Sokratis, so can I get a gold star sir please.
I think it was more the fact that itās phonetically like scrote-is rather than pointing out a spelling mistake. 
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i aint that kinda guy, its just the coincidence of how it was typed that made me laugh, sounds like you gave him a nickname as being a scroat. I read it as āscroatisā
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Have too agree last four league games against crap not even average clubs performances have been horrible watches.
Given Emery the benefit of the doubt but the Squad is complete garbage bar about 4 players tops. Too many bad habits and that cant be erased by a new coach. The only solution is we have to buy our way out of this.
Anfield next for us and united home to Bournemouth could see us accelerate toward a battle with them. Beg and pray we are buying 3 players at least in January otherwise this is looking bleak for me going forwards.
Bingo 
I also bet on Leicester to win.
Only Ā£3 but I won Ā£24.
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You can simply change your vote by clicking on the option you want, for yourself Any poll thatās open, you can change your vote any time.
Anyways, I watched a fair majority of the game and we looked pretty poor. Real lack of ideas and creativity, especially in the second half. Ironically on days like today, we couldāve done with Giroud, but alas that ship has long sailed now 
December has felt like the kinda month weād usually have in November, where results start going to shit and so to the performances. Simply not firing on all cylinders at all of late, and doesnāt help with the injury list beginning to pile up. Is the Emery honeymoon phase now over?
Honeymoons over but still better than the x.
Some observations from yesterdayās gameā¦
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Matteo. I love the spirit, determination and confidence that Guendouzi possesses but itās a sad indictment of the current quality of our squad that he has gotten so much game time this season. Yesterdayās game was crying out for a midfield two of Xhaka-Torreira and then a front 4 of Iwobi, Ozil, Laca and Auba. I just donāt see the logic in giving Guendouzi so much game time and at this stage Iād rather see Ramsey given a run out at centre. Emery has a proven track record of helping players and if someone like Banega could thrive then I canāt see why Ramsey canāt be a good option for CM at his stage of the season.
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Misused experience. The signing of Lichsteiner was to provide experience, leadership and adequate backup for Bellerin. But when you sign a 34-year-old right back you cannot expect to play him so high up the pitch and us not be so massively exposed at the back. At the tail end of Dani Alves career, heās been used by PSG and Juventus as an auxiliary right winger who provides a degree of defensive cover. Expecting him to bomb up and down the flanks in the fashion that Bellerin does just does not make sense. This was an Emery failing and it left Lichsteiner looking totally useless.
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Half-time. I think itās criminal that in 19 Premier League games a team as big as Arsenal, with arguably the 6th best squad in the league, went into the break leading only once. I know a game is 90 minutes, so it doesnāt really matter so long as the result is a win. But itās indicative of a shaky 45 minutes where we just donāt seem to be able to take control of games. Whether itās because Emery doesnāt have the players to play his football and the current crop are struggling to adjust or that heās just not lining us up properly is something we will see.
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Patience. We have to have patience. I think the honeymoon period is officially over but by the same token itās important that we are realistic. This is the squad that finished 6th last season and this squad has barely improved. Weāve brought in an error prone keeper to replace an error prone keeper. Weāve signed a centre back who we probably shouldnāt have signed despite needing to sign a quality defender to replace our shit defender (Mustafi) and our injured past it defender (Koscielny). I think Emery has been dealt a tough hand in terms of our dealings in the transfer market and we all know he loves to line up with a different kind of midfield than heās dealing with now.
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Youth. Let us be brutally honest here, we do not have a great assortment of first team ready players coming from our academy. We probably have some exciting 16-18 year olds but youād argue the best performing young player in the squad is currently in Germany honing his craft. Players like Iwobi have no place in the starting 11 and are squad players at best. Players like AMN have no place in the squad full stop. He has good technique but there is literally nothing else to his game. He came on yesterday and was, yet again, utterly useless.
