We have a game against PSG on April 29 and Thomas Partey, due to his idiotic yellow against Real Madrid, will be suspended from the game. Mikel, in his last press conference, wasn’t sure about Jorginho’s availability for the PSG game. So, we don’t have a DM for the biggest game of our season, the semi-final in Champions League. However, the positive thing is that we can use today’s game and the game against Crystal Palace on 23rd to find a solution.
There’s a problem as well to this. We are sitting on 2nd position and Liverpool has a 13 points lead with 6 games to go. We won’t catch up to them, lets be real. Also, there’s a very good chance (still) that we end up outside top 5 and don’t qualify for the Champions League next season . Forest is sitting on 5th position, only 6 points behind us. We have to not only prepare for the PSG game, but we have to make sure we don’t lose games, confidence and our form while doing so. A conundrum Mikel needs to go through!
Ipswich are a tight team. They will most likely get relegated after a sensational Premier League promotion but they can make fun of you sometimes. They don’t have anything to lose and this gives them some freedom to cause chaos. We have to manage this chaos, from the midfield. I’m a big Partey fan but we have only 2 games to find a solution for PSG game, and I would rather let him sit on bench. There are a few options we can try –
Move Timber to LB, put Ben White back to RB and promote MLS to midfield. A midfield of Odegaard, Declan Rice and MLS should be able to hold the fort against Ipswich and if it clicks, we find a solution.
The second option is to keep the defence line as it is, with Kiwior + Saliba as CBs, Timber on the right and MLS on left and introduce Nwaneri in the midfield. This is the best solution according to me, we are disturbing only 1 position (Thomas Partey) and keeping the rest of the winning squad in their position.
Mikel might also bring back Merino in the midfield and put Trossard up top, this is the most likely solution but I have never been convinced with Trossard as a striker. Against PSG, with Donnaruma in their goal, he wouldn’t be so much effective.
Back to today’s game. Calafiori will not be available along with the usuals – Havertz, Tomiyasu, Gabriel M and Jesus. It’s Ipswich last chance to survive the relegation and I am pretty sure they will put up a fight. This is the third consecutive year where we are playing on a Easter Sunday, and we have drawn the last 2. It makes me nervous a bit, but we should go through.
Also, it would be exciting to see one of the Nwaneri or MLS start in the midfield, because (I know you will come after me) ultimately we would have to improve on Odegaard.
We need to win, and we can do that in first half. Lets start the usuals, score couple of goals and then introduce Nwaneri / MLS in the midfield. We can start with that line up against Crystal Palace to practice one more time.
What’s the weather there? We have been suffering with this heat and the only thing keeping me sane is football. See you during the game, I have my set up ready.
why send on Ethan now – he has little chance to do anything when PSG will be concentrating on keeping a winning score line. Ethan should have had a minimum of 30minutes – probably longer.
our set piece dark arts didn’t work on that occasion
Lack of courage, creativity and energy. We deserved that. Another Arteta masterclass.
You see that’s why you lot don’t know anything about football – when you’re trailing in a season defining match you wait until the 90th minute to make an offensive change.
What a fucking cunt – we’re lucky it was only 1 nil PSG should have at minimum had a penalty as well.
I’ll give Arteta the credit that he’s put together an effective defensive unit and he’s managed to not fuck up the set piece coach’s influence.
Because without those two elements we’d be down with ManU, West Ham and the Spuddies in the PL – of not lower.
I think once things got stretched we should have put on Ethan, as we had openings but no clinical finishers on the pitch…he likely should have taken another step then shot instead of passing to Marts, who clearly didn’t have his goalscoring boots on tonight…imagine doing nothing in January then finding yourself in a CL semi with little to no depth options…this certainly isn’t over but I think we needed at least a draw to win this tie in Paris
We were lucky. Wonder why Ethan always gets pushed to wing. Why cant he be given a chance in midfield? You will never know. mLS is the find of the season. Parteu player of the season. The only incensive pass was made by MLS make of that what you will.
Just for reference fella’s – the CL tickets aren’t on a season ticket anymore but ST holders get first refusal on their seat. The guy who sits one away from me asked if I’d take up the option for both the Madrid and tonight’s match and then transfer the ticket to him. I sit upper tier front 10 rows and halfway between the goal and penalty box – the tickets were over £95 each.
