Good day all. It’s the penultimate round of Europa League group fixtures this evening with Arsenal hosting Eintracht Frankfurt at the Emirates Stadium in a contest that is key to the progress of both sides.The Gunners need at least one win from their last two group games to ensure they go into the Europa ’round of 32′ as Group F leaders. Coming into this match on the back of a six-game winless run across all competitions one can sense Unai Emery would rather get the job done tonight. Not that it would lift much of the ill-feeling towards him, but just for self-preservation.
This has been a season of tumult and strife for the Arsenal. For a while the ‘cup games’ offered respite, but since Nicolas Pépé scored that pair of match-winning free-kicks versus Guimarães back in October we haven’t got a sniff; resulting in calls for Emery to exit the dugout only growing louder each day. With the big talk around the water cooler that he’s a goner, I sincerely hope that when he does take his final trudge back down the Emirates tunnel it is to applause and not a chorus of boos.
Eintracht Frankfurt had a great Europa run last season, not quite this time though with them needing all kind of permutations to advance to the knockout rounds. Any points they can get tonight would be a huge boost ahead of their final group clash at home to Guimarães in two-weeks.
They are not in good form at the moment, losing their last three matches (all competitions) on the bounce, but with Emery saying: “some teams come here [Emirates] and they are fearless against us”, we can be we sure their coach Adi Hütter’s ears perked up, thinking we are there for the taking. Incidentally the last time they won a match was the 5-1 razing of Bayern Munich; leading to Niko Kovac’s dismissal. A similar result here could see Emery meet the same fate.
Make no mistake, with the players Arsenal got there is no mitigation for this position we found ourselves in, and that is not even an exaggeration. The question however is will we start turning our season around with the Spaniard… or without?
Team news
Dani Ceballos has been ruled out for a few weeks with injury and there are doubts over the fitness of Sead Kolasinac, Bukayo Saka and Rob Holding; with the three unlikely to be risked.
The last time these two sides met the Londoners ran out comfortable 3-0 winners. With a very raucous crowd expected at the Emirates this evening Emery will be desperate for a similar result. So we could see him selecting a very strong matchday XI to purpose in a better performance than recent outings.
— @LaboGoon
Positively Arsenal 
“So we could see him selecting a very strong matchday XI to *put* in a better performance than recent outings”
^that last sentence should reads. Oops.
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Bollocks to the result.
Just let us see a real old style Arsenal performance.
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Many thanks Labo for the review and keeping the ball rolling in dark times.
COYG!
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Wondering if Pochettino will be confirmed before or after christmas?
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Yo Stew, always great seeing you leaving a comment and other times a tweet. Thanks very much Mills.
Personally I am so invested in wanting Arteta to become Arsenal coach that I think if we appoint anyone else, we may miss out on him altogether as he will not wait around too long under Pep’s wing.
Time is running out though for the Raul them. After next weekend we hit a run of tricky fixtures till new years day. Maybe Pochettino may want to spend the holiday season with his family first.
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Apparently i can watch football via Amazon Prime. Anyone else hear abourt that?
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Thanks Labo, just hope he lets the handbrake off, in what many believe will be one of Emerys final games. Emery has got a lot wrong, but there is something faintly un-nerving in his demise at this club, and the level of vitriol, personally, hope he can go out soon, with a win or two, go back to Spain and resurrect his career. Wrong man for the club, but I wish no malice on him, despite really pissing me off over treatment handed out to players I respect, things just seem to be getting over the top, and we do not know what is coming next
On that future note, just been sent a link to a sites lead article ( won’t link the site on here) the main premise, a fear Arsenals values are about to come under attack via Raul with Superagent Mendes putting his manager in post in place of emery. Said manager has yet to deny anything, and is now odds on to be our next manager.This isn’t a site one would usually associate with worrying about Arsenal values, though the writer does seem fearful.
Worrying days.
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Full Time : FC Astana 2 – 1 Manchester United
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Fwankfurt fans making a lot of noise in our area. Still hope for us to draw though.
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24 mins left for Emery.
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Feel desperately sorry for señor Emery. What an awful place to be for anyone.
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Even worse than normal, lowest point in more than thirty years for the club.
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And that will be that for Emery. Hope he has a nice life and even career, elsewhere, but he won’t be missed by the fans, or by reports ,and the look of things, the players. Suspect a coup has now succeeded.
If Raul keeps him on now, he is throwing points away in the league, throwing away any goodwill left with the fans, and players. Hopefully he has seen out Xmas fixtures.
Surely an announcement tonite or tomorrow morning, this cannot go on.
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Now, we will have the joy of fearing what Raul does next, of the club are stupid enough to let him have a free hand
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Agree Stew, he must be in a bad place, no lack of trying, but just hasn’t worked.
Really think they need to put him out of his misery and let him move on after this, not fair to keep him managing in this environment.
Was half wondering if they gave him this game as a swan song, if so, didn’t work out too well.
