Always thought Ceballos was all energy but very limited impact. He gives us next to nothing for the offensive play.

I do agree with you. Arteta should be changing things up and allow the creativity to come from the players.

Yep ended in the top 4 but did you miss the word regularly- obviously you did. Pépé is no better than Theo at the moment and Tierney has some improving to do.

2 big talking points on the weekend I think have been discussed totally differently by the media than if we were involved in them.

Spurs managing to draw 3-3 after being 3-0 up in the 81st minute. MOTD2 last night didn’t once talk about terrible spurs defending, how they were mentally terrified or their soft under belly. West Ham we’re the main focus for attacking to the end. And then it moved to ‘there are still huge positives spurs can take from the game’ I’ve seen a similar approach across the wider football media. Can you imagine that was us, or Man U or City throwing away that lead. The focus would be firmly on that defence leaking those 3 goals in 9 minutes!

Also the horrific tackle and subsequent injury to Van Dijk. I’ve seen former ref Keith Hackett come out and compare the tackle to Roy Keane on Haaland. Plenty of others calling for a retrospective red and a general foot down moment with var and dangerous tackles in the game. Quite the departure from the ‘he’s not that type of player’ and ‘you invite those sorts of tackles with the quick, short passing game’

I'm not convinced by Pépé either. Scored in the last game and was puffing around like a rooster like he was the best striker ever and then disappeared completely. I also don't know where this pace of his is supposed to be because I can't recall him beating the lb on pace in many games. Not does he seem like the type who can play off the shoulder of his man and get in behind.

His set ball delivery is pretty good and his workrate was higher against Man City even if it didn't lead to anything. Haven't written him off but thought there would have been more from him so far.

Like Dec said I'm hoping that the focus on defense which had to be #1 priority after a decade of shambles is the first step and now Arteta can turn his attention to the attack. This may help Pépé.

I'm with you and thought the Aguero arm across the shoulder was just creepy. The lineswoman visibly shirked away from it as well which made it look worse.

Yes I did see the word ‘regularly’ and I still don’t think your point is valid. I wouldn’t swap Tierney for Danny Rose and as much as I rated Clichy and Monreal I wouldn’t swap them for him either. Nor would I for Luke Shaw. I’d also rather have Pépé than the Mkhitaryan we saw at Manchester United, and Theo for that matter.

Hi Dec,

So what were you expecting for £70m, a player who is not even one of the first names on the teamsheet?

Clearly I am not saying he should be as good as those two but I think it was nor unreasonable, given his skillset, to have expected a player in that mould.

Hi Bern,

I think its too early to tell with Tierney. I love his attitude, his aggression, his work ethic and his crossing ability. I am not yet convinced he is the best one-v-one fullback I've ever seen though.

Looking at the personell we have available, you have to think our problem with creating chances (although to be fair, we had 3-4 good ones against City, and at least two of them being of the caliber where you'd expect Saka and Aubameyang to score) is a collective issue. We all know Aubameyang is a world class goal scorer. As Top Gun said, Willian hasn't suddenly become crap just because he moved to Arsenal, he has proven his quality over many years in England. Pépé has all the tools to be a creative force; pace, he can dribble past his defender, he can hit a killer pass and he can score. Saka is one of England's brightest talents. When all of these players combined aren't making it happen, it can't be just down to the individual quality or loss of form. I'm sure it's something Arteta is looking at, as detail oriented as he is.

It honestly reminds me a bit of when our defense was still leaking goals like crazy, and most of our defenders were under fire. We've seen that stabilize significantly under Arteta, with the likes of Luiz, Mustafi and Holding putting in much improved performances. You need the right players obviously, but in a broken system it doesn't matter if you buy new players, it's not going to improve much until you start defending as a team. I think the same applies to the attacking side of things.

With the slightly bonkers nature of the league at the moment, no team defending well or keeping clean sheets I wonder what will prevail at the end - will it be the teams who has the better defence (or least worst defence) or will it be the teams who just score more than their opponents.

History tells us that defences win titles. That is too high an aim for us. But if we pit ourselves against Man U, Chelsea, Spurs and maybe Everton and a couple of others for those champions league places are we going to be better suited to getting there with fewer goals scored and conceded vs teams who score a lot and concede a lot?

