After a catastrophic starting 20 minutes especially by Partey (once more!), we slowly grew into the game and Laca’s wonderful goal switched the game momentum. After that goal, there was really only one team on the pitch and soon, Odegaard would score his 3rd goal in 3 EPL games and Gabriel would go on to score a third goal with his trademark header…Saka and Martinelli would hit the post and despite a rebellion from Southampton, we would hold on to a clean sheet courtesy of a wonder Ramsdale!
Ramsdale kept us in the game with a multitude of saves in the opening 20 minutes and then he also made tons of saves in the second half. We conceded so many chances and as one of the bloggers was saying, against a better team, we would have conceded at least 3 goals…Southampton was cutting through our midfield and defense like butter even in the second half at times.
Partey was again average at best and mostly worrying with and without the ball. Xhaka needs game time.
Here are the grades:
Ramsdale – 8.5 – MOTM, another fine performance
Tomy – 7 – Resilient but also beaten on his wing a few times by Redmond
White – 7 – Needs to work on his positioning
Gabs – 7.5 – A goal and some good defending.
Tierney – 7.5 – A positive outing capped with another assist but was also struggling at times.
Partey – 4.5. Still struggling despite getting game time. Worrying.
Xhaka – 5. Trying but need rhythm.
Saka – 8 – A great day out for him. Positive play, an assist, plenty of dribbles. What a player!
Odegaard – 7.5 – A good goal, some chances but need to impact the game even more…
Martinelli – 7.5 – A good display and unlucky to finish without a goal or an assist.
Laca – 7.5 – A great goal, good link-up play but if faster could have gotten another goal. Good defensive contribution.
Arteta – 5.5. – He must have lots of faith in Xhaka-Partey and not much in Lokonga – strange…Similarly, Pepe is not even coming on these days – something must be up. Arteta did great in sanctioning Auba if he committed a disciplinary breach and was good in the post-match press conference too.
Arsenal News 24/7
arsenalarsenal.net 
It seems that Arteta could easily let Auba, Pepe and Nketiah go in January…Ship Pepe to Nice or Newcastle on loan with an option to purchase, sell Nketiah to the best bidder and same with Auba (send him to Barcelona or Juve if they want him).
If you let these three go, you must go in the market and Vlahovic becomes an obvious option…there is also Lautaro Martinez or Calvert-Lewin.
In terms of winger, we could try to entice Raphinha or Kostic in the summer 😛
We would still need someone to get an upgrade on Xhaka too but that would be hard to get in January but if somehow, we can get Kalvin Philipps – that would be amazing.
Ramsdale – Tomy, White, Gabs, Tierney – Partey, PHILIPPS – Saka, ESR, Martinelli – CALVERT-LEWIN
? – Chambers, Holding, Mari, Tavares – Lokonga, Xhaka – RAPHINHA, Odegaard, AMN – Laca
Thanks for the read RC, good call on Ramsdale as MOTM
Why did holding come on for Gabriel
Yellow card
Ok thanks
West Ham draw
If Tottenham win their 2 games in hand, they would be 3rd 😦
Big cause most likely dey would have to play those games after a short turnaround of games
But we have seen stranger things
Yellow Card………that hadn’t crossed my mind.
RC78 says:
December 9, 2021 at 12:10 pm
Hi Peach, RA, Rasp, Rocky – not sure we have many regular followers left…Shall we just post twice a week?
Maybe reach out to the regular followers asking if they are having technical issues accessing the site.
I have heard others that are unable to post for various technical issues.
I also can no longer access the site at home due to the sites security certificate issues? I can from my work pc though.
just saying
Yea site has some issues
All of a sudden I most comments inorder update on post , happened before think it an outlook issue with WordPress