First Half
Poor old Ainsley, scores his first goal in a game he’ll never ever want to recall again in his entire life.
Here’s Auba’s heatmap from that first half. Four of his 9 touches were restarts.
Second Half
Shame you can’t just throw the towel into the ring like in boxing.
Conclusion
Can’t quite decide if it was the ref or the kit which caused such a cataclysmic trail of ignominy. 🙂
Here are a few stats from Orbinho on twitter to contemplate………..
Goals conceded at Anfield last six seasons
Arsenal 22
Swansea (5 games) 16
West Ham 16
Everton 14
Man City, Watford (3 games) 13
Newcastle, Spurs (5 games) 12
Stoke, WBA (5 games) 10
Southampton 9
Arsenal have played 10 games away from home in the Premier League, scoring 22 times, conceding 21 goals and keeping zero clean sheets.
The last time Arsenal conceded more than 30 goals after 20 league games was in 1966 (39)
Michael Oliver has awarded seven penalties against Arsenal in the last 10 Premier League games he has officiated.
This is my favourite – finding some light from somewhere …………
Ratings
A two for everyone apart from threes for A.M-N for his goal and Wobbly for his assist.
Getty Images
Arsenal News 24/7
arsenalarsenal.net 
GIE,
Just to continue the discussion from yesterday, Klopp’s net spend at Liverpool over his 3 seasons is about £150m, which I imagine we could probably match in a similar time frame, but the reality is he’s actually spent about £450m on players! Something we definitely couldn’t do. Unfortunately we do not have the likes of Coutinho (£140m) Sterling (£40m) and Suarez (£70m) to offload in order to generate money for incoming players. If it’s taken Klopp that amount of time with a huge budget, then how long will it take Emery!?
Let’s hope we find some gems in the upcoming windows as we need to. Torreira is a good start and Geundouzi looks promising. Hopefully we can do something similar defensively.
My point yesterday was that I would be willing to sacrifice players from full back and attacking midfield areas to generate cash for a CB position which has been our biggest problem for years now and is such a vital part of any side. Liverpool is a great example of how buying 1 world class CB can transform a team from also-rans into genuine contenders. I’m not saying that would happen for us as we don’t have enough elsewhere in the squad, but we must sort out that defensive area before we do anything else. If it was me, and I didn’t have the budget, then I would sacrifice others to bring in 2 quality CB’s and build from that platform. Easier said than done, I know.
Quick question for the day:
Who was the last CB that came through our youth set up?
We’ve brought some in (Holding, Chambers, Mavropanos etc) but have we actually brought anyone through?
Ignasi Miquel!? Can’t be him surely!!!
Also, how has Chambers been getting on? Been playing in midfield recently I think and seemed to perform much better than at CB. Still looks massively average though to me. Shame.
Thanks Chas.
I turned off at half time. I guess many Gooners did the same.
The second Firmino game summed up our frailties. Terrier loses the ball in midfield and then Firmino walks through our centre backs both of whom are sitting on the ground as the ball is rolled into the net.
This is the worst AFC defence I can recall.
We need Nacho and Hector back a.s.a.p.
Who would you prefer to win the League, Pool or Citeh?
Here are a couple of answers ……
FGG . Great comments
MC, of course. I really like Klopp but Salah is such a cheat it would be egregious to see them win the PL.
And it would cost me a fish
BR,
‘Our worst defence in ages….we need Hector and Nacho back.’
😂😂😂😂 that sums it all up! Relying on 2 average defenders to sort our terrible defence. 😂 in all seriousness though, I think we need Mustafi, Kos, Holding and Sokratis at full fitness in order to see a marked improvement. We won’t play Liverpool every week, and I can see 3 of those 4 being ok until the end of the season if/once they get a run of games together.
Rumours of Gary Cahill recently. Any thoughts? Personally, I’d rather avoid buying another average, ageing CB and wait until the summer to sign somebody who can play for 10 years at the heart of our defence.
Saw Emery talking about VAR. Both those penalties would’ve been given with VAR yesterday. It will not solve decisions like that as they look worse in slow-mo. I can’t see VAR being great, but it should stop the absolute shockers.
Rasp
Would it be easy for you to make a white version of the new crest.
Maybe two versions one with and one without a thin black outline for the lettering plus cannon just in case the white doesn’t contrast enough with the red and yellow?
The black on the dark green gets a bit lost maybe?
Haha, I don’t want much, do I?
Why should we have to raise funds by selling players in order to improve the team? Any of the ones we need to sell aren’t worth Jack shit anyway.
Kroenke has already made much out of us and needs to invest in his English soccer Club as much as he does his American teams.
Can’t see how Leno deserves a 2, and minus marks should be available on occasions!!
