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.
Aitcho
Unfortunately it’s the cricket ruining other sports here. Govt has other burning issues to deal with in a developing nation, and BCCI is a private franchise that runs the Indian cricket. They are not going to invest the billions they make in any other sports be it football, hockey or badminton.
Some of the female badminton players like Saina Nehwal have come out of Pulela Gopichand’s academy. An ex player who was one of the best in the world in his prime. Now, to run his academy, he has even sold his land at some point, taken loans and what not. Such is the case.
We have got a Croatian manager for national team, Igor Stomach, who is very aggressive and vocal. I don’t care about the football he plays at this point, but him bi*ching about the football pitches, training grounds, lack of infrastructure is what we need as an eye opener.
Things are improving but too slow to result in anything significant in next 10odd years.
Saudis are atleast trying. If they play in Champions League, they will grow massively. Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar still have got a lot of pull and people from a neutral nation mostly base their support based on players.
Why do you think Indian subcontinent has huge Man Utd followers? Because of the era of Beckham, Rooney, Ronaldo.
TRVL
With David Raya’s loan + buy deal, we have made it clear to the world that we are going to stick to FFP and won’t do a Chelsea in any way. It severely limits our incoming now. I think Romano confirmed in a podcast that we are back in the market for Timber’s replacement but where does the money coming from? We still have to pay Brentford for Raya.
Forest are interested in Tavares. That’s 10odd million. Tierney will leave, another 25m. Balogun will fetch some good money so that’s another 40m. I don’t see anyone else fetching any decent money apart from these lot.
75m, 25 goes to Brentford. 50m will get us a Timber’s replacement. I still feel we are stacked up in defense, Tomi is back, Kiwior looks sharp, Zinchenko will start most of the game when fit.
It would be interesting to see what Arteta does now.
TRVL, I genuinely have no idea what you’re on about. Your posts generally tell me no more than you think it’s all Arteta’s fault whatever ‘it’ is on that given day and have become eminently skimmable. But thanks for your interest in my comments all the same.
I didn’t underestimate your capacity for repetition. Tell us again how you used to wrestle bears
Aitcho-I was actually extending an olive branch….you might have noticed if you could ever get over yourself long enough…living rent free in your head is still a rather enjoyable proposition though…take care little guy