PL: Arsenal v Manchester City | August 12th, 2018 16:00 BST | Sky Sports

[Ceballinhos]

Wenger basically under achieved in one and half. Even then some of our home performances will show you what we are capable on top of that we have strenghtened midfield as well . No bloody way should we be looking at less than top 4.

Tbf our team is overrated.
Wenger has left our squad in a mess. By the end of the season we didn't have any foundation to build on: our GK situation was bad, our defense was a disgrace, our midfield hasnn't worked well for years and our attack is totally unbalanced. We have 2 top strikers. 2 top CAM. 0 winger.
Yes there is talent and some big names in the squad. But nothing was working when Wenger left.

And on top of that Emery and Mislintat only had £70M to close the gap when even Fulham spends more than that.

Emery has to build a functioning team from scratch.

Out of the top 6 we're far from having the most talented team but I think we have the most unbalanced one by far.
Emery has yet to find a functioning midfield when all the competition already has one and he has yet to find a functioning defense.

People complaining about Leno not starting just don't get how you manage a group. Especially when you're the new manager.
You can't just bin your most experienced player in the team who has a huge influence in the dressing room like that. Especially when he had a decent pre season.

As Gary Neville said you can't change 20 years of culture and mentality in 1 month and half.
You can't fix 5 years of total mismanagement in a single summer.

 

[OnlyOne]

Wenger basically under achieved in one and half. Even then some of our home performances will show you what we are capable on top of that we have strenghtened midfield as well . No bloody way should we be looking at less than top 4.

Yep I fully see this squad being good enough to reach top 4. Our home recored last season was up there with City's, just needed those away performances to increase and we would of got it. I expect it this year.

 

[Big Poppa]

I think most observers have some idea of how good a coach Guardiola is. He’s an exceptional coach in my opinion and I think posts like yours are hard to reconcile with reality.

You say he “inherited” a golden generation... a Barca that had gone two trophyless seasons before his arrival. Barcelona was a mess when he took over. He inherited a dysfunctional team.

You conveniently didn’t mention that Manchester City signed only one player this transfer window. And that whatever he may have spent last year...his team broke pretty much every record in the premiership. Winning by 19 points. And that other teams have spent massively too, and underperformed.

There are some valid reasons to be unconvinced about Pep’s claim to greatness but I’m not sure you stated any.

I think Arsenal had some positives to take out of this game. The second half showing was much better than the first. Özil and the other forwards need to sort out some things it seems they were on different pages a lot of the time. Running in one direction while the through ball is played elsewhere. I disagree that Özil doesn’t work hard or whatever else I think he just has issues with body language. People have been sayin that about him since Madrid but I doubt there’s any real data to back this up.

Haha it bothers me that I spent most of this post defending Pep. Anyways Goodluck against Chelsea next week. I’ll be cheering y’all on.

Just the half a billion since he took over. Not sure how that can be so lightly dismissed. Rijkaard laid the foundations for that Barca side, and he took over a Bayern team that just won the treble under Heynckes.

I don't think anyone is saying he's not an excellent coach, but when you look at the infrastructure he's walked into everywhere he's been vs someone like, say Jardim, to quote Arsène "let's not go overboard".

 

[Ceballinhos]

Just the half a billion since he took over. Not sure how that can be so lightly dismissed. Rijkaard laid the foundations for that Barca side, and he took over a Bayern team that just won the treble under Heynckes.

I don't think anyone is saying he's not an excellent coach, but when you look at the infrastructure he's walked into everywhere he's been vs someone like, say Jardim, to quote Arséne "let's not go overboard".

Simply not true about Barca.
Guardiola has just decided to bin Ronaldinho Deco when he was nothing and just starting his career as a coach. There isn't a single other coach who would have the courage to do it. Especially when you're just starting your career.
He had the guts to bin Yaya Toure for Busquets when nobody even knew the Spaniard and Yaya was a top top player.

