This is exactly it, it's very rare for us to dictate the game these days. There are very few teams in the league where we shouldn't be able to do that - even against Man Utd one should expect us to be able to control their very weak midfield.

Unfortunately, to me it all points to issues larger than what players we have available on any given day, or even what players Arteta picks for the starting eleven. He's just not making us play like a proper team, and with so many talented players underperforming at the same time I don't think it can be seen as a personnel issue.

We have a problem creating chances Bernard its blatant for all to see and I think Darren is right it will be the managers undoing.

We won at spurs because it was a must win and we kind of out efforted them as far as I saw.

You can have a debate about the formation and you may be right as the occasions when we used the one on Monday have worked once and failed once. Certainly in most games I’d suggest 2 might be a better option and dropping one of Emile Smith Rowe or Ødegaard

Btw Ødegaard was hiding, should have been yanked at half time and if we had better options off the bench would have been. Btw i still think this is the real problem. We looked a team of kids with Aubameyang and Partey. It’s like a half and half carling cup team wenger used to field. You’re gonna win some and lose some this season it’s going to be annoying

Take my word for it Ødegaard wasn’t hiding. He was taking up positions to receive the ball. He just wasn’t getting it and the game thus passed him by. But the effort from him was definitely there. Perhaps it came across better in the ground?

I think at the moment the front six should be Partey and Xhaka as the deeper players. Saka and Smith Rowe as the wider players with Ødegaard more central. Assuming there’s routinely one striker, that currently has to be Aubameyang although Lacazette had a good substitute appearance on Monday.

I think everyone knows Lacazette is off on a free next summer, when I think we’ll also be looking to sell Aubameyang. So a new forward will presumably be a priority then.

Absolutely agree with this. It’s so fundamental to control the midfield in any game in the league and Partey/Xhaka are two vastly experienced players who on paper and as a pair are easily top 6 quality.

Leads me to think the priority in January needs to be a deep lying defensive midfielder who has an exceptional passing range. I can see why we were linked to Neves.

I had to offload my season ticket for this one as the Mrs wouldn’t let me attend 2 weeknight games in one week but watched it live. I do agree when your in the ground you pick up on stuff you don’t notice on the TV and this probably contributes to me often shaking my head at the stuff written on here after some games I’ve attended.

Anyway listening to Tuesday club who went to the match and just described Ødegaard as being AWOL all game. Good to know it’s not just me then. As you were.

What the hell is the Tuesday club? Sounds like a bunch of morons who use over the top and exaggerated English to describe things. AWOL? Absent without leave is the type of Twitter over-reaction I prefer to ignore. I much prefer relying on my own judgment.

The game passed Ødegaard by. I’m not denying that. What I think is grossly unfair is saying he was hiding, and I’m certainly not the only person who believes he was trying to put himself in positions to receive the ball.

In most people's minds, the priority in the summer was to strengthen midfield by signing a good partner for Partey. We spent more than any club in Europe but still lack that midfielder. It's all good though because we are flying along in 12th position.

Parson Daka scored 4 for Leicester in europa league tonight. I think he’s a great striker for the £20m Leicester paid for him. It isn’t the worst tactic to just go for the RB Salzburg strikers. Karim Adeyemi is the one who replaced Daka who himself replaced Haaland.

Graph showing the teams who press the most. Unsurprisingly City and Liverpool right at the top. But Brighton and Leeds with (on paper) inferior players to us manage a high pressing game.

We’re down as the 3rd worst in the league with Norwich and Watford - not great company.

Hopefully Manchester United coming from 0-2 down to win 3-2 will keep OGS in his job a while longer.

Hi Bernard,
Well I suppose the possibility of Antonio Conte replacing Ole would be an advantage.
But MU is 6th, us 12th.

Did you consider putting an ad in the paper like this chap ?

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Arteta, please unleash the team to play hard and fast against Villa. Don't be conservative!
Disallow any laziness.
Be brave, and try AMN in place of Lokongo.

One thing the best of the Wenger years brought with it was an expectation of exciting, expansive, progressive, highly technical football and it is hard for some of the older fans to adjust their expectation levels.

Ok, so there were faults with the mid to latter Wenger teams, notably the inability to form a resolute defence and acquire a top notch keeper, and I am sure there would have been constant rumblings of discontent on social media had it existed back them.

