA haven't managed to score, flurry of chances at the end of the half there but somehow they don't finish any. 

2-0

Lacazette penalty

It's one of those days when we are defending really well - but that's because we keep putting ourselves in situations where we have to.

FT 2-0

Take that

2-0 is a good result. For some reason our passing/give aways from unforced errors continues to be high. We really do miss that deep lying Cazorla esque player who keeps things ticking over. Looking forward to seeing if JW can pick that up and give it a crack.