You couldn’t be any happier as an Arsenal fan. Well, there are some caveats but if you look at the overall picture, we are having a heck of a time. We are sitting at the top in Premier League with a 4 point lead to 2nd place Bournemouth and 6 points over Man City whom we can consider the competition. We have 3 wins in 3 games in Champions League, one of them was 4-0 against the Simeone’s side. We qualified for the Quarter Finals in Carabao Cup with a team that started a 15 year old and will face Crystal Palace and not one of the City, Chelsea or Newcastle. Our FA cup run is yet to start, but everything else looks fine so far. In fact, much better than just fine.
However, the road to success will get much tougher as we move forward, other teams will figure out their mess and every game will get decisive. All we need to do, is keep our head cool, perform the best we can, challenge each other for the starting place and prove why you deserved it and we can win something of value finally. We have got some of the best players in Premier League on bench. We have the best defence in the league and the opposition is struggling to put a shot on target. We have 15-year olds challenging Brightonions and we have players that are making history with the 15 minutes they are getting. The hunger is there, the team has fallen 3 years in a row after getting so close to the title and they surely would have that pain in their heart. I am pretty sure they don’t want to feel it again.
–
Right, lets get back to the game. We are visiting Burnely today, and they aren’t in a very good condition. With only 3 wins in 9 games, they are fighting a relegation battle and the three wins they have were against Wolves, Sunderland and Leeds. We are surely the favorites and a win today will either keep the lead to 6 points against City or Bournemouth can do us a favor by beating them tomorrow. But, in any case, we can’t afford to lose our focus today.
Gabriel Martinelli picked up an injury against Brighton mid week and will not available for today’s game. Mikel is starting Trossard mostly in Premier League anyway so it should be fine. William Saliba remains a doubt after coming off at half time against Palace last weekend but we have Mosquera who can fill in his place. He had one bad game but you can expect that from a 21-year old CB trying to fit in the shoes of the best CB partnership in the world.
I am hoping a back 4 of Timber, Mosquera, Gabriel and Calafiori starting today with Raya back in the goal. Both Rice and Zubimendi are expected to start with Eze playing the no. 10 role. Saka, Gyokeres and Trossard will keep their places.
–
I am bit sorry for Gyokeres. That lad thought he is coming to Arsenal to bang in couple of goals every game but is being surrounded by 3 defenders every game and is not getting the freedom he was otherwise getting with Sporting. The league’s tougher than anything else and with Arteta’s style of play, where your CF needs to go back in his own penalty box to defend, he will have to work harder to get his name on the scoresheet. However, it’s allowing Saka, Martinelli, Trossard more space on the wings and is ultimately improving our game in the final third so it’s not a bad thing as long as we keep winning.
Also, I hate to be overly dependent on set pieces and winning games 1-0, but 3 points are 3 points. Would I love some David Beckham free kick goals from Eze? Yes. Would I love Gyokeres scoring a hattrick with bicycle kicks? Fucking Yes. Martinelli picking the ball in his own half courtesy to a Raya’s pass and then beating 3 defenders to score a solo goal is a mesmerizing thing, but if you come at me calling the club a set piece club, I would show you the 3 points and the league table. If you happen to be a Liverpool fan, I would also ask you fuck off.
Right, that’s me done. See you during the game.
Marc
More crushing naiveté. How dull. Put the Daily Mail down and read something a lot less hateful and a little more honest.
My pension is only bronze plated but I’m worth every penny of it for helping Tory cunts and ungrateful English wankers. Politics is a lot more nuanced than crapping on about lefties and running down people who provide public services on ever finishing budgets. Where is your pension coming from? Arms investment, tobacco, booze and modern day slavery. Spare us the bigoted hypocrisy please.
Quiet day in the oh-so-important fancy timber industry working for the big man who sees you as a job slave?
Your stand on independence is wildly off beam. You seem to want to deny that Welsh and Scottish people helped make the UK what it is. Try expressing that take in Edinburgh or Cardiff where you’d be deservedly laughed at. I almost feel sorry for you for being so being so hateful. You sound like Nigel Farage…and no, that’s not a compliment.
Have a spliff, get your vibrator out of your porn dungeon and chill the fuck out little Englander.
Mate
I’ve come over all responsible since I wrote that.
