Champions League group stage is concluding today after 8 game-weeks. Every team will be in action at 8 PM UK time, and we are visiting Girona today. Though a draw is sufficient to qualify for the knockout stage and avoid 2 additional games in a play-off, we would love to win and keep the confidence high. Girona aren’t having a great season, having lost 6 of their 7 CL games and we should be beating them easily.
Mikel Merino and Odegaard missed out against Wolves but are back in contention for the game. Saka will be missed but Nwaneri is back and I am hoping he won’t let us miss the starboy. We have a game against City on Sunday, so I won’t be surprised if Mikel pull out the likes of Jorginho and Sterling to rest some of the main team players.
Liverpool and Barcelona has qualified already, we are sitting on 16 points. Lets see how it can go if we lose today!
Inter, Atletico, Milan and Atlanta are between 14-16 points, a win would take them above us bringing us to 7th position. There are 6 clubs (Leverkusen, Aston Villa, Monaco, Feyenoord, LOSC, Brest) with 13 points that will level with us. But we have got a very healthy goal difference of 12 and only Atlanta (14) with their win will surpass us. It will bring us down to 8th position. No other teams with 13 points has more than 7 goal difference and for us to not qualify to round of 16 directly, we would be losing badly and one of the 6 teams would be winning with some margin. That’s a lot of permutations and combinations and it still favor us.
So, lets just sit comfortably, enjoy the game and lets hope Mikel do some rotation to keep the players fit for the game against Man City. Again, we should win against Girona with our bench players and I won’t mind if Nwaneri keeps his place in the team ahead of Odegaard, Jorgi starts ahead of Partey/Rice and Sterling gives some rests to Martinelli.
I never got time to write about MLS red card but what a shite decision that was. FA has rescinded the card and has deemed it to be a wrong decision. Michael Oliver (as usual) gave a RED against us for challenge that didn’t deserve it, VAR looked it in slow motion for a handful of seconds and agreed with Oliver. If we remove the bias-angle from that decision, what in the hell was VAR doing? A referee can have bad day or bad view but VAR was put in place for exactly the same reason to fix this. There’s incompetence at all level and PGMOL should be held accountable. With such small margins, you can’t forget to draw the lines at VAR, you can’t give two yellow to a player in the same passage of play, you can’t have two rules for two different teams for kicking the ball away, you can’t be handing straight red cards for challenges that deserve a max yellow. It’s a shite show and it needs to stop.
Right, that was all for the game and all thing Arsenal. But I have something more to talk about.
I read an interesting take from Goal.com regarding the new Champions League format :
I have been a supporter of the new Champions League format and though I agree with some of the things they have written, they have missed to touch the some important points for the sake of criticizing new format. Hear me out!
I agree with the sentiments here – more matches means more injuries and almost every big club in Europe is playing twice a week where both the games are considered important. They talk about players welfare but lets be honest here, no team would play another big club in all of those 8 group stages games. If a manager is fixated in playing his best XI every game, it’s on him. With high profile signings and money spent, clubs like City, Arsenal, Chelsea have got two XIs of 40-100m players. If you are hell bent on achieving success only via ‘100m’ players, it’s on you. If players are getting injured (excluding impact injuries) because they are playing more than they can sustain, it’s poor from the manager and the club who can’t decide when to rest a player even with multi-million health experts on their payroll.
Their next argument is money over meritocracy. UEFA wanted to make more money out of it – agreed but that’s not helping only the big clubs. Even the likes of Girona are getting 8 games, some of them happens to be big enough to generate excitement among their fans. There’s a trickle down effect here. For every Read Madrid making more money, there are Young Boys, who are trying to sustain in this market and remain competitive.
Regarding the extra safety net they are talking about, giving example of City, who after losing to Sporting, Juventus and PSG can still qualify by beating Club Brugge today – I’m not sure how that’s a bad thing. With the earlier format, it was more of a luck where you could land in a group of death, or lose a game on a bad day and you are out. How often we had seen a very non-competitive round of 16 earlier – very! Group stages may give you some boring games, but it would also filter out the elites for the next stage and it’s going to be more competitive as we go. I don’t want the likes of Madrid, City, Arsenal or PSG to go out of the tournament because of a bad day.
