Arsenal v Wolves – the Grand Opening

Marc
That sums it up well.

I wondered about Rice? Junior said it was cramp today, so we’ll see.

Rice has been kind of indestructible but all such players’ injury luck can’t hold out after a kamikaze season Rice endured and then the Euros.

I hope I’m wrong.

“Ilkay Gundogan ‘asks to LEAVE Barcelona’ just one season after departing Man City, with Jose Mourinho ‘prepared to do everything’ to bring the midfielder to Fenerbahce
He moved to Barcelona on a free deal from Manchester City in June 2023
Gundogan has played only one season with the club and already wants to leave”

I thought El B would be hot on Ilkay’s trail being ex city.

https://fbref.com/en/players/819b3158/Ilkay-Gundogan

13, 8 and 8 goals for his last 3 seasons at City from midfield.

TRVL
Would Ilkay work for us as an 8?

Hi Marc
I watched it and was a little underwhelmed. They didn’t seem fully prepared for their first competitive game. I think for me it was the (avoidable) repetition of bad habits that concerned me and led me to believe that not much has changed. E. g. The failure to maintain or even increase momentum after the first goal, the relentless pissing about at the back in the second which nearly led to two goals and the quality of passing which was erratic. Maybe I’m being a bit over-expectant but they were worth the win. More importantly, did you get some pub time?

Here are my post-game awards.

MOTM – Ode
Best defender – Raya
Best m/f – other than Ode – Tbag Partey
Best front man – Havertz
Best sub – Timberrrrr!

Least inspiring player – Zinch or White

Best Wolves player – Cunha (or that cunt that tried to strangle Havertz).

Most annoying Artetaism – that stupid fucking high to low hand gesture like he’s thumping a table too high for him.

Oddest moment – Stuivenberg singing North London Forever while his best mate sat there stony faced.

In other news, County also won their second game and sit atop the Cymru PL. Another win up north against good opponents (Caernarfon by 2 goals to one). Early days but they’re looking really strong at the moment and I’m delighted. Cardiff, on the other hand are winless and bottom.

Why do I have a horrible feeling that we’re going to see Sterling being signed on stupid money with a fee no one else would be stupid enough to pay?

Pep’s approach – we need to make sure players are fit and fresh its going to be a long season.

Shit for Brains – run the fuckers into the ground on the first day of the season.

Tony—IIkay’s a crafty midfielder at times and has a knack for scoring goals when it matters most, but I find that he can likewise disappear a bit too often…he’s the perfect January window pick-up, especially if he’s not getting enough minutes just prior, as he’s a chip on his shoulder kind of performer…he’s a much better 8 than Rice or Merino, but I very much doubt our little project manager would bring in an 8 who’s skillset is far more geared to the offensive end of the pitch, thus the reason why Rice, plus Xhaka and Havertz, have been chosen ahead of the now-departed ESR…he actually chose Jorginho, on a couple occasions, even when ESR was fit/available to play…that said, it’s hard to ignore the City connection, as our thirsty little muppet loves him some sloppy seconds

just watched the Brentford/Palace clash…decent flow, unlike most of the matches thus far, but I’m sure the outcome will have many Palace fans on edge, as expectations are unusually high…always been a fan of Mbeumo, as he’s a deceptively pacey forward with goals in his boots…he’s someone I would gladly have as a cover piece for Saka…meanwhile, Eze’s clearly trying to put himself in the store window, as there were times when he acted as if he was the only player in a yellow kit on the fucking pitch…he did provide some noteworthy contributions, the best of which was a blistering free kick from distance that was disallowed, but he was also incredibly selfish with the ball at his feet…there were two times when he should have supplied service to an unmarked Mitchell in the box, which likely would have seen them heading home with at least a point…btw that Mitchell was rather impressive today, as he was forever finding open space in what should have been the tightest of quarters…Eze has undoubtedly had his head turned a bit, the question is who has done the turning,,,methinks City might be the most likely suspect

Will catch up later with posts but hoping for a draw City and Chavs. Dropping 2 points each works for me.

Marc—like yourself, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sterling was brought in, regardless of his ridiculous wages and inconsistent form…another sloppy seconds reach by a man who can’t seem to avoid those who’ve been discarded by Chelsea or City, let alone both…MA knows full-well that Chelsea needs to trim the fat before the window closes, so he might actually see this as the shrewdest of maneuvers…I would much rather our managerial/administrative wings actually do what their being handsomely rewarded for and get us some top-side help that makes infinitely more sense…so far they’ve watched the Euros, thus the Calafiori and Merino connections, and prepared themselves for picking through Chelsea’s garbage cans again

TRVL

It really is so fucking likely its depressing.

On another note Chelsea don’t quite look like a team that knows exactly what its doing but with a new manager that’s not unreasonable. There’s some good players in the squad if Maresca can get it to click they’ve a good chance of top 4.

Thanks for your IIlkay thoughts we could do a lot worse, such as Merino and indeed Sterling or the tushy duck as the Thais call him.

Not good enough for Chavs to start should be the red flag to take notice of.

KP
Good post and on the money. Sounds like County are fun to follow at the moment long may it continue. What’s happened with Cardiff?

