They've been outplayed for large parts of the game, at home. Dreadful display, but it's pretty much what you can expect with an unbalanced, poorly built squad and lack of identity, relying only on a couple of top class attacking players to bail you out game after game.

Wolves thoroughly deserve to be winning. Man U awful, it’s the same as when Ole was in charge, no pattern of play, can’t keep possession and totally reliant on individual moments

So Ronaldo is allowed to run over and berate the linesmen without a yellow card….?
I haven’t looked at all the matches this weekend but it would be interesting to see how many yellows for dissent were given. Are we to believe that Gabriel and Saka were the only two players to cross the threshold to get a yellow?

Mid-November Rog.

Wolves win. This shows why it's so much better to have points on the board than games in hand where you could hypothetically climb up the table. You have to win those games in hand to do it, and that's not easy, especially when you know you have to win to not lose ground in the table.

Ahh Ok.

Hope everyone's ok out his way.

There's a reason Ramgnick has never managed a top team.

Yet we lost against them.

It all makes our loss to Man Utd harder to take.

35 points with 18 to play.
Top 4 is usually secured with 67-70 points. 11 more wins for us from our 18 games.
With the way we’re playing right now it’s easy to find those 11 wins. Keeping everyone fit is going to be so key for us.

It wasn't a good performance from us, but we seem to have turned a corner since. Obviously too soon to write of Rangnick after just a month in charge, but he has his work cut out for him to make that team look like credible top 4 challengers this season. They seem to be trending in the wrong direction from what I've seen, despite getting a few good results.

Because of a misplaced tackle in the box. We gave a good showing otherwise. No point going overboard every time we slip up.

Tenuous links with the likes of Tariq Lamptey, Bruno Guimaraes and Isak.

I am sure they have been scouted but they would be wildly expensive, especially in Jan.

Can't see any of them myself. Would love Lamptey and Guimaraes, though. Haven't really seen enough of Isak to have an opinion one way or the other.

How much would Lamptey cost, socrates? Because withTomiyasu establishing himself as the first choice right back, how much should we pay for a reserve to play in the earlier rounds of domestic cups and when Tomiyasu is injured? Wouldn’t it be wiser to keep Maitland-Niles? I’d have thought we’d be better of spending the money on other positions. Like a forward.

Only seen him for Sweden, and he's definitely our most exciting player now with Ibrahimovic inching closer to retirement.

When I said I'd pass on him I was thinking in terms of style, and if he has the right qualities for our system. Could also see him struggling with the physicality of the PL. However, if Arteta and Edu decides to sign him I wouldn't complain of course, he has bags of talent and is only 22.

Said nothing that made me think things weren’t fine.

As things stand I fancy us to finish fourth. But we’ll know more once the January window closes and we’re aware of how the squad looks for the rest of the season. In the meantime the away game at Tottenham appears huge.

Getting 4th is in our hands now. Come on Arsenal!

Well the obvious retort to that statement is ........" Why on earth do you bother to mention it ........ ? "

My God every six months be it on BBC 1 BBC2 ITV or whatever .... you feel it your burning obligation to alert the world .

To help you out of this trough of 1960s mediocrity

..... try watching " Enemy of the State " Will Smith , Jon Voight , Gene Hackman '...something with a bit of action , good acting and a decent plot

We have obviously had to (thankfully) re-adjust our goals after that disastrous start. Top 4 is now well in contention.

New question. If we don't get top 4 but finish...say...umm....5th and miss it by a couple points, will it have been a successful season? What is the new criteria for Arteta?

Based on our current form, level of play, I think a cup win is well within our capabilities. I now feel a bit more optimistic of getting into a final. For me, Liverpool seems harder to beat than City for some reason. I'll know more after the cup tie or maybe our league game against them where both clubs will play their best XI.

I could see us possibly offering Pépé and money for someone. We might offer one of our other players (Guendouzi, Torreira, etc) but not sure if loan deals will stimy any such player swap plus cash deals?

What positions do we need the most? We are fairly solid across the board but if someone gets hurt up front, we may be in trouble. Also, remains to be seen how well we play without Partey? Is Saleh heading to the ANC?

Yes movie taste is subjective. Not my cup of tea, but generally most American movies are poor IMO.

Not quite yet. Even if we beat Spurs they could still be a point ahead of us if they win their two games in hand

Oh yes, you are right

I’ve read the opinions of Danny Murphy and Jamie O’Hara (both ex spurs obviously) saying Arsenal will fall short for top 4 and they both cite the same reason, away form, specifically pointing out the defeats to Liverpool, city and Man U. I suppose it would be prudent to point out to these two donuts that spurs have yet to play all 3 of those teams away from home! And if you want to be really specific Arsenal are picking up 1.3 points away from home and Spurs are picking up 1.375 points per game away from home - despite Arsenal having a far harder fixture list and two of our defeats coming in the covid ravaged moment before the transfer window closed.

Look, I realise your main loyalty will be to your son, but I was so pleased to see it put on (I very much doubt it’s every six months as the BBC don’t show films as much as many channels), I think mentioning it was natural. I’d say I did well not mentioning it until after it had finished. Countless stuff is mentioned here that has nothing to do with football let alone Arsenal so why don’t you question that? I suppose loyalty to your son.

