Pizy

Just finished watching some highlights on YouTube. Looks to be basically the same sort of player as Pulisic and plays on that same side. Pacey, skillful, decent eye for goal. Excels in open space 1v1. To be honest, he actually looks more impressive than Pulisic, though to be fair he's several years older. Not sure it really makes sense to be linked with him unless Willian and Pedro are both off in the summer OR Hazard will be used up top for the remainder of the season.

Will be very difficult to convince Hazard to stay if we do finish top 4. It will be impossible if we don't. Imagine how huge of a step back we would take if he left. Fucking hell. We MUST find a way to improve and stave off Arse and United or we will be royally fucked for years.

Don't think he was figured out here. He had loads of time on the ball as usual but over and over he looks up and sees zero movement and is forced to pass sideways or backwards. Continuously saw him show frustration that no passes forward were on.

Every team around us scores for fun from all over the pitch. We struggle to even get shots away! Eden looks completely gassed. Our other attacking players look fucking shocking. Fucking Kante looks our most dangerous attacking threat! Let that sink in!

Embarrassing points dropped. We are utterly toothless with no solutions in sight. Now even United, who just recently 11 points behind us, are quickly catching us up and look far better in attack.

We sorely miss Kovacic in games like this or like Palace. Barkley isn't suited for this sort of opponent who sits packed around their box. He's too slow on the ball and doesn't have a great eye for a pass. Also fucking hurts having to be totally reliant on Hazard for a moment of magic. Willian was terrible (again!) before he went off and Morata can barely control a football when he's got someone marking him closely. We cannot go through the rest of this month without an attacking addition. Just fucking can't!

It's actually painful watching us in the final third. Same story against all the small teams who sit deep. Zero ideas and sluggish passing. Watching us grind through the rest of this season is going to tough unless something changes. Southampton have a shit defense and are missing their two best midfielders yet we make them look like a prime Mourinho side.

No Lemina, no Hojbjerg, no Shane Long or Charlie Austin causing issues with pace in space. Not saying this should be a walk in the park but...well actually it should be looking at the teams.

Please don't let Morata look like a donkey today. FFS, their defense is awful and theyre near the bottom of the table for a reason. If a £57m striker can't do well against this lot there's no hope. This would be an absolutely terrible game to drop points.

If we lose this with Soton having that many changes. At home. Their defense is terrible. After seeing Arse and Spuds both win yesterday. Classic trap game. Anyway, Kova not even in the squad is weird. Thought for certain he'd start today. Also crazy how few attacking options we have on the bench now that Pedro and Giroud are injured.

Yeah, I'm going to continue to pronounce his name as though he was Croatian. Pulisi-ch rather than the way he wants it pronounced in the Americanized way.

Paying so much for him, doing so almost as soon as the January window opened, and then the strange loaning him back there for the remainder of the season as a sweetener should tell us the club's thinking. They must know that had they waited until the summer our chances of signing him drop considerably due to competition from other clubs. You can bet that all of our rivals would've been after him. The club didn't want to risk it.

Are we the only match on today? Why is kickoff so late in the day?

I suppose another promising sign with this deal following the massive prices paid for Morata and Kepa is that we now know that our club will splash out on a player if they really, really want them. There was a period there where we'd only be shopping in the "middle" tier and I wondered if we'd ever compete for top players again. We will do so if it's the right player in the clubs' eyes. That's now 3 players purchased for more than £50m recently.

Think it's mostly because everyone's worried his signing means Hazard is off. I'm going to guess 90% of the opposition fans making fun of this and calling him shit would have been creaming themselves if their club had signed him. For instance, I'm seeing loads of fans from United, Arse, and Liverpool saying he's bad but they've all wanted him badly in the past.

Not going to shit on the deal or moan but I'm not over the moon either. So long as he isn't Hazard's replacement then I don't really see a downside to this transfer. At only 20 years old and with him being American, even if he is good but not great we'd make our money back. The whole loaning him back for the rest of the season is puzzling since as others have mentioned, he isn't a regular currently and we could use him now. I think it's pretty clear that this was something in the works for a long while behind the scenes and that after spending such a big amount we won't be buying anyone else this month. Only outgoings like Cesc and maybe Moses & Cahill. Especially with Sarri saying (alarmingly) that we don't need a striker.

Yep. Spuds are a better, more complete team than we are at the moment. Much further along in their progression under Poch. City, Liverpool, and Spuds were always the most likely top 3. All about that 4th spot.

Might Fulham have the worst defense the PL has ever seen? My word they're terrible. Arse literally couldn't have asked for a better opponent to play immedietly after getting thrashed by Liverpool.

He seems to have finally acknowledged Emerson's exsistence so maybe a corner has been turned.

Think Sarri may actually rotate a player or two for this one to our surprise. Could maybe see Christensen and one of the fullbacks being rotated in. Kova will obviously start since he didn't against Palace.

They sacked him at the perfect time when their upcoming fixtures were easy and they can quickly stabilize things. Since the match Solskjaer took over I think they have about 5 easily winnable fixtures in a row. I'd be starting to worry about them if I was Arsenal. Pretty confident that we won't allow them to become a danger to us.

How do you allow 5 foot tall midget Aguero win a header and score in between two giant CB's?

This is nothing like Conte-ball at all under Sarri. Second half of last season we would regularly allow even small teams to dominate the run of play for large stretches of games. We often had no clue whatsoever positionally. Under Sarri, the ball retention, the pressing, the winning of the ball back, and the positions our players take up to receive the ball and form passing triangles is miles better than it's ever been. The problem is we have literally one player in attack that scares anyone. Giroud is a good backup option but when he starts like today and has two CB focused in on him it's very difficult. When Morata plays he's soft as butter. Willian scores once every 15 matches it feels like. Pedro is clinical when he gets a good sight at goal but that doesn't happen often enough. Both Kovacic and Barkley seem scared to shoot most of the time. Compare this to Liverpool, City, Spuds, and even Arse who each have at least THREE attackers who teams worry about,

Palace are even more reliant on Zaha magic than we are Hazard. This is now both matches against Palace this season where Azpi has pocketed him. Since he was unable to do anything Palace were relegation quality. Cant remember Kepa even touching to ball with his hands other than claiming easy crosses.

Giroud ankle injury didn't look good and Morata was woeful in his brief cameo. We absolutely have to bring in reinforcements soon. Hazard looked dead tired by the end there so counting on him as a false 9 may not work for much longer.