Arsenal made short work of Vorskla last night for the first hour of the game but after going four goals up they became complacent and somehow managed to conceded twice against the Ukranian minnows. But the important thing is the three points and we now have four wins in a row and Emery is not too unhappy. “We are happy because the first match here with our supporters is first important to win. At the beginning of this competition, it’s important to take confidence and take the first victory.
“I think the first 60 minutes were good with imposing our ideas against them and also, little by little in the match, winning battles on the pitch to be near to scoring. With the four goals, I think we are in a good moment. But we want to be competitive for 90 minutes and I think the last 20 minutes, we conceded chances and we need to improve. Our disappointment today is that there were two goals conceded. But I am going to think that the first 60 minutes were very good and that we are going to continue impressing with those ideas.”
So still no clean sheets this season, and even though we made changes in defence we still didn’t take command against a team that should have been a pushover for our first team. We just don’t seem to have the same concenttration at the back. Emery said after: “It’s one thing. We are speaking before each match to take a mentality of ‘don’t concede chances easily’. I think today is a good opportunity for not accepting goals, but the last 30 minutes, we needed to be better on this competitive aspect.
“It’s our disappointment today. But I also, with confidence, little by little we are conceding a few chances to the opposition, the same like in Newcastle. But we need to continue to improve on this because in the last minute in Newcastle and again today in the last 20 minutes, we conceded two goals. Our challenge is to be competitive for 90 minutes of each match and this is one thing to improve.”
It is a big worry, but as long as we continue to score more goals than we let in it won’t matter, but one day we will come up against a defensive team that will manage to stop our strikers and we will be in trouble.
Come on Unai, sort it out!
Darren N
Those goals happened because Arsenal attackers and midfielders were too relaxed after leading 4-0. They let go their pressure and let the threats coming too easily into the defense area, which created more burden for the defenders
This has been happening for several years before Emery’s time. Arsenal defenders should have barked at the outfield players in front of them to stay focused and keep marking the opponents tightly
I guess most Gunners that played last night wanted to save their energy and avoid unnecessary injuries for the upcoming Everton match. Good thinking, but they must be more careful to keep the lead
The Europa League looks really hard
with Lazio Milan Seville Betis
Chelsea Bate Anderlecht Zenit Sporting.
More worrying are the teams who come down from the CL
Tottenham Roma Napoli Befica Valencia Porto PSV Dortmund Monaco
look quite likely to join the Europa league.
So can we make top 4 PL ?
It lookslike Arsenal, Spurs and United will be competing for 4th.
Carabao and the FA Cup are both dependent on the draw.
It’s entirely possible Arsenal could improve but not win anything.
I think this remains a transitional season.
Trophies will be a bonus.
Agree. Emery might not be able to do much, because he has not got his own players yet
In Europa League, I’m more worried of the teams from EPL, because they know Arsenal well
this is the kind of fearful thinking we have to eradicate
we are always saying this
scared of other teams
because we’ve fallen so far behind compared to a lot of other European teams. The fact we can’t keep one clean sheet is a worrying problem that needs to be resolved almost immediately. It’s hard to win anything if you keep leaking cheap goals. And Arsenal attackers still aren’t clinical enough in big games either. Essentially, all our problems from Wenger era are still prevalent and it’ll take time to shed all the bad habits that have been in Arsenal sides for over a decade. A lot of personnel changes as well too.
We conceded because of bad defending, nothing else. For the first Lichtsteiner was caught dithering with the ball on the edge of the box and lost it. For the second, our back four had all pushed too far up the pitch and got caught with a sucker punch. I don’t blame Leno as I don’t think Cech would have got to them either. It was just pub team defending.
That’s not fair to Loch, the ball hit him off a rebound and it quite literally fumbled in his feet because he was not expecting it and the attacker took the ball and his chance very well. It’s the way the ball came at him which caused him an issue, he couldn’t hoof it because the ball hit him between his thighs. The second yes we completely switched off but with a 19yr old and 18yr old sub at 4-0 it’s understandable that this can happen.
I remain optimistic about our squad because the confidence is growing and it seems we are taking the lessons on board.
Disappointed not to have been able to watch the game but seeing we conceded two goals baffles me. I wasn’t expecting us concede at all talk less of two goals, we need to find a solution to the poor defending at this club because how did we let that club score two against us at home. I know we need better defenders, but with those that played, we should have kept a clean sheet. When the tranfer window ooens, i want to see a change in our mentality when buying players, no more buying players that need time on the bench, we need players that are significantly better than what we already have and they must displace the under performing players of wenger’s era. We buy leno but he is still behind cech, why spend that money in the first place when it could be used elsewhere, why bring in lichtsteiner as back up when we could have bought someone better to actually displace bellerin. I hope stan the devil allows the manger, the new head of football and head scout build a stronger team by providing suitable funds, we should stop trying to build a team on pea nuts, it won’t work not with what man city and liverpool are doing at the moment.
You didn’t watch the game so what you doing commenting about our performance?
The rest of your comment is a knee jerk reaction to reading that Arsenal didn’t keep a clean sheet, you failed to look at WHY we conceded and if those 2 goals was bad for the situation, this does nothing to help Arsenal.
