Canny be fucked rating.
Thought Delneny Rice had a good first half. Tried to be positive with the ball. 7
Is Partey now the best RB in the league? 6.5
Thought Ben Shite was decent. 6.5
Everyone else 6 apart from Martinelli and Saka who were both very, very poor again. 4s.
Great win. Played shite again and won again. We'd have lost that Everytime for the best part of a decade. Last year we started to win them. Now I expect to win them. That's a huge difference in mentality.
I expected we'd win, or should I say not lose....but at a point our anti football almost got me rooting for Palace.
It seems what drives Arteta is not losing a game and on the chance we take a lead (deserved or undeserved), the only thing that drives him is protecting his advantage. If all managers think like Arteta, the beautiful game wouldn't be more popular than curling!!
Yes we were 10 men down, but we played a poor Palace side FFS. Once Roy took off his defender to add an extra attacker, the least I expected was a sub with a new attacker that would be able to counter if need be, instead we had a team filled with 9 defensive players! I thought I'd seen everything in football till I saw this....I mean its a league game, not an effing cup final.
For those who are good at psychology, its clear that this team is afraid to lose, the problem is we will lose eventually and probably when that happens we'll struggle to recover just like last season.
Arteta has some deep issues, that will only get him so far as a top coach, no matter what he wins.
About the game, Rice's performance was the only laudable thing, and TBH I could see a partnership with Partey that doesn't need Odegaard....but thats too obvious for our genius coach.
The lads deserve praise though, they really played with heart.
Last edited by 21_GOONER_SALUTE; 21-08-2023 at 10:53 PM.
Palace chucked away a bucket of chances, we can't expect to be so lucky every time, are you really saying this is the form of champions?Originally Posted by mandela8
I swear Arteta was just trying to win a bet he'd made with someone about how many defenders he could get onto the pitch at once
What I like about Rice so far is that he’s clearly one of the most switched on players we have, definitely someone you want in the trenches with you and won’t become passive when it’s not going our way. I don’t see him being the cause of any issues this season, if anything he’s going to be cleaning up the mess around him.
The Mitchell chance right at the end aside, they were half chances. Even if Eduoard hadn’t headed over his body positioning was such that he wouldn’t have given Ramsdale much hassle in saving it.
Lots of overcooked crosses and passes that fizzled away into nothing, like MO I have to say I never thought them likely to score an equaliser. But I’m not dismissing your concerns, i thought we defended ok but a better team than Palace will create better chances.
Defensively wasn’t my issue, it was just the lack of chances created, the lack of finesse when we did create chances and the complete negation of ambition when Tomoyasu departed.
He was the only plus from today
I have no idea why we spent 65m on Havertz. It’s not that he’s shite but I’m not actually sure what his role is because he doesn’t seem to have any cohesion with our front line?
Weird signing.
Ramsdale - 6.5 - Didn’t really have anything to do
White - 7 - Defensively solid after we went down to ten men
Saliba - 7.5 - Made a mistake but cleaned up after himself and was generally solid
Tomoyasu - 5.5 - Ayew had him on toast, which makes Ayew even more of a cheating bastard by throwing himself to the floor under minimal contact.
Partey - 6.5 - Gives the ball away too much, just casual at times
Rice - 8 - I think his mere presence makes us less potent offensively, but he’s defensively solid and no nonsense
Havertz - 5.5 - Even worse than he was against Forest
Martinelli - 6.5 - Lacking composure, added the 0.5 for his quick thinking that led to the penalty
Odegaard - 6.5 - Started poorly, almost put us in the shit by being dispossessed but became more authoritative as game went on, silly to sub him
Saka - 6 - Man marked out of the game and crossing was about as effective as Ayews (it wasn’t)
Nketiah - 7 - I’m going to be generous, yeah he fluffed a golden chance but we know he’s a shit finisher. He was unlucky to hit the post, made himself available and did well to get onto Martinelli’s pass to win penalty
Subs
Gabriel 7 - Why isn’t he starting games, I keep seeing rumours that we are going to sell him. I’ll make a burning effigy of Arteta if we do
Jorginho 7 - Bought for this kind of occasion I guess
Zinchenko 6 - Imagine bringing him on when defending a lead
Kiwior 6.5 - Can’t even really remember seeing anything he did
Genuinely worried about this season, where are the goals coming from. If we go behind in fixtures like this, you know full well we aren’t coming back into them. I predicted one point from the opening two games yet somehow that we have six doesn’t make me feel even the slightest bit better. In some ways it makes me feel worse, because Arteta’s clownish behaviour is being rewarded
Played 2 games, tbf.
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