Good Morning Positivistas,
I thought I would out pen to paper this Sunday morning as it is weeks since I have had anything to write about on the Arsenal theme, and the past few days have rather rocked the Positive++ in me to their foundations.
I had hoped some Arsenal news might emerge to hang a written contribution on, but so far nothing. The best I can come up with is that we start out season in the Avaya Stadium, San Jose on the 28th July, as you all well know. By then we may, or may not, sign a new player or two. By the day no doubt another dozen names will have been in and out of the sorting hat. Those revelations hardly fulfil my mission to inform and to explain though.
Nevertheless there is international football to look forward to today. The opening group round of the Euros were mostly good games, tight contests with a pleasing number of the under-dogs biting the noses of the bigger hounds, most notably group winners Wales and Hungary.
All our AFC lads did well, Aaron, Olivier and Granit, the three most decisive. Tomas departure was a shame, though not unexpected. At least he played his last game in a fighting 2-2 come back against the crazed Croatians, rather than his career being signed off on the treatment table. And Jack ? I suspect if England are to make any genuine impression in the tournament they ( we) desperately need Jack to start, and to be the creative focus of the team. Not one of the starting England midfield appear to have the nous to open a defence up, to play a decisive ball.
Yesterday’s first knock out round, or what I saw, was a bit of let down, and all a bit cruel. A great goal from Shaquiri worthy of wining a tournament was undone by a penalty contest, and the Ulstermen managed to go out to an own goal. The Portuguese and the Croatians both played cautiously I thought, within themselves, and that was a looooooong 120 minutes. Portugal the lucky winners, though the exit of pouting tart superstar is postponed for another night only as they lack quality.
I trust the French and the Irish will release any metaphorical handbrakes and get down to business early today. Mesut follows that and we shall see if the Germans can beat a way through the Slovak lines any more successfully than England ?
That is it – whimsical musing over. Enjoy your Sunday.
Positively Arsenal 
There was one thing on which to comment Andrew…we now know who not to entrust penalty kicks. With Mikel gone, perhaps Santi will still be a sufficient regular to take care of them, (should we ever get awarded one that is) and Olly G certainly seems proficient if he’s playing….but after them, who?
Another thought, with Brexit a done deal, will the new laws be immediately applied insofar as work permits are concerned? If so, many clubs including us, will have a problem. See http://www.thesportbible.com/football/news-the-premier-league-players-wholl-be-without-work-permits-post-brexit-20160624
Roll on July…I’m already bored with these apologetic games.
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Penalties ? We have had so few, and scored not even all of that pair, I had forgotten about it to be honest. Santi is first up I guess, then Mesut. I would like to see Hector learning the art of penalty taking. No reason a full back, especially as talented as the Spaniard, should not work on what is real skill of hammering the ball unstoppably and accurately into the net. He has a good shot on him to start with so why not ??
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Hopefully Granit will learn from the miss, put loads of practice in, never miss again and not be injured for the 2 penalties we’ll get when the refs can’t find a reason to dismiss them.
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we don’t start our season in the USA, we have a game in Lens a few days before the trip to America
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anicol, Giroud is ahead of Ozil in the queue of penalty takers
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Last time I bloody rely on Arse.com
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gf60, it seems it will take a minimum of 2 years for the uk to leave the eu, so no impact straight away, but clubs will have to account for what ever new rules will come into effect, when awarding contracts to foreign players, and of course signing new foreign players,
we would no longer be able to sign a lad from europe till he is aged 18, meaning that we can not snap up a lad at 15 or 16, or avail of the advantage of being able to give a pro contract to a european lad at 17, when many can’t sign pro in their own country till 18(spain for example have this age limit)
in 2 years time we will face the same difficulties bringing in a young uncapped lad from europe as we now face bringing in an african or south american. Older established internationals from highly ranked international teams will still get work permits, but we’d have problems with signing a player from a low ranked european country, in the same way we have problems now signing a player from a low ranked african team.
its said the likes of sagna, koscielny, cesc, Giroud, Bellerin would not have been eligible for work permits at the time we signed them, and we would have to wait till they were established internationals to sign them, so in simple terms, its going to cost a lot more to bring in foreign players.
there might very well be more focus by clubs to produce their own uk lads, interesting enough it might see a rule change where lads from northern ireland and scotland will be viewed the same as english and welsh lads, and english clubs will be able to bring them in more easily than now. But despite this Brexit being a non football decision, it will be left to football to fix and deal with the problems it causes football, schools without playing fields and so no football for their kids, parks closed so no where for kids to play football, sport centers closes, etc, due to economic circumstances, and the decisions of politicans, and how this has effected and will effect football, well thats not the problem of politicians as far as they are concerned, so football clubs are going to have to find a way of promoting “grassroots football”, one that works, unlike all the ones that they have tried so far.
