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
Great goal and now the expected subs who are not needed.
Can’t believe it. Why put on Saka, MLS, and Ode when you’re up 1–0?
Same with Rice, who should have been subbed off.
Arteta’s tactics with subs just never seem to make sense at all, and he doesn’t know how to rotate properly.
The main players should be rested for the Madrid game.
Arteta should be trying the younger players like Oyedeji and Henri Francis.
With the recent 1-1 what has our subs done for us
Arteta could fuck up a cold beer on a sunny day.
Down to 10 men after making unnecessary subs as only Arteta can.
Rice looked completely exhausted and it took Rice to be down on his haunches with no energy left for Arteta to sub him.
Can’t see how Rice can recover fully in 4 days.
Just puerileand nonsensical by Arteta.
Tony
Wednesday night isn’t a forgone conclusion – a fired up Madrid and Mbappe in the mood with an early goal and we could easily fold.
You’ve then got the PL where if Newcastle win their 2 games in hand they’re 4 points behind us with having to play Liverpool away and Newcastle at home 2nd to last match of the season.
Arteta could easily fuck it all up and end up 3rd.
Is this a new record for Arteta with his one point a game average from his £billion squad?
One of his poorest managed game I’ve seen from him.
Marc
Couldn’t agree more with your thinking Arteta he’s just clueless. Why would you run your CL talisman in Rice into the ground?
Only Arteta could think RM is a forgone conclusion as was evident in his game management and tactics today.
Tony
Why wasn’t Rice given the Captains armband the other week when Ode didn’t start?
I can’t say I noticed who was Captain today.
Marc
No idea who was captain not that it mattered. I think Jorginho was used before.
The 2 footed scissor lunge on Martinelli should have seen the ref produce a red card, it certainly ticked all the boxes that are needed to see red .
Fortunately Martinelli escaped serious injury but it was another decision that has cost us points as a hour against 10 men would have seen the Arsenal cruise to a victory , and yes I know we should be good enough to beat Brentford with or without 11 men on the pitch but I can guarantee you if that was an Arsenal player committing such a foul the outcome would have been 100% red and rightly so…dreadful challenge..
The main takeaway from the match is that we survived without injuries to any of our players.
if you really want to be taken seriously you simply must find.a way to get a result even when there’s a supposed built-in excuse, especially against an away side with nothing to play for…all in all it was a rather lifeless affair, minus the two well-crafted tallies…personally I would never use all 5 of my subs with an important mid-week match on tap, just in case one of my regular starters took a knock or ran out of gas, but I get why not everyone would prescribe to that way of thinking…of bigger concern is our inability to take our chances…to have 15 attempts but only 4 on target simply isn’t good enough…Brentford was just going through the motions for much of that match, yet managed a draw with only 2 total shot attempts
let’s hope we perform expotentially better in our return leg, as I’m sure that Real side won’t good gently into that good night…I still think we’ll win, but things could get rather dicey if they find a way to score early on…obviously that rather ineffectual performance put our slim hopes for a PL title to bed, so there’s even more pressure to eke out a mid-week result, now that all our eggs are frimly within our CL basket…I’ll be really interested to see how MA tries to tactically manage this one, especially against a side who’s most effective on the counter…do we invite pressure and sit 11 behind the ball, then wait for any opportunities to counter, or do we try to keep possession and sideways them to death…I guess only time will tell
Good morning dear gooners. – Aside from the bizarre subs which made everyone play for sometime except for Rice and Saliba who played the most I was baffled that sterling didn’t start the match or even come as a sub. What a waste if he cannot be trusted by MA to come in and play 90 mins when it is most wanted why are we paying him wages? What a travesty. I cannot understand it. It’s a financial scam and dereliction of duties from multiple people in the Arsenal MGMT. It’s just unbelievable that when majority of us are struggling to make ends meet with high inflation, stagnating wages and oppressive regimes heaping more struggles on common man here is a football player who just sits and makes wages in a week that we struggle to make it 3 years! I don’t want to sound a leftist socialist but can’t find a way to make logic of this aspect of Arsenal football club. It’s bizarre .
Regarding RM next week if we keep up the temp and attack them they way we did in Emirates we will win. If we sit back and invite waves and waves of attack it going to be a disaster. Which Arsenal will MA put out is anybody’s guess.
Madhu
” I don’t want to sound a leftist socialist but can’t find a way to make logic of this aspect of Arsenal football club.”
Its nothing more than having poor management at the club with no one having the power to control Arteta’s huge habit of pissing money up the wall.
At some point the Kroenke’s will either look at the money going out of the club or someone (hopefully Berta) who manage to get their eat and show them what’s going on and how much other clubs make from selling fringe players etc.
As for Madrid in the week – they get an early goal and its squeaky bum time, if they’re leading 2 nil at half time expect a full on Arteta meltdown and us conceding 5 by the final whistle.
TRVL
How many times this season have you seen a genuinely good performance out of us? Not good results but commanding dominant performances?
If we get through against Madrid I can see PSG giving us a football lesson.
Marc
“If we get through against Madrid I can see PSG giving us a football lesson.”
Like they did earlier in the season ?
Our season tends to be the bigger the team we play the better the performance we produce…we have more problems against big physical sides like Newcastle, Brentford and Fulham than pure footballing sides like city, Madrid and PSG.
To be fair , PSG do look very good but as yet they haven’t beaten villa.
Some seem to think that Villa will be completely outplayed at villa park , I may be wrong but I think it will be a lot tighter than many think.
Villa are very good side going forward, they are a side who will take risks in and around the box but of course they will need the ball to cause damage to PSG and Emery will know that his team will need to press the ball like their life depends on it to stop PSG controlling the game as he knows that sitting off is not an option.
Arsenal’s game yesterday was all about getting through the 90 minutes without further injury to key players, Rice did play a lot of minutes and pushed a lot of energy but for me he is a player who thrives on playing as many minutes as possible so he will be more than ready for Wednesday.
Sometimes one comes accross pure drivel . Usually happens when the script is handed over and one has to come up with a composition. Happened when we were in primary school . But then the piece was never convincing.
Hoopah
“Pure drivel”
I actually think Marc makes some good points, but if anyone is an expert on drivel it would be you.
Wicksy
Just because you say something doesn’t make it true.
PSG are a different team to the one we played earlier in the season.
You talk up Villa’s chances because they’ll be at home but forget we’ve got to go to the Bernabeu.
As for “Arsenal’s game yesterday was all about getting through the 90 minutes without further injury to key players” so you accept Arteta bottling the league again? How many times now? I would ask how many times will you accept it but you’ll just keep sucking Arteta’s cock no matter how much he fucks up.