Good to see Arsenal outdo Man Utd and Chelsea for a change. Easily the most boring match of the week. Truly awful and simply nothing apart from hoping for a miracle from our quarterback Luiz.

Pro tip for the team - If you don't shoot or move the ball towards the opposition goal posts, you won't score.

Dundalk has to be an opportunity to see some of the younger and fringe players.

Runnarsson to start in goal, he needs to get some games in the system in case he is called upon later in the season.
Remarkably with all our defenders it seems Gabriel and Mustafi are the only ones fit so they'll need to play.
AMN, Willock, Nketiah, Smith-Rowe, Nelson all need game time. Will Arteta throw them all in?

Did we make it to the last 3rd. I just watched 90 minutes of defenders kicking it around in midfield.

The part you missed doesn't feature either Partey or a midfield so I wouldn't bother. :)

A bargain at £14.95. My first ever Box Office purchase.

Actually thankful that I wasn’t at the game with a long late depressed journey back from London. Done enough of those.

It really did feel like that didn’t it.

Bellerin and Tierney earned their money yesterday and had to work very hard. Tierney had a face like thunder when he was pulled off, few minutes later they score down his flank. Our defenders must spend more time on the ball than any other players in the side, our most creative outlet in the first half was David Luiz as he flung pinpoint passes to each flank. They must be royally pissed off with the rest of the players.

I was surprised to hear Arteta moaning about us making misplaced passes when there was zero movement and runners from midfield at all in that game.

I still think the biggest mistake was Ceballos being kept on the wings. I'm sure it wasn't his choice but could be wrong it certainly looked to me like he was under orders.

We have too many defensive midfielders and not enough creative ones though many could be tried in that position.

I thought Tierney was subbed off immediately AFTER Vardy scored. Nketiah came on as the reaction to going a goal down.

Still feels like we need a CB, a creative mid, a creative wide man and a striker. Perhaps someone in the squad can push on and fill those roles

Bizarrely Toerney didn't touch the ball in his own half during the second half yesterday. Xhaka was basically playing left-back and Tierney left-wing. Releasing the left full back had its merits last year but I can't help but feel putting square pegs in square holes is the way forward.

Play a 4-3-3, allow full backs to overlap and provide natural width but to be a full back primarily. Pick natural wide players who will also track back and double up with their full-back, Aubameyang up top and pick a midfield 3 with balance between defence and attack. From that point you can nuance and tweak the tactics. For example the midfield 3 can stay compact and width is just the full backs and wide forwards, or the midfield 3 can cover the full backs to allow the wide players to stay higher. But start with the basics and change from there. I don't think we're competent enough with the basics yet to have so many tactical tweaks from game to game.

Man U haven't won their last 5 home games in the league. You just know what is happening this weekend....

News today is Mustafi has rejected Arsenal's offer of a contract extension. I think he's a free agent at the end of the season and he obviously fancies a move.

We did buy 2 CBs (months apart but still) and a defensive center mid. With Saliba not being deemed PL ready, we may need another veteran stop gap till he is. Why Mustafi and a couple others are still in an Arsenal kit is beyond me. They should have been sold and that money used for others to come in.

Still, its the first 'bad' result, meaning unexpected. The Foxes haven't won on our grounds since Pele was likely still playing. It's 6 games in. Let's not sound the alarm just yet. The road was always going to be rocky. This is Arteta's first managerial job so he's not only reforming the squad, he's taken on manager's responsibilities for the first time.

We're really going to have to accept a few more of these unexpected results. In the larger picture, we are in the right direction.

Wish Mustafi would accept Arsenal’s offer of a contract extension. The reaction of our friend from across the Atlantic would be truly hilarious.

As far away as possible from Vardy, one assumes?

Sorry to say we aren't. If we set the frame of our larger picture say a decade or five years back, then is anybody sure we are better placed than then? We have had three managers in a short time, and I am quite worried about Arteta. His public handling of the Özil situation shows his inexperience. The style of play is unexciting, and he is a lucky that due to Covid he doesn't have to hear 50-odd thousand moans on match days as did Arsene and Dick. True we are only six games into the Premiership season, but on what we have seen is anybody really confident we will finish in the European places? The cups may be our best bet.

Until I watched MOTD2 last night I hadn’t realised we’ve slipped to 10th place. Moreover if Tottenham and Manchester United win their games in hand we drop to 12th.

Spurs game against Burnley today. Somehow it would be no surprise if Son and Co play them off the pitch. We dropped to 10th when Leicester scored. A Spurs lucrative win today could see a drop down to even 13th.

Hey omoh, I hear ya. We had 3 managers in a relatively short time by Arsenal standards with Graham, Rioch and Wenger and things worked out fairly well.

I'll even throw you a bone and add Guendouzi along with bad handling. All that said, we are a better team than a season ago, even 6 months ago. We've beaten the elites of the league (City and LFC) in the last 3 or 4 months, made some much needed signings.

It may be a matter of perspective and I really do see your point. Özil will be resolved one way or another by next summer. And we really don't know the whole story.

