Trying to take the emotion out of it coz Im 51 and well past getting too upset by football, and I know its THEM innit? But whatever.

To my eye, the Jesus miss is as bad as Jorge's blunder. They're both goals, one we should have, one we shouldn't be giving up. 2-0 and that game is probably different coz thats a long way back for them.

Ange-ball or whatever the bell-ends are calling it looks like a lot of running around to me, which is something for Spurs coz they haven't done that for years. They had a few other chances but not much really. Considering we gifted them their 2nd and helped out quite a bit for their first there isn't really that much going on there. By the same token, what did we do? Own goal + Penalty (why no red card for that by the way? The ball is going in, right?). We didn't exactly set the world alight.

We were quite leggy, had a lot of injuries to key players, muffed our lines, played averagely, didn't look like losing, didn't really look like winning either. Best not to get too upset after 6 games. Loooong way to go. A nice 12 match winning streak around December/January and it will all be rosey. Stay in the hunt, Haaland might get injured y'know?

Mr Positivity signing off....

Just back. Read nothing here so excuse me if I repeat other views.

We looked jaded. That’s what midweek CL fixtures do. They may be relatively straightforward but they are intense and they suck out the energy.

Our right side never got going and one has to credit Udogie for that. Good player. They seemed to pin White in his own half most of the time and rendered him pretty ineffective. We rely so much on the Saka - Ødegaard - White combination to create but today, it didn’t happen. Got the impression white had a mare.

Our left side just didn’t work. Without Martinelli or Trossard, we are diminished.

Ødegaard got himself booked for demanding a card for a player who was going to get booked anyway. Dumb. He was half the player after.

Jorginho *%^@** up big time but didn’t play badly. Raya was ok: not sure he did enough to get dropped. Eddie faded. Jesus need to be central.

Saliba is a monster.

On the bright side, we didn’t lose.

We aren’t going to win anything with Nketiah as our first choice cf.

It’s as simple as that to me.

He is just not good enough.

I’d be interested to hear the explanation why Romero want given a red card for stopping a goal bound shot with a handball a mere 2-3 yards from the line and the gk nowhere near to save it.
At least a booking for denying such a good chance of a goal.

There was also a decent shout for a penalty right at the end when Udogie had his arm above his head challenging for a header and the ball hit his arm, possibly only the very slightest contact from Gabriel before it hits Udogies arm saves him. If it went straight on his arm it’s a nailed on penalty

The left 8 position needs fixing too. Havertz looks better up front to be honest and Vieira was bypassed in the frantic nature of the game - he suits games against lower teams that we dominate.

Can Emile Smith Rowe do a job there? Can Trossard?

Whatever we do it feels like a round peg in a very Xhaka shaped square hole right now

This was my overriding thought but I’ll go further.

You won’t win anything with any of our strikers apart from maybe a domestic cup. You certainly won’t get a champions league or premier league

Jesus, great player so quick and when his street football comes off it’s spectacular but like I’ve said repeatedly it won’t always work and you need a bonafide plan b. I wouldn’t sell him he’s great but he needs support.

Havertz, to me looks a better option than Eddie but he’s not a striker really. At least you can knock it up to him.

Then Eddie himself. We are now in Robbie fowler territory here when the Liverpool fans were attached to him because he was a fan. Truth is he Can’t shoot from outside the box, useless in the air, hasn’t got a deft touch and close control, can’t drop deep and play passes like a 10, can’t beat a man through pace or tricks and his only talent lies in lurking around the 6 yard box to turn in crosses through movement. Honestly it’s a striker that belongs in the championship. Apart from at a side like Luton or Sheffield he isn’t getting games in this league and the idea we can splurge on a back up keeper because we need 2 in every position blah blah blah yet not address this is a total joke. I remember Kevin Campbell getting pelters from our fans but let me tell you this, he was better than Nketiah. Fast strong and occasionally a good finisher. Eddie doesn’t even stack up to previous back up strikers we’ve had like wiltord, Kanu .. it’s just poverty and you won’t get anywhere until someone new comes in. Nofuckingwhere

No surprise that Spurs can find some form by being able to play the same 11 every week. Some midtable side will do this each season and will storm up the table. Even we had some degree of this last season until we lost Jesus and then injuries got us in the run in.
Spurs also got KO of the league cup at the first chance, if they do the same in the fa cup 3rd round they play the fewest number of games possible in a season.

