I will eat the humble pie after the match if I am wrong, but what in the real world is Mikel doing in team selection? We are playing Fulham away in 30min, team sheet is out and Thomas Partey starts at RB. Gabriel, White, Zinchenko and Calafiori are not even on bench due to injuries but you have Tierney and I am sure he can fill IN as a LB against the likes of Fulham. Thomas is having a great season but putting him at RB puts him at a risk and the midfield is brazen of his skills. Jorginho is filling up in the midfield. Playing Partey at RB also mean we are weaking our right side because Timber is now going to play at LB. I don’t understand this infatuation to have a midfield in defence, I’m sorry. If the idea is to play the game virtually with 3 defenders and allowing Partey to move into the midfield during the play, I don’t understand that as well. You are better off in a 3-4-3 set up if that’s the case.
Martinelli makes way for Leandro Trossard because of his poor form. The games are coming thick and fast and it shouldn’t be a problem, he will get minutes to compete and displace the Belgian. Mikel Merino sits on bench, Jorginho gets to start ahead of him. Gabriel Jesus can’t replace a non-performing Kai Havertz, which tells a lot about him.
We dropped 5 points against Fulham last season, and we certainly would be hoping to do better than that. Manchester City dropped points yesterday, and we could go 4 points ahead of them if we win. We have 3 ex-gooners playing for Fulham, ESR whom we wanted to succeed at Arsenal, Leno – who was also a fan favorite during his time at Arsenal and Alex Iwobi, who is in great form for Fulham this season.
Craven Cottage is a tough place to visit and Fulham is having a good season so far. I don’t see it as an easy game and the likes of Jorgi, Kiwior, Trossard and Havertz would have to show their importance today.
I am expecting a tough game, but hoping we would win 2-0 with Saka and our captain on the scoresheet. I will keep it short today, do let us know if you are happy with the team selection and if it could have been better.
See you in the comments section in 30 min.
TRVL
I’m guessing it’s more Arteta than Rice. Last season, we saw Partey’s rockets for a very extended length and only stopped when it was sure he can’t be Tomi Kroos.
Same is happening with Rice.
Tony
Its a match that can get spicy – should be a good watch.
I’ve got a huge pot of Beef Bourguignon that’s been marinating since yesterday ready to go for dinner and some cold beers in the fridge.
Shame Arteta spoilt part of the weekend.
Marc
It should be a cracker. That is one of my fav French dishes I’m salivating but really happy for you. I know you like your cooking and food.
Maybe you can take solace in Spuds & Chavs kicking lumps out of each other as you feast away.
I cooked some Roti in salted butter yesterday and added thick blueberry jam and fresh cream just to see how it tasted and was pleasantly surprised. It was hardly beurre blanc but different enough to enjoy.
Ambrish that’s nice to know that you are a wiproite too. Amazing coincidence.
Well another game where our strategy was to get a corner. Wonder why not make Nicholas Jover the manager? What we are being sold is a classic headline management of Arsenal are a club on the up. Next few years belong to us bla bla.. in reality there are glaring issues and if we want to be blind then it’s our problem. Its a miracle if we win anything with this manager’s conservative approach. What is the point of sterling, jesus and such players making millions contributing next to nothing. I would rather have academy kids getting ahead of them and a hunger to prove themselves. Get these guys out from my club. It’s a disgrace.
I simply must reiterate my earlier question, why would a team who came in 2nd twice running completely change their tactical approach and not just get the kind of players who could get the job done without discarding the beautiful game altogether??? the answer is quite simple, if he had done so Havertz wouldn’t be guaranteed a starting spot and Rice wouldn’t be allowed to chase his nonsensical dreams
Madu
I’d forgotten Sterling was even on the bench.
We’re picking up about a £100k a week of his wages so £5.2 million a year for what?
