It’s Champions League night. A loss against Bournemouth was devastating and a win today will wash out a bit of that. We are playing Shakhtar Donetsk at home, and a win today will also bring us back in the top 8.
Playing XI is out. Mikel has fixed 2 of my complaints with whatever was available. Trossard makes into the midfield in place of Merino, so we are not going with three DMs today. Martinelli is back into the team with Havertz up top and Jesus in place of Saka. Sterling should be a ‘give him 15 min in a 2-0 game’ option, not a starter.
Line up looks okay to me.
European nights are always nervy. There are upsets but we should be winning against Shakhtar comfortably and I am hoping to see all 3 of our forwards scoring today. I hate to say it but a 1-0 win is not going to fix our confidence. We need the attacking football back today, we need to be in control for the whole 90 min, we need to show that we can win without making any errors.
And the seniors needs to take that responsibility. Trossard has played enough game, Jesus was brought for his huge experience and was believed to mentor the likes of Martinelli and Saka And Thomas Partey needs to keep control of that midfield. It’s Champions League night, couple years back – these same set of players were dreaming of these nights and when you got one, you need to show that with your actions.
Right, there is one more very important thing I have been talking about. We need to finish in top 8 of the group stage at any cost. I don’t want us to see playing 2 qualification games later in the stage.
It’s too early to say anything but there is some serious competition. And the fact that Bayern, Barcelona and Real Madrid are on the same points with us and are going to compete for the top is going to make our life difficult. What can we do? Win the easy ones and put fights against the best teams in Europe.
We have an easy one today. Lets go out in red and white and WIN this. Lets beat them 4-0 and get back our confidence.
See you during the match. #COYG
with this group out there we had better score 6 or 7
Not watching the match and haven’t seen the full lineup but can someone tell me what the fuck Havertz is doing on the pitch to score when he’s our main “striking” option?
This is why we burn out and we see players get so many injuries.
Saka got a couple of weeks rest because of an injury and looked dynamite against Liverpool – does Arteta not see it?
Maybe a little bit (just a tiny amount) of rotation would do us the world of good.
Wenger would have won tonight’s match 4-1 with the under 12 girls team.
decent watch…two things are clear from today’s affair, (1) MA’s clearly worried about our chances when it comes to the biggest trophies and (2) Ethan should have been playing far more, especially during Ode’s absence
Morning all found a replay of the game so had a quick flick through before reading comments here, which I agree with wholeheartedly.
Usual shit show selections by MA, risking players he didn’t need to, and not playing more youth when Nwaneri once again proves a point for his inclusion as a starter in our PL first 11s.
From Nwaneri’s first minutes last year we all saw the rough diamond that needed PL time to be polished and got virtually none.
The lack of said polishing was evident in Ethan’s first 20 minutes where he was well positionally aware, but took time to get settled by getting his quick feet being more balanced: we witnessed and early wayward shot leaning back with his first attempt on goal, and a wicked curler into the top corner beautifully flighted that you would expect Havertz to score, but can’t.
Havertz doesn’t have Nwaneri’s vision or unspoken magic in his boots.
When we investigate closer at Ethan’s stats, they make Havertz’s usual game stats look like a Sunday pub striker:
80 minutes
1 goal
2 shots on target
3 shots off target
98.2% pass accuracy rate
56 passes of which 55 were successful
2 tackles with 100% success rate
Far exceeds Havertz’s average PL minutes, which when you consider Timber had multiple opportunities to slip a simple ball inside to Ethan, but instead he chose to give the ball to the largely ineffective Sterling where I guess seniority rules here, no matter that Sterling has no business wearing an Arsenal shirt unless he’s in the stands or brought on to defend from the front, but really too slow to much.
Here’s why with Sterling’s stats:
90 minutes
3 shots on target
88.4% pass success rate
43 passes
38 successful passes
1 blocked shot
When you compare with Ethan’s 10 less minutes, then all sorts of negative questions come to mind re MA’s Nwaneri thought process or obvious lack of it. Had Ethan seen more of the ball from Timber, Zinchenko and Saliba, his stats would have been even better with maybe a 2nd goal.
I see Ethan as being the better option over Jorginho every time, as well.
As TRVL and others here have said Nwaneri is more than able to deputize for Ode, and move to 8 when Ode returns, it’s the drum I’ve been banging since Ode’s injury and well before.
Nwaneri is a natural AMF whether left center or right sided; the kid has something special in his boots that make him glide like Kanu, and a very high footballing IQ that, as a player is way above Arteta’s playing ability now at 19.
So, why is MA not starting Nwaneri when we can all see his abilities?
Why buy Havertz & Merino when Nwaneri is our next Saka plus ability player?
Has Nwaneri finally done enough for MA’s myopic, pet playing vision to see the obvious? I guess we’ll find pout at St James Park Saturday.
As a final thought our newbie Merino’s stats are not good either, and maybe why he was hooked off at half time?
45 minutes
22 passes
100% pass success rate
3 tackles made
2 successful tackles @ 67%
Compare to Ethan’s stats and one wonders why we bought Merino when Ethan is obviously the far better player?
Am I missing something here or are things only blatantly obvious to us here on LIR?
It was a good display against a very ordinary championship side. Too much left to luck but I think it was relatively injury free.
Nwaneri is 17. He seems to have been around a while and I had egg on my face when I told my kids he must be over 20 by now. What a superb goal. And Palace in the next round.
Thanks KP I’ll get the egg off my mush, too. He reminds me of Fabregas at 17, only I think he’ll be Fab 2.0++ and an improved version with a mix of Fab & Kanu football genes.
This kid excites me for the future, let’s hope we can keep him…..
Hi Tony
I watched Nwaneri quite closely during that win over Bolton in the previous round. His style of play is just like Odegaard’s in terms of his positioning and his use of the ball. He’s a terrific player.
New post.