Of course I can’t miss our season opener. Friday evening against Crystal Palace with Gabriel Jesus at CF and a good pre-season, I’m excited. This is a crucial season not only for Arteta but for the club after throwing away Champions League qualification last season. All our rivals are considerably weak, except may be City and Pool and we have strengthen our team after buying Zinchenko and Jesus. Saliba is back too, meaning we won’t miss Tomiyasu since White can be shifted to RB and Saliba can play centrally.
Team News
We have an almost fully fit team. In the press conference, this is what Arteta had to say
Three out of four of those players [Tomiyasu, Smith Rowe, Tierney, Vieira] are going to be training this afternoon and if everything goes well, they will be available for selection and in the squad. Hopefully, we can start to recover because they’ve been missing a lot of minutes and time in pre-season and they are really important players for us.
source : Arsenal.com
I’m guessing it’s Vieira still doubtful for training but we have enough coverage in that area.
I’m also guessing we will see the playing XI featured in our last pre-season game against Sevilla. A back 4 of White, Saliba, Gabriel and Zinchenko with Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka in the midfield. We will have then Saka in the RW, Martinelli in his favorite position at LW and Odegaard dictating play in the centre. Gabriel Jesus is expected to lead the line up front.
Get in…
Truth be told, I don’t care about the playing XI, at least not today. I am just excited football is back! I had my phone sending me memories about last year’s pre-season game against Chelsea on August 1st, when I was at Emirates and didn’t know it was last time I will be watching live, kinda made me sad.
Another exciting season where I have dumped last 4-5 years of anger and keeping my hopes high. Arteta will be judged on the results and I hope we have more happy days than frustrating weekends.
We are in good state, we had a few good game last season which we need to see more often. We have covered two of our weaknesses on the field (LB, CF), and I’m sure both of them brings a winning mentality in the dressing room.
Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park is going to be tough. PV4 managed to restrict us on a 2-2 score at Emirates last season and we lost 3-0 to them at their home. On top of that, first day of the season always goes out of the way to prove upset people with results. I’m not taking a loss today though, if we want to be a recognisable team this season, we need to beat teams which we are expected to.. and give a fight against the top 6 whenever we play.
Wrapping Up
Right-o, that’s all I have to say today. I’m excited for the game, can’t wait to see a Premier League Hattrick from Jesus in Red and White.
All or Nothing : Arsenal first three episodes were out. It was fun to watch, though if you are going to watch it for footballing knowledge you will be disappointed. It had more drama, but then Amazon is doing it for commercial purpose in a world where making money is everything.
Hope your weekend starts on a positive note. See you during game.
Oh, and don’t forget to join our Fantasy League – https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/0r2hme
KP
Watched the Boks v ABs game and the ABs played worst then an Irish Pub team. In the Reddit match thread a guy consoled a disturbed AB fan with ” I am an Arsenal fan and know how you feel, trust me it will get batter”.
My take as an Arsenal fan God will be sympathetic with us because we have suffered worst then what an experience in hell would be like.
Cheers KP & Marc…of course, it’s early days and considering our propensity to trip over our collective dicks when opening the season on the road, I’m certainly not displeased whatsoever with taking all 3 points against a team who managed circles around us in the same fixture last season…that said, this Palace team was missing a few key components, which clearly forced Vieira to have a considerable tactical rethink, so I doubt anyone will see an easier “lay-up” on their pitch this season, especially if Olise returns to full health
as I’ve always stated, the “eye test” will be the ultimate barometer of where we truly are as a team and nothing I witnessed in this affair would suggest that the we’re on the precipice of turning the proverbial corner…until we find a way to threaten the opposition in a direct manner, we will continue to find ourselves on the outside looking in…this of course will never come to fruition so long as we have our two slowest players patrolling the midfield…just imagine what might be possible if we actually replaced Xhaka with someone who can play box-to-box and chip in with 10 or so goals per season
TRVL
Until we have a proper functioning central midfield we won’t be able to impose ourselves on matches properly – this means controlling matches like Friday night and competing when playing other top teams.
