The concept of the modern marathon was inspired by a Greek football fan that legged it from the site of Marathon to Athens to deliver a scoreline, the distance was 25 or so miles. The message was about an important game in which a Greek football team defeated a Persian one (they had good football back then). The messenger died, so to commemorate this heroic football nut, they have marathons around the world.
The point of my story is this… if Emery doesn’t achieve anything in his Arsenal career, but manages to shift on Elneny and Mustafi, I’ll name a special day after him. I’ll petition the club to give him a stand. I’ll get on the blower to the Pope and ask how you go about Sainthoods.
This is what Saint Unai said of the pair yesterday.
“They are very big players but for one circumstance or another they are going to have fewer chances to show their capacity or to be happy with us and the minutes they play in matches,” Emery said. “But they know the situation and really I am wishing the best for them. I think now the best for them is to be protagonists in another team and to get another challenge for themselves.”
“Last year with Mustafi and Mo, when they didn’t play they weren’t happy and I spoke with them a lot of times last year and this pre-season,”
“I think it is positive for them to leave and sign for another team where they can be protagonists and be happy and continue their careers.”
I firm up when I read vicious quotes like that. When did Wenger EVER talk that aggressively about his babies? Never.
I am also warmed to hear that the players like to play. Those two are too young to ride out a fat contract. By sitting on deals, they take themselves out of the shop window, their games get rusty and clubs around Europe frame them as a pair of Winston Bogarde’s. If you’re young, you should want to play football, even if that’s at a cost of a few grand a week.
To ride out a deal takes a special sort of person. Someone with a character big enough not to be impacted by the humiliation of being benched.
Both players have value. Mustafi has a lot of good going in his game. He’s played all around the world. He’s made of strong stuff. He just needs a really good defensive coach to beast him into not being so dim. Elneny is just at the wrong level of club. He needs to go to Italy or a middling club in Spain.
Both need to move off that wage bill.
In loan news, it was great to see Eddddddiiiiiieeeeeeee score his second goal at Leeds. I really think he could be a blistering talent if he’s given the chance. I love that he’s at Leeds learning under Bielsa. He’s going to learn to be more decisive, he’ll build confidence from the goals, he’ll get tougher under the brutal conditions of the Championship. It should be a very good year for him.
Hector Bellerin went OFF on the mighty Ceballos.
“I think Dani’s one of the best players I’ve seen in my career. I’ve played with him since we were like 18 or 19 years old. We’ve played in the under-21s, we get on really well off the pitch”
“He’s up for it & he’s a player who will go through thick & thin to do the best for his team. He’s got a great heart & he plays for everyone around him. I think he’s a great addition”
LOVE TO READ IT.
David Ornstein continues to drop beads of gold onto the newsfeed. Again, clarifying the authoritarian regime that Arsene Wenger ran.
Power really is a corrupting force. When you’re succeeding, the last thing you should do is build a team of yes men around you. That’s what Wenger did, then when things started to fail, he had no answers. He wanted to wear every hat. You do wonder what he could have achieved if he’d ripped out his back team and installed up and coming coaches. What would our trophy cabinet have looked like if he’d had a more powerful CEO next to him that insisted on owning the infrastructure?
Wenger could still be a player if he’d allowed other people to develop his ideas… but he didn’t, and now he’s watering the flowers in a very green garden in North London.
“The meetings used to be just between Kroenke and Wenger”@bbcsport_david on how changes in personnel at the top have made #Arsenal ‘more proactive in the transfer market’.
📲⚽️https://t.co/0kUniWPgQm pic.twitter.com/hYbAsfqO5M
— BBC 5 Live Sport (@5liveSport) August 20, 2019
Right, that’s me done. Listen to this podcast before the Liverpool game tomorrow.
Should have scored there Pepe
Weak finish, no composure
Pepe is a special player
When he gets going ….jaysus
Why Pepe didn’t aim the corner.
Fuck!
Village people at work on pepe
We’ve got a player in there. PEPE is sublime. Miss doenst matter. Hes the cherry on the cake.
Emery with top game strategy.
Pepe gives us chances we have no business getting
That’s why playing him ahead of Nelson is the easiest decision Emery had to make.
I told you last week Pepe’s a £72M dud….a poor mans Zaha and we’ve got to shell out £10M a year for the next 5 years for that, fuck me, what dross
Proud so far. Pepe causing problems . He will get scoring.
