Mhsc

We went into the game as the team in the league with almost the worst form vs a team in one of the best, with every one of their players playing at an extraordinary high level recently. It was not in any way an easy game. But we found the way. It’s a platform to improve from as Rosenior works with them more. Bit of business in Jan will potentially help too.

Very happy overall, still got several players in bad form, but I like the way Rosenior has set them up, he's adapted to Sanchez very quickly and given him license to launch it long in loads of situations to keep him out of lots of high pressure situations on the ball - took Maresca about half a year to figure that out, Rosenior is there in just a few games. You can literally see Sanchez's head go when he gets in those situations and then the mistakes creep in. So long as we've got him, we've got to get him to his best by playing in a way that works for him - then he really can be quite good, even if it comes with the a bit trade off of not being able to progress from the back as easily. Well managed game. Good style of football. He needs a CCB urgently, forced into playing Tosin today as basically the only guy that can play the progressive passes needed, and he went out injured (and was a liability as usual anyway). Give this guy a decent CCB and we will get top 4 with the rest of the squad as it is.

Him and Neto continuing to compete to be our least effective attackers, undroppable tho

Enzo is playing great Unless you mean Cole Palmer who has not been our best player in more than a year

Probably the number 1 reason I hate VAR, even if it got decisions right more often I'd still be against it Spirit and fun of football has been totally killed but everyone is acting like we have to continue with it. Football is unquestionably regressing year after year in terms of enjoyment live as a spectator.

Tosin was free for a reason

Absolutely clear pen both live and on review Its just a broken setup we've got in this league.

It wouldn't surprise me if we sold Tosin or someone else who we can book a profit for, or agreed a loan deal for Acheampong to Strasbourg or something (if we have loan slots?). TBH I have always thought Acheampong should be out on a good loan and keeping him here is negligent and harmful for him this season.

We're just not the club that is gonna sign a player on 300k a week now unless they're the second coming of Messi. It is what it is, this is mostly the impact of PSR, and City are known to be flat out cheating financially, what can you do.

£200k-£250k per week salary they'll pay a guy that will not start for them when everyone is fit. Would 100% make our XI and in fact would be nailed there for years and be our best CB without a doubt, such is the gap in quality we have there. City even with 115 charges simply do not fuck around in the slightest.

God I hope we've spread the virus to the whole Arsenal squad

Surely we go for Guehi, and maybe push Tosin out at the same time. One guy we can maybe sign reasonably cheap (or free on an agreement to start in summer), and another guy we got for free (I think) we can surely sell for a small bit of cash. That would be a proper and standard Clearlake manoeuvre. I really like Murillo if he was available at a sensible price but NFO are a bit of a nightmare so I wouldn't really expect much there. Music to my ears to hear talk of us actually looking at some of our fundamental problems for once.

He's not a total liability at either, although he doesn't excel at them for sure, he has a bunch of excellent characteristics that make up for it. He's a special player. He also can and has played alongside Palmer, who by comparison btw has massively regressed and seems to be getting worse over time, having been quite bad on average for a full calendar year at this point. In comparison, I see Caicedo and Enzo playing consistently at a high level and only improving as time goes on. Of course, it is all pointless if Enzo actually wanted to leave, and wants to go somewhere stable-ish that just churns out titles like PSG. If that's what he wants and the PL/Chelsea is not for him then I'd let him go over a player that wants to be here. But that's just paper talk at the moment.

Not sure I agree, he and Caicedo are the only players we have that are reliably playing at an elite level, they have high ceilings and high floors, they stay fit and they are getting visibly better in front of our eyes all the time. Our squad would be totally busted without either.

Certainly wont be a truly top side again until we replace Sanchez, been saying it for years, he genuinely has a high ceiling but the problem is his floor is so low and you can't win things consistently with a goalkeeper who on any given day will drop a series of huge howlers and no one is even surprised and no one would be surprised if it happened again the next game. Its just not a position you can get away with cutting corners or being creative.

Game would be tight and quite interesting if not for Sanchez two howlers to be fair to the manager, but IMO Sanchez always reverts to being a mess when you ask him to play under pressure lots of short passes at the back, gets to his confidence and then he makes other mistakes. Once Maresca figured that out he really got really good form out of Sanchez.

Hard to say who's worse between Fofana and Sanchez for passing the ball out from the back under pressure, Fofana consistently taking the easy option to tap it to Sanchez and leave him under pressure instead of taking on the pressure himself to play out. Neither has good press resistance but Sanchez at least has balls to try something and risk being embarrassed. And this game is a firm reminder that Kepa would still be our best goalkeeper.

Gallagher under Emery would be a menace. Don't want him back in the PL really, I just know he will punish us.

Bit of quality from Hato, a man who was basically dead to Maresca Hope he can come good. He had so much quality before he joined us.

This XI would potentially battle relegation

So basically the B team with Caicedo expected to hard carry. Should be interesting…

He’s flexible and adjusts to the squad it seems. I don’t think 3 at the back is his thing but rather it was a good way to play the style of football he wanted with Strasbourg’s squad, so he did it.

While it is quite uninspiring, I actually think he'll be fine. We know the head coach role is much more limited in scope than old style manager positions, so the damage he can do is already minimised, and it seems he is very strong tactically like Maresca was so I suspect it is at worst a sideways move there. His decisions will be micromanaged just like Maresca's were. They'll continue to get their way on player signings, and how many minutes which player can play. Then it is whether he can sort out culture and mentality, not sure he can do any better than Maresca did, but time will tell - maybe he has a bit more of a chance there tbh. And in game management, and talking to the press (and a closely related topic of building a relationship with the fans), which were the two obvious flaws in Maresca similarly its unlikely he's any worse. Imo it is pretty much a sideways move and not much will change. One great hope of all of this is that we have a huge problem IMO with Cole Palmer that is not being spoken about much (as he's English), he's been bang average for a long time now and if Rosenior can change the guys role or whatever is required to get him back to being the best player in the world then obviously that would be a huge positive for us, I do think Maresca is partly to blame for Cole's drop off. Maybe another man, even if tactically similar, will have a different perspective and find a way to get Cole back. p.s. Gary O'Neil will be our manager in 18 months I guess and on and on the cycle continues.

Absolutely, not even hiding that they're just a puppet feeder club. Doesn't really make sense to be a fan of such a thing does it? No independence and no ambition outside of supporting some foreign club you've no prior link to. And you just know the French are not the type of people to take that with a smile

There's a vague chance that as long as he keeps it simple and continues mostly with what Maresca was doing and just slowly tweaks things that he'll be able to do well, at least initially. Surely any big overhaul in approach will have to wait til summer with a scheduled so packed that you can barely get training sessions in. We have a good fixture run coming up which is perfect starting point for a new manager. From my PoV: Benefits to Liam's appointment - He will instantly lift the way the media talk about us, and will de facto be given more time and more respect than he deserves (not to say he doesn't deserve some, but English managers get a ridiculous amount of leeway by the English press). Perhaps even referees will start to treat us with less open bias. Downsides - Everything else - respectfully, of course. Not a job he is likely ready for in the slightest. The only reason he has a slight chance is that our situation is way more normalised than what Potter or Lampard were given (squads that needed multiple changing rooms filled to the brim with frauds).