This afternoon The Arsenal play the once great Nottingham Forest in the biggest domestic cup competition in the world. The fact that the mighty Arsenal have won this competition three times in just four years should not make us blase towards it. Think about the joy we all felt at the final whistle of those finals, then tell me that wasn’t one of your great memories of your supporting life. From the fight back against Hull, to the artistry against Villa and the defying of the odds against Chelsea. Great times, Truly great times, I want more.
Forest are currently sitting 14th in The Championship and should be no problem for a team sitting 6th in The Premier League, but it’s never going to be that simple, We simply wont be fielding anything like the Premier League team, due to our hectic schedule and quite extensive injury list, I suspect the team will be the weakest we have put out this season. However, there isn’t a player in our squad that isn’t a very good play and we should have enough if the attitude is right.
I honestly couldn’t even begin to predict the line up, so I wont bother . All I can say is I’m looking forward to it and expect us be win. I think it will be a very hard fought win all the same.
Enjoy your day my friends
Up The Arsenal
Positively Arsenal 
Morning all
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Thanks Labo. This afternoon will be a stern test. It’s my age of course but Forest will have enough memories of greatness to want to turn this game into another glory day. Once again it will be second half only for me but I hope that the likes of Coquelin and Elneny will claim the midfield for their own without giving Kate’s more portly brother the chance to brandish his no doubt carefully prepared red cards.
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Were I Labo Tim, I’d be miffed, he writes much better than this sad effort.
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Its George at the wheel FH. Sweet and succinct.
Can I just say I hope Eddie make the starting X1. Ideal opportunity for him with Giroud sidelined. I also hope for a nice relaxing match. UTA!
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Haha. I wish BG. Thanks for the thumbs up though.
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Hello positivistas.
Line-up prediction?…no problem
Ospina
Debuchy – Chambers – Holding – M.Niles
Coquelin – Willock – Elneny
Walcott – Welbeck – Iwobi
+Macey, Mertesacker, Bellerin, Nelson, Nketiah, R.Adelaide, Akpom.
COYG!!!
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I love George when he is short and sweet. Stop getting ideas people.
Anyways I intend watching this match in full. The PGMOL seems to give fuck all whether we win the FA cup or not. After all the League is where the real money is. Or it could be we have the resources in a cup competition to overcome the odds. Or teams can’t simply bunker down and home for a draw if they want to progress, whether home or away, so it gives us more opportunities to score (and less to the PGMO to fuck us all over). Its really very intriguing as to why we have been more successful.
Meanwhile I am researching the Penalties-For data before the work-week takes all my time and energy.
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Fins: That @cliveafc fellow blocked me on twitter meaning I can’t see his tweets. I found he was a fraud and took him on directly. His reaction is so Mourinho-like, the reaction of a little-man who can dish criticism but can’t take it in return. Did you know he is a stalwart of the Gooner Ramble podcast and appears regularly on Lean Mean’s The Arsenal Podcast. The fellow thinks he is the oracle of tactics and strategy and quite the superior of Wenger. Mark you, he has zero experience as a professional manager at any level compared to Wenger’s 800 plus games in the PL and over 200 more in French and Japanese leagues. Not to mention Wenger has won 3 league titles including an Invincible season, 7 FA cups and led us into 20 successive Champions League campaigns. Moreover Wenger has been the key player in the transformation of Arsenal into a self-financing professional giant which is the envy of all clubs worldwide. Yet this Clive fellow is given a platform to lay into Wenger with vicious, two-faced weaselly attacks, the epitome of too many of our podcasters and bloggers.
Bottomline: I am not surprised by anything he says or writes. You may want to post his tweet here so we can all read it.
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Arsenal u23’s play away to liverpool u23’s today, kick off at 1 pm
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update on the u23’s, – game just been postponed due to a frozen pitch.
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seemingly this is the Arsenal squad that have traveled for today’s game: Cech, Ospina, Mertesacker, Holding, Mustafi, Chambers, Debuchy, Bellerin, Nelson, Maitland-Niles, Coquelin, Wilshere, Elneny, Ozil, Iwobi, Sanchez, Welbeck, Walcott, Lacazette.
if that is the squad then it is much stronger than I would have expected. Also Nketiah was hinting yesterday that he was in the squad, but he is not in that list.
