Well, we needed a win and we got a big one. 5-0 against any opponent is a great result irrespective of how poor the opposition is. Though, if you are thinking all is well now, you are on the wrong side of the fence.
Crystal Palace didn’t test us defensively. There’s nothing to talk about it. In the midfield, Jorginho’s assist to one of the Martinelli’s goal showed us why Thomas Partey was an integral part of our title chase last season. Declan Rice has been brilliant since joining us, but he either lacks those incisive passing or is restricted by the approach manager asks him to take. I am inclined towards later, because he was playing a much advance role at West Ham and was doing pretty well. We need better than that in the midfield.
Our first goal was a brilliant header from Gabriel. We have all missed to notice him as Saliba takes all the fame but he is as integral to the defence as anyone else. And he is still growing in that role. As they say, if you have nothing to talk about a defender, he has done a great job. Second goal should have been awarded to him, I have no idea why the Premier League decided to give it an own goal.
We were slow throughout the game, as if we were tired or saving energy for the future. As long as we win, I should not complain but we need to change gear in coming games. Third goal was a brilliant counter attack, Raya released the ball pretty fast and Trossard made sure to finish it. 4th and 5th goals were just the Brazilian doing his own thing; Martinelli decided to pay tribute to the Thierry Henry, twice under two minutes. Both were brilliant goals.
So, what’s the problem? In a 5-0 scoreline, your centre forwards remained goalless. Martinelli, who more often than not, hug the side line, drifted a bit to the middle and ended up with 2 goals.
We need a goal-scoring centre forward. There’s no beating around the bush anymore. Either that, or play Martinelli in the middle. Jesus is not scoring 20 goals a season for you but he can cover the wings and in a much better way than Martinelli or even Saka. Pep knew it, we can see it but Arteta needs to make that change. Also, once Thomas is back, please do not play him at RB to accommodate Rice and Havertz.
ESR got some minutes finally. He wasn’t great, nor was he bad. I saw him taking his trademark run with the ball but stopping suddenly in search of another player in red and white to pass. I mean what was that? For fuck sake, let them play a bit like humans and not machine. I may be wrong here, but Arteta’s reaction to Martinelli’s second goal was more of a ‘you are not doing what you have been told’.
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I have some bad news, we haven’t done anything (yet) in the transfer market. I doubt if we have the money, but a CF would be great. There is no point keeping 2 world class GK, get rid of one. Eddie can fetch you some money. There’s no one else we can think of selling and can bring us some money. Cedric will probably go on free, so will Elneny. Lokonga, Tavares will finish their loans at end of the season and come back to us, giving some more headaches to Mikel. Marquinhos is back from his loan spell after we terminated it but either we find him another club or he will play in the U23.
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Liverpool won without their 4 starting players. They sit 5 points ahead of us. Not good because a three horse race is even tougher to win. Mikel and Havertz can win something and I will eat the humble pie. Until then, I have my doubts.
Right, short one today. We are playing Forest next in a week’s time and Liverpool after that. A head to head game against Klopp will be a 6 pointer in current scenario and that would decide if we continue to be in the race. Hope you are doing well.
NORG
Arteta wouldn’t last 5 minutes at Barca – the fans would be rioting in the streets and force him out.
Norg & Marc—what I find rather interesting is the whole “coming home” narrative, as Arteta was, for all intent and purposes, an academy failure, who was shipped to PSG then forced to play his less preferred position…as such, I would suggest that it’s his own people who’ve planted little “easter eggs” in this regards for egoistic and leverage purposes…furthermore, no one has even uttered his name in the Catalan capital since he was shown the door…one only has to look at the way he was constantly snubbed by the national team to fully comprehend how they truly feel about our manager, as players of far lesser ilk have seen vastly more call-ups simply because of their respective connection to either Real or Barca…god knows I wish it weren’t the case
Hi all apologies for my absence but much going on in this part of the world
Has the Kroenke’s finally seen sense in not handing Arteta more money to throw at the ‘Process’ wall?
Klopp’s summer departure announcement is likely to up the Scousers’ fire to win a last PL trophy. It’s being debated that a Klopp leaving bounce is likely to start at the Emirates at 17:30 on the dot.
I thought the Highbury Faithful were a bit quiet from being subdued or more likely bored rigid as yours faithfully here did.
I can see us getting hammered if Pool really are up for it. Start as you mean to go on lads is all Klopp’s pearly white gnashers are going to megawatt shout.
