Dog *%^@.

Not an FB and never will be.

Decent point in the end but not really that impressed with Freddie's selections. Playing two clowns together at CB is asking for trouble and why give Martinelli only 5 mins at the end?

Well, we didn't lose.

We were lucky to scrape a point there. We are rubbish.

W̶e̶n̶g̶e̶r̶ ̶O̶u̶t̶ ̶!̶,̶ ̶E̶m̶e̶r̶y̶ ̶O̶u̶t̶ ̶!̶,̶ ̶l̶j̶u̶n̶g̶b̶e̶r̶g̶ ̶O̶u̶t̶ ̶!̶,̶

Everybody Out !

We have a defence that can't defend and defensive midfielder who can't defend either. So we have the worst of both worlds.....a dogshite defence with zero protection in front of them.

I had the same thought the other day. Put this team in the championship and they would get beaten away from home by a number of teams

Saliba has his work cut out! Some serious money - that we won’t have - needs to be spent in defensive positions. And we’ll almost certainly have to replace our two top class strikers in the next 12 months

Right now I would offer Brendon Rodgers any type of cheque he can’t refuse. Just keep offering numbers till he can’t say no.

This requires strong arrogant thinking and a maker of unfashionable difficult decisions. That is him. As an example Lacazette needs to be dropped, you can’t play the 2 of them let’s be honest. It’s always been an issue

We are all over the place because of poor decisions and shocking management

True ..... and while I said it would take Fred a few weeks to coach their negativity out of them I'm severly unimpressed he selected that shower of sh**t in the first place .

Surely the U23s must be better . We could easily have shipped another three goals in the second half

Totally outplayed by the bottom two clubs


Arsenal Women won 11 - 1 ... maybe they should swap divisions .

Can anyone who managed to watch the game tell us if there was any signs of improvement in any aspect?
The comms said the workrate and tempo seemed improved.

I used to think a good coach could take any back 4 and a pair of holding mids and turn them in to a functional, disciplined and hard to break down unit. I’m really not sure with the players we have. They lack so many of the basics and have had so long and show no sign of learning or improvement.
Gary Neville called Arsenal’s defence ‘uncoachable’ and its hard to argue

Hard to argue but I think they are literally uncoached.

I have no idea what’s happening at this point because when Saka and Martinelli are coming on but Pépé isn’t how can you explain that. It’s just crazy.

This season could be an absolute disaster

Lee Dixon said give them to George Graham for a month you'd see improvement but I'd tend to side with Neville .

I was just thinking regarding Xhaka , Kolasinac , Mustafi and Chambers

... there must be some pretty sh**t players in Switzerland , Bosnia , Germany and England for those four clowns to have made it this far .

Lacazette has been so average this year. I honestly think you replace the entire eleven who started today save for Leno, Guendouzi and Aubameyang and not miss them. So many holes in midfield and just poor recruitment at CB. We're better than our current form, or at least should be, but not by much. We are also some way off the top 4 standard. We are exactly where we deserve to be in the league.

Today felt a bit like a Wenger team towards the end of his reign. Okay going forward but suspect at the back. At least the players put in a shift and in the early stages of the match they had a spring in their step. But its only been 2 days and there is a lot of work to do. At least its different and the players don't look sad and confused....yet.

I think your right Darren but I find it hard to judge the players these days. They are not being set up correctly at all. There wasn’t a single live wire type in that starting line up today.

That’s mental, did we learn nothing from pires, overmars and Ljungberg?

Who is running between the lines and causing problems. Nobody cause they were all on the bench. Plus Saka and Willock are being let down.

I can’t see the board waiting until the summer. Offer a serious cheque guys

No. We ended the game on the back foot unable to strike g more than 2 passes together.

Interesting to see how we play this. I've been quite encouraged by Josh Kroenke putting himself front and centre recently. Clearly Arsenal is his remit and he at least plays the PR game a bit better than his father. I really hope they go in hard for the right guy.

For the first 10-15 minutes of each half, more so the first, we had an encouraging spring in our step. Then Norwich woke up, the game became chaotic and we looked like we could concede at any moment. Enormous gaping holes in the midfield, as others have pointed out. Indecisive and at times inept defending, as we've all become used to. Up front Lacazette was anonymous all afternoon, and Aubameyang too wide. Özil was Özil, flitted in and out of the game occasionally looked tidy but a million miles away from the king of assists he once was. Willock looked lost, Xhaka was ponderous and slow, Chambers was awful.

Emery must be snickering away. Money in his pocket and Freddy simply carried on for him.

As we rebuild this side I don’t think Aubameyang and Lacazette are part of it. Contracts running down, we play better with just one of them, their age and we will need to take the money when they don’t sign new contracts.

