Liverpool has dropped 3 huge points at home to Crystal Palace. City are 2 points ahead having played an extra game than us. We win today and we go back to the top. We win today and we go three crucial points ahead of Liverpool with only 6 games to go. Every game is a cup final now for the boys and Mikel.
Team News
Strange decision to start Zinchenko ahead of Kiwior, because Kiwior has been doing better than Zinni and one bad game doesn’t mean we are going to hamper his confidence. If it’s purely for rotational purpose, I can live with it. Gabriel Jesus makes his way into the starting XI with Rice anchoring the midfield alone with Havertz playing the more forward role today. Trossard starts today ahead of Martinelli whom I think will come-in at some point to give Saka some rest.
Frankly, I had hated the concept of playing Havertz as CF but he has been doing better up top than he does in midfield. Gabriel Jesus does the dirty work but is not as clinical in front as you would expect your CF to be. Trossard gives me some hope though.
Liverpool is suffering the way we did last season. One loss and everything has gone bonkers for them. They were unbeaten at home from god knows when, and suddenly Atlanta wins 3-0 and they can’t even keep Crystal Palace to a draw. City, on the other hand, have gone full beast mode.
We need to win today. At any cost. First, because Pep is not going to drop any points now and the only way we win the league is by winning all our games. Second, I hate Aston Villa.
Right, a very short one today. See you during the game.
either Tuchel is rope-a-doping us and will completely revamp his tactics at half or they’re very nervous of the possibility of crashing out of the CL and the title race in the span of a couple days
we should be attacking their weakest link, Laimer…we should encourage them to have him on the ball and give him the illusion of having space to move up the pitch then press the shit out of him on two sides…he’s too slow and will cough up the ball…when he does there’s always space behind him because their backline is so stretched because of the presence of both Saka and Marts
KP-what I said above will likewise put Dier in positions he can’t handle as a makeshift CB
due to the presence
it will be very interesting to see who the first sub will be, as it will make a statement of tactical intent
12th man = our post
City back on the front foot meanwhile over in Munich ????
Fuck if that is not the last nail in the coffin for Jesus flag or no flag Arteta has to go. Either an all German final or a repeat PSG v Bayern.
out with a whimper was the call of the day…Tuchel made his push and it worked…instead of doing likewise, we simply waited for it to happen then took an obvious reactionary stance…this reeks of another try not to get embarassed gig…then Tuchel made another savvy maneuver by changing his LB, so he could press Saka harder without fear of another potentially problematic booking…why the fuck did we keep bloody Havertz on the pitch and take Marts off., as he didn’t nothing once again
Woeful. No composure in their half and everyone switched off for the goal. Passing was terrible and he brought on Eddie Unket! We need to get Arteta out of this club because we’re not making any real progress.
another toothless, guileless, blunt instrument performance by our settling manager…like I’ve said time and time again, Havertz will be another albatross purchase by a manager who appears bereft of ideas when it comes to properly redressing our most glaring weaknesses
he did nothing once again
he’s such a managerial rube…he likely thinks we acquited ourselves well in the first half because of the early possession numbers, but that was gifted to him by Bayern, as they didn’t press until the halfway line…so everything came down to who made the necessary halftime adjustments, of which we seemingly made none, likely due to the aforementioned illusionary possession numbers…sorry, but this hope and a prayer borefest approach to football will rarely get things done against teams with a real manager
there you go 5th CL spot goes to Italy and Germany. Just imagine Carlo was available and KSE choose the looser Arteta.
