EDDIE KRUEGER: NIGHTMARE ON N5, CAN HE TAKE IT TO SEVEN SISTERS?

by .

Eddie Nkeitiah has put the world of Arsenal fandom in a spin; he seemed to be floating out the door in unspectacular fashion, then Lacazette landed the London Plague.

‘IT’S OVER FOR ARSENAL’

‘EDDIE IS LEAGUE ONE’

‘HE AIN’T IT’

5 starts.

4 goals.

Arsenal fans revisiting past assessments.

The solution to our striker problem has been sitting on the bench since August. Most young players can’t impress a diet of 6 minutes here and there, they need a run of games, they need the confidence trust gives them. Eddie was dining out of bins, then he was given access to the chefs’ table, now he’s gorging.

Eddie runs the channels, he wins balls back, scores goals, brings our wide players into the game, works an absolute shift, and my-oh-my, does he get under the skin of anyone he plays against.

Matt Kandela reckons he could be the new Andy Cole, I think he could be our Sylvain Wiltord.

Eddie was the difference against Leeds.

His first goal came from his hounding of the Leeds keeper. The English striker forced an error, nicked the ball, and poked home from a yard.

‘Very Eddie’

Indeed. It’s a feature of his game that he rumbles defenders and keepers. They don’t see him coming, realise how quick he is, nor understand that he doesn’t care about their careers.

Meslier was totally rattled. Eddie Krueger took a nightmare into the real world. He left their keeper muttering to himself.

Eddie Krueger was not finished.

Martinelli did some excellent work down the left, bullied his way into the box, cut back to Eddie who had to do all sorts to reshape his body to sweep home his second.

Two up after 10 minutes.

Eddie doing a hatchet job on a club that treated him like shit.

Wondering how his stats compare to the rest of Europe? Take a look.

Those percentiles are from the top 5 leagues. That is a very complete set of numbers for a striker people said would struggle two divisions lower in England.

His stats compare favourably to Jota, Havertz, Firmino, and Nkunku. More on what to do next a bit later.

I can’t be arsed to go too deep on the rest of the game, but in short, we battered Leeds, conceded their first attempt at our goal, and looked a bit rattled. That is a worrying pattern, our defence has been weird, Ramsdale isn’t invincible now, we need to sharpen up for Thursday.

… there are some mitigating circumstances for the shakiness tho:

Arsenal is inexperienced. What these kids are doing is ridiculous, they stand up to the pressure of the fans and experiences they’ve never had, but it’s not easy. Manchester City score two goals and they know how to go for the kill, and end games with 5. Arsenal are babies, we play with our food, and sometimes the meal escapes. We had 19 shots, 9 found the target, we were not ruthless enough. We cruised in second half then stalled when we needed to find 3rd gear.

Leeds scored and we couldn’t play out of the weirdness of knowing we were in total control but at risk of doing something very dim. We could have drawn 2-2 or won 5-1 in that final 20.

There’s also the chance that the halftime marching orders were built around preserving energy in the 2nd half. It might not have even been an instruction, unspoken perhaps, sometimes players just decide there’s something more important on the horizon. That was dangerous, it was risky, but we got away with it.

We all FELT like it was close, maybe it was, but if I told you before the game Leeds would have 3 attempts at our goal with 2 shots on targets, you’d be happy with that. January 2020, they had 19 shots, 6 on target. As fans, we’re not used to challenging for something at the end of a season, it’s jittery, and sometimes the emotion of those jitters makes us think the game was more in danger more than it was.

Still, our reality is this: We took the 3 points.

Nothing.

Else.

Matters.

The table is looking favourable.

Spurs have to beat us.

If they lose, we’ve created a historical reference point in their house before they have.

If they draw, we’ll need to win one more game. Everton will likely be safe after Wednesday (Watford), their players won’t give a shit when they come to play Arsenal because Frank Lampard will have the company credit card out and he’ll be showing the young whippersnappers what the Ayia Napa days were all about with some BIG nights out in the North West. Newcastle, for all their positive results, have had far too much praise for beating shit teams of late. Before City, the last time they played someone good, it was Spurs, who scored five. City also scored 5. Arsenal fans who love Bruno are too keen to call them a top 4 side when they are just a Jonjo Shelvey vessel of misery.

Even if we are b****n by Sp*rs, the top 4 race is in our hands.

Pivot your thinking for a moment.

Imagine Spurs were closer to 3rd than 4th. Imagine they were coming to our house, knowing a win would end our top 4 chances and a draw wouldn’t be good enough.

