Well, better late than never. It’s a London Derby, two of the clubs which are in mess in their own ways are playing in next 15 min.
It’s an interesting line up from Arsenal. Arteta was positive about Tomi in yesterday’s press conference but he is not even on bench. It’s a good decision in my opinion, even if he is ‘almost’ fit, it’s not a good idea to bring him to play against Chelsea in a crucial match. Do not repeat ‘Partey-incident’.
Elneny comes in for Lokonga. I don’t know what to make of it, he has hardly got any game time and Lokonga hasn’t been any good either. Lets just hope Mo delivers a Partey-esque performance!
Biggest change is in the defence, Rob Holding is back and Cedric gets to sit on bench, who had a very poor last game.
Emile Smith Rowe starts in place of Martinelli. Fair enough, Martinelli is out of form recently and we got to give our highest scorer of the season some game time. We also need Odegaard to be back in form.
Chelsea are in a mess. They have some world class players who can beat any team on their day. One thing they will not going to do is to sit back and let us have the ball. We have lost 3 consecutive games against bottom half teams, lose this one and it would mean spu*ds will be 3 points ahead with equal games played and have a better goal difference. Or in short, top 4 becomes almost impossible.
Right, will keep it a short one for today – hardly 15min to go now. I shouldn’t leave things for the evening and then forget it completely.
#COYG – lets show them that London is red.
Almunia
Nice one. The whole thing was fortuitous but the win was deserved wasn’t it? Chelsea seldom play that badly but things clicked for us as well. We seemed keener to win second balls. I hate to say it, because I like him as a human being, but Lacazette’s absence may have been the difference. Plus Ode was neater and seemed to have more time than he’s had recently. No massive shocks at the Crucible so far other than Hawkins I guess. Robertson and Higgins through…
Kroenkephobe,
Energy is the word or as they like to say today ‘the press’. Utd are so devoid of the will to run and fight they are unrecognisable from the teams we grew up watching and then when Fergie came,hating. That’s why I’m confident ( but never too confident……).
Kroenkephobe,
Win was most definitely deserved, its not Arsenal’s problem if Chelsea implode,we still have to take advantage which we did. Where I would be slated as being a doomer or some sort is that I don’t really see how Arteta comes away from it looking like he gave a masterclass. I’d love someone to explain to me what he actually did that was the work of a clever manager. Genuinely now,I’m not being rhetorical. Eddie’s selection was a big difference maker but just as with ESR 18 months ago it seemed to me that Arteta’s hand was forced in that regard. He then admitted after the game he had been unfair to the guy,despite having been his manager for two and a half years and seeing him in training everyday. Yet he freely admits he couldn’t see the energy Eddie would bring or indeed the goals and instead stuck with the obviously out of form Lacazette. Is this not Willian and ESR all over again? In the short term great 3 points but seriously, how do we look at this as Arteta showing wisdom or even basic understanding?
I’m gonna say playing Manure at this point of time is like playing any other bottom half teams. They are devoid of passion to win.
Only problem is we are not very good against bottom halves.
6 games to go, beat Manure and Spuds and it’s still open.
On the bright side Mb,most bottom half teams sit back and we struggle to break them down. Utd won’t do that.
Yes that would be a good thing. If we play like we did last night, I don’t think either of Manure or Spuds can beat us. We showed intent to move ball forward.
Few observations from my side – Tavares was allowed to move forward because of our back 3 and some of his runs were incredible. Last few bad games might just be about confidence plus youth players are error-prone at time.
Holding played central in that back 3, and it was probably why the sideways and back passes were cut down. Gab and White are too much trained for that in the name of keeping ball/possesion.
Martinelli is electric at times but ESR has a better run and finish. Almost always Nello loses the ball when surrounded by 2+ players but ESR can handle those situations. It’s a pickle for Arteta!
What a result, lads!!
Fortuitous or not, that was a great game of football. 3 shots on target, 3 goals (before the pen) – clinical.
With the wind in our sails, I hope we fucking wreck Utd on Saturday.
It’s been such a crazy season, it’s still hard to believe we’re in with a genuine shot at finishing in the top 4.
Someone call Almunia – if we smash Utd, I’ll for sure start suffering from PTSD™.
Jamie,
A tremendous 3 points but I’m not willing to get excited yet, that bitter taste of hope turned sour is something I can’t stomach anymore. It’s getting so bad I find it difficult to even watch the matches anymore. That said even I am optimistic about Saturday. Gotta be more twists and turns though,right?
