Cardiff 2 - 3 Arsenal

For the neutrals, this was a fantastic game.  For me, it was torture--but with a happy ending.  All five goals were very well taken, though it's fair to say that poor control, dodgy refereeing, and lax defense were present in the buildups, though that takes away nothing from the goals and assists.  Mustafi's header was excellent, and so was the header that made it 2-2 for the Welsh side.  You just can't strike a ball better than Laca and Auba did for their goals, and the Camarasa chance was not easy but he buried it.

So, defense.  What defense?  If Warnock's men were trying to prevent chances, it did not work.  Laca hit the post, and several great Arsenal chances were spurned, blocked, or saved.  For our part, it's becoming increasingly clear that our system is not catering to our defensive abilities.  Had Emery not impressed on the men how important it was to snuff out counters with intentional fouls, it may have been worse.  As it was, we were in danger of going down to ten men when both fullbacks picked up early yellows. 

I liked the way we moved the ball.  Maybe Ozil was greasing the gears.  I haven't seen any player ratings, but Xhaka seemed off the pace to me, and exhibited some bad judgement, most spectacularly for the stupid cross-field giveaway just before halftime that led to the (first) tying goal.  Gwendouzi looked good, I thought, and Ramsey was lively.  I love Lacazette, though.  He works really hard on O and D and has good vision.  Bellerin did his job and so did Nacho, but I think they're being asked to do an awful lot.  Sokratis and Mustafi are not good, fast, or disciplined enough to be able to deal with counters without help, but our fullbacks are always way up the field when we lose the ball.  Torreira helps in that regard but he's not the complete answer.  Cech seems to me to be very uncomfortable back there.  He's asked to play out of the back and he's not terribly good at it; and he never knows what he's going to get from his CBs on corners and crosses.  He's supposed to be the secure option, but aside from his still excellent reading of the game and decent shot-stopping abilities, he appears to be the risky option in the early going.

This was a very necessary three points when we could easily have dropped two or three.  Cardiff had just three shots on goal, but missed some glorious chances by skying them when a good shot would have scored.  After the break, we have to shore things up in the back somehow.  We can't just wait for an aging Kos to get healthy again.  I will never understand the decision to farm out Chambers, but Holding and Mavrapanos are still on the squad and from what I've seen they can't do much worse than the guys Emery keeps sending out.