We are visiting Anfield today. One of the most important games of the season, clash of the No #1 and No #2, and two teams fighting for 90 minutes to sing ‘I am better than you’ at the end of day. Quality wise, we are on par with them. It will all come down to the players and their passion to beat the best team in Premier League and the manager to devise a strategy to neutralise the Mo Salah threat while breaking that defence to score some goals. Trent is gone so that’s a relief, we always hated his long balls to Salah.
We haven’t won at Anfield since 2012. In recent years, we have proved to be a match to them sharing points in our last 6 encounters. Today is the day to reset both these numbers.
Their new striker, Ekitike, had a wonderful start in Liverpool color. He has scored 2 and assisted 1 in his first 2 games. We have got our own fighter up top in Gyokeres, who scored 2 against Leeds after a sus first game. It’s the battle of the Forwards primarily and we will see who is the geezer of two.
Then, they have one of the best CB of recent Premier League era and we have got one for the present and future. VVD has enjoyed his fair share of praises, but Saliba has taken over. They have the best player on the planet in Mo Salah which we don’t have answer to as Saka is injured but we as a team have better chemistry, better defence and a better midfield to counter that advantage.
Team News
We needed everyone for one of the biggest games of the season, but unfortunately we are without 2 of our main team players. Saka is out injured for about a month and Odegaard for probably a couple more weeks.
Smart teams anticipate such kind of scenarios and cover it in advance. Last season, Saka and Ode injuries would have meant we go into the game with Nwaneri on the wings and no idea who as the sole playmaker in the midfield. Today, we have options. Madueke is a premier league player, played in the Chelsea team against the likes of City and Liverpool and he knows what it takes to play in such a game. Eze, another premier league ready transfer, can cover the Odegaard’s position, without any drop in quality. We overpaid for both of them, but at least we have the confidence in both these signings to continue what Saka and Odegaard does.
Saka is a big game player and it’s impossible in current football world to replace him with a similar player. There would be some drop of quality on the right wing but it won’t lose us the game. Same for Eze.
Arteta will most likely stick to his back 4 of Timber, Saliba, Gabriel and Calafiori. The Italian will have a massive job today to handle Mo Salah who has a great start of the season with a goal and assist in previous 2 games. If he fails, we have MLS on the bench who can do that.
In the midfield, we would see one Eze coming in for Odegaard. Rice and Zubimendi will keep their place. I am not sure if Arteta will ever try one of Zubimendi or Rice in the middle with both Odegaard and Eze on either side, but if he does, it won’t be today.
Front 3 will be interesting. Madueke on the right means Martinelli will keep his place at the left and Gyokeres will start in the middle. Martinelli is menace for defenders with his pace and he is a big game player. For me, he starts today and he will end up benching Madueke once Saka is back.
Don’t be shocked if …
On the referee part, we are not in luck. Chris Kavanagh would be officiating the game, the last time he did that in an Arsenal game was against Chelsea in March. He ignored the Cucurella handball in the penalty box and totally missed to see Fofana stomping on Declan Rice. This is the same lad who red carded Declan Rice against Brighton for kicking the ball away where in fact he didn’t kick it while missing the leg kick only a fraction of second before, also totally ignoring Joao Pedro kicking the ball away a few minutes later. I am not really conspiracy theorist but lets just say he was born in Manchester and as far as I know, those cunts don’t really like us.
Wrapping Up
I think we will make it today and break the Anfield curse. 2-1 to boys with Martinelli scoring one in a counter and Gyokeres proving his worth and letting the world know he has arrived. It’s not going to be an easy game at all but lets see how much we can keep our focus on, not let Salah break free and keep our heads in the game. It’s too early in the season to make 1 single game important for the title, but having earning all 3 points against a top 4 teams given you the luxury to not think about a draw later in the season against a bottom half team – like Manchester United.
We have some big games coming up after this, so a loss could derail the confidence. Hopefully the new signing in Eze was able to get in the mix comfortably and Madueke does 9/10 of Saka on that right side.
Also, please don’t laugh about Tottenham, they lost to a mighty Bournemouth at home with 1 shots on target to theirs 6. Thomas Franc is a great manager, but so were Mourinho and Conte, you can’t coach the Spuds to play football, can you?
See you during the game.
You said “we went into the game” we did no such thing Saliba started the match.
Having Saliba go off was a major blow – I said so as much during the match but you are twisting the truth and the simple fact is Saliba would not have prevented or stopped the free kick and would not have scored the goals to win us the match.
You really don’t want to try and play word games with me.
Marc
” sitting on the bench for a team that constantly bottles the big occasion and you’ll get friction in the camp.”
