I thought Tierney was subbed off immediately AFTER Vardy scored. Nketiah came on as the reaction to going a goal down.

Still feels like we need a CB, a creative mid, a creative wide man and a striker. Perhaps someone in the squad can push on and fill those roles

Bizarrely Toerney didn't touch the ball in his own half during the second half yesterday. Xhaka was basically playing left-back and Tierney left-wing. Releasing the left full back had its merits last year but I can't help but feel putting square pegs in square holes is the way forward.

Play a 4-3-3, allow full backs to overlap and provide natural width but to be a full back primarily. Pick natural wide players who will also track back and double up with their full-back, Aubameyang up top and pick a midfield 3 with balance between defence and attack. From that point you can nuance and tweak the tactics. For example the midfield 3 can stay compact and width is just the full backs and wide forwards, or the midfield 3 can cover the full backs to allow the wide players to stay higher. But start with the basics and change from there. I don't think we're competent enough with the basics yet to have so many tactical tweaks from game to game.

Man U haven't won their last 5 home games in the league. You just know what is happening this weekend....

News today is Mustafi has rejected Arsenal's offer of a contract extension. I think he's a free agent at the end of the season and he obviously fancies a move.

We did buy 2 CBs (months apart but still) and a defensive center mid. With Saliba not being deemed PL ready, we may need another veteran stop gap till he is. Why Mustafi and a couple others are still in an Arsenal kit is beyond me. They should have been sold and that money used for others to come in.

Still, its the first 'bad' result, meaning unexpected. The Foxes haven't won on our grounds since Pele was likely still playing. It's 6 games in. Let's not sound the alarm just yet. The road was always going to be rocky. This is Arteta's first managerial job so he's not only reforming the squad, he's taken on manager's responsibilities for the first time.

We're really going to have to accept a few more of these unexpected results. In the larger picture, we are in the right direction.

Wish Mustafi would accept Arsenal’s offer of a contract extension. The reaction of our friend from across the Atlantic would be truly hilarious.

As far away as possible from Vardy, one assumes?

Sorry to say we aren't. If we set the frame of our larger picture say a decade or five years back, then is anybody sure we are better placed than then? We have had three managers in a short time, and I am quite worried about Arteta. His public handling of the Özil situation shows his inexperience. The style of play is unexciting, and he is a lucky that due to Covid he doesn't have to hear 50-odd thousand moans on match days as did Arsene and Dick. True we are only six games into the Premiership season, but on what we have seen is anybody really confident we will finish in the European places? The cups may be our best bet.

Until I watched MOTD2 last night I hadn’t realised we’ve slipped to 10th place. Moreover if Tottenham and Manchester United win their games in hand we drop to 12th.

Spurs game against Burnley today. Somehow it would be no surprise if Son and Co play them off the pitch. We dropped to 10th when Leicester scored. A Spurs lucrative win today could see a drop down to even 13th.

Hey omoh, I hear ya. We had 3 managers in a relatively short time by Arsenal standards with Graham, Rioch and Wenger and things worked out fairly well.

I'll even throw you a bone and add Guendouzi along with bad handling. All that said, we are a better team than a season ago, even 6 months ago. We've beaten the elites of the league (City and LFC) in the last 3 or 4 months, made some much needed signings.

It may be a matter of perspective and I really do see your point. Özil will be resolved one way or another by next summer. And we really don't know the whole story.

As for Europe, I think we will get better. A few new faces, everyone has to get comfortable with the system where its second nature and he doesn't have to yell instructions continually from the manager's area. Time will tell if you're right. Let's revisit after the holidays in the new year and see where we are. Man Utd, Chelsea and Tottetnham aren't exactly setting the world ablaze. We may back into Europe...lol.

Lastly, if City is any thing to go by, we'll look better once all the pieces fall into place. Right now, we have to stop the leaking of goals and that's going to look boring. We may have to go back to a one nil to the Arsenal till then.

Actually looking forward to the away match against Leeds on 22 Nov. As so far they're a running, well oiled machine. They're in 5th place so far. They could stay up.

Sure. OGS will grab a stunner.

Not that he was anywhere near him on yesterday ... That was awful.

