Hello positives.
In this podcast we reflect on a solid 3 points away at Wolves and suggest Arteta is getting more and more things right. It’s not the Champaign football of old, but needs must. Top four is certainly there for the winning and we should accept the fight for it.
Pedantic George
Positively Arsenal 
Haven’t listened yet but will do. I agree with previous podcasts in which all have agreed if you criticize Mikel then you do have to give him credit when he gets things right.
We do look more stable, although that’s largely down to Aaron, and it might be because we’ve had loads of practice but we don’t collapse when we go down to ten men.
Were still not pulling up any trees but the performances are more consistent.
The worry I have is we think we are getting loads better because of the sides around us are stagnating. We are definitely better than the beginning of the season but how much is difficult to gauge.
The other worry is the size of the squad Edu and Mikel have left us with. Our first eleven looks good and there are some very good back ups (ESR, Eddie and big Bob) but past that it doesn’t run deep.
We do only have sixteen games go but a run of injuries and we could be in trouble.
The final ten games are the meat and gravy and if the club’s around us improve then we will have to as well.
One last thought some clown, probably keown, gave MOTM to Gabriel maybe he thought the bloke making all those fantastic saves didn’t play for ARSENAL because he had a green shirt on.
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well Ian I’m not sure how good Nketiah is going to be for us on the run in, he aint exactly been knocking down the door for a spot in the team with his performances this season. To me he looks like a guy who knows he is leaving and is not sure of himself.
The result was great, but my God the football is dire, as someone put it yesterday, a fancy named Stoke City, with Tierney doing his best to be Rory Delap with his long throws. Not sure if Martinelli will be a big loss for the one game he is suspended, as it should see ESR back in the starting 11, and I think we are a better balanced side with him and Odegaard sharing the creative work.
Cedric was an able stand in for Tomi yesterday, but we really are light of quality on the bench for midfield and attack, but then we are light of quality in our overall attacking play, and for me that is more on the system than the player ability
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as George is fond of saying, results can distort the performance but underlying metrics will catch up with you in the end, so we have to find a way of improving the underlying metrics
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I keep hearing people say Eddie hasn’t been fantastic with his performances but seriously what chance as he had 5 minutes here 10 minutes there and the odd cup game here and there.
What time he has had has shown good play around the park rarely giving the ball away and in the league cup he scored goals.
Sorry Ed I can’t agree about Cedric either. He should of been sent off yesterday and any decent winger will cause him all sorts of problems.
Generally I agree with your sentiments and we seem to be living on the edge.
As far as style is concerned well their are 20 second patches but that’s it however I think Mikel is just concerned with batten down the hatches and getting through.
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thats the thing ian re style, we show flashes of great football, which shows the talent is there to do it, but as you say it seems Arteta is far more concerned about negating the opposition than imposing any sustained attacking play. And its this that leaves Nketiah the odd man out, as he is a finisher, so needs chances being created for him to thrive. Much like Aubameyang before him, it takes more than being a finisher to fit into this system, in fact its sad to say that our main striker scoring is a distant second criteria to what is expected from Arteta of our strikers
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I’m a bit of an outlier here, but I think Arteta does want to play cultured attacking football, and has a very clear vision of how that looks – and, indeed, how to coach it. The major problem at the moment is that he can only get the side to do that when he has his preferred back 4 and Xhaka and Partey available. (Think in a perfect world it would be someone better than Partey, but as long as Xhaka is there, he’ll just about do). That solid base then allows Odegaard, Saka, Smith Rowe etc to do their stuff, and they’ve shown glimpses of real potential. It would also hlep to have a mobile, fit and hungry genuine striker, but doubt we can afford one of those for the forseeable (and I never felt it likely we would get one in January). But interfere with those two midfield postions, or lose a man to the referee, and there seems little option but to batten down the hatches.
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Tim,
I haven’t seen anything from any of Mikel’s time as a manager to suggest he wants to play expansive football.
Even in the cups against smaller teams he never set up teams to through the kitchen sink at anybody, even though he will pick a lot of first teamers. I have not seen one game where we have sat and enjoyed the football from minute one until the end of the game.
I think because when he was a player he was part of very smooth teams people think he has the same mentally but I think that was Arsene and we are a million miles away from that yet.
Mikel looks more Maureen to be honest and people used to say once he was properly set in to a club then good football would follow but in reality all that followed was the sack through boredom at every club he’s been at.
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when you see the kind of football Southampton has produced in the last week v spurs and man utd, you have to ask why our play is so negative with higher quality players. Our manager is risk averse and for me if we fail to get top 4 it will be a major failure and would most likely be due to our lack of attacking play
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if Arsenal were to win all their remaining 18 EPL games they would finish no lower than 3rd in the table.
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Shame we only have 16 left
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Because of GD even winning all 16 we could still finish 5th
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no not true ian, if we win all 16 we will have more points than any of our rivals for top 3 could get, as we would have beaten CFC, UTD, Spurs, West Ham etc, they would be 3pts down on what maximum they can get from those games,
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Interesting, looking around, quite a few waking up to the fact that we are refereed very differently than others, including, it seems, Arteta who is reportedly demanding clarification, presumably from the PGMOL, good luck to him there. He is correct to do so, Wenger was also very aware there was a problem. Keeping quiet has done this club no favours, unless they have some desire to be tilted out of a top 4 place should they start to threaten .
I keep reading that English refs are not corrupted, but You don’t have to be taking money from the mafia to come under the umbrella of matchfixing. Organised bias , tilting to order or to enhance careers would be exactly the same thing. As would anything else that denies both teams a level playing field.
