Three beautiful goals, a clean sheet and Man City lost theirs’

Hi Vieira
I agree it has to be replicated against the Hammers. It feels a bit like the post Dubai period from last season.

KP—Pep might have turned to self-flagellation following another poor result

Tony—well worth the watch if you were waffling over the notion

Good morning all thanks TRVL couldn’t find the game on my Thai streaming channel so will have to wait to find a reply later today.

I was trying to decipher if we were that good from the comments or Sporting had a mare of a game last night where their keep sounded very suspect. I’ll happily take the 5:1 win even if each goal saw the ball hit both uprights after skimming off the underside of the crossbar to finally cross the line.

Good to see Martinelli get on the score sheet & shame he wasn’t given the penalty to take to further boost this season’s Artetarisation of Mart’s sagging confidence of late.

No Ethan to start, no surprise, but at least he got another 17 minutes or so of Europe football, so thankful for small footballing mercies, as one has to be with our winless manager.

You may think me overcautious but this is not out first MA glorious victory only to be followed by something completely unrecognizable from our previous wiping of the floor against a hapless side not up to the task.

Porto sounded like they were not at the races, TRVL, where your ‘new manager bump’ thinking made sense; I hadn’t thought of it that way before, and Amorim is a tough act to follow, as Klopp was.

I’m sure it was another Ode masterclass last night, which just proves how a well rested and fit Ode can do. Question is how long can we keep him at that level of mental and physical peak fitness?

Ode is living up to my expectations when I first saw him as a 16 year old; there is no ceiling for the lad. Same for Ethan. I think it was about the time I saw De Ligt and Frenkie De Jong thinking they equally had elite written all over them, but Ode has surpassed the aforementioned Dutch duo levels.

How long can we keep Ode? Maybe, we should collectively show some godly reverence to Odin hoping he’s a Gooner!

More important how can we keep Ode at this peak level? My solution is use Ethan more as a sub and starter. Ode could have no better understudy or for Ethan such a brilliantly gifted tutor.

Were we that good or were Porto that bad? Maybe a mix of both clearly in our favour.

West Ham is another past midnight kick off for me so will have to see the next morning.

Barring KP and me, sounds like you guys had a great night with a feast of goals to savor as each one hit the back of the net.

I’ll catch it later and hope with the rest of you that that form can be replicated to get 3 points early Sunday morning my time.

KP—City was the first team in CL history to be leading by 3 goals at the 75th minute and not win…that speaks volumes about the present state of things at the Etihad…it’s hard to imagine that this dire patch will continue unabated, but if things persist a full-blown mental block could be in play, which could lead to an unraveling of sorts…if this were to happen Haaland could quite easily jump ship

Tony—it’s certainly never a negative when you beat one of Europe’s most in-form sides, but if it weren’t for their lopsided scoreline against City, which Amorim himself referred to as a flattering result, they wouldn’t be taken nearly as seriously…last Friday they waxed a lower division minnow 6-0 in a Cup fixture, so I’m sure they were feeling themselves, which can oftentimes leave you ill-prepared to deal with adversity…the key was whether or not MA would lean into his most defensive inklings when facing a 3-4-3:

“Any system with wing-backs inherently boasts more width than a team with only four defenders – if Sporting’s adventurous wide players push forward as they usually do, they will form a line of five attackers. This leaves Arsenal’s back-four outnumbered…what the instinctively wary Arteta tends to do against this type of system is make one of his wingers follow their wing-back into the back line to counteract the overload. Gabriel Martinelli and Saka rarely shirk their defensive duties, but this reactive approach could stymie Arsenal’s attacking thrust…as he continues to slide down the Jose Mourinho arc, Arteta may very well be content with first preserving a clean sheet before worrying about scoring”

thankfully MA resisted that temptation, which clearly came as a surprise to the newbie in charge…by the time any adjustments could be made we were already two up and all their original plans had gone down the crapper…down 3-0 at half they only had one option, to swarm us right out of the break…even though they did get one back, their plan wasn’t nearly as effective as we were already preparing to get all 11 behind the ball…after rebuffing them for the next 12 to 15 minutes we were able to counter them more effectively, which ultimately opened the door for us to tack on a few more…in the main, it was a very positive situation for all involved…well at least for those in an Arsenal kit

The danger for Arsenal, as Arteta acknowledged, tends to come when they try to manage a game rather than keep their foot on the gas. “We’re not very good at that,” he admitted.

