Good day one and all.
In this podcast we look at the Wolves game and consider just what realistic chance we have of finishing above City and what may act in our favour.
Pedantic George
164 comments on “We’re Going To Win The League…..Maybe!”
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Positively Arsenal 
Yeah I thought that might be the case Ed as far as the same competition is concerned but I thought the five bookings only went up to the 19th game which is half way through the season so they would only have to survive the next three games.
The obvious worry is I am still not convinced about the squad players especially upfront as I trusted Eddie but now there is no more depth unless we sign someone who could hit the ground running which is not easy to do.
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Edu hasn’t managed to sort out the contracts of Saliba & Saka just yet? News coming in the club have activated the year long extension on Saka’s contract.
Not pinning them down over the Summer, or before with both going to a World Cup is a circumstance Edu should have avoided with the all the wonga he has splashed about & charity supporting mascots that have been sacked. Fingers crossed.
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Well he might have avoided it, but back in the summer Saliba’s form and fit for Arsenal wasn’t guaranteed, nor for that matter was the Arsenal’s. And maybe Saka’s agent might have been advising on a wait and see approach, gambling that a good World Cup would see his client’s value increase, and not necessarily wanting to tie him down to a club for whom the process was still more of a sound-bite than a guarantee of CL qualification.
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It’s a minor quibble but a reasonable note that if we could see Saka’s quality at the height of the Ozil meltdown then surely someone who loves to hang out with agents should’ve been buttering up Saka’s agent long before he made it to a WC? That is his job?
It’s probably true as with all good young players that the superclubs have been tapping him up for a time.
Based upon the number of reports from many sources last season there was no need to watch Saliba this summer. It’s why the songs were ready! At the start of the season I was just glad/happy they finally got him back to the club to at least play for a bit before he moved/moves/leaves. Perhaps the big BFG style reception from the fans will help.
One the pitch there are constant improvements to applaud not least with fitness management. The selections and rotations of Tierney and Zinchenko and against the two differing opponents with the short break to tonight’s game was a triumph.
COYG.
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The rotation should be applauded however the truth remains although we have two very good players at left back both are not blessed with speed and are constantly skinned by decent wingers or strikers breaking down that side.
This is another area we will need to look at going forward.
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So all the historic facts point to a easy home win but actually this is probably the best side we have faced in a long time.
Many Gunners wanted Eddie Howe to be the ARSENAL manager at every recent change and he has done his credentials no harm since arriving on the Tyne.
Newcastle are defensively sound, are quick in midfield and have talent up front which can cause anyone problems.
Of course those descriptions could be said about our side making this game a potential corker.
We will have to perform better than the second half at Brighton but we have done that in the past so maybe we needed to get that performance out of way.
Personally I excited and nervous which basically means we must be doing well and it’s great to be able to feel like that again COYG.
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“Personally I excited and nervous which basically means we must be doing well and it’s great to be able to feel like that again.”
I feel the same.Been a long olde time.
I felt we got a bit wobbly towards the end of the Seaweed game, so hopefully that’s been looked at.
I suspect the cup game will be sacrificed, but it will be very interesting to see how we go through these next set of games, come out on top of them all, including the City game and we may well be contenders?
Sure hope we do the biz tonight.
COYG!
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Arsenal: Ramsdale, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko, Xhaka, Partey, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Nketiah.
Subs: Turner, Tierney, Holding, Tomiyasu, Vieira, Lokonga, Elneny, Marquinhos, Butler-Oyedeji
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Cedric not in the squad amid rumors that he is set to leave this month, with Fulham said to be the most likely destination
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we’ve allowed newcastle and the ref to bog us down in this game
one goal will win it, whichever side gets it
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15 minutes left, we look no closer to getting a goal and we are bringing on tomiyasu,
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Tomiyasu on for Ben White
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Howe has really disappointed me sending his team out to kick us. Did Riley have a word?
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only 5 minutes of stoppage time to be played despite all the time wasting by newcastle
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no awards for odegaard tonight
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clear penalty but ref not giving it
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FT: Arsenal 0-0 Newcastle
pgmol will be ever so proud of andy madeley tonight, what a useless cunt.
