Arsenal secure another gritty win by Konstantin Mitov
Good morning, evening or whatever part of the day or night is Arsenal people. We took on Huddersfield and a lot of people were expecting a pretty easy win and but it was anything but that. We had 2 excellent chances in the first half to finally have the lead at halftime but somehow Auba and Lacca squandered them.
It’s unbelievable that there are like 2-3 games till the end of the first half of the season and we’re yet to have the lead at the break. This statistic must change, because although we’re doing spectacularly well in the second halves, the pressure mounts until a goal comes and you could see it in the game.
We were almost trying too hard at the end, but thankfully Guendouzi lofted a great ball which Aubameyang controlled superbly to put in Torreira who scored with some great acrobatics. Fantastic goal honestly and one we deserved in my opinion.
The ref was shocking again. There were clear double standards when it comes to the bookings as our players got ones for diving, yet Huddersfield weren’t penalised at all. Unbelievable how 3 games in a row every decision goes against us and yet it’s the stupid “hippie crack” story every media is talking about when just a week ago the racist lot down the road threw a banana at Aubameyang in 2018?!?!
Regardless of the rather poor performance I enjoyed this win. It’s the kind of win that could make the difference between the top 4 or not. The big difference for me is that I felt we would win. Last year I’m not sure I’d have the confidence in the squad, but this year I’ve seen us win it late so many times I thought we’d do it today again and we did.
What I really, really like about our squad is the nastiness our new signings have brought. You see Lichtsteiner taunting the opposition when they make rugby like challenges. Then there is Sokratis celebrating defensive tackles and I absolutely love this! And what about that guy Torreira? I’ve ran out of positive things to say about him.
The bad thing from the game is what’s happening with the injuries. The defense we’ll put against Southampton will be quite an experimental one. I can’t believe I’ll miss Mustafi, but if I understood correctly Sokratis will miss a game due to yellow cards. Monreal returned to action today, and Koscielny was on the bench, but it’s not like they are up to the required fitness and I’m not sure they’ve had enough training to understand the managers ideas.
With Holdings injury, I think we’ll need to go into the market in January and get a CB or we’ll be playing a huge gamble on our top 4 chances. We also really miss Welbeck. Apart from Auba and Lacca we don’t have any strikers and often we see Emery dropping one of the two so that we have options from the bench.
Sadly Chelsea and Spurs won and I was really expecting one of them to drop points. The premier league has become incredibly competitive and we cannot afford to miss any points against lesser opposition. I’m a bit worried that apart from Spurs and Liverpool we’ve hardly put in a home performance of intensity that is capable of dominating a team. It’s game changes have won us a lot of games. I love it, but I still want to see us start strong against the so called “weaker” teams.
Finally, no Ozil again. I even hear people asking if we’re selling him in January? I think this is ridiculous, but you can see Emery is not afraid to drop him and he needs to pick his game up. We need a strong, dominating performance from him. Our next few games look like perfect opportunities. We could really use with him creating some chances and any player coming back in this extremely tight period where you play 3 games in 7 days is massive.
The good news is we have the deadest game possible in the Europa league and we’ll likely rest everyone. Then it’s back to massive games. We’ve been doing pretty poorly at Southampton, so winning there, especially with our defense will be extremely important and difficult.
That’s it for now, see you with Arsenals next game!
Konstantin
We didn’t ply well, that’s for sure.
But it is a revelation how this team fights and fights to get the points.
Big challenge with the injuries and suspensions in the next match. Especially our backline is a problem. Sokratis, Holding and Mustafi have improved a lot, and all are missed.
I hope Emery can do some magic.
You now see the steel that was missing under Wenger.
Arsenal under Wenger had this attitude of “just turning up” for training or “just turning up” on a saturday afternoon – if they won that nice, but if they lost that was OK – they was no soul searching or wanting to play better next game because often a bad performance was repeated the following game.
Arsenal under Emery is about work ethic and playing for the club, its fans, the manager and most importantly themselves. This is key.
Its a hard work ethic and its fantastic.
