Since we last beat Liverpool 3-1 at home, we have beaten West Ham 6-0, Burnley 5-0 away from home with almost everyone contributing to these wins.
I had a lot to cry about earlier. Lets go one by one and made correction to that.
First, we don’t win big and always do a scrappy game. Well, the last two games have been anything but scrappy wins. We dominated these games, and we can’t complain that it was against the smaller teams because we (and other top 6 teams) have lost against the same oppositions. Going away from home and registering wins where half of your team scores is a big statement.
Second, we can’t keep a clean sheet. Last season we were often registering wins where the last 15 minutes were very nervy. We would often go 1-0, 2-0 up and then gave away a goal and hold on to our life for these 15 minutes. We have improved on that. We kept the game to our strength and we kept clean sheets. Yes, there were hardly any attempts from the opposition but its the same kind of teams we have struggled against. We are improving on that part.
Third, Kai Havertz and Odegaard. Well, it might be a bit early to eat the humble pie on this one but both has been brilliant recently. I was not very kind to either of them, but they have proved vital in last 3-4 games. Odegaard is our captain, and we need these performances from him. Always. Havertz has been very smart with his movements and I think Arteta is coaching the best out of him. The end result will improve more, we already are seeing him on the scoreline these days.
Our sudden resurrection after training in Dubai has, most certainly, made life tough for both Klopp and Pep. We are sitting 2nd, having won our last 5 games, 2 points behind the league leaders Liverpool. Man City is yet to play a game and is 2 points behind us. Even if they win, the top 3 will have only 2 points gap.
WITH ONLY 13 GAMES TO GO!
May be it’s too early to dream but the title is achievable. You just have to perform at the top for 13 games when you have a full squad fit and performing at the top alrleady. Partey and Tomiyasu will join. Our defence has been solid, Gabriel and Saliba are the best CB partners in the league currently, Kiwior is making that LB position his own with Timber joining him shortly. White is a very decent RB, Tomiyasu is a very decent back up for both left and right side. Declan Rice is proving to be worth the money and Partey will only make things better.
Saka has taken Rio Ferdinand’s statement seriously and is on a mission to win things to prove him wrong. He don’t need to, because Ferdinand will find another stick to beat him – he hates Arsenal – but he is. Good for the team and good for the kid. Trossard, as usual, can’t stop scoring. Martinelli is the only one not able to replicate his last season’s form but he is one of a kind who can win games on his own. Even at his worst, he is better than the Spuds or Man United Left Wingers.
We have a Champions League coming this Wednesday but I will keep the CL discussion for a different thread. In Premier League, we have two tough games coming in – Chelsea (H) and City (A). 4 points of these 2 games and we remain in the mix. There will be Man United (A) and Spuds (A) to deal with later but the other 9 games are comparatively easier. We need to win the games we ‘should’ win and these 4 away results will decide if we win the title.
Nothing is easy in life. Nothing is impossible. I am on hopium and let’s see how far we get. I am still critical of Mikel because he has won fuck all and only a trophy will make me change my stance.
There’s another fantastic news. I managed to renew the hosting and domain for another year for London Is Red. The COFFEEs you guys have bought me in last 12 months has helped. Advertisements on sports blog is shite, so thank you for that. LiR remains inclusive of all kind of opinions and no one can buy us (at least for a year now).
Hope you are doing well.
Cheers.
From the last report
Hi Islington,
Welcome to LiR mate.
I agree that recent form is startlingly good and the record books confirm that with 5 straight wins, we’re in pole position to win the memorial Arsene Wenger calendar cup challenge! The attacking play, ability to finish moves and the way we look impregnable since losing to the bin dippers in the FA Cup is something we’re all happy about. Nobody’s having any off days out there – the optimist in me is even starting to see the value of Havertz.
It contrasts sharply with the December form. The reasons are hard to fathom. Is it because – gulp – Jesus is not featuring? And we’re seeing less of Eddie Unket? Or have the boys rediscovered passing speed and better movement as per last season? The CP and Forest wins were welcome and deserved but the switch really seems to have clicked after beating Liverpool. It also appears to me that the front 5 are just that bit more composed in front of goal, and that shots are being taken with heads down and over the ball rather than looking upwards. It’s all very welcome of course but let’s get a few games further forward to see where we are. Cynical anti-arteta-ites like Marc and I and many of the others on here will ‘party like it’s 1999’ if the players do manage to pull it off. I think many of us on here are still reeling, not just from the pain of last season but probably as far back as the late Wenger era. You’re possibly in the same boat.
