As all the excitement and furore of the cup draw fades into yesterdays chip paper and the giddy delight of our unexpected routing of the Saints dissipates, so normal service is resumed this evening. Arsenal in the Premier League, at home, expected to win.
The fear of a come down after a big cup victory may be founded in superstition or there could be some statistical evidence to support it. Did we lose after Ludogorets? After Slavia Prague? I can’t recall and it really doesn’t apply here anyway, given the number of expected changes it might as well be two different teams under discussion.
The ease and style with which we demolished Southampton might put a small pressure on the first teamers who will line up tonight, maybe somewhere in the back of their minds they’ll want to show that they too can turn on the style. I doubt it though. These are the kind of projections that amateur writers like me invent for players having no idea what they think on any subject. It is far more likely that being the professionals they are and given the squad based nature of modern football they do not draw the lines as clearly between first and second string.
Take, as an illustration, the form of our Gallic heartthrob. A lot of people like to pretend they know, for a fact, that Giroud responded to the pressure of an in form and free scoring Alexis and that made him play better. Competition for places is the popular mantra. I can far more readily believe that the careful management by Arsène Wenger to ensure his talismanic centre forward was fully rested after a long summer of competitive sport saw him return refreshed, reinvigorated, and simply more able to produce his best.
All this, of course, is simply speculation. None of us know a thing about what goes on in the minds of the players. Not a thing. Their press comments are pure PR and other than that we have nothing to go on. It’s why I get so riled when people tell me that players didn’t think they had to try, or assumed they could just turn up, or didn’t want it badly enough. It seems to me there are games where they’ve given their all and lost or drawn in the end and they’ve been written off in the above terms. On another day precisely the same effort and approach brings a late, late winner and they’re praised for their determination. Two identical performances but people judge only on results and make up the reasons.
So don’t tell me they’ll have a point to prove to our second string nor that Watford will be a push over. None of us can see into another man’s heart, none know his innermost thoughts so it’s best to let these blokes get out there and hoof the ball about a bit and just cheer them on.
I see some speculation that Danny Welbeck will start again tonight. This would be a huge shock. Arsène has the kind of squad he’s always wanted and has no need to risk players returning from long injuries. He has shown nothing but patience as the recently recovered feel their way back to fitness and sharpness, and I would be amazed if Welbeck’s ‘huge offensive potential’ is on display this evening.
Of those who started on Sunday there are a couple you’d expect to see again tonight and three others who made a strong case for inclusion, namely Theo, Lucas and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain. It is ridiculous to try to rank one above the other, I’m aware of this, but it won’t stop me joining in the fun. Many people want to ignore Theo’s contribution and pretend he did nothing beyond the three touches which put the ball into the net. Likewise they want to elevate Alex’s performance in a more central role into a revelatory experience.
We all have our favourites and we all get excited by specific aspects of someone’s game, it’s human nature and there’s nothing wrong with that. My pick of the three is Lucas Perez. Pure prejudice on my part and in no way do I denigrate the others. I like the intelligence with which he plays the game and I particularly like players who bring out the best in those around them. It’s a gift Giroud has, Mesut has, and it’s one the greatest of them all had in a frightening abundance.
I could watch Lucas’ sublime pass to Danny Welbeck for his opening goal a thousand times and not tire of it. Players who make me gasp and smile are the ones I prize most of all. It’s why I like Aaron and Alex Iwobi, it’s why I loved Tomáš, and it’s why we all revere Dennis Bergkamp. Lucas Perez has the potential to enter such hallowed company. Will Arsène find space for him tonight? Somehow I still doubt it. I can’t see beyond Alexis, Giroud and Theo up front. Similarly it seems unlikely that the Aaron / Coquelin axis will be disrupted, no matter how good The Ox looked at the weekend. But then what do I know?
Make sure you get the dog walked early tonight as kick off is at 7:45. I’ve been down and pre-recorded my radio show so I’ll be here to share the excitement. If you’re at the match I trust you’ll be in good voice, if not I hope you find a good quality stream without the pain of the English commentary. That’s all from me, I’m off to check on my compost bin.
Positively Arsenal 
we do seem to suffer against that sort of pressing, for a half at least .
A bit short on cmfs now…..but we do have The Jeff
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What’s happened then folks? Gave up trying to watch after a few minutes of streaming woes.
Twitter claims we are atrociously bad and that Marriner is being weird and giving us nothing, but that it doesn’t matter. It does if he is, it always does, makes getting back into a game where you’re bad much more difficult than normal and about 5 times as hard as if you have Fergie-style help.
Only 20 mins but I’m guessing Ramsey Coquelin didn’t gel again. Both very good players but I guess balance is everything. I wouldn’t have predicted Cazorla/Coquelin would complement each other so superbly and I would ave thought those two were a decent blend.
Oh well, faint hope for second half, but if Marriner is indeed screwing us on 50-50’s and the rest it will take something miraculous. A thunderbolt or an early goal, something which circumvents his influence.
