So the new season begins as Arsenal play the opening match away at our newly promoted neighbours Brentford, who are total newbies in the Premier League, having been in the Fourth division as recently as 1998.
In fact it is 74 years since the Bees were last in the top tier of English football. But don’t expect them to be a pushover, as Ivan Toney is in tremendous for with 31 goals in the last campaign.
Brentford won 7 out of their last 8 games last season, and the away 1-0 defeat at Bournemouth was their only loss in their last 15 matches.
But after Arsenal’s underwhelming (so far) transfer window, we are set to start the season without any recognisable backup keeper and with still only Emile-Smith-Rowe as a playmaker.
As last year our team looks good on paper, but with Thomas Partey, Gabriel and Eddie Nketiah out for the next few games, we are not going to have our very best starting line-up.
Lokonga has looked okay in pre-season and it looks like he will have to partner Xhaka in midfield (or Elneny?) and our forward line will be between Aubameyang, Lacazette, Saka and Pepe. With our captain still firing blanks in pre-season, it will be interesting to see who Arteta chooses, especially as Saka only returned to training recently. Or could Balogun get a run out against a hopefully weak Brentford side?
Against Tottenham, it was Bellerin and Tierney on the wings with White and Mari as centre-backs. Will he stay with these or will Holding come back in? Could Arteta surprise us by putting Maitland-Niles or Chambers in the back line somewhere?
Who do you think Arteta will choose to start against Brentford?
Arteta’s line up
Leno
Bellerin White Mari Tierney
Elneny Xhaka
Pepe S.rowe Auba
Laca
My line up
Leno
Chambers/Cedric White Mari Tierney
Lokonga Xhaka
Saka S.rowe Pepe/Martinelli
Laca
Martinelli is not in the squad. He just got back and Saka should not start this week IMO, give the boy a rest
It’s a huge debris we have to deal with as a football club. We can’t sell players, therefore we are finding it hard to bring in replacements.
These players are now used to the idea of Arsenal being their comfort zone, and most don’t want to take pay cuts to go challenge themselves elsewhere.
I fear for the team we’ll end up with when the window shuts.
We’ve only attended to 30% of what we need to in the transfer window.
Arsenal’s handling can certainly lead one into depression. I ain’t gonna dwell too much on it though.
Good luck to the boys and manager.
They’ve all got my support, only this time around I ain’t treating the manager like he’s a rookie anymore.
So I wish him all the best this season and hope to see what good he can do.
That being said, with the players we have right now. Tomorrow I want to see
……………….. PEA…………………
….Pepe…… ESR……. Saka….
…… Xhaka…. Lokonga……
Tierney… Mari… White…. Chambers
I am a fan of Arteta going for the 4141 formation this season
We should sign Aouar and Bernardo Silva.
Arteta, pick your phone and call Big Brother Pep to sell Bernardo at a give away price.
Bernardo Silva: 45m pounds
Aouar: 30m pounds.
We need 2 more creative midfielders
As for the line up for tomorrow’s game,
I will go for a 4141 formation to accomodate Lacazette and Aubameyang.
Chambers White Mari Tierney
Lokonga
Pepe ESR Lacazette Saka
Aubameyang
We need precision and high tempo. 3points is the minimum.
Am not a fan of arteta and he will not play your line up which I would be happy to see .. if he brings in Silva and aour then just maybe we can have a decent season … but he won’t !!
Skills1000 Silva has already turned Arsenal down he wants to play in the top European football Competitions
@Skills1000
This formation, coupled with the midfielders you picked, is a recipe for disaster. With the exception of Saka and maybe Laca the other two aren’t known for tracking back or putting in a defensive shift. Balls over the top would expose them easily, leaving Lokongo with his work cut out for him as buffer for our back four…IJS
Just following arteta’s press conference but it seems there’s some hope
Arteta is a movitional speaker always feed us with words to believe we can become great again but I am beginning to doubt his potency.
A pundit is a better word
Speaks great with little or no work to show 4 his knowledge
Rhetoric, you mean?
Leno
Cedric – benwhite – mari – tierney
Lokonga – xhaka
Smith
Saka – Lacazette – pepe.
Leno
CC, BW, RH, KT
Xhaka, Sambi
Saka, Laca, Pepe
Mari was awful in preseason, so was Auba
both on the bench for me
Only ten players then? Why?
Since they were awful, we have to play with ten men right?
Our best line up tommorrow match b.leno….cedric…..tierny…….white…….mari…….xhaka……lokonga…..smith rowe…..martinelli……laca….b.saka
OT £42.3M bid for Odegaard apparently rejected by RM
Thank **** for that .
No f”ing doubt…the fact that we might of actually put in a bid that high for this player is absolutely unforgiveable…imagine if we ended this window by shelling out 75-80M on Ode and Ramsdale,…if we have this much money to spend, why the f are we not properly addressing our most pressing needs with top notch players
Ive been saying the same ,why are bidding on players that add nothing to the team when like you said just spend it on one top class signing in a position we actually need .
Like a new manager for instance……
please mikel sign renato and lautaro to improve our team so that we move to champions next season
I we be very happy to see arsenal in market buying the player we need,arsenal you need to do something for your fans o
It wouldn’t surprise me if Arteta sets up with a 3-5-2 formation to stifle Brentford’s exuberance in their new stadium. I think it’s capacity is about 17000 but you can bet the place will be rocking. COYG.
