Nothing more stressful than trying to green card over here. It’s painful. They want pictures of your insides. It never ends. Bonus slips from First Sport, 2002. Size of toenail clipping when you’re hot. Every question, they asked. Finally, after being flagged about 500 times… they sent the card. What surprise did they have in store? They give me a new middle name. ROBUT. It’s like the guy who writes ‘Pizza’ on my Starbucks cup moved to the visa office.
You know what? I can live with it.
I could say it’s how the French spell the name.
From now on, please address me ROBUT. I think it’s kind of cool. The sort of thing Prince would have named his kids.
The name that I really care about? Thomas Partey. He’s back in training. He might play tomorrow. Who knows. He might last 40 minutes. He might give us 2 games. Just don’t get your hopes up. Enjoy his majestic presence like you’d turned up to an after-party with Prince as your dad and everyone is asking you cool questions about your seriously cool name.
Arteta’s press conferences are very muted at the moment. He really doesn’t give much away when he’s under fire. His story about Eusebio was an epic invite to sound interesting and he delivered the most deadpan boring response you could imagine.
Benfica in the Greek home leg is a Cup Final for him. Win, it sets up an exciting tie this weekend. Lose, and he’s getting pelters on twitter.com and we all know he reads them.
I see no reason we shouldn’t bury the Portuguese side. Hopefully the running around at City has blown the confidence out of the sails. We need fresh bodies and we need everyone concentrating to the max so we can move into the last 16.
I’d imagine it’ll be all the big names. Smith Rowe will be fresher. Saka will start. Xhaka might have a more able partner next to him. I’m not really sure where we’ll see players rested? Europa is literally our only way back into the Champions League this season.
The game needs a performance as well. We need to continue the good bits we’ve seen since Christmas. Expansive football, high-quality chances, and control of the game on our terms. If we do that, I don’t think Benfica will luck out like they did last time.
This is sadly a very huge night for Arsenal. Last 32 feels important. A loss and it’ll crater Arteta’s rep. A win, and it’ll put judgement on hold for another 2 games. He needs this win to kick start a run. We need to see what this squad has got.
COME ON YOU REDS. See you in the comments. Might see you after the game with an on the whistle.
A better manager than arteta would need less money to rectify our situation.
Also disingenuous saying that sacking arteta after a season is impatient, he’s regressing us in just that short time, heavens forbid he gets more time.
It would be completely different even if he were hovering 8th and some losses were draws, but that’s not the reality of things is it?
Villa done the double on us, more teams to come who would not be doing the double on us.
Who should not be*
I’m predicting we will spank Benfica tonight.
The next phase of their utter nonsense is “Who’s next?” “there’s no one willing to take the job” just like the ‘players no one will touch with a bargepole’ comment – its pure fiction: It’s impossible to find a competent manager to steer the likes of Auba, Laca, saka, pepe, martinelli, etc, when in actual fact managers of other teams and even a previous managers performed better with less. So let us all accept this utter dross because its the best we can do!!! Because LEEDS AND ASTON VILLA both newly promoted sides, actually have a better squad than AFC… Read more »
When it comes to appointing managers, history shows that regardless of who they could attract, or who is available, Arsenal have always chosen the cheapest option.
The only one city MUST win is the Carabao. They’ll probably do the double but the Carabao is paramount.
Trying desperately to be upbeat about tonight but it’s a stretch. If we do prevail, I can’t see it being a canter. Come on you rip roaring reds!
No point in worrying about tonight’s game.
We are not going to win the competition, we are just kicking the can down the road.
Arteta hasn’t got it, he will adopt slow football and be ultra cautious.
He is not an attack minded manager, our play reflects his football days of slow possession style football.
Good luck with those of you who think & IMO ,extremely optimistically, that a New manager could turn it around in a season?If Thats the case I’m all for it.Bring it on !But experience tells me the reality is a lot, lot different.
What exactly is “turning it around” at this point?
Arteta has us 10th with 11 losses.
