He turned 23 a couple of weeks ago…
Still just a kid.
We didn’t collapse in the second half, we just took our foot off the pedal. Not doom and gloom.
We now have the international break to get Perez and Mustafi (although he is with Germany) integrated. Great few days! All that would top it off is Ozil + Alexis re-signing and a deadline day deal!
‘We can’t maintain that pace for 90 minutes’ or something like that I heard Wenger say at MotD. That’s why you have pre-season, that is why you have conditioning and stuff like that. Really feel like something is missing there compared to what other managers do as far as conditioning goes.
Like I said in the bit you deleted, we got away with it but I also didnt suggest we collapsed (how woukd i know, i also mentioned how I hadn’t seen the game). Truth of the matter is we didn’t even collapse against Liverpool, they just outperformed us for a twenty minute spell and made their chances count. That was a day we didnt get away with not being a 90 minute team.
Nice to get the season going finally, Granit, Ozil & alexis had brilliant games and I thought Bellerin was great also.
Theo on form makes such a difference to the team
I think it was more to do with Alexis playing well & Ozil being back in the 11.
Watford is also a garbage side. You have to beat those to and hope for no injuries. But I think we have another 2 or 3 games which are relatively easy to improve our play before we play Chelsea.
Interesting… I thought Hector was poor and has been generally suspect since the start of the season
He hasn’t been great, but he has improved game in.
I could see from watching the highlights, compared to the game, you would think Bellerin was excellent; probably why @Aussiegooner thought he did well.
Walcott made their performances better, he got an assist. We wouldn’t have had 3 quick goals in the first half with Giroud instead of Theo
Yeah thats fair.
Ozil’s goal was a thing of beauty. The way Alexis picked out Mesut and finished it off looked typically effortless, from the man whose mind is one step ahead of the rest.
Mentioned it before, but Alexis/Ozil combo seem to play into each others strengths They know what want they want and how to get it. When both on form, their impact is lethal. To an extent Theo got in the mix at times as well.
Between the three, the performance sorta reminded me of the Man Utd home game last season.
It was the same story against lolpool in the opening match. We controlled the first half and got so disjointed in the second half it was stupid. Far too often we take our foot off the gas pedal, we need to keep it up for a full 90 and we’ll see some 5 nil wins this season.
Watford seemed to go to pieces in those last five minutes before half time, and had a pretty bizarre defensive set up, that really cost them.
As Wenger said post-match, it’s pretty clear we can’t do it physically for 90 minutes which needs to be addressed because we can’t count on the opposition throwing it away like that.
You be disappointed we managed to win a game before October, Leper 
Disappointed, of course not. Just like I’m not disappointed we have made some signings which might move us towards being a competitive football team again.
However, as I’m sure you’ll agree is justified, the season ahead is still a pretty indifferent prospect, we’ve got little more or less than the same we’ve had for ten years to look forward to.
Decent performance - got a tad lucky to get early pen and then cruised until second half where we lost a little bit of focus and let them back in it (to be fair, their goal was a little fortunate).
Not a fan of the knee high headers out of defense, but generally we were pretty solid at the back.
Cech - 8 very good. Commanded area and made some important stops. More than he should have had to.
Bellerin - 8 also very good. A few dodgy moments in defense, but he is looking like he can turn into a very dangerous RB. Showed his pace and a few moments of nice dribbling as well. Loving his development.
Kos - 6 - did well enough but he still has this tendency to head balls that look like he could deal with with his feet and one cost us a goal (unlucky). Still unquestionably our best CB and leader back there - need him to stay healthy this year.
Holding - 7. Very solid and he his showing skills I didn’t know he had in terms of passing. Really liking the lad.
Monreal - 6 - did ok but was a little bit of a spaz at times.
Xhaka - 7 - showed signs of why we signed him - great passing and positioning… but wtf is up with his air tackles… needs to get that out of his game. Did it 2 more times today where he completely sold out on a stupid tackle and missed everything, taking himself out of the play and risking cards.
Cazorla - 6 - love him - hugely important to us this year but was a little quiet today.
Ox - 5 - other than one or two good runs, he still looks like he has no f*ing idea how to play the game. Passing awful
Theo - 6 some bright moments but similarly to Ox can’t pass the f*ing ball and faded massively… forgot he was on at times. Can’t wait until we don’t have to see him any more.
Ozil - 9 MOTM just oozes class and showed a killer instinct on a great bursting run and header.
Sanchez - 7 best game so far (not saying much)… looking sharper, smarter, more effective. Very happy to see him rounding back into form
Elneny - 5 meh after coming on.
Wilshere - N/a
Gibbs - n/a - hope Monreal isn’t really hurt.
Watford were pretty dismal for vast majority of game but we did ok… still can’t seem to put more than 50-60 minutes together right now… good to see Kos and Ozil back… looking forward to seeing Giroud, Mustafi, and Lucas Perez.
I personally think the Pen was blatant.
The second half was just more mindless Wengerball when all we needed to do was bring in elneny earlier, and lock shit down. If we could add that to our game we’d be a lot better and probably conserve 5 more points a season.
Great first half. glimpses of vintage Arsenal with some excellent diagonal balls from Xhaka, who looks like he’ll grow into an exceptional player. Xhaka for me was MOTM for the first half. some great team play. some of the passing, movement and interplay was a joy to watch. Sanchez’s cross for Özil’s goal was sublime. the vision and accuracy from Sanchez coupled with Özil’s late run- EXCELLENT!
Walcott had an overdue- good game. some of his closing down and pressure was brilliant. shows what he’s capable of when he wants. hopefully he stays injury free and maintains that hunger.
I’ve liked Holding since he first came, looks a proper defender, hopefully he doesn’t go backwards in his development like Chambers has. with the arrival of Mustafi he will have 3 experienced defenders around him to learn from.
All in all, some great play from the whole squad in the first half. second half though was as is all too often the case another matter. in way too many games when the business is near enough done in the first half we seem to struggle and invite way too much pressure on ourselves and fail to keep the ball in the second half.
If Wenger prefers to see out games in the second half then the team needs to be able to keep the ball MUCH better and have the opposition run themselves into the ground by chasing shadows.
With that said, MUCH better and hopefully we can kick on after the unwelcome international break…