Did you see that? The whole town was red, MLS sobbed for a few seconds and had to clear his nose, Ben White – the legend – dedicated a song to Hincapie, Mikel wore sunglasses, Saka and Martinelli – the OGs of this team – posed together and the best of all, rhe TShirts of all the players read CHAMPIONS.
Declan Rice was singing, “Set piece again, ole ole; set piece again, ole ole”. ‘Hincapie, get your bum out..’ were the words only Ben White can come up with. Dec Rice is a decent guy, with Ole, Ole, Ole, Ben White White…
It was disheartening to lose the Champions League final. And the way we lost it to PSG made it even worse. There are questions being asked, and Mikel is answering why Gabriel was the one taking the crucial penalty when you have Madueke and Zubimendi available but that’s for another day. I would like to celebrate the ‘Premiership’ for some more days, after all, we had the title of 22 fucking years and the best part of it all is, the best is yet to come.
No, I am not giving up. You have to be critical of things in life if you want improvements. And there’s a lot to improve still at Arsenal. You can always get better than yesterday in sports and we won’t let it go the late Wenger years way, not at LiR.
But, we did win the Premiership. Against a club that has been under the radar for cheating. Against a team that went on to spend 200m pounds and got Marmoush, Nico Gonzalez, Khusanov in a January transfer window and still fell short of us. Against another team that is color blind and thinks red is blue. I heard they joined the parade in red and white and were singing rice, rice baby. Sad bunch of the lots.
We finished as runner ups in the Champions League. We lost to the last year Champions and in the penalty shootout. The only one who saved a penalty was David Raya and only if Eze and Gabriel had put it in, we would have 2 trophies on that bus. We played with 10 men during the extra time, Hincapie could hardly move and yet, it was PSG who wanted it to end and go to the shootout. They registered their first shot on target in the 117th minute. So, yeah, we lost but it wasn’t a gran and run for PSG.
Only about 2 months ago, I was frustrated and writing about us getting ousted from the Carabao and FA cup in 15 days. The last 15 days however were totally different because we saw us lifting the Premier League trophy, ending the Champions League run as runner ups, and an open bus parade painting London in red as if the communists are back.
Could we have done better? Yes – but then PSG could have done better too. No shame in losing in penalty shootout, we will go again next season and with a better preparation. The next time we go into the competitions, we will have a team who knows what it takes and will have experience of winning a trophy.
I have been a critic of the Mikel regime. I will also be critical in the coming season(s), but for now, thanks to the club, manager, players for giving everything they could to lift the trophy. We did it.
Right, that’s all for today. Hope you are back in your senses if you were part of that parade.
If you were part of the parade, Champions League final or the last day of the Premier League and have some pics which you don’t mind sharing with me, please send it to bloggingwithmb@gmail.com. I’m already preparing for the next season.
Also, fuck the Spurs.
Wrt the piffle being repeatedly bandide about , Statistics is mathematics and football is a passion largely rooted on today .
Statistics is impressive no doubt but if one’s brains are only loaded with everything , where is the place for passion ?
Maybe it is an USP for bots but there is a place for piffle too in London , Le Potage for example.
Marc
“ Why would we want another very expensive CAM when we have Ode and Eze and Bowman coming through the ranks?”
Exactly, and you can add nwaneri and merino to that list.
Vera seems to think that Rogers is a left winger or can play on the wing , personally I’d prefer that we go out and buy a bona fide AML instead of shoehorning Morgan Rogers into that position.
clearly you don’t know what that term means…what else is fucking new
Perhaps Bertha is enforcing upgrades. The problem is our players are on lucrative contracts that makes them hard to sell or loan without still paying a contribution towards the players wages. Our player sales record is abysmal.
“Our player sales record is abysmal.”
Its not even that good – isn’t our record sale still Ox?
according to reports we’ve placed a 38M price tag on Marts and if that were to be achieved it be a record for us…now that’s fucking disgraceful (obviously that’s not all on MA)
TRVL
Wasn’t Klopp a massive fan a couple of seasons ago with a high valuation quoted?
