Champions League night – Arsenal v Dinamo Zagreb

Hi Marc

Agreed. Never a good idea letting wankers mark their own homework. I’d prefer if the entire process was zipped somewhere over to the other side of the world where someone who was completely dispassionate about the PL made decisions solely based on the laws of the game and what the cameras showed.

Kroenke

If we’re agreeing on there being a problem – there’s a problem!

KP—very sensible commentary…knowing the abject levels of “distrust”, every decision they made should have been acutely informed by that notion….instead they tried to have their cake and eat it too…just another series of short-sighted decisions involving the League and it’s officials, which is exactly how they got into this mess in the first place…I would suspect that this also speaks to the level of distrust that exists between those two aforementioned groups or common sense would have undoubtedly prevailed by this point…it’s not as if there aren’t tried and tested alternatives out there

The manager and players deserve a lot of credit for the way they took the game to wolves in the 2nd half, they didn’t feel sorry for themselves and deserved the victory.
It does bring into question why we were so fragile earlier in the season when we had players sent off, the criticism of Arteta and the team were valid in that we allowed ourselves to be dominated by Brighton, city and Bournemouth when we went down to 10 men.
It was probably a case of shit or bust yesterday as anything other than 3 points would probably have ended our title bid.
Personally I don’t go along with the opinion that the title race is over, at the end of January last season Liverpool were 5 points clear at the top of the league and fell away alarmingly with the same group of players that they have this season.
We are at present on a run of 13 games unbeaten in the league , our problem have been too many draws and that’s why yesterday’s narrow win was so important.
We have put this unbeaten run in the league together without really hitting any highs in our performance level, we have been methodical rather than exciting and for Arsenal to put in a really serious challenge we really need to up our level and play with more freedom and expression to dominate the opposition, starting with the city game next weekend.

Morning all
The thing I love most about LIR is the intelligence in our posters’ writing. When we chat things through we normally make sense of what has happened with rational discourse that makes good reading and our thoughts often are reality.

My thoughts with the red card was why didn’t Oliver go look again on the pitch side monitor, then re-evaluate his decision. Everyone would have seen the same replays and probably come to the right decision to the letter of the law, where the transparency Madhu spoke of could have been seen by all. It’s never always 100% conclusive, but it’s all we have…….

If that decision is wrong then, the law needs changing or adding clarity to.

Next week’s game against City is a crucial one if we want to win the PL. We cannot drop any more points; however our average this season, Wicksy, is to drop a point a game and we have 17 games left.

If you crunch your PL numbers, we are not looking good with a potential 5th or 6th place beckoning for this season. Possibly lower is my worry.

Now, if we were to buy Isak in the remaining 4 TW days, we could push Pool, and keep City in their place.

Would anyone fancy our chances against City with Isak up top while we send Havertz away to learn to jump more than 6 inches off the ground that seems to be Havertz’s aerial limit.

Just think if he could jump higher instead of trying to con ref’s, as he crumbles to the ground legs and arms flaying all akimbo like, as he quickly stands and remonstrates with the ref when his pathetic dives are not acknowledged, which is just as well as he should be getting yellows for acting.

Just he’s shit at acting; the pigmy giraffe who looks more like Bambi on ice when in physical contact with an opposing player. Kai needs 3 gilt edge chances to fluff before he scores: Same as the lumbering Ricehino who will never play a number higher than 6 in football or should never play above 6 in a team.

CD and 6 is Rice’s limit and we overpaid by at least £30M for Rice’s services as a 6. Would any other manager have paid £105m for Rice as an 8? Because that’s exactly what MA has done.

Think of the elite 8’s we could have bought for plus 100milion smackers? Then, tell me what I’ve posted here is wrong keeping a straight face.

Yet, Havertz can’t act or play football to our required striker level, so is just as well Kai is MA’s most adored pet.

Isak is not coming as Newcastle are looking to offer Isak a new deal before the summer probably with a £150+m buy out clause.

The burning question in my mind is why we didn’t buy Isak instead of Newcastle? We had the dream team in MA & Edu, did we not? Then we had Mr Lewes for the oversight.

Reality? Edu wanted out and now MA has the keys to an empty war chest is because KSE and Mr. Lewes are finally not happy with zero PL trophies and being the but of the other fan’s banter each season.

Wasn’t Wenger’s last decade of football hell something you could learn from KSE?

Clearly not from the current optics.

Now, I’m also asking the same questions we all asked of why we didn’t buy Palmer from City considering they were our sloppy seconds club? We went to sloppy thirds from the Chavs instead.

