Morning all.
Well that match last night had it all. Great goals, errors, VAR and last minute disappointment. City thought they’d won it through Aguero in the dying seconds but he was offside. City were out of the Champions League and it’s their own fault. They squandered too many opportunities to score. Toots now play Ajax, Liverpool take on Barcelona. An all English final perhaps? Hopefully not. I’d much prefer to see a young and exciting Ajax side take on the Catalan giants. Obvs!
Pep Guardiola will know his team should have won though and when the two sides meet again in the league this weekend, he’ll want revenge. At least if Aguero scores the winning goal from an offside position, there’ll be no VAR to overturn it…..
Tonight it’s our turn. The Europa League might not be as grand as the Champions League but for us, it’s just as important. We want, need to be in the semi-final. Our 2-0 advantage should be more we missed too many opportunities in the first leg at The Emirates but then again, so did Napoli. On their own turf, in their own stadium and in front of their own fans, they’ll want to make amends. It’s going to be tough, darn tough.
Kalidou Koulibaly:
‘We’re angry about the performance in London. We know we messed up and we’re aware we didn’t show our true quality. We want to do so in the return leg.
Its often been one of our players coming out with lines like that but these days, we don’t seem to hear so much from the players about bouncing back, doing better next time, or something similar. Thank goodness because invariably, those words spoken turned out to be a bag of wind.
Unai Emery has made it clear about how he and his team will approach this game tonight and he’s certainly not going to ask his players to sit back and defend for ninety minutes. That doesn’t seem to be his style and in any case, I don’t think this group of players could do such a thing even if they tried.
We know 90 minutes here can be long, but we want to play this match not thinking about the first leg.
We want to play thinking to win, thinking to score, thinking to push, thinking to stop them.
“Thinking also tactically to be together and thinking when we have the space to attack the space.
“They have a lot of players with a big quality to push against us and give us a lot of problems but we also have the players to fight against them with our quality.”
I actually quite like us playing the second match away from home, especially with a clean sheet in the bag. Just one away goal can make so so much difference as we found out in 2004 and City did last night. A game can turn on its head at any second. I think we’ll need a goal too, maybe two and there’s no reason we can’t get them. As Emery says, we have the players, certainly up front who are capable of hurting the best sides in the world, IF they can find their shooting boots. Aubameyang, Lacazette, Ramsey, Ozil if he plays, Iwobi too if he had more faith in his own ability and took a shot instead of opting for yet another pass or dribble. Torreira and Xhaka too, both have a lot of power in their boots.
Discipline is another key thing tonight. No giving away silly or unnecessary free kicks in dangerous areas. No stupid challenges either which give the referee a decision to make. Be smart, not stupid. Yes, I’m thinking about Mustafi, Sokratis and Xhaka too.
Only Amadou Diawara is missing through injury for the home team, according to Transfermarkt.com but we of course are still without Bellerin, Holding and Welbeck. The rest, including Okonkwo and Nketiah, were all involved in training yesterday although I didn’t spot Peter Cech in the official training photographs which would explain Okonkwo being in the squad.
We might be 2-0 up but the last thing the players can afford to do is believe it’s enough. As Sokratis said yesterday, it’s 0-0 when the referee blows his first whistle, with all to play for.
Coygs…..
Good morning Rico, just one slight quibble with your otherwise excellent post, Aguero was ruled to be offside during the build up but ii was Sterling who put the ball in the net for what would have been a fantastic hat-trick.
I like what I’m hearing from Emery and Sokratis, I just hope the rest of the team are on message.
I wouldn’t be sorry to see Leno in goal tonight. He’s in great form and a safer pair of hands than Cech.
Sun is out the grass is green……and needs cutting. Laters.
Morning Cicero, oops, silly me…. lol
Me neither re Leno, maybe that’s the plan.
Morning Gooners
Morning Rico, great post.
Petr Cech, is he fit or is it a ruse?
But yeah, I’d be happy to see Leno in goal, the big decision for me is will Emery go with a back four or a three with wing backs? We have a squad of players who are learning to think tactically about the game now rather than the old ‘we play our game nonsense’…
Interesting to see Jenkinson on the squad instead of Lichtsteiner, I don’t think that the Swiss is injured so maybe that’s a clear indication that he’s not getting a second season at Arsenal?!
Morning Kev, thanks.
Pleased to see Jenks too, I do wonder if he’s done enough to get another contract. Can’t see the Swiss pensioner getting one. Lol
Only Leno in the training photos so my guess is Cech is at home.
Question: Would you lot take the Spuds winning the CL if it guarantees us winning the Europa?
No! Emphatically NO!
In the final perhaps so long as they get spanked and totally humiliated!
