@LaboGoon eases us into New Year’s Eve
Arsenal travel to the Hawthorns of West Brom this afternoon to bid au revoir to 2017 – and hopefully we do so in style.
After being victorious in the opening two PL fixtures of the season, WBA have failed to get another win since and has slipped all the way down to the foot of the table.
Tony Pulis (“should old acquaintance be forgot, and never thought upon…”) who of course set them on this barren run is gone and they are now managed by Alan Pardew – who is not only still looking for his first WBA win but also his first against his old foe Arsène Wenger, and honestly… I can’t see today being the day him or his side turn any corners.
We may have left the Hawthorns without a single point on our last two visits but they are on a sticky patch at the moment and their confidence shot. However that doesn’t mean our mere presence should be enough to win us the game. We still need to continue to work on being more clinical in front of goal, improve our awareness when switching between a two and a three at the back, when either in attack or defense, and to take better care of the ball in possession to quit giving away sloppy goals.
If there’s one thing football has taught us it is not to take anything for granted. When on the field you cannot afford having your thoughts somewhere else because there are no freebies, you have to earn each point you play for. So to get over the line, it’s still expected of us to put our backs in.
Team news: with Monreal, Ramsey and Giroud still missing out and no new injuries, the Boss is likely to stick with the same XI that beat Crystal Palace last outing, just so we can build some momentum and familiarity ahead of our clash vs Chelsea on Wednesday.
We have steadily improve on our away form and today is potentially another good one for the away and travelling support. So good luck to all of them and everyone watching from home.
***
Thank you PA community for another year filled with thought-provoking and insightful conversations. I wish all of you a very happy and prosperous 2018.
***
Positively Arsenal 
May the force be with us.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Although Albion are on a winless streak, I think Their last three home games have been draws and so to come away with three points we do need to be decisive today.
chelski have a day extra rest and after resting players and effectively having the game won by half time we cant afford to make heavy weather of this one or take on any more injuries.
I wont complain if we come away with three points having subsituted all eleven players and wrapped them nicely in cotten wool.
Yesterday we see rotation from most teams and so I think we can expect the same today, we know our fringe players having done so well in other competions would have to be relied upon in the PL at some stage and we need them today.
The blend and formula will be the difficult question just at a time when our attacking flow has just returned but our team defending is not cohesive.
Jack, Mezut, Alexis and Alexander are the most obvious players to protect however if you take them all out (especially Jack) you lose all your creativity. With Xhaka and a few others carrying knocks it may be more about protecting limbs than star players.
Danny, Theo, Alex I, even Jeff may be important very soon but whoever plays in the red shorts today COYG.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks Labogoon.
All the best of the best to all Positivistas in 2018.
If our recent form in the 2nd half of seasons past is anything to go by, the force sides comfortably with the Arsenal.
With the window opening and the Chile chills over with, our wantaway daredevil, per the advice of the oracles of Tocopilla, looked ready for the “new season” @ Selhurst Park.
I expect him to operate at optimum prime for the 1st month of the new year at least.
The rest of the team looks cocked and ready bar Theo & Danny who I hope AW gives opportunities to this evening. I do not believe Theo Walcott is finished at Arsenal and I still expect at least TEN goals from him.
On to the Hawthorns to give the once petulant Pardew a reminder of why AW is the EPL’s numero uno. We could see an arse-whooping!
COYG!!!
LikeLiked by 3 people
Today, has, as the old cricket pros used to say, got all the makings. Let’s hope our young pros are made of sterner stuff and finish off 2017, which has been a bit of a curate’s egg
of a year for The Arsenal, with a flourish.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nostalgia be damned….moving forward,
I just watched the best of 22-yr old LEON BAILEY of Bayer Leverkusen AND 20-yr old MALCOLM of Girongins Bordeaux…
Etihad Shity, Liverpool, Man Utd & Chelski will no doubt be reloading come the summer…what will we…..?
To be continued next year.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Still Need a CM @AFC_Gilles
Really interesting piece from Jonathan Northcroft in the Times on how Arsene is leading Arsenal into the post-Wenger era.
I’m sure some (if not many) won’t agree with this.
But I’ll post some extracts.
6:20 PM – 30 Dec 2017
“There was scepticism when Ivan Gazidis, Arsenal’s chief executive, told a supporters’ meeting in April that Wenger, after so long a time, could be a “catalyst for change” but the actions of Wenger and Gazidis since have borne out — at least to some extent — that promise.” #afc >
“A mini-revolution has come in two tranches. One involves hiring new personnel. After two decades working with a small, stable team of lieutenants around him, suddenly Wenger is surrounded by new faces. Mislintat, Burgess, Huss Fahmy & Raul Sanllehi are pivotal appointees,”
Burgess, one of the first fitness specialists to use GPS monitoring, and an expert in data, arrived because Wenger recognised that his team — in their heyday, the Premier League’s best for conditioning — needed to catch up.
