The Skipper

Jose's not Wenger. Of course Ramires will start alongside Matic and Cesc.

Hazard. Di Maria is an excellent dribbler but very few are in Hazard's league. I think Hazard's close control dribbling is almost as good as Messi's, Di Maria has more pace to his dribbling.

Unbelievable? Look at what they're paying for him. It's a good buy but I wouldn't say it's unbelievable.

Constructive criticism is fine but that's very, very picky. I don't understand how you can criticise him over "hesitating" whether he should come out for a cross or not when what you're describing isn't even a bad thing to do. There's no "hesitation" in any of it, hesitating is when you're caught in no mans land and Courtois is practically never there. He either stays on his line or actually goes out and gets the cross, it's barely hesitating if he takes a step and then decides it's better to stay on his line.

Him or Oscar vs Everton... Dilemma. If we're playing a pure 4-3-3 I'd probably go for Willian, but Oscar's not bad on the flanks either.

Hesitating? He was phenomenal with his command of his area. He caught every ball he attempted to go for. He didn't hesitate at all, he was very assured. In both games.

And no one disagrees with that. But it wasn't just him who was poor in the first - our other midfield generals in Matic and Fabregas lost numerous of balls themselves. It's like you're pinning the bad first half performance solely on Oscar which is completely untrue. There were others who were just as poor, if not even worse. It's just incredible how you're just focusing on the poor (and almost completely blaming Oscar for the first half) and not giving Oscar any credit for turning around his performance.

They have 4 finished WC players but their problem is the distribution of those players. How does one effectively fit in those four? They don't have the best squad in the PL at all, what are you smoking? They have no WC player deeper in midfield, no WC player in defence. I'm not too worried tbh. I was worried a few months ago when I thought they'd buy world class players all over the gaff to fill in those massive gaps in their XI but they haven't.

Last season the problem was that we didn't take our chances. With the likes of Fabregas and Costa in our squad now we'll 100% be more efficient. If it's a similar game to last season I think (hoping) we'll win comfortably.

I thought we were discussing today's game here, not the last 8 months? And why are you acting like he was the only poor player in the first half? Like he was the only player to lose the ball when plenty of others did the same?

That's true, but Samsung themselves are also pretty prominent. We're a prominent club.

I always say to my Arsenal mates that if CFC had Giroud last year we would've won the title.

Got 50 odd pts so far, still got Rooney and two spuds players to go (Eriksen and Kaboul). Hopefully they have huge games.

Yup, I agree, it's been overlooked because he's normally so good but Matic was a massive reason as to why we failed to control the game in the first half.

Interesting. Don't forget that they might bring in more players after this as well.

If they buy him will it mean that they've spent the most in a transfer window in the PL?

Out of curiosity... Who would you have taken out for him?

You obviously didn't watch the game, and if you did, you probably didn't watch the second half.

Why is his thread still missing a squad number?

Disagree. Ramires is rash but we need his legs in midfield to help stop Everton's game, and also his pace on the counter.

At least Torres won't be the most expensive player in the PL anymore.

Ramires has to start, maybe for Schurrle. Apart from that I'd keep the XI the same probably. Hopefully we can get a positive result this time around, Everton are a very good team.

Perhaps not, but IMO it'll just take a slight tweak and ensuring players perform their roles correctly, rather than bringing in another player completely.

Anyone got a gif of that pass he made to Ramires?