We had an exciting match week so far, Man City failed to win yet again against the mighty Everton, Unai Emery’s dream run has come to an end, Ange’s pressing football has stopped working and Tottenham are losing against the like of Forest, Chelsea couldn’t win against a Fulham side at home, and a 14th in the league Man Utd lost against a 17th ranked Wolves. Brilliant except the Liverpool win which takes them 9 points ahead of us having played 17 games. We didn’t get the set back which we needed the most, but we can certainly closer that gap against Ipswich tonight.
Here’s how the table looks so far. Liverpool are on a great run, Klopp might be regretting another year when Pep has fallen off a cliff and we have been equally poor if not worse.
Arsenal v Ipswich Town
We are playing Ipswich Town today at home. It’s a must win game if we want to remain in the title challenge. We will move to 2nd if we win behind the league leaders and the Chelsea’s loss has made sure we remain ahead of them having played equal games.
In the team news, Bukayo is going to be unavailable for quite some time due to the hamstring injury he picked up against Palace. White and Tomiyasu haven’t recovered yet, Zinchenko is a doubt but has a slight chance to make it in the squad.
So far, Mikel had 2 problems – injuries in the defence and no goals from the main man i.e. Havertz. Gabriel Jesus has provided some relief to the later problem by scoring a hattrick in Carabao and scoring 2 more in the 5-1 win at Cottage and he would most likely start but the absence of Bukayo Saka and Sterling is going to create some more problems to Mikel. We have Martinelli available, Trossard and Jesus plays on the wings but everyone and their landlady knows that our attacking options are from the right and Saka is the sole reason we have been lethal from there.
If it comes to keeping the right side equally dangerous in absence of Saka, I would rather prefer Martinelli shifting to his position and would love to see how he performs when he gets all the support from the wing back and midfield. We would also know if it’s a drop in his form or if it’s the unavailability of support when he plays on the left. So, he moves to the right and we stick Jesus in his position. That would be starting line up against Ipswich Town today.
We need to beat Ipswich, Brentford and Brighton by 4th of January to make sure we don’t try to solve un-necessary problems in the January transfer window. Rumours suggest that we have been looking for an attacking midfielder, and a Central Forward but Mikel’s one of the earlier press conference suggested that he will be open to bring a Winger. Now, I have been asking for a Saka’s back up from god knows when, but now is not the time. A Saka’s replacement won’t do better than him and we are not winning the league even with Saka. We need a prolific goal scorer and a left side attacking midfielder in place of Merino to get past Liverpool. For the Saka conundrum, you were happy with Gabriel Jesus and you were happy loaning a washed out Sterling so do with it.
Defence will sort itself out in couple of weeks. Zinchenko will be back and he is still above average. Saliba and Gabriel covers the CB and you just need one of the Timber and Calafiori to fix things up. Well, Thomas Partey is doing that job as well, so I assume it’s a NO PROBLEM from Mikel.
Playing players out of their positions can get you some odd results, both positive and negative. We have been on the positive side so far with Partey at RB but it won’t last long. Stick them where they play best and do a like-for-like replacement when there’s an injury. Suggesting Havertz can play at the wings and cover for Saka is not going to help you, the team and Havertz himself. He wasn’t magnificent in the midfield and he won’t at the wings.
Right, a short one today as well. I am finally back from the cold and it feels great. See you during the game, it’s a late one out here but there’s no work tomorrow.
Hope you are having a nice festive season.
