Carpe diem!

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 ❤️

Piers Morgan going crazy against Messi, putting him behind Cr7, Maradona, R9 and Messi.

I would have been happy if R9 was the first but eh CR7 the goat? Nope.

R9 for me. Messi second. Every time.

This is because I have never seen a Maradona game.

Ambarish
Not to put too fine a point on it, Piers Morgan is an ignorant cunt. If you wanted some advice on how to phone hack the parents of a young girl who was brutally abused and murdered by a psychopath, that’s when it would be prudent seek Morgan’s advice (because that’s exactly what he did when Editor of the Daily Mirror). But for anything to do with football I’d seriously recommend you ignore him; he’s a public school tosser who’s never played the game, let alone understands it. He is a stain on British society.

If you want to see a Maradona game when he’s in full flow, it’s the one against England in the Azteca in 86. He’s at his skillful best and his cheating worst, all in one half of football. I know a person’s character is not a conventional criterion when deciding on a player’s ranking as a GOAT but he’s a level 6 shitbag exemplified by his behaviour when he got back to Buenos Aires from playing in Italy. Drugs, violence, threatening people and living above the law – not for me.

KP

Yep, he is. And he flaunts it too haha

I would see if I can find the Maradona game but I do know about the hand of god and his influenced life. May be great at football but not the role model you want your kid to be.
Cr7 and Messi can be looked forward too.

R9 was just crazy. Ronaldinho was another one.

Who do you pick for goat?

Search for Maradona dominating the best AC Milan game for another display of his skills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2H-QkNYi09w&ab_channel=MatigolVidz

Watch this 3 minute discussion by Lineker on BT Sports. The reference he makes to kicking the ball you get some idea by searching for Maradona pre game preparation. Don’t have the link for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKIFPaR_ZIo&ab_channel=BTSport

Hi Ambarish
Everyone on here will call me a wanker for saying so, but I think Dennis Bergkamp is at least in that discussion about GOATs. I’m old enough (just!) to remember Pele and that 1970 Brazil team who to me were the clearest winners of a WC. A few years later, John Cruyff lit up European football (and then gained added credentials as a manager). Of the current crop, its clearly Messi but its only opinions. I listened to a journalist based in Argentina who used a Spanish term to describe him that I hadn’t heard in years. Pecho frio, or cold chest, ie an aloof, cold hearted character who seldom hugged people warmly. Just about sums him up. Got any special plans for watching the game? I doubt I’ll bother. Cardiff is playing Blackpool on Saturday – I’m hoping to see Patino up close.

Kroenke

No one’s going to call you a wanker for that – plenty of other times but not on that one!

I’m actually a bit of a killjoy on this type of subject I don’t think you can compare footballers from massively different era’s – the truth is all the players mentioned are / were fantastic.

We’ve been lucky to see 2 hugely talented players in Ronaldo and Messi at the same time – it’d just be easier to stomach Ronaldo if he wasn’t such a complete tosser.

The friendly between Juve and Arsenal is free to watch with English commentary on the Juve streaming website for all those living outside the UK and Italy, OR those who have a VPN. Registered with a throwaway email address for the match 13:00 EST or 18:00 GMT this Saturday.

https://www.juventus.com/en/news/articles/arsenal-juventus-live-free-on-jtv

K’Phobe I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to imagine you in such an act unless it was for a motility test. Others may disagree, but they’d be the shallow or wierd types. Pedro on the other hand is a different matter. I honestly thought it was his middle name, it was used so much.

In other less wanking news Arteta is in for Isco. In decades gone by made famous by Zola ay the Chavs an Italian name being added to the team did in fact mean the dropping of many trousers and grabbing for socks. I refrained, of course, because I only had one pair of socks with holes in them.

Remember when Arteta wanted to sell Emi and did, well the little Spanish fcuker is at it again.

He wants to do a swap Vlahovic for LCB Gabs with Juve. Juve are particularly keen because Gabs has had a good season thus far, and is improving obliviously to Arteta. 16 goals and 4 assists are decent for Vlahovic in an Italian farmers league not at the WC is decent return for Juve.

Wait until Arteta explains Vlahovic has to do what Jesus did to help out MF because we can’t afford one while buying defenders we didn’t need, and a CF who will take the rest of the season to catch up to the PL pace and pacy CDs who like to kick Achilles heels whenever the refs and cameras aren’t looking.

That will leave us with perma croc Tomi at RB and Cedric behind him. Then we’ll have the aerially challenged White at RCB, Holdingho at LCB and either perma croc KT or our other perma croc Zinchenko at LB & God forbid Xhaka the perma cnut.

So, we’ll have Vlahovic at CF while Jesus is repairing, then perma croc Partey and back to the W word again wandering Xhaka because he can’t run. His slowness catches defenders out as they tear past him looking back where Xhaka’s trusty left peg misses 8/10 but does score 2.

It was the same down our end Xhaka would be responsible for at least 2 goals by Xmas.

Genius decision that Arteta converting Xhaka’s goals in for ‘for’ column. Hopefully, ESR will edge Xhaka to the bench and remain fit & healthy. Sadly for now he’s on the perma croc list.

Up top we have the indestructibles’ in Saka, Martinelli and Eddie, now Jesus is well er crocked. Not on the perma list just yet, but give it time.

At least all the perms crocs are in the first 11 and played into the red constantly. Have to give Arteta credit for getting his pound of flesh – literally of course.

Going to be some cold legs when they get back for Boxing Day. Will seem like playing in a cryogen field where out perma crocs will be as feverously nervous as turkeys on earlier Xmas eve. Once good crunch on frozen bones that have been honed in warm weather are likely to do something not good.

