Lacazette hits the post.

Then a really poor tackle from Ali on Pépé, had Arteta raging. By all accounts the ref has been awful, let too much go and the result is this stupid over zealous type tackle that seems to have happened too much in what are pre-season friendlies to simply build up match sharpness.

If that's the way the game is going then we should just bring on Kolasinac to completely go through a couple of their players to give some back

Lots of praise for Ben White and Lokonga so far

That is a disgraceful tackle in a pre-season friendly. Someone said that red cards in pre-season games don't mean a suspension in proper games. They need to re-look at that rule, Arsenal also need to reconsider playing main rivals in friendlies. Both Chelsea and Spurs have put some terrible tackles in effectively free of any redemption.

Has Pépé had to go off injured? I’m not watching it.

One of the weirdest ref performances I've seen in a while. He seemed determined to let every "little" free kick go, ie little shoves and things like that. Probably to keep the game flowing, but that's not the referees primary job, he's there to enforce the rules. There were at least 4-5 nailed on free kicks that he just waved away, and you could see the frustration building among the players. It went both ways so he wasn't playing favorites, but I wasn't surprised to see Delle Ali make that tackle on Pépé. Luckily Pépé wasn't injured but it could've gone bad.

Overall a decent first half, Tottenham clearly better the first 5-10 minutes, but after that we controlled the play. Tottenham had the two best chances of the half, we again struggled to really create that much. A couple of long range efforts from Lacazette was as close as we came. Lokonga looks like a gem, think he'll surprise a few people if given the chance. White looks good too, his composure and skill on the ball is clearly miles ahead of our other centre backs. Aubameyang and Pépé almost completely invisible on the flanks.

I've not watched but followed the commentary from quite a few people who are. General consensus seems to be White and Lokonga are very good players who will add a lot for us.

Ah. Thanks for the adblocker hint.

Tottenham player came in studs up high in Mikel's box...words were exchanged...lol

agree completely

Yay. Balogun. Looking forward to seeing him again

If it is so bad then Arteta should take the team off the pitch. Something has to be done so that the refs realise that their first and most important job is TO PROTECT THE PLAYERS.

FFS Mikel grow a pair.

Pépé doing a really skilful job of controlling overbite passes out to him on the wing

In the end it looks a lot like what we saw last season. We're solid enough, can control the play, but we just don't threaten the opponents much. Only one or two really good chances all game. On one hand, it's just pre-season, but on the other hand we saw this time and time again last season, which makes it all the more worrying.

On a positive note, our three summer signings all look good. And perhaps this is another game that can serve as an argument for why we need to add something to our attack, with the transfer window still open a few more weeks.

Spot-on, Haz. Same old, same old.

Too many journeyman players. Not enough cutting edge.

Aubameyang looks a spent force (especially out wide), Lacazette is plenty of effort but not a lot of end product.

White looked supremely composed on the ball both with his passing and with bringing the ball out of defence. Whether he can cope defensively against some of the league's best strikers is the big question.

Lokonga looks very promising.

Yeah, but it's not just about the players though. I'm not saying the team we put out today should easily score 3-4 goals against Tottenham, but again we barely created a chance over 90 minutes. A couple of good long range efforts from Lacazette was as close as we came. We still struggle to get the ball to players in good positions, and even when we get the ball out wide and manage to put good crosses in, there's nobody attacking the ball or even coming close to making it difficult for the opposing defense. We're not making the right runs, there are no combinations that pull the defense apart, it's just a big nothing for the most part.

I really don't like being negative going into a new season, but unless Arteta sorts that out we're not going anywhere even with new signings. The three players we have signed all look promising, but they won't help us much with our non-existent threat in the final third. Looking at a team like Leeds and what they manage to do with much less talented players, there really are no excuses for the type of performances we put in consistently.

Seeing the post-match comments from Arteta about how we dominated the game and had 'some big chances' makes me worry. It's great if you can score with a shot from outside the box, but it's not something you can build your offense around.

The great news is that with Bournemouth, and their unethical adding of spurious ‘A’s before their name, rightly relegated we’re currently sitting pretty at the top of the league.

Arteta 1, doubters 0.

Much of the same it seems.
Aubameyang has to play up front or not at all. Starting to wonder if he’ll ever get his mojo back. Big problem for us.
If I had my way I’d happily move on lacazette, Aubameyang and Nketiah and bring in 1 or 2 forwards who are more all round footballers, mobile, flexible, pacey and with an ability to score and create.