3 cheers for our new style of play, steady sensibility…we’re not even Stoke anymore, we’re fucking Moyes’s Hammers
TRVL – precisely the point I was making tk my son. Why can’t ethan get a start with ode as another 8. MA will make anyone play there except Ethan oh wait he can’t.have both MLs and Ethan on the pitch I guess. What a bore MA is. He is going to run our academy to the ground. Pathetic
Madhu—I can’t believe I got in a spat with my better half over watching this match instead of going skating in the park…I’m giving this about 10 more minutes then I’m going to meet the family with my tail between my legs
we might be the bluntest of instruments, but I have little doubt we’ll find a way to get a more flattering scoreline…the question is do I care to even watch that come to fruition…this is what happens when you’ve got a chickenshit manager in charge
I’m outta here…that ref is so pro-Arsenal that he didn’t even require Ode to go off even thuugh the whole physio team came on the pitch to tend to him…I’ve never seen that
TRVL
OMG never heard you this despondent before, but hope you enjoyed the skating with the family, which sounds fun if I could ice skate; I was better on 4 wheeled skates with a toe brake. On ice skates I did my best superman impressions horizontally and airborne and always had painful landings often taking others out with me.
Brentford drawing at the Imax tells me that Brentford will be a very tough game, as will our visit to BHA. But, somehow we have 5 days rest playing Brentford on the 2nd where the other PL clubs played Thursday 26th and then play again Sunday 29 with 3 days rest.
How did that happen?
MA leads a charmed life.
Marc
I’d be surprised if we spend 80 pence on a striker or 8 in the Jan TW.
Madhu
So, sorry you feel the way you do. The club is lucky to have real long term fans who want the best for our club and support the club & players, but not the manager.
The owners’ lack of vision and football identity for what our club needs is another we can do nothing about, just ride out MA’s time which shouldn’t be long now.
I’m 100% the same as you as most are here. Tired of Ground Hog day that MA brings.
It will get instantly better when MA is dispatched, as he’ll never leave even if we were relegated he’d have an excuse that the gullible Lewes and KSE would believe.
Until Josh & Stan wake up and smell the football coffee and looks at their losses alone from players in the last 5 years, they’d see the TW incompetence together with MA’s dislike of playing youth, such as Ethan and ESR and the young future stars we’ve lost.
They’d see he is not a winner – just another Moyes in the making.
I expect Ethan not to reup and I wouldn’t blame him.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this song is popular at the Colney dressing room:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSOqWgqwynQ
LIR
Having read the game commentary here I won’t bother being bored to tears, now I know the result.
Fulham is also playing good football, so we can expect teams down to 10th place to take points from us in the future.
My end prediction is 5th/6th for us, and I hope it’s enough to find a real manager who knows how to win the PL, not the perpetual rookie still making the same mistakes on the pitch and in the TWs, as TRVL pointed out and we have alluded to as well.
Message to KSE if you’re happy to throw away millions of pounds, you can throw some my way and I’ll give you profit. I know it’s a novel idea for you, Stan & Josh to make profit with our club, but making profits means you have quality players to sell to buy better.
A quick little nugget for you, Mr Lewes, try looking at Liverpool’s buys last summer and before to see how they compare to our buys. Ditto Chelsea and Brighton and other smaller clubs.
If you and KSE are happy with MA’s buys, then I would suggest you would be better suited away from football if you feel we can win the PL with Calafiori, Sterling, Rice and Merino. Then Havertz before where we desperately need a clinical finisher.
If we’d bought Palmer, we’d have 10 goals and 6 assists for this season? What does Ode have (PL goals ‘0’ & 2 assists) who plays Palmer’s AM position or Havertz (6 & 2) our 9?
Have a good one LIR……
Didn’t bother watching the game as I knew this would be a bore fest since Plan A of our attack couldn’t be implemented. Sure enough it didn’t pass the eye test as the journos complained how dull and uninspiring it was. Any other team except Leicester and Southampton and we would have been in trouble. Liverpool is not looking over their shoulder, they look ahead and ask, by how many goals will we beat this team? Perfect example was their last game when they went behind to Leicester.
Arsenal will look over their shoulder as Chelsea 1 point behind and Forest 2 points behind and without Saka in the attack, we will struggle to get CL games next season, possibly if the EPL gets 5 places. Max Schadenfreude for me as KSE will see millions of their investment being pissed away by possibly the worst manager of AFC.
Now to the most important part. Saka had surgery and will be out for months earliest he will be back is in March and it could possibly be a season ending injury. We all knew Arteta was possibly the worst manager in Arsenal’s history, but I never would have dreamt that he was a (Insert Your Favorite EPL competitor here) plant to destroy Arsenal.
