Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has completed his first hat-trick as Arsenal run riot to beat Leeds 4-2 at the Emirates.
The build-up to this game was all talk of a fierce battle, with a high intensity game to ensue, but the first-half didn’t follow suit.
The Gunners took the early lead thanks to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Emile Smith Rowe and Granit Xhaka combined to find the Gabon international in his trademark wide-left, and he carries it into the box, cuts to the side and places his effort out inside the near post.
Before we could finish celebrating, Bukayo Saka was brought down inside the box. We were in shock when the referee was called over to check the VAR monitor however, and even more surprised when the decision was overturned.
It didn’t take long for us to get ourselves over the decision however, as soon after we had a penalty given. The young Leeds goalkeeper had the ball in his box, chose not to take the pass or clearance on, and instead tries to turn Bukayo Saka, and our speedy winger forges himself between Meslier and the ball and is brought down.
Aubameyang made no mistake in sending the French shot-stopper the wrong way to double our lead in the opening half, and shortly after it was three also.
This time it was Hector Bellerin’s fine run which saw him break into the box, and he fires hard and low to the keeper’s inside post to seal a 3-0 lead going into the break.
Marcelo Bielsa opted to make two changes for the restart, but only minutes into the half there was another mistake, and another Arsenal goal.
The Leeds player once again opts against taking the easy pass, and is pickpocketed deep inside his own half by Emile Smith Rowe, who glides just inside the box to cross into PEA who nods home.
At this point we are thinking about how many we are going to win by, but the team appeared to take their foot off the pedal, and Willian was brought on to replace ESR, and all of a sudden our opponents came alive.
Pascal Gruijk rose high from the corner to power home past Bernd Leno, who had enjoyed a fairly quiet match prior to picking the ball out of the net.
10 minutes later Raphinha’s run has been spotted by his team-mate to get in behind Hector Bellerin and he darts into the box to find Helder Costa to fire home.
All of a sudden, we now only have a two-goal lead with 20 minutes left to play, and the team is forced to wake up.
Thankfully, it was Arsenal who enjoyed the best chances in the remainder of the match. Aubameyang came close to adding a fourth, and we were able to enjoy the dying minutes of the match, that was until we saw Aubameyang limping again…
The forward will hopefully be fighting fit for Europa League clash come Thursday, especially as he finally looks to be back to something close to his best.
Will Arsenal ever learn not to switch off? Should they not have carried on to win convincingly?
Patrick
Arteta delivered a masterclass against Bielsa in the first half, by swapping Aubameyang’s, Smith-Rowe’s and Odegaard’s positions to confuse Leeds defenders. But Arsenal got complacent in the second half and this should be prevented in the next games
However, the Gunners were brilliant and our midfielders’ close controls were delightful to see. Aubameyang will be my MOTM, followed by Saka, Smith-Rowe and Bellerin
Interesting game…enjoyed that one a lot.
Everyone played so well, intensity dropped when the subs came on though, but was an enjoyable game.
Enjoyed that one all through.
People just like complaining.
3 points…
Dear God, man city next😭😭😭😭
Very true Eddie.
Good to see I have a fanboy on here Defund! 😏
COYG!!! 4-2 Yessss!!
Way better today. Players moved the ball much quicker, more decisive decision made, chances FINALLY being created consistently again. That’s more like it. Younger players are really the ones who carry this season and it shows.
Just wondering why the hell Willian was brought in again? Bring in Elneny around 60 minutes to defend oue lead ffs. Willian offers nothing to either end.
Willian is good in keeping the ball possession, to make counter-attack and transitions easier. We couldn’t switch to a fully defensive mode, because Leeds are a gung-ho attacking team
I would have brought in Pepe or Martinelli.
He came on and lost the ball 5 times with 10 touches apparently. He’s just not a good player and not a good sub to accomplish anything positive with. Martinelli hasn’t kicked a ball in weeks and could’ve used him for a 30 minute run. even if hes playing midweek, he’s 19. It’s a minor gripe, but still annoying that our manager cannot make the right substitutions. But we got 3 points so wont fret over this too much today.
If we would have lost this game everyone would be blaming Arteta for starting Aubameyang lol.
Saka is a beast. Worth a 100m in today’s crazy market.
A skillful RW that can use both feet well like Saka would likely be the most valuable player in the market. There are many excellent right-footed LW, but a high quality inverted RW is very rare
People who wanted Auba to be sold this summer. Where are you guys?
