Right, we are out of Carabao Cup and FA Cup, but not everything is lost. We are 11 points clear of Man City in Premier League and we can take that lead to 12 points if we beat Bournemouth today. City do have 2 games in hand, but if they win both, we will still have a 6 point lead with only 6 games left for the season. In Champions League, we have a 1-0 advantage against Sporting and the second leg is at home. If we managed to get at least a draw, we will be playing Atletico (most likely) in the semi finals. I would rather play Atletico than Flick’s Barcelona.
The chance of lifting a trophy is still a possibility. And a win today will improve that possibility even more. Bournemouth are sitting in the bottom half of the table, and I hope we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot today.
Playing XI is out and I still don’t understand what has gotten into Arteta’s mind.
Why is Martinelli in the playing XI when you have Hincapie available. It’s not the time to be concerned about the injuries, because a loss in any of the games could mean a title. I’m OK with rest of the selection, Eze could have played ahead of Havertz but I’m not sure how much of his fitness is back.
I don’t understand the fact that we spend more than 250m on midfielders (Rice, Zubimendi, Norgaard, Havertz, Odegaard) and yet, we always have 2 DM-profile players and an option to choose from a non-performing Odegaard with a out-of-form Havertz. Anyway, that shouldn’t be a problem for a team sitting on 1st, playing against a bottom half team I suppose.
We need to win today. Man City has to visit Chelsea tomorrow and though I don’t have much confidence in Chelsea beating them, anything can happen. In last 3 seasons, we have always been the favorites going into last 7-8 games but have given it away. There are 7 games left, and 7 test of whether we have learned something over the years.
Right, game starts in an hour. See ya.
‘The more disciplined system has got us to a very good situation being top of the league and last 4 in Europe but it looks like we have been found out and it is now time to try something different to get us over the line.‘
Yes, we’ll need goals now not just W’s
Not sure Arteta has it in him to change his approach though.
Btw, what’s your assessment of Trump’s Iran adventure, sorry, excursion?
Is it everything you were hoping g for?
Tom-ny is back! Huzzah! East Kilbride’s answer to East Kilbride’s answer to Killroy.
Desperate cuntage. What does Nawat think of your fake shape-shifting bullshit?
I’m ready to write something longer about this…are you ready to read it along with your mates?
Tom
“Btw, what’s your assessment of Trump’s Iran adventure, sorry, excursion?”
That’s a question for the persian Iranians and as I am neither Persian or Iranian it will be “no comment”….
Marc
“Also thinking a 16 year old is the solution to winning us the PL will put unfair pressure on the lad.”
He can handle it the way Michael Owen , Rooney and Fabregas handled it.
Anyway I didn’t say he was the solution but I do think if saka isn’t fit then Dowman should be first option as he has the ability to commit defenders and that is what we will need in our search for goals.
We will need players who are prepared to take risks with the ball , Eze and Dowman can be game changers for us if given the opportunity , safety first football shouldn’t be an option for the remainder of the season, 5 games to go and it is 50/50 between us and city as they have the harder run in.
I can’t say I trust Arsenal to give us a 6 point advantage over city with home games against Newcastle and Fulham , neither are in particularly good form so it will all depend on how we approach these games , anything other than 6 points before City play again away to Everton will hand the initiative to City.
A crucial 2 weeks for Arsenal football club ,
Newcastle home
Atletico away
Fulham home
Atletico home
The whole season is dependant on these 4 games , to qualify for the champions league final would be a massive achievement but if we can come out of these games with a 6 point advantage in the league as well it will basically take the title up until the last day and importantly it will erase the doom and gloom that at present surrounds the club.
Wicksy
I think Dowman has it in him to be the best player we’ve seen come out of the youth set up for a long time (which when you consider how good Saka is that’s some player) I just don’t want to see his development set back by pushing for too much too soon.
If we don’t have the senior players to do the job with the money spent then that’s a sacking offence in itself.
City up after 5 minutes – going to be a very depressing night for Burnley and Arsenal fans.
@KP
You are lost in your assumptions of poster identities and I feel for you my friend. I hope this is not a side effect of old age as it seems to scramble your memories because your posting doesn’t make sense to me at all, but more important life is too short to waste it on meaningless drivel. KP as a friend my advice is don’t use baseless assumptions because it will make an ass out of you.
Killroy
Kroenke worked in the public sector he retired in his 50’s – he’s not going senile he’s had a complete mental breakdown (I think someone asked him to pay for something!).
For proof watch the venom and bile when he responds.