Lots of managers could improve on that, some would improve so much that it would be a turnaround.
Wasn’t our up turn in performances when we played ESR behind Lacca with Pepe left and Saka right.
We stumbled into this front 4 and never looked back until wolves H/T. we resembled a proper team no we are switching players/positions we I understand rotation etc but it seemed we found it (more luck) now lost it. Football is an easy game stick to what works.
@ Kris
Exactly!! All it takes is a little bit of fact checking with these guys.
Wow. So if Arteta loses this game. Which firmly establishes him as being a bigger failure than Emery in Europe. (He already is a much bigger failure than Emery in the Prem.) If he loses this game. All he will be accountable for is having to endure angry tweets? The sheer hubirous from that line. I remember Legrovers were the first ones banging the drum criticizing how the board and wenger would belittle the fans. How they would be indifferent and unmoved by the fans passionate concerns over the club. “Thankyou for your interest in our affairs”. This statement will… Read more »
Anonymous Commentator –
February 25, 2021 11:34:50
Steady on…apparently there’s no one who’s willing to take the job – Arteta is the best AFC can do
City would need to beat Bayern which is no easy feat. Bayern still favourites in my opinion.
Not even going to predict a scoreline tonight. Let’s wait and see.
Kris the Chelsea comparison is slightly disingenuous. They had a hardcore of top class players, who were serial winners. I could of managed them. Villas Boas and Matteo have hardly gone on to bigger things.
@ the Bard “Kris the Chelsea comparison is slightly disingenuous.” Really? That’s disingenuous? But the below post isn’t: “Mr J you’re spot on. Sack the manager and all the players. Throw in the ball boys as well because they’re rubbish. Buy in a top manager for £20m a year and whole lot of players total spend £500m, and bang you win the Premier. Piece of cake. Why can’t anyone see how easy it is. My Gran could do a better job than Arteta. What does he know about football ? My mate down the pub said he’s rubbish so it… Read more »
City are favourites to win the Champions league every season..
——–
This is the first time they are for me, Blackstock
CT
“Gabriel and Holding as CBs”
Are you just back from the outer space. Holding had a concussion last game and is not allowed to feature for at least two games.
Something for us all to agree about
‘ Report: More than 6,500 migrant workers have died during Qatar’s World Cup prep’
They should just call it the FIFA Blood cup
Wenger comes to Arsenal. Transforms the players and culture to a winning machine. Kloop enters Liverpool develops a winning culture and picks up left out quality players that transforms Liverpool’s fortunes. Ancelotti transforms Everton to a decent side that will have a brand new stadium soon.
Stuff of dreams and management at work. Management means transforming resources at hand to a greater level. Arteta needs to find his transformational management story at Arsenal. He does not have the leisure of experimentation as he has not built his name or chops enough to experiment.
Let’s be honest here, we all have major doubts about tonight.
Arteta is not a progressive thinker.
His mindset will be “keep it tight”
Benfica are worse defensively than us.
We have a better attack.
If Arteta thinks negatively, it could backfire.
No disrespect but Benfica are not MC or Chelski.
🤞🤞
Bayern or liveroool likely to win the CL, man c is easy to nullify unless you are Diet Pep
The Athletic: “Arteta orders Arsenal to stay in Greece for extra night after Olympiacos clash“
I hope no one will use the extra night to mitigate the Leicester math on Sunday
Don’t explain away a tardy showing because we didn’t get back to London until Friday afternoon’
Dissenter
The WC should never have been given to Qatar.
I lived and worked in Doha from 1992-98.
Diss,
That is absolutely horrific to hear. I can’t even fathom how this world cup is allowed to happen in Qatar, from the time of bidding. FIFA is known to be corrupt but this is an absolute piss take.
I feel wholeheartedly for the people and families of those who lost their lives for the sake of a fucking sport that the dirtiest of people allowed to be so corrupt.
The primary reason why arteta has not faced pressure about his job so far is that we haven’t had fans in the stadium.