Right, that’s my take on this. Goal has certainly made their case and I am just on the opposite side of it. I am stirring the pot here, because I would love to hear your say – some of you have seen the changes in the past and would have better, valid points for and against it.
Another piece involving our perverse Academy stars Undertaker
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/transfer-news/chido-obi-martin-posts-telling-30888118?int_source=nba
Are the Kroenkes somewhat weak in the head not to understand what is happening?
When Odegard was injured we could have played ESR in that position and got maybe some goals too. Instead we had sold ESR and shat the bed
Ambarish
Damn good write up, particularly about the New Champions League format. Would say it applies to the current as well
Thanks Ambarish
Hoopah – It appears any new targets AFC have turn down the opportunity to join El B. Likewise our best youngsters re choosing a different path to their careers – one where they will be involved with play instead of picking splinters from their bums.
KP -Girona – this is the town you were looking at moving to?
Good One Ambarish – On the Ref , VAR and PGMOL my personal feeling is that its incompetence and sure there will be few bias as well. But we cannot say that this is only limited to Arsenal. I have heard this Ref bias from ages but neither the authorities nor Arsenal football club has done anything. Why doesnt AFC do anything if they think that the bias is hurting them?’
Alternatively how would be bring unbiased or a Neutral ref in here. Its easy in games where nations compete with each other but difficult in a club competition that too when its a globally followed clubs. Thats why only way to go is to have a decision review mechanism which empowers the supposedly wronged side in a game.
Madhu
I think we tried retaliation earlier but it didn’t go to any end. We, or anyone else cannot do anything to PGMOL, they are autonomous and only the Premier League can bend them.
Hiring European referees will remove the bias-ness to a large extent. Putting these referees on mic while they take the decisions will make them more accountable. Like any industry, attach the bonus/salary components with the performance and let some of the ex-footballers review it can help as well.
Though, nothing’s gonna happen. It didn’t happen 20 years ago when Wenger was crying. It won’t happen under Mikel.
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What’s everyone’s preferred line up for today? I would love to see MLS and Nwaneri starting today. It’s a big game, but we can afford to draw and still qualify.
Thanks Hoopah, I was not happy with what I read on goal. It felt like an article written by one of the Arsenal/City/Madrid/PSG managers. You can’t just lost out the negatives to handful of big clubs and leave out the positives for the small ones that keeps the overall football healthy.
Well, well, well ..
Fabrizio reported this 3 minutes back —
🚨🔴⚪️ Aston Villa have rejected today an official bid from Arsenal for Ollie Watkins.
Proposal around £60m turned down as Villa are not happy with timing of the bid, ahead of crucial UCL game for the club.
👀🇸🇦 Villa are also in active talks with Al Nassr for Jhon Durán.
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I would love Watkins.. villa are just increasing the demands..
Watkins is a boyhood Arsenal fan – you’ve got to assume the club want to try and get the player to push for a deal.
If a team competing for a top 4 place did the same to us we’d be seriously fucked off with the timing etc but I’m sure us doing it will be seen as completely different.
Ambarish—talk about a tone deaf maneuver…so either we’re trying to infuriate a potential transfer partner with the timing, which seems rather obtuse on our part, or it’s a bullshit bid that we knew they would immediately reject, so it was just another ruse to make it appear as if we’re doing our best…Watkins, who I like, is 29 and not nearly as good as Isak, so I can’t say it would be my preferred option, especially if this put us out of the Striker market come the summer…there’s a reason why Duran has so many more suitors, as he’s much younger and has a higher up-side, but he might be a little raw for our immediate purposes….all that said, I certainly wouldn’t be upset if Watkins supplanted Havertz up top, in fact, quite the contrary, but that’s a pretty low bar
let’s keep in mind, Fabs isn’t the most reliable of sources
Marc
I would pay 5m more if Ollie comes with a ‘fuck you’ to Villa.
The timings could have been better though. It will be an improvement to Jesus and Havertz. He can win us games on his own. He got 2-3 seasons of his prime.
60 m for all that? I will take him.
TRVL
Sami Mokbel broke the news first it seems, he is certainly very reliable for everything Arsenal.
