Arsenal vs. Crystal Palace match thread

[Willo]

Listened to the game on Palace TV - will watch the highlights later -

Pretty much every single time the commentator mentioned Gyokeres as breaking into a good position Max was credited almost immediately with getting in there & stopping him, I dont know what Arsenal paid for him but for sure we paid a whole lot less for Max & we see his value week in / week out.

I believe the deal for Gyokeres was £55 Mill rising to £63 Mill.
The deal for Lacroix was a figure of up to £21 Mill.
Mark Robins signed Gyokeres from Brighton for £1.1 Mill.

 

[beak]

Bunker mentality has returned, only 27 points needed now for safety and another season in the Premiership. Smoke signals are warning Millwall (3rd) and Charlton (6th) might join us but twelve points and humiliating them should not be sniffed at,the coach driver is happy with local journeys 😆 .

 

[Willo]

Bunker mentality has returned, only 27 points needed now for safety and another season in the Premiership. Smoke signals are warning Millwall (3rd) and Charlton (6th) might join us but twelve points and humiliating them should not be sniffed at,the coach driver is happy with local journeys 😆 .

Given the overall depth of our squad it was unrealistic to expect a continuation of the successes we enjoyed leading up to the Everton defeat. I foresaw a degradation and a re-calibration of the expectancy of our supporters.

 

[PatrickA]

Our defence functions well 9 times out of 10 (top 6 form).
Our attack functions well 6 times out of 10 ( mid table form).

Can we bridge this gap?
It will be difficult without better attacking options.

 

[beak]

Given the overall depth of our squad it was unrealistic to expect a continuation of the successes we enjoyed leading up to the Everton defeat. I foresaw a degradation and a re-calibration of the expectancy of our supporters.

A spot on analysis. 👍 👍 👍 👍

 

[MrRobbo]

Mitchell won his battle with Saka such that Arteta took the winger off.
Wharton had a half-decent game
Henderson made a couple of decent saves.
Guehi was pretty solid and made one excellent intervention that stopped an otherwise certain goal.

Unfortunately, both Sarr and Pino were very poor which meant Mateta had little support and when he did win the ball and laid it off to them they managed to lose it. In other words we were pretty toothless.

The most frustrating thing for me was that on those occasions we got forward (especially in the first half) we kept misplacing passes when in good positions.

Arsenal weren't at their best but a lot of that was down to us not allowing them to be.

100% agree.

Sarr in particular, decision making was all off. Passed when he should have shot, and shot when he should have passed.

Apart from those 2, the rest had pretty good games.

 

[JHB]

100% agree.

Sarr in particular, decision making was all off. Passed when he should have shot, and shot when he should have passed.

Apart from those 2, the rest had pretty good games.

Unfortunately this is what you get with Sarr. He can look like a world beater but equally has stretches where he is very ineffective. He’s always been a streaky player and probably always will be. If he was consistent he’d be worth £50m and playing for a Champions League club because the physical attributes are all there

 

[maddog]

Very good to see Ebs’s muted, quite solemn celebration after his goal - not even a flicker of a smile. And the Palace applause for him as he was substituted. No ‘badge kissing’ incident here!

 

[Palace Old Geezer]

Glasner was in mischievous mood when interviewed post match.
He was asked what Palace needed to improve and he replied 'spend £300 million and not save £20 million.'

Obviously we're never going to spend that kind of money, but the side has been made weaker in at least the near term with the sale of Eze, and Glasner has a point about the club saving money rather than spending.
We lack options in the number 10/ attacking positions.

Glasner doesn't trust Esse or Uche at this stage and Sarr if off to Afcon next month.
Towards the end of the window Glasner was expecting two attacking additions.
He got one in Uche, and even then it seems to be some sort of loan/purchase deal contingent on him starting games.

Of course spending money doesn't guarantee players will succeed but there's value to be had out there - look at Bournemouth, Brentford and Sunderland.

Overall we've done very well in recent seasons with our transfer business.
However, summer looks poor - particularly taking into account the heavy schedule.

Very much so. Made me chuckle.

For various reasons I've only just watched his interview and, whilst he was not saying he wanted more money to spend, he was clearly sending a strong message to Mr Parish about how he needs to have more of a voice about the type of players we need to build on our squad for the future. As he said, "we are Crystal Palace" so he knows we don't have piles of cash to spend so spend what we do have wisely.

It all sounded like part of his contract negotiations. Good luck with that Ollie.

 

[NEILLO]

I thought the game itself was far from a classic. Few moments of any real quality from either side, but of course, inevitably, one of their moments was from Ebs.

We restricted Arsenal to few opportunities which is a positive. However, despite having a fair share of the ball in the oppositions half, it wasn't used as effectively as it could be. Some of the decision making wasn't up to scratch and with Pino and Sarr looking out of sorts, there was little genuine goal threat from Palace.

