This was the proverbial game of two halves as Chelsea dominated Arsenal in the first half and should have put the game to bed. Arsenal were the fitter side though and the second half was all Arsenal and it finally paid off in the last minute when Lacazette poked in the equalizer. The French hit man said after the shoot-out win: “Yeah, it was a great finish to the game,”
“I should have scored before when I had the chance but it’s OK, I scored and helped the team to go to the penalties, and we won, so we’re happy.
“The cross [for the equaliser] came to me very fast and with a rebound, so I didn’t know where it was going to be! I put my foot there and it went inside [the goal].
“We took perfect penalties,” he added. “It was not like Atletico, and thank you Petr for another save.”
So Arsenal remain unbeaten as we carry on our preparations for our opening match against Man City. Lacazette is feeling confident about our readiness. “I hope we are getting to 100 per cent,W he said. “the most important thing is to be 100 per cent for the first game day, so we work for that and we hope in 10 days it will be all good,”
“I feel good, I worked a lot since the beginning of July. I have worked and I hope I will be ready.”
We should certainly be a lot fitter than City, and let’s make our superiority tell….
Admin
With what I saw in the game against Chelsea last night, I believe we will surprise a lot of peeps this coming season! Lacazate for highest goals, next season. .CYOG
not suprising…we have heaps of firepower in 2 quality finisher auba and laca…
both have settled…
if we can tighten our defense we can even win the title
I’m happy Chelsea dominated that match..deep inside of me I wanted Chelsea to have a good game but i didn’t want arsenal to lose though.. So the game was totally okay to me… this game now allows Chelsea to be filled with so much confidence when playing us in the 2nd match of the league..which would allow Emery to spring a surprise element with a change of tactics..Emery now understands a bit of Chelsea’s game.. Now you would see why Emery is one of the top tacticians in the world….be confident..i Chiza assure you that we are going to win our first three games of the season and from there anything can happen
What a confidence.
But one thing i noticed which is a positive is that we are now good at coming from behind
The team looked very shaky in the first half and we couldn’t get the ball out of our final third most of the time. I believe Elneny and Gouendouzi have very similar attributes, with the latter impressing once more and should not be played together. Really looking forward watching Torreira playing I’m that DMF role. Another disappointing game from Bellerin, who is neither defending nor going forward properly, Chambers was actually better when he came on, although he hasn’t played much at the back right recently..The relationship between Mustafi and Papastathopoulos is getting better with the time, they looked both really solid on the second half. Last but not least, I think Laca is a more complete striker than Auba, whose speed could be very handy against higher up the field defensive lines though…
Nicely produced monologue, some interesting opinion ..
last night game shows how essential a real winger is to a team. I don’t care who gets drop . we need a winger
Smith-row and Guendouzi looks good.We have also Neilson and Nkethia…The futur looks bright.
Yeah, VIctoria. We definately need a winger in that team. If Perez should go we will be definately buying a winger.
Also, Elneny should not play with Guendouzi together. Not a good compliment at all.
Also, We need Ramsey to make up his mind soon so that we can decide to buy Nzonzi if he leaves.
I wish we could give Niles a go at right back
Also wishing for Rabiot in the midfield cause we lack presence and someone who has combined ability to win the ball back and control the midfield
Wouldn’t mind sacrificing elneny seeing that he shares similar trait with Guendouzi who seems to be better and knows a bit of how to win the ball back without just chasing shadows
Welbeck and Perez out to bring in bailey or Dembele
We need a prolific squad,im tired of having an OK squad but can’t blame emery cause that’s what he has to work with cause a lot of damage was done
Also another wish, Digne signing for everton where we really need another signing plus having this feeling that Adama traore will be good this season
We just have to get behind the team cause things went wrong for more than a decade so a season won’t be enough to get the wrongs right… COYG!!
The defence is still a huge worry and will continue to cost us we simply do not have top quality defenders that you need to win the big games looks like we will just be repeating the same words as we have done for a number of years no top 4 again this season with this team just my honest opinion of what i seen so far!!
Dan, I’m glad I never played in a sporting team with you; you’re beaten before the season starts. How about we all wait and see how the season pans out.
I played semi pro football and won my fair share of trophies so must have bee a reasonable team player!! As I said this is just my opionion and the defence worries the life out of me just can’t see them keeping clean sheets hope they prove me wrong and become organised and difficult to score against but not optimistic that will happen!!
Agree 100%, Just my opinion.
I love the fact that we kept pushing and pushing, hopefully Emery will adapt to the EPL and get his strategies spot on
I would like Aubameyang and Lacazette to start together once the season kicks off, preferably in a formation with 2 strikers, we will be very deadly, as our chances are bound to fall to one or the other, and they are both clinical finishers…… with Özil and/or Mkhitaryan orchestrating play behind them……. our attack will be too much to contain for any team……. but we really need to sort our defence though
if one get injured whos gonna replace him?
i would prefer rotation and competition
If one gets injured, then we can go back to playing with one striker
then if that striker gets injured?
we need a 2 quality strikers to rotate…we dont have a good 3rd choice striker or a reserve goal scoring winger to back up
i think we are being a bit too cruel to Welback he is a decent striker not great but decent, i’m sure we haven’t seen the best of him yet all do i prefer him as a L/wing then a striker, DW just has to learn to look up and pass the ball if there is a better option then him going alone
Please tell us what is decent about Welbeck as a striker. Is it the number of the goals that he scores or the number of assist that he makes. He is just their to add number to the team. Any striker should not be scoring less than 15 goals in a season to be considered decent. I like the guy but it is time to move on. He’s being here 4 years with contributing meaningfully. It is high time arsenal stopped carrying these players.