If you add this to Arteta’s propensity to be cautious and protect what he has rather than going for more goals as well as his piss poor use of substitutes we will always drop too many points to really push on.
Once again we’re relying on other teams to do poorly rather than Arsenal to control our own destiny.
What odds that Ten Haag is stamping his style on ManU in a couple of months, Arteta’s in his 3rd full season and there’s still excuses.
Cue ManU spending £150 million in the next couple of weeks.
Haaland doing what he does best. Oh, I wish he was at Arsenal. And as controversial as it may sound, he is/will be better than Mbappe.
Ambarish
Haaland is going to be an absolute beast in the PL – I’ve already decided to sell my ticket for the City match – he’ll fucking destroy us.
I could do with meeting a woman, too. But hey City can destroy any team on this planet as of now.
We will be there, we will beat Citys and Liverpools of the world, with or without Artera and with or without Haaland.
One game at a time, we did well against Crystal Palace and lets hope we keep doing better.
Arteta trying to bring a goal scoring RW when there is still hopes for Tielemans gives me ‘go for the title this season’ vibes.
About time.
Ambarish
That story doesn’t make sense to me – firstly we’re going to spend £60 million on a winger when we have Saka, ESR and Martinelli? It means we’re going to move someone on, it means either ESR or Martinelli are surplus to requirements. I’m assuming Pepe’s gone either way.
And we still will have Xhaka trundling around CM when that is the priority.
Guys lets keep it civil. Lets not become the very thing we hated over AFTV.
🔴⚪
Sorry I had to delete few comments, I don’t like to do it and won’t do it for anything which doesn’t include name calling.
We all love Arsenal in our own way.
Ambarish.
Fine by me. Thanks. The best policy is to confront it face on and immediately but I’m equally glad that it’s deleted from the record. It only ever happens when the one non-Arsenal supporting poster appears so its pretty easy to join the dots.
Ambarish—you can obviously do as you wish, but I would suggest the AFTV analogy is perhaps a bridge too far…in a very real sense AFTV were little more than the logical, albeit oft-times ill-conceived, attempt to monetize a justifiably disgruntled fandom, which is far more palatable than a blogger, who made his name by creating a “safe space” for anti-Wenger sentiments, willingly taking “payola” to propagate a club-contrived narrative, eliminating dissenting views, and then actually actively trolling them on other sites under a completely different “namesake”…just saying
Yeah AFTV could be an extreme example but in general many online publications and media portals feed on controversy. It’s good for visitors, and revenues. Others may have their motivations but I don’t have one.
Lets be critical of football, not people.
Marc
Ideally we should go for a Partey back-up and a Xhaka upgrade first but Arteta has a thing for CBs and Wingers. I’m guessing Pepe will leave and we would need his replacement since we are playing Europa too.
Martinelli has a problem with his end product, might take a season or two before he picks up the Alexis form.
In his latest press conference, manager accepted we are still working on some transfers so fingers crossed, lets strengthen the center, clear out some more dross and go for the title.
We may or may not achieve success under Arteta but at least the team looks decent and improved. We were tired of Mustafi’s mistake every week earlier, we are now excited about Saliba’s tackles. Ozil played without showing up because we didn’t have his competition, but Vieira and ESR can replace Odegaard on any given day. White may be a 50m signing but once Tomiyasu is fit, no one would mind him warming the bench with Saliba at CB and Tomi at RB.
I’m critical of the timeline of last 2.5 years, priorities in transfer window and in game management of Arteta but the team looks decent and there is only a room for improvement.
Marc
I agree that CM is the priority. It’s THE most important position in any line up if a team wants to defend well and win games with a flourish. This all boils down to the level of the club’s ambition. If they fail to sign a GX competitor/replacement, then they’re effectively saying that the status quo will do and that all that money invested will be for nought.
If I was Ben White, I’d be begging Tets for a try out in the CM position (personally I don’t think it’s for him) when TT is back, otherwise he could be in third place for the right sided defensive position behind TT and Saliba. I wonder how much Ben White would fetch in the January TW and whether the club would reinvest it in a player further up the field? I’ve not see or heard much about Azeez since he returned from the south coast. Has he stagnated and is therefore facing another loan or might he be on the fringes of the first team?