Arteta really doesn’t have a clue on how to side line a player without destroying their value – does he not realise that large fees will be given to him to spend.
The cunt is a cunt and so is Bertha.
The problem with the fanbase, is just because these pair of cunts spend millions on cack every year they rate them very highly.
Thats all these plastics really want, a revolving door of expensive cack every year.
They are cunts as well.
But we knew that anyway.
“We will have to start making some very important decisions if we want to reach another level. We are going to have to show that ambition because we are more than capable of doing it, but it is going to demand us to be very ambitious, very fast and very smart.”Demanding ambitious, swift, and shrewd spending this summer, Arteta knows the likes of Manchester City and Liverpool will be desperate to dethrone Arsenal. The Gunners ruffled a few feathers when they won the Premier League, so Andrea Berta can’t afford to take his foot off the pedal”
So as you can see even MA knows there’s levels to this shit and we’ve got a ways to go before we can TRULY compete with the PSGs of the world…here’s some rather damning facts:
(1) Arsenal averaged just 24.7% possession, the lowest recorded by any team in a Champions League final since data tracking began in 2003–04
(2) Following Havertz’s early strike, Arsenal failed to register a single shot on target for the remaining 120+ minutes of play
(3) from the end of the first half through the entirety of extra time, Arsenal generated a nearly nonexistent 0.01 xG
(4) we completed only 69 passes in the entire first half
so the question becomes what would have happened if MA didn’t go into full-bore chickenshit mode and tried to win instead of trying not to lose…some might say that MA didn’t feel he had the horses to take them on, as if that’s not his fault, whereas others will be quick to suggest that it wouldn’t matter who he had on the bench as he was always going to opt for his defence-first default setting…the real answer is likely somewhere in between…it’s obvious that they were a more balanced squad, so he’s not wrong on the first count, which tbf is on him after 12+ windows and close to a billion dollars spent, but I likewise think that any other possible strategy went out the fucking window as soon as we scored that early tally
this is why this window is so fucking important…so long as MA’s in charge winning will require us to play ugly and buck the odds, unless we can acquire the type of players who will force him out of this overly negative style of play…just not sure that’s in the cards, as being “swift, ambitious and shrewd” hasn’t really been our MO during MA’s reign, so I’ll believe it when I see it…fingers-crossed
(obviously that’s not all on MA)
Vieira – you’re starting to go easy on him! But you’re right. When it comes to Arsenal managers spunking money on buying and re-upping mediocre players, no one did it quite as badly as the old chihuahua headed bastard. Talking of the devil, he shall doubtless be appearing everywhere at the WC with luminaries such as Infantino and the orange cunt. I’m seriously not planning to watch much bar the odd game involving AFC players and Scotland. What’s the mood like in Canada?
All the readers in India…will you be watching the World Cup? Who are your personal favourites for the tournament? I guess the timings of games are even less convenient where you are.
We organised a WC sweepstake at our cricket club. 48 teams at 5 pounds per entry with prizes also for runners up and 3/4 place. I’m very happy having drawn Argentina. My son got Austria by contrast. I’ll buy him a beer with my expected winnings.🍺
Vieira
Fucking hell. Those stats are damning considering the 1.5 billion spent on players (roughly the same as PSG iirc). Somewhere between winning the PL and taking to the pitch, a dour, dire spirit of old skool catennachio must’ve set in. I wonder who was responsible for that? Might it have gone differently if we hadn’t scored that early goal which was a gift for Arteta’s negative instincts.
meanwhile Musk is ready to float Space X. Our Stan will be buying a stake in return for a piece of real estate that he can develop on the Moon or Mars and lease to his in-Laws.
KP – the real crime is buying Chelsea cast offs and then giving them insane contracts and then terminating the contracts with huge pay offs. Willian trousered 12M GBP and Auba received even more. To get rid of Havertz (when he falls out of favour) will take the National Dept.
