Exactly

Also it’s no justification as to why your 2 midfield players can’t get one off their arse either !

Chelsea at home last season and tonight. They’re the only two I recall that lead to goals. Are they the same two you’re talking of?

Rose tinted glasses. Second ha ha ha - you really are a card. The good thing is that no other team will focus on these problems in the future and try and shut us down. Maths not your strong suit - 3 bad errors in this game.

Partey, our new magnet for balls going forward. And he carries it forward faster and with more purpose

It was a bit of an ugly win but it was 1. an away win and 2. A good club needs to win all manner of games.
Partey is reminiscent of Vieira, meaning he showed he was going to be good for us from the onset.

Gabriel is solid. Can't wait for Saliba to be ready for us. While watching the game I was thinking what Özil could have done in it. Too bad. But it is what it is.

The thing that saddened me most about Merson’s departure is that he went one short of membership of what Arsenal call the 100 Club. A list of those players who have scored a hundred (or more) competitive first team goals for us. Merson scored 99 such goals for Arsenal. I would’ve once been happy to sign him up as a player after he’d retired, stuck him on the bench for League Cup ties, and bring him on to take a penalty if we were awarded one. Especially if whether we score it or not was unlikely to affect the result with us already winning or losing heavily. Even if we took him straight off for another sub after he taken (and hopefully scored) it.

I’ve looked at Arsenal chat rooms heavily used by Muslims. As you imply, there is much devotion to Özil by Muslims. Loads consider him not only our best current player but Arsenal’s greatest ever player (forget Henry and Bergkamp, Özil is better than both, plus anyone else). He’s more of an Arsenal legend than Adams and everyone else. I’m not joking about these points. They are commonly said.

What I will say is they’re not Arsenal fans, they’re Özil fans. When he leaves Arsenal, their club allegiances will switch to whoever he joins next.

Yes that’s it.

That’s errors not obvious mistakes and he has only really done 2 in this game as when the ball was kicked off Luiz the movement of the player too him into the fight of the ball. It’s an accident they were under pressure.

To date Leno has still only made 2 obvious mistakes that has cost Arsenal goals.

Yep Leno was poor with his feet and cost us the goal. Remember Martinez also got away with a very similar one vs Liverpool at home when his pass was intercepted or hit Firminho. Lots of GK’s make errors, obviously the ones that don’t lead to goals are generally forgotten. Martinez also made one against Fulham, spilling an easy shot that Fulham scored from, the goal was ruled out for a separate foul

I think Martinez and Leno were very close in ability but there were far more question marks over Martinez. He only had 10 or so top flight games and we had no idea how he reacts to adversity or a game costing mistake. Also to our knowledge there were no buyers for Leno and Martinez was demanding to be made No.1 or else he wouldn’t sign a new deal. He had to be sold. His sale would have helped facilitate the signing of one of the 2 best players on the pitch last night.

His weakness in palming balls away and giving chances, have cost us as well. And he has games were he can’t properly deal with crosses ala Burnley last year. But it is all about distribution in the way Arteta wants to play. It is not good and puts others under pressure. Good shot stopper but doesn’t hold the ball. He is okay for where we are in the league. All these problems can be corrected but will he.

But we didn’t test the market with Leno and with his experience he should have bought a bigger fee. Leno was terrible last night and he will be under a lot more pressure from people closing him down after that. His distribution is a problem because he often just gets rid of it to other players who are not free. If Arteta wants to play from the back he must improve a lot more.

On Gk’s. Alisson passed the ball straight to us and we scored a goal in our league game last year. Ederson pinched one straight to a Leeds player for the equaliser in their 1-1 draw this season. De Gea has made more errors in the last 18 months than any top Gk. Kepa is the leagues joke gk with Chelsea replacing him already. Lloris tried to dribble round a player in the World Cup final and was tackled for a goal. Pickford is an accident waiting to happen every game.

I still say we should have kept playing Martinez until until his worldclass form was shown to be permanent or a flash in the pan in which case he could have been dropped for Leno.

I still say Leno is not great with his feet, not commanding and not great with crosses. His shotstopping is brilliant and his reflexes razor sharp but he punches and parries rather than catches and if we want to play out from the back as City do then we need his footwork to be spot-on.

It is no coincidence that City got rid of Joe Hart, who at that time was largely considered one of the best keepers around, and bought Ederson. Ederson is not the most commanding or best with crosses but he is probably the best keeper in the world with his feet.

TG says he can only remember only 2 mistakes leading to goals but its not about that. It's about creating an air of calm and distributing the ball quickly and accurately under pressure. It feels like Leno is panicky every time he gets the ball in a tight area.

