Morning all.
It’s Christmas Eve, one more sleep and by the time you wake, the big fella will have done the one job he has to do all year. Deliver your gifts. The ideal job for Mesut Ozil…..
Mikel Arteta has spoken to the media in his first pre match press conference and here’s the basics.
1. I think that we have a really good team. There are a lot of things to improve but at least the two things that I demanded from them were done. (Everton match)
2. Day 1 of training was for the players who weren’t involved in the game. We didn’t do much with them but we used the time to start implementing some ideas that I want to bring to the team straight away, and some behaviours that are going to be important in helping us achieve what we want to do. Today (Yesterday) was more about the principles, the style and the way I want the team to play.
3. We are much more committed, (against Everton) we have a different kind of aggression every time we lose the ball. I think the body language was much, much better than in the past few games. I think they played with more passion in this game. Obviously there were things to improve but those things have to be non-negotiable.
4. Freddie is staying on as one of the coaching team.
5. For Mesut Ozil and every player, it’s a clean slate. Any previous stuff, good or bad is gone and forgotten. ‘This is evolving every day and I’m expecting you to perform and be in the right mindset every single day for me. If you do that, you’ll have a chance to play. If you don’t, you won’t.’
6. We had many other conversations (about transfers), there is so much going on in the last 48 hours. We have a meeting in place very soon, we have some ideas, but we have to pull them together.
But what is our head coach’s priority?
The priority, as I said before, is what we are going to transmit on the team, is a reflection of the demands we are going to put on them every day in training. That’s commitment, accountability, aggression and passion to play this sport and to represent this football club. This is the basic I am going to demand from them, and from there we can start to build things and improve all the things, obviously, that have to be done as quickly as possible, but if we don’t have this in the right manner, I think it will be difficult
Asked whether his pre match preparation will emulate Pep Guardiola:
A big fat yes was his reply..
Preparing his players in the same way as Pep will no doubt be easy for Mikel but there’s a bit of difference between the quality of the two squads. But I think that’s no excuse really because other than Liverpool, I don’t think any other club has the luxury of their kind of players. What they do have though is groups of players who are committed, well prepared and proud. All the traits Mike Arteta wants to instil into this group of Arsenal players. Traits which I believe will help turn our results around.
We are fortunate in some ways as we have a lot of top quality players in our squad. Lacazette, Aubameyang, Pepe, Ozil, Torreira and Leno and then the rest aren’t bad either really. Yes we have a few pantomime villains but even they could improve with a lot more effort. Plus they are never too old to learn. Mustafi can learn not to go to ground, Sokratis and Luiz can easily stop all the pulling and shoving in the box or sticking their foot out to trip someone up.
Talking of tripping up, I wonder if Mikel Arteta will encourage rotational fouls? After all, the Man City players have made it an art…
Have a great Christmas Eve guys, be safe whilst out celebrating and if you’re driving, stay on the soft stuff…
Chaps, don’t forget most of the petrol stations close early today so get your shopping done sooner rather than later… 🎅🎄
See you in the comments….
First!
Merry Christmas to all!
Wait and see for Thursday game
Morning Rico and all.
I might, Arteta has allayed the biggest and most common fear fans had about him-his ability to stand up to our big name players.
Nobody could say they’ve seen anything but strength in the man, and that’s a massive start in any manager at our club right now.
We couldn’t have hoped for a better first few days from Mikel and it’ll just get better and better.
If I don’t say so before I nod off, Merry Xmas to my fellow Housers!!
Hers wishing you and your families a great Nee Year as well.
We are but a few hours away.
I bought myself the new version of the bruise banana kit today so I’ll have at least one present to open tomorrow morning 🙂
2020 beckons, and I hope you’re all as positive about the year(s) ahead as I am.
Hi Rico and all a new day a new start First Merry Christmas and a happy new year to all I must admit I do feel sorry for Arteta over the next 2 weeks it must hard to come in try to organise a new team to play in the middle of Christmas and new year with the players think more about holiday with family and friends.
Hi Rico I know we don’t often agree but one thing for sure that is Thank you and any won else that help you to run this great site for fans like all of us Geoff
Morning All ! Super Christmas post Rico.
So far, everything Arteta has done has impressed me. I liked the training video yesterday, no old rubbish, just good, strict, concise instructions.
I’m interested to see who he picks in his management team too Kev.
Not expecting too much at Bournemouth, but I already see and feel a change in attitude. That’s good enough for me to look forward to a game for a change.
Season’s greetings one and all , busy day here in Norfolk any surviving turkeys have to be kept under lock and key and the air ways have to be kept clear as Prince Phillip helicopters his way back to the Sandringham estate and we don’t want him crashing into Santa on his way.
