A very happy new year to you and your family. Hope the year brings a trophy or two for us Arsenal fans. Also, I am at my hometown and the cold win is reminding me of those London days. I can’t get away from it, can I.
We are half way through the season with 45 points, sitting at the top in Premier League. Man City were closing up but Sunderland, led by the mighty Granit Xhaka, decided to help us a bit by restricting Pep’s side to a goalless draw.
Chelsea fans were pretty excited, claiming they would win this season with Enzo Maresca, but the club has sacked him already. Maresca’s most cherishing moment of the season would be a 1-1 draw against Arsenal with 10 men, lol. Liverpool are 12 points behind, so they aren’t catching up anytime soon and Aston Villa will do a ‘Emery’ eventually, probably already started with the 4-1 loss to us. Injuries aren’t helping them though.
So, yeah, the second half of the season is a race between Arsenal and Man City. With our involvements in Champions League, Carabao Cup and FA cup, and the injury list growing, Mikel has some tough days ahead but he has spent about a billion GBP to build up two 2 playing XIs with enough back ups / rotation options in each place. We have preferred players in the name of versatility and it will be tested.
We start the year with a game against Bournemouth today away from home. Last season, they beat us both home and away, denied us of 6 important points, started our downfall from the top spot. We shouldn’t forget that, and we I hope the players have some anger about it in them. 5-0 minimum can fix it.
In the team news, both Calafiori and Mosquera are still not available. Rice will be checked before the game. Gabriel is back, MLS can cover the LB position and we have Zubimendi doing the dirty work in midfield these days. We have 5 days before the next game against Liverpool, so we should be okay and can risk everyone available.
See you during the game.
Wigan away in the next round. 🙏
Kroenkephobe
Fratton Park is very similar to Highbury.
A tight little stadium built among the Victorian terraced houses.
They may have lost today but they still have a real authentic club to support going forward.
We lost ours a long long fucking time ago, unfortunately.
Yeah agreed. There’s a unique atmosphere at Fratton and the surrounding area. Being on an island makes it even stranger.
Meanwhile, Manure are losing…
What a fucking mess ManU are – 2 nil down and going out of the Cup.
Their squads a mess, the stadium needs rebuilding and they’ve been through how many managers since Fergie left?
Outside of a brilliant move for an under the radar manager along the lines of Wenger when he joined us who can revitalise existing players and pick up some gems for low fees I can’t see a way out for them at the moment.
Whilst I’m sure we all find it very amusing it should be taken as a lesson on not letting things slip on so many fronts because it could happen to any club.
Marc—agreed…it’s why our club will never axe MA until the results dropoff, regardless of his silverware tally…it reminds me of a similar situation in the NFL, where the Green Bay Packers have a similarly arrogant and gutless coach/manager, who continually cocks things up when it matters most…problem is he gets the kind of results that are too enticing to simply discard without having what might be construed by most as a justified reason(s)…I get it because there’s plenty of examples where teams don’t get the replacement brief right and they get worse not better…I would say that if money is not the deciding factor, no one’s going to point the finger at ownership if they hire someone with the championship pedigree, like an Enrique or Klopp…unfortunately that’s not really our MO when it comes to our hiring practices
TRVL
“unfortunately that’s not really our MO when it comes to our hiring practices”
Letting a manager spend the sort of money Arteta has wasn’t even close to our MO – if you’re going to give a manager the very best tools / resources to do the job why wouldn’t you go for the very best in managers?
Can you imagine the fan base (Pedro doesn’t count!) response to us hiring Enrique? The talk about expanding the stadium would become a necessity – if we’re selling out with shit football and not winning things imagine the demand with great football and winning things.
I agree wholeheartedly…somehow we’ve rationalized massive spending sprees and paying our win-nothing manager top dollar, so in a way we doubled-down on an inherently flawed course of action…in a way it typifies our organizational model ever since the ribbon was cut at the Emirates, as we’ve never done everything within our means to ensure the greatest chance of achieving greatness…it’s as if we’re infintely more enamored with the chase than the catch
If we were sitting in 5/6/7/8 in the league , were struggling to qualify for the next stage in the champions league and were out of the domestic cup competitions , then I would say that TRVL is making some valid points , but as we are sitting top of the Premier league and Europe , in the semis of the league cup and 4th round fa cup , then for TRVL to say
” as we’ve never done everything within our means to ensure the greatest chance of achieving greatness…it’s as if we’re infintely more enamored with the chase than the catch” is a comment of such stupidity as the position Arsenal football club finds itself at this present time is the opposite to what he implies, in fact it is ironic that he and his cronies complain about the club’s spending whilst at the same time saying “we’ve never done everything within our means to ensure the greatest chance of achieving greatness” , the fact is that the huge outlay has helped us have the strongest squad in Europe which has put the club in such a healthy position both here and abroad..