I think we’re a better balance with smith-Rowe or someone similar wide left. Playing Pépé and Aubameyang either side of Lacazette has absolutely never looked like the right thing to do.

I think we’ll see lots of ins and outs before the end of the window, but I’m now starting to think a striker is becoming more important, and part of me thinks Balogun actually has the game to suit what we want to do more than any of our strikers currently - ditto Martinelli. We
Might turn our nose up at the Tammy Abraham links but I could see him do really well in our set up as a focal point, good in the air but also with flexibility, movement and pace to cause problems in the channels and in the box.

I thinks it fair to say with our current form and squad balance along with the first 5 fixtures we’re expecting a modest start to the season. My gut feeling is we can’t possibly have as bad a start as last season and as terrible a run up until that Chelsea game in December.

I worry that Arteta is a bit conservative and the expansive play we need in order to get the ball quickly to players like Pépé and Aubangeyang just won’t happen. They’re the wrong players for the type of slow-medium pace play out from the back football he seems to want to play.

I’m not sure what that adds up to in terms of where we’ll finish, 6-7th seems about right which is pretty miserable and I think we need one more addition of the likes of Martinez to change our fortunes. That seems to hinge on clearing out several players which absolutely doesn’t seem like happening any time soon. Anyone know currently how many players are going to miss out on registering for the Prem squad?

I agree with your post but is Abraham any good in the air? My reading of him is that he doesn’t use his height in that way at all.

I am not sure exactly what Arteta's gameplan is because if we don't start creating decent chances from open play we will struggle to beat anyone, quite literally anyone will give us a tough game because for all our domination of the ball we don't create much and we don't have a cutting edge, not since Aubameyang lost his mojo in front of goal anyway.

Right now pretty much nothing has changed from last season, the same problems exist and the ins and outs in the market are marginal in strengthening/weakening the squad.
Coming in to the summer we needed a total revolution of the squad. It really was 2/3rds of the squad simply not good enough. It wasn’t feasible to do 15 or 16 in and out but we certainly needed to have a minimum of 6 new players and get rid of 10 to feel like there was any chance of progress.
If we’re waiting until the last few days of the window because that’s when those with money will be able to demand better terms on their deals - and blimey there are some desperate clubs out there- we are sacrificing the first few games of the season 2 of which are against seriously tough opponents.

Sadly very true. No cutting edge, nor threat.

The way that we play all or games will be against seriously tough opponents. We don’t dominate or scare like we used to. Every team believes that they have a chance.

And we should be able to hold off the teams just below us, BHA, Villa.
COYR!

Neither is he it would seem ...

Mikel can be given a wee bit of wiggling room by saying he has a lot of new players and needs time to get them all going in the same direction.

The one glaring thing I don't see as much as former sides we have is when a player has the ball in a dangerous area for the opposition, players are going wide and no one is consistently attacking the 6 yard box. Players would queue up for that in the old days. Pires, Wiltord, Freddie.

Is it the same on the training pitch? Are we just as tepid?

I think we’ll see a huge amount of Arsenal games still decided by very small margins one way or the other, a good finish, a missed chance, a mistake, a ref decision. Mainly because I think we set up defensively enough to never really get over run but also simply don’t dominate and create enough chances to over run the opposition. This sort of marginal game is almost as likely when we play the team at the bottom of the league as when we play the team at the top.

And I’d add we don’t have a great history of taking what limited chances we create or not making an individual mistake to hand the game to our opponents. We’ve already made 3 or 4 glaring individual errors in pre season to gift goals to opponents. With the squad we have that simply won’t change

Just seen that Terry Cooper died on 31st July. He scored the winning goal in the first cup final I attended when Leeds beat Arsenal 1-0 in the 1968 League Cup final. I couldn’t stand Leeds at the time, but had to accept that he really was a great left back.

Few reports we’ve agreed a few with Newcastle for Willock. £20-25m.