As for Europe, I think we will get better. A few new faces, everyone has to get comfortable with the system where its second nature and he doesn't have to yell instructions continually from the manager's area. Time will tell if you're right. Let's revisit after the holidays in the new year and see where we are. Man Utd, Chelsea and Tottetnham aren't exactly setting the world ablaze. We may back into Europe...lol.

Lastly, if City is any thing to go by, we'll look better once all the pieces fall into place. Right now, we have to stop the leaking of goals and that's going to look boring. We may have to go back to a one nil to the Arsenal till then.

Actually looking forward to the away match against Leeds on 22 Nov. As so far they're a running, well oiled machine. They're in 5th place so far. They could stay up.

Sure. OGS will grab a stunner.

Not that he was anywhere near him on yesterday ... That was awful.

I’ll be very surprised if Leeds go down. I’ll be equally surprised if Fulham stay up. I can see WBA going. I think Sheffield United have enough to survive. I’m less confident for Burnley and Brighton to be honest. As things stand, my guess would be Fulham and West Brom, with Burnley and Brighton fighting it out to avoid being the others joining them.

Aston Villa are looking much improved so my money would be on them being okay. It was vital for them to keep Grealish, which they did. Can’t see Southampton having too many problems.

Hi Goonie,
Whatever so-called experiments MA is doing in training appear not to transition succinctly to match days sufficiently. MA's tactics, shuffling player positions and rotation, is done in training one would assume. Thus, given the opponent on match days, MA would/should be ready and well aware of what he's dealing with.

Nothing to do with bad luck. We can moan about Mustafi’s positioning for Vardy’s goal all we like but for me, Lacazette not getting to Tierney’s cross was rank cowardice because a defender somewhere close to him raised his foot. And I see that as even worse.

Without wishing to sound politically incorrect in my use of language, I’d have expected a cripple in a wheelchair to make more effort to get his head to Tierney’s cross than Lacazette did.

Trump using the FBi to take over AG's computer "This has got to be fake news".

At least theres a little bit of good news then

Apparently Mustafi wants a move to Italy. Something to do with being near his Albanian-Swiss wife's family in Switzerland.

Hi Bernard,
That's all a possibility for those clubs going down. AV are lucky Grealish signed on for another 5 years, as he had a few offers recently. He has improved them.

I’m just glad the club offered Mustafi a new contract. At least they tried to keep him, as he doesn’t deserve half the criticism he’s had from some people. Especially one person in particular.

I have good news and bad news.
What's the good news? Mustafi won't sign a contract extension.
Okay, what's the bad news? No one wants him.

Arteta seems happy with him. MA's a bit short of defenders now. Saw that Mustafi's had an offer from Lazio. He's ok, but not stellar.

Hopefully a poster will see that Lazio want him, as it will save him from imagining nobody will want him.

See Tottenham are 0-1 up. If they hold on it’s us down to 11th.

We are down to 11th. Spurs one point off top 4 now.

C'mon Zed, grow a pair, all of you panicking....joking dude...its 6 games in. We aren't going tot stay 11th. We had a fairly rough first 6 matches. We are much better than we were under Emery. Had Emery stayed the manager, likely no FA Cup, we'd be lucky to get a point or two from the games so far.

We will move up, Villa will move down. Sperz will hover near their present place. City are 13th. Man Utd are 15th. Does anyone think either of those sides will stay there.

Don't worry son. I 'guarantee' we'll move up.

I suppose my thought process was that the one you’re talking of wasn’t really a chance. I’m not even sure if he would have seen what he did as an attempt on goal. Could it have been a flick on into the goal area, the sort of thing Bould did many times?

But the chance from Tierney’s cross was close to a sitter that he should have easily got his head to in order to guide it in. Sorry, I found his feeble effort with that one so disappointing.

American, perhaps you should have seen it as a factual observation rather than a prediction of where we’ll finish. At this moment in time, we are 11th.

I thought that was a very pertinent question that Soc asked the other day and one I was asking myself during our match v Leicester.
Leicester are trusting their young centre half Fofana who they signed from St Etienne.
Why are we not trusting our own in Saliba.
I know his problems and injuries are well documented but this boy was doing very well in the top league in France last season
Why dont we show some faith in him.
Rather see him in the team than Mustafi to be honest and are you telling me we cant even trust the boy to start in the europa league and cup games. I sincerely hope his career with us is not over before its started and that Artera does believe in him and that something detrimental is not going on behind the scenes.

I think there are important differences between Saliba and Fofana. There is the off field issue of Saliba's mother recently passing away (I think I read), but also playing for Leicester is different to playing for Arsenal. One is clearly under more scrutiny for any mistake made, also Leicester play a much deeper defence which is much easier for a defender to come in and 'just' defend. Arsenal play a higher line, expecting their defenders to go 1 v 1 against attackers and be the starting point of attacks.
I agree it would have been nice to see Saliba and I think it is a missed opportunity to not have him in the Europa squad especially with the extra subs we can name and bring on and the easier games we face in the group stage. Saliba could have started 4 of these games pretty comfortably