This from the Guardian report on last night’s game. This quote gets to the heart of Arteta’s manifest weakness as a leader. I read it, agreed with it, and am angered by it. Why the fuck wouldn’t he see that as his job to have prevented it rather than simply acknowledge the problem as if he could do fuck all about it. Breathtaking.

Oh, morning everyone by the way! Two good performances despite, not because of, Arteta’s insane analysis.

Managed to find a decent file size copy of the game and play in my Room instead of the next day stream replay.

I thought tactically we were similar to our Forest win. Their 17 year old Kendia looked good could Obi have been the next kid after Ethan?

Rice is embarrassing in the final and not the best dead ball exponent with maybe 1:4 dangerous offerings as Gabs put away in the last knockings of the first half.

When you look at the score line one immediately thinks we best a quality side, which they are, I think they were under prepared and thought our dominance over Forest would be short lived against the great Porto.

You do wonder what would have happened if Porto scored from the VG free kick in the 52 minute as Porto were finding space down our right .

Ode should have come off around 53 minutes, as Ethan would have enjoyed the space Porto afforded us all game.

To get 2 tap in goals with us queuing up to score each time shows the poor level defending by Porto in the box and out wide.

For me was Forest wash rinse repeat getting the job done professionally.

Hammers beat the Bar Codes at St Jams Park so they will be buoyed up for the game Saturday.

Have to say Merino looks better at 8 than Rice.

Happy for the manner of the win as much as the win where we need 3 points from West Ham next.

Liked what I saw of VG but would prefer Isak if pushed.

You have to ask what Sterling has to do to get minutes? Tim cups maybe?

Tin pot cups*

Agree with all the probably yesterday’s was best display from Arsenal this season. Ode makes all the different really, the pace of forward movement, decisive passing, carrying the ball and feeding the attackers first time beyond the defense. All these vanishes the moment Ode is out of the side. We didn’t press that much as well giving Sporting the space to pass the ball between defenders but congest the space in midfield. Gyekerous does look good with his back to the goal and his hold up play was very good. He didn’t get a sniff due to our superior defending, but otherwise he is worth a look for number 9.
Partey looks more a 100M than Rice. He has been impressive from the start of the season to be fair. He is been consistent and fit for the games. I really dont see the point of Sterling when we signed him more so when you decide to sell ESR. Thats one decision that i will never reconcile with. Guess Arteta didnt like him much and so he was out. Hope we keep the same form through December.

Tony—agree with your Merino sentiments, as he’s far more of a natural facilitator than Rice, which makes sense considering that’s the position he’s played the vast majority of the time for both his former club and while on international duty…let’s hope that he’s not another victim of MA’s self-serving shoehorning agenda…as for Sterling, the less time he sees the pitch the better, not just because he appears to be washed up, but because it will prove once and for all that we need an adult in the room when it comes to recruitment…btw, albeit of little consequence, it was Sporting not Porto…Porto was the bang average side that we almost lost to last season, when MA was saved his blushes by Raya’s stellar penalty kicks performance…Cheers

https://youtu.be/VtICpyMI_9U?si=RNXm8UeW0_M5tZHr

IN A WORLD EXCLUSIVE, BROUGHT TO YOU BY ACE JOURNALIST KROENKEPHOBE LAST NIGHT, GUARDIOLA ADMITS TO SELF HARM.

What a fucking weirdo. He’s losing it.

And I’m even worse for speaking about myself in the third person…and using all those capital letters.

KP—I guess it’s only a matter of time before it’s revealed that his former cone-fetching puppet does likewise…unless there’s a leak we would likely never know because there’s no way our little vain fucktard would ever purposely damage his face…instead he’d probably put his junk into a chinese tickler then beat his nutsack with a get-back whip

I’m intrigued. What’s a get back whip? Don’t worry I’ll look it up.