you can’t spend 3/4s of a billion dollars just to be known as a nice little footballing club…based on that performance we weren’t beating anyone in the quarters, including Athletico and Dortmund, who are both having average at best seasons…the fact remains, the Kroenke’s would have to green-light a 300+M spend this summer in order for us to be a bona fide contender, considering MA’s record when it comes to recruitment
in a weird way I feel somewhat foolish for responding in such vitriolic fashion to yesterday’s match, as this was such a predictably lame performance…as such, I should be more upset with myself for actually believing that any other outcome was even a possibility
it’s so difficult to win fixtures of this ilk when you provide the opposition with a comprehensive blueprint and you don’t even acquire the type of players who can both carve out their own chances and finish them at a world class level…to further frustrate matters, we don’t even deploy the kind of tactics that properly highlight the skills of our best and brightest…imagine any other manager of consequence providing such little help to both Marts and Saka, who’re constantly looking down the barrel at double-teams
in fact, MA oft-times makes life unnecessarily difficult for our best players, especially on the left side, where instead of employing a wingback or an LB with overlapping capabilities, he actually deploys an inverted back…by doing so, it would seem to suggest that he would rather waste their talents by either requiring them to take on 2 or 3 defenders at seemingly every turn, which takes a toll, or, even worse, by forcing them into a more periphery facilitator-type role, which would see them sending crosses into a box occupied by 3 of the worst finishers in the PL, Havertz, Jesus and Eddie…it’s simply not logical
the only reason this isn’t raised more often, besides the sad fact that the fanboys still control the narrative, is that we do have some higher-end players who can run his one-trick pony tactical plan with a high level of competency, especially against the weaker sides, so finding ourselves in the top 3-4 mix is a plausible expectation…unfortunately we’ve been down this road before and we know full-well where that got us, lifting the Wenger Cup come season’s end…that said, if we want to be a serious club we need to either let MA go or remove the managerial tag and get another Dein-like presence in the room who can up the ante when it comes to both our recruitment practices and our tactical nous
who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and a now singularly-focused City side won’t be able to mentally recover from their latest Madrid loss, which could leave the door open for us…seems like a long shot though
in such a vitriolic
Morning all I was dozing off with MacBook on my chest after 10 minutes so elected to sleep offf my drive and the last 6 days away.
Ally McCoist working for TNT said something that really summed up the evening: Bayern’s game intelligence was better than ours, and that they comfortably edged the game.
Although sounding paradoxical Bayern did comfortably edge us out of the game by turning up the pressure when they needed and then contained us for most of the game even though the stats suggest a very even game with Bayern’s 52% possession and 4 vs our 3 shots on target and 6 vs 4 off target.
It’s Bayerns 8 corners against our 3 (that should have been 5 in all reality) that tells the real story, because we didn’t manage one counter attack. The reasons why has been well addressed above, but for me Bayern’s game management was far superior to ours and once again El B was out thought by an experienced manager.
The song remains the same for me; we need an experienced manager who can build a squad where 90% of its players are pegs placed in their correct holes, something El B is clueless about.
I’ve never been able to wrap up El B’s major flaw before, but summing it up that El B has no Game Intelligence sums him up perfectly and this coming from a great Scottish player with a high IQ I would imagine. A Scottish Jimmy Greaves wit wise where Ally and Tufnal were good value for money on the BBC’s World of Sport when I could get to see an episode.
Has there been one TW where we have all thought El B got it 100% right? Pegs in right holes?
El B’s masterstroke was to take Marts & Jorginho off for Jesus and Trossard who is a better starter than sub. It takes him time to get into the game when he introduced to be the hopeful match winner and thus tries too hard achieving little.
Where was Partey?
His inclusion would have thrown a spanner in Toucal’s works where the midfield pendulum might just have swayed more favorably in our direction. El B has to make such things happen with his selections and in-game management that collectively become his game intelligence: those 2 words again.
It’s done now and no real shock to any of us who wear our Gooner hearts on our sleeves and just hoped, but people like El B have no good karma because of their treatment of others. You can’t just do good to some and not others to receive good karma in return.
Unless city are going to be docked points for their FFP alleged misgivings before the end of the season, our season is over bar a miracle.
We had the title in our grasp again this season with had being the operative word. No we are an also ran once again.
Back to our six remaining games anyone got thoughts on them?
Now*
Good to see karma less City out as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/18/arteta-admits-players-are-disappointed-after-defeat-to-bayern-munich
Small margins, says Arteta. I wonder if he’s ever considered he’s the fucking problem? As Art Fraud might say, ‘a cunt’.
The whimper was predictable. Other managers read El B’s game plan like a book. What would he do with Nigel or Ashley?