We’d all be utter babies if we believed this fantastic run was going to continue… Nevertheless, we’re pretty well placed. Anyhow, you’re right, we should be pleased. It’s just that history isn’t on our side and not many of us are convinced by Arteta.
There are 1989 style vibes at play. 19/20 year absence of winning a title. Not hugely fancied to win… But at least back then we had a manager we were all able to support.
Nice piece Ambarish,
It’s worthwhile trying to analyse the stark reversal of our fortunes. I’m pretty certain the upturn in our league form will breed confidence for the game against Porto (who aren’t doing that well domestically this season). If we can get TP, GJ, TT and Harry Potter back in the reckoning then we should give both competitions a full tilt. There should be no stage fright against the Portugeezers, nor City and Bayern. I think RM are the one CL team that should be avoided.
KP
Certainly, the game against Porto should be an easy one. However Champions League is always unpredictive and we can’t take it for granted. You have rightly said, that we are in a very good run and we have been here before.. there is always that doubt since we gave away the title last season towards the end.
Hopefully we keep this run going for 13 more weeks. Hopefully we win something important this year.
Luton Town giving a tough time to Manures. Loving it.
Islington-I think it’s important to make note of some the more pertinent contextual factors which have greatly impacted our recent run of form, which isn’t meant to suggest that we should totally disregard the positives…in more recent times we’ve faced some banged up clubs, specfifically Pool, and been gifted historically bad performances, on both ends of the pitch, by a couple clubs that we rightly boat-raced…in some of those matches, like against West Ham or CP, the opposition displayed a glaring lack of any real intent going forward…in fact the Hammers and Burnnley registered a combined 1 shot on target…now some of this can be explained away by our defence-first posturing and possession-based tactics, but several of the clubs we’ve faced since January 20th have performed incredibly poorly, even by their usual standards…that said, I do think we’re a little less fragile in our final third than we’ve been in the past, but let’s not forget this is the same group that allowed offensive minnows like Luton to pot 3 a couple months back
as for some of the comments regarding the likes of Ode and Havertz, I do think we’ve seen a couple more hopeful displays by the former, especially yesterday, but any positive talk regarding the latter falls on deaf ears…this overpaid and overhyped individual wasn’t brought here to be a “lunch pail” player, he was supposed to be a considerable upgrade on Xhaka and provide goals…in these regards, he’s failed miserably…for someone like myself, who had pushed for Xhaka’s exit for more than a half decade, to wish for his return, speaks volumes about Havertz’s time here thus far
now if MA’s plan all along was for us to revisit our more boring sideways brand of football of the years prior to last, then maybe he’s just as responsible for Havertz’s underwhelming performances as the player himself…regardless, Ode needs to string together a bunch of similar performances to yesterday and MA needs to stop thinking about how he can shoehorn Havertz into our starting 11 and start to devise a more viable plan where this particular player isn’t always involved…even a manager with Wenger-like backing and an unprecedented amount of financial might can’t continually provide big minutes for such a statistical lightweight before he loses the room…of course, winning has a tendency to smooth over these types of internal issues, but what do you think will happen if we hit a rough patch in the business end of the season again and he’s still rolling out this largely lifeless figure
on a side note, I’m starting to develop some more positive feelings about the possibility of acquiring Zirkzee…watched him today in a road fixture of some import, CL position wise, against Lazio, who just beat Munich mid-week…today he supplied a decisive winning strike that enabled Bologna to beat Lazio, at their park, for the first time in a dozen years…he was highly active and played the full 90+ minutes…of course I don’t want to get my hopes too high, especially in these early deep dive days and knowing full-well that we have a spotty record when it comes to cutting deals with Serie A clubs, but I’ve been rather impressed with what I’ve seen recently
Vieira
I did that fanboy thing and checked out a video of Zirkzee. I agree – the lad has promise.