May 2019 bring continued (slow) progression, may those at 34 years of age with “a lifetime of supporting Arsenal” not now rear their stupid heads with a Emery out campaign,and may Liverpool do the Treble so that we can all remember a team that deserved to have that honour on their boards.
How long a contract did we give Lichtsteiner ?
chris
This says just the one year.
https://www.transfermarkt.com/stephan-lichtsteiner/profil/spieler/2865
Emery Out.
I’m 34 in March so that gives me a few months to build momentum on my Emery Out campaign…..😂
Morning all, forget the scoreline, we were simply second best yesterday.
We and City have both been badly affected by injuries in key areas. It is clear we don’t have the personnel to play the way UE wants. I suppose he could have been pragmatic and used the players he has to best effect, but we have lacked identity as a side for years now, so I back him to bring together a team (eventually) that will play the way he wants.
I think we will bring in one or two players in January, but they won’t be top notch … just the sort of guys who will be good squad players when we have the inevitable clear out in the summer.
Morning all, FGG, I think we could spend £80-100m per season from profits, let’s not forget income should increase with some of the players gone and extra TV money etc. It’s just not an overnight fix. One thing that UE doesn’t appear to have done is gone through the younger squad members.
As I said at the start of the season after defeats to both City and Chavs I would rather write off two seasons watching UE build a squad from youngsters and clever acquisitions (Guendouzzi, Torreira) and mould then rather than demand success from a mush mash of old and new, tried and found out players. By all means keep the good pros (dependable ones) who can help the youngsters, Monreal, Kozzer, even Lichsteiner who have a lot of experience.
Our injuries at CB have come all at once with several players suffering in quick succession and unbalancing what was starting to look like an ok defence, Holding/Sokratis worked, Holding/Mustafi worked, in fact any combination with Holding worked and that’s a damning indictment of those more experienced.
But that also I think underlined the point, Holding will listen to the coach more than the others, he is younger, wants to play and isn’t set in his ways, also think that’s why we have seen improvements in Xhaka.
But I do have a problem with team selection yesterday, I would have preferred Guendouzzi, Xhaka and Torreira to Torreira, Ramsey and Xhaka. Their defence and deeper players had far too much time to hit diagonals.
Agreed GiE. It will take at least a couple of seasons just to get a real idea of how Emery wants us to play. Even at this stage of the season, it is still a feeling out period. When Emery was talking after the Brighton game he spoke about seeing how these players react in big games and you still get the impression he is assessing the current squad to see who should stay/go.
Whilst we need experience and need to keep older heads around, I do wonder if there is a negative aspect to keeping the players who have been part of what ultimately has been a poor few years for the club. Are they just a reminder to the fans and the players of the poor finish to Wengers reign? Sometimes a fresh start is best all round, but I guess that takes time and money also.
I, personally, would like to see us move on from Özil. I know a lot disagree with this view and see him as possibly our only star player, but I don’t think he has ever fitted in to our set up and has only made it more difficult to build a team. He’s a fabulous player, and I love watching him, but I just don’t think he’s ever been what we’ve needed during his time with us.
When Wenger came he built on a wonderful defence and goal keeper.
This allowed for some wonderful attacking football team(s) to be built. True players like lauren, big sol and a few others were brought in under Wenger so credit to him.
But now our defence\shape is laughable.
For me emery isn’t the right coach.
For me his style (which I cannot fully comprehend what he’s trying to do) is wrong.
We need to go to pre Wenger.
And get a manager to fully concentrate on building a strong defensive structure. When this is establishments you can build a more attacking mentality.
Ps. Defending isn’t a dirty word.
PPs. Wenger in😉
BBC Sports Player Ratings
Maitland-Niles 5.14
Iwobi 4.75
Ramsey 4.38
Torreira 4.10
Lacazette 4.07
Aubameyang 4.04
Leno 3.90
Koscielny 3.79
Guendouzi 3.61
Xhaka 3.47
Kolasinac 3.38
Mustafi 3.20
Sokratis 3.14
Lichtsteiner 3.13
These five lines from Unai Emery really sum up the game.
However i believe that it’s more than just the defense we need to improve but also our midfield – Auba had only 13 touches of the ball – six from kick offs!!
………………………………………………………………………………..
Emery
There were some positives on the pitch – for example Ainsley played as right winger and scored, working well.
“Also Iwobi, after some matches not playing very well, today he played 90 minutes with a good performance.
“But defensively we need to be stronger, to work.”
We saw two sides of the Arsenal last night.
Unfortunately, the two sides of Arsenal’s footballing id were not equally divided.
Up until we scored, we looked great in attack, and severely limited in defence — that was for about 10 minutes, and then the attack disappeared without support and the defence were egregiously crud for the rest of the game. [nice one, Chas]. 🤪
FGG summed everything up very well, and I agree 100% with his views.