I don’t know if he’s for sale but if we are in the market and Leicester are pissing about over Tielemans, I would see if Chelsea wanted to sell Loftus-Cheek.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/arsenal-mikel-arteta-unai-emery-27679131
Saying it bluntly , without hawing and hewing 😇
Cheers Hoopah…that was my argument all along, as it made no sense whatsoever that MA would invest so heavily in White, who we paid over the number for and who likewise plays in Saliba’s preferred RCB position, especially in what was farcically being termed as “year 1” of the “rebuilding” process…these monies could have been earmarked for far more pressing needs, which still to this day haven’t been properly redressed
personally, I believe that Saliba was quickly placed within our novice manager’s sizeable doghouse, as he, like several others, were wrongly deemed as expendable in large part because they weren’t his purchases and they didn’t acquiesce to all of his ridiculous whims
now I’m not exactly sure how all of this will play out, as there’s still the matter of his yet to be extended contract, but this is merely one of numerous managerial missteps that simply can’t be swept under the proverbial rug, most of which were direct related to the problematic hiring a totally inexperienced individual to oversee a highly complex situation
(1) the unnecessary depreciation of assets, especially during a “rebuilding”, like with Leno, Pepe, AMN, Guendo, Auba and Mavro, who btw had another stellar match with Stuttgart to start the season
(2) the whole contractual shit show, involving the allowing those with market value to leave on frees and the buying out of contracts, which saw us paying players to play elsewhere
(3) the using of the media to air dirty laundry, in an incredibly passive-aggressive manner, and for the purposes of pointing the finger of blame at everyone and everything minus himself
(4) the continued tactical and selection process naivety, which includes the insistence on shoehorning players and not properly addressing our weakest links
etc…
TRVL
All I can say is yep! nailed it.
Just to put something in perspective if we’d sold Xhaka for the £25 odd million we were offered, took that and added it to the £50 million we spent on White how far short would we be of being able to meet the price for Rice?
Marc, now imagine if we had sold Xhaka and Pepe, then not purchased Vieira or White, we could have been in a good position to get both Rice and Nkunku…now those would have been some high percentage seminal pieces
TRVL
Vieira might go on to be a great signing – I haven’t seen him play so he gets a chance. What I have seen is Xhaka be worse than useless for 6 seasons now, he’ll look a different player in Italy or slower league but he’s completely unsuited to the PL and I can really see Arteta keeping him as first choice in CM for another season.
Marc, I certainly can’t dispute the future potential of the young and rather untested Vieira, but I would gladly risk this coin toss proposition for a readymade player, even at twice the price, considering what’s on offer…this club and it’s tactically-stunted manager desperately needs someone with the necessary skillset to force some much-needed directness into our sideways-leaning offensive narrative
as for Xhaka, our 3-wheeled shopping cart, I couldn’t agree more with your sentiments…I’ve come to the conclusion that he’s mixed up in some shit that makes him largely “untouchable”, if you know what I mean(wink, wink)…how else could one possible explain his continued existence, considering his years of piss-poor performances, costly on-field temperament, the bird-flipping incident and his public displays of “thirstiness” during the Euros, regarding rumours about his potential Rome move…the whole thing is so baffling that I can’t believe why this story hasn’t made it’s way to the big screen, or at the very least led to an extended 60 minutes segment(lol)
possibly explain
Watched replay of O. Marseille vs Reims. Everyone is talking about the Tavares goal, but overall found Nuno very composed under pressure, and having good control. That man gave quite a few passes which should have led to goals, at least 2 clear chances. Found no scatter brained nervousness which characterised his tenure at Arsenal. Time to look closely at what Generational Crap is doing to Arsenal talents.
There are arguments that sending Saliba to OM last season was a masterstroke which brought up his game. In hindsight, have to agree. It is clear Artera is fit only to coach rabbits out of a hat. Everything else is media manipulation.
There’s a piece on Xhaka in today’s Guardian. He said this in partial reference to ‘fuckoffgate’ which made me spit partially-swallowed gravy all over my mini-kievs (pronounced ‘keevs’) this evening.
