The Em’ Curse!

the next few weeks should be rather revealing when it comes to MA’s intentions regarding Timber, Calafiori, Merino, Rice, Tross, Partey and Marts…I woudn’t be shocked if MA reverted back to our double pivot former selves, but that raises some interesting question regarding a doubling-down on the whole right side gig…typically Rice has been advancing on the left, but it would seem highly irregular for any manager to have a left-footed player(Merino) being deployed on the right and a right-sided player(Rice) on the left…could this mean that Rice is switching to the right yet still being the more advanced option…seems like an overkill tactical change, considering our already unbalanced approach

I guess MA could actually have Rice and an inverted Timber in the double-pivot, then allow Merino to be the more adventurous one, but that could leave us exposed on the counter…knowing that Merino is going to be most effective in and around the box, this could create a numbers problem at the back if Rice likewise pushed forward…don’t get me wrong, with our particular lineup we need to commit more men forward, but that would likely mean that Saka might suffer the same fate as Marts, as White would likely need to assume a more conservative approach…not to mention, relying on Rice and Timber as our pivots could be problematic, as we know Rice ain’t picking any defensive locks and Timber seems more of a dribbler than a passing specialist…it’s a square peg/round hole shoehorning clusterfuck

the one thing that has been giving me cause for pause is that the manager, the player himself and all our paid media hacks are leaning heavily into Merino’s “duels won” advanced stats, which doesn’t make sense unless they’re trying to oversell him as a viable defensive/set piece option…typically if he was coming to play in a more advanced 8 role, all the chatter would be more focused on his ability to contribute assists/goals in the final third

as for Kompany, I get the feeling that he’s been thrown into the deep end way too early…I saw nothing from him, managerially-speaking, in his first foray in the PL, which would suggest that he could handle just such a lofty appointment…of course, I thought he was a great defender and a leader of men, on the pitch, but as we know full-well that doesn’t always translate…I hope he can figure his shit out, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he crashed and burned, especially at such an insiders-driven club like Bayern

best song by Oasis—“Fuckin in the Bushes” (Standing on the Shoulders of Giants)

The new look CL draw has just taken place. Tickets booked for the game in Bergamo.

After seeing our draw for the upcoming CL season, we had better get ourselves a clinical finisher or two, otherwise we might find ourselves in a knockout playoff round…our 8 opponents are as follows: PSG(H), Inter(A), Zagreb(H), Atalanta(A), Donestk(H), Sporting(A), Monaco(H) and Girona(A)…of course, we’re more talented than most we’ll face, but considering how conservative MA tends to get when the lights are the brightest, I see numerous banana peel affairs on our docket…not to mention, our away schedule is much tougher than our home one, which could be somewhat problematic…that said, it will be interesting to see how the elimination of the group stage will impact several teams who’ve traditionally excelled in that sort of format

so let’s quickly look at the rumoured options:

(1) Toney—could be had for a reasonable price, but I doubt he’s coming without assurances, which likely wouldn’t be given because in order for him to be an effective weapon MA would have to make some substantial tweaks to his tactics

(2) Gyokeres—only if we got a cut-rate price, which would seem unlikely now that he’s returned from his injury/surgery and performed exceptioinally well (6 goals in 3 matches)…they have all the leverage unless they’re experiencing some sort of dire financial crisis that I’m unaware of

(3) Osimhen—once again, this only happens if the fees are well below the original asking price of 110+M…just seems a bit too complicated of an operation for our lightwieght execs, especially considering the other teams in the mix

(4) Gimenez—this guy’s a lightwieght Striker who can’t be relied on to score at the highest of levels…watched him play in the COPA for Mexico and he was basically useless, thus the reason for his relatively low MV and the fact that only Forest pushed for his services

(5) Sterling—way too problematic, not just from a contractual scenario, but likewise from a playing time situation…not to mention, his form has been rather atrocious for some time now

(6) Coman—he’s not coming unless we’re willing to pay his ridiculous wages and he’s given airtight assurances…after all, that’s why he wants out of Bayern…he’s certainly not taking a pay cut to sit on the bench behind Saka, so unless he’s coming to start on the left side instead of Marts and Tross, this is likely a no go…just don’t think MA could afford to roll the dice and potentially upset the locker room by bringing in someone with such a dicey injury history

(7) Nunez—by the sounds of things, this rumour has little to no validity…the more I dug, the less I learned, which probably suggests that this was started by some disgruntled Pool fans who weren’t impressed by his last season and/or his off-season antics

(8) Calvert-Lewin—just can’t see us unveiling this underwhelming player in the 11th hour, as it would likely be met with far more negativity than positivity, regardless of the fact that we employ a plethora of narrative spinning hacks

