@LaboGoon serves up the starter for tonight’s game
Arsenal is taking the Arsène Wenger farewell show back on the road, and specifically the King Power Stadium tonight, to take on Leicester.
When the Foxes appointed Claude Puel back in October it was a decision that seemed to have raised a few eyebrows. Those fears were set aside though as he got them from the bottom three to 8th on the Premier League table – playing their particular brand of counter-attacking football and looking very fine-tuned at it. That unfortunately is not how you would describe them playing at present.
The early good form of Puel’s tenure, ‘new manager bounce’ if you will, is a thing of past as they are winless in their last six home fixtures and have picked up just one point from their last five PL games. Which has made Puel’s job now subject to a close and continuous review from Foxes fans and he received the dreaded “vote of confidence” from the club’s chairman.
This is something the Gunners would’ve taken notice of, to use selfishly for our own ends of course, to put a end to our awful travel form. With us coming into this game off the back of one of our best all round performances all season it does offer a great opportunity. And despite nothing to play for, being nailed on to 6th, the players will still be very determined to give Arsène a winning send-off. The boss himself said:
“I want to win the last two away games. I’ll go to Leicester to give absolutely everything to win.”
For me this is reason to feel motivated that we won’t leave the KP stadium empty handed.
We might see two to three changes to the line-up that trashed Burnley, just to keep things fresh and ensure we don’t go into the final game of Arsène’s reign with tired legs.
Good luck to everyone watching tonight’s game. I’ll end with a quote from the great man himself who have enriched our lives so dearly:
“The moral values I’ve learnt in my life I’ve learnt through football.”
Positively Arsenal 
man city on verge of going to 97pts, the 100 is still on for them
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My picture’s terrible but looked like Mkhi very clumsy and made contact.
Looked at threshold we are often turned down at but opposition never are.
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3-1, time running out
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looked offside
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Fulltime; LCFC 3-1 Arsenal
AFC played very well, but impossible to compete when its 12 v 10 for all but 15 minutes.
aubameyang with our goal
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cfc 1-1 huddersfielf, means cfc can#t get top four, and huddersfield are safe
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Shakes head slowly
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Dogged by picture probs second half but looked like we played with intensity and plenty of quality.
They always looked like could get in on us but with ten and us pushing that’s to be expected.
The ref contrast between us and Utd all those years so immense: many a time they were struggling, looked out of sorts etc but a kindly decision- letting them get away with something or harshly punishing opposition- helped them out; with us it is the direct opposite; merciless with any opportunity to punish, very little chance of a handy pen; with our attacking style, it calls on something close to perfection at both ends, and no bad luck either.
Oh well
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again some naive defending and losing the ball in bad areas but overall you have to say we played some great football tonight. The ref had a shocker although I thought he got the pen right, he let leicester get away with so much tonight and so they just happily kept on fowling.
As far football was concerned it was a good game but it could of been a corker, when will refs learn the English will not benifit from their 1970’s style attitude.
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How are we so good at home yet our away form is appalling?
In this game , we shot ourselves in the foot early on,and certainly didn’t get the breaks on a number of decisions, but so difficult when down to them men for so long. Mavropanos will learn, as Xhaka has seemingly done.
Today’s pen tips us nicely into a negative penalty balance in the league, and after forest, I would guess in all competitions where we have been for many seasons in the last decade, coinciding with Riley’s rise.yes, I know Liverpool are also in negative pen balance this season. The table below will not reflect to items pens
http://www.myfootballfacts.com/Premier_League_Penalty_Statistics.html
A man as great as Wenger will not be judged on a relatively poor season, but nonetheless, a slightly sad way to bow out for a team that should clearly be doing better, despite I am sure mitigating factors.
A new man will surely be announced within weeks, and though I will not fully question key decisions tonite, I hope whatever ,I for one suspect Mr Wenger has done to upset the PGMOL is lifted from the club with his departure. But we shall see
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^the table below will not reflect tonight’s pens
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will Sky even cover Wenger’s last game on Sunday, cfc and lfc still fighting for top 4, swansea and southampton still fighting to stay up, so Huddersfield v Arsenal now just AW last game,
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Good effort I say.
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That game sums up our games away from home this season. Match our opponents and then watch the referee tip the balance of the game towards the home side. It’s been happening since the start of the season and tonight was no different.
A fantastic game where we matched Leicester with 10 men, and in the end the ref was the deciding factor.