As for tomorrow , looking for a rapid change is unlikely but having said that ; every player knows that he is under the microscope and that first impressions often last a long time. They should be keen to implement the new intensity and I expect that changes will be made on or abouts the 70th minute ( sound familiar ) as the poor darlings show fatigue as their fitness levels come under pressure.
3 points at Bournemouth will be welcome and might just send the message that things are stirring in our lacklustre bunch and that our future opponents might not get the easy ride they thought was coming.
We are half way through the season with 20 games left in the league thats 60 points . “Aim for the stars and we might touch the ceiling ” get 50 of them and we could have a happy new year.
Merry Christmas to all you folks the other side of the world!
I hope you get some rain very very soon…….If only you could have some from ours in Kent , bit flooded here.
Mike, some areas here are finally copping some rain, but we can use a lot more lol
Good morning all and thank you for the post Rico.
Arteta’s coaching team is taking shape, Freddie is staying and Steve Round has joined. Formerly a coach at Everton, he worked with Mikel as a player and has coached at Man U. I hope he knows about defending.
A clean sheet for all our players, I wonder which of them will be the first to use their crayons to scrawl all over his.
Happy Christmas to you all, all my immediate family will be with us for lunch tomorrow, so ten around the table. Just hopped home from the butchers with the turkey, left an arm and a leg by the till. 😉
Cheers all 🎄
Surely that’s a wing and a leg .
Looks like we are getting more flooding in the village as the Thurne has come over the banks again. No doubt the Bure will be as bad in Horning and Wroxham.
Too many houses being built on flood plains , the water has nowhere to go.
Prince Charles yesteray visited the village of Fishlake, it flooded earlier this year, it’s beside the river and the name of the village suggests building there was likely to not the best idea.
Potter as you potter ( 😉 ). around The Broads look at the number of blocked drainage dykes and ditches, nobody maintains them any more. Small areas of grazing that were once drained by ditches have been amalgamated into huge arable fields with the ditches blocked or filled in. No wonder we get flooding.
Agreed Norfolk is becoming a sorry mess . Once the breadbasket of the country it now is a massive house building project . It matters not whether there is a need they are throwing them up anywhere they can .
Before the housing crisis is bought up ,they are not building starter homes they all seem to be nice 4 and 5 bedroom jobs with double garages with brickweave drives designed for the london overspill.
Little villages are becoming small towns and towns are just growing like topsy . 2000 in Rackheath , 200 in Stalham , Brundall and Blofield right on the banks of the Yare another 150 , Martham on the Thurne another 400 all going onto what were once wheat fields and the like .
Sutton ,Catfield , Hickling , if there is space :- chuck a few in . However in the meantime shut the village Schools and shove a few portacabins on the big ones playing fields and bus kids in from all the villages.
Then there is the race track other wise known as the NDR obviously built with culling the population in mind to ease the pressure on housing . I read a report that there are on average 14 accidents a day on the 9 mile stretch . Must have been designed by a cyclist because it is not designed for sensible driving. It’s only a matter of time before the roundabouts are infilled with buildings , currently most of them are under water but I am sure that the councils in their wisdom will put up a pumping station or two or maybe some windmills to do it and clear the water to somewhere else.
Rant over
Happy Christmas.
Thanks rico for churning out such great posts, week after week and month after month.
Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Happy New year to ALL at HH.
I hope Santa answers my letter I sent weeks ago. For a monumentally successful future under our new Manager Mikel.
COYG
Just like to say thanks rico for the posts every day.
Always read them and the comments, I just don’t comment very often.
Anyway hope you have a wonderful Christmas and a happy new year.
That goes for everyone cheers mog.
Potter, I couldn’t help chuckling while reading your last comment……… It could have been me who had written it. only it would have been about Kent , the so called garden of England!
Where once were orchards and hop fields are now swathes of identical flats and houses. And yes, here too they have built on the flood plain and wonder why the houses are under water.
Merry Christmas !
I’m a relatively newcomer to HH and am so pleased I stumbled across this site.
Thanks Rico for all the fantastic posts you churn out over and over, just brilliant.
and thanks to everybody else for your knowledgeable and amusing comments,
logging on to here has become a must in my daily routine now.
Happy Christmas to you all.
Mike, I have great memories as a child, hop picking in Kent with my grandmother and some aunts in the early fifties. Also included was a certain amount of scrumping in the orchards near the hop farm which wasn’t far from Paddock Wood.
Ah! Nostalgia.
Good afternoon to you kind people, too many to name and thanks re HH.
I hope this time next year the club we all love and what brings is all together in this mad blogging world, is in a better place..
I’ve been inlawed, my ears are bleeding….
Evening Rico and all.
