Well, well, well… Klopp was the fraud all along. Arsenal win tomorrow, we’ll be 3 points off the Champions in the most nuts season on record.
It is quite incredible how a side can go from looking like the greatest footballing machine ever created, to total bums after one bad signing, a couple of injuries, and a global pandemic.
It’s a bit of a shame we’re playing Manchester City this weekend. They are one of the best teams in the world right now. Pep has managed the transition to a new vision with the same sort of deft innovation he always does.
The best manager in the world was pumping Arteta like he always does.
“All I can say is the last months show me that all managers need time and he is not an exception. What I see in the last two months every game Arsenal played is better than the opponent.
“Tomorrow we will have an incredible performance. They have an exceptional build-up, they have quality and they have energy. They have [Bukayo] Saka, [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang and all the players with the quality in the middle.
You might think this is patronising stuff. He’ll probably beat us tomorrow. But he’s not far from the truth if you are watching The Arsenal develop through the correct lens.
There are still mistakes in the system, we’re not perfect, but Pep is not wrong… we’ve been the better in all our games since the Chelsea game.
The key thing for me… we’re unpredictable now. Pep will recognise that looking at our games. We can press, we can sit back, we can go long, we can build from the back, and we can execute a well-crafted plan of shit-housery. Look at how we’re developing, versus the mess Jose is overseeing now his one-trick pony strategem is injured.
I’ve been saying for a while now, something is brewing at Arsenal, and it’s hard to deny it. We might lose tomorrow and we might lose on Thursday, but don’t take your eye off the ball. All the reports I’m hearing are that the coaching is phenomenal behind the scenes and things are building nicely. More importantly, you can see it on the pitch.
I thought a big show of our improving style was the game Auba had the other night. Sure, he missed some big chances, but did you pay attention to his game? Look at those runs he was making. That was a man that could smell the potential of a killer pass. Auba was running the channels. He was taking risks. He wasn’t doing that before Christmas. Arsenal has gone from a side that could barely progress the ball from the back, to a side that has options all over the park. Auba’s game sums us up… you don’t take chances on runs if you know the pass won’t come.
ESR, Odegaard, Partey, and Saka can all pass round corners. They can deliver from deep. They can beat an aggressive press. They dribble past players. When that clicks in this Arteta system, it’s really, really tough to play against.
Compare that to pre-Christmas when we had 2 power plays, that one on the left being the main one, well, it’s night and day. The passing is starting to look cognitive. Players are recognising the patterns, they know where to move, they know the triggers, they might not be the most aggressive pressers, but they are very intelligent at it now. There’s thought in every tactical setup these days.
We totally controlled Benfica. Whine about the result, but don’t snipe at the performance from a team that had just had to deal with Leeds before a plane journey. We controlled possession, we drew them out, made late runs in behind, and we delivered 8 quality chances that unfortunately didn’t have the finish.
We’re doing that regularly now. The xG might not always show it. But the positions we’re taking up in attack are good. The chance quality is way, way better, and the football is getting close to sexy.
The interesting thing is you can see the phases. Last year, we stopped being whipping boys. No more walking through the middle. This season, we started well defensively, we mopped up setpiece defending… then it went to hell for a bit. But part of that was down to not having the right players. Part of that was losing your best midfielder (he’s still out). If Liverpool can lose VVD and crash, why would anyone think Arsenal could lose their best midfielder and not suffer?
Now we’ve found some of the missing links. Big players are coming back into form (Auba/Laca/Gabriel). Troubled players are more settled because part of their usefulness was only going work playing with certain profiles of talent (Xhaka/Pepe/Hector/Cedric). Young players are shining (Saka/ESR). We also found an Odegaard who added more quality and confidence to the starting 11.
You should be excited as a fan. I’ve never felt more confident the path we chose was correct. We’re starting to see the fruits of the time we afforded the manager. We have to navigate this season with progress in mind, then Edu, Vinai and Arteta have to NOT make the same fuck ups as last summer.
