Good Morning Positive Arsenal fans,
A bit grey and blustery up on the Norfolk coast this morning, the Autumn beckons.
Our two stiff opening games are complete and I am satisfied with the performances. I had no complaints about the City defeat but I am a little disappointed that yesterday, after investing so much in the match, we did not collect the point we deserved.
Of the game itself it was the classic three halfer, or possibly more. The first phase saw Chels tear us smoothly into strips and what opportunities we created we squandered. At 2-0 it looked as through a dreadful afternoon was on the cards. Then phase two and finally we hit the target and broke our PL scoring duck, which caused the home side to wobble and we tore into them. The home crowd were silenced for the only time in the afternoon. Finally a second half where we wee pushed back and pushed back, to CFC’s credit s they were pretty good. We resisted stoutly, but the addition of Hazard gave them just that little extra spark as we were tiring. At 3-2 we had another, final chance of redemption, but Laca could just not pick up the rebound as Kepa spilled Ramsey’s shot – fine margins, fine margins.
Of our good performances I was massively impressed yet again with Matteo. He has earned his starting place and his energy and willingness to be involved in everything is exactly what we need. I thought Nacho had a good game too considering it is ages since he kicked a ball, Torreira too and Cech pulled off a string of important saves. Hector ran and ran and ran. I offer the young Spaniard an encouraging arm around the shoulder.
Of mild controversy during the game on social media, I thought Emry’s substitutions were spot on. To have gone to 10 men would have been terminal, and the baying Stamford Bridge mob were all over Xhaka. I cannot recall Ozil being withdrawn for tactical reasons but we needed more physical presence so Aaron’s arrival was right and referring back to my “fine margins” chance at the end the Welshman could, on another day, have been decisive.
What is gone is gone however and the important work this week will be toward sharpening out goal scoring weapons for the arrival of the ‘Ammers on Saturday. If our opening two games have been fixtures we anticipated might yield few if any points (well I did anyway) Pelligrini’s misfiring rabble must be the Premier League meat we feed on and build our strength.
There is always work to do. Enjoy Sunday.
Positively Arsenal 
God yeah – about 92 minutes of waves of Totty chasing an equaliser Rich !!
That Per’s final game was the mess at the City Ground was so disappointing – we wee just dreadful that day – his previous full game had seen off Costa at Wembley in the FA Cup final. Football eh ??
It does seem to me that very good footballers are intelligent enough to switch from a high line/press to a ‘backs-to-the-wall/camped in the box format when the circumstances demand it. We need that flexibility to cope.
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It wasn’t like that performance at WHL was a one off!
Equivalent performances after taking the lead against Bayern Munich, twice, around about the same time.
Games where the team pressed when required and then sat back.
They happened! They will happen again…
What was hilarious about the WHL result was that Rosicky wasted no time in scalping his favourite victim the apparently world class Rose (dropped by his club manager a time ago now) with the early press, and the team were then willing and able to tip the table and play on the counter (they’d have liked to have countered more!).
A good football team when playing well do it all, as they always have done, which is why the memes surrounding AFC are such gibberish from the same idiots who told us Rose was world class (dropped by his manager for two seasons now?).
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But according to the revised history courtesy of our own blaggers AW’s teams wouldn’t press (so how did Rozza bang in the rocket?) as neither could they defend.
Which is how the team equalled the clean sheet record for consecutive clean sheets in the league – this is not an opinion but it is the record and a statistic for everyone to masticate upon.
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Think those results were all about the same time the team set/equalled the clean sheet record.
Blimey.
The cunning linguists went to town last season eh? I wouldn’t rely upon the pedigree shown by such sources for information if I were you, better off/more fun/more informative chatting footy with your mates
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That WHL game was hilarious at the time and even more so now as it explodes the memes of crap that have been weaved around the club for old and new gaffer alike.
Rosicky with his cheekiest goal for the club, and their were a few of those.
