I’m a bit late to the party on the Brentford game, but I have some hot takes.
1. That was a GOOD win.
Brentford doesn’t get beaten at their place often… we delivered a very clean win against a team packed with first-teamers. I thought we’d lose that game because of the amount of changes made. I was wrong. We’re finally getting to a stage where we’re a ‘next man up’ kind of club. Gone are the day where the player doing the domestic cups would mail it in. I loved the make-up of the squad, it was youth, a bit of experience, a random debut, and a spirited performance. For all the embarrassing histrionics we’ve seen this season, we’re now at 6 wins and 2 draws. Pretty decent, wouldn’t you say?
2. Aaron Ramsdale
He’s here for the fight. The performance was vintage Aaron. A few shaky moments, but mostly all good. He made a brilliant save that contributed to the win, his kicking was really bold (even though his completion rate was a smidge over 50%), he also commanded his box really well. Will he start against Bournemouth? Doubt it. I think he’s the domestic cups guy now.
3. Kai Slander
People are now fully in the mode of critiquing performances that don’t merit it. He played well. His game is simple at the moment. I thought he did well in possession, he connected play really well, and he gave the side solidity from a defensive perspective. There was no goal or assist – but those are coming. The biggest concern about him in Xhaka’s position was defensive diligence – he has that, and now people are worried he might not be able to attack. He’ll come good there, we’re gonna get Leverkusen Kai. We have to remember, he’s learning a new position, he’s under extreme pressure, and things aren’t falling his way. When they do – just remember the slanderers.
4. ESR
I thought he looked good. There were no real concerns over fitness. Some folk on the internet reckon his issues with Arteta come from a lack of pressing. The player himself said he sometimes doesn’t take instruction well. It’s simple for him – get it together and make a case to stay. Or mail it in and leave in January. I hope he stays, he’s a lovely player to watch, and he deserves to be playing at our level.
5. Kiwior
I might be imagining it, but the bulk we wanted Vieira to put on seems to have gone to the Polish defender. He is a BIG boy, has he been stealing from Fabio’s plate? I loved his game. He’s a menace. Very strong in the tackle. Good passing range. He’s also very aggressive. He’ll be knocking on the door soon I’d imagine. Remember, we picked him up because the club worried he’d become a £50m defender if we left him in Italy for another season.
We have West Ham in the next round, that should be a fun game, we can call it the Declan Derby.
There are some injury rumours doing the rounds at the moment. Reports suggesting Saliba might be carrying a knock are worrying. But I do think it’s worth noting that Arteta revels in the confusion around who is and is not available.
My guess would be this: The only players not in the squad tomorrow will be Partey and Martinelli. We could see some names rested, especially after good performances against Brentford. But by the time City comes around, we’ll have a full batch of players to choose from.
I think having Partey and Martinelli in the mixer for City would be HUGE for Arteta – I just hope he isn’t rolling the dice on fitness so early in the season.
Right, short one today – get on the latest Patreon BEFORE THE WHISTLE if you need the content in your life.
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— LE GROVE (@LeGrove) September 29, 2023
Guns of Hackney is dead to me… now. You can have any opinion, say anything you want .. but when you come on during a game and blatantly root for the other team to score goals. And when that team is Tottenham.. Then you have lost your Le Grove card. That’s beyond trolling that’s turning in your fan card setting it on fire and pissing on it.
In short he can fuck right off. Past history or no past history that is a bridge too far.
And he made up some bullshit story about betting against Arsenal and that was why he was rooting for Spurs to beat us. because he would win money.. There was no bet.. you know it, I know it and he knows it.
Referees could just wear digital watch with screen/wifi and tune in to sky sports when he wants to check something, tv broadcasts have instantaneous replays.
Uh oh did I give Guns Of H too much love.
Middy is pissed and we can’t have that.
If dude was a high level troll he wouldn’t usually vanish after a great win, he’d still be on here just happier because of the result.
If dude was a high level goober troll, he’d be expending all that time trolling spurs blogs to get a rose out of them instead of gooners
It was different many years back when arsenal were legitimately ass and we all moaned and trolled to vent
Now arsenal are good but he never changed tack even once
Dude cheers for opposing teams against us.
Dude put money on spurs beating us.
Dude is negative relentlessly and usually vanishes after a good win
Occam’s razor – the simplest explanation is usually correct
If it looks like a spud, smells like a spud and tastes like a spud, it’s probably a spud.
Sal-
nah Im not mad.. … GOH is great if you want to bullshit about music and clubbing with a giant a-hole. hahaha .. but I prefer to do it with people who don’t slander the Arsenal by rooting for goals while I’m trying to root for a win.
Know what I’m sayin.
Anyhow.. I’m sure he will be back with his version of “Realism” but I’m giving it a hard pass for reading any of it from now on.
Fucking hell Guns o Hackney isn’t worth this kind of debrief, he’d even admit that.
