Tonight we play  Dundalk, serial winners of the League of Ireland. What I know about them and the team we might put out against them, could be written on the back of aa postage stamp, with room left for something else.

We are down to one and a half fully fit centre backs, so that’s the first problem facing Arteta. Can he risk either of them with a trip to Old Toilet at the weekend? Can he afford to play any first team players, Eleney and Xhaka perhaps? In their place? Not really. Sead perhaps? Youth team players? I have no idea.

The rest of the team should be less of a problem, with fringe players and the likes of Nelson, ESR and Willock coming in.

The inclusion of these youngsters should make it an entertaining game, something we haven’t seen for a long time.

Let’s hope Arteta remains seated and let’s them play football, rather than practicing the regimented line dancing he normally directs for the side lines.

Any sort of good game would be welcome relief.

See you all on the other side

Pedantic George

ARSLEI: When David Luis left the field it ended Arsenal’s “creativity” but where is….?

My headline is no mistake. It is not a joke. I will explain the mystery later down.

There is nothing amusing to a genuine Arsenal fan when we lose a football match, although the Wenger-Out brigade made it a point of duty to revel in every defeat in the old boss’ latter years as they figured every adverse result would bring closer the end of his reign.

But I don’t count them as genuine fans.

Too many of these so-called gooners were using negativity and pouring salt in the wound after every defeat or draw as a way of growing their popularity on social media (“misery loves company”) which they have now leveraged into earning money from online advertising and their Patreon accounts. Go check the biggest Arsenal bloggers, podcasters and YouTubers to see how they are milking thousands of gooners who stupidly believe these accounts care about the traditional values and principles of the club.

Arsenal was always the pioneer in playing the most progressive brand of football in the English top flight; from the era of Herbert Chapman to Arsene Wenger. Having helped in hounding Wenger out of the club these accounts are now willfully blind and in some cases cheerleading Mikel Arteta for his brand of regimented, defensive-minded football. Worse of all they endorse Arteta’s treacherous role, on behalf of the Kroenkes, in outrightly banning and excluding Mesut Ozil from the Arsenal Europa League and EPL claiming it is all his personal decision for “footballing reasons.”

In response to such a clear a clear falsehood, given that the Kroenkes, starting with Emery, have sought to ease Ozil out of the squad for over a year, did most of these big accounts raise a finger in protest? Did they come on Twitter and offer their support to @AFC_Mac_2’s petition demanding that Ozil be reinstated in the squad?

Of course they did fack all. Instead all they offer their followers, readers, listeners and viewer are platitudes along the lines of “trust the process”. Give Arteta time to fix the defense and attacking football will follow. It will be a never-ending wait I can promise you.

Wheels already coming off the bus

At home to Leicester and the wheels are already coming off the deceptively, shiny new bus that Mikel Arteta has been driving since he took over the club last December. Nobody can deny he righted the old vehicle and gave it a new paint job after the disastrous reign of Emery. We were already 14^th in the league and heading downward so the bar was already woefully low. Initially he focused on a better defending and gave a chance to all the Emery rejects and in his first 10 games suffered only one defeat as the club climbed its way up the table.

But after Project Restart, Arteta clearly abandoned any pretensions of attacking football as Ozil began to be sidelined with the manager refusing to give straight answers when asked why by journos at his pressers. Instead we saw a return to the dreaded low block of Emery, emphasis on attacking down the flanks and long balls to Auba, cutting-in from the left as the main source of goals. It served Arteta well in the FA cup run beating the likes of Liverpool and eventually Chelsea in the finals. But his defense-first, Emeryesque tactics offered little threat to mid and lower level PL teams like Aston Villa and and Brighton who took all three points in the crucial run-in. As a result an outside chance of top-4 petered out to a struggle for 6^th.

Some of us warned that nothing has really changed with this new season (check the Positively Uncensored Arsenal podcasts).  Despite victories over Fulham, Sheffield and West Ham, the lack of creativity was glaring as well as the over-dependence on Auba for goals. Blackburn George (@arseblagger) and yours truly warned repeatedly this dependence would come back to haunt us once Auba returned to the 15% mean strike rate of the very best strikers.