How would you feel?

The Conte masterclass of ‘lump it to Kane and Son’ + ‘put 11 behind the ball,’ isn’t going to be good enough for them.

They have to play.

When Spurs have to play, they struggle.

Brighton is the team most similar to Arsenal in the league outside City. They man-marked Kane, stopped him dropping deep, didn’t register a shot on target all game, and they were beaten.

Brentford battered Spurs. Spurs didn’t have it in them to play against a deep block and they had rings run around them.

They are shit. But it doesn’t matter in a NLD. All rules go out the window. It is MASSIVE.

So who knows what will happen.

We always imagine the players are going to be deeply entrenched in the emotions of the history, the fandom, the future.

They won’t.

We don’t want them to be.

They need to be relaxed.

When the players think about the magnitude of who they are playing, this side in particular, tends to get walloped.

Liverpool, City (home game), too much respect for Cristiano, are just 3 examples.

I don’t think our boys will do that on Thursday.

Harry Kane, though clearly the best striker in the world, is not an enigma to a group of players that have eaten dinner with him and possibly had to deal with him as a member of their team on a quiz night.

Spurs don’t have prestige like Liverpool. They’re the mob down the road. Our players know what beating them means.

This game is a toss of a coin. If we can surprise Conte, make them come at us, and attack the space for the first goal, it’ll be very exciting.

It is a HUGE win for Arsenal to be in a position this good. We are in overachievement territory right now. We have the same points that secured top 4 last season. We have the same amount of wins that 2nd place United achieved last season. There are 75 points to play for, which would be a massive top 4 haul.

Very exciting stuff.

Before I go, I think Eddie will sign a new deal, and that is the right thing for him to do.

For Eddie:

  • Only Newcastle can offer him more money than Arsenal. He wanted £90k a week-ish. He’s worth it.
    • Germany is step down in prestige AND money
  • Go to Newcastle, you might be fighting MBappe for a position next season.
  • Go to any club in the league, bar Brighton, you are fighting other players for a start
    • Palace: Edouard
    • West Ham: Antonio
    • Newcastle: Barnes / Some mega signing
  • We have Europe, we need two strikers, he is now a worthy 2nd striker
  • You only leave to go to Brighton as a stepping stone to get to an Arsenal. If you are doing it at Arsenal, and you fired them to Europe, why leave?
  • DON’T BE A ZAHA. He left United, banged at Palace, took the big-money deal, then wasn’t allowed to leave, now he’s 29 and he’s wasted his best years
    • One year left on his deal this summer. Could be good CL squad filler
  • YOUR MATES ARE HERE

For Arsenal:

  • Arteta knows he did a bad. There’s no second striker in Europe we know more about than Eddie bar Jesus. £40m for a player who, up until 2 weeks ago, had 5 goals after 1500 minutes? Please.
  • We don’t have a lot of money to spend – keep your powder dry, spend that on another position
  • You won’t lose on Eddie, he has shown he can do it at the highest level, if he has a bad season post-deal, there will always be another Prem club that needs an English player and £90k is easy money for any Prem team
  • Eddie is 22, he has 4 in 5 starts in the EPL, he has 10 g/a… he has a better England U21 record than Tammy. Why would we let him slip the net?

It’s a no-brainer for both parties. Hopefully, Eddie’s agent, who has a bit of a rep, will do the deal.

As for the fans that blew-up all my feeds with ‘YOU HAVE GOT THIS WRONG’, when are we going to have some accountability here? The talent ID in the noisy part of the fanbase has been cataclysmically wrong this season. Time for certain people to just sit out the opinion game.

As for Agenda FC?

  • We’ve seen off the xG pearl-clutchers
  • We’ve seen off the ‘Arteta is cone boy’ crew with a new 3 year deal
  • We’ve seen off the ‘THE FANS WILL BE BOOING BY NOVEMBER’ folk with the fans embracing Arteta HARD
  • We’ve seen off the League One Eddie’s
  • We’ve probably seen of the ‘PEPE NEEDS MORE GAMES’ crowd as well
  • Finally, most are ready to admit… Arteta has sauce.

But now, we move into a phase of shared agenda ownership: Beating Spurs.

We all want it.

No one is any doubt it will be tough.

So let’s do something like, unite around Louis Dunford’s new anthem, and crack on with beating that lot on Thursday


But before I go, check out our podcast: And please, in the upfront, accept my apologies for the sound issues, that was on me. I’ll have it fixed for the next one.


