A guest post from @Labo_Goon this morning
After being edged out of the Transfer Trophy by the City of Abu Dhabi in the final days of August, Everton seem to haave slumped into a bit of a meltdown that has now turned into full depression two months on. Perfect time for a visit to Goodison?
With all the attacking purchases Everton has made its hard to believe that they’ve only scored 5 PL goals and are 8 points after 8 games. 4 points coming in their opening 2 fixtures (including a draw at the Etihad) and the other 4 in the 6 since.
Anybody looking at that and the quality we have in our Arsenal team, would expect this being a routine 3 pointer. But then there’s the other side of the coin: Arsenal is yet to win an away PL game this season. Which should give us pause for concern.
Of cause many of the pundits, looking at our away form, said the best we can hope for is a draw as they bought into the “no cajones” jibe and has offered Everton unsolicited advice to put the boot in and get in our faces. Something Ronald Koeman is not shy asking of his players.
And if today is gonna be one of those games, my only hope is that the referee officiates the game even-handed, because I know Arsenal can give as good as they get if allowed.
Going back to the Chelsea game and what we did then, we will need to give Everton due respect and stay on top of them from the get go, not give them any opening. Playing against a team so short of confidence, our biggest obstacle could be complacency. We will need to be focused for the entire 90 and need to get our shots away on target, need to keep Pickford and the Everton defence honest.
Team news is that Alexis, Ramsey and Özil are all expected to start, giving this team a huge transformation attack wise from the one taking the field last weekend.
Could this be the first game we see Lacazette, Alexis and Özil starting together? If they ignite they can be just as potent as Man City’s front 3. Jack Wilshere making a 10-15 minute cameo can also be expected. Hopefully by then the ref would’ve put Ashley Williams and company in their place who still had the stamina for a mass brawl in the dying minutes of their game vs Lyon.
And with Koeman edging closer to doing the walk of shame and there being 3 red cards in the last 4 games between these two teams, this game has the potential to turn quite nasty. So prepare for fireworks Gooners!
Enjoy and good luck to all wherever you’re watching the game today, and don’t forget to keep them fingers crossed
Positively Arsenal 
Great stuff, Labo_Goon
Covered everything there that I could have thought about.
I hope you are correct about La Caz, Alexis and Özil strutting their class together, at last.
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“anicoll5
October 21, 2017 at 11:20 pm Edit
Love Jermaine Jenas though
A list goes up of teams making most passes in games in PL this season – top is Citeh on 718 – 2nd is AFC on 609
Look at that says Jermaine – more than 100 more passes than any rival – and that just proves passing wins football matches
No one pointed out to the dopey couch filler that Citeh have played one game more
As for our passing statistics winning football matches ?”
No way have we only made 609 passes in 9 games, we can almost do that in one game Andy.
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Your debut ass good as the kids on Thursday. Thanks Labo
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that ass of course s.be ‘as’
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gf60 posting in code but it is early, to be fair.
Are we really likely to see Jack at all today – looks like Birthday Boy is doing a fine job of nursing him back to long-term health so no surprises if he’s wrapped up in cotton wool for a few more days.
Everton don’t appear to be a bad side per se, but their management, I suspect, leaves everything to be desired so anyone desperate to get away in January will see this game as the perfect opportunity to showcase their talents in front of the watching billions. World Class effort from their goalie incoming, no doubt …
If it is true that Sanchez is away in January then at what point will he start to wind down his efforts for us? Big part of me would love to see, as suggested above, the fielding of Lacca, Ozil and Sanchez and see them blow Everton away, realised they enjoyed the experience and bugger up a thousand media drafts of an Arsenal new year collapse as the long-vaunted exodus fails to materialise.
We’ll see – enjoy the game everyone, they’ll be another one along in 2 days, then three days after that.
Well done the FA’s scheduling committee; about as fit for purpose doing that as they are everything else, it seems.
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I don’t really Ronald has much option but to go full on boot and fist in the hope the players and the crowd can rattle us. A tame capitulation and he is on his bike back to the cobbles of Old Amsterdam. One genuine football threat the Toffees do however possess is Sigurdsson who, although he was outrageously over-priced, hits a beautiful dead ball.