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It’s A hard life
When you feel down
And nobody understands you
They leave you hanging around
You waste all your days
Miss all your nights
Sit round just dreaming
You can do nothing right
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Sounds like I haven’t missed much…but saved some Wonga…
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Now in territory where we have to hope Emery is a terrible manager, or at least this job is a terrible fit for him.
If not, jeez, we got serious problems, and any new manager is going to have a tough time of it.
Alas, also in position now where it is difficult to believe club will find good option after him, as that decision will be made by people who have let this persist when surely should have acted during international break.
The impression is they weren’t sure about better options then, so though they may now accept they have to act, it’s hard to imagine whoever they have in mind will be inspired choice.
Bah humbug.
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Not much left to say, just sad to see the players so dejected and bereft of ideas.
I have no sympathy for Emery, he told a pack of lies to get a job he was woefully inadequate for by and he has spent his time here blaming everyone else for his short-comings fitness coach, players, previous manager. He’s getting everything he deserves as are the mouthy gits who make so much noise online and on AFTV but can’t muster up one cheer for the team they claim to support.
Karma is kicking butt and Emery, Raul, Edu and Josh can go fcuk themselves for all I care.
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I’m sure I’d wince watching video footage of my old football days, and know I was shocked on occasion when a sub at how, well, rubbish we were…which is to say I’m wary of calling the pro’s rubbish or stuff of the ‘my mother could have finished that variety’
But…isn’t it the absolute basics, as a struggling team especially, to close people down quickly on the edge of the box? How can we make that look so hard? The first was poor, the second- with all those players in the box but all drawn around the six-yard line- that was fecking hideous.
I think he’s a talented young player and have defended him plenty, but Matteo in particular seems so bad in those situations. When you aren’t scoring or assisting, you really don’t want to be bad in those situations!
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He may have told a pack of lies Passenal, or the alternative, Raul prepped him with a pack of lies to get him through the interview, when the world was reporting Arteta had the job. Did Emery really have a dossier on our players when he was only bought in at a very late stage in the interview process? Perhaps he was told to say the things that would impress Ivan, who I would imagine would have wanted a team built around Ramsey if he had any sense?
A shame the two people other than Raul who conducted that interview have now left the club, that aside Raul should be held accountable for whatever happened there, at best, he intervened and got it very wrong. I hope the Kroenkes have the curiosity to at least look a little into this costly hire.
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Mandy, I suspect the hand of Josh Kroenke is very much in this. Well I hope they’re enjoying their “modern” structure with so many cooks, it’s no wonder the dish is such a mess!
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Unai Emery faced the media shortly after our defeat to Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday.
The head coach spoke about the match, Granit Xhaka’s return and injuries to Shkodran Mustafi and David Luiz.
Here’s a transcript of the press conference:
on the defeat…
Good evening. I think we deserved more, we controlled the game in the first half, we scored one goal. We, in the first half, were happy for how we took the performance as a team and also individually. In the second half we started the same, we needed to score a goal but we lost the control of the game after 15 minutes and they scored two goals. At the end we changed two players for injuries and we couldn’t do some more offensive changes to achieve, and to take fresh players. We didn’t push, we didn’t really take the chances to draw or win this match.
on the motivation of the players…
We need to win and we need to win playing well and take confidence and we did that in the first half. I think we were in the first half in the dressing room speaking about being consistent in the second half. We started the game pushing and started the game being consistent and I think we did that in the first five or 10 minutes, taking the chances to score. We lost the control in the 15 minutes [after half-time] because they also pushed and they scored two goals and then we couldn’t take chances to draw or to win. In this competition we continue to be first [in the group table], we lost a good opportunity to take first position in the group but we continue in that position and we are going to think about the next match, to achieve three points and to make sure that’s possible.
on whether he’s confident that he can turn it around…
Now our moment is not good. We need to win and we need to gain confidence. I think we are better than we are showing, everybody, the players, the coaches and me. Now we lost some confidence and we need to win. Really, the response in the first half was good and we started very well again in the second half. We had two injures with Mustafi and David Luiz and that moment was important because when you’re losing you need some fresh players offensively to change and give the team more options. We couldn’t do that.
on whether he’s concerned about losing his job…
I am thinking first about analysing the game over 90 minutes. Today we improved some things, but it wasn’t enough.
on whether he thinks he will remain in charge…
I am thinking about the next match and analysing that match and the Europa League, and thinking about Sunday and how we can improve and achieve that confidence with the players. The players now are a little down in their feelings, but if we continue and can achieve a performance like the first half, I think that is the way.
on if he feels that his job is ‘on the line’ if we don’t win on Sunday…
But my work and my job is to first analyse, analyse that match in 90 minutes and analyse also how we are in the Europa League and how we are also in our feelings and then prepare for the match on Sunday.
