very unhappy watching this tackle live but now that I've watched that clip a few times, I don't think Rodri was out of control. He races up with both feet planted together to block the shot and is still upright until he slips. The Martinelli momentum is circumstantial from taking the shot and having both feet off the ground rather than being from Rodri taking his legs out.

Apparently Nketiah has tested positive for Covid. Be interesting to see if he’s the only one. Otherwise it could put Thursday’s semi-final against Liverpool in doubt.

But the point is he does take him out. If Rodri isn’t there at all Martinelli doesn’t fall flat on his back after taking the shot.
Strange way to block a shot by rushing in and planting both feet, I can’t see that being a natural thing to do.

https://twitter.com/189nlne/status/1477 ... 37664?s=21
On a more positive note this clip shows the complete dominance we had over City in the build up to the first goal. I’ve only seen peak Liverpool do this to Man City in the past 3 years or so

3 cup games before our game v Spurs.
I’d go with a strong team v Liverpool at home, rotate against Forest and then see who might be available for the away Liverpool game.

Pointless dwelling on the Attwell nonsense. Yesterday showed a team on the up. Lots of good things to take from it. A couple of shrewd signings and I think we’re in a good place. This team is loveable.

I thought it was a good performance overall. The disappointment for me was the poor decision making when under pressure. Xhaka was purely lazy with that decision or just straight panic. The same with the send off. What was he thinking well out from the goal. Under pressure he panicked. Never give the ref a decision like that to make.

With Xhaka it is clear he will always be what he is. Maybe we can forgive the send off but I worry if I see it repeated.

And the big unknown from the game is did we perform better because Arteta wasn’t at the game issuing instructions every 5 minutes?

I don’t buy this nonsense. The reason we played so well is that we’re a team on the up.

Hi Darren,

Totally agree. A few weeks ago I still had big doubts about Arteta because there were not enough reasons to be encouraged by his management, now I believe there are some good reasons for optimism.

The fact that our upturn in form seemed to coincide with Aubameyang being dropped is something which may or may not be down to a stroke of luck. Would it have happened anyway based on the evidence of what Arteta was seeing on and off the pitch or did Aubameyang's ill-discipline enable Arteta to get lucky in that it allowed Lacazette and Martinelli to come in and give us a better overall team shape and balance. Sometimes you just need that bit of luck.

I think you are right about the two players. Clearly we are not City who can get by without a recognised CF so that's one hole that definitely needs plugging and I'd like to see an upgrade on Xhaka. I doubt either will happen in Jan, though. There are possibilities out there but we need to be quick, clever and persuasive in this market.

I think you've summed up Xhaka pretty well, its a combination of things that make him a liability, and not all are in his control. Unfortunately, years of shirt-pulls and silly mistimed tackles have made him a target for referees.

One thing that seems quite clear to me is that when Lacazette tires we are less of an attacking threat. Yesterday when he went off we pushed Martinelli up top but he doesn't yet have that upper body strength to allow him to hold the ball up and bring others into play in the way Lacazette does. It's an issue because Lacazette is by no means the complete answer, he offers little goal threat for a start, but we have no one else who can play that role. We desperately need another CF, even if its a loan for the remainder of the season.

Just watched it on MOTD. You’re dead right. It was as though the referee was an extra defender. He certainly didn’t help us out there. It’s like every bit of luck went against us.

We've been winning handsomely with Areteta there so this seems an unlikely hypothesis.

And Stuivenberg was at the pitch side and doing exactly what Arteta does so no difference really.

Morning all,

Anyone still stewing over yesterday ? Yep thought so me too.

What a plonker.

Next.Level.

Do you even watch our games.

The truth is most who watch us week in week out know yesterday wasn’t some anomaly that we put in a good performance.

We’ve been playing very well for weeks and weeks and even in the defeats at Anfield and Old Trafford there were moments of very impressive play that occurred despite the losses. The analysis that we played well is far from a surprise for many of our fans. What yesterdays game may halt is this nonsense from people suggesting every time we win we got lucky or something.

This team is on the rise. A couple more experienced players including a striker and we could achieve real success

Those are often not given and the inconsistency is awful, but in my view they should be. Surely the fact that Silva went down so easily doesn't matter: Xhaka grabbing his shirt gives him a licence to do that.

I think 'going down easily' and theatrically like that (and as Ødegaard did, and as Lacazette does) is very different to diving when there is no contact. Diving is cheating and should be yellow carded. Going down when you are fouled is unfortunately part of the game. And I don't blame the players: if you don't go down when you are fouled, how many time will the penalty be given?

In any case, I'm sure we can all agree that it was stupid from Xhaka and Gabriel. Very disappointing and frustrating but that certainly better that the blank despair that usually follows our encounters with City or Liverpool.

I’ve just watched Tottenham on MOTD.

I was struck by the commentator’s repeated pronunciation of Hojbjerg.
It sounded like Hoy bee ere.

Which is quite different to how I thought it was.
Does that mean that Freddie would be Lung bee ere then?

Perhaps Hazuki can help out here.

Danish pronounciation is a lost cause so I can't help out much with Hojbjerg, but with Ljungberg I would say Jung berg is more correct since the L is supposed to be silent. I would also rather see a 44-year old Ljungberg in this current Arsenal team if the choice was between him and the Dane.

And yet another view on the continued erratic application of VAR.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... 4UWrn-mRkw

Can’t disagree with any of that.

Thanks for that.