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Lacazette. Do I like him? Yes I do. Do I think he brings a lot to the team? Yes I do. But what weāve essentially done with him is sell Giroud, who wasnāt a heavy goalscorer but brought a few things to the team and replaced him with a Ā£50-60m striker who, doesnāt score a lot of goals, but brings different things to the team. I think we could recoup most of what we paid for when we signed Lacazette to be honest with you. And reinvest that money in a quality wide man because itās evident Emery wants to use wingers heavily so let us fucking sign some.
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Context. Yesterdayās result was poor and Emery got a lot wrong. But at present we are missing Holding, Mustafi, Bellerin, Monreal, Mkhitaryan, Welbeck. We had Torreira at risk of suspension and that probably explains why Emery pushed him higher up the pitch in the hope that he wouldnāt pick up a needless yellow breaking up play on the counter. But defensively we are flat out with injuries and that played a huge role in our recent form especially when you factor in how many games we play over this festive period.
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Defence. Does it even look like weāve made any kind of defensive improvement because the answer on my end is a resounding no. We leak goals for fun and our defensive shape is a disaster at times. The only times Iāve been impressed with our shape is in the games where we have at least tried to be a little more compact. Hopefully itās a personnel issue and Emery is just persisting with the full backs pushing so high and the defence being exposed until he can bring in better personnel. I donāt know right now.
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Looking at our defensive options, the only players Iād keep out of our entire defensive roster are Bellerin, Mavropanos and Holding. I wouldnāt be disappointed if every other player was sold or released.
Whilst you can make an argument that our midfield and attack combined is capable of making top 4, our defence is nowhere near that level. It will continue to cost us until we improve this area with new signings.
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Have to say Leno at Ā£19m was a poor strategic signing really. That money should have gone towards defenders. Cech and Martinez would have been fine this season
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Cech had 1 season left and then what? And Cechās reactions are someone shot
I would have preferred if we dealt with Cech next summer. I dont think you need to spend Ā£19m on a guy who closer to average than top quality because Cechās reactions are on the wane meanwhile our defence is a shambles.
In fact if you take away all that play from the back stuff Cech has been average which would have been more than serviceable
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Tbh the club need to stop acting like paupers. Liverpool rise has come when FSG abandoned their moneyball strategy.
American owners seem to take longer too understand football over here. The games changed significantly enough for our board to now do the necessary adjustment.
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I wonder if Guendouzi got a promise of gametime or if he looks amazing in training or something. Either way Emery isnāt going to throw 4 attacking midfielders/forwards on the pitch at the same time like Wenger
Lacazette brings end product and isnāt someone we should be selling. TBH weāre already thin on the ground but Ramsey, Welbz, Mkhitaryan, Iwobi and maybe even Ozil are all out the door first
I thought you were coming to terms with Sokratis been a solid signing? Heās been our best defender and will give us a few years of no nonsense defending
With regards to Lacazette the only reason I suggest moving him on is because like most of us expected heās not really a 20+ league goals a season striker and heās probably one of the only players we could command a Ā£40m+ fee for. So Iād rather we brought in a quality wide man to interchange with our quality striker.
And Iām definitely coming to terms with him as heās done better than I anticipated. But I donāt think Iāll ever accept that him and guys like Leno were really what we needed in the summer. If we knew we had a rebuilding project on our hands then we went about it the wrong way from the get go and thatās what troubles me. Plus Emery seems to like to press and push high and Sokratis is clumsy himself. Thankfully he has more pace than I anticipated and can make up for it but heās clumsy by the same token. Heās definitely not our biggest problem though and far from it.
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Our American owners do everything like theyāre wading in mud.
Every decision they make is several seasons too late.
They hung on to Wenger too long, who was himself far too slow with his decision making.
So between them, the owners and Wenger have managed to see us drop out of the CL while seeing all our rivals, including spurs, overtake us and neglect strengthening the first team.
Yeah what bothers me so much is we were a certified top 4 team with good players in the squad and weāve just continually slid season on season whilst signing players looking like we have no plan. Our squad management has been so bad.
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Yeah at my most pessimistic theres a fall away here as the Everton side in the 80s had. Never really got to grips with losing top players and faded quickly.
Not saying where ending up in relegation battles but we could get sucked into the best of the rest group if we dither round with a cheap transfer policy.
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