Arsenal were absolutely amazing in todays game against Stoke and it looked like a practise game against an U21 side, except for the brilliant performance of the Stoke goalkeeper Jack Butland. He denied our strikers time and time again, and once our strikers learn to beat keepers like that we will win by cricket scores every week.
Mark Hughes was very unhappy with his team’s performance but agreed that Butland would not be put in that position every week. “Today we weren’t good enough to go toe-to-toe with a very good Arsenal team,” Hughes said.
“We weren’t bright enough in our defensive work. We allowed good players time and space to create and move.
“We just didn’t get to the source of the problem. We didn’t close people down.”
“Jack Butland has shown what an outstanding young keeper he is,” Hughes continued. “As the season progresses we fully expect he won’t have as many opportunities to be man of the match. That’s our aim. At the moment he’s having too much to do.
“That’s a positive, probably the only other one was the reintroduction of Bojan. We’re delighted to see him back. On a day of negatives, those were the two highs for us.”
The two highs for us was the two times that Walcott and Giroud managed to get past Butland, while Petr Cech had no chance whatsoever to be man of the match as he hardly touched the ball!
We are on our way to the top!
Francis Coquelin was my MOTM, he is proving to be the best DM in the EPL
Coq definitely proving to be one of teams best. He’s the defensive key man just like Sanchez key offensive man. Coq has been consistent quality since he came back.
Trail period over, verdict is top quality. The student is becoming a Master. Well done Sir, I’m a believer.
Oh, and don’t forget Gabriel. Wow, just wow. Loved that elbow too, nice to see some fire from the players.
Kos and Gabriel were great pairing today. Debuchy and Mert was great pairing on the bench too. Good for rotation, but hopefully not replacing Bellerin or Gabriel anytime soon.
Debuchy, Mert, Gibbs, Schez, Flamini like ex-wives being upgraded with younger and sexier models. Cech the exception, he’s like a cougar.
Our back 6 has insane quality and is could easily be the best back 6 in the prem. I think if we’re gonna make a run in Europe and challenge for the prem then our back 6 will provide us with a sturdy platform to succeed. Our attackers must feel at such ease knowing those players are behind them.
I don’t think 1 defender put a foot wrong today. And that’s 3 clean sheets in a row I want cech to beat his old clean sheet title!
Yeah, super FranCoq!!! #CocKPower!!!
Martial is world class…hes indeed the next Henry。。。。
We have to be very careful..
Ohh man.. World-class??? Are you serious!?
One brilliant goal against a tired defence + monstrous price-tag = hype-train at full speed!!!
That’s like 10 league goals in his career and that justifies the world class tag lol
Ok, Hafiz, that was too far.
I thought we were simply superb. Wasteful in our chances again, but the way we played was absolutely dominant, our ball movement was much quicker and incisive, varied the tempo and played that fast, creative brand of football that’s simply beautiful to watch.
Finishing is an issue. But creating the most chances in the league is a great thing, it shows the team chemistry we have despite looking a bit off the pace in our first few games. Sanchez, Theo and Giroud’s movement was great, and the quality in Ozil and Cazorla’s vision is just out of this world. Some of those passes! Simply amazing!
Chances created –
Fabregas – 8
Silva – 12
Ramsey – 12
Ozil – 20
Cazorla – 23
The goals will absolutely come and once they do the confidence will be flowing through the team and we will blow teams away 3/4-0. I knew we created chances but our players numbers are blowing the rest of the attackers out of the water!
I’m also super impressed with our defensive display, with a back 6 of cech, bellerin, gabriel, koscielny, monreal and coq we look f*ckin formidable. And you can see cech is way more comfortable he’s quicker off his line and seems like the understanding with his defenders is coming along great
Yep. I said it the start of season. We conceded 13 goals in the league in the second half of last season.
As admirable as Ospina performed, I still always felt he was a great reaction keeper with a lot of heart, though his command of the box and capacity with set pieces was limited. I still feel a lot of fans criminally under rate how big of a signing Cech was… Sucked into the media bullsh@t of ‘no outfield player’ like that’s ever been a thing!! I mean seriously…. They may as well say, ‘if we just disregard that world-class, proven on every stage goal-keeper they didn’t sign anyone.’ Absolute trash!!! We have 2 high quality wingbacks on either side, 3 international CB’s with 1 understudy, with the most defensively productive midfielder in front!!
Defence wins you titles. Wenger’s tactic’s and squad is working. Our scoring touch is literally all that’s missing, and will definitely come.
U know, I said once, sometimes a keeper is only as good as the defenders around him. Per is good, but he often piles on Koscielny. I’m happy most of u a beginning to see what I mean the other day, Koscielny now freely bombs forward and sometimes (most times) it’s good, puTting pressure on the opposition defence; that doesn’t scare me becuz catching us on the counter aint easy, you get elbowed by a certain beastly angel Gabriel.
Twenty shots on goal, ten on target yet we only beat the bottom dwellers 2-0. I thought Walcott was kind to Butland it was like he was passing it back for him to clear, and he did.
Clearly we saw how raw walcott is to be a finisher.
That’s why big clubs always buy proven word class striker.
I think what wenger has lost to his stubborn philoshopy, that you should combined your idealistic stubborness to keep your growing talented players with proven mature world class players (this time world class ST).
You can not just gamble to immensely talent to be work in progress and the club too depended on.
Simple word for Strikers squad:
1. Find in maybe in South America like Mauro Icardi potential and develop them (this is I didn’t see the Arsenal Scouts doing their job, very sad), and
2. Buy proven world class striker in order to compete the tough football world especially Champions League.
Any football fools know that, but it is either the arrogance or naive that create stubborness to old le fraud.
Coquelin is just unbelievable. I was a bit sceptical by the end of last season and thought that we’d have a Ramsey situation (2013) all over again, but watching him today I couldn’t help but to accept that we just might have the best DM in the Premier League, and maybe, just maybe, the best DM in Europe. He might not make those fancy passes we enjoy so much at Arsenal, but we have Cazorla and Ozil to do that, and boy, does he know how to recover a ball!
I was also a bit sceptical about Bellerín, but it has been a while since I saw a fullback that is such a joy to watch. He can have an impact all throughout the pitch. He can pop up in the box to score, or get an assist with his good crosses and great passing range. He can use his pace to recover the ball, and he is great at blocking shots (today he was awesome at it by the end of the game). At such a young age, I’m very excited about his future.
Gabriel was amazing as well, and I hope (though kinda sadly) that he becomes the new partner for Koscielny, though I think we should be looking for a replacement for the Boss as well, since he isn’t getting any younger. Perhaps Laporte, or maybe Sokratis.
Last but not least, I really want to see more of Adelaide in the near future. He was so promising against Wolfsburg, and he could be our answer to Martial.
Oh, and by the way, Sanchez is coming back!! I hope he helps us in our upcoming demolition at Zagreb, so that he can hit the ground running at the Bridge and help us make Mourinho shed a tear.
ramsey is awesome… he’s make the team balance…