Play like that against Leicester and you're out of the title race

 By 1970s Gooner 

We have been used to seeing this Arsenal team start games on the front foot pressing from the top right from the first minute. And showing the positiveness and determination to take the game to the opponent. 

This attitude was missing away against Everton where we failed to deal with their energy and new found confidence from their coach's first game in charge.

We regained it against Brentford and in the first half against City but resurfaced again against Villa. 

We started the game nervously and without the necessary concentration. Our passing again was harried and imprecise which resulted in Zinchenko loosing the ball and Villa scoring.

Again for Villa's second goal there was no pressing when Martinez passed the ball to one of his defenders. He had all the time in the world to move forward and pass the ball to a midfielder and he had no one marking him as he effortlessly moved up the field and lo and behold two passes later they were scoring...

Where were we? What were we thinking? What a shambles first half. We have no chance of winning the League or even finishing in the top four if we keep repeating this kind of performance.

Arteta should leave aside all this nonsense of ' showing resilience' and 'character' and he should go deeply in his post match analysis of this game and get to the bottom of this first half shambolic performance. Because if it is not corrected Leicester will thump us real hard. They had a terrific first half against Utd and it was only Rashford's finishing that changed the game. 

Note that we don't seem to have that at the moment.

The two problems that need to be corrected against Brentford

 By 1970's Gooner 

Arsenal had 70% possession in the Everton game but never really looked in control through out. Right from the kick off our passing was laboured and imprecise which was quite unlike in any of Arsenal's games this season. 

Of course Everton contributed to that but you would have expected that Arteta would have prepared the players for it. 

One statistic that stood out for me and it was indeed very noticeable during the game was the awful defending of the 7 corners that Everton won.

In only one did we get the first header! This meant that we were on the back foot most of the time trying to clear the ball from inside the area rather from the edges of the area. And of course we conceded from a corner kick....

This is worrying for me.

If I'm not mistaken this was only the second goal conceded by Arsenal this season as a result of a dead ball situation.

So the issues that need to be corrected are the intensity and quality of passing which would go a long way towards controlling the game and of course defending corners, free kicks and long throws.

Brentford, having studied our performance against Everton, would undoubtedly have been training all week to hit us where they consider we are weak.

Let's show our quality and hit them with another 3 goals as we did back in late August at their ground.

Balogun's hat trick propels him to the top of the goal scorers table!

 By 1970's Gooner 

I keep telling you. This boy is a born goalscorer. In tonight's game against Lorient he has bagged a hat trick. And he had also missed two glorious chances to add to his tally.

The first came from a soft penalty awarded in the 44th minute for bringing down a Reims player when a corner was taken. Balogun struck it hard in the middle of ex Arsenal goalkeeper Vito Mannone's goal. 

Lorient had already gone 2 0 up and it looked that Reims had a difficult game on their hands. 

Balogun's second and Reims's third came in the 64th minute when he steered home a deflected cross which went in off Vito's outstretched hands.

And the third and best of all was a volleyd shot in the 68th minute with his left foot which arrowed in on the far corner.  

This is I think his first hat trick in top flight football. It also takes him to the top of the League's scorers chart with 14 goals, one ahead of Mbape who is in action later tonight.