Everton getting free kicks for tripping themselves over. Tomiyasu was nowhere near him

Too easy

Four wins and a draw without particularly playing well.

I’ll take that.

Delighted to get out of there with 3 points. 1-0 will do just fine. Hopefully Martinelli will be back sooner rather than later.

Looked a bit like a hamstring?

Yeah, that’s what I thought..fingers crossed it’s minor anyway.

Pretty good second half, We managed that lead much better than we have done in the past. Great to see how much depth we have now, too. Vieira and Raya look the business. And Trossard is just such a good card to have up the sleeve.

Leo is an enigma. Possibly one our best technical players but where does he fit in the side? Not sure he’s a winger

Not sure why Gary Neville was going on bout us wasting time at corners, we wanted to win the game, 0-0 was not a good result for us. Why would we want to waste time?!

Super sub?

Hard fought away win. Dominated the game from start to finish. Everton seem to have a plan this season based on hope that 3 teams are worse than them over the 38 games, god they are dire. But then so is every team managed by Dyche. Of all the teams who realistically could get relegated they’d be my first choice to go down.

Not much to say about the game, instantly forgettable but lit up by a fabulous finish from Trossard. Defence was water tight all game and Ricr added the necessary physicality in central midfield.

On to the Champions League

That seems to be the case. Luton, Bournemouth are definitely worse.

Sounds like that short corner that bought the goal was a pre planned move. Difficult to have an exact plan given the number of passes from the corner to the goal but what it did do was bring Everton’s defence out and in an unfamiliar or unsettled positional play. I bet if you compared the standard Everton low block positionally (which would look like the classic 4-5-1 formation) it would look very different and ragged at the short corner. Potentially led to Saka slipping in as Everton moved out, then the cut back to Trossard as the Everton defence retreats.

Small details executed very well

Far too many people outside Arsenal are getting over excited about the idea of having two excellent gk and potentially rotting them for the type of game we want.

If you had two top strikers it would be all praise. Of course I realise it’s more likely the sun striker is given 20 mins at the end of games but everyone would talk about the importance of depth and players pushing each other to be top class all the time.

Arteta hinted at regrets he’s had about not making a gk substitution in 2 games as a manager, one day he’ll do it and the dinosaur pundits are going to absolutely lose their mind!

I think they deserve a little more credit than that, Rich.

Surely that plans being going long enough to call it a "strategy" by now?

It's so tempting to agree with this and it's a really interesting point either way.

The counter argument is that while being able to play more than one way is a strength, there's also a lot to be said for sticking to your principles. Especially with more goals beiing scored in the late stages of games than the early ones.

Similar dilemma to the early Wenger years when we were often excellent but sometimes lacked a plan B. When plan A is really good, there's a case for getting even better at plan A and seeing what happens then. Something that Arteta's willingness to spend big may facilitate better than Wenger's reluctance.

Slight tangent but it also reminds me of something else said about Wenger's coaching. That rather than work on a player's weaknesses, he would encourage them to develop their strengths even more. It was their strengths that the opposition were terrified of after all.

Having seen a lot of us in Arsene's later years, my inclination is that while it's great for attacking players to work on their strengths, a few hours here and there working on any defensive weaknesses is time well spent.

I do agree there are 2 sides to it. I don’t think we created the type of high quality chance our patient approach wanted. The Trossard goal is a low percentage chance made in to a goal by a quite brilliant finish.
You make a good point about goals for dominant teams coming late in games and games are 6/7 minutes longer now. Doing what Everton did all game does take a lot out of you mentally to stay so disciplined that’s hard to keep up for 100 minutes.

I think for me it’s more about tempo. No problem being patient for the really good chances of you are penetrating with high tempo.

The offside decision today is a subjective decision not a matter of fact of whether Nketiah is standing offside. So the onfield ref should have been sent to the monitor no? Perhaps the onfield ref already told var he deemed the Everton player playing the ball wasn’t a deliberate act so the only thing he wanted checking was the offside.
Not one you see very often at all

First off I have only seen extended highlights of match. I thought Viera had a good game in a team where all seemed to play well. The fact we kept persisting even without reward was s positive. I am concerned we are trying for the perfect goal too often. Would s add Leo like to see us run at players near the box and make them commit. A good performance overall

Without a bit of sloppiness at home to Fulham it should be 5 from 5. When you look at all the stats we've totally dominated and controlled every game we've played. Those that thought last season was a fluke season for us are going to be disappointed.

