I think all three of them: Mertesacker, Koscielny and Mustafi should be our first choice back three for now, maybe even for the rest of the season.

Hi all, Mee’s son here.

August 11th was Dad’s birthday, this would have been his 71st. I can guarantee that he would have spent hours of this one on these infamous green pages. Me and Mum both agreed he’d have secretly liked nothing better. Following a less than convincing opening day victory, it’s also a safe assumption that he wouldn’t have the most optimistic outlook for the season ahead…

Seemed like as good a time as any to check in. Glad this community seems to be still going strong, hope you’re all doing well

Kos is still suspended and plays with a dodgy achilles nowadays (think I read injections before every game). We need to start planning for a replacement. Gabriel was better last season but he hasn't really been the cb we had hoped and I'd be fine with him being sold. I like Holding but he should still be a squad player for now. With everyone available, Kos and Mustafi start. Then you have either the Bfg in there for his organisation or Monreal as he is a more natural lcb. Kolasinac should only play cb in an emergency, let the guy play wing back. Btw, Ox looked so much more purposeful than Bellerin once he switched sides. I'd like to see us go for another dominant cb.

Hi Jonathan, thanks for checking in! Your father is greatly missed on here. Was a real gentleman. All the best to you and your family.

Credit where it's due, Wenger got the subs spot on. Thought the Leicester manager did the complete opposite with some strange changes for them. Giroud is our plan b, fantastic that he has decided to stay which means accepting he's no longer a starter, yet remains hungry and motivated when given a chance.

I didn't want to share my views with the forum. The game was about what I expected. I don't want Hoy or you accusing we of being negative. I think Hoy was having a bit of a meltdown yesterday about football in general, so I want to ensure I don't push his blood pressure through the roof. Anyway it is about 26 degrees outside and fine as usual.

Great to hear from you. Mee is missed by us all. After todays game, I think he would have at least written that he was worried that Spurs will finish ahead of us this season (again).

Put their names first and second on the teamsheet ..... then jot down nine more players might manage it .

Great to hear from you. He'll always be here in spirit.

I'm interested if people think we should have had a penalty for handball yesterday? For me it is one of the most unclear rules in the game, I don't think you will ever get a group of people, let alone refs, who agree.
I seem to remember it was a half volleyed cross that hit the hand of the Leicester player who was no more than 3 yards from the ball but had his hand way above his head in 'an unnatural position'. I think it should have been given.

If it was given against us I would be really annoyed. One of those could have gone either way I thought. If it was given I believe there were ways to justify it.

Hi Jonathan
Your Dad is very much missed on here. Absolute gent he was.
All the best to you and your family.

Wow
How sweet was that win!!!
From 3 2 to 4 3 and 2 lovely goals to win it.
Never could understand the criticism Giroud gets in some quarters. Guy cost 15 million and has been a brilliant buy. Scores all types of goals and sensational record as a scoring sub.
Was amazed wenger was so forthcoming that he was ready to let him leave. Maybe keep that to yourself arsene until after the window closes!
Surely The Ox who was excellent knows that if he goes to Chelsea he is going to be wingback there as well so why not stay with us????
Would be gutted to lose him now. He has been excellent recently. If it takes 120 or 140 a week to secure him then just get it done!
What a finish by lacazette
Great instinctive finish and love his tenacity and workrate. He will score goals no doubt abouy that.
Defence was shaky but will be better with kos mustafi and the bfg.
One thing i cant understand is it seems quite clear chambers is in the pending departure lounge but why?????
Young British and full of potential. Had a good season on loan last season
Wenger was very keen to sign him so why not give him a chance to stake a claim and prove himself.
I know we have holding but chambers deserves a chance too. Frustrating the way wenger gives up on some players far too quickly.
Very relieved with those 3 points. Couldnt afford another opening day slip up with stoke and Liverpool on the horizon.

During the coverage of the game (about 35mins in), Alexis was shown watching the game in the seats. There was a very attractive blonde woman sitting next to him. Is that his girlfriend? If it is I might have an idea how he got the abdominal strain.

Hi Jonathan,

It's so sad that your dad is no longer with us. His tongue-in-cheek "doom and gloom" Arsenal prophesies were so beautifully written, without even a hint of bad language or abuse, you could not help but smile whenever you read them.

I think everyone really misses him on here.

Regards.....Soc

Just watched the goals again, the quality of the pass from Xhaka for Ramsey's goal was only surpassed by the first touch of Ramsey. Perfect way to control a ball and put it in a position where a goal was almost certain.
Love Giroud, he delivers for us so often. Up against Maguire on that corner he out muscled him with Maguire ending up on the floor, what a magnificent header!

