Up the Arse! Goons Thread

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****. That wasn’t as comprehensive and controlled as I would’ve thought however take that 3 points and run.

Felt like Timber’s injury really stifled Arsenal’s flow. The match kind of stalled and drifted for the 20 minutes or so afterwards.
 

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If I was managing a team against Arsenal (and let's face it, if Lampard can manage in the PL, then I still have hope) I would target our right side on the counter at every opportunity. Partey, White and Saka, with Odegaard linking in, makes our right side attacking play absolutely fearful. But Partey occasionally gets his pressing wrong and gets turned, and with White making his overlapping runs, means Saka has to be wary running back and he just isn't as diligent at it as the left side, where Rice and Timber (Tomiyasu) are more defensively inclined, and Martinelli runs like the energiser bunny. Whether we reign in our offensive capabilities to prevent the kind of goal Forest just scored against us has a bit to do with that elusive commodity called game management. Feel our right side needs to tighten that up a little.

Secondly, I thought Arteta's comments regarding Martinelli were interesting. A couple of seasons ago he said Martinelli needed to develop gears into his game, whereas last night it seemed like Arteta has come to accept that Martinelli only has one gear and we just need to maximise its potential. If that is the case, I like the change. Martinelli is a terror at 100 miles per hour. And yeah, he muddles it up occasionally, but when he gets it right, it is devastating.
 
Random tidbits:

- Havertz I feel is going to be judged with a similar lens to Ozil, due to his body language and characteristics during a match etc. I hope for his sake he has a big performance sooner rather than later, a goal or assist or something to really set the tone for himself.

- Tomiyasu showed again why he’s the “5th defender in a back 4”. The first sub to come on. A real plug and play type player that can come on anywhere across the defence and do his thing. He provided composure when it was needed.

- Trossard too. Impacted the game nicely and interesting to hear Arteta refer to players like him as “finishers”. There’s a lot of matches to come, a lot of minutes. Especially with games going to approx 100 minutes now. Going to need to lean into that squad more.

- I felt Arteta was a bit too slow to react to the drifting nature of the match after Timber exited. Hope he’s okay by the way. Felt Trossard could’ve been introduced earlier or even Gabriel into defence to allow White to push up further on the right.

- Whilst I understand the logic of Partey at right back when Arteta explained it, I hope this is not something he deploys often.

- Take the 3 points and run of course. However if you’re the opposition, you know Arsenal are “gettable” at 2-0 down. It’s happening too much recently and that killer instinct or lack of it was arguably the difference in not winning the title last season.

- Too often we take the foot off the throat, need to strike whilst the iron is hot and nail that crucial 3rd goal. If we did it before half time I felt this would’ve been 4 or 5 nil. Look to City, they would’ve killed the match off and add to that valuable GD tally. Lots of learnings to take here heading into the Palace in ten days time.
 

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Up the Arse! Goons Thread


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