Well, it’s going to be a tough day.
Southampton didn’t do us a favour and allowed Manchester City to bring the point difference to 5 points. We are visiting Anfield, one of the worst place to play at. Klopp, in his previous game against City, benched Salah, Trent, Robertson and Gakpo; four players who are well rested and eager to prove a point today!? Worst of all, Liverpool are sitting at 8th, and are in a battle of Champions League spot. They are wounded and Klopp with all this negative press against him will be eager to prove the doubters wrong.
But hey, we have one of the best teams on the planet currently, playing some wonderful football and on any given day, we can cause trouble to any team. It’s a title race for us, much important than what Liverpool’ is playing for. Arteta and the players wouldn’t have forgotten the embarrassment from our last visit and Martinelli is going to cause havoc today. And we have Trossard, who scored a hat-trick against Liverpool with Brighton, so you never know.
Saka is back from the illness which didn’t allow him to start against Leeds last week. We still have doubts about Eddie Nketiah and William Saliba, Arteta refused to provide any specific details about their injuries, it could be either tactical or the situation hasn’t improved yet. I don’t care about the Pool’s players.
It’s going to a battle of the midfield. We were stronger defensively if Saliba was available but then VVD is doubtful too, which makes it even. Our front three is better than them, though Salah is world class and has knack of scoring against us. We have a functioning midfield in Odegaard, Partey and Xhaka and if they play to their forms today, we could come up with a point at minimum from Anfield. I want to see us winning though, we haven’t won in our last 7 visits and we need to change it. TODAY.
Right, so what are we excited for? We are top of the league. Bukayo is back and he loves to score / assist against top 6. Gabriel Jesus is back and scored couple goals. Ben White is playing some delicious football, Gabriel is a monster and Zinchenko is a nuisance for any manager. Partey is our dark horse, no non-sense football, don’t care about limelight and don’t need the praises – just let me do my work and go back to sleep. Xhaka made me eat a humble pie, I hope he makes the size of that pie a bit bigger today. Our captain is in form, Martinelli will eat Trent for breakfast. Only concern for us is Holding v Nunez. If Holding can keep it calm today, we are winning guys.
I don’t see much changes with Jesus starting at top with Martinelli and Saka on the wings. A midfield of Partey, Odegaard and Xhaka will do. Ben at RB, Gabriel and Holding pairing for CB and Zinchenko at LB.
We have a strong bench of Trossard, Vieira, Tierney, Nelson. Tired legs will be replaced but that’s all on the game progress. I see us stealing a 0-1 win today, breaking the Anfield curse and reaching a bit closer the trophy.
See you during the game. #COYG
Marc-such is the life of the Kool-Aid crew, no matter what transpires they will inevitably find a positive managerial spin…when you put the handbrakes on your top talent it’s akin to drivng a Lambo in first gear through the park, they just weren’t made for that shit…I’m frankly surprised that MA didn’t replace Jesus with Tierney, then play him as a false 9
no matter how you slice it Pool was ripe for the plucking until MA’s preferred captain went full bull in a china shop mode, which in turn woke up the opposition and their juiced up fans, then our manager’s teeny tiny balls crawled back up into his belly…all you have to do is look at the stat lines following this defining moment and it will be difficult for anyone with even a modicum of sense to argue otherwise
sorry I meant to say quivering belly
TRVL
The worry is the greater the pressure gets as we get closer to the end of the season the more Arteta will revert to form, go massively negative and repeat his annual collapse. He won’t miss out on CL this time but next season when things are far more competitive he’ll be lucky to finish top 5.
The fan boys will be preparing their excuses for next season in mid May.
Marc-like yourself I worry that we might need the jaws of life to retrieve his now deeply-embedded onions…in the meantime, we’re left in the fetal position hoping desperately that someone else does us a solid so that we don’t have to watch our manager soiling himself again…I will say that leaving with a point was infinitely better than heading home with jack-squat, but even if we end up tied we’re still shit out of luck, unless things change significantly between now and season’s end
Feeling a bit deflated after drawing once we were up by 2 goals, but it is not a disaster. This is an interesting statistic from MOTD, before Xhaka’s booking Pool had 4 shots, 0 on target with 52% possession. After the booking Pool had 17 shots, 6 on target with 63% possession. Ian Wright maintains that this is how Xhaka plays most likely even in his own garden. Ian said he is happy with a point at Anfield. So the problems that remains in the schedule are the two games left at City and Newcastle. Hopefully the CL game against Bayern will do a number on City and a draw or a win for us against City will for me most likely seal the deal if we win the remaining games and if City slip up we can slip up against Newcastle.
