There I was, sitting on my computer, all depressed… then BANG… Mikel drops an injury surprise for the ages.
Kieran Tierney > in contention
Auba > in contention
LACA > in contention
What in the damn name of horse placenta wizardry is this?
Now, who knows if any of them start, but someone did send me some information on Kolo that stated he was fit a week after contracting malaria. Auba as a #9? Oof… sexy times at the Hotel Ceramica.
Those three players, regardless of the start, give the Villareal tie a whole new dimension this Thursday.
I caught a bit of all the games at the weekend. It is worth noting that not one club in the semi-finals mustered a win. All played out drossy games. Roma lost to relegation fodder Cagliari. United drew to Leeds United with the title still on. Arsenal lost to Everton. Villareal lost to Barcelona.
I watched some of Unai Emery’s offering at home to Barcelona. It wasn’t great. Clearly, it’s going to be a tougher game than the Slavia Prague one. If we show up like we’ve won, we’ll come away with nothing. That said, we have the quality to win, of that there is no doubt.
Barcelona got in behind them with ease an uncomfortable amount of times in the opening 25 minutes.
Their defence didn’t look particularly organized, they’ve conceded over a goal a game this season, so not really a shock. Villareal’s off the ball work felt very much like it did when Emery was at Arsenal.
The two goals they conceded had a soft, warm, comfort I was familiar with. Goal #1 was a long ball over the top, Griezmann a sublime chip to finish. The second was an Arsenal special, a poor defensive back pass that slipped in Griezmann for #2.
We’ll cause problems with our movement. Ideally, we’ll go there with pace through our #9. I’d certainly weaponise the pace of Gabriel if it’s on offer. His runs and explosive energy could be bothersome. If we have Auba available, we need to surround him with energy and ideas. Nicolas Pepe would be well suited to a team you can get in behind. So would all the younger forward players we have. We need intelligence in there though, ESR, Saka and Odegaard pulling strings and interchanging positions will be a lot for them to handle. We will absolutely create chances.
Arsenal will have to really think about the way they defend. Villareal have ideas from set-pieces, it’s almost classic English football at times. They created 3-4 really good opps and Chukueze really is a live wire, the sort of player that can create something out of nothing. His pace up against Xhaka would be a very big concern for me. Emery, a man who has very little love for Granit, will no doubt be hoping that’s how we line up.
Our approach has to be about goals, no 0-0s or playing for one goal. Take advantage of the away goals, don’t leave with a result that puts us on the back foot. If we score 3, it’s going to be very tough for them to come back into the game. I don’t think that is beyond us.
What is not beyond this Arsenal side is a dull and lifeless performance with an early error.
I really hope the flat performances in the league are because the players are thinking about making a Cup Final. We need to leave everything on the pitch, Arteta needs to have the players fired up, the fans need something to feel good about.
No one wants to spend the next week wondering if a 1-1 draw is enough.
Unai Emery is a beast in this competition. We all watched him out-think Klopp a few years ago. He let Liverpool explode at them for 60 minutes, then turned on the afterburners when they were knackered.
We are not beyond a beating on Thursday night. There’s something extra on this for Unai. He’s a wounded animal, we need to be fucking sharp.
The press conference gave me a bit of heart. Arteta doesn’t look phased. He’s confident, he was using words like ‘excited’ to describe the atmosphere and he seemed very at ease. Not the look of the man we saw before the Chelsea game.
Hopefully, our players are feeling it. The fact that Tierney, Lacazette and Auba are all in contention tells you this: the players are behind the project. Putting your body on the line when you could easily sit the game out is a real boost as far as I’m concerned.
So let’s do it. Let’s get through this week in good spirits and finish the job next Thursday. We need a big effort from minute one to whenever the game finishes out. We are good enough, let’s see that convert on the pitch.
Finally, Daniel Ek spoke to biz news about his desire to buy Arsenal. I’d love to think he had a chance, but the main question he can’t answer is ‘how do you make non-sellers sell’ and there’s not a view on it. Publicly gunning for KSE doesn’t feel like a strategy married to who they are as people. But hey, who knows, I’m not a billionaire, so I’ll leave it ot them.
Not sure ‘thoughtful offer’ is going to move KSE. pic.twitter.com/ughHQX7JN0
— Le Grove (@LeGrove) April 28, 2021
Right, listen to my podcast then get in the comments.
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Crucial, crucial yeah, rop pap, papa nah
Crucial, crucial, yeah, oh nan nah, nah, nah
Nelson
The only person you need to worry about is Arteta.
Do you trust him to make the right selection and tactics (handbrake?) and in game management?
I really want to trust the process under arteta but his process involves only the transfer window. No idea on how to develop younger players or get the most out of his team.
