Well, a lot of things are not going our way recently. We have had some horrendous performances recently, we have fallen a bit in the title race and our technical director has left. We had injuries and it affected the way we played our games, we also had refereeing decisions going against us. Most important of all, it was a failure from the manager to not plan for it in advance. It was a failure of manager to not motivate players to play the way he wants. If you tell me that we can’t play the way we want if couple of players from starting XI are not available, then what’s the point of having a 24-man squad? You won’t have a 100% favourable condition, no matter which team you manage in whatever era. Today, against Inter Milan, on a Champions League night, away from home is the perfect place to show the world it was just a hiccup, and not the way forward. Let us make an statement with the ball.
Right, here I am in all the doom and gloom, EXCITED for the Champions League.
Team News
Lets start with a good news, Martin Odegaard is back in full training today. We needed him so badly to fix the creativity in that midfield and to get back on winning terms. He may not start straightaway but he would have some role to play tomorrow in case things don’t go as planned. Ben White was used as a substitute against Newcastle and should be available for the game. Declan Rice hasn’t travelled with the team, as a precaution to some discomfort. There’s no statement yet from the club but he is certainly not playing.
Arteta confirmed in his press conference when asked about Declan Rice
Declan unfortunately picked an injury against Newcastle. He was able to finish and he wasn’t feeling good the last few days. We’ll have to assess him on Thursday and see if he’s ready for Chelsea.
source: Arsenal.com
On Odegaard,
The positive news, Martin it’s great to have him back. He trained with us first time today. He’s a bit earlier than expected. But it’s great to have him here and we will decide if we use him tomorrow.
source : Arsenal.com
Back 4 is sorted with Ben White availability. Timber and White can cover LB and RB respectively. Midfield is going to be a problem again for Mikel. Thomas Partey and Merino will be present but who is going to play in place of Rice? We wouldn’t be risking Odegaard after 2 months of an injury to start straightaway in a highly competitive game against Inter Milan. Jorginho? May be. Because, apparently we don’t trust a 17 year old who had shown some good football in whatever minutes he has played.
We have been over-reliant on our defence. Defence wins you game – fine, but if you don’t score you lose 2 very important points. We need to go offensive against Inter, we need our front 3 to own up and not hide behind a non-existent midfield. It’s not like the likes of Saka, Havertz and Martinelli didn’t have chances, it wasn’t a lot but it was there. At this level, if you can’t convert a 50-50, you are not good enough. Lets not talk about Gabriel Jesus at all here.
I haven’t watched Inter from a long time. I don’t know how they play but I am guessing Martinez will be cause some chaos.
[this is a work in progress, please revisit to check the updates]
Not watching the match but looks like City are having another wobble.
It’s looking like another odd season – you expect one occasionally but they’re almost becoming the norm.
OK at 4-1 down that’s not a wobble its a spanking.
Marc—maybe more importantly than the scoreline is the fact that Viktor scored 3 of the 4…just go back to the summer when he was supposedly on our shortlist and MA was too consumed with signing backliners and those without goals in their boots…now he’ll likely end up at United with his old skipper
I was there till the third goal. City area hit with the same storm we did earlier – Bournemouth.
Madrid lost to AC Milan as well. This new format is getting us some crazy results and is keeping the excitement running.
I hope there is no upset for our game, though Inter are 2nd in their table and they are going to be tougher than what Madrid faced last night.
Ambarish—as the old adage goes “styles make fights”, so it’s clear by today’s results that either both Pep and Ancelotti misread the room, which seems a bridge too far, or the players simply failed to execute the revised plan…one thing about this new format is that it eliminates the home and home scenario, which means that each manager can’t devote nearly as much time on each opponent…as such, this could lead to some surprising results…that said, I would suspect that the cream will rise to the top in the qualifying round, as the focus will shift squarely towards one specific opponent, which typically favours the “better” side…as for our Inter matchup, having no Rice could be very problematic, as MA will likely go into full-turtle mode, albeit I thought the same when we faced Pool and that didn’t materialize (at least not early on)
We have scored 2 goals in the CL at PSG and star striker Own Goal scored for us against Shaktar. We are having a non existing attack. Our defense is not as good as it was last season and couple that with the clueless cunt Arteta, it is time to wildly celebrate a draw against Inter, while Don Unai could top the table tomorrow. Realistic expectations are we will loose as the more important game is the one against Chelsea. If we loose that one we are 10 points of the top and it is bye, bye to the title. We are back at the Wenger years baby, celebrating the top 4 trophy.
