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
Kroenke
We should have scored at least one more, could’ve scored one on top of that, Palace should’ve scored at least one and could’ve scored another.
Nothing is won or lost on the first day of the season, what we did see is classic Arteta of going back into our shell and inviting the opposition on.
White played out of position but Saliba looked better at CB than I’ve seen White all of last season. How will Arteta deal with that when Tomi is back?
Carragher compared WS to a young Ferdinand you don’t build that in one extra loan period. So, with WS in our side last season it would have been CL at least.
Well Tets finally is seeing the light. Good start on building hopefully a decent run. Was funny to hear the crowd singing about Vieira wonder what kind of effect that had on the generational one? He surely knows if he doesn’t produce there is next AFC manager.
not sure if this bunch, under this trick-and-a-half pony, can challenge for anything of consequence until we properly address our midfield concerns…no team relying on Xhaka and Ode in the middle of the pitch, especially in the final third, will ever win, place or show in this PL
nothing I witnessed today, minus young William, who looks to be a proper CB, looked vastly different from what was on offer last season…as such, I totally appreciate the 3 points, I like the upgrade of Jesus over nevergoals Laca and I quite enjoyed the industrious efforts of Marts, but this 4-2-3-1, with a very boring twist, is still a real clunker of a tactical scheme, which relies too heavily on attacking from the wide positions and has little to offer from a direct attacking standpoint
under the current “tactical” incarnation, Jesus has to come deep far too often, then works his ass off to get up the pitch, only to receive little to no service in areas of import, which suggests that the leash loosening of the pre-season was likely only a ploy by our MIT to quell the logical concerns of those within the fanbase who still believe he’s ill-equipped to handle the inherent managerial pressures that come when the games really matter
tbh we still have work to do before this window closes; if not, let’s pray to God that our most direct midfielder, ESR, gets some significant minutes and that Vieira is a revelation of sorts
PS—for fuck’s sake can we actually dedicate some time on the training pitch to shooting!!!
Killroy
I should say in the interest of balance that, towards the end, Gooners were blasting out a paean to Tets as well. There’s no accounting for taste! I remember when I was going home, away and Europe in the 90s under GG and AW, it gave you a deeper bond with the club… But it also made you the harshest critic when things went awry.
not to mention, how is it possible that their newly acquired CB had more quality stretch passes, from deep-lying positions, in one game than we’ve produced since MA’s arrival
KP
Rugby Championship starting Saturday Bokks vs ABs in SA very tasty 11am for me and ARG v AUS at 15:00 for me. My Saturday is set.
TRVL
Their CB (Anderson) was pretty remarkable for his long ball accuracy. Each time I saw him pop one from CPs half, I thought one of our defenders is bound to intercept this but no, the majority seemed to cone off and put Palace in a threatening position. Some skill, although they were a bit over reliant on it as a tactic.
GJ was shit hot to start with, but service withered on the vine as we stopped passing accurately and the energy dropped.
Hi Killroy. Ooh, cheers mate, I might check the 🏉 out.
Can’t disagree with any of the above comments. I think Palace’s pre season has been fragmented and we played them at a good time.
We’ve added some good players but as TRVL says we still haven’t sorted what every else thinks has been the biggest priority for years now in CM.
Can see this season being a lot tougher than many think.
Well proof that Arteta’s a schmuck – the clowns on Soccer Saturday are talking about him being a good manager.
Marc
You’re right, Soccer Saturday is shite. Sort of thing you’d only watch if you have a hangover and can only open one eye.
Good result for the Cottagers. Liverpool normally win those games even after going behind. I wonder when the last time was that we were above them in the table – at any stage of the season.
Yesterday’s game was not a great curtain raiser. I think it’ll only be safe to judge the importance of it after 3 or 4 more Palace games. They were a pale shadow of the team that mashed us last year. Far less energy and goal threat at Selburst. We matched their effort and got over the line with 2 scrappy goals.
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.