Debt
Arsenal have 15 players involved in the World Cup(reduced from 16 due to Timber being ruled out), so this should be an interesting couple of months for a variety of reasons:
(1) potential for injuries
(2) poor play negatively impacted the MVs of anyone we might want to sell
(3) mandated rest periods for all involved, even more so for those who make a deep run
(4) the value of players we’re interested in having their MVs go up which could complicate matters
(5) the difficulty of making deals while the Cup is ongoing (depends on each manager, as some like Tuchel will be much more accomodating when it comes to transfers)
(6) the inability to properly embed any new additions
(7) the unlikelihood of making any significant tactical changes with so many players unavailable for much of the preseason
(8) having to watch the typically boring International game only to have to return to a similarly boring brand of football when the PL season commences (not just us, as our success will undoubtedly lead to even more copycat dark arts behaviour)
I wish this list had a more positive slant, but unless we get some major business over the line in the first week or so of the window, which seems unlikely, this could be a trying time for anyone who was left with a bad taste in their mouth following that toothless CL performance…this is when we find out if we’re a “serious” organization or are we simply going to settle and run this overachieving thin margins gig back…here’s hoping all that bully ball set piece nonsense was simply put in place so that our thirsty AF manager could finally get over the hump and now that something has been achieved a much more positive script will be rolled out and the upcoming window will reflect this new mandate…fingers fucking crossed
TRVL
I think you need to include basic fatigue into your list (which can lead to injuries) – players like Rice / Saliba / Gabriel played a lot of football last season and you’d expect their teams to progress to the Qtr’s / Semi finals. We get a big game or two early in the new season and they’ll get hardly any time off.
below are the 5 biggest spenders since Arteta joined the club, obviously this is not net spend as any one with a brain would know that when Arteta arrived at the club we had numerous players that were basically past their sell by date, whereas the likes of Chelsea and city had squads worth fortunes due to their proven (in Chelsea’s case)corrupt dealings in the 10 years or so prior to Arteta arriving at Arsenal.
So, for a fair a balanced assessment of transfers I believe net spend would give a false impression, though I do believe that if Arteta is at the club for another 5 years then net spend for this period would be a fair and balanced way to judge spending, though I doubt anyone would agree with me on here as the narrative appears to be that Arteta has had more funds to play with than our competitors.
1. Chelsea: €2.15bn
2. Manchester City: €1.273bn
3. Manchester United: €1.247bn
4. Tottenham: €1.144bn
5. Arsenal (CHAMPIONS): €1.138bn
Just to clarify , net spend would have put Arsenal in 3rd spot…
As Arsenal are now in the top 3 of most profitable clubs in the world then we can expect a couple of big signings whilst at the same time being able to recuperate substantial amounts due to their proven impressive work of Arteta.
Marc—I sort of included that within the “mandated rest” portion of my post…there’s no doubt that the players you mentioned are most likely to experience fatigue-related injuries, most notably Saliba, who until a few days ago was supposedly a serious question mark to even be included in the French squad due to his recurring back issues…this raises a couple of concerns, the first of which is obvious, that he could miss significant time next season, and secondly, the very real possibility that our overtly defensive manager might waste even more money on defenders to the detriment of the other end of the pitch
so far the only credible news out there involves our willingness to sell Marts and us making an approach for PSG defender Mbemba…boring…as for the offensive side of things, besides the rumours involving Rogers and Gibbs-White, it appears as if we kicked tires on Yildiz, which was quickly rebuffed by Juve, and the whole notion of Alvarez coming anytime soon seems rather far-fetched considering how AM supposedly mocked Real for their 129M bid…looks like it’s going to be a sellers market again, except for us of course
I wouldn’t worry about fatigue as we proved this season that despite losing over 1,200 days to injury we still managed to win the league by 7 points and reach 2 cup finals. In fact the average days lost to injury in a season for title winners averages out somewhere between 600-800 days which shows how impressive Arteta was in managing such a depleted squad.
Basically all that will happen next season is due to players returning late it will give fringe players the chance to impress the manager , similar to what happened this season when Mosquera, Hincape, Madueke , Gyokeres were given game time due to injury.
Surely the fringe players have already impressed the manager – if not why were they purchased or promoted in the first place. If as you say we are the third most profitable club in the world then we should have all top quality players.