As for Emery Out — Pah! and Pah! again.
We have to give the poor guy enough rope so we can hang him decently!Joking aside, we have to give Unai some proper time to coach the team, and to get rid of the dross, while bringing in some better quality players, together with more use of some of the young studs from the youth teams.
[Rasper, I have never been able to close and accept the ‘cookies’ message when I log in — I hope you don’t mind, but I prefer to accept and then close my acceptance — always the rebel, eh? 😎 ]
I am a little puzzled that, with the rumours about Rambo leaving — well he has said himself he has not got an Arsenal contract offered to him — UE made him captain for last night’s game.
If the transfer to Juventus happens in January what does that infer as regards the players who will stay.
[I know the captain’s armband has been bandied about a bit this season with maybe 5 players acting as captain because of injury, tactical changes etc, but giving it to Rambo and Mesut (also leaving?) at times, does seem a bit odd.
Sorry, Chas, I was remiss in not thanking you for producing the Post. Thank you. ✌️
RA Out!!
Thanks for the banner changes, Rasp.
I’d still quite like a white version though, as the black is stylish but a little dark.
Pretty please.
Hi chas, you lose the cannon with a white background. I’ve tried grey but that looks insipid. We could change the colour of the cannon to black.
I’ll keep playing around with it .. although I’m supposed to be working so it may not be today …
That’s why I suggested a thin black outline around the cannon.
I didn’t expect you to be doing it while at work. Soz.
It’s fine as it is.
Two more variations up there …
Season GP W D L Pts GF GA GD
1992/3 20 9 3 8 30 23 21 2
1993/4 20 9 7 4 34 19 11 8
1994/5 20 6 7 7 25 23 22 1
1995/6 20 9 7 4 34 27 15 12
1996/7 20 10 7 3 37 37 20 17
1997/8 20 9 7 4 34 35 23 12
1998/9 20 9 8 3 35 22 11 11
1999/0 20 12 3 5 39 36 20 16
2000/1 20 11 5 4 38 36 19 17
2001/2 20 11 6 3 39 41 24 17
2002/3 20 13 3 4 42 41 21 20
2003/4 20 13 7 0 46 36 13 23
2004/5 20 13 5 2 44 48 22 26
2005/6 20 10 4 6 34 27 15 12
2006/7 20 10 6 4 36 37 18 19
2007/8 20 14 5 1 47 40 16 24
2008/9 20 10 5 5 35 33 23 10
2009/10 20 13 3 4 42 53 23 30
2010/11 20 12 3 5 39 42 22 20
2011/12 20 11 3 6 36 36 28 8
2012/13 20 9 7 4 34 40 22 18
2013/14 20 14 3 3 45 39 18 21
2014/15 20 9 6 5 33 34 25 9
2015/16 20 13 3 4 42 34 18 16
2016/17 20 12 5 3 41 44 22 22
2017/18 20 11 4 5 37 37 25 12
2018/19 20 11 5 4 38 42 30 12
Oops that’s a mess – but if you have the patience to follow the columns down it shows our stats after 20 games for every EPL season.
It shows, what we all know, that this is the worst defensive effort in our EPL history.
GN5,
Also shows we have better or same points total this year than in 15 of those seasons, 11 of which were under Wenger. So certainly not a tragic start to the season, but I think we can all see what needs improving even without stats.
Didn’t see the game as was having a weekend trip to Vienna (very pleasant, including the biggest collection of Bruegel paintings under one roof).
Have watched the goals (no argument with either pen).
My view is to be patient. We have been badly hit by injuries and even with a fully fit squad we’re still in the early days of the Emery reign. Like Klopp, he will need a few transfer windows to really start shaping his version of Arsenal.
There were bound to be days like yesterday along the way (after all, surely none of us was under the illusion that the squad UE inherited were world beaters?).
FGG, To be precise there were 9 seasons when we had lower points under AW – however our final positions were……3-1-2-4-4-4-3-4-3 – what do you forecast for this season.
So true, Rocky!!
Terrific stats, GN5 — and very sobering! 😒
Hi Rocky, totally agree …. I still think we’re doing better than we had a right to expect. I’d rather be following the pool/Klopp model than the car crash at manu … and as you say, it looks like it will take a similar time before we can feel ‘entitled’ again.
GN5,
Not be picky, but If we are starting from the 96/97 season then there are 11 in the table you’ve put up where we have equaled or bettered 38 points.
GN5,
As for your question, I very much doubt we will finish in the top 4, but all those seasons where we managed to finish top 4 I would argue we were one of the best 4 sides in the league. I’m not sure you can say that about this bunch. Top 6 is realistic for the quality of side we have these days.
Come on Rasp you cannot possibly believe that we had no right to expect better than yesterday’s embarrassing debacle.
