Our most important player. You could tell he was way off the pace. Still created more than most.

A improved performance but still not at our machine like best. It’s not title winning form but IF we can go on a run like last season I think we will be right back in it. I’m glad we didn’t put the ball in the net at the end because I think we would have suffered the gut punch of VAR disallowing it for offside. We really need Arteta to work some Dubai magic on the team in the coming weeks.

We have a lack of cutting edge in the final third and its been evident for a long time.

We had the chance to address it in the summer with either a proper "play on the shoulder of the defender" no.9 or a pacy goal scoring winger (ideally both) and its probably seen us fall out of the title race by Christmas because we can't convert possession and decent chances/positions into goals.

Leaking a few more goals than usual has not helped either.

Feels like we have regressed from last season and are now in a dog fight for top 4.

Sad, because we looked to be on the cusp of great things.

I make it that we’re 4 points down on the equivalent fixtures from last season

8 points from away games v city, spurs, villa, chelsea, Newcastle is 3 more points than last season.

Last season Liverpool managed 6 points from those same 5 away fixtures
City managed 7 points from the same fixtures (putting their game v us in to replace the away to city one)

Yes we’ve not played well yet, but there is context, red cards, injuries, tough fixtures. But, if we take on board that context then we have no room for error after the international break. We need a run of 90% win rate for a while

Ødegaard passing just so important.

Feels like we need more players with Ødegaard’s craft, guile and creativity. I mean that much is obvious I’m sure

Rice managing a broken toe subbed off early. Saka just back from injury and needs his load managed, subbed off early. We need to be pulling both these guys from International duty.

Ødegaard is a more difficult one. Were obviously hurt from his injury happening on international duty so you immediately want to say pull him but he needs to build up his fitness after missing so much football, and in the national games can help get him up to speed. I’d say let him go with strict agreements on the amount of game time he plays

We can't dictate whether or not players can play for their countries let alone how many minutes they should play. Ødegaard is the captain of Norway and just played 90 minutes for Arsenal. We have no say in what he does over the international break. Also, the players themselves want to play international football. It's not like they are being asked to work overtime to meet a deadline.

https://x.com/afcamden/status/185569918 ... -j6VVZXEoA
Not sure the late chance was offside when you look at this. Trossard should do better but the better chance was to leave it for Havertz who would have had the easier tap in

So when other players miss international duty and are perfectly fine and 100% for their club a week later that’s just total coincidence? International managers and club managers confer all the time on players and club manager requests are taken on board because there needs to be a relationship.
How did Haaland miss the last international break and not missed a minute for Coty this season. Palmer and Foden both sat out the last break too.
Load management is the reason. Don’t use him now because you’ll break him.

https://x.com/7ontheshirt/status/185570 ... -j6VVZXEoA

I still have some hope of improvement when we actually get the right players back and 100%. We were very lucky with the lack of injuries last year that allowed consistency but this year we’ve not only had the main 11 player out but then half fit backups, players out of position or new players coming in to replace them. Not to mention the stupid red cards. With an even slightly cleaner run I’d have us 6 points better off easily.

Hindsight is wonderful because if we’d known then we probably would have kept Smith Rowe who seems to be doing pretty well for Fulham with some game time.

Liverpool are looking ominous but they’ve had a ridiculously nice easy run of fixtures to build confidence under Slot and significantly improved their defence which was always a bit of a heel in latter Klopp era. They will drop points before Christmas though especially away from home.

Disappointing that we again failed to hold a lead. I didn’t think we created enough chances again. Long way to go but we need to improve in a number of areas if we are to have any credible challenge.

I can see why Arteta was particularly annoyed with Chelsea’s goal. We weren’t organised after clearing the first wave of Chelsea attack. Saliba circled in blue is in the left back zone,
Timber circled in yellow races over to the centre to cover
Gabriel in pink is over at right CB
Then Partey and Rice both circled in red are in an extra right CB role.
So you see a huge gap in the centre of the pitch

It's not coincidence. It's just part of the game. Players pick up knocks which cause them to be injured for short periods. You are suggesting that the option is there for Arsenal to pull Ødegaard from international games just after he has played his first full 90 minutes in weeks. It isn't. Club and international managers may confer but the club cannot simply stop a player from playing for his country. There are rules around this and on top of that, the players want to play.

Yes, it is unusual for us that no-one was there to block it for us. Partey was really dozy there and really should have come into that space. He wasn't doing anything.

But you have to give credit to Neto. It was a very clever run into that space and he couldn't have hit it better. And it is still only a 0.03 XG. It was a bad moment defensively, but we failed to exploit a lot of better situations.