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Shotts
The nation wishes that such genius’ would apply their golden knowledge and pearls of coaching wisdom on behalf of the team that can’t even draw with Iceland.
England expects…
…or am I expecting too much from the like minded chums and back scratchers of those who think that Danny Rose is one of the best FBs is Europe (try not to laugh that would be cruel…)?
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I do expect to see an interesting game of football. Looking forward to the Football. Won’t be full of the same level of play as the last football match, but I’ll still be feeling mildly envious of those at the game.
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Forest now owned by a petrogarch?
I understand and accept the obvious, that many in the FA would like to see what happened with Forest happen to the Arsenal. Fortunately for us the club has built some strong foundations.
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Fins: I remember that @cliveafc fellow on one podcast waxing how Gibbs could eventually replace Nacho on the left (we were then playing 4 at the back). These are the opinions which apparently influence the Gareth Southgates of England into thinking Danny Rose is is the next Ashley Cole. No wonder England is doing so well internationally. Iceland, Costa Rica can attest.
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Shotts
I couldn’t understand how these genius blaggers not just this fellow managed to ignore the English LB that has actually won games by himself in N5 (league cup match), and has won a European Cup (unlike, Terry he played in the final!): Ryan Bertrand. The best English FB at the current moment.
The mind boggles at the wisdom and knowledge of our gallant podcastateers.
If we wanted to whinge we could moan at scouts missing the likes of Bertrand. But there are some interesting and exciting players coming through as we’ve all seen this season. The scouts did alright there with AMN! What a prospect.
I’d like to see the da Silva kid thrown in today but of course that’s just a wish and I’ve no idea if he’s ready or fit for this contest.
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< power of hype and of repetition I can't think of any other reason why such knowledgable people would go on air and repeat the gibberish from BT and Sky and overhype the diving cloggers from up the road.
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Didn't see the match or highlights but has there been less bleating about what one plundit called a Liverpool dive then Wilshere skipping over a late lunge?
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have to laugh at John Cross writing in the Mirror that Arsene Wenger will step down in the summer and that he is pushing for Arteta to be his replacement.
What makes it really funny is that some WOB Arsenal blog or other, only a day or two ago came up with Arteta as their choice to cure all Arsenal’s ills and put right what Wenger has broke. Main stream media don’t even try and hide that they just paste and copy stuff that they stole from blogs or twitter. You see they can see how many clicks, comments, likes or retweets any old bull spouted gets, and if its enough then they know they will get even more for their article. As its confirmation for the fans that already feed into the bullshit blog or tweet and they are sure to click into the main stream media article too.
Does anyone really thing that Arsenal are going to appoint a man with no managerial experience to replace our most successful and longest serving manager. Really.
I have no doubt that the blog that came up with it, only wants it so that they can attack Arsenal for not going for a big name manager if it all went titts up for Arteta. It would be – its proof that Stan and Ivan know nothing about football.
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talking about left backs, I see Wenger was asked about putting AMN in CM, and he said that he is considering it, as its his best position, but with Kolasinac and Nacho both injured his only alternative to AMN is anther youth, Josh DaSilva, so he has to take that into consideration if he moves Ainsley to midfield.
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Hey, I came up with Arteta 2 years ago. I was that blogger.
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Eds of all the young players in the squad who would you most like to see play some football?
I’ve been waiting for AMN to get a chance since Mick McCarthy was singing his praises. So I’m happy. O’Shea in the fringes.
There’s a number of forwards, Akpom Eddie etc. but also the young CM some of us saw for the first time in the last league cup game, Sheaf. Some kind of budding and aspiring English Busquet’s!? What about The Jeff?
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I like what I’ve seen of DaSilva so far. Of course Nelson seems a big talent, but we have yet to see him really influence a game yet at senior level.
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Harry Winks gets a spot singing his praises on the BBC six o’clock news.
Because he can pass a football.
Imagine the hype if a player with the qualities displayed by AMN or dare I say it yes Wilshere too played for the Tinies, or GazCorp (he ain’t no Joe Cole!).
Normally I’d include Utd but Lingaard and Rashford are exciting talents better footballers then any of the diving cloggers we can think of and they haven’t received the same over hyped mania, fortunately for them.