However our next manager is, their biggest obstacle won’t be other premier league teams but rather Mike Riley and the pgmol. Arsene mentioned it the year Leicester won the league; it was true then and even more apparent these past 2 seasons.
But generally, am quite pleased with the way that we played today. That Aubameyang fella is one hell of a striker!!
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the lads played very well, mucked up some good chances to score, and a bit sloppy at times at the back, but the battled hard against 12 men.
Mkhitaryan, AMN and Cech, the stand out players for us, Aubameyang is mr goals.
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Ed. Only mathematical at the bottom now- 9 goals in it- but maybe they’ll go with that anyway.
Ours wasn’t showing as a televised game on Arsenal website earlier
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juve won the cup in italy tonight, it was their 4th in a row, they are on verge of 7th league in a row too, its amazing how well these poor underdogs are doing
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rich don’t southamton play city who are going for 100pts target, and swansea play stoke who are down, a big win for city and its all up for grabs.
the top 4 race is less of a battle, as lfc play brighton at anfield, and really only need a draw
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Bollocks…
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Ah, didn’t know Southampton playing City.
Still think extremely unlikely, as Saints know anything bar catastrophe they’ll be safe and will play it cautious and City would have to show a level of determination and intensity I can’t see them producing for 4/5 or more.
Swans meanwhile will struggle for 2 or 3 unless Stoke players down tools or something.
While it’s just about within realms of feasibility I’d guess sky would choose it over our game.
Think they’ve shown 3 or more last day in past but we would prob need it to be five for ours to be on.
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wenger after game comments, from football.london
A frustrating night?
Frustration yes. I believe we played a great game. We showed spirit.
Overall it is very sad, the decision went against us.
We are upset because we lost a game we shouldn’t have lost. But that’s a fact we have to face.
It’s does not have big consequences, it’s just a continuity of what we have faced all season.
On the red card
I disagree with the red card, Holding would have caught this ball. He was not the last man.
On the penalty decision
The penalty is a very creative, imaginative aspect from the referee. We watched it again, it’s a nice dive, but it’s not a penalty.
He (Mkhitaryan) plays the ball.
On the away form
The quality is there, the spirit is exceptional. If the team has one or two good away results next season they will play for the Premiership I’m convinced because there is something special in that team that will come out next season.
I’m convinced Arsenal will be one of the contenders next year.
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Probably not the time for me to add that in the US they show every game live on the last day of the season. 10 channels, 10 matches. It is pretty good coverage, I have to admit. Today’s match not on TV though, so I guess I’ll finally use my NBC streaming package I paid $50 for at the beginning of the season to catch the replay. Sounds like it’ll be worth a watch even if the score line doesn’t look like it.
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Wenger on ref’s decision tonight
“just a continuity of what we have faced all season”
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Enjoyable game despite the Jackal in black.
I worry for Rambo if Željko Buvač replaces AW. His “trap ‘n’ release” is below par compared to the other MFers. Turned the ball over once too many.
Mkhi was exceptional. Looking more and more like his BVB MVP self.
Auba’s synced up with the pace of the PL. AMN’s upside is serious.
Mavropanos was unlucky to be sent off. Blame the Jackal.
Leicester finally beat us. Puel deserves to retain his position.
We have much to look forward to next season.
Sadly Arsene won’t be the boss.
Huddersfield are safe so our final game might be a doozy.
A 2018 away win wouldn’t be a bad send off at all.
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AW On Mavropanos
Tonight he was surprised by the pace of the game at the start because he had not completely recovered.
I had a long thought about that. Do I play him straight away again or not? But sometimes you think it is going well for him, so keep him in.
But I don’t think he had recovered.
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ha ha ha, now the Huddersfield manager is being linked with replacing Wenger
Wenger to Wagner
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I worry for Rambo if Željko Buvač replaces AW. His “trap ‘n’ release” is below par ”
Wtf?
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AW On Wilshere’s new deal
The noises I have is that he will do it, but I don’t know how close he is to signing the contract or not.
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pg where is that from
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Orbinho
@Orbinho
10h10 hours ago
Mesut Özil – Minutes per chance created from open play:
2017-18 – 30
2014-15 – 33
2015-16 – 33
2013-14 – 36
2016-17 – 40
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Aman at 10 25 Eddy.