And sadly, that is why I feel it is the end of the line for Ozil…
Well said! I had been writing as you have posted about the complete lack of team motivation and meek acceptance of being bullied by other teams. I regularly said exactly this for many, many years on many Arsenal forums and for almost a decade prior to Wenger being FINALLY sacked. Had he been sacked years earlier we would now be vastly ahead of where we are , even though we AT LONG LAST have a proper , hungry and demanding man in charge whio is transforming us once more into a club we are proud of instead of ashamed to support. As I WAS UNDER ENGER
We need a CB. Maybe Hermoso from Espanyol? We were linked with him earlier.
We also need a forward. Selling Özil and maybe getting someone like Pepe from Lille or Hazard of Gladbach would give us tremendous boost.
Luckily Monreal and Kosc are back. Hopefully Dinos as well soon. Mavro can step up like Holding for sure.
I don’t think we should rush I to buying yet another CB. We have marv sokratis holding kos mustafi monreal lichstiner 7 players who can all play CB. And will be down to 6 for the rest of the season. I think that is more than enough. Unless we are getting some quality to take a starting position it’s a waste. We do however need a goal scorer a martial type winger or that 3rd person who can really run at a defence. We saw what happened when we had Ramsey lacca and Auba running at a team. That’s what we need every week. Iwobi doesn’t cut the mustard for me as a defender I wouldn’t be a afraid of him beating me and finding the goal. Let’s be honest he doesn’t score
I’m looking forward to seeing Mavro. After Torriera and Guendouzi turning out to be wise looking choices. I can’t wait to get a proper look at Mavro, with about ten games under his belt. We brought him in before the others, before Guendouzi. Hopefully Mislintat will give us another belter.
If that is the major gripe someone has with a referee, it tells us how good a referee he is.
He didn’t want to give reds, I was worried we might see one, I didn’t even want a Huddersfield player to get one. And, I think the one thing he probably got a little wrong, was how that strikers dive – it being so similar to the theatrics from our players. But, If the striker was on a yellow already though, then I believe he made the right call.
Huddersfield tactical fouling. This ref put a stop to it by hitting them with the yellows. And it worked. But it meant we’d have to get the odd early caution, totally worth it because those tactics worked up at old Trafford, and they were working for Huddersfield.
He caught all the play acting, how many dodgy refs would you see that might just not catch that last dive, late in the game, and a chance to even the scoreline, also he’s making headlines for the wrong reason. How many times have we seen a ref like that.
This ref was strong here too.
The time wasting, how many refs do you see let that go, because they figure that it will be added on in injury time. Injury time comes and most of it could be wasted time again. The ref, another strong part of his performance.
Bias toward either side, no, not that I could see. If that late yellow is the gripe, when the game is almost over and we are on coarse for three points, again I nod my hat to the ref.
Players swarming around him trying to intimidate him, hoping he will make it red. He was having none of it, he knows his own mind, and he knows the game well. I’m sorry if no-one else could see it, but he is a very professional ref. I would say he played football when he was younger. Wise to player antics, but not too harsh.
Well done referee.
Also, that tactical fouling, it can injure players. He is the first ref that I’ve seen who actually put a stop to players taking it in turns to foul their opponents and stopping the build up of rhythm/play.
Only thing ref got wrong was Lacazettes goal. And that was the linesmans mistake. It was defenders back pass, offside shouldnt be applied then.
Fully agree dude, does anyone know who that linesman was.
Apparently he left town in a hurry, without the rule book he has never read.
Out of the last 3 refs, Mike Dean was the Best lol
Go figure lol
The last two were horrendous
Lines man fault? Didn’t he (ref) see the player hit the ball to his keeper!!!!!!!!!….. Really awful from him gutted worse if we’d lost
I suspect the possibility of recalling Chambers from his loan to Fulham may be considered by Emery and his coaching staff as there is little likelihood of buying real quality centre backs in the January window. It will take Mav 3/4weeks to get fully fit but like many fans i feel he is the real deal.We can forget about signing Hermoso from Espanyol as Real Madrid have a buy back clause which they can implement for only £6.5m.
I agree with all that you have written accept for you saying Mon and Kos may not have had enough training to understand the managers ideas. Well injured or not even if a player is not training on the pitch, it doesn’t take much to understand how to press the opposition and so if they do not understand after nearly half the season then they should be shipped out of the club after all most school boys understand the difference between pressing and sitting back. As for fitness, that is another thing entirely.