Morning all.
I’m going to start by mentioning Leandro Trossard. Against Newcastle, his corner kicks were little short of dire, his performance marginally better but yesterday, he looked good. He had no right to win the header for our opening goal but win it did. I feared the worst though when he walked alway clutching his arm in a kind o& dropped position. I thought he’d at least dislocated something, at worst, broken his arm. So9n after Burnley equalised, Trossard sent in a peach of a corner right under the nose of the Burnley keeper, not literally of course, and William Saliba, who was being grabbed by a defender, instead of pushing him off, took him with him on his move into the box before heading home. Our third came after a scrabble inside the box, a half cleared ball which ended up landing nicely for Oleksandr Zinchenko. A jump, a kick, a goal.
The talking point of the game was the sending off of Fabio Vieira. I’ve seen worse result in just a booking, especially against us but that doesn’t mean Vieira didn’t deserve his sending off because in my opinion, he did. We just need consistency.
Mikel Arteta on the result and Vieira’s red card:
I’m really happy with the result, especially with the performance after playing 72 hours ago, with the last three games, how we played against Newcastle, how we played against Sevilla, how we played today, how dominant we were against teams who are very hard to dominant the amount of situations that we dominated, I think we fully deserved to win the game. With the red card, yes, thank you for asking me, VAR was right, the referee was right, really good decision, really positive from Mikel to speak about that, good decision.
I’m not convinced Mikel Arteta isn’t being sarcastic about the sending off but it matters not. His interview was upbeat and why not after such a good result. Other good results were Totts losing at Wolves and Newcastle being beaten by Bournemouth. Yesterday afternoon, Chelsea and Man City played out a 4-4 draw, just a shame Liverpool won.
Looking pretty good eh….
Now it’s an international break after which hopefully, Gabriel Jesus and Emile Smith Rowe will have recovered from their injuries. Another two weeks of recovery time for both Thomas Partey, Ben White and Martin Odegaard too.
So, who is away for the next two weeks? Not Mikel Arteta apparently as he’s hinted at staying in London and having quality time with his family.
Aaron Ramsdale, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka.. Gabriel, Gabriel Jesus and Gabriel Martinelli. William Saliba, Jorginho and Martin Odegaard. (I’ll be surprised if Odegaard is released). Takehiro Tomiyasu, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Jakub Kiwior, Mo Elneny, Leandro Trossard, David Raya and Kai Havertz.
I think that’s it for the senior squad unless Karl Hein has been called up for Estonia. Looking at that list though, it would have been quicker to name those who aren’t representing their respective countries over the next two weeks. But that’s the price a club has to pay when it has a strong squad. It’s a good job we’re one of those clubs because our injury list seems to get longer each week. Hopefully, no more will be added to that list during this break.
The first fixture after the break is a short trip to Brentford before playing Lens on the Tuesday. Then we’re into December and the amount of fixtures we have is ridiculous. Eight!
Wolves – H
Luton – A
Aston Villa – A
PSV – A
Brighton – H
Liverpool – A
West Ham – H
Fulham – A
December is one heck of a tough month. Aston Villa and Liverpool away especially. Still, it’s the same for every club and at least we only have one long journey to make although why the PL thought it was a good idea for us to play Liverpool at 5.30pm on the 23rd December I just don’t know.
Lastly, what a game it was yesterday between Leicester City women and Arsenal. We went into the break 2-0 down after a disappointing first half. Whatever Jonas said at half-time worked because by the end we’d won it 6-2. It was brilliant…
Catch up in the comments.
Morning Rico
Arsenal bubbling along nicely, just on the heels of City. A no nonsense win at the weekend after the VAR mess against Newcastle. Some returns to fitness after the interlull would be welcome.
The Bournemouth goals against Newcastle were greeted with huge cheers in the pub that I was patronising. Eddie Howe’s pained expression was a pleasure to watch. I’ be surprised if he makes it to the end of the season. Oh well…
Morning Pete. Yep, and we have injured players to come back yet.
I think it’s perhaps better to be behind City because the pressure and expectation will be off us. Some great results this weekend.
Good morning Rico, yes a very good weekend for both Arsenal teams the men with a decent performance against Burnley and the women with a game of two halves against Leicester. The first forty five minutes were dire, to go in only two nil down had little to do with the quality of Arsenal’s defending, more to do with Leicester’s over excitement. The second half was a revelation, the deficit quickly written off and then, four more goals as the Leicester players lost heart and their manager made as any changes as he subs on the bench.
Incidentally Rico, there’s an article in this morning’s Telegraph about how important to the team, on and off the pitch, of Jorginho.
Morning Cicero. I don’t dislike Jorginho and he’s a great squad player to have but I just prefer Partey in the team, however, he’s seldom fit.
I know we need need players like Jorginho, Elneny too because of the age of our squad.
Morning Rico/all
Yes a good weekend for Arsenal,except for the Liverpool result.
I watched most of the Chelsea- City game,I didn’t think Chelsea could play like that. To listen to some of the media,you would think Chelsea had won the Champions league and the Premier league. And the records say the result was a draw. I suppose a home win against City is not for everyone.
Our own game was all about the result with our injuries,job done. The only thing I would have liked,was for the young players on the bench to be given some minutes. Maybe the red card put paid to that.
Morning Limey, agree re Liverpool. They face City right after the break so one or both will drop points.
It’s two weeks away and Klopp is already trying the mind games, he thinks it all wrong that the kick-off time is Saturday at twelve thirty and he thinks that doesn’t give his returning international players sufficient time to recover from their travels. Would an extra five hours really make that much difference? It was originally to be five thirty but in view of hooliganism before and after matches in the recent past, the police and local councils have demanded the tie be earlier to avoid drunkenness. Oh, that’s drunkenness of the fans, not of Jack Grealish. 😉
Disgusting scenes at the Celtic game yesterday when the minutes silence had to be cut short due to home fans booing. The Scottish F A should force Celtic to play their next three home games behind closed doors.
Poor Klippity…. Lol
Cicero only 3 games I would ban fans for 12 month and dock all there point.
New post up