There is not too much to celebrate today, other than Manchester City also losing to Bournemouth (what a season they are having!) just like we did last week. We just have to hope that Martin Odegaard recovers quickly and can get our midfield back in order before we drop too far behind Liverpool.
A very big disappointment is that the Arsenal defence that was so unbeatable last season, have now conceded for 6 games in a row, and our Rolls Royce defender William Saliba was very honest about today’s result. ‘We are all a bit sad because we wanted to win today,’ Arsenal defender Saliba told TNT Sports shortly after the final whistle in Newcastle.
‘Unfortunately we didn’t and we didn’t play the game we wanted to play. We deserved to lose today I think.
‘I think we didn’t play how we wanted to play and they were good as well. It’s OK, we are focused on the next week and it is not finished.’
He wasn’t the only one either as Mikel Arteta didn’t hold back his feelings either, and he didn’t find it difficult to agree with Saliba, telling the BBC: “We deserved to lose today. I thought we started really well and were really dominant. We didn’t defend the box well enough. Credit to them. They scored a great goal with a good ball. Then the game changes and you start to play a different game,” Arteta told Premier League Productions.
“You have to adapt and we didn’t do that well enough. I am very frustrated. We got dragged into a game they are looking for constantly and we couldn’t play the game that we wanted. We had two big chances – Mikel had a big one, Declan had a big one. We lacked answers.”
I suppose we might as well leave it there as I’m sure every single Arsenal fan would agree that we desrved to lose and hopefully we can get our spirits back up for the small matter of a game against Inter Milan in midweek.
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No commitments from arsenal looked like a training session
YEP!
Even though we were poor, Newcastle were not great. If we had taken a point it wouldn’t have been robbery. Ultimately over the season you get what you deserve, we have what we deserve thus far, even taking into account debatable decisions against us. Aston Villa seem to be ahead of us at the moment, we are not progressing, we may even be going backwards.
I wouldn’t agree we deserve to lose New Castle were lucky nnd scored a goal. The stats favours Arsenal but I will say we don’t look like winning.
Sylva,
Newcastle got the stat that mattered, ie: the goal.
And there was nothing lucky about it either.
Arsenal are fast becoming a joke under this manager. And if you don’t believe me, keep watching this space.
My crystal ball disagrees with yours.
We do, but we must know the excuses for not playing White/Timber as an RB and Zinchenko/Kiwior as an LB.
What process should we trust at this point?
We have been playing so badly since Odegard’s injury, and our defense is shaking. Being attacked easily because of the wrong choices of the Right/Left backs, so if you don’t feel comfortable playing ur current players, why don’t you change your formation to 3-5-1 with White/Saliba/Gabi as the back “fixed” three?
And when Nwaneri plays well, instead of using this, did you bench him?
Trust me, everyone knows that Martinelli just likes to run on the line, so no one fears him anymore! Change your playing style and use the guy better!
MA is the reason why we played bad today and the last two games.
When Arsenal sold Emil Smith Rowe and sent Fabio Vieira out on loan, I was very sure the club were making space for a new creative midfielder. But they didn’t get one at the end of the window, I was surprised. I knew right away that if anything should happen to keep Odegaard off the pitch for any length of time, irreparable damage would be done to our title ambitions
Now it’s been proven to be exactly the case
Sometimes you wonder if those who run our club don’t see these obvious things. Or is it about the money 💰
When Nwaneri comes on, you can see the difference in the team, we desperately need that creativity, I didn’t think selling ESR was a good idea, also if we had a huge number of chances, and if we had a goal scorer, other than Saka who was creating most of the chances then we would’ve probably won. Arteta still seems to think that not having a striker is the way to go, which is worrying, we’ve always had dead eye strikers, Ian Wright, Thierry Henry and Robin Van Persie, and were probably only scoring 20% of our chances because we don’t have one.
* we are not were
I think k it’s about the squad Arteta wants to build.
He wanted Merino, a 4th DM, leaving Odegaard as the sole creator in midfield; loaned Vieira and sold ESR over choosing to develop them with his assistants.
Didn’t bring in a striker still, leaving Havertz and Jesus, neither of which are strikers. No wonder we struggle to create or finish.
Continues to buy defenders, so why is anyone surprised we play so defensively and drop off so earthen we get a lead?
Squad is built to reflect Arteta’s philosophy, and works when things go well.
When they don’t Arteta doesn’t have an answer, has no plan B.
Neither Havertz nor Jesus are strikers or prominent goal scorers. None of Rice, Partey, Merino, or Jorginho are creators. Hence no plan B, and struggle to adapt and improvise against adversity.
Club is to blame, a problem of their own creation. We have depth but not diversity; too many players are too similar to each other.
Rice is world class DM, but plays box to box. Partey is only in form midfielder, but is playing RB. Others played out of position and not to their strengths too often.
We have created our own problem, but lack the right players (and skill sets) to dig our way out.
Sterling instead of a striker, and Merino instead of creative or B2B midfielder.
Agreed – I felt disappointed after the transfer window, I felt we’d made ourselves weaker. Even the whole Ramsdale saga, why on earth did we sell him for 12m less than he was worth, when he had two years left on his contract, for a backup keeper who was cup tied? We sold him for 8m less than we paid for him.
Partey and jorginho are “creators”, they’re deep lying playmakers. They’re the ones who break the press and put our dangerous players (right now, that’s just saka) in the position to hurt the opposition. Merino and rice are our box to box midfielders, with everyone fit, our midfield should be partey at the base, odegaard most advanced and one of merino or rice playing box to box.
I think arteta wants to move on from partey (due to his age and injury issues) by moving rice into the deeper role and with merino playing box to box, but it doesn’t quite work. Rice can do that DM role quite well but he’s not on partey’s level – it’s more than just protecting the defence and playing safe passes (which rice is great at), partey and jorginho have far greater vision and can frequently turn tricky moments into dangerous attacking situations.
Rice played box to box last season with jorginho, and it worked – it didn’t when he played deeper with havertz. His ability to press offensively and get back to help our defence, being in the right place at the right time, is awesome. But he doesn’t have the turning ability or the type of cleverness needed to play the role at the level we want for the DM in our system. He’s only really a world class DM in a defensive team that expects to be on the back foot, which isn’t what we’re trying to be – he’s not world class for a side that tries to play out from the back when being pressed (he’s not bad, he’s just not special). Partey is the best we have for that role by far, and imo he’s one of the best in the world at it, and jorginho is the next best we have currently.
Yes, it was very obvious we didn’t come to the party today against Newcastle United. Newcastle United dominated the game around. It’s unfortunate we are giving up the the title so early in the season. It’s not over, Manchester City lost today so we need to be hopeful.
A well deserved lose, nothing is working now having boosted of a mean defence which has gone awore and a midfield devoid of creativity. No one is willing to take risks and no impact sub’s. Weed to improve really fast or see the league roll by