After losing to Man City first in the Carabao Cup finals, and against Southampton in the FA Cup Quarter Finals, Mikel has come to his senses it seems. We started a Cup final with Kepa in the goalkeeping department who was responsible for the first Man City goal, Martinelli wasn’t introduced before 82′ minute mark, Saka was shite for most part of the game yet Madueke, a 55m player, didn’t get a chance till we were 2-0 down. Against Southampton, we played the worst team we could have picked from the 25 players and we lost. Raya, Saliba, Gyokeres, Zubimendi, Calafiori, Madueke were used as substitute when it was too late.
I don’t give a fuck if you say we have injury problems. I can name 2/3 players in each position and if the manager is stubborn to rotate when it matters less, don’t expect MLS to come and play a superb game in the quarter finals.
After the two cup exits, either Mikel has come to his senses or the board reminded him of the Champions League money, because we are playing the strongest team today against Sporting in the first leg of Champions League Quarter Finals.
Raya is back. Kepa shouldn’t start a game that matters, ever again. Timber is out with injury so White gets to play. We are back to the Rice-Zubi-Ode midfield and Madueke starts ahead of Saka probably because of an injury as Saka is not even on bench. I didn’t read the website, nor watched the press conference because I am still angry with what has happened in last 2 games.
There’s a path of redemption, in fact 2 for Mikel. Win Premier League / Champions League and you get to keep playing your shite, boring, bollocks way of football for few more year. It’s been 22 years since we last won Premier League and as someone pointed out on Reddit the other way, you were there for 7 years of that 22 year period. Anyone saying Mikel still needs more time is dump enough to guess that it’s almost 1/3rd of the time since we last won the league.
Right, 2 minutes to go. I don’t have much hope since Madrid/Bayern, Barcelona/Atletico, PSG/Liverpool are also in the mix and if you can’t beat Southampton, you won’t get pass through any of these 6. I do believe that we can win the league, it would be a different level of fuck up if we don’t.
So, yeah – I am still positive for a title this season. After 22 years, if we do, I can bear this crap pass-till-eternity football for couple of more years. Else, you can guess.
Game time.
What the fuck kit are we wearing?
“I don’t give a fuck if you say we have injury problems. I can name 2/3 players in each position and if the manager is stubborn to rotate when it matters less, don’t expect MLS to come and play a superb game in the quarter finals.”
And after spending a BILLION odd quid if Arteta doesn’t have quality cover in every position then why the fuck not?
it’s an homage to MA’s love of all things Chelsea-related
Marc/Ambarish—read this today:
“The one thing that has characterised Arsenal this season is their depth and that is the advantage they have on everyone else,” said Smith. “We have been saying all season they have a squad that has two – or even three – players for every position. That seemed like it was a deliberate strategy to help them win a cup. They have built a squad to compete on four fronts so I’m not sure you can get knocked out of the FA Cup by a Championship team and then say ‘it’s fine because we played the fringe players.'”
This isn’t going to be easy tonight – great save by Raya and Sporting look like they’ve done their homework.
big time touch by Raya on that screamer
Raya saved us there. I am still baffled with playing Kepa in 2 very important games.
TRVL
As I asked (I think it was) Wicksy the other day – what did the team we played on Saturday cost / what was its value?
TRVL
Mikel spent 55m for Zubimendi because we needed someone to rotate with Rice. And then played him along side Rice and got them both tired and exhausted.
I don’t know how to make sense of that.
I would have started Marts, especially with his scoring record in Europe this season and our recent struggles in front of goal…not to mention it might have required Sporting to be a little more conservative in attack
Odegaard, another mediocre player getting favors from the manager. Guess the 1st one?
Yesh, Martinelli has been sensational in Champions League.
He should have started ahead of Trossard.
Arteta has and always will have his favourites.
I’m amazed Havertz hasn’t been shoe horned into the team.
Ambarish—Zubi didn’t come here to be a bench option, he came here to play a little deeper so that Rice could fulfill his attacking midfield dreams…unfortunately both of them came from sides that didn’t give a flying fuck about playing offensively-minded football, so whereas they might have made sense to our blunt fuck of a manager, relying on them to play such a prominent role in the opponent’s final third is more pipe dream than a realistic strategy
So Arteta’s obsession with playing an inverted full back has morphed from the LB moving into CM to the RB moving into CM / AM / CF.
The only reason Mikel could come up with, for playing Havertz, was that he would win a lot of headers. Sporting don’t have tall players so Mikel has run out of reasons.
That’s my guess..
TRVL
They each can play 19 games of PL, 10 games of Champions League, 10 games of FA cup + Carabao.
40 games a season, playing in 4 different competitions should be enough to keep both Rice and Zubimendi happy.
Rice has got some great free kicks in him, but we are not West Ham and he is not David Beckham.
Both are DMs, Zubi probably a better one.
Any deficiencies this team has had this season aren’t Zubi or Rice in midfield.
Neither Ode or Eze (I’ll give Eze the benefit of the doubt of moving to a new team) have been top level. We still don’t balance our attacks with enough threat down the left and our CF options have been uninspiring.
Half the world has this habit of complicating things without any benefits.
Ambarish
Both Petit and Vieira were DM’s – we didn’t have a bad midfield in 97/98.
The difference is the manager.