Chelsea has over a dozen shots from outside the area. We had 4, most of them towards the end. Did Havertz have a shot apart from the disallowed goal?

Truth be told ; Arsenal are a well drilled defensively ; boring unadventurous bunch of **(((*^%% .

Always full of hope ; I drag my weary ancient bones out of a lovely warm bed , at some ((*&*&& ungodly hour ... freeze my nuts off perched on a swivel chair in front of the computer ...... for what ...?

Watch the highlights of Brighton v Man City Brentford v Bournemouth ..... centre halves make long ACCURATE passes to Mitoma [ whoever ] there is excitement .

All our goals come from carefully constructed patient slow thread the bloody needle type build ups .

When is the last time we scored a goal that didn't involve 25 ,000,000,000,000 passes .

Martinelli v Villa when Martinez came forward ...? Cole Pires Henry , Cliff Bastin's hoof to Ted Drake

Hold on a second Young Fella ........ a Scouse supporter could say Arsenal have played Leicester , Southampton and Bournemouth recently is that not an " easy " run ...?
What constitutes an " easy " fixture .... we struggled against Leicester and Southampton , Bournemouth beat us , Ipswich just beat Tottenham , Forest are right up our a**se on the table .

Cue for uproarious laughter ..... but I wouldn't mind if we bought Chris Woods

.... one he is big powerful and lumpy , causes a lot of chaos in defences , an old fashioned Dion Dublin , Les Ferdinand , Peter Withe , Martin Chivers , Joe Jordan type target man ....and most important of course he is a Kiwi .

I don’t know if that’s solely Partey’s fault, as the def mid he’s slot in to the RCB spot because Saliba is way out of the picture at LB having just been there to defend the first phase. I’d more question why the defence hasn’t shuffled over or why Rice as the LM is in the RCB position as well

I just saw this bit of burley floating in the water ; about as subtle as towing a sixty foot boomer round Philip Island searching for a Great White .

Had to laugh ; all those over the top gushy orgasms all round from the Swing Low Sweet Chariot Brigade at Twickenham last week when they hit the front one minute from the end

........ full time whistle blown but the Wallabies never gave up and got their reward . Classic

I’m clearly not suggesting Arteta calls up the national managers and says his players won’t turn up, no discussion, you can’t contact them, speak to you next international break. But there are of course ways to get your players out of international games if you want them out.
It’s ridiculously naive to think that when Haaland missed the two international games earlier in the season that it was a genuine injury that would have also kept him out of City’s games had they had one. Same for all the other players whose only ‘injury’ happens during the international weeks. Players play with injuries all the time….for their clubs, but anyone carrying a knock can and does get pulled from international duty following whatever protocol exists - but again it’s naive to think club managers send their partially injured players off to international duty with not a word said to the national team manager and then are left totally and pleasantly surprised when that player is assessed and sent him by their national team doctor.

Bit too gushy this.
Man U players were always going to get an upwards tilt as soon as ten hag left. And ruud has faced 4 consecutive home games, playing Leicester twice, PAOK in Europe and Chelsea at home (the game he didn’t win) I mean it was hardly a tough set of games for him to preside over and deserve this kind of send off.

Jon Sammels 45 yarder v United, when we could both bend down to tie our shoe laces?

We definitely need to mix it up more in attack. In particular, Martinelli hugging the touchline is a waste. He's dangerous when he has more freedom to cut in.

Odegaaard isn't going on international duty.

Because all the international managers are biased against Arsenal?

Clubs are obliged to release players for the designated international windows. If there is an injury, the national team can still call up the player and their medical staff conduct the assessment. Naturally, that would involve consultation with club doctors but if, for example, Martin Ødegaard wants to play for Norway next week, and the Norwegian medical staff declare him fit to play, then that's it. Arsenal can't do anything about that unless they want to be sanctioned.....not to mention piss off their player.

I can handle the shoe laces okay ... what I struggled mightily with was cutting toe nails .

Unresponsive joints , a little extra flab blah blah made removing the actual nail alone without hunks of flesh , near Mission Impossible and as for that tiny poxy nail file ... ........... thought this is bullsh***t

Went out into the shed got a 12" second cut Wiltshire Lathe file ........ Voila ....nice and course , didn't have to bother with the clippers

........... half a dozen strokes with that baby you can remove the whole toe .

Why is Partey dozy. Rice is just as much to blame.

And he throws out the line himself. I just can’t believe we won a game. It’s obviously the process.

Saka's goal vs Liverpool two weeks ago.

