Arsenal smash West Brom for six in much-needed confidence booster

Arsenal smash West Brom reserves by 6 by Konstantin Mitov

Well lovely Arsenal people, it’s an Arsenal win! Let’s get things into perspective. These are the under 23s of West Brom, so we shouldn’t draw many conclusion.

But, it’s nice to see a smile on players faces. And there was also some quality goals. Aubas 3rd was ridiculous quality. He had a similar finish against Liverpool in the Community shield.
Then there were 2 really good touches from Odegaard, which is something we’ve been desperately missing. I don’t know what the plan is with him and Smith-Rowe. I suspect Pepe might be dropped even though he was dangerous again tonight. It was good to see Laca and Saka also on the score sheet.
At the other end of the pitch I was happy with Ramsdale, and really disappointed with the defense in front of him. I’ll be surprised if Kolasinac isn’t out of the club by the end of the window. He probably only got a game so we can rest Mari for City.
Our defense still had Chambers and Holding though, and they could start against the champions. I think there’s quite an obvious need for a new right back and if Bellerin departs (hopefully), I think we might see a new player there.
Then in midfield Elneny showed again, he’s not good enough for us. Midfield is an Area where we are really short if you think about it. Torreira went to Fiorentina, so we’re left with Xhaka, who really should’ve been sold, young Sambi, who is a talent, but shouldn’t be bearing the expectations to elevate our midfield, Elneny, who should be sold, and Partey – the only player of real quality.
If we can buy Tolisso or Aouar (even on an initial loan deal) it’d be a no brainer for me. With the injury of Partey, we’re really struggling to move the ball forward. Having Auba and Laca back will no doubt have an impact, but have you noticed our pattern of attacks?
We used to be a team that tried to walk the ball in, and now, we are just looping balls over the top, trying to capitalize on the pace of Auba, Saka and Pepe, or we bomb Tierney forward hoping for good crosses.
Even Arteta’s favourite playing-out-of-the-back is suffering majorly from the lack of midfielders that can drive the ball forward. And those observances aren’t based on 90 minutes against West Brom reserves.
Much more conclusions can be made after we travel to the Champions on Saturday. That game will be at the hardest end of the difficulty spectrum. Hopefully the win tonight will give us at least some confidence to go there and put a performance.
Konstantin
Tags West Brom v Arsenal

22 Comments

  1. This game showed us that the manager isn’t negative, he is only been cautious of atttack because he didn’t trust we have better quality than opponents but being tooo clever at time is bad and that’s what we are seeing with Arteta

    1. Incorrect.

      The game showed us that when teams attack us we have the players to hurt them on the counter attack. WBA held an insanely high line (stupidly so), hence why they got smashed.

      Our normal style of play is high possession and slow passing letting teams set up defensively. WBA poor tactics almost forced us into playing the way we should always play. MA is still clueless against teams that sit deep, he has no idea how to break them down…hence why we have 30 pointless crosses in an average game.

      1. 👍 Spot on, PJ-SA. Arsenal should always set up to counter attack more with the speed of Aubameyang, Pepe and Saka.

  2. Sell Aubameyang now.
    40 mill and 300k p/w off the books.
    Buy a new striker in the low cost covid market.
    Add to Pepe Lacca Saka Martinelli
    Lets do it now

  3. Fast ball + accurate passing was the key for our won.

    Beating City is the “real test” for MA!

  4. With WBA playing a high line, they only caused us problems untill our first goal. By not changing their tactics Saka, Odegaard and Pepe ran riot and made goals for Aubameyang.
    Our style of play won that high line game that WBA got tactically wrong. Premier league teams will not be so naive. For the EPL we will need players like Hossem Aouar or Nabil Fekir to fully dominate the midfield enough to pressure with enough intensity to win closely fought games.

  5. 6-0 is a good result if it were to be Man city. Nevertheless, Bayern Munich won 12-0 on the same night.

  6. Ramsdale wasn’t going to allow the incompetent fools in front of him ruin his debut so hept commanding his area and made sure he kept the ball out of his net, and I like it

  7. I dont think Kola was that bad and I also liked the performance of AMN. All in all something positive and something to cheer about before the gruelling test against City.