In typical pep lite fashion he needs a 100m in the next window and even that does not guarantee us anything.
Need a result tonight. My guess is that Arteta will go for a conservative lineup. Lacazette as the #9 with Willian and Saka as the wide guys.
Leno
Cedric Holding Mari Xhaka
Partey Ceballos
Willian ESR Saka
Lacazette
Cazorla Some people are content with going with the flow and see the FA cup as something that covers all future club incompetence from top to the pitch. Others like me demand competent senior management, sound decision making processes born out of well thought out and data driven player acquisition fitting the team identity for a balanced squad with a cohesive winning mentality. My life is just fine, thanks and will be even better when Arteta has left the building. Just to reiterate fell free to skip my posts. Like every fan I’m praying for a win, but that doesn’t… Read more »
I’d settle for a 1-0 tonight. Important not to head into the second league needing to score. Preferably Laca upfront with Auba off the bench in the second half to run at a tired Villarreal defense.
Probably vital that Tierney plays as Xhaka will be targeted if he’s playing left back again.
Tony I have just read your post suggesting that Kroenke’s motive for owning Arsenal is “profit”. Arsenal has not made a profit since Kroenke took over owning the club in August 2018. Indeed he spent more money on buying the club than any other owner in world football. So I don’t think that Kroenke’s main motive is profit and his drawings from the club since he took control are minimal. Personally I think that his main motive for owing the club is the “Arsenal Brand”, which despite all the negatives frequently posted on Le Grove is rated one of the… Read more »
It would be so romantic for the real Pep to win CL and Diet Pep to win EL.
Only a global financial disaster would persuade the Koenkes to sell the Club – but such a disaster would wipe out wot-the-Ek too. So let’s get real, we are stuck with Stan. Time was when an empty Emirates might have driven him out. But that was pre-pandemic.
On the other hand, I believe the Kroenkes have finally cottoned on. Emiratestroller is right, Stan bought the Club for its ‘brand’ name. ButAn Arsenal out of the elite is like Coca-cola without the fizz.
I am an optimist so I”m expecting a win tonight – maybe 3-1 – provided Tierney is playing.
“”Daniel Ek is expected to submit an offer of £1.8bn to buy Arsenal within the next few days (sky) ,””
Insane to refer to 1.8 bn as not being enough. Football has become the plaything of the extremely wealthy.
Anyhow this won’t nudge Kronke a millimetre. We need Bruce Wayne to try bid for Arsenal.
ES, The Kroenke do not care about the brand. If they did, they would have put more effective people in charge of the commercial arm of Arsenal. Our commercial deal have mostly been poor, especially when you compare to Spurs, Bayern. The biggest help for growing commercial revenue is success on the pitch. Like I wrote before, Kroenke is an asset accumulator. He is not interested in assets generating a vast income, because he is already a billionaire. He just want assets that long term will grow irrespective of what he does with it. Property asset is his specialty. The… Read more »
Will Spotify last? We’ve gone from vinyl to cassette tapes, to CD’s, to downloads through the Apple store, and now there’s Apple Music + Spotify The market moves Stan Kroenke is worth $10 billion and has fixed assets, his wife is from one of the richest families on the planet, and like it or not, that brings a certain amount of security KSE have been a disaster for Arsenal, but past performances are no guarantee of future results There’s nothing to say KSE won’t pull a couple of visionaries from somewhere, even if it’s more through luck than judgment There’s… Read more »
Valentin you should not have to spell it out time and again
“Kroenke is an asset accumulator.
He is not interested in assets generating a vast income, because he is already a billionaire. He just want assets that long term will grow irrespective of what he does with it. Property asset is his specialty.”
that should be clear and pretty accurate as to what Kronke is about so please no more stupid questions better to talk about the game tonight with is of more interest
Billionaires are only interested in one thing. A ‘brand name’ without a monetary benefit means nothing to them. What Stan wants is an appreciating asset. If a long term decline sets in to football as a whole he wuld probably sell but as long as club values continue to increase he’s going nowhere. According to Angry of Islington who did an excellent breakdown of all share purchases made by Stan as he became the sole shareholder he spent a total of £1.029 billion ($1.436 billion USD) on the club. The actual club value to date is obviously whatever someone is… Read more »
Rich, looks like we’re singing from the same hymn sheet on this one.
