Man United 0 – 1 Arsenal
Player Ratings:
Leno: 7 Not much to do but had presence and held the high balls well. Distribution could be better.
Tierney 7.5 You don’t mess with Tierney. Not faced at all by the opponents or the place.
Gabriel 8 See Tierney. Great presence and so assured. Close to MotM.
Holding 8 Wow didn’t expect him to play today. Masterful in the air and natural partner to Gabriel and Bellerin. A good Arsenal team needs a typical English CB. Holding is our man. Close to MotM.
Bellerin 7.5 Not as effective as Tierney or Saka but he got us the penalty and he fought for every ball.
Elneny 8 Positionally very strong and fine partnership with Partey. Tried hard to speed up the game with forward passes. Possibly his best game in red and white. Close to MotM.
PARTEY 9 MOTM First game at Old Toilet and he made the team play the Vieira way. We bossed the midfield and this was because of his physicality, intelligence of reading the game and superb passing. There were many good players but Partey was simply stellar.
Saka 7.5 Provided that extra attacking threat, especially in the first half. The boy is becoming a man.
Auba 7.5 Took the pen and scored the goal so extra point for that. Still finding his form.
Laca 7. 5 Worked hard for the team.
Willian 8 His best performance in red and white. Much tighter with the ball than Pepe. Unlucky not to score. Loved his maturity at OT.
Subs not long enough on the pitch to pass judgement.
By TotalArsenal.
Bergkampesque 
This is how we want to see our players play – with spirit and energy because whenever they play like that, not many teams can cope with them.
Honestly, even if we had lost to ManU, I would still be happy with the players for the performance.
It is when they play as if nothing is at stake, like they did against Leceister the other day, that I just get pissed off.
Bring on the Villains next.
COYG!!!!
Leno – 6 not much to do with the outfielders doing a solid days work
Holding – 7 good performance
Gabriel – 7.5 his natural ability makes it look easy at times, commanding player
Tierney – 7.5 good positional play while helping teammates
Bellerin – 6 done well enough against quick opponents
Saka – 7 becoming more important to the side both positionally and ability
Willian – 7.5 good all round display
Partey – 8 oozed quality, looks like an artform at times
Elneny – 7 solid defensive display and brought good energy to midfield
Aubameyang – 7 took the pressure and finished well, pitched in throughout
Lacazette – 6 committed with good running, pressed well with our other players
I think this might be our best 11. Hopefully peep improves and challenges Willian for a spot
This team is like a robot…no creativity at all.
That attacking line is steel not good. our mid en defense were perfect.
Fair ratings, TA. I’d like to hand that MoTM gong to Elneny though. He was a hard working, running, pressing demon, all through the game. He was neat and tidy with his tackling and passing; even as legs tired, he was always the first to go forward to press the manure defenders/midfielders as they tried to hem us in our area. It was an all round, energetic performance from him. It will be hard to drop him in the next EPL game, waiting for the next big game (as Arteta seems to be doing with him), after this effort. I can wager something on that.
Danie, I’d like to think this team is a work-in-progress. Once we are assured of defensive (& midfield) security, the forward play will take care of itself.
Hello, people! 🙂
Finally we won at Old Trafford. More importantly, it was our first league victory at Old Trafford since the inception of Bergkampesque. 🙂
I like these ratings but I’d offer some of my own as well.
Leno 7.5 – he has conceded just seven goals in seven games, kept our first clean sheet at Old Trafford since 2008-09 and took one for the team when Elneny’s deflection left him literally red-faced. Whilst his distribution leaves a lot to be desired, he has improved in terms of commanding the area so he gets additional half of the mark.
Bellerin 8 – I gave him higher rating than TA because he was our main attacking asset. It’s not just that he won the penalty cleverly, it’s also that he created a great chance for both Aubameyang and Saka in the first half that both players should have put away. In the absence of a world-class No.10 or at least No.8, Bellerin is a key for our final third creation until Willian or Pepe start creating chances.
Holding 7.5 – did well and showed what we were missing when he was unavailable.
Gabriel 8.5 – OK, he could have been sent off but he was a rock solid again. He gives us qualities of two big No.6s – the one we simply know as Mr Arsenal and the other one who came as a shy signing from a Ligue 1 club only to become a club captain and arguably the best value for money signing of 2010s. We have conceded seven league goals this season and three out of seven were conceded when Gabriel was sitting on the bench at Anfield.
Tierney 8 – he is a top-class player and has every chance to become a club legend unless injuries haunt him.
