The stats and the score line do not match for PSG game. We had only 35% possession but we won 2-0. A goal each from Havertz and Saka in the first half made sure we are picking up our first win in the Champions League. Kai’s header of a Trossard cross was a brilliant one and to beat Donnarumma for it in the box is some achievement. Second goal was Saka and some luck. Saka took a free kick from near the box and couple of Arsenal players tried to get some touch on it but failed. It failed so bad that not one Arsenal player, nor the PSG GK was able to get a touch on it and we got our second goal.
It’s a concern that Mikel had to replace Timber with Kiwior in the second half, we have a partnership developing between our back 4, and the introduction of Calafiori on the left is helping Martinelli. While attacking, we have 2 solid CBs covering our ground and both the fullbacks are part of the attack causing Chaos in the opposition half. They are good, both defensively and in attack, they are fast and they recover back very well. With Zinchenko, we had the problem that he was poor defensively. With Kiwior, we lack the recovery speed and he isn’t that good in attack. Ben White has been phenomenal and he will be part of the team and with proper rotation Mikel can keep everyone happy. But the Timber/Calafiori on either side looks very promising to the way Arteta sets up.
Merino made his debut in Arsenal shirt and the time frame was too small to judge him. We needed him though, that midfield should only have one of the Partey and Rice.
Right, lets get back to Premier League where we are playing Southampton at home tomorrow. It looks to be easy one but when you consider the fact that we dropped 4 points against them last season, it’s NOT. Southampton were relegated at the end of 2022-23 but they made us suffer in both ties. We had 1-1 away in the first leg and shared points again at home in a 3-3 score when we were trailing 3-1 till 85th minute and braces from Odegaard and Saka made sure we didn’t lose at home against a relegation fighting team. They are back in Premier League this season, and we should remember what they did to us.
Are we going to see Nwaneri in the starting line up against Southampton tomorrow? Remains to be seen, but we fans have been waiting for it. There is some excitement when we see an academy player get into the team and perform. Perhaps, Wenger ruined us all when he used to get results with 17-18 year old Wilsheres and Walcotts. Saka is one of the best winger in the world and comes from the very same academy. ESR/Nketiah made name for themselves but fell short for a title winning team; earned us some money while serving for years when needed though. We are in a title challenge and we can’t afford to drop points so playing a youngster gets riskier. There is a learning curve with young guns and that curve sometimes costs you points. Nwaneri’s case is different in the sense that he looks ready and from whatever we have seen of him, he looks to be a part of that team already. Let us see what he does when he gets his ‘game’ and whether he will sort out the Odegaard situation for us.
Right, a short one today. I took my laptop to service centre and got to know I have burnt the RAM. Got it fixed and I don’t have to watch another game on a mobile phone like the PSG one. Hope you have a good Friday and I will back with a match day blog tomorrow.
Cheers.
Tony
City are winning but don’t seem to be in their usual don’t need to get out of 2nd gear for most matches thing.
Outside of the missing players the other question is is the court case causing some distractions behind the scenes.
Doesn’t make good reading….
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13915093/Man-City-defeat-Premier-League-Sponsorship-Rules-Unlawful.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13916133/How-Man-United-Liverpool-Arsenal-plot-fail-Man-City-Crosshairs.html
strangely enough, with Rodri shelved and KDB seemingly on borrowed time, this might of been the year when a readymade striker and proper Ode-like 8 would have done the trick…isn’t it just like MA to flip the script at the exact wrong time…that doesn’t mean our new set piece-dependent/bully-ball tactics won’t work, it just seems so apropos for a manager who always appears to be a step behind…on a more positive note, maybe our lack of off-season expenditures will afford us the luxury of being able to right these wrongs next summer
We live in hope TRVL.
Marc
Agreed City look below their usual selves and can be got at. I think they will finish 2nd and Pool will win the leagues.
A supercomputer in the DM predicts we’ll finish 8th. We thought 5th or 6th, so……
Hi Tony
Did the same supercomputer make any predictions about Arteta’s job if Arsenal finish eighth?
Hey KP
I Think that would be SuperStan’s juristriction predicting the payoff….