People who said only Lacazette can play 9. Where are you?
I don’t understand how people analyse football
Best game of the season!
Lacazette can play as a 9 though? So why are you challenging others about a fact? Agreed about Auba. He juat needs his mojo back. I still think a 25 goal season is possible from him.
Aubameyang’s hold-up ability is still worse than Lacazette’s, but Arteta changed his tactic a bit and it worked perfectly
We should still look to sell Auba at the end of the season. If we keep him for too long we’ll just be repeating history.
Older he gets the less sellable he is and on his wages we’ll struggle too sell if we hold on for 2 more years.
Need to ask ourselves, do we keep holding onto players too long or if we get the right offer do we sell?
If you say keep him for 2+ years id be interested to find out how you’d suggest we improve our net spend?
Lol loving the username 🤣
At Defund my opinion, can you tell me the best strikers now that’s not 30 and above or any team who is ready to sell their strikers ( one of the best) at this moment that you are saying we should sell him…. To replace him with who? Nnketa? Balogun? I don’t think so…. It is better we have Auba and sell Lacazzete because Auba is a goal poacher and his pace and positioning infront of goal is far ahead of Lacazzete… We didn’t buy Lacazzete to hold up play but to score goals for us…. Look at our shot on target today, Auba had 5, 3 scored, one hit the bar and one is deflected out , can you say the same thing as Lacazzete, I didn’t say laca is not good but he hold on to ball too much and he played too deep to the midfield, he should allow the midfielder to do their job and he should do his job as a striker by scoring goals for us….
This is funny.
So you are happy with the Auba we have had since he signed his new contract a few months ago?
If we can get a younger more hungry striker to replace Auba in the summer I would not be against letting him go.
Just a good game here and there is not enough.
Same goes for Bellerin. He is poor but will have a good game here and there and people will come out with “Where are those want Bellerin out?”..
Same was always said about prince Ozil. He would be poor for 10 games, then has one good and his followers would always rejoice “Where are the haters.
😊
Bellerin I totally agree.
Aubameyang was the one player holding the team up in the last seasons. The moment he had a bad spell, the team went down. A good team does not rely on one player. If he was a city player we wouldn’t even have noticed his dip in form
We won good. I’m happy.
But why must Willian be fielded? Was fielding him enshrined in his contract agreement?
Imagine Willian for ESR. One man short.
It could be that Martinelli was spared so that he can have more minutes against Benfica.
I mean, it wasn’t likely we wouldn’t win at 4:1. With that in mind I understand why Arteta would decide to play his costly transfer mistake.
Amazing first half of football where Arsenal actually showed up and played like they wanted it. Auba back on it with his first Arsenal hat-trick. Slowed down a bit in the second half but overall a great game to watch. Very happy with the result, Onwards and upwards! 😃😃😃
I enjoyed the first half… I also enjoyed the beginning of the second half. What I didn’t enjoy was willian coming in for Smith. What does he even offer?
Delighted with Aubameyang hat trick.
EsR one touch football is sleeky and good to watch.
Saka, what a player… and he is only 19.
Glad we to win after back to back defeat
I just enjoy the intelligence and maturity of both ESR and Saka. They are a joy to watch with their football.
And young Odegaard too, I kept confusing him with ESR. They seem to have the same style of play.
Let’s enjoy today rather than slag off others, a great win and just what we needed
Well done boys!
Great game today! All plays on point. I can see that playing Odegaard and Smith Rowe can be a great bet against open teams like Leeds. Can we fancy our chances against City with this lineup? Luiz was very good today and he can be a serviceable defwnaive playmaker, provided with protection of someone like Mo. His crazy runs to the leeds box were amazing. ESR and Saka are great players for our future and the Madrid boys played well today. GX was good, with a particular no look backpass his best play 😂😂 And lastly welcome back Auba!
Great tactics by MA today. Totally outplayed Marcelo in the first half. Subs were based on the situation so I think it is unfair to bash him on that. Lets finish the season on a high.
COYG!
I’ll be worried about Benfica first before the City game
Agreed. But I thought as City kind of play an open game, will this lineup of interchanging players work? Have no idea how Benfica play, though I hope they play badly on Thursday 😂😂
If our attackers can swap their positions frequently like that, I’m sure Man City’s defenders would also get confused
For the record, MA’s tactics are under NO obligation to make sense to you, you dont get to where he is with the same knowledge as an armchair supporter, he has vastly more knowledge of football than anyone on here and not to mention he spends hours with the team everyday (whom you havent even met). Go get your coaching badges if you genuinely believe can do better.