Jamie and Almunia
As brilliant a win as it was unexpected. I saw the line up beforehand and was alarmed. None of these top 4 contenders (inc Chelsea) is anything like consistent. After the last result is in on the final day, a top 4 placing will be a bit meh and anti-climatic but at the moment it’s gripping. I feel like I’m being taken for a ride by the PL and the media at the same time. To think before Wengo left, we’d Al be as bored as bastards if the table looked like this.
Hold that thought Kroenkephobe. We get top 4 and are back here again next year still 30 points off top and the ‘process’ will be exposed. Close that gap significantly and humble pie will be required my end. I don’t think the majority of fans will gladly accept a return to scrapping for fourth. I won’t anyway.
I’d take that scenario next year if we had an experienced manager fit for the purpose of running a wealthy powerful football club capable of going much further. I’d contend that we’ll never reach the level of MC and/or Liverpool while the ship of fools continues to sail under Chief Petty Officer Arteta.
We keep hearing that Arsenal need to sign a striker and a cm – we need 2 strikers plus a cm and that’s just to tread water in the PL. We’re told Arteta’s a genius for getting rid of the deadwood well half the deadwood were fine as squad players until Arteta came along and how the hell is this squad supposed to cope with EL let alone CL football unless it adds some numbers as well as quality?
If we beat United at home on Saturday all we need to do is win the NLD and match the Sp*ds results and we got CL next season because of a better points total.
Was encouraged by Elneny’s performance and the Xhaka nutmeg. The two could provide a solid midfield until the end of the season. However the TW is not as straight forward as it is being made out on the Arteta blog.
1st we will be competing with several EPL teams, Chavs, United, Newcastle and Sp*ds if they sell Kane. That then means what is more attractive to prospective incoming players UCL games or manager? Inter’s Martinez wants Pool because of the team mates and manager, where will we make a showing in this as we were interested in him.
Finally CM, Thieleman again is also being looked by our rivals in the EPL and the same questions apply will he prefer UCL matches or Conte and Ten Hag. Not straight forward and all of this before we even bring the money issue into the picture.
Yes,I’d agree with both Marc and Killroy, finding top quality midfielders and strikers who are rare and expensive is going to be a huge task. I’m not sure these type of players are going to buy into Arteta’s ‘process ‘. We’ll have to wait and see but my guess is keeping Arteta means we’ll have to overpay in fees( ala White), overpay in wages ( Auba’s new deal) or ,and this is what I really dread, buy average and be told we’ve signed worldies( DCL,Kalvin Phillips or their like).
Almunia
The horror will be when we sign the average “worldies” on high fees and high wages and then can’t unload them when Arteta is kicked out.
All in all Arteta will cost us a minimum of a decade and every day he’s in charge that gets worse.
Lads
Have a go at this if you’re bored today.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61111435
Sooooooo many relatively obscure Watford managers. I didn’t get any of the Arsenal ones (including the present incumbent) because I’m trying to block them all from my memory…. Boom boom
Spoiler alert – it’s fucking impossible to spell Sven Goran Erikssen so I just put ‘philandering Swedish porno star reject’ in the box and it worked.
Almunia – I know you love quizzes. This’ll kill some time between now and midday tomorrow.
Morning, gents.
I might be going against the grain (and I feel somewhat foolish for it), but I still haven’t thrown in the Arteta towel just yet.
I was seriously wavering after the 3 losses on the bounce against teams we should’ve comfortably taken 7 points from, but the Chelsea performance has given me brief hope that we might sneak into the top 4 by way of all our competitors choking harder than us. It’s still possible.
Should be finish top 4, I’d happily give Arteta next season to see if he can build anything special with the extra funds.
I’m as nervous about the Utd game as I was for the Chelsea game. 6 points from 6 would be massive though.
I’m still not an Arteta backer – he’s made so many fundamental errors in 2.5 years. The kinds of errors no one spoke about before his hiring. It was all “Emery had a top 4 squad, he blew it in catastrophic fashion, Arteta is generational, doesn’t need money, can and would’ve coached Emery’s squad to a top 4 finish easily.” Shit aged so poorly I’m genuinely embarrassed for Pedro, only made worse by his constant “I was right all along, my online readers are the worst type of fan.” Super cringe.