Zinchenko has signed for Forest on loan.
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They are already have that warmed us as an excuse.
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Arteta needs to find a way to let Arsenal express themselves and play with some joy. They have a smashing team and a great squad. He is coaching them to within an inch of their lives, which sounds good, but in the relentless pursuit of marginal gains it looks to me as though they have forgotten something of greater importance.
Trust them to play! He’s wound up so tightly, which is why he spends every game out of his technical zone, kicking every ball, gesticulating and shouting at them, and generally ‘over-coaching’ (not sure if I’ve just coined a new phrase there, or if it is already a thing).
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Yes, agreed. They’d be better off letting the players express themselves.
Let’s hope he keeps on making this mistake.
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Ref should yellow card him more he’s on the pitch sometimes.
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I don’t think there is any benefit to playing down the quality of Arsenal. And Arne probably would agree.
Outside of Dom’s effort, I think Arsenal actually created a couple of good chances. Probably better chances to score than we had. We had Gakpo’s long ranger going wide. Virg’s interception Which he couldn’t take on his right as that avenue was blocked… He would have to have taken the shot on his left.
For Arsenal there were a few exceptional blocks by Kerkez, a shot blocked by Virg’s body, a mad scramble from an Arsenal corner. There was a bit of a flurry of activity between 30 and 55 mins where Arsenal had some half chances, we had some quarter chances. Any other way that Kerkez defended that 35min attempt probably would have resulted in a very good shot on goal for Arsenal.
The point being made is that no team really dominated and created anything apart from the FK goal. We could replay that game 100 times, majority are going to be score or scoreless draws given how tight it is between these two teams, and we’ll probably take a greater share of the remainder but not by much.
If we were dominating them and peppering their goal, then I’d have a different opinion, but this was a tight contest decided on a free kick that was reflective of the match as a whole - a moment of quality for us got us the 3 points. On another day, it could have been Rice burying it into the top corner instead of skying it into the crowd on his effort.
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I’m ok with your general point but not sure us defending successfully can be classed as a chance for Arsenal.
That’s what a defender is there for.
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If Ali made a worldy save in goal, is that a chance for Arsenal? I don’t see how it would be any different if a LB gets a critically timed block on a goal-bound shot. It wasn’t a run-of-the-mill nonchalant Virg tackle where you’d back Virg to make the tackle 95 times out of a 100: It was a desperate lunge where i’d say the chances of Kerkez repeating a similar block would be 15-20 times out of a 100. That’s absolutely not a dig at him btw, but more how I read how difficult that situation was.
We also scored (an offside) goal and clearly had the better chances.
A ‘goal’ from offside you say?
Again. That’s what they’re there to do. We don’t play with 4 traffic cones and 1 in goal.
Ha ha @manchester United
Not sure how to put it more plainly but we scored a goal, but it was flagged offside. Had it not been offside nor bundled into the net, we would also have probably got a pen. We had the better chances (plural) than Arsenal.
More to the point, the opportunity came as a result of us setting up Wirtz to shoot with a clearer opportunity than any they created all game. That not an isolated sequence, but representative of how the final 30 mins or so played out with us increasingly having showed signs of having figured out the challenge they posed.
We had a succession of clear openings that we didn’t take because that is football and sometimes you need several openings before you make one count. Their best openings in contrast were ones that were sniffed out by defenders who had not yet been beaten before it became a clear chance. I think their clearest was maybe the Eze one where he dived rather than try to shoot, but I think that wouldnt have been in our top 5 clearest opportunities. The difference would have looked much clearer had Mo not been playing like Emile Heskey in oversized wellies and passing up multiple good opportunities, but we still had to open them up for him to fluff his lines like that.
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It wasn’t a blocked shot I was referring to it was the mention of Kerkez tackle.
Liverpool’s expected goals was a shade higher than Arsenal but really low at just over .53 with Arsenal on .49, they had one shot on target to our three but shaded our shot total by 2. They created very little of note and nethier did we bar the super strike, advantage us.
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Lots of stuff in this video not Arsenal related so apologies may be its the wrong thread but I put it here because of a bit they had on Gyokeres (and Arteta’s comments on his signing 
) - and I know how highly @Limiescouse rates Gyokeres 
15:34 - Dropoff in Gyökeres stats
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Please say he’s shit
Please say he’s shit
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He said he’s shit and Arteta is a mug 
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Two for two then.
He also praised Arteta’s eye contact.