Offical match day thread

Something has happened IMO. Auba looked annoyed from the outset. Lacazette has come on and his body language looks off.
Ozil - not even on the bench (which Arteta did'nt want to talk about pre-match) Be interesting to hear what he says in the post match interview.

 

Stupid mistake from Luiz to give a goal away right on half time.

And then he just pressed the self destruct button. We were totally ****ed from that point.

 

To be fair, our club and squad does appear to be ****ed almost all the way through it and needs a long term manager who will be fine taking us through years of ****. And I've got more hope Arteta doing that a lot of others.

What the heck must Saliba be thinking he's gotten himself involved with?!

 

Yeah agree.

Makes me sad though.
Really feels like we are still in decline.

Even our youngsters: We talk about Saka, Willock, AMN etc.. but are they really of the same level to guys like Foden?

Pepe seems like a terrible signing for the money we paid. We need big investment in the squad and youth system.

Im soo sick of how often we get smashed in the big games. Its actually embarrassing.

 

Hang on a minute, we're only ONE point behind spurs? Da fuq?

 

Soo Arteta saying Ozil omission was 'tactical'. Nothing to do with fitness.

 

I'm just bored of us being plagued and stuck with the same root issues every year. Are they ever going to be fixed?

 

I just think we need a total rebuild. All the older players out - except Aubameyang. Sell, sell sell..
Rebuild - buy a bunch of quality youth.

 

I think the club know that a total rebuild in needed, but theres some problems with that - we have no money to spend on a squad rebuild.

We need to stop picking up old useless erratic players like Luiz, lichsteiner, etc.

I guess youth is the way forward? but where do we get these players? cant possiby stick to just the academy. Losing Auba and Laca (even though I doubt they want to be here) will hurt even more.

 

Fixed. Arsenal are competent but are miles off being an Elite team. that damming stat about not winning away at the big six for 5 years says it all.

Top 6/7/8 and tilts at the Europa are the new (or not so new) normal for Arsenal. Is that acceptable for fans who pay the most in England. I'd say not but i'm not a fan..

 

It makes you wonder though. Martinelli looks an absolute bargain for money we paid, Guendouzi is another example. Tierney also a decent signing.

Give a few years for a player to be hyped and the fee increases significantly.
Pepe is looking like an awful signing. Not because he's bad; the guy is quality but because for £72 million we should have invested that into positions that really needed it. (CB/AMF) He's a total luxury buy that would make sense at a Club like Real Madrid but for Arsenal that signing makes very little sense at all.

Hopefully Saliba will hit the ground running.

 

Still think Pepe will be a good player for us, but yeah at £72m we should have been spending that on a defensive player. We've got Saliba coming in soon, so let's hope he helps to improve our defence, but he can't do it alone.

We've got a really good core of young players at the club and Martinelli looks like he's going to be a big player for us, so I'm not too concerned if we lose Lacazette in the summer. Auba on the other hand would be a massive loss.

 

On the plus side I think Mari looked solid before going off injured.
Perhaps we will see Mari and Saliba as a defensive pairing going forward.

I really hope they dont re-sign David Luiz though.

 

He’s got a month left on his contract and is now out for 3 games. Perfect time to say goodbye.

 

What is Ozil hoping to achieve by doing this? To get the fans onside? To put pressure on the club to value him more? He always strategically posts these cryptic messages after a bad result or loss.

His contract is and has been a huge financial burden for us. We should consider paying it off just to stop this nonsense and show that we have a backbone. We can't keep paying a royalty in wages for a player that contributes as little as he does.

 

A really good core of young players?

Really good could arguably be Saliba (probably), Martinelli, Saka.......... And who else?

Willock, Fraudouzi, Nketiah, Nelson are all journeymen not even good enough to be squad player impact subs like Solskjaer and Butt of old.

 

Bad news on Mari...



Really not looking forward to seeing Holding, who has been a total calamity in training and when he has played, in our starting 11. But I guess now more than ever he'll need to prove himself to Arteta.

 

Disagree.

Willock and Guendouzi are good players who are still developing. Nketiah has only just broken into the first team, so you can't just write him off like that. Nelson, yes the jury is out on him, he's not lived up to the expectation.

What's happened to Smith-Rowe ?

 

For me Martinelli looks a class above which makes it even more annoying that Arteta has barely played him.

 

Real shame this. Wonder if we re-sign him. He looked decent.