In other news, Arsenal back in the top 8 (7th to be precise) of the CL.

Sorted…a motorcycle safety accessory which I assume has a dual use for S&M. 📿📿📿

My Christmas shopping for the notoriously fussy Ms Kroenkephobe is solved. Cheers Vieira!

KP—I find it more intriguing that you didn’t make a similar inquiry about the chinese tickler lol

on a couple sidenotes, (1) Biereth has been scoring for fun this term and today he potted the winner against Girona, and (2) MA spent so much time slobbering over our Sporting win, meanwhile today the team that currently sits 9 points above of us skunked Real, which puts them in the CL catbird seat with 15 points from 5 matches

KP
I hear ‘Red Rooms’ are all the E L James rage or so my current acquisition to the Tony stable of wanton women. lol This one has read the above author’s trilogy and is working her way through “Want” by Gillian Anderson who merely complied the women’s graphic fantasies. I read Nancy Friday when I was 19; this is modern day. My latest has asked me if she came to Australia with me can she design the room she wants.

Who am I to deprive this beautiful petite 41 old of her dreams? lol

Ambarish
You’re not secretly producing Desi Bang vids when you go AWOL? lol Warning LIR you can’t unsee what you watch if you search.

KP
Somebody mentioned Viagra do bargain buckets in Pattaya now. Any substance to this news I’ve love to hear? A MC brother told me Pattaya is like little India, but not quite yet at Singapore level, where by far the best authentic Indian food can be had, and where a SG, Indian, MC brother has 3 restaurants. A huge jovial chap who is the club’s Sergeant at Arms keeping the club members behaving themselves.

Madhu
I look at Rice now and feel he no longer fits much past the halfway line.

He’s not an 8, and as you rightly say, Partey is the better 6, but is too slow to cover the midfield and get into the final third, and then recover back in the 6 position. You’d need to be road runner to do that, but MA uses Marts or Saka or Kai to cover, so no problem. Yet there are issues with this because we weaken our final 3rd when they defend deep.

Has no one taught MA to defend from the front first? Then pass the defending to midfield backing up where the front 3 can, but not dropping back to our pen box, and having attackers trying to tackle, all too often giving away free kicks in dangerous areas.

Something else MA needs teaching; attackers are not natural tacklers, that’s why they are attackers, and lumbering DMs are not goal scorers bar the odd law of shot averages, where 90% of Rice wild slices at the ball go row Z – all early Partey-esque.

Rice should play rugby and take the Goal kicker role. Another Jonny Wilkinson potential or be a kicker in American football. Seems now Rice can’t whip a low trajectory ball over with pace high enough to beat the front post defending and just away enough from the keeper, but in the corridor of uncertainty.

That’s not in his locker, so not a chance in hell other than maybe 1:4+. So, now we get the looping air ball that drops past the back post for big Gabs, that is now noted by watching opposition after Gabs bagged his goal. We’ll see Gab’s back post runs blocked off against the Hammers.

Rice is a good 6 if he is disciplined and not given lip service by MA that he’s an 8 or 10. When this MA shoehorning at its worst becomes a failed project Rice’s £100M+ price tag will drop to the more £60+M he probably now worth. This was another TW blunder where we are going to lose money on this so called elite player investment.

Let’s get this right! Ode is a 100m+ player, as is Saliba, Saka, and so will Ethan be in the next 5 years.

Rice is not a £100+M player. Ask yourself this why isn’t Rice on RM’s and Barca’s shopping lists? A Bayern Munich player at best from what I see of what Rice brings to our title challenge. Like Xhaka before, Rice is suited better to the German League’s slower pace, but I still don’t see BM paying more than £70m for him with add ons.

Rice is a 6 or CD, where any thoughts of playing in midfield or in the final 3rd are just pure Walter Mitty’s dream world.

TRVL
Thanks for the correction, I always get Sporting and Porto mixed up especially when baking.

