He’s an enigma. A cunt, but I like him, but also want to throttle him at the same time.
God damn he is good.
Gone through a significant revival with some support and faith.
Does. Not. Need. Replacing.
I also think you need some cunt on the pitch; and he can do that too.
Hard to see Tielemans taking his shirt off him. Playing like the player he is for Switzerland lately.
Feel like Elneny provides some cover but Lakonga doesn’t look ready yet. With EL matches about to come thick and fast we could find ourselves a little light in centre mid unless Odegard or Vieira can convert to cover there.
Zinchenko could also be a great covering option.
My main pet peeve with this sort of cover is that we essentially we fill a gap by creating a gap elsewhere.
Say Xhaka gets fucked up and is out for sometime. Zinchenko fills in for him, but that’s ok, we have Tierney at LB, right?
Well, who’s our backup LB then? Does this mean Tierney will play LB in the league, cups and EL as well?
Isn’t this how he got fucked up in the first place?
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Isn’t Tomi the back up left back?
Sure. Who plays at RB? White? And then who plays there in EL games? Cedric. Ok
Then who play at CB in EL? Holding and?
You see where I’m getting? I feel we have multiple versatile players where it makes it feel like we have cover in various positions but in reality we’re still a bit short.
I reckon we only have 17-18 players in the team currently where we can truly rely on. I think that needs to be addressed.
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I think that’s right but we’re definitely a lot less short than a year ago and don’t forget AMN is still around.
Even Bellend hasn’t been sold yet.
It feels we’re maybe 1 light for midfield and one on the wing at most if Pepe is sold.
I like Ainsley and I like Pepe but I let’s be honest Arteta doesn’t really trust them.
On Bellerin, I doubt we keep an unhappy player around.
As you said. I do think we need at least another 2 quality additions in the team to have a healthy swuad that can maintain the level we need to play to challenge in all competitions.
Watched the full match back. All this “FFS Xhaka” and “Xhaka is the weak link” in the match day thread… man put out an 8.5/10 performance out there ! Only players with a better individual performance were Jesus and probably Martinelli.
Watched the full match replay aswell as I wanted to see it all after listening to on the radio.
Xhaka was excellent
Believe me, I’m the most surprised about how I feel.
It’s easy to caveat the praise with what we all know — that we could and should look to upgrade in the left eight— but it doesn’t change that I thought he was very good today. If he was a stock exchange, we’re definitely in bull market territory.
It won’t always work like this, he will make mistakes, he will get caught out of position and cost us but I feel better about the team as a whole to overcome one of his mistakes this season.
All players make mistakes. His just get highlighted more.
When I watched the match back today, I was surprised. I was trying to figure out what he did that was so bad to get all the criticism he got in the match day thread. The “bad” pass that he was called out on was nothing. There were far worse passes in the game. People just want him to be shit so they can be proven right. So any little step out of line is blown up.
You all just need to accept that he is an important cog in the machine.
Ok, is this a perfect team? (You’re gonna be a dick and say yes, so please don’t 
)
If not, what can we improve on? Pick 2 positions in the team you think we can realistically upgrade on.
Surely one of them is where Xhaka plays.
Xhaka is a cunt
Xhaka has played better under Mikel
Xhaka still can be upgraded
All 3 can be true.
I wouldn’t sell him though as he’s fine as a backup or rotation option for whoever we bring in, 3 midfielders verging on starting quality are needed by any team imo.
We can obviously upgrade in every position. We don’t have the best in the world anywhere. Though, actually, I like all our starting XI, but at the moment I have more concerns about our GK and CBs. I wouldn’t get rid of any of them, but Ramsdale in particular has been shaky lately.
You…
Well played.
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CM
Backup RB
LW
Backup CF
Backup CB
Our weakest areas in order I reckon.
One injury to that midfield trio and we’re fucked. Hopefully Vieira is really that good but still, ain’t enough.
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Feel for Vieira. Majority of us have never seen him play and are expecting him to be brilliant 
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