Good day one and all.
The football season is into it’s Christmas stride as we kicked off festivities with an absolute firecracker of a game at the Emirates with a commanding victory over arch-rivals Totnum; and it’s off the back of that Arsenal hurtle along to Old Trafford in good spirits to take on Manchester United with one goal in mind… which is to maintain our position in the Premier League’s top-four.
The Red Devils won five and drew two of their last eight games, which would usually make one wonder what all the fuss is about the club at present, but closer inspection tells us that in their last five PL home games they won just two, lost one and had draws against bottom half sides Wolves and Crystal Palace. It’s that hit and miss home form, not helped much with a 2-2 draw away to league strugglers Southampton in their last game, that see them at 8th on the current log standings.
So José Mourinho will need to do something special, or at least different than relying on Fellaini, who has been delivering the goods for him, to win back the “respect” he demand from his seemingly omnipresent critics. He has been talking a lot about “mad dogs” recently and his number one cheerleader Gary Neville ever so subtly told him to set them on one Lucas Torreira. Good luck José, our little terrier doesn’t look like one to back out of a fight.
This is the third PL game in a seemingly difficult run following the last inter-break; and Unai Emery has proven himself to be no slouch when it comes to adjusting to the physical demands by clearly being the better team against both Bournemouth and Spurs. He also turned around our travelling fortunes and in our recent five away league games we recorded four wins and a draw, in which we scored a total of 14 goals. The PL leading goal-scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang must be licking his chops to add to this tally to help the Gunners to their first league win at Old Trafford in 12 seasons.
Granit Xhaka who started an amazing run of 65 back-to-back PL games miss out today through suspension, so it will be interesting to see if Aaron Ramsey gets the nod after finding himself on the fringes of first team this all season. When he came on as a HT sub this Sunday the Welshman changed the flow of the game and was instrumental in our fightback. *eyes peeled*
It’s difficult to predict how this game will pan out, with Manutd’s flaky defence I doubt José, who is in desperate need of a win, will take the game to Arsenal. He may well instruct his team to be ultra defensive and look the sneak in a winning goal right at the death. Arsenal who registered their first win against a top-six side will look to build on that against another who’s manager said the best they can hope for in May is to finish, well, 6th.
Either way this is hands down the blockbuster fixture of this matchday and hopefully the Arsenal stretch their unbeaten run to 20.
Let’s go!
@LaboGoon
Positively Arsenal 
Auba and Mikhi miss sitters.
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we are wasting some very good attacking positions
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fellaini on and pogba coming on, its hoof ball time from utd
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pgmol mafia at its best tonight, utd can do what the want
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Come on you Gunners!
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wolves have beaten chelsea, so we have ten minutes plus stoppage time to get the win that would see us go 3rd, come on you gooners
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Makes you wonder what Ramsey would have done to this game if he hadnt got injured.
Hope we grab this.
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Fellaini the pathetic fuck fouls Matteo by pulling his hair.
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afc goal ruled out for offside
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come on Arsenal!!!!
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Should really have wrapped this game up. Master of not taking our chances. Defensive mistakes not withstanding.
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FT: Man Utd 2-2
Took the lead twice through Mustafi and Lacazette, but we let in soft goals within a few minutes both times, really should have won.
Holding looks to have a bad injury, Ramsey went off injured too
utd kicked lumps out of our team with a blind eye from the game manager from the pgmol
chelsea lost but we failed to take full advantage mainly due to downright awful defending
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A few shots to the foot, but refereeing right out of Riley’s Old Trafford handbook.
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oh well, felt like we should have beaten them, but the clogging play of ManUre of the first half ruined the game. Makes you think a game with Holding ,Rambo, Mesut, and Xhaka etc we might have done it? I started thinking that I had more respect for the Spuds, at least they can play football, and not play hair grab. Spuds are shite too though.
Only thing we can take is 20 unbeaten.
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They were there for the taking, but this was always going to be tough after the emotional and physical exertions just three days ago.
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Well we didn’t lose.
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Think I’d be alright with that were it not for Rob’s injury and the nature of it.
Very long way from our best, but key men missing and clearly showing effects from last match.
Eeeee, that 2nd for them was a video nasty though.
Only saw one replay and couldn’t figure out what caused Kola to take a touch like that- was it using left when ball was positioned for right foot clearance? pressure on him from them?
Awkward trying to clear with weaker foot in that part of pitch-easy to imagine myself doing something calamitous in same situation- but all the same looked heck of a clanger.
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Some scrapbook of awful lunges without reds Rojo has put together now.
The notable ones before that, but I also remember him smashing one of ours from behind at old Trafford few years back that was also worthy of sending off.
Think how much of a dick you have to be to keep doing it, after years to weigh up your actions, knowing how much injuries suck for players, and having been blighted by injury yourself! Horrible git
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disgraceful performance by manure and matched by a disgraceful performance by the officials. I said before the game manure would use all the dirty tricks they could but I was hoping we would have a half decent ref (i know naive) however after two minutes when they went through the back of Aaron and the ref waived play on not even giving the foul I knew we were in for a tough evening. when it happened again after a few minutes more and then martial was fouled and the ref immediately blew, then I was honestly scared.
It turned out for good reason as the tackles were going later and later and the sendings off were obviously downgraded to yellows and so on. Again no surprise they scored from an offside goal and the ref carried on ignoring as many incidents as possible and if we were fouled dangerously and the ball rolled to one of our players then the advantage was played and the incident forgotten about, there was no going back. If maureen didnt have enough thugs on the pitch at the start he brought on his chief hooligan who promtley pulled Matteo back via his hair right in front of the ref but obviously it was only a foul, apparently hair pulling is not a booking let alone a sending off.
I dont know if it was gross neglegence or just plain bias, but whatever it was it was disgraceful and for a team who can spend 250 million in recent windows to play that way and for the officials to enable them brings the Premier league into disrepute and english football can never move forward while it continues.
With players missing, then having players crocked and the ones left on the pitch all carrying knocks and the officials against you then this was a very very credible draw.
We were unlucky in the end and the players deserve huge credit however who will be left to face Huddesfield on saturday.
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Sadly this is the outcome I feared after Sunday as the powers that be needed to bring us back down to earth but at least we escaped the old toilet with a point. I fucking hate maureen and his shower of cunts. They can eat shit and die as far as I am concerned. Hopefully what goes around, comes around!
Welcome to the ‘best league in the world’ Unai – let’s see how you deal with the tilted pitch.
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Think we’ll have to rotate at weekend.
Without knowing what score is with knocks etc, Torreira tops my list for one who could do with break.
Maybe time to take calculated risk and play one of the youngsters (aside from Matteo)
First thing first, assessing Holding, Ramsey and any others to see where we stand.
Hopefully Monreal and Kos poised to return for mega busy period. Ozil, too.
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New post is up.
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