Why we bought the poor Havertz instead who was struggling at the Chavs, and has struggled for us supposedly being the 20+ PL goals a season striker is another question needing answers to.

The answer is very easy to understand for us, but not so for Mr. Lewes and KSE who have fully bought into MA’s pressers and diatribes set forth in the press.

Every time MA opens his mouth, we cringe, and think what utter bollocks he always talks, which is matched by winning no titles in 5 years, and took forever to get back to the CL.

To win titles you have to speak footballing sense and have a very high footballing IQ in your manager.

MA has neither or he wouldn’t have capitulated the last 3 seasons from his poor TW dealings when the need was for quality back up players to fight for their places. We would have won at least one title if MA hadn’t had had his pets, who always let him down in the end, in MA’s paranoid twisted mind.

Slot does tactics and football psychology buying high football IQ players all playing in their best positions.

MA does Win the dog, pickpockets, speakers on the touchline, when you lose, you are closer to winning, and many more stupid things to imagine or experience, as well as buying Rice to be our missing 8 and Havertz as our PL winning 9.

I’m only an armchair fan here, but Slot’s ways seem to be working a lot fcuking better than MA’s.

Would anyone disagree with me?

How KSE can’t see this is beyond me when we have actually capitulated in December. We are still 9 points behind Pool with an inferior GD who have basically and deservedly, led the PL table this season.

It’s Pool’s PL trophy to lose and no longer ours to win with 17 games to go.

Will MA maintain his losing average of a point a game?

If so, we will finish on 64 points this season.

Rant over have a good one LIR.

Tony—you have wisely mentioned a key point that we’ve both been harping on that shouldn’t be overlooked:

“Would any other manager have paid £105m for Rice as an 8? Because that’s exactly what MA has done”

in the single most expensive window in our club’s history our MIT spent 170+M on possibly the 2nd best DM in world football, yet he knew full-well that he had other positional plans in mind, and an underperforming tweener, who was neither the midfielder we required nor a proven finisher…no wonder Edu was putting himself out there and ultimately left us high and dry…so you might ask yourself, how did MA fuck the pooch when he had a cleary defined brief and over 200 sheets in his pocket?

for the purposes of this post I’ll focus my attentions on Rice, as there’s no need to beat a dead German horse…we all know by now that we should have never acquired Havertz, as not only has he not propelled us forward, he’s actually set us back a year or two

for me the whole Rice predicament started at the World Cup, long before he arrived here, when Rice received a lot of grief over his lack of contributions in the final third, even though the real issue was Southgate’s Arteta-like tactical philosophy…this backlash of sorts clearly resonated with him so when it came time to find a new home he was determined to make sure any deal incuded a positional rethink…this is where our thirsty little assurance-giving prick entered the equation, as no manager of note would have ever acquiesced to those particular demands, especially given the investment required

now Rice might have ventured forward a bit more than usual in his final season with the Hammers, but that was only due to the fact that they were struggling mightily for goals and willing to try just about anything…plus, this might have been their last ditch attempt to keep him in the fold, as they must have felt that no top side would ever have done likewise…boy were they wrong…Moyes should have known better, as he knew just how much of a fame whore his former player turned manager was ever since MA took a substantial paycut to come here in the first place…as such, anyone who knew him well knew that he would do just about anything to be considered relevant

unfortunately this behind-the-scenes decision wasn’t in our best collective interests…we weren’t trying to be a little train that could side, like the Hammers, as we supposedly had much grander plans in mind…now this doesn’t mean that Rice should never find himself in advanced spaces, as that could surprise opposing sides on occasion, but his primary concern should be that of providing the kind of defensive cover that would allow those with much more on offer to have at it without fearing the potential defensive consequences…Cheers

looks as if Angel Gomes is on our radar…when he first landed on the scene at United there was considerable buzz surrounding this diminutive energizer bunny, then he sort of just disappeared, for whatever reason…at Lille, he primarily plays as a deep-sitting pivot, although he has been deployed in a variety of positions, which is likely why MA has him on his half-chub wishlist…he has shown flashes of brilliance on the counter, as he’s a profficient passer who can provide stretch passes with pace and a lower trajectory, unlike Rice, but the very notion that he could help us from a goalscoring capacity seems to be a bit far-fetched…maybe this has more to do with the fact that Zubi changes his mind about leaving Sociedad on a per weekly basis, than anything to do with our far more pressing issues…just thought it was an interesting blast from the past rumour…maybe we’re actually talking to Lille about Jonathon David, who btw isn’t the answer either, allbeit he’s a vastly better finisher than you know who

