When the season began, I was positive and happy that we were competing for 4 trophies – FA Cup, Carabao Cup, Premier League and Champions League. I was hoping we would pick at least one of the them and put an end to our trophy drought. But things have not panned out as we expected.
Things started going wrong from January. We were ousted by Manchester United in FA Cup third round on penalty. City is most likely going to win this now.
Next was our Carabao Cup run coming to an end in semi finals, where Newcastle beat us twice – both home and away – with 2 to nil.
West Ham (loss) and Forest (draw) have killed our Premier League title chase. Yes, it’s still mathematically possible but we are 13 points behind Liverpool with a game in hand. Even if we win ours, that would be 10 points difference with only 10 games to go. I doubt Liverpool are going to drop that many points and I doubt we are going to take advantage of that situation.
That leaves us with the Champions League.
We are visiting the Dutch side PSV Eindhoven in the last-16 today for the first leg. Champions League are usually very unpredictable and you can’t take lightly any of the games. We have seen City only somehow managing to get into the knockout games of group stage, and we have seen some big teams losing out to qualify.
And the fact that we have a non-existent attack further complicates it for Mikel and team. We are going into the game without our StarBoy Bukayo Saka, our left winger Martinelli and without a CF (even a make shift Havertz). Defence looks okay, Ben White is back from his injury and MLS is back from his suspension. Saliba and Gabriel will hold the fort for us.
It’s not tough to guess who would be starting today, Trossard, Nwaneri and Sterling and it’s not a good sight for the Arsenal fans. We should try scoring first and hold on to the lead because we often complicate it for ourselves and I don’t want to see us leave everything for the 2nd leg.
The players must have been demoralised with the recent run of games and when asked about it, this is what Mikel had to say :
on how to instill belief into the players:
Well, try to explain how we’re going to do it and why we do things, and they try to deliver that in the best possible way. In the last two results it’s been very different, in terms of performance as well, not getting the right result that we want, but we’ve certainly been better, especially in the last game with the opposition. And the fact we still have gears, even with the players that we have, some of them have gears to take us to a different level. When it comes to that stage, it’s about lifting the level and the standards, every individual has to be at their best. When we do that, with the team that we have and the connection we have between us, we are a really strong team.source : Arsenal.com
If we manage to get past the PSV in round of 16, we would face one of the Real Madrid or Atletico in quarters.
Right, so with whatever is available for today, I would personally love a back 4 of White, Saliba, Gabriel and MLS. Cala has been making some mistakes lately so MLS sounds a better option to me. Timber has been doing well but if White is fit, he has got better runs in overlaps and I would try him. Keep Timber on bench in case we need him later in the game.
A midfield of Thomas Partey, Declan Rice and Merino will start but I would never be happy with both Rice and Partey starting in a game. Pick Jorginho ahead of Declan and stick Merino on the left.
Front 3 has been a conundrum but the only option we have is, Trossard in the middle, Sterling and Nwaneri on either side of the pitch. Lets not put Merino up top and lets not expect him to score 2 goals every game.
Right, that’s all for today. The game’s a bit late for me, but I will be up and will see you during the game.
Cheers!
Tony—no worries…I assumed that you might be rather busy and for good reason…tbh your more diminished role on here recently gave me some real positive vibes as it simply reinforced my belief that things were going according to planned…you have much bigger fish to fry, so keep on keeping on bud
Hoopah—try with all your might to ignore our little trolling mental midget…he’s well-aware of what he’s doing, he’s just not very good at it
Ambarish—Trump ain’t so funny anymore, is he?…I hate to say I told you so, but…
as for today’s affair, it will be interesting to see what starting 11 MA will roll out there considering his blunt instrument inklings…personally I hope that Ethan will be deployed more centrally, either up top or opposite of Ode, as it will make it far more difficult to defend him and it will likewise provide him with more opportunities to shoot…this is the kind of match where we should rely on our backers for width, instead of having to depend too much on a slower Tross or a double-teamed Ethan…above all else, I pray to God that Sterling will find himself firmly affixed to the bench…maybe Cala will get a shot up top in this version of MA’s traveling Striker Fantasy Camp
TRVL
Thanks amigo, life has been crazy here, but all sorted now to be able to enjoy the game if that is possible. Not so the last few games.
The line up is out junior just showed me. Same back 4 with Skelly at LB.
