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.
good banter today boys…my time zone issues precludes me from actively participating, but an enjoyable read nonetheless
should be a rather one-sided fixture this weekend against another injury-decimated squad, but I guess you just never know…this is the kind of match where we should be looking to create even more separation from a goal differential standpoint just in case City shit the bed, which seems unlikely considering their CL ousting, but that’s why you play the games
let’s hope that our gangly faux forward Havertz doesn’t get a couple poacher specials so that the whole “we don’t need a Striker” narrative doesn’t return in full-force
TRVL
That’s the question over Arteta now – can he at least make it a tight finish? A real winner would take a view that with City not playing in the PL this weekend and us having 2 fixtures before they play in it again, then we play before they have their next match it’s worth putting pressure on them and seeing if even the mighty Pep can feel the heat.
I wouldn’t bet on it though.
can he at least make it a tight finish
Marc
Now that he’s introduced his better half to Dido, I doubt it… (fnarr fnarr).
Let’s be honest, we probably ain’t winning the title, yet again. The only way we can is to go on another post Dubai rip and hope that the RM defeat has put the zap on Guardiola’s bawheid brain.
I hate to say it but I fear a sagging, flaccid finish that leaves Arsenal lovers unfulfilled. It’s what he does.
Sexual innuendo Saturday.
Hi Vieira
KH isn’t only a faux forward – at times, he’s a faux footballer. He – and several others – need big games tonight against a depleted pack of Wolves.
After Munich, I watched a second pub team game last night. Pembrokeshire league game final at County’s ground in Haverfordwest. Not the best, just like Wednesday, and I’m there for another one tonight. I’m hoping they invent a tablet to combat footballitis soon.
Also got my ticket for the annual end of season away day for Cardiff fans.
Drum roll please……. 🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁
It’s (already relegated) Rotherham! Looks like an interesting ground, and the high point is they play in Arsenal colours. 4th of May. Hoping we can do better than last season’s finale which was a three nil defeat up at Burnley.
Oh, and tomorrow it’s a 70 mile bus trip (not driving so that junior and I can have a few pints) to Penybont (Bridgend) to see if County can win and get into a Europa Conference play off.
NORG – and that’s your fun-packed installment on Welsh football for the week. 😊
Looking back I think Ode and Saka weren’t anywhere near their best for large parts of the first half of the season. Both players, Ode in particular seemed to really up their games after our mid season break but have looked jaded in the last two matches.
Arteta not knowing how to rotate players is beginning to look less like a problem and more like a permanent brick wall that sees us collapse in the final run in.
Is it really going to take another season of the same thing happening for the fans to click?
“not driving so that junior and I can have a few pints”
Drinking before a match? Not something I can condone.
Hi Marc
The thing about Arteta’s constipation 💩 when it comes to rotating is that he’ll be given another 600 million to spend on players who’ll become his new favourites meaning that they won’t be rotated while the old favourites (Ode, TP, KH etc.) remain rooted to next year’s bench. Rinse and repeat. The rumours already seem to be picking up about (another) transfer war chest this summer. It makes you wonder what Old Man Kroenke is sniffing. Laudanum, mogodon and qualudes would be my guess, washed down with a valium protein shake.
I thought you had shares in the Tollington Arms?
A lot of the football I watch these days ought to come with free pints and chasers. Cheers!
“I’m hoping they invent a tablet to combat footballitis soon.”
Most certainly would be indica based as you can’t go anywhere sound the silly wobbly knees walk. Finding keys will get you to miss most of the first half, but you’ll be too paranoid to get out of the car which will take some explaining to junior and his mates.
I wouldn’t attempt running the line KP could get really messy. There will likely be times when you raise your hand without the flag only to be toilet breaks are not permitted during game time. I hope you bring a bottle.
Now if you use TRVL something thunder I doubt you’ll get off the couch but then Mrs KP maybe will be looking at you questionably as to why Junior has been wait in your car for 40 minutes?
It’s probably better to go to the games and accept footballitis is your thing, but knowing you have the empathetic support from us all here when things go due south at times.
Love your energy at 60 and know it will subside when you finally get to 69 being my tally this year.
