Afraid to say many are going to be pissed when they wake up and get their time zone morning PL news feed. Xhaka clone is about right but this new improved slower-than-refs Jorginho is just as costly brain fart stupid at times. Xhaka and Jorginho pivoting is likely to resemble something out of Fantasia and the dancing Hippos. Shouldn’t take more than 3 minutes or the time it takes to birth a super yacht sideways onto the dock to complete the pivot.
19 games to pray to whomever is your deity that Xhaka and Jorginho don’t play together in midfield. Do we remember how easy it was to have Jorginho in Ramsey’s(?) back pocket, in Wenger’s last FA cup win? Jorginho was completely ineffective and that was over 3 years ago. Does Arteta and Edu think Jorginho has improved? To anywhere close to Partey’s level?
We were after the ‘Dogs Gonads’ and ended up with the neutered version no one wanted, and on the put down list, to be cast off in the next 5 months into football’s player wastelands: better known as Sunday League football parks.
So what does this season now offer for us in light of our revelatory Jan TW?
I think we were our usual incompetent selves overworking our vast PR machine who deserve a pay increase and a reduction of hours to just 20 a day. 22 is far too much but with The Arsenal and Arteta and Edu very necessary to keep a semblance of our tradition in TWs from Wenger’s last dozen years of almost signing the world’s elite players: who all turned us down. Now Arteta and Edu are forming their own nearly-signed list to match Wenger’s in less time, only they’ve added a gazumped column now as well.
If you were talking to a complete football ignoramus or blinkered cricket mate and said “My club has just been gazumped by Chelsea for a player we really needed above all other players, and then a few weeks later we went to Chelsea to give them money for their worst and slowest player they were replacing with the gazumped player, which in turn helped Chelsea to buy one of the world’s top young talents.”
What answer do you think you’d get?
Now try that with a savvy PL club supporter and watch them collapse in the snow/ground laughing uncontrollably. Poor Junior is putting out fires all over his school, as more hot banter is hurled his way. Thai kids give no quarter. Before Junior went to school he had his well prepared “Well where are you in the league?”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him it wouldn’t be enough because he’s been giving them belters all season. All I could offer was keep your noise cancelling ear pods in your ears and talk to girls who don’t follow football.
So how did we really fare?
We got a watered down version of Mickey Mudflaps but… one acclimatised to the rigors of the PL but a far lower ceiling. For our title ambitions Trossard fits the bill being one of those nuisance players that buzz around the box breaking the concentration of defenders, as Trossard brings our other attackers into play.
Trossard has an eye for goal and an assist and that’s exactly what we need right now someone with goals and assists this season and who seamlessly fitted in after one training session. Jesus will love playing with Trossard’s, especially for his movement.
He can also play 8/10 and on each wing. Trossard’s a Duracell Bunny player whose gas tank rarely empties. Arteta got lucky; Trossard had been a bad boy upsetting De Zerbi in the process who wanted rid of the player in quick time and Edu obliged for £21+++.
In a normal TW situation Mr. Bloom would have wanted ÂŁ40+++ and Edu would have not gone near Brighton because he was floundering on what to do in the wake of Mickey Mudflaps debacle until the bargain basement player & price appeared. Edu grasped with both hands thinking there is a god!
Jacub Kiwior just 23 is unknown to me but Zinchenko seems to rate the Pole highly, so perhaps we’ve got a semi-polished diamond who can fit equally well as a CB and CDM. I would imagine Jacub is a vastly improved Holding who may well move on in the summer.
It’s too early to be predicting winning the title or what effect if any (if Partey stays fit) Jorginho is going to have on our summit defence. More likely the EL cup will be Jorginho’s brief. Europe comes into the mix in February, which generally causes pain for a few of the competing clubs with injuries and playing players in the red zone: something Arteta does often without consequential thought for our long-term strategy: see last season.
It wasn’t a bad window just embarrassing once again for Edu and Arteta with them being snubbed by the players they needed.
