Pundit reckons that Arsenal are average outside the front men

Graeme Souness claims that Arsenal barely managed to get away with a win against West Ham yesterday.

The Gunners struggled but ultimately beat a very stubborn West Ham side 2-1 at the Emirates.
 
After dispatching Fulham 3-0 on their first league game back, they were expected to get an easy win against David Moyes’ struggling side.

However, that wasn’t the case as the Gunners were pegged back after Alexandre Lacazette opened the scoring for them.

Eddie Nketiah came off the bench to score the winning goal to help Arteta’s team get two wins from as many games.

However, Souness believes that while Arsenal’s attack is doing great, other areas of their team aren’t good enough and it will affect them down the line.

He hailed the Gunners for having creativity and the finishing ability that helped them to get the win but added that they will need to do better going forward.

He said via Mail Online: ‘Arsenal got away with one tonight. I think it showed that Arsenal have got genuine creativity and real fire-power up front. 

‘I thought the rest of the team looked average and that might cost them as the season goes on. 

‘But when you’ve got special creative players and players that can finish them chances, that’s what the difference was tonight. 

‘At the top end Arsenal are very good, rest of it not so sure but we’ll find that out over the next nine months.’

Tags Graeme Souness

13 Comments

  1. Our midfielders are not arsenal quality.
    Non of our central midfielders can command a regular playing shirt at Everton or liecester city.
    That is how poor we are in the middle of the park.
    Arteta must sort things out before the transfer window is shut.

  2. I hope none of our defender have brain fart next week. I hate red card in big matches. We should be able to get at least draw against Liverpool

    1. If we play the 3241 as we did against Fulham I reckon we could get the 3 points.

      If it is the 4231 I can only hope for a draw. So I just hope MA don’t have a brain fart as this team isn’t Man Shitty.

    2. It will be a good game I reckon bec of no crowd Enfield won’t be same and now a days there seems to be no difference in home or away games. We have a bit of physiological advantage because of our last two meeting we came out victorious so we will be given a bit of more respect my them as well. I hope we keep it tight at the back and Auba shows his magic again. If Tierney is not fit for the match then I see us struggle big time in defence and offence. Holding should have been sold and Bellerin though improving, has never been renowned for his defensive abilities. Here hoping Luiz has a blinder at Enfield.

  3. Based on the performance against West Ham, you can appreciate why Souness considers the majority of our side to be average, but as a former player he ought to know that it would be absurd to pass judgement on the team after only two matches into the season.As with most ex pros, he forgets that he was also perfectly capable of being “average” on numerous occasions, especially when he wore the blue of Scotland.Most Arsenal fans are fully aware of the weaknesses in our squad which cannot be resolved in the short term without big money which we do not have unlike some of our competitors.It would be interesting to have the thoughts of Souness on the performances of Man Utd and Chelsea over the weekend.In the case of the former, they fielded a centre back who cost around 80m and was to me below “average” in every facet of the game.

    1. Good point Grandad, but to be fair to Souness, he ended his statement by saying “we’ll find out over the next nine months” which means it might get better, remain the same or get worse. But if we’re being honest, we do have a good midfield that can get us into the top 6 but like Arteta rightly says, the gap between the likes of Liverpool, Man City and us is in the midfield. A xhaka wouldn’t get into a Liverpool or city first team. Very good squad players but not title challenging materials. This is why I hope we don’t just get either Aouar or Partey but that we can get Both. This will greatly narrow that gap between us. Can’t be over emphasised. I hope the board doesn’t disappoint Arteta.

  4. Kalaniac,Bellerin,Holding and Xhaka are unfortunatly average as Sourness says thats a third of the team,Danni’s over run in midfield and badly needs Aouar and Partey.
    Xhaka is the only fighter so i would keep him the other are deadwood along with half a dozen others in Afc squad but Arteta and Edu are doing great and need time to rebuild that has to be a priorty in all Afc supporters thoughts.

  5. Midfield yes. Defense no.

    I think MA got it tactically wrong yesterday especially with KT getting injured in the warm up. Kola looked and played rusty so the overload on the left didn’t happen. It is not a coincidence we are playing more effectively on the wings than straight through the middle. Hence why I still don’t understand why we resigned DC as he is a Xhaka clone and plays far too deep. With all the home grown players rule we could have had Ooaar by now if we didn’t resign Dani.

    I would have played the Egyptian Pirlo at the start. As at least he covers Xhakas’ lazy mistakes.

    Although 3 points are 3 points even though we were awful yesterday.

    COYG

    1. I think David Moyes got it right. We surprised few teams last year with our new formation and they had plenty of time to adjust and react. We should expect more of the same. We need better and younger players and quite few of them.

  6. Arsenal must have all new players, sign contracts that are performance driven. The big contracts (weekly salaries) that were given to the fringe players that we want to sell now, has become the stumbling block of the negotiations. Time is running out, therefore Arsenal must move on these players in the next few days, by accepting much lower fees than their current transfer market value is. I would suggest Arsenal invest in two creative and attacking midfielders Houssem Aouar and Dominik Szoboszlai instead of another defensive midfielder. Just look at how sluggish and uncreative the midfield was today against West ham United.

  7. Our midfield cannot dictate the tempo of the game. Lots of fans are saying that Xhaka has improved since the arrival of Arteta. I really dont see any improvement

  8. Souness is basically correct. We have a very good attack and we have options but our midfield with xhaka in it is flaky to the extreme, he cant tackle, cant read danger, cant run and cant dominate. How people still cant see that is beyond me. The best gauge for a player is opposition fans and i know none at all who rate him even slightly. The defence is a work in progress and while looking better is far from watertight and Leno looks shaky and unsure at the moment. We are in need of change and for me the biggest change by a mile is ousting xhaka. While he is there we are a midtable midfield, he is a liability. We need Tierney and Luiz at this moment in defence, without them we are rudderless at the moment. Still time for change but not as much as some think.

Comments are closed

Top Blog Sponsors