Time to sort out the defence. 3 shots on goal 3 goals from them.
1st goal was a dreadful mistake from Čech, second goal a bad giveaway in our own half but then an indefensible ball across the box. 3rd goal is the one that worries me the most. A totally free run from vardy and no one of the post. That is the sort of goal we will concede every week if we don't fix that

Hi Sab,

I've been saying the same for ages but people keep telling me we have enough centrebacks. Numbers-wise maybe, but not quality-wise in my opinion. If Dick Van Dyke is all that then go and pay the money and get him.

Defensively speaking that performance last night was another in a long line of embarassing ones. I know we had a makeshift defence but we just can't defend. Too many players are not prepared to put their bodies on the line and, especially with this zonal defending lark, are far too happy to pass the responsibility of defending on to someone else.

As an example, I'm not picking on Xhaka (who actually did pretty well going forward) but he has to win that header against Okazaki (who is about four inches shorter) for the first goal and then he stands there pointing as Vardy strolls past him and heads in the third. Kolasinac also made some bad defensive errors.

We should be doing more defensive work on the training ground to make at least look like a professional outfit. On the pitch, there are no leaders, no one who can seem to organise things so that these lapses of concentration and general defensive frailties are addressed intra-game.

The way we play, it looks like all we ever do on the training ground is play five-a-sides because defending seems an alien concept.

Elneny is a worry as well, no way is he of the required quality. It's still an enigma who will partner Xhaka in the engine room, Ramsey seems the best option but does he have the discipline to play there? Agree that BFG should play, despite his limitations we need his tactical nous and leadership.

Absolutely mental opening game. Everything you'd expect from an Arsenal season rolled into one game; the frustration, the defensive errors that lead to unnecessary goals, the undeniable quality that is there but doesn't always show, late goals from two much-maligned players...

After watching the highlights again I feel better about our performance than I did yesterday. It's very worrying that all three goals we allowed seemed to be on the back of defensive errors, but to me they looked like individual errors rather than systemic ones - especially Čech for the first goal and Xhaka's stray pass for the second one, but also the poor pass that lead to the corner they scored the third goal from. We were missing four central defenders after all, all of whom would've started before Kolasinac and possibly before Holding as well. It could be argued our three main starters were out.

I thought we looked great going forward. We rarely got stuck just playing it around the penalty area, we continued to create chances throughout the entire game. Very encouraging.

On individual players, I loved Lacazette's debut. Great movement, brilliant finishing (would've scored another goal if it wasn't for a brilliant save by Schmeichel) and those quick feet in the penalty are will see him score loads for us.

Hard to say where this leaves us, because the performance asked as many questions as it answered but at least we got the three points and can go from there.

That is exactly what Mertesacker gives us though. As I said yesterday, for me Arsenal's first choice back three from the current squad should be Mertesacker, Koscielny and Mustafi. None of them played last night. If they all had, my money would be on Leicester not getting three goals.

I'm not arguing against a suggestion that we should sign another. Mertesacker is retiring at the end of the season, and as Sabir implied yesterday there have to be concerns about Koscielny's fitness. I can't recall where I read or heard it in an interview, but someone with Arsenal connections (could have been an ex-player for all I remember) said he has to have treatment on a daily basis to play at all. If that is true, how much longer will he last as a player at the top level? This season at the very least I hope, or at least when he plays this season. Hopefully next season as well. But he is less than a month from his 32nd birthday and I'll be surprised if he lasts as long as someone like John Terry and maybe not even another three years. In short, I'm afraid I agree with what Sabir said about having to start planning for not having Koscielny any more.

Elneny is a good but not great midfielder. I like his energy very much but I see him more as a squad player, and in that respect the type successful teams need, more than a first choice starter.

I don't dispute Mertesacker would have made a difference Bernard. I only discount Mert from my thinking because he is at that age now where he probably isn't going play every week, and neither is Kos, which as both you and Sab point out is more than enough reason to briong in another CB, if a topclass one can be found.

Having said all that it seems that the pages headed "defensive drills" have been well and truly torn from Wenger's coaching manual and shredded because the concept of defending professionally seems to be completely lost on his teams and has been for years, irrespective of the personnel we deploy.

We were the best team in the league at defending set pieces last season, and I think second best the year before. Not like this Vardy goal happens every week.

Wenger gets a lot of stick for his tactics, but his substitutions last night were spot on. Taking off Holding, pushing Lacazette out wide and having Ox and Bellerin switch flanks turned the game in our favour. Fair play.