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Bad Ass post Labo_Goon,
Totally agree the toffees will be practicing fowling all week. I think we will get the full display of late tackles, kicks on the ground, kidney punches, forearm smashes, shirt pulling and all.
The blue scoucers will show they want it more by kicking us wherever and whenever they can, even getting on the coach could prove dangerous.
Of course apart from last season’s anomally this is historically a lucky ground for us and the game wherever its played historically a red winner.
On paper of course they have some good players and a good keeper but as usual this is all about us, if we are diciplined, positive and play our football we will win.
As refs tend to act rectrospectively maybe williams will get his due and get sent for an early bath.
At some point our away form will return and we will go on a long run of away wins and so today could be the day COYG.
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Nice one labo.
This could be a tricky game, their vociferous crowd will be behind them, and I expect some dark arts on show, Koeman will be desperate, hope the officials and our players are up to the challenge, would say the same of the diving panel, but it looks like they are somewhere south of beyond useless.
Ramsey and Sanchez back should help us in terms of threat, and balance
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And thank you for the preview Labo – in the mood
For anyone who is within reach of a Sunday Times today have a read of an article by David Walsh on a conversation he had with Clattenburg in which the Durham whistler comes across as a human being, error prone, emotional, keen to learn, extraordinary I know.
Clattenburg comes out rather well, as does Anton Griezmann, Mourinho and Pepe less so.
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Craig Pawson with the whistle today. He did an excellent job in the FA Cup semi final, I think we embarrassed the poor man in our next game with him in charge at Anfield.
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Thank you Labo and COYG!
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Anicoll,
As you mentioned it, I thought I would show the Walsh article below so that the Clattenberg interview could be read by all.
In addition, I have often mentioned my immense dislike for the cowardly eye scratcher Maureen, who is included in a snippet at the end of that article. Graceless and unpleasant as usual.
—– “Earlier this year, Clattenburg accepted a lucrative offer from Saudi Arabia to become head of their referees. He now spends most of his working life in Riyadh, gets to see his England-based family one week in every month, occasionally works for TV2 in Norway as a pundit and has just started a column for The Times. According to people in Bergen, Clattenburg is an uncommonly insightful commentator. Having spent three hours in his company on Thursday, hearing that wasn’t a surprise. It’s a rare treat when somebody makes you look differently at a game that you’ve been watching for more than half a century.
Stories he told about decisions he had made were believable only because they were coming straight from the man himself. Take the 2016 Champions League final at Milan’s San Siro. Real Madrid against their city rivals Atletico on an evening that became difficult for Clattenburg once Sergio Ramos put Real in front with a close-in goal. Ramos was offside but that wasn’t picked up by the officials and Real took their one-goal lead to the half-time break. By the time Clattenburg left his changing room for the start of the second half, he knew he and his assistant had messed up. Walking through the tunnel, Antoine Griezmann and another Atletico player sidled up alongside. “Hey, Mark,” says Griezmann. “Did you see a replay of the Ramos goal? It was offside.”
“Yeah, it was offside,” the referee said. “Don’t worry about it,” said the Atletico star, putting his arm around Clattenburg’s shoulder, “nobody is going to get every decision right. We accept that.” Clattenburg was impressed. No histrionics, no exaggerated sense of grievance and less chance of a second half spoilt by Atletico ill-feeling. Soon, Real’s Portuguese defender Pepe made a clumsy tackle on Fernando Torres, who went down. Occasionally this type of collision results in a penalty but mostly not. Clattenburg gave it.
Over dinner, he admits that if Real hadn’t benefited from a bad decision in the first half he probably wouldn’t have given it. The best referees, he believes, make their decisions based on context and balance. This explains why there never can be “consistency” in the way football is refereed. It is the courage to apply the laws with empathy, says Clattenburg, that distinguishes top officials from those on the next rung of the ladder. Pepe, though, didn’t think it was a penalty.
“Neither was Ramos’s goal a goal,” Clattenburg told him.
“When Griezmann’s penalty hit the bar,” he said on Thursday, “I was pleased because it had been a marginal call. In terms of the big picture, the penalty restored balance and made for a better game. Afterwards Real and Atletico were complimentary about my performance.”
