Independently of the win against Brentford, I wanted to commend them as a team. Excellently drilled, disciplined, a very fun and well executed project. Same as Villa, West Ham, Brighton, Crystal Palace, although weaker teams than us, they respect the game. While on the other hand teams as Newcastle or Everton, always try anything to get something from us, usually in a non sportsmanship manner. And I think this is a vital difference

Bruno G’ forearm to the back of the head going unpunished to mask the incompetence of the VAR signals a negative precedence for the rest of the season. Either players start acting violently since it seems that it goes unpunished, or VAR starts giving reds, making the Newcastle game even more suspicious.

Maybe a controversial take BUT
Leandro Trossard is an Elite player.

Hear me out… He might not be the most consistent performer out there.
However time after time after time, he stepped up when we needed it badly.
He has this “X-factor” vibe around him. He is a clinical finisher -maybe even the best finisher in the team at the moment. He is ambipedal. His close control and technique has a late Wenger era aura.

If he can find a consistency to his game and fix any condition issues (he seems to be gassed at the 75th minute mark - but this can also be affected by his work rate), he can truly be up there with the best.

An important shift from last year’s tactics seems to be that we want possession just for the sake of it. We are looking to dominate possession and smother the opposition onto their own defensive 3rd.

This can be a double edged sword, like when we were trying to implement building out from the back with Leno and Sokratis.

In the sake of keeping possession, we tend to backpass when a team is pressing proactively and have a dense packed midfield. The creativity with Xhaka and Partey out of the line up is plummeting as well.

In my opinion this is the main reason it seems like we are underperforming this year. What we are trying to do CAN be super effective IF chemistry and creativity return to the side.

Hale End boys seeing Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe and Saka starting at a Premier League game, Nelson off the bench as well…

This can be the difference maker between a very good and a GREAT academy. The desire to achieve what the previous lads did is a huge motivation boost.