Mikel completed his 6 years as the Arsenal manager 4 days back and he won his only trophy – an FA cup – in Aug 2020. It’s been a long journey for him and the club and of course the supporters, we have spend more than a billion GBP and have 2 playing XI that would finish in top half of the table. But as the former British F1 Champion, Damon Hill, used to say, “the only ones who remember when you come second are your wife and your dog”, finishing 2nd and making into the semi finals means nothing.
And in the pursuit of greatness and the trophies, Mikel and Co. are going head to head against Crystal Palace in about an hour in Carabao Cup. Newcastle and Man City have already qualified and will play each other in the semi final and if we win today, we would be playing Chelsea. It’s not going to be easy, but to come to that stage, we must beat Crystal Palace first.
We have beaten them in Premier League at home, thanks to an Eze goal and we can do that again. The line up is out and Mikel has gone with some changes –
Kepa gets his start today in the goal. Timber and Saliba keeps their position while Calafiori shifts to CB to make way for MLS at LB. We will see a midfield of Norgaard, Merino and Eze. Saka gets some rest and Madueke starts in his place, Martinelli gets the nod ahead of Trossard and Gabriel Jesus makes his first start after 23 years and 6 months. With all the players we have, Mikel couldn’t have picked up a weaker playing XI that us. A midfield without Declan Rice or Zubimendi will struggle and Calafiori / MLS are LBs and only one should be on the pitch at any point of time. Also, I am not sure how fit Jesus is, and will he hold on for 90 minutes. If he can’t, there was no point playing him ahead of Gyokeres.
But, hey, I won’t care if we come up with a win. Personally I think Nwaneri could have started ahead of Merino and must be sulking to not make into the playing XI. We have a strong bench though, so Mikel can certainly make some changes if something goes wrong.
WE NEED A TROPHY. See you during the game.
But it’s not not working is it? We are finishing games 1-0 and it could backfire any day.
set piece + own goal = MA wet dream
30 nervy minutes now
that’s why those second own goals are so important…out of nothing we concede a goal…what the fuck was Rice doing during that whole goal sequence…up until then this seemed like a walk in the park…in fact the only thing in question was if van Hecke could survive this fixture without seeing red
what an incredibly save!!
that last bounce didn’t do Marts any favours but he needs to finish those
looked liike an offside to me, but Saka needs to do better with those kinds of opportunities
I hope everyone had a nice Christmas etc.
Well we made hard work of that but I can’t remember many matches we don’t make hard work of.
I don’t think Villa have a real chance of winning the league but if they keep up their current form they’ll have an excellent chance of overtaking us when Arteta does an Arteta and bottles it.
No one has cottoned on to how villa play , there is a reason why they have come back from losing positions to win games more than any other team in the league , it is all about preserving energy for the first 50 minutes or so and then they flick a switch and dominate the last half hour or so.
In villas last 7 games they have won them all and not once have they been in front on 55th minutes.
It’s a risky game villa are playing if it is intentional as tonight against Chelsea they could have been 2 or 3 down as they were chasing shadows for the first 50 minutes.
Arsenal have to be wary on Tuesday, dominating villa for the first hour or so by over exerting ourselves could leave us exposed later on if we run out of steam, I will be interested to see if villa sit off us they way they sat off Chelsea tonight, there was literally no pressing or intensity until they flicked the switch in the 50th minute, Emery could be considered a genius if it is a genuine tactic, but however you look at it…..it’s working , but is it sustainable I’m not so sure
Wicksy
You’re contradicting yourself again.
“No one has cottoned on to how villa play , there is a reason why they have come back from losing positions to win games more than any other team in the league , it is all about preserving energy for the first 50 minutes or so and then they flick a switch and dominate the last half hour or so.”
“they could have been 2 or 3 down as they were chasing shadows for the first 50 minutes.”
Chasing shadows doesn’t fit in with conserving energy in fact its the opposite.
To fully comprehend just how pedestrian our offensive scheme has become under MA, especially from a goalscoring output standpoint, Calvert-Lewin has scored more goals in his last 6 matches than our top scorer…if we had gone for him this past summer, as some rumours had suggested, the vast majority of the fanbase would have flipped their collective wigs…simply-put if you were to show someone, who had no knwoledge of the PL table, our squad stats and asked them to guess where we stood in the standings, not a single observer would suggest 1st place…that speaks to the desire of the manager to take a path where the overwhelming praise would natural land at the his feet, even if there are far more favourable/likely paths available to our self-absorbed fucktard…that’s some epic latter days Wengerian shit and we all know how that worked out…as such, if this “plan” doesn’t work out he had better be held totally responsible for pursuing this nonsensical/cowardly course
TRVL
Don’t worry we’ve got Havertz to come back!
We really are bad to watch, the quality of the football is really poor. It’d be one thing if Arteta was going for his 3rd straight PL title and was likely to win a CL but we know happen.
Why the fans persist in supporting a manager who doesn’t entertain and doesn’t win things is beyond me – I’d love it if someone could actually explain it to me? Its not as if he’s been forced to operate on a shoestring if he survives into next season he’s getting to a point where he’s going to be spending money replacing players he bought recently.
“but we know that won’t happen”!
Marc—you just have to ask yourself would any owner hire Dyche and give him a Billion dollar budget?
TRVL
I’ve got a headache from overindulgence I really don’t need to add to it by asking questions like that!
it was kind of a rhetorical question anyways
For Arsenal to have only lost once in 24 games is a credit to our manager when you take into consideration the amount of injuries we have suffered this season…..Even yesterday we were without calafiori , mosquera, Gabriel and white and coped well but for a 10 minute spell .
That’s 5 wins on the bounce as we maintain our position at the top in Europe and the Premier league despite being very wasteful in front of goal.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that gyokeres has neither the technique, pace or movement in the box to succeed at Arsenal , it is telling that the diminutive jesus is able to free himself in the box to attempt headers and strikes at goal , plus his link up play is far superior to the clumsy gyokeres.
The return of Havertz can’t come quick enough as he plays with intelligence and has a superior football brain to gyokeres, which isn’t difficult.
Martinelli showed how a striker should make the near post run to lose his marker in the 2nd half yesterday, he should have scored but at least he found space in the box.
Let’s hope that Timber and calafiori only have niggles so we can field our strongest back 4 v villa…City have fielded the same starting line up for the past 4 games and still struggled to beat the lowly forest with a fortunate late winner, somehow they are managing to steer clear of injuries.
It must be very disheartening for the anti Arteta brigade as we maintain our position at the top, imagine how far in front we would be with an injury free squad… Arteta seems to thrive on adversity , the more bad luck that comes his way on the injury front the more he manages to maintain our ability to win football matches .
The problem is that despite having depth in the squad it is very difficult for any manager to challenge in all 4 competitions if the injury list continues to grow.
Wicksy
Gyokeres has scored 5 PL goals to date in 16 appearances. Henry scored 5 PL goals in his first 17 appearances.
So you’re saying you would have binned Henry?
As for the injuries – its not an achievement it asks the question why do we get so many.
The answer is because Arteta is a CUNT.
Cunt.