Bad news first, City has been catching up lately and are only 3 points behind us in the table. Though they have played a game more, you don’t want them breathing on your neck.
With years of experience of winning ‘titles’, Pep and his team knows how to handle themselves under pressure. We, on the other hand, have folded 3 seasons in a row and are trying not to repeat it one more time.
Now, the good news – it’s in OUR hand. We win against Brentford today and we will go back to a 6 points lead with only 12 games to play.
We have few injuries but we have enough bench strength to not to worry about it. Both Saka and Odegaard will be assessed before the game. Mikel Merino will be out for some time after his foot injury. Kai Havertz has picked up another injury I’ve heard and is a doubt for next 2 weeks (rumoured).
Back 4 is sorted, but the midfield is going to be a mess for Mikel. Rice and Zubimendi are starters, and he is left with only Eze to fill the spot. His favorites, Merino and Havertz are not available for selection while Odegaard is both out of form and half-fit for the games. Eze – it’s your time to shine man.
If you ask me, I would stick with the usual back 4 with a midfield of Rice + Zubimendi and Eze in an advance role. Madueke and Martinelli on either side with Gyokeres in the middle would be the front 3. You can pick Trossard over Madueke, I wouldn’t complain.
Every game from now onwards is a final. Carabao Cup is a literal one, but with City closing the gap, we have to make sure we don’t drop points in Premier League. We have a game in April against them at their home ground, and we surely won’t want to leave it to beating them at their home to win.
We are in the knockout stage of Champions League after winning all our group stage games. Every game would be a one to win to move forward.
But hey, if you can’t keep your head down for 2 months and beat the likes of City and PSG, you don’t expect to win a trophy.
Right, that’s me done. See you during the game.
Also, it’s sad to see Thomas Frank getting sacked. His Tottenham Legacy lives with us in the form of the cup.
They really are a poor team.
Them going down would be hysterical.
good to see VG finish strong…if you look closely you can see him say Fuck You Pricksy!!
I’m rather hoping Spurs progress in the CL so we can play and beat them (twice!) again.
If we’d played 60 percent as well as that against Wolves …
That they didn’t, comes down to Stubborn’s deficiencies as a manager. Great win however.
Vieira
Spot on mate!
As much as it pains me to say….Spurs are fucking dire. If WH and Forest can up their games slightly, then it’s all on.
Disinterested, soft, lazy, unable to play as a team and staggeringly useless in possession. Looking forward to the post game interview with Tudor.
The NLDs are as one sided as the times when old chihuahua head was respected.
Gyokeres bullied the Tottenham centre back today , credit to Arteta for showing faith in him , let’s hope this is the turning point for him, I’ve always said that I’d love to be proven wrong about him and today he went a long way towards that.
Eze was pure class today , his decision making and weight of passing was elite, let’s hope that Arteta shows trust in him and starts him in the big games as he showed today how he can play the killer ball.
I said earlier about the importance of this game and how a win would see us go on to win the league as we have had 3 away games on the bounce, 3 points were crucial and with 6 home games left it puts us in a strong position with an almost 100% fit squad other than Merino.
“nobody at Arsenal should think a crushing derby win means anything other than that they are much better than a poor Tottenham” (The Guardian)
TRVL
“good to see VG finish strong…if you look closely you can see him say Fuck You Pricksy!!”
And this from someone who insists he never reads what I post..
TRVL
““nobody at Arsenal should think a crushing derby win means anything other than that they are much better than a poor Tottenham” (The Guardian)”
Vera a guardian reader what a surprise, and they are wrong, this win means so much more than that, what it does is put doubts into the minds of city and gives belief to the Arsenal players, I will repeat as I have said from day one that this season, the league will be won with a much lower points total due to the incredible strength in depth of the league , somewhere in the region of 83/84 points.
The slight push on Gabriel leading to the disallowed goal from Spurs is causing a bit of controversy, it was a push so it was rightly disallowed but I can understand why Spurs fans are unhappy about the decision.
