Good Afternoon fellow Positives,
Sadly, for you, words do not fail me after that excruciatingly disappointing result from the SJP. Be assured though – you do not suffer alone. We have not won a point since the turn of the year on the road in the PL. Trust me every dropped point is a nail in my hand. I would however admit, looking back over those painful mostly Sunday afternoons, that we have not actually deserved to earn a point with some poor efforts.
I have not seen the stats for today’s game but I assume we had 75%-80% of the possession. And yet we lost, again, as we did in games in which almost exactly the same possession format developed, at Bournemouth, at Swansea, Watford, we play well, get in front. We have better players than them, technically, probably fitter and more intelligent. We are confident, in control and then, and then, AND THEN – we fall apart and lose.
I have read on here, and I have some sympathy, that these calamities are the defence’s fault, that they should defend better. Looking at the first Toon goal today, though not the second, I have sympathy there. It seems Rafa paid more attention to Shane long’s goal last week than Mustafi did. There is a lack of concentration at the back, I accept that. The notion however that we must win games, in fact the only way to win games, is by keeping a clean sheet, i.e. relying on a defence that we know is gash, seems wrong headed.
What distressed me more though is the lack of quality that we showed at the other end, in our attacking and allegedly creative play. We had oodles of possession throughout, yet barely tested the Toon goal-minder Dubravka. In the final 25 minutes with Toon ahead I don’t think he had to make a serious save. What is the point of having “stellar creatives” (*Copyright Mandy) if we never get a shot or header on target ?
What to do ? Away from the Ems we are not a team at the moment.
We had no “Number 10” today, or if we did I did not see him. We have Ozil, Rambo and Jack at the club, yet young Joe Willock had the job given to him, and he had no chance. He was eaten alive in midfield, in my opinion. Our creative output and goal threat, when it was badly needed, was negligible today. And if we cannot score goals then on the road we are f*****.
Having got that rant out of the way well done to Mo Elneny today, another AFC Man of the Match performance for the Egyptian. 95 hard minutes in Moscow and he still looked like a Spring lamb today.
Enjoy your Sunday.
Positively Arsenal 
Leaving Mesut in London was a bad call. Hector too. Aaron was a forced change. Mkhi isn’t available. I don’t know about Jack. I just don’t think you make that many changes to your attacking lineup and then wonder why they can’t score. That’s all I have to say. Next match please.
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Quite right Andrew. Its would be unfair just to lay blame on the defence. Young Willock got distracted by the butterflies in his tummy, which left our MF a man short and the defence unprotected time and again. Had the finishing been a wee bit better, who knows. Its not as if they were short of chances. That said, sometimes we got what we deserve and by selecting a weakened side there’s ground to say perhaps we didn’t show Newcastle the respect a team deserve who has gore their shit together. Mitigating is that our those who were rested needed the rest. We know all too well what happens when we push our players’ bodies. Anyway, Europa is the priorities. If anything today served as nothing more than a glorified training match for those crunch encounters.
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please help me here. Why does ozil, who earns on one week what I earn in 10 years, need a rest?
I think that is protecting him a little too much unless he is injured.
he did not play against Southampton.
did he play in any if the other awful away performances this calender year?
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Actually I thought we played relative well, certainly well enough to match we have had on the road in any season and for that matter just as well as most teams winning away.
The problem, as all to frequently, was two absolutely calamitous goals. The team seem to be proving the manager right when he says there are roughly six errors that lead to every goal, well even the most tactically enept of us could probably find them today.
Goals effect games and so you have to play badly for 90 minutes to lose and today we didn’t just those moments of madness. I’m sure we would of gone on to score many more today had we kept strong defending our own goal. Maybe we should of had a pen when we were dominant maybe some of those through balls might have gone out way and we could of gone further ahead but at the end of the this wasn’t about caving under pressure it was just about 90 minutes work being undone by two minutes of diabolical something. I say something because it’s difficult to call it defending, it’s difficult to say it’s loss of concentration because it’s repeating itself regularly as if we have spasms and freeze at certain times in each game.
I certainly don’t think the barcodes played well today as we absolutely gifted them the goals especially the second one.
At 1-0 I was counting the amount of times there players were getting away with bookings and that continued but it’s difficult commenting on a poor refs performance when in actual fact it turned out to be irrelevant.
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to answer my own question he played in all of them except for Bournemouth.
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I am really sure why Ozil is being the focus of angst here. we were poor offensively granted but we scored a great goal and had enough play to at least get a second.