I can’t say I’ve seen or heard of too much friction at Arsenal in recent years, maybe you can highlight a few occasions of friction with your inside knowledge , maybe it was those 2 blokes sitting behind you high up in the north bank that you like to quote who you overheard give their little pearls of wisdom on the friction within the club..
Marc
“You said “we went into the game” we did no such thing Saliba started the match.”
And that makes a massive difference does it….as you well know, the point I was making is quite easy to comprehend…..we.played Liverpool at Anfield without saka , Odegaard and saliba due to injury and never looked in trouble , plus we were without jesus and Havertz..
don’t get so rattled Wicksy…just when it looked as if your Pricksy moniker was dead and buried, you go full ham…yes we were without Saka, yes Ode didn’t start, but did play, and yes we lost Saliba to injury, but even you can’t honestly believe that their inclusions would have changed MA’s gutless approach, minus maybe a few more looks Saka’s way…btw the very fact that you actually made mention of both Havertz and Jesus in your closing argument reeks of grasping at straws
read the room, and I don’t mean this one…every media outlet, barring a few in MA’s pocket, had some version of the same headline…something to the effect of how MA’s continued reliance on a rather toothless and guileless brand of football leaves us wanting once again…it’s not as if they pulled that out of thin air…besides wasn’t the whole point behind us spending such a sizeable sum on a fucking gaggle of new recruits, instead of on a couple top-top quality pieces, was so that our tactics wouldn’t suffer simply due to injury exclusions
let’s face it, the kid played well for WS, so that’s not an excuse, and if MA felt that Ode was so invaluable why didn’t he play him from the off…after all he only suffered a minor upper body injury last week and he was available for selection(with a break following)…it’s not as if Ode’s some sort of pitch bully and couldn’t have sucked it up against the reigning champs…I think MA wanted nothing more than an excuse to rollout his blunt instrument of a midifeld and try to dumb-down this matchup, instead of having a go with HIS Billion+ dollar squad…that’s some small club mentality bullshit…fuck me, couldn’t he see that they were ripe for the plucking…he probably didn’t even watch their first two fixtures, as he knew full-well what his shit plan was going to be all along…time is ticking on our little imposter!
@Tony
If you think about relocating to the UK, there is something weird happening in the property market. Houses come on the market and successful sellers will not buy a new property but rather either rent or start living with family. From friends I have heard that some laws about evictions make it unattractive for investors to rent homes as they have to go through lengthy legal procedures for eviction that could see them out of money for 6 months rental. Not very attractive when also considering the interest rates. You may just find a decent deal.
As far as our game against Liverpool, once I saw the starting 11, I lost all interest and knew a draw would be the best outcome, but a loss more likely. It was criminal to see Martinelli for 70 minutes to take on Szoboszlai who never played as a right back, Trossard or Eze would have done a better job as our attack down the left side was non existent. Liverpool was there for the taking but Pep’s gimp didn’t know who and when to bring on the subs. Compare that to Brighton and Hürzeler, he made an early substitution of 4 players when he saw that he could beat City with a different formation. That is classy and he didn’t spend over £500m in the last 3 transfer windows like our clown manager did.
Boat load of test matches in rugby are on the horizon including the autumn series, rugby championship and the leagues starting all over Europe. My interest in AFC will be back once the apprentice manager has been fired and he will, or if KSE can’t be arsed about keeping track of where the money goes in which case I am done with AFC and Wenger 2.0.
TRVL
“Rattled”
I can hook you all in with ease anytime due to your hatred of our manager , kP is the brightest one amongst you and doesn’t bite like yourself, Marc, Tony and ufraud.
You all have your anti Arteta agenda and it clouds your judgement, it also means that you will never really enjoy any success that may(or may not) come our way and wanting your team to lose to be proven right with Arteta in charge is a rather peculiar way to support a club in my opinion.
The thing is , I’m not so sure you will be proved right and as much as you think “the clock is ticking” you are in the minority to any Arsenal fan with “common sense”.
People always get carried away by results and performances early in the season…not me , Liverpool are over rated , as I said before isak is only marginally better than etikite and I doubt there will be a massive improvement, what we are seeing is that due to the chronic shortage of quality strikers atm the likes of isak are being talked about as if they are of Thierry Henry quality , he is good but not that good and he is also quite injury prone and tends to miss on average 13 games a season.
Let’s see what Liverpool are like when 5 or 6 injuries hit , i doubt they will go through another injury free season.
Wicksy
Don’t worry, I am by your side here only with the assumption that after spending some big bucks and Mikel being in his 6th full season as rhe manager, we can expect some trophy coming our way. And it shouldn’t be a FA cup or Carabao.
Enjoy the wins, criticize the losses and hope we win something big.