(9) Ferguson—bad form, overinflated asking price and our bad relations with his present club should put the kibosh on this misplaced reach…not to mention, I didn’t even go into his myriad of injury concerns over the last 12 months

(10) Nico—please God let this be true…just don’t think it’s as simple as triggering his reasonable release clause, or it would have been done already by several clubs, as I don’t think he wants to go anywhere but Barca

as such, the greatest likelihood of us getting some help up top is if MA can find a Keeper who actually played as a Striker in peewee football, as we all know the two things our little project manager likes most are positional flexibility and GD Keepers

the rumour that appears to have the most legs is the one involving Sterling, based on the fact that MA likes his “personality”…now of course it’s not unusual for a manager to consider the personality of any potential recruit, but surely that can’t be the anywhere near the preeminent reason…for me, it simply confirms what I’ve always thought, that Sterling is quite a gutless figure, as MA’s monopolistic inklings have always played way too prominent of a role when it comes to his recruitment practices…what this team really needs is a killer on the pitch, who can both craft and finish his own chances at times and who can likewise raise his teammates level of play

gutless might have been a bit harsh, maybe soft would have been a better descriptor…Cheers

TRVL
Very little to add to your posts. I agree Nico looks the best fit financially and what we actually need.

You just know El B won’t be able to help himself with Sterling. Sterling will be El B’s yes man until there is no playing time due to poor form and after EL B has played Sterling to death with few goals and assists from his appearances.

My gut says no-one except Sterling and we’ll know in the next 2 days.

As for the new CL, it looks like a forerunner for the super league. We have got the easier group so let’s see what El B can do with that group and the 2 extra games we really didn’t need with our squad-lite with 5 LBs and 4 x DFMs and a keeper we’re buying because he has played center forward, so good with his feet. If Maya gets injured it’s going to get interesting with a rookie in goal.

BHA tomorrow early game so 6:30pm KO for me to enjoy. It won’t be easy but we should take all 3 points.

Teams that matter should all get wins tomorrow:

Villa should pick up an away win at LCFC.
City will have a comfortable win at West Ham

Sundays games are a little more difficult to predict:

Chavs at hone should beat palace if their last game is anything to go by.

I think the Bar Codes will draw with Spuds at home.

The game of the weekend has to be Manure v Slotts Pool where a draw would suit us best or a Pool loss. Reality sees me thinking Liverpool will take all 3 points in a tough and great game in the making.

Let the shoe-horning commence by El B. I dread to think what El B was like with Lego or Meccano when young?

I doubt we buy other than the young ex 9, now a keeper, but never say never with our winless pair – law of averages and all that……

“While less exciting than Garcia and with no future upside, Neto is dirt cheap as a loan acquisition and is a solid enough goalkeeper who is proven”…only if you’re into 35 year old has-beens with a 70% save percentage last season…first we lose a considerable sum on Ramsdale, who MA gave a sizeable raise to last summer so that he could sit on the bench the whole fucking season, then we waste a shitload of time figuring out our Keeper carousel, only to end up with this pathetic option…I dare one of his minions to justify this shit show

Tony—I’m not a big proponent of most of our rumoured options, especially the one that seems most likely…this isn’t the same Sterling that MA worked with a half decade ago and he doesn’t fit MA’s preferred script, as he has spent far more time between the hashes than out wide with Chelsea…maybe MA should head to the film room before pursuing this any further…I can’t even remember the last time I ever saw him anywhere near the endline on either side of the pitch, so he’s not a Saka cover piece…I guess he could fight Tross for minutes, but that would mean that Marts would be relegated to a bit part player, likely sitting behind Saka…I would much rather we pushed for Sane or even Coman, if those were the only 3 options…imagine if we sacrificed our future recruitment options again by gifted any of these individuals a 3 or 4 year term, considering their respective wages (keeping in mind that we just gave Merino an ill-advised 4 year term)

there has been some chatter regarding Anthony Gordon, whom I rate, but he needs to prove himself a bit before even thinking about bringing him in…he would never be guaranteed the kind of minutes he can get with the bar codes, but he could be one for the future…I believe those Geordie fucks have gone to considerable lengths, vis-a-vis their hiring practices, in order to ensure that he stays on for at least this season…as such, this is way too messy of a deal to push over the line with such an exceedingly short runway

who MA worked with

the very fact that we’ve left our most important piece of business to the last day speaks to our poor window management…not only did we take way too long to get two rather straight-forward deals over the line, which means neither were ready for opening day, we haven’t even addressed the part of the pitch that most everyone felt was in need of reinforcements…it’s like we’ve taken a fucking time machine back to any one of several Wenger windows when we either didn’t get what was required, like when we only signed Cech, or when we waited until the final minutes of the window to get our business done, which led to a bevy of half-measure/ill-suited recruits…changing the culture my ass!!