Read also that Willock scored 8 goals from just 13 shots on target last season. I hope he does well at Newcastle and hope we negotiate a buy back or % sell on but the form he showed for Newcastle which has triggered the bid is totally unsustainable. £25m if it is that is good business considering Newcastle appear to be the only interested party and we’re a club in desperate need to improve our starting 11, and Willock isn’t in that. I could write the same for Nketiah, Nelson and AMN.
Next year we won’t have anywhere near as many matches as we’re used to, potentially 25% fewer. We need to be all about a core of 16-17 players.
At RB and striker we should be looking at selling 2 players and replacing with 1. Bellerin, Cédric, Lacazette, nketiah. You could say the same with Elneny and Torreira in CM.
We desperately need that creative player because we don’t look like a team who will create a lot, and can’t rely on our strikers to take the limited chances we do create

Having watched most of todays game I have to agree with hazuki and Rich that it looks like a case of same old same old. At first I was quite pleased that with pre season almost over, we looked solid, comfortable an untroubled. As the game wore on it became apparent that despite our control we weren't creating very much and we seemed unable to go up another gear. When you think that we have lost Ødegaard you could easily argue we are weaker going forward. At the absolute minimum we need a back up goalie, and an Ødegaard replacement, otherwise I fear we are just going to draw our way into the top half of the table.

Saw someone post online it feels like we're going to make a deadline signing of Ødegaard for £40m in a reaction to a couple of thrashings by Chelsea and City. Sounds about right. (although probably not thrashings, we'll probably lose both by the odd goal but never really look like winning either game, both chelsea and city will have us at arms length and we won't even land a punch)

All I have watched is a 4 minutes highlights package. It is only a friendly (?) but what I noticed was that the chances they made were more clear cut than our chances. They also had more chances.

I think we will comfortably deal with Brentford.

Seen some here who would welcome us signing Bernardo Silva. As I would. The Mail ran a story yesterday that City may offer him to Tottenham as part of the deal to sign Kane as they don’t want to pay Levy’s asking price of £150m.

I’ve said often enough that my automatic reaction to transfer gossip is suspicion rather than acceptance or belief. But this one does at least seem semi-realistic. If it is, the question is which North London club Silva would rather join? Barnet is possibly the true answer (imagine a smiley here). But if Barnet aren’t interested, would he fancy a move to a Kane-less Tottenham or Arsenal?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailym ... -deal.html

I doubt he’d fancy either, I read he wants to go to Spain if he does leave. Which for a Portuguese player with the style of football Silva plays makes total sense. But the big clubs in Spain are cutting costs not signing £60m players.
If it really were a straight choice between spurs and arsenal then Arteta may be a factor but spurs now have a Portuguese manager

One thing I rarely see us do is play an accurate long ball over the top of a higher defensive line for a well timed run. At t he very start of Arteta’s reign we did do this a few times with good success with Aubameyang getting in down the left side. It is such a simple tactic that even if it doesn’t come off perfectly can destabilise a defence and you can pick up second balls from a back peddling defence struggling to clear the first ball. I’m not advocating becoming a more long ball team but there is a need to mix things up a buoy as we’re far too predictable in our attacking play. In theory Lokonga and White can both play these passes

It feels like our ability or inability to offload fringe players will be what ultimately defines this transfer window. If we can somehow get a few out the door for reasonable fess we might be able to something interesting in terms of new additions but yesterday's team looked scarily average in terms of the kind of football being played.

Despite the introduction of White and Lokonga there are just still too many journeyman players at the club.

So much for the biggest clear-out in decades.

Hi Rich,

I suspect Silva is at an age where he would really want CL football. Obviously, if no CL clubs comes in for him or can afford him then he might have to lower his ambitions and with so many broke clubs around europe his possible suitors are far fewer than would be the case in normal times.

What you say about his preferred option being a move to Spain sounds entirely logical. I also agree that the two managers at Arsenal and Tottenham possibly cancel each other out in driving his preference between them. Is Tottenham being in Europe this season and Arsenal not a point in their favour? My guess would be yes.

Another factor is how much City value Silva at? Because if he goes to Tottenham that influences how much Tottenham have to replace Kane? Levy’s valuation of Kane, if it is £150m, minus a Guardiola valuation of say £70m for Silva, leaves Tottenham with £80m for their own squad building or changing. If City say he’s worth £80m, that would leave Tottenham with £70m. Either sum looks comfortably enough to replace Kane. I’m not saying with someone as good, as currently Kane is arguably the world’s best striker. But adequately.

If Arsenal are willing to pay £70m for Maddison, that total for Silva looks a bargain. Would we, or Stan, go to £80m if that’s City’s valuation of him?