Beyond the 11 they start the depth is poor. None of the back up defenders can be trusted to play out from the back as they want to - it will change their game drastically just as it did when we had to slot Holding in for Saliba.

Maddison has become their talisman as well now, no replacement for him at all. If they get very lucky with injuries they can challenge the top 4, they’re also benefiting from being a brand new team as such - we had the same last year - you catch teams by surprise but teams will work it out.

Liverpool up next for Spurs

Annoyingly it feels like a decent plan is to manoeuvre your club to be in pole position for when Pep decides to call it a day at Man City.

Eddie’s premier league record. Like I said, you will get nowhere

| Gary Neville: “I want to see a composure from this Arsenal team and that's difficult because the manager's on the sideline jumping around like you wouldn't believe.

“I want to see passion, but I want to see composure and a coldness, and that feels like a contradiction. But I want to see it in the right moments at the right times.

“When they scored that second goal, Saka's penalty, which was a beautiful penalty, celebrate it, give your fans something because they want to see it means something.

“But there should be two or three senior players in that group saying, 'Right, come on. Switch on now, we're ready and we're going to see this through'. Your mentality kicks in of knowing when a game's in danger.

“Rice had gone off at half-time and that presented a danger, so should Jorginho have been left there almost last man on the ball for Son's second equaliser? Maybe, maybe not.

“He should have done better himself, of course, but when you concede a goal a minute after one going in, that's what I'm talking about, that mentality. They didn't get set again.”

The issue I have with Neville and Arsenal is it’s like he’s already made up his mind what he wants to talk about and if the game suits he’ll say it and make himself look knowledgeable- but on the countless occasions it doesn’t - like both away games this year when we saw out 1-0 wins it disproved his point.

I mean you can just make up anything and make it sound right. How does he know Arsenal didn’t decide to be professional and hold our lead - it was a 1 off individual error that cost us, that’s not a team mentality problem it’s a mistake. He says we ‘didn’t get set’, the players positions were exactly right, Jorginho just made a mistake and no one else was able to do anything to prevent or help.

The nonsense about Arteta as well, it’s an agenda that he’s driving but doesn’t consider that his energy on the sidelines can be a positive. I mean at least have a balanced view

It seems like standard fare for the same foul to be put on Saka in the opening 20 minutes of the game, he’s usually close to the touchline and not actually near their goal, the ball goes in to him and he turns it round the corner first time and gets cleaned out by the defender who is changing in to close him down. Same every single game.

Final rant on Gary Neville, when Spurs scored their second goal he said he loved the passion of the spurs players with their fans. But we apparently over celebrated when we scored our penalty. He also said Arsenal fans were too over confident - as if fans confidence had some bearing on the result today?!

He’s turned in to a terrible pundit because he has worked out what agenda he wants to push in a game before it happens and he just weaves it in

Need some big rotation for wednesdat. I’d bring in some younger players, I’d play Sousa at left back, he scored 2 for the U21 the other day. We’re short and need to protect Zinchenko. Ruell Walters should get a start as well I think.
Jorginho, Vieira, Emile Smith Rowe, Nelsen, Tomiyasu, Kiwior all need to start. I’d happily start Havertz up front in this game.

Ødegaard ran himself ragged in the first half, and just did not have the legs in the second. That yellow sure did not help his game.
We should have put in more goals during that spell of the game.

Watched match of the day. Highlighted our lack of expected goals and big missed chances. Need a striker

I agree but to be a pedant expected goals are calculated at the moment before a shot is taken, so if we want more expected goals xG then it’s about creativity not strikers scoring them. Jesus hasn’t started a league game as a striker yet

Hard to argue against that (and Raya), even if the jury is still out on both of those players.

