Southampton 1-0 up against Tottenham

Tottenham 2-1 up now. It was fun while it lasted

Headline from the morning game:

Nunez inspires Liverpool comeback!

How about:
Liverpool stumble in opener as Fulham unfortunate not to win.

Let’s be clear that’s a huge surprise that Liverpool didn’t just steamroller Fulham, and considering the points totals to win the titles have been mid to high 90’s in recent years that is already 2 huge points dropped for Liverpool. Why are the headlines making out Liverpool have done brilliantly well to salvage a draw?

Tomiyasu and Marquinhos played for the U22 v Man U today. Won 3-1, goal and assist for Marquinhos

BBC headline. It really is strange because there is no way we’d get such a positive headline. I’m not sure our headlines yesterday were as positive as this and we won a difficult away game.

Not that it matters, but it is irritating and there appears to be little reason for it but I’d say that Liverpool and Spurs get hugely preferential media treatment. City and Chelsea maybe neutral and they’ll jump on any chance to kick Arsenal and Man U

I'm struggling to see why that headline is biased. In fact, it an apt summary of what happened.

The BBC headline for the Arsenal match "Saliba shines as Arsenal start season in style" also seems pretty spot on.

Do you not think of you were writing the headline of that game the narrative would be more about either Liverpool slipping up/a poor result, or the positive performance by Fulham. That is a big shock result and by writing the headline as Liverpool come back ‘twice’ it makes it sound like it’s resilient Liverpool who should be praised for drawing away at Fulham when they should have beaten them easily.

Even Liverpool snatch late equaliser to deny Fulham famous victory would be a fairer reflection

https://twitter.com/evertomefc/status/1 ... 65pWVjydzw

Nice dive from Sterling!

https://twitter.com/northerngooona/stat ... 65pWVjydzw

Add this one to the ‘if that was Xhaka’ list. Ooof!

How about Klopp has next 2 games to turn his season around. Or Liverpool board express confidence in Klopp.

I think Decaf is right but for god’s sake Rich it’s not an issue that deserves the time it took to write your posts on it. It wasn’t even a game involving Arsenal. Who cares?

I see a number of stories about us chasing Diaby from Germany to add to our wingers. If it was a story about us chasing a midfielder or CF I would understand this. It must be rubbish.

Totally agree. Given that many if not most pundits would have Liverpool as favorites to win the league after the CS game and its the opener, it's a blow. They won't lose the title over it, its just the first game, but the narrative is very misleading given Liverpool's class and Fulham's class. It was seen as a win and just a matter of how much. Especially given the fac Fulham are recently promoted, zero PL experience as a team. Being home would be seen as a minor given Liverpool being arguably one of the top 3 or 4 clubs in the world at worst.

Can't see otherwise logically.

If we spend another 50 million quid on a winger without bringing in midfield reinforcements we are out of our mind. So we probably are going to do it aren't we.

Hi Bernard, I’m not losing sleep over it, I generally post things of interest and respond to people who respond to me, then I’ll post something else. I find all aspects of how the media treat different clubs interesting. And with all due respect considering your regular and seemingly never ending tit-for-tat posts with Top Gun I’m not sure you’re the one to be lecturing others on issues that aren’t worth the time to write the post.

Hi Rich. The headline Liverpool twice come from behind to draw with Fulham is exactly what they did. Mentioning Saliba in a headline about Arsenal winning at Palace is perfectly justified. I just think you’re making something with examples that didn’t deserve mention.

On the wider issues about team’s being favoured by the media, I guess all football journalists will support someone. However, criticism of Machester United is bigger news than other clubs and it’s quite flattering if Arsenal is seen in the same way. I just think the headlines you moaned about yesterday were not good ones to show your point.

On the Top Gun issue, I’ve never had an issue with him though I used to find his priority with having the last word amusing. But he ignores my posts now which I’ve no problem with and it’s quite rare for me to comment on his. The last time I did was him admitting Arteta’s comments implying we might be looking to strengthen multiple positions. I merely pointed out that while everyone has been going on about midfield, we are very light up front with only two options (Jesus and Nketiah) for up to 65 games. As everyone here will know I’ve said that before so if Arteta does think the same, I’m delighted to hear it.

I agree with you about the first headline you posted-the one that was about Nunez inspiring Liverpool and that the press does spin things routine... I just didn't think the BBC one you posted was a good example of this.

I think there is something missing in the team and it is probably the midfield. We were incapable of grabbing back the initiative after a very good start. It happened last year at times and I am not convinced we have addressed it. I think we need another CF and a midfielder who is box to box. Some games we will not need them but I want to see us have options.

