A literal meaning would say – Enjoy yourself while you have the chance, but it applies to the current state of Arsenal. If you are one of the miserable souls who has seen too much of mediocrity at Arsenal Football Club that sitting 5 points ahead of Manchester City led by one of the best managers ever, is not enough to hope for a title push then my friend you need to have better expectations.
More than one-third of season is over, we were playing some sublime football before the world cup and sitting on top of the table. If you say we will drop points, so will City. If you say we will be plagued by injuries, so will City.
And if you decide to bring Haaland into the conversation, I would say we have a January window coming and with Jesus out for couple of months (hopefully he will return before that), let us bring in someone who can give us what Jesus gave… and some more.
Our next 3 games are winnable, West Ham (H), Brighton (A), New Castle (H). Hopefully our players won’t be hungover from World Cup and continue with the performance. Win these 3 and we go in confidence at Sh*te Hart Lane and that’s winnable too. Say what you want, but the players have been brilliant and we have a manager in his 4th season having replaced everyone except Xhaka.
Lets do it, stars have aligned so far. Jesus injury is a concern but we can get a competition if Eddie can’t do the job. 3 strikers are not too much, we are going to qualify for Champions League anyway and I don’t see Jesus playing mid-week against better opponents alongside Premier League. 2 games a week among 3 players is okay, Balogun can wait.
Ornstein has reported that we are pretty much in conversation for 21-year old winger – Mykhaylo Mudryk. We have been looking for these kind of profiles from last couple of seasons and are in a better situation that we were in Ozil-era. I don’t mind it but hey, we need a striker first. We have enough cover on wings, ESR is coming back who can play if needed. If you have money, get a Partey competition and a CF. If you want to add Mbappe I have absolutely no problem but lets not make a Ben White of situation at Wings.
My consolation to English fans, it must have been hard but that’s football. Portugal is out, so the Cristiano v Messi final dream dies. I will love to see Messi lifting it, just because the legend deserves it. Hopefully you enjoy the semi-finals and finals and I will have enough time to keep LiR running.
Have a nice day! Lets keep our expectations high and hope higher. This late-Wenger defeatist mentality needs to go away, there is always the next season but you can only win this year for now.
I’m no Latin scholar obviously… I thought it meant seize the carp! 🐟
Victoria Concordia Crescit. Sic Transit Gloria (her travel sickness in the back of vans is legendary). Audere et Facere (which means Spurs = dogshit) and finally tempus fugit (time flies which I hope is what’s going to happen between now and when we play those Irons. I’ll shut up now and read the article.
The uncertainty about the length of the messiah’s absence provides Tets with a massive dilemma.
Can he trust Eddie to provide BAU? Can he tweak the system so that we’re still as potent and effective up front without Jesus? Can Flo be brought back early from France in order to keep Eddie Unket hungry and needing to keep his place? Can G-Mart do the business at CF? Is there a role for Biereth, Miller or Tyreece J-J in the cup games? Do we want to spunk a massive amount of money on a CF and run the risk of alienating him or Jesus when the latter has recovered?
I bet the basque bantamweight’s sphincter is squeaking at a high enough frequency to blow out all the windows at London Colney right now.
In any case, Mudryk seems to be a low priority. The most worrying gap remains in MF of course, as we’ve been saying since about 2015. Good piece Ambarish – the real stuff is about to resume and Tets is facing a serious watershed moment. We’ll not have a better chance of returning to the top table for years. Ultimately, I’d replace Jesus and face the consequences of having two stars to manage in one position. We don’t need Mudryk at the moment. And I don’t think we should miss out on Danilo. Just a hunch.
Who? Call me an old sentimentalist but I’d try to get Gnabry back. I love the guy and I reckon he’d fit back in like a glove. Or Thuram if he wants someone bigger. But amateur scout I ain’t unlike some of those twats on LG.
Kroenke
Arteta won’t be in the slightest bit bothered about Jesus – it gives him an excuse to fail. The fans expectations have rocketed (personally I’m not sure its warranted) from top 4 to a serious title challenge.
I finish up from work for Christmas on Friday. I’m going to do a quick breakdown of our league results so far, it’ll be interest to see what you guys make of my take – it also keeps a bit of banter going during the dark days of no football!