until we’re willing and able to go toe-to-toe with the likes of City, who tend to struggle against those teams who counter with pace and numbers, we won’t properly progress…City is presently in a “transitional” phase, as they lost several key members of their treble winning side; not to mention, they’ve faced some serious injury concerns so far this campaign…the main reasons why they continue to challenge for things, besides Pep, are the Rodri & Haaland factors…as we saw yesterday, when the latter isn’t on the top of his game, they will struggle to get all 3 points…some of the same points can likewise be applied to Pool, who’ve completely remade their midfield yet still found a way to hang, even without their premier scorer for a considerable period
unlike with Arteta, neither one of these two world-class managers intentionally dumbed-down their respective gameplans in order to compete for things, whereas we’ve simply adopted a more defensively-minded and offensively-stunted hybrid version of their two respective systems…we deploy a deeper-lying Striker, with a heavy reliance on our wide-side forwards for goals, like Pool, yet we don’t attack with pace, and we play out from the back and rely heavily on a more possession-based zonal passing system, like City, but we don’t dedicate enough players in and around the box…as such, we borrow from the best, yet we removed those parts that made them most effective
knowing all this, I truly believe that if we had purchased well, by prioritizing our most pressing needs, we could have won both last season and this, which eerily reminds me of the 2016 debacle, when we only brought in Cech…we’re by far the most settled side in the top 6 and if it weren’t for the managerial training wheels narrative we could be quite easily in the catbird seat both here and abroad…oft-times in sports it’s about understanding your window for success then doing everything possible to maximize your potential within that window…I’m worried that we pushed that window back, due to MA’s learning curve issues, yet we still unwisely spent enormous sums in the meantime, which means that we might not have the resources available, without selling off one or two blue chippers, when our manager is finally ready to make a real bonafide push for titles
KP-I tend not to go into full Youtube rabbit hole mode, as anyone can provide a breathtaking collage of highlights, but when I started to watch their matches on Fubo more closely I developed a real affinity for this player…I still think we likely won’t secure his services, especially if they qualify for CL, but I think there is an outside chance, if he’s got a release clause and a desire to go elsewhere, because he’s vastly cheaper than the brand name options…Cheers
KP / DVL
Thanks for your responses.
I would answer by saying that if you’re going to criticise then you have to praise too. Otherwise the opinion isn’t really an opinion.
It’s normal for fans to have opinions and think they know best, it’s part of the fun. We all do it. But we aren’t working as professionals at the highest level, so it’s not as informed as we would like to believe.
I had my doubts about Raya but I was wrong. I hold my hands up. He’s so composed, plays high and never seems to get flustered. His positioning is interesting if you watch him. At the end of last season Ramsdale cost us with some of his poor decisions & rash kicking. Rice has been a transformative signing but he’s had to adjust his game to suit his role in our set-up. We are seeing the process delivering p,with a few tweaks along the way as new players learn their roles and their team mates roles. It’s a jigsaw. We’ve added new players and had to tweak our system to build on last seasons weaknesses.so defensively we have a better structure. We are better without the ball, our pressing has gone up a notch. We are also better at set plays. The final piece of the jigsaw was to work on our attacking output – does anyone think we haven’t done that?
11 goals away in two games, 21 in 5 games with just 2 conceded. Wow. If City or Liverpool did that you wouldn’t be able to silence Neville and his pal. We can’t ignore the elephant in the room; Man City are the best team in Europe & far more experienced. They built their success by creating a false advantage through cheating. It’s harder to do by fair means. Even Klopp has struggled to overcome them. So you have to be really, really good. I think we are getting there and can see real improvement.
IK
How long has Arteta been in the job? And how much has been spent on the team in that time. With the outlay I would expect a third place finish as a minimum requirement. Lets hope he has finally got there and this purple patch continues.
Onto some classic German schadenfreude. Do my eyes and ears deceive me or is it looking more and more likely that Sir Harold of Kane might be part responsible for the rarest of things… A trophy less season for Bayern. Imagine how much fun that might be if that little nugget came to pass on St Totteringham’s day!
Anyone see the highlights of their defeat at home to Wolves? Gomes’s second goal is wondrous. Christ that geezer Neto is fast and direct, and the assist was wicked. I’d still take Podence (wherever he is) over Neto but only just.
And Kroenkephobe junior tells me Sambi Lokonga had a solid game yesterday for the Hatters against Manure. I wonder if he might be given another shot when Elneny’s time is up? In practical terms, I think that might make more sense than Charlie P. Controversial I know.
Kev-you seem like a decent enough person, who’s clearly all-in when it comes to the whole Arteta experiment, so I think it might be prudent if I adopted a more agree to disagree disposition…that said, you might want to have a bit of a rethink when it comes to your manufactured definition of an “opinion”, as that was some new world, namby-pamby nonsense…to even suggest that an opinion requires some sort of equitable balance between what you would deem as either positive or negative is, at best, a farcical notion
for far too long this club has failed to live up to the very expectations they themselves have set, so it’s high time that we finally held them accountable for their actions or lack thereof…only under these conditions can we ever hope to enter the best in the world conversation, which has failed to materialize since those words were first spoken, some two decades ago, in order to justify our move to the Emirates…Cheers
New post.