The problem as usual this season has been defence and goal keeping. No matter who started today if you give away cheap goals everytime like we did then this is how it ends
Willock for his first game was tidy
Iwobi was good
Elneny again excellent
Auba not really in the game but has always that quality to produce
Laca scored a great goal but overall play was poor
Of the defence it’s telling that Mustafi was poorer than both Chambers and Holding
Monreal also finally seems to be lacking the legs to rampage up and down
Cech again did not inspire confidence you need big saves from the goalie and he didn’t come through.
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Please don’t use the ” weakens side” as an excuse it was purely down to how we conceeded those goals. Those same players have played well before and I may sound like an ex-player but that was comical defending plain and simple.
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“Enjoy your Sunday.!?!?!?! Even Andy is taking the piss now.
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if we lose at home by 2-1, you can lay the blame on the attackers because you expect your strikers to score more. but blaming them after they score away in a difficult stadium only to lose due to mistakes and lazy defending isnt right. although majority understand that out strength this season is in the attackers, but you still expect the defenders to earn their pay esecially against a team as NUFC.
it is a right decision to rest ozil and ramsey and even a better decision not to travel with them at all so as to prevent temptation to use them. but when we have niles available, i ee no reason why we play chambers in right back.
elneny played his best attacking game for us today. long may it continue.
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Don’t know if non-bookings were irrelevant. Impossible to calculate what effect it has being spared at least three and easily five bookings.
Maybe wouldn’t have mattered today but has to be a factor when that ‘style’ of reffing is completely the norm away and, in cut throat world, surely forms very deliberate part of home team strategy against us : keep leaving foot in, hit ankles, pull people down, be extra aggressive, at very least until ref produces first card, then assess from there.
He let cynical fouling pay, effectively encouraging it. Should be opposite of his role.
If you’re being absolutely cynical and pragmatic, it probably is worth the risk of grabbing us in box etc, though I doubt anyone would brave calculation of raising hands to make yourself bigger when blocking shots, though Terry and co at Chelsea made an art form of it, I suppose.
Still, far from my main angst today
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I suppose the worrying thing is that 2-1 down, with 20+ minutes to go, I had a nasty feeling we would not get an equalizer.
Pity really as we did exactly that on Thursday.
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Oh well – at least Jose is helping me
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This, what Andy said here. Not blaming the attackers at all, I just never felt like we had any goals left in us. Wouldn’t have mattered, though, if we had defended well.
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After that lovely opener, I had the feeling that the team went into a “Why the fuck are we bothering today” mood. Even Mo E whilst best of a poor bunch, was below par.
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Sadly, I did not watch United. But did Jose park the bus? Set them up to defend like mad? Just curious.
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Nice one anicoll5, you make a very valid point about the front players not really firing today. It’s been a long season!
I know he tends to suffer a bit towards the end of games, but was a bit disappointed to see Iwobi depart, as he looked one of the main creative outlets and generally did well.
When he left, we seemed to have a lot of strikers and no real supply for them.
As for the much maligned mustafi, still think he can be a decent player, but not as the senior defender, cannot substantiate statistically, but get the impression he is much better when playing regularly with Kos, or a Per in times past.
The Europa league is clearly now of the utmost importance, I suspect further rotation may lead to more sub par performances. But I really hope they don’t let Burnleh finish ahead, I don’t think I could cope with the media wankfest should Sean Dyche finish above us, along with a possible Spud FA Cup win and even a Liverpool ECL win
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Difference on Thurs was that CSKA needed two goals in latter stages, and committed numbers to reflect it; cue the enjoyment of slicing through them into huge spaces a number of times late on.
I love those times when we get to see that, but with prem teams being more defensive-minded now, and typically not pushing forward too much even when behind, unless late on, we don’t get to see it that often domestically.
Everton did in their home game, and we duly got another couple. Same in FA cup game with them few years back when they had to push in later stages and we scored another couple on breaks.
I’d guess a lot of teams have exact instructions of time to push on if 1-0 down, prob about 80, then go nuts in last 3-5.
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The problem is we play like shit sometimes, and most time away from home, I’m pissed off with it tbh.
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My big worry is that the closest match, by a distance, to our playing philosophy is Man City, who are only able to succeed with it thanks to unlimited spending.
Basic ideas we share are: if you sit, we’ll come onto you and commit numbers doing so; play from back and through pitch; don’t sit and protect leads ; possession football.
Main difference: they press more and use winger-type more.
The picture is clear for the opposition : defend in numbers, harry, hustle, get foot in…capitalise on space (in our half).