As an added bonus if someone where to buy the club they would still have to pay off the loan that Stan is owed, as you say not bad work at all.
and that’s why it should be pretty obvious the spotty guy is having a laugh , he needed an opening offer of 2.5 BIL to even get a side glance from the krownies
If I had to take a punt on someone buying Arsenal
I’d say that Wenger would be behind it, he’s brilliant at networking, likely knows a lot of extremely wealthy people
“ Will Spotify last?We’ve gone from vinyl to cassette tapes, to CD’s, to downloads through the Apple store, and now there’s Apple Music + Spotify” As off topic it’s an interesting question. I read some time ago a speculative article that in the future a chip would be planted somewhere in the body and it would store all your favourite music, it then interacts with AirPods/whatever’s is new at the time. You could be certain Apple would have their mitts over something like that. Otherwise where else is there for ‘personal stereo’ tech to go? Anyone now can have access… Read more »
Rich: We know Wenger’s negotiating style, if the club is worth £2Bn he’ll open with an offer of £500m and a book of Green Shield Stamps (kids ask your parents).
Chris, I’d like to hear ‘Good old Arsenal’ but too often when I watch these days in my mind I hear ‘Dance of the Cuckoos’.
Andy Following ES posing about Kronke not in it for profit I did some back of a fag packet calculations In Nov2011 KSE at most had paid £460 million for his 62.89% share. The reason I say at most because it’s difficult to know exactly how much he had paid for his initial shareholding. Arsenal at that point was valued as being worth £731million. The value at this point for each share in his bid document was £11700 . InAugust 2018 he paid Usmanov £550 million for his shareholding of 30% of the overall shares so Usmanonov sold KSE approx… Read more »
The other thing to look at is the exchange rates
The pound was trading at $1.22 last May, it’s now trading at $1.39
So if he sold the club for £2 billion last May, that would have been $2,440,000,000
If he sold it for £2 billion today that would be $2,780,000,000
The spending spree Biden is about to go on threatens to further decrease the value of the US $
Any money KSE currently invested into the club, would potentially be worth significantly less than it was just 12 months ago
If KSE want to invest their own money into Arsenal it’ll cost them significantly more
Unless they have multi currency accounts with a lot of £’s in it
A £40 million investment into the club would have been €48,800,000 last May
Investing £40 million into the club today would cost them $55,600,000
Valentin Yes the Kroenkes are asset accumulators, but his track record is to buy only the best. By all accounts he is a connoisseur of wine and has bought one of the finest vineyards in Burgundy. He has also bought one of the most historic and largest ranches in USA. Like many super rich people of his background I do think that he has appreciation of what he bought with Arsenal. There is some evidence however that since he took full ownership of the club that he is now willing to invest in the club. The real issue with him… Read more »
If we fail to get into the CL of EUL next season and continue to post losses then the value of AFC could fall significantly and keep declining until somehow we can get back to the top table. If we win the EUL then Kroenke will stay put, if we don’t then they may be tempted to sell high why they can.
I don’t necessarily buy the argument we need “huge” investment into the team Our biggest issue is our squad is far too big, we pay average players far too much, and they don’t want to leave, and our squad lacks balance We’ve invested big wages into players with no resale value, expecting to see that return on investment on the pitch But those investments into senior players with no resale value has been a disaster It’s a buyers market, the concern is when I see links with Coutinho Another Kia special, for a player who’s almost 29, on extortionate wages,… Read more »
Kroenke’s position is that he views football in the same way as the NFL which is why he was so keen on the ESL project. The problem for Stan is the relegation and promotion issue. Until he invests in the team it is unlikely that Arsenal will get back in to the Champions league apart from the occasional season when we might come fourth. Without champions league football we will remain as the “new” Everton comfortable in the Prem but never a threat for anything. Our “brand” value will decrease slowly but will still have premier league status/value. The ESL… Read more »
« As off topic it’s an interesting question. I read some time ago a speculative article that in the future a chip would be planted somewhere in the body and it would store all your favourite music »
It’s already there mate, I read, like 2 years ago, that some damn fools in a Barcelona nightclub had already had one planted into their wrist so that they can get their drinks faster.
In addition, more and more companies are trying to have their staff members get one just to enter the building where they work…
Brilliant, ain’t it ?
Ek seems like a fan of the club and I would love to have a fan owner but his 1.8 Billion probably wont even be looked at by the Kroenkes. It is however a win-win for Ek and the fans as well. Ek has been publicly calling out the ownership at Arsenal (indirectly). The Kroenkes wont sell, that is near certain but what this takeover attempt will make them do is take notice. There have been reports in recent days that Kroenkes will be investing in the first team this summer. If we make CL + get an additional 40-50… Read more »
The music and entertainment industry as a whole is very volatile.
Today we have Spotify, tomorrow another startup might take its place.
Another reason why Ek would be looking to move some of his cash to a much more stable investment like a highly reputable football club.
Karim
The chip technology has been in use throughout the blogosphere including Legrove since its inception.
Not very high tech though, and unlike most other applications where they implant them in various parts of human body, here it’s been worn on one’s shoulders.