Saka injured in a pointless ingerland defeat against Greece? Fucking brilliant if true.
can someone tell me why I can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an article praising our resident non-Striker Kai Havertz?? it just seems a little peculiar considering the other potential storylines…don’t get me wrong, I think his more recent performances have been some of his best…in fact he actually scored what many would deem as a Striker’s goal, but nothing he’s done thus far is worthy of such unfettered praise…maybe he’s bankrolling this PR effort, as he certainly has the means, considering the ridiculous wages we gifted our gangly German tweener…so while some might call this a savvy piece of business, if this was proven to be the case I’ll be fucking disgusted (just wanted to get that off my chest) Cheers
TRVL
I hear you and it’s the same with El B.
Everyday on my PC when I go to Bing or other search engines El B is being canonized for his par excellence except he’s still alive and hanging in there.
Read Ode has had a new set back, now would that be our feret faced manager rushing him back too quickly because he knows we’ve had some very scrappy and fortuitous results this season?
Sweating on Saka now after he limped off.
Finally, RM are dick swinging over our Willie…….. Starting to stroke Willie’s resolve as it’s no secret he wants RM.
El B will not be happy or will he? Now has his chance to get rid of the player he never wanted because he didn’t buy him and was forced to keep.
Whether Willie S is in the top 5 CDs globally will not matter to El B. Did Emi?
Look how much that has cost us………
Hang in there TRVL, KP, Marc, and our Indian gooners only one week to be back to well….. er…… something better than internationals.
How better remains to be seen as a Gooner……….
KP
Can you share your football fix as …… Enjoy where ever you and your tribe are……
TRVL
I hear you and it’s the same with El B.
Everyday on my PC when I go to Bing or other search engines El B is being canonized for his par excellence except he’s still alive and hanging in there.
Read Ode has had a new set back, now would that be our feret faced manager rushing him back too quickly because he knows we’ve had some very scrappy and fortuitous results this season?
Sweating on Saka now after he limped off.
Finally, RM are dick swinging over our Willie…….. Starting to stroke Willie’s resolve as it’s no secret he wants RM.
El B will not be happy or will he? Now has his chance to get rid of the player he never wanted because he didn’t buy him and was forced to keep.
Whether Willie S is in the top 5 CDs globally will not matter to El B. Did Emi?
Look how much that has cost us………
Hang in there TRVL, KP, Marc, and our Indian gooners only one week to be back to well….. er…… something better than internationals.
How better remains to be seen as a Gooner……….
KP
Can you share your football fix as …… Enjoy where ever you and your tribe are……
And then there’s this.. another star we let go…..
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-nathan-tella-bayer-leverkusen-33861070
God I’m bored and hate international breaks.
At least we can look forward to Kroenke giving us his overview if Starmer’s first 100 days in office and all of the triumphs he’s achieved.
Marc
Triumphs?
Marc
Once again you confuse me with a Starmer’s Labour supporter. Ideologically, Starmer and you share much more political common thinking, e.g. fucking over poor people, supporting fascism in Israel, and bending over backwards for neo liberals, than he and I do. I guess you’re a massive fan too of that fucking cunt Jeremy Vine who talks the same level of bollocks although far less humourously than you.😁
If anything, I should be the one making barbs because you put him there with your blind adulation of the right. You voted right and got it, albeit a slightly more watered down version of the last shit show. If that lazy, selfish arsehole Farage stopped acting like a pound shop Trump, he might be your next nazi poster boy.
But reading between the lines…Yes, I’m also as bored as a rat after another disruption in real football.
I drove the season ticket holders and stewards bus to Carmarthen on Saturday for our disappointing nil-nil draw against Connah’s Quay. 15 die hard fans! Other results mostly went County’s way so we’re still second. Massive storm on the way back which was making the van go sideways almost.
Community activity mate and volunteering….You should give it a try.
Much more wholesome than worrying all the time about Starmer being a red under the bed (which he isn’t, although he kind of used to be decades ago).
Shots fired albeit rubber bullets had me laughing in my home office.
KP you and Marc make politics fun to read about.
I envy your wind assisted drifting in the van I can imagine how the wind rips though the valleys from rare excursions in to Wales that went further than Cardiff.
I’m grateful we only have 5 more days to being back in the mix. I just hope the next run of games we are going to at least win them convincingly with some quality football.
Am I asking too much? Bournemouth away won’t be easy.
