@LaboGoon and Season’s greetings one and all.
Arsenal is travelling to the South Coast this afternoon to take on Brighton & Hove Albion at the AMEX Stadium; a win would lift us into top-four to add a bit of pressure on Chelsea going into their game vs Watford directly following ours.
If the Gunners think they had it tough last time we were on the road, a 3-2 defeat at St Mary’s, also down at the south coast, the Seagulls are the definitive “difficult to play against” side at their home, of the teams outside top-six; something we know all too well about being beaten there 2-1 last season. Chris Hughton’s team is usually well-organised and play from a strong defensive base; 26 goals conceded, two more than us, this campaign into their second season in the top flight is impressive.
They aren’t without issues though and comes into this fixture following three straight defeats, but despite that it’s hard to imagine them being dragged into the relegation battle, so there’s little Chris would need to change about their style. With 6 out of 24 defeats since last season and 13 of their 20 PL goals this campaign at the Amex… the Seagulls is now a pucker middle-class Premier League outfit.
The manner of our win against Burnley was important for Unai Emery and the boys; Özil’s vision for the opener, giving the Clarets as good as we got in the physical challenges and putting the game to bed just as it look like they were putting out all the stops ensured that our players’ confidence and ability weren’t questioned following the back to back defeats.
Our most recent league games against Huddersfield, Southampton and Burnley reminded Unai that there’s no easy games, ergo nothing should be taken for granted. With our next fixture an expected high intensity one against Liverpool in three days the make up of the team will be interesting; ie to rotate or not to rotate, or to just go in with a strong XI to give yourself the best chance of winning and build momentum leading up to the trip up north. Ooh to be Emery.
Chris Hughton’s main concern though will just be whether his team should venture out and attack, or if they should sit in their own half to absorb pressure and rely on counterattacks.
So hard knowing where Premier League managers’ mind are at these modern times.
What we do know is that the Seagulls have one or two attackers that can cause defenders numerous problems, are extremely disciplined and far from comfortable to play against in front of their own fans; and for that reason we will need to match their resilience and take our chances. Today certainly is going to be a different test and I suspect a close encounter to be on the cards.
Positively Arsenal 
Thanks Labo and a happy Boxing Day to all Positivas – plus of course birthday wishes to Aaron Ramsey. I hope there is no thought of rotation today and that the strongest side available is selected, which in my opinion would include our birthday boy.
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Morning Labo and to everyone, Grey and foggy morning up in Norfolk. 5.15 kick off to look forward to but I fancy Eddie Howe’s boys to cause a bit of festive mayhem before then.
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Nice scene-setter Labo, and we are fully into the banana-skin part of the season as a game every three days does more to shake things up than anything else I can think of. It’s the combination of a mad fixture schedule, combining with injuries and suspensions (and threat of suspensions- Torreira I’m looking at you) that combine to make December the perfect storm of upset odds and expectations.
Theoretically at least, this is the time of year when the best funded squads come into their own and those teams over-reliant on their first 11 tend to become horribly exposed.
And yet, of course, it doesn’t always work out like that with Chelsea and Citeh already undoing the good work of my previous paragraph. Yet, and ‘Leicester-syndrome’ aside, this is what generally happens. I’ve lost count of the number of seasons when Arsenal’s typical spring collapse tends to start with the weakening of their foundations in December. A time when most of football is gearing down for a mid-winter break, the English league simply goes up yet another fixture level. By the end of December the football is scrappy and unpredictable. I’m just surprised no bright spark has thrown in an international fixture for good measure.
So on this logic, given that we are a pretty scrappy team in the infancy of Emery’s charge, I’d hope we’d do pretty well today, on balance. Finesse and elegance have hardly been our watchwords this season so yet another game of rugged, determined bluster will hardly upset the current Arsenal apple cart.
