Just over evens for the win tonight. That looks skinny to me.

Fair point re the stats.

Yeah 2 good wins. Martinelli has made some difference both going forward and winning the ball back high up. Saka looks back to his best too - didn't think he looked sharp this season until the last few matches. Having those two in form gets a lot more out of Laca and Odegaard too. Tomiyasu and Ramsdale are great additions and, without getting carried away you'd have to say we have a good chance at 4th now looking at the other contenders, how many points we picked up after Xmas last season and not having euro football. West Ham and Leeds were both poor tho and I think we'd still be dominated and well beaten by the likes of City or Liverpool.

Xhaka has looked good, I still think he's a liability but he's a step up from the midfield alternatives. Very suspicious betting patterns in the card market for him last night and then you look at the booking he got? Looks very dodgy.

Wonder what will happen with Auba now in Jan? He's well down the pecking order so might want to leave more now. Maybe a CL club will take a punt on him on loan at least and pay some of his wages or some sort of loan swap for another player. Still unlikely imo.

Xhaka has looked good, I still think he's a liability but he's a step up from the midfield alternatives. Very suspicious betting patterns in the card market for him last night and then you look at the booking he got? Looks very dodgy.


The United winning goal a case in point. Already booked. Not sure how long left but he lets the attacker through even gets out of his way to avoid being booked again and sent off. The player goes through and United score the winner! If he knows how to avoid booking how come he gets booked so often? Didn't get booked for a stamp at Leeds was on Sky News today. I think he was already booked but he stamped a bloke on the half way line where there was no danger the game already won but jumps away from a tackle with your nearest rival who go on to score and win the game! Something not right with that. I saw Xhaka for Switzerland and he is a good player for them, integral and influential but at Arsenal he is not. I don't know why. He is too slow, makes terrible tackles and doesn't make tackles when he should and often his positional play is awful and he is missing when the the breaches are being overrun making himself as useful as a chocolate teapot. What is even worse is he is playing a little better this season!

The right back is pretty decent but I don't think good enough or tough enough long term. That Chelsea fellow takes no prisoners. How I would want a couple of those type of players at Arsenal. Too many with mangina's, too used to taking and not giving it!

Arsenal still do not have a leader. Tierney is the obvious choice. I think players would rally around his leadership but there is no Beast or Big Dog at Arsenal still. Far too nice. Good Boys, not men.

Apologies Everton. Booked after 63 minutes but did not make the foul or even tackle that lead to the winner

That was a much better performance against a team in form who played as well as they were allowed to. Played the right way against them and it was working. Should have had a penalty in the first half too.

But once again a moment of stupidity from Mr. Liability undoes all the hard work. Idiotic from Gabriel too, both cards were and if Martinelli had scored that chance for 2-1, Gabriel wouldn't have got the second yellow.

Thought we did OK down to 10 men but having Holding at CH ultimately cost us. But up to now we used to play like that with 11 men against them.

Still that shows more progress for me than beating bottom half teams and I'd be more confident of getting 4th than I was before the match. If we can get an improvement on Xhaka in midfield and maybe a new striker who plays that role better than Laca (who is free to talk to other clubs now) and who can add a few goals we can make the next step. Xhaka has to be replaced tho. Fúcks up the whole game and ends up finishing it as captain.

Lurka - you know im no fan of Xhaka but how come Wenger,Emery and Arteta love him?

Its been plain to see he is,and has been a liability for an awful long time now. Arteta could have sold him pre-season to Roma yet MA gives him a new contract. WTF.

Emery and Arteta had to operate under a tight enough budget apart from the last window. FFP rules were relaxed because of covid, that's why we were able to spend so much after a year of lower revenues and no euro money coming in this season.

Could have replaced him instead of buying Pepe I suppose but Emery/the club obv thought a winger was more of a priority because they were going after Zaha then too and gambling on getting a CL spot. Think there might have been some dodgy dealings by Raul as part of that deal that ultimately lead to him leaving, so maybe Emery wasn't the main driver of all that?

Xhaka has let us down more times than he's not. I cannot fathom out why he is still there

Bruno Guimaraes of Lyon has been linked a lot the last few years and touted as an ideal replacement for and improvement on Xhaka. Think he'd be well affordable too.

