We have got 3 games left and City have 4. We play against Bournemouth tomorrow, Man United Away and Everton on the last day of the season. City have Wolves, Fulham, Tottenham and West Ham to play. There is only one outcome of this… unless the gods decide to do us a favor.
The only way we can win the title this season is that City drop points (a loss, even a draw would do), and we win all of ours. We don’t need god for the latter.
Everyone’s fit, even Jurrien Timber. But if you are thinking that Mikel will start him in last 3 games of the season when there’s still some hope left for winning the title, and when he has played only a U-21 game in almost a year, then you are wrong. He can turn out to be a better player than Zinchenko and Kiwior combined in that LB position but now is not the time to test it. Lets stick to what’s working.
Chelsea schooled Tottenham last night and Spurs have to play Liverpool next. And I’m sure by the time they play City, they will be out of top 4 fight and hopeless. That’s not a good thing for us, because we needed them to put up a fight against City. However, looking at the sad state and misery they are in, makes me happy. There’s only 1 big club in London and the boys there wear red and white.
2 more weeks left for the season to end, and we are already hearing transfer rumours. It seems like we are open to selling Gabriel Jesus, and Zinchenko. Thomas Partey could leave too. There will a bunch of clearance to fund the CF and a Saka’s back up. Nketiah, Nelson, ESR, Vieira, Ramsdale might be in that list.
Going till the end for two consecutive seasons and falling short by a game, highlights how difficult Pep has made everyone’s life. Frankly, after last season’s collapse towards the end, I thought we would sulk and the players that gave everything would lose the motivation to try again (similar to Leicester’s winning season) but I was wrong. All of them stood up, and played even better. We lost few games that we should have won and those points could have been very crucial now, but that’s not the talk today. Two seasons, neck to neck against the 115 charges and Pep and we are still in the fight is an improvement to our last 10-15 years of football.
If we don’t make this season, we will do in the next. I don’t have any agenda as such for today, I will be back with the match day blog tomorrow.
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Anyone who wants to get an unbiased glimpse at what we’ve been facing since the halfway point of the season, minus the Villa and City affairs, just have a looksee at the sorry performance by the Hammers against Chelsea today…based on that performance Artetites should be clammoring to pry Jackson away from our crosstown rivals, as he’s outperformed our little long-legged experiment by quite some margin, yet fans of that club would like nothing more than to replace his ass tout de suite…that’s why context matters…when evaluating the on-field talent, you can’t let your club’s respective record to cloud your judgement…there’s no doubt that if Chelsea were sitting where we are in the table the fanbase would be considerably more forgiving when it came to their Striker’s obvious shortcomings, like his lack of clinical finishing or his piss-poor linkup play at times or his myriad of careless/wasteful offsides etc…
as for the Villa/BHA match, what a fucking insipid performance by both clubs in the final third…I get that from BHA, as they’re still facing a multitude of key injury issues up front, but Villa just looked way too flat for a club playing for something…I believe this is their highest ever PL point total, but you would never know it by watching that dreck…this is another reason why Emi’s so fucking important, as he would be ripping everyone a new one if he were on the pitch today
KP—Rich the bitch ran to his little blog “mommy” after he and I tussled a time or two…he was another passive aggressive cunt of quite epic proportions…if only he had a mirror in his cave he might have been a worthy adversary
Killroy-in my mind the jury is still out on Mudryk, as the circumstances he’s encountered at Chelsea certainly haven’t favoured him…he wasn’t a Poch hire, so getting this rather raw talent sorted was by no means a high priority, and the tactics don’t really play into his strengths, especially with the backers creeping, which leaves him tucked inside too much, and their counter relying too heavily on Jackson in more central channels…he’s showed glimpses but nothing that would ever justify the inherent costs…he’s one for the future, just not sure if that future is at his current club…I would gladly take him as a wide side cover piece if the initial outlay was about half of what Chelsea paid, keeping in mind he’s on a lower salary than both Nelson and Eddie
Hoopah
I’m 68 and happy my music ramblings are proving fun to read. When you mentioned the 12 foot dish I immediately had visions of Del Boy & Rodney looking out their high-rise block, flat window where their Statalight dish was attracting aircraft from the Heathrow stacking and holding zone orbiting planes.