Brendan Rogers is no idiot. From his days at Liverpool and, prior to that, at Swansea, he is well known as a flexible tactician. Absent Vardy, Ndidi and Soyoncu, his best striker, defensive midfielder and central defender respectively, he initially decided to flood the middle with six midfielders with the aim of forcing Arsenal to play down the flanks but to deny Auba the ball and force him away from the penalty area. It was a risky strategy as David Luis managed 5 or 6 long crossfield passes in the 1st half, most of which eventually led to goalscoring chances. By half-time Arsenal had 11 goal-scoring attempts versus one to Leicester but critically Auba had only one shot. Mission accomplished.

By half-time it was crystal clear that Arsenal had run out of alternative ideas for breaking down Leicester. At the 43^rd minute, according to Andy Townsend, the comments man on my feed “Arsenal need a little bit more magic, a bit more creative” Hang on there I thought, soon he will comment on the exclusion of Mesut Ozil. But naught.

The moment of truth

Second half began much as the first but with Leicester seemingly more confident in their tactics. Both sides traded punches until David Luis, who until then was Arsenal’s most dangerous player, flopped down on the pitch evidently done for the game. Then Ian Darke, the play-by-play man, lamenting Arsenal’s loss or lack of creativity burst out with this plea: “Where Is Cesc Fabregas when you need him?”

My jaw fell to the floor in amazement because in in one single moment the English mainstream media, whom Darke is very much a part of, finally revealed its dirty censorious hand. By this comment Darke revealed there was to be absolutely no mention of Mesut Ozil’s exclusion from the Arsenal squad by the broadcasters.

It all began to make sense. The NBC-Peacock online channel, which has the American rights to the PL and depends primarily on Sky and BT feed, was also fully into the conspiracy of silence. The two in-studio pundits Robbie Earle and Robbie Mustoe and anchor Rebecca Lowe, who by the way are all English, did their ultimate best to never mention Mesut Ozil by name in the build-up, half-time review and post game summation even though they spent time shedding crocodile tears about Arsenal’s lack of creativity.

Well at the 60^th minute Brendan Rogers was able to bring on Vardy for Praet and as they say that was “all she wrote” as 10 minutes later his shot did not only score a goal but started the destruction of the mainstream narrative that Arteta is the big savior of Arsenal who will take the club to the top-4.

Narrative of lies and dishonesty

It is all a narrative of lies and dishonesty in which the mainstream media and the big social media accounts are all complicit. We have seen this movie before. Emery had his 22-game unbeaten run until PL teams figured out Arsenal had a big name but played small ball.

Once Leicester scored and Rodgers dropped them into a 5-4-1 formation it was all over bar the shouting. Our only threat to them was scoring from set pieces. That is now the template for all the lower and mid-table teams in the PL. They will further expose Arteta’s bus as weak and powerless.

I see absolutely no prospect of top-4 playing this kind of ball.

For there to be any change only we the fans will be able to force the hands of the Kroenkes. Put no trust in mainstream media or our big social media accounts. They are all lying and covering up.

Welcome to another winter of discontent at the Arsenal.

@shotta_gooner from The Uncensored Arsenal Blog

Good Morning one and all.

This afternoon at 7.15 P.M. we take on Leicester at the home of football in a pay-per-view game. A blog could be written just on the rights and wrongs of this latest scam, but that’s for another day perhaps, and certainly for a more interested blogger.

In a season that seems to be throwing up odd results as a matter of course, it’s hard to predict how this encounter will go.

Brendan will bring his teeth and depleted team to Arsenal in the knowledge that it’s been 27 encounters since The Foxes last beat us on our own patch. Vardy has been injured so may not start, and Soyuncu, Ndidi, and Pereira are out. Arteta has his own problems, injury-wise, we seem to be down to the bare bones for centre-backs with only Luiz and Gabriel fit. Despite the shortage I expect him to persevere with 3 at the back and again use our best left back as a CB. I can’t see him deviating from our safety-first approach today, or any other day for that matter. The days of swash and buckel are well behind us.

