Hmmm - Might check how that Vlahović deal is coming along...

I know it isn't gonna happen though ......

Needs to be a lot of added time for all the time wasting seeing as he’s booked no one.

Arsenal ------ Burnley
20 Shots 7
5 Shots on target 1
75% Possession 25%
598 Passes 203
87% Pass accuracy 65%
9 Fouls 10
0 Yellow cards 2
0 Red cards 0
0 Offsides 2
11 Corners 4

Wow, how have Liverpool been given that penalty. Utterly awful decision. Incompetent refs up and down the country every game

No yellow card for that ????????

4 minutes to nab 3 points

What is it with refs ignoring time wasting - only 4 minutes of added time.

Not good enough really, even considering the circumstances. The point that we don't win when we don't play well still stands. Our top 4 challenge isn't dead, but this makes it more difficult than it needs to be.

Dreadful performance.

Really big 2 points dropped. Desperate for new players in to this team. Was sad watching Villa v Everton yesterday and realising there were 3 strikers on the pitch better than what we have.

We did it to ourselves. Started too slowly with too many sideways and backwards passes. Why can't we just seize the initiative as we did against City? We could have scare them from the onset. Instead, we allowed them to tactically paralyse us. Arteta's passive tactics again lost us easy points.

Not really. It just didn’t work today

Lacazette is useless for us. Nketiah no better. What are we waiting for? Get the striker in now.

4 games in a row without a goal, never mind a new striker in january I think we could do with 2 new strikers! Missed Xhaka and Partey today, yes they don't score but they give the passing foundation and allow Ødegaard further up the pitch. So flat, players look tired as the same ones have been flogged every game. 2 games in 3 days was crying out for a bit of rotation to freshen things up but we just don't have the numbers or the quality.

Our season hinges on what transfer moves we make in the next 7 days. New Striker or bust

I wouldn't put money on us getting 4th. If Vlahovic doesn't want to come drop it and get someone else. Partey's ridiculous red card came home to roost.

I cant believe Arteta's last words to the team before they go out are to make sure we play plenty of slow sideways and backwards passes, don't worry about pace or penetration and just float some hopeful crosses at their giant CB pair. Sometimes the players just don't play well enough and firing up the sort of energy they did for City at home after playing 3 days ago and a number of this team having come back from niggles and knocks isn't easy.
I'm not defending the fact we couldn't beat Burnley, we should always beat Burnley no matter the circumstances but today I don't think it is tactical, it was poor performances and a complete lack of options to bring in to change things up

Wot a div

To be honest, I wouldn't put money on any team getting 4th this season... All the teams fighting for it are flawed in different ways.

It seems like we only get up for tough games. Had we played the first 15 minutes with same sense of urgency of the last 15 minutes we might have gotten something out of it.

Burnley sat back and we were lackadaisical for most of the first half. We had the same game from Burnley last year and lost. I like Tierney a lot but if the same type of crosses aren't working, you gotta improvise and change things up my friend. We kept doing the definition of insanity in some cases: doing the same thing and expecting a different result.

Burnley have tall powerful players in the middle. Even Gabriel looks average among them. We weren't going to head many in with them. When we pulled balls back or were in the middle at the top of their box we could have gotten them in trouble with short Lundbergh-esque 2 and 3 meter runs there.

Very, very disappointing considering everything. Burnley are the bottom of the league, we have them at home, it should be a 3 point banker.

We gotta shake this squad up Nketiah caused problems. Maybe he needs a run out? Not sure what use Lokonga was out there.

I think Partey would not have made a difference today. He would be too fatigued. He should not have had to play against Pool. Should have been given time to rest for this game.

If we hadn’t loaned out AMN early in the window we wouldn’t have had to play Partey v Liverpool and he’s at least be an option for today.

Ok, I over reacted because I am so disappointed. Easy 3 points on paper, but we dropped 2. I still think we could have played with urgency from the onset, or at the very least, from start of 2nd half.

Lokonga was our only CM, he had to play, just because you play a weaker team at home doesn’t mean you just play 4 attacking mids and 2 strikers.