You can say this when you also haven’t participated in armchair opinions, but you do as well, Defund.
But I don’t start slamming the manager when we are 4-2 up and playing well for making a substitution I don’t agree with, seriously petty.
It’s a bad substitution. Nobody is required to act a certain way when we are winning. Arteta is very much still on the hot seat and many of us are not sold on his decision making still, so it is a topic worth bringing up to many people. If it isn’t to you then I’d just say ignore. Trying to say nobody should have an opinion unless they’ve coached top level football as well is just ridiculous though.
You saying it’s a bad substitution does not mean it is lol, again you do not know the players, there current mindset, current fitness levels etc, why not bring on someone in dire need of confidence when we had a 3 goal cushion? Are we just never going to play him ever again?
If you disagree that’s perfectly fine. There’s been a pattern of Arteta subbing him on over other players on the bench. And playing time in my opinion has to be earned. Willian has gotten A LOT of playing time this season when he has only had one good game this entire season. He’s not the future of the club either so there’s no real reason to be playing him. Clearly there is a discussion to be had about this sub, and I’m glad to have it.
Well it’s not really a discussion when it’s just 20+ posts saying “William ffs” or “arteta is shit”
Not very productive is it? Or a discussion, it’s just moaning for the sake of it when we just played our best half of the season and got 3 vital points.
Comments while the game is on tend to be very short, and longer discussions happen after the game. Surely, you have noticed this. 🙄
Doesnt mean we should condone people calling the manager shit over a sub… again petty.
you’ve been on this site for a while. if you cannot endure such a mild comment like that then i dont know what to tell you about the other opinions football fans have, lol.
Nothing about endurance pal I’m just calling out petty pessimism when I see it, especially when were winning comfortably.
If I may ask, can people not share their opinions or questions decisions on an opinion based blog/media site?
Is that not okay with you boss? What may we discuss,please let us know?
You seriously changed your username as a dig at me lol? Damn that’s petty, kids these days!!
Thank you! Armchair experts, I read were one said willian is not good enough, I’m sure he just started watching football this season. If a player is low on confidence, the best way to get him firing again is to keep playing him. He’s one of the best players we have on our books , go and check out his records with Chelsea, you can’t be a regular for Chelsea and a Brazilian international for years if you are not good enough. we can only hope he gets his mojo back ASAP. But these arm chair coaches will throw him away immediately and get someone else. They’re selling Auba few weeks ago, today they are praising him.
Exactly, are we just never going to play him ever again because hes been poor thus far? If we cant bring him on when we have a 3 goal cushion to hopefully get some confidence when can we? People just see willian and get triggered regardless of any other factors.
Excellent comments Sirjoe
Too many armchair coaches giving stupid opinions.
I guess that in the human’s nature.
Weldone boys and Arteta
Go Gunners
Despite Aubas goals and hom playing very well too, I thought Saka MotM.
Good to see Auba looking sharp and, more importantly, INTERESTED again though. I thought their keeper was at fault with our first three goals.
Most of all now we have a number of players so comfortable with the ball it is looking much more positive for the future. We just need to lose BELLERIN and XHAKA now from the regular side and we can make great progress.
Saka was brilliant. But he dropped little bit physically in the second half.
Absolutely agree, Xhaka and Bellerin are weakest link in the team…both slow the attack down
Xhaka and Bellerin are indispensable parts of the squad. And Bellerin just showed a great performance 🤦♂️
Bellerin has a very good game, one of his only good games in about 3 seasons.
Agree. A sporadic good game. If we want to challenge for titles, that wont do though. But great job from him today did really well. Doesn’t change my opinion at all about finding a new RB.
Leeds second goal was entirely because Bellerin did not read the attackers position. For the umpteenth time he was woefully out of position. Yes he scored a nice goal but that is once in a blue moon. But his mistakes are each game and he IS rank poor Never been able to defend at all.
XHAKA IS FAR TOO PONDEROUS IN THOUGHT AND ACTION AND TO BE A TOP FLOWING SIDE, YOU CANNOT HAVE STATUES LIKE HIM IN THE SIDE.
