Good evening Positives,
For the first 55 minutes of the game against Everton today I admit I was apprehensive. A game against the Toffees for which every tradition and statistic had marked down for a home win, and probably a confident performance from us, had gone awry. Our football during that 55 minutes was wayward, our passing was scrappy, our defensive organisation shuddering.
And the visitors, a team we have beaten regularly and by a significant margin as stated, WERE NOT THAT BAD FOR ONCE. That Petr Cech had performed so well throughout those 3,300 seconds of early action meant my mild discomfort was not replaced by the vice-like testicular pain of being 0-1 or 0-2 down. No.
To be fair Arsenal did get over the half way line during that first half from time to time, but we did not rattle EFC. 0-0 at half time was right. And in the opening 10 minutes of the second half we were pinned back in our half. I saw Dave on here earlier pondering the half time talk for Unai Emery. If that first ten minutes of the second half were to be relied on the coach and the players may as well have been doing a jigsaw together. It all began to look a little tricky.
And then I was delivered. A swift interchange of passes on the edge of the Everton Box, a change of position of Auba and Lacazette ( no doubt worked out over the jigsaw) freed our French striker to curl his beauteous opener. The quality of the goal the absolute difference between Everton and Arsenal today. Where our opponents had half chances they fluffed them or Cech managed to get in the way. In sharp contrast Alexander put his half chance away inch perfect. As I saw pointed out later on the TV Laca did not even look toward the goal from receiving the ball, to the net bulging. The Frenchman’s instinct had the goal exactly in his mind’s eye, and his foot did the rest. Goals of that quality win matches, as today, and even win titles and cups (on occasions).
After that decisive moment the game continued but the result had been decided. Marco Silva’s lads were done. Their effort was maintained but their confidence had been popped, and never recovered.
An error by the lino gifted Arsenal a second but even without the official’s largesse I think we had broken them. The game rolled on, they pressed for a consolation marker but even there Cech was resolute. A commanding performance on his 6 yard line as the crosses and free kicks rained in. A deserved clean sheet in a busy game for our first choice keeper. Man of the Match – no doubt.
Elsewhere among our lads this afternoon I was pleased with Torreira who was productive. He is still learning but he has a good mixture of steel and creativity. He also appears to be able to take a kick and carry on. Hector dominated the right hand side of the pitch as he launched attacks all afternoon. As I have said before I would like Bellerin to shoooooot more. Xhaka was his tidy self, and Moss and the Albanian barely exchanged a glance, which was no doubt a surprise to both of them.
So onwards to the Bees on Wednesday – enjoy the remainder of your weekend.
(Top picture from the excellent Stuart MacFarlane – top AFC snapper) @Stuart_PhotoAFC
Positively Arsenal 
Wow the Monetising Anglers are actually actively pumping out this Ozil and Ramsey can’t play together meme.
They’ve been rehearsing it!
Discussing it in their pre-podcast briefings.
Imagine!!!!
Personally I’d prefer it if they were on commission from Ramsey/Chambo’s agents* then if they had the more likely combination of concentrated stupidity and vanity.
*please refer to Rich’s comment above at 10.58, the quotes from Gold and anyone else involved in football on the power of super agents (I hope some senstive souls, such as me, don’t feel that is it is anti-English to repeat what is said by most who work in English Football, apart from the agents and their broadcasting business partners and podcasting hangers on you know who they all are…)
Those three Fa cups especially the last where the two in questions ran the champions ragged (with their teammates) that must’ve been a figment of your imaginations! To quote Harold Pinter
“It didn’t happen!”
LOL?
Close your eyes, and I will count to three, and on that count…you will be so bored by the gritting idiots waffling on aimlessly about a football match, taking longer then the match itself mind you, you’ll be so bored out of your skull, screaming in agony that you’ll believe anything as long as they blissfully put an end to that infernal din. Which is a classic advertising or PR technique. Innit?
They know they’re game, and it ain’t the Football (by their own comments on poor defensive coaching in recent years we can charitably conclude that they know sweet FA about the footy!).
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Fucking hell no wonder they blaggers hated arsene so much, if they are squealing at UE playing Ramsey and Ozil what mustve they thought when Ramsey Ozil & Cazorla were prancing about on the park?
Emery has spoken of both Ramsey and Miki as 8’s. He’ll try them out there at some point. And unlike Delli Alli they can both play football in that role, especially as they get older/reach their last phases in their careers. I won’t tell the billy big blaggers if you won’t? What’s their real intention here, it has sweet FA to do with the footy?
