The Clash of the Invincibles takes place at historic Deepdale this evening. Quite rightly held back until the less significant fixtures have finished, this is the unquestioned jewel of the third round. A meeting of two venerable clubs, both famous for their contributions to the English game and both special for achieving unbeaten success at the pinnacle of the league.
Their fortunes have varied in recent years. Arsenal have become a byword for consistency. While other clubs have risen and fallen, enjoying their moments in the limelight, North London’s pre-eminent sporting establishment has been an ever present in the heady atmosphere of the upper echelons of top class football.
Preston North End have been quietly working their way back towards the top flight. Their rise from the fourth to second tier has been achieved in a steady fashion winning the promotion as champions twice in four years and finishing in the top five of League One (and Championship after it’s name change in 2004) no less than five times. This season they’re sitting in eleventh place having won ten, lost nine and drawn six.
What can we expect from them? Reading a Preston forum their fans seem to think Arsène is either arrogantly resting players or frightened his pampered softies will be scared of getting a kicking from the North End midfield. How refreshing such forward thinking attitudes are still prevalent in the modern game. In fairness most of them were bemoaning the absence of Sanchez, feeling deprived of witnessing at first hand one of the game’s true greats. This is odd when you consider that the real treat they are being deprived of is the sight of Mesut Özil. I suppose this just shows the influence the media have on the opinions of fans.
We are of course anything but arrogant and entirely aware of the possibilities for a lower division team to overturn the odds and beat one of the nations greatest ever clubs. Cup competitions thrive on such tales. Needless to say it is a romance we as Arsenal fans indulge in only when someone else is on the receiving end. My only concern is whether the side will gel. We all know the reserves are good enough individually but we saw against Southampton in the League cup how a patched together eleven can lack understanding and cohesion, but I don’t expect a repetition today.
I await the team sheet with interest. We know who won’t be there but the question is who steps up? Everyone assumes a Xhaka Ramsey central partnership but how about the forward line? I really want to see more of Lucas Perez but he is little bit ankle nobbled or something. I hope it isn’t serious and he gets to play – ideally alongside Olivier Giroud.
While it’s true that Giroud almost single handedly dragged us back into contention on Tuesday and could have taken a twenty minute naked lap of honour as far as I’m concerned so herculean were his efforts, it was his partnership with Perez that most caught the eye.
It was almost an old fashioned forward pairing, with the big guy winning the ball and the smaller bloke running off him. That is the kind of set up even footballing illiterates like me can understand. Of course the skill set of our number twelve is way in advance of the old big bruising centre forwards who used mainly to provide the knock downs on which their trickster little cohorts would feed. However I don’t want to get too side tracked into talking about players as I usually end up wasting words on guys who then don’t even make the bench.
For romantics the FA Cup got off to the worst possible start yesterday with the oil rich money burners flattening plucky little West Ham like a steam roller taking on a bag of Maltesers. It was clear from the team sheet that Man City were not going to mess about and I wasn’t surprised Guardiola took the tie so seriously – even fielding a proper keeper for a change.
With so many so called top managers and so many of the world’s best players crammed into the Premier league and with all the rabid, out of control fan bases demanding the league title as a minimum price for their support, the FA Cup has taken on ever greater significance. As long as only one team can finish first the scrabble to get the second most important crown in English football becomes increasingly frantic. I don’t anticipate the giant killings of yore, the tournament is simply too important to the top clubs to risk making a bollocks of their first round.
This just means getting to Wembley will be that little bit harder for Arsenal this season, but the journey will be all the more enjoyable for it. I hope we start today with an emphatic victory to make the pundits weep but most of all I just want us to win without any more injuries. Please.
If you’re making your way to the Clash of the Invincibles I wish you a safe journey. I’ll be schooling my nephew in the significance of his first ever FA Cup tie, safe and warm by the radiator. And for those Preston fans mourning the absence of a certain sulky Chilean – chin up – this may actually be the day you get to tell your grandchildren about. The day you saw Alex Iwobi in the flesh.