In the end we couldn’t go through a transfer window without our usual trolly dash in this case Jorginho as our panic buy. What are the odds on Xhaka playing all remaining 19 games if fit?
Buckle up lads/lassies it’s going to be a rough ride to when the fat lady sings for the last time this season.
Almuniasaynomore, the “wokeness” brigade is such an intellectually-stunted collective endeavour that I fear what the response to this pseudo-Dark Age might actually look like when the pendulum invariably swings full-bore in the opposite direction…now some might suggest that the Trump-inspired QAnon nonsense is in fact the “logical” reaction to this far left zealotry, but I’m not buying it, as I think this is only the tip of this fucked up iceberg…as someone who has taught at both the university and collegiate levels, I can’t imagine what it must be like to navigate such treacherous waters nowadays…I even contemplated returning to the profession during covid, as I was constantly being inundated with offers, but I thankfully refrained from scratching that itch…all I can do now is try to properly harness and/or redirect my own children’s “woke” tendencies into something exceedingly more positive than the senseless ramsacking of anything and everything that doesn’t meet the unrealistic standards of this self-absorbed and misinformed lot
on a side note, there’s no doubt that “fan burnout” was a contributing factor when it came time to pledge one’s managerial allegiance…after the whole divisive Wenger gig, it makes perfect sense that some would choose the path of least resistance…that said, our future shouldn’t be decided by the abject lazinessof others…have a good one
no “collective” before endeavour…my bad
Hi Tony,
Thank you for the piece. I always wanted to keep it as an open platform, difference in opinion is healthy. We all see things differently and LiR has no agenda.
Too small for a sell out but if the day comes, LiR remains independent.
Arteta was given too much time for a club as big as Arsenal without achieving anything significant.
I’m glad we are performing at the highest level this season, but that don’t mean we turn a blind eye to 8th places finishes, breaking all negative records of the century. You also can’t forget Willian saga.
Excellent discussion lads pointing out the generational differences the club has woven into the very core of our club, and I’m sad to say we’ll never witness ‘club honesty’ from KSE downwards – only their prepared BS being orchestrated by Pedro-Pete and sycophants cozying up to their agenda ridden masters.
The games played upstairs aren’t that different to on the pitch, such has the “Bottom Line” & “Winning At All Costs” merged into the root cause of looking at fans as: just noise with money who need keeping in check while subliminally being sold merchandise, food and drink to be relieved of as much money as is possible from game day sales, and Social Media brain washing leading to online purchasing.
Are we just one step away from the American sitcom classic of lit banners for ‘applaud’ and others for ‘laugh’?- As big a fraud as you could witness on a goggle box. I believe the Americans called it humour enhancement, as once when checking into the The Luxor in Las Vegas that was covered in what they deemed to be white enhancement building dust, which they were orating as if we were fortunate to be experiencing it.
This is exactly what The Arsenal & KSE combined have been working towards” a way to silence the fans and keep us in our correct place knowing when to applaud and be silent like good little Gooners, as countries take on countries rather than clubs verses clubs for pride for the badge, which I hasten to add is slowly rescinding from today’s game – except perhaps in lower leagues not owned by battling billionaires or aforementioned countries seeking the ultimate bragging rights.
If not so, then why was the super league so important for both mentioned elements for club ownerships? The super league was founded on the ‘bottom line’ never wavering with profits guaranteed and minimal financial losses necessary to offset taxes. It was win, win, but the greedy owners wanted it all too quickly and got just as rapidly washed away by the fans.
Almunia you’re right on all accounts and it pisses me off with similar levels to you: all further ADHD enhanced – not to be around when it gets to boiling point.
When my rage at the situation subsides with help from natural herbs, spices and freshly squeezed lemon tea, I collect my thoughts and remember what an empty stadium did to Josh’s constipation.
How true or not I know not, but some say Josh’s explosive crap in the HQ execs’ toilets could be heard as far as the Toilet Bowl where Spud players training thought Levy had finally got the plumbing working again and could now remove the butt plugs with no fear of Conte being upset with him still taking his Gall Bladder operation pain meds.
