I am more concerned about the PGMOL hating us - I watched the game back as i often do... the referee was a total disgrace. He gifted Utd the upper hand all through the game.
I don't think I will. Utd players had a free run to just go through the back of our forward players at will.
I felt a hint of Man U players being given the benefit of the doubt but I also saw Saka go down far too easily every time.
That was a shockingly bad performance from Arsenal, how we won is a mystery, it had it all, keystone cops defending, a non-existent midfield, zero creativity and zero attacking threat. But we walked away with a win at Old Toilet. I'm not sure its possible that we could be that bad let alone be that bad and win ! Lets start at the back, Raya was shaky as hell, but he grew into the game and was rightly MotM. White and Calafiori were terrible, both got ripped apart by the opposing attackers, Calafiori cannot defend for ****. Saliba and Gabriel defended like they just met each other, the way we got cut open time and time again was horrifying, but we'll come to the ultimate reason for that, but the same thing happened against Villarreal, we got cut open for fun. Our midfield was non-existent. Zubimendi had a torrid first 45 mins, Rice was everywhere but nowhere at the same time, his contribution to the first half was zip. Odegaard carried on his uselessness, his passing was off, often choosing the wrong option. How he is getting picked instead of Nwaneri to start is totally unfair. But we had Calafiori push into CM when we had the ball yet even still we didn't look like we had a midfield. The main reason we got cut open were turnovers, losing the ball while trying to advance, a simple single ball forward and Man U had a 2 vs 2. It was an awful watch. Every time Man U got in the box we looked like under 5s getting rid of the ball. That was one off the worst performances I have seen from Saka EVER, he was terrible, but Martinelli gets the prize for worst Arsenal starter yesterday, he was terrible. Madueke came on and I'm not sure how its possible but he was even worse than Martinelli !!! Gyokeres didn't get any service, he did the physical things well, running into channels, battling the CBs but the technical side with the ball was dreadful. Havertz came on and did well. Timber came on and showed why he must start, I was hoping MLS would shore up the left side and was quickly reminded that, he is not an LB and while he has had some good performances for us in that position he makes too many bad decisions that cost us. He is a CM and should be played there ! It was an abomination of a performance ... but we won LOL
Lol, it wasn't great at all, but that is a bit of an over exaggeration. I thought Calafiori and White did pretty well against Cunha and Mbuemo, who are clearly very dangerous players. Raya made a world class save against Cunha to keep them out. When the full backs tired, we were able to bring on Timber and MLS, and that shows how much more depth we've got this season Saliba and Gabriel were in the thick of it making blocks and defending our goal Overall, defensively I thought they were very good today under a lot of pressure. Going forward, we were gash. But we got all 3 points on a difficult opening day fixture at OT, so it's definitely a positive, albeit with work to do.
Give over every report pointed out our defensive frailities i even did before the game on the prediction
Seriously on paper your squad has best strength in depth in the Pl - your problem is your playing style
I'm quite conflicted about that game yesterday. Let's get the positives out the way first. No matter how bad Man Utd are, we historically do not perform well or win at their ground. We have 6 wins there in the Premier League era and 3 of those have come under Arteta. So, whether we like the style of play or not, there's no argument about how much it has improved our record against the traditional 'big six' sides, especially away from home. There's been so many times I can remember where we've gone to OT, dominated and created loads of chances yet United have won the game. At the end of the day, this is football. We took our chance, United didn't take any of theirs. They only have themselves to blame for losing that. I hate playing at Old Trafford, so I'm glad to get it ticked off so early and to get the 3 points against a rejuvenated Man Utd side is good. I also think it's good that we had the resilience to win, despite the disjointed and mundane performance. Playing away at your rivals, first game of the season when you're lacking match sharpness, new signings haven't fully bedded in, new tactics that haven't clicked yet with the team, hostile atmosphere against a United side with a point to prove - we'll take that 3 points. Now onto the negatives... That starting XI was perfectly capable of controlling the game and creating more than that. I felt we were on the backfoot a lot. Our pressing sequences weren't organised and our instinct was to drop back into a block and defend, rather than take the initiative and take the game to Man Utd by wrestling the ball from them. I sincerely hope it was just opening day rust or that there's a quick adaptation period to the tactical adjustments Arteta's made because we're going to be in for a LONG season if that's a sign of things to come. Technically, tactically and creatively, that wasn't up to the standards we should expect. Our defensive solidity is elite, but we can't keep putting so much pressure on our defensive structure to win games. Our methods of chance creation, decision-making/ruthlessness in the final third and ability to execute the right actions in transitions especially need to be so much better. Gyokeres barely had a sniff all game, but he also had no service whatsoever. There were times where he peeled off and made a good run, but the midfielders either ignored him or took too long to play the right pass. We need to get these dynamics sorted otherwise there was no point of signing him if we won't play to his strengths. The occasional game like yesterday is palatable, but I don't want it to be a recurring theme against other sides. Raya was superb, thought Odegaard played well too (although he needs to learn to release the ball faster) and Havertz's cameo was excellent. Everyone else was average to poor. Overall, 3 points is the most important thing, but there's a LOT of improvement needed. Onto Leeds...
You thought Calafiori did well ? Seriously ?!!! Literally the only thing we did well was successfully keeping a clean sheet, there is a reason Raya was voted MoM. Apart from that what do YOU think we did well ? To me defending well isn't panic stations, mis-kicking the ball, playing pinball against other players then inviting wave after wave after wave of pressure on to yourselves. I can't name a single thing that I thought we did well, thats the reason for my damning review of the game.
The fact that we didn't concede against sustained pressure should tell you that the defenders did the job they set out to do. And yes Raya made a worldie to keep it at 0-1 Calafiori did well at LB against a very tricky Mbuemo and he was up against it for most of the match. Still managed to keep him out and scored our winning goal so that counts as a good game in my book It wasn't a pretty game to watch and as I mentioned we were disjointed and weren't good overall. But defensively I thought we did well, which the result shows.
I don’t think we defended well. We were caught out way too often 2v2 and we regularly panicked in defence, with quite simple clearances resulting in mishit clearances adding to pressure. I thought Saliba should have been penalised with a penalty conceded too. He got nowhere near the ball with a lunge. On paper it’s a good defensive display because we conceded no goals, but it was more to do with Utd not making the most of their space. we will need to improve a lot all over the pitch. Defence was shaky, midfield was poor and attack was poor.
We do need to improve that’s for sure. The defending was scrappy at times, but credit where it’s due, we did defend our goal under sustained pressure and so you have to recognise and give credit for that. Don’t agree it was a pen either.