While I don’t mind Edu leaving it is a distraction we did not need. From all the pieces that I have read in the Athletic, his leaving came out of the blue, a counter offer by Arsenal was made, but Edu declined. Obviously the real reason we may never know. But there was a handwriting on the wall. The public reason was the multi club ownership appealed to Edu, but really clubs with no pedigree. For me the more likely reason is that Arsenal has gone manager-centric and the DoF is playing a lesser role and Edu might have seen this coming.
In any occasion we are more fucked then before Edu left as we now have to deal with the more emboldened charlatan Cunteta. I think I am going to take a break from Arsenal as I can’t deal with the stench coming from the London Colney training grounds. The end is nigh.
Killroy
You’re assuming we’d make top 4 if we lose to Chelsea.
I’m not sure that’s even close to a given. Arteta’s going to be really put under pressure if Liverpool finish above us, if they win the PL in Slot’s first season all of Arteta’s bullshit will be laid out for everyone to see.
I watched the Slot vs Alonso this morning my time, where BL put in a good first half and unlucky to have had a cooly taken goal by Frimpong correctly disallowed. Our ex player Frimpong was less technically gifted to BL’s version.
As is often the case Slot has to make changes or inspired HT talks for Pool to start to dominate, and start scoring, which they did with a deadly 50% success rate of shots on target even though BL had 53% possession: Liverpool proved too much for BL’s defense late into the 2nd half as they do most teams.
Is Slot’s system appearing as they tend to spar for a while, then trade blows to get the timing of their opponents and then start to put decisive counters together at speed to score until the final whistle?
Good game for neutrals where Slot’s machine marches on in fine style.
Same couldn’t be said for City who confirmed my last few posts that they can be got at, but last night sounds like their defense was like a Swiss cheese; full of wholes and exploited by Amorin who’s heading to Manure today or takes over on the 11th.
Poor Pep is not a happy chappy with Amorin 1:0 up on him, where Amorin will next face City’s manager when at the helm of Manure, and possibly with Viktor Gyokeres leading his line if press reports are to be believed and as TRVL stated above.
Tough one tonight regardless of who plays where I wouldn’t want to see Ode get more than 30 minutes; preferably the last 30 when the game has slowed some. As others have said we need Ode for the Chavs as they are very fluid and mobile with their flexible midfield movement. Rice, hopefully will be fit.
The problem I see tonight for Ode is that Rice has afforded Ode that extra touch on the ball to create at his best. Both Partey and Jorginho are slow and can easily be robbed and knocked off their games and give Ode the protection he needs.
Experience alone isn’t enough against Inter at home or away for that matter.
That said I don’t know much about Inter other that what is online being a point off Conte’s Napoli at top spot. Interestingly, Inter have a GD of 12 – two more than Napoli, but GA is 13, which suggests they leak goals at slightly over a goal a game.
However, goals for are 25 so over 2 goals a game, so that has to be a worry for our mixed form back four of late.
This compares to our 17 PL goals this season with 11 against in 10 games.
Are we going to be reduced to set pieces again? We are not getting the strike rate once envied by others, particularly from corners, which made me wonder if what appears to be that keepers are far less impeded, is making the difference to us not scoring with the same regularity?
Hard to say where the goals are going to come from and how much of a loss Rice is going to be? From his recent red card absent games he was missed, but this is Inter who with City and RM getting spanked I’m sure will want to lay down their marker to make a statement.
No idea of a prediction just hope we get the win when I watch in the morning.
Have a good one lads looking forward to your commentary ……..
The Mirror I think has reported that Edu’s assistant is going to be in charge for now.
In charge of what I ask myself? In charge of doing what MA tells him to do would be my best guess.
That and we can forget about VG even if MA was to follow Edu ……
Tony—Edu was barely qualified for the job so why would we ever put his underling in charge…the only reason this would ever be our chosen option is if our plastic lord and savior signed off, which means that this newbie dipshit is another kiss the ring muppet…if we don’t get a new voice in the room soon the shit’s going to hit the fan and our once half open window will slam shut again…meanwhile over on the other side of the pond an orange haired fuckwad has proven once and for all that America is not better than that…let the self-loathing celebration begin without haste…hide your cats and dogs
Please don’t ruin the discussion here by bringing up the orange haired fuckward as I am trying to maintain my sanity by avoiding political topics. There is always hope for things to get worst by the orange haired fucktard getting a heart attack because of his eating, and then JDV will demonstrate what incompetence looks like and proving that there are no adults in the WH.
