Hi Gaz,

Saka is defintely being overplayed but as long as he keeps digging us out of holes what can you do.

We aren't the same team without him.

If we could finish teams off earlier in games we could give him half an hour or so off but we always seem to make it hard for ourselves and eventually seem to have to rely on his genius to get us out of jail.

Definitely. Lively and effective are the words that spring to mind.
I look forward to us scoring a lot more goals on the left side (at the cost of conceding a few more).

I agree 100% with you. But if we don’t try and promote someone to play his position, then he gets a serious injury and our season could be over. I thought we had a very poor summer transfer time. We need a few players to step up and maybe even think of a change of formation when he’s not playing. The first half was total domination but very few chances. Rice is brilliant at winning the ball but then fiddles with it and allows defences to get back. And there aren’t that many thru balls to shake other teams up by other players. There is an almost fear in our players to properly take on their opponents one on one. We gave them some very good chances and never really created a lot of easy chances ourselves, given it was a home game against a team that will likely be relegated : I was not that satisfied at the end. I know , 3 points is 3 points but jeez they can shave a few years off your life.

Was good to be back at the emirates yesterday in the sunshine

Odd game. If I’m honest I thought Sterling and Jesus were rubbish. You are given an opportunity like that you need to take it. I’ve seen some different people saying Sterling made some decent runs etc but I’m not sure and the fact we only clicked when he was subbed says something. Not writing him off but this might have a Yossi Benayoun feel to it. Gabby Jesus I don’t really know what to say, would have been better playing Nketiah yesterday.

On saka it’s quite simple. He’s our star boy. Liverpool fans don’t moan about overplaying Salah. Win the games then sub him off. Yes it’s irritating we can’t seem to give him a rest enough but we aren’t the same without him.

Whilst he is key for us I wouldn’t be so sure to say this. We said the same thing about Ødegaard for a long time. The thing about Mikel is he seems to find a way and adapts. He kinda doesn’t allow the side to accept a setback.

To be honest the only player I would really be concerned about losing right now is Kai Havertz. There is no logical alternative to him and what he brings to the side. A pretty incredible piece of transfer business that.

That was a lovely strike.

His physical presence and the intelligence of his movement and linkup play is top draw. A proper soldier too.

He can tackle that's for sure and he does not like a lad who's afraid of a ding dong battle.

Brilliantly entertaining game at Chelsea. Forest are decent this season.

Spurs - the great entertainers. 2-0 up, 3-2 down.

Looking forward to Ange's presser

He wasn't too happy

They are ridiculous.

Yerman Hurzeler looks like he is undoing a lot of DeZerbi's great work at Brighton but Spurs will always be Spurs.

He is only 22 years old and just moved to a new league and a very different style of play. Also, he's essentially a centreback who is good enough to play at fullback. I think he has done really well so far.

I am in Rich territory here, but the incident involving Rashford today is very frustrating. Already on a yellow, he deliberately tripped a Villa player and got a talking to from the ref but no second yellow. Ten Hag subbed him a minute later. Some contrast to Rice's red card.

Calafiori , looks an excellent piece of business . Tickles me how he has licence to roam all over the pitch .

At one stage he is almost pushing Saka out of his position .

I think Arteta shows promise in the managerial stakes

I reckon if we are to win the league we need to be more ruthless . We have a feature ; this Cruis o Matic mode that shouldn't be in our make up .

v Southampton first half we cruise around playing safe balls , tedious build ups ; Saliba and Gabriel have more touches than the rest of the team in total .

SUDDENLY out of the cosmos Southampton score and our previous measured build ups go out the window , alarms go off ; sirens sounding ...we are all urgency
[ admittedly a change in personel helped ]

It was the same against Leicester ; go 2-0 up ... Okay boys let's set out the deck chairs , pour a couple of wines , beer anyone ; job done .

The opposition previously totally outclassed grab a couple of goals and its all hands to the pumps .

Us grabbing a couple of late goals in both matches has glossed over these shortcomings .

Yeah, but can you go at 100mph for 90 minutes twice a week? Our rivals seem to be having similar trouble putting games to bed.

Liverpool and City had mighty struggles against Palace and Fulham. Chelsea couldn't overcome Forest at home despite Forest having to play with 10 men for 25 minutes. Villa looked jaded against Manure.

Are Spurs still plausibly a rival? If so, the same applies in spades.

