Champions League Night, at Home. Beautiful.
We are playing Real Madrid at home in about 30 min in Champions League quarter finals. This is THE biggest game of the season, considering PL trophy is out of sight. Madrid is probably the toughest opponent you can get in Champions League over two legs. They will be 3-0 down on aggregate with 10 minutes on clock, and go on to win 4-3. With the likes of Mbappe, Rodrygo and Vinicious up front, and a midfield of Modric, Camavinga and Bellingham, they are one of the best attacking sides in the world and they have got a very good defence as well.
We, on the other hand, are going into the game with Merino as a CF. Jakub Kiwior in defence is another problem for me, as Gabriel M has picked up an injury and will be out for the rest of the season. We have a 17 year old at LB and a new CB partnership. That’s a bit concerning but you know, going into a game as under-dogs has it’s own benefits. The good thing is, Madrid will play an attacking game and we have been relatively good against the likes of Liverpool and City who tries to play their way. It’s the low blocks we suffer against.
And we are at home, so the crowd will be behind us. Boys have dreamt of this, to play against the best teams in the world, at the grandest stage, and I’m sure they are going to prove today that they deserve to be here. I don’t care about the second leg, we win today with 2 goal margin and we can play with 6 defenders in the away game.
Talking about the strategy Mikel would have put up …. well I don’t care. Lets go, play our game with freedom, give our 100% and see where it ends.
A very short one today, but I will be alive during the game today.
#COYG
RM is an awful team and over two legs we were sensational l. Take nothing away and to be honest we look the best defensively. We may actually be the favourites to win this damn thing. Get a statue for Arteta ready.
by far and away our biggest victory since MA arrived, regardless of the fact that this Real side’s form has dipped over the last month or so…the boys should be proud of their stellar efforts
Mightily impressed with MLS. He is bloody my son’s age and he played like a veteran. Absolutely no fear at all and has tbe confidence and character to come back from adversity and put such a performance. What a talent and take a bow to our academy.
Wicksy
Huuuuuuuuge collective relief on LiR that Arteta didn’t fuck up again!
I bet you’re sitting there with a mug of Horlicks wearing your Arteta monogrammed pajamas with a relieved grin on your face.
Phew…Vieira and I can now safely go back to discussing Canadian politics knowing you’re contented. 🇨🇦
Nice take Madhu. He’s 3 years younger than my son. We’re very lucky to have him, Nwan and Max Dowman among many others
we treated Real in the same manner the Bayern players treated the Inter ballboy at the end of their match…Inter, Arsenal, PSG and Barca are now set as the final 4…should be some exciting football in the offing
The results against Madrid plus observations of this season put a few major questions in place for the summer.
1) A striker is of course a priority.
2) Getting both Saliba and Gabriel to resign is almost as important as 1.
3) We have a quandary on a couple of players / positions. Assuming Partey leaves what do we do about LB and Skelly? Do we look to move Skelly into CM and try to sort LB again – a midfield of Rice, Skelly and Ode doesn’t look bad to me. Skelly’s young and will make mistakes but he’s looking the real deal and has incredible potential or do we look to try and convert him to a long term LB?
4) Rice / Ode and the Captaincy. I like Ode and he’s a very good player but he’s not influencing matches as much as I’d like – Rice on the other hand seems to be growing in influence and the bigger the game the more he seems to revel in being the man. Do we make Rice Captain?
5) Can we sack Arteta in the morning?
So Kroenke just because he’s a lumberjack does that automatically make him OK?
Really don’t want to get drawn into a discussion on Carney – he’s a twat so better to think about some Monty Python.
Tonight we had a ref who wasn’t afraid to give folks against Madrid and was honest enough to overturn his penalty award.
As Marc said, there is no way a prem ref or var would overturn that decision and I believe a premier ref would have allowed Madrid to kick the shit out of us.
Rice and skelly was superb and a shoutout to kiwior who never put a foot wrong.
It was a stupid pen from saka and Raya should not have rolled the ball out to saliba, other than that it was a near perfect performance and yes Arteta should receive credit for the way he has the team so organised , and as I have said many times , the bigger the team the better we play.
Merino, 2 assists with perfectly weighted balls into the stride of saka and martinelli. Would Odegaard have been so clinical in his passing from a similar position, probably not .
Merino has started 10 times as striker in the prem and champions league and scored 6 goals with 3 assists…impressive.
Marc
Non, pas du tout. Mais je pense qué Carney est la meillure choix certainnement. C’est comme la choix entre Starmer et Sunak au Royaume Uni il y a neuf mois.