Hi Tony
Bournemouth away WILL be easy, I guarantee it. They’re lightweights and we no longer are. I think Arsenal will be carrying some injuries but these games are all winnable. We should have beaten City after that heroic second half and our record shows we are seriously hot shit away from home e.g. Villa and Spurs. No lapses in concentration and we win three nil I reckon.
KP
I agree the 3 points should be ours playing a team where our bench probably cost more than the B’mouth first 11.
Andoni Iraola is a very savvy manager I rate above El B. Not difficult I know, but there it is. S’hampton and B’mouth have always been tricky away ties even back in Arsene’s days. Brighton, too, embarrassed us from time to time.
B’mouth are a place above Manure on 8 points at 13th on 7 points.
On paper it’s a no brainer even with Ode, Saka, Tomi and Marts out, we should take the points comfortably. However, let’s not forget the elephant in the room: El B!
El B can’t seem to pick the right teams these days; it’s why we are scraping wins. Tactics are shit where the City game was an anomaly for me with the sending off. City were there for the taking without Rodri and KDB where El B fluffed his lines again to hang on for a draw.
RM are in for Saliba, we’ve taken the ‘no way stance’ like the Hammers did with Rice. Fat lot of good that will do for us, as Saliba’s head will be turned, and I doubt Willie has any love for El B with the El B treatment he got over 2+ years.
Ode, Saka and Marts will probably follow Saliba to Spain or Brazil if El B is trophy less again this season like RVP, Overmars,, Cole, Fabregas and others who departed for the Chavs, Manure and City no longer believing in Wenger.
I see this happening with El B and our stars who we cannot afford to lose.
The supercomputer has us at 8th this season; my prediction was 5th or lower, which TRVL and Marc have concerns about as well. If we keep scraping lucky wins, then I feel the super computer will be vindicated with ts predictions.
Keep the local stories coming I’m vicariously there with you albeit a couple of days later lol.
We have the following:
B’mouth away
Shakhtar home
Liverpool home……. and away in our run in that will be hugely influential.
Preston away
Bar Codes away
Inter Milan away
If we can draw with Pool at home, as they are the form team plying attractive Slot football, I’ll take that point. Draw with Milan away, we should win the remaining games in this batch.
These game could come back to bite us as they have done for the last 3 seasons in our run ins.
B’mouth home
Liverpool away
Newcastle home
Southampton away
Three winnable games if we can take 6 points from Manure and the Chavs in the last 2 weeks of March. Equally, 3 banana skins where history has shown we throw titles away playing teams we should beat comfortably.
Who knows, KP? We can only hope with this cretin in charge……
Tony—lots of good stuff in there, but just to clarify I very much doubt we’ll finish outside the top 4, unless something catastrophic happens on the injury front and/or we shit the bed when it comes to getting results against our closest competitors…even with their injuries, I still think City is the favourite, at least for now, with Pool and us battling for the silver and bronze…I think Chelsea is a year away from a top 3 finish, as they still need to shore up their backend, but they could surpass us next season if we don’t get a bona fide Striker and another Ode-like midfielder…remember that our new bully-ball approach is far more about not dropping points against the bus-sitters than beating the best and brightest, which should prove fruitful in the business end of the season when we’re facing lesser lights…my biggest concern is that we appear to be far more fragile this year than last, which could be our undoing, considering our obvious managerial shortcoming…Cheers
Hi Tony
Away game tonight at a place called Brixton Ferry, just a few hundred metres from the glorious M4. They were promoted this season and are finding the change in pace a bit of a challenge. Nestling somewhere between the thriving metropolises (sp) of Swansea and Neath. Formerly deep rugby country but steadily coming round to the greater joys of round ball pursuits. The closest team in our league this year, a mere 60 miles away. I’m hoping for something akin to the game against Bournemouth this weekend, ie calm business-like, early goals win that’ll keep County second behind a surging Penybont (Bridgend).
The big drama in the Cymru Premier this year has been the apparent demise of the one English club in our midst, the New Saints. They’re in the Europa Conference (amazingly) are are struggling to balance both competitions,much to the joy of just about every other fan of Welsh football. It might be too early to write an obituary but it’s huge fun while it lasts.
Fucking autocorrect – Briton not Brixton of course.🇯🇲
Brixton Market is just around the corner from Ferndale – good food at half time