Fans who went tonight have spent a small fortune with the club for a shitshow.
Enrique gave a tactical masterclass last night in the way his team stopped our usual passing patterns, we looked clueless at times, especially the opening phase of play.
Our 2 best chances were created by Rice and Skelly doing something different and taking matters into their own hands by making superb runs through the heart of midfield to set up one on ones with their keeper for martinelli and trossard.
Arteta will need to come up with something different next week as I’m sure Enrique will suffocate our wide players again, having Partey back and Merino up top will help but we are going to have to take a few more risks and play through the heart of midfield.
Losing jorginho to injury didn’t seem much of a big deal at the time but his injury has had a knock on effect due to partey’s unavailability. We lost our balance in midfield last night, merino had to drop back , Rice had to play deeper and we didn’t have a player to link the play up top , plus of course Odegaard created nothing AGAIN.
Arteta’s use of subs was pointless , he basically settled for a 1-0 deficit to take to Paris next week which I can understand to a point as conceding another one or 2 would have killed the tie , however Arteta could have maybe brought zinchenko on and moved Skelly to midfield and pushed merino up top , plus of course Nwaneri should have replaced odegaard way earlier.
To me , I would say PSG are at their most dangerous in the opening phase of play with their high energy and intelligent pressing of the ball , so it is important to get through this phase without further damage and play our way into the game as I’m sure psg will become nervous and edgy the closer they get to the finishing line.
Will be very tough next week , especially as our bench is weak which highlights what has been said on here about our lack of action in the January transfer window and it looks like it will come back to haunt Arteta.
I wasn’t impressed with the ref last night , he spoilt the game for me, I thought PSG had a very good shout for a penalty and the free kick given for a foul by Saka was a joke , especially as Saka was in on goal , although to be fair to the ref it was the crappy linesman who decided to put his flag up to influence the ref.
In general the ref had no real feeling or understanding of the game , he was trying too hard to give the impression that he was in control of the game by showing his authority but in reality he ruined the flow , though of course the players don’t help at times with their constant over reaction to every tackle.
I’ve always thought Odegaard is over rated, some were fooled into thinking that he was going to be a 15 goal a season player after one stand out season when just about everything he hit found the back of the net..
I always find that the best way to judge a player’s goalscoring attributes is to look at their quality when striking the ball and for me Odegaard falls below the standard required as does Havertz, both are technically flawed when striking a ball and that is why I could never understand why Arteta persevered for so long with Odegaard taking free kicks and corners as he has no pace or whip on the ball compared to the likes of Declan Rice.
The argument is that odegaard is good at pressing but I’m not so sure, again he is fooling people because he has mastered the art when pressing of not quite getting close enough to put in a tackle as he isn’t keen on physical contact.
What you will find with Odegaard is most of his goal contributions are made when the game is already won, it’s guaranteed that when the big games come along he goes missing.
The fact that he replaced smith Rowe has never sat comfortably with me as I think smith Rowe is a more creative player , unfortunately Arteta prefers players that can run and run than the more skilful creative player.
Is it a coincidence that since Odegaard arrived we are trophyless after winning the fa cup the season before he arrived.
To put context to my argument , Mesut Ozil was slaughtered by a small(but loud) section of the fan base and media , and yet whilst Ozil was at the club we won 4 trophies and reached 2 further cup finals compared to the media darlings Odegaard’s Zero cup finals. ….Odegaard certainly needs to produce something special next week or the fans will quickly turn on him ,especially as Nwaneri is waiting in the wings as a possible replacement.
Wicksy
Your handle / email is hacked boss ?
That is quite a divergence from your usual views.
Yeah , unfortunate we lost , but 0-1 is surmountable , cheers
Wicksy
I think most on here will agree about Odegaard. I was surprised he had a good first season but since then his contribution against top tier teams is poor.
El B is a stubborn mule – he hates criticism of any kind and also hates others receiving praise. ESR was doomed as soon as he mentioned his greatest influence was Ozil. Mesut gave ESR private training. ESR did have a fitness problem but near the end of his Arsenal career he was fit but often sat on the bench or was excluded from the first team squad completely.
