Can’t fault the effort, really can’t.

If only we had a spare Santi Cazorla or Cesc in the back of the cupboard to get some distribution into that midfield

The sort of thing that Özil is supposed to do eh.

Fantastic team spirit to get this draw. We got to keep the momentum from this. The team was so psyched to get something from the game.

At 1-0, 10 men and 60 minutes away on a ground we lose at regularly I was fearing the worst.
What a gutsy performance. Away fans stayed with the team all game and the team played for them.
Mustafi and Xhaka as a pair of CB, 2 18 year olds, Saka at LB, Bellerin looked done at 60 mins....and to come back not once but twice shows there is fight in this team.
This is small building blocks for the future of Arsenal under Arteta, it is only 1 point but to the players it will feel like so much more than that.

Enough has been written about shooting ourselves in the foot, let’s just be proud of the reaction and last 60 minutes.

Wow, what a comeback.

Didn't think we had that in us.

I thought Xhaka was immense at CB. New position?

Well said

Now I believe Arteta is changing our attitude. Great fight back but it was the young ones who dug deep. Now put it together for 90 minutes.

I loved the Guendouzi foul. They lost their *%^@ and that is when I knew they might crack.

Someone made me chuckle over on twitter. They reckon Xhaka is the best CB at the club and he isn't even one

Wasn’t there a statistic someone mentioned that van Dijk has contributed more goals and assists than Mesut has since he signed his new contract.

The major problem with this side isn’t the defence it’s that Mesut isn’t contributing at all and we need a midfield player alongside Torreira who can distribute the ball and get forward into the penalty box to support our strikers. This is why we can’t control games in turn putting pressure on our centre halves

Exactly so. Lacking in creativity and speed of transition. That isn’t ever going to be provided by Özil. He must be such a frustrating player to be alongside.

Bit of premature eja***** there Big Guy .

No way was Arteta outhought , if anything the reverse .

To leave Martinelli , Pépé , Lacazette on the pitch as part of the ten men took gumption .

Wenger , Emery would have thrown every defensive players on and tried to keep it at 1 - 0 .

With some of the dumf**s Mikel has at his disposal that performance is nothing short of miraculous ....

but for two horrendous cock ups at the Emirates and one today our record v Chelsea could easily be a draw and a win .

Kante falling on his arse reminiscent of Terry v Walcott .

I'm resigned that we are going to be mid table this season. We are not going to be threatened with relegation. I scoff at that possibility. Some of the cjicken little supporters will raise that possibility. We won't we are the Arsenal, we don't do relegation.

All I want for the season right now, assuming we stay mid table is first and foremost, Liverpool lose a game but can win the treble and piss off Man Utd fans.
Secondarily, beat Tottenham. But I'd take the former.

I noticed that as well, how desperate Chelsea were to run to the ref and complain to ensure Guendouzi was punished. Pure panic.
I really wasn’t impressed by Chelsea and can see why they are such an up and down team this season

So proud of the boys.
What spirit we showed.
Martinelli. Just Wow! What a goal!
Had a feeling all our hard work would go unrewarded and Chelsea would get a second but we still showed more spirit to come back again!!
*%^@*** beautiful seeing Bellerins shot nestle in the corner.
That feels like a win and will hopefully give the boys great belief.
*%^@*** Azpiculetta sticking his tongue out like a *%^@ when he scored. Where was the tongue at 2 2 you ****!
Get in there!!!!

Arteta deserves credit for his reaction to the red. I’m sure Xhaka went in initially as a temporary solution, Arteta saw we actually responded well in the 10 mins immediately after the goal and had the balls to not just throw on a new CB as 95% of managers would have. If we were going to be pressed deep, as 10 man teams often are, then you’re already taking away one of Xhaka’s weaknesses. He doesn’t need any recovery pace if he plays only 20 yards from his own goal.

Arteta also kept the 3 boys up top to at least offer some threat. 4-2-3 formation is ballsy away to Chelsea and 1-0 down.

There’s so little creativity Lacazette is almost playing as a false 9 he’s dropping back into midfield so far. Then he gets a load of grief because he’s not scoring

Pépé gets a load of grief because he gets the ball played to him behind him by 5 yards on the half way line and is then expected to beat every opposition player to get to the goal. If he doesn’t people accuse him of being a waste of money.

Nil creativity, no early ball or possession. Before the sending off we had resorted to punting it at Lacazettes head. I think if we hadn’t lost a player we would never have scored

The Chelsea 2nd goal highlighted a problem with the offside law that is so open to interpretation. Abraham miles offside limping back in to play, the ball is crossed near him but he’s not in the gk line of sight, but could have easily distracted the Arsenal defence. As the cross leaves the Chelsea players boot it wouldn’t be easy to establish it wasn’t going to go to Abraham because it’s reasonably in his directions. So the officials need to decide if he is interfering with play.
Someone (possibly souness) said if you’re on the pitch you’re affecting play, I can see the point but that brings us back to the old offside law which isn’t fit for purpose.
I’d want an Arsenal goal to stand for that but there is a grey area.

