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.
Without our star players “Own Goal” and “Set Piece” we’d be looking at relegation.
Emi will be pissed at himself for allowing that one in
Havertz might get on the pitch as a 5th defender considering our bench options
nice weighted pass by Ode after a poor defensive effort by Villa
that should just about do it, as I don’t see much quality on Villa’s bench
TRVL
Why isn’t Ode doing that more often?
Its not like we don’t have the offensive options to pass to.
Merino walking a fine line there.
We’ve plenty of options in the bench time to sub him.
Marc—kind of a rare situation, as how many times is a “DM” making that kind of run (of course I’m not including Rice in that eqaution because he’s no longer a DM
Merino should have been sent off with a second yellow(you won’t hear any of the tin hatters talking about thst though)
TRVL
I didn’t mean a pass to Zubi – I meant the threading a nicely weighted pass to a player making a run.
we don’t make a lot of direct runs in our sideways/cross-heavy approach…that’s why I viewed that situation as a rather anamolous one, regardless of the player in question
TRVL
And that’s why our attacking play is so poor.
Nice finish.
It’s far more likely that we get a third than they find a way back into this one, esepcially with them taking more chances
I must have a minor time delay…maybe my feed is coming by boat
I have no doubt Unai knew just how thin the margins were in this one and when his flipped script plan didn’t provide the required goals, he knew it would be tough sledding
Villa have been so poor defensively since Gab’s header I wouldn’t be shocked if we scored one or two more
TRVL
They needed to take at least one of the opportunities they had in the first half. We got the set piece early in the second and they fell to pieces.
Why isn’t Arteta giving Sake or Ode a rest / giving Eze or Madueke a run out.
I’m.a fan of Emery’s but we shouldn’t let up…when a side starts making business decisions on the pitch, they deserve to be crushed
3rd and 4th one was a thing of beauty. If we can beat Liverpool at home later after Bournemouth game, I think this will be the year we get to see the much awaited thing.
Marc—who the fuck knows…maybe he wants to prove that we can run up a scoreline without most of our best finishers on the pitch