Yours despairingly
Ricardo
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Disjointed, hesitant, nervous, sloppy, sloppy passing, Watford entirely comfortable so far – were shall begin Rich
Things can only get better
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Sure, Ars are missing passes, etc, and that often happens when their rhythm can’t be established, esp. when they’re being fouled and the ref pretends it didn’t happen, whilst at the same time the opposition can foul and use any momentum to make it appear the Ars player’s contact IS the foul.
Monreal was touched in Watford’s box – near knee level. The TV director will scour through various camera angles in order to justify the refs decision. (If that proves difficult you’ll see only a long-shot of the incident).
This stuff ****’s with any player’s mind, in the same way that being genuinely outplayed by any team will see players missing passes.
Watch the first half hour again on the ArsPlaya and check how many fouls Watford commit, (not given).
New half. Let’s hope we can turn this around.
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Much better so far this half.
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Watching the iguana episode of Planet earth 2 wondering why they put themselves through that crazy dash through the snakes, then I considered us lot watching football and realised all animals put themselves through unnecessary torment.
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anicoll
Damn!
It’s shitty luck for our midfield to be decimated as it is (more- decimated is just one in ten, I think), especially as, once again, the year’s league leaders sail on injury free , but it’s still extremely disappointing if we have flopped in such a game.
Think that’s one of main downsides to being a very positive team; you can’t just rely on defensive play when you’re off or start a must win game slowly and cautiously and then move on from there.
I support our attack-minded philosophy though so I accept what it means.
Anyway, I’m off to drink a few more beers and pray some. I’ve been typing for 5-10 so maybe it’s happening already!
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Well done Alexes
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Wonderful improvised finish. Whisper it but his body shape has something of RVP about it.,
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Goal, Iwobi, but was Sanchez tripped just before?
No replay. I’ll check on the as live replay.
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Steww
Aye, but we might be the only ones blessed/cursed with awareness of our fate/plight.
Who knows,though, perhaps that Iguana got home and thought ‘FFS snakes’
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Who on this blog believed we would have gotten that penalty? Haven’t seen the replay mind you. Fortunately we scored.
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Yeah, Shotta, but if it’d happened at the other end…
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Just showed replay. Plundit says Sanchez left leg…
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Fkng hell, how did Walcott end up on the ground. Oh, Sanchez attacked.
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No card for bringing Ozil down
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Not your day when that Perez shot fails to go in.
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2 minutes to save our asses
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costa has penalty saved at liverpool
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FT: sunderland 0-0 spurs
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FT: Arsenal 1-2 Watford
awful result for Arsenal, terrible first half cost us the game, too many times this season AFC have had awful first halves, there seems to be a problem with attitude there, coming out too relaxed, and then once we let in one, panic and let in a second. very much a wasted opportunity
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There went our title challenge. I didn’t expect it would be at the hands of Watford though. Maybe I should have done another open letter.
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Terrible first half, with hindsight, wrong selection.
We had enough time to get back into it…but….we shouldn’t be losing at home twice in successive seasons.
But, again, a ref booked our players for very little, denied a pen….which luckily we scored from. Booked Sanchez for complaining about time wasting, and allowed a Xhaka tackle on ozil to go unpunished.
The revenge on Wenger was never going to be carried out by touch line bans. Today was revenge of the PGMOL part 1, aided by a poor first half performance. Revenge of the PGMOL part two coming up this weekend. And the media will not say a word.
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Losing to Watford at home twice in successive seasons ^
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I have had better evenings – I do not, I cannot, understand.
I shall simply feel the pain.
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Dear Lord
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Possibly a more forceful letter next time Shotta
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Mustafi unbeaten record gone too.
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We have had a few limp as lettuce starts
But I don’t understand why ?
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Watford for Christ’s sake
Watford
Who have not had a decent performance for two f******* months
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Moh Haider @ArsenalMoh8 1h1 hour ago
If you praised Steve Bould for beating Southampton, how are you criticising Arsene Wenger for this?
At least apply stupidity consistently.
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Anicoll, teams do seem to raise themselves against us….Bournemouth and Everton pretty much producing long distance running records
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Arsene observed that from way back in 1997-98 he was astounded how teams raise their games against us. He would watch the vids and couldn’t believe it was the same clubs. Nothing new.
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Fair play to Watford – got a highly defendable lead Mandy and flung everything in the way
It’s the highly defendable lead that sunk us
Especially the 2nd Watford goal 🥅
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Still………
It could have been Sutton
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Horrible disappointment. Were we a lot better second half at least?
Even as someone who thinks we, alas, need to be 5-10% better than anyone else to win (not a number pinched from Shotta. Been my view for a long time), performing so badly (if that was indeed the case) at such a moment makes it extremely hard to believe this can be our year.
Just seen Klopp went absolutely nuts in fourth officials face, by the way, in a manner never seen from Wenger, that, if it was after pen saved, can only be interpreted as ‘fuck youuuuuuu ( friend of cheat)’. Assume the latter ignored it and didn’t cry to ref.