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oh right, missed that, too many abbreviations in it for me to read
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Been a rough couple of weeks, interspersed with one lovely day, results wise for a result fiend like myself.
Home draw with Atletico with the grevious late goal; late disappointment in 3-1 youth cup final 1st leg loss; painful late goal to lose at Utd; tough 4-0 home defeat in youth cup 2nd leg; mega pain at falling short vs Atletico; brilliant 5-0 win; u23’s lose final yesterday; loss today after doing a lot right.
8 in less than 2 weeks with a 9-0 u18 loss to Spurs and ladies losing cup final thrown in as well.
Aye caramba. Still, doesn’t tell real story of where we’re at and what we have as a club
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Alabama,
You’re in for a treat. It was indeed a wonderful game of football, played with passion, desire, speed and a lot of skill and creativity. The only stain was the one sided ref who ultimately decided the outcome of the game.
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Wenger on VAR “the Premier League has voted against VAR and it is upsetting. It destroys me because we were in front of the rest of the world, and now we want to be behind.”
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Whether or not Arsene Wenger sits on the North Bank next season remains to be seen, but the Arsenal fan in him has high hopes for some of our younger players.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles caught the eye at Leicester on Wednesday – setting up a goal for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – while Eddie Nketiah came off the bench to get more valuable first-team experience.
All of our players will have to prove themselves to whoever succeeds Wenger, but there are certain names Wenger expects to see on the teamsheet.
“I would say Maitland-Niles, certainly, from the young players, and Nketiah, certainly, and then it depends who will come in – you have Willock and of course Reiss Nelson,” he told Arsenal.com.
“Will they get a chance or not or will they go somewhere on loan? The next manager will have to decide that after pre-season. Nketiah has that quality to score goals and overall I think he might get a chance very early. The two others have the quality as well.
“We all are great admirers of Ainsley’s talent and of his quality. What you want from him is for him to push himself. When he digs a little bit more than he naturally would like to, you will see a fantastic football player and I hope that next season will confirm that.
“I am convinced there is something special in this team that will come out next season. There’s one or two things to change but this team has special quality – mentally and on the football front. I will really support them next season because I think they can surprise everybody.”
Copyright 2018 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source.
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/wengers-tips-first-team-success-next-season#KeHMLhRiagXumadE.99
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/news/wengers-tips-first-team-success-next-season#4HJJeWUwc1dXJKz4.99
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I just watched the game, I can’t believe we lost that 3-1. Such a shame. If I didn’t already know the score, up until that penalty I would have said we’d go on to win it. I couldn’t really even tell we were playing with 10 men. We deserved something from that game.
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PG,
“I worry for Rambo if Željko Buvač replaces AW. His “trap ‘n’ release” is below par ”
Based on the high pressing style and athleticism he employed alongside Klopp, Ramsey’s clumsy feet don’t react quickly enough to quick passes. He tends to hold on to the ball a little longer than required. He and Jack are both heavy-legged but Jack’s quicker in release and smoother with the ball.
The speed of the counterpress/attack that BVB employed under Klopp/Buvač that is still employed by Auba & Mkhi’ paid huge dividends in the final 3rd against Burnley. Rambo was on the bench for most of that. It adds that extra dimension to our game and I expect it will be our modus operandi next season. Add Buvač and Rambo could become a Plan B player. Luckily no top team operates playing only one way which based on his main assets (stamina, goals, self confidence, always wants to take initial responsibility, courage) he will play but he might have to get used to less game time.
Just a thought
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sorry Aman, if you think Ramsey is a plan b in any team you are sadly mistaken.
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New post up
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I don’t think I need to comment on “game management”, neither on what happens when you have one senior CB in your squad (that is fit).
You all saw the Football, and the “misguided” “theatre” too (please don’t shoot the messenger for simply quoting people who don’t care about the sport we all follow).
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My work colleague who played against Palace in the Woman’s FA Cup gave me this report from Saturday’s Woman’s FA Cup final:
The Arsenal were not beaten because of non-existent defensive coaching, a concept that exists in the PR constructs pumped out by those who want to buy the club on the cheap(er), but bears little relationship, to life, the universe, or anything. But as with the Teletubbies if you beam any old crap out there on continuous repeat you will get a gaggle of addicted groupies demanding to hear the same old crap “Again! And Again!”.
They were beaten because Gazprom had the (as in had purchased) the best (not better but best) players.
HTH
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