Arsenal v Wolves – the Grand Opening

Vieira

Good stuff – I think you’re right. I watched our game and bits of 4 or 5 others. Very early days but there has been a lot of ordinary football so far. There’s an emerging narrative among turd-polishing PL apologists that it’s only to be expected so early in the season. But isn’t that what the preseason is for, ie to get the team firing?

I can’t help but think what might have been if we hadn’t wasted so much time, energy and money on our seemingly endless search for Keepers and defenders…as we speak, we appear to be wasting the last days of the window sorting our Ramsdale and trying to get a 3rd and possibly a 4th Keeper over the line…what the fuck am I missing here…surely there must be a better way to deal with the homegrown quota gig…all this mindless tinkering speaks to just how far MA still has to go when it comes to his learning curve

speaking of which, I read an absolutely ludicrous article that spoke about the new supposedly more cerebral approach we’ve taken regarding transfers…if taking far too long to get what should be a fairly routine 30M mid-level move done and dusted, then this “new” approach sucks even more than our previous sloth-like, less cerebral one

TRVL

People who are good at what they do don’t have to keep telling people their good – people who are fucking useless will keep coming up with new plans etc to divert attention from what they’re actually achieving.

Right now this is the worst transfer window in god knows how long – Wenger had an excuse he got so beaten up in the early days of the stadium move trying to balance the books and then got old.

We desperately need a striker and have spent £40 odd million on a CB. The goal keeping situation is a fucking joke – Raya pulled off a couple of cracking saves at the weekend but is he one of the top 2 / 3 keepers in the PL? I don’t think so, so Arteta’s been through Leno, Martinez, Ramsdale and is now on Raya its a fucking miracle he’s only spent £55 odd million (I’d like to know what loan fee we paid Brentford – why would they give us a player for a season for nothing?).

Can anyone remember a manager (of any club) going through so many keepers in 4 and a half years?

now there’s plenty of folks who’re steadfast in their belief that the PL is far and away the best footballing league in the world, but I would beg to differ…I watch enough football from across Europe to think otherwise…in fact, I would suggest that La Liga is better and Serie A is very close, especially now that Juve no longer dominates the Italian footballing scene…in recent years, we’ve seen the reemergence of both Milan squads, plus sides like Roma, who has performed admirably in Europe, and Atalanta, who took down Pool with relative ease, then manhandled the once undefeated Lever to capture the Europa crown…furthermore, let’s not forget how we struggled against a relatively weak Porto side, who were 4th place in a 3 team “junior” league at the time

that said, I do feel very confident in our chances to at least repeat the performances of the last two seasons…conversely, I don’t favour our chances in the CL, at least not as we’re presently constructed…the reasons are realitively simple…domestically it’s a real advantage when you can run things back after a successful campaign, even though that doesn’t typically take things forward…whereas in Europe, you generally need to have timely clinical finishing and the ability to be tactically brave, two things we greatly lack…this dynamic won’t change by acquiring Merino, should it come to pass, especially with our current crop of Europa League Striker options

Marc—agree in spades…if we had kept Emi, who’s heads and shoulders above every option MA’s bought since his departure, then earmarked all the monies we’ve wasted trying to replace him, we could afford any Striker on the planet, minus maybe Mbappe

head and shoulders

A quick skim through the basic sports news and Merino is said to be close where El B has earmarked his first start or similar.

What’s more worrying is several Havertz spin pieces about what a shrewd decision by El B not to buy a striker when so many were available. You could be excused in thinking Pedro and bots et al were being copied by whoever is paying the most to offer such opinions.

“Brilliantly aerially” was was term used because he was 6’4″. I mean Drogba was a beast aerially our Havertz hardly gets off the ground, and when he does he mostly ends up crumpled on the floor.

Maybe it’s all about to change and our mighty German is going to morph into a modern day Jurgen Klinsmann this season? It’s what they are trying to lead us to buy into.

I’m not putting down our gangly giraffe – honestly, I’m not, I say this with affection in the hope KH does the business, at the business end adding 20+ non pen, PL goals this season and weighing in with at least 10 assists.

If all the moving parts come together from out 15 potential starters – about the same as LCFC did on their winning season -, and no serious injuries to our main stars, then who knows?