Wicksy
The reason I talk about friction in the camp is because of the size of the squad after this summers acquisitions. I’m all for backup and options but having Martinelli, Trossard and Eze all competing for LW is too much. If you want to say Eze’s going to be playing more centrally then you’ve got Ode, Nwaneri (just signed a new deal) and Eze competing.
Being a squad player in a team that’s winning PL and CL’s is one thing – being on the bench for a team that isn’t playing well, isn’t competing and never wins anything is another story.
Wicksy
How is my judgement clouded about Arteta?
He’s fucking useless – that’s simply a fact.
Wicksy
Why do you bother here? LG is your level and place.
Clearly, you understand little about football or you wouldn’t be happy to be a loser for 5+ years while adulating MA.
On LIR we are not.
The Partey at RB shows your lack of footballing common sense once again. He should never had played RB and was the weak link each game.
Yet you cite it being a genius MA idea.
I guess you love the minority seat you always occupy. I’m sure you are adored on LG getting all puffy chested and think you can do the same on LIR, but instead of the adoration you crave, you get push back you can’t argue against, but do anally anyway and give us much mirth.
Pool’s DS was assured at RB and played some TAA type balls putting them on a sixpence. Did Partey ever do that? Of course not.
Simply put, apart from you, LIR wants MA gone. You are not going to even scratch the surface here with your MA delusions. So why bother?
We’ve always been a club with fractured, stupid, excuse-laden fans since Wenger started to fail, and the pack got divided and still is.
Your AKB excuse BS here is just risible.
I looked at LG with junior over the weekend and found it the same kind of stupid with Pedro- Pete still trying to control the narrative while dreaming about of MA each night to assuage his sleep.
Do you bet on MA to win the league? Would you?
Because you are so very taken in easily by Arteta and before you make a bet, please be sure you can afford to lose the money you put up for the bet.
One thing you might ask yourself?
If Arteta hasn’t won anything of note, in almost 6 years, not even close because of his capitulations, I’d urge you to use common sense before agreeing to the bet.
I said before MA came here 6 years ago that he wouldn’t win a league or CL.
What were your predictions back then nearly 6 years ago and each subsequent year?
Please do tell. Give us all a laugh!
I haven’t been wrong! However, you are constantly wrong with your banal excuses MA loves to hear from his doting fans. Then you come here expecting to curry favor with your loved up MA views.
We are not winning a major trophy this season. What’s your thinking?
What do you expect us to win this season?
We bought very badly again, and didn’t need Zubi with Rice who is the better 6 and not an 8. Norgaard is a decent back up. Noni was always inconsistent with the Chavs, that’s why they sold him.
Havertz was a Chav’s white elephant who your beloved thinks is a top striker, the Chavs couldn’t believe their luck when MA bought him.
How many goals are you expecting from Havertz excluding penalties although VG pads his goal tallies with penalties, you probably don’t know this.
VG is the modern day Bendtner. Not an Isak level we need is my view.
Hope many PL & CL goals are you expecting, Wicksy, this season?
When the adults are discussing here, it’s probably best you just listen and learn and stop yapping………
Having thick skin is one thing, Wicksy, but being terminally football brain dead to blindly follow a loser for nearly 6 years and constantly begging MA up, are not good optics here.
I think you need help mate because you are either some huge kind of thick aresehole or you’re just a wind up merchant without any substance.
There are doctors you can see for both.
Which one are you, Whisky?
Kilroy
I would never buy property to rent out these days. I had a couple in Thailand 40 meters from the beach, but sold them for profit 3 years later.
Just too much trouble for the outlay and income.
I’ve just bought a 650 square meter beautiful house, from a session musician, in an affluent area that has risen between 8% & 14% depending on the market forces, over the last 2 decades..
Junior wants to follow my early career by starting out in the music industry, but he’s also a very good cook, and so wants to spend time as a private chef.
We are adding a recording studio and a Davinci Resolve editing studio with 3 Eizo screens, in the new house and I’m shipping my 17 speaker, Audio-Video room tech from our Thai house, and adding to it in the new house, as I designed and built it pre covid. New tech from Trinnov and Wisdom Audio will enable me to upgrade what I already have.
This is not some home cinema, A V rooms are many levels above that with 100% sound proofing and tech that starts at £300K here in the UK. Junior wants to offer a one stop songwriting, track laying, and then full production mastering. I have many friends from and currently in the music industry globally, so it’s going to be fun getting back to music again.
I had over 10 years in the music industry, in management and sound engineering being awarded gold and sliver discs along the way.
So, we are not just a buying a house, but starting a new life again and getting junior’s uni ed and career on track. Pardon the pun.
Because we did the huge amount of hours analyzing the property market, we got lucky with the property we bought, as houses in the area we bought sell quickly and me being a cash buyer I could move quicker than anyone else.