The less said about united the better.

The 'glass half full' perspective on this one is that we do seem to be able to get the job done, even if not smoothly. Liverpool and City have the ability too, it seems.

I'm not advocating a breathless exhausting chicken with its head cut off approach , just ask the back four to stop shagging around , encourage them to try an earlier ball forward .
after all we had to play at 150 mph to claw both games back .

I take your point about glass full and I'm not having a real moan .......... I'm just thinking after coming so close in the past two years we need to examine every aspect of where we can improve

I agree. Notwithstanding our resilience and ability to get to that 150mph if needed, game management is a work in progress and we are certainly drama queens for some reason.

I was hoping to have a relaxing afternoons with nice 5-0s for the last two home games, so us contriving to flirt with extracting disaster from the jaws of victory again was really irritating.

We also took the foot off the pedal for a while at 2-1.

Is there an argument that stylistically the most irreplaceable player in the team is Havertz?
We obviously have lots of important players but they all have a back up who whilst might not be as good has at least a similar way of playing so we can play our same game plan.
Gabriel/Saliba - Calafiori/Timber/White - a good mix of strength, pace, front foot defending and good on the ball - we don't have to change the way we defend
Saka/Ødegaard - Jesus,Sterling,Nwaneri,Trossard - all similar style even if they aren't effective
Martinelli - Sterling - hugs touchline, raw pace
Rice - Merino
Partey - Jorginho

but for Havertz - we have no other player in the squad who matches up to any of what he brings as a CF.

I recently thought our biggest need in January was a holding midfielder, but I'm minded to go back to it being a striker more in the Havertz mould (Sesko/Gyokeres), because Jesus just doesn't seem to cut it as a CF now, Trossard should be the 2nd choice CF but we have to play a very different style with him as CF

The most worrying aspect of the Southampton game for me is not that we had to come from behind, that we didn't get the early goals, or that we let them have a bit of a sniff at 2-1.......its that the rotation took us too much of a step down in the effectiveness of our play and we're still reliant on the same players to win the game for us.
Partey at RB really should be a one off as a symptom of having 3 RB's injured, I'm less worried about the lack of fluidity here. It is more Jesus performance as a striker, Sterling less so but also a bit of a worry.

on our new italian i see some have commented on his lack of pace. This has always been evident i recall a write up on him saying he wasn’t a quick one when he joined.

To me he seems a more logical Zinchenko alternative. against teams like Saints and Bournemouth you can allow him to galavant around a bit and he can defend and win duels unlike zinny. With our other defenders being so strong we can afford a wild card in the back 4. He is going to get done by a winger every once in a while though so there are pros and cons and Arteta may consider which games he utilises Timber or ricky. my god we’ve got some good defenders right now.

City got away with one against Fulham.

1.57 v 2.60 on xG, Fulham missed 3 huge chances. I think its often the case that the very best teams win a lot of their games before a ball is kicked because teams are scared to attack them. Hopefully without Rodri teams can see that City can be got at. Traore had City's defence on toast.

Notice also that Ederson was yellow carded for time-wasting, Bernardo was yellow carded for throwing another ball on the pitch to slow down Fulham's restart and Guardiola was also yellow carded for complaining. Dark Arts anyone - was this mentioned anywhere?

This is how I'd rank the strengths of our full-back options:
Calafiori - duel winning, adaptability, dribbling, all action
Timber - 1v1 defending, pace, strength, dyanmism
Tomiyasu - 1v1 defending, flexibility
Zinchenko - inverting, playmaking, passing
White - link with saka, physical, positioning, steady influence

Weaknesses
Calafiori - a tad reckless, lacks pace
Timber - building his fitness back still,
Tomiyasu - on the ball, dribbling
Zinchenko - 1v1 defending, concentration
White - pace v 1v1 fast wingers

Timber is probably the best all rounder, the rest can be selected to suit opponents

I think Saka doesn’t get the credit he deserves because his style isn’t tricks, flicks, stopovers or beating defenders with raw pace, he’s kind of boringly efficient. He uses his body and balance brilliantly to get his defender off balance and can drift by ones that give him space or roll ones that get too tight.

One of the features of the early Wenger teams was the speed at which they started the game. We were 2 up before the oppostion knew what hit them.

Yes, I agree with what you say about Havertz, although I thought there were some positive signs in the first half with Jesus and Sterling. Just didn't quite come off for Jesus, and Sterling needs to be quicker in his decision-making.