We was keeping a clean sheet with Torreira, when he was on the pitch then we looked solid and we had balance, he came off (Everton on weekend????) and when Guendouzi came on then the CM was so controlled and Guendouzi inexperience meant his positioning wasn’t so good and Arsenals shape become a bit deformed.
Talking about Wenger Era… Do you mean Wenger era or Gazidis era?
Silent Stan has not once stopped Wenger from spending money, it was Gazidis.
Gazidis was hired when Dein was forced out, remember?
Gazidis was hired to oversee the sale of AFC, the old board had made decisions which upped the share value over AFC longterm future. Any wonder he has been hired to oversee the sale of another club?
Funnily enough rich people tend to let people they hire do their job.
Logically thinking about it though, how would they get enough hours in the day for them to micromanage multiple companies? Just not enough time…
So considering Silent Stans other business adventures and time restraints and being realistic, how the heck was it him who restricted the managers spending?
To support what I am saying, have you considered what is worth more, a couple million he has taken out for BS services or a loan for hundreds of millions to buy a ranch and AFC used to back the loan? Hmmm
Firstly, i didn’t comment on the whole performance, i only talked about the goals conceded so maybe you should read well before jumping the gun. I didn’t need to watch the game to know that conceding two late goals against a team of that quality is not ideal, you can bring up as many excuses as possible it wouldn’t change that, even emery said in his press conference that he was dissappointed in the defense for the last 20mins. I can’t believe you are defending silent stan, someone that said he is not in arsenal to win trophies and how do you know for sure it was gazidis that stopped wenger from spending money? I never mentioned anyone categorically that stopped us from spending money, all i said was, moving forward stan has to let them improve the squad by letting them spend the funds, he is the owner remember? And yes, stan has the final say on how much of our income we spend, not gazidis, not the new guy either and when i talk about stan having the final say, i don’t mean he is there all day everyday telling them what to do but i am sure he is the person that signs off on how much we have for our transfer budget, all its takes is one meeting to do that. Had to spell that out for you as you don’t seem to fully grasp anything before commenting.
You should have watched the match. We had 19yr old Douzi, 18yr old Smith Rowe and Ozil replaced iwobi I think from memory – you need to remmeber that Douzi is 19… 19 it doesn’t matter who the competition is, in FA Cup big clubs get knocked out by smaller ones because of underestimating them. At 4-0 and after the changes we still played well, Lich was unlucky with how the ball came off a rebound towards his legs and hit his thighs, he didn’t have time to shift his feet and the defender took the ball off him and shot – keeper should have been focused but couldn’t see – it wasn’t that bad.
The last goal was a lapse but hell, you’re 4-1 up, and you’re defense are players who haven’t started games apart from Monreal and Sokratis.
I admit it’s a shame for conceding but it’s 5 games into a season and the team is improving. Anyone can punish you, City lost to a team out of the PL last season and this team we faced at least made it to the Europa League, have some respect for your opposition, they would have troubled our mid table teams that’s for sure as they were making decent combinations going forward.
I finally got to watch the match back today and i see why we conceded but its still disappointing. We won so thats the most important thing but i was just hoping we got our first clean sheet yesterday. My disappointment with the goals conceded has to do with the general picture not just this match.
This has been a sympton at Arsenal for years not just this season..remember Newcastle away a few years back, 4 up but drew 4-4. We know what happens, they get 3 or 4 up and then start playing stupid football, little tippy tappy passes, laughing when they lose the ball. We need a captain in the McLintock or Adams mode to say to the players right, imagine we are still 0-0 not 4 up and CONCENTRATE !!
Have a look at how the goals was scored.
Lich and Guendouzi… Lich who so many have called to start instead of Bellerin. I hate to say this but Lich was one of the worst players in red last night. Yes he stayed back to help defend against a team that had hardly any attacking movements.
Lich would have helped the team more if he had gotten forward more, to offer the team more width and to force the pitch to become wider for the opposition.
Midkemma, sorry I don’t agree; Lichtsteiner apart from the bad bobble from the Holding header out raised previously defended well and had one assist.
Was Arsenal alone on the pitch? Why should anyone imagine that it is criminal to concede 2 goals when you have scored 4? The greatest mistake our fans make is to imagine that some teams are incapable of doing anything on the pitch! How do you think Voskla got here? Obviously it beat a number of teams. Why should our players take reckless risks when they had already put the game to bed? Remember we have another game against Everton on Sunday. We would have complained bitterly if Voskla had equalised but to complain about not getting a clean sheet is really unrealistic. After all this is the preliminary stage where goals are a secondary matter. What is important is to win our games and see how the season unfolds.
We’re heading into October soon without a clean sheet. That’s not good for any side. If you want to get better at defending you need to create good habits, which means seeing out games strongly, no matter the opposition. Arsenal got lazy at the end, and the last kick of the game being a goal puts a sour taste on what was a very good evening overall. The defenders want to have confidence that the rest of the team will help them. there needs to be a trust created so we can keep getting better. The only way you keep getting better is by continuing to do something.