Duo Chop Down Forest

We said in our preview we'd be happy with points over performance, but we got spoiled and ended up with both in our 3-0 demolition of Ange's Nottingham Forest.​ Their new manager bounce was more like an acme anvil drop in a Wily Coyote cartoon.

 

There were a few surprises in the starting line-up with Saliba not featuring despite Arteta saying he was fit (porkies?) and Rice  ̶d̶r̶o̶p̶p̶e̶d̶ rested. It will be interesting if Wilo features in the Basque Country on Tuesday night.

 

We mention the starting lineup because we cruised to 3 points without Saliba, Rice, Saka, or Havertz starting and losing Odegaard (again) early on with a shoulder injury (again).

 

Let's start with Mosquera when examining the replacements. Nobody knew anything about him when he arrived, but let's be real, he aced the eye test after 5 minutes of coming on at Anfield and was a standout again yesterday.

 

We feel bad for Valencia. Berta actually had the nerve to haggle them down to £13m (£20m with incentives). We know it's very early days, but he might be one of the steals of the summer. Could do with a little polish in possession, but physically and defensively, he appears to have the lot.

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The main surprise of the day was Merino starting for Rice. We were joking about Rice being dropped. We fully expect him to start in the Basque Country on Tuesday. Arteta admitted to trying to ride the confidence wave Merino brought back from Turkey with him. It nearly paid off as he had arguably our best chance before we opened the deadlock. He does have an absolute eye for goal from midfield. A valuable commodity, of that, there's no doubt.

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The last but not least replacement was another standout in Madueke. Full disclosure. In our original draft, we did a segment where we threw a little shade at him for no end product, but felt it wasn't the right time and looked like criticism and playa hatin' for the sake of it. We'll just say that surely the goals and assists will come if he keeps performing like he did yesterday.

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There were lots of positives on show to go over.

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1. New Signings Impact- If you take a look at the goals, all 3 came from new signings. Another new signing, Eze, also assisted with the Gyokeres' goal.

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2. Squad Depth Evident - As previously touched on, Mosquera, Madueke, and Merino were all excellent, even though they wouldn't be nailed-on starters when everyone is fit. The substitutes who came on also speak volumes. Nwaneri, MLS, Rice, Martinelli, and Trossard. Gone are the days of bringing Tierney on at left wing to protect a lead. Being able to give guys like Rice a breather will prove invaluable as the season progresses. There's an argument to be made that we have assembled the strongest squad in the league.

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3. Crucial Save at Crucial Time - We were critical of Raya (maybe harshly) for the Liverpool goal, but his save yesterday from the Woods deflection that he tipped on to the crossbar was absolutely WORLD CLASS, and it came five minutes after we'd scored our second. Instead of a deflated, nervy stadium with a 2-1 scoreline with most of the second half still to play, our clean sheet and 2-goal lead stayed intact.

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4. Tactical Versatility on Show - Some of our football was top-notch, easy on the eye, play-through-the-lines stuff, but our second goal came from 3 passes. Raya to Calafiori to Eze to Gyokeres. Direct, efficient, and effective. This is what Gyokeres brings to the table. A battering ram of a forward running striker. He now has 3 goals in 2 home games.

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Now for the bad, and to be fair, there wasn't a whole lot of that on display.

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1. Captain injured again - For the second home game in a row, our captain exited the game early after landing on a shoulder. To us, it looked like he was holding the other one this time.

 

We don't want to bang the same drum here, and are conscious of being too hyper-critical when we don't know the full extent/details, but we dunno man. We said it before. You fell on grass so soft it's called The Carpet. If there's no dislocation/separation, then man up a little, huh? We have a huge week ahead. Are we being too harsh?

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That was pretty much the only low point. Everyone played well individually, and the team played well collectively as a whole. We actually thought the performance was better than the Leeds game.

 

We do worry for Forest. It took exactly a month, but we had our first insult on Twitter from one of their fans after the game, calling us a melt for trying to be gracious and saying we hoped they'd stay up. Man, we wonder what abuse we'd get if we were being clickbait, trolls.

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In all seriousness, there's always one team every season that ends up being in a relegation scrap that you would never expect, and Forest might just be it this year.

 

Playing 2 games a week with squad construction that doesn't look great (still only one new signing has started), and a new manager who is so entrenched in his values that he'd rather finish 4th bottom than change, and that was with better players than Forest has. We hope they don't go down, but the Premier League is brutally unforgiving.

 

Their saving grace might be Wolves and Leeds already look like lost causes a month in. Villa surely will improve? Wonder where the Watkins fanboys are who wanted us to tank £60m on him? Nothing but crickets.

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​​​​​Below you will see who our MOTM is. It's always hard to single an individual out when everyone does their part and plays well. For example, we thought Timber was outrageously good again. He drops 7/8 out of 10 performances every week. For us, though, there was a trio of real standouts. Mosquera, Madueke, and Zubimendi.