If you want to play that/our way ,meanwhile, knowing how opposition will try to beat that style, you need attack to be so fluent and dangerous opposition are fearful to commit any numbers into their own breaks/ attacks, and you need to try find exactly the right defenders, and at least one midfielder, to limit the dangers caused by the space on offer, thanks to committing those numbers forward.
Believe they have chucked over 200 million at their defence since Pep’s arrival, and will likely spend big again there this summer. It seems to require defensive superstars, ball-playing athletes, with height covered by at least one cb and speed ideally by both.
Defenders are also required to jolt suddenly into action, with limited protection, unlike those who can set themselves for most of game and typically enjoy lot of protection
It would take a miracle of great management, luck and lord knows what else to beat City at that style given the phenomenal and fixed difference in resources.
That’s surely just a fact, but it doesn’t tell us whether or not such a similar style is the right one for us.
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It’s a shame we couldn’t maintain our run of positive results, but given the need to prioritise the Europa League it was always a risk that the rotated team could come a cropper at some point. At least it gives the WOB something to chew on, they must have been starving lately with so little to get their teeth into!
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Tbh, Rich, if we abandon that attacking style, I don’t know how much I’ll watch anymore. I do not want to see bus parking, defense first style from Arsenal. That’s just me, but it’s how I feel. The attacking flair is what I love. Some days it’s off color. Today was one of those days.
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Arsenal away in BPL in 2018
P5, W0, D0 L5 GF4 GA 10, Pts 0
AFCB 2-1 — Took the lead
Swansea 3-1 — Took the lead
Spurs 1-0
Brighton 2-1 — Took the lead
Newcastle 2-1 — Took the lead
if we had been able to keep a clean sheet in the four games we scored in first we would be in 4th position. Also has to be said, 4 goals in those 5 games is an awful return for a team that sees its manager blame our defensive frailty on us being such an offensive team.
we have scored 17 goals in our 16 away game this season but 5 of them came v Everton, so only 12 goals in the other 15 games, conceding 26
our away record pre the new year was P11, W3 D4 L4, meaning we now have an away record this season of P16, W3, D4, L9, Pts 13 from possible 48, its woeful. And with the EL semi finals the focus we face the real prospect of losing a few more away, Man Utd, LCFC and Huddersfield are our remaining 3 away games, we have West Ham and Burnley to play at home. We are in real danger of finishing 7th, as we have only a 2pt lead over Burnley.
a gooner mate of mine said to me today that this bunch of Arsenal players, when pressure comes on them are a “shivering shower of shites”, I think you all know what that Irish saying or expression means
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Get the feeling, especially with Kos having a chronic injury that needs careful management, and Per moving to the academy, that the huge job of sorting the defence is going to require some adhustment of coaching methodology, maybe coaches themselves, and philosophy as much as new players. And not sure Wenger of his own volition is the man to make such changes, so while he remains, I can only see more of the same. I do not want Wenger gone, would rather see him adjust, change or delegate on these matters , but he is the boss, he is now a unique boss, and what he does is his choice. But can only conclude these weakness are now damaging the team in terms of points, placing, finances, possibly player morale though only an insider would know that, and, at the risk of sounding corporate, even fan engagement. Where it goes, I do not know.
Take the point about not being a bus parking team, but there is a happy medium, Wenger was once a master of it , it seems as time goes on, he has more and more prioritised attack over defence.
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alabama its not about abandoning our attacking style of play, but about defenders actually defending properly, and not making avoidable errors all the time.
By the way where is this great attacking style of ours, its not leading to goals in the away games, to repeat what I said in my last post
we have scored 17 goals in our 16 away game this season but 5 of them came v Everton, so only 12 goals in the other 15 games, conceding 26
the 5 v Everton and the 3 at Palace are the only away games we have scored more than 1 goal in, and in both of those games we let in 2 both times, meaning 9 goals scored in the 14 games we scored no more than 1 goal in, 5 away games we have been scoreless, including two 0-0 draws.
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I watched the first half and I thought we played pretty well. Created quite a few chances. The defending for their goal was bad. We need to have defenders in the front foot with our style of play. Especially Mustafi who is often caught on his heels. When he attacks the ball he is a good defender.
Oddly enough, I noticed how similar it was to Barcelona who played Valencia last night. Valencia had plenty of chances but couldn’t apply the finish or had Ter Stegen pull off some great saves. Barcelona for their part to their chances and won the game.
As an attacking team we are always going to give the opposition chances. But if we take ours then I think we will win most of the time. However our attack at the moment is still a little be and hence moves tend to break down at the last moment. Once that comes, I think we will be great.
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Mandy I think the Wenger attacking philosophy is overstated as a reason, his teams always attacked, it never stopped them defending till the last few years.
