Surreal tbh. What’s weird is other teams just look mid. You watch other games (PSG, Madrid) and they honestly look like Villa to me.

Arteta really did raise the standards and I couldn’t be more grateful.

I really used to pray for days like these.

I think it’s obvious we are playing a way more structured system this season. We have far fewer overlapping runs, and seem to be more focused on managing our longevity over the season than we are in blowing teams away.

At the moment we look efficient to me. It feels like Arteta trying to approach winning from a more controllable angle (dominate possession, concede fewer chances) than it feels like a lack of inventiveness. I’m just a little worried it might affect some of our players’ confidence (Martinelli is quietly having a bad season for example).

Overall I’m not too worried. I just hope leadership knows what they are doing.

It’s not too late for Nwaneri to become the biggest story for us this year.

What experiment?

Raya has started every major game he has been available for since he was integrated into the first 11.

There was no experiment…just Arteta softening the blow for the English media by, you know, lying.

Frimpong shouldn’t qualify. he barely featured for us.

Arteta lost the league because he had a paper thin squad. Eventually, a mixture of having key players out and other key players burnt out lost him the league to a squad with superstars.

Don’t overcomplicate it. Holding, Sambi, Elneny don’t get a sniff anywhere else in this league.

The difference being you actually have to offer guaranteed first team football to Bruno and Paqueta to convince them to sign. Maybe not Kudus.

This isn’t FIFA. You sign a player and fail to keep up your side of the agreement, you end up with dressing room issues.

He’s younger than Eddie. He hasn’t even been playing poorly.

Didn’t we literally do that last season? How short are our attention spans?

Absolute cannon event.

Defense. Even as one of the leaders in the league, we still are out of possession 40% of the time.

You want better than Trossard then

Ibrahim is who everyone is excited for, right?

What’s the point of quality in the injury room?

You watch other games and you quickly realize we have the best defense in the league. I strongly believe it’d have been better if Partey and Timber weren’t injured.

Downvote me but Martinelli has been wasteful tonight.

The sheer amount of opportunities and he’s struggled to find anyone.

Sounds aggressively like agent talk.

That was his initial position before Pep made him into a fullback. He still plays it for Ukraine.

I think Arteta wanted more options there.

It’s easy to forget Zinny can play that position too if Timber was available. With Tomi’s form maybe that will happen.

Having the option to play Kai, Zinny, Rice or Vieira in that position objectively should give him as much flexibility as possible.

I think the real problem is not having Partey be able to string a run of games together.

I’ve been genuinely impressed with Declan Rice’s contribution since he joined Arsenal. It’s surprising to see the midfield’s overall performance not elevate further, especially when considering the brilliance of Odegaard, Zinchenko, and Partey last season.

Oh I completely agree. I’m just pointing out where we’ve regressed as a result of the personnel changes.

It’s normal there’s a bedding in period. Martinelli needs to be fed more and going from one of the best progressive passes in the game to stylistically one of the worst does have its effect.

I think I prefer Rice in that role with Partey in DM over Rice in DM with Kai in that role. I thought Zinny would take on the duty of feeding Gabi but he really hasn’t switched on this season.

Depending so much on the right flank alone is making us predictable IMO. We really need to fix ball progression on the left.