Well done Leno

Doucoure should have scored. Absolute comedy from Arsenal.

I repeat, AMN is very poor today

Pépé's a work in progress? I can't see any week in week out.............

Me too

If we’re playing the ball out of the back next game then I’ll be questioning Emery’s position.

The prize tag is weighing on both Emery & Pépé. He is lightweight.

Aubameyang shaking his head disbelief at the end. This rubbish isn't exactly likely to encourage him to sign an extension, is it.

Top 4? Yeah right.

It is so disappointing that our new era is as much a shambles as the back end of the previous one was.

Sack him. He’s a bum. Trust me on this.

Evidently Watford had 23 - yes, 23 - shots at goal in the second half.

We continue to be less than the sum of our parts. Consistently. And some of the decisions just seem daft.

Same. This whole performance was shocking and I thought that at 2 up although we did get progressively worse.

Emery was better when he first got here with his half time subs changing games. He seems out of his depth tbh which I’m not sure he should be. In terms of tactics he seems wedded to Xhaka and the way some younger players were pushed off the ball today you can see why he’s thinking but he’s just immobile and unreliable unfortunately and can’t be part of a midfield that requires dynamism. Which is all of them.

Apart from that assist. And he’s only filling in. Why is this such a hobby horse for you??

I agree this game was riddled with his mistakes unfortunately

1) his substitutions were daft. He just chucked people on

2) Xhaka is killing us. He’s a deceptive player that somehow convinces people he is good (I don’t know how) he is *%^@

3) if your not gonna play Torreira in this game there’s no point having him

4) playing out from the back needs to be varied.

5) Luiz should have dropped before today !!!


Today for the first time felt like he’s just throwing things together

Terrible tactic of playing out at goalkicks with the box surrounded by opponents when Stevie Wonder could see how crazy it was. Kept doing it until the league's bottom team finally scored.

Pointless substitutions which actually made us worse.

Amateurish individual errors.

I need a drink after that shower of shite.

Kroenke OUT

Threw away 3 points and very, very nearly gave them 3 points. Two individual errors in an otherwise decent performance. Central defense has and will be an issue until we spend money on quality. Chelsea fans have said on their forums Luiz is prone to errors. He showed that, although I think the player made a meal of it in replay but the referee has to make a split second decision. That said, Luiz should not have put himself in that position. Old legs. And PK conceded, I don't think Mustafi would have done much different.

I still have faith in Emery. Its a tough game to give up 2 precious points but you learn from it and move forward. Pépé is going to be a star. Our younger players need minutes and should improve on their performances just like a young Walcott did many years ago.

Disappointed and frustrated but if any Gooner is expecting this season not to be they are deluded. We are a work in process and matches like these are part of it. The one positive is scoring 2 goals within a half hour or so away at grounds where its not so easy to do so. Going forward we are decent. Stopping goals will be our issue until we spend enough to correct it. We'll see how well we do defensively when Tierney and Bellerin are starting.

Well......that must rank as one of the most unprofessional performances I have seen from an Arsenal team in years and there is some stiff competition for that title.

I though it was a horrendous performance. Having got ourselves an undeserved 2 goal lead we then proceeded to throw it away in comedy fashion. Words fail me.

Watford had over 30 attempts on our goal......the bottom of the table side ffs!.

I had hoped our sprinkling of new signings would herald a new era of positivity, but instead our players played like a bunch of utter *%^@.

Why play out from the back when you are shite at it?

Poor old AMN was taken to the cleaners by Deulofeu today and showed exactly what he is, a midfielder pushed into playing RB. He was completely clueless and lethargic with it, and he was far from the only one.

I have defended Pépé this week but I thought he was hugely disappointing today.

The only ones I think who can come away with any credit are Aubameyang and Leno.

I still have no idea what Emery's gameplan is, we looked so unbalanced.

No that ones on Unai I’m afraid

Really? Gosh. Even more astounding than Arsenal’s performance this evening.

Yes LTG. If American actually thinks that was a decent performance bar a couple of errors then the men in the white coats need to take him away at the earliest opportunity.

Eh, stating a fact ?

Yes sometimes those things aren’t great

Main problem is the midfield, paceless, taking too many touches, Xhaka playing like it’s a testimonial, total imbalance and when we did need to change it Emery took off the only player who wants to put their foot on the ball Ceballos

You can always tell if a team is decent or not by how much one touch football they play in my opinion. It’s a good judge if the players are good enough to pass and move and ping it quickly.

... we play little of it at all, if any. That’s the thing I have an issue with today.

Just couldn’t understand the Ceballos sub. Brainless decision.

