Start of this season – could it have been any better? Nope! We beat Villa 2-1 at Home to register our 5th straight win of the league and sitting at the top with 15 points out of 15 – undisputed. I missed the match because I was out there celebrating my 30th birthday (I know, there is nothing to celebrate when you turn 30) but from the highlights I saw, it looked like we dominated the first half completely and should have scored 3/4 times at least.
Martinelli was awesome, Saka missed some but I’m sure it’s not an area we should worry about, and the goal which Villa scored should have been disallowed. It was an obstruction, everyone could see it, we have had similar incident with Leno and even Klopp came up with an explanation of why it shouldn’t be allowed. But when was the last time PGMOL gave a 50-50 in our favour?
Luckily enough, Martinelli came to the rescue scoring 2nd for us. His volley, which Martinez saved with a superb attempt, was one of the highlights of the game and I wish it would have landed in the net. It could have been the goal of the month.
Odegaard was brilliant again. I have been a critique of him, and favor ESR ahead of him but he proved why he has got the support of Mikel. I also heard Xhaka had a good game, long may it continue.
On the transfer front, it looks like we are pushing for Douglas Luiz who played against us last night on the deadline day. Agents are working on it, we are eager to bring him in, and it would be a good addition. Fab is reporting about it, there must be some substance to it.
Partey’s injury record is a worry and it would have been silly to go into a season with only him and Lokonga playing as DM. We are in need of a defensive midfielder and Luiz will provide that rotation and back up to Partey. Lets hope the deal goes through.
Bellerin is most likely joining Barcelona. It’s a shame we do not get any (substantial?) fee for him but there is no point paying his inflated wages when we have a fully fit Tomi as RB and White as a deputy.
We might also see Maitland-Niles joining Southampton on a loan deal with an option to buy, we are going to exercise his 1-year extension before we let him go on loan so that’s okay. I wish him all the best, always been a fan of his ice-cold penalties and attitude and I seriously wished he would make it in red and white.
We are playing Man United on Sunday, first against a top 6 side and it would prove to be a challenge to win against them at Old Trafford. A real test for our lads, but for once I am confident we won’t come back without a point. Win that, and I will declare that we are winning the league.
Hope everything is okay at your end, football is keeping us happy and long it may continue.
Cheers!
Very happy birthday Ambarish. Glad too that the lads didn’t let you down on your big day. Put to one side any thoughts that it’s downhill from here – you’ve got a good old time to go. Your thirties should be a good decade. Mine (94 – 04) saw some brilliant times at the Arsenal.
Thank you, KP. I was kinda sure when it went down to 1-1 that the lads won’t disappoint me today :))
Hopefully a decade of Arsenal on the rise, winning everything which is there to win.
Douglas Luiz being seriously discussed in the press. If he can vang a goal in every time we have a corner on the left it’ll be money well spent. I seem to remember him making an impact on arrival a AV, but he’s not getting my ducts flowing necessarily.
Not that I was such a huge fan of paying over the number for Luiz, but considering that we’ve loaned out both AMN and Azeez, combined with our ever-problematic injury woes, the fact that this administrative/managerial team has spent such an enormous sum, over the past two off-seasons, yet still haven’t properly redressed our most pressing midfield needs, is both disappointing and incredibly negligent on their parts…one can only hope this doesn’t come back to haunt us again, like last January…to continually lean into the same inept latter days Wengerian DM narrative seems like a rather counterintuitive and idiotic course of action…I thought we were supposed to be reinventing the wheel, not disguising it with a little fresh paint and calling it by a different name
I just know they’re going to massage this 11th hour cock-up with talk of Saka’s potential re-up, almost as if it’s a “new” signing…it might look a little different, but it still smells the same, in many respects
I honestly now believe that there was never any intention to sign a new CM because that would mean Xhaka being dropped. How can you spend £35 million on a young prospect (no criticism of Vieira he could go on to be an amazing player) and not fix what is seen as a glaring problem unless you don’t think its a problem?
Arteta has just blown top 4 when it was the best chance for years.
A Happy Birthday Ambarish
Will celebrate over here
Such a nice guy
All the best to you
Courtesy of the One- liner SidPopotus, or something like that
Generational doesnt want more Brazilians in the squad, the leak about injuries was suspicious, theres some power play between Edu and Generational
ESR saying Ozil is the best midfielder he has played with was suspect, the deal was supposed to involve Luiz and ESR.
That was 2 one -liners a bargain only at LiR
Thanks Sid.
Guess to explain Douglas Luis
Translation of above
Arsenal wanted Douglas Luis
Aston Vila would sell him since on last year
Aston Vila wanted ESR
On advisory ESR fired the Ozil love … but to no effect , because Tets might have thought D Luis was a bit boisterous for his taste.
Edu ate humble pie
Loaning out ANM during dire times at midfield is Edu kick on Tets backside.
