3 points and we move really fast back to North London and don’t look back. My goodness, saying Arsenal stole 3 points today is putting it very kindly. We stole the 3 points, paid the ref, hit Leeds in the balls without them looking, and got away with a hit-and-run as we made that drive back to London. Arsenal survived Elland Road with a 1-0 win against Leeds to keep us 4 points clear at the top of the table through a well taken Saka goal. By the skin of our teeth, but if you have any aspirations at the end of the season, you need to take 3 points when you are not at your best which today was for sure. We just can’t make these performances a habit and get back to our own dominating football that we started the season with. Leeds were all over us that second half and actually impressed me with their inability to score with the great chances they created in that half. Just mindblowing but we move.
THOUGHTS ON THE GAME:
- How about we play a left-footed player at LB? – Mikel went with the same exact team that beat Liverpool last week:
I praised Mikel when he inserted Tomi at LB instead of Tierney last week against Liverpool who defended Mo Salah magnificently and provided us practical football against a dangerous Liverpool team. However, when you are playing teams lower down the table, you can’t maintain possession with a right-footed LB as we saw today. Leeds looked to press us from the start and it was easy for them to do that with Tomi at LB, they just had to force him wide to his left which usually resulted him just passing back to Gabriel. It doesn’t matter if you are a LW that is right -footed cause usually when you receive the ball higher up the pitch like Gabi Martinelli, you don’t want to give him his right foot as that opens up space for him to shoot, but with LBs, that usually just pushes them into pressure. Mikel better fix it up for the next game.
2. Leeds may have told the league the recipe on how to beat us. Leeds pressed us and especially in the 2nd half, they were all over us. Watching us try to get out of our own half in the second half was embarrassing. Tomi didn’t provide much help to Thomas in that inverted wing-back position (not Tomi’s fault), Xhaka and Ø were too far from Thomas which left Thomas isolated and easy to pick off. It was confusing on why Mikel didn’t make any change to provide Thomas the needed support to beat the Leeds press but regardless, we looked dreadful and so uncomfortable when being pressed which is even weirder when teams like Bournemouth and Brentford just sat back when defending us in possession.
3. Ramsdale is back to his best – Ramsdale was magnificent today. I have been skeptical of the guy since the end of last season and today he shut me up for good. Despite the injury scare last week, he didn’t put a foot or hand wrong today. Every decision he made whether it was coming out to make a save, what type of save, when to come out, shotstopping, etc was spot on today. He even got kicked in the nuts from a shot and still got the ball to safety, my freaking keeper. A man of the match for sure and good “shut up Kent” from Ramsdale, you love to see it.
4. Patrick Bamford is on the list now.
What an idiot this guy is. Credit to him, he almost whined his way to two penalties but my goodness, this guy is such a whiny baby. Since he came on at halftime, he definitely gave Leeds a different profile going forward which provided them a much greater threat to our backline. But how this clown tried to run into Gabriel and then act like Gabriel shot him when he kicked out. SMH This guy also had the game on the line for his team but completely missed the frame of the goal from his pen, what a clown man. Can’t wait to see this guy at the Emirates when we run a riot on them.
5. I have always loved VAR and always will 🙂 Justice was served today and it tasted sweet. We gave up a penalty in the second half for an extremely unfortunate handball on Saliba as Roca pushed him, forcing the ball onto his hand in a position away from his body, a clear pen but extremely unfortunate. BALL DON’T LIE as we Patrick Bamford as he scooped the PK wide of the goal like a clown. However into the buildup of the penalty, Kristensen was so far offside that it only made sense that Bamford messed the pen up.
And then toward the end of the game, the linesman had the audacity to give a Penalty and a red card to Gabriel for this incident:
Thank goodness for VAR for overturning both ludicrous decisions. You can imagine the situation, In the 98th minute of the game, we are up 1-0, and then we give up a penalty because their guy runs into our guy who then retaliates by kicking out. Your boy probably wouldn’t be alive to type this out if they were given the penalty and subsequently scored. Again, thank goodness for VAR and competence. Gabriel also needs to not be such an idiot in those situations, this man has something every game now that costs us, it needs to stop NOW.
6. I can’t hear you from up here – Arsenal is now 4 points clear 10 games into the season but people in the media keep reminding us about all of Arsenal’s frailties, can’t hear ya bud from up here, so save your energy and pipe down (please don’t mess up Arsenal). Before the World Cup, we have Southampton away, Forest home, Chelsea away, Wolves away: realistically we don’t drop any points and with our form versus the team listed above, no reason we shouldn’t go into it believing that we will get the maximum points. One game at a time fellas.
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Featured image credits: gunnerblog