We lost a tight, close 1-0 game at City. City appeared to be up for it. They were not going to be caught unawares as they did in the FA Cup. If this is the best City can throw at us on their own pitch, I'm encouraged. We are very, very early in our comeback as a club. We don't have all our moving parts. It's early in the season. They were missing DeBruyne and that is not insignificant, but we have Martinelli out (who I think is going to be a monster) and we don't have our future central defense. A year ago, we'd have given up 5 goals in the same match.

I was hoping we'd get lucky with a draw. Not being able to score at City, losing by a goal, keeping them scoreless for an hour after the goal, 5 games into the season with the team still early in its transition and learning Arteta's system is no crime.

I think there ought to be some perspective and context to the game. There is always going to be something to complain about a loss, and a loss away to City when they are up for it. Those complaints are valid. Very valid but should be balanced with where we are, where they are and how far we have come since January.

Great interview on Hard Talk. Sackur spoke to an American evangelical who has left the movement. He revealed what some of us here have long known. The Christian right supported Trump fully, in return for access and power and Trump giving them whatever they wanted which are judges that will be against abortions, moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, religious "freedom" which means they can discriminate against other Americans and use religion as an excuse, among other things. Schenck 'was' huge in the evangelical movement. He had the ear of presidents, congresspersons and the supreme court justices.

He revealed that Trump told the pastors in return for all you want, they couldn't question anything else he did. Hence why they were silent on children and babies in cages, intolerance against moslems, a whole host of things. Schenck's conscience got the best of him.

The evangelical movement is national but its core has always been the south and midwest. Evangelicals have been on the wrong side of EVERY just social movement in American history. They were for slavery, for the Civil War, for racial segregation, against the Civil Rights, against anti lynching laws, against the Women's suffrage movement in 1918, for the Vietnam War, against the women's rights/feminist movement of the '70s, against legalized gay marriage.

The poorest record of any religious sect. The Catholic church in America has a much better record. (although for this lot the Irish dominated clergy's support of the IRA may be seen differently )

Bush is a born again Christian, one of their own, but for all his faults, he respected the separation of church and state for the most part. They have voted for Trump in their highest numbers of any prior president. Modern day Pharisees.

As an aside, the reason why moving the embassy to Jerusalem is so important to the evangelicals is they want to bring prophesy according to the book of Revelations to fruition. They want to put in place a return of Jesus. In order for that to happen, certain things has to happen in and to Israel. The Israelis don't fare well in the prophesy and don't think for one minute they don't know it. But they align with the evangelicals for political expediency. They see the evangelicals as useful for influence in America. Quietly they don't like them.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08v7cm2

Just rewatching the game. In the 41st minute Aguero (who I like as a player) got in a small dispute with the lineswoman about a throw. But what i found very disturbing was that Aguero then touched her around the upper arm or neck. It was not in a threatening manner but I am afraid that is a real no no in my view. Would he have done it to a male and if so it is still wrong. He should face disciplinary proceedings for this. What has also surprised me is the lack of reaction in the UK media.

I don't think Man City are anywhere near the side of 2 years ago but they controlled the game which is a problem. They looked like they were in 2nd gear and if they had to could have lifted. Trying for a result after their last 2 games.

Watching match of the day enviously

There’s no question that we miss a player like Bruno Fernandes or James Rodriguez who can get on the ball make us tick. We have just nobody who inhabits the pockets of space in the final third and even Partey isn’t that player so I’m not expecting much change this year.

I can’t see one of our players providing 7-10 assists in the premier league.

We will win games because of commitment and Artetas rigged tactical set up but the free flowing football won’t arrive this season. Will be a case of staying solid and Aubameyang nicking us games

On Arsenal TV they mentioned that the team have not won an away game outside of London, since 2009, when they are behind at half-time.

I thought we did ok yesterday. City are a very tasty outfit with a lot of automatic, they have a well established and practiced style, and they scored a nice goal. I dont think we should point any fingers of blame at any of our lads for that goal. The Mahrez ball to Aguero really opened us up, and they used the space and position it created really well. Fair play. Mahrez was really good yesterday.

Our front 3 were all poor. In fairness to Aubameyang he was stuck out on the left again and Walker, their fastest and strongest player, had him in his pocket for most of the match. I really don't get this at all. He's our best striker by a country mile, and whenever he found himself in the middle we looked dangerous. Pépé performed the tricky combination of appearing to at least put a shift in whilst again looking completely disinterested in everything going on. I hope Raul is enjoying the £50m that he and the agent pocketed on that deal, coz he's a £20m player at the most. I'm already tired of seeing Willian in the team. He's taken a spot in the XI that could be filled by Ainsley, who's much more physical and dynamic.

