Are we going to see a Sesko v Gyokeres? I would love to. We are visiting Old Trafford today for our opening game of the season and it couldn’t have been more exciting for an Arsenal fan. We had finished 2nd thrice in a row, we have no intention to make it 4 and we will finally be playing with a proper striker up front. No Havertz – a makeshift striker, no Merino – a midfielder with a duty to score goals, no Trossard who plays better on the wings. We have a 65m striker who scored the most goals last season in any of the leagues that matters. A striker who dreamt of playing in red and white, who asked his agent to cut down his fees to facilitate the transfer, who hold ransom his old club for a move. We haven’t seen anything like that from quite some time, and in games when the scoreboard reads 0-0 in 65th minute, when the strategy you devised isn’t working, it’s the passion and fire in the players that wins you game. We have added more of that in our playing XI.
Right, what a way to start the season. A rejuvenated (take it with a pinch of salt) Manchester United under Amorin who got rid of some of the deadwoods, who brought in one of the striker we were initially interested in, is always dangerous. In fact, Man Utd is dangerous irrespective of the players or the manager if they are playing at home. They have already added some firepower with Cunha, Mbuemo, and Sesko.
In the team news, everyone’s fit except Gabriel Jesus. I would love a back 4 of Timber, Saliba, Gabriel and MLS with Zubimendi, Odegaard and Rice in the midfield. The front 3 from now on, should always be Saka – Gyokeres – Martinelli unless it’s an unimportant Carabao Cup game or one of them needs rest. There shouldn’t be a second thought to play Havertz or Merino in that role if Gyokeres says he is fit. Unless you want to play with two strikers, but that’s a thought for a different day.
In the pre-match conference, here’s what Arteta had to say about the pressure to win the title that stood out for me –
You keep digging, digging, digging. You have to keep digging because one day, the gold is going to be there. That’s all the time, what I’ve been taught, I’ve been educated and that’s it. For three seasons, we have more points than any other team in this league. It’s incredible, that’s why we have all the consistency. Now we have to do it in a season, to earn one more point or the same amount of points and more goals difference than any other team. That’s the objective.
source: Arsenal.com
No, we don’t have more points that any other team in the league in last 3 years combined, Man City has. Even if we did, it doesn’t matter because we came 2nd each time. I understand that we keep digging, digging and digging to get to our goal but if your goal is to keep digging for next 12 years in search of 1 title, that’s bonkers.
Anyways, I don’t give a fcuk how you twist your words Mikel. It’s your 6th full season, you have a billion dollar squad at your disposal, you have got 2 playing XIs that can play in Premier League and the missing piece is here. No excuses this time. The title is a must, unless you finish second and get us that Champions league trophy. And it’s start with a game against a team that finished in the bottom half of the table, is your rival and is a must win.
Lets go out there, beat them convincingly for the confidence that’s needed for the games to come and to be in the mix of the title. No, it’s not too early, both City and Liverpool has started their season with a win and you surely don’t want to play catch ups to them.
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Right, that’s all for today. We are playing Man Utd (A), Liverpool (A), Man City (H), Newcastle (A) in first 6 games of the season, and every one of these games will be important if you want to hold that trophy in your hand.
Before I wrap up, let me thanks Paul and Ray for some of the wonderful pictures they have shared with me. I will be using these at LiR. You can follow them on Twitter/X if you find them as refreshing as I do.
Thanks again, guys – if you are reading this, we would love to see you in comment section.
Well reasoned, Ambarish, as Marc said the knives seems to be being sharpened so it should an interesting season for many reasons.
I’ll repost rather than write a new one here .
TRVL
From the last post something I posted while you were away.
MA’s decision agony for today’s opening game will look like this: Best video game consoles
RW Saka – Dowman
LW Marts – Noni
LMF Rice/Eze/Merino
DM Zubi/Nargaard
ST VG – Havertz
LMF Ode – Ethan
RB White – Timber
LB Cauliflower – Skelly
Maya, Saliba and Big gabs pick themselves and we have back up for both positions.
We’ve gone from 5 LBs to having 4 CDMs.
I thought Eze would go to Spuds before us, which tells you so much about MA’s projects not being subscribed to by the players we really need.
After City’s 4:0 day-out stroll against Wolves who are going to need to punch against their weight to survive this season, where City never really got out of 2nd gear. KDB who? With Rodri to come back who City have never lost a game with him starting.Best video game consoles
This will make Slot need Isak more to compete, as both squads look closely matched until you get to Haaland up top: nines is not consistent enough and they’ve lost sadly Jota, and the feisty Diaz.
Ekitike and Isak just about trumps Haaland, but in Reijnders and Cherki, City have AMs who love to score with a record/stats to prove it.
As you say it will be interesting to see how MA sets us up against Amorim’s Mbeumo, Sesko and Cunha?
Yes, we know them well from previous clubs, but never played them combined under a manager barely hanging onto his job to begin with.
