We have been on a great run this year. I have never seen such a winning streak with score lines ending like it used to do in my college days playing FIFA all night. Crystal Palace 5-0, Liverpool 3-1, West Ham away 6-0, Burnley away 5-0, Newcastle 4-1 and Sheffield United away 6-0. Add 4 clean sheets to this to make it even better. We have this habit of downplaying our own achievements and to give extra credit when someone else does it. Credit where it’s due, Mikel and that Dubai trip has somehow motivated the team to score, and score a lot. It doesn’t take away the fact that we need a CF but at least it’s not costing us as of now.
The title race is ON
It’s getting tough at the top. The gods are giving Klopp and Liverpool some luck since he announced his departure, Pep and City are world champions and they intend to keep it that way, and Mikel and team are trying to prove the last season’s fall is not a pattern.
If you don’t put much effort in calculating all the permutations and combinations like me lazy arse, there are 11 games and whoever wins the most of it will walk away with title. The two most important games of this season will be played in this month
Liverpool v Man City – March 10th
Man City v Arsenal – March 31st
Man City has twice the probability to go behind, and whoever beats Pep will have a better chance of winning. Rest of the games are almost against similar opponents for all three teams.
Our mantra would be, win the winnable ones and give it all on 31st March. Mikel has to beat Pep, to win… – the beauty of football but only if, he does it.
Arsenal v Brentford – Match Day
We are playing Brentford tomorrow. We always have suffered against them and it’s going to be a physical, counter attacking game from them. Mikel knows this and acknowledged it in the pre-match conference.
Every point that we left, or we left this season hurts, and that’s still there. We have a lot to play for, the difficulty of the match is always really tough. We’ve played them twice already and we suffered, we always suffer against Brentford. On Saturday I expect a really similar match.
source: Arsenal.com
Well, we expect a different result though. Nothing less than a WIN because when anyone of the City or Pool loses, we need to go to the second place. We can go top if it’s a draw.
In the team news, almost everyone’s fit and available. It’s good to see Partey back because inclusion of Jorginho has allowed Declan to play in an advance position and Thomas can do a better job than Jorginho. Saka and Martinelli took a very small injury in the last game but will most likely be available for the game. Tomiyasu remains a doubt, Fabio got back in the playing XI against Sheffield and our academy product in Emile, Nelson and Eddie are fit as well.
Expectation? A win. You don’t win titles just by beating the top 6. You need to remain consistence against all 19 you play and we have seen last season how much it can cost. I hope the players see a trophy in front of them and they keep playing like they have been in last couple of months. It’s just a matter of 11 weeks and your name would be in history.
Winning against two of the best managers in the world is going to make it even sweeter. It’s in our hand.
Right, that’s all for today. Almost weekend now, and hope it’s get better tomorrow with a win and both the City and Liverpool dropping points.
looks like Marts was more injured than first thought, as he’s not even on the bench…no Jesus again, with MA’s bestie up top, and Kiwior will start on the left, even though Zinchenko is available for selection…I would have liked to see Partey get the start along side Rice, but Jorginho is in the starting 11 once more…we should still win this quite easily, I should think, but some of the concerns I raised last evening could rear their ugly heads if Brentford comes to play today
*I would have liked to have seen
good throw by Ramsdale…too bad Tross doesn’t have the pace of Marts…god only knows what Havertz was doing on that play
Arsenal is playing with lot of confidence ,(ok, after all Brentford without entire starting back 4). Also passing is crisp and with a purpose totally out of sync with the ‘ process we seen last 3 years. As someone said before ,it appears that Dubai with El B occupied with Salt Bae infantilism ,the players were free to develop their own strategy.
For 3 years we seen the ” process” consistently so this new winning style is alien to El B style of thinking. A leopard does not change his spots
1-0 Rice
good on Rice for coming in the backside a little late, as that will be crucial with the defence shifting to Saka’s side of the pitch
Hoopah—oft-times we’ve looked the part against inferior sides, especially those who’ve functionally capitulated from the opening whistle, but that certainly can still help from a confidence standpoint, so long as we show the same intent against tougher competition…just like Strikers hoping to be considered within the ranks of the world’s best, they can pad their stats against the bottom-feeders, but they must provide similar type performances against the better sides to even enter the conversation…we’re still on the outside looking in, but if we can shore up a few positional shortcomings, we could be on the cusp of greatness
Hoopah—like I said, positional shortcomings…imagine our luck that even after wasting 120+M on both Jesus and Havertz, who’s shockingly poor in front of goal, plus Eddies’s ridiculous wages, that we’ve found a way to still be in the title mix…this simply has to be corrected in the off-season
I like Tross attempting a shot from distance, as we need to keep defences honest…if they believe we might attempt such a thing, someone might come forward and open up the space in behind
Havertz is such a blunt instrument…where the fuck is that touch he displayed in his youth???
RVL
We are seeing Havertz inability to get the barn door or the goal posts too many times.
But guess El B likes the albatross for the meat maybe
Brentford are swimming in it now, but we need to make more of our chances so as to snuff out some of their lingering hope before any adjustments can be made at half
I think we know now why Ramsdale is not getting chances. He has all the chances in the world and he still messed up 1-0 lead.
Shittttt
But to be fair to Ramsdale that ball should not have been passed back
Hoopah-can’t even imagine how Jesus feels knowing that such a bag of toys has replaced him on the pitch…talk about deflating
maybe Ramsdale’s rusty…although that seems almost unthinkable considering MA’s love of rotating Keepers at times
Arunnar Ramunarsson.
It’s not like MA has picked him unless he had no choice in the matter, which must be tough on a cold backup…both Raya and Ramsdale have that sort of brain fart in them, but the former hasn’t had to pay quite so dearly for such mistakes
Raya cannot play , being still a Brentford player on lian to Arsenay.
But yesterday El B gave his sound bytes likely to wind up Ramsdale
3 back passes with seconds left in the half and the ball ends up with der koncentrationmeister himself.
Anger would depend on how it ends. Ramsdale would be praying we score couple more because at this stage, you can’t afford a fuck up as a player.
And yes, I can’t understand this infatuations with the back passes when hardly 30sec left on the clock. Old habit die hard may be!