So what did we learn from last night.

Amongst over things......

- we continue to have lots of possession but run out of ideas in the final third, other than the same old tactic of Tierney crossing the ball hopefully into a penalty area with perhaps just one Arsenal player in it. Do they not work on variations in attacking plays during training? We seem so one-dimensional.

- Martinelli and Balogun seem out of their depth at CF, which means we are stuck with either Lacazette or Aubameyang, neither of whom are pulling up any trees.

- I was shocked by how poor Ben White was in the air. I watched his compilation videos and was excited by his passing range and ability to come out from the back with the ball and thought he might be a revelation and allow us to be much more progressive. However, I am not sure you can spend £50m on a CB who is no good in the air, unless you intend to play a back 3.

That begs the question as to what our scouting system was actually trying to identify. It's early days but if last night's aerial display is replicated during the rest of the seasons (and lets face it this is a league where aerial duels are part and parcel of the game) then we may have a problem.

- Leno's decision-making and execution of passes with the ball at his feet remains unconvincing but frankly our defenders and midfield struggle to cope with the ball under pressure when it is played out to them anyway.

- Lokonga looks promising.

- People keep excusing Arteta because of the lack of quality in the squad, but the very best managers are able to coax the best out of even average players and find a way of playing that suits the players at their disposal, neither of which seems to be happening.

- it's a mess and barring 3 or 4 top quality signings it is hard to see where we go from here

- Emile Smith Rowe was brilliant at times, the best player on the pitch and head and shoulder above the rest of the team but he couldn't do it all on his own despite his best efforts to do so.

- Pépé was crowded out with two players on him whenever he got possession but that should have allowed us to switch the ball and exploit space elsewhere.

On your final. If 2 players are on him one other Arsenal player is free. Where is the free player?

To an extent Kroenke lets Arsenal spend it’s own money. The club has one of the biggest fan bases in world football, benefits commercially from selling merchandise to that fan base, it gets huge television and sponsorship revenues, and sells out a 60k stadium where the ticket prices are probably as high as anywhere. Arsenal should be one of the wealthiest clubs in the world comparing it to others using their own resources. Not the richest, agreed. But one of them.

But not only that, Stan is one the richest football club owners in the world. That’s why I find it frustrating when people say we can’t compete with financially doped clubs as though it’s unfair. We can. It’s just that we don’t because, unlike Abramovich and others, he refuses to use KSE’s own money to compete with them.

Exactly Gun, we failed to exploit the free man.

Managers drive the intensity. Remember Manure under Ferguson? They need a goal in the final 10 mins and their players would buzzing like wasps, flying g into tackles and busting a gut to get a goal. I can't imaginArteta giving the hair dryer treatment at half time.

Surely there's room for improvement ...

With the next two games being against Chelsea and Manchester City, I wouldn’t bet against us occupying the same position after three matches. Now I’ve said that, maybe we’ll win both to have six points from three games.

Interesting.

https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/transfer-news/richard-garlick-arsenal-transfer-strategy-21277733?fbclid=IwAR3o7rJjHUMo2umWXSQOmgabFT0apBJSF3pM6npYGutrtKAvsRQd5ZbkRw0

Our best hope will be another club losing games by even more goals than we do.

Woke up still thinking about that game. What a mess

Chambers, Mari and Xhaka all totally abysmal.
Balogun out of his depth,
Leno totally at fault for an absurd second goal. No command of his box, no strength or guts and this guy is refusing to sign a new contract.
White unable to win anything in the air (I bet you any money it’s a back 3 v chelsea)
Pépé just couldn’t beat his man and Martinelli running around like a headless chicken.


Our worst opening day performance since Mick Quinn scored a hat trick I reckon.

What a mess. All the senior players aren’t good enough and can’t be trusted leaving us too dependent on young lads.

This could be a very bad season. I’d be sorely tempted to bin off Ødegaard and try again for Maddison.

Dreading chelsea next week

Also slowly and reluctantly coming to the conclusion I was wrong about Leno also.

Seems to get done at his near post an awful lot. Still the least of our problems but it’s a problem.

Bernard - I've tapped into your webcam.

Here's the 'highlights' - if you can call it that.

Fair enough. I suppose the 'can't' is if we're actually sticking by the rules. What we need is a £300m injection of quality players, that would bust FFP for us. Other teams have got around it - so yes 'won't' is the more appropriate word.

That's probably true as well. Most of those strikers at other clubs have been bought in to a clear vision or at least played to their strengths and surrounded by players who play to their strengths. Most teams from 8th downwards play a very simple style of football. Numbers behind the ball, close down the ball quickly and in an organised way, go direct to the front men if and when required - who are able to hold the ball up and run the channels to help move the ball up the pitch, make the most of set pieces, put crosses in to players arriving in the box or players who will at least challenge for the ball and have players who often just want to shift the ball and shoot.
Ollie Watkins for example I doubt would have had much impact if he'd been our starting striker last night but how Villa set up really suits him.

Home game against Chelsea. Should be good for a point. Home crowd and we seemed to play well against them last year. Arteta will likely play 3 at the back and play them on the break. Not sure our crowd will love it and of course this team has conceded in every game this season including all friendlies.

That requires the ball to be moved quickly and players to have an intensity about their play with and without the ball. We have neither.

Apparently Lokonga and White did the interviews last night - few people criticising more senior players for not stepping up and instead leaving it to two new signings.

I thought Lokonga was actually one of the few bright spots. You could see he always wanted to go forward and had an appreciation of his surroundings when taking the ball of the defence, there were a couple of drops of the shoulder and letting the ball run past him to beat the press quite successfully.