 

[Ceballinhos]

I don't know I'm just bitter af at our direction and IMO lack of ambition. The club appears to be aiming to get back into the top 4 judging by our window. What the **** is top 4 going to get us? An extra 20-30m in revenue whoopdy doo. If we can't push the boat out for our new manager in his first window what difference is CL footy going to make? We were in the CL for all of Kroenkes tenure here and it made zero difference we've just paid lip service to the idea of challenging for the title and our transfer window this summer confirms it.

The funny thing is people are using the lack of CL as an excuse for our poor budget and lack of ambition when we've won a lot more money from Europa League last year than Man Utd from their CL campaign! And probably more than what we used to win when we've made it to the CL!

According to most serious report Arsenal despite missing CL is still the 6th club in the world with the biggest revenues. Far ahead Liverpool for instance.

Guess who is being the most ambitious in the transfer window?

The money is there. We're one of the most powerful club financially bare the oil clubs.

There's just a true lack of ambition, vision, drive in the whole club.
And tbf I don't even care about CL football if it means to get trashed every year during the first knockout game.

 

[Jae]

Awful mentality. City made a LOT of mistakes, and we had enough opportunities to score at least 2.

I'm not wrong though to be fair mate, we could have easily drawn that, but we made our share of mistakes as well, could have easily lost that 4-0 as well. I just don't think people should be using our first game against City to judge how our entire season is going to pan out.

 

[Makingtrax]

That would be a mistake then and unfair to the kid....You don't build a team around a young kid who never played a top flight game in his life before today.

Just joking mate. Still think the kid has a lot of talent for a 19 year old and even though he made a couple of mistakes he looked better than Xhaka in that game, who had a bit of a stinker.

 

[GoonerJeeves]

Actually no mate , squads good enough for the top 4 as is , if we don't get back in at latest in two years , we may not get back for a very long time . We are now competing against 6-7 teams now with the capability of outspending us . Players like Auba weren't and Mkhi weren't bought for an overhaul but for immediate effect .

Let's hope you are right. I have a feeling we might be gone from top four quite some time.

 

[Ceballinhos]

Just joking mate. Still think the kid has a lot of talent for a 19 year old and even though he made a couple of mistakes he looked better than Xhaka in that game, who had a bit of a stinker.

Tbf I don't even think it's a bad idea.
He's the most talented cm we have in the squad if we consider Lucas as our DM and Ramsey as a CAM.
I'd rather develop him than playing a Lucas + Xhaka partnership or playing Elneny.

Tbf even with Torreira which looks great we're still in bad need of a complete CM that dominates the game and can make things happen from deep a bit like Cesc was doing back in the days or Cazorla.
Guendouzi is the closest thing we have in the squad.

 

[Makingtrax]

Yes, it's too early for overall judgements but come the end of May and we don't finish in the top 4, the season would without a doubt be a huge failure.

How can we be a huge failure? We haven’t spent anywhere what City, United, Chelsea and Liverpool have spent on their squads.

If Emery comes 5th he’s about right. Anything more and he’s done really well.

 

[Big Poppa]

Simply not true about Barca.
Guardiola has just decided to bin Ronaldinho Deco when he was nothing and just starting his career as a coach. There isn't a single other coach who would have the courage to do it. Especially when you're just starting your career.
He had the guts to bin Yaya Toure for Busquets when nobody even knew the Spaniard and Yaya was a top top player.

Barca were trophyless for 6 seasons until 2004/5 when they won back to back league titles and the CL for only the 2nd time in their history under Rijkaard.

Ofcourse Guardiola made some adjustments when their performances dropped but he was allowed to and nobody can tell me that he didn't walk into a side that wasn't now mentally equipped to dominate.

He made a huge mistake getting rid of Eto'o for Ibra but it didn't matter because the rest of his team was maturing at the right time. Keita, Villa, Pique and Alves I'll give him credit for but there was also Chygrinski, Adriano, Hleb, etc. Yaya could've easily stayed alongside Busquets.

I'm not discrediting Pep's overall quality, just stating that he has been afforded a luxury that most managers don't have which the starting point at a club backed with disproportionate resources and a conversation about where he ranks in the list of greatest ever managers must take that into consideration.

