Arsenal 2 – 2 Crystal Patrick
Eight oobservations from an intriguing game:
- Our formation and lineup were very attack minded but we did not dare to push up much after the first goal and Arteta’s plan to dominate CP in their own half therefore failed and we paid the price for it.
- Partey as the sole DM remains clearly a work in progress. We need our young advanced midfielders to be much more dynamic and ball tight for this. Ode, ESR and Saka as a trio were disappointing on the night as they were roughed out of the game, and we need more from OES.
- Arteta did the right thing to bring on Sambi as we needed to reestablish dominance in midfield but he had a poor showing IMHO with limited positional awareness and movement into the key spaces to make things happen. This were Granit excells. I would not play him on the left for a while. In fact, more assimilation needs to be done and Elneny next to Partey seems required now. The midfield balance is the big issue and needs resolving quickly.
- Auba was inspirational and he was rewarded with a goal for his focus and determination. And Laca’s entrance to the arena was well needed and saved us from a loss. Arteta will need to incorporate both more regularly, especially against deep sitting teams.
- Tomiyasu was awesome and so was Tierney. They had to defend a lot of space around them due to the lineup but they did it very well. Our central defenders were left far too exposed and I don’t blame them for the goals. Both central midfielders made mistakes that cost us but the whole team will learn from this.
- It was great to see Vieira at the home of football and his team set up and tactics did impress me. He knew where to hurt us and would have deserved to beat us, and many a team will struggle against them.
- The kick against Saka and Dean’s and VAR’s responses were a disgrace to the game. Honestly, what is going on?! Dean’s leniency towards our opposition roughing us up and kicking our players left, right and centre was of course no surprise, but it remains disgraceful that such an incompetent referee is allowed to officiate PL games. He would have no chance in any other key European competition.
- I will finish with the obvious big positive: Arsenal’s fighting spirit and never say die attitude were a joy to watch. Get the midfield balance back and Arsenal will go places. It’s time for Elneny.
By TotalArsenal
Bergkampesque 
Yes. Agree with most of your observations. I fear that in this league, there is no substitute for experience. Buying into youth is a fine concept, but we need a better blend of experience into the mix. Just look at other teams and look at age of our core. Sometimes it looks like men against boys. Xhaka’s absence hurts the team. Hoping for the best apprehensively for the next games.
Good point, Sunn. Introduction of Laca, the wily, experienced fox seemed to make a huge difference for the mindset of the team.
I couldn’t agree more Total. The mid-field were MIA and it cost us dearly – I wonder where the Xhaka haters are hiding this morning – his absence was the key reason for our disjointed display. Lacca and Martinelli’s energy was contagious and lifted the whole team in the late stages of the game.
Here are last weekends results for our competition:-
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
For the week:-
One game was voided due at a GN5 error.
1st Total with 3/5 and 4 points for most correct predictions = 7 points
2nd PB & Madhu with 2/5 = 2 points
4th GN5 with 1/5 = 1 point
5th Eris, Kev & OX10 with 0/5
“””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
For the season to date:-
1st PB with 50.13
2nd Eris with 47.46
3rd GN5 with 44.13
4th OX10 with 40.13
5th Total with 35.13
6th Madhu with 34.66
7th Kev with 30.33
“”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””
Big week for Total – well done. Ox was late in making his predictions so was only able to predict one game.
Overall it was the lowest weeks scoring since we have been running the competition.
Just a reminder – these are this coming weekends selected games:-
England Ladies v Northern Ireland Ladies *
Everton v Watford
Brentford v Leicester
West Ham v Tottenham *
Manchester United v Liverpool *
Athletic Bilboa v Villarreal
Agreed GN5 and good point about Martinelli: he really tried v hard and help lift the atmosphere.
Really pleased to win a round, GN5. Upwards and onwards.
England Ladies v Northern Ireland Ladies * 2-1
Everton v Watford Home
Brentford v Leicester Draw
West Ham v Tottenham * 1-1
Manchester United v Liverpool * 0-1
Athletic Bilboa v Villarreal Draw
Hard to predict these, GN5 ⚽
Good choices. 👍🏼 👍🏼
England Ladies v Northern Ireland Ladies * 2-0
Everton v Watford H
Brentford v Leicester A
West Ham v Tottenham * H 2-1
Manchester United v Liverpool * 1-2
Athletic Bilboa v Villarreal A
TA, I love reading your take on games before I watch. Helps focus me on important aspects. I was very disappointed in Lokonga, and Partey especially, against Brighton. I’m not looking forward to watching this.
I wish that Arsenal, as a club, were simply more vociferous about the standard of refereeing we receive in England and how it continually affects us, we are just too passive, if you act like a carpet then people will simply walk all over you.
I’d like to see the club, not Arteta, but the club, make it crystal clear that they no longer want Mike Dean involved in any aspect of officiating Arsenal games this season and that includes 4th official and VAR.
This should come from the top of the club, our executives, they need to man up and make this an issue of this so that the officiating of Arsenal games is in the spotlight and is reported on and commented on.
I’m sick of seeing us stitched up and nobody from the club says a word.
Do they think that silence will change anything?