Back to EduGate, all reports point to a fallout as lucrative offers by AFC were made to keep him, but he must have just felt like giving KSE the middle finger salute. We are so fucked, even worst then the US with said orange haired fucktard, when it comes to getting results and stability in the club.
We are now in the Wenger 2.0 era with fighting for CL places, with the change of spending now hundreds of millions. RIP the Arsenal I came to adore.
Sorry guys but once Kroenkephobe sobers up from his celebrations you just know he’s going to spend the next 4 years shoving Trump and how amazing he is down our throats.
I’ve heard he has an “I love Trump” tattoo across his chest!
Not quite mate
I’ve been out today and had a ‘D’ and an ‘N’ tattooed on each buttock so that it says ‘DON’ when I bend over.
What do you say to Don when you bend over? Or is JD Vance occupying your pretty little mouth?
We’re all fucked to be honest aren’t we? An orange small dicked ranting nazi in still a nazi.
Sorry guys, didn’t get time to complete the post today.
Seems like we are in a 4-4-2 formation with Trossard and Havertz up top and with a midfield of Martinelli, Merino, Partey and Saka.
Timber and White on either side in defence, Saliba + Gabriel at CB.
Odegaard makes the bench..
All I have to say for Trump saga is that Elon Musk did an experiment with Twitter and he succeeded. He now owns one of the most powerful tool in the world that changed the narrative of US election. .
Kroenke
At least you managed to confirm my guess that you’d have zero sense of humour about my comment.
“Seems like we are in a 4-4-2 formation with Trossard and Havertz up top and with a midfield of Martinelli, Merino, Partey and Saka.”
Yeah because that worked a treat against Newcastle.
Even after shelling 700 odd millions, that bench is poor of any creativity.. except Odegaard and Nwaneri..
Arteta doesn’t creativity – creativity is individual brilliance and that takes the credit away from Arteta.
bet trump wishes he could have El B’s hair.
Trumps win brings back memories of listening to Son of Orange County – Zappa’s song about Tricky Dicky.
I have a feeling we are going to do brilliant today. Whenever, in last 5 years, Mikel needed a breather, he had got one. He needs one very badly.
Any one’s fan of Johnnie Walker black label? First time, and I am liking it.
Elon Musk is the living embodiment of a douchebag…if only he could have got some pussy before the money starting rolling in…somewhere in Russia right now a fleet of hookers are pissing all over those two overcompensating fucksticks…pees in a pod
Ambarish
I think Inzaghi has different ideas. They have just beaten the league leaders and won 7 of their last eight matches. They also use all of the pitch so could prove to be a worry for our defence.
scored not got
good first pass by Merino—says it all from a midfield passing perspective…what the fuck does Ethan have to do to get a start around here???
we should already be down a goal…that’s why I wanted us to sign Dumfries after the WC
3 minutes, and 2 very serious attack from Inter.. the first was saved from woodwork..
If Inter keep bypassing our slowish midfield MA’s going to have 8 defenders on the pitch before the break
we need to get on the board before they bring in some even better players on their bench…this group is beatable if we can counter with pace
another effective plan would be to force them to pass back to their Keeper then press the shit out of them
we might be wise to just take the ball to their endline then continually kick it off their shins so we can get as many corners as humanly possible
somewhat unlucky, but could easily be construed as an unnatural position
Truth be told, that was a fucking boring first half and then we conceded a penalty..
What the fuck. .
Ambarish—get used to it because we’re a blunt instrument operation now
Ooops – debatable.
TRVL
Already used to it… Fucking boring.
poor positioning by Merino anyways, as there’s no reason why he should have been dropping behind the man he was marking
Au contraire mon ami. Surely the tattoo and the oral imagery was worth a chuckle? Trump is as hilarious as he is dangerous.
Although your company might not be laughing in a few month’s time as tariffs and isolationism start to bite.
Merino is not an Arsenal material..
Trump keeps the comedy going. I don’t mind that, since almost all the politicians are crooked.. at least he keeps it funny.