Play Aubameyang at centre forward and put Saka near him, its so obvious. Then a midfield of Xhaka, Partey and Ainsley, 3 proper physical specimens who can all play a bit, and leave Dani to do the play-making because he's very nice on the ball and appears to give a *%^@. It's a shame Mesut can't be arsed to raise a lick because there is such a creative hole in the team right now. Lacazette, Willian and Pépé are chancers who probably cant believe their luck at how much they're getting paid for their average talent. Those 3 are killing our attacking play.

Props to the back 4 who were excellent, and Xhaka and Dani too. I like the playing out from the back against the high press. Its a good way of tiring out the opposition front men, and we saw in the second half that City's legs were definitely heavier.

And someone really needs to wave a microphone in Pep's face and ask him why his team always cynically foul the opposition as soon as they lose the ball. Its a filthy boring tactic and I'd love to see that bitch squirm and pout if someone actually pulled him up on it with a camera in his face.

On Le Grove he states that Leno was partly at fault for the goal because he palmed the ball into danger. I have to say I thought it was a ball he should have saved and locked up.

I was disappointed with Arteta's decisions yesterday.

Playing Willian (who frankly has been very average in his last few games) in some sort of false 9 clearly did not work and the system should have been changed at half time.

I can sort of understand not starting Partey but to give him just 8 mins in a game where our central midfield was clearly below par was puzzling.

Pépé is hugely frustrating and I am tempted to say he is Gervinho all over again. Sensational dribbling skills but lacking the footballing brain to go with it. We thought he was going to be ther player to take us to the next level and frighten opponents but he struggles to impose himself on games. He's had a decent adaption period so I'm not sure he ever will be the player we hoped for. At this point he's a £25m player so we may well have to face the fact that we've massively overpaid and will have to take a big loss should we ever decide to sell him. Still time for him to come good but I am not overly optimistic anymore.

Apparently we are close to the bottom of the league in terms of chances created per game which sums it all up really.

That le grove guy is a dick. He finds a narrative and keeps hammering away at it to make it relevant. Again it’s a clear shot 8 yards out blasted at him he’s not catching it no keeper is.

Also Leno saved our arse 5 minutes later with another stop. If you want goalkeeping errors watch Jordan pickfords performance yesterday

To be fair it was covered in the BBC’s Match of the Day. Ian Wright called it patronising. Gary Lineker also highlighted a report in a Sunday paper that will address it.

Come on, that's really unfair. He has about 50 tools in his locker that Gervinho's never had - a great left foot being one of them. He definitely needs to show his quality on a more consistent basis, but comparing him to a player who can't strike the ball and who has never had a killer pass in him is way over the top. Let's not forget Pépé came on to win the game for us against Sheffield United not long ago, and Im not really sure why he seems to be singled out so much after games like these. We could start with Aubameyang instead, who has been almost invisible since signing his huge contract. Scored 29 goals as a left forward last season, so his position is hardly an excuse.

Yes your right Haz Pépé is an easy target and people are searching for reasons to dig Leno out too.

Its odd the way they dig those guys out but ignore that we barely created a chance. Ceballos and Xhaka whilst working hard turned in a performance that Ray Wilkins would have been proud of....

Back, sideways, Back, sideways, Back, sideways, Back, sideways, Back, sideways, .......... either get a nosebleed when they run into the opposing penalty area.

If Saka wasn’t on the pitch yesterday we wouldn’t have had a shot on goal.

Not really, Haz, we bought Gervinho from Lille if I recall as a kind of cheaper version of Hazard but he turned out to be a sensational dribbler with not enough end product (or, to put it more bluntly, no real footballing brain). I just had a look at his stats, he scored 28 in 67 appearances for Lille and 9 in 46 for us.

Pépé scored 35 in 74 for Lille and has so far scored 6 in 36 for us. The parallels are obvious.

Yes, the PL is a tougher prospect than the French league but you must admit he's looking more Gervinho than Hazard. Sadly.

I don't think its unreasonable to expect more from Pépé than he is currently delivering. He's not really a player reliant on service like Aubameyang or Nketiah, he has the individual dribbling skills to make an impact on his own, in the way that Hazard, Bale or Giggs did for their respective clubs, but he's currently nowhere near that level despite us paying £70m for him. To be a top player you need that footballing brain and mentality that special players have and based on what I've seen thus far he is not at that level.