Marc, MA doesn’t have the guts to play a midfield 3 with both Ethan and Ode. So he goes the change the whole setup to include Jorgi and Rice. Play partey as RB. simple change of MLS at left his usual place, Timber at RB with a Rice/Partey in the center isn’t for the generational. I am not sure I understand what is the hesitation in playing. Ethan and Ode in the midfield. Till when can be keep playing like this and still pretend that we catch Liverpool. Beats me.
Madhu—your preaching to the choir, as there’s no reason whatsover why we haven’t seen a two-pack of Ode and Ethan in the midfield, except that it would require Rice to play as the sole DM…god forbid he be deployed in the very position that required us to pay 100+M for him
That is what a striker can do.
I did not see that.
Jamie Carragher being an even bigger cunt than normal by having a go at a player who having slipped over twice costing 2 goals comes over to change his boots.
Marc
Boeuf Bourgignon, Dauphinoise potatoes and Ratatouille accompanied with a glass or two of Burgundy – much better than the game El B served up today. Another set piece is all that we can manage as the set up is so disjointed.
Meanwhile over at Shite Hart Lane Chelsea are now in front – they will soon be pulling away from us unless El B starts to employ new tactics – not sure his galaxy brain is able to conjure up anything different.
Just in case there’s anyone who still thinks Arteta is the man, has sauce, is a generational manager etc we bought Palmer for Chelsea and gave them £20 million for the pleasure of doing it.
Marc—don’t forget what we gave City for two of our longstanding benchwarmers or the fact we gave West Ham 100M to convert a DM into a bang average AM…MA is the gift that keeps giving
TRVL
Rice was well worth the money – the fact that he’s not utilised to the detriment of the team is all down to one person.
As for how much we gave City – Arteta has pissed so much money up the wall it gets to a point where its depressing to list them.
he’s only worth the money if he’s played in the right position…no one would paid even half of the fees or wages if they had to agree to his positional demands
would “have”
Morning all
Marc
What a game with Spuds committing football suicide defending in the box. Did it give you indigestion or was the sauce so smooth with flavor? I went to sleep hungry with the vision of my last dining out in Paris 30 years ago.
TRVL
It’s clear that MA sees things differently to us at LIR or we wouldn’t be in our current manager malaise, where as if Wenger’s last decade wasn’t enough, MA is perhaps worse?
Week in and week out we talk about the same selection mistakes, and watch our future stars leave with no progression likely under MA.They will ask themselves if Ethan only gets cameos when we need to score goals badly, then they will think what chance do I have?
They would be correct and will leave.
There are ST names being mentioned we’re in for around the £40m mark who I don’t know, but that is not hard for me, as I don’t follow players and other clubs much. Of course there is Isak & VG on our list along with Nico Williams but that seems to have gone quiet with Pep’s interest.
LIR
Hope the sun is shining for you and family in Spain, KP. Did you see the game?
I’m stuck for words for once unless I want to sound like a broken record player and reiterate what we’ve all been saying all season.
The commentator during the game mentioned that if we lost yesterday, we wouldn’t be able to drop any more points or will will not win the league. We’ve dropped 12 points now from away games where last season we were getting max points from a lot more aways games than this season.
Why is that? We have the same manager, improved set piece goals, and an improved squad with Calafiori & Merino, Sterling is not an upgrade; quite the opposite, so should we be top now with City not being able to buy a win?
I’ll leave you with this:
If we’d played: Timber at RB, Willie at RCB, Rice at LCB and Kiwior or Tierney at LB now he’s fit, would we have shipped 2 goals?
Then in midfield: Ode Party Ethan.
With Tross at LW – Marts in the middle, as we have all asked, and Saka RW – all interchanging, as the Invincible’s did, I am convinced we would have beaten Fulham yesterday from open play.
Instead we dropped 2 more unnecessary points leaving us little margin to drop more points with about 60% of the PL season still to play. That would suggest on away games alone we could drop another 10 points, and then where will we finish?