We shouldn’t be signing David Luiz to a new deal. We should be ageing down in player profile. We need a top centre midfielder. Saliba should be integrated. We should sign Balogun down as our 3rd choice striker. We should sell the names that aren’t working or loan them for the year to shop window them.
Interestingly, I did hear that Willian is a top guy and an excellent trainer. No joke. What Arteta says about him is true, it’s not PR. He’s very well-liked behind the scenes. It’s not working out for him because he’s just not the player everyone thought he’d be. I get the sense the deal was rushed (can’t imagine why). It’s simple, never take a chance on the roulette of age. This was a mistake, Arteta has to accept that and never do it again.
I also don’t think you should read too much into the Gabriel M stuff. He’s not playing at the moment because the side is buzzing. It’s hard to change something that’s working, especially for a player that is raw power. He’ll get his chance though. There are also a number of kids coming through that everyone is very excited about as well, so expect the youth theme to continue into the Arteta tenure, there’s still a lot to come.
I don’t really have a lot to say about today. My hope is it’s a great afternoon of football. Key for us is to not concede early and see if we can grow into the game. It is going to be absolutely essential to take our chances. CIty’s defence has been immense this season, Auba won’t get 5 good chances tomorrow, he’ll be lucky to have two… so let’s see what we can do. Should be fun.
Coq
Sorry you’re hurting today. Thoughts and prayers.
Don’t worry though, your hero Emi can still win this for Villa with three of his patented counter-attacks if he manages to stop spilling the ball, and Arsenal will remain behind them in the table with a loss against City later, so your weekend might not be totally ruined.
Chin up lad
Jamie
Ok
Havent watched much leicester this year but fuck they look good. If they replace vardy properly theyre a threat for years. Doibt their owner will be forced to sell much of the 1st xi
Rodgers might be a good coach, and he’s got a lot of experience
But Leicester’s scouting, recruitment, and squad planning is exemplary.
Maddison £22mill
Soyuncu £18mill
Vardy £1mill
Fofana £30mill
Maguire £11mill
Justin £6mill
Pereira £20mill
Ndidi £17mill
Kante £8mill
They buy at the bottom or middle of the market, and sell at the top of the market, they’re apparently in for Soumare this summer from Lille
Tbf Arteta is honest in his interviews, he’s not calling this ‘progress’. That credit goes to his bootlickers
Amazing what mobile midfielders will do for yr game
Rich
I envy Leicester’s scouting department.
First glimpses what Villa might look like without Grealish not very encouraging.
The blowback I got when I said Grealish was leagues MVP some months ago.
City without KDB cruising right along.
Nelson
They signed Maddison, Ndidi, Soyuncu, Justin, Vardy and had some change, for the price we paid for Pepe
Vardy stayed with Leicester for a fraction, of what we’re reportedly paying Aubameyang, and Lacazette
A fool and his money are easily parted, price is what you pay, and value is what you get
KSE are out of their minds if they plan of backing the same idiots who gave Willian a 3yr deal, with anymore money again this summer
Rich
“KSE are out of their minds if they plan of backing the same idiots who gave Willian a 3yr deal, with anymore money again this summer
You do Elize that the generational manager was part of that “same idiots” who gave Willian a 3yr deal
I don’t even know what “generational coach” actually means. Is it Swedish?
I’m finding it pathetic that people are trying to talk down villa and emi Martinez when they’ve done the double on us this season.
Absolutely pathetic.
Tell me which defenders from Aston villa would improve us, if any.
Rich, we offered Vardy 120k PW. Arsene Wenger suggested that he rejected us cos Leicester offered him more that that. 120k to 170k PW for any footballer at Leicester is monumental
Rich
I don’t understand why our Exec always pays players a salary higher than average. Is it because Arsenal plays in London. The problem is that we can’t sell the players because of their high salary. This trend got to be stopped. We can’t act like a rich club anymore.
Hope for the Villa supporters on le-grove.
Emi’s a boss no agenda going to change that.