City vs Chelsea going on ,2nd half. Came in late. But the way City is playing with quick and complex interplay , there is no way ,they are not winning it.
Chelsea seems to have bought better this time unlike earlier Bowley misadventures

Cucurela gamble to play a partridge shot dead backfired. Poch just took him off presuming badly damaged. Lol
By the way he was slowing their game. Cucurela would be an ideal ElB player running non stop without a purpose , looking busy and ” full effort to not much purpose”
City 2-0 with a Kovacic run and strike

Chelsea has a few serious issues that can’t be quickly remedied…first and foremost, Enzo Fernandez…he’s a bang average midfielder, who’s not savvy enough to play deep and not skilled enough to be further up the pitch…not to mention, his off-season viral mishap could wreak more havoc in that jam-packed locker room if he doesn’t get off to a good start…secondly, a bloated roster…until this week they had 8 Keepers and 18 midfielders on staff, which are actually the least of their concerns…they need to quickly settle on 14 or 15 regular starting options or they will continue to struggle for form

I don’t know enough about their super-sized Pep doppleganger of a manager, but it appears as if he wields enough clout to healthy scratch Sterling, seemingly without any forewarning, as RS played regularly in the build-up to the season…we’ll see how long that lasts, as Poch was of a similar mindset at the start of last season

that said, if they can clear some of their “deadwood” in the next couple of weeks, they might make a serious run at a top Striker, which could prove vital, as there’s a shitload of talent under contract…Jackson’s incredibly industrious and will never leave you wanting for effort, but his end product and sloppy in-game decision-making are a level or two below the standard required…that’s the reason why they were so eager to sell us a gangly man with a very similar profile last summer…not sure who I would take, if given the choice…likely Jackson, as he was considerably cheaper, so he has a viable resale value, and he’s on 1/5th the wages…plus, with his body type you might be able to use him as a cover piece out wide on occasion

looks like Verona has replaced Sassuolo as the hidden gem scouting capital of Italy…we should always be looking to exploit those clubs with a Bloom-like eye for talent, then we wouldn’t have to waste so much time and money trying to “develop” then wrongly defend MA’s longshot shit recruitment options

City did what they usually do, they won without being pressed too much…there was a 10-12 minute period when they invited pressure, but at least they were always looking for a way to counter with pace…Savinho looked okay for the first 45, but he was rightly replaced by Foden for the second-half…it was the first time I think I’ve ever seen Pep deploy a left-footer on the left and a right-footer on the right, which wasn’t the case once Phil came on and Doku went back to his preferred side…I’m assuming the plan was to run their offence exclusively through Haaland, as niether wide-side player was ever going to be totally effective cutting inside on their off-foot

if Doku doesn’t becomes exceedingly more clinical in the box, he will struggle to keep his starting gig…with that profile in mind, how was he never on the top of one of MA’s recruitment wishlists…actually he’s much better than those now on loan or benchwarming coin toss hacks…all that said, City’s certainly not some mythical juggernaut that can’t be beat, especially if you’re tactically astute and brave…that’s why we need a special player or two up top, as hopefully their innate courage will offset MA’s cowardly inklings

Hi Tony
I’m not panicking about Cardiff yet…

Burnley have morphed into a cross between Norwich and West Brom. A yo-yo team too good for the championship and way too shit for the PL. Leeds, Southampton or Sheff Utd on steroids.

They also lost to Scumderland (a miserable place set alight by it’s own burghers recently – work that out) caught cold and unable to score. Weirdly, they so far have the highest average possession after 2 games but are pointless. Not fatal but they need to look good against Swansea this weekend.

KP
Maybe Cardiff are due a purple patch soon.

TRVL
Hard to add to your thoughts here, some interesting thoughts you added.

Hoopah
I fancied Cucurela before he went to the Chavs as TRVL says he was perfect for us and could do a bit of inverted stuff if required.

He’s the kind of tenacious pitbull that gives no quarter that forwards and wingers hate.

Will be a good dual with Saka this season.

Would have saved us zinchenko and Kiwior at least.

Spurs… The gift that keeps on giving. Only watched the first half. Leicester were dismal and shdve been 3 down at half time.

I read an article today regarding the potential “winners and losers” should we finally get Merino over the line….most of it was Captain Obvious nonsense, but it did have one interesting take that resonated with me…the author contends that Marts would benefit most from this particular hiring, which might be a bit of a stretch as I’m not totally convinced that he’ll even be a regular starter in the short or long-term

since Xhaka’s last and by far his best season, MA has largely ignored the left side of the pitch…with an inverted backer being deployed, more often than not, along with either an underwhelming Havertz or a late-arriving Rice in the 8 hole, Marts has been woefully ignored,,,left on an island and facing regular double-teams, Marts was little more than a decoy to draw defenders away from the other 2/3rds of the final third…now to be fair, he didn’t help himself by squandering a few too many of his opportunities, even though they were fewer and further between than the year prior, but I can’t help but think that his output would have been considerably different if our attack was even a tad more balanced…I guess only time will tell

KP—I watched the vast majority of that Spurs/LC affair…classic case of just what can happen when you don’t take your chances…LC grew a pair in the second half, committed to their press, which provided Vardy with two grade A chances…a few years back he would have potted both, but the new-old version could only convert one, which was enough to secure them a draw…LC needs all the points they can get in order to have any chance of staying up, as it’s almost a foregone conclusion that they will face some sort points reduction punishment for violations that occurred during their relegation season…based on what I witnessed we should be getting maximum points against both these sides

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