It's exactly as you describe with an excellent long pass from Ben White, playing centre half, to Saka who then Sakas it into the goal.

In fairness it's NOT our very last goal. It's the one before that.

And yes, it would be nice to see more like that and more variety/fluidity in our attack generally.

Arteta always seems to revert to an extremely cautious, structured, defence-above-all approach when we have problems. It seems to be his instinct and default setting.

However he has also shown the ability to learn and improve, and he's still a young manager. We've had stodgy spells more than once before and come back probably better than any of us imagined possible. He's also expressed a desire for us to be more unpredictable, even if it does seem to be against his nature and the instructions he gives the team.

I'm surprised by how *%^@ we've looked recently (and that's acknowledging how much refereeing decisions, the fixture list and injury disruptions have gone against us), but I'd rather be *%^@ now and good later in the season than the other way round.

The physical demands on many of our players are insane. We can't expect them to be their best month after month, year after year.

I read a curious comment the other day where apparently Arteta said he was worried he hadn't got the best out of Emile Smith Rowe.

Perfectly understandable of course, but why not try playing him a bit more then?

I'm reluctant to criticise Arteta though because I've loved so much of what he's done in his time here. I hope and expect he will come good again. Don't fancy a pint with him though. I like to relax too much.

we’ve regressed haven’t we. It’s irritating

If this summers transfer business hadn’t happened we would have been in a stronger position than we are now. Feels like we weakened our goalkeeping position for little money, a marginal improvement in defence and weakened our attacking options off the bench.

my general feeling over the last couple of seasons was we got some great victories but some came with a bit of fortune. we just don’t seem to be getting that luck this year.

I thought it made sense selling Emile because he wasn’t going to play anyway however right now if you gave me an option of not signing Merino and keeping Emile Smith Rowe i would take it. Seems a cock up to me in hindsight.

If we want to have a team that can win the title and win the champions league and we're being utterly ruthless with our team then I think we still have work to do.

Of course you can win cup competitions without having a team that on paper is good enough, or the best in the competition but your aim shouldn't be to try to win it by luck.

I think we have a GK and Defence capable of winning the big prizes. The only area I'd look to enhance is having a traditional attacking fullback to add another dimension to our game - think of Dani Alves or Hakimi type full backs.

In midfield I think Rice, Ødegaard, Saka are good enough if complimented by the right profiles.

So we're really looking at a top class CM, Left wing and striker. Its £150m if you can shop wisely.

I'd disagree that we've weakened our GK position. Raya is a far better GK than Ramsdale. We've upgraded the position for a net spend of about £7m. If we could do the same, for the same net spend and get the same level of upgrade for any other problem position Id sign up for that.
If you're talking about having Ramsdale as a No.2 vs Neto then yes this could be considered weaker but how much was Ramsdale going to play this year? It made no sense to keep him and not pocket the £20-25m.
Agree on the attack, the window was poor, we went for players but couldn't pivot to acceptable signings. Its one thing waiting for your primary target if you have time, but we are in a win now situation.

I wonder whether it was simply that Emile Smith Rowe doesn't fit with what Arteta wants in that position and he wasn't going to play ahead of Ødegaard or Martinelli/Trossard on the left wing. Its almost like any Emile Smith Rowe type player wouldn't have played because it isn't the balance Arteta wants from his left 8 player, generally he's always had a Xhaka, Rice, Merino type here. I think with the right player there is opportunity for a more creative player here as I think it restricts our left side. Xhaka was more creative and had a wonderful passing range than Rice and Merino - but he didn't cover as much ground as Rice and Rice is better off the ball. Pep would buy a right footed Ødegaard and play him there - which is what I'd like to see available in our squad.

Emile Smith Rowe sale also gave us much more flexibility in terms of FFP. Sadly its a way teams have had to bend the rules because of the way acouting is done

I agree with that and I'm sure Arsenal understand their obligations. All I'm saying is other clubs have managed to get their players out of international duty and we all know there will have been a dialogue between national team, player and club. Arsenal need to start being as ruthless and start to bring more pressure to these types of conversations. Of course we can't fabricate injuries but we can put pressure on and make requests - as every other club does.
lets see how much International football Saka, Rice and Ødegaard play and whether they are fit for Forest in 2 weeks

Yes. We have regressed. We are a team more focused on keeping out the opposition than going for the win. We can talk about tough fixtures lists, injuries etc but this does not look like a team that wins the title. There's no freedom in the attacking play. If we take the lead, we immediately sit back into a compact shape when most of the time it would be better to really go after the opposition.