We don’t and anyone saying we do couldn’t have seen the performance Barkley and Grealish provided yesterday.

Also Ramsey was an 8 not a number 10 so the comparison is with ceballos or Xhaka and not Özil. He scored winning goals and set up winning goals. Compared to our current midfield crop of El Nenny, Xhaka and cebackpass then then he’s a Liam Brady type Jedi master creator. Without partey on the pitch we have nobody slick on the ball in the middle of the pitch.

I bet Barkley wouldn’t ‘t create any more than Ceballos if he joined Arsenal. I still think you’re missing the point that if you want Arsenal to have more creativity, you’d spend your time better by moaning about our style of play than the current players.

Really ? David Luiz scored more goals last year than Ceballos and Xhaka so yes I bet Barkley would.

Really ? David Luiz scored more goals last year than Ceballos and Xhaka so yes I bet Barkley would.

It’s the players. Arteta plays 3 centre halves because he’s only got 1 decent one at the club and plays just 2 midfielders rather than 3 because he’s only got 1 decent midfielder at the club. Why do you think we are being linked with a spew of midfielders. The style is a product of the personnel

Plenty of views on the reasons for our problems, I'd say pretty much everything everyone has mentioned on here is true, it isn't 1 problem it is the culmination of a number of things.
Style of play
lack of quality players
static forward line
no natural creator
too defensive tactics
lack of pace in the team
lack of athleticism in the team
lack of shots
poor quality of finishing

Barkley scored 1 league goal for Chelsea last season.

Yeah really. I don’t think there’s much chance at all that Barkley would be any more creative than Ceballos if he joined Arsenal. You’ve yet again got yourself this bee in your bonnet that “It’s the players”. I suggest it has more to do with the style of play.

So you wouldn't have swapped Barkley for Ceballos in the second half yesterday ?

Would you have swapped them in the FA Cup final?

We miss Ramsey. Emery's struggles began after we lost him to injury and then to Juventus. Our current CMs lack the attacking instinct of Ramsey, they do not make runs into the box.

If it’s true that all these players are world beaters being hindered by Artetas negative tactics then how can you explain partey and Gabriel. Come into the side and make it look instantly better. Football is about players and we have many not up to scratch. It’s not harsh on them to say this.

Looks like me shelling out for Box Office is the kiss of death. Home to Leicester and now this.

Barkley scored 1 league goal for Chelsea last season.

Same bunch of players against MU and Villa but vastly different outcomes. Partey getting injured didn't help but we struggled from the start. The early disallowed goal somehow took the confidence out of our players, exemplified by Tierney's comical slip minutes later.

We know Wenger would be patient and let the players figure out themselves. Wonder if Arteta would do the same or start chopping and changing again.

What Arteta needs to do is strike a balance because by not trusting the players at all (some may say understandably so) it is absolutely stifling the life out of us.

Luckily for us they are doing away with it now :)

Piss poor last night though it has to be said, hopefully the next two weeks will see a re-think as we've got Leeds away next, reeling from 2 heavy defeats, and they will be up for it.

Exactly. The premiership and other leagues have evolved in style. More and more teams are setting up now with players who can do real damage on the counter attack. Add in the explosion of TV money coming in to the prem and traditionally weaker teams can now afford £30m players, who are of course attracted to the league and who pose this genuine danger.
All the dangerous teams in the league have some form of this in their play.
Dominate possession and razor sharp press and speed: Liverpool
Dominate possession and quick mobile interplay: City and Chelsea
Quick counter attacking: Spurs, Man U
High tempo, high press, rapid counter attack: Leeds, Southampton, Villa
Solid defence, incisive midfield, rapid counter attack: Leicester
Wolves and Everton are a little bit less easy to place as are we.

It isn't just in midfield we struggle with those key attributes it is up front as well. When you see most other teams forward players there is movement, interplay, getting on the ball, dribbling, shift and shoot. Our front 3 are totally static. When was the last time you saw an Arsenal wide man dribble towards the full-back and beat him with pace and trickery? When was the last time we even attempted it?

The prem is absolutely awash with penalties this season, Leicester have 8 pens in 8 games. We dont get men in the box dribbling at pace to win them.

There really is no quick fix for this. We've built a squad totally ill suited to the league. virtually every area of the pitch needs addressing still. We made 2 decent moves in the summer but it cost us £75m. I'm concerned about some transfers not fitting the right profile, Cédric, Mari, Willian. On paper they seemed like logical moves because of the price. We don't have the money or the time to solve 6-7 other positions in the team that need solving. Edu and the rest need to recognise that we can't be signing established talent like Partey all the time we need to identify younger players with all those attributes you list above and getting them in the £20m and under price range. Just shifting some of the waste of space players at the club saves us £1m a week in wages

Pretty much nails it

https://crossbarhub.com/features/why-is ... ld-issues/

His summary of Xhaka was spot on.

This is kinda why I think Arteta needs to be given time. If we had Pep or klopp It wouldn’t mean that Xhaka all of sudden doesn’t need 2 touches to bring it under control and only ever passes with his left instep. New transfers fix this no amount of coaching will

Why did we sign Mari, Soares and Willian on longterm contracts? I don't get it.

The bottom line is that in terms of chances created we are near the bottom of the table, in terms of possession we are mid table mediocrity. We are where we are in the table because our level of play dictates that that is where we deserve to be.

I don't think we've scored in open play for 4 games.

How often do any of our players score with a piece of individual brilliance, other than Aubameyang and very occasionally Pépé.

Our midfield goal threat is virtually zero. Our goal threat from distance is virually zero.

You cannot create as few chances and score as few goals as we do per game and expect to be anywhere else in the table than where we are.

Aubameyang's incredible chance conversion rate, given the paucity of chances he gets, was always going to drop off at some point and if he isn't scoring no one else will.

Why did we sign Mari, Soares and Willian on longterm contracts? I don't get it.

Soares was signed as cheap cover for Bellerin who had a major injury and AMN admitted he told Arteta he wouldn’t play full back anymore in January and then reconsidered

Mari I don’t quite get I think we already agreed to sign him in January but he may still come good.

Soares and Mari had little to do with Arteta I think he only joined on December 20 and they were well in flight.
Willian makes sense until you examine his recent Bad performances and with Martinelli injured.

Even the shut out at OT was fortunate. I don't know where in the overall process we are. Arteta can answer that or a more canny observer than I am.

I had read with Mari that the primary target was Gabriel but we couldn't make it happen so we went for Mari. Obviously we then made Gabriel happen this summer. The president of the brazilian team we signed Mari from said something recently that hinted the total fee for Mari was somewhere closer to £5m - not the £7m loan plus £7m transfer fee that has been quoted.

I don't think the shut out at Man U was fortunate. I think it would have been unfortunate if Man U had nicked a draw. We're not in a position where we can go away to Man U and create 4-5 clear opportunities and win handsomely. It was always likely to be a tight game.
I don't recall Man U having a clear chance or Leno having to do much at all. There was the deflection that hit the post but that would have been incredibly unlucky to concede in that manner as it wasn't even a shot.
The Man U away performance was every bit as good as the Villa performance was bad. At Man U every player was on their game, the 50/50's were all won by us, individual duels were won all over the pitch - in terms of a gameplan, effort, discipline etc it was all there - and it was all missing v Villa