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After the Sports Communications that some of these merchants pumped out on behalf of the agent of the player who stopped City going unbeaten, the kind of dribbling pacy player that they are all now saying the squad needs instead of ramsey or Ozil.
Hands up all those many people who could smell this predictable meme in advance.
They’re pumping out this rubbish not without reason. Usually such reason involves some wonga. Your guess as to what the wonga is from or for, clicks or commission, is as good as mine.
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I’m not sure if Petr Cech was baited to say what he did but even he was he should’ve known better. This clearly shows he is not this intelligent man many though he was, because I can think of a few players, current and former who for certain not fall in those traps.
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My memories not as good as some of you for what formations we were playing at a particular time, nor what positions players were in, but I know it made a huge impression on me when Ozil first joined how well he linked with Ramsey.
Wasn’t that they ignored other options, which I believe was case with Sanchez when looking for Ozil, just that they looked on same wavelength, struck a rapport, recognised each other’s quality,etc.
To be honest, much of what I enjoyed may have come when we were ahead in games, particularly in latter stages if opposition had to push on. They are both players who capitalise well on extra space. Against certain opposition taking the lead is the only way you can get that extra space, other than very brief glimpses.
One of my favourite spells of play in a number of years was a game, against Norwich at Emirates I think, when Ramsey may have been in his best form of his best form at the club. He was magical that day, I know that, and think Ozil was probably not far behind. Think there was a headed goal for Mesut from a Ramsey pass; an outrageous bit of skill from Ramsey wide left on another occasion; and then a glorious bit of dribbling from Ramsey in box which I think hit post.
Anyway, though my memory isn’t the greatest in some respects, I’m not sure the Ramsey Ozil link up has been as consistently strong, though no doubt they’ll have been many good moments, since that first year, and I suspect it had plenty to do with Sanchez and his style.
Now, it’s still very early days under Emery, so we’ll see how it goes. It definitely felt a bit off to me on Saturday until the goal (or just before maybe when Ramsey got in down the right). Neither were able to do much to halt Everton’s breakaways and both were having much less impact with ball in advanced areas than you’d want.
Saw a stat that Xhaka made more passes than the two of them put together. Very surprising if true, even allowing for fact Xhaka’s job is to make a lot of passes in a game, especially as both seemed to have their normal level of passing involvement after the first goal, which would suggest they saw very little of ball beforehand.
Just one game, though, and early days. Maybe there’s a tweak to be made which can make a big difference. We’ll find out in due course but, given their quality, there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic.
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Aaron didn’t hit the post Rich, he scored.
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Thought he scored one and then came very close to scoring a fantastic goal with ridiculous bit of skill that day? Had this vague memory of being gutted it didn’t end up in back of net.
Proves I wasn’t lying about my memory being suspect,I guess. Anyway, hope I’m right at least that he put on a hell of a show in the game?
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Mike Dean ref for our game V Brentford
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Deano and VAR, on the same night, in the same stadium. The idea of Hell on Earth to some.
Here are all the rules;
https://www.brentfordfc.com/news/2018/september/var-to-be-used-in-arsenal-vs-brentford-carabao-cup-tie/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=arsenal_var&utm_content=link
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Ahead of Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup third-round clash with Brentford, here’s the latest team news update from our medical team:
Henrikh Mkhitaryan
Right ankle from FC Vorskla match last Thursday. Continuing to be assessed ahead of Wednesday’s match with Brentford.
Sokratis
Right dead leg during Everton match on Sunday. Currently being assessed ahead of Wednesday’s match with Brentford.
Sead Kolasinac
Now back in full training following left knee injury.
Carl Jenkinson
Now back in full training following sprain to right ankle.
Dinos Mavropanos
Groin injury. Expected to return to full training in four weeks.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles
Small fracture to left fibula. Progressing well and now expected to return to full training in early October (initially aiming to return to training in November).
Laurent Koscielny
Right Achilles tendon repair. Now working outside. Aiming to return to full training in November.
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.
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Cheers George. That definitely seems one I had in mind. Beautiful. Feck knows what I was thinking of.
Could be something from near end of a Newcastle game…found it. Looks like I’d confused/combined memories with that Norwich game and a 1-0 home win vs Newcastle from Jan 2016.
No post involved (!) but can see why I was gutted it didn’t end in goal- Ramsey to Ozil, Ozil returns it, glorious jinking but then put wide at end. Quite similar to the Norwich goal
Good example of what I had in mind about how much fun those two can have once space has opened up.