Wicksy – Arsenal were able to win against Wolves because wolves is a relegation fighting team and their troubles was amply demonstrated by the homes send off when they had numerical advantage. How that gus was on that pitch in the second half even after a petulant kicking the ball away. Any alert manager would have subbed him this ensuring that wolves had 11 players on pitch. Since iam in Midlands I know the state of wolves. They were an easy fodder who had conceded 3 goals in each of their last 3 matches while scoring 1. In that sense we made a difficult task for ourselves against a clearly struggling. Side.
Iam clear in my mind that we as a team lack in many areas. Squad is lopsided and for a long time has lacked a decent sub for Saka and a focal 9. He plays very defensive setup masked in a attacking 433. We scored goals from corners in early part of season and now that has dried up. We play players in wrong positions every game. My son was pointing out why Mart is playing right wing when he clearly cannot cut in and has issues there. Tross with his ability of both feet can play there with mart reverting to left wing. This points to easy options being ignored and multiple pieces moved in a match day. It’s almost like experimental and trying to find abilities of players. Another glaring miss in our side is Free kicks. I had this rhetorical question yesterday to my son when was the last time we scored from a free kick. Meaning over the wall into the net. My son told Odegard in some 222-23 game or even earlier. This is the club who had rich traditions of a Henry, Van persie, Cesc who could from nowhere get us a goal from a free kick. We seem to have completely ignored this aspect.
Admirable that we are competing and still at second with glaring issues. Liverpool seems to have taken advantage of the issues across the teams and raced ahead. But the question is are we just going to be doing that competing ever the bridesmaid never the bride? Do we want to make that one signing a striker who will bury half chances to take us from second to title winners? That’s the question and looks like the answer is no.

Hi Madhu
Funnily enough, Kroenkephobe junior and I had the same conversation about free kicks recently. I think the Ode effort that you’re referring to came in an away game versus Burnley, but I’d be interested to hear if you and your son have other views. You’re right of course – we don’t do any where near as much damage from free kicks as we do from corners. Maybe Jover’s job description needs to be extended…

Talking of Wolves, I don’t know if you’ve ever been but Molineux is a pretty impressive stadium and creates some serious atmosphere when they put ‘hi ho silver lining’ by Jeff Beck on the turntable. I dare say if their woes continue it’ll become easier to get tickets there as the season wears on.

With an eye on Girona, it’ll be interesting to see who makes the team for what is almost a dead rubber.

I saw Girona play at home 3 or 4 years ago in a second division game versus a team called Eibar. The whole place felt like it was made of Meccano.

They’re owned by the same oil state outfit that own City, so a chance to beat Abu Dhabi twice this week!

hi KP, yes it was the same game that my Son alluded to. It must be from last season i guess then.

Hey KP
Junior and I just watch the County highlights and you’re right that was a proper “Shawcross”red card tackle.

Some good finishes from both sides that Havertz would probably miss. Maybe Junior and I will get to go to a game with you in late March.

Hey fellow gooners, let me tell you what i heard.
One of mates here in office told me that his mate (wolves fan) is friends with the VAR ref. He messaged him saying that he was supporting VAR on social media on MLS red card. He mentioned that it was a Yellow, but Oliver made a call to give Red, which they couldn’t over turn as they didn’t have enough evidence to turn it to Yellow.
Now lets say hypothetically there is a review challenge and Arsenal Captain/Mgr makes that call to review it. In that instance the VAR referee would have to over turn it. Imagine that the entire review would be broadcast for everyone to hear. That’s what is called transparency and a sense of empowerment.

The so called professional foul similar to skelly’s is regarded as taking one for the team and is also regarded as an acceptable foul to commit.
A red card for every professional foul wouldn’t work so maybe a 10/15 minute sin bin would be workable as a way to stop the deliberate professional foul.
Bringing in the sin bin would work without a doubt as players will be very reluctant to stop a promising attack in the knowledge that they will be leaving their team mates a player short for a 10/ 15 minute spell.
The professional foul is one of the most frustrating elements of the game as is time wasting and feigning injury, something which Arsenal under this present manager are as guilty as any other.
Unfortunately the days of Arsenal trying to win football matches playing the beautiful game under wenger are long gone, Arteta has learnt from pep/Barca that to win football matches you have to employ the dark arts into your game, though it has to be said that Arteta’s one cup success was won with predominantly wenger players , a group of players that were slaughtered by the know alls ( who basically know very little) for reaching 6 cup finals in 7 years (winning 4).
Arteta has (with a lot of money) brought Arsenal back amongst the elite but without any trophy success in the coming years he will be regarded as a failure by many , which may be a little harsh but it does show how difficult it is to reach cup finals and win trophies despite being one of the top 3 teams in the country and probably top 6/8 in Europe.