And keep on complaining…
Fine observations, TA and all agreed, save for one. I just didn’t think Tierney and Tomiyasu were “awesome” at all; if anything, they were both underwhelming and could have done a bit more to affect both goals against us. I also thought Tierney’s continuous preference for playing it safe (backwards) hurt our offensive capabilities a great deal. Other than when he went forward and had a chance to score but, unfortunately, grazed the crossbar, he just appeared to reject every chance to run at Ward, the Palace full back. It isn’t as if Ward can match him for pace so, why he held back, I’d never know. He wasn’t awesome at all. Both he and Tomiyasu just did the bare minimum defending for us, and while Tomi bombed forward well, Tierney was Lukewarm.
For the Benteke goal against us, Tierney was late in coming to close down the shot and was no where to be seen for the second goal. Tomi, I felt, could have given chase to thwart the move leading to their second, when Lokonga lost the ball. He did not. They both did okay, our full backs, but not at the level of awesomeness.
Mike Dean is a sadist and just loves to see us suffer ridicule; and he has an arrogant way of going about it too. He should retire and leave the game.
GN5, great job, keeping the records. TA, nice going and congratulations. My predictions follow:
England Ladies v Northern Ireland Ladies * H 5-0
Everton v Watford H
Brentford v Leicester H
West Ham v Tottenham * H 1-0
Manchester United v Liverpool * A. 1-2
Athletic Bilboa v Villarreal D
now.arsenal
@now_arsenaI
·
Oct 19, 2021
Nicolas Pepe lost possession 22 times against Palace.
He competed in 15 duels & won only 3 of them.
He had 1 successful dribble out of 6.
Is it an agenda? Or am I just saying what I see?
His ball retention isn’t anywhere good enough for him to be starting.
I’ll stop now.
Dr. Rajpal Brar, DPT
J, it’s still a good game to watch. Palace are a well set up team and we struggled with that but you will not be bored.
Good point, Kev. Maybe the power of referees is too big and Arsenal fear of getting even more unfavourable treatment…
Cheers Eris, we saw it totally different this time. Tierney almost scored and played with real maturity. Tomiyasu fought like a lion and has already adjusted to the PL. An awesome signing.
I respect that you see it differently, though. 🙂
Yeah Kev, Pepe…. A golden left foot and not much else..
England Ladies v Northern Ireland Ladies * H (3-1)
Everton v Watford H
Brentford v Leicester D
West Ham v Tottenham * D (2-2)
Manchester United v Liverpool * A (0-3)
Athletic Bilboa v Villarreal D
We just need PB’s predictions.
It was not nice to have Crystal Palace come to our home and outplay us so. I am not sure the last time I saw us fail to keep possession or show so much lack of composure as Monday night. That performance doesn’t bode well for the visit of Villa on Friday. Arteta needs too much time to give this team an identity and turn us into the passing machine that we once were.
On the other hand, Vieira has only been at Palace for a few weeks and they already show his grit and confidence on the ball. Amazing. He has come to Arteta’s home and showed him up in something akin to an audition. Not too nice. Whatever they do on the training ground, we need to address these niggling issues.
goonereris, I agree wiht your comments and that’s exactly what I was thinking about. Also we must remember that Palace missed thier talisman Zaha and Eze in thier squad. Yet they came out fighting and dominated the match. In the end they were disappointed for not having taken away all points.
Meanwhile there is a worrying trend developing at Arsenal. We missed Xhaka and seems to have no alternate solution. Either as a double pivot or single with Thomas who had a stinker. There is trend here which is worrying for me. Last season we missed Tierney and we struggled to find solutions. We also missed strikers in Europa Semis and we struggled with fasle nine tactic. This year we struggled in initial matches when we missed few players. Now we are struggling due to xhakas absence. I see a trend here and it’s worrying. Villa are dangerous and we may get beaten of we don’t play well for 90mins.
I would like to see AMN get a chance in the center mid along with Partey.
Eris, making a team sit back and play on the break is relatively easy, Arteta did just that at the start of his Arsenal career and it won him a trophy and some big impressive victories. But that is not why he became our manager and CP are a totally different proposition for a manager.
We did not play well and need to do better on Friday, and we will.
Miguel Azeez has made just one appearance for Pompey after arriving on a season-long loan from Arsenal in August.
And Pompey’s head coach Danny Cowley insists the 19-year-old be unleashed once his team are in a ‘good moment’.
Azeez has made just one Blues appearance since arriving on a season-long loan at the end of August.
Even in successive heavy defeats to Rotherham and Ipswich, Azeez wasn’t called upon from the bench to inject much-needed inspiration.
Yet Cowley remains wary of exposing the England under-20 international to negative match scenarios which may impact his development.
It’s a desire to identify the right time for his first-team participation which has led to the youngster being used sparingly in a struggling team.
Pompey’s boss told The News: ‘It’s unfortunate for Miguel.
‘We lost Clark (Robertson) who is that left-footed centre-half that can play into the left-half space which Miguel likes to play in and we’re not in a good moment.
‘He’s only 19, we are trying to set a young player up for success and we are not in a good enough moment to bring him into the team.
‘I couldn’t bring him on against Ipswich, not at that time, not in this game. It would have been very, very difficult to come into the team in that moment. Very, very difficult.
‘He’s a young player finding his way in the game, so it’s your job as a manager to set him up to have success.
‘The team are playing with no rhythm and no control – and he’s a player that needs rhythm and control. We didn’t have it on Tuesday night.’
I must confess that I was slightly concerned with the lack of game time Azeez was getting at Portsmouth but Cowley is a safe pair of hands for our young players as we can see from his comments above and his explanation makes an awful amount of good sense.
Very sensible, Kev. Young players are fragile and need mentoring.
New Post 🙂