PL: Leicester vs Arsenal | KO:17:30 | Saturday 9th November | Sky Sports

[Tir Na Nog]

The way Leicester play will fit perfectly into Emery’s plans and that’s what I’m afraid of. Another counter attacking snooze fest by our boys.

Think we’ll nick it- Emery keeping his job in the process.

We don't have the defence to keep Leicester out, also we'll struggle to get the ball. Also I don't think people realise how vital someone like Xhaka is to counter-attacks because of his ability to pick that first pass in transition. Guendouzi, Torreira, Willock none of them have that to the same level as Xhaka. People don't realise these things until it's too late but it's the reality. Most of our counter attacking situations will break down. Let's not get started on the ball constantly bouncing off Laca if he plays. This will be really ugly.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Also it's likely that Kolasinac starts today. My god this is gonna be horrible viewing.

 

[GDeep™]

Don’t understand the Tierney and Kola thing, unless Unai feels Tierney needs minutes in easier games to build him for tougher games.

 

[Ashybashy86]

We don't have the defence to keep Leicester out, also we'll struggle to get the ball. Also I don't think people realise how vital someone like Xhaka is to counter-attacks because of his ability to pick that first pass in transition. Guendouzi, Torreira, Willock none of them have that to the same level as Xhaka. People don't realise these things until it's too late but it's the reality. Most of our counter attacking situations will break down. Let's not get started on the ball constantly bouncing off Laca if he plays. This will be really ugly.

Didn't we play our best football under Emery with Xhaka at LB?

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Didn't we play our best football under Emery with Xhaka at LB?

What? I swear he played LB like a couple of times and I'm not sure we played our best football any of those times. Our best games were 1-1 vs Liverpool with Xhaka CM, 4-2 Sp**s Xhaka CM, the two ties vs Valencia and Napoli. None of them with Xhaka as LB, then you can go Chelsea and United even tho we didn't really play that well in the latter, Xhaka again was CM/DM whatever you want to call it. Fulham 5-1 again Xhaka was CM for that one.

 

[Ashybashy86]

What? I swear he played LB like a couple of times and I'm not sure we played our best football any of those times. Our best games were 1-1 vs Liverpool with Xhaka CM, 4-2 Sp**s Xhaka CM, the two ties vs Valencia and Napoli. None of them with Xhaka as LB, then you can go Chelsea and United even tho we didn't really play that well in the latter, Xhaka again was CM/DM whatever you want to call it. Fulham 5-1 again Xhaka was CM for that one.

I was thinking of Leicester City at home, but you're right, he only played LB a couple of times.

 

[mavelous]

Maybe but they’ve lost to Utd away already, that was the perfect template.

exactly though, as ****e as Utd maybe at the moment, defence is the one thing that they have improved upon, based on their last season at least.

it's better than our defence, though that isn't high praise by any means.

 

[Pepes blue pill]

Arsenal are 3.9 to win, crazy price and I cant bring myself to back it as nothing under emery makes me think we will turn up today

 

[samshere]

They signed Matip almost straight away so they at least did something, the also signed Robertson soon after and they tried to get Van Dijk much sooner than they did. Tbf you could argue that Liverpool needed to strengthen in so many areas because of the dross Rodgers left them with. With us Wenger left a top heavy side with excellent attacking players in need of top class additions at the back, in particular a top CB. We've been crying out for that since Mertesacker decided he lost his motivation back in 2014, we've been neglecting it for so long.

The bottom line is tho once Liverpool got the Coutinho money they went and strengthened the most important areas straight away. Liverpool selling their player when his value was at its highest is also another area they're better at than us. We're just a mess altogether letting someone like Ramsey go. You could argue we've missed the perfect opportunity to sell Lacazette too.

You could argue that we strengthened our defence by getting Saliba and Tierney as well. I can't fault our transfer spending at all, in fact if Pepe was firing on all cylinders we wouldn't even be having the CB vs winger discussion. We let Iwobi and Mkhi go, we were in dire need of attacking reinforcements as well.

Ramsey is a different discussion altogether. It was a failure that started with offering Özil 350k, there was precious little we could do about his departure.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

You could argue that we strengthened our defence by getting Saliba and Tierney as well. I can't fault our transfer spending at all, in fact if Pepe was firing on all cylinders we wouldn't even be having the CB vs winger discussion. We let Iwobi and Mkhi go, we were in dire need of attacking reinforcements as well.

Ramsey is a different discussion altogether. It was a failure that started with offering Özil 350k, there was precious little we could do about his departure.

We've been crying out for a top experienced CB for so long, we didn't address it. Even if Saliba ends up being the best CB on the planet in the short term we're once again neglecting a key area of the squad. An area which continues to cost us.

 

[Yousif Arsenal]

Seen the great goal we scored against Leicester from last season seem ages ago

 

[razörist]

Possibly the weirdest game ever in my experience. I never want Arsenal to lose, when I say I do it’s in anger, not really. But now, if we lose, I think we have a great chance of seeing Emery get sacked. But losing to Leicester would end our top 4 dream for a while.

conflicted.

 

[Riou]

Can’t see us getting top four even if Emery is sacked, think this squad has too many flaws imo, this is why I would go for an exciting younger coach next and plan for the future...if we want Champions League next year, we have to focus on the Europa.

 

[Jasard]

Possibly the weirdest game ever in my experience. I never want Arsenal to lose, when I say I do it’s in anger, not really. But now, if we lose, I think we have a great chance of seeing Emery get sacked. But losing to Leicester would end our top 4 dream for a while.

conflicted.

I'm starting to think he wouldn't get sacked if we lost so add that to your confusion

 

[Garrincha]

Hope we smash any Rodgers team we play.

 

[Rimaal]

 

[Makingtrax]

Possibly the weirdest game ever in my experience. I never want Arsenal to lose, when I say I do it’s in anger, not really. But now, if we lose, I think we have a great chance of seeing Emery get sacked. But losing to Leicester would end our top 4 dream for a while.

conflicted.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

I'm actually feeling like it'll probably end up a draw which would possibly be the most boring outcome given that it doesn't really increase the pressure on Emery and doesn't help us in terms of top 4.

 

[GDeep™]

Line ups in an hour. For once, expecting no surprises.

 

[Tir Na Nog]

Line ups in an hour. For once, expecting no surprises.

Pepe, Özil and Auba all starting would surprise me, I guess that means no Pepe.