Chance is towards end, around 3 mins
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tonight Reiss Nelson has started his first game for Hoffenheim
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Now it’s the bleeding Swiss picking on Roman. At least whatever happens, he’ll always pass one fit and proper person test.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6205541/Abramovichs-Switzerland-refused-police-suspicions.html
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Ed. Cheers for that. To my surprise, it is available on red button on BT sport of their Bayern game.
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Emery on team selection v Brentford – sounds like squad players and youths
“We were preparing in pre-season with the young players and every player to give them a chance to show us their confidence and performance. Now we are preparing for each match thinking only about our best performance, but we need every player because all the competitions in the season are very long and we need to prepare players and young players also to help us in these moments of the season.
“Against Brentford I am going to prepare the best performance for us, but I’ll be giving chances and opportunities to the players who are playing less in the competition. Also maybe the young players can have opportunities to play in this game if I think it’s the best for us to give them this opportunity of starting in the first XI, but the first thing about the best performance is thinking about winning.”
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.
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Nelson off at half time
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Burton Albion 2 – 1 Burnley
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3 away team won on penalties in the CC tonight, Middlesboro, Leicester and Derby
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Pleguezuelo and Willock amongst Arsenal youngsters to train with first-team pre-Brentford
by george bird
Arsenal held their final first-team training session today ahead of tomorrow night’s Carabao Cup third round tie at home to Brentford.
Four youngsters were in attendance, including Joe Willock and Julio Pleguezuelo.
Emile Smith Rowe and Eddie Nketiah, as expected, also trained with the squad and will hope to feature tomorrow.
Regarding first-team players, Henrikh Mkhitaryan is back in full training, while Laurent Koscielny and Ainsley Maitland-Niles have returned to light training.
However, Sokratis Papastahopoulos and Konstantinos Mavropanos are all out injured.
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Roman Abramovich posed threat to public security, Swiss police said
Police reported ‘suspicion of money laundering and presumed contacts with criminal organisations’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/25/roman-abramovich-posed-threat-to-public-security-swiss-police-said
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Rob Holding made quite an impression when he came on for Sokratis during the first half of Sunday’s victory against Everton.
It was only the young defender’s second appearance of the season, but he was calm and composed on the ball as we kept our first clean sheet this term.
Unai Emery was impressed with Holding, and hopes he can take that form into Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup tie with Brentford.
“We need every player when chances and opportunities come, because we need to also take more players to play,” our head coach said. “Like on Sunday, for example, after Sokratis’ injury it was important how [Rob] played and helped the team to find the performance to win against Everton.
“[Brentford] is also a good opportunity for Holding to continue taking confidence, taking minutes and taking also our ideas of playing and I want to look at him also with our best performance, staying in the first XI.”
Holding is one of a clutch of youngsters who could get their chance against Brentford, so who else has caught Emery’s eye so far?
“The young players, they are trained with us in pre-season and also in each session now,” he said. “Like Emile Smith Rowe, like Joe Willock, like Eddie Nketiah and like also Reiss Nelson.
“But we decided it’s better for Reiss to go on and take this responsibility and take minutes of games with a good level in Germany. I think that’s good. Each training, we call players who can come with us to show us and we can know them.”
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.
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Osman
@OsmanZtheGooner
49m49 minutes ago
BILD reporting Joachim Löw went to Arsenal’s training ground yesterday to meet Mesut Özil. However, the German NT manager wasn’t allowed inside the training centre with orders from Unai Emery.
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I think that we can expect to see Leno, Lichtsteiner, Holding, Elneny, Guendouzi, Iwobi, and Welbeck all start v Brentford, with Nketiah, Smith-Rowe, Willock and Pleguezuelo the most likely of the youths to be in contention for game time, be it as starters or subs.
We might see Mustafi and or Monreal start, almost any of our starters from the Everton game could be in the squad, but for me most likely are Lacazette and Ramsey, maybe Torreira. Depending on fitness, maybe Kolasinac could be a surprise starter, and Jenkinson a surprise sub.
I would expect Martinez to be sub goalie.
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Leno
Lichtsteiner Holding Pleguezuelo Kolasinac
Elneny Guendouzi
Mkhitaryan Smith-Rowe Iwobi
Welbeck
subs: Martinez, Mustafi, Monreal, Torreira, Willock, Nketiah, Lacazette
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Eddy, I think we will see a youngster at LB. Can’t imagine Sead is ready.