The simple truth is if Nketiah isn’t good enough to cover a small run of games then A) he shouldn’t have been given a big new contract and B) we should have brought someone in as real competition / backup.
Morning lads.
Spot one KP and Marc. Before I was binned I posted Jesus wasn’t our savior. He would get goals but not from the red zone he lives in with Arteta’s overuse.
I saw Jesus as Laca’s replacement to be more industrial from mid field to attack, but he can’t be in 2 places at once. The more tired Jesus got the more misses of almost but not quite where a fitter fresher Jesus would have been converting such chances.
We got a CF/AM and at times just supporting Party because Xhaka has gone walk about in the final 3rd. Running is not his jam as junior would say. To slow things down further Saka is always double teamed with a 3rd defender lurking. This is only going to get worse where sake will take a lot of punishment.
I’d buy any of the Moroccan midfielders in a heartbeat. To keep familiar synchronicity I’d take a punt on the gravity defying striker who would do well in basketball.
If ESR is fit he should play close to Saka with Sake interchanging with Martinelli. ESR has to fill in the deeper roles Jesus occupied and Saka or Martinelli can slip into the false 9 if we don’t buy a ST replacement.
It’s like a season start but with us being 5 points clear. We have one big injury and none of our players have been overused, so really have had time to recuperate. The rest of the squad have had warm training and friendlies, so every PL team will be refreshed and raring to go.
13 days to real football and what Arteta is going to do next or rather what he is forced to do next because he never fixed the midfield. Much of Arteta’s plans will depend of whether KSE want to win the title enough?
We’ll know in 6 weeks.
Ambarish If I were you, I’d keep away from Reddit and similar.
Toxicity slowly wears people down. You’re young and sound ambitious so channel your positive energies into 2 parts: energy you can share with friends and wife (not wives, right? 🙂 ) and set tougher goals for your business through better learning of your market place and more effective marketing.
Effective Time Management is the most important tool for a business man. I think we’d agree Reddit is not a positive effective energy.
Be safe and well all.
Shakhtar director Srna: “Who wants to sign Mudryk has to pay big amount of money — otherwise our president will not sell him”, tells Marca. 🚨🇺🇦 #AFC #transfers
“Jack Grealish was sold for more than 100m and Mudryk’s level is not lower”, he added.
Fab reporting Shakhtar wants more than 100m. Bollocks.
By that rate, Saka and Martinelli would cost around 300m I’m sure.
Class post Ambarish. At this level fit for DoF at Arsenal . I have not read such good stuff from the Blogmasters for quite some time
A good riposte by China1 on some other place
“ This whole thing about average age of PL winners being 28 is a complete misnomer because it’s being used to justify why we needn’t challenge for years The reason why it’s a misnomer is that P₹&@#% you constantly remind us that the target should be to have a young team. And that once these players start to get to the mid-late 20s we should have a revolving door of new hungry young players coming through But how do we ever reach the golden title winning age of 28 whilst having a revolving door of young talent? It’s logically impossible. You either have to accept that we can win the league younger (entirely possible, let’s stop playing down expectations that we can’t win the league for another 5 years…) Or you can stop with the line that we need to be a constant supply of young talent because said players will keep our average age forever low and according to your logic, titles forever out of reach.Nobody should expect us to win the league this year, whether or not we get close remains to be seen. But there’s no excuse for not challenging next season. We have 85% of the squad needed. We only need icing on the cake signings from here. If we don’t win the league next season we need to use critical thinking to understand why, not just wheel out the ‘but young’ line which doesn’t add any particular value.It’s the same logic that was used to write off saliba. ‘Name one other 20 year old CB who could make it in the PL!’ ‘CBs don’t begin to mature until 23+’ ‘there are no 20 year old CBs who are taken seriously at this level’We heard it all over and over as an excuse to not play him rather than just looking at the player and noticing at 20 he was already better than 80% of CBs in the top leagues and by 21 better than 90%. Age had very little to do with salibas progress in the end. It was a barrier in people’s minds, not in the player. If we can manage to break 80 points this season with our young team then I don’t want to hear any nonsense about how we can’t compete next year because the team is still young. If you can break 80 points you’re starting to get close to what is needed and only a few cherry on the top players can be enough to make the leap “
Hoopah,
Couldn’t agree more with the comment. It’s like as if we are trying to find a reason for failures.
