Anyone who watched Girona 0-1 Liverpool yesterday-- knows they won't be a pushover at home. Pool were awarded a PEN after a VAR review. Iffy, since the ref on-field didn't call it (Diaz had slipped taking a shot). Anyway, Pool played their strongest 11, yet Girona could have scored three in the first 25 minutes-- one was a 'how does anyone miss a tap-in like that' by Daley Blind.
Sami Khedira says that Ozil told him that his move to Arsenal was a mistake. I think most wise fans of Arsenal agree with him. Wish he had stayed at Madrid …
Dude looks to have an extremely high ceiling so I’m very hopeful of him owning LB and Timber at RB, but Calafiori was injury prone before he joined us. Now he’s here and he’s already missed several games through injury.
We collect LBs for fun so it’s not a problem for us that he’s out, but it is worrying that we appear to have been lax about considering his injury record when signing him
The last thing we should have to do is sign ANOTHER left back in the next 18 months and I personally would block Arteta from doing so at all costs
Calafiori, Timber, kiwior, MLS, Zinchenko, Tomiyasu are all comfortable at LB.
We should sell Tierney, Zinchenko and Tomi. MLS should be earmarked as Calafiori’s backup except for games when we are carrying too many other injuries and we may need Timber there for experience.
But we all know if Arteta gets his way, we’ll sell the above defenders then blow half our budget on more this summer. His obsession with collecting defenders at the expense of forward players and midfielders has to be brought back under control. No more luxury defenders when our squad only has one first team quality winger and no back up CF options
If we win tomorrow, we'll be on 13 points tied 2nd with at least 4 other teams and only Barcelona and Dortmund could go ahead of us in points but they play against each other.
Win tomorrow and all chances are we'll be in top 3 by goal difference.
Disappointing season so far, we don't have the attacking option to win the league imo and as soon as we get a top team in Europe we will go out.
We need to win a cup this season and come top 3 or it's just the same old same old. We should have won the league last season but we threw it away at home against west ham, Villa yand Fulham.
We can't just come second and thinks that's enough or the players will start leaving.
"Arteta on fitness of Partey, Timber, Gabriel, Calafiori, Zinchenko who missed training: "We have to manage a lot of the players. Some of them probably not fit for tomorrow, some of them a doubt. We have 24 hours to make those decisions."
It's a weird stat because all it tells us is that teams have greater chance of winning the more shots they take, which is obvious. Also doesn't account for who's shooting the ball, is it 25 goal a year striker or defender who has scored zero goals in past three seasons.
Last season was our time to win the league because city have been on the decline for the past three seasons.
We all rightly point to the villa game at home when Arteta brought back his former city player favorites - Zinchenko and Jesus, to fuck us up.
But when you think of it deeper, Arteta started the season messing about with the backline and cost us points. He benched Gabriel for the first 3-4 games, it wasn't until it went bad for him to come back. Had we started that season with the Saliba-Gab duo, we would have won the league last season.
Arteta is a proper tinkerman, lie Ranieri, he always learns the wrong lessons from crises.
He's been doing these experiments every season. I don't understand how anyone can support him any further. He's on easy street and has been given so much time and power that he thinks he can experiment with the team whenever he feels like it during the season. We are currently operating with zero accountability, and it's showing even more now being practically double digits behind the leaders in a season where the former champs have declined and we're seeing Arteta make terrible decisions after terrible decisions instead of using the opportunity to capitalize. That is his style of management, though. Kill everything that is working or has worked and start tinkering and trying to be too smart.
Yea kinda if not for anything like that the Chelsea front line has a lot of pace plus they do have quite a deep bench attacking wise as well even if their defence and goalkeeper are bang average
Looks like we all may have to eat some humble pie, if not this season then the next.
A finance guy with no football experience figured he’d just buy up all best young talent available and signed them up to 7 or 8 year contract, and sooner or later they’d come true.
That Fulham game took all the optimism I had from the mid week's pool result out of me. It was gut wrenching. Especially the disallowed goal.
I know there are mitigating circumstances in defense and midfield. But now it has been proven we didn't do enough
in the summer transfer market to make sure the league was ours . We need to win the Carabao and hope for the best for the rest of the season.
The tide is also changing with Arteta. You can only be patient for so long. He is a quality manager. But nothing seems to have gone right for entire season for him. We started like fire in 2022/23 and ended it poorly. Last season we started like crap and ended it with a ridiculous form. Sustaining it is the small margins needed to win the league.
I said this season was a must for us in the league to keep our best players. You can only go through so many heartbreaks as a player and to not let it affect you. The belief won't be as we want it to, if we don't pull off a major trophy this season.
And Arteta has to the end of the next season to deliver a major trophy for me (UCL or PL). After that, it will be counter productive to keep going with him when all our players will be drained of any belief.
I mean yes we got issues for sure but if we rank 13th for open play xg but wtf we are 3rd (2 points off second) and only 4 less goal difference that Liverpool then we are actually doing pretty good. I dont give a monkey about how those goals were scored. Anything can happen as long as we are in the mixer come April. There is a still possibility that Liverpool and Chelsea will slow down and that arsenal can find some solutions or luck to our current issues.
