What is the view on the Robertson challenge doing the rounds on social media? He over runs the ball, lunges in, to pokes the ball away a split second before the spurs player gets there and his follow through is with his studs on the shin of the planted leg of the spurs player.
I’ve seen neutral fans say it’s a red card and I’ve seen others say it’s not even a foul.

Didn’t Torriera get a straight red v spurs for something similar? Winning the ball but a careless and reckless follow through got him the red?

‘Going over the ball’ type challenges have been specifically mentioned as a type of challenge along with tackling from behind and the ‘scissor tackle’ that referees were specifically trying to clamp down on quite a while ago if I remember correctly. So that fact that you get the ball should be irrelevant, how you make the contact should be seen in isolation. Out of control, in the air, reckless etc.

If he was lunging and out of control, sounds like a red to me if he was studs on the shin of the spurs player

If Liverpool go unbeaten in the league, I want them to win the treble so Man Utd feels the pain as well. (assuming of course someone else knocks us out)

Quite right Bernard .... Son's was a brush of the abs and Rudhiger made a meal of it .

Aubameyang 's could have been an ankle breaker ...far worse .

Rich has to take that line because it fuels his belief that it doesn't matter which referee ; they all ,

every last one of them .....run on that field with a pre concieved plan to punish Arsenal far more than the opposition .

And Pool marches on .......... looks like we need to do the business ourselves. Let Arteta build the team right up to the pool match, and beat them.

Pépé has had 2 very good shots coming off the bar. Perhaps he is trying too hard to get that spectacular goal, or he is too close to the edge of the penalty area when he took those shots. I believe he will score a lot more goals, if he is allowed to run more into the penalty area when we attack from the left (if he is playing right, and vice-versa). That means whoever is his partner full-back needs to be closer to pick up players in case we lose the ball. And then of course, our defensive midfielders needs to be correctly positioned too. I hope Arteta has a similar observation. I feel Pépé can score a lot more goals if he runs more into the penalty area, and try some simpler shots. His sole open-play goal for us, attests to this.

I am afraid I am not as positive as many on here about the Arteta reign. That is not to say I don't have hope that things will improve significantly.

I watched the game in full so this is what I thought.

1-25 minutes - great domination but with very little real opening up of chances other than the goal. It was reminiscent of the Wenger era. Lots of possession but no result. As an aside I watched highlights of Chelsea and a couple of other games. They get players to the by-line and actually put in worthwhile crosses and hence chances. It was obvious for the whole game that Arteta did not want both fullbacks bombing forward and wanted Torreira and Xhaka to not venture very far forward.

25-45 minutes - we were starting to relinquish control and being put under pressure. There was a lack of triangles and we weren't looking good. Players went missing or just passed sideways often to people in worse positions. It was getting harder to move forward. Emery team all over. We started cruising and believing we had the game. We never got control of the game back.

Torreira subbed off 45 minutes - 70 minutes - no improvement and for some to suggest Guendouzi was the problem - go and look at the previous 20 minutes. We sunk back to our old ways. Real chances - a few. Pépé appears to be a potential match winner but if you do absolutely nothing for 80 minutes of every game - he is a luxury we cannot afford.

After the sending off - we actually improved at times in getting a few breaks forward but we were under pressure.

I have seen nothing in Leeds or this game to suggest we have dramatically improved. 45 minutes and 25 minutes in this game is all we put in.

Arteta said if players did not put in the effort they would have to go. Well over to you, Mikel, because we slip back very quickly.

Klopp has done it again. At Dortmund he beat Bayern despite having nothing close to the resources available. And stayed very competitive. He's done the same in the PL. Were it not for Liverpool (and for a brief period sperz), City would make the EPL look like SPL.

In hindsight we should have gotten him. I recall a few voices years against it. No one can say Liverpool are financially doped. They earned it. Fully. Hats off. It will be interesting to see if they can keep it up. City will always be a threat for obvious reasons. They have the resources to maintain a high degree. Liverpool may be able to...may. For the foreseeable future they will threaten Man Utd's title haul.

