afar

Loftus Cheek is a hell of a player like, may be huge for Palace this season.

Not quite as badly as we did. Very true.

Palace had a couple of good efforts this half though, Huddersfield will start to tire soon, probably try to shut up shop.

Villa getting beat Cardiff and Hull being held at home to Burton, the favourites are struggling early on.

Townsend on For Palace. This system they have been playing has been shockingly ineffective, obviously not easy going from Fat Sam's system to De Boer's but it's dreadful. Huddersfield should have gotten a third there.

You always get one or two shock results on the first weekend, I was hoping we were going to be one of them but the odds are not in our favour.

Digging in for a draw would probably be decent. Positive performance would be good though showing if we can be organised and be dangerous on attack Diame didn't play a single pre-season game in the number 10 slot, he's not playing that role this season. Perez backed up by Dejong, is the way he will go. He may even go with a flatter midfield 3 with Shelvey playing a more advance role.

There's no fear or pressure on Huddersfield though, compared to us. Honestly if Palace are a yard stick on the quality at the bottom we'll be more than fine. We played with cosiderable pressure of expectation all last season, didn't turn out too bad.

Daryl Murphy scores for Forrest, good for him.

Watching the huddersfield Palace game is the reason why I'm not as pessimistic as others about our season. There is a distinct lack of quality in it and Huddersfield (although admittedly much different) finished miles behind us. Wouldn't be surprised if De boer is gone before christmas, unless they improve a hell of a lot. Loftus Cheek looks good though, missed the boat there.

James Milner still alive ?

There is no defending in the PL, by the looks of things.

Be shocked if the starting line up is anything other than the one that started the last pre-season: Elliot, Manquillo, Lejuene, Clark, Dummett, Hayden, Shelvey, Ritchie Atsu, Perez and Mitro. The only debate will be if he will take a chance on Gayle's match fitness levels or put him on the bench.

Diame is not a number 10 anymore, he is cover for CM, our first choice number 10 is Perez backed up by De Jong, which is not good enough either. Think he means Diame wears the number 10 shirt now. Colback still wears number 4, the numbers mean nothing, there was really nothing significant about Elliot getting number 1, we knew he was first choice for a while, the problem really is he is first choice whether he plays with 1 or 21 on his back. Diame is most definitely not first choice, he's a back up now, who will do well to be named on the subs bench.

Trying to get in the mood, watched the first half our last PL game, my god look at the team we had out there, yes spuds were missing Ali, but honestly we had a back five of Darlow, Janmaat, Taylor, Mbemba and Dummett, central mid of Colback and Tiote, Wingers in Gini (who never seemed to be on the left wing) and Towsend, number 10 of Sissoko, with Mitro up front (until he got sent off). And of course we won 5-1 !!! What I noticed in terms of comparisons to our current side, we are a lot more structured now, with players knowing their roles and there is a distinct increase in the amount of pace we have in the side, that one seemed more measure in it's break aways, which worked well on the day. Another key in that game to the result was the work ethic of the players on the day, they tracked back and defended and didn't give the Spuds players a lot of space and time on the ball. We'll need that kind of effort again on Sunday. It was good to see a high press very evident in the last pre-season game, we were camped in their half for much of that game, I don't know if Rafa will risk that kind of tactic against spuds, they've got a lot of pace too, in the that last game we sat deeper and played on the counter, the wise money would be on a similar approach wouldn't be surprised if we only have 40% or less possession.

Diame is not a number 10 anymore, he is cover for CM, our first choice number 10 is Perez backed up by De Jong, which is not good enough either.

I see the merits in everyone's frustration, ffs Unbelieavable, MrMojo and myself (along with others) were one of the first posters on here to question Ashley's intentions, we took a lot of stick back then. The fact is though we are stuck with him for the foreseeable, he is absolutely fucking up this opportunity we have with the best manager we've had in a long time. But I'm personally not going to let him suck the enjoyment out of this season, I've been looking forward to this season since May and I have every faith that Rafa, even with the current squad (which believe it or not has some talent in it) will have us tough to beat and competitive, obviously not at the top but somewhere not as far from there as all the doom mongers are predicting. There is way too much negativity around this place right now, admittedly much of Ashley's making and not groundless.

Totally agree, I'm as cynical as the best if them, but ffs the amount of folks on here that seem to want to remove all possible hope from the season is crazy. Ashley is a dick, we have a squad with holes in it but we have a world class manager who can get the best out of players. Seriously this is about as good as it's been under Ashley, if you can't at least hope for a season where you can truly get behind the team, then why bother at all. Give up, go watch the darts or something.

Not sure what to make out of Leicester, since we are obviously not in Arsenal's class, they are more our competition. For 50 or 60 mins, they looked more than decent, but the last 30 mins, they were dreadful really, despite Arsenal really playing well in that period, Leicester just sat back and tried to defend, but they can't defend.

Fantastic start to the season, but my god the defending is shocking.

For a lot of these players it'll be the first 90 mins for a long time, so expect them to get tired. Dunno whether to be more worried or more confident of our chances this season. FFS can anyone defend in this game

They deserved that tbh, it's been all arsenal for the last 20 mins or so.

Lacazette is pretty awesome like, just has had enough of the ball tonight, they need to feed him more.

You're weird

Gotta feel for the "long suffering" arsenal fans, another season without a title challenge surely.