Cazorla was a brilliant player to watch. One of the most two footed players I’ve ever seen. Really likeable guy too. The injury that nearly ended his career was absolutely brutal!
Mikel Arteta | Lego Pep watch
- Thread starter Samid
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Cazorla was a brilliant player to watch. One of the most two footed players I’ve ever seen. Really likeable guy too. The injury that nearly ended his career was absolutely brutal!
Its almost as if you deserve to not have refs and not be able to play games because of it.
You're gonna be a great addition to the Caf.
Christ, that team. Rashford in his second ever professional game, Schneiderlin, Depay, Lingard, Rojo and Varela starting, Blind and Carrick at CB. Yeah, losing to that cobbled together "team" was definitely a sign of mental frailty.
Wasn't that the game where van Gaal took a dive on the sidelines?
New 40m signing gets a knock before half time, you're in total control and have subs available, but you keep him on anyway and then he gets properly fecked 5 mins later and has to go off. Genius management.
it shows every other player that no one is bigger than the club.
Al these new directives but he’s he still allowed to continuously encroach on the pitch.
This was pretty mystifying. He was on a yellow as well.
Anyway, three points on the board.
Utterly frustrating when you look at the bans/fines Mourinho regularly collected for comments in post-match interviews throughout his career in the PL but Arteta is allowed to do a faux hardman act like while bouncing around like a kid on Haribo without any reprimand.
Weird formation from him. Just about worked but would have been interesting to see what would have happened if Johnson scored his chance.
He's going to go full Pep this season, isn't he.
I wouldn't be surprised if he shaved off his hair at some point this season.
Arsenal has a bloated squad. It will be hard for Arteta to keep the players happy if they don't keep winning. Buying Havertz is ridiculous when the squad already has so many competent attackers and Havertz is just a 1 in 4 games scorer as forward (centre).
Defence is also bloated. No way Zinchenko or Tierney or Tomi wants to sit on the bench for long.
Defence is also bloated. No way Zinchenko or Tierney or Tomi wants to sit on the bench for long.
There’s nothing more annoying than seeing him bounce up and down the touch line. His actions probably offer very little value.
I’m guessing Arteta just thought rather than playing an inverted full back in a CDM position he might as well have a specialised player there. He probably assumed they would be in that shape most of the game as it’s Forest at home.
To be fair it should have been a lot more comfortable win than it ended up so I think the formation didn’t work too badly.
Still as irritating as ever.
Very little if you are say behind him at 90 quid a ticket
Not sure that would be possible. No way that hair comes off.
I thought it just pops off whenever he needs to dry clean it.
I dislike him so much. So hyper for no reason. fecking calm down mate. Hope he doesn’t win anything this year.
This is exactly how it ended up in the second half. It went from Partey inverted from RB to us straight up playing a 3-2-4-1.
Fans aren't happy with Lego's formation change and tinkering.
Guess we share more with the Fam than we thought.
Got lucky with not signing Mudryk and instead getting Trossard (who I rate highly). Decided to go undo that by spunking £170m on Rice and Havertz
feckin hell, a draw and people go crazy...
I really hope Arteta's ego can allow him to quickly revert back this Havertz experiment.
He's a very expensive tall option up front to finish off games. Nothing else. Too slow, off tempo and is ruining Martinelli who is already showing signs of discontent with every missed pass. Our left side looks dead at the moment. Plus almost all our crosses are now aimed at him and he's not getting them. If you can't use your main attribute then what's the point.
Trossard wasn't great today but he must be livid to be taken off before him.
He's a very expensive tall option up front to finish off games. Nothing else. Too slow, off tempo and is ruining Martinelli who is already showing signs of discontent with every missed pass. Our left side looks dead at the moment. Plus almost all our crosses are now aimed at him and he's not getting them. If you can't use your main attribute then what's the point.
Trossard wasn't great today but he must be livid to be taken off before him.
If Talksport, AFTV and Piers Morgan all think it's a bad idea, I'd stick with it.
Every single Arsenal fan I know in real life have given up on Havertz 3 games in. Not a single ‘oh it’s early days let’s give him time’ amongst them. And honestly what I see online matches that sentiment. Didn’t think the fans would turn on him this quickly.
Interesting parallel between Havertz and Mount. Both AMs, both signed from Chelsea, both bought because their managers want to operate double AM systems, both prompting some heavy scepticism from some of their new club's fans on the merit of that tactical set-up and/or the player's innate quality.
The transfer fee and £300k? Per week seems to me he won’t bail after 3 games.
If only based on observations of other managers, including ETH and Antony, it’ll take at least half a season for them to give up a busted flush and maybe not even then.
Klopp isn’t starting Nunez now, but that took a while as well.
I think ego prohibits what most of us can see immediately and in many cases before the transfer was made.
Yup. Although, unlike Havertz, Mount has previously produced one or two good seasons of PL football.
Cost aside, I would love to be completely wrong but if a player has no definite position, makes both of your wingers worse by just being picked and doesn't even looks like he's trying to impact the game, then i don't know what the point is. KdB's injury is a small lifeline that will go to waste if we keep tinkering.
£331,000 per week wart.
Agree completely but we’ve all had managers that stick with their expensive “projects” for way too long, to the detriment of the team.
If arteta realises this quickly he’ll go up in my estimation.
Unless of course he’s actually a genius and Havertz turns into a world beater.
Is Gabriel leaving?
Seems odd he's disrupted the backline by benching him for first games and moving White away from RB as that was a very solid defence until Saliba got injured.
They also need Partey back in midfield full time.
Seems odd he's disrupted the backline by benching him for first games and moving White away from RB as that was a very solid defence until Saliba got injured.
They also need Partey back in midfield full time.
Starting to think there's something to the Saudi rumours. If Arteta is happy moving Partey from midfield to RB surely Gabriel into LB is a smaller change? Especially as he essentially played as LB last season in possession (with Zinny moving into midfield). I find it hard to believe Kiwior would be better than him at the moment.
Very worrying if true as we have certainly looked less secure defensively without him in the team. Though, reason for today's disappointing result was really Saka's terrible error.
Mount is also much better off the ball and has certain attributes suited to being a midfielder.
Not sure what Arteta is upto. He’s spent far too much on a luxury player who doesn’t add anything substantial, and is also messing with one of their best partnerships from last season - White - Saka.
Havertz played as an attacking midfielder for Leverkusen and also for the German national team. So can definitely see Arteta's thought process.
IMO his off the ball/defensive work in the first two games wasn't bad at all - against both Forrest and Palace he won the most duels for us and also covered the most ground (even more than Rice). So as a midfielder he has been OK, but going forward hasn't shown enough. Our game plan v Fulham flew out the window after Saka's horror error but we definitely had our chances and Havertz probably should have had a goal.
Of course though the question really is is it worth sacrificing Partey (out of position) and Gabriel (not in the team) to fit Havertz in. And I think the answer to that is definitely no at this stage. Certainly against United I want Gabi-Saliba partnership and Rice-Partey-Odegaard in MF. Think Nketiah needs to play up front, Havertz on the bench.
For me it's the performance rather than the result. Sometimes you have shit days at the office and players who would never normally misplace passes, misplace a couple of important ones. That's whatever, it happens. But the failure/refusal to kill the game off once we take the lead, that's a long-standing problem. We need to be way more ruthless if we want to get close to City. For me the gap is currently much bigger than it appeared to be at times last season. We're in a fairly even shooting match for places 2-5 in the table. That's about as far as it goes unless we suddenly iron out long-standing flaws in-season - yes there are others too, like being way too vulnerable to quick transitions even with the tolerance level for that you have to build-in with being a team that plays a high line.