Positively Arsenal 
Gabriel booked.
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YoungArse @YoungArse 1m1 minute ago
Preston hack and foul all game, then sing “same old Arsenal, always cheating”.
Stfu you bunch of thugs. How about you try play football?
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ridsdale is chairman noth- count the spoons
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Giroud offside goal ruled out
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that was silly by iowbi
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ah pearson thinks he is joey barton.
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Welbeck makes his comeback, on for ox, about 10 minutes left.
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I fancy a late one
Hopefully for us
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I’m on FIRE 🔥 tonight
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Wengerball, Giroud 2-1
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lofted ball in, giroud knocks it down to lucas, who backheals it to giroud who fires home. 2-1,
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4 minutes of injury time to be played
jeff and holding getting ready to come on
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Holding on for AMN, Jeff on for Lucas
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that was dangerous, but ospina used his massive frame to claim the high ball
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welbeck with a shot from edge of the area, keeper knocks it over the bar
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FT: Preston North End 1-2 Arsenal
forgettable first half, much improved second half, great early goal Ramsey got us going in the second half and we never looked back, Giroud scored a late winner. The Ramsey goal took the wind out of their sails, and Arsenal were worthy winners in the end. Some thugs in that Preston team, especially Pearson.
by the way, this game reminds me very much of our last game v Preston back in 99. so don’t let anyone tell you Wenger, or Arsenal are a shambles etc etc, our double holders struggled badly to beat PNE in 99 and we know how the malcontents like to pretend things we totally different back then.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQN-WV5t2XI
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and we didn’t need Caballero’s elbow today.
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Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 2m2 minutes ago
Cometh the hour, cometh the lamppost .
#prolific
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That first half was like the worst behaved ugly step-child, you want to disown it but people have already seen you pushing it around.
The second was the same ugly child but it is much better behaved and it is a trier.
God loves a trier.
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watching the rerun of the Ramsey goal, the decoy run by AMN was important, a defender ran out to cover him, leaving the narrow gap for Ramsey’s shot on goal.
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ah the BT sports crew are so disappointed at Arsenal winning, I love it.
Our goals were sucker punches, ha ha ha ha ha.
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afcstuff @afcstuff 15m15 minutes ago
Lucas Perez has now contributed to 11 goals (6 goals, 5 assists) in 12 appearances for Arsenal this season. #afc.
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It was a nice goal eds i liked the way both CMs were both involved from deep midfield, Ramsey timing his run to perfection after some incredible control & strength from Iwobi
Ramsey finding his range of passing in that second half and AMN growing into the match against his experienced opponent, good stuff.
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Welbeck !
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PNE. did their best for a replay.
The match official are paid £375 per game (3rd round) + expenses. Possibly, what the top PNE players are paid weekly? Bear with the match officials, they are paid peanuts.
It would seem that PNE, failed in their bid for a circa £1 million pay day?
The smaller football clubs, need all the favours going to them!
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We won, we won – I don’t GAF how we did it, I’m just ecstatic that the plunditocracy, promoters of hoof and foul ball and the anti-arsenal ‘fans’ are crying into their beer tonight because in their eyes we should have lost – fuck them all! The good guys live to fight again and that is all that matters right now.
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How did that talentless little prick Pearson remain on the field? Maddley allowed him to kick the shit out of us.
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oddly today Arsenal started the game like
we had a makeshift rigth back,
a central defense that had never played with other before
a goalie and back four who had never played a game together
a cm pair that had not played together before
and attacking four that had not started a game together before.
odd that.
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shotta, sadly Maddley must have seen football focus this morning, and thought Lawrenson and Kilbane’s comments that “Preston would kick the shit out of Arsenal”, actually meant that this is allowed under the rules of the game.
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Emperor Giroud. He invaded and conquered blighty. Our damn saviour.