The problem I have is that the puff pieces of news are quoting the amount of goals we scored last season completely disregarding how poor many of the top 8 were last season. Marc, TRVL, KP have all addressed concerns here including myself.

Last season the top 8 were really the top 2: us and City.

This season I see at least a top 6 from the top 8 performing at much higher levels, where our problem is we haven’t added to our tactics to reduce our repeated vulnerabilities of last season, and I’m not taking defense here.

MF & front 3 need added potential with new tactics, but being so unbalanced on the left, this is not possible. TRVL illustrated this well and I’ve been banging the balance drum for 2 seasons now.

Last season we could almost predict the points we’d get each game. Some were bankers because teams wouldn’t turn up past their midfield. Often defense against attack training games we made ridiculously hard for ourselves, as we did against Wolves in our opening game.

This will be the 3rd season where we can’t get the all important next goal to really control the game if the Wolves game is anything to go by.

I’d take Ivan Toney right now, but Saudi awaits for him now by the look at it. He’ll probably be a betting pundit, too.

Nine days to go to the trolly dash of the almost but not quite VO or similar deal. My guess is the Havertz stories are paving the way for his striker break out season.

Actually, I hope he does it as we’ll seriously be in it to win it.

I’m really looking forward to our Emery and El B match up once more this Saturday 2330 my time.

Can El B finally get the better of Emery at Villa? It’s going to be a much more serious test than Wolves were, where after our ‘run out’, but not really an assured performance where we looked to be too easily run through or around causing panic by a poor Wolves.

The Villa game we need to state our credentials and make a statement. A 0:3 dominant game for us, and it will show we mean business and help add uncertainty to our opponents heads.

Anything less will have teams dissecting our frailties with relish and confidence.

City’s opening game did what we should have done, and showed they are still a purring goal machine who can turn it on when they need to, and have Rodri who seemingly there is no end to his effortless elite playing style.

We need to match and improve on that from Pep.

Tony

“The problem I have is that the puff pieces of news are quoting the amount of goals we scored last season completely disregarding how poor many of the top 8 were last season”

It also misses off the 6 matches where we scored 5 or 6 goals – a total of 32 goals for. A decent team will get an odd result like that during the season, a very good team might get a couple but 6? We were very lucky to play some teams on just the right day – that’s not to criticise the result but to set it as a repeatable benchmark is really fucking daft.

If those matches all turned into 2 nil wins this season (a decent result) that’d be 20 less goals scored.

Tony & Marc—today alone I’ve seen numerous hacks refer to Merino as one of the best players on the planet, so I concur with your thoughts regarding “puff pieces”…now this is far from revelatory, as we’ve seen this sort of nonsensical blather being propagated by Arsenal-friendly online “media” outlets since MA’s arrival on the scene, but the lengths in which they’ll distort/stretch the truth has become even more glaring since we vastly overpaid for Havertz…for example, I’ve read no less than 10 articles this week, on the heels of Havertz’s second best outing since arriving, where each respective “author” has heaped plaudits on MA for not pursuing a Striker…of course, they don’t care one iota about context, like the fact it was the very first game of the season against a rather pedestrian opponent, he scuffed two other grade A chances that could have put that match to bed and he has yet to prove that he can lead the line against the best and brightest…furthermore, they’ve conveniently forgotten that MA did actually pursue a Striker, Sesko, right out of the gate, who would be wearing the kit right now if it weren’t for MA’s inablility to properly rotate and/or deploy Striker-friendly tactics…I feel like Kroenke hired several members of Trump’s PR department because we’re a fake news fuckfest nowadays

lots of interesting buzz online this evening…of course, I’m taking it all with a giant-sized grain of salt, but considering how dry it’s been, besides an endless barrage of updates about the “almost signed” Merino, I’m jonesing for anything involving our most pressing needs…all of a sudden there’s rumours circulating about a certain Napoli exec landing in London, which has invariably stirred the Osimhen transfer pot, and speculation regarding our late-window interest in Atalanta’s wantaway star, Lookman

it does seem rather far-fetched to imagine such a monumental end to this particular window, as we seem wholly incapable of conducting business of this import with such a short runway..so unless we get rid of more than just Eddie and/or those on the other side of the table flinch as the clock winds down, I find it difficult to imagine us shelling out an amount well north of the 130M mark in the next 10 days…that said, I’d be fucking elated if this were to happen

The writing is on the wall – somehow El B will persuade AFC to purchase Raheem Sterling. They love each other.

