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
Ambarish—several points of contention:
(1) Merino is not a DM—he played the more advanced role to Zubi in Sociedad—as a general rule he’s a Xhaka-level DM, which means he sucks shit in that capacity, but he’s a bigger body so he can make do against lesser/slower sides
(2) there’s no fucking way that Arteta doesn’t know what narratives are making the rounds…this micromanaging halfwit cares far too much about how others view him so the only way he wouldn’t know what was circulating is if he’s insulated himself with a bevy of yes men who only provide him with flattering critiques/reviews
(3) although Pep’s brand of football will never be mistaken for what was typically on offer under Klopp, he’s never paid big bucks with the intention of rolling out the kind of drab nonsense we’ve seen under MA.this year and last…furthermore, only an idiot would spend so much on players who didn’t really fit this defence-first script, which tells me MA’s a delusional fuck with overriding gutless tendencies…Jose would never pursue a similar approach if he was attempting to construct a championship level side with a blank cheque; keeping in mind, his methods have failed miserably in recent times as those types of sides don’t win major silverware anymore
(4) unlike yourself, how you win does matter…it’s not everything, but it’s certainly not nothing!!!
unlike yourself, I believe how…
Good piece Ambarish. I’ve seen PV this season eke out a hard fought 0-0 v Cardiff early in the season. Hard working team but no real end product.
You’ll be idolised for ever in Burslem for recognising their home town. Most people just say it’s a suburb of Stoke which drives PV fans nuts. They have a pretty nasty but parochial rivalry. Stoke is made up of 6 towns, one of which is Burslem.
Nevertheless, Arteta’s got to pick the right team. Arrizabalaga, Skelly and Nwan need to feature and other senior players need to be on the park. I’d put Gyokeres in just to let him loose and get some goals. I’m looking forward to it. Tried to get a ticket but it’s fully sold out to the burghers of Burslem.
Good to hear new readers are being encouraged. Everyone on here would welcome them with open arms. We argue about Arteta but that’s cool – if blogging existed in George Graham’s time, this site would be a borefest because us old bastards universally loved him! But seriously, you know I love talking to all Gooners from any backgrounds. You’re very welcome!
PV does have a high profile supporter even if he isnt in the limelight these days.
Wenger would have had at least 50% of the starting line up tonight from the U21’s and the youth set up. MLS and Ethan are already in the senior squad – Dowman should start tonight along with a couple of unknowns but I doubt El B will go that far – he needs to stand by his Mr Cautious reputation.
Glad I found this blog…..
I look at tonight as a no win situation similar to Chelsea and Liverpool last night who both scraped a win with a weakened side against a lower league club.
Chelsea were very fortunate to come away with the victory as they only really had a good couple of minutes of football in the game and managed to score a couple of goals , the rest of the game they were under pressure and survived by the skin of their teeth .
It’s guaranteed that port Vale will be physical tonight and who can blame them, will we start skelly (probable) , dowman (doubtful) and Nwaneri(probable).
Has hincapie succumbed to another training injury in his endeavour to impress the manager. Arteta likes the players to train at full capacity which is all well and good if the players are not dropping like flies , but personally I would like to see some common sense with regard to keeping the players free from injury , I can’t say I totally agree with Arteta’s idea that impressing in training is the bench mark for being selected on a match day, for all we know Eze may stroll into training in his usual relaxed manner which may go against the grain for Arteta who prefers the water carriers who will run all day including in training to impress the manager.
Hi Swapnil,
Glad to see you here.
let’s face it, Arteta’s whole training measuring stick bullshit has more to do with his genral disdain for offensive “stars” who would be much more inclined to coast at times during practice sessions than those seeking to make an impression…the more commonsensical approach would see the manager take into account particular mitigating circumstances, like age, injury history, scheduling demands etc, then set individual expectations accordingly…now I do think there’s a causal relationship between one’s practice “habits” and positive gameday performances, but usually that applies to off-season/preseason training, so that if anything was to occur the runway for recovery was as lengthy as humanly possible
as for today, here’s hoping that the lineup will be a healthy mix of youthful exuberance and blunt instruments, as this is the kind of fixture where MA’s cross-happy/set piece dumbed-down approach should come in handy
In regards to Noni, Arteta said the following, “He felt something in the BEGINNING of the match. At half-time it was too sore.”
our dipshit of a manager once again made a mountain out of a molehill by ignoring his players/training staff…upon reading this I instantly got a mental image of MA pushing an obviously injured Partey back onto the pitch
Hi Swapnil
I’m glad you found it too. Welcome to London is Red. Very good to have you here. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about Arsenal over the coming weeks.
Guess what guys? Mikel has finally realised he can try Martinelli in the middle.
Eze – Martinelli – Saka
Merino – Norgaard – Nwaneri
MLS – Mosquera – Saliba – White
Kepa
–
Would have loved to see Downman in the starting line up. We can take that risk against Port Vale can’t we.
What the fuck is Captain Fuckwit doing starting Saka? Does the cunt never learn (rhetorical question!)
If you don’t think Dowman can handle it from the beginning start Trossard and bring on Dowman.
When Saka pulls up with another hamstring injury Arteta will wonder why.
Brilliant goal from Eze, MLS left it cheekily and we go up 1-0.
Marc
Yep, playing Saka doesn’t make any sense at all…
Ambarish
It makes sense if you’re a massive cunt – fortunately you’ve created an environment where their presence is very limited!
Nice finish from Eze.
Marc—Saka and Saliba shouldn’t be playing…well at least not starting
Ambarish—Marts isn’t playing up top, it’s fucking Merino
the constant disrespect shown by MA towards the Striker position is fucking disgusting…first with Havertz and now again with Merino…it won’t be long before Gabs gets his shot
if I was Skelly I would be almost as pissed as Ethan about re-upping then getting ghosted to start the season….there’s no reason, with Cala’s injury history, to not have them splitting starts
I get that there’s some historical significance about Vale’s chosen kits, but what a missed opportunity to advertise the brand with those grade school jerseys
if Arteta can’t take use this as an opportunity to experiment, offensively-speaking, then when????
can’t use—NO “take”