 

[El Granit-Coq]

The lack of VAR is going to make this season very painful.

 

[Makingtrax]

The funny thing is people are using the lack of CL as an excuse for our poor budget and lack of ambition when we've won a lot more money from Europa League last year than Man Utd from their CL campaign! And probably more than what we used to win when we've made it to the CL!

According to most serious report Arsenal despite missing CL is still the 6th club in the world with the biggest revenues. Far ahead Liverpool for instance.

Guess who is being the most ambitious in the transfer window?

The money is there. We're one of the most powerful club financially bare the oil clubs.

There's just a true lack of ambition, vision, drive in the whole club.
And tbf I don't even care about CL football if it means to get trashed every year during the first knockout game.

It’s irrelevant how rich the club is. It’s what you spend on the team that counts. Been saying that for so long on here my keyboard’s worn out.

 

[Big Poppa]

Just joking mate. Still think the kid has a lot of talent for a 19 year old and even though he made a couple of mistakes he looked better than Xhaka in that game, who had a bit of a stinker.

Beyond his talent, he is ballsy and assertive. We have too many "experienced" players who duck responsibility and hide or give the ball to the goalkeeper when we're suffering.

I'm okay with someone like him making a mistake or two.

 

[Ceballinhos]

It’s irrelevant how rich the club is. It’s what you spend on the team that counts. Been saying that for so long on here my keyboard’s worn out.

It's relevant because Arsenal isn't using its full ressources to be the best possible team they can and now is getting outspent by Fulham
The whole purpose of moving to the Emirates Stadium was to be able to compete with the biggest boys in Europe.
We can't compete with Man Utd PSG City, I get it. But we can compete with Liverpool, Juventus.
We have bigger incomes than those clubs.


Even in a business point of view in the long term Arsenal would be far more profitable if we are a successful team or at least competing for the title.
Leicester City was irrelevant a few years ago. They've won the BPL and now they're sitting at 14th in term of revenues, just behind Atletico Madrid.

 

[Giroud12]

Disappointing but lets be real, this is not the season we should be competing with a team that has spent 400 million over the last few years. Lots of positives, Guendouzi is a gem, Lichsteiner looked very good playing out of position and is clearly the leader type we've been missing for years. Thought Mustafi had a solid game and Laca looked super sharp when he came on.

Very disappointing from Xhaka and Özil yet again. Cech looks rattled every time he has to touch the ball with his feet and Leno should be starting soon.

On another note, how annoying is it that the dinosaurs at the FA has refused to make use of a fantastic solution to all these ref errors? The choke on Mustafi was a clear pen. Hopefully we won't get the same extreme amount of horrible calls against us this season, if we do we can forget all about top 4.

 

[Highbury_2006]

City had 9-10 corners yesterday and none of them became really dangerous. #NewEra

 

[Ceballinhos]

I loved Lich too.
If Nacho comes back fast and fit Lich is going to bench Bellerin.

 

[Jae]

To be honest, I don't see what the big fuss is about really. I don't think we were too bad, we were good at times and asked a lot of questions of City without being particularly great ourselves.

The Arsenal of old would have been 3-0 down at half time after conceding against City in the 14th minute.

There were loads of positives to take away from this game, we just have a few personnel issues that we need to work out really.

1. Ramsey should be dropped and Özil needs to play in the #10 position (at least against the top 5)
2. Guendouzi and Torreira need to play CM
3. Xhaka needs dropping and selling in January.
4. We need a RW as a matter of urgency.
5. Cech's footwork may cause us issues in the long run but seems to have found some consistency.

Everything else was fine, few players had poor games but we were playing City so what do you expect? Practically everyone gets made to look poor against them as some stage during the season.

 

[Highbury_2006]

I loved Lich too.
If Nacho comes back fast and fit Lich is going to bench Bellerin.

Yeah, Lich should start. He is not fast (not extremely slow either tbf) but he can read the game well wich is more important than speed imo.