I say around 8th, and have seen nothing to change my POV, although I’m praying every day Barca or Accrington Stanley come to make an offer for MA in January – MA’s level is the latter who probably wouldn’t want him either.
MA will never change – 5 years have proved that. Same mistakes and pets and galaxy selections that go tits up when we can’t score from open play with a squad worth more than £1b.
Have I missed anything?
The only thing missing at our Arsenal is an elite proven manager, such as Slot or Enzo Maresca both deservedly sitting in 1st & 2nd and in their first seasons.
When will Josh & Daddy wake up and see that MA farts stink worse than previous managers, where he shits the bed with weekly selections & tactics, and then blames everything but himself?
Can we buy him a giant butt plug? He’s a big enough arsehole who lives for lip service with his PR machine who have nothing to crow about.
After 5 years of generational rookie to still acting like a tactical rookie playing the same tactics, where without set piece goals we’d be mid to low table. Teams are slowly finding ways to nullify our dead ball advantage: block runners and move defensive lines up collectively leaving our runners joining late all offside.
One other question, shouldn’t players be offside if they are joining a defensive line from an offside position?
Have a good one LIR…….
Monaco Wednesday night at home. What will we do? We have Everton at home Saturday who are 2nd to us with set piece goals.
How will MA manage our squad over this 2 games?
Morning all. Tony all valid points and what bothers me is that MA has been doing this all along. Instead of making obvious choices he will move around everything to accommodate his fav. Iam not for a moment telling that you should surprise opposition but in his case he seems to surprise his own team. He could have played MLS at left back and Timber at RB. then you could have rested partey and bought him on late. Or you could have had rice and Partey in midfield with ode. Ethan should get more mins and any other manager that would have been possible.
I wonder if MA has Cesc in his teens would he have played him? Would MA the managed played MA the player. Food for thought.
Have a nice one all.
If we had only signed Cole Palmer, oh wait our MA fabs boys said he is not good enough. Anyways we have mighty sterling who MA coached to a superstar in City.
Ambarish
The fonts work fine on the Android pad. But don’t know why ,on the Android phone your post is fine but our posts still monstrous size , still.
Sorry to trouble you mate. For the time being , now I am using the pad so it is fine.
Chelsea are playing exactly how we should be playing.
With youth and attacking intent.
Difference is Chelsea FC find a way and want to win trophies, its in their DNA.
They will sack, spend, sack, sack, spend, spend, sack until they get there.
Their team all on long contracts look they could dominate in the years ahead.
Us silly cunts, will still be waiting for a another cunting process with this useless cunt of manager.
AF
It looks to an observer that El B is over cautious. Two top two finishes have come not through domineering play but because other usual contenders have been in turmoil all at the same time (except City). Klopp ran out of Steam, Chelsea had the pieces but could not put them together, Spurs were being Spurs and Man U were just spending for the fun of it without making any progress. Whilst we finished near the top El B has been rewarded by the board and is now the second highest paid manager in the Premiership. What a waste.
