Well, football gods aren’t treating us well so far this year. We started well against Brentford with a 3-1 away win but then gave away the advantage by drawing to Brighton at home. Newcastle beat us 2-0 at Emirates in the first leg of Carabao Cup semi final, we then lost to Man Utd at home in a penalty shootout which ended our FA Cup run. We did beat Spurs in the North London Derby but Emery made sure we grieve again against Villa. We are plagued with injuries with Bukayo Saka side-lined for a very long time, Jesus as well.
On one side, we have been out of FA cup and Carabao cup looks almost impossible since we have to visit Newcastle in the second leg and they have a 2 goal advantage. In the Premier League, we have been giving away points and chances to catch up to Liverpool who are sitting on a 6 point lead to us and got a game in hand.
On the other side, we are sitting 5th in the Champions League table with 13 points in 6 games and we have next two games against Dinamo Zagreb and Monaco. These are relatively easier games, though European nights are very unpredictable. A win against Dinamo today will make it easy for us to qualify for knockout stage.
William Saliba will miss the game due to the hamstring injury he picked up last week and it would take couple more weeks for him to recover. Calafiori and Nwaneri were back in training but they will need another evaluation before the game. The usuals – Saka, White, Tomiyasu, Jesus remains unavailable.
Arteta in his press conference gave the reason for playing Partey at RB – unavailability of players. Now I can understand that, when Timber was injured and we didn’t have anyone to play on the left. Recently, MLS has been sensational in the LB position and Timber is back at RB, but he has got another problem with Saliba’s injury. Take it with a pinch of salt but some of the publications were reporting that he might try Declan Rice at CB. Rice was playing in that position at West Ham academy. I would take that over playing Thomas Partey at RB.
Here’s what Mikel had to say about playing Thomas at RB.
I had no choice, I didn’t have another right full-back, just Jurrien, nobody else. Who plays when Jurrien isn’t available for his load is too high? The other day was the first time [he moved Jurrien to centre-back] but in relation to the way we have to play, we cannot have a right-footed player defending a right winger. I didn’t have another right-sided centre-back.
source : Arsenal.com
RW is another problem. Martinelli is not cutting it and I have no idea why we got Sterling in first place. A sane manager would send him back to Chelsea and recall Nelson.
Right, I am looking forward to the game. Mathematically there are 16 other clubs competing for top 8 with us, and a win today will make it smaller.
Lets do it. #COYG
Hoopah—he clearly raked him down the leg, but there wasn’t any real intent…definitely an inexperienced gig, as you’ve suggested
VAR says it was up the shin and dragged down to the ankle
Tony
VAR guys are the same useless cunts as the refs.
Marc—put that tin foil away…I’ve seen that as a red, especially from behind and with them breaking out with numbers
I’m looking forward to MOTD, Sky Sports etc etc bring up dozens of similar straight reds and in other things that are going to happen I’ve converted to being a socialist.
I guess MLS will be in bad books of MA. Poor kid has played really well till now but with this Red card he might have lost his place. Red card for dangerous play means he is off for 3 games.
TRVL
You won’t see another team get a red for the same thing. I called the Rice sending off as a fair red but we get too many occasions where we’re on the receiving end of the “laws” that aren’t applied elsewhere.
Madhu—I think he might not get all 3 due to the lack of intent, but that’s always a highly subjective endeavour
Doesn’t matter we’ve only got City next week.
Marc—just watch it again, he caught him above the ankle with his studs then carried it down to the top of his foot…it seemd more innocuous at first as it appeared to be nothing more than a standard from behind cynical foul simply to stop their break
TRVL
I’ve seen worse not even given a yellow. When Saka’s back watch some of the challenges on him that don’t even see a booking.
He didn’t mean it but the tackle as it happened in front of ref ultimately ended by being quite bad. We Arsenal fans seeing Eduardo’s broken leg and Ryan Shawcroosed Ramsey’s leg should not complain against such a red. Offcourse it’s not as bad as those either case there was not Red card, but a dangerous tackle like that is a red card.
if he were playing under 21 and the ref wasn’t positioned where he was, it would have likely been a yellow, especially with no VAR
that was just a knee-jerk reaction by a young player who was thinking about MA tearing him a new asshole for being caught on the break, so he simply reached out with his foot and the rest is history
Gomes was a lucky boy there…he even knew it, which is why he picked up the other ball and pretended like it was their throw-in…that ought to send a good portion of the fanbase into a frenzy
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another red to come
In our other matches this season where we’ve seen a red we’ve not taken 3 points (dropping winning positions in a couple of them) so what does Arteta do against a team who’s only hope of avoiding relegation is that there might be 3 other worse teams – takes off an attacker for a defender.
Why not go 3 at the back?
TRVL
Oliver will send off one of their players in the 97th minute so he can say he evened things up.
He really is a cunt of epic proportions.
If only Havertz wasn’t aerially challenged
We look angry – good.
Marc—context matters, so when the opposition is breaking out with numbers and you choose that course of action, regardless of the intent, you open yourself up to those types of situations…I can guarantee you if Saka was in the same situation and was fouled in the same manner the offending player would have suffered the same fate…you can’t compare it to a foul when Saka has his back to goal and defenders are nipping at his heels and he takes a rake on the back of his foot