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Tom

Andy, not disagreeing at all with you there. I’m just burnt out debating humanity aspects of the world in general and football in particular. It’s mostly a shit show all around.

DivineSherlock

I despise City and their oil money from the time when they were only beginning and used to target our players but Haaland really is a game changing signing for them , dont know why they splashed 100million on Grealish but this Haaland guy is going to be phenomenal for them . Its like they signed Aguero again.

benkind

Halaand will bang well in the PL. We talk like the premier league is full of 20 superstar teams, it isn’t. We are talking about a mancity team that is ruthless when they get going and Pep who will play a false 9 rather than having a striker below average. He just got a striker and people think he will not bang. funny. . Haaland is not a one season wonder. He is a goal scoring machine and has done it against top teams in the UCL. It is like doubting Mbappe will bang in the EPL. I am jealous… Read more »

WengerEagle

”but Haaland really is a game changing signing for them , dont know why they splashed 100million on Grealish but this Haaland guy is going to be phenomenal for them . Its like they signed Aguero again.” Spot on here. About both moves. The Grealish move was just strange considering how loaded they are in the CAM/wide areas and for him too considering he is 26 and not 21. He needs to be a regular in his prime. Haaland is as close to a guarantee as you will get. Has looked a near unstoppable force in the Bundesliga, Champions League… Read more »

bacaryisgod

WE

I don’t see Man City selling Zinchenko. He’s got another two years on his deal and is a great squad player for them. I do think if he came to us, he could be a really important part of our first team and he also provides cover in multiple positions (CB and CM)

More important for us is to secure renewed deals for three of our players with deals that also expire in two years, Saka, Martinelli and Saliba along with getting Eddie to sign too.

salparadisenyc

Don Raul looking at that Haaland transfer free and thinking to himself the glory days are over in England after dropping £72m on Pepe.

Although I’d imagine Haaland in a different universe where the wages are concerned.

WengerEagle

The Pepe transfer was absurd Sal and there is no hindsight moving of the goalposts here even.

Guy had one top drawer season which was significantly padded by penalties in Ligue 1 by age 24. Not too dissimilar to Gervinho who actually won a league title in fairness to him and only cost £15m odd.

£72m is what you pay for absolutely world class players.

Dissenter

Wenger eagle “Haaland is as close to a guarantee as you will get. Has looked a near unstoppable force in the Bundesliga, Champions League and at international level even. Like Aguero in 2011 this move pretty much guarantees a 30+ goal a season ST for a decade plus.” I don’t think Haaland is as certain as you make it out to be Scoring goals for fun in Austria, Germany and in the group stages of the CL against weaker teams doesn’t necessarily translate into premier league dominance Also Dortmund have been quite silly, they could have sold him for more… Read more »

Dissenter

Wishing city got stuck with Kane and his dodgy ankles last season.
They would have ladened with Kane and Grealish, 200 million worth of homemade dross.

WengerEagle

BIG

I don’t see it with Zinchenko myself, he isn’t good in CM and is good at LB but not much of an attacking threat. Think he suits being a squad player at City much more than he would being out left side outlet in the XI.

Agree on securing the deals of our lads being very important and not something that should be taken for granted.

andy1886

“Guy had one top drawer season which was significantly padded by penalties in Ligue 1 by age 24”

Yet there were dozens posting on here at the time that with the Pepe signing we’d ‘won the transfer window’. I’ll bet half of them had only ever seen him on YouTube.

salparadisenyc

Eagle

Little question the Pepe transfer Arsenal’s worst piece of business historically, no need to beat a dead horse as its been dissected on here. But their’s other way of describing it, cataclysmic failure.

We’ll be lucky to get £15m in this window for him, sure Monchi will bend us over to the maximum if its Sevilla.

WengerEagle

”I don’t think Haaland is as certain as you make it out to be Scoring goals for fun in Austria, Germany and in the group stages of the CL against weaker teams doesn’t necessarily translate into premier league dominance” I mean he scored 6 knockout stage CL goals in his 6 apps to date (2 vs PSG, 4 vs Sevilla). He has scored at every level and comp he has played for club and country. ”Also Dortmund have been quite silly, they could have sold him for more money last season, serves them right.” This is a fair point but… Read more »

WengerEagle

That last bit on Haaland regarding his adaption to PL football.

Dissenter

There’s a lot or Pepe revisionism here lately
His name was mentioned here a lot in the season before we signed him
When we signed him, there was an ecstatic explosion on this blog; I can think of a few people that weren’t thrilled-Valentine [thought we had been duped] and Charlie [wanted Zaha] for different reasons.
Some fans were serenading Raul in the stadium, at one point.