I’ll be very surprised if Leeds go down. I’ll be equally surprised if Fulham stay up. I can see WBA going. I think Sheffield United have enough to survive. I’m less confident for Burnley and Brighton to be honest. As things stand, my guess would be Fulham and West Brom, with Burnley and Brighton fighting it out to avoid being the others joining them.

Aston Villa are looking much improved so my money would be on them being okay. It was vital for them to keep Grealish, which they did. Can’t see Southampton having too many problems.

Hi Goonie,
Whatever so-called experiments MA is doing in training appear not to transition succinctly to match days sufficiently. MA's tactics, shuffling player positions and rotation, is done in training one would assume. Thus, given the opponent on match days, MA would/should be ready and well aware of what he's dealing with.

Nothing to do with bad luck. We can moan about Mustafi’s positioning for Vardy’s goal all we like but for me, Lacazette not getting to Tierney’s cross was rank cowardice because a defender somewhere close to him raised his foot. And I see that as even worse.

Without wishing to sound politically incorrect in my use of language, I’d have expected a cripple in a wheelchair to make more effort to get his head to Tierney’s cross than Lacazette did.

Trump using the FBi to take over AG's computer "This has got to be fake news".

At least theres a little bit of good news then

Apparently Mustafi wants a move to Italy. Something to do with being near his Albanian-Swiss wife's family in Switzerland.

Hi Bernard,
That's all a possibility for those clubs going down. AV are lucky Grealish signed on for another 5 years, as he had a few offers recently. He has improved them.

I’m just glad the club offered Mustafi a new contract. At least they tried to keep him, as he doesn’t deserve half the criticism he’s had from some people. Especially one person in particular.

I have good news and bad news.
What's the good news? Mustafi won't sign a contract extension.
Okay, what's the bad news? No one wants him.

Arteta seems happy with him. MA's a bit short of defenders now. Saw that Mustafi's had an offer from Lazio. He's ok, but not stellar.

Hopefully a poster will see that Lazio want him, as it will save him from imagining nobody will want him.

See Tottenham are 0-1 up. If they hold on it’s us down to 11th.

We are down to 11th. Spurs one point off top 4 now.

C'mon Zed, grow a pair, all of you panicking....joking dude...its 6 games in. We aren't going tot stay 11th. We had a fairly rough first 6 matches. We are much better than we were under Emery. Had Emery stayed the manager, likely no FA Cup, we'd be lucky to get a point or two from the games so far.

We will move up, Villa will move down. Sperz will hover near their present place. City are 13th. Man Utd are 15th. Does anyone think either of those sides will stay there.

Don't worry son. I 'guarantee' we'll move up.

I suppose my thought process was that the one you’re talking of wasn’t really a chance. I’m not even sure if he would have seen what he did as an attempt on goal. Could it have been a flick on into the goal area, the sort of thing Bould did many times?

But the chance from Tierney’s cross was close to a sitter that he should have easily got his head to in order to guide it in. Sorry, I found his feeble effort with that one so disappointing.

American, perhaps you should have seen it as a factual observation rather than a prediction of where we’ll finish. At this moment in time, we are 11th.

I thought that was a very pertinent question that Soc asked the other day and one I was asking myself during our match v Leicester.
Leicester are trusting their young centre half Fofana who they signed from St Etienne.
Why are we not trusting our own in Saliba.
I know his problems and injuries are well documented but this boy was doing very well in the top league in France last season
Why dont we show some faith in him.
Rather see him in the team than Mustafi to be honest and are you telling me we cant even trust the boy to start in the europa league and cup games. I sincerely hope his career with us is not over before its started and that Artera does believe in him and that something detrimental is not going on behind the scenes.