Meanwhile over in NW Spain there is excitement about the possibility of signing a young midfielder – Patino.

Bruno & Miguel, two Spaniards I deal with from just along the coast both support La Coruna and think he will be a good addition.

Hi NORG

Sounds like Chelsea is staging a late fire sale. Not sure if this younger player is on the list but if he is, I’d definitely put a bid in for Carney Chukwemeka. He was terrific at one stage for England youth teams when he was on Villa’s books.

Sterling? Absolutely not.

KP
Agreed, no Sterling please.

Are you looking forward to the Villa game?

TRVL
Great additions to the ‘puff pieces’ post.

Just reading that the ‘Buzz Words’ at the moment: ‘Huge Swapsies’. This apparently is what we are down to so no wonder our powder has been kept dry. That is if we have any powder; could have been all leveraged to the max.

There’s this little gem with Kiwior being the swap+?:

“Arsenal ‘prepare huge swap bid’ for Ademola Lookman after PSG transfer falls flat”

Ademola Lookman showreel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXgCIk9XfF4

Then I noticed that Ilkay G is in Manchester for a cosy chat with Pep to return to City on a free from Barcelona.

“Ilkay Gundogan lands in Manchester and meets Pep Guardiola at the City boss’s restaurant as veteran club legend gets set to rejoin in a shock free transfer from Barcelona”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13766593/Ilkay-Gundogan-arrives-England-midfielder-gets-set-rejoin-Manchester-City-free-transfer-year-Barcelona.html

No surprise there then.

Lookman has similar style to Jesus, but far better.

So what what happens to Jesus if Lookman comes to us?

Surely the purchase of Sterling which will also incur a huge salary (£250k per week?) and the inevitable “why the fuck did we buy this guys he’s a busted flush” in 6 or 12 months time will be enough for fans to start turning on Arteta?

KP

Perhaps the new Chelsea manager is reaping the benefit of Boeley receiving mentoring from Menon. Boeley still wants to buy the world but has agreed he needs to shed a few. I seem to remember Chukwemeka being mentioned a couple of years ago – probably at LG.
Sterling was a busted flush years ago but I remember a statement he made when at City – El B had helped him improve his game. Perhaps it is payback time – soon to be heard at the offices of the Emirates – please Stan, I really want RH, I will not ask for anything else (fingers crossed behind his back).

Marc
Even El B’s staunchest supporters will question the sense of taking on Sterling. If Sterling has any sense he should nip into Foyles, buy a copy of the Quran and take the next flight to Riyadh.

Norg

I have a horrible feeling that Sterling’s going to be another William / Auba type signing.

Put on huge wages, then issues, then paid off to leave. We should not be positioning ourselves as a highly paid retirement home for ex Chelsea and City players.

Marc

Where is Almunia is no more when you need a quick sketch. You can imagine a petulant El B standing in the corner of the office stamping his feet and screaming I want, I want, I want RS.

Lookman was touted as a promising player years ago when he was at Charlton. He then joined Everton and couldn’t secure a first team place. Everton! I don’t think he’s for us. Nothing special in my view

KP—I have mixed feelings about Lookman, as I’m not sure if his more recent form is directly related to him putting in the work or more to do with Gasperini, who has a habit of getting the best out of his players…I’m leaning towards the latter, as very few of his former “stars” have found a way to repeat or better their respective Atalanta form…that said, I did see a lot of stellar performances by him this past season, as I watched a good chunk of their matches due to my affinity for the manager

if I had to hazard a guess I think this is more of a cockblock or smokescreen gig…so either they’re messing with Slot, as many believe that Lookman has been targeted as Salah’s replacement, or this is a wag the dog mindfuck maneuver that might alternatively lead to a more Tross-like veteran loan stint, which would explain the plethora of rumours pertaining to the likes of Sane, Coman and now Sterling

just don’t think Lookman is coming in this window, unless some serious conversations have already taken place, whereas I think you can push through a last minute loan move, especially if the other team is already in desperation mode…as I’ve said before I wouldn’t take on any of the aforementioned veterans, as their respective wages are way too high to be acquired solely as depth pieces, so there’s an increased likelihood that problematic assurances would be offered up

Heard tonight’s news? I’ve decided to put it to poetry.