The thing about this Arteta side is that it plays such boring, unambitious, tentative football. I, for one, do not enjoy what I am watching at all these days. Uninspiring, unadventurous, timid football with few chances and barely an Arsenal goal a game is not a great recipe for the tastebuds of fans paying the highest ticket prices in town.

This is really depressing. Worst pressing team in the league, while not being very effective at beating our opponents press. The success of Liverpool, City under Guardiola, or those great Barcelona teams with Xavi, Iniesta, Messi etc was based on being great pressing teams, it's become a big part of football and we're just not good enough at it.

Yes, being pop-gunners is hard to take. Even when we have had middle-ranking sides we often scored goals, and the Wenger years seem unbelievably rich in attack compared to recent times.

https://twitter.com/djbookat/status/145 ... 27461?s=21

So frustrating these inconsistent refereeing displays. We can separate it from our own poor performance in order to talk about it. McArthur is allowed to get away with two clear as day yellow cards before he is then only booked for a red card swipe at Saka. Saka is booked for his first one.

Even setting aside the red card foul the first yellow matters, if he gets a card for the one on Saka then he can’t trip Emile Smith Rowe who is on a dangerous break.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that Arsenal’s opponents have the fewest yellow cards this season.

Arteta has this worrying trend of emptying the midfield and leaving Partey in their alone. He did it in one of our biggest games last year v Villarreal and the illustration below shows the average positions in our home loss to Leicester last year - a horrible U shape with absolutely no one patrolling the middle of the park.

I've put up 2 more team shape images, one which I think we tried to deploy vs Palace - again Partey in the middle but Emile Smith Rowe and Ødegaard not central or deep enough to help him - and showing the vacant midfield area. The second is more like the shape we played against Spurs (imagine AMN is Xhaka, I just put AMN in there as a possible solution for the next game) It had Emile Smith Rowe and Ødegaard much more central and felt like it almost created a box of 4 players right in the heart of the pitch and we dominated that area. Of course spurs were very poor but this to me seems to be a much better set up for us.

Mike Dean has been removed from refereeing a match this weekend, that is the PGMOL's standard admission that the ref made a howler the week before. No good for us though.

I've noticed that too Rich. Maybe the reason for the we need Xhaka contingent is that he stays in the middle. Its at least another body. A slow one who has a booming shot he rarely takes but a body nonetheless.

It won't happen but here's to a Cesc/Partnership middle and let the former retire a gooner.

Okay, but seriously, we have the talent to be topo 6 and with some consistency who knows. Chelsea, Liverpool and City are going to take the top 3 from what I can tell right now at this time. Tottenham, Leicester and Man Utd can be overtaken. The others will drop down the table as time goes by.

I saw a recent article where Henry said Bergkamp, not Messi was the greatest player he ever played with. I can see that. Although, I assume he means at the club level. As great as Dennis was its hard to imagine passing over Zidane.

I'm hoping for a Man Utd win this weekend for the sole reason of seeing Liverpool get its first loss. When I first got into football, Man Utd seemed to dominate the series and that made sense because the Mancs were the dominant side in the league. Then hearing how dominant Liverpool was in the 70s and 80s I wondered if they dominated the series. I think I tried looking up the results. Not sure if Liverpool did dominate them.

The rivalry was my earlierst memory of British football. I recall as a very young kid, maybe 8 or 9 years old and watching the news. The sports newscaster was showing clips of cops on horseback trying to keep fans away from the other fans. I recall thinking to myself "Wtf? This is nuts. This over a soccer game?" At that time we had huge rivalries but rarely did we have any violence like that. Outside Yankee stadium can get dangerous but that was because it was the south Bronx. At one time probably the most dangerous place in the country. Philly had a reputation for fighting as well when I was a kid. Well earned. Our arena became the first one in the country to actually have a jail...IN THE ARENA! haha.

I still can't get my head around the whole hooliganism thing and the various 'firms'. Still seems completely nuts.

I laughed when I saw the Roma result. Good one Jose.