I think there are important differences between Saliba and Fofana. There is the off field issue of Saliba's mother recently passing away (I think I read), but also playing for Leicester is different to playing for Arsenal. One is clearly under more scrutiny for any mistake made, also Leicester play a much deeper defence which is much easier for a defender to come in and 'just' defend. Arsenal play a higher line, expecting their defenders to go 1 v 1 against attackers and be the starting point of attacks.
I agree it would have been nice to see Saliba and I think it is a missed opportunity to not have him in the Europa squad especially with the extra subs we can name and bring on and the easier games we face in the group stage. Saliba could have started 4 of these games pretty comfortably

I'm still right behind Arteta.
He is the man for us and I love how much more solid we are.
But he has to find a way to make us more pacy and creative in attack.
He has to start playing Aubameyang through the middle and have Saka on one wing and Pépé/Willian on the other.
The slow methodical build up is not doing it for me
Attack with pace and not be so cautious.
Surely this is not how Arteta wants to play having being around Pep for years.
Utd haven't won a league game at home in 5 attempts I think. I think we all worry that that sequence will come to an end on sunday.
Teams always seem to end their negative runs against us and I fear the worst to be honest.
Then Villa Wolves Leeds and Spurs follow after that. Very difficult run of games where it's hard to see where wins are coming from if we play like we did in the 2nd half v leicester.
I hope Arteta has some ideas and answers how we move forward attacking wise.

Morning Rich.
For sure he could have played in the Europa league games.
I really hope Arteta is putting his arms round him and telling him how much he believes in him.
The boy is a talent.

That's a good read, Roastie - balanced and objective as is allowed by NYT's position of detachment.

Neither club nor player come out of it particularly well.

Next summer we can get rid of Özil, Sokratis, Luiz, Mustafi but we won't get any transfer fees in for any of them. I worry how quickly our rebuilding project can work when finances are tight, and even tighter due to no revenue from fans in the stadium, and our inability to generate any fees from our players.
Putting aside the January window, next summer the team will likely need another back-up GK (I think we might go back for Raya), a right-sided CB, possibly 2 central midfielders (because Ceballos will be off) and at least 1 striker.
Other than the 4 mentioned above we have a glut of players still who are simply not good enough to get us in to the top 4, chambers, holding, Cédric, elneny, xhaka, willock, nketiah, nelson, lacazette. That may seem harsh on some of those who haven't played much but there is a reason for that, and there are others in that list who have been with us a long time but we've never got in the top 4 with them in the team. There are still question marks on whether Pépé and Willian can turn us in to a top 4 team.

Once again timing has been the absolute enemy of Arsenal - 3 examples I can think of.
1) We decide to build the new stadium relatively safe in the knowledge we're well established top 2 team with not much threat from below. Then Chelsea get all their money, hoover up transfer targets and shove us down. I'm not saying we couldn't have done better - just that the timing was awful for us
2) We get through the lean years and now have a stadium that is pulling in huge amounts of money, more than all but a handful of clubs in europe. TV money goes bananas and suddenly match day money is a drop in the ocean compared to what the TV money brings in, so the difference between having a 60,000 stadium and a 40,000 stadium is nothing
3) Arsenal need a total rebuild, lots of players need to leave and lots need to come in. Finances are tight but if we can be smart we can negotiate a turnaround in the team. A global pandemic hits when we're at our lowest, restricts our finances even further and strangles the market so much that we can't achieve anything like the business we wanted to achieve. The global pandemic was perfect for those clubs with a settled squad and strangely Chelsea who had been forced to hoard their money the previous season due to a transfer ban, now they were super rich even in comparison to very rich clubs who needed to tighten the belt.

Mike Dean is the ref for our game vs Man U. The ref who loves to give a penalty and the team who can't stop being given them.

36 pens for Man U vs 9 for us since Solskjaer took over. I get that their style may lead to more pens (although there were also stats about touches in the box per pen and Man U were way out in front on that) but Man U just always get every shout they have, there's never one not given if they go down in the box - all the more frustrating when you see so many of our claims turned down.

I saw an article looking at the Son+Kane partnership because they have now assisted+scored asa duo 29 times, only behind Drogba/Lampard. The article seriously asked 'where do they rank in the all time prem duos, are they the best ever?' I suppose it would be asking too much for these articles on Spurs to mention the need to actually win something to be regarded at the top of these sorts of lists.

Tempting fate there Rich. In this season where it looks to be wide open they could well do it, if the above two stay fit. But for a ludicrous VAR decision against Newcastle and an insane comeback from West Ham they'd be two points clear at the top now. I'm sorry to say they look in much better shape than we do right now.

Hopefully that's jinxed them