However in the summer TW we do need to address the midfield cover especially since we will play CL next season. Ideally we will also cover right back and a new contract to Saliba. On my wish list an elite striker either developed now or one that has the potential of being world class, Balagun anyone?
One final thought if we finish 2nd we will have a very tough draw for next season’s CL as we will end in Pot 3 or 4, If we win the league we are in Pot 1.
today was all about nuance and context…for starters, in the lead-up to the match I made no bones about the fact that I was expecting a tie but feared the worst…knowing this one might logically wonder why all the bluster if the better of the two anticipated results was ultimately achieved…to which I would reply, context matters…I certainly never expected that we would find ourselves 2 up at Anfield in the simplest of fashions, considering our absolutely putrid record at this particular venue over the last decade or so…I likewise never thought that, if we played our cards right, we could have seemingly doubled that scoreline with little to no resistance, considering what was on offer up to the point of our second tally…in light of these easily observable contextual changes, my expectations naturally grew exponentially…for all intent and purposes it appeared as if the proverbial tables had turned and the young grasshoppers were about to “Billy Jack” our longtime road nemesis…so what exactly happened that ultimately saw us slinking out of town with an undeserved tie
in the first 40+ minutes it almost appeared as if the home team was sleepwalking, which was an all-too-familiar refrain for this rather inconsistent bunch, then for some inexplicable reason everyone’s not-so-favourite drunk uncle showed up and took a dump on floor…now if this was a chippy affair or those within the opposition ranks were wantonly targeting our young guns, a reaction of some form or fashion might have been warranted, but that wasn’t the case whatsoever…instead the Pool on this day, at least early on, seemed disjointed and somewhat lethargic, so letting those rather sleepy dogs lie was just what the doctor ordered…the fact that MA’s de facto small “c” captain decided this was somehow, someway the perfect time to unleash his inner-Barton, forever changing the complexion of this match
now I’m not so naive as to believe that we weren’t going to have to face some sort of opposition push, I just think that without the unnecessary clownish antics of one Granit Xhaka, this might not have come until much later, by which time we could have been 3 or 4 up…instead within two minutes of said hijinks a newly energized Pool side had cut the lead in half, which in turn focused the ire of the12th man squarely in our direction…thankfully we made it to half without any further blemishes, but it’s clear by that juncture if we didn’t make the right tactical tweaks we could find ourselves heading home in less than an hour with nothing but regrets
now if I were MA I would have reinforced the notion that, until Xhaka’s brain-fart, this Pool side couldn’t handle our full court press and as such we should have gone into full-bore reset mode by leaning into what had worked in the first-half…in fact, I would have even subbed out Xhaka for Trossard, to both inject confidence, following the recent shift in the balance of play, and to reinforce his supposed commitment to player accountability, which seems to apply to everyone except you know who…instead they came out feigning offensive interest, then started to turtle at the first sign of trouble, which unfortunately came almost immediately when a penalty was awarded in the 54th minute
now Salah might have been unsuccessful in his attempt to tie things up from the spot, but it nonetheless served one very crucial purpose, it scared the living shit out of our already fragile manager…almost immediately MA et al started to encourage players to come deeper and employ time-wasting tactics, yet no subs were forthcoming…it wasn’t until after Pool had made subs in both the 60th and 78th minutes that MA finally turned to his bench and when he did the choices he made were rather baffling, as they made us no better at either end of the pitch
in the end, the seemingly inevitable happened, we eventually captiulated after adopting a relegation zone tactical approach for the vast majority of the second half, a match btw that we controlled rather handily until the last few minutes of the first-half…now I might have been able to accept just such a scoreline if we battled from start to finish, putting on our best foot forward, but that simply wasn’t the case…what made this match an even-steven affair, a scoreline which btw actually flattered us, was a moment of abject stupidity, by someone who should know better, and the continued inactivity of our manager, who just doesn’t seem to know what to do when the going gets tough…Cheers
Morning all
Arteta blew it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Arteta is reported to have said in his presser: a draws a fair result. What game did he watch because the one junior and I watched, L’pool adopted their siege mentality keeping us defending for our lives.