Xhaka and Bellerin have got to go.
Why we cannot sustain the same level for the entire 90 minutes?One half good,one half weak-always.Not up to the task-Gabriel(just brute force,not technique at all,Holding looks more Brazilian than he is,protecting the ball too long instead of playing it),Suares(clearly not suited for left wing),Xakha(OMG ,this guy is a real break gor the team,always passing back or sideway,destroyng the dynamic of the team),Willian(he touched the ball
3 times in 30 minutes bringing nothing to the team as always).The good ones-Auba(class is permanent),Saka(as always),ESR(how bad game changed after he was replaced),Luiz(the only real central defender),Bellerin(always attacking on right).1Meep the same team,but replace Xhaka with Partey,Suares with Tierney,Gabriel with Holding.One more thing-Leno is holding the ball to long wasting the counter play-looks left,right,right,left and repeat.Why’s so hard to put the ball in play immediately?
I liked Xhaka’s back pass to Aubameyang for our first goal
Great result, excellent win, Saka mmmm yes. Even though Auba got a deserved hat trick, Saka man of the match for me.
What a game!
Auba MOTM… Saka excellent as always..
Been a fantastic weekend of football, let’s not talk about the predictions though 🤣
Scary! Sue, but nice for Auba to get service and a hat trick. I think we needed a 3 minutes VAR Sue just to calm it down. 🤣
Yes, great seeing him on the scoresheet again!
🤣 Good one, Reggie..
Auba is definitely MOTM Sue. His best performance this season as well. From top to finish, he was acting like and led by example as captain. Saka was brilliant as usual. Arsenal’s player of the season no doubt. Again, what’s going on with Tierney?
So pleased for him, Kstix, he was superb! And that grin 😍
Spot on about Saka being our POTS.. what a gem that young man is!
KT has been a massive loss… he’s supposed to be back training in the next few days, unlikely we’ll see him on Thursday. No chance for Partey.. the good old Arsenal injury curse?! Such a shame, huge game for us!
Good to see you, Kstix… 👍
Thank you Leeds keeper! A great win even if we got really sloppy second half. Obviously Saka and Auba MOM, Luiz held the defence together and to a certain extent Odegaard and Ceballos did well. Saka when he is firing is a top top player and we need to keep him because teams will come sniffing. I give credit to Arteta for the first half (as well as their goalkeeper) but why oh why did he bring on Willian, the guy is a non event. He put out an attacking team and first half we did attack. Great win we must kick on now.
Their gk was really poor. Nice to kill a game off in the first half and not rue missed chances!!
Massive game on Thursday.. this was just what we needed going into it 👍
To a certain extent? The main reason we looked better than other games as far as I could tell was ceballos … most of forward play started with him … he has the control and importantly creates time and space for others … massively under appreciated like ozil in that respect … saka was excellent again but he’s been good in games we have lost too … smith Rowe was drifting aimlessly today and his assist was a wayward shot turned perfect cross … the Norwegian kid looked to have some nice moves but needs game time … aube looked like the aube of old … we can lose Luiz bellerin xhaka and improve significantly
Some people wont or cant see it but Luiz is our rock in the center, he is the experience and holds it all together for us.
Saka was ,again,awsome…..If it wasn’t for P.Foden he would be PM player of the season!!!!
PL sorry
Good game.
Enjoyable for the neutrals.
Willian coming on was like we were playing with a red card. The whole attack fell flat.
Its not like Arteta plans to start Martinelli against Benfica. Martinelli is being wasted on the bench.
Arteta makes the worst substitutions.
He gets everything right from the beginning only to shoot himself countless times in the foot with subs.
Saka, Rowe, Odegaard play with cohesion. Such a beauty to watch with their one touch passes.
On to the next one. COYG
A great performance from the team. We are actually capable of pulling out such results,but the problem has been our inconsistency. We do not have the worst players in the league, but the problem has been the inability of the gaffer to stamp out a working system that will accommodate the players we have. However,he is still a young and inexperienced manager and I strongly believe he will definitely improve and be great in the near future.
The first sentence in this article, ‘run riot’, please calm down. Their keep had a mare today. Good to see Auba scoring again, will give him some confidence. We were fine while on top. Once Leeds rolled their sleeves, along with some complacency after the break, we always looked vulnerable.
