In the words of Peaky Fucking Blinders, we have got a curse. Call it The Emery Curse, or the Emi’s, but we have one.
Last season, in the first game against Villa, we lost 1-0 after they scored in 07th minute and we never recovered. They were coming off of a win at City and they beat us. We did create some chances later on but never converted it. In the home game, we lost 0-2 when we conceded both goals in last 10 minutes. We were just 2 points behind Man City with 6 games to go, and a loss to Villa confirmed our title challenge was over. We needed a win so much at that point and they denied us. I hate them more than Spurs these days. The two losses costed us the title at the end.
Anyways, it’s a new season and a new fight. We take on Aston Villa at Villa Park today in a 5.30 evening kick off.
In the team news, there would be some surprises. Fabio Vieira is most likely going back to Porto on a loan so won’t feature today. Tomiyasu and Tierney remains unavailable due to injuries. We are most likely going ahead with the same team that featured against Wolves. A back 4 of White, Gabriel, Saliba and Zinchenko; a midfield of Partey, Rice, and Odegaard; a front 3 of Saka, Havertz and Martinelli. I would love to see Timber in place of Zinchenko starting today though, he is one for the future and improves our left side by a margin. Martinelli hardly gets any support from Zinchenko and that’s the difference between the outputs of him and Saka.
Gabriel Jesus is also not available as the rumours goes.
Mikel Arteta had to say this in the pre-match conference yesterday,
on how big of a test Villa away is so early in the season:
It’s one of the toughest places to go for sure. We know that, we’ve prepared really well to understand what we have to do to go there and win the game.
on the importance of getting a result against Unai Emery personally:
Personally? I don’t do things personally, I just have the will to win and prepare the team in the best possible way, regardless of who we are playing against.
source: Arsenal.com
It’s tough because we lost both games against Villa in the best season of Mikel Arteta. For the Unai Emery question, Mikel is fooling everyone including himself. He would have sleepless nights thinking how Emery got the better of him and I am hoping he has an answer to that today.
There are some things happening in the transfer window. Forest looks really interested in Eddie Nketiah and we have rejected a £25m and Forest will agree for £30m me thinks.
Fabio Vieira is going on a loan to Porto (from where we got him 2 years back). This one is a strange move, because we have sold ESR already and we would be left with only Odegaard as an attacking mid with no back up or competition. There are talks that the management is very impressed with Ethan Nwaneri and he would deputize Odegaard.
Merino deal is almost confirmed, he will be joining us from Real Sociedad for a £28m free. I have not seen much of him, but we know Rice is more of a #6 and we needed a #8 after Mikel decided to shift Kai up top.
We have also rejected a Wolves move for Aaron Ramsdale on loan + option to buy. We are in a favor of a permanent move for Aaron, and we have already decided a replacement in Joan Garcia from Espanyol.
Hardly a week left, there would be some chaos at the end, lets see how it pans out for us.
Right, that’s all for today. See you during the game.
What an unfortunate way to not given a goal.. and it would be fun if Man Utd goes on to lose 2 points today.
The VAR was right. Zirkee was behind the goalkeeper. Guess he is young not to realise he should not have stuck out his knee because Garnacho ball was going in
Yep, VAR was right, it was just unfortunate since it would have landed in the nets even if Zirkee wasn’t there.
One hour from now one can check how ESR is faring at Fulham vs Leicester City.
One gets protective against a boy born into football in Arsenal and excelling.
And I’m hoping Ipswich can do the unthinkable against 115!
It’s good to see United in the gutter, they would be happy with 1 point after going down against the mighty Brighton lol
And they can’t be happy now
Ambarish
You are a prophet. Brighton scores. Missed goal has come to bite ManUre on their backside
News for tomorrow would be, Ten Hag asks to buy Ajax owners now to compete for title at Man Utd… Lol.
What an intelligent player Jao Pedro is with his positioning for Brighton’s winner and their youngest manager in the PL picking up 6 points against a decent Manure.
