Well, a lot of things are not going our way recently. We have had some horrendous performances recently, we have fallen a bit in the title race and our technical director has left. We had injuries and it affected the way we played our games, we also had refereeing decisions going against us. Most important of all, it was a failure from the manager to not plan for it in advance. It was a failure of manager to not motivate players to play the way he wants. If you tell me that we can’t play the way we want if couple of players from starting XI are not available, then what’s the point of having a 24-man squad? You won’t have a 100% favourable condition, no matter which team you manage in whatever era. Today, against Inter Milan, on a Champions League night, away from home is the perfect place to show the world it was just a hiccup, and not the way forward. Let us make an statement with the ball.
Right, here I am in all the doom and gloom, EXCITED for the Champions League.
Team News
Lets start with a good news, Martin Odegaard is back in full training today. We needed him so badly to fix the creativity in that midfield and to get back on winning terms. He may not start straightaway but he would have some role to play tomorrow in case things don’t go as planned. Ben White was used as a substitute against Newcastle and should be available for the game. Declan Rice hasn’t travelled with the team, as a precaution to some discomfort. There’s no statement yet from the club but he is certainly not playing.
Arteta confirmed in his press conference when asked about Declan Rice
Declan unfortunately picked an injury against Newcastle. He was able to finish and he wasn’t feeling good the last few days. We’ll have to assess him on Thursday and see if he’s ready for Chelsea.
source: Arsenal.com
On Odegaard,
The positive news, Martin it’s great to have him back. He trained with us first time today. He’s a bit earlier than expected. But it’s great to have him here and we will decide if we use him tomorrow.
source : Arsenal.com
Back 4 is sorted with Ben White availability. Timber and White can cover LB and RB respectively. Midfield is going to be a problem again for Mikel. Thomas Partey and Merino will be present but who is going to play in place of Rice? We wouldn’t be risking Odegaard after 2 months of an injury to start straightaway in a highly competitive game against Inter Milan. Jorginho? May be. Because, apparently we don’t trust a 17 year old who had shown some good football in whatever minutes he has played.
We have been over-reliant on our defence. Defence wins you game – fine, but if you don’t score you lose 2 very important points. We need to go offensive against Inter, we need our front 3 to own up and not hide behind a non-existent midfield. It’s not like the likes of Saka, Havertz and Martinelli didn’t have chances, it wasn’t a lot but it was there. At this level, if you can’t convert a 50-50, you are not good enough. Lets not talk about Gabriel Jesus at all here.
I haven’t watched Inter from a long time. I don’t know how they play but I am guessing Martinez will be cause some chaos.
[this is a work in progress, please revisit to check the updates]
Morning all what a game of international rugby between England and Australia playing gung ho rugby and committing school-boy, cardinal sin errors of missing tackles. I think England missed 35+ especially when the Wallabies kept cutting inside by drawing England onto the ball too quickly where the ball was too quick leaving our defenders in front of the ball by a couple of yards with no chance of recovery.
Have to give it to the Wallabies for having less lapses in concentration. For the neutral it was a rugby spectacle.
The next world rugby superstar I predict is: Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii. The kid has it all with a rugby IQ that is off the charts for me. He was devastatingly good and incredibly hard to play against.
Onto football, Pep losing to BHA came as no surprise, as I’ve been a fan of all aspects of BHA from their owner, Tony Bloom, to their managers and of course the club’s unique algorithm used to unearth gems to be polished. Watching the game this morning was a nice way to wake up and smell and drink my coffee.
It was clear to me when we drew with City, in their back yard that, without Rodri and KDB, they are a team of elite missing key team links: defensive & offensively, where holes now are appearing in their press and quality on the ball when harassed themselves. They don’t like it up em!
Where would they be without Haaland this season?
City will not win the PL this season is and has been my belief, so by Pedro’s thinking we are a shoe-in if Pep left the PL, wjhere their current form would be indicative of Pep moving on from the PL.