  8. – I think right now Pepe is the fastest player in the first team, dude is a speed star, why don’t we exploit this more often? I love Saka but Pepe is the more productive of the two.
    – Odegaard is miles ahead of ESR, now I’m not saying this because of just this match alone, been following him since he was a wonderkid madrid tried to sign. Ode at 10 benefits the whole team much more than ESR.
    – Auba should stay central. He has no business on the left wing.
    – Martinelli is beginning to confuse me, kid needs to calm down and stop trying to over do. Just play the damn ball first and keep it simple and stop trying to make everything happen yourself everytime. Do that only when the team really needs it. Be a team player kid
    – Arteta I want you out but for now nice one, good match.
    – Ramsdale, good debut till I watch more of you I won’t say more.
    Saka is going places

  9. We’ve got plenty of decent midfielders and we haven’t even played Maitland-Niles/ Chambers/ Azeez/ Patino/ Cottrell/ White there. For the AM role, we have the technically gifted Hutchinson

    Leicester also faced similar issue when playing against West Ham, despite getting a red card after 40 minutes in the game. They also won only 33% of the aerial duels, which is shocking for a top EPL team

    Similar to Mourinho, Moyes is adding another towering player, Kurt Zouma, into his squad. We need to be more pragmatic by adding a strong dominant CF into our team, because we can’t always rely on open play to score

    1. Gai, like you have said earlier we can’t buy another CF without selling one of Auba or Lacazette and that doesn’t look visible the way the T market is going.. So most likely the coach has to find a way of getting result out of the CF he has. I also have issues with Arsenal coach starting his attack always from the left side. For me that’s too predictable. We have many good coaches in EPL to find a way around that. Arteta must be dynamic like PEP. G. Leicester do not have towering CF, Liverpool tall Firmino did not score much goals last season. Despite Everton having tall CF they still finished behind Arsenal last season. Westham Mikel Antonio is not too tall yet they were 6th last season. There is always a way around everything.
      The fact remains buying a CF for Arsenal is only realistic next season.

      1. Yup, we can’t buy another CF without offloading one of our senior strikers first. Our left overload tactic is predictable, but we’ve got Odegaard, Saka, Pepe, Xhaka, Hutchinson, Patino and Cottrell to enforce that

        Kelechi Iheanacho, Patson Daka, Ollie Watkins and Michail Antonio aren’t towering, but they pose good aerial challenges to the opposition’s CBs and can do hold-up play very well. Our CFs’ aerial challenge is almost non-existent

        Liverpool don’t have a very tall CF, but their forwards are good headers. Our new CF doesn’t have to be towering, but he must be excellent in tight spaces, can hold off CBs and can trouble the opponents in the air

    2. GAI, you mention the young midfield prospects Arsenal has coming through, yet you appear to ignore Nikolaj Moller, the towering CF currently on loan in Germany. If these midfielders are considered ready, why is Moller not?

      1. Probably because Arteta has promised some EPL games to Nketiah and Balogun. If Nketiah and Lacazette leave next season, I think we’ll see Moller

        1. Gai
          It seem Arteta doesn’t share your idea with towering physical players for CF or MD. From all the players bought this transfer window only Tarves and Ramsdale are tall and the later is expected been a goal keeper. Even the 50m White cannot be considered tall. If he needed tall players he would have considered N.Moller rather than loan him out. My opinion though.

  10. Ramsdale impressed me last night, I hope he went some way to shoving that loudmouth Jamie O’Hara’s words back down his throat, his distribution was miles better than I have seen from Leno and he was in charge of his area and full of confidence ,well done mate.
    Great to see Auba and Lacca back, I would expect to see both back in the side V City.

  11. Hope we dont get carried away by the goal margin. Tougher test await .
    The challenges in the game could have led to serious injuries. There are many thugs in the game .
    Football laws must be updated for really serious and physical challenges. A vital cog is seriously injured and could be out of action for along time.
    The offender is given a yc or rc ,which imho,aint good enough. A ten game ban will deter such injury tackles,

  12. Yeh, nice win and all but it was only WBA..
    City next..let’s see who turns up for that one..

  13. This was a malnourished WBA team. So we should not be carried away by beating up 19year old boys to pulp. Men are coming over for the weekend. Thats the real test. Fabrizio has some tea too concerning these beasts.

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