Have them in during our run above the relegation zone and see how accommodating the fans in the stadium would’ve been
Likewise if we had a full Emirates and get knocked out tonight it would be toxic
But it’s not, so he’s insulated where the only opinion that matters is Edu/vinais
Leedsgunner
“Partey will most likely get thrown in tonight. Worst case scenario? He’ll be injured for the rest of the season and Arteta will blame bad luck or make some other lame excuse.”
As usual, he’ll say the Partey wants to play. That’s what I am afraid of. I still trust that Arteta will learn from his mistake.
Graham 62
FIFA is fundamentally corrupt
6500 people shouldn’t die building stadiums and hotels
Some of the riskiest construction projects didn’t have a fraction of the Qatari WC
The Three Gorges dam killed hundreds, The Hoover dam kills 98 people.
Only the Panama Canal construction killed more and that was due to malaria and yellow fever,
https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/14156389/arsenal-mesut-ozil-fenerbahce-nightmare/
Well, well, so the Ozil train is already off the tracks in Turkey.
Who could have seen this coming?
1-1 is actually a worse scoreline than losing 2-1. With thr latter you’re switched on from the start. Here half the dumbfucks in our team will be doing fancy flicks till we concede and then come to life in the last 10 min and possibly win it or even lose. I’m yet to see urgency as a definite characterisitc of this team. Arteta for all his initial warcrying has really not done anything on that front.
@ The Godfather
IF
“Ex-Arsenal ace Mesut Ozil’s Fenerbahce nightmare continues after being knocked out of cup and falling to third in table”
is considered a nightmare…
what does that say about our season?
‘ Despite winning games against Hatayspor and Karagumruk, Ozil is yet to score or assist for his new club. He also featured in a 1-0 home defeat to fierce rivals Galatasaray, as well as suffering the same scoreline against mid-table Goztepe. In these matches, Ozil has earned underwhelming WhoScored ratings. The highest he has managed is a 6.60 outing against Galatasaray, posting scores of 6.58, 6.45 and 5.95 with his other performances.’ Now I just refuse to believe this! No goals or assists but he must have got loads of pre assists! And ratings of 6.6 to 5.95 is what… Read more »
@Bard.
We had the discussion yesterday about Klopp. Took Liverpool from 8th to 4th in his first full season. Arteta starts from the same position, has better players than Klopp had, has spent more money (significantly more) and has signed more players over the same period.
Turning around a club is usually the exact reason why most managers are hired. Eighteen months is more than many of them get unless they show clear improvement.
We should be playing our B side with the evidence seen in the previous leg. We were all over them, and for terrible finishing, we would have wiped the floor with Benfica.
Rest saka, and partey, and tierney. Use cedric, chaka, el neny, auba and pepe, with the usual players around them, with ryan in goal.
Tonight might be the night where 2 keepers get injured, and mikel is just grinning cause he had the vision to have 3 GKs in the squad. That will prove he is the generational one.
Reports; “Granit Xhaka: Arsenal midfielder says he wants to meet social media abusers”
Pedro
Can you set up a virtual meeting between Xhaka and some people here ;
Ishola
Marc
China1
Guns of SF
Godfather
Marko
Freddie
Who else am I missing? 😀
Most if the money from the contractors in Quatar flows through London
Im telling you for free!
Mr.J,
Stay focused, it’s about Ozil!
He is a cancerous wanker.
Eventually people who keep blaming and deflecting and excuse making like you will eventually get it.
It seems you’re a slow learner … but keep plugging away And you’ll get there eventually.
Diss xhaka is a douche. Least favourite arsenal player in my time watching. I don’t want to be off that list 😂😂
We used to play our second string in the last 32 of the Europa league – true talk
That’s because we still used to be about competing for top-4 or at least be nestled in the top 6 by February.
Big clubs shouldn’t be bothered with the EL until the quarter finals.
That’s what the Emeritus manager and Emery did.
That’s was the norm until Olympiakos knocked us out last season.
@China – I wonder what his ratings would be if he wasn’t Erdogan’s BFF?