for all the talk surrounding Edu’s 180 page dossiers and our meticulously curated plans, what has transpired this summer is amateur hour personified…maybe MA became a bit of a sulky bitch when Sesko made him look the fool, but that’s no excuse for his negligent recruitment practices…even if he somehow lures one of the rumoured players from the island of misfit toys, he’s put the future of this club in the hands of a hired mercenary, who will likely demand all manner of things that may or may not fit our intended script…we’ve seen this type of short-sighted bullshit a time or three before and we know how it typically ends…he’s backed us into a corner, where he’s damned whether he makes a move or not, which seems unthinkable yet sadly predictable

the only way he comes out of this without the stench of failure is if both VO and Nico are posing for pics in our fucking kit before this window strikes midnight…of course, this sort of ask is undoubtedly a bridge too far, but there’s no way he can stand in front of the world empty-handed or with an afterthought along side him and claim that this was all part of a grand plan

“the only way he comes out of this without the stench of failure is if both VO and Nico are posing for pics in our fucking kit before this window strikes midnight”

Then buy Eze in January?

A-Fucking-Men

What a thought and statement that would be.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-13795757/TRANSFER-DEADLINE-DAY-LIVE-Man-United-face-race-against-time-register-Manuel-Ugarte-Liverpool-clash-Chelsea-make-late-Victor-Osimhen-Jadon-Sancho-left-limbo.html

I guess this will keep updating each time it’s opened.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/transfer-news-live-manutd-arsenal-33565070

https://www.theguardian.com/football/live/2024/aug/30/transfer-deadline-day-ugarte-sancho-sterling-toney-guehi-live

Take your pick for live updates.

According to the oracle of truth that is sky sports news (!), Osimhen is on a plane to sign for some team in Saudi Arabia. Nice…

KP
Toney too

you just know that Sterling will be an Arsenal player by 23.00 this evening.

“Mikel Arteta confirms that new signing Mikel Merino injured his shoulder in his first training session. “Gabi landed on top of him and it looks like he has a small fracture probably. It doesn’t look good.”

Timber all over again. You just can’t make this shit up.

so let me get this straight, before our new signing ever even sees real action he’s already on the fucking training table…so much for the whole rarely injured, duel master narrative…I bet that shit doesn’t happen if we didn’t dick around for 2 months over an easy peasy deal…there’s no way a midfielder who wants to play with any physicality is coming back in a couple weeks, in fact, this will likely impact him for much of the season

what’s next? likely a Sterling-sized cherry on our shit sundae

this Sterling gig will become a great case study for how unrestrained “homer” media coverage can negatively impact an organization, as there’s nothing but glowing reports about the possibility of us securing Sterling’s services…of course they’re rife with quotes from people I’ve never even heard of, who’re acting like they’re paid opinion fucking matters…one article actually said that “peak” Sterling would be our best winger…well that’s a real coup if we can somehow stuff all of fucking Europe into a time machine and go back 5 plus years…it feels like we’re on another collision course with karma due to the continued douchebaggery of our pocket manager

Chav’s hand me downs, TRVL. Except Sterling has £345 a week wages to deal with. Would the Chavs be prepared to pay 80% of Sterlings wages, like we do or similar?

Good luck Arron Ramsey with your move to Southampton. You were shit on from a great height here, so hope you settle quickly and show us what we’re missing as Emi continually does.

With it being 4pm in the UK now, I don’t see us signing any forwards or Sterling. Hazarding a guess El B would have wanted his prodigal son back, but the purse strings were shut tight and we dodged a big bullet.

Havertz it is then with Jesus the understudy.

Merino out for 5+ games, then has to get fit and up to PL speed so add at least another 12 games. Rice at 8 and a complexly unbalanced left side again for the season.

Hope we see Calafiori tomorrow against Brighton.

Tony—as someone who has both suffered a few shoulder injuries and witnessed a plethora of former teammates experiencing a variety of shoulder-related injuries, I would be very surprised if he will be 100% at any point this season…of course, the extent of his particular injury will determine how close he can get to 100%, but if he suffered any sort of dislocation or seperation, he will struggle to meet the requirements of his particular position for a considerable period of time