Nelson
The salaries we pay matches our ambitions. UCL teams pay on par or even better than us. The problem is that we dont ever seen to get good value. We are paying the right money to the wrong players.
Dissenter I am aware You are aware that I’ve never called Arteta generational? He wasn’t my pick That I think we should hire an experienced DOF with a proven track record of assembling squads, and adding value in the market, instead of subtracting it, and who has a strong understanding of economics? I’m not Arteta in or Arteta out… I just think managers generally don’t get enough time, our squad was imbalanced, lacking quality in key areas, and numerically it was far too big, and still is, which is a mismanagement issue going back years Managers come and go, but… Read more »
God it’s embarrassing here
The usual wankers have their cutlery out, baying fir their pound.
Oh what savages
Bernd Leno
Hector Bellerin
David Luiz
Gabriel
Kieran Tierney
Mohamed Elneny
Granit Xhaka
Bukayo Saka
Emile Smith-Rowe
Nicolas Pepe
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Saka and ESR really can’t be playing all the games..
Arteta is dense
Emi exaggerating his saves shouldn’t be lost on his fan club though
Rich
If you agree that Arteta was part of the process that brought Willian to the club, then surely the tag of “idiot” should attach to him as well … and he should not get a penny more to spend.
You have this cute manner of flogging the bad processes at the club, just to get at Edu. You separate Arteta when in fact he is part and parcel of some of these problems.
Well said Rich , I kinda feel the same way…
Mysticleaves
Is that the actual starting 11?
How was barnes’ not a clear goalscoring opportunity?
Villa tackle hard and more power to them but i doubt theyd be able to play this way w real refs
Diet Pep should be hired by Rangers then return to the EPL maybe then he will have caught up with Brendan.
Probably not he should have started at Watford, Reading, Swansea befor being hired by Arsenal
changes for Arsenal
Holding, Mari, Tierney, Pepe and Elneny all in for Arsenal.
Gundogan and De Bruyne start for City.
Konsa is another very good signing Villa made from the championship.
He very physical and super quick. He’s only 23 y/o and will get better.
Taking away my Arsenal biases I really like how Leicester are coached on the field and a lot of the work done off field too.
Our recent record v City is diabolical. I hope they at least have to get out of first gear this afternoon.
: Leno; Bellerin, Holding, Mari, Tierney; Xhaka, Elneny; Saka, Odegaard, Pepe, Aubameyang
Liking that forward line up. Not liking our weak CM and that Luiz starts yet again. What happened to Holding? Sure he’s not great on the ball but he’s a hell of a lot more dependable than Luiz is. Another weird decision.
With Partey out our CM is what it is I suppose, desperately need an upgrade there in the summer.
Good to see we’re not going ultra defensive, hoping for a good game and if we’re lucky we can get away with a point or 3.
Hopefully, Saka survives this match.
Subs: Ryan, Cedric, Luiz, Gabriel, Ceballos, Willian, Smith Rowe, Martinelli, Lacazette
Holding instead of Luiz and Ode instead of ESR.
Where is Odegaard?
Oh well, someone lied. Holding is in. But so is Mari, would rather we had Gabriel there to deal with the pace of City but we’ll see, he hasn’t played for a while either so is bound to be rusty today.
Man City: Ederson, Cancelo, Dias, Stones, Zinchenko, Fernandinho (C), Gundogan, Bernardo, Mahrez, De Bruyne, Sterling
Subs: Steffen, Walker, Jesus, Aguero, Laporte, Rodrigo, Torres, Mendy, Foden
Their Subs is stronger than our starting 11
Saka should have been saved for Thursday.
Any contribution today should have been from the bench, only if absoluitely necessary.
I hate gren bay
“I don’t even know what “generational coach” actually means. Is it Swedish?”
I can confirm that it’s not in fact Swedish. Have a smörgåsbord and chill.
Either ESR or Saka are going to pop soon ..Arteta is going to break them both.
