Crystal Palace v Arsenal

Why take Lacazette off? He's not scored in 4 games, only has 8 goals so far this season and needs more. Also, we need to hammer up our GD. Very poor decision to take him off.

 

Need to defend properly here. Palace are creating some chances now.

 

Maitland-Niles on

 

Bringing Coquelin on kills off any impetus we have going forwards. We naturally retreat and teams put pressure on us.

We should have brought Walcott on to peg them back. His pace and running will frighten them, so they'll be less inclined to push so many men forward in the chance we'll hit them on the break.

 

FFS

 

3-2 now. Brilliant...

 

Phew. We hung on at the end there. Made it unnecessarily nervy for ourselves at the end, but 3 points away from home and job done

 

8 million a year and his team are p--s poor at defending,where else would you get it.

 

Glad to get the win, Palace aren't an easy side to play at the moment (remember they did beat Chelsea at Selhurst Park), but we were in control of that game and the substitutions/lack of focus almost cost us getting all three points.

It should have been far more comfortable than the scoreline suggests, but after what they did to us earlier this year, I'm delighted to not have had a repeat of that performance.

Off to the Hawthorns next!

 

Yep good win and an important 3 points. Keeps us level with the Spuds and knocking on the door for top 4.
Our defending was suspect again, but we've become used to that. Positives from this game though were seeing Wilshere putting in a proper PL performance again. He's looking like he might be a phoenix from the flames, as it looked as though his Arsenal career was finished. Great seeing Sanchez score two superb goals, but **** we are going to miss him barring a miracle and he stays.

 

I am concerned about us defensively, but we do have enough quality going forward to get us through most games. However, it seems like our defence seems to be getting worse each season, which isn't good. We need someone or something to shore us up.

People may laugh at Liverpool signing Van Dijk for £75m, but he's a very good centre-back that will walk straight into their first team and give them some much needed leadership at the back.

We definitely need to be in the market for a proper defensive midfielder.

Some good news though - Wilshere said he's close to signing a new deal with us. Every cloud...

 

Very pleased about Wilshere. He's always had the talent, but injuries have held him back. He looks like he's getting back to the player we all thought he would become

Defensively, where do you start ? We have some quality defenders, Koscielnely, Bellerin, Monreal, Kolasinac. Chambers and Mustafi are decent enough too. But we do not seem to have any kind of defensive plan or ability to just sure up the basics of defending. Simple things like stopping players from making a cross, or having a player on the post when we're defending a corner. These are simple issues to rectify and yet season in season out we have the same problems.

I can only put it down to the coaching. I thought bringing Steve Bould in as a defensive coach was supposed to address these issues, but is he even allowed to coach them as he wants ? Because Bould would never have committed some of those basic errors alongside Adams, Dixon and Winterburn.

I would have liked to have seen us sign VVD as he's a quality CB and he's a leader. £75m is a lot of beans, but that is the going rate I suppose.

 

Sanchez had arguably his best game this Season. Just in time for the January window the ****ing C**NT

Wilshere was excellent also. A solid 8/10 for him.

Our defence though were piss poor unfortunately - soo easy to score against.

 

The cynical side of me was thinking the same thing. Hope it was more a form thing and not him trying to attract attention from outside.

 

Er. You all ignored me yeah?

 

The way Wilshere is playing at the moment he doesnt derisive to loose his place when Ramsey returns. That assist for our third goal was sublime.

I think it should be between Xhaka and Ramsey for the spot next to Wilshere.

 

Yep agree with this. Ramsey should get the nod, but that would mean Jack sitting deeper when I think his best role is as a no10

 

None of the three of them are good enough to play centre mid in a 5-2-3 for a club as big as ours.

Just because a turd smells better than two others doesn't mean it shouldn't still get flushed down the toilet.

 

Okay given our current options, who should play in there ?

 

Fabregas and Wanyama