We are 1-nil down to PSG and we are playing today at their home ground. Not an ideal situation to be in, specially when PSG under Luis Enrique are playing some beautiful attacking football. But we have our midfield back and with Thomas anchoring it and Declan getting his freedom to move forward, we can certainly play better football today. The only goal from first leg will force Mikel to go all out attacking and the second leg of the Semi Final could turn out to be an exciting affair.
There are couple of things. Declan Rice is an asset, a 100m player when moving forward with the ball but he is not a match to Partey as a DM. Having both fit and in the squad boosts our win rates. Secondly, we can’t afford to miss our chances today. In the first leg, we did fail to bury some of them and it could be fatal to our Champions League run. Barcelona v Inter was a treat to watch last night, and gave us a hope that it’s not over till the final minutes.
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I am expecting Merino to be back to his newly found CF role with a back 4 of MLS, Kiwior, Saliba and Timber. Partey, Rice and Odegaard will start in the midfield while Saka and Martinelli will retain their positions. We were a threat whenever Saka moved towards the middle and we have noticed it with Martinelli too, but I have no idea why Arteta instructs them to stick to the side line. If we are expecting to win this, we need to be more direct, we need to move ball faster and we need to be precise in our passing and shooting. There’s zero margin for errors if you expect to qualify to the finals for the Champions League.
There was a news earlier that Ousmane Dembele had picked up an injury and will not be available for today, but we are not that lucky. He is back to his fitness and he will be a bigger threat today at his home. Kiwior and Saliba needs to find a way to suss him while allowing the wing backs to move forward.
1-0 is a dangerous proposition and can work in favor or against. If we put some pressure initially, manage to score one in the first 30min, we will be in the driving seat.
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Truth be told, I have never seen Arsenal play a semi final game (except the first leg). The last time it happened in ’09, I was still playing cricket. If we win today and go to finals, there is a very good chance we can beat Inter (compared to Barcelona), and it can make things easier for Mikel.
Right, a short one today. Extremely sorry for being absent recently, the immunity overall after Covid has been fucked up and doc says another week before I can get back to normal.
Lets conquer Paris and paint it Red and White! #COYG
Agree on the line up Ambarish – I’ve no idea on how tonight will go but if PSG play half as well as they did against Liverpool in their home leg we’ve got a challenge on our hands.
We’ll find out in a few hours.
Line up is out, as expected. We have to win under 90, because I don’t think Raya is a match to Donnarumma if it goes to shootouts.
“Declan Rice is an asset, a 100m player when moving forward with the ball but he is not a match to Partey as a DM”. LOL
he’s at best a 40M player as an attacking midfielder….talk about recency bias…if your statement is to be believed that was an atrocious piece of business
TRVL
Lets agree on 80m. We have a Champions League game in 30 min. In any case, he is much better moving forward than anchoring that midfield. Thomas does a great job.
Madhu, no bad intentions mate. You are always welcome here, it remains a football blog primarily. Difference in opinion is healthy, in football, in politics, in life.
We have 12 names on the bench – 4 of them are full backs who have a combined purchase cost of almost £150 million and Arteta bought 3 of them, the one he didn’t is the also the cheapest who’s about to walk on a free because shit for brains is incapable of dropping a player without crashing their value.
He really is a cunt of almighty proportions.
Yeah, but he wins today and the next one in Champions League, I will ask for his statue outside Emirates. Jokes aside, lets hope we don’t need the bench today.
Ambarish
If he’d spent better we’d have had the money to buy a quality striker.
That striker talk is the main reason for my hate towards Arteta. I have seen Giroud play and I hated him for his output, but if you ask me, I would love him today in the line up.
…simply because Arteta has fucked up the CF position. Playing Trossard, Merino, Havertz should get you fired.
That should have gone in.. Come on Dec.
And Donnaruma saving the other one.
And Donnarumma saves another one. Fucking hell.
We could have been 3-0 up within 10 min.
Ambarish—Bellingham, who sold for a similar price, had 23 goals and 11 assists in 39 Liga and CL fixtures in his first season as Real’s AM/CM, whereas Rice has 7 goals and 9 assists in 35 this season as our AM/CM…so I’ll stick with my valuation…remember he was brought here to replace the supposedly outgoing Partey, who also had some off-field issues at that time…Cheers
my prediction of us flipping the shock and awe script has materialized…let’s just hope they don’t punish us on the counter, which they just about did if it weren’t the piss-poor final pass into the box
Saved. Post saved us… my heart almost stopped working.
Am I the only seeing a better Odegaard today?
And skelly is not for the future, he has arrived.. Love that kid…
Marc—your comments regarding the composition of our bench options was spot on….the very fact that we currently employ a shit ton of backers and not a single recognized Striker is amateur hour roster construction personified…of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t win the CL in this particular year, considering the watered down nature of the current footballing landscape
Martinelli does slow the game.. come on, release it as fast as you can mate.
Wow.. that’s some goal.. our CL run comes to an end.
frantic start but PSG could cause harm on the counter if we are not careful. At least it is being played at a better tempo than the previous leg but not a patch on the other semi (both legs).