My Arsenal wishlist for the rest of the season is to see the current style of play and belief become permanent. Win the Europa cup. Beat Tottenham, Liverpool and City. Not necessarily in that order. Finish top 6. Bring in defenders in this window. Get rid of Mustafi and other dead weight.

Result of the weekend Leicester 1 Southampton 2.

They are looking like they really have turned the season around from the humiliation of their home game. well done to their manager who most of us thought would have been sacked after the 0-9

I think one of the key problems we have is the midfield balance. Torreira has become pivotal to the way Arteta wants us to play because he is the only one who really reads the game and has the athleticism to get in and make interceptions and tackles.

Xhaka's lack of mobility does not allow him to get around the pitch quickly enough to make timely interceptions and his tackling technique is poor. At times it seems almost very tackle he makes could be deemed a yellow.

Guendouzi has lost his way somewhat in recent months. From being one of the first names of the teamsheet he is now third choice. There is plenty of potential there but, like Pépé, there are also lot of rough edges to be smoothed out if he wants to become a top, top player. After his first year at the club I thought he would go on to become a worldbeater, now I am not too sure. He might still do but not without significant work on the defensive side of his game, notably his defensive awareness and tracking of runners etc.

Torreira and Xhaka works reasonably well, Xhaka and Guendouzi does not.

I would like to see us sign a midfield powerhouse to play alongside Torreira.

Lacazette is becoming something of an enigma, there is plenty to admire about his game such as the hold-up play and his work ethic but he's paid to score goals and without that goal threat he becomes something of a luxury if his presence pushes Aubameyang out wide.

Morning Greeny,

You could argue that if you have the amount of possession and overall dominance that we had in the first half an hour and don't really create much then you've only got yourselves to blame. We should have been two up at halftime and then poor refereeing decisions and marginal calls become more manageable. I realise that even a four goal lead is not beyond us squandering but the sending off might have been less of a hinderance with a two goal lead.

I think we have a tendency to blame referees and VAR for the fact that we are not a very good team, certainly not one that creates bucketloads of chances or has a ruthlessly high chance conversion rate.

Hi kiwi,
Amongst other things there are things that make this forum great.
1. The wealth of football knowledge
2. not all the chat being football (albeit I tend to just stick to football)
3. some in-jokes
4. arsenal fans young to old and from all over the world passionately following and creating well articulated thoughts and arguments about the club and the game.
A few things I don’t care much for. (And these are general and not aimed at anyone in particular)
1. Any personal insults
2. Arguments between individuals that drag on and on so much that the two people probably forgot what the original argument/debate started with (I never get involved with these because I’m not on the forum enough to catch all the replies and have plenty better things to do)
3. And this one I’m afraid is directed to your point above....people taking someone else’s view, distorting that to an absolute extreme in order to argue against that distorted view. It is the straw man argument

I can scroll past most of the stuff that doesn’t interest me and I don’t get involved in spats with others and never directly criticise others on the forum. I’m happy to have a difference of opinion as others, and don’t mind if people think I’m wrong, it’s impossible that we’ll all agree. I just find it frustrating that a decent debate can be shut down by exaggerating someone’s view beyond what they’ve actually said, it makes it relatively pointless continuing the conversation.

Agreed, it’s hard to dislike what Lacazette does, but with the lack of end product from midfield we can’t have a non scoring striker.
My problem with him is the amount of times he seems to not hit his shot true, a bit of a technique problem.
I’ve made no secret of my preference for the Martinelli style of striker, like Son, salah etc really mobile, quick, dribbling forwards that can operate across all 3 front positions fluidly and without a drop in performance. Lacazette is much more your old school number 9.

