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.
Arteta talked about having fire and he was so correct the first half was a dumpster fire.
the only saving grace is that if VG were still at Sporting we would probably be losing this tie by several goals as his style of play is far better suited for their countering with pace approach…thankfully they’re as bad as us in the final third
The only time we are in their last 3rd is when they try to play out from the back and make a mistake.
Sporting will be quite happy with how its going. They’ve kept a clean sheet in the first half, are still in the tie and have began to play themselves into a more threatening position.
The longer the game goes on at nil nil the more nervous Arsenal will get, the more the pressure will build and we all know what happens when Admiral Cunt (Arteta’s promotion from Captain came through on Monday, he’s such a cunt that they skipped several ranks out and went straight to Admiral) – the last thing we need is extra time with City on Sunday.
why we aren’t focsuing our attack at Quaresma is baffling…this guy looks as if he has family members who have placed a sizeable bet on us advancing
focusing
even if we go through at nil – nil what will that do to our confidence on Sunday?
the Sporting setup is almost as counterintuitive as ours…we rely too much on “nonscorers” to get the job done and they like to counter quickly but they don’t have enough pace to do so effectively
they’re trying to use our bag of tricks against us
imagine what Sporting might look like if they had 750 million more to spend
Havertz diving off the ball with no contact now.
TRVL
With a decent manager the Dog and Duck pub team would make the CL after a few seasons if they spent £750 million.
The TV showing Arsenal fans looking somewhere between forlorn and terrified even though we’re one nil up in the tie.
Suarez has cost himself a lot of money in this tie
Sporting’s freash legs have actually made them considerably worse…I guess that makes sense in light of their budgetary constraints
imagine what MA thought about Trossard cutting inside than heading ot the corner flag…especially after he held the ball a few minutes earlier simply so he could admonish Tross in front of the world
This has to be the most boring CL game and the only thing more frustrating to watch Arsenal was to watch an extremely bad Sporting. We will get hammered on Sunday by City
well that was a billion dollar fiery performance…who could possibly question the manager now
Well a pretty piss poor performance anything other than a massive improvement against City or Atletico and its season over.
If I had to put money on the CL winner right now I’d have to go with Bayern but PSG vs Bayern will be a match worth watching.