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yeah anicol, .com have still not listed the game with lens, but lens announced it earlier in the week,
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Pogba the idiot.
Brady penalty scored, in off the post, 2 minutes in and it Ireland 1-0 France
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oh seeing the replays, Long is a diving cheat. it was a real Vardy type penalty award
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Griezmann misses a sitter, well it would be called a sitter if Giroud headed it over from there
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arsenal ladies beat sunderland ladies 5-1 today
http://www.arsenal.com/match/report/1617/post/ladies/ladies-arsenal-5-1-sunderland-report
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afcstuff @afcstuff 1h1 hour ago
David Ospina was Man of the Match last night as Colombia beat USA 1-0 to secure 3rd place at the Copa America. #afc
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no surprise that France have taken off Kante at HT, he had an awful half
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Payet is useless
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1-1 Griezmann with a bullet header
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Griezmann with his second goal in 3 minutes, France 2-1 Ireland
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Giroud had the assist with a headed knock down
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Duffy red carded for last man tackle on Griezmann, freekick just on edge of the area
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it was Giroud who had set Griezmann in on goal
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Gignac on for Giroud
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French on fire but Ireland will have at least one more chance. The French defence is still very jumpy.
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Gignac misses a sitter
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Rami and Evra are very poor, I don’t believe France have not better than those two
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will it be noticed that Payet had another poor game, now that he has not scored a goal to hide his poor performance
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Osman @OsmanZtheGooner 18m18 minutes ago
Media will blame Giroud for Gignac miss.
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so we now know its
Poland v Portugal with winners playing the winners of Wales v Hungary or Belgium
France play winners of England v Iceland
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that is some great goal by Boateng, more so when you consider its his first goal for Germany, in his 63 caps
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penalty for Germany, skirtel being skirtel
ozil has his penalty saved, not a great penalty if truth be told
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Right – that’s Mesut off penalty duties
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Skrtel I was pleased to see punished for what he gets away 12x a game in PL
Hopefully he will wrestle another German to the ground in the box and see red. Anti-footballer and stupid with it.
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As I was asking, who will take our penalties? That’s 2/2 misses I’ve seen Oz miss.
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ozil inches wide with a right footed shot
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depending on who is in the team, Santi, giroud, alexis, theo, iwobi
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the guys on RTE need to see this stat
OptaJean @OptaJean 55m55 minutes ago
8/8 – L. Koscielny (v #IRL) contested more duels with a 100% success rate than any other player in a game at Euro 2016 (8/8). Strong.
all the bullshit before the game about how he can’t handle shane long, one of the pundits even said AFC played Southampton a couple of weeks before the end of the season and that Long destroyed Koscielny in a 4-0 win for the saints, never mind that the 4-0 game was on the 26th of December
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you know, the more I see Muller in these championships, the more I wonder why I rated him so highly before it. He has been awful in all Germany’s games so far.
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More shirt pulling in the box from Skrtel on Muller there. Tightrope for the clumsy Slovak defender.
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And of course there was the penalty that Muller missed in the CL semi final
It’s contagious
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Lovely footwork from Draxler – fully deserved lead
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Draxler has been great.
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Germany dominating this game as much as the dominated norn ireland game, only difference is they have got the second goal
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Giroud played well too. Has a hand in both goals.
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afcstuff @afcstuff 2h2 hours ago
On this day in 2012: Arsenal signed Olivier Giroud from Ligue 1 side Montpellier for £13m. #afc
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draxler makes it 3-0
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Very efficient from the Germans, never required top gear, the Slovaks swept away.
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I missed the match.
Was Özil playing a similar role/position to the one we see him play for Arsenal?
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ozil popped up left right and center, mostly left and right.
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Well, events have overtaken my household. Daughter #1 believes the end of the world is nigh. Daughter #2 is pissed off with those who voted Leave. Son on vacation in Thassos, Greece claims Brits couldn’t exchange sterling for euros for a day!
I’m rather underwhelmed with the footie although my Arsenal-tinted glasses have confirmed that Arsenal, when they are Arsenal, are the most beautiful team to watch.
Then, I remembered, there is a Positively Arsenal. Thanks to Anicoll for whetting our appetite for a return to all this Arsenal in a month or so…..
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Giroud was class in the second half today. What vision, technique and skill….
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