We arrive at the sixth game of the season welcoming newly promoted Aston Villa to the Home of Football. They haven’t had a particularly good start to the season with 1 win 3 losses and 1 draw. But we also haven’t won in the League since the 17th August.
Arsenal have won six consecutive league and cup games against Aston Villa, keeping a clean sheet in each of the last five. Villa have won three Premier League away games at Arsenal, a tally exceeded only by Manchester United and Chelsea (both have four victories). That was then, this is now.
After last weeks debacle against Watford there has been lots of discussion about how we set up and how we play out from the back. Both of these need to be addressed by Head Coach, Unai Emery. He has confirmed that he won’t be instructing the team to play in the suicidal manner we saw last week every time. It’s a shame he didn’t change it during the game last week.
With Lacazette injured I expect Emery to start the same team as last
Leno
Maitland-Niles Sokratis Luis Kolasinac
Guendouzi Xhaka Torreira
Pepe Aubameyang Ceballos
Ceballlos loves playing at the Emirates so I’m hoping we’re going to love him back. The atmosphere was fantastic for the game against totts and tickets have been hard to come by for this game for weeks. There will be an expectation that Pepe will get his first goal in front of the home crowd. I don’t mind which end he scores but I shall be cheering him on in the North Bank.
If we’re to suffer conceding silly goals again then lets hope we get to cheer more times than we’re grumpy.
We always concede so I’m going for 4-1.
Enjoy the game all COYG
peachesgooner
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This from GoonerB on the previous post
GoonerB says:
September 22, 2019 at 9:37 am (Edit)
Thanks Mike, I am with Rocky on this that hoping an all out attack will cover other deficiencies in our game will not work for us. I don’t think it works for any top team.
I stand by my view that you dominate games from a solid base, i.e the defence but also (importantly in our case) the midfield in front. The midfield is not just responsible for spraying balls around and pass completion but also to screen the defence and control the game.
Even Guardiolas sides always seem to boast a particular midfielder or 2 who can control things in front of the back 4. I would suggest getting the defensive basis right even makes a team better in attack because of the freedom it allows other players to express, as we saw with us once Vieira and Petit did this.
It was an achilles heel under Arsene and now it seems Unai has the same issue. The failure or success in sorting this out, I feel, will determine UE’s tenure with us.
Nice one, Peaches.
I’m at work until 12…. looked out the window & it’s absolutely lashing!!
This will be my last live game, before i go away next month (no, RA, not to the nut-house, will meet you there the month after 😉) So would love to see a decent performance, Pepe to score, Kolasinac to flex his guns, Auba to flip (although i can’t see it, in this weather!)
No playing out from the back, no gifted goals… i don’t want too much, hey?! COYG
Thanks for the read Peaches.
I am going for an Ozil start over Guendouzi.
COYawesome vines
COYG!
Thanks Peaches. This should be a game we win with any number of line ups. However it could also be considered a good game to try out a different line up, especially in the midfield, to find out if we have stronger options before we face tougher opposition. I would like to see him try out a different 3 combination and also Nelson given a start from the left.
Saka starts 👊 COYG
Now this is an attacking side!!!
Wow ……. Ceballos for Torreira
Saka up front 😁😁😁
Nice one you hammers 😎
Wolves at the DEATH with 10 men!
manure in meltdown..
Come on Gunners.
Why Chambers is not starting and why Xhaka is beats me… Am glad for Saka
Well, that was woeful, two Villa players had a chance at that.
Maybe some urgency now.
Sokratis is the worst smh
Not a red, but the Arsenal give so much space away that it makes it easy for any team to run at our defense.
Emery needs to switch something, but he won’t do it. No pace in mf, relatively speaking, but he will not change who is in front of our defense, and his strategy of no pressure on the ball is killing us.
Pepe should have been taken off, think saka was the best player
Or even take off xhaka cause he on a yellow
Have we ever come back when down to 10 and win a game?
Soft pen but I will take it
Mike he score his first let’s see if you right
Unbelievable look at sokratis
So you can see have guts in this squad…Leno, Chambers, Luiz, Guendouzi, Pepe and Auba don’t hide – they always try.
And now Auba scores…Let s c if we hold on to get a much needed and quite unlikely win given the first 50 mins of this game
Guendouzi MOTM he really drove us forward and help with the fight back
The changes really helped
…..and breath! 😂
We said it would be exciting this season and it certainly is that. What fight they’ve shown there. Well done lads!
Never in doubt 🥴
What a game, I’m exhausted!!!!!
Guendouzi goes from strength to strength, unlucky again not to score today.
Brilliant
And as everyone is saying Guendozi went up another level.
MOTM
Were you in the upper tier today Fred?
Yes we won from 1-0 down with ten men yet again..lol
Could be a huge result in Emery’s Arsenal career. I dread to think what the atmosphere would’ve been if we’d lost this, but the players really came up big for him when it mattered. I don’t think this will be the last nerve-shredding game we witness this season so we need to get ready to age a bit!! At least it won’t be boring…😂
On the train home, totally cream crackered!!!