People only see the moment they were disappointed, and they forgot the other five years.
It reminded me of a sketch show where a half witted life saver in a swimming pool was being interviewed. In essence, he said that for the first 4 days in the job, no one had drowned. But on the fifth day, three children had drowned on his watch. ‘Why do people never talk about the first 4 days?’ he moaned.
Hoopah
The OM game.
The sad masochist in me is asking, how did Gunnerdouzi play? I dislike Tets for MANY reasons, but I fucking hate him for handling MG the way he did.
Kroenke
Only difference is with Xhaka the first 5 years saw 3 kids drown a day and he then had a day that was 15 and he still thinks it’s us with the problem.
Hoopah
The thing is the fan boys will tell you sending Saliba on loan was genius because he gained experienced when the truth is keep Arteta away from any player is the real benefit.
Can anyone name a player who has improved under Arteta?
Chelsea have sold Werner – they must have a striker lined up.
It would be suicide to try and see even half the season out with their current players and the new owners will never get the fans back on side.
Marc
😀Nice one mate. That brought a smile to my face.
Two quick notes on the Xhaka captaincy “debate”…in Ode’s first game as captain make note of who both addressed the players on the pitch prior to kickoff and who gladly donned the armband once Ode was surprisingly subbed off, unlike last season when Xhaka openly rejected the armband…so now we have a scenario in which our leadership triumvirate extends from a novice manager to two players who shouldn’t be everyday starters…as for the whole “bird flipping” incident, I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment KP, in that this in and of itself wasn’t so much a tipping point as it was a glaring reminder of how this entitled, underperforming individual had vastly overstayed his welcome
TRVL
Agree completely with what you say – what you’ve missed off is it means Xhaka knows he has the support of the manager 110% – does that sound like a player who thinks he’s about to be dropped to the bench by a new signing?
My guess is Arteta loves Xhaka almost as much as Pedro loves Arteta.
there’s no doubting the mutual admiration society that has somehow formed between the manager and our former captain, but questions surrounding how and why this was and continues to be the case have never been logically addressed…it’s so counter-intuitive, unless MA felt it was imperative that he had Xhaka’s support in order to maintain some semblance of control…how else could one possibly explain how this slow-footed, card magnet was deployed as both a LB, at times, and, more recently, as a CAM, even though his offensive production has been piss-poor ever since he arrived on the scene…so instead of having someone with the requisite defensive qualities brought in to sit deep and/or acquiring/selecting someone with the necessary offensive acumen to play in more advanced positions, he continues to lean into these rather nonsensical narratives…simply baffling
It must be the absolute nadir of a footballer’s career when not even manure are prepared to spunk millions on you.
That nasty, boorish oaf Hardnutovic it seems isn’t going to old Trafford after all. A poundshop Ibrahimovic (another ball bag).
Cardiff lost three nil to lower division Pompey last night – and they wonder why there’s no demand for cup tickets…
Story from a Portuguese paper doing the rounds (pretty sure it’s rehashed) that Xhaka’s being investigated for match fixing involving a betting outfit.
How do you tell if Xhaka’s being deliberately shit when he’s shit 99% of the time?
Marc
would it really be that surprising if this wantaway underachiever, whom appears “untouchable”, could have been involved in such a despicable undertaking, especially on the heels of his “bird flipping” meltdown…of course, I hope that this isn’t the case, as it will be considered as a massive stain on our club’s history, simply by osmosis, but I’m more than a little concerned that there might be some merit to these claims
TRVL
The issue is if it happened once it could easily have happened twice, if it happened twice why not 5 and so on.
The risk is the fallout – what if a team claims he did something that affected a result that gave a team the points to stay up over them? The PL is worth what £100 million a season to teams?
The legal aspect alone could cause chaos and then there’s the insinuation of what else happened that wasn’t proved.
No doubt Marc…I guess the most problematic component of any investigation is uncovering indisputable proof of a definitive link between himself and any “Algerian” organized crime outfit, not to mention the underlying prejudicial pitfalls of anything involving those of Algerian descent, especially in more recent times