on where he thinks it’s gone wrong…
We needed to achieve confidence here and play well. I think we improved in the first half and we improved also some things to make sure of our improvement and take the three points. But we didn’t do it all because we lost in 15 minutes the work in the first half. Again, I was speaking with the players after the first half to be consistent. We are going to continue and be positive but really we need also to win. The first for us to recover confidence is to win and to feel better above all here, at home, with our supporters here in Emirates, at home and it’s the first match we lost. But really, maybe today we deserved more but it’s the first match we lost here.
on Granit Xhaka and if he feels the issue is now behind us…
It’s very good news with Granit and the normality. He played, he helped and the supporters also, I think they are also helping him and I think it’s good news.
on Mustafi and David Luiz’s injuries…
Yes, I don’t know exactly now but they couldn’t finish that match and we are going to watch for tomorrow for how they are for Sunday.
on if he accepts or identifies mistakes made by himself in recent results…
Yes. I can understand the criticism about the team, about me. We are not in a good moment and also as a coach, I had that moment also in my career.
Copyright 2019 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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(i havent written this in a condescending manner), but am personally interested and want to share.
Karma doesnt really kick butt or act in a way that is understandable as crime and punishment. But it does seem to. Mostly karma is thought, even though it gets translated as “action”, but it is speech and physical actions too.
Secondly the ripening of karma is called Karma -phala or vipaka. This is what people mean by butt kicking.
But there are ways out of this, firstly who is there to reap the karma? There is old Dharma (Buddhism is a western term only, the east uses it to make things easier for us) saying ; first there are mountains then there are no mountains then there are mountains again.
To understand this in one way is to understand how vipka can work. if you understand and practise this, there is no karma-phala ( vipaka). As who is to experience the experience and therefore the vipka?
The most difficult thing to comprehend is what is good and bad karma-phala. For example the first text in the dharma-pada basically would say the “me too” movement hasn’t a chance of stopping suffering until it forgives. It will keep on suffering. The whole point of of Buddhism was to stop suffering. It isnt really a religion, but a system of understanding the nature of reality. And their teachings are kin complex.
Karma is not really judgment, even though it can seem so, we do see consequences, but their final consequences we cannot.
And to make things even more complex the Buddha apparently even stated that to try and work out what we call karma out is not possible, perhaps this is because they are sure of previous lives.
However, we are karmic beings, we cannot escape it, even Buddhas are, its just they dont live carbon footprints because the mind is operating in another way.
So Emery could say to have bad karma phala, but is it? Maybe its a relief for him to leave( and a big payoff-but will that be good or bad?). Plus good and bad become relative terms, but of course Buddhism is aware of positive and negative or the ideas of this, but the aim of Buddhism is to stop suffering and to go beyond dualities. This is a place that speech and description cannot define. So in duality both positive and negative rise together, the define each other, its relative in scale, but relativity in Buddhism means something else: emptiness, which doesn’t mean nothing (that doesn’t exist) but empty of any unchanging element that is independent or a solid phenomena. So all changes and all is dependant or relational to each thing. One massive stream. The Spuds are part of us, and we them.
We call our hand a hand, but when we look there is no hand, just bones, muscle, nail, blood vessels, veins, and all the quantum bits and pieces down to the string( if that exists). But if we look at those components then we see they arent bones or blood vessels but made up of other things too, and it goes on and on.
Bad to karma phala, the most worrying thing is dealing with psychopaths or sociopaths as they can block it very easily as they are not concern with morality of relativity, but obsessed in strong narcissism, the narcissism of a false self. In some ways karma/karma phala is us perceiving things and reacting and to a degree accepting.
The major problem is that all who start to find out about karma on a deeper level feel frightened and perplexed as it feels inescapable and like some heavy judgment, of course it is, and it isnt. Karma and karma phala in one way is everything, but how it works is based on the view point of our perception in duality.
Sorry havent explained it too clearly. Hope its interesting.
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stating the obvious, but Pornstein has spoken, a sacking likely today.
Freddie time. if he does well, hope he is considered for the permanent job, even if he doesn’t have the prime qualification, a Super agent.
I am sure he can get his badge quick enough of he really does not possess one.
Expecting a bounce from the players, after someone gets them out of a champagne bar.
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Passenal, you may well be right about Josh Kroenke being in the thick of it with Raul, but if so, that’s even more worrying. Shows he or his people don’t understand economics, of the history of clubs like Leeds. An unchecked Raul could bankrupt this club, if Josh is willing to risk that, he is a complete dick
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Anyone know the actual attendance from last night? 49,000 is wrong. Way less inside. Odd how Frankfurt fans who were banned from the ground made a load of noise when they scored.
Hope we can move on today.
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Official Emery sacked
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Freddy Krugers taking over now. All the best mate, get em playing like they should be.
COYG!
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It will be fascinating to see who Freddie Krugers coaching staff will be…
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Ugh I couldn’t even watch his interviews recently. I can’t even stand it when an opposing coach knows he’s about to be sacked. Looking forward to better days and a lot more style. So obviously not Benitez.
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New post is up
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