WengerEagle

Sal

My hope is Marseille or Monaco now with CL football could fork out £20m for him.

Sevilla or the Italian clubs can fuck off with their 2 year loan schemes.

Zacharse

”Also Dortmund have been quite silly, they could have sold him for more money last season, serves them right.”

wouldn’t it destroy dortmund’s whole young phenom brand to start niggling over fees in that way? isn’t their whole approach to triple their investment and give kids a place to grow into themselves? seems like they have it together from where I’m sitting

WengerEagle

Go back and look in the archives Dissenter, that ain’t true. I said when we were linked to him that his numbers were padded by pens and that he was relatively unproven and not worth such a ridiculous fee. Was far from the only one, TR7 I remember for one was strongly against the move and never rated him.

If people were ecstatic by the time we signed him it was more because the alternative was signing nobody else.

The Real Vieira Lynn

Tom your “shit show” commentary is spot on, as far too often the general public has a tendency to focus too much energy on the most obvious perpetrators of societal decrepitude and oft-times ignore the rather insidious practices of “capitalist” Billionaires, who’s largely selfish endeavours have negatively impacted the lives of millions of individuals…I would suspect that this conversation is a tad too nuanced for most so they simply stick to pointing the finger of blame at those characters who fall well within the lowest hanging fruit category…not to mention, as soon as you attempt to raise legitimate concerns against… Read more »

WengerEagle

Haaland is nothing like Ibrahimovic though and I always feel the comparisons are lazy given their similar height and build.

Ibra was a generational freak, I literally cannot think of one other ST nearly as tall (6 foot 5) that was even half as technically gifted. Guy was a magician.

He was however a fairly one=-paced which is why imo he never exploded in the CL. Still clearly had an amazing career.

Haaland isn’t even remotely as technically gifted. He is however miles faster, stronger and more suited to PL football imo than even prime Ibra would have been.

salparadisenyc

Dissenter

Coming out of the throws of Wenger securing champions league and bringing in his solo signing of Cech to then shelling that kind of money on a wide man was no question exciting.

Not sure how that changes the fact this deal got the man who green lit it sacked with major hints at corruptive practices transpiring followed by the player utterly failing to deliver.

WengerEagle

Suppose both being from Scandinavia and having arrogance to rival Simon Cowell doesn’t help deter comparisons either.

WengerEagle

”Coming out of the throws of Wenger securing champions league and bringing in his solo signing of Cech to then shelling that kind of money on a wide man was no question exciting.”

Exactly. Give a man who hasn’t eaten in a week a slice of crusty old slice of dry bread and it will taste like it was served from a 5 star restaurant.

DivineSherlock

WengerEagle

Imagine Newcastle would be the same like City now , one 100million signing doesnt work replace him with another ! Haaland and Ibra are very very different , Ibra never had pace to rely on , whereas Haaland is built different . Kind of like CR7 but younger .

The Real Vieira Lynn

WengerEagle I would beg to differ, in that they’re similar in both size and bravado, albeit no one can touch Ibra’s self-indulgent disposition, as anyone attempting to emulate his on and off field antics would invariably be “cancelled” with considerable haste; they both have a knack for attempting shots that most others wouldn’t dare, and they both have an incredible capacity to make predictive runs in and around the box, which makes them incredibly difficult to defend, especially considering their respective prowess when it comes to finishing with both feet and their heads…I would suspect that the fact that Haaland… Read more »

Tom

Weagle, Haaland’s suitability to the PL isn’t in question, but is he a good fit for City’s style?

andy1886

TRVL – Can’t get me on that one, I’ve been called a ‘commie’ many times over. Quite happy to condemn regimes and individuals alike when they impact the weak and the poor with their greed and arrogance.

Lump Stan in with that one too. The sooner the likes of him, his fellow ‘investors’, plus Sky and the rest get out of the game and move on to the ‘next bestest thing ever!!!’ the better.

WengerEagle

Not sure Tom, on paper you would maybe have to say no but I doubt that Pep doesn’t have a hell of a plan in place to build the attack around him long-term. A more interesting question imo is who pushed for the signing, Pep himself or the board/DOF, etc? For me it’s no coincidence that it has been announced less than a week after the CL SF flame-out. Because you never felt that Ibrahimovic was a Pep signing at Barca, very much a board signing and a means to move on Eto’o who he was seemingly fed up with.… Read more »

Samesong

but is he a good fit for City’s style?

They went after Kane didn’t they? So why can he not fit their style? Means they have plan A B and C now.