I would say over the last three, four or even five years we have a brittleness to our defending that has little or nothing to do with our attacking philosophy, we in these last few years see time and again, regardless of how well we are playing or attacking in a game, wobbly big time once we let in a goal, and more often than not let in another goal once we do concede. That is a defense/team lacking mental toughness. Sadly we have seen all too often them totally fall apart, and we see 4, 5 even 6 goals go in.
It looks to me like its got inside our players heads, that they wobbly cos they fear it is about to happen again as its happened so often. Its a mindset, not an ability problem.
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Wenger after game comments, from football.london
On the result
It’s a bit like the story of the season. We had 70 per cent of the ball. We are 1-0 up and in the end you lose 2-1 and you wonder how we lose the game. That’s what happened today.
It could have been over at half-time, we concede two goals from nowhere. In the second half I feel some players paid a bit physically from having the game on Thursday night in Moscow. We came back Friday morning.
Overall we played with good spirit but a bad result is the outcome. We have to live with that. It’s very disappointing, I feel it’s very hard to swallow a defeat like that.
On the away form
Of course it’s a concern. Traditionally we are very strong away from home.
It has a subconscious weight in our mind. Once you are in a negative spiral like that it is very difficult to get out.
How do you get out of it?
By focusing on the game and on your performance.
I feel today the team gave everything and we have to keep playing like that to win games.
On the handball decision in the first half. Should it have been a penalty?
The referee is the referee. What you want is to help the referee, unfortunately the Premier League has decided not to go for VAR. I think that is a very bad decision.
The Premier League has been created with people of a progressive mind who wanted to be in front of the rest in Europe and it worked.
I believe with that decision we are behind the rest of the world. every big game this season has been decided by mistakes that could have been avoided by VAR, even in the Champions League between Manchester City and Liverpool.
The young generation is used to that and worldwide they might move away from us because they see in other countries they will do it.
Does your team lack character?
I do not want to go to definite conclusions today. I think it’s very difficult to combine Europa League on Thursday night and play again on Sunday morning. You play in Moscow, you come home and play again away from home. This game is a bit special.
On top of that I must say the attitude of the team was spot on from the start, but it didn’t work. I have to be realistic enough to say that maybe our balance of offensive and defensive doesn’t work.
Were the team changes down to players being rested, or injured?
Some were injured and some were rested because they had not recovered from the number of games we have played recently.
Who were injured?
Ramsey had a wound so couldn’t get into any contact, the rest are little knocks – the recovery tests were not good enough.
On Aubameyang and Lacazette
It was promising what they did in the first half. In the second half was like the rest of the team, less creative. But in the first half they created good situations.
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ACL Soccer
@ACL_Soccer
6h6 hours ago
Arsenal Pre Season …
July 26 – vs Atletico Madrid, National Stadium (Singapore)
July 28 – vs Paris Saint-Germain, National Stadium (Singapore)
August 1 – vs Manchester City, Aviva Stadium (Dublin)
August 4 – vs Valencia, Friends Arena (Stockholm, Sweden)
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Ahmed
@Ahmed91Gooner
6h6 hours ago
Arsenal away Premier League results: (10/48 points)
❌0-1 Stoke
❌0-4 Liverpool
⏸0-0 Chelsea
❌1-2 Watford
✅2-5 Everton
❌1-3 Man City
❌0-1 Burnley
⏸1-1 Saints
⏸0-0 WHU
✅3-2 Palace
⏸1-1 WBA
❌1-2 Bournemouth
❌1-3 Swansea
❌0-1 Tottenham
❌1-2 Brighton
❌1-2 Newcastle
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Arsenal’s head of recruitment Sven Mislintat at Schalke’s game with Borussia Dortmund today
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Most Arsenal defeats in a full season under Wenger:
15 (2017/18)
14 (2005/06, 2009/10, 2010/11, 2011/12, 2015/16)
13 (2000/01)
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Edy, I was responding to Rich’s musings as to whether we could compete with the likes of City playing attacking football. I do not have to be told that our defending failed us today. I watched the game, I’m not blind.
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alabama
Get what you mean. Don’t think I’d be happy with a defensive team either, though exasperation sometimes takes me there and makes me consider it.
I just wonder if, should you be such an attacking footballing side now, with so many teams schooled in defend and counter as their main way of playing, whether you need the defenders to be the most specialised players in the team- i.e not just good defenders, but defenders who are very good at this specialised, extra difficult way of defending.
I don’t know. I may be clutching . It’s been a very bad year away in the league as we all know.