I’m assuming it was secured too the ground and not roof mounted with that size. Can’t imagine on getting through the monsoon season.
Norg
Wonderful story of your friend. I remember reading that Waldo Emerson went bankrupt 14 times before he made his first million dollars. Left school at 14 and wrote to CEOs to ask for advice so it’s been written.
KP
It’s been an eventful weekend for you and I did wince when I saw the score earlier. The highs are high and lows are sewer level low but we love it, so it’s ok.
Emery will be looking for Pool to do Villa a favour. Spuds with no shots on goal will self destruct anyway and then we want Palace to take the points from manure.
Whole swathes of manufacturing were wiped out under Bliar and continued since so we can import cheap tat from China
Tony B and his monstrous ego would be pleased to hear that he alone was responsible but the demise of manufacturing in first world countries is really down to neoliberalism, the formation of trading blocks, and the untramelled movement of capital. Oh, and the irredeemable greed of people like Richard Branson, James Dyson and Lee Iacocca backed by their political agents. You know… TB, Thatcher, Reagan, Macron, Chirac and Merkel. The type of wankers who say ‘we’re all in this together’ or ‘you’ve never had it so good’. And it’s not even as if workers in these new manufacturing hubs are feeling any benefit.They’re just doing the same shitty under recognised work formerly done in the west.
It wasn’t socialism that brought about the demise of industry. It was your idols, all of whom are billionaires mate.
Vieira – I knew I could count on you for a pitch perfect summary of that nasty little amoeba.
Tony
Your opening comment on this stream about God giving us Jesus made me spit communion wine and bits of cream crackers all over myself.
Spurs going Spursy mate.. and some of us were so dumb hoping they could beat Man City lol
the Gakpo non-penalty speaks to the rich get richer narrative that’s an all too familiar refrain in the PL during the modern era…somehow Havertz is applauded by match commentators for his Oscar-worthy flop, yet Gakpo is admonished, as if he were a pox on the footballing landscape…I wonder if the same would be said if Pool had not lost form and cocked up their title chances??? btw the vastly cheaper Dutch tweener has contributed more goals and one less assist, while playing a 1000 less minutes, than Havertz…just saying
So the Spud’s are actually playing out a cunning plan they’re going to make City think they’re so useless they don’t bother turning up.
the fact that Klopp has his players finish on the front foot in a match when they had a considerable lead going into half speaks to one of my chief concerns about our present manager moving forward…now there are undoubtedly times when one must proceed in a more cautious manner, but one should never underestimate the value of having maangerial balls
another continuing concern is our tactics, surely it wouldn’t take a genius to understand that if you want to beat the best you can’t simply adopt a poor man’s version of them and hope that they cock things up time and time again…instead you scope the footballing landscape, making careful note of who’s had the most success against Pep, then do your very best to replicate or better their respective formula…with this in mind, Klopp has been abnormally successful against Pep, both here and in the Bundesliga…they’ve faced each other 28 times, with the former winning 11 of those encounters, whereas the latter only secured all 3 on 10 occasions…as such, why would you not pursue a similar course of action, especially knowing that we had a couple key requisite pieces already in the fold, in Saka and Marts
even if you take a wider view you will find that clubs like Real or lesser lights, such as Brentford or BHA, have found a way to disrupt City’s perceived dominance by countering with pace and numbers…even that seems out of the realm of possibility with MA at the helm…maybe it’s the fact that MA seems more Jose than Klopp-like that gets my goat, after all the former has found it exceedingly difficult to replicate his earlier successes with that MO in the modern game…fuck I hate when anyone turns a blind eye to the most commonsensical pathway to success
on the more positive side of things, I think our off-season business is relatively straight-forward, get a Strkier with goals in his boots, shore up our midfield, especially if Partey departs, then get someone with real pace on the edge so that we have some viable cover/competition…now this won’t be a cake-walk, especially with the Euros on tap and the fact that we will desperately need to shed some periphery pieces, but you would think that a consdierable amount of the legwork will have already been completed by season’s end…as I’ve said all along, we desperately need those kind of players who can take us forward in spite of our manager’s more conservative inklings against those sides that matter most…after all, we’re not going to reach the mountaintop by outmanaging the likes of Pep or Ancelotti, we’re going to reign supreme because we have bought the required horses
The Sp*ds may not get 4th but if they don’t put in a performance for their last three games they may be out of Europe. That means Levy will be pissed because he will loose money. I believe we lost the title because of Refereeing since the Newcastle goal should have never stood and the other PGMOL fuck ups should also factor in not having the points we should have had. Can’t see City dropping points as they are in top form.