Sterling can’t be happy warming the bench and playing in reserves teams for the 2 now pretty worthless league and FA cups. His glory days are long past, and he’s behind the poor Jesus and tap in merchant Kai. You and I have said before and Madhu recently joined the Gooner choir in singing Mart’s praises to play 9 at times, and let Him cut in like Saka does, when he did against Sporting, he bagged his goal that meant so much to him – still fist pumping the air waiting to restart.

We are at the crucial 9-game period we need to bag 27 points from 27, and you feel 23 is achievable and I feel 19 to 21 on current display. I hope you are right but I’m waiting for the wheels to come off as has been our short roller coaster season.

No reason why we can’t bank the 27 points with Ode back, but teams know now, stop Ode and we have no creative force in midfield, we are left to Rice, Partey and Merino to create, and we’ve seen that rodeo before with poor results this season.

There is a top 10 forming with cigarette paper widths between many teams from 3rd to 9th.

A great season for the neutrals………

I thought we played and defended better with Rice on then bench against Forest. I’m warming a bit to Merino being a quicker than Rice over 20 to 30 meters at least. Merino is not the 8 we need, but is all we have right now and decent. Will Merino improve? Doubtful under MA that’s not MA’s MO. Players tend to regress unless so naturally gifted that they can’t be Artetarized, such as Saka, Saliba, and Ode.

All 3 will become elite on their own abilities, but a better manager, such as Slot, Klopp and the younger managers making names for themselves would all improve our squad, and then how good would we be?

I think Liverpool good with elite or elite potential 8 and 9 additions. They are the title missing pieces to our puzzle along with Ethan being fast tracked to regularly starting for us this season.

Speaking of Pool and Slot, another scalp in Slot’s locker from last night, from what I read Liverpool were best all over the park at Anfield.

You caused me to look far more closely at Slot as I value your football IQ from the many more games and highlights you watch compared to my own much less consumption of the game which is really The Arsenal & PL, and little else.

If in the UK, I would wander down to the Sunday game pitches and remember the odd games I’d get to play when in the UK. Sadly, I seem to be in the constant fast lane in my nomadic life so little time and time zone misery, too. I can really understand KP’s zest for local footy. There maybe few supporters by comparison, but the tribal element is always there.

Who R yer? Is said in far more jest as KP has relayed with his Spuddy co supporter banter of County.

Where there is football, there is banter: the 2 are joined at football’s comedic hip, and what makes the English game so much more fun. I’m sure other country’s leagues have their form of cultural tribalism where it would be good to get translations.

Slot is living up to my expectations and in many ways I know yours, too. You are expecting a slump of some kind, where on this very rare occasion I feel differently that Slot will lift the PL trophy. He’s already breaking records for the right reasons where unfortunately, MA has broken all the wrong records while adding his own negative data to live on in our not so illustrious annuls.

He’s doing all this while keeping Salah productive. Had Salah played for us, he would be in the MA non-negotiable naughty room Auba and Ozil have since vacated.

Salah has worked out that Slot is good for Salah’s future where he feels he is Mr. Liverpool. It’s an interesting manager/player dance, but one I feel Slot is more than winning, where for now, Salah and his agent are happy with the current status quo because it suits their current and future contractual aspirations.

It’s a very fragile relationship I would imagine. Salah is a brilliant, creative sole where with all creatives there is a downside usually connected to the spectrum that proffers bizarre behavior: Pogba & Gazza are past and present exponents of the crazy worlds they reside in.

Something I know you have first hand knowledge of in your sporting days; playing, coaching and own recollections you’ve shared here.

If Slot keeps Salah on the “win the PL and go where you want after” trail. I wouldn’t be surprised if Salah actually stays. I think the Kop will have a big say in keeping Salah if they still see him as their future goal messiah. Salah loves to be loved and money, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive.

Your premise of City continuing to shit the bed is a good one where Haaland must be in banter hell with his mate Ode who, if smart should start putting an empathetic arm around his good friend’s shoulders bestowing our future potential, especially when the eventual new manager arrives.