Agree with Freddie, nice front four okay with the backline but the midfield two of Xhaka and Elneny look like our weakness.
The plan is to park the bus then Pepe and Auba counter, will Guardiola fall for it or will it end in embarassment for Diet Pep
Don’t mind the line up, except I would’ve liked to see Cedric instead of Bellerin. Elneny is one of those that you can understand, but gotta hope it pays off. I get we need to protect the back 4 and Arteta obviously feels Elneny is the better partner for Xhaka to do that, just hope that we’re still able to move the ball forward when we need to. V happy with the front 4, ESR needed a rest and Pepe deserves a chance to keep up his good streak. We really have to be careful not to concede an early… Read more »
Playing Saka today right choice, playing him vs Benfica in the middle wasn’t dump for me.
Tell me which defenders from Aston villa would improve us, if any.
————
Whoever their right back is I’m sure will be an upgrade on Bellerin
Dissenter If you want to solve a problem, then fix the core of the problem first Arteta was promoted to manager in some crazy type of job responsibility share with Edu In what business does a department manager, have shared responsibility with one of the line managers?… Managers come and go, we can sack Arteta But ultimately we need better decision makers, or it won’t matter how talented our coaches are, if we’re setting them up to fail We kept powder dry at the bottom of the market, spent badly at the top of the market, then invested badly and… Read more »
DM
Would live to see cedric take bells spot. He’s right footed and bellerin just isnt that great. Particularly when he tries to take thunderbastards from outside the box and cant even get it past the first defender
Man city has one solid defender, the portuguese guy, nullify him and dont concede too many and we have a chance
I saw mine from Livescore. Guess it wasn’t the official one
Win or lose, Saka should not play more than 60 mins. We need him on Thursday. If we were trailing more than 2 goals at 60 mins, I’ll take out Auba and Tierney also.
Pepe to score today.
Can’t get my head around this offside rule if the guy’s offside put the flag up ?
Don’t wait for play to end before the flag goes up complete waste of time.?
Rich at 15.40 .. the whole thing is spot on! Preach my brother!
Elnenny ?
Not sure about that
Is there a rule that Chaka must play?
Rich
Yes, yes and yes
The obvious derivative of the bad processes at the club has to include hiring a complete novice as manager and then trying very hard not to sack that manager for the sale of continuity.
Arteta has benefitted from the mediocre morass that’s Arsenal. He would have been fired by any other club not called arsenal in December. It’s only at arsenal that we argue about keeping a process that has us in midtable.
Arteta is the main beneficiary of our poor owners etc.
Arteta is such a douche.
I feel sorry for Holding and Mari.
Why would you not go for Gabriel’s pace
When facing City.
Is he throwing the game and focusing on Thursday night
Is diaby sorry partly still injured…
WOM.
Kdb can be injured long term but somehow is always fit to face us…..aguero and Kane too…it’s ridiculous lol
Mourinho now has a worse win percentage as Spurs manager than Tactics Tim and Juande Ramos.
If Elneny and Xhaka are together then it’s back to tippy tappy sideways stuff. Man City play like this but they win.
Hoping we smash city today
Sid, why do you think Rangers would want Arteta? Gerrard has been excellent and you’d expect will stick at Rangers until the Liverpool job becomes available.
And as for “we’ve got a much higher net spend and wage bill than Leicester, we should be higher than them” . Their club is evidently ran better than ours. From recruiting to moving players on for profit. Something we are horrendously bad at. These factors have made us what we have become over recent years – mediocre with some players who can pull us out the shit. The problem does not lie with Arteta, he is 100% establishing a new era but he does not have ALL the players he wants to produce the goods YET. But I do… Read more »
Oh and add Emery’s appointment to the list of stinking decisions made by the board!