I am not going to say we sold the wrong keeper because it is way to early to say but what I will say is that Martinez's form since the return from lockdown was as good as any keeper in the league and arguably better than anything we have seen from Leno, who himself has been really good in his time at Arsenal.

Maybe Martinez's form will fall away from the lofty heights he has set, in which case I will be the first to say well done Arsenal, a brilliant decision.

Hi Rich,

Every keeper makes mistakes, I just think Leno often puts players under unneccessary pressure because his short passes are not quick or accurate enough. It doesn't often lead to goals like last night but it does interupt the speed at which we can play out and break the opposition press. It also creates a nerviness which I didn't think we had so much of with Martinez.

Few weeks Back I posted highlights of the reading classic cup game where Martinez let at least 4 goals in by parrying them to opposing players including one where he just left it brush through him into the net.

All this stuff is ridiculous and caused by the Martinez rags to riches story when he got games last year. Martinez is better with his feet and Leno is a better goalkeeper overall.

To date Leno has made 2 obvious mistakes for arsenal that have led to goals. That’s nothing, spunky dropped more clangers than that. What even more daft is that our previous 2 goalkeepers where Petr Čech (who was totally on the beach) and David the hands ospina

Gabriel looks potentially an excellent acquisition. He is so big and powerful and wins almost everything in the air. Quite quick and not bad on the ball either. Shades of Sol Campbell but better with the ball.

Btw the thing that is forgotten is the reason we are talking about Leno and endlessly battering Pépé (who was good last night) is because this team struggles to create chances and there are few other talking points.

We should be blowing teams like that one last night to pieces with the money at our disposal and Leno shouldnt have to endlessly recycle the ball with his feet

Didn't we test the market with Leno? If we did and there were no buyers wouldn't we have risked pi$$ing Leno off? What top clubs bought a new GK this summer, or were even after a new GK this summer? Chelsea, and they spent £20m - should we have pushed Leno their way? I'll stand corrected but I can't think of a top 30 club in europe (apart from Chelsea) who bought a new No.1 GK this summer. Any club that needed a new GK were either not a club who could afford what we wanted for Leno or would not have been a club Leno would have been interested in joining.
The only other option Arsenal would have had is to make Martinez the undisputed No.1 (his desire - he was told he was 95% certain to start the first game and he wanted to leave because he said it should have been 100%) and leave Leno sitting on the bench. Thereby making us £20m poorer and possibly not having Gabriel or Partey in the squad.
It sort of felt Arsenal's hands were tied with this one a little bit and we made the most sensible decision for the progress of the club as a whole.

Do you think it really makes sense on replacing Leno which would probably cost 50+ million when we haven’t replaced ...

Özil, Ramsey, cazorla, The Ox or any creative midfield talent.

A total act of madness created by the twitter generation

It is a concern. We're relatively solid defensively but it feels no one is taking any risks in attack and the intensity and pace of attacks is non-existent. The high press seems to have gone as well. It has been a problem well before Arteta, everyone seems to take the ball and pass the ball there is no real effort to commit a defender in to doing something other than shuffling across in his defensive shape and closing dow the space and the next man.

When Arteta came we had problems in every area of the pitch. If he can do with midfield and attack what he's done with the defensive side of our game that would be fine. It is the next challenge

We look crap going forward, no doubt about it. Partey must of been wondering what he has let himself in for. Lacazette is slower and less sharp than he used to be and Nketiah is poor with his back to goal but to be fair we are not exactly serving them up chances on a plate.

Hi TG, I'm not arguing for replacing Leno. I'm arguing that keeping Leno and selling Martinez was the sensible decision. It is the stance I've had all summer when the topic of possibly losing a GK came up. Why have a valuable asset sit on the bench for most of the games when that money could have been ploughed in to a more urgent area of the squad that needed improvement.

I don't see any attacking players we have (apart from Aubameyang) who have the basic attacking attribute of being able to shift a ball a yard and have a shot at goal. It is about sharpness of movement. Look how often Kane, Son, Salah, Mané, Aguero, mahrez, sterling etc etc do this. Get within 25 yards of goal, face up a defender, shift it and shoot! When was the last time you saw an Arsenal player do this, let alone score from this?

Sorry Rich I was being more rhetorical rather than questioning what you were saying if you know what I mean.

An exciting player. Made things happen. I’m hoping that he recovers well and fully from his knee operation. It’s a long term outage for him.

Bergkamp returns. Well sort of.