I hope to see a Partey/Xhaka axis, but that’s not a given either as Arteta might want to see it operating against some little Irish fellows first.

It also seems that Willian is a doubt, we can but hope (read into that what you will).

For all his flaws, Brendan does like to play an open and attractive game of football, so hopefully we might join in, but I won’t hold my breath.

Given how bad some of the competition for a top 4 finish have been, so far, we must make hay while the Autumn sun shines. Let’s hope for 3 valuable points and a decent game of football, surely that’s not too much to ask?

Enjoy your day, friends, and stay safe.

Pedantic George.

Good morning all.

You might normally expect this to be the match preview, what with it being matchday and all. However, as I don’t know who we are playing, where and with which players, that’s not the case. Now, a fair question might be “Why don’t you know George, wtf is going on?” Let me try to explain where I am.

I don’t know these things because as things stand, I don’t care. I know we are playing in the Europa League, so it’s somewhere in Europe, it will be against a 3rd rate team and we will be putting out a 2nd string team to play them.

Still, this is nothing new, it happens most years in most qualifying groups, so why today do I have zero interest?

Well basically I am so disappointed in KSE, Arteta and the fan base that it’s drained my enthusiasm almost completely.

My mood hasn’t been lifted by the arrival of Arsene’s book and him popping up all over everywhere, full of class and insight, reminding me of what used to be.

Now we are stuck with KSE, who are prepared to do any scummy things to protect their bottom line. But hey, this also is not brand new, it has gotten worse though, since they acquired 100% of the club. There is no longer even a pretence to be custodians, it’s all in as a business venture.

Now we get to my big problem, namely Mikel Arteta. This is horrible for me personally, because as most people know, I was his biggest and earliest advocate. I wanted him as Arsene’s assistant while he was still playing. I wanted him to replace Arsene when the great man left and I was desperate for him to replace Emery. I was over the moon happy when he was appointed and really believed he was the best possible answer. How wrong was I?

It’s bad enough that he has the team so rigidly structured to defend that by half-time my eyes start to bleed, that he stands for 90+ minutes barking micro-instructions to every player as if he’s playing FIFA20 with real players, that there seems to be zero intention to play attractive football, but I’m being asked to see some sort of improvement. A plan even.

I’m being asked to accept that all will be well, that this depressingly mundane football is going to morph into a team that will entertain AND win stuff. Well I don’t see it and I can’t see it coming.

Now we get to the Ozil fiasco. We find ourselves in the crazy situation where our best player isn’t registered to play, and we are expected to believe it’s for “football reasons” ?!?!?!

Right, that leaves me to conclude that Arteta is lying and is a puppet for KSE, or he is an idiot and such a poor manager that he can’t coach the most talented player at the club. There is no other option.

Now I, and many more, are put in the situation that we follow a club that is acting without a shred of class, a manager that thinks he can talk any old bollocks and we will believe it while disrespecting a player that has been a joy to watch and given us so much.

It’s possible to want the team to succeed, the players that turn out, to do well AND be disgusted in the way that KSE and Arteta are behaving.

Is this what we want? Is this what we hoped for when Arteta came in? Is this the club you fell in love with? Well I can tell you now, it’s NO from me.

Anyway, I hope we win tonight and I might even watch the game.

See you all soon.

Pedantic George.

