Good morning,
I am almost embarrassed to write a review of yesterday’s game as it was one which every reader will have watched, re-watched, read what the media have to say and for those of a robust constitution have probed the deep recesses of social media, Twitter and blog wise. I can tell you little more than you eyes saw and your ears heard. But I shall try.
I had hoped to inset a 13 second clip of my view during the game above but technology has robbed me of that pleasure, for the moment. My back row spot perhaps in visual terms less was less than than perfect and we had to bend double to see the replays of the first two goals on the screens before we could settle on who had put the ball in the back of the net. There was no doubt about the third though, we were right in line, the finger was raised, pandemonium X3 and a formidable sense of relief that we were going to crush the Northern monkeys. I have two new best friends, Steve and Steve. Neither had an actual seat and they just bowled up to stand in a convenient gap between the rows. As everyone stood up all game it was no inconvenience. I had the opportunity to see the goals again on the box last night properly and they were superb, the first two the root of the title. I see LvG appears to blame his defenders for those goals. Listen son, no team anywhere will resist the accurate passing, quick player movement and exact finishing that we saw in those 74 seconds. Don’t beat yourself or your players up about it Louis. Move on.
My substantial advantage of watching from the North Bank in the first half is that I was able to see close up how much good work, invaluable exertion, that Gabriel and Per put in to keep the visitors at bay. Santi put in a remarkable shift in front of the back four and alongside Coquelin. That save from Cech from Martial just before half time was important. I see the young Frenchman’s shot hit Petr’s legs and could have gone anywhere. As important a moment in the game as any goal though, in my opinion. Cech was in command all afternoon, a man thoroughly at ease with his responsibilities.
I have no intention of naming names among our attacking and other midfield players. A magnificent team performance from every man. The most satisfactory way to move into the international break and, for Arsene at least, to plan for Watford in a fortnight. I have not consulted the history books but a very long time since we lost to the Hertfordshire Hornets. It serves no purpose in hammering the red side of Manchester only to trip up at Vicarage Road so I imagine our manager’s brow will be carefully furrowed over the next ten days.
As I mentioned yesterday the next two rounds of round of games brings the Manchester derby, the Red Mancs travel to Goodison, and among our chasing pack Palace play Leicester and the ‘Ammers, the ‘Ammers are at home to Chelsea etcetera. If the cards fall right it could be a very important two weekends after the international break.
A word for the Mancs ? In spite of myself I was impressed with Martial, very strong and confident for a youngster. We shall have to watch him.
A final off topic observation about yesterday. I have been going to Mancs games at Highbury and the Ems for six decades, a high spot of the calendar and I can remember 63,000 in the ground back when safety regulations did not apply to football. Yesterday is the first time I can ever remember that there were no police anywhere in attendance I could see, no banks of plod massed around the tube or railway stations or packed in carriers in side streets, visors up and shields at the ready, no police horses traipsing backwards and forward, up and down Hornsey Road or the helicopter hovering beady-eyed over proceedings. I From what I read Ken Bates (of all people) won a case against West Yorkshire Police that clubs only have to pay for Police inside their grounds or on their land. If the police want to impose martial law and draft hundreds of officers into an area then they can pick up the tab themselves. Oddly enough they don’t. A significant improvement I think.
And with that I shall leave you to glow through Monday and into a promising week.
Positively Arsenal 
do you remember on that other blog when people kept putting first, how annoying was that well …..50th
LikeLiked by 1 person
Come now AorB. That ridiculous 1stand now 50th. Like the smilies, banned!
I hope I come across like George.
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
53rd.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Jeorge Bird says Mikel Arteta was at hale end today coaching the U16s. He is obviously going to be a big part of a club for a long time.”
Wow
LikeLiked by 1 person
Iwobi has signed a new long term contract
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20151006/iwobi-i-ve-worked-hard-for-new-deal?
LikeLike
Correction above:
Was Blind not Darmian that Walcott outfoxed for Özil’s goal.
LikeLike
Fook me.
Apparently some self declared expert wannabe celebrity Arsenal fans made the choice to go on to a Newscorp radio show yesterday thereby promoting the show and the presenters without getting paid for their pain, in order to be ridiculed by said extremist right old whinging Gazprom fan presenters (who do get paid for their professional trolling ‘skills’).
If you choose to swim next to the sewage outlet, you’ll end up inviting piers Morgan onto your youtube channel in order to help such meedjah luvvies (they’re not really that lovely) self-promote themselves upon their latest bandwagon whilst not realising that you’ve just been used and abused. If they easily manipulate a giant overinflated ego like Kevin Pieterson for their own purposes (of course KP is a Gazprom fan) then these petty egotists are just meat and drink to the pro. trolls.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Back to the football:
The whole right side ‘debate’ will really kick off when Welbeck returns! Not forgetting the selections for the West Ham game we will see the Ramsey and Coquelin combo again.
