Good morning all.
An early 12.30 P.M. start away at Villa to quickly look forward to. I think despite the loss to Wolves, we have seen enough of an improvement to actually “look forward to” in a positive way. There can be no doubting that there has been a genuine improvement to our recent performances and results.
I have long said that Xhaka is a top player who generally always plays well. I have maintained that he has suffered from being put in midfield with the wrong players and in a poor set up. He was blamed for the teams shortcomings rather than any of his own, Of course I received dogs abuse for this opinion and despite me providing his personal stats to back up my opinion, I was told by the “I used my eyes” brigade, that I was an idiot. Well, Arteta has basically said the same thing now, as Emery and Wenger before him did, so I wonder if these fans will claim Arteta is an idiot? Partey is a good player, but i’m sure he will benefit from Xhaka, just as much as the other way around. I feel it’s a midfield partnership as good as anything in the league. I believe that centre midfield is the most crucial part of a good team, so there is much to be pleased about with these two lads.
Leno will be missing so I expect to see a half fit new boy, Mat Ryan, between the sticks as Alex Runarsson, has done all he can to convince us that buying him was a mistake. Good luck Mat.
Luiz will be missing and I think Gabriel will replace him. The lad was showing signs of vulnerability before he caught Covid so it could go either way with him, he might be less physically ready, but more mentally rested? Let’s hope he is at his best, which we have seen is quite good.
Smith-Row and Saka will surely play ,if fit, and Pepe has eventually shown enough to keep his place, so for me, it’s either Lacazette or Aubameyang in the middle. There is a good case for either and whoever Arteta picks, I won’t be criticising in hindsight, should all not go well.
I think Villa have been playing better ,as a team, than us, but we have better players. However, our team play looks better than it was, so that, and our better players, gives us a really good chance of revenging the hiding the gave us at The Home of Football.
It’s great that we can again be excited about a game and today is not the time to harp on about what has gone on for most of the season, lets leave that until May.
Enjoy the day and the game. Stay safe.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
With you all the way on Xhaka, I believe he is an unusually good player, and the teams true captain. After emery’s stupidity, there will have been plenty of suitors for Xhaka, including City if Artetas hints are to be believed. Yes, him and Partey look good.
The team looked excellent at Wolves, and were putting a run together that obviously made the attention of Mike Riley and whatever crooks pull his strings.
I think we will get back on track today, but can never underestimate what the completely unaccountable PGMOL have the power to do to this thing. I also remember Wenger hinting they would do their worst after criticism from the club, or the club making appeals over decisions, so know what to expect today, from yet another ref with form against us.
Hope things are improving in Aubas world and with his mother, we need him back at his sharpest so he can help put teams to bed no before the refs have a chance to intervene, as I believe was one of Wengers strategies.
Think we might get a win today, hope so anyway. Need to watch the gk situation though.
Whatever happens,these players have my utmost respect, playing a game officiated by cheats so unaccountable, they don’t even attempt to disguise it, some of whom are waiting to pounce at then the slightest opportunity, as we saw in Pawsons slappable face several times mid week.
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Villa under their current coach play an attractive game/style.
They’ve not had their best spell but Barkley is back now. Will they target the right hand side again as they did in the home fixture?
Xhaka’s good form was odds on after his ban and rest for me. Other important or key players picked up niggles after playing through the new year with no rotations. With Cedric at LB and Niles exiled there’s no rest or option to sub for Bellerin. Which could be a factor if Villa target that side.
Hoping Saka is ok today, Pepe should still be fresh, ESR might not be 100% but both Martinelli and Martin are on the bench.
Willian ahead of Nelson in the squad is not good, hopefully the above two subs can do the job if required. Though it’s a good bet that Kia’s man gets on first, if you’re punting.
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Never rains, it pours with this team . Mr Deflection does well against us
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Arsenal: Ryan, Bellerin, Gabriel, Holding, Cedric, Partey, Xhaka, Pepe, Smith Rowe, Saka, Lacazette.