What a game! Was sat right by the drum.. it was brilliant!! Sang so much, am really hoarse now… clapped so hard, I’ve bruised my little fingers!!! And when Auba scored, omg went absolutely mental, nearly fell on the little girl next to me 😂
All 3 goals were superb… and Guendouzi, omg he was top notch.. i absolutely adore him… he was defo my MOTM… and some things never change – Jon Moss is still a massive bell end!!
Queuing for the tube & singing to the Villa fans 3-2 & a long way home 😂😂😂😂😂
Thank you Arsenal 👍
Fantastic result. Of the two teams on display, I prefer the one for the last 20 mins. Oh and the 3rd team – Villa, they played well too !!!!!!
Go Gooooooooners !!!!!!!!!!
Anyone fancy writing a few words and some player ratings for tomorrow? Pretty please
Off course Ants lower tier is for plebs
mrs kolasinac adores guendouzi that is wrong on all levels
😂😂 not in that way, Fred!! Kolasinac looked lush today & i know this is really sad, but i even bought his picture in the Armoury, he’s mighty fine!
Wait sue u went to game today thought u had to work
I finished at 12… caught the train at 1
Ok lol right I sometimes forget your time is a 5 hour laps
And i was a pleb, Fred > lower tier 😂😂
Stoked on the comeback!
Auba giving Pepe the penalty was brave. It paid off.
Glad to see the changes and assertive playing, seemed reactionary as AMN went out injured and Xhaka was on yellow.
Will emery leave Xhaka out from now on?
Reason says no team that has allowed 13 shots per game has ever come 4th except Leicester, and we are not them.
Three points for the pub football team! How many other teams in the Premier League are worse than us at keeping a lead?
Cant wait until we have a back four of Bellerin, Chambers (Mavrapanos then Saliba), Holding, Tierney. Let alone a midfield not bypassed regularly with a SINGLE pass.
Still, its exciting, I suppose. Aubang is pure quality in front of goal. Pepe has now scored and Saka was just fractionally short on two occasions of producing two passes as good as the third against Frankfurt.
Brilliant Result for Arsenal.
Never in doubt.
Lets bury the doomsayers.
We draw to Watford and people are clamouring for heads.
But ManCity lose to Norwich last week, Manure lose to West Ham and previously Crystal Palace, Spuds lose to LFC and previously Newcastle.
And people think we have problems.
Offense is the new defence (we really needed Mustafi this game)
Onwards and upwards Gunners
No offence to my spelling of offense
from the Standard/uk
Unai Emery has called on Arsenal fans to offer more support to his players after Granit Xhaka was targeted during the Gunners’ 3-2 victory over Aston Villa.
One slightly sour note for Arsenal was the reaction of the home fans to Xhaka’s substitution, with ironic cheers greeting the captain’s departure.
“My opinion is we need our supporters and we need our supporters helping each player,” he said.
“Today I changed him because he played 90 minutes on Thursday. I preferred a fresh player. But for me he is a very important player for us.
“He has a big commitment here. I am sure he is going to achieve the best things. We are professional. He is an experienced player.
“He knows sometimes we are criticised. We need to be mature and continue working. I am going to support him. He’s a good player.”
There are a few articles out there about Arsenal Booing their captain, what next?
Still looking for some player ratings for tomorrow ……
Looks like it’s all yours, Peaches 😉
Sorry Peaches – can’t help. I was at a family event today and missed the game (boo). I have just watched the goals and other exciting bits on arsenalist.com
From that, and from reading the comments above, it’s hard to get a sense of how we played overall. Were we good until we conceded and went down to 10 men? Or were we making the same defensive errors? Did we deserve our win with our second half performance, or did we ‘get out of jail’?
Answers on a postcard too…
I watched the game in a bar in Lisbon the main game was Liverpool vs someone, I didn’t notice who, needless to say I was the only one who jumped up each time we scored.
I missed the game in the week but if it was more exciting than today, well lucky you lot because I loved today’s game, loved it.
Can’t believe there are some who are focusing on Xhaka, that is so, so negative, what a great game of football, I am so proud to be an Arsenal supporter.
LB,
Cuz it’s Villa at home, and we should win by miles.
Focusing on the positive moving forward, Emery has a chance to fix the flaws in midfield that have plagued us for too many games.
We shall see how we progressing against manure away.
I was at the game which was torture for the 70 minutes and pure ecstasy for the last 20. I may be going deaf, but I didn’t hear any booing when Xhaka was substituted. We stayed behind to applaud Douzi and Luiz and a few others came round to board the fans, it was a typical Arsenal rollercoaster, but the important thing is we came away with a three points.
Rasp /Peaches. Sent you ratings but no match analysis hope it s OK
Thanks RC78, I’ll sort it ……………
New Post everyone ……………..
So our friendship has ended sue, can’t be talking to people on lower tier
Although I might get tickets for them when we play city upper tier so bloody expensive