Welbeck and Wilshere (plus Rosicky) out at the same time reduces the options there especially when playing three times a week and in our progressive Goldfish Information Era people have obviously completely forgotten about Dat Guy. But when he returns he’ll be an opinion. If the gaffer decides to play both Walcott and Giroud together with Alexis (they were the ‘strikers’ during the 0-2 in Munich) and with the Munchen games being more or less a knock out tie (unless the other two draw both their games) that is one possibility we might see at some point.
The competition at No.8 between Ramsey and Cazorla will only increase with time but for now with others out Ramsey will play there and still get be kept in the CM groove with stints in CM, as on Sunday when he swapped with Özil midway through the second half. The Özil-Ramsey swap is something we might see as a more consistent pattern when defending a lead in this current spell with others unavailable till probably after the taxing Xmas crunch.
They move all over the shop so it’s hard to work out when there has been a shift in position! At times in the first half you’d see Walcott back on the right , Ramsey ahead of Özil etc. not to mention the opposite forward moving across to the centre when the team were attacking down one side as happened with first and third goals.
Hopefully Areta will be back available after the break as they’ll be needed in-between or during those Munchen games too. Being deprived of Koscielny vs. Lewandoski is a blow for all football fans but it’s a great opportunity for Gabriel.
LikeLike
looking forward to when Klopp becomes LFC manager, every time LFC win and we don’t the WOB whinging about the mistake in AFC not sacking Wenger and bringing in Klopp
LikeLike
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20151005/video-irresistible-arsenal-down-united
LikeLike
FourFourTweet @FourFourTweet 4h4 hours ago
Fabio Capello: “Mourinho burns out his players after two years. I saw it when he was in Madrid & now we have confirmation of it in London.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
LikeLike
Will Benn @WengerBoy1 Oct 5
Funny to think now that since ‘master of the dark arts’ Costa cleverly got himself banned CFC have picked up 1pt and us a maximum 6pts
LikeLiked by 1 person
Last but not fucking least…..
LikeLiked by 1 person
If you want a good chuckle, take a look at this:
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/arsenal-3-manchester-united-0-how-louis-van-gaal-might-have-avoided-humiliating-defeat-a6683316.html?
This is what some journalists get up to in the interfull. Even more mind-bogglingly pointless than their usual tripe. I should add that I haven’t read it all – there should be a prize for anyone who does.
LikeLike
I admit, if it does take place, I look forward to Klopp in charge at Anfield as he is a bit of a card. He has a hell of a job on his hands up there though.
LikeLike
“Being deprived of Koscielny vs. Lewandoski is a blow for all football fans but it’s a great opportunity for Gabriel.”
comments like this make my day 🙂
LikeLike
Anicoll5 @ 7:42am
I find all the hype of Klopp being the new messiah at Anfield very amusing. Expectations are going through the roof without any restraining voices. The Liverpool dominated army of pundits and their fellow-travellers in the print and electronic media are up to their usual. They fail to inform the lemmings that Klopp rebuilt Dortmund under the benign gaze of Bayern who even lent BVB money after they went bust. BVB is the proverbial 2nd city club in Germany who had ample opportunity to pick up cheap talent in central and eastern Europe whom Bayern overlooked or had no time to develop. When BVB became a force the Munchens simply poached their best assets starting with Goetze and ending with getting Lewandowski for FREE who is currently the most devastating striker in Europe.
Mr Klopp will have no such indulgent competitors in the dog-eat-dog world of the Premier League. Can you imagine United, City or Chelsea giving Klopp a free ride to go sign a Goetze or a Reuss from under their noses? By the way, all three have much bigger check books than the Fenway Group. If he had problems retaining Goetze and lewandowski when he was a champions league finalist, one wonders what force on earth will restrain Coutinho et al for fleeing to another PL club who will double his wages and guarantee him Champions League football.
Finally, it is telling that once BVB lost its two shiniest stars, the club went on a miserable run in the Bundesliga, falling out of the ECL runnings and unlike Wenger, Kloppy was unable to turn it around. To be brutally frank, he QUIT the job, showing no stomach for rebuilding. I also find it troubling that prior to his final season he was part of the Dortmund hierarchy that felt it was prudent to let Lewandowski run down his contract and leave on a free rather than cash in on this valuable asset; all in the interest of short-term success. Despite all the nonsense in social media and elsewhere that football fans should ignore the bottomline, he will not find the Liverpool dominated media so forgiving if he and the Liverpool hierarchy so forgiving if he did something so patently dumb (no money in return while strengthening your rival).