Madhu
‘”– Arsenal were able to win against Wolves because wolves is a relegation fighting team and their troubles was amply demonstrated by the homes send off when they had numerical advantage”

It depends how you look at it , to me it looked like a case of shit or bust for Arteta/Arsenal , sitting back was not an option whoever the opposition was, of course it did help that Wolves are low on confidence but our attitude was spot on after the break so hopefully the manager has learnt from the Wolves game.
On a different subject, Martinelli has taken a fair bit of stick this season , some of it deserved, and people do jump on the bandwagon when criticising players but recently I have seen an upturn in form from him and the one noticeable improvement I have seen from him is his crossing with his left foot , he has obviously been working on this part of his game as before he always had a tendency to cut back inside onto his right foot but recently he has gone on the outside and hit some excellent crosses from the byline leading to goals , including our first on Wednesday night and the winner v Wolves, neither will count as an assist but both instances highlight his willingness to use his weaker foot more though it has to be said that he scored v villa and assisted v Zagreb with his right, having the confidence to go outside or inside will undoubtedly make him harder to pin down and I will be interested to see if he continues with his improvement with his weaker foot ..

Wicksy – Agree with Mart’s increase efficiency recently. What i want to highlight is MA’s tendency to move lots of pieces at one time rather than trying to solve a problem i.e. Saka’s absence. Tross is adept at both foot and hence a natural choice to replace saka rather than moving Mart to right and making Tross play on left, unless Tross cannot play right. I do remember that Mart scored a wonderfully volleyed goal from a pass from Tomi couple of seasons back and looked good on right. But after that he is rarely deployed on Right almost always plays on left.

Madhu—I’m sure Mart’s presence on the right is largely predicated on Tross’s lack of success on that side at the international level…it was an issue that was raised during the last Euros when Begium opted to have Doku play on his favoured side, which pushed Tross onto the right…for whatever reason he performed badly…so when you combine this with the fact that Marts has strugggled with his finishing, MA must have figured it was best to have Tross on his preferred side, from a goalscoring capacity, then have Marts simply focus on providing crosses into the box, which he has done quite well recently…plus Marts would likely keep defences more honest, as he’s much better at creating width than his Belgian counterpart

all that said, you and your son are spot on when it comes to the whole shoehorning gig, minus this one exception, which was a forced situation due to Saka’s injury…generally I would side with Marts over Tross, as I think he has a bigger up-side if only the tactics weren’t so right-side dependent…personally I never would have brought Tross in, as he’s not a like-for-like replacement/cover piece, due to his lack of pace, which makes us easier to defend at times…not to mention, his mere presence has not only prevented us from getting proper competition fro Marts, like Nico, it made MA’s decision to play Havertz up top much easier, as Tross typically tucks inside much more than Marts, which provides Kai with more space(not that he would know what to do with it)

as for the whole Ode conversation, his inability to finish makes it even more imperative that we surround him with clinical options, much like with Ozil…unfortunately MA’s chosen squad construction up top is completely counterintuitive when it comes to maximizing what Ode does best, providing service in and around the box(this is why his assists numbers are way down too) Cheers

competition “for”

TVRL – great observation regarding Tross right sided problem that I was not aware of. Thanks for educating me. I will tell this to my son as well.

“I think they will do something,” Ornstein said. “Don’t know for sure, but that’s my sense because work is ongoing inside the club to explore their various options to bring in somebody that Mikel Arteta feels is the ‘right one’.”

“right one”—that sounds eerily familiar…I just can’t figure out why our little project manager adopted only the worst traits of his former bosses…talk about a wasted apprenticeship or two

Madhu—I just happened to be watching some in-depth squad critiques in the build-up to the Euros, for betting purposes, and I was taken aback by the decided drop off in play when Tross was flipped onto the other side of the pitch…he clearly has a preferred shooting foot and when that’s taken away he’s much easier to defend…Cheers

can you even imagine a team who’s exhausted so much time and energy trying to convince anyone and everyone that they’ve had a definitive plan would be so unsure of themselves with less than a week to go in another window…this time last year Edu spoke at length about the plethora of 180 page dossiers that littered his office, yet since that time we failed on the Striker front once again and brought in a largely spent Sterling in the 11th hour…hardly the kind of maneuverings that would bolster their well-oiled machine narrative, in fact, quite the opposite

of course, I’m sure they’ve already prepared their response, should this window fail to yield the desired results…if I had to hazard a guess, they’ll likely hang their proverbial hats on the lateness of Jesus’s injury, even though everyone knew we needed a talisman long before his most recent injury, and/or the ludicrous notion that we couldn’t find the right fit, which couldn’t be more laughable in light of his earlier ill-suited choices and crack-like shoehorning addiction…we’re like a classic scene from an Abbott and Costello movie where Lou thinks he’s buying a brand new house, but as soon as the money is handed over the front facade drives away and an old broken down piece of shit caravan is revealed

Morning all
Genoa this evening or 3am mornin g my time. It should be a win for us in Spain.