Or how about draws with Crystal Palace, Wolves and Brighton plus losing to Southampton? That should been an easy 4 wins and 9 additional points.
FGG, you are being picky read what I wrote………….
FGG, Re your 5:10 – I agree.
Hi GN5, I believe that the injuries to our defenders and the long term loss of Holding left us without a hope of winning against Pool …. We had no defence playing away against the league leaders. Obviously I’m never happy with a loss like that, but I’m not going to start looking for negatives … What would be the point? We have a new manager who has inherited a group of players who had got used to not working hard enough for the team. The younger new players have excellent attitude’ Lich was brought in only as back up, clearly he doesn’t have the quality to it deal with Pool’s attacking players.
We all have different opinions Peaches. I didn’t look for negatives they were there for all to see. It was not the loss that worried me it was the capitulation by our defense, they are all highly paid professionals who should be able to play in various positions – just look at AMN as an example.
What could be considered a negative is that the only comment you have made to me in months, maybe years, is to be critical and never, ever a comment on the dozens of post’s that I have written…………….
Hi GN5, My apologies, I responded to you using peaches tablet, that comment was not from her but from me
You are being over sensitive GN5, Peaches is incredibly busy these days with two grandchildren to look after and a third on the way, I know she would be delighted if she had time to blog as she used to, but family comes first. Please don’t take it personally.
But I do…………….
Is it wrong to be peeved about a gutless performance?
We all know this is a transitional season and that the squad needs work, but these are very highly paid professionals who ruined my evening and day. Each and every one of them earns more in a year than I will in 20+. Haven’t I the right to demand more?
I don’t expect us to win every game but I do expect us to be competitive.
We score and early away goal, what is the response? Do we sit back, consolidate, PTB like other teams? No, we open up like a steamed mussel.
No one is saying it’s wrong to be upset … if you’re the type to be peeved then so be it, others may feel that they were getting carried away and this was just a reality check. Ask yourselves how many of our players yesterday would get into the pool, city or totnum sides? We lack quality in depth.
GN5, I’d be interested to know what it was about the comments that you could possibly take personally?
I’ve never understood the pay argument. Does money make them super human or have abilities the rest of us don’t? It’s not their fault they get so much money and it doesn’t make them capable of giving more than they have to offer. If they are not good enough then that’s the clubs fault for paying stupid money to people who aren’t competent. I have seen nothing but effort from the players since Emery joined and that’s all I can ask for at the moment until we find better players or the manager finds a way to get this team to perform better defensively.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with questioning the performances of the players, but I’m not sure yesterday was an overall reflection of the season so far and maybe the players should get a little bit of slack as they’ve done ok up to getting lots of injuries. Hopefully we come good again when everyone is fit.
Rasp, I have no interest in satisfying your interest – lets stick to football.
GN5, thanks for the stats.
Chas, neither-ever….
The table never lies, but it also does not tell the whole truth.
Country, oil and dirty money have invaded the game like never before.
The top 6 is now a totally different ballgame. Whole point totals moving up around 7-10 points or so.
Why the difference? $ So, old point totals will not look the same today.
But, Emery set up the team with a suicide outlook. If he ever puts, Ramsey, Xhaka, and Ozil in same team against top 6, the midfield will get smashed, same goes with Ramsey and Xhaka, and Licht on the right, no individual speed nor team speed. Those three combined do not have the technical ability, to make up for lack of speed to keep the other sides from cruising right through the center of the park. (Think Modric or Santi levels of technical expertise)
Looking at the new year in a positive way. One more day before the Arsenal can start to buy and sell a couple of defenders, minimum.
the stat that surprised me was that the Spuds have lost more games than us but are still 7 points up. I think we can finish above them.
So, if Rasp is also Peaches, who is also Fred?
More stats………………
We are all 2018 today – Today the whole world is the same age.
Today is a very special day.
It happens only once every 1,000 years.
Your age + your year of birth = 2018.
This is true for everyone.
It is both strange and inexplicable. Try it and see.
It will not happen again for another 1,000 years.
So…. HAPPY BIRTHDAY everyone !!
😂VP, I assure you I’m nothing like peaches 😂 I just happened to be at her house ….. but I think you may have something …. Fred/LB are they ever on at the same time? 🤔
GN6. That’s amazing!
I think it is fair to say that the confidence bu8bble that was created when AMN scored was burst 3 minutes later by a fluke goal for Liverpool.
The players, as happens so often with them, simply lost their cool for a couple of minutes after conceding that goal, and it was downhill all the way, with the positive assistance of the ref and a couple of cheats.
Had they concentrated properly after scoring, and not conceded that freak goal, perhaps we would be looking at a completely different scenario, somewhat similar to the one a few weeks ago at home.
Haha, and next year we’re all 2019.
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