Totally agree with your Pool game thinking. We played not to lose and cancel out rather then really take the game to Pool.
Looking forward to the rugby internationals but the A V room with its 153 inch screen won’t be finished until early December at the earliest.
Glad to see you popping in again. Hope all is well in the US.
how ironic Pricksy…I baited you, you simpleton bitch, and then you quickly revealed that everything you’ve done recently was merely a facade(just as I predicted)…thanks to your childlike rant no one will ever fall for your fraudulent nonsense again Mr. Hyde…no wonder you’re a MA superfan, as you’re both short-sighted fucks who, by their own words/actions, have exposed themselves as imposters of the highest order…thanks and bye-bye
For what it’s worth, this is how I saw last weekend’s game .
Arsenal went into the game without 7 first team players saka , saliba( injured prior to the match ) Odegaard (on the bench due to injury) Havertz , jesus , white and Norgaard.
Liverpool as far as I’m aware had no injuries.
Starting saliba was a poor decision.
This is how it would have panned out if we had a fully fit squad as Liverpool had.
White would have replaced the struggling Timber after an hour or so
Norgaard would have replaced the tiring Rice after 75 minutes
Havertz would have replaced the tiring gyokeres on 60 minutes
Odegaard would have started instead of Merino.
Saka would have started instead of Madueke.
Madueke would have started instead of martinelli which still left Eze , martinelli, Nwaneri, Dowman and skelly on the bench .
Taking all that into consideration and how the manager’s team selection and substitutions were limited, the furore around the way we approached the game is ridiculous , we were in control of the game for 60 mins and but for the injuries we would have been able to bring on White, Norgaard, Havertz , Madueke as well as Eze to have fresh legs in important positions to finish the game.
Some may think that injuries to Havertz, white and Norgaard were irrelevant but from a manager’s point of view those injuries caused a headache for Arteta as there were no other like for like replacements.
I’m no different than others who want to see open expansive football but sometimes a manager has to look at what he has available and last weekend we were without 7 of the first team and Arteta went with the pragmatic approach which worked up until Liverpool scored a one in a million goal .
Looking forward , if Arteta with such an array of talent at his disposal continues to be pragmatic then I will be the first to criticise .
Passing the ball around at the back and being patient is fine up to a point but it’s that word “risk” what is the important aspect that will determine if we will destroy teams and we certainly have players who like to commit defenders , Eze, Madueke, Nwaneri and Dowman along with saka and of course Odegaard who is the ultimate low risk player.
Taking risks also means losing the ball at times and leaving us open to the counter and this is where Arteta needs to also take that risk in his tactics as I’m not sure the fans will accept pragmatic with the amount of talent on the pitch.
As I have said previously our expected goals ratio from open play this season is 2nd to bottom and I believe that is down to playing Rice deeper alongside zubimendi , Arteta needs to trust zubimendi to play the 6 role by himself and this will free up someone else to play higher up the pitch to support gyokeres as he has neither the pace or skill to create chances for himself..
🤫
Cuntsy
There are plenty of other places
where slags like you can fester and post your toxic positivity and excuse riddled bollocks.
If you think , I am reading your latest War and Peace bollocks , you can fuck yourself.
Remind me, when the last time this cunt won at Anfield or Manchester City?
Heard of George Graham, he fucking had to win there once and by two fucking goals you slag.
“Arsenal went into the game without 7 first team players saka , saliba( injured prior to the match ) Odegaard (on the bench due to injury) Havertz , jesus , white and Norgaard.”
But how many of those are first team starters when everyone’s fit? Saka and Ode are the only ones – Saliba got injured during the match (just piss poor luck). The others are either backup or in Jesus case all but written off.
Only fucking losers, like this slag talk about injuries.
What are we , fucking Grimsby
This moronic cunt has spent a bill and inherited some real youthful talent and cunts are crying about injuries.
Wankers.
I think it’s about time we revisited our earlier approach, when we made a collective decision to ignore this spunk bubble mistake…if you remember, when we gave him the cold shoulder he slithered back under the rock from which he came…it’s one thing to defend a differing opinion, so long as the opinion in question comes from an honest place, but when some trolling little fuckwit continually tries to run such an amateur level con, you simply have to cut them out like a cancerous tumour…btw, who the fuck couldn’t do that on a totally anonymous platform…bravo cunt fart
The word Wicksy sounds very familiar to anyone with a bit of knowledge of the German language and deducting from the posts here it seems to be very appropriate.
https://translate.google.com/?sl=de&tl=en&text=wichsen&op=translate
German Wichsen translates to English Jerk Off
Oh the irony.
Killroy—it makes my nickname for our little interloper, Pricksy, all the more on the nose…your investigative efforts are much-appreciated…Cheers