Here we go. The big one. The Europa League final. The success of our season rides on this one game. Win, and it’s fancy players and the hope we can move up a level next season. Lose, we watch a Europa League manager do his thing on a budget all summer long. Those cold sweat Banega/Nzonzi/Gameiro nightmares will become Freddy Krueger levels of reality.
One of the biggest selection questions we have this evening is whether Petr Cech plays, the manager seems to be leaning in an uncomfortable direction.
“I respect him a lot. His career is amazing. First, like a person and second like a professional goalkeeper, I think he deserved us to trust in him. Not because I am saying to you here, but because his career says to us that he is a gentleman. Tomorrow he can start or cannot start. I am going to decide. But both for him is done with respect. Really, I think how can we not believe in him?”
I love a romantic story and I love Petr Cech. The greatest goalkeeper in Premier League history. He was such an outrageous pro back in the day. Literally a brick wall.
… but this is elite sport. Fine margins. 2% here or there. The reality of Cech is he’s our second best goalkeeper. The second reality is that he’s pretty much nailed on to be Chelsea’s new Sporting Director. There is no line of business that involves proper money and talent that would allow him to lead or present if he were already committed to someone else. It’s called gardening leave my darlings.
The manager kind of hinted the final choice wasn’t cut and shut.
‘I want to do something important with him in the last moment of his career – and this has been my conversation with him, playing or not playing. We want to win for us.’
There is no longer a decision to be made. Sentimentality didn’t win us the 2008 league cup final. We are not obligated to provide a romantic end to his illustrious career. If there is something nice to be done, buy a gold watch or get a banging Cookie Cake from Lakeside. Don’t risk the future of our club on someone that’s retiring to the enemy.
Football is the Serengeti, no one cares how many antelope you mauled, no one gives a fuck about the cubs you fathered… when push comes to shove, Scar is always going to be there, ready to shove you off the cliff into the abyss. Hakuna Matata is for meerkats, songful wild boar, and cucks… NOT KINGS OF THE FUCKING EAST AFRICAN PLAINS.
(Auba is west Africa, but my sources say he’d easily be adult SIMBA if he was part of my metaphorical east African Disney metaphor for ElITE football)
If Emery plays Leno and he rolls the ball into his own net, no one will blame him for playing one of the players of the season, and arguably, one of the best keepers in the league. Play Cech and lose, mistake or no mistake, people are going to gun for the manager. Cech’s very selection would be a black mark against Emery’s decision making and backbone.
Also worth noting that Cech slated the low-pressure environment at Arsenal.
“I completely disagree with people who say, ‘When you pressure comes, [you don’t win]’. No. I think we lose points where there is not enough pressure. So, we went to Everton [on April 7]. You know you win, you go third… you lose, you stay fourth. We lost. That week with Wolves [losing at Molineux, either side of defeats to Crystal Palace and Leicester], it was the same situation.
“There was always a cushion, there was always, ‘It is not such a disaster’. We should probably create more pressure on everybody because that would give people more to think about.
I agree with the above. Unai should show him what a high-pressure environment looks like because the above can’t all be on Wenger. Make no mistake, you can change a culture in a year. We need a strong call. Our new man needs to show his teeth, just like his heroes Pep, Simeone, and Jose would do.
They’d all pick Leno, no doubt.
I thought it was slightly odd for Emery to be talking about how he mismanaged Aaron Ramsey’s fitness (what did I tell you?), but whatever. We need to stop dissecting the issue and move on. We didn’t want to pay the money he was after, so we yanked the deal, let’s accept the consequences like adults and hope there’s a good plan to replace.
Chelsea news is looking spectacularly shite for them. Hudson-Odoi is injured, can you believe it, I even wrote about it a month ago, what a fucking dunce I am.
Total banter is Sarri seems to be having a meltdown about his future.
“For me, at the beginning of the season, it was really very difficult to understand my players, to understand the mentality. But, after a very difficult month in January, in February they started to change. Or probably I changed, I don’t know. In this moment I love them because I have 20-22 wonderful men and wonderful players. So now I’m really very happy with them. I have to consider the future. And I have to consider that I love English football, I love the Premier League.”
Hahahahah!
Very good. He also threw a tantrum at the end of his final session.
Sarri is understood to have been unhappy that the team’s final training session was open to observers, as per Uefa’s stipulation. A Chelseaspokesman said: “Maurizio’s frustration displayed at the end of training was not related to any of his players, but was due to not being able to practise set-plays in the final 15 minutes of the hour-long training session as it remained open to media.”
There was presumably exasperation, too, that N’Golo Kanté had been limited to around half an hour of gentle running with a physio. The knee injury picked up at Cobham on Saturday is likely to see him start the final on the bench at best. The midfielder spoke at length with the medical director, Paco Biosca, on the pitch before going inside for further treatment. Sarri had earlier rated his involvement as “50-50”.
