Holding gives it away again, Kolasinac gets a yellow as a result and we concede a dangerous free kick.

Lacazette can count himself a bit lucky not to have been sent off there.

How many more times is Holding going to make a sloppy failed pass?

Love that fight from Sokratis

He shouted a lot!

Quality

Well done Mikel

Holy moly. That’s a bit savage.

All about Pépé. He’s so strong on the ball, always with the ball to feet and a half turn or spin, he hardly ever loses it.
He rolls his man and sets away Lacazette, back to Pépé scuffed to Nelson and scuffed in.
Tip: don’t get tight to Pépé

Martinelli impressed again. He always seems to make things happen.

Arteta set the standard he wants- they fell short. What is he going to do about it? Yep, harsh. But that’s what u get paid to do.

Or do you say. We give him 2 chances or 3. Every game they should come out to give 100%. The malaise at this club needs to end. I was hoping Arteta would be the person to correct it. The jury is out for me on this issue.

Here we have folks ..... a classic example of the disastrous effect fluoride can have on the brain cells .

You've come up with all this and you didn't even watch the match .

A team allowed to wallow aimlessly under Wenger , Emery and Ljungberg ; everyone and their dog rabbiting on about the need for new players .

Arteta has turned that around ..... installed fight , passion ... amazing .

Raising the skill level , tinkering with personel , playing style will take longer

We were poor in the first half but that in some ways is to be expected .

Leeds would have far more "fire in their belly" ..... underdogs , away from home ... there is no way around that .

Little teams often perform heroics in the FA Cup that is part of the magic of the competition .

Given time ; a few $$$$ to spend I think Mikel will be become one of our best ever managers .

True I did not see the match but I did look at a number of sites like the guardian where they were doing a live blog and read them thru. Plus comments on a number of sites. First half figures of passing and also this site where Xhaka hardly came up smelling of roses. Did he play well first half, did the team turn up, have they only turned up for half a game for about 9 months - in other words slipping back to old ways. Yep they picked it up but we were at home and couldn't bother for half a game. The question remains will Arteta cop this and for how long. He did say he would not tolerate it -let us see if he is true to his word. Remember Emery tried and failed with Özil. Maybe he will turn it around. But simply they quickly slipped back to their old habits. Lets see the level of effort in the next game and then the next and next.

We give him 2 chances or 3. Every game they should come out to give 100%. The malaise at this club needs to end. I was hoping Arteta would be the person to correct it. The jury is out for me on this issue.

Gaz, I think you make a lot of good points but in my view it was wrong to single out Xhaka for the first half, if that was what you were trying to do. Every outfield player underperformed and Xhaka was no worse than others, and even better than some.

At least he went on a very impressive run in the first half even though he badly messed up the final delivery. He was no more to blame than others for the first half, and was one of the reasons the second half was so much better.

I can’t speak for kiwipete, but your initial post made me understand his reaction to it. I think criticism is made more meaningful when it’s deserved and to be honest I don’t think criticism of Xhaka for last night is warranted. Xhaka isn’t great and there will probably be opportunities to justifiably moan about him in the future. My advice is to single him out on those occasions.