By all means have the last say, and it will be the last I promise. You tend to start these things with semi provocative commentary, I respond in kind, and then it cranks up. We each know the other’s trigger points and, let’s face it, we’re never going to persuade one another of the force of our individual arguments. Not unlike your and Vieira’svAFC-related interactions with Wickmeister (with whom you’re actually aligned quite closely politicslally) and Aitcho. I’ve always challenged right wingers, inequality and racists and it’s sooo fucking boring.
So have the last say by all means and continue to say whatever you want on here. I’d prefer to avoid the staged provocations in future because I can’t be arsed
Marc
I was head hunted earlier this week for a position at a Government quango. I explained I was past my sell by date. The agency who contacted me explained the salary and the 26.7% employer contribution to my pension.
There are not many private companies that would / could offer that percentage of employer contribution to a pension. The holiday period on offer was 35working days.
TRVL – do you have pain with your current illness? dizziness?
Norg—it started with neck stiffness, then moved into a series of little lightning strike-like headaches on the right side of my head (both day and night)…eventually it worsened and added some other symptoms like an earache/sore throat, only on the right side, and my hair being super sensitive to even the littlest bit of human contact, especially along my hair parting line…no dizziness, but I did experience the odd numbing of my left arm and a migraine-like aura on occasion…I was starting to feel as if it might have been meningitis, but none of the collected evidence supported this theory…some weird-ass shit for sure…Cheers
TRVL
My wife is a migraine sufferer and she has experienced similar conditions. the quack put it down to tension or temporal arteritis.
Hope the condition clears – try not to get to tense on Sunday.
NORG
Only 26.7 percent?😄
KP
Out in the real world it is much less however in your diplomatic world I expect you have all the frills and dancing girls on the weekend. In general I have found staff (usually foreign nationals) working at UK Embassies to be extremely helpful and great to deal with – it may be the work ethic that disappeared from most of the UK workforce decades ago. A friend of mine is from Lithuania. She is one of five children and she can recall her childhood under Russian rule. Her Mother was a supermum because she had 5 children and had a certificate to show for it. Even though her mother received preferential treatment there was still nothing on the shop shelves to purchase. Now Lithuania is prosperous and the hardworking people are better off. The shops have loads of stock but the people struggle to buy things. The bonus is they are happier than before probably because they all hate the Russians.
It must be national sweeping statement week. Or is it anecdotes = empirical evidence week?
Anyway, I’m glad there’s a game tomorrow which will eventually help focus minds on more sensible polemic.
I worked fucking hard during my career on some nasty subjects and even nastier places which would turn the stomachs of others – Iran, Iraq and Syria were all on my travel itinerary and it was not exactly light entertainment being fed a constant diet of genocide, systemic r@pe and other horrors. Then there was the endless ordeal of making clueless inbred Tory minsters look good. Anyone fancy being in Ethiopia or Nigeria for months on end? No, thought not. It also took some bottle being one of only a handful of Brits in Buenos Aires a short time after the war when we were still actively hated. Latterly it was about helping daily mail readers stranded in natural disaster shit holes, including New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina.
So do I feel guilty about people’s private sector tax paying for my pension? Do I fuck. I earned every penny of it.
In a wider sense, how’s life in England with rapidly diminishing public services? Shit and a little scary right, along with a sense that you private sector guys are finding it harder to function cos everyone is scrapping for themselves. But hey, it’ll all get better once Sturmbahnfuhrer Farage is in no. 10 right?
There’s a weird dichotomy in Britain between attitudes towards forces personnel on one hand and general civil servants and government workers on the other. Right wingers are too scared to criticise soldiers (‘elp for ‘eroes innit…) while people of my ilk are regarded as gin swilling cunts. The truth is I was putting my head in some difficult places trying to prevent war and antipathy towards Brits and our history. The job I did called for a fair bit of courage and I just got on with it. Things would have been duller but much more lucrative if I’d worked in the private sector in a safe job selling my soul for a company and going home to a semi in the suburbs every night.
Drawing divisions between people based on career choices when they were young is fucking bollocks, fed to you by a dying right wing media that thrives on causing division and protecting the wealthy.
What the hell is going on with Liverpool?
If it carries on Slot will be on thin ice. After what he spent in the summer missing out on CL football is not an option.
