I know you probably don't care about my opinion as an Arsenal fan (although I'll give it anyway ), but honestly, you're doing your current squad a bit of a disservice. I think you have some very decent players, and you have a very intelligent, tactically astute coach, who has proven at Brentford he can overachieve with the resources at his disposal. Last year, you massively underperformed in the league. And despite whatever flaws you had, there's no way you should have been finishing 17th. Ange rightfully got the boot and now you're seeing a Spurs team who can be organised, can defend, can be a threat in transition/on the counter and can give the better sides in the league a run for their money. I appreciate there's still a long season to go, but I don't see a reason why you can't be aiming for a top-7 spot.
Yeah we’d probably be on about 4 points this season if we hadn’t changed it up, Romero and van de Ven would’ve likely picked up the first of their three injuries too. Don’t wanna hate too much on the guy though so I’ll leave it at that.
At this early stage in the season positions do not tell that much. Wolves are much better than you give them credit for as time will tell
Not convinced I'm afraid, Spurf. They were one of my candidates to potentially go down this season and I've not seen enough evidence thus far to really change my mind. And even if they are better than I think, given the squad and manager you have, this is a fixture you should be winning at home IMO.
One of those bizarre games where it seems our entire team has forgotten how to pass. Understandable if we were against a side that presses well or we were playing in front of a hostile away crowd and that was making players nervy or even if we had a scratch side due to injuries/suspensions/lasagne, but none of those was the case today which made the lax passing all the more odd. Same goes for how we were not getting most of our shots on target Still, at least The Doctor was ushered out the door prior to the final whistle
These sort of games happen though. To draw it and not lose after that second half has to be a positive. 6 played in the league and only 1 defeat. After last season, that’s a big positive for me.
Are we sure Palhinha took his shirt off, rather than Incredible Hulk his way out of it? please log in to view this image
Thank you for the optimism, we are a good team and top 6 I think is excellent this season. Just the fact we just can’t beat wolves is so frustrating.
I don't think we have that many decent players tbh, and that is what today hopefully showed Frank. Granted, two of our decent players (Maddison and Kulusevski) have long term injuries, and the back four is pretty decent as a unit, but once you move beyond those, only Palhinha and Kudus fall under that category imo. Sarr and Bergvall have huge potential but not yet consistent enough. And then you get to a whole slew of middling players who to be brutally honest wouldn't be out of place in a mid table side, if not worse. Johnson Richarlison Solanke Bentancur Tel Odobert Vicario The fact that four of those are supposedly in the "prime" of their careers yet contribute almost nothing of note, is damning. Ange's buffoonery was only one side of the problem last season. The other is that we don't have enough good players and, since Son's departure, certainly don't have anyone who could be classed as an 'elite' talent.
No Solanke (much better than Richarlison), no kuluchevski, no maddison... those three would make us more dangerous going forward and would help keep players fresher. After last season in the league we've certainly improved. we drew with West ham last season, lost at home to Wolves, lost at Brighton and at home to Bournemouth...this season we've picked up 5 points from the same games instead of 1. We also only beat 1 of the promoted teams at home and this season we've already beaten one. we are no where near being a top 4 team. we'd have to nearly double our points from last season and come 13 places higher! just not gonna happen imho. I think a Europa League finish and at least one good attempt at the domestic cups and qualifying for the last 16 of CL would be a massive improvement.
