tligoat

not the most vintage performance from the gunners but a solid one all together was always gonna be a difficult game away at napoli and facing a well organized block (which again we struggled with) declan rice and mikel merino for all their strengths are not compatible (at least for games like this) as a pivot pairing. we needed a linebreaker/someone to dictate play from deep and let ode get up higher and today showed that. gyok has yet to fully move me this season. thought he wasn’t as involved in play as i would have liked but good minutes to build sharpness second half subs completely changed the game. additions of tzolis, bruno, havertz definitely switched the gamestate. our combinations look very very fluid and we were able to play through the napoli press. think this is tzolis’ 3rd time assisting odegaard, 2 very smart players who are able to find each other consisrently. this game for me solidified that havertz is our starting striker. again, when we came on we looked much more fluid. unlucky offsides for the second though but i love how he just goes and roams around to get involved. really hope he stays fit odegaard what a player man, our brightest spark this whole game and very happy he came out with a goal. looking very much back to his old self and is elevating this whole arsenal team. biggest critique of ours is we have no “gamechangers” but i think we’ve always had one

balls bluer than inters kit

what a time it is to be an arsenal fan 😮‍💨 this will just be a bunch of thoughts of mine, very personal game to me because all of my friends are chels fans very end to end game, a stark difference between arsenal’s pragmatic style from last season. we’ve seen in the first two games, but arteta has clearly evolved his tactics further. the amount of rotations that i saw throughout this game really shows he was serious about what he said in interviews of being inspired by luis enrique. do not write off arsenal’s attack chelsea a very very scary team on the transition. love to play that long ball out wide, especially with the pace they have. if i were a chels fan tho, would have liked to see more from JP and palmer. raya is the undisputed best gk of the league and you cannot convince me otherwise - his distribution, shot stopping, and cross claiming are easily placed top 3 in the league right now. his one weakness is long shots, due to his height, and chelsea clearly tried to exploit that (to some success). great debut from konsa, filled very nicely for saliba and mosquera. despite what some might say, a very necessary signing. do not doubt havertz in the big games. we look so much more fluid with him up top and i stand by the fact he should be our starting striker. odegaard, i love you. so confident now the wc and early games have done wonders for him. i hope he stays fit and continues to impress. dominated that midfield first few minutes from gyok, did not impress but again i want to give him more time. emi martinez is such a clear upgrade over sanchez. rhat chelsea defense was putting in work (fofana). did think that reese james, apart from a few nice long passes, is ineffective in the midfield. very entertaining game, biggest test of ours so far. believe in the team, our players, and of course mikel arteta.