The moment football fans most enjoyed that evening again involved Pepe. Pushed softly in the back by Filipe Luis, the big defender fell dramatically. Luis gently laid his hand on Pepe’s cheek in a gesture that said, “Come on, get up, you’re not hurt.” Pepe reacted as if punched, holding his head in his hands and writhing in apparent pain.
Clattenburg had seen the original push and then the cynical attempt to get Luis sent off. Standing close to where Pepe lay, he wriggled his tongue in mockery. “I didn’t realise I’d done that until I saw it on a replay afterwards,” he said. “Heat of battle stuff but it was my way of saying, ‘Get up you pussy cat’. I told Pepe he was embarrassing himself.”
A valuable lesson had come early in Clattenburg’s career, an international friendly in which Russia, managed by Guus Hiddink, were losing 2-0 with the 90 minutes up against Holland. In the three added minutes, they conceded a further two goals. Hiddink approached him afterwards. “Mark,” he said, “you are going to be a very good referee but what you did at the end was wrong. Two-nil I could have lived with, four-nil I can’t explain. It was a friendly, 90 minutes was enough.” Clattenburg disagreed but the more he thought about it, the more he came round to Hiddink’s view.
—- [At the time he accepted the Saudi offer he was one of the world’s best referees and though well respected within the game, the job came with uncommon stresses. A match at the Bet365 stadium stays in his mind. Stoke against Manchester United last January, the afternoon Wayne Rooney broke Bobby Charlton’s goalscoring record. Though often unhappy with his performances, Clattenburg felt he did well that day. One of those days when he felt he’d got the big calls right. Jose Mourinho came to his changing room at the end, complimented him on his performance but then complained about the decision not to award a penalty for what the United manager saw as a Ryan Shawcross handball. Clattenburg said he’d clearly seen the incident and the ball had struck the defender on the chest. Mourinho told him he had seen a replay and that it was a penalty. Clattenburg said he knew it wasn’t, and that if it was a penalty he would give up refereeing. The manager persisted and, picking up one of his boots, Clattenburg threw it angrily to the floor and told the United manager to leave his dressing room.
After Mourinho disappeared, Clattenburg brooded. On the drive home to the northeast he called his wife and said he was ready to quit. He then called one of his assistants, who had a much shorter drive home. “When you get home, can you check that Shawcross incident?” Shawcross blocked the shot with his chest. No penalty. Match of the Day pundits would praise Clattenburg for his decision. And Jose called to say: “Hey Mark, I’m sorry, I got that one all wrong.” Actually, Mourinho didn’t call. Clattenburg noticed that because he has always recognised the need to privately tell a player or a manager that he’s got a decision wrong. As he had done to Griezmann at the San Siro.]
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Andynic as you’ll recall we’ve always rated Clatters as a gifted official here.
Albeit not as friendly towards the Arsenal as the seldom seen Mr.Friend.
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safest bet of the day is that Giroud will be booed by the Everton fans every time he touches the ball today
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In addition I reserve the right to question the sanity and humanity and more of any person willing to take a wage from such criminal petrogarchs, as evidenced by the current war upon their borders. Thanks.
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< of any person or business/corporation
Which is just a reflection of a civilised motion that was put to parliament of the UK in January 2017.
I acknowledge that many Members were happy to put their support for the criminal petrogarchy upon the record, in their own names. There it was.
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Koscielny returning is the most important of the returnees alongside Rambo IMO
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But there it is, the front three many would like to see.
Harsh on Giroud who has a good record against Everton and at Goodison I think?
According to the esteemed plunditocracy having such luxury and choice in the squad is a sign of a club that is poorly run on every level.
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With a game on Tuesday odds are that Iwobi would come on ahead of JW if required.
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That passing stat on Motd can’t have been a total for season- top was seven-hundred-something, second was six-hundred-something; plus, pretty sure they were for different years.
Was either average over season or, *more likely, maximum in a game.
At least I think I’m sure!! Sub par at digging through and interpreting most stats but seems we average 540 them 580 or so this year. Sounds sorta right for 700 being prem record.
This might shed a little light. They’re passing a lot this year.
https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/total_pass?se=79
Ah, ignore almost all- I see George beat me to questioning it. Hadn’t noticed the bit at bottom.