I would have chosen Viera when Arteta got it.

But Viera has no chance now as he supported that 'Kroenke Out' thing last year.

Ell - There's still a lot of stupid comments about Xhaka, he was having a good game. He might have given away the penalty but he was covering a defender who went missing. 100% dive ,it looked like he had rigor mortis before he hit the floor.

Having watched the MOTD analysis tend to agree with you. Xhaka was covering, still bad technique to try and tackle like that though. Gabriel's block was stupid although Milner did a similar block yesterday in a much more dangerous area (free kick given) and didn't get booked.

Still Arsenal put in a great performance compared to another rubbish performance by Spurs. I hope players go into the London Derby knowing they are a better team. ANC going to rob us of five players, Spurs no players in ANC?

Blackrock take a look at the stats https://www.premierleague.com/players/12136/Granit-Xhaka/stats .
I'd agree he gets a few too many bookings but that goes with the job but any mistakes are outweighed by what he does do right.
As he wins 64% of tackles you'd struggle to find someone who wins more, let alone in our squad.
In the Everton he was already on a booking, their player was 65 yards from goal and we had 3 covering defenders, 5 when they scored from outside the box.

Ell - i don't really take too much notice of stats. I prefer to form my opinion on what i see. If Xhaka could tackle properly, we would not have lost at Everton, nor would we have allowed Man City in with a cheap pen.

I know he was on a booking at Everton but he should still have made an effort to stop the Everton player. We agree he is booked too many times, which leaves him in the position of not committing to winning the ball incase he is shown red.

Stats will show Xhaka's yellows, reds and penalties given away. But what about the time he headed a cross from the near post downwards towards the penalty spot for Nasri to feed Rice against West Ham a couple of years back or when he stopped tracking his runner against Leicester at home last season etc etc? There is a litany of examples.

Getting rid of Arteta now would be stupid. The time to do it was just before Xmas last year when we were playing our worst under him and couldn't create a chance to save our lives and all his signings looked awful. Was never going to happen after 3 games this season after backing him in the summer.

Since last Xmas we picked up the second most points last season despite not playing great and this season (since Auba was binned) there has been significant improvement on the attacking side for the first time really. Last summer the signings of White, Ramsdale and Tomi have improved us loads on the defensive side. Gabriel, Odegaard and Partey are also very good additions.

I've been very critical of him until recently and didn't think we were going anywhere under him, but I think a lot of that criticism was justified based on how we were playing and the signings he had made (the likes of Willian on 220kpw, Cedric, Runarsson, Mari, Ceballos, Auba on 350kpw to play left or F9).

I don't think that any more and he has certainly earned more time now imo. That's the first time I've thought that or see real progress since the FA cup win. I think he's been very lucky with covid too, fans in the stadium last season would have got on his back and he wouldn't have been able to make those signings last summer were it not for covid. He'd have likely had almost nothing to spend with revenues down and no euro income this season. No way I'd replace him with Vieira now. See how the rest of the season goes but I'd expect us to be very close to top 4, mainly because Utd and Spurs don't look great.

Only a few weeks ago we were desperate at a poor Everton. Again tried a tactic i hate of trying to 'manage' the game. Basically have 11 men behind the ball and pray the opposition don't score.

Since then, that attitude/style of play has been ditched by a much more positive approach and we are seeing the benefits. Has Arteta seen the light? Can't just be down to Auba not featuring?

Aubameyang was fine until Arteta arrived. In fact we didn't have a problem scoring goals, playing out from the back just slowed everything down and doesn't play to his strengths.
I think the partnership of White & Gabriel is starting to gel and they're both willing to go forward with the ball rather then pass side to side.
The changes only came about after first 3 games of the season and i reckon that was a fluke rather than planned. ESR & Martinelli should have been introduced last season.
Loaning out AMN wouldn't make as he's good cover in defence & midfield, 100% grafter.

You either play to his strengths and build the attack around him in an orthodox 9 role or else you let him leave. Don't sign him on 350k a week to play another role where he's not worth even half that. He is an out and out 9, not much more to his game than scoring. Newcastle could do with him on loan.

Admirable dedication tfs

I think they'd prefer the 3 pts tbf.