Are they actually an independent panel. I get why technically they could be “independent” but aren’t they all just former refs and pgmol members?
If that’s not a foul, every single game from now on Arsenal should just start by floating crosses to the back post and blatantly push defenders down. There’s no need to be sly about it, make it the most obvious pushes.
Execution in the final third has been awful aside from Nelson who has not seen enough of the ball.
Havertz has put himself about but his first touch has been terrible.
Nketiah and Vieira both just drifting through the game. Too many no impact performers. Imo Vieira really isn’t a 8. Zero physical presence and struggles to get involved in games from that position. It’s not just about size. People love to bring up Bernardo or David Silva or Santi but he doesn’t have half of the tenacity as those players do.
Zinchenko’s reputation as being a technical strong on the ball is so overrated. Some of his decision making is just poor. For someone who is hyped up as a pass master by our fans, he loves playing hospital passes. It’s not even the tough hollywood passes that don’t come off that annoy me. It’s the simple 2-10 yard passes that he has no excuse of getting wrong but he does. Both the weight and direction of his passes need to be more accurate. It’s frustrating watching him nonchalantly playing his teammates into trouble with hospital passes and then him being out of position and jogging back while his teammates scramble to defend the counter he caused.
Jorginho and Nelson were probably our best players that half. Jorginho is having to do too much because Vieira might as well not be on the pitch.
This is not the place to talk about anything regarding race in any societal issue, especially not in football lol. There’s no nuance. Whether this is actually an issue or not the level of discourse cannot fucking be “the number of black players on the men’s team surely is enough to balance it out!!”. Come on lmao…
All I will say is, even if unintentional, having a narrow scope in recruitment is not really helpful for a top level football club like Arsenal. People screaming about “merit” over “diversity” sure that’s logical if they are looking thoroughly enough and taking a wide as possible view in recruitment. If you narrow your view, you are naturally losing opportunities.
Lol and people in here who have zero clue about the team talking about building through “merit”. Since when is it hard to understand that having such a narrow scope for recruitment might mean you are limiting how successful a football club can be?
Ramos against Liverpool again? lol
Martinelli, Rice, and Tomiyasu all on the left is as solid as you can get defensively.
Tomiyasu is the better option in that inverting role than Zinchenko in big games. Doing less is more in this case. Tomiyasu knows the purpose of inverting is to help the midfielders not replace them. Zinchenko always tries to be the focal point of our buildup and it’s always a sign of arsenal playing poorly if he’s seeing too much of the ball. It backfires easily as well because he overestimates his ability on the ball and dawdles in possession and ends up losing it cheaply or playing a shit pass. Tomiyasu knows his limits, keeps it simple, and moves the ball quicker. Plus him and Zinchenko is like heaven and hell in terms of defensive ability.
It’s true and it’s getting harder for fans here to remain in denial. Even last season we didn’t create chances at near the rate City. But it was much better than this season. We simply have been poor at converting possession to chances. The primary issue is that our midfield lacks balance imo. There’s no one that contributing in creating chances from midfield. Partey has hardly played, That isn’t really Rice’s game, Havertz and Odegaard do nothing on ball except shoot and play first time passes backwards or sideways. We have no progressive passer in midfield.
use the halftime thread
This was obvious seeing as how we had to make the Raya deal a loan for now, even though it’s already decided he’s going to be made permanent.
We should sell some players and try to improve on them.
Who cares honestly? This sub was jerking each other silly last season about Ramsdale being “the most expensive goalkeeper in the world!!!” and actually using that in discussions about Ramsdale’s level and performances on the pitch.
It’s football. Players lose their place to better players all the time. I feel like the fans who are really emotionally deep into this and calling it “unfair” are completely forgetting (or ignoring) that this is exactly the same way Ramsdale got the job in the first place over Leno. Wasnt 10% of an issue in media then as this is being made now. Imagine if Aaron Ramsdale were German or French or any other nationality and not an England international and you begin to see how unnecessarily hyperbolic the discourse around this whole thing has been. We don’t need camera shots of Ramsdale during games every time Raya does something. We don’t need random footballers (some not even goalkeepers) being asked about the situation.
He doesn’t cut it as either if we are being honest. That’s if we view ourselves as title contenders. I view him just as the player nketiah, not nketiah from hale end.
Does he get into the Man City or Liverpool squad much less actually start important games for them like he does for us? Why are we putting ourselves at a disadvantage compared to other contenders by holding on to players who aren’t good enough for the very top level? There should be no debate. He’s completely at odds with how we play as a team. He doesn’t improve the players around him at all and doesn’t contribute if he doesn’t score. His pressing is half hearted at best and he’s nowhere near clinical enough if a finisher to have merit as a pure poacher. He has to be a much better finisher if he’s going to be so selfish and contribute nothing else.
Except he’s clearly not good as a backup. However, he’s not good enough to start games for a title challenger. So he’s really not as useful to a team in our position as people think. If we are serious about winning the title, he can’t have as big of a role in the squad that he has had this season and last. He should be a fringe player, but he wouldn’t want that, so he should be sold.
They should sign the best box to box midfielder they can afford. Someone who fits our style of play but is also physically robust. There’s room in the squad for the future as well because Jorginho and Partey are short term players. We have too many pseudo midfielder types. Get an actual midfielder to balance the midfield.