Finally! No football for months and it was probably the most boring phase of this year. Football is back, Ladies and Gentlemen.
We are up against Nottingham Forest today at home and City has made it a must-win already. We can feel the pain of Klopp’s Liverpool for 3 years in row when they competed against Pep’s side. The only way to beat them is by outperforming them each week for 38 weeks in a row. There is no margin for errors and a slip (like ours, last season) could cost you the title race. We can’t have that slip, can we?
But, lets not complicate it today. We have a long season ahead to talk about the possibilities. Today, it’s time to re-stock your fridge and enjoy the afternoon. Today, we celebrate the start of a season for one of the best teams in the world who is on the rise.
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For the starting XI, I’m guessing Mikel will stick to the the players who started in Community Shield against City. All the players are fit and available for selection except Gabriel Jesus. A back 4 of White, Saliba, Gabriel and one of the Timber/Zinchenko, will be pairing with Rice and Partey in the midfield. Odegaard will captain the side, Saka and Martinelli keep their places on the wings and Kai Havertz will get a nod ahead of Nketiah. Arteta loves his new toys, and I would appreciate it if he plays Timber ahead of Zinchenko. There is no bias here, Zinchenko is injury prone and Timber against a Forest side is a good game to judge if he can make the LB his own.
Rice has shown some glimpse of his game against City and his pairing with Partey is gelling well. He can go forward, he can track back, is athletic and have good shots in him. He has got to justify the massive faith Mikel has shown in him by making him the costliest British transfer till date. Pressure, but he is in Premier League winning player of the season for Hammers in last few years and I’m sure he can handle that. How much he makes that position his own, remains to be seen.
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No game is easy in Premier League. Forest was one of the teams that beat us last season and hammered our chances of title win. They had a lots of incomings last season and they were in mix in the relegation battle throughout the season and still they did beat us. You can’t take them lightly and Cooper would have utilized the season break to make these players work together. A tough game, yes. Can we win it – yes. Should we try winning it big – absolutely.
It will be hard fought battle. Not only every game will matter, but also the no. of goals you score and the clean sheets you can manage. Lets win big today, lets start the season on a high and show to the rest of the world, it wasn’t a Leicester-esque season earlier.
Right, a short one today because the game here starts at 5 PM and only a couple hours left for me to reach to the restaurant that will play the game. Hope you have a good day. Enjoy the game, lets keep the worries for other 37 weeks.
Cheers!
And if you happen to go to Emirates, I would be grateful if you can click some pics of the new makeover stadium and Arsene Wenger’s statue for me.
No water in the Bees’ stadium.
Marc – seeing as they’re playing Spurs, could you get some of your conservative party overlords to pump some fucking raw sewerage in?
I think the Spuddie’s line up has that covered.
Excellent
If Richarlison continues his epic slump in front of goal the Spurs will struggle against top clubs…that said, the brand of football on tap is decent for the casual observer, as they keep on “coming” like an undersexed drunken housewife with a bottle of Spanish Fly in one hand and an industrial strength back massager in the other…the match did highlight a few concerns I have with our own club, in that, much like ourselves, the Spurs have only one player who can unlock defences with the ball at his feet, which can lead to a plethora of unproductive sideways nonsense, and we need to learn how to counter with pace and numbers, like Brentford, in order to have any chance of beating City
what a beautifully worked first tally for Pool…very reminiscent of the previous era…just trying to imagine what we might have looked like with Mac and Caicedo in our engine room
Didn’t see the spuds drop 2 points, but watching the Chavs and L’pool and Poch has got Chelsea looking better than Fat Frank and Pool are better then I thought they’d be.
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Both will be hard to beat.
Both Pool & Chelsea look like they will be a handful this season. It also shows how fortunate we were last season finishing 2nd and how Arteta made Arsenal implode and hand the title to City. This season shapes up to be a dog eat dog season.
Chelsea’s Jackson looked really good, where did they find him and how come we are stuck with fucking Eddie, who runs around like a headless chicken with no aim and idea where to go and when he does he has to sort out his feet in front of goal. The clueless Arteta will be in for a surprise on October 21st and December 23rd when Poch & Klopp will beat him.
what an enjoyable affair for a fan with no skin in the game…both of these teams haven’t properly redressed their respective defensive frailies, so we had better come on the front foot when we eventually meet them…I can’t quite put my finger on it, but Klopp and Poch look like proper managers, regardless of the antics of the former
Killroy
We took 10 points from Liverpool and Chelsea last season – if we made 7 from the 4 matches this I’d be surprised.
Killroy-Jackson has bags of energy, but the big man I’ve been far more impressed with is Isak…I’m not sure what they’ve been feeding him at the Castle, but he’s been quite a revelation since he returned from injury late last season…btw Jackson’s another one of Unai’s former players
We surely have to get someone into the front attacking line. Ivan Tony perhaps after his return? I could live with that. But than we have Moe & Curly doing the job of finding a striker, there goes that idea. The problem that is materializing is how to shoehorn Havertz into the starting XI because having him on the bench would be admitting he was the wrong purchase and Arteta had a brain fart.
TRVL
Jackson is raw from Villareal so new to the PL whereas Isak has had time to settle with a calming and astute manager. Jackson has that brutal Drogba way about him who will come good in the next 24 months. Ditto Mickey Mudflaps who looked more positional awareness yesterday.
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Chelsea and Liverpool can be added to City as teams to beat if we want to win the title as well as dispatching mid and lower league teams, such as Forest.
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Let’s see what comes next, but I’d really like to see Arteta create his own tactics and not try to be Pep 2.0 because he’s poor at Arteta as MK .0 anything.
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Serious question, does Arteta have his own designed tactics or is he just a Pep copy merchant. Can anyone name his original tactical ideas?
to have*
Tony-just to clarify matters, I’m a big proponent of what Jackson brings to the equation and I think he would have been a great addition as either Jesus’s clear-cut backup or for legit competitive purposes…at just over 35M, he would have cost us about the same as Vieira, which would have been a far more astute investment…we could have likewise sold off Eddie and Balo,, who clearly doesn’t want to play for Arteta, then allocated those funds towards another midfielder/forward with some pace and an eye for goal…my comment simply spoke to my genuine surprise about what I’ve seen thus far from Isak than anything negative regarding Jackson
TRVL, I was agreeing with you and adding more weight to your post with how I see Jackson becoming and Isak’s rise under a thinking and tactical astute manager Eddie is. Newcastle will cause upsets this season.
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I think use have a good idea of what the repetitious Arteta is going to serve up this season that won’t differ much to last season. Sadly, our main competitors will be offering vastly improved performances to their down turns last season.
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We are never far apart in our views. Sleep well.
we*
If anyone’s interested in some LiR Fantasy –
https://fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/x8sn7e
Just talking to junior and he asked me if I realized that Eddie Howe had only been with Newcastle for 13 months when he secured CL football and 4 points above Liverpool.
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Makes a mockery of Arteta really showing Arteta who’s the better manager.
Tony
Howe didn’t take over a squad that had finished 2 points off 3rd the previous season – a fact that is glossed over by the fanboys.