We run out of gas and have all season. I’d have thought the smart thing to do would be go to to say Denver and do high altitude training then our lads could come back and do their Duracell Bunnies bit on the pitch. To be clear Xhaka would NOT be able to run faster. Longer? Certainly, just not faster unless he was going down hill.

For all my facetiousness we do have too many crocs in out first 11. Arteta can go forth and fornicate regarding selling Gabs for Vlahovic. Pay for the fcuker.

It’s like at the last supper Jesus said I will turn this water into wine, and Peter replied fcuk off you tight cnut and put your money in the whip round like the rest of us. 🙂

The oldies are best.

Maybe not watching the WC was a bad thing judging by this post, and I’m suffering wanting to know the end of our season’s story with perm crocs FC AKA The Arsenal with resumption on the 26th or 10 feverish days excluding the WCF.

Thailand doesn’t do Xmas it only makes money out of it. New Year is a 4-day partying event.

Enjoy the weekend, lads, and I’ll see whoever’s here for the final on Sunday for the concluding part of Mbappe v Messi.

Marc and Tony
Cheers lads – I think! 🙂

I should have said Saliba instead of Holdingho so White is cover for RB & RCB.

Whatever way you look at our situation, we are in a similar situation to last season with no lessons learnt. Robbing Peter to Pay Paul scenario.

I have no idea how Arteta is going to play it at this point, so I’ve pointed out our weak areas for which there are many through lack of credible bench players with good experience that’s solely an Arteta problem, especially giving game time.

Same every season.

KP, I laughed when I read it back: nah not even motility. ): 🙂 🙂 Note to self less inhaling before posting. 🙂

Tony

If the story’s are true about selling Gabriel that perfectly fits in with Arteta’s previous behaviour.

He spent a fortune on White when we didn’t need to so now he has to find a way to keep him in the team, he’s not all that at RB, Saliba’s too good to drop so sell the Gab make it look like it was a strategic move and bingo.

All the while we’ve got a CM of Party (injury prone) and Xhaka.

It’s going to be hard work reminding the fanboys how they were talking about a title challenge when it all goes south (again!) and top 4’s in the balance.

Sad but true, Marc. Just get a loan striker/winger and finally sort the midfield out.

It’s not rocket science.

I have no idea as top tonight’s outcome. Weagle and Tom on LG going head to head with sensible points regarding each teams’ strengths.

For sentimental reasons I believe Messi has given the game far more than any French player facing the Argentines’ this afternoon. Mbappe will get to play in at least 2 to 3 more World Cups, so I’d like it to go to Messi and Argentina.

I like Mbappe and understand his age and and prodigious talent with the way he handles it. CR7 is gone and Messi is fading, so now the press have their poster boy to keep tearing down at every opportunity, such is the price of selling sports news.

I’ll tell you this much no Gooner would say no to Mbappe joining us.

3:2 to Argentina is my holding-a-wet-finger-to-the-wind of my office fan prediction.

Juve kicked our ass at the Emirates with 12 youth players in their squad. Nelson was having a good game from the reports before going off with a thigh strain. Let’s hope it’s nothing serious. We don’t need more injuries to our already short list of forwards.

The result isn’t the end of the world, but for a PL summit sitting side losing just before resumption of the PL next weekend is far from ideal.

Still, friendlies are to sharpen teams up and with The Hammers playing us at home, it should be a no brainier. Shouldn’t it?

Hi Tony
Changing tack, I’m thoroughly fucking sick of going to watch games where the refs are so poor/ biased that they ruin it as a spectacle and sporting encounter.

Cardiff mullah’ed Blackpool for nearly 80 minutes yesterday despite only scoring a single goal. Game ended 1-1 which is laughable. The ref gave nothing to Cardiff’s forwards despite bring wrestled to the ground, and dragged down in the area a couple of times.

I think it’s in everyone’s psyche now that the break up of the UK is inevitable meaning that Wales, Scotland and N Ireland are seen as separate nationalities from Ingerland.

So what do we see at Cardiff every time they play at home? An Ingerlish ref officiating an Ingerlish team bravely (!) playing behind enemy lines in Wales where fans are lippy and spiky in equal measure thanks to years of footballing bias. It’s a fucking shit show. Imagine if tonight’s ref was French or Argentine? It’s not that different. I lost the plot in the second half and still feel cheated. It’s getting to the point where its no longer worth watching. The cunty refs have ground me down. The 100 (yes really) Blackpool fans who bothered to turn up and watch their sinking team must’ve thought Ingerlish Xmas had come early. Its staggering. Cardiff have probably played nearly 20 games this season and I can think of only one (Wigan away) whee it seemed like we got a fair deal from the twats in black.

And what of Senor Patino I hear you ask? He had a great start to the season and is clearly relied upon in the middle of MF. But he looked lethargic and a bit disinterested if you ask me. Some decent runs but his passing was ordinary. Looked like he was going through the motions.

Fucking Ingerlish refs. Pricks!

That was the softest penalty ever, of coursebharder than blowing air today tople Diaria. The way Messi is playing dirty, appears he knows the ref is his fan.

It was soft, shouldn’t have been given. But the second goal was brilliant.

Messi scoring one and assisting another… who would have thought

Mistake France is making is they wait for thevpass to teach them while Argentina mose to intercept their passes. Should be more proactive. In this Mbappé is an absolute prima Donna. So is absolute passenger

Ambarish
Spot on

I think this will settle the goat debate. I am taking the piss out of my United & Ronaldo fans lol