Elneny 8.5 – superb performance. He has shown once again he is embodiment of ASP and a PhD work by Arteta in terms of a player improvement. Northern Africa is well-known for it’s long distance runners – Mourceli, El Geroudj, Gebrelselassie and others – who were dominant on 5 and 10 kilometers. Elneny may not be the quickest player in the world but he runs for 90 minutes. He was unlucky not to score from a good position – just a bit of wrap of foot on the ball and it would have been a goal of the weekend.
Partey 9 – brilliant. Dominant. Steel. He has already become a vital member of our team spine and complemented our African Midfield Connection superbly.
Saka 7.5 – I’ll repeat it once again – we didn’t have a teenager this mature since early days of Cesc Fabregas. Should have scored with that header though but doesn’t take away much of his performance.
Aubameyang 7.5 – he gets 7.5 just for putting away a penalty during his goal-scoring crisis. He should have scored with either of his chances before the goal but at the end, it didn’t matter. His one-two with Willian could have earned him an assist and it’s not his fault it didn’t.
Willian 7.5 – was unlucky to be denied by the crossbar. Played like an experienced winner in a way Pepe – who would have offered some other qualities Willian doesn’t have – couldn’t have.
Lacazette 7.5 – he was fighting yesterday and was unlucky that Auba’s shot went wide or Laca would have earned an assist to his name. Let’s not forget that he is still our top scorer in the league (three goals).
Arteta 9 – excellent tactical display as we dominated Man United and completely shut them down. We are talking about the same United that beat PSG 2-1 and Leipzig 5-0 in two strong CL outings and were unlucky not to beat Chavs last week.
This one is for all BKers and especially for JohnnieNYC 🙂
Is there a better musical summary of the journey towards success? Please provide examples (I am looking at you LeG!!!). 🙂
Corporate Man wrote “Honestly, even if we had lost to ManU, I would still be happy with the players for the performance.” Spot on!
Thanks for the ratings, TJ… Not much to disagree with other than my average is higher than yours.
Cheers Eris, I thought Elneny was great and a fine assistant to Partey. However, I could imagine us doing well in the game without Elneny but not without Partey. The Ghanaian made the psychological difference, something we have been yearning for for years.
Very astute, Admir… indeed our first BK OT League victory! 🙂
Fair point about Bellerin, but the same goes for Willian who was also involved in most of our attacks (he gave the ‘assist’ for the pen for example). It was really refreshing to have an attacking thread on the right and it won us the game. Teams know how dangerous the combo of Tierney, Saka and Auba is, and that we work a lot from our left flank, so it was great to have the attacking balance for once.
Good shout about Arteta and the strength of MU at the moment. Very few including many bloggers gave us a chance, but Arteta did so well.
Also interesting fact about Gabriel having only conceded four goals this season. He is so good.
Morning all, here are the results of the weekly results competition.
For the week.
1st PB & Legall each with 4 correct so they get 6 points.
2nd Eris & JWL with 3 correct for 3 points
3rd GN5 with 2 correct for 2 points
4th Kev & Total with 1 correct for 1 point
””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Season to date results:-
1st Gooneris – 25.00
2nd PB – 20.33
3rd Kev – 19.00
4th Legall – 18.33
5th GN5 – 17.00
6th Total – 16.00
7th JWL – 14.33
””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Competition choices for weekend of November 7th & 8th.
There will be an extra 2 points for the correct score for the game between West Ham v Fulham.
Everton v Manchester United
Chelsea v Sheffield United
West Ham v Fulham
Manchester City v Liverpool
Arsenal v Aston Villa
Bourussia Dortmund V Bayern M
It would be hard to find a passenger on the team yesterday my personal favorites were:-
Elneny – played his best game for Arsenal – and to think Arteta picked him off of the rubbish heap!
Partey – looked like he was an Arsenal veteran – not a freshman – simply superb.
Gabriel- reminds me so much of Gilberto – he’s like an invisible shield and so effective.
Tierney – was rock solid and we are beginning to see what all the hype was about when he arrived.
Arteta – it cannot be over looked that he is the architect of the new Arsenal.
Ta, you make a good argument for Partey and I have to agree, seeing as a few ratings on here felt the same. We. Needed to be careful about hyping the new guy, just because we haven’t had anyone like him for a while now. The good thing is we haven’t even seen the best of Partey; long range shooting, ball recoveries, assists (ball over the top, if we make the runs), etc. There’s more to come from there.
Good mentions too for Arteta, because it was all about him setting up the team and giving the right tactics to suffocate United at home. They looked so listless in the first half; like they didn’t know what hit them.
GN5, thanks for keeping up with the predictions game. Looking at this week’s picks, it may be a clean sweep for the board leader. 😁
My predictions are as follows:
Everton v Manchester United D
Chelsea v Sheffield United H
West Ham v Fulham H (3-1)
Manchester City v Liverpool H
Arsenal v Aston Villa H
Bourussia Dortmund V Bayern M A
Pardon any mis-alignments.