And, on a further positive note, I’m also hopeful of things going wrong for Liverpool, Spurs, City and Chelsea, with Man U continuing to enjoy the new-Manager bounce for a few games yet.
Should be an intriguing day.
Happy Christmas everybody.
COYG’s!
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Ramsey is 28 today, lets hope he celebrates it with a win and maybe a goal or two
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so its Ramsey’s birthday today and some of the AFC bloggers and big twitter accounts are doing nothing but slagging the guy off. We really don’t deserve him, I do hope if he leaves us that he gets to a much more successful club.
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Eds it’s almost as if they’re on commission from his agent! Just like Danny Murphy, Michael Vaughen and other sporting plundits. It’s a model for that industry but apparently we are not even allowed to acknowledge this!
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Thanks Labo, COYG!
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Excellent LG, yeah today will be difficult especially with the depleted squad. Picking a team with no defenders is always difficult and will affect the choices around the rest of the team. Do we need the more experienced Petre in goal does the midfield have to be more defensive and workmanlike and does the attack have the ability to bring g other players in to play or be lightning fast on the break.
Unai has alot to think about and for once that means we have a strange advantage of not being able to think about the pool game yet at the moment it’s all about today COYG.
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Chambers the in form CB at the end of last season playing CM for Fulham today?
Glad the old gaffer isn’t here getting brickbats for that call but hopefully we won’t see Xhaka at CB as I wouldn’t want to see the new gaffer getting brickbats hurled his way either!
We knew Xmas crunch would be the biggest challenge in the new gaffer’s first season, and we’re right in the middle of the he fixture squeeze today, three days before what will be another intense top top top level, heh, contest. I wish him good fortune!
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Won’t be surprised to Koscielny asked against the physio’s wishes to play today. There might not be any other choice! Same as with Monreal having to play ahead of his schedule and picking up those additional niggles.
Yep. Managing a squad through the Xmas crunch when the opponents are allowed to kick you yet generally receive less yellow cards several games in succession until you see a relatively Friendly and not ridiculously incongruous face (or set of objective stats), well, no need to explain the challenges there to anyone that can keep their eyes on the football.
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Relax – we went to the Amex last season with a first choice back 4 just about and Cech in goal. Bloody awful performance, the keeper even apologised. It’s not the personnel, it is the process.
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Yes it was not Cech’s best day in the shirt.
Chambers & Kolasinac still recovering form after his injuries at that time were not the first choice FBs! Not an opinion. And usually the starting CBs this season have not been hobbling about on one ankle, which has certainly led to some improvement in the old football, as your captain leader and defensive lynchpin isn’t currently gurning their way through the daze of painkillers. Maybe John Terry could fall over and win free kicks when doped up over his eyeballs for however many seasons it was but Kozza didn’t have that luxury, and bless him even our wizened Swiss Army knife/CB won’t win too many more of those thanks to MOTD.
The process at that time was correctly focused upon the Europa League quarter final draw.
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I’ve lost an hour somewhere today so went on bbc looking for 3pm lineups- fecking Spuds and Liverpool already leading. Bah.
Anyway- main thing (points, mood, worldview) as always is our result. Makes me twitchy beforehand though if others win.
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scores not going our way so far
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#HoweOut
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so even the bbc are saying mo salah dived for that penalty award that has seen lfc go two up
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Kozza bingo is an easy game when you remember football is a sport and that managers don’t drop WC winning athletes because they have poor body language, not unless you have a blog to hawk, or a pile of dung to sell…
Could be a 4 at the back with a 2014 Germany three in midfield, Ozil playmaking from the right as opposed to the left with the mannschaft that year.
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‘The confidence is oozing out of every Manchester United player’s orifice now.’
Ew.
noun
an opening, particularly one in the body such as a nostril or the anus.
Just wanted to share that, from the BBC’s live report hotshots
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Starting to give more credence to idea they are encouraging Ramsey to leave in Jan by the way.