“Darren felt that AFC were lagging behind..” #afc >
“and he was concerned about high injury rates pretty regularly. Arsène had come to the conclusion that changes had to be made & he told the club to find the best person in the world. And I believe they’ve found him,” said Dr Peter Brukner, Burgess’ former LFC colleague.”
“Lehmann arrived as first team coach, Mertesacker was announced as academy mgr from 2018-19, Sal Bibbo joined as a GK coach & Richard Allison – performance nutritionist. They complement older hires made in what Gazidis regards as a much longer drive towards modernising AFC”
“such as David Priestley, who came from Saracens to address the mental preparation of Arsenal players, and Des Ryan, whose background was in Irish rugby and who works at Arsenal’s academy, specialising in youth physical development.”
“Taking a footballer from young schoolboy to athlete capable of competing in the PL is a challenge that Wenger believes is becoming ever more difficult — & the physical readiness of AMN & Iwobi when they came into the first team has impressed hugely regarding Ryan’s work.”
” In total, over the past four years, Arsenal have doubled their football staff to around 160 — an extraordinary volume of change for one club.”
“We have been working hard in recent years to drive the club forward in every way through the recruitment of outstanding leaders across all our first team, academy and women’s team activities.” #afc >
“This involves additions to our capability in all aspects of our football operations — coaching, scouting, analytics, medical and fitness support, psychology, education and player welfare,” Gazidis said. #afc >
“£40m investment has seen complete revamps of the academy, at Hale End, which reopened in April, and Arsenal Training Centre (ATC) at London Colney, where work was completed in time for the start of this season.” #afc>
“The ATC features a new player performance centre, replete with that virtual reality smart room and running track as well as other features such as an ultra-modern gym, where the weights and exercise machines store players’ profiles and remember their previous workouts.”
“The running track is to allow players’ speed to be tested and measured, and for working on sprint technique. In the VR suite a player will stand, wearing their headset on a mini-pitch, and see 3D match footage. The technology allows players to revisit match situations ” #afc>
“and explore the different options they might have taken, or even experience games from the point of view of an opponent or teammate. It can also be a training tool, especially for young players, helping them rehearse what the speed and intensity of PL football is like.”
” “Multiple thousands” were spent on the smart room, say the club, and it was supplied by a Dutch company, Beyond Sports, who work with PSV Eindhoven, NFL teams and in professional cycling.” #afc >
“The desire for improvement runs through the club.. the nonsense spouted [about Arsenal drifting along] is so wide of the mark. We know we haven’t got as much money as some, so what we need to do is be better at everything, in every field — and that’s what we’re attempting,” #afc
Those are some of the main extracts.
The full article is here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/sport/life-after-wenger-x5587kz6x … but it is behind a paywall.
Please RT for those who don’t have access.
LikeLiked by 3 people
still 0-0 between palace and city, so when will Moss give city the penalty they need
LikeLike
We have seen so many poor runs come to an end against us, surely the players can take nothing for granted.
We have also seen complacency take hold of our players in games such as this too many times so more than anything else, whoever pays, needs to concentrate fully throughout.
Thanks for an enjoyable year on this blogg.
May you all have a happy and healthy New Year.
LikeLike
city with a couple of bad injuries today
LikeLike
Good afternoon AFC’s finest,
Good hard game at Selhurst Park to get Sunday underway and I fancy the Baggies to serve up more of the same. I’m looking for stretching and twisting the home defence until it snaps. And corners lads, Koscielny and Shkodran to be x2 switched on.
LikeLike
Very interesting, that Times article.
Certainly doesn’t fit the agenda of some that our manager is some kind of control freak, power hungry ,Luddite that surrounds himself only with his platoon of dinosaur yes men.
We support a very forward thinking club, with the most intelligent of managers
LikeLiked by 2 people
I expect we will see a number of changes to the starting 11, most teams have made 2 or 3 or more for their second game of the christmas fixtures, and with CFC game on Wednesday it would make more sense to rotate first choice players out of today’s game than out of the CFC game. I feel we might see Welbeck and Iwobi come into the attack, AMN and Debuchy could come into the starting 11 too.
LikeLike
well Mandy their was an interview last week with our new fitness guy Burgess, talking about his move to Arsenal, and remember in the summer when Gazidis and Wenger were photoed at a French Airport(and the ITK’s said it was for a signing, Mbappe or that Midfielder at Nice), well Burgess revealed it was for talks with him, and not only were Ivan and Arsene there but also Stan Kroenke, and that Wenger had asked the club to hire the best fitness guy they could get and Burgess was the one picked, and despite Burgess thinking he was only coming to talk about a possible deal, Stan, Ivan and Arsene put forward a contract offer to him there and then, he went back to Australia to discuss it with his Aussie Rules club, and left the final decision up to them, although making it clear to them he wanted the opportunity to go. They gave him their blessing and so he signed.