We started very well but let ourselves be bogged down by newcaslte and the ref, and ended up with only 4 efforts on target. Despite our lack of efforts on target we did not bring on any attacking players to try and change things. Maybe if Arteta does not trust what we have then we really do need to get some attacking players signed this window.
man utd winning, brighton gave everton a beating too
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Didn’t show the other angle of the first hand ball either
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the clearest sign that a pgmol game manager is screwing a team over is when they book players on one team for a certain type of foul, say like tonight when Arsenal got a few players booked for stopping breakaways, but the exact same foul by the opponents does not get a booking, it happened about five times tonight that Newcastle players clearly committed fouls to stop breakaways, not a booking for it.
Fans constantly excuse it with stuff like the refs is useless, or has lost control, or doesn’t know what he is doing. I really laugh at the last one, as these guys know exactly what they are doing. It’s how game management works, its how they get away with it year on year.
Anyone think if one of our players commits the shirt pull that happened on Gabriel tonight against harry kane in our next epl game that VAR will wave it away like they did tonights foul. Not a fucking chance.
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And we had to listen to the Arsenal hating game 50 boasting Manc prick all through it too
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Never done especially well in recent years when we have faced a Stoke / Burnley type plus the PGMOL. If Howard Webb has really been bought in to raise ref standards, he has his work cut out, if he has been bought to maintain the establishment clubs, he is making a good start
Just glad we avoided red cards with that thing in charge, and his mate on VAR
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at 22.55 tonight ITV4 are showing 1989 Liverpool v Arsenal Title decider
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mandy the thing about the yellow cards that many are forgetting is that after spurs we play man utd, pgmol might give us the yellows in the spurs game so utd face a weakened Arsenal. Utd are on a run of wins now and with howard webb in charge of the refs they know its mike riley mark11
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Very true, and I fear against Spurs, the cards our players get might not all be yellow, of course Spurs will get their obligatory dodgy pen as well. And well aware of the Howard Webb Utd thing. Operation stop Arsenal will kick in.
Just been reading a few articles, with cub high praise from journalists heading the way of, erm, Dan Burn. If VAR was operated correctly and without bias in this league, he would have given away a pen and likely seen red. It is this countries love, indulgence and tolerance of such players that will ensure England, or the men at least, will never win a major trophy in my lifetime.
Just a shame such oafs have been allowed, even encouraged to do our team, and players so much damage over the years.
Yes, the Manchester Guardian or at least Barney Ronay is in love with Dan Burn this evening.
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Nevermind Barney Mmmmm Ronay. We have observed previously how this sad little mongrel yelps & squeals to the lash of his Master’s whip.
Let’s be real. And fair. A hack who can’t critique the people who turned their strange noses up at Clough knows as much about the Footy as he does in writing and publishing his novels or prose or poetry.
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< this particular hack reminds me of those genius who spent five years running down Xhaka, a player Partey himself said he wanted to play with before his move was finalised.
Xhaka, the very player the plundits were critiquing for fouling last night (TBF there was one brain fart) at the same time as Barney Mmmmmmmmmm Ronay punched away at his keyboard whilst getting very excited at the size of Dan Burn. This reads & sounds like a strange tale, and that’s because it is.
Truth can often be stranger then fiction,
ain’t that the truth!
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If anyone ever needed proof that we are not going to win the league it was there last night.
Yes we got bogged down, yes Mikel doesn’t trust anyone on the bench going forward and yes alot of our passing was sideways or backwards but it was clear that PIG MOL will do everything in their power to stop us.
The handball at the end I thought hit the back arm at first meaning a definite penalty but looking again in hit his closest arm which was near his body so I now don’t think it was.
That however was the distraction the media needed to forget everything else that happened during the game.
Yes the tug on Gabriel was a stonewall pen but there was another on Eddie that wasn’t even shown.
These close games add up at the end of the season and it is impossible for a team to win with such a disadvantage
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Here we have again.
‘The ref is biased’.
