Zoob

Set piece goal for Arsenal you say? Shocked. It's phenomenal Pulis-ball they're playing. What a league title this would be.

He recently became a dad, so, that could defo be part of it. Doesn't matter if you're a millionnaire - a newborn baby and all the stress and lack of sleep that comes with that can mess you up. Also maybe like Mo, was more deeply affected by Jota's death. All that on top of recovering from an injury...

That's a surprising stat. Have no reason to doubt it, but in many of the games I've watched, you can see Wirtz pressing, but if he's the only one, it's really easy to get around, and mostly Salah and Gakpo are both pretty static (and just no comparison to when we had Firmino, Salah and Mane all pressing).

Yeah, that's decent. I think the other point not really made (unless I missed it) is our non-existent press. Even when we're playing Ekitike as a 9 and Wirtz as a 10, (with Gakpo and Salah either side), Wirtz presses, Gakpo pseudo presses, Salah doesn't press at all, and I've not seen Ekitike press like Jota or Diaz used to. This contributes to being super easy to play through.

Not sure he had too much choice - Robbo playing as part of a back 3 hardly advanced beyond the half way line so hopefully didn't use too much energy. Had we started Nallo there instead of Robbo, we'd probably have been down to 10 men for most of the game...

Yeah, that's kinda how I see it. But that's probably because I want that to be what he means, else it's embarassing. Not counting Ramsey, we only have one fit right back. So no risking Bradley. Isak is injured, so we're not gonna play Ekitike. Gravenberch is injured, maybe Jones too, so we're not gonna risk Dom.... Obviously not gonna risk our 2 center backs, and the Italian kid would have played had he not been injured... There's also been plenty of times we play a weird hybrid of kids and experienced players and look just as poor as we did tonight...

Red card Nallo, what a show, On he comes and off he goes!

How about that Nallo kid. Must be a record to have something like 15 minutes of first team experience and two red cards. Impressive. Only bright side of tonight was that Ramsey actually looked decent. Maybe he can be added to our mix of not quite good enough right backs.

Yeah. I guess he's made it clear, he wants to keep all our first team fresher for the league, but still surprised at the bench particularly. if it goes wrong, then it's just roll the dice and hope again.

Ramsay! It feels he hasn't even played in 2 years. I'm not entirely convinced he's real. We shall see.

These are both true, although I think the biggest factor in Germany was that Frankfurt were absolutely s***.

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Not that he'd be our savior (since he would contribute to us being out run / out fought) , and I still think Wirtz will come good,...but I do think Elliott would have done more in fewer minutes than Wirtz has had. And Elliott's getting no more playing time at Villa than he got here, which is insane. Don't think Emery actually wanted him. Wirtz's miss yesterday was terrible. But the exact kind of s*** that happens when things aren't going right, confidence not right etc.

Yeah, that's almost criminal. You just can't spend what we've spent and become so much worse.

Haaland nearly Babbed himself on the post in scoring an offside goal.

knowing that teams can't wait to face us because they know how soft we are is embarrassing. I get how coaches can be stubborn, but playing the same formation / system when it's not working is worrying. Do something different. Try 4-4-2, or 3-5-2 - just something so that we can actually compete. Seeing Arsenal grind out 1-0 wins doesn't help either. Another goal not directly from, but following a set piece...

We've also lost the ability to press as a team. We used to do this like a machine under Klopp, and could still do it last season. Wirtz is actually decent at pressing, but if he's the only one of our attacking players doing it, it's not gonna be very effective. So we don't press, we just let teams slice through us, can't defend set pieces, can't run as much, have terrible full backs, and no attacking identity. Sigh.

I feel like I've reality shifted or something. None of it makes any sense. How can we be so so bad? I know there's mitigating factors, but I just don't get what we're even trying to do (and obviously this is on Slott, even if the lack of effort/running/fight is on the players). Every aspect of our game has turned to s***.

He reminds me of Dominic Mateo in term of how clueless he is in some of the weird positions he takes up and then how bad his passing is. He's also young, but man, he looks lost and clueless.

He's not been good enough, but he does have 3 assists outside of the league, and would have 3 or 4 in the league had team mates not missed some very easy chances he set up for them. Was totally useless tonight though.

This is partly true, particularly in terms of confusing the f*** out of them with some of the weird substitutions. But it's the players who keep on being out run, and losing almost every second ball, losing more challenges than they're winning etc.

Yeah, I try to ground myself in this too. In the heat of the moment, and when we're utterly s***, it's easy to forget it. Knowing we're the only ones to have beaten cheating City to the title in the last 8 years helps for sure. It's how bad we are to watch that is frustrating in the moment. We have all these great players, we strolled the league, and yet we're being outplayed, outrun, outfought, and look utterly causeless across the pitch. Even our keeper - like how the f*** did we sign a keeper who is so bad with the ball at his feet?

He didn't play well, and that miss was really poor, but then aside from Dom (and some bits of Jones maybe?) who wasn't crap? And then the subs we made once we were 3-1 down just destroyed us as a team. We had zero midfield, and I have no idea what we were even trying to do at that point. Even Chiesa who has looked good coming on was totally lost.

Just amazing how far we've regressed. Combination of things. Jota is definitely part of it, as is aging players, too many new players, some of those new players looking s***e, Slot second season syndrome, this weird set piece long ball, long throw renaissance... Even 2022/23, we didn't seem as clueless and open as this, but maybe I just blanked it out of my memory. Just an absolute s*** show, and annoyingly putting me in a s*** mood far too often.

We were beaten to almost every second ball, and outrun throughout the game. Conceded 3 utterly s*** goals and it could have been more. Not a fun time.