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.
Tony—as you can see we’re in complete agreement when it comes to Mr. Lewin…of course, that very fact might actually make it far more likely, as I think Marc was suggesting…sadly, all of the options I’ve been hearing about don’t rise to the level one should expect if we’re supposedly serious about contending on multiple fronts…I want to believe that our Striker bar is significantly higher, but that might be fool-hearted on my part, as this is the same duo who paid a King’s ransom for Havertz
Sorry all – been quiet lately due to the small matter of certain family members conspiring to lose my phone in the most bizarre of circumstances. I suspect it currently resides in a swampy car park just outside a dance music festival site in Cheshire. There you have it. I saw the Villa game and thought we did well but it could just as easily have gone the other way.
KP
Sorry to hear of your loss. Losing a trusty phone is like losing your life or parts of it. Hope it was all backed up. Just good to know you’re not stuck down some ravine with no mobile signal and rationing the hip flask contents.
Some good reads above I’m sure you’ll enjoy catching up with and with 3 days to go in the TW I’m expecting to read we made every effort to sign VO but time beat us once again.
I mean do we forget the window has been open for months?
Am I missing something here while we’re making derisory offers for a young Wolves keeper to replace Ramsdale, Federico Chiesa is going to join Liverpool for £10.9m, which I may add is less than Havertz wages for one season sans any bonuses.
Remind me what we need again? A striker not a keeper.
In 2022 Chiesa was considered elite in the making after an excellent Euros. An injury has blighted his career since, but one of Wenger’s well made gambles was buying Overmars when everyone and his don was saying will never be the same after doing his cruciate ligaments.
History proved them all wrong and Overmars was brilliant for us and I was gutted when he left for Barca.
I think Chiesa is going to be the same. He was a pitbull of a forward: what Jesus always hoped he’d be. Low center of gravity and very quick with both feet if memory serves me well.
Obviously the overriding question is can Fredrico find his early career form? Liverpool seem to think so as do I. For £10.9m it’s hardly a gamble, and I question why we we’re not at those races? Ilkay slides smoothly into Pep’s loving arms again in a matter of days of resuming their unconditional love for each other.
Meanwhile we sell Patino for a paltry £1m to Deportivo La Caruna who his dad apparently supports.
Back to missed opportunities my feeling is a Chiesa @ 60% of previous form will show to be better than 100% of Havertz this season.
Frederico is a natural striker I doubt Slott of all people is making a mistake so early into his career and first TW.
Less than 3 days to go and our window is looking very light and once again the glaring issues have been left unaddressed.
WTF does El B have against having a quality 8 ATM? He’s had 5 years to find the right player but we get Lakonga and the other muppet who’s been moved on now.
Can anyone explain what Vieira, who’s back in Portugal now, was all about?
We’re stuck once again with players on far too high wages who will offer little this season.
Why are Jesus and Zinchenko still at the club?
Tony—the whole Chiesa to Pool gig is an intriguing one, unless the deal involved a re-up with a considerable raise…he can play in multiple positions, although he would much rather play out wide, on either side, than as a Striker or tucked in behind…right now Pool has Salah on the right and several options on the left, including Diaz, Gakpo, and Jota, who might be deployed as a 9 this season…so my first inkling is that he’s coming to provide cover for Salah, then if he meets or exceeds expectations he could become his eventual replacement
so the question becomes why didn’t we try to lure him to the Emirates…his fee of 10-12M is peanuts, considering his up-side, and he’s presently making about 1/3rd the wages of Havertz, which makes me think that he’s been given some assurances that we aren’t willing to provide…this is likely the same conundrum any club will face if they brought in any of the other “available” veteran players, such as Coman, Sane and Sterling…for me personally, he would be our best forward option on the left and could provide us with some much-needed Saka cover…my only concern with this particular player is his form since his ACL injury, although I think his recent statistical dropoff was largely down to Juve’s previous manager, as Allegri’s tactical MO doesn’t really fit Chiesa’s preferred script
I’ve always been a fan of this player, especially if he hasn’t lost the technical gifts that were regularly on display before his move to Turin…in a way his footballing journey is quite similar to Kai’s, in that both failed to meet expectations once they moved to their first “big” clubs…with this in mind, I so wish we had taken a chance on Chiesa, then earmarked the money we didn’t waste on Havertz towards a readymade Striker, as I still believe that this latter deal will be MA’s undoing…now this might seem like a silver lining, considering my thoughts on our current manager, but that’s simply not the case because if we fuck up our current championship “window” who knows when one might open again
3 interesting bits and pieces:
(1) looks like the mad Rammer might be on his way to Southampton for roughly half the amount we originally paid…sound familiar?!?…tbh I’ve never seen a manager deal so poorly with this particular position in such a relatively short period of time…anyone who doesn’t see this as a jusification of his chequebook manager tag must be high as fuck…can you even imagine another top club wasting so much time on the shipping and receiving of more Keepers when we have much bigger fish to fry…hopefully Raya will continue to perform as he has in more recent times so that we never need to rely on one of MA’s flavour of the week selections
(2) Nico Williams—could he be another bum-rush Partey-esque last second get? if so, that would be quite a statement of intent…with a release clause in play, there’s no guessing what the fees are, just like with Partey, so the only remaining questions pertains to his exorbitant wage demands and his desire to move anywhere besides Barca…interestingly enough there are reports that he’s been inexplicably benched by his manager this week, which is an intriguing development, if true…I can totally see our attention thirsty manager frothing at the mouth over the possibility of just such a coup…of course, he knows full-well that he needs to employ this sort of sneaky approach due to his piss-poor record when it comes to competing for players of this ilk with any managers/clubs of note
(3) Darwin Nunez—I must say I’m surprised by this rumour, even though I’m not shocked that Pool might be willing to let him go elsewhere, especially on the heels of the COPA debacle and the fact that Jota has expressed interest in playing up top…regardless, I would gladly take him over Havertz, but I’m just not sure they make sense on the same side…now Nunez can be slotted in out wide, which makes him far more positionally flexible than Kai, and he’s considerably more clinical, even though the Pool fanbase might think otherwise, but I just don’t see it happening
TRVL
What a shit show with Chiesa where I thought you would be in favour of the little £10.9m punt on the firebrand of a player. He, as you mentioned can play, 7, 8, false 9 and 9 as well as either flank being reasonably 2-footed and pacy. He can pivot 6 with any midfield player because defensively he’s excellent off the ball and in the tackle; hence the pitfall reference. Chiesa will be a good buy for Pool, and a big miss by us, but looking at our buys this window, WTF does Edu and El B know what our real needs are?
Clearly the 8 and 9 positions are considered unimportant with Rice, untested in the PL Merino and haphazard Havertz with Jesus up top; both require multiple clear cut chances to score.
Then we have no decent cover for the above positions or for Ode, Saka and Maya once Ramsdale leaves.
We have 6 LBs: Kiwior, Zinchenko, Calafiori Tierney, Timber and Tomi, and have bought as many keepers since El B got rid of Emi by far our best keeper since Mad Jens.
An injury to any number of our guaranteed starters, and we are in trouble particularly if the injury is a lengthy one unless it’s at LB.
So, this fan is disgruntled as much as any fan can be looking forward to another Groundhog Day of a season similar to the last 88522 finishes with us imploding around March if not before.
If Benitez and Ancelotti were and are considered ‘Spanish Waiters’, by English fans, then El B must be the dish washer or vegetable preparer by consideration of the aforementioned winning managers’ multiple countries’ league and cup triumphs.
El B has one covid FA cup where Emi was the hero with Auba, and we all know what happened to them for their winning displays, they got kicked out of our club where Auba cost us dearly to get rid of to Barca, who then sold Auba to the Chavs for profit, such is what our dream team’s abilities’ have mustered.
We pay our players to go to other clubs, that is if we can offload them in the first place for a pittance of what we paid for them. Let that sink in
Emi helped Emery achieve CL football in his first season with Villa.
Whatever way I look at El B, he has to go and this season unless he wins the league, he really does have to go. The only position acceptable to goners across ther globe after being 2nd twice id winning the league.
This LIR poster is far from convinced El B can bring home the PL trophy this season, far from it indeed is my clear thinking based on the past 5 seasons and our current TW buys.
Two TW days to go………
As I said look at Overmars who was considered on the cruciate slag heap by all footballing brains bar Wenger – one of his better transfer decisions at that time.
According to the quick skim through the usual suspects of online papers, where we are still reportedly looking for a winger, so VO was a pipe dream that maybe marched out again next May when the ST’s spin is required again.
Havertz is our 9 for this season. Can he nail 20+ PL goals? If he gets 60 to 80 clear chances then yes he can. Havertz reminds me of Welbeck when he moved to us; he couldn’t score for love or money. Always off target netting 16 goals in 46 appearances basically a goal in 1:3 games as our striker. Sound familiar?
But we are not interested in a decent 9 let alone and elite one unless our dream team have been keeping mum over secret protracted negotiations to sign a 9, which I have zero faith in happening.
Therefore, unless we bring in VO or similar my season prediction remains 4th or lower. Chiesa will make Pool stronger where I see them keeping Nunes who is a different player all round to Chiesa. Slott will make Nunes a better player.