But we have to maintain some perspective here. We were playing the league leaders. A club that invested heavily in the summer. And they were coming off the back of an impressive CL performance with the additional benefit of 2 days more recovery time than our team.

 

[park the bus]

Given the overall depth of our squad it was unrealistic to expect a continuation of the successes we enjoyed leading up to the Everton defeat. I foresaw a degradation and a re-calibration of the expectancy of our supporters.

Water finds its own level. We managed to ride the crest of a wave based on ability, effort, tactics and good timing, but things tend to settle down to the norm after a while, which for us means playing for mid-table security, with the added interest this time round of learning about Euro competition, which as they've just found out, isn't a walk in the park.

 

[mtp1958]

We are not 'Birds on the same twig" apropos the goal.

it would have to be a very large twig to take my weight lol

 

[Den1923]

Overall this defeat was probably expected and a vast improvement on our last visit when we lost 5-0. However a dip in form is to be expected considering the lack of any real depth in our bench, unlike other teams we do not have the luxury of having players who we can rotate between games. With our current starting 11, we have so far been lucky with injuries, that may and could change in an instant and then there will be difficulties. The European football is great but the number of games we are being asked to play in edition to the high intensity EPL etc, is bound to take its toll with our small squad as the season progresses. I would love to be wrong but signs are appearing even at this early stage in the fixture list.

 

[lagoseagle]

Reminded me of Roy when OG made 88th minute subs (who got on in the 91st minute) to look for a last gasp equalizer. Shows how little he believes in his squad beyond the first 11.

 

[The Dolphin]

Yes, so did I.

I thought that Kamada was dreadful yesterday - back to his old lazy self.
I just would not pick him.

 

[The Dolphin]

We played a very good Arsenal side, who have strength in depth and who had two days longer than us to rest up after their European game.
There is no shame in losing to them but we do look tired and without ideas right now.
We miss the spark of an Eze or Wilf - players who can change things.
Kamada is rubbish and is making Wharton a worse player for it and I just do not see what OG does where he is concerned.
We seem to have lost the spark and a win on Saturday is much needed.
Conference league games always do teams like us sadly.

 

[lagoseagle]

We've only seen cameo's of Uche up to now, and OG I know has complained about lack of pre-season with Pino. But I feel Pino looks a bit small and lightweight, whereas Uche seems big, strong and athletic. Why not give him some more minutes , and just throw himself around a bit. We need another goal scorer, Eddie doesn't seem to be reliably that guy. Maybe Uche can partially fill the void when Mateta has an off day (a few recently).

I would also like to see Sosa get some more minutes to see if he can cut it in EPL.

 

[Painter]

We played a very good Arsenal side, who have strength in depth and who had two days longer than us to rest up after their European game.
There is no shame in losing to them but we do look tired and without ideas right now.
We miss the spark of an Eze or Wilf - players who can change things.
Kamada is rubbish and is making Wharton a worse player for it and I just do not see what OG does where he is concerned.
We seem to have lost the spark and a win on Saturday is much needed.
Conference league games always do teams like us sadly.

Arsenal played their strongest available team, didn't outplay us and had very few shots on target and relied on a set piece to score. They didn't find us easy to play against and will roll over some lesser teams with ease.
To claim Kamada is making Wharton a worse player is ridiculous, I guess you want Hughes to replace him, the problem with Hughes is he gets booked most games and is restricted.

 

[est1905]

Given the overall depth of our squad it was unrealistic to expect a continuation of the successes we enjoyed leading up to the Everton defeat. I foresaw a degradation and a re-calibration of the expectancy of our supporters.

I disagree. I dont think anyone was really seriously expecting CL football or challenging for the title. What fans have come to realise though is its good enough to go very deep into the Conference League (maybe even win it) and we have already proven that with a fair wind behind us we are capable of doing very well in the domestic cups. That for me hasn't changed plus I think its certainly realistic to aspire to a top half finish too. Why not? Villa and Forest are no better than us and they achieved it.

We'll get over this mini barren spell and with Glasner in charge I expect us at some point to go on another run.

 

[est1905]

We've only seen cameo's of Uche up to now, and OG I know has complained about lack of pre-season with Pino. But I feel Pino looks a bit small and lightweight, whereas Uche seems big, strong and athletic. Why not give him some more minutes , and just throw himself around a bit. We need another goal scorer, Eddie doesn't seem to be reliably that guy. Maybe Uche can partially fill the void when Mateta has an off day (a few recently).

I would also like to see Sosa get some more minutes to see if he can cut it in EPL.

Every time I see Sosa he looks average at best. As for Uche, there has to be a reason why Glasner has not used him more so far but he doesn't play like for like in Pino's position. If you are going to use Uche it more likely to be Sarr or even JPM that will make way. For Getafe he played as a number 10 or an out and out striker a couple of times