I am afraid Mr Admin has had a nightmare getting a stream for this game due to storms in the local area which has destroyed my internet and TV, but I did get on at half time long enough to see the horrendous injury suffered by Danny Welbeck, and the face of Matteo Guendouzi said it all. It looks like poor Danny is going to be out fr another long long injury layoff.
But Arsenal had most of the possession although there was very little in the end result, and most players and fans looked like they knew this game did not mean much in the grans scheme of things.
Our bad luck continued in the second half when Stephan Lichtsteiner went off with a hamstring injury and Emery was forced to put Maitland-Niles on despite Eddie Nketiah warming up. Shame….
Right at the end of the game Sporting were reduced to ten men after a foul on Aubameyang, but the Portugese side hardly made any attempt to win the game anyway. Arsenal will go through as Group winners anyway as Qarabag are beating Vorskla, but all in all it was a very boring night for us all, and my storm has made this into a very boring review….
Sorry
Guendouzi’s through balls, movements, work rate and interceptions were superb. Can’t believe he came from a lower league with those defense-splitting passes
The other players were uninspiring and the defense was not really tested
Can’t agree with you on the young French guy, thought he was caught on the ball to many times, pushed off the ball to easily and lost to many 50/50 tackles.
Poor game , poor team performance. Qualified at this stage is good.
Get well, welbeck
I believe I know where you’re going Gotanidea, but torreira and xhaka is our best midfield pair
Guendouzi will make a lot of sense in a 3-man midfield
At least we will top the group, i hope we snap out of this run of draws quickly, thats a Man United thing…coyg!
Poor showing. Get well Welbeck!
I think I’m mostly disappointed with Mkhitaryan. He needs to step up his game and start performing for us. We definitely need a first team player like him to step up right now. Iwobi is taking on players and doing his thing but is still lacking the end product. Mkhi ain’t doing nothing at all. Haven’t done anything yet this season and we can’t always depend on Laca or Auba to bail us out.
Agree, Mkhitaryan’s performances are very fluctuating as a right winger. More bad forms than the good ones
Perhaps his abilities to play as a winger has decreased and maybe he is more suited to be a no 10 like Ozil
Mkhitaryan was always a number 10 like Ozil. What are you on about? At Dortmund he always drifted inwards and got involved with the build up play – like Ozil does. Mkhitaryan has never and was never a pure winger. He has lost his pace as well due to age and he seems to be lacking in confidence.
For me Ramsey needs to be benched until January..try to sell him if not release him..he has always been garbage but now he seems to be treating his playing time as putting his “skills” on display to lure other big teams..it’s all about his tricks and flicks and look at me without any regard for the welfare of the team..good riddance..Iwobi had his worst game of the year..at least Miki was working hard and trying to drive the team forward..Socratis and Holding were sharp..Smith-Rowe showing his youth, his awareness was no bueno..overall team looked sluggish but how nice to play that poorly yet not lose? Definitely a team in the ascendancy
Really sad end to Welbeck’s Arsenal career I suspect. I think he’s out of contract in the summer, and given his previous injuries, will he be back before the end of the season?
Awful 0-0, but Guendouzi was outstanding! Ramsey should be learning off him, if anything! Great to see Sokratis, and AMN back. Holding continues to look solid at the back, and Mkhitaryan continues to look like a flop!
The unbeaten run continues!
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Very poor perf and only two bright spots were the work rate in general and Guendouzi. Mhki, Auba and Ramsey were awful. Most disappointing perf of entire season I thought, considering the oppposition and we never looked like scoring. Smith -Rowe has great skill but is clearly a long way short of being a regular Prem starter. A good game for AM-N to only play a few minutes as he could not disapppoint, in that tiny cameo, as so many others did. Lots of empty seats too. Great shame about Danny.
Maitland-Niles and Kolasinac looked energetic. They would be good options for the Wolves game, in case the first choice fullbacks are not fit
Not putting a downer on it but article says we go through as group winners but each team still has two games to play and we are only 3 points in front, so Sporting could still win it?
Anyway, Guendouzi excellent again and defence played ok. Attack was bloody awful.
Am so gutted for Welbeck, injuries have been so cruel to him, what a fluctuating career, will definitely be off this summer ..
Having said that, who takes his place in the team? Nketiah or will Nelson will be recalled? Fingers crossed!
Mkhitaryan was pants today! A day ago JustArsenal user @benex posted:
Am against renewing his contract(Welbeck), cause the guy is a con, he want to rob Arsenal of contract and get injured again.
He jinxed Welbeck!!!
We should have played with 10 men if we didn’t have anyone to play left back. In what reality did anybody think Carl Jenkinson was going to play decent? From I saw the line-up I knew we weren’t going to win. Mkhi had a bad game as well not gonna lie but at least he tried to make things happen. Ramsey thinking he’s Messi when in reality he has Lukaku level dribbling skills. If you follow some of the idiots here we should keep Ramsey and sell Ozil. At least Ozil would have came up with something. Ramsey keeps proving Arsenal right when they withdrew that contract.
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Not impressed by Jenkinson and Ramsey
LOVED watching Guendouzi as usual
Mikhitaryan had a poor game
Very sorry for Danny
We should try to bring back Reiss-Nelson if possible
Just on train on way back from game and reading through the articles of today.The one previous to this one obviously had some comments as the game was going on.An absolute TWAT calling himself EAT PIE has posted a comment about Danny Welbeck.Honestly mate what a big tough sort of geezer you must be to write a comment like that.That could be a career threatening injury and you feel it appropriate to write that do you?Bet it made you feel big I suppose.F**King PR**K
Pretty meh game. Not enough offered in the middle of the park. Aubameyang made no difference either. feel bad for Welbz though, and hopefully thats not how his Arsenal career ends. Anyways, onto the next round, let’s try to finish top of the group now.
Just seen the Welbeck injury. Doesn’t look good. Out for the season for sure.
Very sad to think Welbeck will never play in an Arsenal shirt again.
Hopefully he recovers well and gets a good club.
There are a number of features in which the last manager and the present manager have in common.
One is that they both paid – pay great attention to detail.
Two. Many of these details we have no idea about.
It follows we do not have the knowledge to be able to comment on the manager’s thinking.
Generally we know because he said that he wants the club finish first in this round.
We know winning last night’s game means we are first.
We know we have a big game on Sunday – a must win.
We know that last night ‘s game was a must not lose game.
We know it was an oppotunity for the manager to experiment a little. The detail of this we don’t know. But we can be confident that he will have learnt a lot about the players and this team that played as a whole.
We know that the PIGMOL disease that afflicts us in league games has spread to Europe. (In my opinion that was evident in this game.)
I really feel sorry for Danny Welbeck, suffereing apparently a broken ankle. He has been playing well since recovering from his previoud knee injury.
His injury may have affected the composure of the rest of the Arsenal players because the performance of the team was poor after he left the field. These are the games the fringe players have to grab by the scruff of the neck. Ramsay and Mhikataryan were particularly poor and Aubameyang had a poor game. I agree with Joe Cole and Martin Keown that someone has to take Aubameyang aside and tell him how good he could be if he concentrated.
Bad luck for Lichtsteiner, who pulled up with hamstring issues, when he was playing comparatively well.
Arsenal could have virtually sealed first place in the group with a win, but the attack was poor. Hopefully the rested players can get a win against Wolves.