Back to VAR again only explanation for the incompetence is cash passing hands its not possible for an organisation to be this poor at their jobs. How that is a shock to some is beyond me and more of a shock? Barca are deep in a scandal that covers 2 decades of payoffs, RVP and Arsenal has the receipts on a sliver of the likely wrong doing.
The lid will eventually be lifted on PGMOL for most part its just a nudge but the wrongdoing is there, perhaps then United will get an away tie in the Milk Cup.
Yep.. I don’t Understand how the explanation for Var messing up today is human error when the whole point of VAR is to correct human error. So then what exactly is the point of it?
So there is something most likely much more sinister to it. Then the whole .. Who’s on First comedy routine they are rolling out as an excuse.
I have a sincere question about the VAR error.
If they recognized the error soon after it happened- Klopp said they explained the mistake at halftime… then..
Why couldn’t they make an announcement and restore the Diaz goal that was wrongly deducted?
Either right away with a break to communicate… or at halftime.
I know there’s no provision for that, but if a huge, clear error is admitted before a match is over, maybe they should make it possible.
I know… what a can of worms that will open!
I think once the decision is made or not made you pretty much have to live with it.. because you can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Because every goal changes the way teams play.
When a former referee like Mike Dean admits they didn’t make decisions to change things to protect their buddies from being embarrassed instead of for the betterment of the game or getting the call correct. You know corruption has been deep ceded for some time. That should have set off some pretty big alarm bells .. but didn’t really seem to change any of the processes.
So ref was aware of the mistake of his idiot VAR colleagues but still gave two yellows cards to Jota within 1 or 2 minutes in the second half? Surely he should have shown some understanding and not be a complete douchebag?
Arse,
Don’t know what you are on about but find another play mate.
Nothing to see here
Why didn’t var officials immediately stop everything when they saw referee call offside instead of allow goal like they thought should happen?
It is crazy story all around, var officials seem to be entirely clueless or something shady happened.
Imma go with “something shady happened”.
There is enough circumstantial evidence that it’s corruption. Surely in 2023 with so much technology advances, financial resources and that too in a first world.country known to the bastion of capitalism you cant tell me that they don’t get a process right. Forgetting to draw a line or not communicating properly with match officials is plain bollocks. It’s nothing but deep routed corruption and any amount of obfuscating it by nonsensical reasons is not cutting it. It’s plain and simple good old passing of money between hands
Barca paid 10m to the head of the refs over a several year period to buy their favour
Don’t tell me English refs are any cleaner. FAT chance
jwl
“So the ‘human error’ by the VAR team is getting the onfield decision wrong. Not by failing to draw lines etc. The lines were drawn and Diaz was clearly onside. The huge, quite unbelievable error was misunderstanding the onfield decision.”
While that deduction may be true it is even more insane because every VAR operator has an assistant. So in this case if it was a misinterpretation, then two VAR operators made the same mistake what are the odds on that? To avoid that two people looking at the same footage and match and now both come to an error loaded conclusions, we have to have the semi automated offside technology.
In addition, Webb had credibility and gravitas when he took on the the job, but if this continues he has either clean house or he has to go.
There are three core issues at hand
1) the refs are corrupt
2) the refs are totally, genuinely rubbish at their jobs and couldn’t police a crèche
3) the officials are so dumb that they think fans are impressed by then trying to make out officiating is rocket science, when in actual fact, VAR is the easiest tool to use properly imaginable it’s just in all the wrong hands. The refs think their job is to be the star of the show, the center piece of the match which all the fans will watch and admire, completely clueless that them constantly trying to make themselves front and center only ruins matches and makes everyone hate them even more
‘Webb had credibility and gravitas when he took on the the job, but if this continues he has either clean house or he has to go.’
Don’t make it an either or please. Both.
Excellent weekend for Arsenal fans with 1 point of top of the table. This should help with winning on Tuesday.
The game still proved that Eddie is too short to head in goals when he had a chance.
In addition the moniker GD4 finally made sense to me.as in this game Goal Difference = 4.
You need someone that has the balls to fire these refs that are clueless in officiating. If Webb can’t do his job then he has to go. He will come under pressure if what happened so far this season is the new normal. Too much money is at stake to let these assholes fuck up the obtaining the points per game and the owners will demand then changes when they loose their investment. PGMOL are fucking retards.
I’ve said it until I’m blue in the face but the reason nothing changes is because clubs whose results were not wrecked each week stay silent
Every week about 3 games are ruined. The impacted teams come out with their manager and protest for 2 mins after the match then the club slinks away and moves on
Every other club sits on their hands thinking ‘well we’re fine at least’ until the next match week when they get stung. Since the noise is short lived and only comes from a couple of clubs each week, the noise never reaches the volume needed to be listened to.