If we have to take a backwards step to avoid losing both for free then we have to get as much money as we can for both. We needed champions league last year, were even more desperate for it this year. Without it we can’t afford to keep both, the fans won’t like it but it is the sensible decision for the long term future - because we’ve already messed up the short term.

One of the most worrying things for me is that I’d say every single team in the league is capable of a reaction after a poor performance apart from us.
Look at Southampton after the 9-0
Newcastle beat Man U 1-0 at home
Watford against us
Etc etc
Where has our reaction been to any of our really poor performances this season

We are only 7 points off 4th. It's doable with a good coach. Thinking about it we should get Allegri in and screw the entertainment.

Sanchez Flores is now available

And Marco Silva next by chance.

Remarkable. We are totally broken and yet we are still ahead of Manchester United.

Yes, in the first half we moved the ball around the pitch a lot quicker and there was more tempo to our build up play than in recent turgid performances under Emery. We really should have scored one or two before Norwich got their opener on a counter attack. Another positive was the ability to come back from behind twice showing a bit more spirit when things went against us.

Aside from that it was quite familiar - poor defending as a team and as individuals. Hard to see how we are going to improve much with the current personnel at the back. Norwich, to be fair, probably would have won the game but for some great saves from Leno and an outstanding block from Torriera.

Nice touch by Freddie to pay tribute to Emery with that starting line-up.

Not football related but “The Irishman” on Netflix is quite a movie

Possibly Scorsese’s last epic and De Niro’s last proper hurrah and taps into the themes of sorrow and getting old. Really worth a watch

Indeed .

Someone has to wake up to the fact that when we overload the defence it doesn't actually lessen our chances of conceding a goal .... it just means

[ a ] we have more personel looking totally stupid scurrying back in Keystone Cops manner ..and

[b ] we create less at the other end .

Wenger got a nod as well here Dec ...... Kolasinac , Xhaka , Mustafi and Chambers were all his buys .
.

There is some amazing gear stacked in yards all over the place. Finding it and actually negotiating a price is even harder. In Brisbane working at the moment. Don't know how people can live in capitol cities.

From the guardian
It’s striking, for example, how rarely you see an Arsenal player genuinely sprinting at full pelt. Occasionally you will see them running, but it is very much a going-through-the-motions, leave-your-desk-at-5pm sort of running. It’s striking how few second balls they win. And as Norwich caught them on the counter time and again, it was striking just how hesitant they seemed in the jaws of contact: dainty tackles, squeamish blocks, toes tentatively offered in the general direction of the ball. Arsenal players defend like every part of their body is their face.

And so there was the skittish Onel Hernández, allowed to saunter deep into the Arsenal penalty area from just in front of the dugouts, with not a scintilla of resistance. There was Pukki, utterly hoodwinking David Luiz for the first goal with the old pro’s trick of changing direction. There was Shkodran Mustafi, meanwhile, pointing vaguely in the direction of where he himself should probably have been going.

I was like you, Rich, I thought any half decent coach with some degree of defensive nous could organise a back four and make a team difficult to beat.

However, I am not sure any coach in the world could turn our motley crew into a solid defence. I mean today we literally had dumb and dumber in the centre of the defence and two fullbacks who can't really defend. That's not an easy fix for any coach.

Still have absolutely no idea why Freddie gave Martinelli 5 mins (and only that because of added time).

Surely the only time you make a sub in the 88th min is if you are hanging on and want to waste some time or there's an injury.

Give the kid 20 mins ffs!

Fair to say my first impressions of Freddie's team selection and decision-making were not particularly favorable.

I don't really think Ljungberg had a lot of choices with the squad, With current injuries it's hard to pick a 1st 11 when the defence is a mess and there is no engine room in CM or quick decision maker (Ceballos injured, Özil not interested). Below is an attempt of what could have been put on the field and what I'd be asking them to do. Whether they could do it or not is debatable and therefore expecting a sudden turnaround with 2 days notice is a bit optimistic.

Leno
Mainland Niles, Sokratis, Chambers, Tierney
Xhaka (mid to long range passing), Torreira (just sit in front of the defence),
Guendouzi / Mailand Niles / Saka / Smith Rowe (transition play, shorter range passing and driving forward)
Pépé / Lacazette, Aubameyang, Willock / Lacazette

Luiz should be dropped no matter what. His erratic, kamikaze defending is constantly pulling people out of position and will make any back 4 worse than the sum of its parts. Couldn't believe it when we bought him and he is actually worse than he was at Chelsea

After the comments in this article, I wouldn't expect drastic changes next week either. Emery was allowed to continue for way too long and it's going to now take time to turn this around.

https://arseblog.news/2019/12/ljungberg ... e-players/

Fred's comments in that article suggest that Pépé isn't impressing - or 'putting in' - on the training pitch.

In hindsight, we should have used the 72 mil to buy a CB. We need more than 1 reliable one. This defence is letting the team down.