We still seem to have problems in every position of the team bar left-back in my opinion.
GK: Leno won't sign a new deal, looks nervous with the ball at his feet, doesn't command his area or confidence and we're short of a senior No.2
RB: 4 options none of them remotely good enough
CB: White and Gabriel for a full season should be good enough to get us in the top 6 but I'm not necessarily convinced any of our CB can propel us any further
LB: Tierney continues to be very good - make him captain
CM: Excited to see Partey/Lokonga get a run together but Partey keeps breaking down. Then the only back up are the painfully slow and sideways Xhaka and Elneny - both shouldn't be in the squad
wide players: Willian still hanging around, Martinelli struggling to find his place in the team where he can be effective, Pépé is up and down, Saka has a lot on his shoulders and we're asking even more in terms of goals. Huge lack of creativity from wide areas
ACM: Smith Rowe carries the entire burden of creativity on his own currently
Strikers: Aubameyang is regressing and uninvolved in games, Lacazette has 12 months on his deal, Nketiah 12 months left and no one wants to sign him, Balogun needs a loan

If you want a top 4 squad you need 2 quality players in every position.
For my money that means we lack:
2 x GK, 2 x RB, 2 x CB, 2 x CM, 1 x ACM, 1 x winger and 2 x striker

Put simply, he isn't aggressive enough. We need a Lehmann.

We often find our inability to create much because we're too slow in our build up to the final 3rd so face 11 man defences (the stats show we process the ball forward slower than any team in the league)
So when opponents press us as Brentford did we need to see it as an opportunity to be able to move the ball forward quickly, bypass half their team and be able to attack with much more space. For me there are quite simply two ways to do this.
1) Short quick passing around the press. this is what we tried last night but our passing was poor and simply passed a worse problem on to the next man. Xhaka is really poor at this for a lot of reasons - immobile, plays with head down, wants too many touches and often doesn't open up the passing channels for players to find him even if he's in space
2) go more direct. people will say we don't have strikers who are good for this tactic. But Liverpool play some very direct football at times and I wouldn't describe Salah/Mané/Firminho has target men, what they are are very intelligent footballers with an appreciation of space, anticipation, excellent first touch and an ability to use their body to draw fouls or make it impossible for the defender to win it. Honestly, watch Liverpool and see how often Salah and Mané in particular retain possession against the odds from a punted clearance.

When was the last time we went in to a season feeling 'ready'? We're always short of players, short of fitness, underprepared, have injuries or don't have a settled team and style of play.

I think every season for the last 7-8 at least I'm less and less excited by it because I know we're always not ready.

It is annoying to see the 'weak and bullied' and 'men against boys' headlines, last night did feel like that but it insinuates that is something that always happens to Arsenal but the reality is we'd done a lot to shift that tag and it is lazy to go back to it thinking it is all too common.
But allowing that to happen last night drags it back in to focus again.

The game that came to mind yesterday for some reason was the 8-2 at United that triggered that pathetic trolley dash where we were scrambling to sign any player available. I don’t think you will see similar but I imagine you might see a couple more in addition to Ødegaard.

Actually if you think about it if that mad trolley dash never happened Arteta would never have been selected as our manager and Mertesacker managing the academy.

I just looked back to 16/17 season when we lost 4-3 at home to Liverpool on the opening day - we were 4-1 down at one stage and Liverpool tore us apart. Our 2 CB and 2 CM that day were.......Holding, Chambers, Coquelin and Elneny. So we're 5 seasons on and 3 of those are still at the club having never proved they are good enough.

Tierney and Martinelli combined for 1 pass all game. Something was massively wrong with the set up. We looked far better when Saka came in on the left

Also I find the absences of lacazette and aubameyang suspicious, actually just total made up bollocks. Don’t know what’s happening there. I do wonder if we might have seen the last of aubameyang

I think that game was Holding's debut. Given that we were missing our three first-choice central defenders that day - Koscielny, Mertesacker and Gabriel, all out injured - I guess it isn't that surprising we were torn apart.

I think they are both going away

Saka came on in the 60th minute. Saka and Tierney had 13 passes between them in the 30 mins he was on the pitch and 14 of Arsenals 22 goal attempts occurred after Saka came on

That can’t be right. We have a super duper Pep protege with oodles of technical nous and knowledge in how to set up a team.

At least that’s what we were told at the start.

According to a report Arteta said that they didn’t feel well and that he didn’t know when they’d be back.

As you say, total made up gonads.

Will Arteta keep his job if he finishes in any of these scenarios. Not that he should or not but what the board will do:

1. 7th and no Europe.
2. 7th or 8th and Europa Cup
3. 5th or 6th

Brentford benefitted massively from their crowd support.

I imagine that ours will be less effusive next week. Groans are more likely to be the order of the day once an initial surge has faded.

Hard to imagine any club picking up Aubameyang’s wages.

I did too, TG. Both players ill towards the end of the transfer window?. Seems very suspicious.

Someone on twitter jokingly mentioned a swap seal with Ødegaard and Aubameyang.

Having said that ltg is right, who is going to pick up Aubameyang's monster salary.

Plus having seen Balogun and Martinelli's attempts to play CF last night I'm not sure we afford to lose either, not unless a new expensive shiny CF is coming in.

Hi ltg,

Yes, once we are 3-0 down after 5 minutes with a Leno howler and two Ben White own goals the initial optimism will have faded ever so slightly.

Honestly I could see us doing a deal with someone like a US MLS team where we agree to pay 50% of Aubameyangs salary till his contract expires. Similarly Lacazette who is on a free from January anyway

If they did that it Would give us back 150k a week to invest in the salary of another striker for Aubameyang and 80 for Lacazette.

Not sure either would want the MLS quite yet in their careers.

Lets's face it Covid has really *%^@** up clubs looking to sell ageing players on big salaries.