Good morning all, The Ozil saga seems to have put a dark cloud over me and effected my ability to look objectively at the game. So I have shamelessly stolen todays review from the comments section and a post from our old friend @arse_or_brain

“Firstly lets put the game into context, we are a team in transition after being absolutely torn apart by the owners appointment of Raul and in turn his appointment of the really boring Unai. This against one of the biggest spenders and best teams in Europe over the last few years.
As city were at home it should of been on them to attack and to entertain but that didn’t happen there goal after 23 minutes was if anything against the run of play Ceballos outpaced by Sergio through the middle of midfield and not tracking back enough to even follow the striker this leaving Luis exposed forcing Hector to come central to cover and when the ball went out to Foden he therefore was able to cut inside a struggling Hector trying to get back in position. The shot was parred by Leno but not sideward, just straight back out to the two city strikers waiting to tap it into the net after Leno decided to stay on his knees and not to try and save the second shot. The players who had got back into the area was marking space rather than picking up the only two city players in the area.
A real sloppy goal to concede after playing so well at the start. We wobbled a bit after that and Leno had to make a point blank save from Foden to keep us in the game.
We then rallied and created two very good chances with Saka skipping past a few challenges exchanging a 1-2 and only being stopped by the keepers shoulder the ball then swirling up and bouncing up past the post. Aubameyang then had a one on one with the keeper only to see his shot smothered, and we all know if Auba doesn’t score he adds nothing to the team.
Then the two most controversial incidents firstly a kung fu kick to Gabriel’s head in the area that VAR magically didn’t even review. It would of been deemed dangerous play anywhere else on the pitch but the homer ref remarkably didn’t see it, it is a points like this when you think the game is corrupt. Also Sergio decided it would be fun to grab the female official by the neck until she forcibly pushed his arm away and told him to get off. Remarkably he wasn’t sent off and of course none of the media talked about this incident at all.
The second half we started well again but started losing our way and subs were needed, with 20 minutes to go we have seen Arsene go with five strikers but Mikel replaced Willian with Lacazette who only seemed to foul city players and never really get in the game.
The next Subs came to late, Partey coming on for Xhaka who had been playing really well instead of ceballos who wasn’t. At the same time Eddie came on for Pepe but was played wide rather than central where he could of hassled the city defence.
Mikel said the players were courageous for imposing our playing style on city and that definitely reflected in the amount of fouls city committed and the bookings they picked up even with a very lenient and bias ref.
Where we weren’t courageous was playing the ball forward and at times we were playing excellent football just trying to get the ball back to the CBs if we showed that style going forward we would have won easily.
Overall taking the game in context we played well, certainly as well as city but in these games you have to be clinical in attack, 100% focused in defence and have fair officials none of which we had today. However I do believe we are growing we just have to be patient for a little longer.”

Good morning positive and hopeful Gooners.

The team makes it’s way up the M6 to face Mikel’s mate Pep and his team of all stars. There is never a good time to play Manchester City, but now seems as good as any. They recently got an unexpected spanking from Leicester and are without their star playmaker, KDB and don’t appear to have a centre forward to field.

It looks like we can start Tierney, after breaking him our of Covid prison in Scotland and we also have Partey available for selection for the fist time. Given our success against then in the FA Cup semi final I expect us to play similar game, that means 5 at the back and the MF prioritising shielding, so Mikel might be tempted to play those that are used to the system and each other. It wouldn’t surprise me to see Xhaka and Elneney start the game. If we can come through the first half hour unscathed, recent history shows them to be vulnerable.

There is a lot of optimism surrounding our team, more than our level of play justifies me thinks, but if the players also feel this optimism then that will serve us well.

The only thing I’m sure of is that whoever Mikel starts, huge swaths of the fanbase will think he’s gotten it wrong, but a good result is the best answer to any critics.

Another thing I’m sure of is that they will attack us relentlessly, even more than normal, because the lack of KDB means we will see less of the ball, as the price of his creativity comes at him turning over possession a lot, he probably gives up the ball more than the rest of them put together, he’s a bit Sanchez like in that respect.

Lets just hope their new £130 million centre back pairing struggles to gel and Walker frequently falls asleep in the area Aubameyang patrols, it will be a test for Walker as he usually has a speed advantage, well he won’t have one today.

OK, people, enjoy the game and I’ll see you tomorrow.

COME ON YOU GUNNERS

Pedantic George.