Hoping to hear some comedic rumblings from the Emerald Isle.
There’s a lot to be said for being teetotal. No hangovers the next day being chief among the prime reasons.
No my cup of cha. Pun intended.
To tonight’s game, will you be home in time, KP? if you and suitably inebriated the old fingers should be pounding out some cool keyboard shit. My sincere apologies if I’ve cruelly misjudged you.
I’ll do my best to keep awake but it’s difficult when it’s a game that we should win in style. However, what toll to our mental strength has the Villa defeat, then a draw, and deserved loss in Munich.
How is our collective psyche? In the shit house once more and probably be easy break as I said as a kid. if Wolves turn up and turn on the pressure how will we handle that?
Rice, Ode and Saka looked leggy midweek, so that is only going to get worse. We might as well field a bench line cup with fit and green zone players with points to prove, but we won’t of course. Shop windows are for El B mannequins.
Will it be Zinchenko or Kiwior? Big Gabs is praying for Kiwior so he can concentrate on being the great LCB he is until El B expects him to cover LB & 8 with being a dynamic LCB.
Will Partey play instead of Rice? Would be the sensible call. ESR at 8 and shove Havertz into the 9 slot and pray he converts better than one in four guilt edge chances. Keep it on the ground as he is very aerially challenged and slow to get airborne normally preferring to go the penalty oscar route throwing himself to the floor a rising with a hissy fit arms a flailing windmill fashion.
Let’s put it this way if El B fluffs his Wolves lines someone should order El B a one-way taxi from the Emirates the next day after collecting his belongings where I’m more than happy to pay.
How about El B to succeed Klopp? Works for me. He’ll need five years to fcuk up 3 run ins after spending £600m+ and losing the club 100s of millions. We could pick off Mac Allister for about £10m within a year of El B managing the scouters.
They deserve each other. A Match made in heaven.
Message to KP junior.
Please make sure your old man gets home or will it be the blind leading the blind; with no doubt too many shots fired down KP’s throat. I hope you got your old man’s genes (no not Levis) because I believe KP is about 185 so, if you’re shorter, be careful if you hoist KP over your shoulder and perhaps do that on grass. By that I mean terra firma and not rasta fodder.
Visions of me once watching a huge president of a MC club stick out his size 14 steel toe capped boot as a pillow for a brother’s head who was collapsing drunk utterly out cold. “Better than the concrete” the Pres said rather vision impaired.
That would have been true had said Pres not been raising his boot at the point of contact. Timing was everything but shit. I decided just to laugh because it was really funny in my sober state because I had been filming.
‘It is what it is,’ said head coach Arteta yesterday when asked about his team’s apparent April curse. ‘We have to accept it. In the two games, especially the Bayern one at home, at the beginning it could have been different.”
‘I have reviewed the Villa game three times and I think we were the better team. Now it’s not about talking too much, we have to show what we’re made of and turn the situation around.’
From the DM.
So losing is what it is for El B. Then the deluded one thinks we were better than Villa who comprehensively beat us in the second half and could have won by 4 hitting our woodwork twice.
Do the Kroenkes read the press or at least their puppet board member?
I briefly contemplated cancelling my plans to watch the match in real time, but considering the decimated nature of the Wolves squad and our rinse and repeat tactics, I decided to say fuck it…no biggie, I’ll catch what should be a one-sided affair upon my return or maybe later tonight, my time, after watching the start of the NHL playoffs…anything less than a 3 goal victory, with some rotational pieces in play, would be considered a missed opportunity, especially with a Chelsea fixture upcoming on Tuesday…hard to believe that MA spent a considerable amount of time whining this week about “scheduling” in light of the his 2 deep at every position claims, which don’t align whatsoever with his rotational practices…if he spent even half as much time on developing alternative tactical plans as he does on crafting excuses, we could have been champions two times over by season’s end…have a good one
Fuck sake Chelsea you’ve got to score one of these.
Hi Ho Wolverhampton. Good old Jeff Beck. We have a MUCH better team than them on paper. No excuses.
Sorry guys, no post for today and this week. I’m out here in my cousin’s marriage and it lasts for a week.
Fucking terrible challenge.