I agree there is something in midfield missing. But for me it’s a massive mentality thing. We get the lead and stop doing what got us the lead. The intensity drops and we drop deeper. It’s a protect what we have attitude rather than going for the jugular. Arteta sees it as you can see him talk about it in the Amazon doc.
I don’t think it’s a fitness thing of keeping the high press up for longer than 20 mins because it happens when we take the lead not at a particular minute of the game.
It’s about being brave and keeping the line high and probably playing a bit slower when we have the ball to keep possession rather than rushing it forward.
When we finally did that the one time in the second half we scored the killer goal, it was a 15 pass move for that goal.
I think it feels like we’re so reliant on Partey and Ødegaard to have good games to provide that structure. If either or both are off it we can struggle and need gk and defence to bail is out or hang on to the lead

I tried to think of some similar games Arsenal have had recently (we didn’t draw many last year though) but looked at the bbc headline from our 2-2 draw v Palace, And when we came back from 3-0 down to draw 3-3 with West Ham in that slightly crazy game.
Both times the report says ‘Arsenal Rescue a point’.
That’s just as factually correct as saying Liverpool come from behind twice to draw with Fulham, and there are lots of ways you can write a headline that is factually correct about a game but it’s more the perception that to ‘rescue’ a draw sounds like you were the worse team and perhaps a bit fortunate. Why not use that same narrative for what would be a bigger shock for Liverpool drawing at Fulham?

I will admit the full bbc report is more what I expected to see but the headline isn’t. The opening line in the full report is…

Darwin Nunez came off the bench to score one and create another as Liverpool were forced to twice battle back to salvage a point in a chaotic game at newly promoted Fulham

Using the words ‘salvage’, and ‘forced to…battle back’ is more of the narrative I’d expect

Quite a few links with Moussa Diaby the Leverkusen right winger. The price would be very high at £60m.

In a season that now allows for 5 substitutes and is said to favour clubs with large squads of quality I was slightly surprised that the starting 11 were kept intact until the 73rd minute. Even more so when we were being overrun quite a bit in the second half.

I found myself wondering if Arteta was comfortable with what he was seeing or simply didn’t trust the players on the bench.

As it happened Nketiah’s pace did help us out late on by closing off that defender with the long raking passes and he was also well involved in the second goal.

Never seen him but is he mobile enough to play across the front so strengthening our limited options up front with only Jesus and Nketiah? As everyone knows, that’s how I think we’d have used Raphina had we got him as I don’t see the point in spending big on someone only capable of playing wide right when we have Saka in that position.

Totally agree Gaz. There is still something missing from this team.

We had a brilliant first 30 mins, scored and then completely lost control of the match for an hour.

It was a great result, as good as we might have reasonably expected, but we again saw that loss of control of a game that we saw so many times last season. On another day Palace might easily have come back to get a deserved draw or even a win.

I've been trying to put my finger on exactly why that is, was it our inability to stop Anderson's sensational passing which set up numerous dangerous attacks, was it that we lost control of the centre midfield area.

Whatever it was, for an hour we lost most of the 50-50s, Palace were quicker to the 2nd balls and when we did get possession we lacked composure and gifted it back to them.

I really think we do need another top quality player in central midfield, preferably someone with the physicality to dominate that area of the park.

It would be a shame if such a promising tranfer window was undermined by our inability to address that area of the pitch.

Hi ltg,

I was thinking exactly the same. We had clearly lost control of the game so why not make some changes. I suggest maybe bringing Tierney on because Zinny was getting exposed a bit defensively, and maybe moving Zinny into midfield to make it a three in the centre, or even bringing on Lakonga to add some energy to the middle of the park.

I defintely would have tried to cut-off Anderson's passing with some sort of tactical tweak. It was obvious he was causing us all sorts of problems with his long, accurate passes.

I do think tactical subsitutions is not an area that Arteta excels at, at least not yet.

I am unclear how we take back control in these matches but I was pretty twitchy as they continued to pour easily thru the midfield and we were unable to change to deal with it. Vierra is becoming a very good manager and I think we should not discount his tactics. Ødegaard was almost invisible and Partey had little influence. Look it was a win at a difficult place but they opened us up quite a few times. They will beat some good teams this season but it is never bad to have your weakness exposed but still win. It’s what we learn from the game that is worth gold.