NORG
Yeah, Girona is Catalunya’s second largest city after Barcelona I’d say, but it is certainly the cultural capital of the region. Much more Catalan in outlook and only 50 Kms from France and their own Catalan region (around Perpignan). I’d recommend Girona for a short break. Affluent, sophisticated and not like Barcelona and certainly not like Madrid. The centre is a little like Florence in my view.
I suppose what’s most needed tonight is a business like win in drama free circumstances with no injuries. I’m sure that won’t stop el bastardo giving it the big one in front of his own home boys if there’s the slightest perceived injustice.
Good news about MLS made better by the fact that Oliver won’t be reffing the game against City. We might even get some reffing sympathy given what’s happened, but I doubt it.
Everyone and his dog plus tea lady knew we needed a striker for years. Now that the shit has hit the fan, the powers to be need to present the optics to the supporters, we are doing our best. Fuck me, if that is your best to bring in a striker who we needed since Auba was canned, the things at AFC are in the FUBB state, Fucked Up Beyond Believe.
What we are witnessing are the effects of shit canning our scouting system, no one has a clue where or what talent is available, plus no DOF to make things happen. Isak could have been bought for 60mill but the fraud of a manager opted for Jesus. That turned into a 45mill deficit. I believe there was never ANY intention to get a striker in January when you pay premium, it was always the summer if at all, but to avoid an uproar, the club is doing something, even tough everyone can see it is halfhearted shit.
So, so glad that the Six Nations start on Friday and I have a distraction from the shit show presented at Arsenal.
Team news
Neto
Partey, Kiwior, Gabriel, Calafiori
Odegaard, Jorginho, Merino
Nwaneri, Trossard, Havertz
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Happy with the line up.. we can afford to rotate. MLS is keeping Calafiori for weekdays, good.
Killroy—if it weren’t for the self-inflicted nature of our Striker predicament, I might empathize with MA’s current plight, as it’s always difficult to get your preferred targets in this window…that said, the fact that we’re in knee-jerk operational mode means that teams are going to want us to pay a premium, which wouldn’t be that case if any top Strikers actually wanted to play under our present manager…I get it though, as MA’s shown nothing, by way of his tactics, that would encourage anyone to push for just such a move…you reap what you sow sideways man
Weaker team than usual. Can’t argue with that in the circumstances. Nevertheless, capable of scoring a few against Girona I think.
as for our lineup, we had better hope this nicked up Girona side doesn’t take advantage of our weak spine, with Jorginho, Ode, Kiwior and Merino playing…this is the kind of affair where Rice should be earning his keep by playing deeper in the dead center of the pitch…I feel like he’s missed more games this season than he did in his last 6 years in West London…go figure…anyways, we shouldn’t have any difficulties securing at least a draw
KP—I guess I could have just said “ditto”, if only I had seen your post first
Hi Vieira
Alternatively, loads of results go against us, we fuck up, and find ourselves in a 2 leg playoff against Real Madrid or Wenger’s old favourites Bayern Munich. We’ll need to consider group and ritual Hara Kiri if that’s the case. 🇯🇵🇯🇵🇯🇵 Banzai!
The main objective tonight is for City to morph into shit stinking kamikazes!
Incidentally, in the weirdest of coincidences, the Club Brugge manager is a Belgian guy called Nicky Hayen who formerly managed…. Haverfordwest County and was fucking brilliant.
KP—we certainly won’t be the only ones hoping that City shits the bed tonight and ends up on the outside looking in
Ambarish—where do you get your lineup info from? it’s usually wrong, so maybe you should find a different source in the future lol
like I said, as soon as Ethan plays for Saka everything is run through the left…nothing like catering to Sterling over our potential up-and-coming superstar…it’s GD bizarro world…I can’t even imagine what Marts is thinking, as there’s been more focus on the left side in the first 15 than he usually sees in a full 90
it could be offside, but what the fuck is Neto doing???
what’s the remedy to having played 4 straight CL games without scoring a goal = Arteta’s ill-prepared Arsenal side
let’s not forget that this is a Girona side is missing several of their regular starters
it should be 2-0
that might have been one of the dumbest in-box fouls I’ve seen in some time…good for us though
maybe Jorginho’s PK will inspire us to get another one before half