There are few things that stand out for me.
1. Still not moving the ball quickly enough through the lines
2. not making the right off the ball runs (watch Son for Spurs for the best in the league at this)
3. most of our play being 80 yards from the opponents goal. Even if we do break the lines and get an attacking overload we've still got at least half the pitch to travel. Defenders back off to the safety of their own box, our attack slows, they funnel back and we lost the chance

The big takeaway league wide for me this weekend is the Pickford tackle on Van Dijk. I can even forget the offside call on Mané that looked onside - they probably saw some part of his shirt being on the wrong side in one of the still photos or whatever. Maybe they showed the wrong pictures on TV.

But if they can seriously look at that Pickford challenge and say it's nothing, then those people need to work with something else. He comes in flying, gets none off the ball, and takes out the players knee - anywhere on the pitch, in any situation, that's a red card. Van Dijk possibly being offside surely can't offset that - if you can show a red card to the manager or someone on the substitutes bench, you can show a red card for an assault on a player in an offside position. The fact that someone can look at it, over and over again, from multiple angles, and come to the conclusion it's not a challenge worthy of any punishment is just mind-boggling.

I think digging Arteta out for our lack of creativity is harsh. He’s stopped the rot and we are no longer getting hidings. He knows the problem and we are getting linked to all sorts of central midfield players for a reason. There’s no doubt we have an issue in the midfield of the park. I think some of the comment and judgements on players that ignore this

Leno I’m sorry it may not be fashionable to say it because it doesn’t fit the narrative, but he’s a very good keeper.

Pépé, yes on occasion inconsistent but he has a wicked left foot can cross well and score goals. He’s only taking receipt of sideways passes usually that are useless, he needs a quick ball in front of him out of transition that has the opposing full back on his heels.

Tierney, I mean what exactly had he done wrong ? He played most of his games out of position in central defence because of our frailty. He easily looks a better player than Monreal for me.

Willian, you don’t get 70 caps for Brazil being a bad player, sorry you just don’t.

There would be plenty of takers for those 4 trust me. The problem lies in the middle

Walcott had something Pépé doesn’t though, midfielders like Cesc, Nasri and Santi who could pass progressively so the ball landed in space with open grass ahead of him for him to run into. Pépé and Willian get a sideways pass on the halfway line with ten men behind the ball.

I thought the same. I saw criticism of Pépé not driving at defenders and beating them with pace and skill but as you said he's usually got 8 defenders in front of him and 40 yards to goal when he receives it. Should he be doing more? probably but attackers sometimes need to be given the right platform to flourish. Moving the ball forward quicker would be a start.

Hi socrates. Okay he may not be, to quote you verbatim, “the best one-v-one fullback I’ve ever seen though.” But let’s be realistic in our expectations. Not being as good as Lahm or Maldini is no reason to say it’s “too early to tell with Tierney.”

I have seen nothing about Tierney’s quality as a player to give me any doubts at all about him. If there is a reason to have a doubt, for me the one single concern relates to his injury record.

I agree that Pépé receiving flat passes isn't helping. I also don't expect him to beat 8 defenders. My point is for all of his supposed pace amd trickery, I've rarely seen him beat one defender.

I haven't seen him beat defenders by a push and run, or quick trick, push and run. I have certainly seen him beat plenty of defenders in tight spaces, usually by a dummy or shimmy - Pépé's problem thereafter seems to be either wanting to turn back and beat that defender again, or struggling with the end product once he has got that half a yard.

Yes, totally inexplicable.

We may be criticising our creativity and attacking but we've also got the 2nd best defensive record in the league having already travelled to the 2 teams who would likely end up scoring the most goals this season. Still a really tough run of 6 games to come in the league:
Leicester (h)
Man U (a)
Villa (h)
Leeds (a)
Wolves (h)
Spurs (a)

12 points from those 6 games should be the minimum target if we have top 4 aims.

Moving Pépé over to the left would also be better as well methinks. All this left footed winger coming in from the right just isn't working for him. A Robben or Waddle he ain't (yet). Get him over to the left and get him running at defenders and getting crosses in to PEA from that flank.