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Fantastic post Henry B, thank you.
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Good preview by way. Restrained and hopeful, I think, on fouling matters, but the crux is correct.
Koeman right up there with my least favourite opposition managers, almost all of it to do with way he so cynically exploits the way we are refereed. He knows little pushes and kicks as we release ball won’t be penalised, that tallies aren’t kept well of fouls, that yellows are often free kicks only, a red just a yellow, etc.
Games against Southampton and Everton against him feature an incredible amount of kicking and pushing into players from behind. Only way I’ve seen for us to combat it is to get on top with sharp football and stay on top.
Doesn’t help the old nerves for game ahead but as Keegan would say ‘i’d love it, love it..’ if we can turn it on, win and send him packing.
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a telling remark on Match of the Day 2 when the AFC team was announced,
“Martin Keown and Ian Wright will already be working on their analysis of the game re Ozil’s performance”
so there you have it, an admission that the pundits enter the game with a predetermined view already decided on Ozil and how he played. the saddest thing is that so many AFC fans have fallen for it and follow suit.
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everton team – Pickford, Kenny, Baines, Williams, Jagielka (c), Keane, Gana, Vlasic, Sigurdsson, Rooney, Calvert-Lewin
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we are playing some flowing attacking football, with Ozil at the very hearth of it
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for fucks sake, xhaka loses the ball, don;t think he was fouled, and Rooney fires into top corner from edge of the area,
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the goal has taken the wind out of our sales, we were playing very well, but have become disjointed now, and ref not helping
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How on earth did we go behind in this game?
we do seem to have a bit of a self destruct button at the moment
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Not seen it but Sky commentary said a suspicion of a foul leading to their goal, clear foul then ignored by poorsen.
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Monreallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll goalie knocks shot back out into area and Nacho fires home form ten yards
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More PGMO cuntery regarding pushed into hoardings.
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The Laca, Sanchez, Ozil and Rambo combination is f******* awesome
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HT: 1-1
gave away a sloppy goal, monreal has drawn up level
Arsenal have played probably our most flowing football of the season so far and really could be 5 or 6 ahead, we had so many good chances, Pickford have a great game for EFC
Ozil for me has been our outstanding player in that half
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markyb
Somehow they’ve failed to notice their patented talking to’s haven’t discouraged teams from doing it to us- Debuchy, Alexis, now Monreal.
Suppose they’re just waiting till someone gets hurt and dislocates an elbow or something
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No doubt we played our best attacking football so far that half. Laca goal would have been a real beauty
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p.s who has more nerve : Alexis for flipping out over a pass slightly wrong, having ignored overlaps and got a few wrong; or Wazzock having a huge moan about Monreal challenge when he’d just gone in like a loon on Xhaka?
It’s a close one.
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Xhaka clearly fouled but as is the way. Paulsen not having a bad game otherwise. How’s Nacho? Getting close to being our top scorer.
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Bit of ‘creative’ tension out there – Alexis cussjg Aaron, then the Welshman shouting at Mesut
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Rich, Pawson probably told him to try and do better next time. We lost Debuchy for months and Alexis got injured after his crash into a pit. PGMO are rotten.
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Ozillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
lacazette to ozil to lacazette to alexis to ozil to head home
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did you know that the last time one of our strikers scored in an away game in any competition it was Giroud all the way back in April, I could have sworn that Giroud scored away on Thursday, but BBC are saying otherwise, no agenda
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Ref giving frees due to the roars of the crowd
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afcstuff @afcstuff 14m14 minutes ago
Mesut Özil created 6 chances in the first-half vs. Everton. The most chances created in a single PL game this season is 7. [@Orbinho] #afc
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Everton down to 10, second yellow for gana
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game had gone into a little lull since we took the lead, we look like we are not sure if we should stick or twist
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Lacazetteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
bellerin intercepts the ball deep in his own half, drives into midfield and passes to alexis who first times it to Ozil out wide right, his pass into the middle is swept home first time by lacazette from 8 yards out
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Wilshere on for Lacazette, about 15 minutes left
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Ozil off Coquelin on
ozil easily been man of the match
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alexis close with a header, and a few minutes later Xhaka with a piledriver hits the bar
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