Second half was sloppy but the opposition does tactics too, right?
Still want Arteta to prove he can utilize his squad to regain control. We saw the team basically just ride out all the pressure today but that can’t always be the plan.
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I do think it’s harsh though as this is a tough away game. Palace always present a challenge and they have some strong young talent that make this a really challenging fixture for any team
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Yeah I’d definitely agree with you here. I feel like we didn’t make adjustments in the second half where maybe another midfielder and a change of shape could have changed the flow of the game a bit.
Feel like we ran the wide men into the ground a bit. Stark reminder of how much we still need to add to the squad too.
Vieira and ESR are desperate needed as they could genuinely have changed the game without a dramatic drop off in quality too.
Let’s get it right here. Friday night, first game of the season away at Palace. Everyone against us hoping for Brentford repeat.
I guarantee you many of our rivals will slip up here.
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Even huger(teehee) of success, considering we have only won 1 match against Crystal palace in the last 4 seasons.
If we are thinking of improving on our last season, we have improved by 3 points.
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Imagine if we did an Invincibles 2 and this fucker didn’t show up for a whole year 
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Btw, it looked like the lack of high pressing and high line was intentional.
I didn’t get why Zaha was always so free but then in the second half it became clear we actually allowed him to get the ball but made sure we were organized in the box. It actually did work well considering how dangerous Zaha is. They actually didn’t really create anything from it. The one big chance was from a set piece and the other was from a fuck-up while getting out of the back and Odegaard missing Eze.
Palace abused our high line when they slapped us a few months ago. Similar story against Spurs.
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We got unlocked time after time by the Andersen zip. We clearly got a tad scared and retreated a bit.
Fckin Koeman-esque
Hopefully the stadium manger has a space for 
2023 planned
wtf are we going to do the day we run out of space?
Build a bigger stadium
I don’t think so. No even half competent coach is going to let that pass go for 90 minutes but the reality is they didn’t create anything from it. If you notice whenever it was White vs. Zaha he was never pinned to him and always gave him a little space and I think that was an intentional part of our game plan
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You say that, but did they create anything from it?
This reminded me of the Holding-Son situation.
Holding being so tight to Son bit us in the ass. White tends to be aggressive by nature too but this time he wasn’t. It was definitely intentional and actually quite smart considering Zaha thrives off of that.
Just read this now before I posted. Pretty much similar to how I saw it
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Maybe they didnt create a ton from that exact pass, but it got the crowd going and started a new phase in the game where Palace were much more dangerous. Would like to see it addressed by Arteta at half time, but maybe its just impossible to defend i dont know.
Arteta has up chomping at the bit at kick off which was great to see.
I’m tipping he won’t be delighted with the 2nd half though as I’m not sure his half time message would have been to deliver that in the 2nd 45.
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You can defend it by closing the space for Andersen to make the pass and also putting a man on Zaha to close off the avenue.
As fans I think we were suckered into believing that Palace were in the ascendency but I imagine the players themselves largely felt comfortable.
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I was definitely concerned about it in the first half but in the second half it became a bit predictable.
Andersen pings the ball to Zaha. White immediately tucked in to Saliba. Zaha had lots of space but never really used, ended up slowing the game down, by that time the defence was organized, Zaha then attempted a take on that was dealt with by double and triple teaming him.
Stank of great homework on how Zaha works.
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