They could help by stopping giving us Michael Oliver so suspiciously regularly compared to other refs, but suspect that is exactly the idea, the Italians even had their own word for it , the C word
Still, decent few days so far for the club , despite all
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Ed, oh yeah…an extremely large bollock dropped there.
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No game for us this weekend but most of those around us seemed to drop points. Just as well as the game in hand we have as a result is against no less than the newly crowned mighty world champions.
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At this stage the ineptitude of our rivals is making us look good or at least unable to tell how we are realistically doing. The test will obviously come when some of them start winning runs and we pick up injuries, if we can continue to pickup points regularly under these conditions then fourth is very much on.
16 games is a long way out from the finish line and anything from fourth to eighth is possible.
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mandy Ive been saying for some time that refs know their boss mike riley disliked arsenal when he was reffing them, so of course they will please their boss if they too screw us over. Its as you say corruption, but without the usual way of payment.
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I see the KSE owned LA Rams won the super bowl, puts another stupid soundbite to bed (all KSE teams failing)
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Report – Omari Hutchinson scores as Arsenal U23s progress despite heavy defeat to West Bromwich Albion
by jeorge bird
U23 Premier League Cup
West Bromwich Albion 4 (Richards 5, Cleary 50, Andrews 89 (pen.), Faal 90 Arsenal 1 (Hutchinson 67)
Arsenal U23s were thrashed 4-1 away by West Bromwich Albion today but still managed to progress to the knockout stages of the Premier League Cup on goal difference.
The young Gunners had to avoid a defeat of four goals or more in order to progress and they just about managed to achieve that objective despite a late scare as West Brom piled on the pressure.
Arsenal were without Charlie Patino and Mika Biereth, but Omar Rekik was back in action after returning from the Africa Cup of Nations. Zach Awe also featured having been on the bench for the first-team against Wolverhampton Wanderers. Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, meanwhile, was given an opportunity to impress up front.
Graczyk
Kirk-Rekik-Awe
Swanson-Azeez-Salah Eddine-Lopez
Flores-Hutchinson
Butler Oyedeji
Subs: Ogungbo (for Rekik, 46), Butler-Oyedeji (for Ideho, 75), Lewis (for Flores, 84). Not used: Ejeheri, Henry-Francis.
West Brom prevailed with a 4-1 win in the reverse fixture, and they started well on this occasion as they took the lead after just five minutes through Rico Richards.
Arsenal sought to respond, with Salah-Eddine going for goal with an effort from distance that hit the top of the crossbar.
West Brom went into the break in the ascendancy and Arsenal then made a pre-planned change, with Mazeed Ogungbo replacing Rekik.
The Baggies soon made it 2-0, however, as Reyes Cleary found the net.
Butler-Oyedeji, who is still searching for his first goal at this level, saw an effort cleared off the line.
Omari Hutchinson then pulled a goal back for Arsenal as he finished well after West Brom struggled to deal with a cross from Zak Swanson.
Joel Ideho then entered the fray in place of Butler-Oyedeji but West Brom continued to push forward and made it 3-1 as Jamie Andrews scored a penalty.
Modou Faal got a fourth for West Brom and another goal would have eliminated Arsenal, but the Gunners managed to finish second and progress.
It was certainly a mixed bag for Arsenal U23s in terms of results in the group stages, but it is somewhat impressive that they made it through despite not winning any of their first three fixtures.
West Brom finished top of the group, with Bournemouth and Southampton being eliminated.
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Yep Eduardo, the Kroenkes now have one of THE prizes in world sport, and without knowing the exact figures, an extremely valuable , and by the sound of that stadium, cutting edge franchise
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yeah and their basketball team is one of the best too, and their mls side has improved too, not sure how their ice hockey team is doing, but its a really stupid soundbite that they are bad owners who are not interested in winning. Almost as bad a soundbite as the LA Rams success is funded by loans on Arsenal FC
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While I don’t think they are like the Glaziers intentionally raping the club’s finances they are not bathed in glory.
They never really realized how good Arsene was and didn’t back him financially.
They listened to the boo boys and forced the most successful manager in the history of the club out the door in such a bad way he’s never been back since.
They have made a series of terrible appointments at all levels that has cost the club loads of money.
They did give the club stability at a time when the boat was sailing in choppy waters but so far they have got more wrong than they have got right.
At the end of the day they are business men and that will always be their primary objective.
I think recently they might have realised the way to make money in football is to be successful and that means being on the TV all the time, selling commercial deals and merchandising and that means Champions League.
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for fucked sake the PGMOL have appointed Jon Moss as ref for our game v Brentford on Saturday, with Lee Mason on VAR, it just gets better and better from these cunts.
on the topic of cunts, I seen an article today that stated michael oliver has been ref or var etc in 40% of our EPL games this season, it just don’t add up how they get away with this sort of shit all the time.
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Ed, everytime I see who has been appointed to officiate our games I think oh fuck, and then I remember their all cheating fucks who hate us and strangely it calms me.
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And there was I feeling all pleased to have found a cheap ticket top tier of the North Bank. I remember Moss from the 1 – 3 defeat by Villa on the opening day of the season a few years ago.
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heady was that the day Xhaka was sent off for the new rule, that only a week later was explained to not exist outside of the penalty area,
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reports in Germany that Arsenal are looking to sign Stuttgart left back Borna Sosa. If true would it be to replace Emery signing Tierney, or would it be to replace Arteta signing Tavares, by the way has Tavares played since being subbed off in the Cup exit at Forrest
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So the Emirates Stadium is going to get major renovation work done on it this summer, a real spruce up, plus repairs.
Also it looks like Arsenal will be playing some preseason games in the USA this summer, possibly even a game in the LA Rams stadium
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karl hein kept a clean sheet for Reading away to peterborough tonight
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New post is up
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