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
TRVL
Yeah, it’s not Martinelli. The line up on Twitter showed him in the middle initially.
it’s like fucking Merino is the deep-lying double pivot and the Striker…only a sideways-dependent fucktard would ever attempt such a thing
TRVL
I wouldn’t have started Saliba (same situation as Saka – major player getting injured at a key point of the season due to overplaying and it costing us) now the new CB getting injured is bad luck but why not start Calafiore at CB? Skelly is far better cover for LB than the new guys for Gabriel or Saliba.
Guy’s
I can’t figure out our formation. At some point Arteta’s going to realise he’s got more than 3 attacking players on and have a conniption fit.
I’m loving the fact that the commentating team is spending a considerable amount of time discussing our NEED for silverware this year
Marc—it’s still a 4-3-3, with a little bit of fluidity, so when Merino is literally playing box-to-box, Marts can step into the Striker void…Eze, Norgaard and Ethan are the midfielders…Merino is going to need some oxygen at half
TRVL
The media over here especially Sky are pushing a narrative of “it’s time to deliver”. Why it’s taken so long is beyond me.
We all know how the media like to build someone up to tear them down well Arteta’s going to be torn to pieces if he isn’t challenging.
TRVL
Yeah I get the 4-3-3 but the movement is getting a bit much aside the front 3 and CM rotating you’ve got our inverted left full back.
Its all great until you get caught on the break and no one has a clue who was supposed to be tracking that guy.
Marc—I think the slow to the party gig was predicated on the fact that we lost to Pep’s the previous two seasons, which seemed understandable to the “neutral” observer, but when we lost to a first-timer last season, all that “understanding” went out the fucking window
Port Vale is certainly testing us with their passion.
Marc—it’s fucking stupid because he’s. not providing the necessary cover for the wide side players, which means double-teams, so everyone has to wait for Merino to make his way back up the pitch…the goal only came about because we had pinned them just enough that more players made their way into the box, so we finally had a numbers advantage up top
Ambarish—not really, but our style of play will keep any side in a match so long as they are well-organized at the back and don’t concede any cheap goals
Merino looking like hes a League one player. Dude only can go backwards and there is no creativity in his play. This guy won the Euros for goodness sake. Show your level man.. and dont show up on the team sheet next week please.
prime Sanchez, Robben and Salah would find it incredibly difficult to score goals in this scheme…in fact they would be reduced to sending in crosses to fucking Merino and Havertz
TRVL
No argument on any of the above.
I had a mate (ST holder for 30 plus years) take the line early last season “Pep’s the best in the world you can’t expect to beat him” that take has been conveniently forgotten.
TRVL
Can you imagine Henry under Arteta – he’d be paid to leave after not producing and then go and win the Ballon D’or.
Marc—no doubt—Henry would have a shit-fit when MA required him to primarly play with his back to goal…he would have replaced him with Havertz
personally I think we need to get Saka playing a little deeper at times so he’s facing the opposition with some space once in awhile…that’s what made him so effective early on in his career
how Merino didn’t receive a yellow for that UFC takedown is beyond me
this side is 91 places below us and playing a highline, yet we’ve only challenged that typically advantageous situation once…even the lower divisions have MA’s blueprint
Vale can only play this way defensively(out wide that is)when you’re not being threatened at the top of the box…why aren’t we trying to set up both Eze and Ethan for more shots in central positions