The same could be said of Saka. Lost a lot of challenges. Made up for it in perception and decision making and of course the goal.

Emery out!

Im praying it's the latter and the outcome provides all the encouragement necessary to continue mixing it up.

It was interesting to see where the ball ended up from the longer kicks. I noticed on plenty of occasions the big kick was headed back by their defence and we picked up the second ball somewhere near the half way line. Surely emery can see the risk/reward of this vs what we did against Watford.
We don’t need to play it long every time, but the we’re not taking the advantages that a short goal kick offers, short goal kicks need to be taken quickly not letting the opposition spend 30 seconds getting perfectly set up in their pressing formation. That’s too easy for the opponents to know exactly what they have to do.

Perhaps but that’s a lot of upside and I thought otherwise he was mostly neat and tidy. For the assist for Nelson he received the ball on the turn played the pass that was on and Nelson did really well. Emile I thought generally struggled. I like Smith-Rowe and thought he looked good when he got those few goals for us, where Bernard was a bit more circumspect, but now I can’t really disagree on that performance. It’s his first competitive game after a long time out so you could absolutely give him that.

As was I. Was he being in goals responsible for more variety in kick outs or was Emery?

Also, is wide right Smith-Rowe's best position. From when I've seen him he's been more central or coming in on to his right foot from a wide left starting position. Emery said after the game about his long injury last year and he will need more time. Too early to write him off, the german teams are certainly keen on him.
There is very little chance that all of AMN, Nelson, Willock, Nkeitiah, Saka, Emile Smith Rowe properly 'make it' with Arsenal - but giving them this exposure will improve them and improve and improve their fee

Morning Bern,

I'm not sure he quite at the exceptional level just yet, he's an exceptional shot stopper with great reflexes but his one achilles heel is his inability to deal well with crosses and corners. Still a bit too much of a flapper in those situations.

Came across this in Western Fjords of Iceland last week.

I think any problems Leno has with crosses is often exaggerated. Think of Ospina. Leno is a mix between Pat Jennings and Manuel Neuer at their respective peaks on crosses compared to him. Great shot stopper, fine distribution and more than adequate when the ball is in the air in the box is how I see Leno. Yep, I’m happy to call him exceptional.

What impressed me most about Saka last night, was that I actually thought he struggled a bit in the first half. He was involved a lot, but nothing he tried seemed to come off right, and he looked a bit nervous. That made his second half contribution even more impressive in my book. It's easy for a young player to start hiding when things aren't going well, but he just kept at it and in the end he was the one who made the difference. Extremely impressive considering he turned 18 just two weeks ago.

I think that is a good summary.

Martinez was solid between the sticks. He made the saves you expect of a good keeper. No mistakes, kept it tight. He raised his own stock with that performance.

Soc, has one of the most discerning, critical eye (and its NOT meant as criticism) regarding The Arsenal so when he is that impressed, it says something.

I don't know if we are a different side in Europe. There is compelling evidence to suggest that since we went all the way to the final, showed some character up to the final (we won't talk about the collapse against Chelsea) while at the same not playing well in the league. Perhaps we would have won had it been a non PL side in the final, even of the same quality.

I don't know if we are a different side. It could be the PL is such a tough league, the competition in the Europa Cup pales to some extent in comparison. The only two PL sides in the competition met each other in the final. Also, the top 4 clubs in the CL made it far enough where they no longer could drop to the Europa cup. In fact, all the PL sides made it into the quarter finals.

So, it could be the league is the toughest in the world. And the Europa is a much easier competition in comparison. The Frankfurt win is huge though, as they were semi finalists last season and could have faced us in the final.

I agree.

Now that we have offloaded some of the expensive deadwood it’s great to see so many young players getting games. Do you reckon Mhikitaryan would have scored 1 and got 2 assists last night ?

That was an incredible cameo by Saka. Wonder if he will start seeing more game time.

I’m starting to have my doubts about emery but yesterday’s team selection was bold.

For the first time in years we have decent players coming through and isn’t it brilliant to watch Willock, Saka and Nelson get games rather than El nenny and that united cast off

Saka on Ljungberg: "He helps so much. Sometimes when I don’t understand what the coach [Emery] is trying to communicate with me, I have a better communication with Freddie. He speaks better English"

But how does Freddie know what Unai is saying so that he can pass it on? Or does Freddie speak Spanish?

Or - heresy - is Freddie providing his own direction?

Or, in other words, I'm a miserable git who is always moaning

The Europa League is generally much easier until you get to the knock-out phases. The odd game away from home can be tricky but the early rounds ought to be the place where the kids can gain valuable experience.

It's great isn't it, although I'm surprised Emery played so many kids in this particular game.

Apparently the club employs 3 ex secret service lip readers as part of the coaching staff who listen to Emery’s instructions then using a rare technique of understanding speech by visually interpreting the movements of the lips, face and tongue when normal sound is not available translate it to the players and staff so they know what they are doing.

Spurs have released a book about their champions league run called ‘one step from glory’

Haha...actually, quite the opposite. One of the few people's posts I actually look for. Always need a sober minded view of things.

Well let’s hope they are looking back in ten years time talking about the last time they had a chance to win anything at all.

Tierney and Bellerin played 62 minutes for the U23 tonight

Great news!

Ooooh, that might put Saka in the bad books of Emery Although it is true about Emery's English communication, it is not discernible.

Interesting story that broke yesterday, Liverpool were accused of hacking in to man city’s Scouting database back in 2012, in cans out yesterday that Liverpool paid city £1m over the incident but didn’t accept any wrongdoing

In which case I wish that Sky would hack into that for the tv interviews.

He basically needs that thing Stephen Hawking used. Sorted

How many of our regular first team have English as their first language? Tierney, AMN (although he won’t be when Bellerin is fit), probably Holding. Chambers is part of the squad, and Willock will play plenty of games (my guess is more than Nelson). I think Saka, despite his excellent second half in Frankfurt, is still quite some way from being a regular first team player, and Smith Rowe is even further away.

Out of that lot, when everyone is 100% fit, I’d say Tierney is the only guaranteed starter for a vital game, although Holding has a very good chance. Is the coach being fluent in English as important as it once was, even if it’s frustrating for fans listening to interviews?

Yes it’s absolutely essential

He needs to communicate on a level the fans and media can see he’s a solid decision maker, in control and be assured in his ability to do his job. If he can’t do that then all I’ll say is that football is an unforgiving business.

To be honest if he can’t get to that level I don’t think he will be around long and his placid interviews after games contribute to the overall thinking of many people who aren’t convinced by him

Didn’t seem to do Pochettino’s reputation much harm when it took him ages to give an interview in English. I’d say Emery has made a bigger effort to learn the language more quickly than he did.

Pochettino got some decent results. His English is now excellent and had to deal with a fan base with minimal expectations and intelligence

In a part of Iceland more isolated than an Arsenal central defender, I was most surprised to bump into one of my heroes.

Has Tottenham peaked?

You have to (or not) have to feel sorry for Liverpool. They have put together a side that would have ran away with the title, and pretty much brought back the glory days and City happens.

Good question my pencils up the nose and ears loving American friend

Answer is possibly. Ericsson leaving in January probably and a manager who looks increasingly like the Penny has dropped. Could be a turning point