Subs: Runarsson, Chambers, Mari, Elneny, Ceballos, Odegaard, Willian, Aubameyang, Martinelli
ASTON VILLA TEAM: Martinez, Cash, Konsa, Mings, Targett, Nakamba, Barkley, McGinn, Traore, Watkins, Grealish.
Subs: Heaton, Engels, Elmohamady, Ramsey, Luiz, Sanson, El Ghazi, Trezeguet, Davis
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Cedric with a blunder and we are 1-0 down already, ollie watkins
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We do come bearing gifts at times
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Never seem to have the same defence for a sustained period like the best defences
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only a yellow for the villa last man defender for bringing saka ten yards inside villa half, we know how it would have been different if it was one of our defenders
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second villa player gets a yellow for another foul on Saka
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grelish fouls saka, no booking, one of the arsenal coaches roars “how many more ref”, its easy to see their plan to stop Saka is just foul him over and over
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HT: Aston Villa 1-0 Arsenal
awful from Cedric to give them the opening goal.
Saka getting kicked out of the game, Grelish it seems can not be booked either.
We were on top for a long spell of that half but have not really tested Martinez, our passing is a little slow and a little off
Really need to up the tempo in the second half, Villa are there for the taking if we do
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So far, we don’t have enough going forward to make up for defensive mistakes, a regular feature in recent years.
These refs aren’t going to protect Saka, especially from a darling of English football and menace on English roads
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Arsenal haven’t won any of their last 12 EPL games where they were losing at half time
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Mandy I’ve never seen a big talented English lad like Saka get so little protection from the PGMOL crew, if the lad was at any other club there would be far more protection for him. If this don’t stop soon he is going to have his career cut short due to Refs letting opponents kick him at will
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Such a young player as well, shocking!
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Happened with Jack Wilshere too. PIGMOB bastards
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aubameyang on for lacazette
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This ref is tilting this game.
That aside Know he is young and pretty new, but we really miss Tierney in certain games . A Scottish friend of mine says KT was seen as pretty much indestructible in their league, comes here and injured more often than not
But no surprise our players get so many injuries
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Sometimes, you wish our players would go over a bit more ,watch Harry Kane but they would prob just get booked for that as well
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odegaard is on, not sure who for, and Willian on for the injured partey
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Today’s referee is punishment for making that appeal mid week, used to happen in wengers day too
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He’s one of the worst. We should refuse to release Saka for England games until those crooks do something about the serial fouling
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FT: Aston villa 1-0 Arsenal
toothless in attack, so once we went behind after a Cedric mistake it was all huff and puff, but we never really looked like scoring
10 defeats in our 23 EPL games tells its own story, only scored 27 goals in our 23 games, 9 wins, 4 draws, 23 goals conceded
back to back defeats, we could be as low as 12th at the end of this round of games
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we were having a good spell and looked like we might create something, then partey goes off injured and willian was his replacement, we died a death from there on. Thought it should have been Martinelli on for Partey, at least we might have caused them some worry.
Trust the process and all that. Think we have leeds next then benfica, man city, benfica and then Leicester city. Way we played today our season could be over by end of the month
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Thoroughly depressing couple of games for the club. Mid week, firmly on a cheating referee, not helped today by a cheating referee either. I can see how players heads drop in the face of this onslaught, but that doesn’t excuse 78 minutes without scoring. Auba clearly isn’t at the races, and Willian clearly was not the answer. Martinelli, if fit would have been a better option. We are still very susceptible to English style football and English referees.
But two midlands clubs doing doubles over us in the league, two clubs that weren’t even in the same division as Arsenal. Lower mid table looking possible What an absolutely damning indictment on those who own and have been running the club.
Wenger did all he could to prepare the team against cheating referees, and to protect from the way all Kroenke clubs go, complete mediocrity.
Arteta will have to hope to get players back, rekindle some spirit and have a real tilt at the Europa league, anything else and this season will not look good for him come May. He will be in post next season, come what may, perhaps that is only right, Arteta has made mistakes, but where this club sits now is not down to him. It is down to disinterested, absentee, clueless owners, and execs who wouldn’t nip blatant corruption in the bud, as other clubs would have.
