Well, it isn’t exactly the title decider yet, because there are games left and City can go on to lose some of them. But it does feel like one. Arsenal competing against Manchester City, with 5 point lead having played a game more. Beat City and we will most likely win it after 20 years. Lose against them, and we would have to involve Gods.
Premier League is ruthless! I was drafting article two weeks back about how going to Etihad with 11 point lead would be immense and even if we drop points against them, the league would still be ours to lose. Since then, we shared points with Liverpool, West Ham and Southampton. We have 6 more games left, some of them are tough – Chelsea (H), Newcastle (A), Brighton (H), Forest (A), Wolves (H). Only the last 2 can be termed easy ones, but then Southampton was bottom of the table and scored 3 past us at Emirates. Our run of games is surely tougher than City.
And this makes our game against City this Wednesday, a must WIN.
We have some problem going on, in our defence. Saliba is out injured, and we are leaking goals. Twitter wants Thomas Partey as an inverted RB and Ben White moved to CB. I’m not sure how useful that would be, when your midfield is gone and Ben White, who haven’t played at CB this season will suddenly have to face Haaland. In my opinion, Holding is what we have, and should start at CB. He wins headers, he is good defensively and his lack of pace needs to be covered up. How? I don’t know. Probably the same way Xhaka’s has been done whole season; it’s for the manager to think.
I doubt we will change anything. Arteta will stick to his playing XI. Tierney won’t be playing at RB, no it’s not going to happen. And rightly so. To fix one position, you are not going to ruin 3 more. Best way would be to give extra classes to Rob and hope he sees Diego Costa in Haaland.
One change I would like to see, is Trossard starting. He has been brilliant for us since January and he needs to be there in our most important game of this season. He can replace Vieira, can’t do any worse right? Though Xhaka would be back and everyone and their grandmother can guess who will start.
We need the best of Partey. The one where he was playing a single pivot, distributing beautiful passes to the front 3 and delivering a constant 8.5/10.
Lastly, we need Jesus. We spent 45million on a CF to score goals against big team, in games when it matters. Use your City departure as a motivation. Jesus wanted to have more game time as a CF, which was primary reason he left City. He needs to deliver when he is getting chances because I have seen Eddie doing equally well. If it’s only about the linkup play and dropping deep to support midfield, what changed between you and Lacazette? CF needs to score goals. Someone had to say it.
We have progressed this season. Even if you are Arteta hater, you will acknowledge that some of our games has been magnificent to watch. Our football has improved and the players have grown from 19 year boys to 22 year old men. Even if we don’t make it at the end, these players will have our support. Those songs in the away ends won’t die irrespective of the outcome.
We needed a fight to begin with, we have seen our lot fighting and winning. It’s a battle reduced to Master v Apprentice.
Right, that’s all I have for the City game. It’s not the size of the dog in a fight but the fight in a dog…
If you are feeling low thinking about our dropped points and about the rest of the season, here’s a news – Spu*s have appointed an interim manager in place of the sacked interim manager who was appointed after their manager Conte was let go.
Iterates*
Hmm Xhaka looks anything but ill.
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In earth shattering news all of the Daily Telegraphs sports writers have picked their combined best 11 ahead of tonight and not one of them (brace yourselves guys) has picked Xhaka.
Seen first hand how opinions can be crafted and directed using a committed ( read that as paid ) media . With Wenger and now MA the manager has been having a lot of discretion in how the monies are deployed ( remember how a counter plane flying a Wenger-in banner could be financed ). So the blog with the largest readership becomes the medium ..
Fortunately LiR came up due to the passion of Ambarish. The best posters migrated here and dare say LiR has attained a reputation for intelligent discussions , bit like 7 amKickoff.
The other “ thing” is reduced to a square of strays snarling at each other instead of leading intelligent discourse. But then the Blog master leads.
Saliba is currently being touted as the principal player responsible for the Arsenal good run. And conversely his absence is caused Arsenal go off the boil recently. His quick and precise passing , his speed and accuracy in tackles have been highlighted as his qualities … all these by the Pedrosi guy who for 3 years was howling support for the shabby treatment of Saliba who begged to be judged on a couple of games and not 40 minutes of his shaky game time. Saliba cost 30 million euros , an appropriate cost for a young outstanding talent.