Entre les deux, moi je toujours voterais pour le con le moins grand. Toi? Je ne pense pas…
Bonne matin Vieira, mon copin. Je pensais que tu trouveras cet article au sujet du debat hier assez interessant. Disfrutes lui!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/17/who-is-going-to-face-mr-trump-canada-leaders-debate-dominated-by-us-crisis
Je me prepare pour le demi final maintenant. Allez Les rouges!
It’s weird. I don’t know what to make of the ref’s performance yesterday. Almost every decision (eventually in the case of their pen claim) went our way. Touchline decisions, fouls, cards etc. it was really uncanny and in the second half it became even more pronounced. Kroenkephobe Junior said the ref had a very good game but I almost came to the conclusion that he actually favoured us quite markedly.
Despite the two eye popping foul throws by Skelly and Timber. Does anyone else automatically think of Bellerin and his bum fluff moustache any time an FT is awarded, in any game?
The feature of the win for me was the positivity of Arsenal over two legs. Never once we started to defend our lead. We always looked to score and that’s a markedly different approach from earlier ties. If something has changed in Arteta or the team has taken charge then love this attitude. The martinelli goal was telling in the sense that we looked to score when the result was beyond doubt. That’s a fabulous attitude and keeping it simple tactic. If we had gone in with a mentality to defend the lead we would have been under tremendous pressure. Hope this attitude stays
Partey is a big loss for the team in Semi first leg. He has been for me the player of the season. A season where he is largely injury free and apart from games where he was played as RB he has been excellent. He is a fabulous player and he gives so much to this team and allows rice to go further forward. Not sure how we will setup in the midfield without him. Rice will have to play conservatively. Even if Zubi comes I would love to see Partey stay for a year and probably transition to Zubi/MLS over the next season. Yesterday again he was pristine and he oozes class and rarely looks ugly.
This morning was a good time to ring a contact of mine in Madrid. He supports RM and was certain there would be a magnificent fight back. Apparently the talk in the bars after the game was who would be replacing Carlo – in their eyes none other than El B. We can only hope.
Norge
Please let it happen
KP—I felt the same about the refs, but I think it might have had something to do with the overly aggressive nature of the Real side from the onset…they’ve had a rather antagonistic relationship with the officiating this season, which might have somehow played a role, even though that clearly wasn’t a La Liga-based crew…that said, the fact that Rudiger was given an eceptionally long leash and we had two throw-in calls go against us helped to balance things out a bit
what was even more unusual was the fact that Ancelotti’s preferred tactics were so counterintuitive, almost as if they didn’t watch any tape on us or they mistakenly felt that they were just good enough that they didn’t need to make any adjustments…they did all the things that no PL side would ever do against us…no real double-teams to speak of in wider spaces, no true low block posturing when they were pegged in, allowing our midfielders ample space to maneuver/turn and when on the offensive they almost never attacked our far weaker defensive side…talk about a tactical wet dream for us…there’s no doubt in my mind that whatever we saw in this draw won’t be on offer in the next round versus PSG…au revoir!
TRVL
When you’ve hot Mbappe in your team why would you spend all night firing crosses into our box?
With regard to the officiating last night, I believe that Arsenal fans have got so used to the pgmol letting the opposition get away with murder that last night having a ref that is unbiased it gave the impression that he was favouring us.
For a team as experienced as Real Madrid , for me they played like novices with their continuous fouling as it allowed Arsenal to slow the game down and break up the play.
It’s quite simple , the ref gave Arsenal free kicks because Arsenal players were constantly being fouled , in fact I’m not sure how the likes of rudiger and Bellingham stayed on the pitch as they reverted to intimidation as they waved the white flag due to accepting that The Arsenal were by far the more superior footballing side.
It’s a pity we can’t get international referees in the premier league , if so a league title would be coming our way guaranteed ..
I’ve said for years that Arsenal will never be allowed to win the league by the pgmol, all the data over the last 20 years points to a bias against Arsenal from red/yellow cards to penalties and the introduction of VAR has given the pgmol more power to twist the knife into Arsenal.
There is no way that pen would have been overturned last night in favour of Arsenal in the premier league and also there is no way the VAR would have convinced the ref to award a penalty for Arsenal for a blatant holding offence.
Marc—Real has had some success with crosses, but typically they use Mbappe as a decoy in those situations, then have someone creep in on the backside…regardless, Carlos lost control of this squad when Mbappe stepped foot on the Bernabeu grounds, which is why they’ve been so inconsistent this season, both at home and abroad…you’re talking about a side that lost to Barca 4-0 at home right out of the gates then lost on multiple occasions in the preliminary round of the CL…I think they just go out there and simply hope that their star power wins in spite of the lack of cohesion…on a side note, based on some comments here, it appears as if Trump hasn’t sanctioned any tariffs on aluminum foil quite yet…Cheers