Pepe & Willian...

Pepe has been good recently, not just today, today he was excellent overall - beating players at will.

After a bad start Willian turned it around and was a fair choice for MOTM considering his assists, and today they were real assists, not a straightforward pass where Tierney still had to beat multiple players to get his shot away.

I really hope he has turned a corner, it certainly feels like it, he looked a totally different player today, both offensively and defensively, like an animal had been unleased inside of him. I'm particularly pleased to see he still has some acceleration and can still beat a player or two.

Having said that, this was against a tired Leicester team who worked very hard on Thursday night to try and get themselves back into the game but still ended up being eliminated from Europe - that has to hurt and dent their confidence, especially considering their opponents were Slavia Prague, at home. Given this and what Willian has produced in a much large sample size this season I'm not going to get too carried away yet.

Credit where credit is due, yep, but he's still deeply in the red overall and has a lot more making up to do in my opinion, today was a good start though, let's hope we only see this Willian from now on and the old one is gone for good.

I don't see why anyone can use 'tiredness' as an excuse for Leicester City. Our game was further away and just as stressful. In fact more so as the Europa cup is our only chance to qualify for Europe and we had Man City sandwiched in between!

comment by Jenius99 (U4918)
posted 23 seconds ago
I don't see why anyone can use 'tiredness' as an excuse for Leicester City. Our game was further away and just as stressful. In fact more so as the Europa cup is our only chance to qualify for Europe and we had Man City sandwiched in between!
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Because we rotated more of the team than they did.

comment by You Can't Buy Class - IDHT2EU (U12019)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Jenius99 (U4918)
posted 23 seconds ago
I don't see why anyone can use 'tiredness' as an excuse for Leicester City. Our game was further away and just as stressful. In fact more so as the Europa cup is our only chance to qualify for Europe and we had Man City sandwiched in between!
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Because we rotated more of the team than they did.
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Thats the choice of their manager. He is in the best position to know if his players have recovered or not. Since he decided they had then obviously they weren't tired. I genuinely believe we outplayed them. And we should credit Arteta for it.

comment by Jenius99 (U4918)
posted 10 seconds ago
comment by You Can't Buy Class - IDHT2EU (U12019)
posted 1 minute ago
comment by Jenius99 (U4918)
posted 23 seconds ago
I don't see why anyone can use 'tiredness' as an excuse for Leicester City. Our game was further away and just as stressful. In fact more so as the Europa cup is our only chance to qualify for Europe and we had Man City sandwiched in between!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Because we rotated more of the team than they did.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Thats the choice of their manager. He is in the best position to know if his players have recovered or not. Since he decided they had then obviously they weren't tired. I genuinely believe we outplayed them. And we should credit Arteta for it.
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Exactly, Leicester do not really have an excuse, we only got to Leicester yesterday from Greece.

I don't know why some Arsenal fans instead of praising the team for a good performance have to find an excuse of why they won. Bit annoying that

My point was merely about Willian playing against a tired backline/midfield when he was completely fresh.

I am full of praise for the teams' performance and that of our players on an individual basis for today.