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shotta that picture of Giroud is when he had a goal disallowed
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Wenger “the only positive in our first half was that we were only one goal down”
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Wenger “we were outplayed in the first half”
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Humphreys on BT a close second to Pearson for people I’d like to slap. Can’t stand the man!
First half a shocker, second so much better.
I feel bad about not keeping more faith in that first half. Trying not to read much into players saying they were surprised by Preston.
Too simplistic, I know, but feels like so much rests on finding a way to cope with teams at their most energetic until later in the game when our quality and technical ability seems to come to fore.
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John Cross @johncrossmirror 30m30 minutes ago
There’s a strange negativity about some Arsenal fans. The FA Cup doesn’t matter when they win it. But it does when an upset is on the cards.
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How do you guys like that cheeky smile on Gabriel Paulista’s face as he took out one of those talentless shit kickers. Took one for the team. I always loved that type of player on my side. In my days it was bound to end in a fight though.
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Rich I would dismiss Ramsey and Giroud saying Preston surprised us, they have to say something nice about PNE after beating them, and once one of them says “they surprised us”, you can normally expect the second guy to say the same, its all soundbites and no substance in after game interviews, the two lads scored important goals, but they don’t dare say, “I scored a great goal, and fuck Preston and their kickers and idiot fans”, no of course they are going to say, “Preston were great, they surprised us with their intensity”, if anything, maybe Preston’s ability surprised us, but our boys are too smart to say that in an interview.
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I like the fact Gabriel tried to use the “me speak no English” as a way of trying to get out of the booking, laughable that Giroud was called up by the ref to translate, he don’t speak portugese, or spanish either, if anyone was needed to explain it, then monreal was best bet.
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9 goals in 6 starts for giroud
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I bet we hear that the Ox was coming down with the flu. That’s an explanation for his performance. Why else would he forgo the multitude of opportunities to run past the defence….
I didn’t enjoy that game….
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Osman @OsmanZtheGooner 1h1 hour ago
Paul Merson said he will have his quid on Everton, Stoke & Bournemouth in the FA Cup this season, all 3 got knocked out in the 3rd round 😂
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FK³ @fkhanage 57m57 minutes ago
Devilishly handsome. Lethally clinical. Captain of Arsenal Football Club. Olivier Giroud. G-Rude.
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The Giroud / Perez axis was, as the rather prescient pre match article suggested, key. The performance of Aaron hugely encouraging as he returns to fitness. I did enjoy that very much. Excitement right to the end.
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Think you’re right,Ed.
No way manager or players didn’t expect them to start fast and supremely determined. Just something to say. They seemed to have plenty of quality to go with it in first half.
Am I right ,do you think, that at minute we’re more vulnerable than should be or need to be to teams with fairly simple plan and bags of energy and some attacking intent? Feels like ‘get in defensive shape, work nuts off and commit 3 or 4 to attacks’ is troubling us a lot.
Didn’t think Preston were very dirty until we got our first and they instantly switched to age old English/ playing Wenger Arsenal activitites.
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Clearly professional PL footballers with 15 years experience in the English game like Rambo and Larry would be ENTIRELY astonished by a Championship side getting stuck into them. I was a total shock to me too. I barely believed my eyes at all that running around and tackling by Preston.
Still that nonsense gave BT and its glove puppets something to witter on about until the adverts put them out of their misery.
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Steww: Xhaka needed that match badly as well. He was especially horrible in the 1st half but came on in the 2nd.
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Gabriel is a favela boy you mark me, I mark you.
I can understand that as a Stokey boy, that’s what life has all ways been in Hackney.
I might not have been so blatant, but Gabriel is much more ‘Gully’ than I.
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afcstuff @afcstuff 1h1 hour ago
Shkodran Mustafi is unbeaten in his first 18 games for Arsenal, beating Bacary Sagna’s record unbeaten start of 17 games at the club. #afc
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