But do agree that going on loan to Marseille was the best thing because our limited Fakeroo has not shown any coaching ability , besides the hearsay development of Sterling. Our team players improved drastically since the Set-Piece coach was recruited.
Mertesaker will prove a revelation when the fraud is sacked
Tony & KP—Young has always evoked an “acquire taste” vibe, but I’ll take a pillar to post version of Rust Never Sleeps any day of the week and twice on Sundays
Still not sure what has to happen for us to leave the Etihad with all 3 points tonight, but in order for us to have any chance of achieving the unexpected we can’t be our usual wasteful selves in front of goal and/or gift them anything remotely similar to what was on offer against our last opponents…there’s no doubt that City can be had, regardless of their recent form, but just not sure if MA has either the cojones or the tactical nous required, especially in a fixture of such obvious import…this one might come down to the ability of our players to find a way to win in spite of what might be on offer from our inceasingly frazzled and frantic pitchman…my heart says draw, my head says something decidely less optimistic…here’s hoping that the weightiness of our recent failures is simply clouding my vision…Cheers
acquired
We will win tonight…with the score line 3-1…Hope for the best 🤞
Divyanshu Karan
You missed a bit. 🙂
Hope for the best, plan for the worst!
Well, we’re all here in eager anticipation so that’s something. Any other Gooners coming on here tonight, speak up and say hello. It might prove to be a lucky intervention! 🍀Yes, I’m down to running on fumes as far as optimism is concerned. It feels like an even bigger mountain to climb than 89 but I could be exaggerating.
Marc – I was reading your comment about the best XI from a combo of both teams and was expecting to see the words ‘any Arsenal player’. That it was only ‘Xhaka’ came as a relief and cheered me up to think that some of our lads would make that team. Obviously I can’t check for myself because the Daily Telegraph is a right wing spunk rag!
I just hope we can break the mould, match them physically and put our chances away. I’ll also be watching from behind the sofa if we start pissing about with the ball in our own half.
Thinking of our previous managers from the past 50 odd years… I’d rather have Bertie Mee, Terry O’Neil, Don Howe, George Graham, Bruce Rioch or Emery (the king of getting wins in one off games til he joined us) preparing the team tonight.
A Rodri red card would be perfect (a redri?) but an early bath for any of their cheating wankers would be fine. Who’s the bastard with the whistle tonight?
KP & TRVL
The anticipation is numbing especially at 12:50 hours this morning. Looks like Xhaka has made a timely recovery from his illness to be the invisible man again tonight. We’ll know soon how Arteta is going to handle Saliba’s absence.
Looks like no change then:
Manchester City XI: Ederson; Akanji, Dias, Laporte; Stones, Rodri; Mahrez, Gundogan, De Bruyne, Grealish; Haaland.
Arsenal XI: Ramsdale; White, Holding, Gabriel, Zinchenko; Xhaka, Partey; Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli; Jesus.
Tony beat me to it.
Xhaka is back, for the first time in my life I’m happy seeing him because I don’t have to see Vieira in the line up.
Decent line-up. Everything depends on how we take care of De bruyne and Haaland.
KP
Michael Oliver is the match referee with David Coote in charge of VAR. Could be worse.
Ambarish
Should be Trossard for Xhaka or ESR
Tony
Yes, but I’ve given up now.
Anyways, we are going to fight and fight hard, it’s the title on the line and we are playing against ‘what’s wrong with the football world’.
Kroenke
We’ve all seen you trying to balance opening the front door whilst concealing your copy of the DT like a kid with a porno mag!
Now the anticipation or realisation more like of what is about to play out before our eyes is disturbing to say the least. Honestly, with that line up how differently are we going to play? What surprises has superfly Arteta got in stall for his old master?
My guess is a whole load of none. So, we’re back to praying and I’m a fcuking atheist. Me praying will be as useful as tits on a bull. So Junior is talking to old Red down stairs to see what deals he’s got cooking in Manchester.