I mention this cos much like the article in the Times, the Burgess interview shows, contrary to the WOB’s rantings, that none of this is being done behind Wenger back or being done over his head or against his wishes, he is a full part of all this updating at Arsenal, is fully behind it, fully in agreement with it, and I would suggest that it might very well lead to him staying well beyond his current contract.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Nike’s official website is advertising Coutinho like he is already Barcelona player, you can order a Barca shirt with Coutinho’s name on it.
if the move is about to happen, does it mean that all that guff ASB and WOB spouted about the £75M signing by LFC of VVD was nothing more than LFC spending money they are about to get for one of their biggest stars, much like the AMBITION Everton showed in the summer when spending the Lukaku money before the sold him
LikeLike
LikeLike
only the one change and it see Ozil out of the squad, and Iwobi into the starting 11, with Per in the subs
LikeLike
No Ozil. Pre-cautionary? Saving for Chelski?
Curious but I’m not happy.
Hope Jack & Iwobi are ready for wiley ‘ol Barry, Claudio “the shin-splitter” Yacob, Greg “was-once-da-saviour” Krychowiak, and the re-born Livermore.
Could be a hackfest…
COYG!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DSYj4W2WsAAIcxk.jpg:large
LikeLike
reports that Ozil is out due to a slight knee injury and is a doubt for CFC game on Wednesday too
LikeLike
Jakeyboy (nee Spud) will be revved up for this one.
Xhaka must keep a calm head or LeCoq might have to come in.
There should be room for Theo & Danny later.
No Rondon?..good that Robson-Kanu’s a thieving handful.
A pre-game round of applause to Kieran…(an own goal would get you much more love, Gibbo…think about it).
(This looks like its going to be a really tough game. I’m ready.)
LikeLike
Thanks Labo for setting the scene.
Form suggests an Arsenal win but I cannot help but feel we still manage slips, trips and falls which give chances to our opponents.
No mistakes its an Arsenal victory.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Good job Labo. Thanks Eddy for the piece from the stodgy, conservative Times newspaper on the Arsenal Revolution proving that even a stuck clock is accurate at least twice a day. I am busy tweeting its contents as you recommend.
LikeLiked by 2 people
slow tempo from arsenal so far, a lot of sideways and backways passes once we get 20 yards from their goal. Alexis spending too much time way out field again,
kolasinac off injured after a late challenge a few monments ago by Barry, that only got a talking to, AMN on. but Dean is Dean
had to laugh at commentator early in the game when Cech barged,
“99 times out of a 100 that is given as a foul, but not today”
he must not have watched many arsenal games, especially with Dean in charge. Arsenal are always the 1 out of a 100 decision for the PGMOL
LikeLiked by 1 person
Arsenal creating their own problems here
LikeLike
According to Sky commentary on the game Kol seemed to have collided with Barry, apparently
LikeLike
our corner taking is still not good
LikeLike
Arsenal with 6 passes where 2 would do,
LikeLike
I just watched paint dry….
LikeLiked by 2 people
half time – 0-0
a game to put you to sleep, the tempo is way too slow, too much sideways, backways stuff, alexis too far from their goal, passing not as accurate as needed.
Iwobi had a great chance but took too long
our corner taking has been poor again.
something around 70% possession, we need to up the tempo.
I would bring on Welbeck and Theo and have a real go at them
LikeLike
arsenal making 10 passes just to end up with the ball at the same place the passing started
LikeLiked by 1 person
Solid enough at the back – need to make s bit more of the ball on the edge of the box
LikeLike
its games like this that the loss of Ramsey is most felt, as none of our midfielder are getting into the box, there is no overload
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wba are playing well when they attack. Looks like we need to up the tempo.
Clearly missing ozil.
LikeLike
The commentators are so pro wba it is ridiculous.
LikeLiked by 2 people
we are still in safe mode, all backwards and sideways stuff
LikeLike
walcott getting ready to come on
LikeLike
arsenal stretched at the back and bellerin barely breaks into a jog to get back, that just is not good enough
LikeLike
forster saves a lacazette shot with his foot
LikeLike
lacazette close again
LikeLike
Per is coming on, the Theo sub has not happened
LikeLike
fuck me that was some woeful ball by bellerin, he needs to go to specsavers
LikeLike
iwobi gets in such good positions but no end product
LikeLike
Per on for Kos
LikeLike
Arsenal have upped the pressure in the last few minutes, WBA make 2 changes
LikeLike
that cunt mcclean is on for them
LikeLike
Iwobi with a backpass to foster
LikeLike
welbeck on for iwobi, the injury to kos means the theo sub was not made
LikeLike
we have struggled since we made the subs
LikeLike
Alexisssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
alexis wins a freekick in the D, and he takes it himself, he drives it through the wall, taking a big deflection and ends up in the net, come on you gooners
LikeLike
Mike Fucking Dean, ladies and gentlemen, PGMOL will be so fucking proud of him
LikeLiked by 2 people