I think a decision needs to be made on whether a push no matter how slight is a foul or not, in the city/Newcastle game we saw a disallowed goal for offside when Dias pushed Burns offside that was ignored by the ref and VAR , we regularly see refs ignore blatant push by defenders on attackers as the they try and dribble past them, there was a Newcastle player pushed into the advertising boards by a city player that was ignored by refs yesterday
Before the game today I was actually having a discussion with someone about how officials ignore blatant pushing by defenders , so I was pleased to see the ref give a decision in our favour , a decision that could have gone either way as we have seen many times previously, I’d prefer that we go back to the old days of giving a foul if a player puts 2 hands into the back of an opponent as pushing has become an accepted part of the game recently….
Arteta may have got lucky, the recent injuries to odegaard and Havertz opened the door for Eze as I don’t think he would have been anywhere near starting yesterday.
The question is, will Arteta bring Odegaard straight back into the starting line up now he’s fit at the expense of Eze.
Arteta is one for having his favourites and odegaard is one of them but for the good of the team Arteta must resist bringing Odegaard back.
I do think Eze will start v Chelsea next week , what I hope we don’t see is Arteta use Eze as a scapegoat if we drop points as he did after the defeat at villa park ….Eze didn’t start a league game for about 6 weeks after the defeat to Villa.
The performance by gyokeres should give now give him the confidence to prove a lot of people wrong , myself included .
Tottenham were rubbish at the back so it may be too early to start getting carried away by the gyokeres performance but there is no denying that his 2 goals were excellent strikes but more pleasing for me was his link up play , it certainly worked having the likes of Eze and saka playing closer to gyokeres especially in the 2nd half .
Wicksy
If you start saying even the slightest contact (one hand on a player) is a foul you’ll make football a non contact sport which won’t work.
The simple truth is had a spud defender gone down under the same contact which saw us have a goal disallowed Arsenal fans would go ballistic.
The further issue is if you keep going down under minimal contact eventually you’ll have a decision go against you that is a genuine foul. A CB of the ability and physical build of Gabriel should be able to deal with the physical side of the game.
Arsenal must have won as LIR is very quiet.
One of the things I’m surprised about is the number of top players who are prepared to sign for a club who for all intents and purposes could be playing in the championship next season.
Guehi and semenyo have been poorly advised, they have joined a club on the demise , Pep will be gone and whoever they bring in will be inferior.
With regard to the title chase , Pep isn’t stupid as he knows that Arsenal are a serious threat and I believe deep down he doesn’t have the confidence in his side compared to previous seasons.
Pep is having to rely on the likes of Bernado Silva and Rodri, Silva especially is on his last legs but in fairness to him he has become a leader in the side but I’m not so sure that he will be able to carry the side for the remainder of the season.
Arsenal being 5 points clear with only 4 away games to play gives us the advantage, city’s away form has been poor , winning less than 50% of their games, unless City show a considerable improvement away from home the title will go to the Arsenal.
Before we play city at the Etihad we could be in a commanding position, some call this match the title decider , I don’t, the title could be decided in the next 4 games as we have 3 at home and one away , compared to city’s one at home and 3 away
City travel to Leeds, West ham and Chelsea in the league whilst during this same period also have to visit Newcastle in the fa cup. ..
At the same time we have to travel to Brighton and Mansfield in the FA cup with home games against Chelsea, Everton and Bournemouth, so if City come out of this group of fixtures still 5 points adrift then our league game at the Etihad will be very significant.
Hello, hello is anybody out there? or are you all comfortably numb.
Arsenal have drawn one of the weakest teams left in the Champions League. They currently sit 6th with a game in hand. City and Chelsea have the toughest ties on paper.
Rent boy injury news…
It looks as if that grim little goblin cucurella is out tomorrow. Of potentially more importance is that Estevao is also injured
Last time we played them in the league Chelsea tried to rough Arsenal up. You’d like to think they’ll have less chance to go it at our place. A team of chaotic cunts.
Come on West Ham we need you to keep the Spuddies in a relegation battle.
Norg—we’re living quite the charmed existence considering our CL draw…meanwhile two of Real, City, Chelsea and/or PSG will be sent packing after the next round…not to mention our lightweight FA matchup…we should be hoisting multiple cups come year’s end unless the cock-up King rears his ugly head again, which we’ve already seen some early signs of
Will today be the day that is important in the calendar. This year St. Totteringhams day could arrive early. March 1st could be the earliest yet.
Tottenham going down would be hysterical. Will it happen probably not but I’d forgotten they finished 4th from bottom last season only getting 38 points.
This is becoming a trend and I’d expect West Ham to put up more of a fight than Leicester did.