The games have begun. Will be rough if Tets catches up on what has happened. That will depend on rehabilitation of injured players , how quick . Some are slow on the uptake , particularly slow midfielder
Well it would explain why ESR can’t get minutes for love or money – wonder what the fans boys will A) say and B) sing if shit for brains sells ESR?
Marc—frankly I’m a bit surprised that MA didn’t sell off ESR when Villa came calling…I would strongly suggest that if MA knew that Ode was going to sign permanently and/or if he had envisioned Marts as an everyday starter, which he clearly didn’t, ESR would be wearing a different kit presently…I, of course, feel that ESR is the exact kind of direct player this club needs in the center of the park so as to curtail MA’s propensity to rely too heavily on wide-side football, but it’s clear that MA doesn’t truly rate him
as for our far more pressing concerns, regarding our continued naivety when it comes to properly addressing our midfield deficiencies, it’s become such a confounding predicament that it totally belies logic…how can one team continually ignore such an important aspect of team building, over such an extended period, especially when ample funds were made available over the past two summer transfer windows…instead we’ve paid over the number for players in positions where there were logical alternatives, like White, who’s now being deployed as a RB, to the detriment of one of our most lauded acquisitions, Tomi
to make matters worse, not only have we placed all our eggs in Partey’s basket, whom I admire greatly as a player, but who’s body clearly can’t handle the rigours of that particular position, we have an injured Elneny, the underwhelming Xhaka and have loaned out most of our remaining depth…looks like some more shoehorning and finger-crossing is on the horizon again…such a bewildering and largely self-inflicted dick-tripping exercise
TRVL
Can’t argue against a word you say. When you look at what Arteta has spent in a short space of time there’s no excuse to not have a squad that’s capable of getting at worst 4th. When you add in the players he inherited who’s value he’s destroyed, bids he’s refused and the amount we’ve paid players to leave it’s beyond incompetence – and I don’t include Ozil in that either.
We’ve had a great start to the season but if you look at the results in context there’s nothing there that is particularly special and Arteta does runs – both good and bad.
The excuses come the end of the season will be really embarrassing.
Marc—some will suggest, albeit wrongly, that we’re a couple of “Negative Nancies”, who would bitch and moan regardless of the mitigating circumstances, like winning 5 games on the trot…in fact, nothing could be further from the truth…I would like nothing more than to wake up every weekend in a positive frame of mind knowing that our team was “truly” vying for titles and trophies of consequence
this isn’t to suggest that I’m holding the powers that be to an impossible “win everything or bust” standard, it simply means that they must act in just such a manner as to infer that the aforementioned lofty aspirations are their sole focus and that this is in no way an attempt to resurrect the whole “Wenger Cup” settling narrative
personally I believe that this can be achieved with 2 or 3 commonsensical administrative /managerial maneuverings, some proper “coaching up” and a few crucial tactical tweaks, as I’m fairly convinced we already have some foundational pieces in place…that said, until those in charge put on their respective big boy pants and finally invest in a proper DM, replace the underwhelming Xhaka, deploy a proper rotational selection process, which would likewise solve our “shop window” problem, so that we can reverse course on this whole giving players away for nothing agenda, and commit to finding ways in which we can add some more directness in our attack, this club will continue to be a second tier “settling” club…with this in mind, our late window maneuverings, or lack thereof, incoming-wise, were much more of the pretender, not contender, variety…Cech please!
TRVL
“so that we can reverse course on this whole giving players away for nothing agenda”
It’s worse than that we’re paying players to leave – we paid Auba £7 million to leave and Barca sold him for £10 million half a season later.
My issue in all of this is the double standards – things that weren’t good enough under Wenger, things Emery was slaughtered for before a ball was even kicked, Sanllehi’s business dealings being criminal but now missing out on Europe was a bonus (that never paid off of course but that’s not mentioned anymore), crap football is irrelevant (it’s the process stupid) and we’ve pissed more money up the wall than Sanllehi ever got close to spending.
To top all of that I’ve seen nothing to tell me Arteta has cracked it – we’ll go on a piss poor run at some stage just as he always does, the fanboys will blame injuries and will refuse to look at the lack of rotation that not causes the injuries but means squad players haven’t had any decent playing time to be up to speed to replace them.
More dropped points for Liverpool they’re almost out of the title race already – crazy season.
Nice to see David ‘spunky’ Seaman advertising some piss poor brand if double glazing on here. I hope he’s not short of a few bob, although he did have a rather acrimonious (but self-inflicted) marriage break-up as I recall. Talking of goal keeping greats is always sure to get Almunia’s creative juices flowing. He and I share a huge affection for Jon Lukic.
Watching City v (shit on the) Villa. I think the fabulously rich oil kleptocracy team will walk it.
Villa equalise – bonkers season.
with some of the odds-on favourites stumbling out of the gates, this season is starting to remind me a bit of the “transitional” year when LC won the title, when we foolishly decided that all we needed was Cech…let’s hope that our late window shite show doesn’t come back to haunt us once again