Come on Haz, don't keep making up these b%*&s%*^ excuses for our defensive ineptitude. We've been piss poor defensively for years and it's cost us big time on many occasions, especially against good sides who know how to exploit our vulnerability. Vardy walked in and nodded the ball home completely unchallenged on the edge of the 6 yard box. How does that even happen? Whose zone was he in for goodness sake? Okazaki outjumps Xhaka despite being about 4 inches taller. It's schoolboy stuff.

We are always vulnerable to goals on the break. We had 27 shots last night and scored 4, Leicester had 6 and scored 3 all of which were a direct result of piss poor defending.

Our defending is indefensible.

Thinking a little about Alexis potential transfer. we beat Stoke and score a couple of goals. We then go to Liverpool and get a score draw. Alexis does not score either because he is still injured or the goals come from other players.

The board call Wenger in. We are free scoring and Alexis is not required to get us all these good results. The board decide to sell him. Or Wenger tells them they can sell him as there are plenty of goals in the team.

I won't rule it out.

It's not excuses, it's a fact. We are very good at defending set pieces - that doesn't mean the second Vardy goal wasn't bad or that our defending as a whole is always good, but let's be a little objective here. We don't make that mistake very often at all.

For the first goal Xhaka was practically standing still, while Okazaki was attacking the ball, that's why he reached higher. That goal was the fault of Čech, not Xhaka. It seems you're judging every goal we concede from your narrative of Arsenal defending like schoolboys and it's keeping you from being able to do any rational analysis of our defensive play.

Elneny is ok as xhaka's back up, but the 2 together is an absolute no-no for me. They are too similar and play too close to each other, and any move forward always looks forced. They bring an unbalanced look to the shape; to me it was no surprise that soon as Ramsey came on the dynamics improved, because we immediately looked more balanced in the middle of the park.

The Ramsey change was totally necessary but Leicester really shot themselves in the foot with the subs they made. Played right into our hands and showed tactical naivety from Shakespeare.

We looked decent at the tail end of last season once we switched formations. I'd say we were only really poor against Spuds during this run and defensively our worst yesterday. However as you said, four defenders missing can't just be dismissed. Also, Holding as outstanding as his potential is, really still needs a BFG or Kos/Mustafi to guide him through games. That defence was not a unit yesterday.

And Bellerin just doesn't look like his usual self. His decision making yesterday was not good, constantly bombing forward at the wrong time and leaving Holding exposed. I think it would've looked completely different with just one of Mertesacker or Koscielny on the pitch.

HT Watford 2 Scousers 1. Three halves of premier league football and 10 goals so far.
Very entertaining but no surprise English teams are failing at European level.

The board barely pay any attention to this type of detail I think

13 goals now. Liverpool look anything but solid defensively, and from what I can see they're only missing Clyne.

Finished 3-3 we are STILL top of the league.................


How many months to November?

Watford get a late equaliser 3-3 v Liverpool

A disappointing draw at Watford, and with Champions League qualifiers to come - it must tough for a club to begin its Premier League preparations with such matches in mind. Where does one place one's focus? It's a conundrum. One's sympathies are, of course, with Klopp and his team.

Central mid is still an area of the team that's needs strengthening.

Plenty of players to come back in to our side. I prefer Monreal as the left of 3 CB rather than Kolasinac. Heard Gary Neville slating Kolasinac for being too cavalier with his positioning. I think he's very well suited to the left wing back position. Next game I'd go with
Čech
Mustafi, mertesacker, monreal
Ox, Ramsey, Xhaka, Kolasinac
Özil, Welbeck
Lacazette

Thats all sounds rather condescending. It you look rationally at our defensive displays over the last decade and ask why we have consistently failed to mount a sustained challenge for the title and/or CL despite being one of the most potent attacking teams around you would have to say that more often than not its our defending that has been one of the key issues. Time and time again we see poor organisation and tactical awareness, a lack of communication, a lack of defensive awareness, poor postional sense etc, etc.

We generally get away with things because we dominate possession against most PL sides and can generally do just about enough to offset the habitually soft goals that we tend to concede against lesser sides. Monopolising possession but then conceding soft goals when opponents are on the back foot is our speciality. Take last night, it took us 27 shots to score 4 and Leicester scored 3 from just 6 shots. We have to work much harder to score against teams than they generally do against us.

When we meet a team that doesn't allow us 65%+ of the possession then our defensive frailties are often ruthlessly exposed. Hence, we've taken more thumpings against top six teams than any of the other top sides, many of them downright embarassing performances, and tend to bow out of the CL as soon as we meet a half decent opponent.

Almost any pundit or ex player when asked why they feel that Arsenal so often fall by the wayside will reply that our defence is our achilles heel. What does Steve Bould actually do because there is very little evidence of any real defensive coaching?.

Agree with that. Ox deserves to play there on current form and in the new sytem may have more to offer, certainly in an attacking sense.