Morning all.
Man Utd took an absolute battering by Liverpool at Old Trafford yesterday. To make the day worse for the home team, Pogba was sent off on the hour mark. Ole must be fearing his Utd career is soon to come to an end. According to reports, many home fans upped and left at halftime which in itself spells trouble for any manager. We shouldn’t laugh though, not just yet anyway because on the 20th November, the first fixture after the next international break, Arsenal head to Anfield.
In other results, Brentford were beaten 2-1 by Leicester and West Ham beat Toots.
Liverpool, City and Chelsea are pretty much guaranteed the top three spots in the League barring an absolute disaster, but that fourth place really is up for grabs. If Arsenal are still in the mix at the turn of the year, anything is possible. Unlikely I know, especially because of the players we’ll be missing because of the ACON. But, Leicester City, West Ham, Toots and Man Utd have European football to contend with and the further they go in their respective competitions, the stronger the team will need to be to progress.
Mikel Arteta’s attention for now is tomorrow’s League Cup fixture against a struggling Leeds Utd. Like Arsenal, Leeds Utd are yet to face a Premier League team in this competition. They’ve beaten Crewe Alexandra 3-0 but needed penalties to get past a second string Fulham in the last round. Arsenal have pretty much sailed through the first two rounds with ease and with a much changed, yet strong team.
The draw for this round is interesting, good even because a lot of Premier League sides have been drawn against each other. One of Man City and West Ham will go out of the competition as they go head to head on Wednesday night and Burnley play Toots, Brighton take on Leicester City and Chelsea head to Southampton tomorrow. Liverpool and Brentford have trips to Preston and Stoke respectively.
Arsenal need another good performance tomorrow night regardless of who Mikel Arteta selects. Squad players might be just that but they all train together so whatever Arteta’s footballing plan is, they should all know it by now. They should be able to step into the fray and be at the expected level as those they replace. By they I mean attitude and commitment. Arsenal don’t have dreadful players in the squad, just a differing of skill levels but that’s no excuse for not having the right mindset.
The performance level against Aston Villa showed what Arsenal can do when they want to. Yes, Villa weren’t particularly good during the first half but I think much of that was down to Arsenal started strong, snapping into tackles and doing to Villa what Brighton and Palace did to us. And we kept it up for 80% of the game. The last twenty was down to fatigue I think and that’s when the team can be vulnerable. If we’re 3-0 up it’s not so bad but if it’s 0-0, 1-0 or even 2-0, there’s always a chance for the opposition and I think other managers know that. How Mikel Arteta addresses that I don’t know but somehow, he has to if we want a return to European football next season.
See you in the comments.
Morning Rico and all
Watched the highlights of man u v Liverpool at 70 minute mark they showed the crowed streaming out And I for one can not remember seeing that before. The look on Sir Alex Ferguson face was worth every cent.
I don’t think we should be worried about loosing players to ACON matches after all Edu and Arteta always new we would loose a few players and should have players ready to fill in and if we don’t it will show that they are not thinking ahead.
Good morning Rico. That Pogba red card was well deserved. The tackle was horrible and led to Keita being stretchered off with what looks like a serious injury. Ronaldo too could have been dismissed for a spiteful kick at a player on the ground, but the ref bottled it.
The sight of Man U “loyal” supporters leaving before half-time was hilarious, as was the scenes outside the ground as crowds were on the way home long before the game ended. I also enjoyed the look on the face of Old Red Nose and Kenny Dalgliesh laughing in delight.
Morning Cicero, Geoff, all.
I didn’t watch the game but hoped it’d be a draw. Still, it’s always nice to see Utd get battered.
Shame it was Liverpool though , two teams that I always hope get beaten. However as the post match chat progressed Carragher and Sourness kept up the banter and Neville went from Mr quite accepting of the problems to sinking lower in his seat and virtually wishing for a hole in the studio floor to jump into.
That was just as entertaining.
Arsenal Leeds however is coming hard on the heels of the Villa match with Leicester away 4 days later. I have seen calls to play our strongest team but my thoughts are to start with a slightly reduced but competent team with a strong bench .
We want to go through but we also want to rest players ,
Great tackle by Saliba on Mbappe by the way.
Leeds be a good opportunity to start gelling the AFCON combinations together. So no Pepe Auba Tom P, or Elneny I’d hope. Good to get some miles in Holdings legs too. Laca can’t be ready for more yet, so there’ll be lots of fresh faces ,and legs I hope.
Leeds are surely not prioritising this fixture over weekend 6 pointer.
It is a shame it was Liverpool who dished out their drubbing, I wish it’d had been us or Norwich. Lol
I wouldn’t have thought so Ferk, Leeds priority is surely heading up the table.
Good Morning Housers
Just realized that next Saturday there is a match which may be billed as El Sackico….between the Spuds and Manure. I hope they finish draw.
In the last 6 games, during which we garnered 14 points, Man Utd have only managed 5 points while the spuds have got 6 points only. And yet the press and pundits deem it fit to only talk about Arsenal.
Anyway. I am looking forward towards tonight’s game. I would like to see us play a central two at the top….on one hand I would love to see a combo of Nketiah and Martinelli but on the other I want to see Balogun and Pepe as central. I enjoyed seeing Auba and Lacazette as the front two. Fingers crossed that Arteta plays a solid and strong team but with an eye on the Leicester game.
Morning Devil, all.
New post up now