here’s a couple of examples why context and the “eye test” matter:
(1) if one was to apply simply math when comparing Havertz and Jesus, the latter would presumably have scored roughly 16 goals and added some 16 assists by this juncture, if he were to have played the same amount of minutes as his Arsenal counterpart…at twice the minutes played, Havertz has 13 tallies and 6 assists…if you listened to the match commentators and/or read all the overhyped reviews, you would think that Kai was by far the superior performer…that said, from an eye test perspective neither have performed anywhere near the level one should logically expect from our highest paid players and as such we shouldn’t hesitate one iota to find a proper Striker replacement, regardless of what transpires between now and season’s end
(2) in the coming days you will invariably hear ample chatter about our 5th starting Keeper since MA’s arrival on the scene…this talk will be inspired by him being bestowed with the once-coveted Golden Gloves award…this was all but insured when Luton scored against Everton, thus making it mathematically impossible for Pickford to match Raya’s clean sheet tally…since it’s origins in 2004-05, the list of winners has included a veritable who’s who of the best Keepers in the business, Cech, Van der Sar, Reina, Courtois, Alisson, De Gea and Ederson, so one might be under the false impression that this award cements your place as the top Keeper League-wide and maybe beyond
in this particular case, Raya might not even be a top 10 shot-stopper in the PL, let alone a top 25 Keeper in world football…in fact, I might give more kudos to Pickford for even being part of the mix considering his piss-poor club, but then I remember he’s playing for a man who loves nothing more than desperately negative football, Mr. Sean Dyche…I know this is likely an anomaly, as some of the main contenders have missed chunks of time and others have had to endure some rather substantial backline transitions, but if this were to happen again the PL might want to have a bit of a rethink when it comes to the criteria they use to determine what some see as a “best” Keeper award…sadly it’s another avoidable loss for team eye test
TRVL
I had to read it twice that Raya was the golden glove contender this season. Sometimes awards get devalued by the level of ability on display albeit through injuries or an off season.
https://www.football365.com/news/feature-premier-league-keepers-ranked-2023-24-psxg
Who is the best keeper in the Premier League?
A good read by football365 and as set out below, Raya doesn’t match up.
Who is the best goalkeeper in the Premier League in 2023/24?
1) Emiliano Martínez (Aston Villa): +6.8. …
2) Jose Sa (Wolves): +5.8. …
3) Arijanet Muric (Burnley): +4.7. …
4) Andre Onana (Manchester United): +4.2. …
5) Jordan Pickford (Everton): +4.1. …
6) Alphonse Areola (West Ham): +4.0. …
7) Guglielmo Vicario (Tottenham): +2.7.
.
.
.
20) David Raya (Arsenal): -2.3
He will win the Golden Glove for most clean sheets but the truth is that he has not been kept busy at all.
Says it all really where Emi was always our best keeper and would have won us titles last and this season imho. Emi would have got use the points we needed imho.
Tony
Emi is a personality that some find annoying (El B for one). His heroics won El B a piece of silver and then was sold.
KP
Business billionaires and union execs are as bad as each other. In between feature the slimy politicians.
At present most of the global problems exist because there are too many people.
Norg
El B is a 24 carat cnut, but if he wins the PL & CL for us, he’ll still be a cnut to me for his disregarding way with people, he just be a winning cnut I will have to put up with.
I felt the same about Emi, but at least Emi had done his apprenticeship for 10 years behind the scenes with us, and was brilliant when we needed him to be, El B, too as you rightly pointed out.
Being from the East with all it’s mystique I do wonder if El B’s karma tank is like the Spud’s trophy cabinet: empty! Lady luck is also a main ingredient to being successful.
That being said, the players deserve their karma barring Havertz & White’s dark arts antics.