On other comments – I thought Saka went AWOL for first 20 mins of 2nd half. No issue at all with Gabriel. Need to be very careful with ESR. Willian – yes struggling but always seems to be chasing and rarely in possesion. We really really must stop playing Bellerin. Probably first time I thought Cedric struggled a bit at left back.
Unfortunately, I’m still going with 1-4 when we play City.. Ongoing but celebrate tonight
Great win for Arsenal!!; Predicted a 2 1 victory!! Also a great hat trick from Aubameyang!!
Nice seeing alot of comments here particularly from Mr.Fund Me..
Want to opine that Auba should still be sold@the end of this season..
Despite his goalscoring talents, we need a more aggressive, bullish and Stronger striker, dats if we re interested in getting back to winning the Title..
Remember the 2013/3014 when Jose Mourinho of Chelsea sold Torres, Eto and Demba Ba all@ once to go get Diego Costa!!
We need such gambles if we want to claim Big Prizes!!
100% agree about selling Auba. If we keep him any longer no-one will buy him on his high wages and age catching up.
We need to learn to sell players before they lose all value or run down their contract otherwise we’ll never better our net spend. Stop being scared to sell good players i.e Liverpool with Suarez
Must we sell players? What happened to playing and retiring at a club? Why haven’t Leicester sold Vardy? Is everything money? If we sell him now, you will still come here and moan about how we sell our best players.
@Sirjoe ask Sanchez, Van Persie, Cole, Fabregas, Ozil, Koscielny, Martinez etc about what happened to retiring at a club, don’t ask me mate.
You ask should we sell players? Yes we should. If i may ask you, shouldn’t we sell players?
If I may also ask how would you suggest we improve our net spend? Which is a problem at Arsenal.
But on another post you also think we should sell Saka! CARE TO EXPLAIN WHY, TO ALL US SANE FANS?
Besides an obvious great first-half performance, where the handbrakes were taken off for only the 4th time this season, it’s clear that Arteta is no Pep protégé…minus the focus he’s clearly placed on the defensive side of the ball, his tactics, team selections, substitutions, shoehorning of players and all-too-often delusional post-game analysis are eerily reminiscent of the post-Dein Wenger…today we got away with it because our best player took advantage of the vast majority of the opportunities that fell his way and Saka, ESR and Ode all showed flashes of brilliance, but I don’t ever want to see us having to finish off a first-half dominating performance like that by having to bring in another DM and a 3rd CB again, unless we’re in a Champion’s League final
Playing a 4-4-2 formation is a lot better than 4-3-3.Packing the midfield brings dominance of the game,instead of playing on the wings with bunch of crossings to no one.Keep the Madrid boys in the middle,they are going to be only better with more games to come.In front of them play the silky smooth ESR.Behind them play Partey instead of snail Xhaka.What a powerful midfield will be!Speed,force and technique.
We won Yeah!.
I hope he(MA) has a strong back up reasons for still not wanting to field Matinelli’ yet.
Souness in studio saying Bamford incident clear penalty.
Saka first overruled by VAR so wrong.
The man is so anti Arsenal.
Deluded scouser.
NG, None of these northern ” hard men” have ever had much empathy with Arsenal. The early Wegner years must have been tough for them. They relish any opportunity to see Arsenal suffering.
Martinelli will surely request for transfer by this summer, it’s becoming more clearer based on what arsenal players who have left the club have been saying about Arteta, if you are not part of his favourites and preferred players you are doomed. What the hell William was doing on the field today?
Martinelli came to limelight before Smith Rowe but now Smith Rowe becomes undroppable but martinelli will not even come in as substitute.
Agreed. People will says its because he’ll likely start against Benficz but 10-20 mins could only benefit him in preparation for the game. Guys got a massive engine.
Martinelli will on the bench again on Thursday. Laca will be back in the team and there’s no way Arteta is going to drop Auba after he scored a hattrick. I expect Arteta to start laca, Auba, Saka and ESR on Thursday. Martinelli could come on from the bench though.
The Leeds keeper sold two , if not three goals, but that apart we played some good football in the first half with ESR and Saka ,once again proving how talented they are.Odegaard did ok for his first game in some time and thankfully Gabriel showed a return to form.Leeds came back strongly after their first goal and Bellerin lost his man for their second.During this period of Leeds ascendancy Ceballos and Xhaka were overrun and their lack of athleticism and pace was showed up.Overall the result was better than the performance, but in Saka, we have a diamond with a great future.I hope Tierney and Partey are fit for the Man City challenge.