‘The ref bla bla bla’.
The truth is that we had no creativity and drew because we were simply not good enough.
The most active member of our team was arteta.
Perhaps all the foolish praise of Odegard went to.his head and he actually believed it.
Eddie, Saka and Martinelli put in a good shift the rest were as dross-like as we have been accustomed to see.
We may be first and may indeed win the league, but we are still.the awful team with the lack of creativity that we have been for years
I know there will be howls of derision from many of you but maybe you should start looking at the reality and not the virtual reality.
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JJ
Don’t be offended by this Q:
Are you a lame parody account?
Because if 14 wins from 17 and a GD to match Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund is “dross” then I would humbly suggest that such prose be filed in the arse-archives of the Manchester Grunt alongside the flatulent Gibberisms of Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm Ronay and his shower of chums (yes you read that right) like Wilson.
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Not even the Invincible’s team could win a league playing on a tilted pitch. Everyone saw it.
We also saw Guardiola’s City win the league up against the officials on some occasions. The many calls favouring their opponents balanced out by the state of their sovereign wealth fund squad which is so good as George said they could have finished first & second over recent seasons.
Arteta was at City as a coach for one of those titles and my favourite moment of him as a player was him calling out a tilting official on live tv in front of millions (some must have missed it hehe).
Never be in any doubt that Arteta knows the score better then we do. And I was proud of his reply describing his own pride in the team’s performance last night when asked by another awful sly nasty hack if he was “frustrated”.
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< being able to call off players like ESR or Jesus from the bench in the second half would have been a bit closer to the modern resources (players) we have seen City use when up against 14+ opponents.
If that is what people want, mega squads funded by our enlightened Monarchs & Masters then fair enough.
I want officials who would be fit to officiate in he field hockey, rugby or cricket.
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Thinking of Brighton’s disallowed goal IMO the associations are simply not willing to use the available technology properly. They’ve had enough time to get their acts together.
You can use chopsticks to calmly eat some food or to stab yourself in the eye in a fit of sado-masochistic fury. The use of a tool often reveals the intent.
The contrast in how the LBW law in cricket is Measured allowing for margins of error with the Offside Lines in Football helps to explain.
What is the point of drawing such a precise line when they are having to guess on the when the ball was actually passed? Doh! The current use of tech for Offsides is the conduct of people who are retarded. Don’t understand how to kick a Football. And are possibly dishonest. You tell me?
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This is going to sound like the most entitled thing ever…but is there any appetite to post new blogs? I like reading about Arsenal, and there’s so much to talk about at the moment.
I miss Arsenal blogs—I’m too old for reddit and I hate twitter and facebook!
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No, I am not a lame parody account whatever that might be.
I am the same person as I was before. I just like to keep.my eyes open and not rely on wishful thinking.
The games that I have seen this season have contained long periods of what I would call dross.
That we have won so many games is, in my view, evidence of the poor quality of the opposition in those games rather than examples of exciting attacking football.
Having only been a fan for 60 years I suppose that I do not have enough experience to be able to judge what is dross and what is what I would describe as attacking entertaining football.
I do not expect many if any of you to agree with me but that does not stop me having the point of view and expressing it.
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Perhaps in many minds around the fan base this was the poor Newcastle of recent years, but thats over, and they will do their best as a club to now stay a power, a major power and they look it, they solidly and silently made their way into the top three. They are a fine outfit and like us, missed many chances last night.I saw many neutrals enjoying the clash and thought it was quite an athletic battle. And Newcastle have the best defence in the league, and that sure helps.
The further we go as leaders, the more teams will throw everything at us and try to thwart any play that will open them up, Newcastle knew that and after a few losses raised their game, its whats to be expected.
I personally still think its too early to say we will or we wont. It was always going to be an upside-down season, and we could still end up doing this, losing this or going back to the middle of the table. Perhaps it could for all clubs boil down to how strong they are psychologically strength and coherency rather than technical brilliance?
I think the whole club was disappointed last night, and that might mean going into the coop with maybe a bit more fire, or heads down. Who can tell? Will Arsenal have learnt all their lesson from last year? Maybe?