I agree.. he is certainly good enough to run a lot of defenses to death and in lesser games is exactly what is needed .. lacks a bit of quality sometimes but if he gets a run of games he will hit good form and could suprise us if he stays fit.
2 strikers up front sounds exciting but would probably see that more later in games than for the whle match i would think.
Are you hoping they both get injured around the same time…… given we have two quality strikers, that are not injury prone, we’re supposed to always have at least one of them available.
Are both strikers going to get injured in the same game? What if De Bruyne and Sterling get injured at the same time? What if Lukaku and Pogba get injured at the same time? What if Alli and Kane get injured at the same time? They both start games together cause the team needs them to. You want us to bench one of our best players because they might get injured. How many times did Spurs rest Alli and Kane last season? How many injuries did they get and where did they finish on the log? I agree with a degree of rotation which is why I wouldn’t use them during the group stages of Europa unless absolutely necessary. A max of 90 minutes of game time per week is very reasonable.
We still need width/depth like Liverpool and city
I agreed with you AY75…i’ll go with one prolific striker and then pair him with a supporting striker
For shore we must play with two strikers, as we saw last night with only one striker the opposition had Auba marked out of the game and i love the mentality of Laca who will always think of the team and provide assist to Auba or anyone els and helps with zonal defending
i’m loving this guy Laca more and more i watch him hope he keeps it up and stays long enough to be a great legend here at Arsenal i have already started to carve his statue 🙂
just wanted to add that Cech was outstanding last night he proved me wrong hope he keeps it up
Didn’t watch the match but from the high lights from YouTube..I’ll just point out something to the fickle, cry baby fans.. especially the “iwobi is shit” gang.the man iwobi will prosper and paly well under Emery because.. the coach likes pace and power .. something iwobi has..and something Wenger tried to kill in all plays in favour of endless passes.. Emery allows players to express themselves more..we can see long passes, shots etc..mark my words iwobi will be a notch higher than he was this season..
Lacazete has better ball control and composure on the ball ( like Jermain Defoe)than, Aubameyang..if Aubameyang can play well on the wings we will close to unstoppable.
Lastly..fans need to be positive because arsenal will do well this season why? Even under Wenger we always had a decent team, but players were not allowed to shot..we always wanted to stupidly walk the ball into the net, we dominate most and all teams that we play but no end product because of tiki taka..the only team that wins with tiki taka is Barcelona..which is easily the best club in the world..even them shot outside now and then.. however we will do well now, because the likes of xaka, elneny etc who have shots on them will shot more..and as the saying goes if you don’t shoot you don’t score
Cech looked decent tonight – it looks like he’a Improved since last season and is a lot more focused.
Bellerin was just outplayed tonight. Looked out of his depth completely. Tbf Odoi was incredible.
Mustafi and Sokratis are looking better though are still making the odd mistake, I hope this partnership develops further.
Kolasinac has really declined over the last season, which is a shame as I thought he was going to be great. Wonder how long he’ll be out injured for.
Elneny – I guess was mediocre? Hardly did anything of note expect for a few decent tackles.
Guendouzi – I thought was excellent. His range of passing was precision perfect and he has the vision to put people through on goal. I’d like to see him paired with Torreira this season.
Smith-Rowe I think was suffering a bit from his own success. There were a couple of occasions when his best options were to bull forward or shoot but he chose to lay off – too modest perhaps? He’ll improve in cup games this season.
Our front 3 weren’t great if i’m honest.Ozil/Auba/Mkhi should be tearing defences apart though we barely had a shot in the first half. This might partly be down to the lack of experience in midfield meaning they didn’t get a lot of service, but you’d expect them to be able to create something themselves. Neither Ozil or Mkhi have looked convincing to me so far.
Laca is a poacher. This (and penalties) is how he got his goals in Ligue 1. The goal last night was a great example of his effectiveness. Fire the ball in to him in the box and he will finish. We tend to give him the ball outside the box and expect him to work wonders, this isn’t his style of play. As a team we need to learn that.
Decent game to watch and the penalty win will give the team confidence. Some interesting individual developments too. I am still worried about the season ahead though am in it for the long haul.
well observed
Has anybody noticed how Arsenal can’t seem to get decent prices wen we sell our players?
For instance, we sold Giroud to Chelsea for around 12mil after almost 5yrs with us….after 6months with them, they are negotiating a 20mil sale with Marseille….
Look at the pricetags on the likes of Akpom, Ospina, Perez, etc…none is above 10mil… It just goes to show how players and their values have depreciated over the wenger years..
I just hope for a change henceforth…..
I believe Emery will get the best out of most of our players… COYG
We sold him for 18m not 12m. And he did help either because he wanted to stay in London at the time.
Some of the lower prices could be from overpaying players in terms of wages. Look at what they earn and what they produce, other teams won’t pay that and players won’t take paycut.
Sold for 18M, then has a world cup winners medal after playing all French matches. Should easily command 30M
I prayed for Ozil not to miss penalty. Mihki could use a goal and an assist or two’ BTW I have friends in US that say Ozeel not erzill.
Turkish friends
Dan you have hit the nail on the head.Defensively we are no better than we were last year.
I agreed with you AY75…i’ll go with one prolific striker and then pair him with a supporting striker
While I liked the performance of the players, I hated that they still maintained Wenger’s style of pass pass pass pass and losebthe ball in the final third. But for our lucky last minute goal, we would have lost the match. Now what will it profit us to gain 70% possession and then lose the match? The positive here is that we now have new quality players that can surprises and thats a step higher than previous seasons.
Lastly, I don’t know what all the hype about Rowe is. That young black Chelsea player is miles better than him. I watched him vs inter and vs arsenal and the guy is a beast