Ambarish hi mate. Are you near a tv (doubtful I think) or would you like some running commentary?
Enjoy the wedding mate!
Never trust a goalie who wears tights under his shorts. Very suspect.
Arteta is starting to remind me of the lead singer in Sparks. Russell Mael. We’re creating chances
Kiwior – fucking hell
Got to work on getting Toti sent off.
Poor Crossard by Tross.
A goal out of nothing, just as we were starting to lose our pattern. Alpha Tross. Just after I’d criticised his dross cross!
KP
Mobile working fine, able to watch some minutes when nothing important is going..
That was really a poor shot from Trossard lol, good that it went in.
—
Saka is going to break down some day. And that day is near. Looks from few minutes I watched, our strategy is to have Ben White pass to Saka, or vice versa and either of them putting it into the box hoping someone will score.
Our complete game plan can be fucked by neutralising Saka.
I hate this wing play, be it Pep’s or Arteta.. it does win you games but tell me, will you watch a midfield battle under Wenger or a Wing game under Pep?
Jesus played a crucial role in the goal. Tough little geezer when he wants to be.
Ambarish
Don’t worry about reports and stuff. You’re clearly busy.
But if there’s a karaoke, you’ll be expected to post a video of you singing!🎶🎶🎶
Ode-goooool. From a ridiculous angle.
Good morning all.
Ambarish we are just happy to have this platform you give us and match reports are a bit redundant when we’re waiting for City to drop points. Hope the wedding is fun.
I managed to stay awake for the first 10 minutes and decided wash rinse repeat wasn’t worth staying up until 4am. With Ode’s goal coming in added time our 0:1 was typical of our boring and repetitious play. Only an individual goal from an actor angle made the score respectable.
Basically, though, we beat a vastly depleted Wolves side 0:1 with 9 shots on target to their 3 and with us playing with the ball 54%. No other stats of note.
On Havertz watch he manages 78% and 30 successfully completed passes most only a few yards, but he did manage 2 long ball passes in 90 minutes.He made 3 interceptions and completed 7 tackles from 15.
More damningly he lost possession 7 times and only managed a very poor 2 shots on target.
Basically, Havertz put in his typical lackluster, Havertz perfomance mostly in the right places, but unable to make things happen as our most expensive player.
When you look at Havertz’s stats combined with Jesus it’s clear why we are losing the league to City.
Jesus our 9 had NO shots on target against a Wolves second string. If that wasn’t damning enough our diminutive striker only had one shot off target.
Jesus manage 24 passes with one assist. One successful long pass, 3 interceptions and only 4 successful tackles from 10. The fact that Jesus only committed one foul in his 80 minutes shows his lack of real commitment during the game.
Saka had one shot on and one shot off target. Let that sink in.
Saka made 41 completed passes again mostly silly little triangle passes that generally get snuffed out, and 2 long passes. Saka lost possession 8 times and made 10 successful tackles when tracking back.
Other than the goal for the only shot Trossard had on goal with zero efforts off target, Trossard’s stats are pretty much average and similar to above.
It was an average wash, rinse repeat performance that I was smart enough to only watch the short highlights as there were few to savor.
A false dawn is with us as we sit atop of the PL once more. It’s likely we’ll stay there until City play game catch up although Chelsea ran City close in the FA cup semi and they will be tough to beat even at home.
We could easily drop points against the Chavs lookin g at our last few games’ performances. Chelsea will be a much more high tempo game where the legginess we witnessed the last 2 games at least will get worse because there was no rotation against the hugely depleted Wolves and we still made hard work of it.
Still, as El B says as his stock answer “It is what it is!”.
Last night’s win was hardly the play of champions elect and never will be.
That’s our level under El B. Scraping 3 points from a 2nd string Wolves side with played badly in need of rest.
We’d better get used to it until Josh wakes up and smells the coffee and dispenses with the wholly inconsistent Spanish excuse for a manager who will win no serious trophies with us.
The reality?
Only one covid FA cup in almost 5 years with £600m+ spent and most probably another £300m required this summer that will get us more Havertz, Jesus, Jorginho and Zinchenko pet signings rather than what we really need.
Anyone think differently?