You want to know why Lacazette and Pépé aren’t performing ? Watch these and draw your own conclusions.

https://youtu.be/iAn-J8_xUG8

https://youtu.be/IvT1wHZb2xA

2 things about Martinelli’s goal
1. That’s a Mustafi assist
2. Did anyone notice once Kante slipped he reached out his hand to grab Martinelli’s ankle? Do you think he’d have got a red or yellow for the foul if he’d managed it?

I thought exactly those two things! I thought it would be a clear professional foul stopping a run on goal, it would have had to have been a red, (exactly like Luiz decision) but frankly I’ve felt so shafted by decisions and VAR recently so nothing would have surprised me.

And well done Mustafi, the only man in the stadium, and on the planet in fact who saw the potential for that assist!

Ah yes I was thinking of him rather than Senderos. Worse than Squillaci as well.

Old enough but had a period around there where I didn't watch much and there was limited coverage in NZ.

Possibly fair points regarding Pépé, we’re into the second half of the season where Pires and Henry started to improve after indifferent starts, so there’s always hope.

The transfer fee is undoubtedly making us all wait for 72 million quids worth of fireworks and so far we’ve got fits and starts. All nice Roman candles and not enough rockets. It will help when the team can distribute and transition effectively but this is what he’s like when the chips are down and that does say something, not everything buy any stretch, he could come really good and ‘justify’ the price tag, but basically, so far, I’m disappointed.

Not my view at all. As I said I haven’t watched a single second of it. But like everything on telly, some will like it and others won’t.

You mean the one that goes into touch to give a throw to the opposition?

Sure feels like a win

I didn't see the last goal because I turned the station in disgust...lol. Had to see a recap. Good for Bellerin. A captain's goal. He's a lost s step or two of pace but he's still a decent RB.

The one he receives himself not passes

Yes this is the Özil statistic. His new contract has been a disaster for Arsenal

Talk of us somehow ending Ceballos stay with us

Has there ever been a loan signing we have made that worked out

Read this on twitter:

Martinelli made 26 sprints tonight, more than any other Arsenal player on the pitch. The second highest? Saka and Lacazete with 11. Chelsea's highest was Emerson with 14.

Martinelli also clocked the top speed of the night. 34.11 (kmh).

Mustafi may not be good enough but no one can fault his effort. He started the game shakily, made several misplaced passes and then the big error but after that he played really well.

I think Saka may have a future at LB. So much of the modern game focuses around the ability of fullbacks to get forward and he could be elite in that context. Very intelligent and a quick learner.

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/01/22/u ... al-fans-a/

Please match your words with action

https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2020/01/22/a ... ght-about/

Özil was good in the first few games for Arteta. He is slipped back to his slow-mo, ineffective style. Clearly past it to keep going at the high speed, high tempo expected of him.

https://arseblog.news/2020/01/arteta-ex ... -red-card/

Big shout out to Xhaka, who did very well at CB for the team. He is putting on much better performances.

Not at all. Amy Lawrence was talking about Artetas tactics. The ball goes to Luis and Xhaka who try and put long balls forward. This way they don't go upfield too far and don't have problems being turned around. Look at the first 25 minutes Lampard realised this and just closed down Luis and Xhaka. Whole first hard we struggled.

What is surprising and disappointing is that Pépé doesn’t feature there. I envisaged him as a pacy destroyer in the mould of Zaha.

Hi ltg,

He's shown he has pace and skill and trickery but I think Top Gun touched on it when said he needs the ball higher up the pitch and not on the halfway line with his back to goal where he needs to do something miraculous just to get out of a tight situation.

If we had a midfielder who could find his runs with more expansive passes, then we could perhaps see what we paid all the money for. Özil should be the one but he seems to play too much in Pépé's area of the pitch making it difficult for him to produce a defence splitting pass.

That said Pépé also has to work on his movement and the timing of his runs so that those kind of expansive passes are on for him.

I fully agree socrates. On the way home last night I had a look at the forum and I think I noticed someone (can’t recall who) say Mustafi’s heart wasn’t in it. I was surprised because heart is the one thing he does have. He has various faults. But a lack of heart is not one of them.

I also noticed Darren use the word hate yet again to describe his feelings towards Mustafi. He has before and I still think it’s the wrong word to use about a player you don’t feel is good enough. The worse player I’ve ever seen play for the club was probably Caesar who I also knew was a lifelong Tottenham fan (I think he came from there). Did I hate him? No way. Myself, I find it impossible to dislike Mustafi because of his attitude, whether or not he’s prone to making bad errors or falls short of being good enough.

I was very close to the front of the stand behind the goal at the away end and you could see how bad he felt about the mistake. So well done to him for sorting himself out to then play well. I give him credit for that.