Haha dissenter i suspect a lot of us haters would enjoy that as much as him
Andy yeah it’s a +4 or 5 to his ratings by default surely?
Pedro,
Our green cards went through very smoothly. We had a really good attorney, really good.
The know-nothing obsessives in Turkey obviously don’t appreciate Ozil’s intelligence, one and two touch football, perfect vision and stunning eyeballs.
Entitled Fenerbahce supporters, am I right?
I dunno who xhaka considers an abuser tho
Does he mean like booers and those who say he’s far too average for this team (half of us on here plus TH14)
Or does he mean like people making death threats or insulting his family and shit? I’m all about the first kind and not about that second kind. People who send death threats and make it personal are bang out of order and even I would back the spare key champion on that front
Goober
I reckon there will be gooner websites will crash for over 24 hours from overcapacity if Xhaka does get to face his abusers
‘Stunning eyeballs’ this got a proper belly laugh out of me, thanks
@ The Godfather
Blaming and deflecting and excuse making?? about what?? What are you on about??
YES the article IS about Ozil… yet if it can be written that he’s having a nightmare, then what are Arsenal having??
We’ve already replaced Ozil with Willian… and kept accompanied him the likes of Xhaka and Luiz – even prepared to offer mustafi a new contract – this manager has overseen all of that.
Really don’t get your point – please show me where I’ve made excuses or deflected?
Ozil would have ended up in Turkey in the summer of 2018 had we not given him that contract.
He hasn’t been a serious footballer for a while.
I wish him all the best, at least he’s in the club he supported as a child.
Hahaha yeah Jamie I just burst out in laughter waking up the missus to” stunning eyeballs”. That’s hilarious. .
Diss,
I’m with China, can’t condone death threats or any threat for that matter. I don’t hate the guy just dislike him as an arsenal player and especially dislike him for telling the fans to fuck off. So I’d just love to say it back.
I would assume xhaka is a stand up guy. Team mates and managers all love him. But please be a stand up guy for another team is all I’m saying lol
Mr. J,
This is why I call you a slow learner.
The article is about the downturn of Fenerbache fortunes since
Ozil arrived, but your first response was to talk about Arsenal.
And yet you somehow don’t understand why you’re being called out for
deflecting? Dude you’ve got some comprehension issues ….
Dissenter,
If that 6,500 is true, thats really alarming. Jesus
I can also relate to xhaka for his fuck off outburst because I once told my manager to go fuck herself (kinda funny story looking back on it) but the difference is my boss deserved it 😂
Supreme leaders beady eyes, homemade bulletproof haircut, wearing romphims and his voice made the green card officials suspicious
Dissenter
“Who else am I missing?”
Tom, who is very proud of his writing skill.
Something for us all to agree about ‘ Report: More than 6,500 migrant workers have died during Qatar’s World Cup prep’ —————— Yea, but those were all dark color skin workers and we all know their lives are only worth a fraction of white people’s. 1/3 perhaps? So about 2200 people have died there then . Still a lot , but much better though. I’m sure Trump’s hand picked former US Treasury Secretary ,Steve Mnuchin, is heart broken with this news though. He spent his last days in office visiting the Gulf States, so human rights abuses surely must’ve been… Read more »
You guys probably won’t but may remember there was an explosion in the north eastern Chinese port of Tianjin in the summer about 6 years back. It was a chemical fire and the explosion was one of the largest non nuclear blasts ever recorded I live a mile and a half from the epicenter and was in my kitchen doing the washing up looking out the window that night when it happened directly in front of me. Blew all the windows open in my apartment, shook the building, mushroom cloud of fire went up and literally looked nuclear for a… Read more »
https://youtu.be/xv_hk0U3LA4
Santi cazorla, still bossing the midfield. Miss this little guy.
RIP to all those who lost their lives in this, especially the volunteers and firefighters from my local FDP… my view of the initial fire was obstructed by buildings between so I didn’t know there was a fire… just saw the first explosion then the second one. Faaaaaack that was scary
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=993wlZ6XFSs
So Arsenal need to spend to get the manager out of a hole, makes sense.
