please log in to view this image Venue: Turf Moor KO: 15:00 GMT Date: Saturday 18th September 2021 Overall Record Wins: 54 Draws: 23 Losses: 34 Last six meetings Burnley 1-1 Arsenal Arsenal 0-1 Burnley Burnley 0-0 Arsenal Arsenal 2-1 Burnley Burnley 1-3 Arsenal Arsenal 3-1 Burnley please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image Team News: TBC
Will be a tricky away tie this. Burnley will be up for it. We've got the quality to win this though. I'd like to see us play a back 3 again and let Tierney and Tommy bomb down the wings. Need to get Pepe on the ball in this game too. If we play it right we can cause them a lot of problems.
It’s weird because, even though Burnley were always viewed as a banana skin for us, we always used to beat Burnley when Wenger was in charge and even Emery beat them 3/3 times. Since Arteta’s arrived, we’ve drawn 2 games and lost 1 against them… Hopefully we buck that trend and start winning because this is going to be a bigger test than the Norwich game, particularly given our lack of aerial prowess.
I guess no-one was around to comment on the match thread Great win. More impressive than the Norwich game considering our recent struggles against Burnley of late and the fact that many people suspected we wouldn’t be up for the physical challenge. Thought we neutralised them perfectly. Odegaard had a very good game and capped it off with a lovely free-kick for the winner. Gabriel and Tomiyasu were absolutely colossal. More of the same for the rest of the season please Ramsdale has been great in all 3 games he’s played so far - if he keeps this up, lots of people will be eating their words. Including me! White and Tierney were less impressive. Very sloppy in possession and nervy clearances. White was very fortunate with the underhit backpass that could have led to the penalty but was (rightfully) overturned. Pepe, Saka and Smith-Rowe were extremely frustrating, as their final pass was shocking every time or kept gifting the ball away when we looked to counter or transition. This is one thing we do need to sort out - whenever we get into the attacking third, the last pass was either overhit, underhit, behind the striker or too far ahead of the striker. We could have scored 3 or 4 more goals today because we were bypassing their porous midfield with ease, then getting into very dangerous situations. Then we kept fluffing our lines. Need to work on our execution and precision of final passes. Overall though, back to back wins and consecutive clean sheets NLD next…
Yeah I thought both Tomiyasu and Gabriel were superb. Our new RB just doesnt stop running! White was decent too - athough almost cost us agoal with that back pass. Odengaard looked decent as well and Ramsdale is looking on an improvement on Leno. Personally for the NLD I would keep the same side but take out Pepe and bring in Lokonga/Xhaka.
Im still very concerned with our attacking play. We haven’t looked convincing in any of our 5 league games going forward. This isn’t sustainable.
I still have question marks over Arteta's ability to coach attacking patterns of play, but on Saturday, I can't pin the blame on him too much. We got into so many promising positions and kept ruining the final pass. I'd expect better from some of those players usually. It was aggravating. Saka, ESR, Pepe and Auba were all miles below par. Thankfully, Odegaard, of the attacking players, did show up.
How do you solve the issue of players getting into decent positions and fluffing their lines? Auba seems bereft of confidence and ideas, I wonder what their conversation rate is?
Some of it is a confidence issue so if Auba can get another goal in his next match I expect him to start building some momentum. But I do think there's some truth in the whole 'just working on defence all the time' complaint that apparently came from Lacazette. If they are not getting sharp in training they wont be sharp on the pitch. Arteta does seem a little too obsessed with 'the press' and working hard, rather than actually just scoring goals. Its funny because around the time Arteta was at Arsenal, Arsenal Wenger was doing a similar thing. He was obsessed with posession based football and our ability to actually just score a goal suffered.