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Players can always play together in the same team as long as they don’t try to fill the same space. Ramsey starting from deep or from out wide is not the same threat to Ozil’s ‘natural’ space as Ramsey told to play as a high energy no.10.
Ozil would often be told to drift out (mainly) to the right by Wenger – especially in the second half of games. Emery is using the same tactic of changing things at half time (even bringing on subs) according to how the opposition are playing and what they might be less able to deal with.
He is still finding out what the players are capable of and how they deal with problems on the pitch. Wenger took the best part of a season to unpick that conundrum and produced a double winning team the next year. I don’t expect Emery to do that – not because Arsenal won’t improve but because the competitive situation is so much stronger now.
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Lichtsteiner could play at left back if Unai wants experience next to Peggy. Bola can play either side although didn’t train with the first team so is unlikely.
With so many injured defenders giving players a rest may be limited at the back tonight.
The midfield and forward line is stacked with players so Unai will have plenty of options to play with however the lack of experience at the back may change his ideas here to with maybe a greater emphasis on graft rather than craft in some areas.
Should be good to see the return of our old lads who are probably still mates with some of the ARSENAL lads.
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Ed, really can’t see ARSENAL refusing entry to any National manager as we are traditionally the perfect hosts.
If Mezut didn’t want to meet him that may have been something else but he would still have been shown round the facilities.
Obviously their papers like ours report things to their own agenda and anything anti Ozil at the moment is fine. Personally I’m going with total bollocks.
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It seems the media shit stirring has been cleared up.
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Admittedly Bild’s headline tomorrow with have Low poaching Mertesacker to join his coaching staff from under Emery’s nose
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There’s nothing like a bullshitter clearing up bullshit, to boil my piss.
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Stan has hoovered up the remaining 2.86% of Arsenal’s shares and delisted the club.
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/news/latest-arsenal-news-kroenke-takeover-15204359
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Putting out a strong team tonight, with strong subs too, Kolasinac one of them.
COYG!
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KSE complete AFC takeover
eduardo1966@edminton1966
7m7 minutes ago
Replying to @arseblagger
but but but but but but but AST said they would hold it up, also that they would make Stan pay their legal fees too, 1 more AGM, are you really trying to tell us that AST & Tim Baldrick Payton were just their usual full of bullshit, bluster and wind selves, who would have guessed
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george have you seen the light with our mr bullshitter watts
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a little disappointed that Pleguezuelo not in the squad tonight
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clearly either the wenger out protest is still in full swing or AFC have priced a whole generation of fans out of going to games at the Emirates
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what will the Leno must play cos he is so good with playing out from the back have to say about that boo boo
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corner taken short to Guendouzi and his ball in is headed home from about 7 yards by Welbeck, 1-0 to the Arsenal about 4 minutes in
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what’s the point of VAR if that is not given as a penalty, is it going to be as I suspect only used against AST,
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Ha ha, it was fairly slight, but a foul is a foul. They watched a video of a foul being made which tripped a player up in box, no touch on ball, and said no.
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mike dean being mike dean
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Rich I have long maintained that VAR will be nothing more than eye wash in the English game, when it comes to certain clubs it will be a PGMOL VAR stooge just confirming the decision already made by the PGMOL stooge on the pitch, prime example right there with that Iwobi penalty shout
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Ed
Exactly. Basically, do you trust Dean and VAR centre wouldn’t make a different call if it was same thing at other end? I absolutely don’t.
My streams gone (about 20 Times) so I’m giving up, but apparently Gunendouzi took a bad achilles hack for no card while Lichsteiner booked for far less. That’s our Deano.
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Emeryball, flowing team move ends with Monreal squaring the ball to the unmarked Welbeck to tap home six yards out, 2-0
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rich I got a good stream on first row sports, think it was their link 4 for our game
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Mkhitaryan having a bit of a poor game, just off the pace
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By way, if any computer buffs have a couple minutes to spare can someone explain to me what the deal with Streams is.
If they didn’t exist at all, I’d understand; or if they were of very variable quality,same. But for me i must have tried now something like 40-50 times and only had something watchable about 5 times.
Most often it’s something like today, on all the ones I’ve tried, a few seconds action, freeze, jump forward, few seconds action, freeze, jump. Unwatchable.
Logically, it must work better for others or else nobody would sit through it. Weak wi-fi signal for me maybe. Upstairs but with a booster. Works fine for most of my simple needs but streams are simply a no-go for me
Official stuff like Arsenal player typically ok.
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