What about his goal againest Sheffield? A one two with Bellerin and he has 2 defenders in stitches. 100% down to him that one.

Appalling challenge. Should be banned for more than 3 matches. How he can just wipe out a fellow player's entire season and get off without a ban is typical of the FA. And Lanzini gets a yellow for taking his shirt off celebrating his worldy. The FA really are a bunch of clowns, but the ultimate responsibility lies with that imbecile Pickford. Still he said he's sorry so that's OK.

FA still hiding behind the "incident was seen by officials at the time so no further punishment will be handed out" with respect to the Pickford tackle on Van Dijk.
Is football the only sport that does this, nearly every other major sport I know has a proper disciplinary panel that acts in serious cases irrespective of what happened on the pitch.

The FA don't want to undermine the referee by acting over them, but the ref missed it and VAR missed it, by not acting it puts the ref and VAR firmly back in the spotlight. Everyone can see it is a clear red, there must be a 3 game ban.

If the FA and referee's association expect us to swallow it then they need to come out and explain why Pickford's tackle didn't meet the threshold for a red card for serious foul play.

"A tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent or uses excessive force or brutality must be sanctioned as serious foul play. Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force or endangers the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play."

So come on Mike Riley or The FA, explain what part Pickford didn't meet?

Normally I'd expect to see starts for Kolasinac, Cédric, AMN, Partey, Willock, Elneny, Nketiah, Nelson in the midweek game vs Vienna, but Arteta has played some stronger teams than many would. This is on paper the toughest of our Europa League group gaes so it wouldn't surprise me to see us be quite strong

What about the cross he did at Wembley last season from the right flank that Aubameyang headed in ?

Or the one againest West Ham away last year from the right flank that got flicked in.

Or the one againest Newcastle at home last year that Aubameyang headed in,

Or,or,or

Does anyone here actually watch Arsenal games ?

Keep your wig on pal. I'm just suggsting that it might be an idea to move him across to the left flank where he could prove to be more effective. We all want to see the fella produce more than he is currently doing, notwithstanding the examples you have very kindly provided above.

And yeah I do watch Arsenal matches. Been doing so since 1969.

I’m struggling with Sky’s info. Not clear to me.

I see that the Leicester game is on Sky Box Office (something that I’d normally associate with such as boxing).

As a Sky Sports Subscriber it looks like I have to sign up to the Box Office and then stump up the cash if I want to watch the game. What isn’t at all clear (to me at any rate) is whether I can then watch the game on my TV as I would any other game. Or am I forced into watching it on an iPad app?

Agree with you both. Uncomfortable viewing.

I'd read a good book instead!

Hi Soc,

I think we know at this stage that the transfer fee was inflated...a Raul special. I have been underwhelmed to date but there's no doubt he had a difficult first season, something he admitted himself. It didn't help that Emery's tactics and selections were all over the place and bizarrely when it looked like he was coming into form Dick dropped him. He certainly wasn't a disaster though and has the tools to become a very good player.

As to Giggs or Hazard, I never expected him to be that good or even close really. Hazard is a top 5/6 in the world player.

Leicester win
Man Utd away shock win
Villa home win
Leeds away win
Wolves home win
Spurs away draw

I also read somewhere that he has history of doing the same. He did it to Dele Alli amongst others. Mason said it and thinks the guy should be banned before he breaks someone's legs.

What does non sequitur mean?

If this is a non sequitur post challenge - I will have a go - Martinez must be waiting for the upcoming game. They have only played 4 games but 2 of them will give us a direct comparison by the time we play them - Liverpool and Leicester.

Only if it’s raining.

It was a lovely backheel. He was awful for the first hour, though.

Saw a piece that noted that if Saliba had cost £3m instead of £25m then not many Arsenal fans would be getting frustrated that a 19 year old isn't quite ready for the first team. Saliba is younger than Medley and Ballard who are both on loan.
The shame seems to be that Saliba hasn't gone out on loan if that is what the management think he needs. Also a shame that he's not in the Europa League squad - perhaps because they thought he'd be going on loan - because games against Dundalk and Molde at least would appear to be good games to get him experience.