In summary : Bollocks
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The other thing that got my attention pre-game, is the number of blogs who presumed this would have been an easy win. One blog predicted 4-0. Mainstream opinions, i.e. those based on emotions, is a contrarian indicator. I wonder how much the team got sucked into this type of thinking?
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And the other huge positive outcome tonight is that we shall not turn up at the Bridge OVERCONFIDENT!
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Well, as most of you know, based on the refereeing data yesterday I revised my predictions and put our odds of winning the title at 5%-10% but I didn’t expect our chances to be stuffed by losing to Watford. And at home ffs. I didn’t expect anything from the refs so I wasn’t disappointed. If it was another top-4 club, that foul on Sanchez would easily have been a penalty but even so I cannot in good conscience say we were robbed. It was just a bad day. On another day, in the second half we could have easily scored 3 goals and break Watford’s heart. When that perez shot hit the underside of the bar and rebound I knewit was not to be. That’s football.
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Agree anicoll, unfortunately, we seem to be giving away too many highly defendable leads…..and we can’t catch them all up. Bournemouth should have been fair warning…..even Preston! I recommend avoiding such passive play in the first half against Bayern.
Seems a costly game in terms of injuries as well
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Pls can anyone be so kind to educate me as to why Iwobi was drafted away from that left hand side, where he was clearly a menace to the Watford defenders? Watford clearly didn’t know what to do with him and in a flash we pitied them and withdrew him from there.
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I imagine Lewandowski and Muller looked on slightly puzzled tonight
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Shotta, would put our chances of the league at about two percent this season……this weekend will be interesting, if we threaten, or take the lead…..just watch, always hope I am wrong though and that Mr Atkinson will surprise.
Still, there is always the Champions league…..just hope the refs are fair in that…kind of like they have been in the recent years, like that on the mark decision to send off RVP for a forward pass as we were reeling Barca in at the Camp Nou, or those master classes of refereeing in Braga and Zagreb
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Mandy – There will be no surprises from Atkinson. This is a man who has grown and thrived in the PGMO.He will never risk his career making a tough but fair call against Chelsea. Arsenal, more likely. The man was scarred by being sent down to the championships after giving 2 penalties against Ferguson’s United.
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Sorry to say we got what we deserved tonight. Our luck with the late comebacks ran out. First half was terrible. We created nothing of note and then lost another midfielder we couldn’t afford to lose. I hope Arsene can get to the bottom of these slow starts because a team that is looking to win the league should not be playing with such a lack of urgency. I’m well disappointed tonight, so I’ll say no more for now
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It is no matter how poor either the result is
Or the first half performance
There is always a refereeing theme to cling on to
Hopefully the players will not turn up with that lamentable excuse on Saturday
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Anicol do you really believe there is absolutely no negative bias by the pigmob against AFC?
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krystian bielik has joined birmingham on loan for rest of the season
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I feel strangely at peace.* I’m with Wenger till end, this year or, hopefully, a couple more years.
If I’m not comically mistaken about the state of the Arsenal/ premier league world then we have to be absolutely superb, phenomenally good, to overcome the gigantic pgmol handicap, and i don’t think we are. We’re good, with many good players, some exceptional talents, and some real vulnerabilities, and that’s it.
I’ll be back to hoping by the weekend, but once more I’m sure the ref will make life so much more difficult than it should be, which, against an extremely well-drilled, organised team with plenty of talent makes victory fairly unlikely.
As I say, I’m with Wenger till end, hoping for miracles this year, plus his signing on and a change or two in summer which can add that extra 5-10 pc and make us incredible, but there’s simultaneously a part of me ready for what comes next.
Whenever that is, will it change, if I’m right, this damnable shite from pgmol? Will the next man play the shitty, cynical game more and will that be rewarded? Will we become that bit more defence-oriented?
Questions, questions, but I’m ok with them tonight. A bitter blow, but my only fuck you is reserved for pgmol, and all the other fucks who have badly treated my man Wenger over the years. If he’s a dreamer in this uber cynical football world, he aint the only one.
Fuck Marriner if he was just another pgmol bitch, fuck Atkinson in advance for his inevitable shite on Saturday, fuck all those weak or lousy bastards.
I think that’s me folks. I hope many of you are better equipped than me to weather any football woes; I’m sure some of you are. Ignoring the media and twitter is probably the only way to go.
* it’s a direct result, the sort of peace, of having a few drinks, but I still reckon it’s real enough in its fashion. With him till the end, love him as a manager and person for good, Arsenal till I’m done.
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Marc Bola has joined Notts County on loan for rest of the season,
as I said earlier that is all our bigger and physical players in the u23 side now gone on loan – Bielik, Bola, Mavadidi, Akpom, Hinds
can see our u23’s suffering a bit for rest of the season as we will be fielding smaller, and younger players. great for the lads stepping up, but it will really be a big ask for them.
the first year scholars will now get more game time in the u18’s and the second year lads will step up to the u23’s
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