Same goes for in game reporting I suppose. They aren’t reporting on what is happening, when they report on the live feed on the BBC. They’re just reporting the bits which fit the pre game script.
And for my own eyeballs.
Love the slippers…
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I’m not remotely a good judge of talent or potential. But Van Quansah clearly has a turn of pace Rhys and Phillips lacked. Not VD, Gomez or Konate pace perhaps, but plenty to play a high with our style and recover. Looks assured game after game at a young age.
I wouldn’t think we need a Matip replacement in January if Gomes wasn’t 100% committed to backing up RB and LB at the moment.
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Quansah hasn’t really been tested so far. Might even be our fastest CB.
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My only concern with Quansah is how young he is. In general it’s a little more challenging to bounce back after a poor game than it is for a more mature player. I still hope we can take a really sensible approach with him in terms of game time, and i’d still look to purchase a mid-age (24-25yo) CB as a second or third option in the winter or summer.
Quansah really does look on a great path at this point in time though.
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I wasn’t too arsed beforehand if we went out, think we’ve got a great chance in the other 3 comps were in and didn’t want to end up in a situation like 2 years ago when we went into the CL final with injuries to Thiago and Fabinho and with half the squad gassed.
But fuck it, let’s go for the fucking lot!
I think the mistake JK made in 2022 was he stopped rotating and it meant the likes of Jones, Elliott, Keita, AOC, Tsimikas, Minamino and Gomez barely kicked a ball for the last 2 months of the season. This time I think we’re better placed to rotate without the same drop-off, especially against potentially weaker opposition in the Europa League.
Thought the 2 young lads did brilliant today when they came on, lego head probably thought that was Arsenal’s big chance but they were both outstanding.
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In the BBC commentary if Shearer said it once he said it many times Arsenal were good at set pieces, irony is that we scored from a set piece
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The shot chart is fairly striking. This is their graphic of Shots Off Target
Leaving aside laughing at the one that looks like the reverse of a corner kick, it is pretty jarring that they had 3 offtarget shots from inside the 6, and another 2 inside the 18. By contrast, 4 out of 5 of their shots on target were from outside the 18.
That sort of supports the ‘missing chances’, shots from inside the 6 should generally be on target. But when you break out what those shots were, only one in the 6 was in open play and really should have been scored (2’, Nelson). Only 1 of the off-target shots inside the 18 was in open play. That sort of supports the dearth of good chances relative to their possession and position.
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[quote=“jaffod, post:147, topic:4030, full:true”].
Thought the 2 young lads did brilliant today when they came on, lego head probably thought that was Arsenal’s big chance but they were both outstanding.
[/quote]
After going past Trent twice, Bradley came on and Martinelli just didn’t fancy it at all. You could see Bradley’s starting position was a little more stood off than Trent’s, he sinks a yard or two deeper and encouraged Martinelli to try and dribble inside instead where Bobby Clark was doing a good job of tucking in tight.
You’d expect a dribbling machine like Martinelli to test a 20 year old FB who had about 90mins of football this season but he shirked it - didn’t seem to know what to do and just played it backwards everytime in the last 20 minutes.
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Frankly, I feel as though quite the opposite, I find that we seem to be quite good at managing the kids, mentally at least.
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Great game against good competition with key players missing.
Got to be happy at this point in the season with that.
Quash and Bradley ,when he came on were certainly worth watching with an eye to the immediate future.
Ibou continues to impress.
All in all we are not going to be easy for anyone this season.
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In a parallel dimension where we’re light in midfield, we have found out that Gomez is a sort of reverse Milner playing competently across the defence and sometimes in midfield.
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It is because Curtis Jones has it haha
In the first half I thought Arsenal’s shape and pressing was really excellent. We were penned and we couldn’t get out. They had our passing lanes totally covered and we really struggled to find a way to move the ball upfield. They may have controlled midfield, but I think a bigger problem was that we couldn’t even reach midfield.
In that spell, I thought Arsenal had enough chance to have scored one or two. Don’t forget that the Odegaard chance comes seconds after an outrageous block by Ibou, and Maitlain-Niles and Saka have good chances to at least work Alisson. White forces a good save.
I don’t think you can they didn’t have chances. But I do think it’s true to say we played the odds very well, and worked hard to keep those chances as low percentage as possible while we weathered the storm. During that spell our composure was really excellent and we did well not to panic, especially the back four (special nod to Quansah, again) who were unflappable in defence and cool in possession.
Once we were through the first thirty, that pressure eased and we found our way back into the game, started creating chances of our own, and by full time we were the deserved winners. We created more chances, worked their keeper and went close more over the 90 than them. But the at first thirty was backs to the wall stuff, and we played it really, really well.
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We definitely need at least another CH at one point both Ibou and Quansah were down injured thankfully it was not serious and both were able to finish the game otherwise we would have been screwed
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Our defence was pretty good! Quansah did well despite not being a planned starter for this match! Gomez bar for a mistake was good at shutting down Saka, Konate showed that he is the best French centre-back on the pitch, TAA was everywhere mopping up, Bradley is the more orthodox full-back who is ready to troll Martinelli anytime of the day.
Midfield had a mixed day. Got pinned in our own half the first half…The second half was a bit more composed…
As for our forwards, Elliott has shown he is not ready to take over from Salah yet and might be better suited as a CM/AM. Nunez needs to calm down a bit. If Gakpo runs at the opposing player more, we might be better for it. Thought Diaz looked shit on the left side, the change to the right allowed him to run at the opposing LB better for this match and it yielded a smash to the roof to seal the passage through to the next round.
Right now, Jota and Salah are our best forwards with composure, a bit of brains and good finishing…
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I didn’t see the match as it was past my bed time. But having read this whole thread, I’m at a loss as to why the BBC has Jota as MotM when he only played 30 mins and hasn’t rated a mention in the post match comments here.
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Pretty sure the Motm was Konate. Saw him being given the award and making a rather sweet acceptance speech.
Jota was a handful for their defence when he came on.
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Must be an error on their part, was defo given to Ibou…that post match elegance will stay with me for a while.
Catch up on it in the morning though, from round about the 45min mark.
Sorry, not MotM but Player of the Match as voted for by readers of the the BBC Sport match report. Maybe Jota’s family swamped the voting!