The carefree fluency from early last season isn't quite there but I think we have to see some of that is down to the opposition, we're now a very different prospect from the surprise we sprung last year, both in ability and tactically

https://x.com/SabrinaArsenal/status/170 ... 28706?s=20

Worth showing this again. Not even called as a foul in the game - and rival fans wonder why we moan about the lack of protection for Saka.

edit: VAR even did a quick check for a red card. Now it isn't a red card but the fact VAR deemed it necessary to double check and the ref didn't evn think it was a foul is worrying.

The ref played a good advantage earlier in the game when Saka was being fouled, he let it go and when Saka's pass under pressure was intercepted he came back for the free kick - good refereeing. But all too often (in all games) I see refs play an advantage on tackles like this because the team in possession keeps comfortable possession but don#t come back and suitably punish the offender - this is a yellow card 100% of the time

Man U have got rid of a GK who was bad with his feet and seem to have one who is bad with his arms. Still can't work out how he didn't save brighton's 3rd goal - he seemed to make himself smaller as he dived

3 points in the bag when it would have been 0 or 1 in seasons past. We must celebrate!

I'm concern Emile Smith Rowe doesn't even get a substitute appearance. What is going on?

https://x.com/ThePeakSanti/status/17036 ... 61077?s=20
Too funny not to share as the Man U pile on continues

Team selection for Wednesday will be interesting with the NLD on the horizon. We must get a win in the first home game of the Champions League but Spurs will have a weeks rest before the NLD.

There are certain players who can easily play 90 minutes in both games and don't need a rest, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Rice, Ødegaard. Saliba and Gabriel probably spent more energy in training than they had to exert at the weekend.

But there are some players I'd like to protect, Zinchenko and Saka primarily.

Jesus and Nketiah will likely share some minutes as strikers. Ditto Havertz and Vieira. Jorginho could come in for the European game but is there any need to rest Rice right now? Tomiyasu coming in for Zinchenko makes sense. Saka is the tough one, I can't see any way Arteta doesn't start him in both games.

I didn’t see this as I was making a cup of tea at the time but to not get a yellow card is poor, to not even get a foul should be worthy of a demotion for the referee.

I'm a big advocacy for proper injury time in games so generally welcome the new guidelines adding on the correct time - but I was surprised when only 4 minutes went up yesterday. The recipe was there, big club 1-0 away to smaller club, frothing fans desperate for anything to cling on to, boo-ing of Arsenal players who they perceived as feigning injury to waste time - I would not have been surprised to see 7 or 8 minutes. Even without all the above, there was a goal and 4 blocks of subs, 4 minutes was welcome but strange. That said I think Everton could have played for another few days and not got close to scoring

I'm not convinced we've completely lost our propensity to concede against teams that look like they could play for days against us and not get close to scoring. WH last season and Fulham and United this season come to mind!

Fair point. I think away from home we've generally been very good in this respect, most of our clean sheets last year were on the road and both of them this year are. I'd love us to fix that at home. Any bottom half team to just be swept away 3-0 with the minimum of fuss.....can't have everything I suppose!

Burnley GK booked after 11 minutes for time wasting. Got to be a record

Per Haftorsen for Norway vs Holland after 5 minutes....this courtesy of the Grauniad

They also remind us that Roy McFarland once got booked after 2 minutes

Didn't Vinnie Jones once get booked in 5 seconds?

Whilst performances this season haven't been as exciting or swashbuckling as the start of last season I think Arteta will be happy. He's tried new things to make us less predictable and still won games (Fulham blip aside), but he also speaks a lot about control in games and making sure you are not vulnerable to transitions. The stats show that against the same games as last season we're having more of the ball, completing a higher % of passes and allowing the opposition far fewer touches in our final 1/3rd and our box. In terms of defensive numbers we're only just behind City as the best 2 in the league.

I suppose a lot of fans will disagree and see it as sterile domination but Arteta will see it as being more secure in a way we became a bit ragged towards the end of last season.

Rico Henry from Brentford likely to miss the rest of the season with a bad knee injury, shame for him because he was being touted for an England call up

Yes I believe he did but I’m pretty sure Vincent’s booking was not for time wasting!

First 5 matches are dress rehearsals for the bigger matches?

https://twitter.com/90sfootball/status/ ... 1408603136
He was a tad late and rash you could say

Yep - wasted no time whatsoever.