And to say ” it’s as if we’re infintely more enamored with the chase than the catch” doesn’t make sense as it is our opponents who are trying to “catch” Arsenal.
I get that you are very bitter that the club has continued to support Arteta despite only being the 2nd best team in the land for the previous 3 seasons, but you really do need to start using your brain and try not let your bitterness blind you to what is happening at the club.
From 1998 to 2001 , like Arteta, Wenger finished 2nd for 3 consecutive seasons , imagine what the Arsenal fans would have missed out on if the Arsenal board had listened to the likes of you back then, yes the football was more exciting , open and expansive but back then we had Bergkamp and Henry (amongst others) , nowadays there isn’t that quality up front….yet , but what I will say is don’t be surprised to see Arteta go after the likes of mbappe or yamal, but first to be able to convince that type of quality to come to the club we need to win big trophies, I don’t think the finance will be a problem as a successful club will accumulate fortunes.
Marc
“Outside of a brilliant move for an under the radar manager along the lines of Wenger when he joined us who can revitalise existing players and pick up some gems for low fees I can’t see a way out for them at the moment.
Whilst I’m sure we all find it very amusing it should be taken as a lesson on not letting things slip on so many fronts because it could happen to any club.”
Exactly, and it could have happened to The Arsenal if we had sacked Arteta after a couple of years and then employed the likes of van goal, ten haag, mourinho etc .
Instead the Arsenal board kept their nerve and have been rewarded for it as we watch the chasing clubs sack their manager every 12 months despite spending as much or more than Arteta, will slot survive , will pep leave at the end of the season as he sees his domination of the Premier league diminish, we have united, Tottenham and Chelsea who are a mile behind Arsenal , they are the one’s playing catch up , the fact is that if we do go on to win a trophy or 2 this season we will be the envy of every fan who can see that we have finally got our shit right as the cycle of success comes our way ….hopefully!
Scrote
And what exactly has the cunt won in all these years?
Wicksy
“From 1998 to 2001”
Wenger bookended that period with 2 doubles you idiot. Arteta’s done fuck all.
Mikel Merino,’s superb performance at the weekend appears to have gone under the radar , he was total class from start to finish so don’t be surprised to see him as a regular starter along with kai Havertz , who’s brief appearance at the weekend highlighted the night and day difference between him and gyokeres.
Scrote
Fuck Merino.
Fuck Havertz.
Two big lumps of shit.
Get Alonso in and play real football.
Wicksy
So which of our midfielders are you going to drop to accommodate Merino.
Out of interest if your logic is correct shouldn’t Martinelli be starting ahead of Trossard or any of our other candidates for the left attacking position in the PL based on his performance yesterday?
We’ll get into how moronic it is to suggest a players performance against a team struggling in the Championship is enough to earn him a starting place in the team for PL matches later.
Marc
You think Real Madrid will be knocking on our door to get The Cunt as their manager?
We only have one player that can put a ball on a sixpence from a deep position and that is Eze .
Very rarely do we see Eze pick the ball up deep inside our own half, but on the couple of occasions he’s found himself with the ball at his feet and in space he has hit inch perfect balls against the very top opposition to create goals for martinelli , this was against man city when we were 1-0 down and Bayern munich .
I think that Arteta is missing a trick with Eze , to have someone in the side who can hit this type of pass to open up a defence is invaluable, it is one of the hardest skills in the game to get right because it has to be inch perfect.
I’m not saying that Eze should play as our sitting midfielder but I do think that when one of the many teams that come and park the bus then why not try something different and tell Eze to drop really deep and start hitting them raking long balls over the top of the opposition defence instead of playing the usual side to side football which usually ends up with a cross into the box…
Art
I’ll pay for the cunts airfare if Madrid will take him on.
New post.