It seems like Every single game we have fewer shots than the opposition, no matter who we are playing.
30 odd shots from Watford, unbelievable. We seem he’ll bent on gifting goals left right and centre. Every goal seems to be traced back to an horrendous individual error. 5 games in and 3 penalties conceded, that is not new. Do the players brains not switch on in the box and think ‘I need to be a bit more careful now, I can’t do what I’d want to do if it was outside the box?’ I mean it is utter madness how stupid they are.

Luiz conceded 3 pens in 160 games for Chelsea, he has 2 in 4 for us.

We are still nowhere near the sum of our parts, emery doesn’t know his best 11, doesn’t know the best tactics and constantly changes both of them.

Some big strides have been made off the pitch ch and with individual recruitment and exits but it needs to all be knitted together.

Feel doubly let down by Xhaka today.....
I'm now very well used to him being pants, but surely he was always someone you could rely on for a brainless booking

I’m with you on the midfield. Total lack of pace and power in there. Without those two attributes in CM you will always struggle to win prem games

I like AMN but I’m not sure we can fully put his dreadful performance today down to him being a midfielder playing at right back. His passing was generally utter rubbish. That would have been the case if he was playing in midfield. The misplaced passes would presumably have just been made in different areas of the pitch. Moreover, one of the few good things he did do, the assist, was probably down to him playing at right back.

No pace, no power, no outball, no combination football just nothing. Absolutely nothing. None of the players we have look to make a decent combination and I can’t for the life of me understand why Torreira isn’t starting.

I think Pépé hasn’t been great and is low on confidence but the service is appalling and Aubameyang must be walking off the pitch thinking he has to score 3 every game.

Read an article earlier suggesting Xhaka is about to be announced as the new captain,

I mean are you *%^@*** serious

Which is pretty irrelevant in the face of established first pick players playing as badly or worse. It’s so far down our list of problems for you to be digging him out specifically again after the Liverpool game.

You're right Bern, if anything his passing should be the best part of his game.

I don't want to dig him out too much because he's a kid, but he's had long enough now to have improved his one-v-one and his positional play. Deulofue didn't exactly have to play like Messi to bamboozle him. A little side step or drop of the shoulder and he was away.

I just can’t bring myself to criticise him.

He’s a young kid being forced to play out of position because we ran our squad into the ground under Wenger and we have been using sticking plasters ever since.

Frankly I’d rather see him in midfield than Xhaka

Not sure Torreira has been much kop since Christmas either TG.

You are right, we are boring to watch.

I thought Pépé and Aubameyang would give us electric pace on the counter-attack and make us scintillating to watch, a la Liverpool, but today all Pépé wanted to do was play little safe passes. Where was the pacy dribbling he showed glimpses of in previous games?

I think Luiz has to be dropped, I did think his signing was a good thing on balance and that he would help us with our transitions from defence to attack but he's just too much of a liability defensively. That said his likely replacement Chambers is hardly Beckenbauer.

Torreira was excellent until we started playing 3 centre backs

Drop Xhaka and Luiz

Play holding,Chambers, Torreira and Willock instead

Pray to all the gods Tierney and Bellerin are back soon.

Stop playing out from the back. Or with variation

For goodness sake do some training exercises to play balls over the top to utilise Pépé some more. Just seems we are wasting him.

Offer Aubameyang a new contract saying he only gets paid if he scores at least a hat trick.

........




When it was all going to *%^@ I noticed Freddie off the bench screaming at the players. Something about him, has an aura and I’m starting to have doubts about Emery now. Looks like a team and tactics just chucked together and thrown out on the pitch. Today was unacceptable

As you know I've harboured major doubts about Emery for a while now.

This playing out from goal kicks is absolutely insane. That we do it every time just allows the opposition to set up to strangle it knowing we’re likely to cough up a chance.

When the new rule came in about not having to play the ball out of the box you just knew we’d be the first team to concede a comical goal that way.

The risk/reward just isn’t balanced enough. I mean the justification for inviting such a high press is that with some brilliant one touch quick and accurate passing we can get past maybe 5-6 of their team and probably counter attack them with maybe a 5 on 4 or something similar. A good position to be in but hardly worth the risk when you realise when the tactic fails you give your opponents a free shot at goal with just the gk to beat from 15 yards. Utterly baffling.

Maybe once set up as though you are going to do that, bring their players to the edge of the box and then chip a ball in to midfield.

The problem I have is that I don’t think you can judge him on his first season. He had too many problems to be judged on.

This season is different with new players coming in but the performances look very similar so far.

The one thing that I think may not change and there is still time yet. Is it all feels a bit well cobbled together and chucked out on the pitch. I know that doesn’t sound very analytical but it’s hard to explain,

At the end of the day we are joint 3rd on points and it’s important not to get carried away but something feels off.

I think the alarm bells were there in the run-in last season with some shocking teams selections and tactics and this season is just more of the same.

I hear him interviewed and notwithstanding his poor command of english I haven't got a clue the message he is trying to convey.