What if Haaland’s agent told Josh get an elite manager and Haaland will join? That’s real player power especially if Ode’s agent tells Josh the same that ode would renew another 4 years and snub RM & Barca.

Pipe dreams of course, probably literally……. cheers

Tony that’s a monster post with so much to unpack.
Rice – to be fair for his transfer cost he has been an average player rating of 5 across the first and third of this season. It beggars the mind that a footballer gets paid millions to kick a ball which is his primary skills and practices a billion times over his entire career yet in match situation plants it to row z. Imagine in our normal mundane life skills for ex a carpenter doesn’t get cutting a piece of wood right the first time! It’s really a bizarre state of affairs and IAM not buying the argument that it’s pressure yadda yadda nonsense. All of us are under pressure and imagine your basic skills in your jobs deserts you and you need multiple attempts to get it right. You would have lost your job. This is one things I have never understood. A football player with his basic skills of kicking a ball at a particular target range getting it horribly wrong most times. Bizarre
Slot – as of now he is a perfect example of if you don’t change you don’t know what’s out there. Who would have thought that any manager can come in and replace Klopp and does it even better. If he wins the PL then this message will only get stronger. Arsenal did it with Wenger who and tasted success but now reluctant to do the same. There are plenty out there if you are willing to make the right choice for the right reasons.
Good morning to my dear gooners.

Madhu
Sorry about that once I get going I just let is flow and not really think too much of the length.

KP calls it fireside writing which is how I imagine I’m talking with someone. We don’t have so many posters so I tend to write longer and guess ready will skim to the parts that maybe interest them.

Perhaps I should cover less issues per post but then I don’t want LIR to become the ‘Tony show’ with multiple posts daily. My hope is others will find something to reply on.

Couldn’t agree more with your ‘basic skills’ thinking. As for pressure, that’s why they get paid the big bucks. They are paid to handle it, but can be too preciously anal, like Kai can be with his hissy fits when crumbling to the ground and not getting the call from the ref.

Have a good one Madhu.

I think talk of Rice’s decline is very premature. The guy is able to play anywhere, and does, not least because of his high level of physical fitness and running. If you remember where we were with Xhaka (OK he had a decent final season) to where we are now, the difference is stark. Rice to me also reads the game well and is an intelligent footballer. Opponents are shit scared of him.

I often catch myself forgetting that he’s our player at the start of games and then breathing a sigh of relief when he’s mentioned. Shout out also to our tea-bagging hero Partey as well who has looked terrific this season.

In the round, I think big clubs like ours playing on multiple fronts shouldn’t be thinking about a first eleven any longer. Our squad has grown and we now have something akin to a first 15 or 16 who can be inter changed as injuries bite or when the fixtures get frequent.

The manager is an arse (and will remain so) but we have some brilliant players these days.

Tony
Write as often and as prolifically as you wish (whether it’s influenced by 🌿 or not!). It’s all very readable, as are everyone else’s thoughts.

Tony
Its a pleasure to read your thoughts. Keep it going mate. Its great to read different views and contribute without the fear of ridicule and retribution through calling names and worse.

KP—I don’t think anyone is suggesting that Rice is a scrub, just that he’s being deployed in manner that isn’t befitting of his particular set of skills, thus the poor ratings…you wouldn’t pay top dollar to a plumber then expect him to build you an outdoor deck to the same high-spec as a master craftsman

MA clearly has the same egoistic inklings as our latter days professor, in that he cares infinitely more about looking like a genius than doing what’s best for the team as a whole…Rice has been a world-class DM for some time now, but no manager of consequence would ever pay 100+M knowing full-well that the player in question had totally other things in mind…now if we paid 40M and considerably less wages, I might think differently, but I very much doubt it

only at Arsenal could we finally properly invest in a position that’s been largely ignored since Vieira left for Juve, then punch that gift horse right in the fucking mouth…after all there’s a reason why even Soucek was considered a better option in the final third than Rice and we certainly wouldn’t have shelled out even a fraction of the amount paid to secure his services…Cheers

Thanks for setting that out Vieira. It makes good sense. Arteta is such a show-off, I agree that he’d get an ego boost by reassigning players. He just can’t resist being the smart arse.