It’s so SIMPLE to fix. The PL club higher ups need to reach out to one another to created a coordinated response to the standards of officiating and demand better collectively.
None of the clubs want to be punished for protesting, so just do it as a collective then what can PGMOL do but listen?
It just takes one club to be the adult in the room – ideally a club that wasn’t even impacted this time (like arsenal) to reach out to liverpool and say hey actually what happened to you is unacceptable. It’s happened to us before and it’s a matter of time until it gets us again. Let’s reach out to the other impacted clubs recently and make a joint statement. Before you know it you’ve got 10 teams aggrieved in the last 3-5 weeks on side in a coordinated way. Ask the other clubs if they want to co-sign your protest letter (they will because they’ll have no doubt been fucked over numerous times last season too if not this) and bang you’ve got yourself a statement on behalf of probably most or all clubs in the league demanding better.
PGMOL would be under ridiculous pressure to deliver then and standards either magically improve over night or they have no choice but to start firing refs due to poor performance because all eyes would be on their performance
DONE
ITS THAT SIMPLE.
What is seldom discussed today is how increasingly difficult it is for a London based club to win or
challenge for league title.
There are currently SEVEN clubs in London and they are understandably “competitive” when it comes to playing neighbours. There is no easy match when playing these opponents.
Arsenal have started brilliantly this season, but it should be no surprise that our two draws and dropped points have been against local opponents.
And yeah PGMOL fucker aside, what a fantastic weekend for arsenal.
The unnecessary overplaying of Saka until his injury and the Spurs win are the only blemishes on what has otherwise been a glorious weekend so far.
Great performance yesterday and glorious results left right and center. I don’t think Chelsea have played yet? If so would love to see them drop points again lol
Chelsea will play Fulham on Monday and I can see them dropping points in that match as it is at Craven Cottage.
Upcoming league fixtures of note
Monday
Fulham chelsea – chelsea should win but it’s west London derby away and they’re shite so there’s a real window for fulham here
Sat
Burnley chelsea – sneaky feeling burnley may get a result. Would love it!
Man U brentford same as above
Brighton pool – anything could happen
Arsenal city
I expect spurs and Newcastle to beat luton and west ham so not interested in those
If we win next weekend aside from going above city which would be amazing, I think we’ll be taking points off a good couple of our other rivals as well. Massive massive game which I think if we win really sets the tone for our first part of the season. To have beaten them in the charity shield then again in the league whilst moving above then would be a massive massive statement of intent. It would also be 2 losses in a row for city which is not ideal… could rock them just a little bit. Dare to dream gooners…
One more comment during my spamming spree sorry
Really proud of saka and odd yesterday letting Kai take the penalty. That was the definition of class and made me extremely proud to be a gooner. That was great
Also props to the away fans yesterday who were absolutely bouncing. The commentator said he’d never heard the away end that loud all match at Bournemouth before, that’s some compliment. Sounded like a fucking party down there
Bless. Giving the shittest player on the team a penalty to get a goal. Make a wish foundation dreams right there.
That was embarrassing and condescending. Giving someone a penalty is admitting publicly “this dude is awful but we’re giving him a chance”. Imagine if he’d missed it! Man alive I would have paid to see that.
Good win. Unexpected loss for city.
Giving sad little Kai a free kick at goal…oh boy. It’s like back in the day where the junior gunners came out on the pitch and kicked at goal and Pat Jennings pretended not to be able to save a pea roller from a 6 year old.
Fucking hell.
Guns, it would have been embarrassing for Havertz if he’d missed it. The joy and camaraderie was genuine and far from condescending when he scored.
Try harder!
Bob
It was cringey.
Arsenal signed Harvertz for 65M so that he could help us.
Right now it looks like Arsenal have paid 65M to help Harvertz.
TR7
Excellent.
This was the crux of my post. Shoehorn in the guy who clearly was a massive mistake no matter how it affects the team and then when it isn’t working, gift him a free goal. It was embarrassing. Why didn’t ESR get the pen? Because he wasn’t paid for by the genius: Arteta.
The slow witted are creaming themselves over the camaraderie but they are missing the point.
Guns
You have been missing the point ever since I arrived on this board.
WW
Explain your conclusion.
New post
Guns
Strictly. ESR wasn’t on the pitch yet so kinda a moot point though can understand your concern about the risk of Havertz missing the pen under the circumstance…..
2 up is always precarious and we all have vivid and probablypainful memory of those… can think of 4 in recent months …
The gesture and intent is noble howeve carries with it some risk. God forbids, Bournemouth fluked a goal and oops…
Just hope it’s calculated risk taken by our Captain . At that point, it didn’t look as though Bournemouth had anything in their tank to hurt us.
Let’s see how it does to havertzs game…
lol London Gunner, you are twat of the highest order.
No real man would brag of being tough online.
Weak mind and body and muscular twat to boot.
Seek help.