Tony – no Partey – he doesn’t appear in El B’s plan so isn’t played. The result is the rest of the players will not party at the end of season.
Does El B have OCD – every hair in place, every stubble hair on his chin exactly the same length, pubic hair parted neatly and players in exact positions trying to meet his masterplan. ESR does not fit – expect him to be at Villa next year playing just below Watkins.
In the short term, our cretin of a manager needs to address why in our last two games we’ve become progressively worse as the game has moved into the second half. Maybe he should let Stivenberg, the kit man or even Win the Labrador do the half time talk. Woof!
Oh, and to resist the temptation to fiddle with formations.
He’s saved his skin before, so maybe it’s time to give ESR a role in our final few games. But he won’t of course. Stubborn el Bastardo to the very end (which ought to come this summer if he fails to win the league). An utter turd of a manager.
Fraudulent Cunt.
What’s he want, another £200 million?
£300 million? 400 million? £500 million?, £1 billion?, £2 billion? on players.
We have three big games to get past before the end of the season. In theory we should beat Wolves on Saturday but then take on Chelsea next Tuesday. Chelsea are a lot better than at the beginning of the season and will have eyes on the possibility of making a Europa League position. Spurs will be aiming for 4th and Man U where the manager will be trying to save his bacon – they are always spoilers against us and all games are close.
Norg
As a lifelong spectrum resident my best guess would be ADHD because sufferers can’t keep still and have stuccato machine gun speech patterns. A sufferer like me will suffer from focus issues, but when locked on he’ll be laser focussed and see what others can’t. When I take a picture I see things from timing (speed of brain data gathering) other people don’t. There’s good with bad of course.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13087351/DR-CLARE-BAILEY-diagnosed-ADHD-middle-age-like-explains-life-Sheridan-Smith-discover-shes-told-42.html
I only dropped one point from the quiz.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xc0v8m-ChSs
https://search.alexanderstreet.com/preview/work/bibliographic_entity%7Cvideo_work%7C4085299#/embed/object
A Rory Bremner program that’s an excellent watch and what I have that is quite pronounced and a curse as well as a gift. My brain is always data gathering whether I like it or not – stopping singular focus.
For legal reasons we can’t label people. So for people who display OCD tendencies and others easily found on the Internet. I had a sales director who had full blown OCD where his house was full of amazing detail; ditto gardens up Clitheroe way, Lancs.
NPD represents that they can’t change things easily because accepting change is being less than perfect. All game tactics will be a NPD manager’s, and his only. Only a NPD person knows best and gets interesting where 2 NPDs get together. NPD = 100% alpha
So if you add the ADHD, NPD & OCD symptoms together because ADHD is a conduit for other alphabet soup to attach to. The Spectrum glue if you were. Then those 3 together can be a very toxic combination that I’ve seen up close and personal for 19 years.
It all makes interesting plane reading, Norg, if you can’t sleep. It’s worth looking for cases to read as it may well answer unanswered questions about people and will also get you more insight with who you’re dealing with. Today people are very open about in-spectrum life a taboo until about 10 years ago.
A good read about NPD: https://mind.help/topic/narcissism/
You’ll see le Fraud’s identity is similar.
Norg
Regarding our remaining games who knows what response we’ll get from the players.
That and players are looking leggy, such as Rice. Poor guy is being pushed to his limits.
If wash, rinse repeat continues, we will drop points where my guess would be 6 dropped, but no idea which games to identify the losses to.
ST renewal time soon so expect the spin department to be in full swing with targets identified BS.
My positivity batteries need recharging so probably topped up for July.
Tony
See what their missing over at LG – where else would you get all the above and then topped up with music, Welsh football etc etc.
The day when one of our top team tries to leave will lead to the dismissal of El B.
Norg
Then you bring your stories of past and present that are also very interesting to add to the varied content here.
More like an Arsenal family here… long may it last.
Norg-there has been some chatter lately regarding the very real possibility that Saka might seek greener pastures, which would be an indictment on MA’s capabilities as a manager…now this wouldn’t be the same conversation several years back when one could logically lay blame at the feet of ownership, due to their unwillingness to spend at the level required, but that’s a moot point nowadays