Another Rookie mistake with team selection playing Xhaka. How did Arteta not miss Ode and Saka being surrounded by tag-teaming Pool players? Why not take off Xhaka and put ESR on and even the players to 11 aside, because Xhaka was clearly a passenger for most of the game, as it passed him by. At the very least add to the right side so our attacks aren’t one-sided predictable. Pool just overloaded the left, and Saka had to go looking for the ball without support from Ode, Trossard and White he’s used to helping him out of tight spots.
What did Arteta do? Take Ode off instead of giving his markers someone else to have to think about, such as ESR or Trossard (again) and thus freeing Ode to be more creative. The game was too fast for Jorginho as it was Xhaka.
My comment at half time was Arteta needs to really earn his corn to get a big 2nd half out of the our disheveled players. Klopp’s message was clear they were going to win and played as if they believed they could. In fairness to the game L’pool could have won by 4 or 5 had it not been Ramsdale pulling a ‘De Gea’ worldy game to salvage a point for our rudderless dismal outfield players.
Where did the total belief go we had at 0:2?
How did it evaporate so quickly?
What should the hapless Arteta have done?
Why wasn’t Fabinho man marked?
Why did Xhaka play and play the full 90+ when it was clear he was a passenger?
Why didn’t Trossard play instead of Xhaka being our best player of late?
Why when we went 2:1 why din’t Arteta change to a 352 and play on the counter?
Arteta is a serial bottler as a player and now as a manger. L’pool were there for the taking as our 2-goal lead proved, but once again around 38 minutes we started to lose our composure and assuredness and defending deeper.
Arteta looked as lost as our players did looking to Arteta for an answer, especially at half time. What did Arteta do? An elongated session of rubbing hands visualizing a win? Whatever he said, it didn’t work: period!
What is it with Arteta’s in-game management or the supreme loss of it? The idea of a sub is to change the game if only by fresh legs chasing tired legs. Moreover, a sub is used tactically to either stop attacks or be very much part of ours, such as Nelson at Bournemouth.
Yesterday our subs were made out of desperation, as Arteta had no answer to Liverpool’s juggernaut raining fire relentlessly at Ramsdale.
The last 8 minutes off the first half and the whole of the 2nd half was a defense against attack Liverpool training ground practice where L’pool enjoyed a siege mentality adding to their game, wave after wave. Their reward was 2 goals, a missed penalty and where our deep block kept Pool down to 6 shots (21 in total) on target bringing out 4 unbelievable saves from Ramsdale & 2 goals.
Whereas we had 5 shots (9 in total) on target with 2 resulting in goals. Pool’s expected goals at 3.96 as opposed to our 1.41: worlds apart.
At the end of the day Arteta blew it and blew it big time and back to his rookie best. Arteta can’t really have a plan B because he doesn’t trust his subs – having more faith in Xhaka – let that sink in. Arteta can’t or won’t admit he’s made the same mistake as last season with a mismatched, bare bones squad.
If Arteta can’t get 3 points from an indifferent Liverpool, how do we get 3 points from a rampant City currently putting every team to the sword of late with consummate ease, at the Etihad?
8 games to go, and to at least put a worthy title challenge to at least prove we got close. I honestly, hand on heart, can’t see us beating City, although it’s how we bounce back from this points loss that matters now, because that’s what is was: Liverpool were there for the taking and Arteta bottled it.
I do believe we can win 7 from out 8 remaining games if we suffer no further injuries to key players.
Whether City drop points in their run in remains to be seen, but highly unlikely considering their current form and level of opposition.
Next season is going to be a whole different kettle of fish with increasingly better managers coming to the PL working a busy summer TW.
At this moment, I’d happily swap Arteta for De Zerbi who is far more tactically astute than Arteta where his teams play the beautiful game well and De Zerbi knows how to get the best from his players.
Finally, did anyone recognise our decline in fitness after 65 minutes. Our counter attacks ran on fumes and tired legs; had we had fresher legs on, we might have won. Another tell tale sign our squad is too thin for such intensity in each game.
