Morning all.
Great news broke in England this morning and that’s the Covid-19 vaccination has been given the green light and it’s being rolled out as early as next week. Fantastic I think as by this time next year, football stadiums could be full again, if not before.
More good news. Gabriel Martinelli is close to returning to action. I can’t remember the last time such great hope and expectation was placed on a young player. The plan is for him to play in an under23 game later this month. He must be chomping at the bit to play again. Pablo Mari and Calum Chambers have already made their return to the game by playing for Steve Bould’s side so Mikel Arteta will have more selection headaches than he has already although I wouldn’t be surprised to see Chambers go out on loan after Christmas, just to get playing time. David Luiz, who misses out tomorrow night, will be gone next summer as his contract expires, so our central defensive group should be Gabriel, Holding, Chambers and Mari. Unless of course someone like McGuinness is seen as a better option. That decision is a few months away yet.
The only update on afc.com about Thomas Partey is that he’s progressing with his rehabilitation ahead of returning to full training. If by some miracle he’s back for Sunday it’d be a huge boost.
Arsenal are struggling. In the League we’re really poor. In my opinion, Mikel Arteta needs to decide which is his strongest central defensive pairing and stick with it unless injury dictates otherwise. The same goes up front too I think and with the systems we play. Other managers usually play one of two ways, park the bus or go for it. Master both ourselves and perhaps we’d improve. I know, I’m simplifying things and perhaps you strongly disagree but that’s fine. The idea of football is to score goals and don’t concede but right now we’re doing neither very well. Perhaps Mikel Arteta is trying too hard as it seems he’s trying to solve a problem by creating another if that makes sense.
The Europa League is very different. Even if the performances aren’t always for the purists, the second string are scoring goals and winning games. All whilst looking as if they’re enjoying playing football and giving it their all. The standard of the opposition isn’t quite as high as the Premier League but nevertheless, the likes of Molde and Rapid Vienna are no novices either and it’s our second string against their first team I’m sure.
With nine points out of nine, tomorrow night Arsenal can secure top spot. What more could Mikel Arteta ask of his Europa League squad? Pepe is back again for this one but I wonder if Arteta will be bold and start with Balogun. I hope so. Not only because he deserves to start in my opinion, I’m sure we all want him to sign his new contract and stay. He’s an exciting young talent I think and one who has a really promising future ahead of him If hard word, feet on the ground and learning is in his DNA. With Nketiah, we might have the little and large combination in the future although Eddie needs to start scoring goals. He’s finding the nett, he’s just been offside. Mind you, the calls have been close. Unless Mikel Arteta believes one or two are being lined up for the NLD, I’d imagine the squad will be very similar to last weeks fixture. After all, Molde have proved to be a more difficult opponent than Rapid.
Anyway, more football from the second string is likely to be more entertaining than watching some of the first team players sulk around on a match day.
See you in the comments guys.
Morning all.
Rico, obviously I hope your report is accurate, but I read a few hours back that Parteys injury is worse than first thought and he won’t be back until around the New Year.
Bloody reports-who knows what to believe?
One trap I believe a lot of managers falls into us trying to make the squad they inherit play their style of football, rather than try to get the best out of what you have and slowly change the squad while also changing the tactics.
I wonder if Mikel is doing this.
Then again, he could well be just trying various formations, starting 11’s etc etc to see who he wants to keep but it’s hard to say atm.
I won’t waiver in my support of the manna’s that’s not me sticking to my previous opinion, it’s because I’m convinced he will be a wild class manager.
It’ll take time.
It’s from the official website Scott. I doubt he’ll be back yet though, a few games out said Mikel I think.
Better not to rush him, Rico.
Martinelli- hope people aren’t expecting miracles from him too soon.
He could take a little while to get back to top form but then, he has youth on his side.
What a player he could end up!!!
Can’t see Arteta rushing either back.
Liam Brady, Cecs Fabregas and Jack Wilshere, big things were expected of them at an early age…
Arsenal playing Burnley at our jinx time of 7.15pm ☹️
I did see a report saying Jack Wilshire might come back, surely not, although I think we’re under the quota for homegrown.
Mind you Jack himself was quoted recently saying it’s a dream, but never going to happen.
Well it doesn’t appear that Jack has been snowed under by offers of a contract, so signing him on a free, at a modest wage, could be an option.
Afternoon everybody.
What our benighted club needs at this moment is a talented, forward thinking, positive coach for the attacking side of our game. We have some talented forwards and gifted midfielders but they need someone to meld the into an efficient and productive unit.
Bergkamp anyone??
They did alright Kev.
I’d forgotten fans are back tomorrow. That’ll be weird.
Mikel:
Asked in his pre-Rapid Vienna press conference whether he’d spoken to his players about the recent stutter, he said:
“Our process has to be reviewed constantly with what you do, what we’re trying to achieve, why things are working and why they’re not. Or if things are working, why the results are not working. I think if you focus on just one thing, you can get carried away and not look from the focus that is needed.
“I was certain that we would have moments of adversity and they are necessary. You learn a lot from moments of adversity. The challenge in a moment of adversity in this industry is how you react to them. You can become impatient and get frustrated and when you share that frustration, it obviously brings a big lack of confidence.
“For me, the dream that I have with the love that I have for this football club, is to achieve the level that this club deserves and build a project, but believe me, it takes time and this not a month or three months.
“This is time and time and time, and a lot of good decisions and a lot of support. This is where we are and I’m ready to fight. I’m ready to fight all the way through because I believe that we can do it. We are going through difficult periods, we will see who responds, who doesn’t and how we react as a club through different periods, and how we stick together when things aren’t going well.