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‘On top of that I must say the attitude of the team was spot on from the start, but it didn’t work. I have to be realistic enough to say that maybe our balance of offensive and defensive doesn’t work.’
I’d guess second part of that is only meant to apply to today. Seems too big a thing- and not in keeping with a lot of other sentiments- to drop in there otherwise.
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Don’t think it is about players ability either Eduardo, and may well be something in their heads.
Wenger himself says the way we are set up can make it difficult for defenders. But doesn’t explain how things appear to be getting worse.
Not sure how it is solved, but it is something they need to do, as judging by any metric this year, there is a clear and present problem.
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Rich the whole “such an attacking team” thing is bullshit really, we have scored more than once only twice in our 16 away games, failed to score five times, scored only 1 goal 9 times
the reality is we have not been good at all in attack in our away games, I think a failure of our attacking players to help the team defend more is excused by simply saying “we are an attacking team”.
We have constantly big numbers in the possession stakes, but on many occasions our 65% to 70% possession sees us not only have less shots on target but on a few occasions even fewer shots. That is not an attacking team, that is a possession team. Wenger has many times bemoaned our “possession for possession’s sake” displays.
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yes Mandy, as Wenger basically said today, its in their heads to a big degree. But we have the worst away record of any team in the entire four divisions in 2018, maybe even conference too.
Our defenders/players are far from lacking in talent, so its likely to be a lot to do with application or their mindset.
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well for our opponents(and our team too) it has to be 1-0 to the Arsenal in reverse, where once they felt beaten or at best might get a draw no matter how well they were playing, now they must feel no matter how well Arsenal are playing that they can get a goal, and once they get one they know its probable they will get more.
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ed
I’m not particularly talking about chance creation, goals, etc, more the philosophy, line-ups, intent, and positions on pitch.
Plus maybe a bit of substituting ‘absolutely not a defensive team’ for ‘must be an attacking team, then’.
If not that, then what? What is the style/approach/philosophy?
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If as Wenger says, and I don’t doubt, its in their heads, there is no substitute for practice, repetitive drilling and hard work to improve confidence, automatic thinking etc.
At the risk of going into a controversial, slightly emotive and probably unwelcome area, are they doing as much work on defence as some, because outside looking in, for all the faults of that, it doesn’t always look like it.
There’s the golfer analogy. “The harder I practice, the luckier I get”…….is that being applied to our defence? Rhetorical question, as none of us know of course, but looking at goals against for starters, it just doesn’t look good
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Only half watched MOTD, but didn’t see the handball incident on there?
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rich were our teams not attack minded in wenger’s first ten to fifteen years here, — of course they were
is this team any more attack minded, — not one bit
in that first ten to fifteen years we often had worse defenders and midfielder than we have now, for God’s sake we set a CL clean sheet record with Senderous at CB and Flamini at left back.
for me its a combo of mindset, application, attitude, and dare I say it, players knowing there is likely to be little impact on them, do you think that many of Cech, Bellerin, Monreal, Koscielny, Mustafi Xhaka, Ramsey, Ozil, Aubameyang, would expect to be dropped if they have a stinker of a game. Its been Wenger’s way all his time here, hierarchy of selection, its odd, he rarely drops a star player, but then he seems to get to the point of no return and the player is not only out of the team, but out of the club.
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mandy they did show it in the highlights, but it was “did the ball spin up and hit him on the arm”, nothing more than that, no analysis, etc, not even a second showing
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wenger today bemoaned that VAR will not be in the BPL next season and from what I can gather is not one of the journos asked him what way Ivan Gazidis voted at the BPL meeting on it last Friday, or if Arsenal argued for it to be brought in.
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Thanks Eduardo, didn’t see that , but not scrutinised it seems.
If you are correct on the lack of impact of mistakes, and others say the same, it is a bit worrying. I would personally set Steve Bould or Mad Jens on em, but Wenger probably functions at a higher spiritual level than I do, at least in this life!
That’s one of the reasons why I dont think a Simeone type manager that so many crave would work after Wengers eventual departure, one extreme to another doesn’t always pan out
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some reports that by end of the month Arsenal will announce the sleeve sponsor for next 3 seasons, set to be the biggest of its kind in the BPL so far, circa £15M a year, of course that will be bettered by others in coming seasons as they sign new deals.
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Mandy an attacking team has to have a solid defensive base for the attack to have the freedom to be its best. Look at the best attacking teams, they don’t concede lots of goals.
we have scored one less goal than man utd, but they have let in 19 less goals, and have 17 more pts.
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I think back to our successful sides even as far as Joe Haverty, and one consistent factor was having a real left winger. Oh for a clone of Bobby Pires.
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