It’s a simple problem we have 2 players in the middle in Partey and Ødegaard who are more than capable of having an off day. Then chuck in xhaka who rarely does but is extremely limited and can’t play on The half turn which is pretty essential for the modern midfielder and it’s not a good blend and sometimes it feels to me like our midfield is non existent at certain points in games. Can’t distribute it or play combination football. I’m not sure even signing Tielemans fixes this it might but it strikes me that we need a pacy and combative passer at the base of our midfield who can also win the ball back and challenge for everything. I think if we don’t add something to our midfield this season we will ultimately falter. If we had 60 million I wouldn’t spend it on a widemen that’s for sure.

Saw the ‘duels won’ stat v Palace. 72 for us 53 for them. That’s what we need to be doing in every game. I know some people don’t look at stats but managers talk about winning duels, winning individual battles all over the pitch. Watch the game and you’ll have a good idea of we’re competing and then use the stats to confirm or deny what you saw.

Big improvement from our last few games v Palace

Where does Saliba’s debut rank in the history of Arsenal’s great debutants? A lot is said about Vieira’s debut. Who else had great debuts? Wright scored on his. Gilberto Silva scored on his. I can think of some electrifying early performances from some players but maybe not on their first game. Saliba looks like a rolls Royce defender, just 21 as well

It seems crazy not to get another first team quality CM, given the Partey and Xhaka issues.

Hi Rich,

I am surprised by that stat, it felt like for the last hour of the game Palace won every 50-50 and were first to most of the 2nd balls. Certainly they were well on top.

Does it say where those duels were won ie. what area of the pitch? Probably more worrying if they were a lot closer to our goal than theirs.

It was great debut but I think he will be more tested in some games this season. That's when we will know exactly what we have on our hands.

He looked composed, quick, read the game well, was physically dominant and passed assuredly. Not much more you can ask from a 21 year old.

He will face a range of challenges in the coming months depending on the team he is facing......pace, strength,skill, height, dark arts. Let's see how he handles all these and the inevitable mistakes he will make.

I think a powerful dominant CM is the obvious missing link. Without one we will have more games like Palace where we lose control and then the widemen are starved of possession anyway. Martinell, for example, was excellent in the 1st half but barely had a kick in the 2nd.

My order from late 1967 onwards is: (1) Liam Brady vs Birmingham in 1973, (2) Patrick Vieira vs Sheffield Wednesday in 1996, (3) William Saliba vs Crystal Palace in 2022.

It’s not impossible that I’ve forgotten one that should be third, but I’m pretty confident in saying the debuts of Brady and Vieira are comfortably ahead of everyone else.

Afraid I don’t have any more detail on the stats. I don’t know what or how they count what a duel is.

For example a striker clearly over running the ball and a defender fairly comfortably sliding the ball out of play for a throw….does that count as a duel won? Don’t know. Whatever it is they should be counted the same for both teams so the relevance is probably looking at the difference between duels won between each team rather than the overall number.

Also some links to Pedro Neto. Wolves are after Guedes a winger from Portugal I think which could mean Neto leaving. He’s an interesting player, had a long ACL injury last year I think though

Same question I asked about Diaby. Is he mobile enough to play across the front rather than being limited to the right wing? The only Wolves games I watch are when they play Arsenal, so I don’t know.

He's primarily a winger, plays both on the left and right. Has played centrally on occasion as well, but is more of a second striker. Not sure he'd play as a lone striker in our set-up, but I do think he's a terrific player. Wolves would want big money for him though.

Is it feasible that fans are perceiving problems in our midfield that Arteta doesn’t recognise or believe are there? I really don’t know. Maybe we’ll buy another deeper midfielder, albeit after not challenging Tottenham for Bissouma I remain unconvinced it’ll be Tielemans because if he’s been available all summer for £25m, I find it odd that we haven’t bought him yet.

Leaving it to the last day of the window to get a lower price will probably save as much money as serving PG Tips tea at board meetings instead of Earl Grey. Is running the risk of another club moving in before us worth saving a pittance for?

Darren (I believe) argued a while back that perhaps Arsenal were waiting to move players out before getting a midfielder? Well Guendouzi, Mavropanos, Tavares, Torreira and Leno have now gone, and there’s still no apparent action apart from showing interest in right wingers.

One point I will make is this. If the end of the window arrives and we haven’t signed a new deeper midfielder, it will surely be Arteta’s own decision. I genuinely reckon Edu targets players Arteta wants, rather than the situation when Emery wanted Zaha and Sanllehi ignored his wishes and recruited Pépé instead. That takes me back to my initial paragraph. Maybe Arteta simply disagrees with most supporters’ views on the need for a deeper midfielder?