Marc—any thoughts on the Liam firing? of course predicting the firing of a Chelsea manager is about as difficult as predicting cold weather in the winter, but I always felt when they fast-tracked his appointment, instead of getting an interim in January after Enzo was sacked, he likely wouldn’t survive the season…Chelsea has a variety of internal issues that weren’t going to be solved in-season, especially by a relatively inexperienced coach who seemed to care more about his gameday attire than devising a viable gameplan…not to mention, it’s clear that something is going on with Palmer, outside of his injury concerns, and that their racist thirsty for Real dickwad of a captain, Fernandez, has become a locker room pox…speaking of which, Real would be dumb as fuck to take a chance on that overrated piece of shit
TRVL
When I made the comment about Rosenior it was off them having a decent run with a new manager who’d taken over an absolute basket case of a club.
Of course since I made the comment they’ve been awful.
He’s gone but that won’t solve any of the issues they have – they need a strong DOF (or similar) who’s given the time to bring in a manager and shape the squad, unload some of the excess / problem players they have before looking like they’ll compete again.
On another note I only half watched the City Burnley match but from what I saw Burnley really gave a good account of themselves.
Fuck off Marc you racist cunt. Get back to the balsa wood and the lollipop stick manufacturing you lazy pointless slag.
Killroy (yeah right) holed up in Scotland with his young and only ‘fwend’.
As a demonstration of what a poor season the PL has been quality wise this season the 3rd best goal difference is ManU in third – that would make some sense normally but its plus 13 after 33 matches.
Last seasons champions have a goal difference of plus 11.
Kroenke
I didn’t actually need you to prove I’m right but thanks for trying.
@Marc
Thanks for your perspective it helps with empathy and understanding.
City top of the table, this title race is as tight as pages in a book. It will now say a lot about El-B and if he can create nerves of steel in our players, you already know my take on this.
April 10th Arsenal 9 points ahead and a GD of 7 better than City. Now April 22nd we are at parity except City has scored more goals. We have a manager that is clueless about setting up an attack and benching this summer’s acquired 64m striker in the most important game of the season..
Marc—106 days of a 6 year deal…that’s even quick for those messy fucks…I do hope that he finds his way back to a “top” club, but I doubt that will happen anytime soon unless we find out that ownership didn’t back him whatsoever when it came to any disputes between himself and their highest paid players…supposedly they had been grooming him for the position for a couple years now…could be possible but I do wonder about the validity of this rumour considering the quick hook
as for the City/Burnley match, Pep’s decision to move O’Reilly into the midfield, with Rodri out, didn’t work as he had hoped…not to mention Pep has lost faith in several of his players, like Marmoush and Reijnders, so his bench options are very limited…this could come back to haunt him against better sides
on a side note, albeit City-related, I hope we don’t spend our summer months trying to convince Silva to join on…he’s obviously a skilled player, with a noteworthy CV, but he doesn’t solve our present issues unless we’re looking to lean into our current bore the opposition to death plan even more…there’s a reason why the betting odds had him heading back to Portugal or to the MLS…now some might point to the fact that Barca is still in the mix for his services, but that has more to do with Laoprta’s personal infatuation with this particular player than the possibility that every other big club has misread the room…a midfield 3 of Rice, Zubi and Silva feels like a regression to me (3 goals & 5 assists in 46 appearances)…not a big concern right now, as we have much bigger fish to fry, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we started to creep up the odds list in the coming weeks/months…Cheers
Although the talk was about Arsenal being 3/4/6/9 points clear, in reality the title race always had the potential to be tight as city had a game in hand and the trip to the etihad was on the horizon.
Our home defeat to Bournemouth was the one result that hurt us , especially coming after the defeat in the league cup , we haven’t as yet found our mojo since then although the performance at city was encouraging.
Personally I’d prefer Havertz to start up top v Newcastle and gyokeres starts away to Atletico, has Arteta got it in him to release the handbrake for the league games, to be expansive , to load the team with creative forward thinking players , the team sheet for the Newcastle game will tell us everything about how the manager will approach the title run in, City missed a chance last night to have a 2 or 3 goal advantage and they will know that , Arsenal have to go into the last 5 games expecting city to win their games even though there is a possibility of a slip up, let’s hope it is an exciting end to the season and doesn’t fizzle out like the 22/23 season.
TRVL
I hadn’t even thought about us going after Silva but now you’ve mentioned it!
He might have to do a season at Chelsea before Arteta really wants him though.
Marc
Chelsea will sign him for Free and we will pay Chelsea £20M in January.