Villa very impressive first half, but spurs are a different side now, goal back, crowd behind them.

I noticed that Villa’s squad is actually quite old, apart from Rodgers and Onana pretty much the entire squad is 28-32. I think they still have PSR problems in that they have to make sales before they seriously splash out. Every top team in Europe would take Morgan Rodgers, I’d have him at Arsenal in a heartbeat

If you look at sky sports twitter feed they must have posted 100 different tweets in the last 48 hours, on average these tweets get between 100-200k views. There are 5 tweets in that time with over 1m views.
1 was a clip of Bradley’s shot that hit the bar
3 were tweets with outrage at Martinelli’s incident and top of the list with 4m views is a tweet showing Arteta getting a yellow card for repeatedly being outside his technical area.

So negative Arsenal news drives clicks, views and interaction. So when I go on about a media agenda for negative Arsenal news there is logic and reason behind it

Ah come on, lads. I responded to a graphic showing Man City's gross spend over 3 transfer windows (so more than the a single season) by pointing out our net spend. Net spend is a far more relevant and useful figure than gross spend. We are big spenders these days and we have been for several years now.

I’m not arguing with you on this. No other Arsenal manager has had open slather like Arteta.

all I was doing Mr Angry ; is suggesting a way to try and avoid p***sing an awful lot of money down the gurgler .

Trying to work out a solution instead of just chucking Viktor in the waste bin ; he obviously had something going for him before he arrived at our place .

Grab yourself a hefty poitin and relax . Throw on an old Colm Meeney movie " The Snapper " is good value .

I think everyone admits Arteta has been backed to the hill on buying players, but if spending analysis stops at transfer fee in v transfer fee out then it misses a huge amount of context and actual figures clubs spend.

City are the biggest total spenders based on the figures they release and City have been proven to hide and cheat the real figures of their spending.

Chelsea have sold hotels and their women’s team (Villa did this as well) to themselves to artificially deflate their net spend.

City’s ’sponsorship’ by their owners is just crazy that people have grown to just accept this. Man City we are to believe are the club with the highest legitimately earned commercial income in the world.

Paulinha was unhappy with Watkins celebrating Villa’s win in front of the Villa fans, pushed him and started a full brawl. Paulinha was already on a yellow card but no second yellow was given. No hysterics from pundits fans….essentially a rational reaction to a nothing incident

Both Ornstein and Romano have given solid Arsenal links to Guehi but that a deal for us would be in the summer. I think it’s a long shot but if we somehow convinced Guehi to wait and sign for us on a free transfer over Liverpool and City it would be some coup.

Arsenal have hired ex Liverpool throw in coach Thomas Gronnemark. I hate our throw ins, I’d love to see the stats behind comfortable possession retained from our throw ins

If I am reincarnated I want to be a throw-in coach.

Can't the set-piece coach double up for this?

We are backed by Americans. No incomes from millionaires is legitimate in that country.

I doubt it, any spare time he takes away from free kicks and corners has to be practicing how to be the centre of attention.....

I feel like the ideal Arteta way of playing works best with our best 11 on the pitch. But we have some quite different profiles who step in for the best 11 and so tactics should be tweaked slightly to get the best out of them, or at the least make them more comfortable in the team. Some examples

Calafiori v MLS.
Calafiori is a robust defender who gallops in to unusual positions causing a bit of chaos
MLS can be vulnerable 1v1 when isolated at full back but can play the inverted full back in to CM very well

Ødegaard v Eze
Ødegaard plays more right side looking for combinations, he likes lots of touches and drops deeper to pick up the ball and probe
Eze prefers central, or left sided and higher positions, he is good at penetrating on the dribble and in transitions, very likely to shoot well from the edge of the box if you get him in the right position

Havertz v Gyökeres v Jesus
Havertz likes to drop and link play, is an effective target man
Gyökeres wants the ball quickly in behind
Jesus likes to drop link and turn and dribble with the ball and is comfortable in tight areas