The way I see the game is a 0-0 draw will be enough. Arteta’s rep hardly matters, nor does his method or style. All that is vital is getting through to the last 16.
We should stop putting Arteta’s job on the line every game. That is the Chelsea way, not the Arsenal way. And – as every sensible fan knows – the man has gone for the long haul. No quick fixes. The slow steady build to a squad capable of putting the Club back amongst the elite.
If villareal go past this stage and Diet pep fails, heads should roll
“The Arsenal way”
What is that exactly?
This has nothing to do with putting Arteta’s job on the line, this is all about having someone at the helm who has the know how and experience to make things work.
Whether you like it or not, Arteta is under severe pressure.
Englandsbest
We damage ourselves further by keeping arteta around.
The understanding should be that he’s a walking corpse at this point.
There is nothing good he can do for us, any action that delays what needed to have already happened is damaging us.
Am I really supposed to believe that the board don’t see the absolute state of things and that arteta has no secret sauce?
Surely kroenke has encountered a few frauds in his time and rejected doing business with them, why are we still doing business with arteta?
Kroenke must know, surely, that this isn’t going to work.
We were nice enough to take a shot on arteta and hire a rookie.
The understanding was that he needed to produce regardless of circumstances.
Now he’s been permitted to fail to produce and I’m not sure but whom because arteta’s own words from the press conferences might as well state that he has already failed.
AC
Kroenke must know, surely, that this isn’t going to work.
The problem with Kroenke is that he knows nothing about football. So hoping that he can see that MA is not all that was promised on the tin is going to take a while or at least until he realises that we are not going to get back in the top 4 with a rookie at the helm.
Quick fix – it’s official from the anti Arteta mob .You have as an Arsenal manager one season to achieve top 4 or EL winners.That’s it.That’s your lot.None of this Kloppy 5 seasons malarkey to win the title or CL .oh no.We’re The Arsenal.one season or get the taxi.next please.Simple.Very chav like.or in it Spursy……..
Kroenke is utterly clueless.
Uncle Stan has other things on his mind that are more of a problem than the performance of Arteta and AFC. He did well in the first lock down and his stock rose in value – now it is in reverse.
He is still a very rich man but nobody like having a couple of billion removed from your value.
I wonder what Tim is doing at the moment?
China – Damn man what an experience glad you and the wife made it out ok, rest in peace to all that lost their lives.
I expect we win comfortably tonight, although I probably said that before the Olympiacos game last year, we are a better(more defensive) side and this is not a strong Benfica team.
UWOT – If you believe that Arsenal are a mid table side that’s your problem. Thing is so far the manager has taken us down two or three places whereas by any metric improvement means moving up the table. Arsenal are not a mid table side and neither is this a mid-table squad. Responsibility to get the best from the available resources falls squarely with the manager, something that so far he has failed to do.
Maybe we might have been better off to hire someone who didn’t learn his trade from a cheque book manager like Pep?
Hopefully our players can make it through the game tonight without doing anything erratic
Even though we should have won it, Benfica were well organised last week, hopefully we can get an early goal, then force them to change their shape a bit.
Isn’t Willian a quick fix? And we have regularly side stepped some of our biggest youth prospects (martinelli, saliba, balogun) to pick out of form old heads who frequently cost us points
Benfica were awful last week and they still got a draw.
Jorge Jesus, their manager was furious at the sidelines. They wont be so bad today.
we will win today.
Majority of Diet Peps football hours are under Moyes, if everyone accepted this then everything would be clear.
I say this every time but it never happens. I would like to see Cedric start, he can get to the by line and cross for Auba coming in from the left.
Uwot……I know you are a dustbin lid on here for a windup but you talk like the idiots in RedAction during Wengers days.