Tross, Merino (why not Cala?)with Ethan out right. That means we got our £105m 8 with Rice playing where he is poorest. For me it’s Ethan at 8 with Rice on the bench unless Partey is injured. Rice has regressed for me because of the square peg in the round hole.1 in 3 decent corners from Rice is a reason we are not scoring goals from set pieces. We knew we would get found out.
Ode will be given little room where it will be a familiar story where we’ve read the script before many times.
An away win would or should see us have the confidence for a home win or draw, but looks like we’ll be playing RM in the quarters with Althleti Madrid being the poor Madrid relation.
Not impossible for AM to beat RM but after watchting them beat Athlete Club 1:0 I don’t hold much hope of us getting a repeat CL game we lost but should have won some seasons ago?
How many times have we said that in a season?
Somehow, I see us getting a 2:1 result but probably wishful thinking where we are really the ‘Draw kings’ lately keeping to our 1 point a game PL tally.
Hope I’m right are the win to have something to hold onto for our seasion but RM in the quarters? We’d need a miracle and Jesus is injured so god knows ….
“But things have not panned out as we expected.”
Sorry Ambarish but things have panned out exactly as I expected – the timing in the league is a little earlier than usual but everything else is same old same old.
The only good news is its now filtering through to others – too many Arsenal fans are still drinking the Kool-Aid but when you have opposing fans singing the “its happened again” song the end for the cunt is on the cards and events will now accelerate.
If other fans know he’s a bottlejob so will players he wants to sign – no way Isak signs for us when he’ll have the pick of top clubs after him so Arteta will buy more shit (his good signings are either obvious or early after he joined us when he would have had access to City scouting info) and it’ll keep getting worse until the Kroenke’s pull the plug.
The only question that remains is how many of our current players (the important ones we’d want to keep) know he’s a bottlejob and won’t hang around wasting their careers on the biggest cunt who’s ever been a football manager.
Junior just said he’d prefer Rice at 6 and Ethan at 9, with Cala at 8.
Hard to disagree with that as well, That fits into your Thinking TRVL with Ethan up top.
Marc
I wish you’d tell it like it is for once. lol
Junior and I concur with you 100%. We’d go 101% if were possible.
That post I made a few days ago from a ST Gooner email he sent that I met on the flight back to the UK from Thialand about the lack of atmosphere and no singing before the game.
I thought was telling, too.
Watching Henry making a lot of sense asking questions that need asking of MA. Why so many hamstring issues? Caragher making a dick of himself asking Henry silly questions
When Henry asked again by Cara Henry replied as Mikel? That shut the scouse twat up.
Tony
Unfortunately I’m flunking my “don’t sugar coat things” class I keep trying to be direct and say what I think but I’m just too nicer a guy!
It’s not as if Merino can’t score, especially against a side that has struggled at the back recently, but considering that no one’s expecting the Spaniard to play with his back to goal, why not have Cala in there, as he can provide goals in a wider array of ways…once again MA is simply trying to justify another luxury-esque buy, nuch like he tried with Havertz…anyways, we should be able to dispense of this fairly pedestrian side with relative ease, even with our present injuries
much
Ode WTF
All Ode had to do was place it not put his laces through the shot.
Madrid a goal up
RM*
It was always coming now we should push for the 2nd as PSV is poor at the back
we’re lucky not to be down a goal and now we find ourselves in the lead….what a turn of events
we’re starting to emulate the remonstrating nature of our manager far too often
that’s why Ethan needs to be deployed more centrally
that was a harder shot than all of Havertz’s shots combined
That will do for me good to see Nathan score no way PSV pulls this back so going to watch RM v AM
it would be an utter embarassment if we couldn’t muster a very convincing 2 leg victory, regardless of our recent scoring woes, as this PSV side couldn’t park the bus even if they wanted to…hopefully we can use this to gain some much-needed confidence in front of goal
Skelly just opened up a can of red worms…lucky boy
Get Skelly off – if he so much as sneezes he’ll be shown a red.
if I was PSV I would be directing everything up our left side until Skelly gets subbed off at half
TRVL
You’d leave him on till half time?
We should be free scoring with this poor Dutch league side.
RM v AM is a good chess match type of game with RM looking most likely to score again.
Timber…..what a man.
this PSV side would get relegated in the PL with this sort of showing
Marc—MA has backed Skelly in the press so he can’t give him the Nuno treatment
Hello lads, by the way.
KP—just hiding in the weeds until Timber did something of consequence lol
Dutch league is like our 2nd division with old players seeing their time out for me. Boring to watch.
What a goal by Alvarez to go 1:1
Game on now