Thos club are being set up for success. Some of the issues that appear bad luck are something else, as Wenger will remember trying to compete against Utd and Barca. Other things have just been bad luck, or down to the opponent. But this team has to get out of the habit of conceding to the first or second chance, a phenomenon that has been prevalent for far too long. We still concede too many goals per opponents chances, even with Raya.
I think there are forces that will make it very difficult to win the league this year, for all kinds of reasons, and some, but not all of them are self inflicted. Arteta has certainly signed and tries to persist with some very injury prone players. Also, Is the training regime too harsh? Are training pitches or backroom staff an issue as they were under Wenger ? ( I am just asking the question btw)
The team have also been on the end of some bizarre decisions, that others have not been punished for, Wenger could tell us all about that ( RVP at Barca, The Invincibles at OT etc)
But don’t rule this team out of another big shiny trophy if we have a squad of fit players late Spring.
Arteta has made mistakes and has also got a lot right, but once they win a big one it will be just the start.
I know Pedro will say its too early to give up on the season and Liverpool can be caught and overtaken, but not while Arteta continues his experiments and leaves players on the bench when they should be getting gametime and gelling with the team. Even Chelsea have gotten their shit together, and we're here dropping points and playing our best DM at RB. I'm so fucking tired of this shit. Its always 2 steps forward and then take a machete to the kneecaps with Arteta. Just because you lose Big Gab does not equate to playing your best DM at right back and switching your RB to leftback. You then wonder why the team struggles to get results. Where is the exciting football? Where was the ruthlessness against Fulham? Too many damn mistakes and refusing to correct them. I'm tired ya'll. Peace out.
Anyone who watched Girona 0-1 Liverpool yesterday-- knows they won't be a pushover at home. Pool were awarded a PEN after a VAR review. Iffy, since the ref on-field didn't call it (Diaz had slipped taking a shot). Anyway, Pool played their strongest 11, yet Girona could have scored three in the first 25 minutes-- one was a 'how does anyone miss a tap-in like that' by Daley Blind.
Sami Khedira says that Ozil told him that his move to Arsenal was a mistake. I think most wise fans of Arsenal agree with him. Wish he had stayed at Madrid …
https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/mesut-ozil-arsenal-realmadrid-khedira-34290638?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target
Calafiori is worrying me a bit
Dude looks to have an extremely high ceiling so I’m very hopeful of him owning LB and Timber at RB, but Calafiori was injury prone before he joined us. Now he’s here and he’s already missed several games through injury.
We collect LBs for fun so it’s not a problem for us that he’s out, but it is worrying that we appear to have been lax about considering his injury record when signing him
The last thing we should have to do is sign ANOTHER left back in the next 18 months and I personally would block Arteta from doing so at all costs
Calafiori, Timber, kiwior, MLS, Zinchenko, Tomiyasu are all comfortable at LB.
We should sell Tierney, Zinchenko and Tomi. MLS should be earmarked as Calafiori’s backup except for games when we are carrying too many other injuries and we may need Timber there for experience.
But we all know if Arteta gets his way, we’ll sell the above defenders then blow half our budget on more this summer. His obsession with collecting defenders at the expense of forward players and midfielders has to be brought back under control. No more luxury defenders when our squad only has one first team quality winger and no back up CF options
If we win tomorrow, we'll be on 13 points tied 2nd with at least 4 other teams and only Barcelona and Dortmund could go ahead of us in points but they play against each other.
Win tomorrow and all chances are we'll be in top 3 by goal difference.
I bet we steam roll Monaco tomorrow and paper over the cracks.
Jesus
KT
Kiwior
Zinchenko
Should be sold in Jan and that money be spent on a striker or a left winger or both.
That's if we can even get money for a couple of them
KT due to injury and Jesus due to crippling wage.
Disappointing season so far, we don't have the attacking option to win the league imo and as soon as we get a top team in Europe we will go out.
We need to win a cup this season and come top 3 or it's just the same old same old. We should have won the league last season but we threw it away at home against west ham, Villa yand Fulham.
We can't just come second and thinks that's enough or the players will start leaving.
Arteta just now at CL press conference -
"Arteta on fitness of Partey, Timber, Gabriel, Calafiori, Zinchenko who missed training: "We have to manage a lot of the players. Some of them probably not fit for tomorrow, some of them a doubt. We have 24 hours to make those decisions."
Not a great believer in the xG stat tbh, still prefer the eye test.
Arsenal should’ve won at Fulham but according to BBC Sport, we created xG of 2 overall and 0,4 from open play.
Not great.
It's a weird stat because all it tells us is that teams have greater chance of winning the more shots they take, which is obvious. Also doesn't account for who's shooting the ball, is it 25 goal a year striker or defender who has scored zero goals in past three seasons.
Last season was our time to win the league because city have been on the decline for the past three seasons.