KP—no worries…we tend to focus on negatives more than positives on here, and rightly so, as we all just want the best for our club, which is why it’s so frustrating when our manager keeps doing shit that seems counter-intuitive to that end goal…in more recent times I’ve been trying to take a more balanced approach when it comes to my posts, but it’s difficult because there’s not a single person within our organization, including the owner, who appears to have as high of standards as little ole me WTF

“The manager is an arse (and will remain so) but we have some brilliant players these days.”

After inheriting Saka, Martinelli and Saliba and then spending almost €800 million I should fucking hope so!

https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/mikel-arteta/spielertransfers/trainer/47620

Thanks for the kind words, Madhu/KP our blog leader has got the right balance where posters enjoy communicating with each other. KP and I likened it to a cool Gooner family where the banter is intelligent and meant well.

Our Smithy has alluded to the fact that Rice isn’t as important as he first was. We can win with out Rice because Partey has found his earlier career form, and is generally injury free – playing better than Rice imho.

I think the emergence of Ethan this season, and if Merino improves as he acclimates to the PL’s physicality and pace, then Rice & Partey are in contention for the 6 for who starts, which is exactly how it should fcuking be!

Honest competition and sound rotation for each position. For 6 we are now covered. We need to turn our attention to 8 & 9 with the latter in the January window; Isak or VG would do for me, where I think VG could be the more likely.

This article is interesting re state owned clubs and long overdue in my mind:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/mancity-newcastle-football-governance-bill-34211376

Maybe Isak could be had because the crown prince was said to be unhappy at not getting his own way with his club He & His country owns. Of course, the ownership will be passed to a defacto owner somewhere deep in the Cayman Island’s secret vaults for offshore companies: possibly the worlds worst kept secret.

I might have been a bit hasty in saying Isak is the better player; on reflection I think they could be even as Isak is PL tested and VG might take a couple of months to find his rhythm.

I do have a solution. Buy both and play them both up top in a 442. What a statement that would make, so, Ambarish, let’s hope they are reading LIR today:

Raya
Timber – Saliba – Gabs – Calafiori
Saka – Ode – Rice/Partey/Ethan – Marts
Isak & VG

That would be my starters to pick from with a decent bench of: Kai, Merino, Tomi, Kearney now fit shocker, Skelly, White and Trossard with also rans of Zinny, Jesus, Raheem who can be shipped out asap.

What say you all? Do your thoughts differ? Do you see different potential additions?

“Play for the right to wear the shirt!” Should be hung over the dressing room door – on the other side of the door should be written: “Did you honor your shirt today?”

Forget pickpockets, playing with stupid speakers on the side lines and win the utterly, useless yet lovable dog. Has he gone to Battersea dogs home yet as part of MA’s non-negotiables? I hope he shat in MA’s shoes to match MA shitting his pants at the end of each season with each capitulation.

Lastly on Rice, he started as a CD and is decent in defense, as he was for the Hammers, but they were the Hammers, not The Arsenal. I hope that doesn’t come back to bite me tomorrow evening.

I have, it seems to have been forever (Wenger & MA) seeking one word that is missing or appears to be missing from KSE and that is: Accountability, as there seems precious little at our club where contracts get renewed for failure.

Let’s mince words here – for 5 long, tedious and winless years, MA has been a failure in all departments starting, as Marc said buying whimsical & unremarkable player additions who rarely move the needle to where we need it moving. Most have regressed and been shipped out or waiting for their player executions.

And finally congrats to Kai whose wife is having a baby.

My mind immediately went to Kai’s shot stats, where I wondered how many shot it took to find the back of the uterus?

I imagined the headboard to be a bit messy with the high wide and handsome offerings we’re used to seeing. I mean at 69 I rarely miss, but when I do, I’m well and truly in the shit, have a good one and hope you weren’t having your breakfast while reading. lol

That was my best attempt at a short post Madhu lol hope it unpacks ok……… Enjoy you day..