It's sad and I am as disappointed as anyone that he is not yet proving to be the matchwinner we all anticipated but that's the gamble you take in the transfer market.

I genuinely hope he proves me wrong.

Well last year, in a debut season that couldn't have come under more difficult circumstances, Pépé had 8 goals and 10 assists in 42 appearances. That's already better than anything Gervinho produced for Arsenal. But going beyond stats, at no point in his Arsenal career did Gervinho look as threatening as Pépé has done at his best for us. The consistency is not there, and the big question is if he'll ever find it with Arsenal, but talent wise he's in a completely different league to someone like Gervinho.

If your calling Pépé the new Gervinho then you have to call Ceballos the new denilson.

0 goals and only 3 assists from 29 premier league starts. Just not good enough. It’s not digging out Ceballos just pointing out how differently players are perceived.

Gervinho scored 9 goals and made 9 assists in 46. Not a great deal in it really. In a better team in a less competitive PL perhaps.

Gervinho was a brilliant dribbler and quite pacy but he couldn't shoot and his final ball and decisionmaking was often poor. A headless chicken you might say.

Pépé is a brilliant dribbler who can shoot but too often goes missing in games and also lacks that final ball and decisionmaking. With his dribbling skills he should be destroying fullbacks.

The point I am making is that at this point, in terms of effectiveness, Pépé is more Gervinho than Hazard, Bale or Giggs.

Infact, Saka is the more impressive player at this juncture.

Before you go off on one I am actually someone who wants to see Pépé start every week because I am hoping that something will eventually click and he can become the player we hoped for. With every passing game, though, I am less and less convinced that that will happen.

Our duff midfield affects a lot of this stuff.

There’s no running, no movement, no diversion, no quick pass to feet, no chipped ball over the top. Nothing just nothing.

Even I was slagging off Willian for another duff performance yesterday for example however He can’t be that bad a player right? He scored 11 goals and 9 assists in all competitions for chelsea last season. That’s not a poor record for a wide player. There must be an aspect of this that our midfield is affecting the ability of these players to contribute because technically they are good.

We are just impotent in the middle of the pitch. Nothing a dead zone, if there is a cazorla or Fabregas replicant out there the club should spunk their entire summer budget next year on them.

Might Pépé be moved in to be more centrally? He has the speed, the shots and the dribbling skills.

Aubameyang on the wing smacks of Lord Bendtner on the wing, the vast gulf in class notwithstanding.

MOTD showed how pep used Walker’s pace as a right centre back to nullify Aubameyang’s runs. It’s surprising then that we didn’t move Aubameyang centrally to make them think. Could Dias have coped with the pace over the top? Unlikely. Walker has a fine game because all we asked him to do was use his incredible recovery pace.

I don’t think we can be too upset. Arteta has improved us a lot and clearly he’s set us up to be hard to beat and score against first. City were good yesterday, not as a relentless attacking force but as a team who squeezed the life out of the game, a serious and disciplined performance. I know it is a bit small club mentality but the fact Pep is doing that now, actually thinking about is rather than just going after us with wave after wave of attack shows were moving forward.

Its such a crazy and frustrating situation. We are absolutely desperate for creativity and the ability to break through the opposition lines, yet we have two players in the squad who in theory should be among the best in Europe as doing that. Özil and Pépé. Its such a shame that at vast expense we cant seem to utilise them effectively.

Man U score looks comfortable in the end yesterday at 4-1, but they were 4 mins away from a draw and it seemed that Man U only ended up scoring on the counter attack....If Newcastle had just kept thing a tight they’d have got the 1-1 easily. very similar to a lot of teams in the league at the moment, counter attacking is very much flavour of the moment

I’m going to be in a minority on this one, perhaps a very small minority, or even a minority of one. But I honestly think the deficiencies in our midfield are being overstated. I also don’t think we’re as devoid of creativity as some make out. Seriously, how the hell can a team with the likes of Saka, Ceballos, Willian (and I know he’s started his Arsenal career slowly), Pépé (and I know he’s not everyone’s cup of tea), with on the left Aubameyang lack creativity? Even Xhaka produced a couple of creative long balls yesterday that should have provided openings.

If we are falling short in creativity, I can’t help wondering if instead of pointing the finger of blame at the players, perhaps one should look at Arteta. After all it’s him that presumably sets the team up, and the players I listed above, to play the way he wants.