Maguire is Manure’s nemesis and Brighton’s best player.
Not an easy game for us next week.
Manure are still not clicking with their new players. Give them another 6 or so games and they will be hard to get points from, unlike last season.
Hoopah
Good to see you’re on ESR watch. We all love the kid.
We could end up with all thew home teams winning today what would the odds be of that happening?
Would mean us losing as well so can’t bet really.
Tony,
We are going to break the curse today.
Ambarish, I will keep repeating the words with vigor any time I start losing my resolve that we will win.
We are going to break the curse today.
We are going to break the curse today.
We are going to break the curse today.
We are going to break the curse today.
Haha, it’s personal for Arsenal fans this match..
On a different note, Ederson and De Bruyne were leaving to Saudi if I remember correctly? That would weaken up City a lot, and we need that.
City one down to Ipswich I think you got that curse breaking thing right.
Can Ipswich get a second? Love seeing Pep going apoplectic
Oh dear Ipswich playing like a Sunday pub team 2:1.
Could be a rout.
3:1
Smith Rowe scores
ESR bags Fulham’s first for 1:0
“We are going to break the curse today.”
Problem there is some of us think there’s a completely different far more serious curse that needs breaking!
Still not convinced that ten Hag can turn things around and not just because they cocked things up today…surely Bruno up top and the aging Casimiro in the midfield won’t get it done…not to mention, they still haven’t sorted out their backline, as how could there possibly be 3 players left unmarked on the backside…minus Mainoo and a few of the new boys, this team doesn’t seem to want to play for him…to make matters worse, those he brought with him have underperformed, which is like a kick in the pills…tbh BHA weren’t that good either, albeit the torrential rain likely impacted them far more than United
rather than curse, I prefer the word karma…it’s not just the fact that Unai wasn’t given any say, it’s the fact that they gifted MA the whole damn operation 6 months in, then continued to back him when he performed atrociously in that role…all that said, I still think we should win by a couple goals
No surprises with the starting line up. Timber at LB and Havertz at 9. Rice at 8 doesn’t make sense so Marts will be lackin GB people to play off.
Strong bench with Tross and Calafiori so hope to see the latter.
Amabrish—if MA brought Merino here to be a 6, that would be a mistake…Zubimendi was the 6 for RS, whereas Merino was the more advanced 8…imagine if our spine was populated by 3 shoehorned players (Rice, Merino and Havertz)
I really think the PL needs to step in and just relegate Everton now – award everyone 6 points and a plus 10 goal difference and let the club die.
TRVL,
Merino makes sense as #8. We have Rice, Partey and Jorginho to play as no. 6.
Marc
Couldn’t agree more. Even the Ipswich Towns are 4 goals down but have scored one against the league leaders. Everton can’t even play against a bottom half team.
Anyone got a prediction? 2:2 for me
I like watching Dyche’s expressions when it all goes Pete Tong. It means half of Liverpool have no bragging rights, so worth it for that.
Maybe Jesus’s mysterious groin injury might open the door to a new Striker coming in, especially if Eddie is on the outs…3-1 for the good guys
Everton is a fucking disaster…let’s hope we don’t settle for Cavert-Lewin in the 11th hour
pleased to see Timber starting…kind of knew it after our blunt instrument of a manager kept suggesting otherwise during the week
That is a fucking atrocious away kit – what part of that is Arsenal?
Where the fuck did the yellow away kit go?
Ambarish—ultimately, I believe the plan is to deploy 3 big bodies in the middle of the park in the hopes that this might provide our wide-side players with more 1v.1 opportunities…not sure if it will work, as most of those “big” players don’t have a knack for goals, so teams might pay no heed, but we should be even better at set pieces
Match started
What is it with Arteta and inverted full backs?
It means Martinelli gets no fucking support and makes up really lopsided when attacking.
Zinchenko looks fucking pleased lol
We’re back with lots of new game plan…lots of efforts and lots of energy….come on guys…. cheers to the new season…. #wearearsenal