Agree with most of this apart from Guendouzi. He passed it around well and was positionally sound, however, he was a bit weak on the ball and got outmuscled when he was challenging for the ball at times. He also got beaten to some tackles. It was an average performance from him IMO. Ramsey performed well - I hope his injury is not serious, as his form has really picked up since the turn of the year.
7 games left - can we stay in 3rd? Wolves, Everton, Watford, Burnley, Leicester are difficult away games... One of Wolves and Watford will have an FA cup final to look forward to, so their mind may be elsewhere by the time we play them. Burnley will probably stay up, so they may take it easier on the last game of the season.
Wont be easy but..they are all winnable. Tottenham still have to play City. United still have to play Chelsea and City
Massive result tonight. Up to 3rd and above the Spuds. I can see those 3x games againt City taking the wind right out of Spurs' sails.
Might want to check Mustafi on whoscored. They had him as MoM. https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/1...ier-League-2018-2019-Arsenal-Newcastle-United
He was ok yesterday to be fair to him, but he still has moments of rashness and stupidity in him. There were two incidents I can remember off the top of my head where he gave the ball away cheaply. One in the first half where he dived into a tackle and conceded a foul in a desperate attempt to win the ball back, after passing it straight to a Newcastle midfielder. Which disrupted our momentum as we were putting pressure on them. The second incident was in the second half when he passed it straight to one of their players (Perez or Almiron?), and he made a good last ditch tackle to atone for the error. But again, that all stemmed from him losing possession. No matter how well he plays, he will always give the opposition hope at least once per game because of how error-prone he is.
Our home form is crazy impressive this Season. If Emery can sort out our away form next Season we may well be able to launch a legit title challenge.
A lot of this will depend on if he is backed in the transfer market. If we do get CL football, and with the new sponsorship deal money coming in, I expect us to spend around £120m-£150m this Summer. Anything less would not be good enough. This is our first transfer window where Kroenke has 100% ownership of the club. If he says he has ambitions for Arsenal to be competing at the very top, then he has to put his money where his mouth is.
Maybe but with all the outgoings I dont think the net expenditure needs to be that much. One option for us would be to keep with a back three but add real quality in this area. This would allow us to get the most out of the Laca/Auba partnership IMO. I'm not actually that bothered about us adding a winger as I would like to see us continue with the 3-4-1-2 formation. (and Reiss Nelson should be returning to the Club) Personally would be happy if we sure up the defense with some real quality and added more creativity in midfield. De Ligt - I would literally chuick 80-90m at this guy. Use the Adidas deal to help bring him in. (Koulibaly and Skriniar also good options) Boateng - 30 years old. Looking to leave Bayern still got a few good years left in him. Could use the expereince. Barella - Good Ramsey replacment. Would be a quality signing. (Kai Havertz is another good option) Banega - Experienced would'nt cost too much but he's a skillful tenacious midfielder. Out: Cech Ramsey Elneny Wellbeck Jenkinson Lichsteiner Mustafi -------------------------------Leno------------------------------------ ------------Sokratis-------DeLigt----------Boateng-------------- Bellerin---Barella/Banega-----Xhaka/Torreira---Kolasinac -------------------------------Ozil-------------------------------------- -----------------Lacazette-----------Aubameyang----------------- Bench: Guendouzi, Banega, Koscielny, AMN, R.Nelson, Martinez.
Seriously, seek help. There is something sincerely wrong about supporting a team and having this attitude about their first choice defender, when he has a man of the match performance.
Seriously, go **** yourself. You are not the gatekeeper of what constitutes support and what doesn't. Supporting the club and criticising the players/manager are not mutually exclusive. If you think they are, then go take your dictatorial opinions elsewhere. I have already explained my reasons for why I do not rate Mustafi and why, though he performed reasonably on the whole, he still has his moments. If you don't agree, then that's fine, but I refuse to be silenced by someone who seems to advocate tyranny.
I was at the game and Mustafi had two moments of utter madness where he passed directly to the opposition, both of which we were lucky to not concede from. He also seems to think he can make long raking passes to the feet of our attackers, when in fact all he does is kick the ball off for a goal kick to the opponents. For a CB he isn’t great in the air, gets muscled off the ball, falls over/slips a lot when going for a challenge makes rash tackles, gives tge they ball away by passing to marked teammates and goes to ground when making tackles thereby giving away freekicks. ^ apart from that he ain’t bad
If you count mistakes, he is making more mistakes than other defenders. If you count successes, he is also being successful more than other defenders, which is why he tops the stats. It is human nature (for some reason) to focus on the negative. You do it to me. I can make 4 or 5 great points in a post, but if I make a mistake you will discredit the entire thing. Our brains do that because in the natural world things tend to be binary; true or false, and it is usually less risky to believe something is false when it is true, than to believe something is true when it is false. Our brains have a much harder time with things that are analog. It is like the Luigi joke, "I screw one sheep!" The guy is doing a LOT of positive things, it is just natural he is going to make more mistakes as well. My opinion is that is why we keep scapegoating players. The more vital and a bigger part of the team they become, the more mistakes they make, and the more we then scapegoat them. It prevents us ever having a star player; as soon as they become front and centre, we destroy them. It is like Ozil. He has to have a fantastic game where he dominates the midfield in a flawless performance, otherwise everybody starts leaping on his defensive contribution. We are seeing the same thing with Aubamayang, he just starts to get in there for top scorer and people get on his case, when he doesn't score and miscontrols a few balls. It really has to stop, I can't believe it helps the players if they see this stuff in the press or online.
I don’t tend to get on a players case, but when someone is earning £100k a week then I expect them to be able to do their job - which in Mustafi case is defend without giving away stupid free kicks because he goes to ground to easy, and to pass the ball to a colleague and not the opposing team. In Ramsey and Iwobi case it’s about giving away possession and not fighting to get it back or dithering with the ball and then making a **** pass. In Iwobi i have seen improvements this year and he is young, but I won’t be sad to see Rambo go. Ozil is a god and can do no wrong when he plays like he did Monday - playing sideshow bob alongside him to do all his work was a master stroke by Emery.