I suspect that Kloppy’s reign at Liverpool will be very interesting and sure to bring out all the pluses and minuses that I have highlighted.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I will find it hilarious if he says “Thanks for the offer but no thanks”. As for how he will do in the PL I think, considering what he will have to work with, he will probably do ok. Ok being defined as a 5-6-7 finish and a decent cup run (s). That is where Liverpool are.
As for Citeh, Chelsea and ManYoo not allowing Liverpool, or presumably us (!), to sign promising youngsters going cheap it seems to me the cash rich clubs in the PL are not all that good at spotting young talent.
How many young players have either Manc club brought through the the youth ranks to the current 1st team? Citeh= Zero and the Mancs you have to go back to the 90s. Chelsea have 34 young players out on loan and maybe, maybe LoftusCheek will be the first Chelsea youngster since Terry to get a run in the first team.
If the cheque book clubs were good at spotting youngsters Sterling would not have cost them £49 million, and Stones would not be such a monstrous price that even Roman blanched.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Very good points there Andrew. I would only disagree with you slightly on the issue of youths.From all I have read, it seems to me all the big clubs are very good and aggressive at identifying and signing up young talent. In fact over the past two years they have surpassed us at the U-21 level driving us down to the 2nd tier of that league.(Didn’t Chelsea win that league last year? Two years ago they tore us apart in the Next-Gen tourney.) Despite their success, with the exception of Arsenal, none are willing to take the next step and transition the best of the lot to the first team. It is hard to imagine either Chelsea or City throwing Bellerin into the deep-end in a champs league game vs Bayern and asking him to swim. Or recalling Coquelin from Charlton to be a DM long-term at the PL level. Or play Oxlade-Chamberlain consistently so he can develop his game and iron out his mistakes. There is a reason why many of these talented kids choose to sign up with Arsenal despite the ability of Chelsea and City to throw ton-loads more of money at them and their parents. Junker made it plain recently, in a video I saw on the dotcom, that it is the track record of Arsene giving kids a chance that is our major competitive edge.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Chelsea and the blue Mancs have both spent huge sums on building lavish youth academies, the Etihad Campus, is a whole other planet to what the rest of the PL has. As you rightly say the Chelsea youth, and a couple of years back it was the Manyoo youths, cleared up the trophies. but none of them, not one, has got any further.
Bizarrre isnt it – commercially inexplicable unless spending on youth facilities was/is just a scam to evade FFP !
LikeLiked by 2 people
Sturridge at City is the peak example of a petro-clubs inability or lack of desire to develop a footballer. If they’d have kept him onside they’d have saved few bob on the likes of Bony etc? But as Andrew observes above perhaps they didn’t want to save on the Wonga! *coughs*
Conversely you’ve got to like the way AFC have got decent loans and minutes in the last few seasons after Alexis and Ozil have joined for their young players who aren’t in the first team squad (like Bellerin!). All these players are on their way to having a decent career. Not rotting away like many of the Gazprom youth.
Props to Lukaku for “getting out whilst he still could” IBSF
Smart lad.
Capello’s enjoyed his little dig at Mourinho but we all knew after Robben and Duff jumped ship at the earliest opportunity how Jose treats his Mules/charges. Well, “all” as in everyone on the planet who watches Football apart from English football hacks who are very friendly with special agents and our own sado-masochistic AAAA who dream and desire to be like Gazprom.
Gnabry? Could’ve already have played in the CL and LC if he’d stayed, but I feel as seen with others that following a year out the game that this season is a rebuilding job and a gradual or incremental build up to a run of games is possibly better for him. But I can’t deny I’d prefer to see him at Swansea or Southampton instead of West Brum.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The worry with what Gazprom are up to is that as soon as the great man packs off Sir Costalot back to Mendes’ glue factory, from whence he came, that they’ll just activate the buy back clause for Lukaku. I’m holding on to the stories that Lukaku fell out with the special one when he moved (a bit like Cech?) and that R.Martinez doesn’t see himself as Gazprom’s gimp.
Fingers crossed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did Jose’s problems with his squad start when he tried to phase out Cech and attempt to ‘develop’ or bring through Courtois?
By putting Cech a player who is still widely respected and admired by his peers and throughout the game to one side prematurely did Jose lay the seeds for the disintegration of the spirit in his camp?
He’s won one title after his return but unlike The Fans of Mourinho it’s possible for non-sociopathic football fans to wonder why or how he failed to win it the year before* , or this, considering the squad he has.
*sold off their best player, Mata. There’s no need to poll the Chelsea fans on who’d they’d prefer to see as their playmaker!
LikeLiked by 1 person
New post is up!
LikeLike