And we have anything but failed till now. And it’s more one-third of the season where we have already played some big games. People already have reasons for a loss against New Castle. I mean wtf really?
That Nelson touch was outrageous. Milan is testing our back 4 of White, Holding, Gabriel and Tierney.
Partey is looking off till now.
Not bothering to pay to watch the match. Half-arsed friendlies represent a bridge too far. I see Ode has scored though.
Hoopah and Ambarish
Good stuff lads. I love reading your outputs and agree about those idiotic naysayers. We used to be a club that enjoyed taking the fight to other teams and confounded others’ expectations in the process. May 89 was a perfect example of the club fighting and prevailing when it had no right to. As was beating Parma in 94. These kinds of results set us apart from other contenders. That’s why we all owe a huge debt of gratitude to GG. He made us proud again and restored our reputation near the top.
It’s all the wankers on LG who erroneously think of themselves as superfans yet at the same time always run the team (but never Tets – that wouldn’t do) down. Shit like, Palace are a great team (ffs) – we’ll be lucky to take a point. The only teams we should really be wary of in the PL are the 4 or 5 usual suspects.
Be good to get your quick thoughts post game.
2nd goal by Argentina really great – little bit of luck how the ball fell but sometimes you make your own luck.
Ambarish wouldn’t be a distant relative would he now?
“Mukesh Ambani would reportedly prefer to buy Arsenal instead of Manchester United or Liverpool.”
Brazil’s WC exit has opened the door perhaps for a change at AFC. Titi is resigning as he announced that before the WC started. Brazil have no competent manager a.t.m. and have never had a foreign manager, so Edu to the rescue 😆
After M.U. have knocked out Barca in the qualification rounds for the last 16 in the EL, Xavi will be replaced by Diet Pep at Barca. Unfortunately this would have been perfect while Ten Hag and Overmars where still available, but it could be that after this season is over some changes may take place at Arsenal’s top echelon.
China1 always on the money in LG and doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
I’ve always felt GG has been out greatest modern day best Arsenal manager, on a shoe string budget and sadly paid the price for what most managers were allegedly practicing. If you compare GG and Wenger like for like using GG’s time as manager and same Wenger early record cups & title, GG won a Euro cup something Wenger couldn’t manager ever.
Both had similar local cups and title wins. It’s the Euro cup that puts GG ahead of Wenger for me and the way he shaped the best & meanest back 4 in modern history that Wenger inherited.
There’s no question Wenger was a visionary in his first 8 to 10 years, but the visionary stopped after every club realised that 10 pints of best bitter then a curry on the night before a match was a bit of a problem during the games. The funny thing is the Italians, Germans, Spanish and French then took things to new levels leaving the UK and Wenger behind until the billionaires bought PL clubs. Then the higher level clubs with fitness and speed and being treated more with the latest sport’s science to have advantage for clubs using latest scientific improvements with fitness and diets.
From around 2008 Wenger was looking after himself being more important than the club for the next 11 years until the fans said enough and Wenger crushed his legacy and left the club in a poor state.
Only saw the highlights lights of Argentina v Croatia but Messi deservedly is in the final, which I hope France and Mbappe also beat Morocco tonight.
I’ve said for a while now I see Messi winning the WC on his last chance. We’ll find out soon enough.
I wanted a Mbappe v Messi final with Messi fittingly lifting the World Cup aloft to complete his GOAT’s journey into football folklore with Pele, Eusebio, Cruyff and others of the elitist if the elite.
Finally, a game not on at 2am for us here. The final is 10pm Sunday, so good for Junior and me.
Killroy
Seems like his son wore an Arsenal jersey and then media houses ‘assumed’ he is buying Arsenal. Piece of shit reporting, as usual :’)
I do hope though Ambani’s buy anything for that matter. It will promote football here and at this stage I’m okay if they buy even Liverpool.
Tony
I’m with you. Messi ❤️