Arsenal (A) | PL | Post Match Thread

In the cold light of the day after I am happy with the draw. We defended brilliantly for the whole game, Arsenal got desperate and it was only a piece of individual magic that got them a point. My only concern was the lack of presence in midfield. Rodri aside we hardly got a challenge in and struggled to get forward. Foden and Silva both worked their socks off to help out the defence, but had little to no influence going forward. I’m not sure we can accommodate both of them especially away from home. Still my glass is definitely half full today.
 
Blue Hefner said:
I shit myself when they scored but when I saw their celebration I calmed down

I cannot believe they jumped up and down like that - I thought they’d want to get the ball and get the winner. We won’t win the league but a draw was no good to Arsenal
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you’ve been here since 3 years prior to 8 points behind rags , you should know better not to write city off after first 5 games
 
balotellishaircut said:
He’s not lazy, I blame Pep for bringing him on, let’s be honest here iv read posts on BM stating Doku as being lazy only 4 wks ago, he should be playing 90 mins against Huddersfield so let’s see how he does, for me there’s no lazy footballers at City or any other club.
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I disagree. We still have a work shy Kalvin Phillips getting paid 150k per week for doing fuck all.
 
ysmsa said:
Keep saying it but him and Nunes should be nowhere near the team.

Too much pampering and primadonna esq for me.

When the chips were down last night and we needed a couple of 15 minute shifts to see the game out we bring on these 2!
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Thought Nunes tried at least, he's just a poor buy that we are having to shoe horn in.

Savinho just needs to go In January, he does not want to be here.
 
Contrary to popular opinions here, I’m not very impressed by Doku performance. There is not much real chances from Doku despite we are the side to counter and should have high number of counter chances. I saw Doku slowed down many counter chances and if we could make the score line to 2:0 it will be much better situation. The team is mentally exhausted at the end of the game being purely defending for the whole 90 minutes.
 
TonyBookEnd said:
But did we play really well? Really?
Did we defend fantastically or did we just defend deep and with numbers?
Listen if you're happy with that, then I respect that. I just believe that we should be better than that. I'm just asking myself, would Real Madrid or Barcelona or Liverpool do that?

It just seems odd to me that Pep would pick this moment to dramatically change his philosophy. For someone who believes, to his very core, that to cede possession so easily is almost a sin. Why now? Why not last year when it probably warranted it more.
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Bernardo answers some of your complaints: they were fresher having two days more to prepare. That's a huge advantage.


 
Yue Wollongong said:
Contrary to popular opinions here, I’m not very impressed by Doku performance. There is not much real chances from Doku despite we are the side to counter and should have high number of counter chances. I saw Doku slowed down many counter chances and if we could make the score line to 2:0 it will be much better situation. The team is mentally exhausted at the end of the game being purely defending for the whole 90 minutes.
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hahahaha! clueless!
 
Obviously disappointed with the draw, but 2 wins and a draw from those 3 games show that we could put in a decent challenge for the title. Liverpool won't keep getting away with average performances and we look a lot more solid. We stood up to setpiece fc really well.
 
alexmcity said:
Bernardo answers some of your complaints: they were fresher having two days more to prepare. That's a huge advantage.


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I get circumstances dictated the approach and I'm fine with that. But 2nd half, I didn't like the aimless passing / punting and substituting all our attacking outlets. Again probably a function of tiredness and injuries
I don't believe that this game provides an indication of how we will perform when we try to be more expansive.
I just didn't see the game as a major triumph as some others have suggested

But a point away at one of your rivals is not a bad thing.
 
TonyBookEnd said:
I get circumstances dictated the approach and I'm fine with that. But 2nd half, I didn't like the aimless passing / punting and substituting all our attacking outlets. Again probably a function of tiredness and injuries
I don't believe that this game provides an indication of how we will perform when we try to be more expansive.
I just didn't see the game as a major triumph as some others have suggested

But a point away at one of your rivals is not a bad thing.
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Given the circumstances, it was an excellent performance. It's not like we were lucky to get a result. In terms of chances, they were marginally better, despite being fresher and at home (and us being in transition).
 