I know I make bold statements I stick to like superglue – no matter what, but I really felt we were going to see a City/Pep decline and they have not disappointed. Last night was typical of their play where Pep has run out of ideas and is being out thought, and outplayed by younger managers; in Brighton’s case very young and deserves their plaudits for their current 4th place position.
What makes me happiest is knowing how pissed off the Gallagher brothers are feeling right now.
My other bold statement was that Slot will win the title. I watched and read as much as I could after TRVL gave us the heads up. Slot has been a revelation at Pool unfortunately. Slot has the likable quality you feel in the famed first 10 seconds of meeting or seeing where we subconsciously, at least, make our minds up about someone. Slot’s easy body language and assuaging smile is enough to have people warm to him immediately, which it was clear the players all took to Slot quickly.
When Slot sorted Salah out, that was it for me, my premise is Slot is an elite manager in the making where Barca and RM will be calling soon enough; just a shame our board and owners didn’t have the vision to ring in changes after our 3rd title capitulation in a row.
We should have been looking after the 2nd throwing in of the towel because of MA’s poor TWs, where this season is what we expected with no striker or quality 8. Only shoe-ins
Edu leaving in November where our board were left scrambling with a we-love-you really offer that was quickly turned down by our leaving TD said it all really. A more proactive board would have seen it coming, and a lot more that have come to haunt us this season if they took off their rose tinted MA glasses. 85322 has them fooled but not us.
By next May it could read 853228 and be out of Europe and another fire sale sell off? Should a £multi billion corporate enterprise have repeated player asset fire sales?
As I said we have to beat The Chavs in their own back yard or serious questions should be asked why we are where we are?
Let’s look at our current plight and a real dose of reality lads and any lasses reading LIR.
We are 6th on 18 points where if we don’t get any points this evening, then Spuds could be above us on GD after their home game against the Delia Smith’s Tractor boys. Spuds and Ange will want this badly. Very badly………
Come away from The Bridge sans points and we will be 10 points behind Slot’s Pool’s revolution, which barring a string of injuries, I see continuing to pick up pace, and whilst I appreciate the quality of football, tactics and inspired subs, Pool being above us any time hurts other than 89.
We are lucky Villa are stuttering at times as even though they lost to Pool they are still same points as us. Edu’s Forest are 3rd. Let that sink in with BHA 4th and where both teams deserve their standings.
My other main prediction for this season after the first 5 or so games was I concurred with Marc that we could finish as low as 8th again. Certainly 5th to 8th!
This evening’s game is the mother of must win!!!!! I know how I would like to see our line up. Chavs have height and pace across their midfield and front players.
I would rather see MA finally get his selections right and tactics to contain and counter Chelsea at pace, than playing guessing games of are Ode and Rice playing?
MA forgets or refused to acknowledge Enzo’s a wily and experienced manager. and MA is an open book tactically, so it doesn’t really matter who plays; tactics will be the same. Marts hugs the left touchline while 90% of our attacks go through Saka and we counter at a 2 to 3 touch football pace; more if Zinchenko and Morino play.
I’m not making a prediction or suggesting a a full starting line up. We are in MA’s hands and galaxy brain, but 3-5-2 would be my choice which is no secret here with Ethan and Ode starting.
Ambarish/Hoopah
ESR was a big loss for us as was Emi and other youths who have left with no obvious path to out first team squad – look at Ethan’s lack of minutes…..
Pray to your gods whoever they are, as we are going to need divine intervention to do a points smash and grab tonight.
KP
Pumpkin is getting the royal treatment today with cat nip et al.