I’m of the honorable type that prefers to win without cheating or should I say visibly cheating. Wee get a pen for what White does in every game repeatedly. Havertz buys us a pen dragging his foot across the keepers ankle.
Be interesting to see if there are class B, dark art rule changes made for next season……
“Business billionaires and union execs are as bad as each other. In between feature the slimy politicians.
At present most of the global problems exist because there are too many people.”
Couldn’t agree with that more.
TRVL
Raya might win the Golden Gloves but he’s playing behind a very very good defence.
The last couple of matches he’s had moments where he looks like a headless chicken. He’s at best a marginal improvement on Ramsdale.
My guess is after paying a total outlay of £40 plus million for him we’ll be looking for another keeper in 2 – 3 years.
Marc
The pairing of Gabriel and Saliba is the strongest in the premiership. El B wanted Gabriel out (not one of his signings) but he could not justify the change. Saliba will be the one that leaves – his ambition is to play for RM. If we end up trophyless this season and do not win anything next he will then have 2 years left on his contract.
El B also wanted Saliba out but events led to his change of mind.
Norg
Arteta is someone who trips over positive outcomes rather than create them either that or does something so obvious (Rice’s signing) that the idea that it was a move by a genius is laughable.
All this Martinez revisionism. He’s a good keeper no question but he left us to treble his salary. No other reason. We ought to move on given in 2024 given Villa have won nothing yet.
If we’d offered the same salary he’s on now back in 2020 I have no doubt people would have lost their minds. Rightly so. I see the constant Wenger era legacy obsessing over wages. It was a good sale for us. Keeping him on the wages he wanted would have been foolish for a second choice
Sometimes with footballers, it’s just about money and no more complicated than that.
Tony, I also prefer winning without cheating. It looks like 10 or so years the league’s been won by cheats.
Aitcho
Longer if you add the Fergie years of having his way.
We will just have to agree to disagree with Emi, Aitcho. He has won nothing at Villa and precisely that same amount as Arteta since he’s left.
Just pointing it out for a friend.
Aitcho
Wages were not the issue – being Number 1 was. There was conflict between Manager and player – Emi is difficult and Unai has found him to be a ‘pest’ at times but has now full control and the player is happy.
We agree on Emi. He’s a good keeper. But his agent got him a deal at Villa that would have been foolish for us to match at the time. I’m not even sure we would have been in a position to do so but that’s me speculating. Covid, no live games, bank loans, sacking gunnersaurus.
We still had dross to clear, some on big contracts. I think where we disagree is making this personal between Emi and Tets. It was simply sound business for both parties. Neither ever expressed animosity towards each other.
It happens in football.
NORG, knowing what we know about footballers, I’m sure if we’d trebled his wages he’d have been more relaxed at staying and fighting for his place. But I can’t say for sure if moving to a relegation candidate to treble his salary was a factor in the move. It’s of note, no big teams came for him at the time. He wasn’t proven.
I’m not aware of any particular conflict although we know Emi can be a pest. And while Emi wanted to be no1, it would seem odd to move to a lesser team without some additional salary related sweetener
update from the facts desk…Emi makes 5 grand more per week than Ramsdale, who spends most of his days picking splinters out of his ass…this was about assurances and monopolizing the locker room…sadly, after Emi was ushered out, MA gave assurances like Oprah gave gifts to her former audience members…simply put, this was a case of a novice manager with poor man management skills and an inflated ego shipping out our best Keeper in decades for purely self-serving reasons, without care or concern for the greater good…since that time he has tried to rectify that situation by purchasing upwards of a half dozen failed replacements, in that not a single one was or are anywhere near as talented
BBC Sport’s chief football writer Phil McNulty has been answering your questions on all things Premier League.
Vijay asked: Arsenal missed out on the league last season due to a poor run of form. If they miss out again this year, is it just sheer bad luck due to Manchester City’s strength? In what areas do you think they should improve next year to win the league next season?
Phil answered: I think they have shown great improvement this season, with so many top-class individual campaigns from players like Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard.
If there was one area they really need to improve, I still think they need a high-class, reliable central striker. That could make a huge difference.
