carefree franco

Ah last summer Arsenal spent a load of money on calafiori who can cover left back or centre back when they already had timber who can play right back, centre back and left back. They also have Ben white who can play right back or centre back. And Lewis Skelley who is the future wonder boy of left backs. The centre backs they have on top of those are Gabriel and Saliba who you would expect would play when fit. So 60 million for a player who’s competing with Calafiori, timber, Gabriel, skelley all seems a bit bonkers

I am definitely in the camp that garnacho should not be signed but Simons would be a good signing. I don’t want the club to spend recklessly but by and large recently the signings have been more hits than misses.

I think it’s completely reactionary to say he’s inferior to George, he has played a lot of minutes in Germany and looked like a great talent and sure George might be a great player but he’s still quite a way behind gittens in his development. I have previously said getting gittens who favours the left wing for madueke who is a right winger when we have estevao palmer and Neto who play there this season and from next season Quenda and Paez is a great for squad balance. After this weekend I’m not sure maresca will be tactically flexible anymore but lw, gittens garnacho cam palmer Simons rw, estevao Neto with palmer estevao and Simons able to play in 2 of those positions means that we won’t be predictable in how we set up at all. I know this is a gittens thread but Simons estevao and palmer as the three behind the striker rotating could be very exciting to watch

It wasn’t just the like for like subs that was baffling, it was the bring gusto on for James and ask him to do the exact same thing as him. If something isn’t working try the same thing with different players mentality

I haven’t seen enough of Gittens to make a proper judgement on him yet. However if he is the same level as Madueke I don’t really get the criticism, palmer, estevao and Neto all favour the right hand side and no one was naturally a LW so if we have just got a player on Maduekes level on the left then it gives the squad more balance.

I meant that although it was given for that, the contributing factors also played a part. The ref in the United game did also make a mark on how close the attackers were to the wall so maybe it’s a thing that’s being enforced more this season

Agree with everything apart from the disallowed goal, it could have been disallowed for a clear push and him being that close impeded Sanchez’s view, even though he should be doing better with that

I’m half and half if we need another cb. In my ideal world we would see fofana, disasi and badiashile for football and injury reasons. That leaves Chalobah, Tosin Acheampong and Colwill. Acheampong is looking very promising but I always thought he’d be a right back but maybe this season he’ll cement himself as a centre back. In that situation one more defender is needed and I honestly think it should be Scalvini, him and Colwill next season and for a good few years could be an incredible partnership. If acheampong does impress this season we’d have incredible depth. Fofana if he could stay fit would be as good but I just think that ship has sailed now and it would be good to move on.

Arsenal being Stoke again this season! It’s really funny that in the main it was arsenal fans banging the drum that mourinho was anti football when he first came in and now they don’t care even though they’re not a touch on what his team was

Maybe not, he’s definitely more explosive and flashier than George which might deceive the eye test somewhat but I’ll give him time to prove himself

It clearly wasn’t working at half time and he should have spotted that and made changes, I wanted pedro and delap up top as a 2 with palmer and estevao behind them and santos beefing up the middle alongside Caicedo. But it took him too long to make the changes and when he did a) it was too late and b) he didn’t tactically alter the game plan he just swapped the personnel that were not doing anything

And that remains a big problem, essugo should be the understudy to Caicedo and who plays next to him should be based on the game, santos should play against teams who aim to stifle us, Enzo should play when the teams a a bit more attacking and he has time to play and Lavia should play when he’s fit.

He didn’t have the best game but was stifled of service. The problem today was the same as last season but in the games he’s played previously i thought that maybe he would be the striker to drag space between midfield and defence and allow palmer more space. The 2 big problems today were both named Enzo. Maresca inverting cucerella rather than asking him to hold width and stretch play one side and to facilitate Fernandez to be one of the attacking players who slowed down the play even more than the tactics were meant to do and occupied space that palmer, Neto, pedro and gittens should have been in. By the time we were near the area Palace had 3 centre backs who could deal with anything that we could throw at them.

He looked potentially electric in the game against leverkusen but that’s a very small sample size, he’s better than George and could be a Sancho with pace but I’m not convinced he’s a player who knows what to do against teams who pack themselves in. I think Simons would be a lot more creative and able to do more. The physicality did look like it was too much for him though

He was awful today, I don’t think the tactics helped him but that’s no excuse. If he’s played higher up then it should be against teams who don’t pack the area, but when he did come short he miscontrolled balls that should have been easy for him. If he carries on playing I want to see what he can do with “traditional” full backs alongside Caicedo. Today he congested space that wasn’t there for palmer and just slowed the whole team dynamic and if he carries on like this then santos should be putting him on the bench.