Against Real Madrid a Halaand probably takes them to the CL final.

salparadisenyc

In terms of long term Aguero replacement City have hit the bulls eye, not a better option available.

Haaland attributes for me, ideal for premier league will take some tweaking but don’t tell me with whats currently on offer at City that the Norwegian will not be put in with more chances than at Dortmund and converting many. He completes the side.

Habesha Gooner

Pepe’s fee was ridiculous. I wanted ziyech that summer for 25 mil. People wanted Zaha at 80 mil. But I was willing to give pepe a chance to see if he could be that guy. But we kind of knew he was going to be this player after we saw him play the first couple of times. If we get 20 mil then we need to take it.

andy1886

I wonder if EB has accepted that Haaland isn’t coming to Arsenal yet?

Nelson

This Thursday, I am afraid that I’ll have to hold my breath for 90+ mins and hope to survive….

WengerEagle

TRVL Agreed, Haaland is more a force of nature whereas Ibra was more of a maverick/genius type as well as being a ruthless ST. I used to wonder when I was younger why certain players have a set of attributes that they excel in and others that they lack barring a couple of GOAT exceptions like R9, Messi, prime Ronaldo, Zidane, etc. That’s probably why they are so strong in certain aspects in the first place. Would TAA be as freakishly strong going forward like Alves was if he spent more time honing his 1 vs 1 defending? Or would… Read more »

Mr Serge

City signing Harland means the league is wrapped up until pep leaves

WengerEagle

Ziyech has been very disappointing barring a few moments of magic for the Chavs.

Not as big a flop as Werner/Lukaku but certainly not the player that we saw at Ajax. Is why you must always be very careful of buying from the Eredivisie. Does not have a great hit/flop rate for exports.

salparadisenyc

Meanwhile Ibra on the verge of hoisting another Serie A title after going to LA to retire.

andy1886

Le Grove 30.7.2019 ‘Welcome Pepe’

Pedro -“I don’t need to continue to wax about this, but really, it’s the most exciting transfer of the last 10 years for Arsenal. We know he wants to move to us, he’s not a reject, his career is on an upwards trajectory.

… I still can’t quite believe it’s happening.”

Just goes to show that in football there are NO certainties.

WengerEagle

”Meanwhile Ibra on the verge of hoisting another Serie A title after going to LA to retire.” Guy is a fooking legend. I have really warmed to him much more post-PSG. Seeing him absolutely dick down the MLS in his sleep and turn it on in particular in every single El Trafico’s LA derby out of sheer spite for our boi Carlos Vela being labelled the best player in the league was peak Ibra and it was top entertainment. Then come back to a struggling Milan side and absolutely turn them around on and off the pitch. Imagine that giant… Read more »

The Real Vieira Lynn

Andy

I think we’re on the same page, although I might have misinterpreted the tenor of your response….the Bilderbergers of the modern world have wreaked untold havoc on the lives of those who’ve been largely resigned to the role of servicing their every whims, which is in no way an attempt to deflect attention away from those whom have accumulated their vast wealth due to their intimate connections with openly “murderous” regimes

Nigel Tufnel

Benkind, Good question about next years goal…. IF…… we get 4th this season, we shoot for 3rd place for next year, but if either of the top 2 have an off season as Liverpool did last year, for whatever reason… then we could be fighting for second. One of them will probably run away with the title. That’s a very ambitious stretch goal obviously. Taking some points off the big boys would be great for confidence. If we’re in the champions league, I just want us to earn some respect… like appearing that we belong there. Maybe take down a… Read more »

Jonko

Luiz Dive-az

The Real Vieira Lynn

WE I would suggest that within some of these ultra-talented individuals there exists a “clutch gene”, which affords them the luxury of slowing the game down to such a level that they aren’t negatively impacted by the plethora of periphery stimuli…this, in turn, enables them to do the kind of things others only attempt on the training pitch, if at all…this is the reason why players will wax lyrically about what they’ve personally witnessed by a particular player, when there’s functionally nothing on the line, yet that very same player seems incapable of duplicating such astonishing acts when the lights… Read more »

Mk12

So reactionary about Eddie and MO, Pedro

You are letting emotion get the better of you. Such a small sample size.

Also on Pepe, few weeks ago you’re going on about how Arteta needs to rotate his squad, so that players don’t come in cold. Pepe comes in cold and doesn’t have a good game and you’ve written him off completely. Other players, you make excuses for them to get a run of games, LMAO.

Mr Serge

Ew post 2 hours ago