Should have been 2-0 up
Shocking misses from Pepe and Auba
They are laying alright. Had Pepe had a couple of games under his belt he would have scored.
Auba has been poor.
Xhaka is a liablity
Honestly I think Laca and Pepe may work better because Laca works harder than Auba.
We need the striker to put some pressure on the FBs.
Pepe will score
Add Laca then Pool will drop back
Guen is a liabiltiy
Pépé missed out of nervousness.
Will score those in a few weeks.
Some people haven’t a clue.. dross.. yeah right. Dross player doesn’t create those chances.. he missed.. it happens.
ceballos needs to get a clue today
counter counter counter….
Xhsra again
All that hard work.
Joke defense
shit
Damn. Frustrating scenario so far
Lol
Sokratis is a dud.
It was coming, you can’t defend like that for 90 mins.
Sok was weak there.
Such a weak goal to concede
Lets see how we cope till half time
Guen is physically too weak….
We will get them in the 2nd half, they are getting tired you heard it here 1st!
That won’t be the only goal scored this afternoon.
Fuck.
Rambo? how is that funny? I did not find it amusing..
Guendouzi beat in the air
need NElson and Laca now
Not sure what our tactics are at corners but Matip had nobody within 5 yards of him
We have options though
Just have to get to half time in one piece, 0-1 isn’t that big a deal.
Oh well.. .at least we lasted 40mins…its an improvement I suppose
Guen is a very fantastic player, very fantastic only that emery doesn’t know
Dissenter
1 nil aint good against pool
There’s no point in having Guendouzi Or Xhaka in this game
Where the fuck wax var then
Blatent holding
Yea that formation with their full backs having all that space is just pure suicidal from Emery
Sokratis beaten there smh. With Mustafi out of the picture, his mistakes will be magnified now.
We’re making a change at halftime.
Mkhitaryan or Nelson for Ceballos
Guendouzi was fouled for the goal. But no VAR. must be the Anfield effect
I think Willock been ok
Pepe has got it
Can’t say enough about Pepe. He’s special and he’s only 23 y/o
He needs to figure pout was to simply his game to make it more efficient.
Sokratis holding VVD instead of trying to jump?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Say what?
Liverpool best set piece team in the league
Looked like a foul on Gwen by VVD , had both arms around him stopping him challenging for the ball.
Does Ceballos still play?
I don’t remember him on the ball except for the two or three mistakes he made.
Looks like he is failing his acid test. 😉
I can’t get a stream as I’m out for a friends bjrthday, but absolute lols at Pépé already being written off after about one hour of competitive football at arsenal
Yeh Pepe will score when we’re already 4 up at home v Villa, much like Ceballos looking world class at home v Burnley and totally out of his depth in this 45 at Anfield….
it was coming so i’m not surprised. Need to remain calm or this could get ugly.
One of my few Emery issues is having so much faith in the likes of Xhaka, surely Torreira is ready to return to the first 11?
Guen is a catastrophe today
Cc
Holding 5 yards
U sure
Emery is going to have to give some half time talk
Ceballos has been poor though, needed him to keep a hold of the ball a bit more than he has
Pepe need to use right leg sometimes
Sub Xhaka
On the corner replay, looks like Guen was holding the shirts of both VVD and Sok, keeping them both on the ground, leaving Matip unopposed in the air as Sok couldn’t jump.
That’s a penalty if Matip doesn’t score there, what the fuck is Sokratis doing with VVD?
Looks like Sokratis fancies being a complete liability moving forward.
Xhaka just stood there and watch. Mane could have scored.
What an eyesore
Was Sokrates really beaten for the goal?.
It was a crush of four players jumping for the ball. Matip got there first, Guendouzi was jumping into Papsok trying to stop VVD.
I wouldn’t be too harsh on PapSok there.
Last season, I thought that changing to Man marking on corners was a mistake. Nothing I have seen so far this season is making me revise my opinion.
China…written off?!?! We paid fucking £72M for him, get real, this isn’t some kid out of the colney academy
ok , someone needs to kick the team up the ass in the locker room….
Utter shire….movement off ball is so slow, defending far to deep
“Holding 5 yards U sure“
Ehh?