Amorim, Pep, Enzo are all dead men walking if they are pot-less come May next year. Not sure a minor cup would save any of them unless they were a point adrift after the fat lady has finally sung her last high pitched blast come the end of this season’s CL’s final, when the chips will be inspected where they have fallen by the clubs’ owners.
As you rightly said, MA is already doing the failure excuse groundwork with his comments you highlighted.
The Spanish gob-shight knows all he needs to do is keep the CL money rolling in, and he has a job for life with KSE as Wenger did while Stan waits for the Super League, where my guess is in under 10 years.
If MA can win the odd minor cup along with a conference shield, then Josh will see that as success on the pitch, and daddy can count his filthy lucre at the end of each season allowing MA to buy mediocrity at the bargain basements or grab some low hanging fruit in the summer TW.
Maybe grab a bargain January loan/buy, such as a Sterling type to waste another couple of KSE’s millions.
I’m not looking at the first 10 games to see how many points we have while sitting in 1st or 2nd: not in the least, I’m expecting to have dropped 12 to 15 points by the end of October, and be adrift of Pool or City by a similar amount at that stage.
The season will be over for us bar cheap thrills from maybe a Tin cup to give us a chance at winning MA’s coveted silver plated Conference Shield.
I say we get a lucky draw or drop 3 points at Manure today.
Anyone see it differently?
Marc
My reasoning was Fabregas was 15 when Wenger started him and a starter by 16.
I think Dowman could have Cesc levels
Nice piece Ambarish
Our team selection will be interesting – The questions being on who’s first choice LB (I think Arteta will go for Calafiore whenever he can).
CM should pick itself as you’ve named the questions are a small one on upfront (will Arteta look to ease VG in – not that there should be a need) and a huge one on LW.
We’ll find out in just over an hour.
Tony
Wenger was far more open to young players and far more aggressive in pushing attacking players – remember chasing a game and having 4 or 5 strikers on the pitch.
Arteta plays favourites and doesn’t like others to get any credit – I wouldn’t be surprised to see Martinelli get pushed out this season.
Dowman has plenty of time and hopefully a new Luis Enrique will be taking over his developing as soon as Arteta is sacked!
Eze scores a screaming free kick.
Can’t believe Tony’s been saying he’s a rubbish player for weeks!
That’s why we should buy Eze wonder free kick goal
Lol Marc
Ref’s are back to their usual standard.
Line up as it should be with the possible exception of LB with Calafiore starting in front of Skelly.
our lineup is as follows:
Raya
White, Saliba, Gabs, Cala
Ode Zubi, Rice
Saka, VG, Marts
pleasantly surprised to see VG get the start over you know who, but besides that, with Timber not at 100%, the only real decision was Cala or Skelly…I’m sure he’s just trying to get minutes out of Cala before he invariably takes his first knock and is sidelined again…still no help for Marts, as Cala will likely tuck inside with his forward runs, so he’s destined to fail, which is what MA appears to want anyways
good read Tony, albeit I’m slightly more optimistic about our prospects
Tony – TRVL
I was curious to see if Madueke would get a start – I had nightmares about Havertz starting over on the left but there’s plenty of time fro Arteta to fuck things up!
Marc—there’s still plenty of time for all sorts of shoehorning nonsense…if Noni had been in training longer he just might have pipped Marts out wide, but I think MA didn’t want to overthink things, for fucking once, especially after the outpouring of support for VG upon arriving…we both know he would rather have Havertz out there than VG, who wasn’t even his choice…with that in mind, keep a close eye on MA should Sesko score, as he might let his ego get the best of him and get caught on video quietly celebrating
Chelsea have two key worries, Enzo’s level of play week-in and week-out as a proper facilitator, which I really doubt(if not, Palmer will have to play deeper and deeper), and the effectiveness of Neto, who I’ve never favoured…they probably should have kept Noni over him, but when they signed the kid for 50M, there was no way they were going to keep two guys who want to cut inside…like us, they need to commit to going forward with considerably more directness, which just wasn’t prioritized at City under Pep
by “the kid” I meant Estevao
it might speak to the respective quality of the Wolves and Chelsea training staffs, but I wonder if Neto quit on his former club, where he was always injured, once he was convinced that he deserved better…he played more minutes last season than he ever had before, without a single injury spell…Chelsea appear to have a lot of unjustifiably selfish players, which could be their undoing…of course, the way in which they chop and change could encourage that sort of mindset to permeate their ranks
Marc
I don’t mind Calafiori in place of MLS. We might get to see the mask today :))
no wonder United wanted Baleba, as they don’t have a proper DM to speak of…at least we’re not the only club BHA is trying to fleece with their MVs…I’m a huge fan but he’s not a 100M dollar player, but I would have taken him over Rice, as he would have solved our DM issues without us having to spend countless millions to fill a positional hole we thought we had sorted
here goes nothing…let the games begin
that was Zubi’s PL wake-up call…he had better get used to it