Arsenal v Man City – Community Shield

No idea what Arteta will go with – you could make an argument to go with a familiar line up from last season and then give some of the new players a run out in the second half, you can easily make an argument that players like Rice and Timber have been brought in as first choice and need as much playing time to adapt.

Score line – can’t see us winning unless Pep isn’t in the slightest bit interested, more likely he sees this as a chance to gain a psychological edge. Someone did put this through ChatGPT which predicted a 3 – 1 City win.

Hi Marc,

Hope all is well. Yes, could be anything today lol in terms of team selection, results.

I’m good Ambarish how’s life?

Looks like Arteta’s going to play with Harvetz as a false 9 – loved to be proved wrong but I don’t think its going to work question is if it isn’t how long will Arteta keep flogging a dead horse?

Can I just get in before kick off – the Charity Shield (or whatever its called) is not a trophy.

this match means infinitely more to MA than his former employers, as such he will likely overthink matters and possibly learn nothing as a result…if I had to hazard a guess, I can picture MA lying awake at night contemplating all manners of strategic maneuvers for just such a matchup, then when it came time to put up or shut up, he will invarably turn to something far more comfortable and underwhelming…this will likely come about as a result of two key variables; firstly, he’s a tactical lightweight, at this juncture anyways, and secondly, he will convince himself that he would be wise to save such “trickery” for a match that matters considerably more…of course, when that latter time comes he will find another reason why not to do it then too…hopefully I’m wrong and he grows a pair, but I’m certainly not holding my breath…in the end, just hoping for a good match

This cracking down on gamesmanship won’t make it to mid September.

same old, same old thus far…weak-ass press followed by a whole mess of chasing shadows

nothing like getting a yellow card for dissent from the technical area in the 18th minute of a match where we’ve largely been a passenger

finally something of consequence for the home side

City get away with murder without bookings – we get 3 for any infringement.

When you’ve got me showing sympathy for Arteta you know somethings fucked up.

I’m not sure who’s more nervous, Arteta or Ramsdale??

tbf Marc, we’ve got bookings for some obvious cynical fouls, whereas I would say that both Rodri and Ode should have been booked but escaped punishment…of course, the 3 yellows to none looked bad, from an optics standpoint, until Sanchez got City’s first

we need to make them pay for not having DeBruyne sitting ahead of Rodri

maybe it was a rope-a-dope plan all along where we sat back for the first 35 then squeezed them out in the last 10 before the half

now Havertz looks like all our up top options

half my kingdom for a clinical finisher and someone who can strike from distance

And Havertz did miss an easy one. Too early to say but a CF should have scored that.

TRVL

City are very good at making cynical fouls look innocent. They do it constantly to break up play ref’s need to be wiser to it.

I agree, that’s why I said Rodri should have been booked for the shirt tug…just think that early on we were chasing it and our frustrations led to some silly bookings

on a side note, I would like to see Ode come more centrally at times so that we had a more logical pivot man for distribution purposes

Give those two chances to Haaland and he converts 1 at least. Bumteta will be judged by that Haaland signing and if it goes like many of the Chelsea fans told me, “get used to have Kai Bergkamp miss a lot of chances” than both should be gone after the end of the season if not sooner.

haaland/Havertz signing

Killroy-agreed, in fact I would go one further and say Haaland would have potted both of those chances…I just can’t understand why we’ve never targeted someone with an eye for goal from distance, especially considering how many teams will try to defend against us

Seen nothing today that changes my view of the squad.

Ode, Saliba and Saka are all top top quality. We then have a group of good players.

Rice will be a good player for us, Timber the same as long as he’s not bounced all over the place positionally.

Havertz really looks like he needs a couple of pints of attitude forced down his throat.

I’ll take a fluky goal – they go against us often enough.

of course, it’s always best to win, but not much of an affair…couple of good moments, Ramsdale’s save on Rodri and Vieira’s decisive penalty, conisdering his last attempt against United, but otherwise it was a skin of your teeth, underwhelming ride…agree Marc about Havertz, as he looked to be a passenger far too often again today…that said, just watch Arteta doing his post-match hugs and you will clearly know who he favours and who he doesn’t

btw Pep is 0-3 in his last 3 Community Shields

Positive
We got the win and the trophy.
Timber seems like a real decent signing.
Good at penalty taking.
No major injuries.
.
Negatives
Havertz not convincing at all in front of goal.
Arteta still doesn’t get his starting XI right.
For every excellent save Ramsdale has a major error in him.
Arteta didn’t pay attention to PGMOLs special meeting about managers behavior.
.
We still get shitty Refs like Stuart Twatwell who can’t call a card for a foul even if they have a clear view.

Killroy

You missed a positive – Arteta not waiting until 70plus minutes to make subs!