(please make note that there was no mention of Havertz, but a direct call, for the 3rd season running, to get bona fide Striker—clearly he hasn’t been convinced by the Artetite-inspired Havertz PR campaign)
Trvl.
I’ve not checked what Ramsdale is on. He wasn’t part of the squad when Emi left. A red herring.
In a nutshell,Arteta wasnt going to sign off making our no2 keeper at the time one of our highest earners. No matter how things panned out, nobody else apart from relegation fodder was biting our hands off for him. Villa was seen as his level back then and they weren’t special. Before Emery came in they were looking at a drop.
And Emi wasn’t going to a relegation bound team unless they made it worth his while financially. They did. A bumper increase only the desperate or stupid would match.
Hindsight is wonderful.but in 2020 nobody not a soul, was saying “mark my words, this guy will win a world cup and take previously relegation fodder teams into the top four”.
That’s what I mean by Emi revisionism. Tets management is neither here nor there. The only people complaining about that are wasters who we wanted and needed out anyway.
Tony.
Tets might be a xnut. Might not. I’m sure it’s often all a question of personal taste. I can’t think of anything particularly xunt’ish that he’s done. Sell Emi, sell Auba, Sell ozil?
Georgie Graham by all accounts was. And he ripped the club off. All the same he gave us 89 and that makes him a legend in my eyes regardless of how he treated Charlie N.
It’s team management, not a battle for the love of fans.
As you said, lady luck often plays a part in success, let’s hope we get some our way.
Trvl
Your 8th post in a row about Harvetz.
McNulty says “a high class reliable central striker could* make a difference”
Not quite the same energyas “if not for Harvetz they wouldn’t have come second to Man City”
Trvl, “I told you I was right about Havertz, see?”
Hilarious
You could just move on. Or try enjoying games instead of being some angry div on the Internet because you keep getting things wrong
Trvl
Let me let you into a not so secret piece of football wisdom;
A high class reliable central striker could make a difference to most teams.
No need to thank me. Pass it on next time you pretend to be a coach with strangers.
Haven’t you suffered enough in this one-sided battle of words…of course, a reliable central Striker would help most teams you sad, stunted fuck, but not all teams have either the financial wherewithal and/or the requisite landing spot appeal to pursue just such a player, whereas our manager has gone way out of his way to not get a readymade Striker with goals in his boots…please think twice before you enter the fray with your weak-ass nothing burger responses…sleep tight little guy
Aitcho
You have that pit bull way about; once latched on, won’t let go. It’s no doubt what has given you success in your life.
Emi is a “what if” we can’t be sure about, but I think most would agree that Emi would have made up the 5 points we lost the PL by last season. There is no conclusive evidence, of course, but when you consider the Ramsdale bloopers for last season and that Emi commands his box like the elite in his class.
Our GD was better with 43 vs City’s 33. Again is testament to Emi’s keeping ability.
It’s not a stretch to say Emi would have won us the PL last season. Look at the games we lost and drew and the manner in which we lost and drew is more important.
We can argue the point and throw facts at each other until the end of time, so, as I said it’s best to move on to more interesting POVs.
Aitcho, I assume you are in senior 2nd tier management or master of your own empire. Either way, you understand man management. If you feel El B’s man management is good with noting wrong, then I assume you work similarly in your own management fiefdom.
If it works for you, then good, but I’d hate to be in your employ.
My company employs 92 engineers and office staff most who have been with us for 15+ years and love their work and company to work for. Probably, nowhere near your company’s employees’ numbers, but our principle is clear, if you have a problem come to us with a solution and we can discuss. Did the same with my aerospace engineer daughter and junior now studying Mathematical sciences to be a robotic architecture engineer. They can think outside the box really well and are learning at improving their critical thinking all the time
We area happy company where we deem all of our employees of equal importance to have a voice as should be in horizontal management I help govt agencies change to in 1999 onwards. We welcome our employees to have voices if they have ideas to improve their work solo and in a team. We listen.
No one oversteps and everyone works together in harmony. We may the highest and give health care to employees and their immediate families.
That is how I’d like to see us run from top to bottom with a new manager of Klopp’s or Pep’s level/potential where good connections with ALL their players is good and healthy. You can’t help prima donnas like Salah who thinks he’s bigger than the club. There will always be the anomalies.