“a hopefully weak Brentford side” Pat?, not sure about that, it is a potentially banana skin game for sure with everything in the Home side’s favour, we will do well to get a draw there
We had a similar fixture to open last season, played really well and won comfortably but it didn’t set the scene for the remainder of the season unfortunately so whatever the result we shouldn’t get too carried away
Always good to get off to a winning start though and I’m looking forward to it whatever players are selected
Come on you Gunners
Leno
Chambers White Mari Tierney
Lokonga Xhaka
ESR
Pepe Laca Auba
So, first plays third on Friday night 😊
Declan On your basis we would always be top for around 4 months every year, unless Aldershot get into the Prem.lol!
8-2-1 formation
Line up ?could be anyone’s guess .
Who cares what line up captain scarlett puts out will just be watching the same rubbish as last season a brentford win hopefully then can get this imposter of a manager out of our club!!
I would rather Arsenal win every time, Danny. I can except them playing badly but at least with a positive result. Although, like you most are not expecting things to be great based on the underwhelming summer period.
Don’t know what you’ll see in Mari thou…. Holding or chambers over him any day. I reckon holding had his best Arsenal moments at Lcb, so I don’t know why y’all think he can’t fill in alongside white.
I will admit to wanting Brentford to stay up, but I am hoping for a big Arsenal win 4-0 would be nice. But I have a dream that Leno fails to hold an Ivan Toney screamer, and fumbles another into the net, followed by an Arsenal comeback to make it 2-2.
Another so,called fan wanting Arsenal to lose.
Really???
Pat, you can’t really be surprised, as this is simply a logical outgrowth of our historically poor early window recruitment practices under Wenger, during the latter years, as fans were convinced that if we didn’t show some vulnerabilities on the pitch in those early games, there was a logically derived concern that nothing would be done, especially considering Wenger’s disdain for doing business in January
We better win this one, because we the blues and city next. It will destroy morale if we ended up with very few points (like 0 or 1) after 3 games.
This season is the moment of truth for Arteta, if he does not deliver, he should be kicked.
Actually I dreamt us getting 5points from the first three games.
No high hopes for me…our pundit will always be a pundit…I pray whatever tactics he comes up with tomorrow yield success….cuz the fact that we can’t tell our strongest first eleven formation till now speaks volumes…
Pepe/ saka(major issue),
auba /Martinelli,
laca/Balogun or a new striker, lokonga/xhaka (major issue),
ESR/willian or a new AM,
Gabriel/Mari(major issue),
Ben/Holding , Cedric/bellerin/Chambers/AMN(major issue)
Then Tierney/Tavares
I hope the pundit has figured out how to manage the major selection/game time issues that might come up as highlighted above…no more excuses
Martinelli isn’t quite ready, and while I’d love to see Balogun get a chance, Arteta has a reluctance to use him.
Just about picks itself.
Some people are believing they know better than our manager. He will pick the best players based on how he trains with them and the players should also be able to execute his game plans
It was so difficult for me not to admire Chelsea yesterday against Villarreal, yet they are still buying lukaku. We started the new season again with anger and scepticism, what a club Arsenal has turned to be
Arteta is a dead man walking, no matter what team he puts out there is never any urgency , all the players look terrified , no motivation ,no tactics .
I’ve been supporting arsenal since 1971
And this is the first time I’m not looking forward to a new season , i just don’t see much hope in the near future of this once great institution of a football club .
R.I.p Arsenal.
“And this is the first time I’m not looking forward to a new season”
That make the two of us really. I used to count days but not this season. First time I am breaking my personal tradition of predicting Arsenal as the league winners every season.
HH
Let’s be positive until it goes wrong😔
It is just low expectations not predicting doom. On a positive note the return of fans will make games enjoyable to watch again. Last season was like watching training sessions really.
Right back is probably the hardest to pick. Then maybe Lokonga vs Elneny could happen. Everything else seems fairly obvious with the late returns of some players and injuries to others.
Leno
RB that’s impressed in training – White – Mari – Tierney
Lokonga – Xhaka
Smith-Rowe
Auba – Laca – Pepe
Can’t wait! Don’t be surprised to see one of Auba/Pepe fill their boots tomorrow.
Lemon
Suares white Mari Tierney
Lokonga Xakha
Pepe Smith Auba
Laca
I expect us to go out all guns blazing, none of this boring football and beat Brentford 3-0. With all due respect we should catch them cold and hit them with premier league power. Brentford are good and i dont underestimate them but this has to be a hammering.
If MA understands by now that every team we are facing is expecting us not to be that good in the middle, then he should change his tactics from there.
I would play with 2 in front: Laca and Auba close to each other, with Smith directly behind, keeping Pepe on the left side and Lokonga on right close to him with Xhaka behind them and closing all the gaps seems to me to be the reasonable thing to start with.
Our back 4 should include Teirney for sure and maybe Chambers with Bellerin kept as an option.
We need a good start MA and the players should give their all, no EPL this year!
Who knows what lineup he will pick other than it will have Xhaka in it.
We will probably make new boys Brentford look like Brazil with out nervous, disjointed and rudderless play.
No expectations for this season whatsoever..other than a continued decline. Not through desire but based on events (and non events) I expect no great change in play or intent. same ole same ole..
Saka should be rested for he needs rest based on his European excursions. Hope MA does not resort to negative boring tactics and plays positive football.
Lenno
Chambers White Holding Tierney
Xhaka ASL
ESR
Pepe Laca Auba
3-0 to the Arsenal.
As long as Arteta, Xhaka, and Willian are still in Arsenal, we should not fool ourselves that they’ll be any improvement.