3 nil down to Forest… at home as well. Maybe they can be ruled out of the title…
Kroenke
Its beginning to look like more than just a blip if they keep this up they’ll be struggling for a CL place.
If Arteta had shown that he possessed even tiny testicles we could have gotten a draw up there then they’d definitely be out of contention.
And the maggots beat City…we’ve been here before when others slip up and Arsenal haven’t capitalised. We have to beat the spuds, create a gap and show we can be ruthless. No complacency tomorrow. It’s a terrific opportunity.
And then do the same next week v Palmer-less Chelsea.
There has been a misconception on here and in the media that Arsenal are feeling the pressure at the top with city supposedly breathing down our necks, I am on record as saying that we will be 6 or 7 points clear at the top after this weekend’s results, though I have to admit I didn’t see that Liverpool result coming , but City away at st James park was always going to be tough game and that’s how it turned out , they certainly needed Michael Oliver to help them out today , though to be honest it did look like newcastle’s winner was offside , not that I’m complaining.
There will many more twist and turns this season , I suppose we will have the likes of Marc and TRVL spouting their usual rubbish about other teams handing the title to Arsenal but for me this league is tough, especially travelling to the likes of Newcastle, Bournemouth, palace , Sunderland and a few more.
Chelsea are only 3 points behind but I doubt if they will keep in touch as they have had very few of the tougher away games, I think they will drop back into the pack , though I do think it will be very tough at the bridge next week , a draw will be suffice , a win will be a bonus.
“There has been a misconception on here and in the media that Arsenal are feeling the pressure at the top with city supposedly breathing down our necks”
We’re not even a third of the way through the season. Being top now doesn’t mean shit being in contention (which we are) does. The problem is Arteta’s been in contention before and bottles it when the real pressure comes on.
As for the media pushing that Arsenal are feeling the pressure – crap. Sky have been doing the opposite they’ve been building us up and declaring us comfortable favourites all with a view of waiting for Arteta to fuck up so they can pounce on him.
Its win win for them – by some miracle Arteta grows a pair and they were right all along, Arteta does an Arteta and they get great TV by tearing him to pieces and calling for him to be sacked.
Always remember that someone selling something has an agenda.
I see that forest scored a goal against Liverpool today despite a player being in an offside position in front of the keeper , this was just a week after Liverpool had a goal disallowed for a player standing in front of the keeper.
I think it’s time for the pgmol to clarify their interpretation of the offside rule in this situation as I can only forsee more problems the next time a similar situation arises.
Obviously the rule in this instance must be confusing for the officials as a different outcome was arrived at for 2 very similar incidents , that shouldn’t be allowed to happen as it makes the pgmol look incompetent.
One thing we can all agree on then is that any pressure Arsenal might be under is much less than described by our friends on the Street of Shame. Rather, results so far this weekend actually offer an incentive to win and win convincingly to send a message to the others, especially Chelsea who are up next.
The earliest anyone can/should be talking about pressure at the top is well after the turn of the year and the midway point. The boys should go out today and put the cockerel jockeys to the sword
I did say that city’s win over Liverpool was nothing special and they were being overhyped by the media as they had decisions go their way and their first 2 deflected goals had an element of luck.
I did also say that away to Newcastle the decisions often go the way of the home team and City won’t have the luxury of having Michael Oliver on VAR every week and that is how it turned out as I thought the Newcastle winner was offside, but the VAR decided that the city’s defender’s arm was keeping the Newcastle player onside.
Personally I would like to see the offside line taken from the foot/toe of the player as it would be more definitive as the line taken from the short sleeve shirt can alter marginally as I’m not sure all shirt sleeves are cut the same.
Kudos (if fit) is the dangerman today, he can be a game changer and has worked well with Richarlason this season.
Will Arteta allow our left back to invert, taking into account that he hasn’t gabriel behind to cover for him it may be a case of our left back being more conservative to alleviate the threat of kudos.
We should have too much quality for Tottenham, especially off the bench …should win by a couple of goals with hopefully little drama as we have a couple of tough games coming up this week.
Wicksy
I quite liked Wengers suggestion on tweaking the offside rule – switching from is any part of the players body you can score with is offside then you’re off to if any part of the body you can score with is onside then you’re on.
Only minor but it would move the weighting in favour of the attacking side of the game.