Let’s face it have you ever seen a more anal bunch masquerading as footballers? Hence the butt plugs borrowed from ……..
Josh is a big man and someone mentioned an even bigger arsehole like his daddy, but again I have no supporting facts, so will leave it open to interpretation as to how one views Josh’s actions as our owner past and present?
All joking aside, I seriously hope Josh can see and understand what we see and discuss here at LIR. If Josh is in favour of censoring fans’ dissenting voices, then we’ll just have to get louder.
At the moment the exec toilets are experiencing normal usage: however, if Arteta and Edu’s gambles, for there are several in play, don’t pay off, poor Josh- High Five King of the club – will be shitting bricks again, as the faithful begin to turn. He’d shit early because he has a reference point to the past and horrific memories of sleepless nights and a stitched arsehole or was it he’d been stitched up by an arsehole? Bit fuzzy on this one. 🙂
He’d shit even smaller bricks, but for much, much longer if he’d been out for a Ruby Murray with Vinai Venkatesham who would always be trying to impress with his Asian cuisine. Vinai cosy in his CEOship so much, he’d be hoping the food would help lessen the news of the fans’ collective dissenting voices in coming 5th again, he was going to have to impart with the very lanky one.
I mean Vinai’s sound thinking would remove the necessity for stitches for the poor lad.
Point is The Arsenal suits have a long impervious history of not listening to the fans or so their short memories would have them believe.
When you try to spot the time the club started to change to be unrecognizable, it was simply Wenger’s decline from about 2009 onwards. Wenger saw the fans as disrespectful during his power grabbing decade. Chippy called it noise at an AGM.
Arteta just modified it to suit his teflon coated process.
I hope the above has relived you of your anger with some well er honest comical intended commentary, as my warped brain sees things today.
Every time you start to get pissed off just think of Josh shitting bricks when the faithful voted with their feet.
As we found out from Covid; not having real live, raucous fans at games the TV streaming isn’t the same. Nowhere near it.
Pedro and his cohorts can try to dictate all they want, Almunia. Blogs with specific agendas and narratives will always want their say without recourse, but are no more than Reddit on a bad day.
None can silence those with true voices; no matter where they are in the world. In the not too distant future, global fans will vote with their subscriptions and voices as we do here at LIR.
TRVL, you’ve found a place where your voice can be heard unabated with welcoming listeners where we are fortunate Ambarish allows us ‘Sinners’ ‘ voices to be heard without recourse or be removed.
I fancy that for all our doubts about the club posted here, they are for the club’s good welfare going forward.
“We want our Arsenal back” couldn’t be more significant today, but watching Junior grow and listening to him talk about his views and those of his generation, I feel we will be leaving our club in good hands with the right beliefs.
A question that I keep asking myself is; Does American Ownership of PL clubs work in the long term? Fenway wants out as the numbers don’t work without a super league now Pool is in decline.
The answer I keep coming up with is a hard NO! What say you lads’?
Have a good one lads.
Ambarish I genuinely salute your thoughts where you are beginning to build posters who want to have their say the right way and without fear of recrimination. I will look to help you as we wrap up our business this year. Something we can talk about later.
None of us have crystal balls, not least Pumpkin anyway 🙂 and we are believing with all our supportive might that Arteta doesn’t blow it like last season. No excuses!
Everton was proof that Arteta still has it in him to be a loose cannon with tactics, selections and in-game management all recurring faults never corrected from the beginning. We were lucky City are in turmoil and could make up any points.
I’m very happy with our current plight and those around us having the propensity to drop points. However, the fragility of our squad depth is, once again, called into serious question.
What I do question from KSE is why our midfield levels are so low excluding Partey?
Why also do our serious TW targets blank us?
Does Arteta have a 100% clean bill of health from the City fallout? Pep seems worried and ready to leave.
Why other than click bait is the DM saying that Arteta doesn’t have plans for Bolagun yet when he should have been brought back for the run in. Saliba MK II?
The above questions we are all asking lead to legitimate concerns regarding Arteta, Edu and the club.