Saka was our most valuable asset who just has been destroyed by over playing him, because if he will ever reach his peaks again is in question. Any player that has undergone a hamstring surgery, when once again being on the pitch in a competitive game will have his mind questioning him, will the hamstring tear again once I accelerate? Will I be able to reach my former peak speeds without doing in my hamstring again. Arteta just devalued Saka and all our remaining competitions are now most likely out of trophy reach. EPL for sure, CL most likely and on Jan 12th we will see if Amorim will put Arteta out of his FA Cup misery.
That is it for me this season and I will just give Arsenal a passing glance until I read Arteta has been sacked.
there were times in the second half when it looked as if the fixed was in, as Ipswich would attack with pace on the counter, then stop on a dime, for no reason whatsoever, and make a negative pass…it was like MA was managing both sides, which is why it was such dreadfully ponderous watch
I get that there might be a few managerial nerves on the heels of Saka’s injury, but that lacklustre performance was no one-off…now all the slurpy Artetite fucks will naturally point to the Sporting affair, who btw fired their interim manager less than a month into his tenure, or our second-half performance against Palace, who were shit for the vast majority of our back-to-back matches, but for those of us who aren’t drinking the Kool-Aid it’s galringly clear that we’ve regressed…the fact that we’re in 2nd has far more to do with the patchy play of those sitting below us, most notably City, than us having earned that position by stacking together a whole host of noteworthy performances
to be fair, I don’t have an axe to grind with several of our moves if they were actually being deployed in their respective best positions, but our cnut of a manager is so self-absorbed that he cares infinitely more about doing things his way than the right way…now if he had a resume of some note, I might buy what he’s selling, but so far the only things he’s really known for are cocking things up when it matters most, shoehorning the fuck out of his squad and failing to meet the transfer brief each and every window…hardly the kind of manager who should be given a long leash or full control when it comes to roster construction
of course, there will be those who will say I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth, under the guise that most teams below us would gladly trade places, but to them I would simply reply who gives a flying fuck…now if he weren’t gifted a handful of blue chip prospects and an unprecedented war chest, I would be far less critical, but to me he’s wasting the best window of opportunity we’ve had since Wenger’s first term…so, in reality, he’s the one who’s looking a gift horse in fucking mouth
“glaringly”
“if he wasn’t gifted”
Kilroy & TRVL
Great posts that leave little, if anything to be added.
Vieira
Given that the game arguably deteriorated even further as it droned on, I trust the skating was incident free. 🛼⛸️🛼
The idea of doing anything that might randomly and forcefully open my legs at the age of 60 makes me wince just to think about it .
Marc – assuming you went to the game, I suppose it was a little subdued. I had a feeling right from the off that it was going to be dull. Alpha Tross and Havertz saved the day really. They’re already writing Martinelli’s obituary as a right winger but I thought he worked pretty hard at least. I think Ode had an off night, but I think it’s too early to believe there’s a demise after that routinest of wins.
Ipswich’s block was the lowest of the low which proves they can at least succeed at something.
I’d like to think that plagiarising mediocrity Ed Sheeran had a shit night at least .
What I find infuriating is the systematic destruction of Arsenal Academy right in front of our eyes. How can nobody seems to care? It pains me so much and how hardly Per does anything about this. isn’t he responsible for the Academy? Can he allow MA to ride roughshod over his players. The one player how is keeping us going is again out academy player Saka. You give them adequate chance and you will see them flourish. It’s a dream for any academy player and that’s why considerable money is pumped into Academy. What can’t the powers that be seen this? Are we happy just to send our academy players to other clubs and make some money. What a delusional satye of affairs. Seeing a dreadful match where there was one attempt from Timber to run through the center with his dribbling skills and open up a chance to others just passing sidewards and backwards when Ethan is on the bench just wrench my guts. It’s unsustainable to spend so much every TW without effectively utilising our academy. It’s a criminal negligence and dereliction of duty if you ask me. Pathetic.