An ex Tottenham player called Jenas
Sent his workmate a vid of his penis
She laughed at his cock
You deserve to be mocked
And the sight of your scrotum is heinous

Can anyone ‘beat’ that? Yuck….

DT reporting that we’ve come to an agreement on a fee for Merino (£28 million).

To be honest I can’t say I know anything about the player so we’ll see – what we are looking at is another window where we’re just shy of spending a hundred million but still don’t have a striker.

All we need now is Sterling and it’ll officially be the worst window I can remember.

Kroenke

We’ll leave the penis beating to you mate!

If you haven’t read about it yet, the BBC licence fee payers among us will be thrilled to know he earned 190 thousand quid last year for saying shitty things about Arsenal on MOTD and in other fora and polishing the giant smelly turd that is Tottingham whenever he got the chance. Oh, and being ‘inapproriate’ with his colleagues.

The Sex Offender’s registrar’s pencil is being sharpened tonight. He, Overmars and RVP would be useful additions to a ‘stoat the baw’ (look it up) XI.

The BBC eh? Full of right-wingers and deviants.

Hi Marc

That’s a bit reductionist mate. I’m trying to raise the cultural profile on LiR and at the same time, give it a sort of ersatz breaking news dimension.

Honest.

David Pleat as manager

Mason Greenwood, Antony and Clayton Blackmore would give the team some strong Manure ‘dna’. Yuck again.

Clive Walker, Graham Rix. Any others?

Kyle Walker and Harry Kane (the latter just because he looks like he’d get up to that sort of thing).

KP—how about Roy Hodgson? not because he did anything, but simply because his head looks like a droopy old scrot

KP on form as usual.

Marc
I just read the Merino deal is £33m so around that fee. Here’s his showreel to see what we are getting. Decent feet but slower than Havertz more like drifting into space rather than being direct with the ball and forward movement. A 6/8 left footer.

Time will tell.

So, are we buying VO or similar or is that the I almost bought list for El B to catch up with Wenger.

Have to say I’m very underwhelmed about our Merino buy and hope he proves me wrong. For me ESR was a better 8 but not a 6.

See what you guys think……

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-6wdlliSVc

Tony—although I rarely watch those overtly flattering montage videos nowadays, I did checkout the one you provided just to see if it confirmed my suspicions…now there’s no doubting he has some positive qualities, most notably his length and movement off the ball, but for me he’s too similar, albeit less gangly, to a player I wish we never brought here in the first place, Havertz

in many respects, I feel like MA is simply paying another 35+M to bring in a player who might actually supply the attributes that Havertz has failed to provide, like the possibility of a progressive pass now and again and a more profficient header of the ball, notwithstanding Kai’s first such tally here in the opener…maybe he should have just incorporated ESR earlier, then we could have used that 110M on a top-notch 9

that said, I do get why MA’s attempting to super-size the squad, as we’ve been known to get bullied on occasion, but Havertz is hardly Henry and Rice, although a top player, is no Vieira…as such, I highly doubt a dumbed down version will get things done…after all Merino isn’t the “27 goal/assist” man some have portrayed him to be…in fact, from a League perspective, he actually potted 5 goals and had a grand total of 3 helpers…hardly earth-shattering numbers for 32 appearances, most of which saw him being deployed in a more advanced MD role

in the end, let’s hope he brings some more balance to our final third pursuits and there’s a surprise or two still to come before this window closes

TRVL
Now you mention it there is a similarity between Merino and Havertz. If we completely shit the bed and brought in VO, we’d be in a much better place to lay claim to the PL title.

You nailed it with the Gasperino comment getting the best from Lookman. Can El B improve on that? Do we play similar to Lookman’s previous club?

Victor O slots straight in but the midget Lookman I’m not so sure about.

What are we thinking for tomorrow’s away game to villa?

Some good games to enjoy before with BHA hosting Manure. Would love a Brighton win there.

City at home to Ipswich should be a banker for Pep.

Then us at 5:30 against El B’s nemesis Señor Unai Emery who has so far outclassed El B is all meetings, taking 6 points from us last season, by producing tactics that each time confounded our manager into submission. El B has a mental block against the Spanish cup competitions’ supremo as well as a few league wins.