No plastics at LIR just fans who want the best for The Arsenal and its owners.
Thanks Ambarish
Ambarish I was more thinking about helping you keep the blog Independent and when the time comes look at lessening the adverts without loss of income for you.
I’ve always liked the independency entrepreneurs live by myself included. Sounds like you have international business interests with your business and you’ve just got married. Then there is the blog you’ve put your heart and soul into.
We’re all human although in our 30s we drive harder than in our 20s. Right now I can help with posts. I can’t speak for the others but I feel sure they will help time permitting.
I’m wrapped up in business negotiations myself at the moment something I really enjoy as it resembles battles/games of chess and in for the long game.
K’phobe, I think you and Almiunia will appreciate this being fathers; junior running his Kone dance movements in his head while walking through a door slipped crashing into the glass ending up with 41 stitches. 2 cuts one along his cheek bone and the other long his jar bone will look ok in a rugged way. The hand one is nasty but the Dr have strapped it sufficiently for him to play his lead role in the Kone Dance this Friday. The understudy gave up months ago citing it too difficult.
Ambarish, excellent point about how long Arteta would have lasted at other big clubs in Europe’s other leagues. He either is dazzling KSE with bull shit or is on borrowed time.
Either way AFC deserves better.
Tony—sorry to hear about Junior…as both a father and someone who’s had 100s of stitches, over the years, I feel for yours and Junior’s plight…thankfully it hasn’t put the kibosh on the lead role gig…good luck and take care
I still don’t get the outrage here over not getting our top targets in the window. Or at least not getting our top targets at semi realistic prices. No doubt we could have offered ÂŁ20m more than Chelsea and landed Mudryk but that would have been the height of stupidity. It seems the sticking point was money, not the competence of the management team. Likewise, with Caicedo, we could have made an offer too good to turn down. Would ÂŁ100m do it? Perhaps.
We didn’t get those. We could cry and buy nobody, a la late stage Wenger, or move on to other targets. Maybe not as good, that’s why they wee second choices, but still capable of doing a job. Having a plan B is sensible. We could speculate they weren’t plan B or not even planned but that seems no more than guesswork for the sake of being angry again.
Call it ‘woke’ as some old white fellas do with anything that upsets them or call it pragmatic team building. If there’s a stick to beat Tets and Edu with, not getting Mudryk and Caicedo isn’t it. Neither is not buying only young players on only older players.
While Arsenal have always been a big club, we’ve never been THE powerhouse. Admittedly I only go back to the 80s and pre GG days, the 30s were more fun as I understand it. We’ve been there or thereabouts with one or two others. We went 18 years before wining in 72. We’ve had the same now, half of that time was under Wenger. We had to indulge him because we were brassick.
I’m prepared to forget back to back 8th places and 5th places if we get better. So far we have. No doubt we could have just sacked Tets for those finishes but that chopping and changing only seems to work at the bank rolled clubs. We’d dropped two in 18months for no discernable improvement. ManU, arguably bigger than us have been trying that trick, so did Lolerpool. It hasn’t been effective for them, I don’t feel it was any more likely to have worked for us. Klopp was a good example of a less wealthy club trying a route back to glory with stability and creating a more effective culture. Klopp admittedly had more past success to draw on than Tets but he had some lousy finishes before he created his powerhouse.
If we’re going to criticise we ought to keep it grounded in some sort if reality. Those who are happy to move forward with Tets aren’t all drinking Kool Aid or sucking the teat of LG propaganda, its just an acknowledgement that for the first time in ages we’re playing the best football in the league. Who wouldn’t enjoy that and give praise where it’s due?
We started off buying crappy old timers, then turned the focus on youngsters, now we’re back to buying more experienced heads. It cam be viewed as either an incoherent strategy or simply adjusting our targets according to our needs or resources at any given time. Or adjusting to what’s available. That’s smart.
Let’s give up on framing our views with reference to LG. Peds was wrong when Tets was sh*t. Now he isn’t hes not. I was right when Tets was sh*t but when the facts change I didn’t need to be dogmatic. I had to shut my trap for a while when we won the FA Cup as we had a trophy. It bought him time and now we’re reaping the rewards of that time in the form of better performances.