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aston villa have done the double over us for the first time in 25 or 26 years
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Mandy the only player out injured today was Tierney, so not sure what you mean by us needing to get players back. Maybe you mean leno and david luiz, they are both back from suspension v Leeds next weekend
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Eduardo, in addition to Tierney, possibly Partey now, Auba played but not fully back, not sure if Martinelli is fully fit either, Mari (though think he may have been a sub today)
But we really could do with Tierney, Cedric has done well in some recent games, but was poor today
And if Saka isn’t injured after today , he must have titanium in him
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Willian coming on sending Pepe right stunted the attack in my eyes.
Auba will need 90mins to regain some sharpness.
Nelson not in the squad today even if both Martinelli and Martin will be ahead of him once they are fit was poor imo. Needless yet again but ultimately you have to ask: why is Willian in this squad?
Following the decision to waste the cup winning bounce upon internal struggles now all hopes for the season reside in getting past Benfica.
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Really disappointing, and the frustration the players and coaching staff are feeling is palpable. Its not just the big obvious decisions that hurt, but all the niggly ones that are ignored. Heard one of ours shout towards the end (when another clear foul not callled) ‘effing unbelievable ref’.
And also worth remembering that not so long ago AW said that as the worldwide pool of top players got bigger, and as all clubs in the PL got richer, the league would become more compettive and less easy for just a few clubs to dominate.
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not certain on the stat but just seen that this was our 7th 1-0 loss of the season,
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Perhaps we should go back to the days of surrounding refs who do us, like The Invincibles. Might get more cards, but worth it to see these cheats squirm
Was reading about this Dickie Garlic, sorry Richard Garlick chap coming in later in the year, ostensively, to replace Huss I think, but he’s also a sports law specialist, and has been Premier League DoF. Hoping against hope, as the club have been very slow to react to the treatment it gets, but just perhaps there is just a bit more to this appointment than meets the eye, he certainly has some credentials, and you would think, insider knowledge of “ things” ?
Or maybe just another suit behind the scenes
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Does Arteta really think that performance merited a victory? That his team dominated every aspect but one? Maybe he missed all the saves Ryan had to make.
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Newcastle 1 Southampton 0. Willock.
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Just seen Artetas press conference, seem to be suggesting attitude and concerns over not playing as a team.
Are heads dropping with this refereeing? I hope not
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I have long talked about balance in the side and Mandy is correct we do need players back Ainsley, Joe and Martinez.
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joe willock scored the opener in Newcastle’s 3-2 win over Southampton today, and he played the full 90 minutes
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i see our former player Jack Wilshere had an assist for their first goal and scorer their second in Bournemouth’s 3-2 win over Birmingham
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Mikel Arteta was bitterly disappointed when he sat down for his post-match press conference on Saturday.
The manager had just seen us drop three points for the second time inside a week despite controlling so much of the game.
Mikel was asked to explain what our recent performances have been lacking. Read on to see how he responded.
on what he spoke to the officials about post-match…
I keep that between me and them.
on whether he was unhappy with a couple of decisions…
Again, I prefer to stay on mute on that.
on the performance in general…
It was a really strong performance again. We completely dominated the game, we dominated in every department and we should have won the game. But in the Premier League when you give a goal to the opponent – and we gave them another three opportunities – and you are not ruthless in the opponent’s box, you don’t win games. The rest, the way the team played and the energy that they showed, the quality they showed, the number of chances and situations we created, how quickly we regained the ball, how we controlled long balls, second balls and how aggressive we were in our duels, it was all incredible. But it wasn’t enough to win the game.
on whether he wants more ruthlessness from us…
Yes. If we are not, then we shouldn’t give anything to the opponent. That’s something we have to do better and it’s cost us two games in the last four days because we should have won both games.
on Thomas Partey…
He had a muscular injury so we had to take him off. He could not carry on playing.
on whether Partey’s injury is serious…
I don’t know. We will see the extent of the injury. He wasn’t feeling well enough to continue playing so we had to take him off.
