Bournemouth 2-0 Arsenal Player ratings and match reaction

[HCZ_Reborn]

Raya 5 - Looked more like the Raya from a year ago


White 5 - Looked shaky against pace


Saliba 4 - Gave PGMOL an excuse to fuck us over


Gabriel 6 - Did his best after the sending off


Calafiori 6 - Didn’t offer enough going forward


Partey 6 - I don’t get why he’s not played further forward as he’s a better passer of the ball than Rice but worked hard


Merino 5 - Demonstrated the difference between English and Spanish football, in the former you’re not going to get time to dwell on the ball


Rice 5 - Frankly has been poor all season


Sterling 5 - Isn’t good enough to be starting for a side going for the title, not even as a squad option


Havertz 6 - Largely isolated


Trossard 4 - Fucking mong



Subs


Kiwior 4 - Can see why we were looking to sell in the summer


Martinelli 5 - Sums up our problem, we need clinical attacking players


Jesus + Nwaneri - N/A



I just had a bad feeling about this fixture from the outset because of the injuries we had going into the game, which meant that we’d be reliant on sub par players in attack. Trossard lacks the explosive pace of Martinelli and despite his strops he’s far better as an impact substitute. Sterling is finished at this level….that he is the understudy for Saka leaves me very concerned if the latter is out for any time.

In principle I can get the argument that when we go down to ten men we should go for it, but because we don’t have clinical players we have to push up more and in doing so leave ourselves more exposed. Nothing would have guaranteed a defeat this evening more than going gung ho. We have to accept that referees are going to be dicks to us and not give them an opportunity.

But the fact is if we had stayed at 11 men, would we have gone on and won. Maybe…but we are struggling away from home creating chances and this was the case even before Odegaard was injured. The 2-0 win at Villa belied the fact that we were terrible and deserved to lose then. Arteta has become so monomaniacally obsessed with being defensively impregnable that we have sacrificed a proper attacking philosophy.

It’s fine to dig in and be defensive away at places like City, but we were having to defend far too much for my liking against Bournemouth for the first half hour because our midfield just couldn’t cope with the closing down they were doing.

[Niall_Quinn]

Ref sent off a player for denying a "goal-scoring opportunity" from the halfway line. That's the whole story of the match. Everything else is maybe. Blatant cheating right in everyones' faces.

[Chippy]

Raya 5 - Looked more like the Raya from a year ago


White 5 - Looked shaky against pace


Saliba 4 - Gave PGMOL an excuse to fuck us over


Gabriel 6 - Did his best after the sending off


Calafiori 6 - Didn’t offer enough going forward


Partey 6 - I don’t get why he’s not played further forward as he’s a better passer of the ball than Rice but worked hard


Merino 5 - Demonstrated the difference between English and Spanish football, in the former you’re not going to get time to dwell on the ball


Rice 5 - Frankly has been poor all season


Sterling 5 - Isn’t good enough to be starting for a side going for the title, not even as a squad option


Havertz 6 - Largely isolated


Trossard 4 - Fucking mong



Subs


Kiwior 4 - Can see why we were looking to sell in the summer


Martinelli 5 - Sums up our problem, we need clinical attacking players


Jesus + Nwaneri - N/A



I just had a bad feeling about this fixture from the outset because of the injuries we had going into the game, which meant that we’d be reliant on sub par players in attack. Trossard lacks the explosive pace of Martinelli and despite his strops he’s far better as an impact substitute. Sterling is finished at this level….that he is the understudy for Saka leaves me very concerned if the latter is out for any time.

In principle I can get the argument that when we go down to ten men we should go for it, but because we don’t have clinical players we have to push up more and in doing so leave ourselves more exposed. Nothing would have guaranteed a defeat this evening more than going gung ho. We have to accept that referees are going to be dicks to us and not give them an opportunity.

But the fact is if we had stayed at 11 men, would we have gone on and won. Maybe…but we are struggling away from home creating chances and this was the case even before Odegaard was injured. The 2-0 win at Villa belied the fact that we were terrible and deserved to lose then. Arteta has become so monomaniacally obsessed with being defensively impregnable that we have sacrificed a proper attacking philosophy.

It’s fine to dig in and be defensive away at places like City, but we were having to defend far too much for my liking against Bournemouth for the first half hour because our midfield just couldn’t cope with the closing down they were doing.

Saliba is over rated tbf. He fucked up for France in the week as well. We have been pubbing it in the early stages of the season. Arteta for the England job......please.

[21_GOONER_SALUTE]

This was truly one of the worst games I have seen from us in ages and I can't even blame the red card for it as the rot had started way before then.

Arteta played with 3 DMs and 4 defenders and still managed to get beaten 2-0. Yes you could point out the red card but he still played with 3 DMs and 4 defenders when he brought Kiwior on and still managed to get beaten 2-0.

IIRC he did the same with Brighton by playing with 7 defensive players after the red and still conceded. I think with City he upped it to 8 players or so and still conceded.

The problem is he doesn't even understand what makes this team difficult to beat. It has never been sitting deep, we've never been good at it, even in the days of AW.