On Willian – however based he’s been at arsenal, he is a proven PL midfielder. Considering Auba was no better until very recently, surely you can understand the thinking of trying to help him regain his confidence?
I’m not convinced it will work, but if I were in MAs position, I’d be trying to help him regain form
👍
what a ridiculous comparison…if we end up losing Marts because Arteta is constantly shoehorning in the woeful performing Willian, it will be a truly sad day for our club…if you want to be an Auba hater just grow a pair and say so, instead of hiding behind some ridiculous analogy
What on earth are you talking about? Auba-hater? I think you need to grow up.
that was an apples to oranges comparison, which suggests you might have an axe to grind with Auba, maybe even more so than with Willian…could be mistaken, but I’ve seen a lot of ridiculous attacks on Auba this year and this team can ill-afford to be a destination that world class players want to avoid like the plague…whereas my concerns surrounding Willian are more to do with a piss poor decision to sign him to a ridiculous wage in the first place and to have clearly promised him starting minutes, so now Arteta has to shoehorn him in even when it would make far more sense, from a team performance perspective, to have someone else come in…both Pepe, with his better play in recent times, on the left, and, more importantly, Marts, who has struggled to get significant minutes, would have made far more sense in that particular situation…it will be tragic if these sorts of moves lead to someone like Marts looking to move on, just so Arteta can help a player who clearly isn’t helping himself and/or to somehow justify his horrendous off-season decision to bring Willian in…if I was wrong on my assessment regarding the true intention of your comment, my bad
You can disagree on the comparison, but the leap to saying that I may have any sort of axe to grind with Auba requires a level of mind reading that I don’t think was at all warranted.
Just to be clear, I don’t particularly disagree with you that Arteta should have brought on GM instead of William today – I was simply trying to look at it from MA’s perspective as (right or wrong) I don’t think it was as mindless a decision as many seem to (have a feeling it was because he wanted someone who could pass/hold the ball rather than a more direct winger/goalscorer, but could be wrong)
TRVL, would anybody be surprised if Martinelli requested a transfer at the end of the season?
Aubameyang, the sleeping giant awoke with 3 goals and could have had 5 if he hadn’t hit the post and Saka first penalty appeal was upheld. Then again Leeds had what appeared a clear cut penalty denied; however apart from this Cedric Soares was solid. I for one am having real difficulty in understanding the lack of consistency in interpretation of fouls in the penalty area, with officials and VAR.
Bellerin ended up one each way, Ceballos and Smith Rowe provided great assists and played well in midfield, Saka was always dangerous and Odegaard added creativity. For 55 minutes, it all came together for Arteta and Arsenal, then they went back into their shell. The substitution with Willian, not Martinelli is inexplicable. Was Pepe being saved for Benefica, with Lacazette or will Willian start?
Good result, COYG!
Hey OG, based on how he’s struggled to get any significant minutes since his return from injury, I wouldn’t be shocked whatsoever if preliminary chatter hasn’t already happened…I don’t mean anything official but rumblings, which actually might be the very reason he’s not being treated as a priority…so far, Arteta is clearly not a fan of anyone who sends messages, no matter how their packaged, through the media…I get this, in theory, but based on the comments we’ve heard from several of our younger players(Saliba, Willock, Guendo and now Marts) there’s something rotten in Denmark when it comes to the man management stylings, or lack thereof, of our manager…this is why we need to be certain about Arteta before he either recruits other players and/or scares off some of our more valuable young prospects(Saliba, Marts & Balo)
Actually, let me take that back and try to clarify what I was saying. Auba’s form was bad at the start of the season and Arteta played him at times even when he perhaps didn’t deserve to on form because we know he’s our best goalscorer, and it appears to have worked out.
I was saying that Arteta appears to be doing likewise with Willian, who on form doesn’t deserve to play, but has shown in the past he can be an excellent player who does have valuable experience. If I was in Arteta’s position, I’d probably do the same, even though I’m not convinced it will work in that case.
No hate towards Auba or anyone else (even Willian).