This is either unreal mind games, or he’s just pissed the club will sack him if it goes badly tonight. The Kante news for me feels pretty real, he’s injured. Bench him and it’s bad news for them, start him and there’s a huge risk of doubling down on his injury (literally what Emery said happened with Aaron). Sure, he’s not playing his best position, but he’s still a World Cup winner they don’t have on the pitch.
This game is going to be huge. We have two of the most potent strikers in world football to feed. We have one of the greatest creators the game has ever seen, hoping to show that he cares. Laurent Koscielny, a great servant of the club, is likely manning his last ever major final for Arsenal as captain (god help us if we go super-cuck and give it to Petr). LT looks fit and raring. Someone has the chance to be a hero against Hazard. Unai Emery has the opportunity to take his season from ‘meh’ to, ‘ohhhh, maybe?’
If Arsenal approach this game like we did the Spurs match in December, we’ll be a huge problem for Sarri. If we head into this game thinking Emery’s success in the tournament somehow gives us a divine right to win, we’re fucked.
Regardless of your confidence, Chelsea are the better side.
… but this is a cup game. Last time we played Chelsea in a cup final we KNEW we’d lose, we dropped an absolute classic of a game, and won like heroes.
We need some of that magic tomorrow.
This game is monumental for our future, our reputation, and our pride.
COME ON ARSENAL, MAKE US PROUD!
See you in the comments x
❤️ “Hi boys, I am thinking of you. An amazing game is coming. I want to wish you all the best for the game – and bring the trophy home please!
“Come on boys, I miss you my friends!”
🥰 @19SCazorla is going to be right behind us tomorrow night
🏆 #UELfinal pic.twitter.com/Q0ALpFUO95
— Arsenal FC (@Arsenal) May 28, 2019
Cesc Appeal
You have to pay good wages to get good players.
Theres no way around it.
If Reiss Nelson scores 14 and assists 12 next season, he will be asking for £100k per week.
We arent going to catch our rivals by paying far less than them.
Credible should read “credible”
PSG had tried the previous year to get Neymar and failed the negotiation with Barcelona.
It took them a year to negotiate with the Neymar clan to get everything sorted from their point of view. Once Neymar had agreed and PSG was willing to pay his release clause, then the deal went ahead.
Some deals take place very quickly, some it take one year.
When Ronaldo left for Real Madrid, everything had already been agreed a year before.
Azed
“What do you have to say about Willock showing more in 15 minutes than Ozil showed in 75?”
Fantastic to see a young player play with such confidence , makes you wonder why the manager has ignored such a fine young player ….Saka will be next in line if Emery has the bottle to use him.
I recall when Pierre was bleating with every post when Ozil was locked out of the squad.
The manager took a chance on the very player Pierre has insisted is the “creative player” in the team for our biggest game of the season…yet it it still Emery’s fault.
Pierre
When is it going t dawn on you that Ozil is a semi retired has-been player.
Do we have to jab your butt with a swordfish to wake you up to reality?
Arsenal have not competed for a title since 2004! Cash injection will remedy this massive failure.
We are in kind of a Catch-22 situation, and all the various solutions offered up seem to have flaws or are in some way deficient. Change manager? No guarantee or even much prospect of credible improvement given a shitshow of an unbalanced squad. Reshape squad? No money available to do it properly, no proper structure in place to source and attract young players, hard to get rid of complacent players on exorbitant wages. Project Youth 2.0? U-23 players deemed to be too shit/inexperienced to credibly Improve squad. Owner cash injection? Delusional to expect it, given past experience and the mantra… Read more »
I don’t think that Xavier Amaechi is ready for first team action.
My point is that why put him on the bench at all.
If Emery genuinely believe he is ready, then he should have been integrated before, not put on the bench on the biggest game of the season.
There were players who may not be as good as him in the future but could have been more likely to enter the fray if we have had an injury.
Willock is a pillock.
A new owner with a big wallet will get Arsrnal back to winning ways.
Is Pedro waiting until we reach 2000 posts before unleashing hell ?
Can’t stop thinking about Cech’s “No Pressure” comments, defines situation club is in pretty succinctly.
No consequence from Emery on down.
If there was ever a moment for owners to jump in and take a more active role this is it. As it stands we’ve got Raul and Unai building for the next 5 years in this summers window, doesn’t fill one with optimism.
Words
That’s the issue and ultimately there’s no quick fix. That means the club has to be smart in the business it conducts both in and out and the fans have to be patient.
I can only see this happening in incremental steps.
