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]
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.