It’s not about getting top 4 or winning the title for us, it’s seeing progress!! It’s learning from mistakes, hell, it’s just learning!! Arteta can’t even do that! Moyes could genuinely do a better job than Arteta with this squad and none of us would have wanted him anywhere near our club!
Arteta’s management is shockingly bad, never look above 10th place with him in charge as that’s as good as it will get.
Cedric will never start unless bellerin us injured.
Arteta said that bellerin is his good friend after all.
I don’t understand the fuss over today, even if we win 5-0 then what? Its the round of 16 for us.
Why is everyone acting like Benfica are the strongest team left in the EL and eliminating them clears a path to winning the tournament.
And even if we lose, there are 13 games to go in the premier league, if indeed that represents an opportunity to make a late surge for the European places and even if we fail we set ourselves up nicely for next season
So enough with all this cup final talk.
Quick question to all genuine Gonners out there.
Based on what you’ve seen of Bellerin and Cedric these past few months, who do you think is the better option?
I’m assuming that none of you are fully qualified football coaches.
That’s what we have with Arteta. A so called top level coach who can’t spot the difference between Bob the builder and frigging Ronaldo.
x by 3 or 4 for other similar disparities in our team.
Now do some of you get it.
COYG!!
RH
It’s last chance saloon for 20/21.
Starting XI: Leno, Bellerin, Luiz, Gabriel, Tierney, Ceballos, Xhaka, Odegaard, Smith Rowe, Aubameyang, Saka.
Subs: Ryan, Hein, Lacazette, Willian, Cedric, Partey, Pepe, Chambers, Mari, Elneny, Nketiah, Martinelli.
Arteta is putting all his egg on Auba. No laca!
Anonymous Graham62 To make my point more clearly: quick fixes don’t work long-term. Therefore judging a manager on a game-to-game basis is a a contradiction if the aim is to return the club to the elite. By definition an elite club is one which consistently, year-on-year, genuinely competes for the major trophies. To properly judge Arteta we must take account of how much progress he has made in that direction, bearing in mind he inherited a squad unfit for purpose, and with very little money to spend. In my view he has made giant strides. Yes, an occasional stumble, but… Read more »
It’s time to exorcise the ghosts of 91-92, time to send Benfica packing this time. I would be gutted to go out of the competition tonight, we are long overdue a European trophy and it also comes with reward we are all well aware of. I do think we were handed one of the tougher draws at this stage which was unfortunate, however if we go out tonight and therefore 2 seasons in a row at last 32 exit, it does not look good on Arteta. I just hope he remains calm and sticks to the attacking shape that has… Read more »
Frimpong is announcing da team sheet.
https://www.twitch.tv/arsenalofficial
RH
Its called reframing success and lowering already low expectations, ever lower. For those of us that aren’t satisfied with the path this club is headed we’ll no doubt be titled negative by the superfans.
Oh it’s already up. Well team is fine but isn’t it like 3rd game in a row roughly same team?
Sup Y’all….? Big match today.. keeps hope alive for this season.
I believe this is the lineup that Arteta believes is his best lineup.. except for maybe Partey ahead of Ceballos. So.. no excuses today.. have to win.
Really didn’t realise the game was so early this evening either, not until coming on here
Lacazette.
Is he still at the club?
No pepe left, man that kid just won’t ever land consistent minutes to build form and confidence
Fuck sake, reload of leg one
Should have started Laca, Pepe and Auba with ESR behind them.
Saka has heavy legs, Odegaard just joined and is starting every single game.
We might win it but Arteta’s squad rotation has been atrocious.
New post.
“But I would maintain he is far better than that. He has transformed how we look at the Club. Faceless, a far-flung neglected piece of the Kroenke empire, it has become vibrant, vigorous, innovative, a Club to be proud of again.” Love the optimism, but unfortunately reality often has a way of interrupting such views. What can Arsenal look forward to in its hopes of attaining Europe participation? At least four more rounds beyond today of Europa League competition with each getting subsequently more challenging. Thirteen more rounds of matches in the EPL to perhaps secure a much coveted Europe… Read more »