AF—I’ve so missed your indelible capacity to perfectly incorporate the word cunt in every single one of your posts…kudos to you for your tireless efforts, if only our cunt of a manager had your unyielding commitment to excellence we would have solved our bride’s maid dilemma quite some time ago
I likewise agree with your Chelsea sentiments and even though I would rather find another way to get shit done, if given a choice between MA’s multi-phased clusterfuck and the sack and spend MO of our neighbours, I would choose the latter without any hesitation whatsoever
as for their attacking style of play versus our much more mundane set-piece dependent approach, give me the former every single day of the fucking week, which once again begs the question, why did we change our script when it appeared as if we were so close to figuring our shit out…for me there’s only two possibilities, (1) the signing of Havertz and, to a lesser degree, Rice and (2) MA’s selfish desire to rewrite his own narrative
in the first regards, if Rice had simply come here with the sole purpose of becoming the best DM in the world and Havertz had never arrived, I believe we would be much farther ahead by now, so long as MA wasn’t given total control when it came to recruitment…as to my second point, it’s clear that his fragile ego has suffered at the hands of all the chatter surrounding his cut and paste tactical approach, so this dipshit thought he could change this narrative by going a completely different way…now it appears as if he would rather live in the shadow of managers the likes of Jose and Pulis, instead of Pep and Wenger, which makes him an incredibly sad fuck…Cheers
it’s difficult to imagine us running out of backline options considering MA’s defender-heavy recruitment practices, but we’re starting to look a little thin at the back…a couple of those injuries appear more minor in nature, like with Gabs, Zinchenko and Cala, albeit the latter two have been injured on multiple occasions this season, then we have the habitually injured Tomi and White, who will be out for several months, following his knee procedure
beyond the obvious, that we can’t field our best back 4 with Gabs and Cala both shelved, I’m more than a little concerned about us having to waste money in January at the totally wrong end of the pitch…let’s face it MA hardly needs a good reason for buying another defender, so I’m sure he’s already hatching some nonsensical plans…he likely has a room full of minions scanning the internet for anyone 6’4 or taller with a dominant left foot, who at some point since their 10th birthday played at least one match as a defender…let’s hope he doesn’t lose sight of the fact that we have bigger fish to fry, from a long-term squad construction perspective, and the last thing we need to do is throw good money after bad again
AF
Always a pleasure to see your undiluted look at our manager and would proffer this to your limited adjective armory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26ClGxCylSM
Would love to see the Arsenal faithful adding this to their MA song sheets.
TRVL
I needed a laugh today so thanks had me chortling away. Football wise you’ve left nothing to add.
Have you or anyone detected a slight negative PR shift? Normally, we see only how much the sun shines out of MA’s fat arse, but there was one that called MA shameless ( I thought that was his 2nd middle name after cnut). I guess the word shameless would be like soft porn for you AF lol.
Another article was claiming he got the last window wrong not getting the most needed target. Shocker I know because for 3 months he’s been lauded for Merino & Calafiori, some even pumped the Sterling decision. Now Edu has left the building it’s beginning to look like open season on MA is starting, which is music to my ears.
Should be our club song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdB-8eLEW8g
I was only skimming so maybe there are more. I hope so because he’s been unaccountable for at least 3.5 years, and that’s being generous when you consider Emery’s plight.
TRVL
Axed Manure chief Dan Asworth apparently has been added to our sporting director list.
I don’t know the guy, but if I were looking at his Manure record, I’d be asking why?
You know much about him?
Tony—all I know is that he was highly thought of by industry folk during his time with both BHA and Newcastle, which is why he was paid a handsome sum to help ressurect a clearly disjointed United side…his appointment was short-lived due in large part to circumstances beyond his control, as their hierarchical structure had a lot of overlapping job descriptions which led to some in-house angst…this all came to a head when everyone wasn’t on the same page regarding several transfers maneuvers, the continued employment of ten Hag and, most notably, the subsequent hiring of his successor…Sir JIm felt that DA was more of a delegator than an identifier of talent, which was evident when he hired outside analysts to perform tasks the boss felt should have been well within his purview.
“Ashworth is primarily an operations manager, according to people who have worked with him, rather than a transfer guru”
btw Richard Garlick has a close connection with DA, due to their days together at West Brom…I don’t think he remedies what ails us, as we clearly need someone with an eye for talent and the ability to get business done in a timely fashion…I fear that his employment here would simply ensure MA’s continued predominance over all football-related matters, which would make this a “same old, same old” hire
What we need in Edu’s replacement more than anything else is the ability to identify a high level high calibre replacement for Arteta.
Its not going to be long now before the Kroenke’s ask why Arteta’s finished behind 2 managers both in their first seasons – one of which has just won the PL after spending £40 odd million, the other taking over a complete basket case that’s gone through more managers recently than Daniel Levy does in an average season.