on how big this setback is in terms of European qualification…
It’s a big blow because when you consider the performances that we’ve put in in both games, we’ve got zero points out of that. We just give the opponent the game. We need to come back. We’ve done it this season and we have to do it again. We have a week now to prepare for the next game against Leeds and then focus on that, keep maintaining all the right things we are doing and the way the team is evolving. We need to stop certain things that are costing us the games.
on whether there’s a lack of consistency with the Konsa incident…
As you could see, I was really animated for a few decisions and one big decision that I will not discuss here. It is what it is. It’s not an excuse. Regardless of the decisions, we have to win the game. It’s as simple as that.
on the mistakes made in the first two minutes…
Those [top-four] teams don’t make those mistakes. Those [top-four] teams cannot play four or five times in the first 22 games of the season with 10 men. It doesn’t happen. There’s not a team in the world that can sustain that. If you concede a goal early or make an error, the team has to react. The team reacted and we had more than enough to still come back and win the game. If you don’t do one thing, you have to do the other. If you are not ruthless enough in the opponent’s box then of course you are going to lose the game.
Copyright 2021 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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Orbinho
@Orbinho
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1h
Thomas Partey has completed 90 minutes just four times in all competitions for Arsenal so far.
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Weren’t we were supposed to win the league once Arsene Wenger leaves the club?
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evan 》
@afcevan
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3h
‘The goalkeeper has hold of Lacazette’s shirt but you have to ask if Lacazette is using that as a opportunity to lean on the goalkeeper’ – Peter Walton. Fucking hell.
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Peter Walton on Lacazette/Martinez incident: “I think VAR did look at it because they do a ‘silent check’ on everything. VAR is not there to get the correct decision, it’s there to identify clear & obvious errors from the referee or when the referee has missed something.” [BT]
once again Peter Walton saying VAR is not there to get the correct decision
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66% possession and 3 shots on target.
Yes, we are back to prime Artetaball.
I am glad I could not watch that.
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Not sure how we get back to being top 4 contenders until we try do something about pgmol handicap.
You need to be a superb team, more like a title contender, in true reality rather than pgmol reality, than a top 4 contender, to overcome them killing you whenever there’s an opportunity and letting off opponents at near the same rate the other way, in addition to much the same thing with the smaller calls.
It’s not nearly enough to just imagine a game, the same one, where we, say, should have had a penalty but didn’t. It’s all the ones where a big call against hurts momentum, or puts us down to ten, while the other way the opponents don’t suffer the call itself nor what follows, with worse game state, coming from behind, ten men, etc. Incalculable.
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bottom club sheffield utd play chelsea tomorrow, and are on 11pts, which is 12pts from 17th spot Burnely, with WBA on 12pts and fulham on 15pts
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well rich i warned you all not to even think that bringing in VAR would change how the PGMOL would fuck us up, indeed I said they would use it to double down on us, that VAR would back up their Game Manager on the pitch, as Peter Walton keeps saying, VAR is not there to get the correct decision, the bit he leaves out but its implied is, but get the decision the PGMOL and Mike Riley wants
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Lets just look at how this season is comparing to Wenger’s last EPL season at AFC
Wenger’s P38 W19 D6 L13 F74 A51 GD+23 PTS 63
This season P23 W9 D4 L10 F27 A23 GD+4 PTS 31
so to even match Wenger’s last EPL season here, Arteta’s team will have to get
P15 W10 D2 L3 F47 A28 GD+19 PTS 32
so as you can see we will have to gain more points in our next 15 games than we have in our 23 so far, score at a much higher rate too, about twice the rate in fact, the only stat that would have to go the wrong way is goals conceded, it would also be twice its current rate. Our Goal Difference would have to go through the roof.
Our goal scoring rate is a massive problem
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In mid-table, there is no talent gap. So factors like referee favoritism-even for seemingly small calls-can be decisive.
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900ftgooner
Either you disagree with me massively about the extent we suffer at pgmol hands or you’d have to conclude league table bears little relation to where we’d be if we weren’t being constantly screwed by them.
At worst, by my very crude estimate, we’d be bang in that top four fight at moment (though still plenty short of City quality), ie not mid table.
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