About two minutes or less of Chambo and Rozza targeting or as the Experts say “Pressing” the vacant LB area (Spuds were keen to start the home game on the front foot), and then 89 minutes of Big Per’s finest Gandalf impersonation – “you shall not pass!”
(Three guesses who plays Gollum!)
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Safe to say that performance at WHL being discussed today was not an anomoly but the kind of a performance from a squad one could expect from a squad that equalled the consecutive clean sheet record in the league.
To suggest otherswise as became fashiobale for the twitterati and the blaggers would be absurd.
Would it not?
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Well I don’t know Fins – my recollection was that the WHL game was an outstanding defensive performance and not one that I expected. Statistics are a bit random when it coms to football. I remember the one that had Johan Djouro as not having lost in something like 37 consecutive games ergo JD was a top defender. He wasn’t. And then the most successful defensive centre back pairing in CL or European Cup history in respect of fewest goals conceded = Big Phil Senderos and Kolo Toure. !!
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Big Per’s record for club and country was fairly conclusive.
Djourou did have a good run and the stats reflect that, he just couldn’t repeat it. Senderos likewise.
Good players can turn it on for a season or two in their careers. Hitting those peaks.
Great players like Mertesacker donit year after year as reflected by his record for club and country.
Last season’s performances were not a fair or worthy reflection for him, hardly having played over those two years however he’d publicly retained the intensity of training, but last season by his own admission it was an error to ask him to try and repeat that feat, I don’t want to be receptive but it was simply an error by the club to ask this great servant to take the field last season not having started bar one game for the season before. We took AWs great affection for his players as a strength and occasional weakness I don’t understand what the complication is with what I have expressed above.
With respect, you’re not seriously trying to compare Senderos or Djourou with Merstesaker, are you? I hope not.
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< Repetitive
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<< not receptive.
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Dammit. So many typos! Off to work…
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You do know Andy.
The GA’s column in the league for those seasons is there to refer to.
The long runs of controlled 2-0’s and 2-1’s. The clean sheet record. All is shown in the tables.
Yep.
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As I remember Szcz was up for the PL Golden Gloves in one season and Cech won it in his first season Fins so the clean sheets must have happened. Fabianski had a couple of brilliant seasons at Swansea and as a shot stopper was good with us.
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Yes indeed.
Three good keepers who had a decent sometimes good defence in front of them.
Which is how each and every one of the three ended up with cup winners medal in their back pocket within a four years (Cech as sub, the others as starters).
It’s a good record. Stat/history however you see fit to define it, that is the record.
I can’t for the life of me understand people who think a top manager would just march into a club and demote a famous figure like Cech from the off. To throw Leno the gloves without a fight wouldn’t make any sense, but that’s what the Experts and blaggers have been chatting about.
They make no sense, as per their defensive coaching memes, because they chat a lotta lotta nonsense.
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< correction
As per the defensive coaching and now I can unequivocally say embarrassing pressing memes (unless you are a person who believes that Rosicky and Chambo targeting their favourite LB was a figment of your imagination?)
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< then three cups coincided with high places in the league with healthy GDs and happy GA column.
To quote a famous hip hop song:
Those are the stats.
To repeat where I started above today, it was the GF that were an area for improvement one season when they came 2nd. But the squad has changed a lot since then and now it's the inverse concern/area for improvement.
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England Call-Up For Tottenham, Arsenal Starlets Of Nigerian Descent
Published: August 20, 2018
England Call-Up For Tottenham, Arsenal Starlets Of Nigerian Descent
Two players of Nigerian descent have been named in the England U16 squad for the UEFA Development Tournament holding at St George’s Park.
Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Oluwatobi Oluwayemi and Arsenal striker Malcolm Ebiowei have been included on the roster by manager Kevin Betsy for the upcoming games against Scotland and Turkey.
Chelsea goalkeeper Kelechi Chibueze who was in goal against Croatia last month has been omitted from the squad list.
Oluwatobi should not be confused with Joshua Oluwayemi, who is also a goalkeeper on the book of Spurs and has played for the Young Lions at U15 and U16 level, though they are brothers.