Interesting how Leicester struggled without Ndidi yesterday. He’s one of the best in the league in this position.
It’s the position I think we should be targeting even over a CB

Hi Rich,

Martinelli is an interesting one. I much prefer him through the middle where is movement and eye for space in the box is exceptional but I really don't know if he's quite ready, at his age and with his body still developing, to play a central role in the PL. It would be an enormous learning curve for him. Would he get bullied by PL cbs, could he cope with the expectation heaped on his shoulders as a main striker.

You're right a fluid interchanging front three full of pace, skill and mobility looks the way ahead in the modern game.

Totally agree, although I think either a powerful CM or CB could make a huge difference.

How on earth can a referee watching the Walcott incident on VAR not see that as a penalty? It genuinely beggars belief.

The thing is socrates, do you seriously think there’s much chance of Aubameyang signing a new contract? Because I don’t. The only chance would have been getting in next season’s Champions League. Top four must be gone now, so we surely have to sell him? The only realistic chance of getting in the Champions League is winning this season’s Europa League. That competition has thus become massive for Arsenal for that very reason and, to be brutally honest, is thus our top priority by a very long way.

Also, Aubameyang will be 31 next summer. This will probably be his last chance of getting a mega deal at a big club. To me his recent comment when he said words to the effect of ‘I am currently an Arsenal player and am committed to the team’ was a way of politely saying ‘I am off or on my bike but will try to do well while I am still here’. I’ll be absolutely astonished if this isn’t Aubameyang’s last season at Arsenal, whether we win the Europa League or not. The priority I’m giving to winning it has more to do with making us attractive to new signings and getting the money to buy them, and keeping a few other existing players.

So I reckon his departure next summer could easily be a mutual decision. The club will want to sell a player leaving his prime behind for lots of money, and Aubameyang will want to go for a fresh (and highly paid) challenge at a ‘European giant’. I think Aubameyang was always better than Lacazette who works hard and is a good goal scorer but has recently lost some confidence in front of goal. I must admit I don’t rate his hold up play as highly as you seem to.

I think Lacazette may therefore need to play and get a tap in or two from close range to get his confidence back. That is arguably more likely if he plays centrally. If that means putting Aubameyang out wide while he’s still here, so be it as I don’t see him having any part in Arsenal’s future beyond this season.

Saw that on MOTD this morning. Utterly ridiculous and as the pundits said is a huge part of the reason players go over too easily and dive.

Many fans hate the actions of players on the pitch, my view is you stamp all of that out with stronger officiating, whether that be correctly punishing clear dissent or continual short pulling at set pieces or correctly giving free kicks even if a player doesn’t go down

This wonderful cartoon appeared in The Tatler today in 1938.

I've no problem with Aubameyang getting a red for that tackle, but I have got a problem with him going for the tackle in the first place as there was no need for it. The guy was on the touchline heading towards his own goal.

Having said that we've all seen tackles like that against Arsenal players go unpunished so anyone feeling that there isn't a level playing field when it comes to how the refs officiate games has a point. As an example Lacazette was booked for the number of fouls he made but Ayew (according to OPTA) had the most fouls without a booking that they've ever recorded. How does that work?

As for the game I'm happy to see Xhaka and Torreira forming a good partnership in the middle. I thought the second half showed how much we miss Torreira when he's not there as whilst Gwen obviously has potential his positioning is a problem and he tends to lose the ball far too often, and when there should have been no risk. For me his role currently should be as an energy sub late in the game and not a starter. I don't want to seem to be knocking him as he is young and, as I said, has plenty of potential, but he's a long long way from being the finished article and his 'youthful energy' is a liability.

Credit to Maitland-Niles as well, I thought that was his best game at full back for a while.

You may be right Bernard but I dont think it’s absolutely certain. If he’s 31 next summer it would probably mean the buying club would need to pay a 50 million plus transfer fee plus a salary in the region of 250k on a 3 to 4 year contract that Aubameyang would ask for. I’m not sure if many clubs wouldn’t question that because of his age.

He’ll probably leave but you might get a scenario similar to Özil where the player realises his value is worth more to arsenal than other clubs who find it financially off putting.