Well we got the win but made really hard work of it.
We also had far too many spells in the second half where we seem to have the mindset of defending what we have inviting Ipswich on to us – which of course has worked so well in other matches. Arteta really has no killer instinct.
Marc
Agreed. When Liverpool and City go ahead in a game, the pressure arguably increases on the opposition. More pressing, crossing and looking to create chances, not least because other teams have to change from blocking to trying to create chances of their own.
We often seem to down tools, take a breather and admire ourselves. Ipswich are shite and therefore useless going forward but still managed to contrive a few chances.
KP—both my wife and I have skated all our lives, as I played competitive hockey until getting removed from junior hockey following a Slap Shot-like incident, and my wife was an amateur figure skater, until she suffered a concussion and a large cut above her brow during training…nowadays I can only skate for an hour or so before it starts to take a toll on my back…we both grew up at a time when it was rather commonplace for those with a large lawn to have their own rink, which was rather glorious…hope you’re having a great holiday season!
Kroenke
All teams have a one off strange result / performance but we’ve had several matches this season where we’ve squandered a win when in front.
I think Arteta’s basic mentality is “I’m scared don’t hurt me” and when he has the first sniff of an reason like going down to 10 men or having Saka not available it gives him a prepared excuse. Everything is about how people see him and he’s deeply insecure hence his having favourite players etc.
Morning all
Something to avoid in 2025 at all costs if you can….
Definition of narcissism & NPD:
“Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental health condition in which people have an unreasonably high sense of their own importance. They need and seek too much attention and want people to admire them. People with this disorder may lack the ability to understand or care about the feelings of others.”
The nine criteria of narcissistic personality disorder
A grandiose sense of self-importance.
Fantasies about having or deserving.
A sense of self-superiority.
A need for excessive admiration.
A sense of entitlement.
Exploitative behavior.
A lack of empathy.
Frequent envy.
Anyone know anyone with NPD? No need to name names; just have your private thoughts on the subject, as it may well give you answers to questions you ask yourself frequently?
If you are unlucky to be married someone with NPD or have an affected boss, I feel for you, as I’ve had both, which were great at first until you become a little more important than they are, in their eyes.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=narcissim+definition&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
For those who want to research more the above link helps, but don’t name anyone here for legal reasons, as I said above best to keep your thoughts private.
My experience with living with NPD in the family or workplace is that they will never seek help because they 100% believe they are as near perfect as anyone could possibly be.
So, moving on who are we going to buy & sell in the Jan TW?
Are we going to buy from the top shelf or is MA looking in the Merino/Calafiori/Sterling/Havertz levels of mediocrity? Meaning are we going to splash the Rice like cash again on an elite 8 & 9 we desperately need?
Why do we need an 8?
Because we are right side attack centric; Ode is not scoring PL goals, and has only produced 2 PL assists. We all talk about how brilliant he is in bringing Saka into the game for about 90% of our attacks, which I see is at the expense of Ode being more goal centric to score far more than zero goals in 18 games or almost halfway through the season, which ever way you want to look at it.
As I said yesterday Palmer has 10 goals and 6 assists in the same position.
I love Ode as a gifted player, always have, but he needs to be deployed in the final 3rd not playing 6/8 & 10 combined positional play MA has Ode playing. MA has Rice & Partey with Merino and Calafiori who all can play or fill in at 6, so why does Ode have to track back to defend?
Play Ode as the 2nd striker and we could have a DB10 in the making in Ode’s prime. Ode has similar sublime tricks and is still very young. I see Ethan as Brady’s successor.
Then, of course, there is the Ethan conundrum where any other experienced manager would have been playing Ethan as 8 since early last season. Had MA done that Ethan could have more than deputized for Ode’s injury and where Ode & Ethan could be devastating as AMs together with Rice or Partey the disciplined 6, especially if we played 3 at the back with wing backs and a 5 MF.