Free-kick expert Malcolm Ebiowei has caps for Netherlands U15 national team; the English FA have now thrown their hat into the ring in terms of convincing him to choose England ahead of the two other countries he’s eligible to represent.
Still only 14, he was an unused substitute in Arsenal’s last match in the U18 Premier League last season.
Ifeanyi Emmanu
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For quantification:
When AFC came 2nd two/three years ago GD was:
+29
GF: 65
GA: 36
Last season it was:
+23
GF: 74
GA: 51
There it is.
Even Mangala’s account couldn’t make a mangle of the numbers above. Unless they are an arse-blagging Expert!
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so two games in and already we have the first “Unai Emery must make big decision to keep his job” article, its disgraceful
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Pushing his luck now the Liverpool supporting ex-prem lino, Glenn Turner, on twitter.
Liking posts mocking Arsenal. Tut tut. Pretty sure he believes he was professional enough to not let his Liverpool love affect him when doing their games
Expect he told pgmol he was a chesterfield fan as, for every 20-50 Liverpool tweets he’ll say something once about them.
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Good news (after all my fretting) : highlights of a couple of youth games gone up.
Musah and Balogun looking very bright for u18’s from weekend game, following on from good 1st week for them. (also note Ampadu’s interview. I like what I see of the guy)
u23 goal festival with city is on there as well.
Unfortunately no late good news in terms of watching u23’s tonight on website.
Nelson, Nketiah, Smith-Rowe could have been fun. Reckon Eddie will be very keen to get off mark after missed pen last time out
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Mertesacker wasn’t just one of the greatest if not the greatest CB of the modern era, he’s up there alongside Ramos etc. as testified by his record for club and country, but in addition he showed that you don’t need to have the ego of a Richards, Khan or Ramos in order to be a true bona dude sporting great.
And perhaps it’s the last bit that explains that why, like the great Cazorla, that he only made his move to a bigger club only when he found a bigger club that matched his values?
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Argh!
bona fide > bona dude
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< can add Pires to that rare list of AFC greats who turned down opportunity to move to bigger clubs before anchoring themselves with the Arsenal. Famously turning down Madrid before arriving in N5.
And honourable mention goes out to Koscielny who declined moves to bigger clubs without the pantomime PR sorry 'sports communications' stunts from those players who actually did leave.
Great as in great players.
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< bar that injury on that overworked ankle in April Koscielny would've had a similar international record to match to his great partner, even if his decline last season with all those painkillers and the chronic injury meant he wouldn't have been a starter at the WC.
I suspect the old skool and admirable Deschamps would've started with Mosciwlny and seen how his form/fitness was. Deschamps as a player had a similar impact to to Mertesacker when it came to the dressing room.
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Does anyone know how Jack W has been getting on?
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Tim,
We’ll find out next week!
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I thought theU23 game might be shown live but ive had to go to brightons website for decent updates looks like a close game with chances either end and the standard ARSENAL pen turned down
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Foreverheady
Saw his first game.
Played further up pitch/ 10-ish role first half in what I advocated as his best position last few years, with not too much onus on him to do any pressing, closing down, tracking back, and good legs around him.
Couple of nice touches but tough assignment as liverpool massively on top.
Looked more comfortable and was more prominent second half when they switched him to deeper position with responsibility to start moves. Very hard game to look good in though.
Caught v brief highlights of some of their loss to bournemouth and eye was drawn to him looking bit out of puff as he dutifully chased after them.
Think injuries took heavy toll but hopefully if he avoids more and has those legs around him he can produce quality moments- though not this week hopefully.
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Reiss Nelson puts us one up with 5 minutes to go but ARSENAL still has us at nil nil poor show
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brighton score in the 90th minute ARSENAL stil showing nil nil
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finishes 1-1 ARSENAL still showing 0-0 at half time bloody useless to be honest
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Jeorge Bird
@jeorgebird
4m4 minutes ago
Ft. Arsenal 1 Brighton 1. Enthralling end to game but Arsenal still waiting for first win under Ljungberg. Nelson bright. Saka very good, Ballard and Pleguezuelo impressive as well. West Ham away next.