Other than that there is very little to write about where we should be waxing lyrical over the elite 9 we’ve just added to the squad. Should have, would have, and could have but didn’t.

Anyone think we’ll buy anyone of note in the remaining 3 TW days?

I don’t, so it’s a wait and see as it always is.

Ambarish
A little harsh on Marts I feel The kid has been left to fend for himself and probably told to hug the line for width and not cut in as he should.

MA is mart’s problem, not his balling skills. Give Marts Nwaneri to play with with Skelly joining in and we’ll have a balanced attack, which Marts performing better.

Better still, as TRVL said, play Ode left and Nwaneri right midfield.

Very interesting take on football things in the UK and Arsenal in particular.

“£2.7bn plot cited as Stan Kroenke’s main ally at Arsenal told it’s ‘already too’ late for U-turn”
https://tbrfootball.com/2-7bn-plot-cited-as-stan-kroenkes-main-ally-at-arsenal-told-its-already-too-late-for-u-turn/

A couple of quotes:
“In 2024-25, Liverpool’s lead over the Gunners is not unassailable but another silver medal is the more likely outcome.

“Arsenal will probably therefore remain the only major enterprise in Kroenke’s empire who are yet to win the ultimate prize in their sport…. Kroenke knows that the NFL’s salary cap, revenue sharing, and closed league system means he is quite literally guaranteed a profit every single year. NFL teams posted combined annual profits of approximately £3.5bn at the last count. Premier League clubs? They lost almost £850m…. However, aversion to risk is probably the central pillar of Kroenke-ism. Spending even more to take Arsenal to the next level is, seen through a financial lens, a massive risk…. The owners back every recruitment decision up with a risk-return analysis. And no, their thinking is not led by concerns around PSR.”

Then the article ends with this sub topic “Arsenal have inflicted independent football regulator (IFR) on themselves, says finance expert.” The IFR has cross-party support – is making its way through Parliament and is expected to become law either late this year or in early 2025 (I presume that this is a typo meaning 2026). Arsenal aren’t happy about it…

Killroy—some interesting quotes, including those found in the provided link, but I would say this, Kroenke has diverted from his typically more conservative fiscal policies with every major club(Rams, Avalanche and Nuggets)whenever he felt that they were on the precipice of winning their respective championships…so much so that with the Nuggets he was actually willing to pay a luxury tax in their title winning season…the question then becomes does he think we’re close enough to winning that he’s willing to push his chips in again…maybe he feels that he’s already done enough, monetarily speaking, considering the unprecedented backing he’s provided, especially in that Rice/Havertz/Timber window, which MA cocked-up…if so, we could be looking at a more frugal approach moving forward, as everyone of the aforementioned clubs have seen their payrolls shrink since their victories

the Rams lost their best and most expensive defensive lineman and several other higher paid veteran players, but instead of replacing them with like-for-like options, they opted for some cheaper recruits, primarily through the draft…The Nuggets got rid of a few key contributors, as Big Stan was unwilling to pay the requisite luxury tax a second year running, and the Avalanche just traded their second best forward, Mikko Rantanen, who was a pending free agent…this came as a complete surprise to both his longtime linemates and their bench boss, who were under the mistaken impression that he was just about to sign another longer term contract…this latter move really caught my eye, as he was a top 5 scorer in the League at the time of his move and Vegas had them as a top 3-4 favourite to win the Cup…this could happen here if MA can’t get over the major silverware hump, as we have a few players who could fetch a pretty penny, especially if Stan’s “people” felt we missed our window and it was time to recoup some of his prior misappropriated investments…Cheers

Great link, thanks Kilroy. Ditto TRVL was good reading.

Let’s hope KSE is looking for a manager who knows how to spend his money wisely and still get success, like Slot is doing this season. Klopp laid the foundations and work ethics and Slot has taken Pool up a level where when he get’s his back line sorted, they will be even harder to beat.

MA will be playing catch up to Slot until City takes back over – wash rinse repeat…..