Football News: Arsenal v Nottingham Forest

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Arsenal vs Nottingham Forest

My views regarding the EFL cup are, to those kind enough to read my posts, quite clear, but in a probably hypocritical act, I didn't want to miss the opportunity of visiting the Emirates Stadium for the first time and made a day of it arriving in the capital around 11.30am and spent a pleasant few hours with plenty of fellow supporters in Leicester Square.

Travelling on the tube and talking to several Arsenal fans they were genuinely concerned at their team selection and felt an upset was on the cards and seemed surprised when I said that our line up was far from our best side and that we were not fielding a striker at all and that, for me, the best defensive partnership currently on show in the Championship were not figuring at all.

As other have said ours was a line up that didn't have the look of a side that was coming away from home to get a result and with Adomah looking like the player who would be the man up front and Lolley still for the main part looking out of sorts it was difficult to see where the goal(s) would come from and not unsurprisingly that was exactly how the evening panned out.

We were, if not exactly under the cosh, then certainly left ball chasing against a quick passing side and the resolute defending was always likely to crack with to be fair their first goal being an excellently well set up and taken one and to go in at one down at half time was no disgrace.

The second half for me saw us start perhaps a little sharper and quicker into the tackle and more competitive for the second and loose balls but with no real outlet for us in an attacking sense you did get the feeling that we were not going anywhere in particular and a second Arsenal goal was never going to be far away and when it came the side looked resigned to their fate and so it proved to be.
I think 5 -0 was a little harsh but the massive gulf in class was all too apparent and for the side that we fielded including the introduction of youngsters from the bench was no real shame come the final whistle.

I was left feeling, if not "what might have been", but certainly that we could have set things up differently from the start selection wise with at least a side that looked like it would be more resilient and harder to break down but like it or not this has to be tempered with the fact that we have a massive game on Friday that could see us go top of the Championship should we beat Stoke.

I never expected Grabban to start being our only fit striker at the moment which in itself does highlight an issue we have lurking just around the corner and Adomah last night was a classic case square peg round hole and no blame can be attached to him at all.

The pairing of Silva and Carvalho seemed prior to kick off to be a strange one and is perhaps one we are unlikely to see again with Silva in particular being caught in possession time after time in dangerous areas and Carvalho having precious little of the ball and even less time on it with no real outlet for his undoubted passing abilities.
Muric, whilst being unable to do much about most of the goals, still looks shaky but this may have as much to do with the almost towering presence of Samba that I have become accustomed to and surely a decision will have to be made regarding his loan period sometime soon.

I really do not think blame can be apportioned to any of the players last night, although Robinson nearly blotted his copybook with what looked a pretty awful challenge, but Mr Lamouchi has in the past admitted errors in selection and this may be another one but that said he was always going to stuck between a rock and a hard place on this one.

So we change tack and tempo and move on to Stoke on Friday which at the very least will be a much easier journey on the back of the awful trip back last night/ this morning via the centre of Milton Keynes.
So see you and hear you there ( once again magnificent support at the Emirates) and
As always

COYR.

Written by creepy1 September 25 2019 18:33:27