Arsene Wenger has lost his voice and was substituted by Steve Bould in today’s press conference, sparing him from answering the same questions he gets week after week, sometimes three times a week. I bet he was delighted.
Anyway, Steve has upset the malcontent by voicing his respect for Arsene
“Steve Bould On Wenger
I admire him immensely. He’s takes an unbelievable amount of stick off an awful lot of people. He is one of the great managers, it’s a pleasure for me to sit next to him.
Do you think he has been treated fairly?
I’m not here to answer those questions. I’m sitting in for Arsene to talk about the Stoke game, I’d much prefer you concentrate on football if possible.
He has done a great job as far as I’m concerned. He has done for an awful long time.
Can you give us an exclusive that he’ll be here next season?
I’d love to.
Do you sense Arsene’s hunger is still as great as ever?
Absolutely. He’s remarkable. Behind closed doors I’ve never met anyone who is as hungry and determined to win football games.
Is that hunger still as big as you’ve seen?
It’s as big as I’ve ever seen.”
This turned him immediately from a downtrodden hero, to a snivelling yes man as predictably as night follows day. How dare he make a nonsense of the bollocks spouted by Arsene’s detractors?
The other day I endeavoured to watch a Youtube video where someone had assembled an array of the most pretentious bunch of expert fans, bloggers and podcasters, all falling over themselves to tell us how the club was in need of major changes and desperate to convince us of how they knew exactly what is needed to be done to make us great again.
I wont put a link on here but I think it was called something like “A catalyst for change”. Only watch the drivel if you have a strong stomach.
But I digress . Among the other bollocks spouted by these leaders of opinion I noticed this particular statement.
“We know that Steve Bould isn’t allowed to coach defending”
Said one of these great sages.
Well for a start “we” don’t know anything of the kind. We do know that there are loads of halfwits that repeat this bollocks and even more halfwits willing to accept it.
Here is how I see it. Steve is one of the best defenders the club has ever had. He is Arsene’s assistant. He will coach defenders how to defend. To think he sits twiddling his thumbs after he has finished putting out the cones is frankly ridiculous.
However, what he wont be allowed to do is set the team up . That is Arsene job, and if the assistant manager was doing it there would be something very wrong. We know Arsene sets the team up to attack first and I suspect Steve would set us up in a more conservative way. But he will coach the players how to defend within the set up Arsene dictates, and that is exactly as it should be.
He’s bald now you now?
Positively Arsenal 
Arsenal scored first penalty 1-0
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1-1
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Arsenal miss 1-1
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utd miss 1-1
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arsenal miss again 1-1
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utd also miss again 1-1
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Arsenal score 2-1
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utd score 2-2
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Arsenal score 3-2
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utd miss Arsenal win 3-2 on penalties aet when game finished 2-2
arsenal had been 2-0 down at ht.
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Well done the boys and thanks for the updates Ed.
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Saka scored both AFC goals after coming on at half time
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Burton was scorer of our first penalty, still trying to find out who scored our other two
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from jeorge bird
Dallas Cup Semi-Final
Manchester United 2 Arsenal 2 (Saka 2) (a.e.t.) (Arsenal win on penalties)
Bukayo Saka sparked a sensational second half comeback before Arsenal U19s prevailed past Manchester United on penalties to reach the final of the Dallas Cup, where they will face Tigres.
Arsenal were disappointing in the first half, with a United side containing Tahith Chong dominating proceedings and establishing a two-goal lead.
Coach Kwame Ampadu made a triple substituion at the break, which included withdrawing Trae Coyle, who had arguably been Arsenal’s standout performer.
Hugely talented schoolboy Bukayo Saka was sent on in Coyle’s place and it proved to be an inspired choice as the starlet struck a brace to send the game to extra-time.
After 20 more minutes, which included Arthur Okonkwo making a fine stop to thwart Chong, the game was decided by penalties and Arsenal prevailed.
Arsenal: Okonkwo; Daley-Campbell, Olowu, Ballard, Omole; Benson, Burton; Swanson, Coyle, Thompson; Balogun.
Subs: Barden, Saka, M. Smith, Swanson, Clarke, Beckford, Dennis.
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Well, if our rivals weren’t trying their best to pinch Saka before, they probably are now. Lets hope he’s an Arsenal kid with no shithead agent in background.
A schoolboy turning a game from there against that opposition. Impressive
Went to bed at 2-0 and sure didn’t seem promising by sounds of it.
I actually thought Saka looked tired and slightly off it in 3rd group game, though tellingly he still looked player most likely to produce even then.
Got to say Ampadu has impressed me a lot last few years- results, tactics, player improvement, interviews
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Further to our latest (unless there’s been another one!) discussion here about VAR…that man Danny Murphy with a typically Murphian take on pen in England game.
Guess what? He’s against it, and VAR.