Also if you do have your main striker fit, it does seem like a no brainer to play him as a striker and play Emile Smith Rowe or Nelson at LW. One can see the logic of Eddie and Ode running around like demons (our pressing did work in the first 35 minute) but I think you need a striker who can score goals and contribute more when we have the ball, or can change tactics when they are beating our press too easily. You also need to substitute those players when they are knackered.

Arteta over-thinking it?

I said in the summer I could easily see a situation where Nketiah and Balogun are both sold and one top level striker bought in pretty soon. Seems we likely have to wait another year for that to happen.

I still think the bigger problem right now is the left 8 position as we don’t have anyone who can slot in and do the job we need consistently as Xhaka did.

We’ve lost some defensive stability there and we’ve lost a lot of ball security and ball progression.

I really want him to work but Havertz doesn’t look like he’s the answer to anything for us right now. We need pace, power, mobility, dynamism - and I don’t think he offers any of that. At best I can see him as a target man option to come off the bench in games

Nketiah was lucky on that tackle on the gk, it was a certain yellow and the fact his studs and leading leg didn’t connect probably just saved him from the red card. But I think it would be less controversial if he’d done that tackle to a defender clearing the ball rather than the gk. People are viewing it differently because it’s the gk I think.

Arteta definitely got this one wrong. Starting 11 was wrong and the subs were wrong.
He couldn’t restore the control in the team we needed. Spurs pressed us but not with any huge numbers or commitment and we weren’t calm enough at the back. For me it needed us to just commit another man deeper to help bypass their press - that would have been Ødegaard for me.

I think I could have counted the time Zinchenko genuinely inverted in to central midfield on one hand

I’ve not seen a huge amount from Raya’s distribution to suggest he’s miles better than Ramsdale yet. I think he’s more confident to come further out of his goal in to the defensive line to play short passes but in his box under pressure he seems similar to Ramsdale.

Another var controversy last night with Newcastle's first goal. Sheffield United had been matching them up to that point. The post-match justification is that it was "not deliberate" but how far does that stretch? He has the ball under control, plays it onto his own hand and his arm is well away from his body. The impression at the time was that neither the Var officials nor the commentators seemed to notice at because they were focussed on whether the ball went out of play.

Newcastle later had a stonewall penalty not given, but the damage was done by then.

Yup. After Jesus' miss you could feel the momentum shifting and we needed to exert more control. The game was way too open with Ødegaard pressing so far forward.

While a man down for 30 mins. I also recall them giving us a pretty good hiding after a 3 or 4 day break before or after champions league. It may seem like they got lucky with Forest but if fit, and not raffling goals at the local market, we probably would have given spurs a touch up.

I am not liking what I've seen from us this season. Our play seems to have slowed down and despite more controlled possession we seem less effective in the final third. Add to that the fact that we are still gifting opponents stupid goals and its not a good look.

I think the demands of CL football will make it impossible for us to keep close to City. We've already dropped 4 points at home and if City beat us at the Emirates we will be 7 points behind them with away games against them, United and Spurs still to play.

Plus, the injury situation is just incomprehensible. We've lost Timber for most of the season, Jesus has already had a lay-off, Partey has been out for a sustained period, Martinelli looks like a few weeks out, Trossard might have a hammy, Rice has had an ongoing calf issue since the summer. At this rate we will struggle to find 11 fit players by Christmas.

Slow buildups from us. Failure to create chances and defensive mistakes. The fact we failed to score from open play is worrying as well. I don’t think Sakas shot was going in so it was a true own goal. I know this is not a popular opinion but Arteta on the sideline is an embarrassment at times. I think it can also affect the team who seem to have to watch him at times. Those saying the CL is tiring us out: please take a deep breathe as we will actually have some away games in future. We had an easy draw in the CL and an easy EPL start. But despite spending silly money we are not playing well. Arteta needs to sort it out and allow them to play without the handbrake on.