Also when Liverpool played Burnley earlier in the season Jota scored a header dead centre of the penalty area between their two CB, height is one thing but delivery, speed and movement are far far more important

How many of our attacks came through the centre?
Are we over reliant on the wing play?
Does that make it easier to set up defensively against us?
Our tactics too easy to read?

Was saying the same to my son. Why do we always go wide. Why not a sidestep or swerve and shoot?

https://www.football365.com/news/early- ... aubameyang

Key points:
Burnley should have had a man sent off
Arsenal shouldn’t need a man sent off to win at home to Burnley
Arsenal desperate for a striker!

You can say that again. Pay Vlahovic’s agent another couple of million if he joins.

Any striker right now will do. Broja on loan at Southampton from Chelsea is better than what we have. There are probably 20 strikers in the Prem alone I’d rather have

https://twitter.com/wowcancelo/status/1 ... 74178?s=21

Another weekend and another interfering var ref. Seems to happen quite often where the onfield ref calls it as he sees it and then var gets involved and wants to try to find something in any incident. As soon as var tells the onfield ref to view the monitor the initial decision is going to get over turned every time.

At least Spurs were convincingly beaten by Chelsea 2-0. Keeps spurs behind us on goal difference but with a game in hand.

Wolves up next after the winter break and they’d go above us if they beat us! Could they drag themselves in to the top 4 race?

That's a good point. What is disappointing is that both Spuds and Man U have been so poor that they sacked their managers yet we are still probably an outside bet for 4th.

Totally crazy to play him midweek. You could have given him 2 days off and come into this game fresh and it could have been the difference between winning or drawing trust me.

You just don’t have the players to compete so eventually you are simply pretending you can.

I’d take Shane long on loan right now. Honestly Lacazette misses a chance every week that your most bog average striker puts away. It’s simply crazy, he slashes wildly at everything. Ffs Lacazette take a breath

Artetas comments on transfers kind of indicate to me the club are afraid of creating a long term problem with a short term fix like we’ve done in the past.

All in all 4th is still on but the summer and next season are the big moment for the manager and the current regime. After that the honeymoon period will be over. Next seasons squad has to be built to compete

I think our inability to win when playing poorly is going to cost us 4th.
If I was to put all our league games in categories this season you could have:

Lost and played poorly: Brentford, Chelsea, City(a), Everton, Liverpool
Lost and played average: Man U
Lost and played well: City(h)

Drew and played poorly: Palace, Brighton, Burnley (h)

Won and played well: Spurs, Villa, Leicester, Southampton, West Ham, Leeds, Norwich (a)
Won and played average: Burnley (a), Norwich (h), Watford (h), Newcastle (h)
Win and played poorly:

I think that is 13 out of 21 games where we've been average or poor and we've only won 4 of them.

Read that Tammy Abraham has 12 goals in his last 12 games for Roma. We went for him and I think for sure he'd have joined us over Roma but we couldn't get Aubameyang/Lacazette/Nketiah off the books. That has cost us this year. Even if it wasn't Abraham, another forward was surely on the wish list but only if we move those guys on.

I also think we missed a trick by not moving for Patson Daka in the summer. £20m, very young, has a good set of attributes for a CF. He's better than anything we currently have.

Vlahovic isn't coming is he. Why would he, apart from a big pay day. He'll have better options in the summer.

If he's watched the last 3 games he definitely isn't coming.

I admire our pluck in trying to sign him but lets move on to a more realistic target because let's face it we aint finishing top four without a topclass CF coming in.

And he doesn’t really want to play for us anyway does he? Simply ‘doing us a favour’ by picking up his paycheque.

Yep, and I don’t think you even need a top class one either

Highly unlikely he’s coming this type of transfer in January is very difficult

Alexandre Lacksathreat more like. That miss was appalling.

Playing Partey was a high stakes gamble. Definately a risky long shot but there was a chance of a Wembley final and a significant boost for the rest of the season if we prevailed. Clearly the decision bit Arteta on the arse today as we were desperate for a midfielder who could progess the ball rather than go back and sideways. Then again Partey may of only been setting up Lacazette or Nketiah to miss. Talking of hindsight, the decision to keep hold of Nketiah seems really daft.