Not so with El B, but you seem to overlook.
Up to you, as we all have our own POVs, Aitcho, so again I’ll agree to disagree on this subject, and just say these names: ESR, Partey, Ozil (failed to make him work) Willian )played to death at other’s careers expense) and then buying 18 players of which 12 were crap and need moving on – leaving 6 good players.
Emi and Willock would have allowed us to spend out money more wisely. We still don’t have an 8.
El B has won nothing he’s the “nearly but not quite manager”
Why? Because he repeats his mistakes and as TRVL says trips over successes.
Time will tell who is right, Aitcho, not that it really matters as this is a blog or opinions and we all want to win the top trophies.
I just don’t see it with El B. Never have, so have been right for nearly five years as have the rest here at LIR. It’s a case where we hate being right, but don’t make excuses or turn the proverbial blind eye to El B as a person and manager.
If we win the PL this season, it’s because City failed not because we won; that’s the difference between El B and Pep.
AITCHO/Norg?TRVL
After palace got their just desserts last night at Palace as I thought they might but not by such a big such a big margin.
First, let me say I’d love Eze at 8/false 9. Have wanted him for 3 seasons now. It would make sense to have Elise as our 9. He has such a good understanding
I apologize to anyone who might have been affended by my choice of words in the above post…I could have gotten my point across without being so blunt…I guess I just felt it was less painful for all involved than posting a lengthy response where I systematically ripped every one of his blunt instrument arguments to shreds…my bad…I’ll do better next time
pay*
Aitcho
“In a nutshell,Arteta wasnt going to sign off making our no2 keeper at the time one of our highest earners”
Martinez is on £120,000 per week that’s not even close to one of our highest earners – Nketiah’s on £100k per week and isn’t even first choice backup.
Martinez leaving had zero to do with salary.
Marc, Eddie’s overpaid in my view although I’m not sure it’s just where the market is salarywise these days and it might just be me being an old man about things.
My simple point is that nobody else was going to stump up £120k a week in 2020 off the back of 10 or so games. He didn’t have the giants of the game beating down our door. Not to say he wouldn’t have made a difference last season. He may well have. But he’d have been a higher earner in 2020.
Calling what seemed a sensible move for all parties, except perhaps Villa, in 2020 a mistake in 2024 or even 2023 suggests revisionism.
I don’t take Aubas record since leaving us, both good and bad, as factor in why he should have stayed or left. He wasn’t right for us at the time and it was right he went. Emi was the same.
Same with Ozil. Willock, one I wasn’t sure about t the time brought in a nice fee and homegrown bonus and, on balance, probably wasn’t going to move us forward the way the options we have now. He’d have been a slight upgrade on Mo Elneny perhaps and itching for a pay increase. We can argue lots of “what ifs”, the obsessing with Willian obstructing Pepe’s development. Could we have got more out of Pepe?
Since those days of hit and miss, I think the recruitment has improved and the players we let go, bar Emi have done little to show those moves were wrong.
What we want to see is progress. We haven’t bought many duds and the last four windows have been upgrades on what we had. My needs are simple. I prefer improvements.
Maybe time to move on now. We’re not really all that far apart with our thinking in general terms.
Time to look forward now and what El B does next. Timber will prove to be an excellent buy as has Rice been. Let’s see what incomings we have, and hope we get rid of Zinchenko, Jesus, ESR (don’t want him to leave, but pointless just sitting on the bench. Might as well make room for another pet.
Havertz won’t be going anywhere so hopefully he’ll improve on this season and people will forget his price tag and wages.
Vieira, Lakonga and Tavareas, with Elneny all should be shown the door. We have better youth potential who probably won’t see many minutes anyway, so why keep them?
Surely next season has got to be shit or bust for Arteta?
Will the pressure get to him?
Ambarish
My details keep going blank even when the save box is checked.
By the time 2020 had arrived Emi had spent years on the books of one team. He was a good goalie and confidence and experience had improved. He stepped up when required and proved to be a valuable asset.
His demands were not way out of line as it included a sign on fee. He was eventually replaced with Ramsdale – sign on fee / purchase price £50M – salary £60K per week.
I know who I prefer – but hey what do I know.