“When things are going well, it’s easy. Everybody wants to be there on the front pages, on the TV celebrating, being part of something, but unfortunately, at the moment we aren’t that good and the lines are really thin. We need to be really humble and understand that these are thin lines, but if we do it, we can compete against any team and we’ve shown that.
“We’ve shown what has happened against certain teams over the last five years and what we’ve been doing against big teams in the last 12 months, and it’s not because of me or something easy. It’s because of the belief, the trust and the response that every player had in their reaction.
“It’s no surprise that we can compete against any team, but our reality today is that we can also lose against any team, and Wolves with what they did, they won against us. It happened the same against Leicester. With thin margins and who deserved it more or less, at the end of the day, we lost and there are certain things that have to be corrected straight away, but unfortunately, sometimes they take time.”
Morning all.
Arteta is very clear in what’s happening and why things are happening.
Shame so many fans are not.
Maybe the club should invite Wilshere to just come and train at the club, then they can see for themselves, but it’s unlikely, it’s just me whistling in the wind.
Arteta needs to go back to basics, never mind about chance creation, playing Aubameyang through the middle or using a back four, don’t concede, if you don’t concede you don’t lose and we need to rediscover that over my dead body mentality for the Scum.
Everyone can talk, talk is cheap, do your job and feck the entertainment and quality, just don’t fecking lose…
Giroud scored all four for the Chavs tonight, could we get him on a free in the summer?
I don’t think we can create quality football without quality footballers and by that I mean someone pulling the strings in midfield. I read a headline suggesting Edu wants two players in January, true or not, goodness only knows.
So yes, get back to basics and stop losing. Then build on that.
I don’t think signing Jack or Ollie is what Arsenal need. We need young and energetic footballers imo.
Central defenders there’s always Daniel Ballard on loan at Blackpool getting good reviews playing for Northern Ireland
I’d take Jack on pay to play if the squad numbers allowed.
He’d only need to play periodically which could suit him but I can easily see why people don’t like the idea.
I just want to see 11 guys out there having a real cracks and fighting for the club.
Poor results will be tolerated a lot easier if they go down with a fight, imo.
Problem being that Jack plays does what he did best and provides a few telling throughballs Auba starts scoring from them and Jack bursts through and scores a couple himself and he becomes irreplaceable.
What happens then ?
Pay him to play, Potter.
Doesn’t mean we don’t find someone else as we all know Jack isn’t playing 35 games a season.
Evening guys.
Sarri being lined up to replace Mikel Arteta if NN headlines are to be believed. Can’t see it myself..
Sarri, what a joke that would be, I guess he must be cheap because that seems to the requisite.
I wonder who brought his name up though. Any old name will do whilst we’re struggling I suppose. I see The Mail have a big piece on why Ozil is the answer to all our problems.
Team news.
R. Rúnarsson
Cédric Soares
Mustafi
Pablo Marí
Kolasinac
Pepe
Maitland-Niles
Elneny
Nelson
Nketiah
Lacazette (c)
Substitutes
Leno
Macey
Tierney
Saka
Ceballos
Willian
Holding
Chambers
Willock
Smith Rowe
Balogun
M. Azeez
AMN in midfield for a change.
Good to see Mari return.
Tonights Team
Rnarson
Cedric
Mustafi
Mari
Kola
AMN
Nelson
Elneny
Pepe
Lacazett
Eddy
Evening Rico and the House
Keyboard so slow It lets me down everytime.
I hope we can all enjoy the game
Why’s two goalkeepers on the bench?
I didn’t see that Rico about Ozil and if I had I wouldn’t have read it, it’s aimed at the Snapchat generation…
Interesting to see who isn’t in the squad : no Bellerin or Aubameyang or Gabriel or Xhaka or Willian or Luiz and the substitutions will be interesting?
Evening Rick, I got lucky. Lol
I just read the headline Kev. The Ozil debate is a bit repetitious imo. Whatever we think about Arteta’s decision, it’s not going to change.
Arteta’s taking a hammering online about his 433 comments too.
The starting eleven for Toots becoming clear..
Why are we in blue?
Perhaps we’ve found a No10 in Lacazette. As unlikely as that seems. Lovely to see and hear some fans.
Enjoyed that half. Three nice goals, different too.
Perhaps the shooting from distance might catch on.
Get Balogun on
There was some energy about our play this evening.
The midfield without Xhaka was more forward looking and AMN added some urgency, another good game from Elneny too.
It was good to see Mari and Chambers in action, not an awful lot to do but what they did they did well, a good way to ease back into first team football.
Hi Rico and all just watched replay and was it only me or did this team look more balanced and quicker with out Auba may be worth trying this team in a home and away match
We know that there will be no Pepe for Totts and Partey looks doubtful so I would give Elneny for steadiness and AMN for drive the midfield on Sunday .
Play Lacazette in the role he played tonight withdrawn from the front with Auba up front . Give width to Nelson and Willock with Tierney and Bellerin behind with Holding and Gabriel in the middle.
Spurs are fairly one dimensional with Kane and Son as their outlet . If we restrict the ball getting to them and attack with speed there might just be an upset on the cards.
Lastly loved Smith -Rowe direct and attaking minded something that we have been missing for a long time. Let him run the show against Dundalk and then gradually bring him into the first team.
Hi Geoff. It wasn’t just you.
Potter, agree re Smith-Rowe. Balogun too, give him 90 mins in Dundalk.
New post up now