Port Vale is a English club based in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. They are currently in League one, what you call the third tier and they are currently sitting at 19th place out of 24 teams. You can’t get any easier game than this. Our injury list is growing, Madueke picked one against City and would be side lined for 2 months minimum, Odegaard is out with his shoulder injury; Norgaard, Saliba and Saka are just returning from injuries, so lets not take any chances in the name of game time.
I am hoping we would get to see Nwaneri, MLS, Dowman – all starting against Port Vale. Heck, if I was the manager, I would even start Merino and Trossard and tell them post match to not ask for another start for next 3 months. Kepa, too.
Anyways, I am not too concerned about the game. I am more worried about the Newcastle game on Sunday, and whoever starts against them shouldn’t be playing tomorrow.
Do you remember the last day signing from Leverkusen? Well, he picked up an injury as soon as he wore the red and white shirt. Since there’s nothing else to discuss, lets see what Mikel had to say in the pre-match conference.
on if he’s surprised by the reaction to our approach against Man City:
In football, surprised? I’m not surprised about anything. No, because I don’t read it [the reaction], but I do get told a little bit what the narrative is around it. If you tell me that this is the main one, if I’m surprised, I will be extremely surprised. With my knowledge and my know-how, and how I analyse a football game, it was impossible for anybody to predict such a dominance from Arsenal throughout 96 minutes because it never happened in 17 years of Pep [Guardiola] as a manager. So if the narrative goes somewhere else and we talk about dominance, about something else, how can you be dominant against such a team if you have a handbrake? Dominance and handbrake are two different words, but I accept everything. I will learn more to have a different vision.
source: Arsenal.com
Look, I am a conspiracy theorist myself, slagging off the referees whenever I get a chance but I am not this naïve to celebrate the possession by passing the ball between the 2 CBs forever against City who were playing a very low block. It wasn’t a dominance, and the narrative is not going anywhere. Fans were curious why we went into the game with 3 DMs when we had a 65m signing in Eze who can play centrally and Nwaneri who was kept as a back up / rotation to Odegaard. Our set up was wrong from the beginning, you tried to correct it after an hour and we played much better. Fans are just asking why you didn’t anticipate that when everyone and their landlady could have guessed it.
Let me a be a bit blunt. We don’t care if you play 10 DMs as long as you win a game. No body questioned Mourinho’s parking the bus as long as he was getting them trophy and no one wanted Pep to play a more exciting, free flowing, Klopp-like football with a billion dollar squad because he is bringing City the trophies. But, you don’t have much to show in 6+ years. In fact, you don’t have anything to show except a FA cup which was won by a group of players that Emery left for you.
So you either win something and shut me up with your possession based football or bring me some exciting football and I can forget the losses. If you go into a game with defensive mindset, with 4 defenders, 3 defensive midfielders and your front 3 doing defensive work, you better make sure to win it because me and some more of the fans will call you out on your mistake. There’s no narrative here.
Right, that’s all for today. I have been trying to get some of the readers to the comment section so please help em out even if they turned out to be an Arteta fan.
Cheers
KP—no doubt, but nothing compares to the collapse of the Tigers…they were up by 15 games at the break…now they did finally take one from the Guardians last evening, so I think they’re all square now
this time of year is a wet dream for sports fanatics like myself, with college and NFL football, baseball playoff races in full stride, the Ryder Cup, the NHL season a few weeks away and of course European Football (just wish our manager wasn’t such a tactical wet noodle) Cheers
So West Ham appoint Nuno as manager a week before we play them – that match just got a lot harder.
ManU are basically repeating their appalling points record from last season – god knows what they need to change to fix things.
Crystal Palace should have been up 3-0 by now. Two easy chances they missed, if they lose and we win, we will fix the gap to just 2 points and that’s when we are playing one of the poorest football even by Arteta’s standards.
Marc—frankly I’m shocked that Nuno would want anything to do with that appointment…he’s burned a lot of bridges, so maybe he’s feeling like beggars can’t be choosers…they’re so not the kind of lineup that makes sense considering his preferred style of play…let’s hope they don’t get the new manager bump at our expense
I would trade Arteta and Rice for Glasnor and Wharton in a heartbeat, regardless of the outcome of this match
Marc
god knows what they need to change to fix things.
I’d say Arteta. What could possibly go wrong for those Northern slags with him on the touchline?
TRVL
If Nuno turns West Ham around the fans will be moaning in 18 months about the football style.
GO EDDIE!!!
Kroenke
I could live with that for a number of reasons.
Vieira
Glasner yes…
Wharton no…
Little Eddie Unket bursting the scousers’ comeback bubble.
Watching Spuds suffer at home to bottom club Wolves. Gum chewing maniac Frank could probably keep the floodlights going if they rigged a power generator up to his lower jaw. 💡💡💡
Eddie has been an atrocious signing for Palace, especially considering their initial investment…they simply don’t spend that much very often, as he’s their 3rd most expensive transfer ever, so to finally get some sort of return on their dollar must have eased their pain a little…I can’t believe Alisson didn’t force him to beat him high, as Eddie likely would have skyed his effort…not sure it will matter in the end, but anytime Pool goes pointless is a real boon for our draw-loving twat of a manager
Matchday post is live now.