IMO, what he did, that was so radically different and got him instant results and props where Emery (a far more experienced coach) failed was realising that we could defend better when we press and make the opposition play in their half and not ours. Those early days where Odegaard led the press and continually forced the opposition to give the ball away in their half, and thus be forced playing a game of ping pong mostly in their half was the trick. Soaking up pressure has never been good for a team like us, and especially now that we can't even counter due to the kind of personnel Arteta has chosen to recruit.

The game changed only when we were 2-0 down and Arteta decided to bring in Jesus and Nwaneri to force them to play pin pong in their half.

IF ARTETA HAS ANY IOTA OF SENSE, NWANERI MUST PLAY IN EVERY GAME TILL ODEGAARD GETS BACK, EITHER THAT OR PLAY HAVERTZ DEEPER.

He caused all this by allowing his wet dreams to get the best of him. I mean how the f**k could we have allowed him to spend all our money on defensive players and ship out the few players that could allow Saka and Odegaard to have a just a bit of a breather (without even attempting to replace them). The rookie keeps doing stupid shit that shows his learning curve is still going on......man what a wasted opportunity this season is going to turn out to be.....

BTW I'm still 99% certain Citeh will not win the league this year....we might even see a surprise and see Emery laughing at us by the end of the season!!

[Chippy]

This was truly one of the worst games I have seen from us in ages and I can't even blame the red card for it as the rot had started way before then.

Arteta played with 3 DMs and 4 defenders and still managed to get beaten 2-0. Yes you could point out the red card but he still played with 3 DMs and 4 defenders when he brought Kiwior on and still managed to get beaten 2-0.

IIRC he did the same with Brighton by playing with 7 defensive players after the red and still conceded. I think with City he upped it to 8 players or so and still conceded.

The problem is he doesn't even understand what makes this team difficult to beat. It has never been sitting deep, we've never been good at it, even in the days of AW.

IMO, what he did, that was so radically different and got him instant results and props where Emery (a far more experienced coach) failed was realising that we could defend better when we press and make the opposition play in their half and not ours. Those early days where Odegaard lead the press and continually forced the opposition to give the ball away in their half, and thus be forced playing a game of ping pong mostly in their half was the trick. Soaking up pressure has never been good for a team like us, and especially now that we can't even counter due to the kind of personnel Arteta has chosen to recruit.

The game changed only when we were 2-0 down and Arteta decided to bring in Jesus and Nwaneri to force them to play pin pong in their half.

IF ARTETA HAS ANY IOTA OF SENSE, NWANERI MUST PLAY IN EVERY GAME TILL ODEGAARD GETS BACK, EITHER THAT OR PLAY HAVERTZ DEEPER.

He caused all this by allowing his wet dreams to get the best of him. I mean how the f**k could we have allowed him to spend all our money on defensive players and ship out the few players that could allow Saka and Odegaard to have a just a bit of a breather. The rookie keeps doing stupid shit that just shows his learning curve is still going on......man what a wasted opportunity this season is going to turn out to be.....

BTW I'm still 99% certain Citeh will not win the league this year....we might even see a surprise and see Emery laughing at us by the end of the season!!

Absolutely agree with everything you said.
People still think Arteta is going to be the next City manager if Pep leaves! He still isn't fit to lace Peps boots FFS. That was like watching the last of the Wenger reign, terrible.

[Ollie the Optimist]

Ref sent off a player for denying a "goal-scoring opportunity" from the halfway line. That's the whole story of the match. Everything else is maybe. Blatant cheating right in everyones' faces.

My issue with the red card is that there is no way VAR can argue it was a clear and obvious error. The referee had a completely unobstructed view and made the call of yellow card. There is no evidence to show that it was a clear and obvious error so it was VAR actively wanting to make the decision a red card (and lets not forget that Jared Gillet is a self confessed Liverpool fan who we just happen to play next week….). Conversely though, if the referee had given a red there would have been no clear evidence to overturn the decision either.

Howard Webb has banged on this season about “referees call” and only involving VAR when it’s clearly wrong otherwise stick to the on field decision. That process was not followed yesterday

[Letters]

Saliba was last man. White wasn’t getting there.
The other two sending offs this year were bullshit but this one is on us.

[HCZ_Reborn]

Saliba was last man. White wasn’t getting there.
The other two sending offs this year were bullshit but this one is on us.

Last man isn’t an automatic red, stating that you’ve denied a clear goalscoring opportunity from just past the half way line is to say the least speculative. Plus what on earth are you going to have seen on VAR when the on field decision was yellow

[Letters]

Last man isn’t an automatic red, stating that you’ve denied a clear goalscoring opportunity from just past the half way line is to say the least speculative. Plus what on earth are you going to have seen on VAR when the on field decision was yellow

There’s a potential grumble about VAR overturning the on field decision, but there’s no covering defender. Had that been the other way around and an Arsenal player in that position I guarantee you that everyone on here would have been screaming for a red.

[HCZ_Reborn]

There’s a potential grumble about VAR overturning the on field decision, but there’s no covering defender. Had that been the other way around and an Arsenal player in that position I guarantee you that everyone on here would have been screaming for a red.

Arsenal fans would have probably screamed for a red for Trossard and Rice as well had it been another team. I seldom agree with NQ about anything but he had it right when he said everyone else is officiated by the spirit of the law and we are officiated by the letter of it. If that had been the other way round, it would have stayed as a yellow