Sunny here. Time for the summer car to venture out of the garage
,
Can you see me on the fence? 😝
Good Post, Rico,
I do not think I have ever seen a game as full of incident as last night’s, but with the final minutes making most of us Arsenal fans oscillate from cheering the ‘winning goal’ and laughing at the Spuds, to disbelief and a feeling of incredulity and being cheated when City having scored the goal that would take them through, VAR said ‘Offside – NO goal’.
I have no interest in City and they symbolise the grossly unfair, greed commercialisation of football — but it was the Spuds – and they jamily get to go through! Bugger.
Cheers to tears for City — and many Gooners too!
Wavy, I think either Liverpool or Barca will beat them, if Ajax don’t first.
Thanks Ra.
Thanks Rico .
I feel numb !…………………..I still cant get over the thought of The Spuds possibly winning the CL and lets be honest there`s a great chance of it happening. I`m so pissed off that I cant get myself up for tonights game and to answer Kevs question even more than I did last night, I`d rather see us relegated than seeing them scummy cucking funts win the CL.
Only them not winning the CL will get me out of this depression, that`s my Arsenal DNA fault !
Gym will be hard today as depression makes me feel weak !…………………………..Bucking Fastards !
I do hope so Rico. It would be more than flesh could bare😊
Ditto Wavy. Them winning anything doesn’t bear thinking about…
Cech, Sokratis, Koscielny, Monreal, Maitland-Niles, Kolscinac, Xhaka, Torreira, Ramsey, Lacazette, Aubameyang.
So a load of pony about Cech. 😉
Subs, Elneny, Mkhitaryan, Leno, Ozil, Mustafi, Guendouzi, Iwobi.
Is Ospina in goal?
Napoli boss Carlo Ancelotti makes three changes to the side that lost the first leg in London.
Defenders Vlad Chiriches and Faouzi Ghoulam come in alongside forward Arkadiusz Milik with Mario Rui, Elseid Hysaj and Dries Mertens dropping out.
Napoli: Meret, Maksimovic, Chiriches, Koulibaly, Ghoulam, Allan, Ruiz, Callejon, Zielinski, Insigne, Milik
Subs: Ospina, Malcuit, Rui, Mertens, Verdi, Hysaj, Younes
good post rico..
Solid first half performance one or two shaky moments but generally we have managed the game well.
Unlike the weekend we have so far. Ramsey hamstring is a worry
Thanks Kel.
Excellent first half just need to be careful when they break. No hung ho now..
Never in doubt,
Well played Arsenal and Emery…
Nighty all
a good professional performance away from home game management was a lot better than usual.
my only concern is cech a lot of possession lost tonight due to his distribution.
anyhow on we go to the Semi final.
COYG
The difference between Monday and tonight was the speed that Napoli and Watford played at . Tonight once we scored and they needed 4 it was fairly pressure free .Nice to get a clean sheet for both of our keepers
I thought we were supposed to be intimidated by the crowd and the atmosphere. What crowd? There were huge areas of empty seats and once we scored the crowd deflated like a punctured balloon.
Great all round performance, only disappointing part, for me, was the lack of contribution by Mkhitaryan and particularly Iwobi.
Three clean sheets on the trot, three away wins too. Is this really Arsenal we are talking about?
Good night folks.
Morning Gooners
Morning Rico, I’m looking forward to another great post… 😄
And so we move onto Valencia, a team that has handed us a lot of pain since 1980, another Spanish team and Arsenal have a history of failing against Spanish teams, except that this time we have a Spanish manager who knows his way around the Iberian Peninsula and who’ll know Valencia inside out.
Are Valencia a better team than Napoli?
I don’t think so.
My only concern is keeping the rest of our squad fit, losing Ramsey was a blow especially following on the back of Bellerin, Holding and Welbeck.
Both Holding and Welbeck are doing light, non contact training, Holding started a few days ago, Welbeck has been at it a couple of weeks, so maybe, just maybe, Danny could make a surprise return to the squad before the end of the season in Baku – fingers crossed…
Cicero, talking of clean sheets, since and including Arsenal vs Man Utd on March 10th, we’ve played 7 games and recorded 6 clean sheets – it’s all gone under the radar a tad, but that’s serious progress from a defensive perspective…
Shush Kev, you know the media don’t like to acknowledge anything good about Arsenal. 😉
Having just read the match report in the Telegraph, more emphasis is put in the misses by Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan than on Lacazette’s terrific free kick. In fact they are laying the blame on the ‘keeper rather than give deserved credit to our man.
Business as usual then Cicero…
Let the Spuds take all the limelight, that’ll please the rags, I’m quite happy to see us toodle along all the way to Baku with the minimum of fuss…
Morning Kev, Cicero.
You’ll be disappointed Kev, it’s a rushed one… 😊
It’s up now though…