We thought Ode was irreplaceable, and while the team have sort of proven us wrong, it is notable that we are not controlling games as well. Trossard is a more than decent replacement in terms our attacking play. He's very progressive and is more clinical than Ode, but we lose we are losing a lot in terms of Ode's off the ball work and his ability to keep things ticking over in midfield. The possession stats have been pretty telling.

Reading the two statements by City and the Premier League on the tribunal ruling today is funny - I suppose you spin a story to suit yourself

https://www.mancity.com/news/club/club- ... nic_social

https://www.premierleague.com/news/4144828

Cucurella and Fofana have already picked up 1 match bans for collecting 5 yellow cards - in just 7 games. If Palmer picks up 2 yellows in his next 3 he misses our match with Chelsea.

No one in our team has more than 2 yellows

Van der Ven and Romero as a partnership kept only 8 clean sheets in 33 league games as a pair. I like Van Der Ven, certainly more than Romero, there is definitely something to work with him, but it seems people lose sight of what the main job of a defender is as soon as they do something decent in an attacking sense. VDV was all over the place for Brighton's 3 goals and Romero was once again totally ball watching for Welbeck's winner - the same as he was when Vardy scored against him earlier in the season.

Ange refuses to contemplate any change in tactics so spurs are going to no doubt be entertaining, they'll score and leak a lot of goals, they may get the odd big win against decent opponents but they aren't really going anywhere currently. See also Maddison not being able to last 90 minutes and not being able to influence games when Spurs really need him to, subbed off when they're chasing the game again. I can't think when we've subbed off Ødegaard when we're chasing a goal

Thoughts with those people in around Tampa and Sarasota. Area close to my heart round there. That’s a living nightmare happening.

charles watts “I still think there is a chance that Arsenal will revisit their interest in Benjamin Sesko at some point, maybe even next summer.”

“A lot of the groundwork was done before the summer window & I don’t believe there has been any sort of breakdown in relationship behind the scenes just because Sesko opted to stay put.”

“I’m sure Arsenal understood his decision at the time because to be honest it made a lot of sense, from a footballing & development point of view. Look at how things have gone. Sesko is playing regularly, he’s scoring goals & he’s developing nicely.”

In terms of players who are on the face of it similar to Havertz then Sesko fits the bill. Sesko is very quick but Havertz is probably better linking play and on the ball generally. Both are tall, strong and good in the air. I'd be more than happy with Sesko signing

Havertz and Partey have been pulled out of the international fixtures. About time we got as ruthless as others.

Sadly Rice and Saka join up with England and no doubt both will plough through 180 minutes of meaningless games because England don't have any suitable alternatives

From what little I've read on the City tribunal, yesterday there were 25 challenges by City to the various sponsorship rules and 23 of them were dismissed and 2 were upheld. This is not some huge crushing victory for City. The nuance of the rules needs tweaking but the principle of the rules were deemed fair and sound

Provide Havertz isn't actually seriously injured

17 points after 7 games last season and this season

Last season’s fixtures:
Forest (H), Palace (A), Fulham (H), United (H), Everton (A), Spurs (H), Bournemouth (A).

This season’s fixtures:
Wolves (H), Villa (A), Brighton (H), Spurs (A), City (A), Leicester (H), Southampton (H)

You'd have to say this season's fixtures have been tougher.

Howard Webb’s explanation for why Van Dijk didn’t give away a penalty for deliberately pulling back Guehi.

This is absolute nonsense. Is pulling someone back by the arm a foul, yes , the fact the ref thinks he’s not going to get the ball shouldn’t be relevant. If a team is on the counter attack and a defender deliberately trips or pulls back the striker before the ball is even attempted to be passed to them it’s a free kick and certain yellow card. Why can you be allowed to foul someone in the box and be told it’s just a small foul so it’s ok.

Because as I said a few days ago, he's being his usual dishonest self. Protecting their 'reputation' is more important to them on a personal and organisational level, than getting things right.

He's a showman; typical of many senior executives of firms I came across during my career. Arrogant, dishonest and a mendacious twister of facts.

Let's keep it up. Don't be overconfident when playing deemed weaker teams. The lessons from Leicester and Southampton must be reinforced with the players over and over again.

The lost points because of stupidity from our players must be reinforced over and over and over again.