I think VAR is one thing but I can’t understand how a booking for one of our players doesn’t constitute a booking for another side I see this week on week out. (I know I’m in rich territory here )

I saw a statistic that says since Arteta was appointed we’ve had twice as many red cards as other teams. For a side like ours ? Can you explain that. You aren’t convincing me we are a dirty side (just look at city! Blatant cheats)

Five yellow cards and a red for just 11 fouls yesterday for Arsenal. Seems we are treated harshly.

The club should pay for imperial college London to do independent research paper on this or something

I just look at the 2 yellows Gabriel got yesterday and think back to the Watford game where Danny rose was literally allowed to kick saka as many times a he wanted with total impunity. Just crazy and that’s not an exception, every week Bukayo has to deal with players literally trying to kick him up in the air.

It is so much better than the usual drubbing where it's game over after 30 minutes and we're outclassed in every department. I'm left with 95% positive feelings which is a little weird after losing a game in the 93rd minute, but it's because we're seeing such tangible improvement in the way we play. If we keep these kind of performances up, we'll win a lot more games than we'll lose.

Arsenal have committed the fewest fouls per game in the league this season. Under 9 fouls per match on average.

And Jordan Ayew setting the league record of 7 fouls without a yellow card against us.

I can understand our high ratio when you factor in the obvious yellow cynical style pull backs that Xhaka does, and the dissent cards - you’re not going to get a correlation between number of fouls and number of yellows if you are consistently doing those sorts of fouls, but are we to believe that we’re the most cynical team in the league who give the refs the worst abuse?

My season ticket offers an elevated view of the right flank of our opponents half for the first half of games and I get to witness the sheer misery of Bukayo Saka getting kicked or “reducers” put on him 3 or 4 times of every single home game for the first 20 minutes.

In many cases it’s 30 year old men kicking a 20 year old up in the air with total impunity

It continues and keeps going until the home fans start screaming blue murder at the ref and then AND ONLY THEN does he start trying to address the problem. EVERY SINGLE GAME. The home fans actually have to police their own games because the refs aren’t good enough.

At some point Saka could get an impact injury and I’m really surprised he hasn’t had an extended spell on the sidelines so far.

Yellow dots are where the refs are from
Red dots are the location of prem league clubs

Amazing that there are only 3 southern refs and none from London. (I’m not counting the midlands as southern)

I think it’s a shame that Xhaka has had so much focus here since the game. Socrates even called him a liability which is grossly unfair. He actually played very well yesterday. Some marks out of ten site gave him seven, which they said would have been higher without the penalty incident. I think that’s a fair comment, as Xhaka made a significant contribution to how well we played.

There’s no such thing as the perfect player. Everyone has faults however good they are. Messi can’t tackle like Sol Campbell or head it like Tony Adams. But I still remember the observation, some while back now, by DHD. We routinely look better when Xhaka plays or worse when he doesn’t. I can’t recall which way round DHD put it, but it doesn’t matter as they add up to the same thing. We don’t always play well when Xhaka is in the team, and nor do we only play badly when he doesn’t. But as a general observation I think DHD’s point is correct.

Moreover I strongly suspect Arteta appreciates that, which is why he loves Xhaka. For all those who want Xhaka gone, I think you should also want Arteta to leave. Because while Arteta is here, I don’t see Xhaka not being one of the first names on the team sheet anytime soon. I would prefer we had Declan Rice, but that looks as likely to me as winning the Euromillions jackpot without buying a ticket. If you want Arteta to remain in charge, learn to live with Xhaka consistently being in the team.

Might not necessarily be a bad thing. I’d rather have a northerner referee an Arsenal game than a Tottenham fan from London.

If you give Arteta money for 1 player right now he’s signing a striker, if your giving him money for 2 players he’s signing a xhaka replacement too I reckon. Loads of rumours about Bruno Guimarães.

At the moment he’s been the lesser of many evils and the manager has quite rightly and justifiably prioritised other areas of the side. Socrates assessment is accurate unfortunately and if I told you one of our players would give away a penalty in a game I reckon 90% of us would place a bet it was Xhaka who had done it. He has good qualities but many more bad ones and if we want to compete at the highest level again we won’t do so with a player so immobile and such a liability in the centre of our side.

The fact we are talking about Xhaka again after a previous week of talking about Xhaka tells you all you need to know and the manager won’t be unaware of the issue.

Stuart Attwell has been on VAR for 118 matches in his career. In those 118 matches he’s ‘given’ 4 red cards…..3 of those have gone to Arsenal players.
There will of course be statistical differences for various teams but the wild anomalies need looking at further.

Quite. I doubt any refs from London would be allowed to ref games with London teams. Although Mike Dean from the Wirral does do games with Liverpool and Everton from memory as he declares himself as a Tranmere fan. Not disputing that because he’s been seen quite passionately on Tranmere’s terraces. But just being from an area you’d have friends and family and will have grown up around those clubs. I’d happily have a Ref from Luton who supports Luton ref our games than a northern ref

Sounds like
freh·dee yung·buhg

https://www.google.com/search?q=freddie ... nunciation

That is an astounding statistic.

We do so very often seem to be on the debit side of contentious decisions. We definitely do not break even.

Completely different to the Hojbjerg on MOTD.

But, as Haz pointed out, it’s Danish not Swedish.

Stuart Attwell was also on the list of suspects for the Son of Sam murders in New York City mid to late 70s. Modern policing techniques weren’t around in the 70s so could it be the police got the wrong guy and David Berkowitz was actually innocent and that Attwell is the Son of Sam

The fact that we’re talking about him may also be linked to your energy for repeating yourself about him so often. I just think you’ll have to get used to seeing Xhaka in Arsenals team for a while longer. Arteta seems to love him.