Leicester picked up Soyuncu for £17 million Sold Maguire for £80 million the year later Maguire is the more experienced and established player, but I’d prefer Arsenal had Soyuncu over Maguire, because I think he has the higher ceiling, even if we had to wait a while for that investment to mature Leicester sold Chilwell for £55 million, but signed James Justin for £6 million the year before Their squad planning, scouting and recruitment is brilliant Bayern Munich are reportedly signing Omar Richards on a free from Reading this summer We reportedly established connections with people close to Jude Bellingham… Read more »
Tom,
What with Pedro being a pioneer of “chip on shoulder technology” he should be worth billions by now.
A cheeky £1.8 billion +£1 for Arsenal should seal the deal with the Kroenkes.
Then Pedro could install Arteta as Manager-for-Life, and Arsenal.com would redirect to Legrove.com
Leicester’s “squad planning, scouting and recruitment is brilliant.” That is because Leicester’s ownership and management structure has a strong focus on maximising input from teams working in these areas.
The Arsenal people involved in squad planning, scouting and recruitment were always secondary to Wenger’s preferences and then to Raul’s contacts book/friendly agents’ recommendations.
And during the pandemic, they were made redundant.
All we appear to have now (other than Edu and Mikel’s knowledge) is StatDNA
Investing big fees and wages into established stars with no resale value Reeks of a club who aren’t confident in their ability to identify talent We’re desperate for some talented and proactive talent identifiers Virtually everything we do is reactive and poorly thought out Instead of promoting Arteta to manager, we should have sacked Edu, and gone and got ourselves either Rangnick or Campos Both with proven track records of building back room teams, identifying talent, constructing coherent squads, and adding value in the transfer market, rather than subtracting it Hopefully Edu proves me wrong and proves himself a ruthless… Read more »
Who would have thought it! The main item on the agenda here is Stan Kroenke. As someone who has long said that the owner (not the manager) is the driving force (for good or ill) of a major football club, I feel a little smug. But it’s pitiful to hear people cry out for yet another mega-billionaire. It goes against the heart and soul of the Club. For those who don’t know, Arsenal was the epitome of dependability and prudence and virtue, Victorian values if you like, the ‘Bank of England’ Club. What we should be shouting for is fan… Read more »
No-one suggests that Arsenal needs to follow Chelsea and Man City’s route by spending £170-220 Million as they did last summer. The major problem at Arsenal is that we have accumulated over many years unwanted dross and still have quite a lot on the books albeit I suspect that we will offload a number this summer. Arsenal’s transfer policy has been dire for a long time and one has to ask the question why we recruited Willian last summer. My guess is that Arsenal will be no longer recruiting such players in the future. The good news is that we… Read more »
Credit where credit is due.
Our loans teams have done a sterling job in sending out our fringe players and our youngsters out on loan.
Under Wenger loans were used to either embarrass players or punish players that didn’t do the manager’s bidding. Now it seems that most of our loans have a definite purpose and as a consequences most of them have turned out well.
The sheer number of loans that have been organised this season is impressive. There some really proactive thinking going on with Ben Knapper (loans manager) and his team.
*real
Barcelona + Real Madrid are fan owned, but are still a billion + in the red and still haemorrhaging money The German model hasn’t prevented a boring monopoly from taking place Leadership comes from the top, having too many chiefs, and not enough Indians is a really bad idea Three million Arsenal fans can’t agree on anything, and having a £1,000 to invest in a single share, certainly doesn’t qualify anyone to run a business the size of Arsenal football club There’s technically nothing wrong with the model KSE want to implement, the issue’s been they haven’t employed and entrusted… Read more »
WOAB, Earlier Arsenal spinned making the scouting department redundant as a progressive move instead of a bad cost saving exercise. Edu will now rely more on StatDNA rather old fashion scout. To me that was the wrong move, analytics should go hand to hand with scouting rather than replacing it. There is always going to be a brilliant, but yet undiscovered kid playing in a 4th division for a backwater club that is not on any stats report. The problem with relying exclusively on StatDNA is that you make your choice based on recommendation from an algorithm. Like anybody who… Read more »
Fuck KSE
If they want to keep the team, show us the money.
Invest 100M plus this summer.
Do it again, until we are legit top4.
Shut us fans up…. do it this way. We will be quiet like mice
Makes me laugh when people go on about StatDNA. Anyone recall who the first players were that StatDNA apparently identified?
Step forwards Mr Granit Xhaka and Mr Shkrodan Mustafi.
Hire decent scouts, case closed.
Andy
Correct-statistical analysis and traditional scouting should go hand in hand. Having said that, looks like they ignored StatDNA when they signed Runarsson.
My feeling is that the stats and traditional scouting reports need to align if you are going to sign a player.
Mustafi-good stats but headcase. Don’t sign.
Runarsson-bad stats but flashy reflex saves. Don’t sign.