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Ed. Said after their last game i’m expecting an extraordinary amount of calls to go Liverpool’s way from here, increasingly so the closer they get to a title.
Pgmol seems curiously in line with the will of the people within the game/media when a popular contender without a title for some time emerges. Happened with Liverpool’s last near thing and with Leicester and spurs in recent times.
The guff about Salah being a player of rare honesty is shot to hell anyway. Had that one at Palace last year, tried very similar in champ league this season (PSG or napoli) and pretty sure a few more too.
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Eds
a quick comparison of la liga and PL tables, points and goal differences supports your understanding that although technical levels and physical standards may be higher today, the premier league is less competitive then it was yesterday.
There are four or five clubs eating up all the points. Six if Utd continue to play football again.
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#PepOut
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AFC currently 14pts off LFC in top, and 8pts off spurs in second, 7pts off city in third. We are now only 5pts ahead of Man Utd, so the pressure is really on the lads to get a win today
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Need to be reeling City in
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Burnley 1-5 Everton
Dyche stormed across the pitch at half time, even taking off his overcoat, you know to let the fans know he was about to read the riot act, seems the players paid no heed to him
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Sol Campbell has Macclesfield off the bottom of league two with a win over notts county
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yes anicol, with city playing lfc soon too
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city now lost two in a row and they took the lead in both games, city will have to give pep some money to buy his way out of this, the world’s best coach will need all the money he can get
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From a bloke who went into the season among the top three most secure PL managers Dyche is f******* it up with some aplomb.
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oh so close from PEA, he lobbed the keeper but the keeper just managed to tip it over the bar
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Aubameyanggggggggggggggggggggggggg with a fine finish after lacazette lays it off to him after a good high press
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anicol i seen a pundit say that it was Burnley’s ever so long Europa League campaign that did for them, you know the ever so long campaign that did not see them make the group stages, a full 3 rounds of games
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the assist
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thats a deliberate foul to stop a breakaway it should have been a yellow for balogun
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brghton goal rightly ruled out as murray kicked the ball out of Leno’s hand as our keeper had dived on his first poorly hit shot
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all of a sudden we are on the back foot
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a corner given to brighton when it was clearly a goal kick
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we need to take the sting out of Brighton’s play
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commentators talking some bullshit about how Brighton should be ahead
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PEA should have done better there, in on goal central but his shot lacked enough power to beat the keeper
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Ozil not been involved near enough in this game
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Total dominance breeds overconfidence
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pathetic defending, and its 1-1, our corner, one long ball, lichtsteiner with a poor header and brighton have an empty net to roll the ball into, awful stuff all round from us.
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Why do we struggle so much on the very basics of defending against lesser teams
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HT: Brighton 1-1 Arsenal
after taking the lead through PEA, we lacked any urgency to go for the second and let Brighton get a foothold, and then from our own corner we handed them the softest of goals, we’ve had loads of possession, buts its been sterile possession, Ozil has had no impact on the game so far, and we’ve been at walking pace all over the pitch, just not good enough
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Strange stuff. Excellent start and seemingly all the conditions there to go on and keep creating, but then died out around 20-25 and ,as seems to happen so often, a poorer spell of game ends with a goal conceded. Hmmm.
Maybe most I’ve questioned us so far this season: we weren’t able to attack convincingly and push for the 2nd at 1-0 and yet were quite open to counter stuff.
Curiously, we did do quite well from long lofted passes (goal and 2 best chances), something I’ve felt before we don’t attempt enough to ensure variation, but then very little else was happening in attack.
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Why is gendouzi always the last defender whenever we take corner kicks. He lacks every quality to perform such a task. Can’t shoot from distance, poor when defending one on one, the worst is he lacks pace. Normally you ask the full backs to do it. But if not,why not give torreira the task.
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I thought we played well that half, should/could have at least a second goal. Bit unlucky with equaliser but 1-0 is always dodgy. Koscielny looking much more like his old self.
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