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First two VARless weeks
Offside goal for Liverpool
Utd get away with one which should be a pen, but get their two pens.
We miss out after clear foul for pen in box.
Liverpool get soft pen as player collapses unnatural after a little contact
Ahhh.
Is a VAR you’re not sure you can yet operate optimally really likely to do worse.
I know, the clubs, the clubs.
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Not Zaha chucking himself over to win a dodgy penalty then ? I suppose some might consider that progress, though it is early yet.
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Doubt he’s got many/any against big boys though.
That’s my issue: Pool, Spurs etc get a good pen shout they’ll invariably get it, plus a few which aren’t good shouts. And they’ll get ‘lucky’ on a lot of possibles against them.
We, meanwhile, are polar opposite. As likely as not to have strong claim waved away. Nearly all decent claims given against, plus a few ludicrous ones.
It’s how an attacking top four team can end up year after year with Sunderland type pen stats
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Diverpool are invoking the spirit of the likes of Gerrard and Owen this evening
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Rich your forgetting the handball at chelski
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Hopefully good experience for young defenders tonight against a Brighton making full use of their four overage players- 28 yo gk, 30 centre mid, and mid-twenties strike pairing who cost 34 million!
Us winning league last year was enjoyable but the real plus of it was the development of a number of good players.
Doesn’t feel like league win will be on for this year, and not impossible that we could struggle- transfer market lists us as having 15 in squad, with many having 25/26, and we could see a couple more leave on loans.
So team looks likely to be one of youngest about. We also definitely seem to have eased off on bringing in foreign lads, as well as letting many of ones we had leave.
Very large proportion come through our own age ranks with a lot of them being with us from early age.
Plenty of talent and might be on for another good run in youth cup this year.
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Sorry King Tony, I take it all back
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‘When Michael Oliver saw Mamadou Sakho so tight to Mohamed Salah he would have thought: ‘Is there going to be contact?’ — and there duly was.
As a referee, you will take into consideration the fact that Salah would probably not go down if he had the chance to score. It is the correct call and Oliver had the perfect position.
It was the same with the red card — Salah was clear on goal and outside the penalty area, and would not have gone down without contact.’
Clatts. Instructive, I’ll say that.
Key here is largely ignoring the manner of the fall/s, how unnatural and exaggerated they were, but even more so, and this has always been impossible to explain, he’s writing from perspective players are generally trustworthy in their actions and falls.
That they haven’t in many cases become calculating machines who’d, for instance, turn down a reasonable shooting chance for a pen, or opt for a red for opponent over taking on a shooting chance. Or even that it’s become so ingrained as to be near automatic to opt for the fall in and around box when they could easily stay up.
How the fuck can that be explained. Ok to be fooled in the heat of the action by the players who are very skilled at selling fouls. But not to see that every week players are at it. Not to discuss it and recognise it in the many hours of analysis they do individually and in groups. Not to be preparing yourself for how to combat endemic dishonesty.
Big worry if his views there are genuine (far from certain. Next week he could be writing why such and such wasn’t a pen as, although there may have been contact, player looked for it, exaggerated, etc, and could/should have stayed on feet) and even more so if they represent pgmol stance.
He was, after all, top ref there not long ago, with plenty of ability, so his views will be product of years of learning, discussions, feedback,etc.
Feels like someone deliberately not wanting to understand how players behave now.
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Clatts, the man who admitted he didn’t want his refereeing to cost Tottenham the title as they and he abandoned the laws of the game at Stamford Bridge.
He seems to have a soft spot for the media teams, and players.
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I know it’s fashionable to knock anyone better than us but I do admire Liverpool’s pace and directness. I worry about the lack of pace of some of our defenders when we play a very high line. It was a little bit suicidal in the first half against Chelsea but then when we tidied it up in the second half our threat was minimal. We need to find a balance, failing that we need to find some pacy wingers or defenders in the next few transfer windows, if our current back line can’t adapt. Looking forward to the West Ham game, should be fascinating as both sides are pointless and may be lacking in confidence, though I think we should have the edge regarding confidence after a more spirited showing against Chelsea than West Ham managed against Bournemouth.
