It’s a festive season here and I have been busy as hell in household chores. A lot has happened in Arsenal and Football world in last 10 days and I am going to cover them in details.
v Shakhtar
First, we played a very boring game against Shakhtar Donetsk but won it somehow, courtesy to an own goal. It was truly a pathetic game by our standards. We played with almost the first XI, only Saka was missing but Gabriel Jesus is not a back up material if you judge him by his experience. The only positive of that game was that the win moved us 9th place and kept our undefeated run in Champions League. A lot of games are still to be played, and there will changes to the rankings, but if we managed to hold on near the top 8, it would mean we don’t get to play 2 extra qualifying games.
v Liverpool
The next game against Liverpool in Premier League was, yet again, sub par to our standards. It wasn’t the 2-2 scoreline that bothered me, rather we had less than 45% of the possession AT HOME and passing accuracy fell below 80%. Both goals from Saka and Merino were pretty solid, but we conceded on a corner first and once Gabriel M and Timber were subbed off, we played very deep. Parking the bus do not work everytime. If you have a lead, you go and improve on it, not just sit back and hope to defend every attack.
Premier League is one of the toughest competition out there, and a 5 point different when only about 1/4th of the season is played is not a good thing for title contenders. We need to win our next few games and draw will only make it a 2 legged race from 3. No body wants to see a dual of Man City and Liverpool once again.
v Preston (away)
Well, this was an easy one. Kiwior got a place at CB, Zinchenko was back in the team, Ethan Nwaneri got a place in starting line up and that kid showed why were were rooting for him. He scored a beautiful, brilliant goal after Gabriel Jesus opened our account, and Havertz scored the third one. Jesus scored a goal after ages but he is going to become a problem for us very soon. He don’t like to play on the wings, he can’t score when he plays in the middle and his conversion rate is so poor that I am sure if someone work out the numbers, he will fall behind even Nelson.
Anyways, that win takes us to the quarter finals of Carabao cup and Man City is out of the competition after losing to Spuds. Spuds will play Man Utd in the next round, so that’s another good team out of the race. We will be playing Crystal Palace and I think everyone would agree that that’s the best for us. I love meself some trophies and we can surely win this one.
Injuries
Well, Big Gabriel picked up an injury. Timber is very athletic but he is no Ben White in fitness. Zinchenko is back and Saka after missing 2 games in a row after like 100 games for us is another good news. Odegaard is close to full fitness and we might see him back in the team in about a month. Nwaneri has the potentional to fill that place but we gotta see how much Mikel trusts him in big games. Against Preston, Wenger would have played 11 kids and still would have won.
Right, that all about Arsenal. Lets talk about rest of the world.
Erik Ten Hag got the sack finally. He was dreadful and his football was bland. Filling up a Man Utd team with Atlanta players and hoping to fix things that way do not work in Premier League. He was given money, and the least he could have done was to build a foundation. He left the team, no better than he inherited it, and it’s a good thing for us. We hate them and seeing their decline only brings joy to me. Long it may continue and it will, there are in absolute mess and it would take some very harsh decisions to fix it. They love their media images and they are not going to do that. They are going to finalise Ruben Amorim deal from Sporting Lisbon and frankly I have not much idea about him.
Rodri of Man City won Ballon d’Or ahead of Vinicious Jr and Erling Haaland. I believe the other 2 deserved more than Rodri. For Arsenal, Odegaard finished 19th, Saka 21st, Saliba was 24th and Declan Rice finished 26th. Our darling, Granit Xhaka finished 16th playing in a Bayer Leverkusen team.
Jack Wilshere left Arsenal Academy to join Norwich City as the first team coach. There is nothing exciting about that move but at the age of 32, you would want to understand things on the ground level, you would want to work with as many people as possible to grasp and understand different style of play, and you gonna pick things up from these different men to build your own football philosophy. We always loved him, and we hope a very good career ahead. It would be great if he joins us back some day in a better capacity.
Right, that’s all for the day. We are visiting Newcastle on Saturday in our next Premier League game, and I will be back before the game.
Hope you are having a good time. Cheers.
Ambarish—good summary of the past 10 days or so…in regards to ten Hag, I’m assuming you meant Ajax not Atalanta…anyways, I’m all for winning trophies, but this one isn’t high on my wishlist, especially after the monies spent…that said, I might think differently if MA had used this competition to provide significant minutes to at least a handful of academy pieces
the biggest story is undoubtedly our injury woes, which wouldn’t be such a debilitating situation if MA could ever get his transfers and tactics right…we’re constantly at the mercy of his largely mismanaged and oftentimes misguided whims…instead of taking ownership of his mistakes, he typically doubles-down, which is how we ended up transitioning from a Pep-inspired possession-based outift to a supersized set piece-dependent blunt instrument…that said, I can only hope our approach will adjust a bit when Ode returns or whenever MA finally puts some faith in Ethan…I would be incredibly interested to see both he and Ode on the pitch at the same time, but I’m certainly not holding my breath
thankfully no one’s running away and hiding quite yet, so time is still on our side…of course this only matters if we can ever navigate our way out of our post-summer malaise…personally I think the lack of urgency we displayed in the summer set the exact wrong tone and we’ve been running in sand ever since, minus the odd seemingly random bright spots, such as the PSG affair
Good round up, Ambarish.
