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raptora's avatar

And if he hadn't played at RB, or at all, what's the worst that could have happened? A loss by a goal or two to Brentford? A single point dropped on the table? The end of the world I assume.

Meanwhile, one of our most important players that has played way more football this season than in his recent seasons and is in his 30s, was that close to getting injured and missing our most important game in almost 20 years. Fk me Hab, you were right!

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Habesha Gooner's avatar

I was right. You just complained about a whole bunch of nothing. A bunch of "if's" that didn't happen. Partey was fine. He didn't play against Everton the previous week.

And the fact that you think losing to Brentford at home didn't matter is all I need to know about your bad opinions. Every game matters. Some less than others. But it still does. You can rotate but you can't play random kids that aren't ready or players that can't do the job in those positions. The players that come in have to be of the required level to do it.

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Dyznyesky's avatar

It’s extremely poor risk management and very, very naive. I could easily see fan sentiment turning against Arteta if Partey had been injured and unavailable for Madrid, and we lost the tie.

Mikel is playing with fire.

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Habesha Gooner's avatar

risk management

He didn't play the previous week. He rested him for the most important home game and we won 3 nil. He wouldn't have played him against Brentford either had Ben White been available.

The risk was play a fit partey or a struggling timber.

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Positive Pete's avatar

Or the option of another formation that didn’t utilise either Partey or Timber? Possible or not ,I don’t know ?If it was.It was an unnecessary risk lets face it.

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Habesha Gooner's avatar

This is the first argument that has been decent so far. A formation change might actually work. You would need to play Zinchenko LWB and may be Sterling as RWB to pull it off last saturday.

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raptora's avatar

Hmmm, so we're back to my suggestion about Sterling. Took you a few days.

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Habesha Gooner's avatar

Nah, you said play him at RB in a back 4.

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