Still a few days to go in the window to get another Havertz, Lakonga or Cedric signing.
I feel the Pool game could be the beginning of the end for Arteta. Not even sure he’ll last the season. He doesn’t deserve to stay.
Our faux pas table position of 3rd on GD above Emery must have Arteta’s and Pedro’s bum cheeks chapped from all the clenching to stop them shitting themselves with such lacklustre performances this season.
Let’s hope I’m wrong, but can anyone here honestly see us beating Pool even though we are at home?
A lucky draw maybe 🤔
Hope all’s well with the LIR faithful and families 🙏
We can hope and I’d be like KP and put a hold on my atheism to pray Arteta is Barca bound.
“Barca think they can tempt Arteta
Mikel Arteta is on Barcelona’s hit list to replace departing boss Xavi.
Arteta has 18 months left on his deal with Arsenal but the rebuilding job at the Emirates has won him plenty of admirers at the ailing Catalan giants. The Spaniard has transformed Arsenal from also rans into genuine title contenders since taking over from Unai Emery, and also lead them to FA Cup glory in 2020.
And Arsenal are convinced he remains happy at the Emirates and is in for the long-haul because of his deep affection for the club and desire to keep on challenging”
Tony
“Has the Kroenke’s finally seen sense in not handing Arteta more money to throw at the ‘Process’ wall?”
The reason we haven’t spent in Jan is because we don’t have any money to spend – we had to loan Raya in the Summer to avoid breaching FFP rules, I doubt there’s been any change in our financial position in a few months and our financial year will run over a similar period to the season.
Now the real question is “have the Kroenke’s seen that Arteta having spent to such a degree that we’re pushing the FFP rules with no improvement in performance etc (last season was a reverse blip) decided that his judgement cannot be trusted”?
No way Barca are interested in Arteta – more likely that its media who are pro Arteta putting a false story out there to start a “we’re so lucky to have him at Arsenal / he turned down Barca to stay at Arsenal”.
Marc-as I stated in my previous post, I’m still of the belief that such rumours were actually started from within MA’s camp…besides the obvious “egoistic” and “leverage” angles, this could likewise be a classic “wag the dog” tactic to take some attention away from our glaring lack of transfer activity, thus the plethora of “lucky to have him” nonsense you spoke about in your above post…the whole thing is really quite sad, as his attempts to manage public opinion are almost as predictable as his tactical approach on the pitch…according to my count, this is the 3rd time we’ve been down the whole “wanted elsewhere” delusional path…considering that MA has no original thoughts of his own, there’s no doubt in my mind that this idea came straight from our former manager’s guide to manipulating one’s base, as he loved to speak about how many times he turned down every big name managerial suitor known to mankind
TRVL
We’re on the same page although I don’t think this is a diversion for a lack of spending – he’s tapped out the clubs credit card. I think the diversion is from the poor results and even poorer performances.
If Liverpool beat us on Sunday (assuming we win tonight) we’ll be 8 points off them with a recent form guide of 2 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses.
You’ll know when Arteta is really squirming because he’ll start to brief or have briefed for him about lack of support from the owners.
Marc-it will be interesting to see what transpires should we lose tonight, which I very much doubt, considering that the window closes some 48 hours later…can MA really afford to sit on his hands, knowing full-well that we face the League leaders come the weekend…we could legit be 11 points off the top, if Pool beat Chelsea tomorrow, which would be a frightening prospect for a manager who’s already feeling some heat…as for your cupboards are bare narrative, I understand what’s going on from a FFP standpoint, but that wouldn’t be the case if we weren’t so inept when it came to selling off periphery and/or out of favour pieces…Cheers
“The Athletic’s David Ornstein has now confirmed how much Havertz earns per week and Premier League fans will be shocked to hear that it is a basic salary of £275,000 per week” (which doesn’t include some playing time bonuses, according to some reputable sources)
this means he’s the highest paid Arsenal player and in the top 10 league-wide…if this isn’t a sack-worthy cock-up, I don’t know what is…somehow his most ardent apologists will put a positive spin on this by saying they actually thought he was getting closer to 350, 000/wk, so we actually have more to spend next summer…fucking hell
Live score are showing Kiwior at LCB with Gabs rested. Midfield of Havertz, Jorginho and Ode. I think Cooper will be very happy because our left side is even weaker with Zinchenko at LB.
Up top Trossard Replacing Gabriel, Jesus and predictably Saka wide right.