TRVL
You post says it all.
KP
I would have liked to have witnessed what you saw and I’m in agreement, Ethan is a like for like for Ode, but I see more to his game because Ode plays on the move constantly; mostly at pace, which is why his quick one touches open channels and gaps for Saka in particular.
I see Ethan as a player with an ease about his play but has pace when required. I think Nwaneri can play just as well up top as in midfield as his goal showed. I believe Ethan has more composure than Ode as Ethen seems to find more time on the ball and has silky feet that can only get better.
Let’s hope he gets more starts even at 17 he’s more than ready as was Fabregas.
Ethan has the ability to win us games can the same be said about, Kai, Jesus, Sterling and Merino?
Something is not right with our Marts other than lack of service on the left, which should get better with Merino at 8. One can only hope Gabs gets his mojo back because at the moment he’s just a speed merchant outlet more than the player he was.
TRVL
Ah, yes – sorry it was Ajax. Ethan was brilliant with whatever chances he has got, and we have seen with Saka and Martinelli that age is just a number. Ode’s absence could have been a blessing in disguise for Nwaneri and Mikel, the player could have stepped up and Mikel could have got a rotational option we missing after ESR is gone.
There’s still time for Ode to make a return in playing XI, so there’s still hope Ethan gets some minutes to prove himself. If it doesn’t happen, we will be out there getting a Odegaard’s back up next summer when in fact, we should be looking to get a CF.
I highly doubt we are going to see both of them start in game. ESR couldn’t fit, Nwaneri won’t as well. It will be Merino and Trossard before anyone else gets on the left side.. it’s an interesting option though, 2 attacking players in midfield who can move the ball up and score.
Being modelled to play as the next Ode is evidently no bad thing, but I’d imagine 17 year olds are pretty pliable and suggestive when it comes to new techniques etc.
With that in mind, Nwaneri should become a serious goalscorer if anything, a la Rooney, Owen, Fowler, Ian Wright etc. 15 to 20 goals a season. He showed on Tuesday that he has great close control and shooting accuracy – they should start putting him up top in U21 games etc. just to see if he can produce goals.
Completely agree KP. He’s sakes level of better at 17 when Saka was 17. I don’t remember Saka curling goals from outside the box at 17. That was a thing of beauty.
Saka’s*
Do you have local games, KP?
https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/news-i-never-players-like-that-i-did-i-made-sure-left-ex-liverpool-boss-jurgen-klopp-admits-doesn-t-like-real-madrid-legend
Klopp criticizing Sergio Ramos because of his action against Mo Salah..
“I never had players like that, when I did, I made sure they left”
How easy for him to forget Sadio Mane, the cheating c*nt.
KP
Well, that lad has the most goals in Carabao Cup for Arsenal where he is getting minutes, and all those 3 were not flukes but propa ones.
lol Ambarish propa bona fides ones…… One’s Kai only drams of…….
drams as in wee drams of whiskey Kai cries into dreaming of scoring real goals.
Mind you his bullet header against PNE was better because he didn’t have to jump – only lean forward unattended. Did nothing after, mind!
Anyone believe this from MA? he needs to start against the Bar Codes at least. We can’t fcuking score from open play, so it’s a no brainer. Ethan can curl those balls all day long if you look at the ease of his positioning and shot. He’s better than Rice will ever be with the dead ball, and Rice isn’t bad; he”s just not naturally gifted as Nwaneri is.
However, he needs to be looked after well, too. Being a quiet lad means FA, as int;s his boots who do the talking and already have.
MA says:
“He’s going to really dictate how fast that’s going to go, but I’m really, really happy with him,” Arteta added.
“There’s so much personality there. He wants to impose himself, he wants every ball, he wants to make things happen. Outside around the boy, he’s still a bit quiet, as is usual for a 17-year-old.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/ethan-nwaneri-arsenal-fixture-newcastle-34008076
it’s his boots….*
Ambarish, Hoopah and Divyanshu
Assuming you celebrate it, wishing you a very happy Diwali lads. ♥️🇮🇳♥️
Tony – another ‘home’ game in Carmarthen tomorrow against Flint from the NW of Wales. They beat us at their place but I’m pretty sure that’ll be reversed tomorrow. Yours truly is back on bus driving duties…
I have to give props to Enzo Maresca, the doppelganger slim shady, for doing that which our manager could never do, bench a big money player…I’ve said all along that Enzo Fernandez was possibly the worst transfer the Blues have made in the modern era, considering the inherent costs and his bang average form since arriving, but instead of shoehorning him into the lineup week-in and week-out, like MA’s has and continues to do, he’s been benched for the betterment of the whole…this takes some balls, especially at Chelsea, where managers are shipped on an annual basis…meanwhile back on the north side not only do they continually start, he’s likewise reconfigured our entire tactical approach due to their misguided presence…trust me, if we had purchased a bona fide Striker, there’s no way we would ever relied upon a midfield of Partey, Rice and Merino…just saying
If we get a result against Inter, then the teams from the difficult pots 1 & 2 are over and we play 4 games against teams from pot 3 & 4 in the champions league and should be set for being seeded.
On the other hand we only scored 2 goals in 1 game so far plus our most prolific striker own goal got on the score sheet. El B as difficult as it may be try not having a brain fart in the game against Inter.
New post.