Let’s move on from constant tears over LG. Let’s move on from dogmatic criticism of Tets. If it isn’t some Ped hating dogma, it comes across that way It’s not a great look. I’ve been blocked on LG for calling things as I see them. Iit’s one blog among many, I’m one commenter among many.
I’d prefer a discussion that isn’t constantly harking back to Tets when he was a humble trainee learning on our watch. The important thing is he seems to be learning.
We’ve had some good transfer windows. The proof is in the team being better. We always want more but I don’t frame not getting everyone or everything we desire as a massive crisis in leadership and talent.
We may still not won the league. If we don’t I’ll be asking questions but the answer might not necessarily be chop the manager and it might not be buy all the players.
Just getting it off my chest. Non football days create space to ramble at leisure. I used to hate LG framing everything with a ‘Wenger is sh*t, it’s all his fault” applied to anything that didn’t go how Peds in his wisdom or sense of entitlement thought it should. If this page is an antidote to that it ought to be by more than just substituting Tets for Wenger.
Aitcho-to each his own…you might want to have a quick rethink about the whole old white guy woke nonsense though…just saying…have a good one
Aitcho
Having a plan B isn’t being called “woke” in fact many of us have complained for years about not having a plan B in the transfer market.
The complaints aren’t even about Trossard who I personally think could be a decent squad signing although you can consider back up costing ÂŁ27 million as being expensive.
The howls of anger are about Jorginho. Many of us have been pushing for Xhaka’s exit for years (and we’ve had good offers) now we have two of the fuckers.
Cheers Mark—I feel like I’ve been a bit harsh on Aitcho in the past, so I didn’t want to double-down today, but “wokeness” has nothing whatosever to do with the matters at hand, so I’m not sure why such a nonsensical take even entered the fray…in fact, some could logically suggets that his whole soliloquy was “wokeness” personified…I digress
I do agree that Trossard has something in his toolbox that could come in handy in the run-up, but I’m not a fan of the financials involved and/or the opportunity costs, in that it appears that he’s come to primarily supplant Marts and not Xhaka, which is a more than a little disconcerting…as for Jorginho, my thoughts are totally in line with yours, as whom in their right mind would not only make our midfiled smaller and less mobile, but also help one of our crosstown rivals secure a blue chip replacement in the closing hours of the TW…of course, that doesn’t mean Jorgiho is a scrub, it just means he’s an ill-advised and expensive rolling of the dice proposition…not to mention, I’m totally convinced that some potentionally problematic assurances were given to both the vets we acquired in the window
Yeah, sorry guys. You dudes wailing about woke over the course of 4 or so posts gets a bit tiresome.
It’s generally a bugbear of old white guys. Seeing ‘wokeness’ everywhere. Go back and check your comments and ask yourself how tears about things being ‘woke’ are relevant to the transfer window.
It’s just another thing to feel sorry for yourselves about. Lose the victim mentality guys.
I don’t think I’ll need a rethink TRVL. Feel free to double down if you want, it’s an online forum, if it makes you feel better be my guest. It’ll be okay, I’m not overfussed about it.
Marc, I’m inclined to think, given Xhakas rehabilitation, having two of the fuckers might be no bad thing. Jorginho was a quality player, not seen much of him recently, I doubt most if us have as we pay more attention to Arsenal, he might still be. On paper it’s a sound purchase. I suspect most of the anguish over his purchase is because it’s an Arteta buy and he bought Willian, and played him. Three years ago.
He’s also bought lots of other players who’ve done better than Willian, White, Jesus, Ode, Zinny, got rid of a whole lot of dross, Ozil, Auba, Willian, etc. And as a result, we’re better. It’s not complicated and we ought to be less miserable.
Let’s not forget, we were pretty crap back then in general but ‘never forgetting’ 8th place, don’t recall who said it, one of the anti woke wailers or other just seems a bit petty.
