Win Premier League: Arsenal 2 - 1 Nottingham Forest | Saturday 12th August | KO: 13:00 BST | TNT Sports

Football is back, baby!!!

Likely starting XI

Prediction
Arsenal 3-0 Nottingham Forest

 

[BergMan]

Who is the replacement for the role Xhaka performed last season? Havertz is playing as a striker and Rice a #6.
Or has Mikel changed tactics and nobody replaces Xhaka?

 

[BaZZe]

I actually think we came out 2nd half looking up for it but Timber's injury was the turning point that killed off all momentum.

 

[avenellroad]

Felt like at 2-0 in complete control, would’ve been a good time to send a message to City and the other rivals that we mean business again this season. Might be a bit entitled tho, idk.

Forest will be fighting relegation so don’t disagree there with that.

 

[celestis]

Stop it we won

Of course we won but if you want a title challenge the standards got to be higher than that . Lack of intensity for 15 mins was unacceptable .

 

[GLITCH]

Unfortunately, Arteta will probably force Havertz into the lineup because he asked for this expensive signing.

Hopefully he can make it work, but early signs say this was a mistake.

 

[Morning_woody]

Horrendous 2nd half. I don't understand why we didn't go for that 3rd goal but instead tried to kill the game by keeping possesion.

 

[celestis]

Yeah Vinai should take a long hard look at himself.

?

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Teta needs to stop pissing about trying to prove himself to Pep.

Just play your best defence and win games.

He need to bald first. He not getting it

 

[Dokaka]

Rice was good off the ball and very basic or outright poor on it. Very early days a lot of growing to do and playing with better team mates should help but definitely closer to what I said he'd look like than the Vieira Iniesta mix @Dokaka was selling and gullible AM was buying by the pound

Not gonna take the bait, busy watching us play volleyball against mighty Bournemouth

 

[db10_therza]

Last season we started with what was clearly our best 11 in their best formation with optimal tactics.

This season it looks like we’ll be galaxy braining it to keep the opposition guessing. I don’t mind it - was clear from last season that once they manage to shut down our A game we didn’t have much else to give other than Arteta chucking on 8 attackers.

It does mean though that he’ll also keep us fans guessing. And since AM is chock full of armchair pundits that know best, I suspect we’ll see a bit of a backlash here. Even (especially) from the ones that previously used to moan about rotation…

If we can keep chopping and changing and churning wins out I’ll be happy as it means we’ll have a fresh(ish) rotated squad at the end of the season and the players will have multiple styles of play ingrained in their psyche. This is exactly what Pep does and it’s why City finish seasons as strongly as they do.

I’m backing us to finish this season on fire . We won’t start as well as last season tho. So yeah, queue the backlash.

 

[Lady_Gooner]

His physical advantage as CF is probably the most interesting thing about him.

If that’s the most interesting thing surely we could’ve just found some random tall guy from Italy somewhere
Anyway I don’t wanna sound negative about the signing cos I’m acc not lol. He won’t be terrible but won’t get me off my seat.
It’s giving dry

 

[2Smokeyy]

Yeah Olise will do loads from the treatment table.

Isn't he injured and joining Chelsea?

Knowing our luck he’ll miraculously be back for our game.

It always happens.

 

[bingobob]

I mean your point was proven very strongly. Think you gotta leave the control for 3-0 up.

It depends what a team wants or perceives from control. A Mourinho team might see themselves as being in control with a low block. Regardless of how 'control' is perceived all teams need to transition from their perception of control to risk taking.

There is room for our version of control at 0 - 0, 1 - 0 and so on but we need to be ready and able to take more risks. We don't know when to lift the tempo and ease it. Maybe it's first game syndrome maybe it's a pattern of a team that thinks if we've got 80% possession we'll get a chance. But it feels like it'll be a problem that will catch up with us at some point.

 

[Clrnc]

View attachment 17574

@db10_therza @Clrnc who is your captain?

Same. Should have capt Haaland

 

[Ash10]

Tbf I get why Gabriel got benched. As good as he is, decision making is still rash & gave away that pointless free kick at the end

 

[Clrnc]

Thank **** for Tomi in the last 10 minutes. Was colossal for us.

 

[Batman]

Unfortunately, Arteta will probably force Havertz into the lineup because he asked for this expensive signing.

Hopefully he can make it work, but early signs say this was a mistake.

He didn't put a foot wrong today. People just want him to fail so they can say they were right. He and the team will be fine.

 

[amigo]

He scored from a lucky deflection and did nothing besides that. Eddie scored 15 PL goals from 90 games.

Most

He scored from a lucky deflection and did nothing besides that. Eddie scored 15 PL goals from 90 games.

Most of those appearances were subs. When Eddie starts he has a very decent scoring rate.

 

[Ash10]

Thank **** for Tomi in the last 10 minutes. Was colossal for us.

Has always been rock solid aside from that patch when he came back from injury

 

[steppenwolf]

?

Vinai had a bit of a weston super start

our game will come.