If I had to hazard a guess, here’s a player who came in late with a whole bunch of hype regarding his physical presence on the pitch, so it made perfect sense that he and our biggest horse would go mano a mano on the training pitch…unfortunately our new signing lost that pissing contest and is now on the shelf for the foreseeable future…now I’m not sure if this was just a freak accident or a telltale sign that our second choice Sociedad midfield signing isn’t nearly as tough as he was made out to be, but MA better pray that it’s the former not the latter

as for our other window failures, both this year and last, I’m very concerned about the very real possibility that our halfwit of a skipper will become the highest paid manager on the planet without one iota of proof that he’s worthy of such a commitment…if I were the Kroenke’s I wouldn’t even contemplate his re-upping until he wins something of consequence or, at the very least, displays the kind of managerial bravery that’s typically required in order to succeed at the highest of levels…thus far in his career he’s been outmanaged in almost every meaningful match and bang average, at best, when it comes to his recruitment practices

take this off-season for example, the Merino reach was simply an attempt to rectify his Havertz misstep…so in actual fact it has already cost us 100+M to replace a very average Xhaka and based on Merino’s injury that’s not even a foregone conclusion…now if he plays Rice in the 8, the cost of the Xhaka replacement plan will climb to well over 200M…not to mention, this means we will have an 8 deployed as a 6, a 6 deployed as an 8 and our original Xhaka replacement in the 9-hole…of course, Havertz is only our first choice Striker because MA somehow made him our highest paid player, which meant that his last Striker mistake, Jesus, who’s currently our second highest paid player, has now become his very unreliable cover piece…even with that all said, it’s clear that MA doesn’t believe the Havertz hype, which is why the first piece of business he tried to conduct this off-season was a failed attempt to get Sesko over the line…so all his claims about how were set up top are total bullshit, which isn’t something I just conjured up, it’s based entirely on his own actions

as for all the blather surrounding any possible Sterling get, no matter what transpires this was never part of any plan and if MA had ever suggesting, before the final days of the wndow, that our strategy involved the acquiring of Sterling from Chelsea, most intelligent fans would have told him to go fuck himself…desperation makes strange bedfellows

sorry about the excessive rambling…I had to self-medicate in order to help alleviate some of my obvious frustrations

MA had ever suggested, before the final days of the window

the only potential saving grace of this whole Sterling scenario is if it’s only a loan, without a buy option and we’re not paying his ridiculous wages…our simpleton duo could actually be forking out almost 900,000 per week on Havertz, Jesus and Sterling…what a fucking joke

our late window shopping would have been fucking amazing if it was 2018…now that we acquired Neto and Sterling maybe we should fire MA and bring Wenger back

I feel like there’s a garbage can somewhere at Stamford Bridge with our name and phone number on it…just once can we get someone from that awful club that’s both in form and relevant

You just fucking knew that cunt of all cunts would go for Sterling.

He’ll sell Martinelli – you know the one Klopp rated as amazing for peanuts, he’ll piss off Trossard who’s a solid player by picking his new favourite over him no matter how bad his form and lack of contribution and then just to ram it down the fans throats he’ll sell Saka to a rival.

Can someone please point out to this cunt that Chelsea finished 26 points behind us last season and 40 the season before. All we’re doing is helping to balance their wage bill.

TRVL

“our simpleton duo could actually be forking out almost 900,000 per week on Havertz, Jesus and Sterling…what a fucking joke”

You need to add Zinchenko into that mix.

Marc—we’ve given them the wage bill space to make a late push for Osimhen…wouldn’t that be a kick in the pills if they ended up with him and we were left relying on two or possibly 3 Chelsea castoffs, now that Merino is out…of course Sterling is better than Nelson, but at least with the latter didn’t cost 300+ per week or require playing time assurances…MA is doing exactly what Wenger did, once his head got too big, in that he’s taking advantage of those within the fanbase who actually believe the manager is above reproach

Marc—I was so waiting for you to enter the venting chamber!!!

KP—surely you must have some insanely graphic thoughts on this?

I love how the pro-Arteta media hacks are focusing on Sterling’s career stats, instead of his most recent ones, which are far more pertinent…last season he managed 8 League goals and 4 assist in 31 appearnaces and the year prior 6 goals and 3 assists in 28 appearances…whereas Marts had 6/4 and 15/5, during that same two year period, but everyone’s attacking his contributions, even though he’s on a third of the wages and was left on an island last season

TRVL

What numbers is Sterling going to contribute when he constantly finds himself isolated during 85% of attacks down our left when 85% of our attacks go down the right?

This happens and I think it might actually be the slap in the face a large chunk of our fan base seriously needs.

Maybe his presence will open things up for Merino, if our Timber 2.0 ever returns…talk about lowering the bar, considering our supposed priority was the young, highly sought-after Nico…not to mention, the last thing MA needed was another choirboy within our ranks…I’m starting to think that Xhaka’s exodus had more to do with MA than Xhaka and his wife wanted to return to Germany…of course, I was elated by his long overdue exit, but I might have thought differently if I could have foreshadowed how badly MA et al were going to fuck shit up