Here we go. The big one. Unai Emery has his chance to seek out vengeance against his ex-club. The Emeryista are sharpening their cuck talons, the #ArtetaOut brigade are penning tweets to save into their drafts, the whole world is watching for what happens at the Ceramica stadium this evening.
The importance of the tie cannot be underestimated.
A loss won’t see Arteta out of a job, it’ll just mean he loses vital fan capital in the stadium next season.
A win doesn’t claw back the love, but it goes a long way towards repairing the shame of this season.
The game is two legs, but it won’t be treated like that by the fans. There will be no ‘well, the second leg is more important.’ Tonight needs a massive performance. We’ve sputtered in the league for the last 6 weeks. There have been some bright moments, but not many.
We’re roughly 18 months into this project, there needs to be some joy. A shot at silverware is the Fairy liquid to the tarred wings of this season. Trophies have a way of making you forget, like parents with money after they’ve spanked you in a Tesco car park in front of your friends FOR SOMETHING YOU DIDN’T EVEN DO. They are a managerial elixir.
Arteta knows this, I think the players do as well.
Unai Emery has conducted himself well since he left. He called Arteta and offered his team an offboarding meeting, which is rare in football and very professional. He also tried to sell him a house, which is very Del Boy, but also quite amusing.
Emery is a god in this competition, he’s a master over two legs, he’ll fancy himself this ebening.
Arteta needs to show that he’s the better coach. He needs a smarter plan, better-motivated players, and some decisive moments to go our way.
Barcelona abused the backline of Villareal at the weekend. Good movement with variety will unlock chances… but that openness comes with problems up the other end. They have nimble players that can break at speed and unlock crowded boxes. They’ll also be a danger from setpieces.
Key to tonight, we need to have a calm opening 20 minutes. From there, we have to take the game to them. We’re not good enough to play for a 0-0 and a 1-1 would be VERY worrying
Off topic.
I did hear some rumblings that Arsenal is sniffing around Coutinho again for a potential loan move next season. That’s worrying on a few levels.
- It indicates that Odegaard might not be coming back.
- It shows that the club has NOT learned its lesson with older players
- It would show that we’re not even doing the basics like assessing injury records.
Now, the flipside of this is that Coutinho, however you cut it, is absolutely top drawer as a player. He shoots, he scores, he assists, he can control… and he’ll have a chip on his shoulder.
BUT… since April 24th 2020, he’s missed 233 days due to injury. He’s barely managed 10 games worth of minutes this season. If you want to make an impact in the Premier League, you need to be fit.
Barcelona has been trying to rid themselves of him since they bought him.
We have been here over and over and over again, are the club really going to go down this path again? Have we learned nothing?
We’ll see.
Let’s make it through this evening before we get too worked up about a rumour that is painfully believable.
See you in the comments.
We need a sub before the 60th min, the system is not working.
Salvage the tie you idiot.
You can see why nothing looks like it’s going to go in because we don’t have anything resembling a striker out there
The absence of a CF (Martinelli) is glaring. Arteta is too stubborn to admit it.
He really does have a smackable face does Arteta
Horrible horrible that he’s not used his bench considering he gets to use 5 subs
Best spell of the match for us. A bit of pressure, but without end product.
There is a reason why ZIDANE does not want Ceballos nor Ödegaard.
At this time, Neither are good enough.
Is the whole game plan pass to Odegaard, hope he does something magical?
Well done Pepe
United are actually threatening from multiple sources which has them in the game at all times, meanwhile we’ve not landed a glove on the 7th best side in Spain.
Cross after cross to no one. 🤦♂️
Zidane knows… RM knows.
IVe said it before. Careful of RM rejects…. there are good reasons not to get them
The Arsenal Emery managed was far less tkebted than the Arsenal that Arteta has at the moment.
The Villarreal Emery has is also less resourced than the tools Arteta has at his disposal
There’s no plan when the ball goes toward because its just sideways passing as no one is making any runs up front whatsoever, what kind of arrogant manager have we got ourselves really
pepe doing xhakas job for him
So the best crosser of the ball and second RB isn’t better than chambers and xhaka for L or RB??
The shit wing play makes it impossible for Saka and Pepe… doesn’t the generational shit knew it by now?? Our attack is castrated while 2 goals down since 30″
Wtf
Arteta is an insanely stupid cunt.
How did Pedro see anything in him.
Pathetic idiot loser.
?????????????????????????????
How dumb can you even be not to sub Ceballos????????????????????????
Have a gold star Matt.
Classic
And that’s on you Arteta
Croydon de Bruyne (ESR) once again tries to create something out of nothing with these dribbles.
What class.
Everybody called it before, red for Ceballos, but our generational coach did not see that coming.
Looooooooooooooooooooooool
Ceballos.. embarrassing..
Un fucking believable
They can all fuck off, starting with Arteta
LOL. As I said, completely predictable. 🤦♂️
There you go, deserve every bit of that for persisting with the rat.
Biggles
I wish I could say I have some kind of higher football intelligence, but how fucking obvious was it.
It’s not on Ceballos.
It’s the dipshit Arteta.
How idiotic can you be not to sub a player that is hanging by a thread to get send off?
Arteta-implosion
What did I say??
Fuxking arteta never fucking learn…
Balantly clear tonight ceballos is a lose canon
So many said it now we are fucked
How predictable was that…as I pointed out just 9 minutes ago!!
Wow. Unnbelievable mismanagement from Arteta
Who could possibly have predicted that Red card.