I just dropped in to thank Rico for her efforts with the blog and to wish all participants a very healthy and happy Christmas.
Cicero, the big Hop Farm at Paddock Wood is safe I think, Whitbread run it so there’s plenty of money to keep it going with the Heavy Horses etc. The smaller farms are struggling and with big money being offered for land , who can blame them for selling up really. The next generation don’t want to put the work in and take over. Such a shame.
Evening Adam, always a pleasure… 😆
Merry Christmas to everyone here too, may you and yours all have a wonderful time.
Evening Rico and the House.
Merry Xmas and happy New Year to every one in the house.
Many thanks for the great posts you have penned during the past year Rico,
its been a pleasure reading them.
Kev
Delighted that Harry Clarke has a new contract I have great hopes for him.
Safe driving mate.
Mike
do you go to the Hop Festival at Favesham
Hi Rick, I actually live in Maidstone, but I have been seen very wobbly at the Hop Festival ! Good Day Out !
Evening and thanks Rick.
Merry Christmas to you and yours too…
Merry Christmas Rico and all Housers! May be good for all of you and full of gifts from above and happiness with our brand new team. We all know what their New Year,s resolutions will be…..to follow the creed as dictated by the new Messiah, St Mikel of Islington!
Have a good ‘un all of you.
Cheers
Right back at you and yours Wavy…
Santa has been and gone, I got my wish with Arteta a little early so the big fellow in red missed me today, but I can live with that 🙂 🙂
Merry Xmas everyone!!!
Been snowed under trying to first get cable broadband working and then all the gadgets that don’t like the change. At last lights come on when Alexa tells them. That will teach me to be so reliant on Hue lights and Hive! But finally, after weeks of misery with roads dug up and mess everywhere, a slow internet because our street wasn’t connected to a BT Green box, is now City Gigabit!I
Anyway, I digress, really want to thank you rico, and all the other contributors for this great place where we can share our pain, moan like hell, but also share the highs. Mind you I can only remember the cup win over Chelsea as last real top moment!
But we finally have optimism and seem to be going forward, so a great time to wish every one a happy Christmas. Can’t wait to see Artetas first line up Boxing day, let’s hope the Christmas cheer remains for us Gooners.
Potter, you take me back to happy times. As a very young kid we camped at Horsey and a site near Ludham bridge. As a young teenager I remember cottages riverside at Horning and Potter Heigham, fish and chips and fruit machines by the bridge, are they still there? Later married years, spending an annual week at Wroxham 100 yards across from the Bure Hotel until my parents died, having Jacket Potatoes at a shack on bridge, and milk shakes at Roys! Oh happy days.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all the good gooners of HH with special thanks to Rico.
I cannot wait for the game on Boxing Day, not so much about the result but to see if the attitude of the players is up to our new Coaches expectations and us fans expectations.
Even though we have not got or ever will have the finances of Man C, I am excited for the new year where hopefully we will challenge for CL next season when Mikel would have had over 6 months of getting his ideas across to this squad and any new additions.
Touch wood I will be a grandad again by the time the new season starts and already have babies gooner baby grow.
This is my hopefull plan for 2020, I call it……………………….my 20 20 vision ! 😎 I`ve waited years to get that joke out! hahaha
Evening all, just sticking my nose in to wish everyone a happy and safe Christmas.
Rico, you are still up there with the best in the Arsenal blogosphere, have a good one Boss…
Scott good to see you finally got The Action Man you always wanted.
Wishing all who contribute or just read Highbury House, a Very Merry Christmas…
Have a great time and remember, always use a Licensed Taxi when in London… 🙂
Andrew there have been a few changes in your old haunts but not that you would notice . The windmill at Horsey mere has been restored and the chippy at Potter Heigham is still going but not so many slot machines now . Camping at Ludham bridge has 2 options,a caravan club site and the grounds of the Dog Inn ( real ales and good food )
Your jacket spuds have gone though the old shack with the creaky floor has been rebuilt and now is an American themed restaurant and although Roy’s milkshakes are still there part of their store is now a McDonald’s .
Despite my earlier comments it’s still a good place to live but unless the infrastructure is improved I am not sure for how long.
Btw If you do decide to visit best to avoid the new northern by pass unless you can work out how a two lane road goes into a three lane roundabout and then back to two again.
Hi BT,
As much as I’m happy we got Arteta, it’ll
Mean nothing If he fails so I hope I was right, as I’m sure everyone else does 🙂
Kev, you’d make a great salesman hahahahaha
Thank you Bt, Andrew, Lc and all for your kind comments about HH. I just write some old waffle, it’s you guys who comment each day which keep it going so a big thank you to you too..
Morning all.
Santa’s been… 😂
New post up now