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george your motives with Arteta are totally different from the blogger and john cross’s motives. If I’m not mistaken I would say you would melt if Arsenal appointed Arteta as manager and Arshavin as his assistant.
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Newport County 2 – 1 Leeds United
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Eddy at 2:22 pm: The fake news media only repeats bull-shit that gets clicks but will in no way threaten the football establishment. I won’t hold my breath for them to steal my data and do something on penalties by the PGMOL. In contrast they were were quick to repeat and expand on my findings on the genius and value of Cazorla. Even the weaselly Guardian, especially the despicable Barney Ronay, got into the act. But they will never admit that the league is fixed and the prime fixer is the PGMOL.
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No Eddy, I think Arteta is everything our next manager should be. Arsena once said “he understands what is happening everywhere on the pitch and knows who should be doing what and exactly when”
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Shotts
Our esteemed podcastateers and their partners those worthy plundits, the spawn of Partridge, they may have been slow to sing the praises and very very slow to acknowledge the loss of a footballer who was always ahead of Fabregas in the Marquis’ all conquering Spanish squad (Nevermind the football eh?),and after Arteta who was obviously earmarked to be the technical leader/senior CM,
but the crowd, the great unwashed and the deserving poor, they loved him from the off.
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< the hacks and especially the blaggers like to claim they represent the everyday football lover/fan, but as can be observed with the back scratching of these selfless podcasters and these advertising channels online that have a notional topic of Football, that is far from the case. Some of them even turn themselves into caricatures of football fans in order to make a living, whilst proclaiming to represent football fans, a staged expression of disingenuous quackery, of acting my darlings, which in the age of the reality tv president, of the "theatre", it is something that we should probably all have expected.
Thank *** for the Football! And the football clubs out there. Yep that is a direct reference to the very very cutting quotes in the pat Chelsea presser which the hacks don't even dare to comment on.
If Arsenal FC is a football club, what is the Arsenal manager implying about the other clubs? To quote a footballer the hacks were happy to quote – these brave hearts don't have the Footballs to go there.
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I see the ITK’s did come within an asses roar of getting the AFC team or squad right for today’s game, what a surprise
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Willlock gets given the keys to the centre of the park, Eleneny as the wiser statesman alongside. I guess Coquelin had that minor niggle and doesn’t make the bench today.
Willock also had some promising moments in CM in the last league cup game.
Exciting stuff.
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just the 6 English starters and another 6 of the subs for us today
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COYG.
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Former Arsenal player, Armand Traore, starts for Nottingham Forest
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debuchy lets his man go at a free kick and he heads in from a foot out, awful defending,
arsenal seem to be playing a 4-2-3-1 formation, nelson wide left
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Perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 1-1
walcott freekick swung in, holding header hits the post and per chests it down and fires home with outside of his left boot
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Funny, can’t remember hearing anything other than about the forest academy.
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more keystone cop defending and we are behind again, although it was a wonder strike at the end, but we are like spinning tops at the back
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Clear foul on Welbeck ignored by Moss earlier, think we will see more of that. BT making no secret about their allegiances.
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HT: Nottingham Forrest 2-1 Arsenal
per with our goal.
we have dominated possession, had some very good attacking positions, but have been opened up a bit too easy.
find it odd that our defense who are so good and so composed while playing out from the back, get in such a panic when forrest come at us.
AMN has been good on the ball but is really finding it tough at the back.
Elneny, Willock and Iwobi need to do more with all the possession they have. Welbeck and Theo need to take this game to the opponents.
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the pace of our play in the second half is too slow, we get up to edge of the area and turn back, need someone to make their defenders commit
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we are getting a john moss underdogs performance today
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ha ha ha, moss telling the forrest captain he is aware of their fouling and time wasting, so why the fuck has he not booked a player for it. Was that all for show, all to tell the AFC players, look i know they are at it, but I aint doing anything about it
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half an hour to go, we need to step this up a fair bit if we are to turn this around, its all too slow, too disjointed, losing too many battles.
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penalty to forrest
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3-1
will take a complete turn around in our performance if we are to stay in the cup.
too many of the players have so far shown why they are not getting game time in the BPL for us. None of them have done enough to force their way into the starting 11
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3-1: Not looking good. This requires a torrent of goals from us in the last 20 and we haven’t created much so far.
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Nketiah on for Willock
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Is super Joe Willock injured?
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