Love the ratings TA. I find it hilarious that people want to criticize Arteta’s Arsenal for being too robotic – Klopp’s Liverpool is incredibly robotic, as are almost every German team, but no one complains about their style of play! You don’t ever start with improvisational either – you progress from the basics (which to some are robotic) and you can eventually add in some unpredictability and flair.
This site is currently a haven from a lot of other Arsenal blogs. You wouldn’t believe the amount of fans criticizing Lacazette and Willian. No one appreciates the dirty work they do or the chances that Willian was creating. They both also understand how to find pockets of space centrally in the block that others (bar Saka, and Willock if he plays) are not able to.
Highbury Harmony
It’s not too late for you to enter our results prediction contest. There are still 31 weeks left so plenty of time to win the Arsenal shirt that is on offer to the winner.
From City AM:
Mesut Ozil is moving into the world of investment joining San Francisco-based VC firm Class 5 Global, as he looks to a career beyond football.
The Arsenal midfielder joins the firm as a strategic adviser having already been an investor in Class 5 Global, according to Bloomberg.
“I am excited to shape and work on my post-football career while I am still actively playing football,” Ozil said in a statement.
Class 5 managing partner Youcef Oudjidane has advised other English Premier League players and was introduced to Ozil via former Arsenal star Kieran Gibbs.
World-class athletes bring “a unique perspective on the future of consumer preferences,” said Oudjidane.
With more than $100m in assets under management, the VC fund invests in emerging markets. Its top team were previously founding members of expansion stage VC firm Lumia Capital.
Ozil joins a growing number of sports stars who are moving into the world of startups, including Serena Williams and David Beckham.
Ozil has always looked like one with a good head on his shoulders. Nice one, to start to plan for life after playing the game.
Everton v Manchester United Home
Chelsea v Sheffield United Home
West Ham v Fulham Home (1-0)
Manchester City v Liverpool Away
Arsenal v Aston Villa Home
Bourussia Dortmund V Bayern M. Home
GN5’s predictions.
Everton v Manchester United – H
Chelsea v Sheffield United – H
West Ham v Fulham _ H – 2-1
Manchester City v Liverpool – D
Arsenal v Aston Villa – H
Bourussia Dortmund V Bayern M – A
Thanks for the competition update, GN5. It is a win for the mainland Europeans this week! Well done guys.
Here are my predictions:
Everton v Manchester United: Away
Chelsea v Sheffield United: Home
West Ham v Fulham: Home 3-1
Manchester City v Liverpool: Home
Arsenal v Aston Villa: Home
Borussia Dortmund V Bayern M: Draw
Eris, if there is even more to come than we are all going to be very happy indeed. 🙂
HH wrote: “I find it hilarious that people want to criticize Arteta’s Arsenal for being too robotic – Klopp’s Liverpool is incredibly robotic, as are almost every German team, but no one complains about their style of play! You don’t ever start with improvisational either – you progress from the basics (which to some are robotic) and you can eventually add in some unpredictability and flair.”
I cannot agree more. Like Arsene did 25 years ago, Arteta is modernising the team and the way we play and it takes time… and it is sink or swim for the club as we were well behind Pool and Citeh when he took over (and still are but less so).
Cheers Kev, Maybe that is what Mertesacker meant when he said that Ozil had other things on his mind (or something like that).
Everton vs Man United… D
Chelsea vs Sheff Utd….. H
West Ham vs Fulham…. H. 3-0
Man City vs Liverpool… D
Arsenal vs Aston Villa… H
Dortmund vs Bayern….. A
Yes Total, I think that BFG was being diplomatic, I’d love to know what those inside of Arsenal really think, never mind the veiled threats from the Ozil camp of a few days ago of them going public on the affair when the Great One finally leaves, I couldn’t help stifling a yawn on hearing that stunning news…
The truth of the Ozil matter could be seen on the shiny, sweaty forhead of Willian on Sunday night at Old Toilet.
An ASP Ozil is not, and he finds it hard to take that the world does not revolve around him any more.
Kev, we could do with some posts during the interlull and I was wondering whether you would be interested in doing one on the various Arsenal youth players, either on loan or at the home of football? What do you think? 😅
Anybody else is also invited to produce a post. Ideally between 600-1000 words and involving the Arsenal will do the trick. 📯📯
Yeah, I can do that Total.
Leave that with me Total, I’ll divi something up.
Great Kev, no rush as we have plenty of games coming. We won’t get Molde and the Villians will keep our minds occupied… But next week is another matter 😁🤩
New Post 🙂