Marc-enjoyed your sarcasm, as somehow, someway MA didn’t use a sub, even though he had 6 available to him, until the 75th

With one week until the start of the season I just wanted to reflect on our summer activities and our my expectations for the upcoming season

(1) Declan Rice—how could I not start with the most expensive “homegrown” transfer ever…first and foremost I’m a fan of the way in which he generally conducts himself on and off the pitch…that said, I’m a bit concerned by the kind of assurances he might have been given by our manager, who’s been known to offer up all manner of things even if they don’t align with the greater good…tbh I was under the impression that Rice was coming into the fold to be our somewhat less talented version of City’s Rodri…unfortunately, it appears as if Rice has something a little different in mind, in that he clearly wants to be deployed in more advanced spaces on a much more regular basis…I know that he was starting to pop-up in and around the box more often than usual in the last couple of months with his former club, but I felt that had more to do with Soucek’s struggles in front of goal than him wanting desperately to contribute more from an offensive capacity…if this is what he truly desires most, I’m far less convinced about this incredibly expensive get…only MA would pay top dollar for a DM then play him out of position, as it won’t be our first rodeo in this regards…no wonder he was so determined to land at the Emirates, as no other manager of consequence would risk so much on such a coin toss proposition…here’s hoping that he’s not only much better with the ball at his feet than his career thus far would suggest, but that he can likewise find a way to best utilize his size when it comes to crosses and set pieces

Havertz—if you told me a couple years back that we had signed him from Bayer I would have been over the fucking moon, but after a rather underwhelming Chelsea stint my excitement has considerably waned…he appears to be a tweener of sorts, which might seem like a bonus to those lapping up the Kool-Aid, but for anyone with even a modicum of common sense it’s a far less appealing jack of all trades, master of none scenario…I certainly hope he can rediscover his Bundesliga form, but I’m still of the mindset that this money could have been better spent…it’s basic fucking footballing analytics, we had definitive needs and buckets of cash, so we not target those in-form individuals who best fit our positional needs…like I said, I rate Kai, or at least I did at one point not so long ago, and it’s certainly not impossible to imagine him coming good, but why would anyone opt for such a long odds proposition…after all it’s not like we got him for a steal…tbf it’s my belief that MA went full gaga over this player as soon as rumours started to swirl about Real having interest, which was likely complete bullshit

(3) Timber—really like what I’ve seen from this player, as I saw him play 10 or so times last season…I get the whole inverted gig, as it might help us unlock the myriad of bus parking sides we will invariably face this upcoming season, but we’ve now invested over 100M in RBs or converted RBs…if it were up to me I would have been far more focused on finding a RB who could help to maximize Saka’s potential by bombing up the pitch and punishing teams for double-teaming the shit out of our best player…so far Saka has had shockingly little help when it comes to dummy/overlapping runs…even so, I’m fairly hopeful that Timber will have a positive impact moving forward

David Raya—I’ve already expresseed my thoughts on this matter…rate him a tad more than Rammer, but not sure that he can play out from the back as much as MA would probably require and I would rather we spent those monies elsewhere

as for my expectations, regardless of the cake and eat it too/lowered expectational nonsense being spouted by the LG puppetry, we need to be in the title race at season’s end and we need to likewise make a deep CL run, or this will be considered a regression…I do believe these are readily achievable, in light of what transpired last year and the gobs of money spent this off-season, but I do worry that our best chance to finish on top, odds-wise, came and went last year, as everyone who logiaclly matters, minus maybe City, will almost assuredly be better this year than last

Cheers

TRVL

We need to see Rice play in a few matches that aren’t against City to know his positioning. Its possible Arteta used Ode and Rice yesterday to press the City defenders high up the pitch, there were numerous times that both of them were ahead of Saka and Martinelli which to my mind limits the effectiveness of the wide forwards but that doesn’t mean we’ll see it against lesser teams.

Marc—agreed, as this could be a tactic meant specifically for top quality sides, but don’t be surprised if MA adopts a Moyes-like Rice/Soucek dynamic, where they take turns pressing high…only problem is I would suspect that Rice wants the Soucek role, which could be a tad problematic, as you can only deploy this pairing if you sacrifice one of either Havertz or Jesus, when healthy…now I did likewise see Rice drop deeper and act as a CB, when Timber was in the inverted role, which could be a positive thing, even though it was clear that Timber is far more comfortable on the right, from an offensive capacity…Cheers

How much Arteta can discern and how much favourite he will play is apparent in his presser.
Whereas Timber was clearly a MoM and his defencive actions saved maybe 2 goal chances Arteta chose to wax eloquent about Havertz. Yes Havertz played better than he did in the earlier friendles , but the missed chance ?
Arteta pushed for Havertz whereas Timber was bought at the behest of Edu ( no matter Arteta didn’t object ).
He is more of a politician , a bit of a Manager , but shital as a coach
Amen