Anyway, as you were, you fight the woke wherever you find it and good luck.
I mean…. what?
“Almuniasaynomore, the “wokeness” brigade is such an intellectually-stunted collective endeavour that I fear what the response to this pseudo-Dark Age might actually look like when the pendulum invariably swings full-bore”
It’s not swinging exepct in your hopes and expectations. Move on
People being anti discriminatory is an ‘attack’?
Perhaps you’re seeing too much into randoms commenting on a forum. Or perhaps you’re just randomly jumbling together stuff you don’t like. Arteta, anti racism, anti sexism, Edu, Pedro from Legrove. It’s all part of the tyranny of ‘woke’ to you. Wild.
“whole concept that many label as Woke,which I see as being an attack on intellectual independence”
I made my comments on woke because it seems such a bizarre thing to vent about on an Arsenal forum. Even if you’re racist, sexist etc, you can just hide it here.
Having said that, while your odd philosophies and fault finding may seem odd, I’m going to agree with something mentioned.;
We are an elite club, at least now and we should regularly if not always, always is a hard ask, nothing lasts forever, be in the hunt for trophies.
We usually are. Even in late stage Wenger days we were winning the odd trophy or getting close.and we’re in the hunt again this season. It’s fine to criticise the negative but seeing negative or making up reasons to be negative seems pointless.
Aitcho—the conversation was obviously too nuanced for your narrow-minded sensibilities…if you had done your due diligence you would have understood that discussions on here have a tendency to extend far beyond the footballing realm…if that’s too triggering for you, please steer clear from the deep end of the pool…as for all of your victim card banter, what an amusingly self-absorbed take coming from the “pot” himself…good day to you kind sir
Aicho in business as well as elite sport pragmatism plays its part if used correctly. Equally, procrastination is a winner’s biggest nemesis. You’ll find LIR’s posters to be proactive in their views, more so because of the widening gap between title wins.
An even longer gap between a Euro trophy. You are very correct that that we are more senior in our years to say LG’s posters, but that also means more wisdom regarding the sport and the running of a sporting company/business. It’s here where we discuss our views and hopes for TWs, and hoping against all odds that this is our season.
If our left side selections are Zinchenko, Trossard and Martinelli with Xhaka on the bench, you’ll find most here, if not all, will be very happy that our sloth like player: Xhaka is finally on the bench because what’s worrying is we’ve been out of Europe since Xhaka arrived. That’s not rhetoric, but sadly the truth and nothing but the truth of Xhaka’s history with us.
Aitcho, if you’re happy with Jorginho then that’s your prerogative where time will tell if you are right. None of us are too high and mighty to admit when we are wrong and when to concede a point.
If you believe the ‘Everton loss’ was a one off and you are vindicated with those views over time, then your views here will be looked upon more favorably, as we are open to debate and seek more of your take of what’s needed going forward. I mean that with sincerity, as we all want The Arsenal to win major trophies.
You maybe of the view that the older one gets, the more one becomes senile or have softer sensibilities that woke becomes a get out of jail free option. That would be LG’s way of thinking and why we all happily vacated to come here.
You seem to take our comments as gospel where much is just banter erring on the side of satire. We get serious when Arteta & Edu compromise our ability to win the PL, which has happened in the last 2 January TWs. The comparison between our current player plight and poor squad management to last season is too close for comfort: hence our what seems to be negativity when sitting at the top of the league.
Aitcho, thanks for posting here. We welcome your views and you’ll always get an answer sans agenda other than wanting The Arsenal — our Arsenal we ALL love and support in our own ways to get back to its glory days.
Speaking of which:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vQpW9XRiyM
At LIR we are all Gooners who don’t take ourselves too seriously; we leave that banality to Pedro and other blogs, such as Untold.
As TRVL said our posts are oft nuanced that can easily be missed and ergo the point ion what is being made.
I promise you, Aitcho, we all want to win the PL and CL in our lifetime, just some have less years to witness than others.
Happy you favour some of our concerns and welcome your restraint in making your reasonable opposition views here.
Have a good one.