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Unathanthium
I am not sure I have sensed the ‘Fashionable’ trend on Positively Arsenal to knock any team that is better than Arsenal.
There is often admiration tempered by financial doping .
On this site it is the regular condemanation of so called Arsenal fans in the Blogsphere constantly critcising the players and the club.
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I suspect the doping may not just be financial in some cases
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markyb
I’m very sceptical about that- seems way too risky, and also hard to imagine mechanics of it within a squad (who knows? Manger? All players? Some players?).
That said, my eyes sometimes lead me to wonder ‘what if?’
One thing, where it does happen in football world or any sport, if this account from Fernando Ricksen anything to go by, it creates dramatic advantages
‘Fernando Ricksen joined Zenit from Rangers in 2006 and wrote in his autobiography ‘Fighting Spirit’ about his surprise at the injections and drips the Zenit players received. “Needles and syringes all over the place. Players hooked up to drips, laughing. It looked like a secret laboratory.” Ricksen alleges that treatments would “make you recuperate a lot faster, fit to play another game within a day
Ricksen was shocked by the powerful effects those injections had on him, holding off muscle fatigue: “I got an energy boost which was beyond imagination. Normally it took me 48 hours to fully recuperate, now I was fit again immediately, ready to play another three games…Without it, it would take me at least half an hour to get into the game. It also felt as if the last match I’d played was over a week ago. In reality, it was only a matter of days.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/world-cup/world-cup-2018-russia-doping-football-olympics-state-sponsored-vitaly-mutko-euro-2008-a8425006.html
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Do you guys think there’s any need for the post-match managers analysis? We have the coms telling us what’s what during the game, the ticker brigade making comments during the game, and twitter tweeting.
Then the post match sado q’s ” so how did you feel losing/winning that?” and we know we can have three systems to explain things a) it was great b) it wasn’t great (this applies to the analysis of a draw too.
Then the managers presser, then AFTV media(etc) giving us the same binary answers to their view point, then pundits on the tv channels. Then the newspapers, then the mid week analysis. Would the game be better off without without so much over exposed journalism? Does it satisfy anyone?
I heard some ManUre fan ranting about Mourinho the other day calling him a dinosaur and saying he hasn’t a clue about football. I don’t like the things the M says( especially against AW, and enjoyed a bit of the ol’ schadenfreude when he mucks up, due to the lingering infantile part of me as a football fan) but the ageist bs is tedious, and the bloke has an amazing cv, even if he is what I would class as a mercenary manager. Are we over loaded with experts(including dorks like me?) is it time for a bit of sportsmanship again, for without the loser there is no winner?
I felt he was right to give the tv journo a bit of cynicism after the loss to Brighton ( nice work though The Seaweed), and Im surprised not more managers lose their rag in the heat of the moment, but then Im sure they are fined…what with the club wanting a clean image. Even though during the whole game all sorts of verbal insults can be heard-its like some lingering Victorian morality.
I know, dont watch it if you dont like it, but it is part of whats going on at the moment, and I was interested in what you guys thought…
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On this site it is the regular condemanation of so called Arsenal fans in the Blogsphere constantly critcising the players and the club,
If I may add:
For personal financial gain.
And has been the case since we were able to identify these business’ (“fan” tv that invites Piers the Moran on to talk football over a footballer like, say, Paul Davis?) as business’, sometime ahead of the current confirmations (as in some years ahead of what is now apparent to most).
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An interesting interview in the Guardian this morning with a mellow Wenger. I wonder what he thinks about as he gazes at the horizon ?
My guess probably that it is not referees. It will be very interesting to see where he takes his next job, almost certainly an active coaching/managing job but where …?
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/aug/20/arsene-wenger-horizon-hours-arsenal
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