Ambarish – Good to see the blog being lively yesterday, the signs are good for the future if we can keep the main posts current.
KP, Marc, TRVL, Kilroy & others?
With Ambarish can we keep 3 new main posts over 7 days to help increase traffic?
TRVL- Just adding above to your post game thoughts. The dreams are over so we’re just back to being left with hope City fails.
Same as last season.
And finally, today’s top of the irony tree is sitting Pedro who spent 10+ years trying to get Wenger kicked out only to be claiming CL football for next season is our trophy.
You just couldn’t make it up. 🙂
Hi Tony
Despite what Bob thinks, once you understand Pedro’s burning desire to be an insider at the club (some fucking ego on the boy to even imagine they’d welcome him in), his so-called thoughts become wholly predictable like Kroenke talking points. He’s bound to become the ‘top four is a trophy’ kind of twat because he imagines that’s what the club wants him to say in order to continue the Tetaflufferthon (glad I only had to type that and not say it) . They’ll be putting an identical narrative in the club official programme before the next home game too. He’s desperate to garner this image as a slightly edgy creative eccentric inside the (club) tent pissing outwards. But in reality (and stretching the metaphor as far as I can) he’s actually only soiling his pressed chinos and fashionably scuffed hush puppies!
Bob – if you’re reading mate. We didn’t always see eye to eye but you and I used to have some humorous, lively discussions on the darkside aka LG til pompous Pedro banned me. We also hail from the same part of N London (Highbury Grange/Stokey) and probably rubbed shoulders in our E based meanderings in the Cross and Bagley’s back in the day. Give it a Gooner go over here. Pluralism, laughs and nostalgia mixed in with forthright but not offensive opinions and a notable absence of stroller type fuddyduddyness. And no Nouveau Rich and his uneducated boring cant. Plus the average IQ is 30 points higher among all posters except for people like Tom and WE and some others. The exact antithesis of the daily roll call on HMS Tufnell and the ship of doom. Fence sitting and occasional pedantry equally welcome!
My thoughts today are turning back to Cardiff and les oiseaux bleus for their home game against Sunderland. I can’t face the drive so will get the prayer out and genuflect.
Brilliantly put, KP.
Tony
If, like me, you’re trying to put yesterday’s game to the back of your mind, here’s the remedy…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_y2u9l5nIU
I really got into Brazilian bossa nova and general pop music when I was there. You can tell Gilberto and his mate playing percussion are having a really nice time. I’ve always assumed that there are two mega spliffs (camberwell carrots or copacabana carrots) just outside the shot. Brazilian music’s answers to Jesus and Martinelli. Enjoy!
Never been south of Mexico but I can imagine Brazil has much magic to offer and great music.
Writing the post this morning cleared the Arteta cobwebs making way for realisation that we knew as soon as Xhaka was starting. The game had only one conclusion and that was chaos because that’s what Xhaka brings: much chaos and little else.
I also like African rhythms where Hugh Meskala plays a sweet trumpet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mg7TFLDl8pY&list=RDEMGql9Hct3XQInzgXPj5uPxQ&start_radio=1&rv=_Vskq0LueWs
KP Give this a watch for probably the best African drummer of all time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkUzHu4KrxY
Tony
“And finally, today’s top of the irony tree is sitting Pedro who spent 10+ years trying to get Wenger kicked out only to be claiming CL football for next season is our trophy.”
OK let’s give Arteta the benefit of the doubt and assume we finish second. Right getting back in the CL is a step in the right direction but what’s the target for next season? Everyone agrees next season will be tougher – ManU will be better, at least one of Liverpool or Chelsea will be much better, Newcastle are moving in the right direction and with money spent in the summer will be in contention for top 4 again and City aren’t going anywhere by the looks of things.
So what happens if Arteta takes a backwards step and finishes 3rd or 4th? Does he deserve the sack if he misses out on top 4?
KP-your 8:39 post was wonderfully expressed, as you managed to intelligently summarize many of my innermost thoughts regarding the King of Fluffer Mountain in a fraction of the time I would normally require…Cheers
TRVL
Sometimes it just flows doesn’t it? I get a great deal from reading your stuff too. You know a lot more about football than I. I’m well and truly stuck in an Arsenal/Cardiff bubble these days.