Brainless behaviour. It's been clear that showing a simulated card will get a player booked and he goes and does it.

Absolutely nails it. I find the persistence with the player bizarre now. I even look at players like Antonio at West Ham lustily now, Henry he ain’t but he’s strong and causes defences problems. Eddie, Eddie ,Eddie runs around clattering into people and pointing into spaces our midfielders don’t trust to pass to him. Frankly it isn’t a skill . Jorginho can’t punt that ball up to him because he knows it’s just wasting possession so we get caught. I can’t recall a striker for Arsenal getting such a large amount of minutes with such obvious little talent.

For what it’s worth I thought Havertz did ok yesterday but needs to get in the habit of demanding the ball from the Rice/Jorginho pivot more,

Hopefully Arteta is revising the pecking order after yesterday's evidence. He simply has to trust Emile Smith Rowe and Nelson. We can't have any more sterile Nketiah performances, nor can we run Ode and Saka into the ground.

One thing that has been explored little is the option of playing Martinelli centrally more. He impressed a couple of times there in Europe and Trossard is more creative wide. Gabby can shoot from outside the box, run at players and he’s even decent in the air considering his height.

I'm still waiting (im)patiently for Nketiah to serve me that humble pie, but he is still looking for the right ingredients to bake it.
Please Nketiah, make me eat the pie!

Nketiah's poor form has highlighted our lack of purchase of a striker, but for me it is a selection issue. I'm not sure if the stats back this up, but my impression is that Eddie really doesn't contribute to our buildup play. He ball retention and passing is average and he's also often the weak link when we break. Those are crippling weaknesses for a team that plays as we do. We are so much better when we select a technical player up front (Jesus, or I agree, Martinelli) or Trossard, Emile Smith Rowe or Havertz to play as a false nine. So I think we have the players to make our forward line work. We just have to select the right ones.

Not that you would have heard it at all in the very pro Spurs media but they spent just shy of £250m this summer, and more than Arsenal

Yes my City comment was slightly tongue in cheek - nothing seems to affect the level of their performance.

In all honestly we couldn't have asked for a kinder CL draw, and the way the fixtures have fallen we have 6 home games after CL games, I think the next post-CL games are Wolves, Sheff Utd, Brentford, Man City and Brighton - even though the last two are tough they'll also be playing in europe that week so no excuse there

To be fair, the improvement from the turgid mess of last year is impressive, although they are limited up front still.

Right now and without any doubt from me the best midfield we could play is Partey/Rice/Ødegaard - they are by far and away the 3 most talented players in those roles. I think you could play Rice or Partey as the deepest midfielder but I maybe prefer Partey and release Rice on the left side a bit.

Arteta struck a nice balance last year with Xhaka being neither defensive or attacking. This year he's gone with 2 very attacking players in the 3 and its really harming the ball progression up the pitch - and even though it was supposedly the weaker part of his game Xhaka's attacking output looks better than any of the more attacking players we're putting in that position.

Yep, what Postecoglu has managed to do to them in a short space of time is very good, and is also particularly damning on Conte.
They're depth is appalling though, they have lots of players but the drop off in quality is stark. Lots of deadwood still hanging around spurs that I would be quite happy if they had to take a run of games. Any other CB is a liability, no creativity other than Maddison and I'm quite surprised they've scored as many as they have with Son as the only realiable goal-scorer, because Richarlison, Kulesevski, johnnson and Soloman are all a bit meh. Kulesevski scored his first goal in 27 games the other day - very little scrutiny on him for that in the media though which shows they operate at a very different tier to the elite clubs

There’s no way playing Rice in the xhaka role plays to his strengths. Hes all about cover, ball retention and winning duels and really that means he’s the one needed to be deepest. Then the alternative is to play partey in the xhaka LM8 role who has never played there. I feel he would be better than Rice but possibly not suited.

Feels to me our best line up has vieira in it (apart from the city game) and the message needs to be sent to Havertz and Partey they have to play their way into the reckoning