He’s ‘in complete agreement with Southgate in asking for the referee’s decision to be final’, which seems to be his way of saying he is 100% against ANY use of VAR as he surely means ref’s original decision, without VAR, should be final.
If so, why the hell even ask him to analyse anything with it, as his mind is made up.
The real killer, however, is this line: ‘the interpretation of the extent of contact with the Italian’s foot should have been left to the official closest to the incident, in my opinion’
Does he flat out not understand that the rationale behind VAR is that the official closest can, obviously and understandably, miss crucial details, ones which, with the benefit of time, replays, technology, a video assistant can pick up on?
I don’t think Murphy’s dumb, so can only guess he is being deliberately misleading in not getting the point.
The obvious question, which even the occasional Murphy watcher should have been asking all year, is…why the fuck would you choose a guy that hostile to technology/replays to sit on the diving panel?
He pretends, or believes, the refs first opinion is always best and, worse, that the ref actually saw anything the replays show, 1st time around. He’s a ludicrous choice for the role.
Not seen a Spurs figure yet within game who supports VAR.
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Football is fixed has some very interesting observations on Danny Murphy
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interesting thing about Saka, he mainly plays as a wide midfielder for Arsenal, but for England youth he is normally a fullback. Some have compared him to AMN, versatile, highly skilled, and very calm in possession.
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The swashbuckling Liverpool a goal down at Palace and struggling to beat the press and pass out from the back. Only twenty minutes gone, long way to go yet and Palace will tire second half. Mane booked for a dive which won’t be making the back pages.
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Dallas Cup final is tomorrow, Arsenal (ENG) vs. Tigres (MEX), kick off is at 9pm uk time.
looks like they are not streaming the final on their facebook or youtube pages, and that once again, like the semi final, its on a stream that can not be got here
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Mane in the wars.
A header from a corner disallowed for offside.
Palace more comfortable in open play so far in this match. Few of the blaggers or podcastateers commented upon Arsenal’s successful exploitation of this Palace teams vulnerability on set pieces this season or in general Arsenal’s record from set pieces this season. Hopefully as seen against Watford that form will continue alongside the more fluid and instinctive football that we’ve been seeing of late.
Liverpool stil struggling to find any fluidity here, Salah making space for a good short but not much coming from the midfield. Chamberlain to their rescue? Heh.
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Another good chance for Liverpool from a corner…
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did someone mention Kwame Ampadu – here he is back in his days as a player
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back row: Hillier, Hartfield, Morrow, Miller, Scully, Hannigan, Francis,
front row: Connelly, McKeown, Ampadu, Houston(manager), Lee, Mockler, Carstairs
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Mane with equaliser from a Milner assist. Milner isn’t considered a good player by many but IMO his choice to retire weakens the England squad.
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Know the top four is gone, and in relative terms, we are not having a vintage season in the league, but doesn’t help in that it’s now two years running where top four rivals are winning virtually every week, except when they play each other.
Poor spells are costly these days
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yeah mandy, our biggest problem is not the dropped pts v the top 4 contenders, its all the lower teams we have lost to or drawn with. 4 losses and 3 draws with teams lower in league than us at present, thats 18pts right there, even half of that and we would be right in the hunt for top 4
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that should be 5 losses to team below us, not 4. we’ve lost 5 times to teams who are top 4, and 5 times to teams who are currently 10th or lower including 7pts dropped to the current bottom 3.
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Cech: “The most disappointing thing is if you look at our home form we are right there with the top teams. If you look at our away form, it was terrible I don’t believe our qualities & City’s qualities are 30 pts apart. We haven’t played well to keep up with them & it’s our fault”
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Burnley now 2pts behind AFC
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so Man City only need to avoid defeat v Man Utd next week to win the title, with six games to spare.
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Bayern can win the Bundesliga next week too
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Guys, Re; watching a stream à from the US/UK or anywhere, you can bypass this using a VPN service. There are many on he market and using that you can access content from anywhere…
Nice to have the boys back in action tomorrow, hoping for a big win in preparation for EL…
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Germany been a one horse league for most of 50 years, Bayern will shortly have won it 27 times in those 50 years, and been runner up 10 times too, & you have to go back to 82-84 as last time they have been outside top 2 for more than a season
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Soon to be congratulations to city, but one of the worlds best coaches funded by a state aided and abetted by the powers that be bottling FFP could make our league very boring in time
We have been relatively poor in the league this year, but will rise again, but our model cannot sustainably compete with city’s sugar daddy, utds natural wealth, Chelsea, we shall see. What is worrying is falling behind Liverpool and Tottenham in league status if not silverware, that needs addressing.
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Ed
So Ampadu was in Hillier and, I think, Morrow’s youth team? Also a geezer one in from bottom right who looks like he could be Rob Holding’s dad!
He was actually with Swans in period I used to watch them few times a year as a kid. I remember the name well- very exotic for Swansea at that stage- but alas no memories of how he played. Think he was quite a technical player by Swansea standards but that wouldn’t be too hard.
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