Offical match day thread

Yeeessss Martinelli.

 

Lacazette has probably been our worst player today - not great when the spotlight is clearly on him at the moment.

But Martinelli and Pepe have been class.

That run by Pepe a minute ago..

 

Ugh. That was heartbreaking. I thoroughly enjoyed this second half performance. We should have scored 2-3 more goals though.

But Mustafi and Luiz is a ****ing recipe for disaster. The two most doozy, accident prone defenders in the league.

It disgusts me how biased the commentry team is also.

 

Another game drawn. That’s 11 out of 23.

really need to start converting more of these into wins.

we’ve fallen so far this season

 

Under the previous manager we would have lost today so some hope there, but we need a CB NOW

 

I'm not saying this justifies the performance, but we've been ****ed over twice by VAR against Sheffield United now. We should have had a penalty at their place for the most clear and obvious shirt pull on Sokratis. And then Pepe quite clearly gets clipped in the penalty area, yet it's not given. Those two decisions have unquestionably cost us points.

However, if you take those isolated incidents out, it is frustrating that we've had yet another draw. Sheffield United are no pushovers, but we didn't capitalise on our dominance in the second half. You could argue we were fortunate to be going into HT winning though, as I thought Sheffield nullified us quite well.

The bottom line is - a slender one-goal lead is never going to be enough with this defence. We really need to be better at taking our chances.

It's also deeply concerning that we never seem to score in the second-halves of games. I don't know why that is.

Top 4 is obviously out of the equation. But it would be nice to string some wins together just to feel a bit happier.

11 draws and 6 losses from 23 games is so far beyond embarrassing, I can't even find an adjective to describe it.

 

We have focused a lot on our defenders.. It appears all is not well up top as well. We have so much reliance on Auba, no goals from the middle of the pack either.. We have big issues.

 

Isaac Hayden scored a 94th minute winner against Chelsea.

The Hale End Academy boys doing us proud

 

It's a little disappointing that Lacazette had another sub-par performance yesterday.

He has a chance to cement his place in the side in Aubas absence. The fans are getting impatient with him, 7 games without a goal now - as a striker he should be hitting his peak (age wise) - I cant help but think even 18 year old Martinelli has overtaken him.

I guess the positive to counter this is that Pepe is looking better every game.

 

It really doesn't reflect well on the majority of senior players that the 18-year old kids keep bailing them out.

Saka and Martinelli were both exceptional yesterday - particularly the former, who is being told to play a position he doesn't like.

As for Lacazette, I've said for a while now that he doesn't look like the same player. I don't know whether it's because he has no desire to be at the club anymore or those off-field reports of him cheating on his partner etc are troubling him. But either way, he isn't moving around much, he doesn't look sharp and I can't even recall him having a shot yesterday. If he keeps this up into the Summer, we need to seriously contemplate selling him. We're not in a position to afford having expensive passengers at the club.

The flip side to this is there was a lack of service into him. And we 're not creating as many chances as we should be - which makes me anxious. The fact remains though he is still on the periphery of games far too often.

Our over-reliance on Aubameyang for goals couldn't have been any clearer than it was yesterday.

 

I think we just over-rate Lacazette in many ways. He works hard and is a very good finisher but he's certainly not the elite striker some fans think he is. For me he is of a similar level to Giroud. (a striker many thought was not good enough to be our first choice)

But his form is worrying as we more than Aubemayangs goals.

I also thought Pepe showed moments of pure class yesterday. If he can have a run of goals/assists I think we will start to see a totally different player. He has soo much ability.

 

He's not an elite striker, no - but last season, he was playing a lot better than this. It's almost like he's afraid to shoot now. Whereas before, he always looked a threatening striker. I'm sure there is something going on off-field that is affecting his performances because he doesn't seem with it at all.

Lacazette offers more than Giroud in my opinion, and if Laca had prime Ozil, Cazorla, Ramsey, Ox, Walcott (who is disrespected far too often these days), Rosicky etc supplying him, I'm sure his goal tally would be far better than it is now.

 

People keep saying that Pepe is looking better and better but he is there to score and that just isn't happening on a regular basis.
He cost us a lot of money so should be a bit more consistent now.
Speaking generally our goal tally is very poor.
In the last six games (apart from ManU where we got two) we have only scored one goal per game which is pretty grim and again as was illustrated on Saturday one goal is never enough to secure a result.
Our strikers are probably more worrying than our defence at the moment.

 

Course he should do more. But he's a young lad, in a new league, in a side who recently sacked their last manager. Plus he's clearly a quiet introverted type guy.
Its not a suprise he's struggled.

The encouraging thing is that he seems to be slowly finding his feet now. He has all the ability needed to be a TOP player.

 

Leno, Bellerin, Mustafi, Luiz, Saka, Torreira, Xhaka, Pepe, Ozil, Martinelli, Lacazette

Substitutes: Martinez, Holding, Maitland-Niles, Guendouzi, Willock, Ceballos, Nketiah


Mustafi and Luiz starting together again.

 

What an absolute joke.

I hope Mustafi doesnt play for us again. He's soo ****ing mistake prone.

 

I am so sick and tired of going to Stamford bridge and having a man sent off in the first 30 minutes.

 

Unsuprisngly #Mustafi is trending on Twitter.

 

My question is - what happened to the double jeopardy rule?

wasn’t there some rule that it cannot be both a red and a penalty? That if you award the penalty the card would be a yellow?

 

What do this guys see that we as fans dont see? It is a very sad indictment of the academy if they cannot produce cbs better than luiz and mustafi!