Pedro gonna drop a fire post ala Eminem dropped fire
Dissenter WOAB I would wait and see on that then. I’d imagine we put Guendouzi on a 4 or 5 year contract and so by Sanllehi’s own rule we would start negotiating with him at the end of next season, not now. Gambon Not arguing that. If Nelson got those kinds of numbers for us next season we would have to offer him something big. What I’m arguing against is signing some young prospect like say Saliba, and a situation where most clubs (Spurs, Liverpool etc) would offer him £60 000 a week and we’re in a position of having… Read more »
Pierre trying use 15 m of garbage time when Chelsea was already half drunk on champagne to judge a performance of Willock and rip emery.
Haha oh Pierre. You are a special one.
Maybe you’re right Pierre. Ozil shouldn’t have even been on the bench and willock should have started over ozil. The biggest waste Of space at arsenal since well wenger.
Oh and it was 3 individual mistakes that led directly to 3 goals. All
Made by AMN.
Torreira is still a far better bet than Xhaka as a long-term investment. He has struggled to influence games in recent months but when put in difficult situations or spots he still deals with them far more adroitly than Xhaka and those are the players we need long term. He showed when partnered with Ramsey against Napoli as well he is adaptable and has layers to his game. One of those players when the adage ‘give him time’ applies to a tee. We may have too many physically compromised, gormless footballers. Xhaka is top of the list both departments, and… Read more »
“My point is that why put him on the bench at all.”
Because UEFA allows you to name up to 12 players on the bench. Why leave a young player at home when he can travel and train with the team?
Sal
“Can’t stop thinking about Cech’s “No Pressure” comments, defines situation club is in pretty succinctly.”
I think Cech forgot to mention the money piece at Chelsea.
Abrahmovich ran the club for perfection with no care for losses
The Kroenke aren’t going to jump in because they know they won’t be spending the money required to fix the problems. The pressure-less chamber is part of Arsenal tradition. It’s part of why Highbury was library and we hardly ever change managers.
A manager can change the culture pretty quickly. You impose better time keeping for every players. You create a meritocracy and true competition. During the last year’s at Arsenal, some players knew that was not the case. No pressure to succeed. But you can only do that if you are sure of what you are trying to achieve and are able to communicate that to players. If you don’t have a plan or revert back to the previous setup when the going gets tough, you’re dead. Players are like animals, if they smell fear and doubt, they will use that… Read more »
What would be hilarious and fitting would be if Pedro simply didn’t post, and this match marked the end of LeGrove. The end of the Arsenal rising story.
Only a huge cash injection will halt this losing streak of not competing.
“Great advert for contraception.”
Now this was funny
Valentin Amaechi didn’t actually make it to the bench, he was replaced by the goal keeper iliev or whatever , besides even you could have made it to the bench yesterday considering the number of subs allowed to be named
@azed,
I have checked and in the end Amaechi was not even on the bench, Iliev was.
So we had two goal keepers on the bench but no U21 right back.
That looks like nothing was properly planned.
A
L
L
E
G
R
I
….
No idea why he would come here though 😂😂
Offer him immortality??
“Players are like animals”
No need for insults
I know English isn’t Emery’s first language but he must be able to say more than ‘process’ or ‘in our way’.
Ishola70 Sorry that I did not reply to your earlier post at 12.04, but I have just returned from a very enjoyable pub lunch with friends. Fortunately they are not football fans, although since I returned home I was greeted by two fans who are respectively Liverpool and Spurs supporters not an enjoyable experience!!! I do not disagree with the point you make about how our midfield are playing. The problem which I made earlier today is that in absence of Ramsey our midfield creativity and offensive play is limited. Ozil is no longer effective and both Xhaka and Torreira… Read more »
“I know English isn’t Emery’s first language but he must be able to say more than ‘process’ or ‘in our way’.”
Personally i am not interested in what he says but what he does or what he asks to be done. If he asks for certain players to be moved on and there are not he should be able to either show some backbone and not pick them or resign and seek a job where he is listened to.
But what is ‘our process ‘ or ‘our way’? Can he explain?
The club apparently saved 10 million quid in bonuses for not making the Champions League, so that can go towards transfers with hopefully a new manager in charge.
Rioch was fired after one season and he took us from 12th to 5th which meant back in europe plus he brought in Bergkamp, no reason at all then not to sack Dracula, the manager who couldn’t beat Crystal Palace and Brighton at home that would’ve guaranteed us Champions League football. He’s fuckin’ useless.
New post
There are lots of things to beat Emery with, but having a few youngsters on the bench is just being petty.
The experience of being involved in a European final (even though the result is obviously regrettable and disappointing) is character building and useful exposure for the future.
Ronaldo at WC94, Walcott at WC06. It is nothing new.
Some of you just want to keep kicking the man when he is down.