If you play a 2 man central midfield you need those 2 players to create.

We could have Cristiano Ronaldo up front and it wouldn’t make a blind difference because we create zero chances.

If all you have in the middle of the pitch is Granit “2nd touch is a yellow” Xhaka and Dani Cebackpass then you are in serious trouble.

They provide zero goal threat and zero creativity

There’s not many managers in the league who would turn down our front 3 from yesterday.

Look at the Man City squad from yesterday. Not only would Xhaka and Cebackpass not get in their first 11 they wouldn’t get on the bench either. You could probably say that about the chelsea and Liverpool squads if you looked at them too.

That’s the problem at the moment.

I think Ceballos is a really good player. He does have creativity, good ability, works hard and competes for the ball. I’ll be pleased if we sign him permanently next summer.

The point I am trying to make about Pépé is that if you think of Giggs in his pomp, how he used to pick up the ball on the half way line and jink his way past 2 or 3 players, taking them out of the game and opening up spaces for the other United forwards because defenders were being dragged out of position. We know to our cost what his mazy dribbles could do.

Ditto Hazard. Unplayable on his day with his quick feet and close control and he had quite a lot of those days.

Pépé has the dribbling skills to take players on but can he do it consistently, can he pick up the ball on the halfway line and go past 2 or 3 players, forcing defenders out of position. That's what I want to see from him.

Giggs was able to do that because he had players like scholes and Keane making runs to take players with them. Likewise hazard who had lampard in attacking midfield positions. Threat all over. Pépé has 2 statues who couldn’t score in an Amsterdam knocking shop.

Likewise for Willian, Brazilian international with 70 caps and 10 international goals. Just became rubbish the moment he joined Arsenal? I’m not sure it’s that straightforward

Mark Noble provided more goals and assists on his own than Xhaka and Cebackpass combined last year. The problem is obvious

God the way you take dislikes to certain players. Ceballos has more creativity in his little finger than Mark Noble. Look at that wonderful through ball to, think it was Lacazette, in a recent home game. If Lacazette hadn’t missed his one on one with the keeper, that would have been an assist.

Anyway, I think focussing only on assists is a lazy way of assessing creativity. There can be creative passes in the earlier build up play than the final ball to the scorer.

Yeah but at some point surely he has to put the ball in the net againest a decent side. No goals and 3 assists in 30 league games. He doesn’t even get in the box to score so it’s not like he’s rattled the bar on many occasions and is unlucky.

Every game passes him by without making any discernible contribution that could win the game. He’s busy in midfield recycling possession but makes zero runs. Come on Bernard it’s ridiculous both him and Xhaka. Even Gilberto stuck one in every once and a while.

Hi Bernard,

I think I read somewhere that in terms of chances created over the last few months we are something like 16th-18th in the PL, which is crazy for a team with one of the best forwards in world football.

I still think assists is a lazy way of measuring creativity. Henry got more assists for Arsenal than Bergkamp did. For me, I still see Bergkamp as the most creative passer of the two. But on the ‘number of assists’ measure, Henry was. By the way, let me clarify that I still see Henry as the greatest player I’ve seen in an Arsenal shirt. Just not the most creative,

socrates, I suggest you look more at Arteta for the explanation of your stat than the players.

Hoping that this doesn’t involve Thomas Partey.

https://www.skysports.com/share/12107800

Arteta has clearly prioritised defensive solidity in his attempts to improve the team. In my view, that is the correct approach to take. He has done that in a quite rigid possession-based framework. I dont particularly like that, but then again, I don't really like the way football has gone in the last 5 years. Playing triangles with the keeper and working it to break through the press is possibly the most effective way to deal with the Pep/Klopp approach and the press itself seems to have nullified genuine progressive passing and dribbling through central midfield. This is what Arteta is trying to achieve and it was inevitable that the attacking play would be somewhat stiffled. A switch to a back four and a more dynamic midfield is probably the next step. He had to fix the defence first though.

Soc, why are you comparing Pépé to Hazard and peak Giggs? Did you honestly think he would be that good? Taking that approach I would be disappointed in Tierney for not reaching the standards of Ashley Cole or Stuart Pearce.

Well if you want to be top four regularly that is what is required of those 2 players.

No it isn’t. Clubs with worse players than Pépé and Tierney, let alone Hazard and Giggs or Cole and Pearce, have ended in the top four.