Anyone but Arteta and presumably his idiot sidekick Pedro
Well arteta deserves that for not making any subs!!
Raptora
What was that about Ceballos?
We deserve everything for being such a useless club that allows an absolute rookie with no experience whatsoever to manage us, club is fucked up every which way
100% on Arteta. This entire mess is his fault.
Lol Charlie.
Put it all on Ceballos when it’s the manager who is the dumb fuck.
How demoralising is it to be a striker and watch a non-striker play 60 minutes.
For me that wasnt a second yellow
Who didn’t see it coming? Ceba on yellow was an accident waiting to happen
Raporta I have no clue why you would not do that it’s insane
The whole world could see dani was walking a tightrope, well bar arteta
So wreckless and moronic from Dani. Exponentially worse from Arteta
Arteta is dumb as fuck
Oh well, at least The Con Artist will be out of our club.
I was mildly amused a minute ago to see Pepe was able to run from the other half to intercept Chukwueze faster than Xhaka was able to close him down from 5 yards.
*loose*
lose or loose the same BTW for this guy
Has Charlie tuned coat against Arteta?
Somebody is going to need to check on Pedro’s well being. worried about him honestly.
Rookie coach forgetting to substitute !
How is it, that posters on here said this would happen. Yet Arteta did nothing. Idiot!! Surely he should be sacked tonight
ESR should stay down, anyway he will soon be replaced by Elneny or Willian.
Artita an embarrassment. Should be shown the door at the end of the season.
Sack the fucking clown now..why dint he die from covid
This ref is a fucking disgrace,I hope he gets cancer the cheating cunt
As we all knew tortoise Ceballos would get the 2nd yellow and sent off.
Arteta has got this massively wrong tonight and should be told to stay in Spain,hopelessly out of his depth.
Ceballos should retire from the game
Never a yellow. Crazy. But Arteta could have made changes at half time and didn’t bother. He has to be sacked tonight.
Time up don’t be so sure the board are clueless
Its just all too predictable.
I mean he has 5 whole sub’s he could have used preferably at the start of the second half especially as we were two down
Emery the Bum will go for the kill now to this Clown Con Artist.
What was Arteta thinking honestly? Especially after Dani’s bullshit interview where he said actually hes a good player its the EPL thats the problem. Weve seen his horseshit discipline bench players for less
Shove your club up your arse stan Kroenke.
Chickens are coming home.
Super league Arsenal ffs
Depressing, like COVID Arteta won’t go away
I am jisr seeing that red on Ceballos…
Lolz
It’s going from bad to worse.
Pedro deserves al the grief he gets…and I meant every
He became Mr. Agenda-ville over Emery
Taxi for Arteta !
Sack arteta tonight.
No point waiting for the 2nd leg…
Just criminal to still have made no changes.
Arteta Out. He is done. Could see that from a mile away. We need to get him out.
Why did Arteta bring out the same team for the second half? Un-fuckin-believable!! He really is clueless
You can’t blame ref. Ceballos is a stupid player. Was always going to get a second yellow and everyone could see it except Arteta.
Ceballos is dispensable.
Sub him off and you lose nothing.
You lose 1 of the 3 passers we have along with ESR and Odegaard.
But Arteta doesn’t do it.
Playing Russian roulette without a prize for staying alive.
Literal insanity.
This club is in freefall. Something needs to be done. Radical.
Amateur manager. Get him the fuck out.
no changes ?!?!?!? laughable, get knocked out by good ebening over two legs and surely the fans cant allow him to survive but nothing changes whatever until that virus kroenke is gone. i loathe stan the greedy con man obvious he’d be a disaster from day one, pathetic of the old arsenal board to sell out to him of all people. undid decades of good work, absolute insanity. we may never ever recover
If we had fans at the game, Arteta would be getting the treatment right now.
How the fuck can he leave Ceballos on the pitch at half time, Arteta is a fucking useless prick, we are out, he’s to blame, fucking hopeless team selection. so fucking obvious we needed a striker, so fucking obvious Xhaka is fucking hopeless at left back, why the fuck can we all see it and Arteta can’t. He’s fucking dead meat.
Villareal get cocky maybe we get in
Could you imagine us in the super league
LOOOOOOOOL
Humillation
Gonna be great when we have to pay off STEVE ROUND TO PISS OFF!
Yep Arteta and his fanboys with their excuse. Well done Ceballos 👏
It’s no exaggeration to say arteta is the worst manager in world football at in game management
If Arteta had any football nous he would have taken off Ceballos from the first goal.
Gabi to save our season
Now watch him bring on Auba while we need legs and Auba just stands around to play with 9 men instead.
Typical of the Con Man.
Absolutely none of this should surprise, its been on display ALL season long. What Arsenal expect to gain from a manager who seems to never learn any lessons, defies common sense.
If your goal is to strive for abject mediocrity, then you have the best and most perfect manager to achieve this.
Honestly, why bother any longer?
Arteta is going to talk about the sending off like it made us lose…
Annoying because their back line is absolute crap
Well we certainly suffer as Arsenal fans
Arteta is Emery’s bitch. Had a chorizo shoved up his arse good and proper by Emery
999 managers out of 1000 would have taken
Ceballos off. What did we do to deserve this absolute chump.
Don’t worry. Vinai zooming with Kroenke the Great right at this moment exploring ESL for just next season!
Ceballos has just ended Arteta’s time at Arsenal! 😂
Can we send Dani home early also please?