Could have been 1-1, not the best performance but you can see the plan here however flawed it might be
What a philosophy emery is dishing out here, emeryball
Not sure Ceballos is the guy long term. Pépé has shown signs of quality.
Xhaka almost gave a chance.
Our Waiter listened to pundits journalists and put Xhaka..
Somebody give him a tip and send him back
Batistuta
Game of two halves though.
Nothing stops Ceballos from making an adjustment in the second half.
Well how’d you like them apples? They’re called REALISM
Elmo,
The opposite. Sokratis hanging to VVD shirt stopping himself, VVD and Guendouzi who was marking Matip to jump.
Defending too deep means we need an outlet… the long ball worked for Pepe but its not going to be that effective after a while.
Need another attacker up front
Need to change tactics in 2nd half, acres of space for Arnold and Robertson to operate against our silly diamond formation.
Vickingz
You’re away to the European champions without your 1st choice full backs and a defence we all know isn’t perfect…. Not the best of performances but you’re almost sounding like you need a reason to moan
Can’t allow them to have that many crosses and that much pressure. Living dangerous to try and hit them on the counter… it only works if you score on one of those 3 chances.. Anyhow… that was far from a hammering… we had our chances.. can still get something out of this with a but more composure.
we can still do this… need a goal sharpish and they MUST not score or game over
Sammy
That’s his first start, he’s our most expensive buy ever, he’s a nobody from the farmers league, guess that’s intimidating, enough ?
Have a little patience, lighten up, have you seen what he can bring to the team ?
If Pepe or Auba scores we laud Emery for top strategy. It’s what it is. They didn’t score from open play. Hardly Emery strategy fault. We had 2-3 big chances. It happens. Happy with our performance so far. Team is very new. It will get better in the coming weeks.
Been defending well apart from the goal. Like last year these games are coming a bit to early. Not worried for this season at all.
Pepe has done very well, the end product was lacking but he’s giving us an outlet and has taken to the physicality of the EPL. Aubameyang needs to do a lot more as does Dani Ceballos.
I get the tactic going into the game but now we’ve conceded it might need to be changed sooner rather than later.
Another attacker on, maybe Lacazette but tell him he needs to drop a little deeper. He can certainly do the press work and set up a counter.
VAR should have awarded a foul on Guen
Van dyke holding him down.
It’s been coming though..
Ceballos is no where to be seen
And Xhaka is his usual pathetic self
All midfield work is on young willock and Guen shoulders
Pepe should have scored .
Same shit different day
Come on lads!
Why criticize Pepe? He played much better than Auba.
The flaw in the formation is Ceballos,which is not a criticism of him.
We don’t actually need a player sitting in the hole with this system.
Emery Should either tell ceballos to fill in on our right midfield when we haven’t got the ball or take him off or change the system to accommodate him.
At the moment he’s a passenger offensively and defensively.
Yea need to do something about those spaces down the flanks in the second half. We’re still in it and Liverpool know it’s not as easy as it was last time out
Yeah and he’s played about an hour of competitive football at the club
Henry didn’t even score for half a dozen or more games after joining. You’d have already dropped him because settling into a new team should be done in a matter of minutes
Pepe is the business ..
Thing with inviting pressure to break is that you absolutely have to make the chances count. Auba and Pepe ought to have done better as good as Pepe has looked.
Giving Liverpool time to pepper is with crosses was always going to tell. Such a shit way to concede in a big game.
Hopefully the guys see they can hurt them and we turn this around 2nd half. Pepe has been a threat, Ceballos needs to get in the game, Sokratis needs to chill the fuck out a bit.
The Midfield is so fuckin weak, what’s the point of having a dangerous striker when he is starved of the ball.
Said it midweek that we don’t have players for these nonsense defensive football, use your players to their strengths. Am I the only one noticing these guys are even confused as to where to stand and access? I’ve never seen arsenal this poor before, I stand to be corrected. Why surrender the midfield battles to Liverpool completely? Don’t we have midfielders to battle it out? Emery they say has learned from last season’s mistakes but it’s not looking like it here
If Pepe or Auba scores we laud Emery for top strategy. It’s what it is. They didn’t score from open play. Hardly Emery strategy fault. We had 2-3 big chances. It happens. Happy with our performance so far. Team is very new. It will get better in the coming weeks.
Agree 100%