Losing 6-1 to Bodo/Glimt is hilarious, and Jose’s quotes after are all too familiar and the first step in his standard downfall pattern. He said words to the effect of ‘their team has far better players than my second 11 players I played tonight, if I could just pick my best 11 players each game I would. There is a huge gap in quality between my first 11 and their replacements’ haha nice one Jose. Might not even make it to the classic Jose 3rd season meltdown this time

He’s still searching for another Drogba. He must own a large car because just to get his ego in the car would be a difficult task in any standard vehicle.

I think his authoritarian angry father style doesn’t cut it with the younger generation of players either. When Jose was at his peak he had players like Terry etc who followed him in to battle and put everything on the line and had the mentality to respond to criticism by playing even better. I think today’s generation of players are different. Not to say they are not mentally elite but I don’t think as many respond to that style of management.

Saw another interesting point on our lack of a high press, we have a number of players who really suit situations where we’d win the ball high. Pépé, Aubameyang, Martinelli and even Saka and Emile Smith Rowe, these players, particularly the first 3 are finishers more so than playmakers. Get them on the ball in the final third with limited defence in front of them and that’s where they can thrive. Having Pépé 35 yards out in a 2 on 2 or 3 on 3 is where he’s at his best

I think you are correct about the modern generation. IMO many think the world owes them rather than actually making themselves grab the opportunities. He is probably not the only manager struggling with his yo motivate the young generation, but he has such an ego he will continue to experience difficulties. That gives me much pleasure however.

It’s up to Arteta to sort out these problems. It may be a balance problem.

Absolutely up to him. It’s strange how when Arteta first took charge there was a big emphasis on a high press and playing out from the back. It was a bit disjointed because the players we had didn’t suit it or we weren’t fit enough or well drilled enough. Now Arteta has an entire team he’s signed or renewed contracts for but where has the high press and methodical playing out from the back gone?
For my moneys worth I think the right thing to do was implement the style of play we want to aspire to even if we didn’t or don’t have the right players. Eventually you replace those players with ones who can do what you want and your better existing players are already doing it. This is what Klopp and Pep have both done at Liverpool and City, both had some disastrous results in their first season because the players were unable to execute the plan - but gradually they moved on and things got better.

Might be worth while giving Ten Hag a call.

It never fails to mae my day seeing Tottenham lose. its double seeing Mourinho lose badly as well. Took a look at Serie A. Roma isn't doing too badly. Sitting 4th.
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/italian-serie-a/table

What surprised me looking at the table is Napoli off to a perfect start, 8 games on the trot and The Old Lady off to a fairly bad one by their lofty standards.

Napoli striker Osimhen is on fire at the moment. I think he is ex-Lille, the man Lille signed to replace Pépé and then sold him on for £70m as well. Fair to say Osimhen has done better than Pépé. I could see a move to a big spending club soon for Osimhen

Is there a case that with Xhaka out Elneny gives us the best balance in midfield despite maybe being the least talented of the options. He’s the only natural pure defensive midfielder we have. Lokonga and Partey look too similar and AMN is more box to box if he does get a midfield chance.

Does Elneny, however frustrating his sideways passing is, give better balance and allow others - Tierney, the chance to thrive?

One could argue that it is early days, and it is worth persisting with the Ødegaard ESM experiment.

However, I just think it is the wrong setup for the players we have, particularly Partey (who is on a hiding to nothing), Aubameyang, Ødegaard, and Pépé.

I would certainly be happy to see Elneny starting tonight.

It's a strange one. I wonder whether trying shoehorn all of Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Pépé, and Ødegaard in to the team is the problem.

I think it is much to do with his style of football. The game has moved on.

That's extremely interesting rich, and I think you hit the nail on the head.

It's really frustrating that we never seem to be able to play Xhaka and Partey together. But its perhaps worse that plan B seems to be to play such an experimental and risky midfield.

Ramsdale, Toni, White, Gabriel, Tavares, Lokonga, Partey, Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Lacazette, Aubameyang

Pleased to see Lacazette get a start after his very good cameo. These things need to be rewarded.

I doubt it is a 4-4-2, it’s probably Aubameyang wide left and Emile Smith Rowe in the 10. If we leave aside the scepticism of Aubameyang working wide left then it’s a much better balance to the team. I like Saka wide right.

Think this could be a good game for the neutrals, quite unpredictable. Villa have a lot of firepower, hard to see us keeping a clean sheet, so let's go for the jugular from the off. Pleased to see Lacazette starting.