The only silver lining in being 4th or lower is that El B will finally have to leave. I’m sure the Kroenkes will assess El B with other managers’s skill sets and see El B is woefully lacking who still makes his rookie mistakes and has no idea about the talent we need, which includes Edu when you look at our current window incomings.
I’m sure El B is convinced of his own BS, in that we scored so many goals last season, that we will have no problem racking up big wins agains the PL minnows again. If that were the case, we would have emulated the Chav’s Wolves scoreline, but as has been said here, the result could have been much different: we were far from convincing in both our opening games.
Basically, we’ve had another poor window compared to our competitors who have all strengthened and may add more targeted, important additions to help with their title aspirations.
We might buy another young keeper, I know Marc what you’re thinking. Try White Truffles to reduce your ire as I do. An excellent way to forget when you need to. Biscotti is another new hybrid worth trying.
Should White be benched in favour of Timber?
If the answer is yes, then Timber at RB and Calafiori, assuming he’s good enough, at LB balances us much better. Timber, we’ve recently witnessed naturally has more triangle playing skills to fit with Ode and Saka. He’s a very tricky pacy player and probably our best RB since Sagna and Eboue. Could we say the same for White at RB? Rhetorically no!
Merino is a natural left footed player who fits 8 better than Rice, Havertz & Trossard.
This is what I see a new manager doing in his first game post El B. The new manager I hope would address the immediate need for an 8 and 9.
That and I agree with TRVL’s 3 at the back with wing backs where again Timber would excel. The conundrum here would be who are our best options for 3 at the back?
Willie S, Big Gabs and Calafiori would get my nod. White can be aerially challenged and is why his job is to interfere with opposition keepers more than to be airborne in the 6-yard box.
TRVL do you have any thoughts here? What would you or a new manager do for his first 3 games?
I feel a Calafiori, Merino and Marts on our left balances us with natural left footers throughout who can or supposedly can play intricate triangles at pace and one and two touch football we play down our right side.
It makes no sense to play Timber at LB when we have so many LBs and only one really natural RB in Timber.
We need to cease with the square pegs in round holes nonsense and play to players’ natural strengths wouldn’t that be a novelty considering the last 5 years?
Tony—you know MA hasn’t read the room when his fluffer from a different mother, Pedro, starts to seriously question his transfer practices…immediately followng my rather dramatic excommunication that limp dick fuck blocked me from even viewing his poor excuse for an echo chamber, but when he adopted a subscription-based model I guess things changed in that regards…so when I was scanning through a series of articles on arsenal newsnow today I noticed that there was an entry by none other than LG…for whatever reason it piqued my interest, so I clicked on it and needless to say I was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered, at least in part…of course, it was still laced will all sorts of apologist rhetoric, but the fact that he actually took a shot at the manager speaks volumes about the potential fallout should MA not come with the goods, especially if he then proceeds to trip over his dick again…check out the following excerpt:
“The big miss of this window, as it stands, is the lack of a forward. Arteta is allergic to signing forwards. Kai, Trossard, and Willian are quite a poor showing numbers-wise, considering this will be Arteta’s 5th year. For context, he’s signed four keepers in that time and about 78 defenders. Exiting this window without legitimate coverage for Saka would start to feel like negligence. I can’t be reading that a move is dependent on Reiss Nelson going—and I don’t like the ‘internal solutions’ because that’ll be a baby or moving a left-sided player to the right. Arsenal fans know what they need—something explosive, direct, magical, and for me—experienced…I refuse to believe Arsenal would take the team to the edge of glory and blow it by not making a decision on a winger in a market full of them…so let’s see something”
now he’s obviously adopted a far more diplomatic approach than I, but there’s something about the underlying tone of this quote that reminds me of a much earlier time when Pedro, before he had his balls clipped, started to express his displeasure about the manner in which Wenger continually conducted his business…of course, in and of itself his words mean jacksquat, but the fact that the rank and file are getting restless has to mean something…for the sake of the team, I can only hope that MA comes to his senses real quick and rectifies his past mistakes, but if he doesn’t and the predictable happens, this had better be considered a sackable offence
Brilliant, TRVL, great post.
Pedro’s mantra was to go semi nuclear on El B for a couple off posts until there was a redeeming quality to put El B back up on his lofty rimming, pedal-stall high enough for Pedro to blow smoke up El B’s arse with faux praise until the natives became restless again, the was rinse repeat.
This could well be the same old same old. Pedro has always been one to try to keep his minions onside, but also have an escape route for his money making business. He can’t be seal sending worthy all the time.
To be fair I think it’s only Edu and El B who don’t think we need a striker while the footballing world looks on incredulously.