Upon viewing our rather toothless performance, especially against a side fielding only 3 of their preferred starters from the off, my decision to forgo watching it live was totally validated…I can’t even imagine how pissed I would have been if I had to face the consequences of pulling the shute on our plans simply to witness that exhibition level match…to fully comprehend the lack of urgency expressed by both sides one has to look no further than the fact that the Wolves somehow had 47% possession, yet they only earned 1 corner, in the 75th minute no less, and produced a mere 2 shots on target…we, on the other hand, had a myriad of shockingly poor shot attempts, and if it weren’t for Ode’s late-game tally, we would have squeaked out a win on the backs of a duffed Tross attempt that could have just as easily ended up in the 5th row as caroming of the bar and going in
two quick points of interest:
(1) imagine if we paid above the number to secure the services of a player, Rice, who many consider to be one of the best DMs in world football, only to play him out of position….sound familiar…he’s at best an average 8, from both a passing and shooting capacity…only at Arteta’s Arsenal could such nonsensical assurances be given…and to think just a few years back he sent Emi packing for wanting assurances about the postion he actually fucking plays
(2) we could be on the receiving end of another gifting, as Chelsea could be shorthanded come Tuesday, due to the fact that some of their banged up starters played in the FA yesterday…as such, we might face a Palmer-less Chelsea side…regardless, let’s hope we bring more juice to that affair
TRVL
I think the Chavs will come to win. Certainly won’t be on their hols. Pochetinho will always want to help Spuds and take pleasure taking points from us.
Not an easy game even being home.
Well 3 points are 3 points but Christ did we make hard work of that.
Unless Chelsea are as bad in front of goal on Tuesday we’re going to have to seriously up our game. Anything less than a 100% improvement next Sunday we’ll see us lose to the Spuddies.
Fair comments Marc I join your concerns.
Why can’t Jesus or Havertz score a goal like Villa’s Roger’s? Great equaliser to the roof of the net.
Hope Emery’s Villa can grab the points today to keep Spuds’ Europa league’s place for Thursday night football next season.
Can Fulham grab a point tonight? That will be fun to watch but unlikely?
Tony-little doubt that they will ccome to play, but if they don’t have their goalscoring talisman on the pitch we should be heavy favourites to get all 3
just to provide a little perspective, as it’s difficult sometimes to see the forest through the trees amongst all these slobbering Artetites, Chelsea’s fanbase has been raking Nicolas Jackson over the coals for much of the season due to his perceived failure to live up to expectations, meanwhile back at the Emirates MA’s most ardent supporters have spent countless hours hailing Havertz as a good buy…Jackson cost half the fee, approximately 1/5th the wages, yet has scored 3 more goals in some 500 less minutes on the pitch…both have been wasteful at times in front of goal, but I would take Jackson in a split second, considering the particulars, as he would be perfect for MA’s high pressing who gives a fuck about the Striker mentality…not to mention, on Jackson’s wages, which are fucking substantially lower than our 3rd string option, we could still pursue a readymade world-class option and have an extremely hard-working backup option…just goes to show the importance of employing a sizeable agenda-fluffing PR team, as how else could you possibly explain the amount of seemingly intelligent folk coming to the defence of our resting fart-face German giraffe
Tony
Apparently Arteta’s identified Chelsea’s Jackson as the man to solve our goal scoring issues. For a mere £150 million he’s going to have him and Havertz up front.
I think someone does need to explain to Arteta though that the idea is too actually score goals not see 38 nil nils.
there’s no reason why we can’t add a well-rounded Striker with pace so we can add some much-needed counter-attacking prowess to our largely static tactical approach
TRVL
Thanks for the insight and makes sense. I agree Jackson has a high ceiling but still young.
Marc
With El B they have to be beautiful goals but Havertz is anything but beautiful with play or shooting.
What a free kick by TAA to put Pool ahead
Villa played delightfully and worthy got their win over Bournemouth.
Emery in his first full season is 6 points ahead of Spuds but played 2 more games. Beating Spuds next week should keep them out of next season’s CL.
Such a shame Emery didn’t get the right backing by Raul and Diamond Eye.
Fulham deservedly pulled level just before half time.
Klopp not happy