Unfortunately Ethan appears to stepped out of line by praising Rice & Saka for their guidance. It appears he has replaced ESR on the naughty step.
to be fair this wasn’t a bad performance, once we somewhat survived the initial onslaught, but typically you can’t afford to be held scoreless in the home leg and expect to win, especially if you concede an away goal…on the positive side of the ledger, it’s only a 1 goal deficit, Partey will be available and PSG has a shit ton of CL ghosts to exorcise, which could lead them to adopt some very Arteta-like overtly defensive tactics…this latter point could be both good and bad for us in that it should allow us to commit more players up top with less fear of reprisals or, conversely, we could find ourselves in the all-too-familiar predicament of trying to breakdown a deeper sitting side
MA misread the room again when it came to making the all-important tactical adjustments, as it should have surprised no one, let alone the manager, that PSG was going to employ wide-side defensive double-teams, so he likely should have taken Tross off, as soon as Dembele left the pitch, moved Merino up top and brought in Ethan to play more centrally along side Ode…this would have curtailed their ability to counter, as their forwards and midfielders, who’re undersized and not the greatest 1 v.1 defenders, would have been required to sit even deeper and shift into more of a man-up configuration at times…not to mention, the ref clearly favoured us last evening and as such this sort of offensive tactical adjustment would have likely provided us with a couple free kick/set piece opportunities in the final third
Hoopah—they call that a gaslighting sandwich, which is when one tries to appease a specific audience coming in and going out, by projecting an image that they feel will be best received, but this is simply a diversionary tactic, as the only post that really mattered to the troll in question was the tin foiling shite in the middle about the refs…Cheers
We could have got something out of last night – we could have conceded a penalty, saw Timber sent off and conceded a couple more goals.
From what I saw of PSG vs Liverpool / Villa in their home legs we’ll need something very special to get past them.
Our bench was atrocious last night but the truth is if everyone were fight what attacking options would we have had that weren’t available?
Jesus and Havertz? One’s gone in the summer and any decent fan would like to see the other replaced in the summer by a real striker.
The other injuries are all defensive.
Marc—couldn’t agree more with your “offensive” injury assessment…not only would I like to see both our injured “striker” options shipped come the summer, I’m of the mindset that we might have been knocked out of the CL already if either were being relied upon as an option up top…I think our unpredictability against Real, tactically-speaking, worked in our favour…just so happens that this PSG team is a much better coached side, so they’re far more adept at making adjustments on the fly…that’s certainly not a slag against Ancelotti, who I respect as a manager, it’s just that this Real squad, at least as it’s presently constructed, appears to be a largely uncoachable bunch
The general perception of Tuesday night’s game is that we were poor and were outplayed by an excellent PSG side, and yet the stats tell us different.
We had a better XG( expected goals) , their keeper made more saves, we had more shots on target, we had more corners and we had more touches in the opposition box and possession was 52.1% to 47.9% in favour of PSG, but the perception is generally that PSG controlled the game and were the dominant side.
There are a couple of reasons for this perception, one is they scored a goal and we didn’t despite the XG being 1.65 to 1.14 in Arsenal’s favour.
I believe the other reason for the perception that PSG dominated us is that during psg’s best period which was the opening quarter of the game PSG were far superior and had us chasing shadows and that is what sticks in the memory, the remaining 3 quarters of the game in which Arsenal were the better side if only marginally appear to have been overlooked.
Of course the stats don’t tell the whole story , to the eye PSG were technically superior and tactically superior , and yet Arsenal lead in all the important stats barring goals scored (the important one).
This gives me hope for the 2nd leg as the concensus of opinion is that Arsenal were poor and PSG were excellent and yet despite what looked like a dysfunctional performance from Arsenal we should , according to the stats, have won the game.
Wicksy
There lies the problem – stats say we controlled the game but didn’t score. Look at the other games this season and how many times that has been the case. Perhaps if El B spends another 200million we might have chance or will it still be the same.
First story of the summer TW about Saliba being Madrid’s number 1 target.