We all rightly point to the villa game at home when Arteta brought back his former city player favorites - Zinchenko and Jesus, to fuck us up.
But when you think of it deeper, Arteta started the season messing about with the backline and cost us points. He benched Gabriel for the first 3-4 games, it wasn't until it went bad for him to come back. Had we started that season with the Saliba-Gab duo, we would have won the league last season.
Arteta is a proper tinkerman, lie Ranieri, he always learns the wrong lessons from crises.
He's been doing these experiments every season. I don't understand how anyone can support him any further. He's on easy street and has been given so much time and power that he thinks he can experiment with the team whenever he feels like it during the season. We are currently operating with zero accountability, and it's showing even more now being practically double digits behind the leaders in a season where the former champs have declined and we're seeing Arteta make terrible decisions after terrible decisions instead of using the opportunity to capitalize. That is his style of management, though. Kill everything that is working or has worked and start tinkering and trying to be too smart.
Yea kinda if not for anything like that the Chelsea front line has a lot of pace plus they do have quite a deep bench attacking wise as well even if their defence and goalkeeper are bang average
Chelsea just need a proper goalie and an additional striker and they will be the most complete team in the league.
They have more depth than anyone else.
Pains me to say it, but can't hide from the truth.
So all this talk about city and these 115/130 charges, but what is the story with Chelsea ?
Surely they will be hauled in as well for previous and current misdemeanors
If not, we could be in trouble as they to have got their house in order on the field.
Looks like we all may have to eat some humble pie, if not this season then the next.
A finance guy with no football experience figured he’d just buy up all best young talent available and signed them up to 7 or 8 year contract, and sooner or later they’d come true.
We all laughed, didn’t we.
That Fulham game took all the optimism I had from the mid week's pool result out of me. It was gut wrenching. Especially the disallowed goal.
I know there are mitigating circumstances in defense and midfield. But now it has been proven we didn't do enough
in the summer transfer market to make sure the league was ours . We need to win the Carabao and hope for the best for the rest of the season.
The tide is also changing with Arteta. You can only be patient for so long. He is a quality manager. But nothing seems to have gone right for entire season for him. We started like fire in 2022/23 and ended it poorly. Last season we started like crap and ended it with a ridiculous form. Sustaining it is the small margins needed to win the league.
I said this season was a must for us in the league to keep our best players. You can only go through so many heartbreaks as a player and to not let it affect you. The belief won't be as we want it to, if we don't pull off a major trophy this season.
And Arteta has to the end of the next season to deliver a major trophy for me (UCL or PL). After that, it will be counter productive to keep going with him when all our players will be drained of any belief.
You aren't an Arsenal fan. You are the loser that comes on a blog to troll fans of a club he doesn't support. Waste of sperm.
Orbinho
Goals from open play in 2024 in the Premier League:
58 Man City
57 Arsenal
56 Chelsea, Liverpool
52 Spurs
46 Newcastle
45 Brentford
41 Aston Villa
40 Fulham
37 Palace, Man Utd
In the mud
I mean yes we got issues for sure but if we rank 13th for open play xg but wtf we are 3rd (2 points off second) and only 4 less goal difference that Liverpool then we are actually doing pretty good. I dont give a monkey about how those goals were scored. Anything can happen as long as we are in the mixer come April. There is a still possibility that Liverpool and Chelsea will slow down and that arsenal can find some solutions or luck to our current issues.
Thos club are being set up for success. Some of the issues that appear bad luck are something else, as Wenger will remember trying to compete against Utd and Barca. Other things have just been bad luck, or down to the opponent. But this team has to get out of the habit of conceding to the first or second chance, a phenomenon that has been prevalent for far too long. We still concede too many goals per opponents chances, even with Raya.
I think there are forces that will make it very difficult to win the league this year, for all kinds of reasons, and some, but not all of them are self inflicted. Arteta has certainly signed and tries to persist with some very injury prone players. Also, Is the training regime too harsh? Are training pitches or backroom staff an issue as they were under Wenger ? ( I am just asking the question btw)
The team have also been on the end of some bizarre decisions, that others have not been punished for, Wenger could tell us all about that ( RVP at Barca, The Invincibles at OT etc)
But don’t rule this team out of another big shiny trophy if we have a squad of fit players late Spring.
Arteta has made mistakes and has also got a lot right, but once they win a big one it will be just the start.
I know Pedro will say its too early to give up on the season and Liverpool can be caught and overtaken, but not while Arteta continues his experiments and leaves players on the bench when they should be getting gametime and gelling with the team. Even Chelsea have gotten their shit together, and we're here dropping points and playing our best DM at RB. I'm so fucking tired of this shit. Its always 2 steps forward and then take a machete to the kneecaps with Arteta. Just because you lose Big Gab does not equate to playing your best DM at right back and switching your RB to leftback. You then wonder why the team struggles to get results. Where is the exciting football? Where was the ruthlessness against Fulham? Too many damn mistakes and refusing to correct them. I'm tired ya'll. Peace out.