Shadows my thoughts on Guendouzi

On Aubameyang on 2nd look I think it’s a red. What I would say is that after witnessing the city game which was the most depressing arsenal match I have ever witnessed where players were not even bothering and didn’t care it’s good too see some of the lads going hell for leather on the pitch.

In the prem so far this season weve committed 2 more fouls total than palace but collected 27 more yellow cards. Even accounting for some of our yellows being professional fouls that is massively disproportionate

Southampton have 25 more fouls but 23 fewer yellows

Forgot to mention how good AMN was yesterday, think someone else mentioned it. I think when we don’t notice defenders we maybe forget that is the best defensive performance. Last ditch tackles etc are great for highlights reels but if you’ve had to make the tackle you’re in the wrong position to start with - I think that’s a Maldini quote

Anyway zaha was kept very quiet which is not easy. In fact I’d say zaha didn’t get a kick

Just been watching the Arsenal ladies team playing away at Brighton (well, at Crawley’s ground really - horrible playing surface).

Given all of the publicity about how the women’s game is growing I’m surprised to see what a very low attendance there is. Quite an entertaining game, albeit extremely comfortable.

VAR is a sham. Far from reducing errors and bringing a greater degree of fairness to the game, it is completely arbitrary and totally unpredictable. Just from a few games yesterday, blatant foul on Walcott ignored, blatant foul on Burnley defender for Chelsea's second goal ignored, Aubameyang correctly red-carded, West Ham goal ruled out for accidentall handball in the build-up. Firminho's goal went for VAR review and while I was sure it was valid I had no idea whether or not it would stand because such is the nature of these reviews that we frequently have no clue which way the call is going to go. It's utter rubbish.

Yet another goal resulting from keeper to fullback inside the goal area. This time Watford at the expense of Bournemouth. So many goals from this innovation this season. High risk / low reward.

Saw something yesterday that said we're only a few weeks away from it being a whole year since Lacazette scored away from home in the PL. If that's true that isn't merely a confidence issue, that's just an indicator of a not very effective centre forward.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer on MOTD: ‘When you play Man City in the Carabao Cup and they put their strongest team out, you know you've gone places because that means they respect us.’

That is embarrassing. They lost 3-1, and Pep was furious City didn’t bury them 6-0

Yep, his last away goal was last Feb against Huddersfield on Feb 9th last year, you then have to go back to October 7th, 2018 for the one before that. Not an elite striker on those numbers. Only scoring against Relegated team too it seems. The last time he scored away against a team who didn't get relegated was almost two years ago against Newcastle in April 2018, when Wenger was still manager.

I agree his record isn’t great but his link up play is very good, the goal yesterday was all about his touch to Aubameyang and how many outright guilt edged chances do you see him missing regularly.

I think he’s a penalty box striker and at the moment the service we give our strikers is appalling.

Lacazette and Aubie are good personal friends and they are seen as a good partnership but in what formation?
My guess is Lacazette is seen to be a 'Michael Owen' type of striker and if that's the case, we need a formation that gets us there.

Women's football was bigger than American men for a time. Not surprising given our girls were much better in comparison. I saw our women's team play to a sold out stadium in Pasadena, California 20 years ago. Mostly men there.

What is a surprise to me about women's football in general is the lack of support of female fans. Not sure why that is. I would also think it would be a great chance for families to take their daughters to as well. At least in America, it doesn't happen as much as it should.

I think Lampard has kept his job but I don't see OGS keeping his.

What I would like to see is Martinelli in the same role as Lacazette more often and see what he can do. I'm very excited about him. I hope we nurture that young talent carefully. If Pépé can get better (and smarter) in his role, along with Martinelli, Saka and a few others, we have a very, very good attack going. Shore up the back line and a box to box center mid and we have a decent squad.

I see that Daz is back in action. Cobra starts this coming Friday on Sky. Initial preview reports are complimentary.

Back to his fine form on Spooks I hope.