There’s no doubt that we can get a result today, especially if Palmer isn’t available, but I’m just having some difficulty envisioning exactly how that would look…we should have Ode back, which certainly can’t hurt, although he might be on a pitch count…as for Rice, his status is still up in the air…so if he’s unavailable and Ode is simply a bench option, we might have to rely on a rather uninspiring midfield once again…I can only hope that MA has learned his lesson and will have Ethan on the pitch from the off…clearly he’s nowhere near a finished product yet, but he does enough out there, at least offensively, to warrant a start, especially in light of our goalscoring woes
how sad is it that Pep’s experiencing his worst run of form in almost 20 years, yet even if we win we’ll still be sitting below City in the table…surely MA will be on thin ice if he were to lose the title to anyone not named Pep…that said, he’ll have all manner of excuses, as per usual, should he falter, and depending on the particulars of his most recent re-up we might be stuck with him for the time being regardless of the end result…still don’t get why there never seems to be an adult in the room when Arteta unveils his one dimensional harebrained plans each and every off-season
“still don’t get why there never seems to be an adult in the room when Arteta unveils his one dimensional harebrained plans each and every off-season”
You’re at the head of a very long queue wanting an answer to that question.
Is FFP finally leveling the playing fields, TRVL: Forest 3rd & Brighton 4th? What’s your take? If it is then, Ratcliffe will have to stick to the rules, especially if City are being held to account of their actions as per the media has reported on.
I also wonder now how much difference there is between an unpolished and polished gem today? Jaoa Pedro last night was creating all sorts of problems for City; he’d be a good fit as an 8 or 9 and would bring Marts back to his best. Is Pedro a polished gem? If not, then then who is? Kudus? Isak?
If we’d have bought Pedro and Isak last summer, we’d be neck and neck with Slot’s revolution me thinks, and we’d have coped with Ode’s absence far better. Isak would hold the ball and Pedro would be the creator with Ode with Ethan as their understudy. It’s not rocket science and we can spend when we want to. Maybe Edu wanted that and MA didn’t? We’ll never know.
We weren’t that far off at Inter even without Rice and had Nwaneri started……? We can bring it when we want, as in the Spuds WHL and City games, so I agree we can get the points if we set out stall out right, which we rarely seem to do under MA.
Tony
Good analysis and perspicacity.
Thanks, Hoopah, I appreciate the mutual thinking.
Ipswich asking all the questions of Spuds and unlucky not to be in front. Spuds yet to show up.
Spuds regressing to championship form with Ipswich who couldn’t buy a win before are out playing Spuds to 2:0
Angle is not a happy happy.😃
Tony—agree with your Isak take but not convinced that Pedro would be worth the expenditure, as we all know BHA don’t buckle when it comes to meeting their evaluations…now he would be a realistic Jesus replacement but MA’s never going to spend 60+ for a cover piece, at least not on purpose…he’s primarily a CF, with 100+ starts up top, but I can see MA shoehorning him out wide left, where he has vastly less experience…his best statistical season saw him pot 11 goals and 4 helpers, which was in the championship…all in all the juice isn’t likely worth the squeeze, which isn’t to suggest that I don’t think he has anything on offer, I just don’t envision him as a starting option yet his price point would suggest otherwise…it would liken it to a Havertz 2.0 scenario, albeit I do favour Pedro more in front of goal…that said, I would gladly take an Isak/Pedro duo over our current underwhelming Havertz/Jesus pairing…keeping in mind, I would not be so critical of Kai if he had arrived here for half the fee and 1/3rd of the wages, as then he would be a high quality depth piece
Spuds luckily being Spursy have dropped 3 home points to Ipswich so can’t go above us if the worst happens later.
Thanks TRVL that all makes sense.
as for today’s affair Ode and Rice are back in the starting lineup, although I do hope they weren’t rushed into things considering the pending international break (ugh!!!)…typical back 4 alignment, when Cala’s unavailable, with White on the right and Timber on the left, and up top it’s going to be Marts, Havertz and Saka…so there’s no excuses for not taking all 3, at least not from a player availability standpoint…I will be interested to see how Enzo sets up against us, especially at home
Match day post is live.
Tony—as for Kudus, I have mixed feelings…he likely has what it takes to sit behind Saka, but I wouldn’t want to overpay for him simply to assume that role and I very much doubt he would want to move here for those purposes…sometimes I think players like himself and Paqueta look especially good when they’re playing on a side that otherwise plays some rather dire football
Enzo has gone with his more defensive lineup, which favours us a bit…let’s hope that we come out on the front foot
Here we go then just caught up.