Cooper’s Forest have a good 90 minutes of high tempo football in their tanks. It’s going to be an interesting game.
This is an away game so there’s that to factor in as well as a laboured midfield with Jorginho pulling the strings to let Ode run free. With Zinchenko spending more time in Forest’s final third, Jorginho is going to be left with too much to do, that he is already too slow to do and always getting caught in possession too high up the field.
Expect to see Forest cut through our midfield centrally and left side.
I’m hoping rather than being more positive about a win, but we should nick an away draw.
Fuck me – ESR starting, and an otherwise pretty strong line up.
Hi Tony
I think Live Score can be regarded as complete cunts when it comes to predicting team selections. Are you tuning in despite the late kick off? I think we’ll see a 3-0 win tonight (and therefore no transfers). Which is good – giving twatty more money is akin to buying a flamethrower for an arsonist.
TRVL
Havertz’s salary is Ridsdale levels of incompetence – we’ll never be able to unload him without paying him off probably something equivalent to £250,000 per week or £13 million for each season left on his contract.
To be honest I haven’t and don’t expect any inward buys this Jan – what has surprised me is Ramsdale hasn’t forced a loan move.
Turgid, robotic uninspiring shit.
Eighty fucking one percent possession and no real chances.
It’s an absolute shocker how Arteta has completely fucked these players. No creativity, spontaneity nor real threat. And on and on and on.
far too often our front side players have their backs to goal in crucial positions, which was oft-times the case during the Wenger “pass into the net” era…for the love of God why aren’t we being more direct at times, especially with them being insanely stretched at the back and with ESR on the pitch…for some god forsaken reason we’re all about crosses into the box yet we don’t have anyone up top with a height advantage…maybe it’s so MA’s Kool-Aid crew will call for Havertz to be subbed in…fact remains, ESR was more noticeable in that half than Havertz has been at any point in his tenure…problem is most of ESR’s dummy/direct runs are being wasted in this sideways cricle jerk of an offence
you’re so right KP, this guileless and predictable brand of football is so not the way to title glory…we have one individual who can pick a pass, Ode, and he sees the ball very rarely compared to the likes of Zinchenko, and we haven’t a clinical finisher amongst us…I’m pretty sure that the whole Havertz debacle will continue to haunt us for the foreseeable future until we find a way to bring in someone who can manufacture goals on their own
I watched the Zirkzee kid from Bologna again the other day against AC and he’s got some potential, but I just can’t see MA favouring him, as he doesn’t look like a high press come back to defend kind of Striker…another interesting individual is Girona’s Striker, Dovbyk, who’s lit up La Liga this season…he’s 26, so it’s hard to tell if this is a one-off gig or not
maybe on the training pitch we should put pictures of Keeper’s gloves and defender’s legs in each corner of the net, as we have no problem whatsoever hitting those squarely on a continual basis
you have to be trying to miss to not score from that distance…Jesus in a nutshell…tbf Eddie would have hit a fan in the 10 row
Kroenke
I’ve seen this kind of thing in sales – a piss poor manager joins a company taking over an existing high performing sales team. To look like he’s making a difference he changes things that have worked and starts to micro manage the team, when things get worse they keep doubling down, they then start to lose the best performers and replace them with “his people” who don’t make a difference and don’t last either.
It all comes down to how much damage they cause before they’re shown the door.
I knew there had to be a point to bringing Turner over to the PL!
Turner has been an absolute gong show at Forest, which speaks once again to MA’s inability to indentify talent…I can remember a whole host of Artetites praising Turner’s acquisition
thank goodness for a couple timely gifts…we should be punishing the shit out of this team anyways
Marc—good analogy, as I’ve witnessed a very similar set of circumstances on multiple occasions
I give Nuno some credit for showing some balls by replacing Wood with a more counter-friendly Striker, as we know full-well that our gutless MIT would never dare to do such a thing, especially at half…unfortunately, little did he know that Turner was desperately seeking a way in which he could put his fucked up stamp on this fixture
I will say this, if MA were given the task of constructing a team that would never get boat raced, like against Bayern or United some years back, then he’s done a spectacular job…of course, who the fuck would ever provide someone with those exact instructions and likewise say spare no expense…talk about lowering the bar
how shitty must one be to have Jorginho taking you off for defensive reasons
Saliba was rather fortunate that he wasn’t punished for that in the box contact…even weirder was the fact they kept showing the wrong VAR clip