A pragmatic performance given that half the team were dead on their feet after three tough fixtures in a week.

If people want players to run about for 90 minutes with no time wasting, no management of energy and minimal substitutions, then something has to be done about the ridiculous number of fixtures players are expected to fulfil. But that is something outside City's control, and largely outside the PL's control. Ideally, we could start by reducing the ridiculous number of pointless international fixtures, trim the Champions League down to size and maybe (sadly) scrap the League Cup. But it ain't happening, as it's all about ££££££s, and if that leads to shit football the people in charge don't care. Trebles all round and the best seats in the house, all expenses paid. All they are arsed about.
 
In the build up to the game I was getting more anxious and was not exactly confident. Then I heard the two pundits, C arragher and Roy Keane agree that Arsenal had the best squad in the PL and were well capable of winning the league. This confirmed my fear that for all I might not consider Arteta to be a likely PL winner Arsenal are actually a very good team, strong in all areas. Others said City were there for the taking. On the other hand we seemed to me to have enough height in the team to have a good chance of dealing with Arsenal's set pieces but our midfield lacked the quality of KdB in his pomp, of YaYa and David Silva and Rodri and Phil were feeling their way back to fitness while RAN, Cherki and Marmoush were unavailable (as, to be fair, was Odegaard for Arsenal). Still we have the incomparable Haaland, whom we bring into the game a lot more than last season, and the pace of the greatly improved Doku. I still thought Arsenal were favourites, especially as they had played on Tuesday while our CL game had been on Thursday.

I didn't have to wait long to see that Haaland is even better than I ever dreamt. After only 9 minutes he and Reinders took out the entire spine of the gunners team and Erling absolutely destroyed their much vaunted central defensive duo (where was Zubimendi?!) City led 1-0 and the next 88 minutes appeared to be no more than Arsenal trying to undo the effects of that one devastating City attack.

But that is not the case. City had only 34% possession but Pep says this was not because we "parked the bus" but was because Arsenal were good enough to force us to defend. And defend well we did. There is height in our team , but grit and determination by the bucket full and Arsenal's prowess at set pieces soon held no fear for City. And with 34% possession we still had as many shots on target as they did and we created far better chances. Whereas Arteta bleated pathetically that "it was really unfair" when we scored, we can say that they equalised only because of our only error. They were NOT the better team.

So, our rebuild is not complete but we are still on the way to a very good team. Pep has no ambitions to turn into Mourinho so we don't need to fear massed defence against Huddersfield and we can feel optimistic about the rest of the season.
 
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Yue Wollongong said:
Contrary to popular opinions here, I’m not very impressed by Doku performance. There is not much real chances from Doku despite we are the side to counter and should have high number of counter chances. I saw Doku slowed down many counter chances and if we could make the score line to 2:0 it will be much better situation. The team is mentally exhausted at the end of the game being purely defending for the whole 90 minutes.
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Could you point to your elbow for me?

Thank you.

Now could you point to your arse.

Thank you.

You don't know which is which do you?

Doh.
 
ysmsa said:
Thought we played alright, I don't get where all this bollocks is coming from.

Arse are a good team and were at home.

We scored a brilliant goal early and then had the next best chance with Haaland and Reijnders again.

Our keeper was superb and commanded the area, none of their cheating bullying at corners like they normally get away with.

Arse we're chasing the game for 85 minutes, they had to.

The goal was unavoidable and lucky (how often do you see those drift passed the post). However, having seen the replays we were well and truly robbed.

Goal ruled out for a foul the referee missed.

Look at the ref's position, he is straining to see the incident, it's a clear and obvious error.
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I think his view was blocked by an Arsenal player.
 
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