Arsenal have taken the son of club legend Dennis Bergkamp on trial, with midfielder Mitchel training with the U23 side at their training ground this week.

Hope he’s like his dad.

No way is Ederson as good with the ball at his teen as Neuer, socrates. I still remember an interview with a German reporter. He said if Neuer hadn’t been also brilliant at keeper stuff like shot stopping, dealing with crosses, commanding of the box as well as distribution, he would have had a fine player in the Bundesliga and probably won German caps as a midfield player.

I can't understand the negativity.

Leno is a very good keeper, not only compared to other current highly rated keepers (Kepa, De Gea and Pickford still fall in that bracket) but also compared to the likes of past Arsenal no.1s like Almunia.

I'm going to give Villa the same respect I gave to City and Liverpool and stress over them not losing a match. I need to be fair to all sides.

It was clear within a few minutes last night that Nketiah and Lacazette can't play together. They're too similar in where they want to play and what they want to do. One or the other but not both.

As soon as Eddie went off, our shape improved.

So not like his dad then. Shame.

I am reminded of this old quote:

A goalkeeper is a goalkeeper because he can't play football - Ruud Gullit

And mad Jens:

When I see Almunia's performances, I get angry and have to make a fist in my pocket - Jens Lehmann.

Couldn’t agree more Decaf. I strongly some might be waiting for Leno to make mistakes because they want to have a moan about him after making their preference for Martinez known previously.

Hi Soc,
I must admit I haven't watched enough of Leno under Arteta's pass it out from the back tactic and focused on it enough to take the view if the defence is more nervous. It is obviously quite a small sample size so far. However I am happy to take the opinion that he isn't as good as Martinez. But I am trying to see the bigger and longer term picture for Arsenal and even if we've weakened our gk position by selling Martinez I think it was necessary to improve the overall performance of the team. We're not in a position to have our cake and eat it. It is that sort of attitude that got us in to a mess by refusing to acknowledge that we sometimes will need to sell our best players like Sanchez rather than stubbornly refuse to do so and let them run down contracts.
Martinez was at the peak of his value and wasn't willing to sign a new contract without assurances that are rarely given to any player, let alone one with only 10 games under his belt.

Moving away from GK - lets get back to how impressive Partey was on his debut last night. I think Arteta said something along the lines of 'he held the midfield by himself when we had to push and take more risks'. Hard to disagree with that.

Always in the right place, lots of second balls seems to fall to him, made plenty of tackles and turnovers and probably the most important thing was his quick penetrative forward passing. Getting the ball in to the front players whilst the defence is still high and the opposition haven't had chance to settle in to two banks of 4 is key for a good attacking platform.

But it is not all about what the club wants. The contract is an agreement with a player who has every right to choose the terms and conditions that suits him. In English football that much was agreed decades ago. I never sympathise with clubs who feel robbed if a player leaves for free. It is business, not personal. If a player gets a bad injury as his contract expires you rarely see a club offer to extend the contract to protect him.

I think we manage to push a lot of transfers over the line when otherwise a team of our current standing might not be able to due to the salaries and terms we are willing to agree to with players. We've actually signed some top quality and well sought after players whilst being a regular non-champions league side. There will be more than just our history and the chance to bring back the glory days to players signing.

I'm sure I read recently that someone we signed was on a 4 year deal with an option of a 5th. Maybe it was Gabriel? Man U do it on virtually every player and it is a good way of protecting that value when players get in to their last year.

We still have contractual situations to sort out that go against the promise from the board that players with 2 years left on their deal would be sold or have a new contract - except for aging players nearing retirement.

There is still a lot of average players at Arsenal that we can't shift, Sokratis, Kolasinac, Chambers, Mustafi, Elneny, Özil......and if I was being very harsh I'd also add Holding, Cédric, Willock, Xhaka, Nketiah, Lacazette - not to mention the players we've pushed out on loan because we couldn't sell them.

It feels like a top 6 squad that will need a lot to go its way to make top 4, and by 'go its way' I'd include other clubs shooting themselves in the foot

Hi Rich. It’s very harsh calling Mustafi average with Holding average if you are being very harsh. I’m sorry, Mustafi is comfortably better than Holding, which up until reading your post I thought you knew.

Yes I agree with that. We are still third best in London; Liverpool and the Manchester clubs are stronger than us, and Everton, Leicester and Wolves are in our zone. I see us as a decent domestic Cup team, and if we 'only' get the FA Cup again this season, that wouldn't worry me. We can safely say the owner, manager and many fans want more than that. They may be disappointed.