I very much doubt it will ever happen under MA’s terminal boring and repetitive tactics, where we are scraping the ‘win’ barrel with boring play that sees die hard supporters, such as us here switching over to watch our competitors play to be able to enjoy high quality football we are starved of by MA! That or seeing family time as more important.
MA has been reported as saying we were better in the 2nd half against Ipswich, and it will take time to play without Saka?
Are you fcuking kidding me? MA saying right there we are a one man attacking team……
Why does our squad need time with only Saka missing?
New manager please……….. This managerial loser is just that: a serial loser who capitulated for the last 3 seasons from the same mistakes, and will likely finish outside the CL this season having already managed to attain 36 points from 18 games by dropping an average of a point a game, thus far.
I think it’s fair to say this winning run will end soon enough, and we will drop points again, especially with our leading goal scorer and assists maker out until March having gone under the knife form his hammy. We also lose Saka’s clinically placed, with pace and low trajectory corners we converted as set pieces this season.
Slot is marching on with Pool who are looking more like PL potential winners than anyone below them by playing fast attacking football. Potentially, for all our wins, Pool are still 9 points ahead if they win their game in hand.
Chelsea are playing far better football than us where if they fix their defense, they will push Pool in the next 18 games.
What hurts is Fulham, BHA, Forest & B’mouth are playing fast, one-touch counters while keeping an effective 5 + 4 block drilled to perfection. Add Everton to the drilled blocks from their last few games evidence.
I guess we can expect more of the same from MA and Pep who looks forlorn with no answers to City’s demise, and where MA was Pep’s disciple, equally bereft of ideas to help us be PL champions.
2 peas in a pod?
See’s neither can win without a large cheque book with a country backing finances or KSE being reckless with their spending of £600M+ to have a very unbalanced squad who basically have been set up as a one-man goal machine team held together by set piece goals or we would be mid table by now.
Sorry, but there is little positivity to hang on to, and we are not plastic kool-aid fan boys here.
AF got any final 2024 thoughts?
Have a good one LIR……..
“The replacement of Saka is going to be the team”
I’ll give you one guess who the fuck spewed this old timey plastic nonsense…only someone who lives and breathes his own headlines would ever offer up such a cheesy quote…surely he must realize that the vast majority of his overtly flattering storylines were bought and paid for
of course, this was simply a not-so-sly attempt on his part to put it on the players, which hardly seems fair in light of the pedestrian tactics and his chickenshit selection practices…let’s not forget, things were far from perfect even when Ode and Saka were both on the pitch, so the very thought of him leaning into the same limp-dick approach he employed during Ode’s extended absence makes me want to vomit…maybe he thinks we’ll collectively suffer from amnesia come January and forget altogether that there’s other options at his disposal, like the fucking transfer window
speaking of which, I wouldn’t be surprised one iota that if we finagled our way into 6 points from our next two matches, by boring the living shit out of our opponents, we might actually standpat or even worse, like a few years back when we cocked-up our first chance to win the revamped Wenger Cup by becoming sellers, so to speak, not buyers in January…needless to say I’m hoping that even MA’s not that fucking daft, so maybe he’ll at least dip his toes in the loan pool, even though I’m not a fan of that practice unless it includes an option to buy (not an obligation) and there’s no other way to reasonably improve our squad in some significant capacity
it wouldn’t surprise me one iota
Hi Tony
Have Chelsea got any ageing has beens going for free because that, if anywhere, is where the little man will start looking first.
Frankly, I’m not sure if we need reinforcements at this point in the season . That at the risk of sounding like old chihuahua head. No one can adequately replace Saka, although Martinelli I think can bring his own style to the right side. He played well against Palace. I’d be inclined to lay it on the line with the players and tell them to dig in and fight for wins.
We have a pretty strong squad with 16 or so first team level players. Use Kiwior, Merino, Tierney, Jorginho and even Zinch effectively in addition. Have as much trust in Ethan as he does Skelly.
I think I’d be concerned about there being no one to replace Saka out there and the idea that a new signing/loan might disrupt things rather than offer something positive. Is Kim Kallstrom willing to come out of retirement?
But who am I?
For I know nothing!