Pedro, the PR spin slut, will soon be Jizzing about El B’s brilliance soon, such as if we beat BHA at home, on Saturday, especially if kai bags a brace from 6 clear chances.
El B will be canonized once again on LG by Pedro and his trusty bots.
then wash rinse repeat…
TRVL
Here’s a question for you and LIR it seems the Nico Williams name dropping isn’t going away from the world of click bait.
If you could buy Chiesa or Williams to suit our Current needs, who would you choose? Nico’s buyout clause is reported to be £58m.
Williams would consign Marts to the bench and being sold I feel. Right footed with 8 goals and 15 assists last season, young and for the future
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eJlVpbrcVY
Chiesa as previously posted is a high quality Swiss Army knife type of player. More an unselfish version of our Alexis Sanchez and much more a team player.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_xy2hNLPjQ
My view would be Chiesa because, while Williams would be a good back up to Saka, Nico being right footed out left would mean always cutting into the box to favor his right peg.
Would mean another square peg in a round hole with Williams unless Nico plays 9.
Cheisa’s going to Slott’s revolution, so it’s all immaterial now. A big miss for us.
Bolton – at home – in the carabao.
Is that drivable for you KP from Wales?
It’s in London Tony but I have relatives in N5 who can sometimes get tickets for games like this. I went to a carabao cup game against Leeds a few years ago with junior. I’ll let you know if I go.
It’s mostly County stuff for me at the moment. They’ve played 4 games and have amassed 8 points against top half teams which is fantastic. They’re having a synthetic pitch laid at the moment so home games are switched to Carmarthen, a mere 40 miles from where I live. West Wales means suffering for your art if live football is your thing.
Cardiff got a battling draw at Swansea at the weekend so they at least have troubled the scoreboard as it were.
Are you fully recovered now after your illness mate?
Sounds good KP. Good when your live teams start to do well. Maybe Cardiff will kick on now.
The virus/covid is still lingering. Body metrics such as stress, HRV, blood ox and sleep are finally back to normal but the weakness continues although slowly getting stronger each week. The silver lining is I dropped below 80kg so getting very close to my 6-pack appearing again (77kg). That’s the beauty of muscle memory. The abs simply get hidden beneath fat mostly never to be seen again. I’ve trained for 50+ years so what I built is still there, and like a dropping reservoir water level where things reappear, same is happening to me where muscles are seeing the light of day again.
Haven’t been in the gym much at all this years, just dieted down from 92kg. Should have my 6-pack back by the time I’m 69.
Good to hear your footballing travel stories.
What are your thoughts on our season and TW, KP?
Tony—with the short-term in mind, I think maybe Chiesa, but if I was taking a longer view Nico seems like the savvier pick…btw Nico isn’t a cut inside only kind of forward, as he’s more assist man than pure scorer…I think what makes him so intriguing is that there’s several fairly astute industry-types who feel like he’s got considerably more goals in his boots if he were on a better side; much like when a clean-up hitter gets more hittable pitches whenever the 3 & 5-hole batters are upgraded
as to your earlier questions, you know I’m a big fan of Timber on the right, as I think he and Saka together is an inside/outside nightmare for opposing defences…whereas, in regards to our almost laughable unbalanced attacking strategy, I’m not even convinced that Merino will be deployed as a left-sided 8…on first blush it would seem like a slam dunk choice, but most of the pro-Tet slurpy-fucks think he’s destined to replace Partey, who plays primarily on the right, so that Rice can venture forward…just find it difficult to believe that anyone could be so arrogant as to shoehorn that many into their starting 11
Me too, TRVL I just can’t understand what is blatantly obvious.
Nico 8 goals in 46 games but 15 assists makes Nico an obvious buy being young as well. I would have fancied Chiesa for immediacy.
Maybe Nico can slot into 8 or switch with Ode on the right with Saka.
We could deploy Saka as a 9 with Nico right and Marts left.
The next few weeks are going to be interesting to see how we line up, especially if we but Nico.
TRVL
What’s your take on Company managing Bayern Munich?
KP
Were you and Oasis fan?
Can’t stand them myself, it was when they claimed they were better than the Beatles I thought what arrogant arseholes. The Beatles and Rolling Stones changed the face of British music that launched many bands where London because the music capitol of the world breaking America’s domination.
Both bands had prolific songwriters who churned out hit after hit for decades.
Oasis had Wonderwall and couple of others I can’t remember, but I could recite so many of the Stones and Beatles hits without hesitation.
I guess they were part of a generation I missed working away and am probably better off for it.
Too busy enjoying Prince:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS53KOcFmjo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvnYmWpD_T8