No worried Davi…I know what you meant…you were just saying that you can understand why Arteta might want to use a game that appeared to be already done and dusted to try and get Willian on track…my greater concern is the whole mishandling of the Willian recruitment in the first place, considering this was supposed to be a transitional year…the only reason Willian even came here was because we offered him more than anyone else, which to me was absolutely short-sighted and counter intuitive…Chelski would only give him 2 years, a considerably lower wage and no guaranteed starter minutes, yet for some reason we gave him all 3, which either shows our glaring lack of negotiating savvy or highlights just how far we’ve fallen as a desirable destination…furthermore, Willian at first was taking minutes from our highest priced transfer ever, which would logically hurt both his development and his potential market value, should we decide to sell him…now he’s taking valuable minutes away from Marts too, who I believe is a much more important asset moving forward…not a good look on us if we have another potential blue-chipper wanted to move elsewhere…btw I’ve always rated Willian, but much more when he’s being deployed as a “super sub” than as a regular starter
No worries NOT no worried
We should look to sell Saka for big money.
Are you crazy?! There’s no better inverted RW in the market currently, except maybe Foden
Crazy defines it better. I hope y’all see what I mean when I say some folks are not fans. Will any arsenal fan right now make this statement?
And if your logic is so that we get enough money to buy someone else, we actually do not have any replacement atm or in the market. Liverpool successfully sold coutinho and suarez at not so young ages and got reinforcements coz they were available.
PJ-SA When you say “we” most fans assume you are talkIng as a fanof our about our club, Arsenal. NO fan I have ever known thinks that we should sell Saka at ANY PRICE. He is, to a REAL fan, priceless.
The fact that YOU want him sold tells me one of two things. Either you are seriously mentally unwell OR you are not actually a real fan at all. CARE TO ENLIGHTEN US WHICH OF THESE ONLY TWO POSSIBILITIES IT IS?
We always have something to complain about.
We were leading 4-nil, we needed possession retaining players, then willian was brought on. Arsenal doesn’t have the energy to play like we did for 90min. I expected GX to be given more role after our 4th, but we let them force us to continue high intensity, its good we woke up after 4-2, that’s why people complain Xhaka is slow, because he had to bring down the intensity to allow us settle. Great performance all round, good one boys
Just finished watching the game on replay this morning in Australia. Couldn’t get myself up at 3.00 am. Would have been a great game to watch with a crowd. Nothing wrong with the three points either. I guess we saw the best and worst of Arsenal. The two kids,Saka and ESR showing they’re as good as the Real Madrid loanees. The making of a good midfield in progress. Yes, with Partey’ fit ,Arsenal can move forward without Xhaka. Also saw the worst though. William, Eleny and a crumbling midfield. A solid maths equation: Xhaka and Elneny=sideways.
I’m generally a glass half full type but have to be honest, didnt enjoy this one much. Glad to see good fortune was finally with us in first half but second half was pretty hard to watch. Switched off for large parts, lost 50/50 challenges, continued to bomb forward when there was no need, were lucky not to concede a penalty etc.
A good result but a mediocre last 45. My memory was flashing back to Newcastle a decade or so ago.
👍
Enjoyed it. Having read the many posts here’s a few comments:
Leeds ARE a good team – amazingly fit and end strongly. On the basis of our last game where we didnt ram home our early superiority we put a lot into the first half. Rare to see a team swarming over Leeds. Add in younger players havent yet the same stamina of players in mid 20’s so we tired. We were not awful but energy level was not sustainable.
Why Willian? When they were all over us I would not bring on Pepe – too erratic, a striker who caant defend. Leeds are physical. We were well ahead – dont risk GM getting crocked again. Willian for once with the game safe was an ok choice to clog up the midfield.
MA – can”’t criticise anything else so the haters go for the Willian substitution? Maybe give him some credit for a change.
Ceballos – an above average game. Overconfident but loads of energy. Any connection with RM selling him, I think cynically?
Odegaard. First start I liked him. Needs a run to improve and he CAN play with ESR. If we want attacking football play them both…
Bellerin. He’s a defender. He cant defend. Tactically incredibly naiive. All other times know and prioritise their left wing. No excuse, he has to go.
Cedric – class. Shows how bad Bellerin is.
Auba – with the kids behind him making all the runs off ball he had space. I was wrong – playing this system he doesnt need to be a hold-up, one-two player. Delighted to be wrong.
Saha. He detroyed Leeds virtually single handed. He ripped them apart causing the malaise that their good defence become, for the guys to benefit from. EVERY game he gets better. How good can this kid be?
Man City? They are hammering everyone. Why not play this side again, go for it. Almost sure to lose, but we see how far we have got.