Saka v Madueke
Saka is good at receiving with his back to play, is far more low risk than Madueke, likes to pass and link play, beats people with body feints and delivers excellent final ball
Madueke is more explosive, is quicker, runs directly at opponents every time and will shoot if he comes inside, higher shot volume but not as good final ball as Saka. Is better with more space whereas Saka can be more effective in tighter spaces

Trossard v Martinelli
Each work well with a different full back in my opinion
Trossard is technically better, better with both feet, less explosive
Martinelli is good on transitions, elite pace, good 1v1 finishing, quick one touch link play isn't his game

My concern is we play the same kind of style not suiting some of these players, shoe horning them in to what Arteta has the 'first 11' player doing

Two separate arguments.
How your owner has come about their wealth is one argument, football has various rules about 'fit and proper person' to own football clubs. What I'm talking about is once those owners are in situ how they break the rules to artificially inflate the sponsorship of their club.

Put it this way, if you took the top 20 clubs in europe and wiped all their commercial deals to zero and stuck them in a room with all the biggest brands in the world with an interest in sponsoring a football club with the only rules being you can't sponsor any club you have a ownership in, then would Man City manage to negotiate the top value of any club? of course not, Sponsorship is going to be directly linked to the number of fans (reach) a club has as well as their on field success, and also things like popularity of the league will come in to it

on the net spend thing I agree Arteta has been heavily backed buts it’s not something easily comparable to saudi and oil backed clubs pumping millions in continuously. for chelsea transfers are an actual business for us it’s not like that, very hard to compare

I think Arteta might have been hampered by the club not investing in the academy enough so our players like saka and nwaneri are essentially home grown miracles.

other clubs seem quite focussed on acquisition at academy level in a way we haven’t been because of our historical finances. This seems to be changing with the signing of the young irish player and others like those twins.

Liverpool confirm Bradley has a significant knee injury. I’m sure some idiots will blame Martinelli for the injury

It’s a huge advantage of unlimited money. Poach the best young players, pay over the odds in fees and wages. Not to mention you can build incredible academy facilities, hire the best coaches etc

Chelsea and City have by far the best academies in the country, they also have the best women’s teams. The people who expect us to believe both those men’s team’s success has been organically and legitimately earned I assume will also tell us exactly the same about the academy and women’s teams.

The academies are indeed ahead (City and Chelsea) largely because they have cheated financially

Huge investment in training grounds, bribing parents and agents etc

Interesting team. This is the bold team I wanted Arteta to pick. It doesn’t risk both our CB and means Nwaneri gets a game. It means Merino is in the unfamiliar def mid role.

Havertz and Salmon on the bench. Saliba and Trossard not in the squad at all

Arsenal: Arrizabalaga, White, Nørgaard, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly, Merino, Nwaneri, Eze, Madueke, Martinelli, Jesus.

Subs: Raya, Timber, Salmon, Zubimendi, Rice, Ødegaard, Saka, Havertz, Gyökeres.

Eze as a 10 from the left side….

I suppose Gabriel arguably needs the minutes but you'd think he'll also start against Chelsea and Forest.

Otherwise, it will be good to see how that lot get along.

If we get a couple up I'd like to see Gabriel subbed off.

Good for MLS getting a start after his minutes against Pool. The rest? Coming in completely cold for some reason.

Great start

Oh good. Played an FA cup 3 minutes where fouls don’t exist and we’re 1-0 down.

Portsmouth deservedly ahead.

Just wow. Off to a great start.

Now we can't dilly dally

Good. Quick equaliser. Nørgaard.

Not behind for long. Nørgaard 1-1

1-1. OG strikes again.

Nørgaard !!!!!

Wanted the cameraman to go back to the two celebrating Pompey Kids with that one doing the “you’re crying” after we scored the equaliser!

Hmm - That's better ...

Reluctance to clip an early ball over the top yet again. Martinelli had made the run and realised the Portsmouth left back on the opposite side was far too deep. The run was good and the ball was on and he’d have been clear through

It’s funny how much footballers can get themselves up for a home game against a big club when they have nothing to lose. And also how the big team can feel the pressure and panic in possession. Absolutely no way this game is played like this at The Emirates

2-1 Martinelli. Another corner

Martinelli !!!!!!