I’m puzzled how anyone can think the acting in The Ipcress File isn’t exceptional and the plot very clever. But as Gaz from Oz says, views on films are subjective so it’s not for me to criticise your own taste, or Grantyboy’s for that matter which, if I ever did, I regret. But your and his tastes in films are clearly very different to mine.

But I will go back to what I said. He was obviously looking for a reaction from me, and he got one.

Part of me is excited about the Liverpool game based on our performance in the first half against City and the sober minded side of me wants to manage expectations. We all know Liverpool can take a team apart in minutes and render a game done and dusted in a short period of time.

If we lose, I want us to make a good account of ourselves like the City game. I also won't be surprised if we win. Both sides won't have their best XI so this will make it a different test for us. Both managers have to decide how committed they want to be to this game. Meaning, how many first teamers they will start and have on the bench.

We beat Liverpool, the scum beats the blue scum and its a NLD final. I'd be soooooo nervous but it would be a sweet season to win that cup over Tottenham or Chelsea. Similar to our FA cup run first year under Arteta.

Arteta wins a domestic cup and he's gold. He buys a lot of time for himself. I want to win the league cup because I've never seen us win it as a fan. We should have.

I tried to watch Neves quite closely yesterday in the Man U game. He is an interesting player, technically sound, prepositionally sound and his array of passing (particularly long passing) is very good. Of the central midfielders who play the deepest role he is clearly far more of a dictator of play rather than a pure destroyer, I can't think of many players in the world who can do both roles to an exceptionally high level. Central midfield is definitely an area that we should be looking to strengthen either in January or the summer.

Newcastle want Tripper and have had a £35m bid rejected for Botman from Lille, there are also rumours of them wanting Aubameyang. Firstly it will be very interesting what they do and who they get in January but also how the league will react to another case of blatant breaking of financial fair play rules - does anyone even care anymore? If Newcastle want Aubameyang on loan with an obligation to buy for £20m in the summer I would snap their hand off. We'd save £9m in wages alone for his 6 month loan

Hi Bernardo,

I agree. The race for 4th is tight and I feel our system is overly reliant on Lacazette because he's the only one with the physical prowess to play the role he does, which is pivotal to the way we now play. He's not the long term answer but in the short term he is an essential cog in the wheel and to rely on him to play almost every game from now until the end of the season is very risky. We've seen that neither Martinelli or Nketiah up top alone really works and Balogun seems to be off on loan so we are short in the recognised CF role.

I'd love to see another CM like Guimaraes come in and I'd love Lamptey but I really don't see much at all in Jan unless some incredible opportunity arises.....which is not impossible given that many clubs are skint post covid.

Hi Rich,

Aubameyang might be a risk worth taking for them in terms of staying up, he might just be the difference. Would he go there though?

And, there is a difference between extrapolating past results, and analysing 'form'. Our poor record away in the early part of the season is not really an indicator of 'form', considering we are a young, evolving team. Our performance in the last couple of away games seems to me far for relevant. We seem to have figured out how to play away from home, especially against the teams in the bottom half. Given our run-in, that is a good omen.

I'm excited by the Liverpool game, this team seems well up for it and appears to be no respecter of reputations. I am as confident as I have been for years.

That said, its a young side and we will have hiccups along the way, like Everton, and I've never really liked us in 2 leg affairs.....goes back to the Barca and Bayern thumpings I think.

Will someone go round to Soc's home to make sure he's okay? This doesn't sound like him.

Soc, you are scaring me with your confidence. I am fairly confident and that's against forum rules.

Seriously, its hard not to like this current squad in their present incarnation. I am just worried we'll end up having our hearts broken.

For the time being, I'm confident trying to match or beat Tottenham result for result each week. I think over the course of the remainder we'll be a bit better. Man Utd is who I would be worried about.

You're right on Lacazette, it all just works well with him right now. I don't necessarily think you 'have' to have physical prowess to play the false 9 role in our system (it helps) but if your movement, awareness, intelligence and first touch are all exemplary then you don't have to engage with the CB in a physical battle. I never think of Firminho as a physical striker but he has a great first touch and control.
Of the striker names floating around I'm not sure who best suits us, as a hold up striker its maybe more Vlahovic or Schtick rather than Isak or Jonathan David.

Italian press are claiming we have made a bid of £46m plus Torreira for Vlahovic from Fiorentina. Everything I've read so far has suggested Vlahovic isn't interested in moving to us, I suspect he has plenty of other interest

If one of the real giants of the football world are after him I could understand his rumoured hesitation, but you have to think Arsenal would be a very interesting destination for most young strikers. Team on the up, young average age where he'd link up with Saka, Martinelli, Ødegaard and Smith-Rowe. Plus, our lack of striker options means any new signing coming here will be given a proper chance to prove himself, which isn't always the case with clubs like Real Madrid.

Don’t worry first slip up we make and folks will be asking again for Graham Potter to steady the ship and saying we have no recognised style of play trust me.