Dissenter That’s fair, but do we want the same people who hired a novice, to be the same people responsible for hiring our new manager? I think our problems run much deeper than coaching or tactics A first team squad of 31, with experienced internationals not registered would have been very difficult to manage Too much competition kills completion, too little competition kills competition Runarsson as our only senior alternative to Leno = mismanagement No fit or registered attacking midfielder = mismanagement Letting Niles + Kolasinac go on loan, and leaving us with 3 full backs = mismanagement Willian 3… Read more »
I like the line up
The right choice to go with holding and Mari in the middle
Right choice to go with Pepe and Ødegaard
I’m not so sure auba is the man for the job today.
Fully expecting another dud performance from him at no9 here
The problem does not lie with Arteta, he is 100% establishing a new era but he does not have ALL the players he wants to produce the goods YET.
players like Willian
I wonder what the goods will be like
Arsenal 2 – 2 City
This is for free.
but he does not have ALL the players he wants to produce the goods YET.
————
Name one manager who does
Hey Ladies, how goes it? Looks like a rotational lineup. If Arteta really wants to rebuild some fan capital.. winning today would go a long ways towards that..
Don’t suppose Pep would cut him some slack..? haha no…. didn’t think so.
Focusing on Europa makes sense.. but the League table is depressing.. The process is all well and good but it means fuck all without getting points.
Tom
Guardiola
Rich
Is that why he and City wanted Messi ?
Come on boys let’s shock the world
Rich
Name one season Pep didn’t add a player to his roster
TomFebruary 21, 2021 16:16:49
Rich
Is that why he and City wanted Messi ?
Everyone wants Messi
He doesn’t count
They have won the last 7 league games against us
To be fair, I think Arteta has a squad with nearly enough quality to win the league.
We are a right back, a cm and a striker away.
Mid
I thought you are from Taxa. Do you have electricity and water back?
Yep…Serge.. going to be a tough hill to climb today..
Anyone listening to Tim Howard? What the fuck is he rambling on about? Ugh… Thank God he is just in the studio and not doing games.
Winthorpe
We don’t have a league winning CB
Nelson… Thanks yes.. I never lost power or water here.. but it set records for cold weather.. hadn’t been this cold in 30 some years. Im pretty far south.. killed all the tropical plants though.. so much for the lemon and lime trees.
And of course, a league winning coach. Diet Pep won’t win the league with Arsenal in 5 years
I wonder why some of you lads even bother with football at all. Willian wasn’t a bad signing at the time – his rapid decline in form is freakish.
With regards to the not having every player he wants, even within reason I think we all know he’d swap a few of these players in a heartbeat with players from the championship let alone what you’re implying
Holding is our best CB and Arteta is benching him for Luiz. Ha fucking ha
Mystic I think our centre backs all have what it takes to be title winning centre backs. They aren’t vvd but then who is. Defence is more about the unit than the individual. Mari and Holding look to be a great partnership who both seem to negate the weaknesses of leno I think ESR Ødegaard Saka and Pepe have the potential to be a good as a thing in the world. I really do. I wouldn’t trade Tierney for anyone. We have Martinelli waiting in the wings For me that’s the makings of an unbelievable team. Of Arteta gets the… Read more »
Don’t make it a City training session again lads
Tom
Guardiola has spent over £830 million in 4.5 years at Man City
He inherited the most expensively assembled squad in history, spent £200 million and finished 3rd and pot-less
He then spent another £180 million, then €65 million on a centre half in the January to win the League + League Cup double
He’s a talented coach, but he’s worked in very favourable circumstances at Barca, Bayern + City
When Holding is seen as your best CB better know you ain’t winning anything courtesy of your defence
Mystic leaves holding is playing
Looks like john moss had a nice lunch or 2
We’re not going to have much of the ball today. Could do with martinellis energy but still no start for him. He must be wondering what he can do.
Yep rich agreed
Holdings better than maguire
Alright here we go… Lets go!!!!
How is Elneny in MF vs Man City?? I am not expecting us to win, as Man City have been playing extremely well lately, but I was hoping for a fighting chance.
Is MA thinking he is more likely to get CL if he wins the EL???
Unless Laca is starting on Thursday, Auba shouldn’t be in the line up today.