Time for El B the magnifico to out think uncle Unai as well as time for a tactical master class display to send Villa home pointless.

This is where I blame El B, Edu and Garlick and Lewes for not getting out transfers done before preseason or at east before our first game of the season. Villa is a tough game when you consider last season’s losses. We should be at full strength and fitness, which as we witnessed last weekend many of our lads were struggling bar our well rested midfield maestro: Ode.

It’s this simple, Villa are a top 6 side we need to take 6 points from this season because the points loss last season cost us the league.

Nothing less than 3 points tomorrow is acceptable if we are going to win the league this season. City will dispense Ipswich easily and maybe add 3 to 4 goals to the GD in the process while we struggle to get the points away at Villa.

I didn’t see anywhere near enough against Wolves to be confident of a win tomorrow: a draw maybe. Villa have have 2 wins from 3 where our Emirates cup afforded us 3 wins from our last 3.

Realistically, Villa and us are coming of a win from our first games. So, no real form to go by.

Over to you guys for your thoughts……

Tony

Honestly I don’t have a clue about tomorrow. Arteta’s track record says a win for Villa but against that the law of averages says he should win one at some point.

I wouldn’t be surprised by a 1-1 draw with the fanboys pronouncing that they might as well just give us the title now and be done with it.

Marc
I feel the same. Emery always changes during games that confuses El B. By the time El B has responded Villa would be a goal up or really dictating play. I think because El B has got square pegs in round holes, he can’t change things tactically other than to throw more bodies on with little purpose or plan.

El B is not a plan B manager. It’s plan A all the way because it should work because El B is never wrong. That’s when the absurd excuses come out.

I think we do well getting a draw. It’s something else when we have to rely on law of averages.

Let’s hope we are pleasantly surprised and we bag the 3 points.

We could always buy VO and Lookman and play Lookman 8 AMF instead of his 2nd striker role. Lookman doesn’t have the height so will be aerially challenged, but late arriving and supporting Marts I could see.

If we are late loading the squad to not make the past mistakes again, then I’m happy.

Still would have preferred Eze and VO to balance our squad properly. Merino can sub Partey and cover his injuries.

just a few points:

—not sure what to expect from tomorrow’s affair, but if Villa plays like they did against the Hammers, we should roll over them…that said, MA’s imposter symdrome usually kicks in against Unai, so who the fuck knows

—in theory Lookman plays out wide, except that Gasperini typically deploys wingbacks, so he’s usually tucked inside a bit more…as such he’s more Tross-like than a like-for-like Marts replacement…personally I think MA would sell Marts if it weren’t for the potential fallout…even his 24/7 media minions couldn’t massage that narrative…hopefully he won’t bury him, like countless others, and destroy his MV…likewise, not sure how the diminutive Lookman fits the whole “super-size” team building gig, but we all know MA doesn’t have a definitive plan, except satisfying his flavour of the day thirsty whims

—just when I thought Sterling was off our radar, with Villa and Pool seemingly interested, MA had to open his mouth and shift the focus back in our general direction…I have nothing personal against RS, in fact, I think when he plays quickly and instinctively he’s a dangerous man on the pitch…problem is that version is rarely ever seen nowadays, as he’s more powderpuff than natural born killer on the pitch

Tony

Arteta can’t improvise or adapt to the unexpected – its why all of his substitutions are so rigid and 99% of the time like for like.

Its probably in our favour the match is early in the season and players are still building momentum but Emery has a point to prove.

in other news, it appears as if Vieira is returning to Porto on a loan deal…how pathetic… I can guarantee you this, we’ll be subsidizing his wages, which seems ludicrous in light of what we paid for this wafer thin mint…no word yet if there’s an option clause or not

some in the supposed “know” are suggesting that we’re back in for Nico…this is likely just typical Arsenal late-window nonsense, much like with Lookman, who’s supposedly deadset on going to PSG, when we feign interest in players of consequence so as to give the impression that we’re working tirelessly behind the scenes…this is usually followed by a whole host of “legit” excuses about why these moves never materialized…I just hope that we don’t follow this up by pulling a classic Wenger-like bargain bin maneuver

update—sources are saying that there’s no option to buy clause in the Vieira loan deal…should he never return, he would have cost us more than a million dollars per appearance, very few of which were of the 90+ minute variety