For me its whats making the season interesting, is not knowing. The instability of most clubs this season means I feel I can only take one game at a time rather than tying to already imagine lifting the trophy at the end of the season. Ok, it was like that for much of the first half of the Wenger tenure, and this team doesn’t have certainty about it, but who does at the moment? But it has shown potential so far.
I haven’t for one second expected us to win this season, but having a good run is pretty exciting?
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Cesc has been working at the Arsenal Academy as part of doing his coaching badges.
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Jigsol,
I am close behinds you in watching the ARSENAL
Remember the crap we see when the 71 team was broken too early or even the mid eighties sides when Don was trying to introduce youngsters. So we have seen some rubbish.
I was a big critic of Mikel and Edu and still am haunted by the mistakes of seasons past but the side has got better and a lot of things the side couldn’t achieve before has been achieved recently.
It wasn’t long ago that no one would have confidence in any game where we went a goal down that simply isn’t the case now.
We have had the rub of green as far fixtures were concerned at the start of the season but we have still only failed to get three points in three games this far, that is an achievement.
We have played some lovely football this season which even in our victories in the recent past was missing.
There were points in the Newcastle game that the triangles with Partey and the defence were tedious and wasteful and the use of width and speed of transition just wasn’t there.
However Eddie Howe said afterwards he was disappointed that his team couldn’t impose theirselves on the game and how much ARSENAL forced them back.
Also there is no denying that the pulls on Gabriel and Eddie were definitely penalties even Sir Les a person long associated with the spuds, Newcastle and then the spuds again couldn’t believe they weren’t given.
So although I agree some of the problems were our own especially as Mikel doesn’t trust the bench, it is difficult to deny we have improved and the PGMOL didn’t stop their vendetta against our club when Arsene was kicked out as many predicted.
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Having lost Omari Hutchinson to chelski in the summer he has just made his PL debut against city. Auba taken off and not happy
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lead down to 5pts
mudryks agent in the chelsea directors box tonight
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Thanks JJ for the reply above.
Ian covers it all for me. Was critical here in October 2021 when the team couldn’t make a chance. then in December 2021 we saw a record breaking goal scoring run underlining Arteta’s original commitment when he first arrived to his Gurus’ attacking 433 styles.
Concerns about the squad management will remain as long as they people/person that signed off on the Pepe or dodgy keeper deal(s)still has a job (not the slimy cartoon / panto villan who got sacked) .
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It is really interesting the whole media gang going on about the strength of the city bench as if it’s some sort of surprise.
City have been building a fantastic squad with heavy investment for years whereas our cash has only been splashed in the last few windows.
The other thing that they left out was that at present Newcastle are a better side than chelski and their subs better than the inexperienced in the PL players that chelski could call upon.
Although at the end of the season I believe Man cities bigger squad will tell we must remember they have had that bigger squad all season and the bench was still fantastic in the games they dropped points.
The correlation between the two games this week is negligible.
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Brooke Norton-Cuffy has had his loan at Rotherham cancelled and has been sent out to fellow Championship side Coventry City for the rest of the season.
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Birdkamp
I could attempt to write a badly written post about the comedy value witnessed and enjoyed by the whole world from the frauds who won’t or can’t use a video replay to get an offside call correct.
It is: hilarious.
Other athletes from other sports just laugh at the “Football” (unless they came out from the chemical cycling labs). People who no longer care as others once did about scheduling fixtures at the same time etc have lost all intent towards fair play. That is clear and simple to understand.
The fraudulence, the reticence from the punters to acknowledge they are oft ripped off/fleeced/taken the piss out of. Etc.
But Shotta already set up a whole blog pre-empting & documenting the how & why the pgmob version of VAR was going to be a predictably scripted boondoggle.
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FP, have at it, speak your truth. I’ll read it—I want content, and I’d be pleased to see this place thriving.
Because it’s gone a bit Mary Celeste…and I’m aware there may be plenty of good, real-world reasons for the silence, so no offence is intended.
This may sound cheeky, but I wouldn’t mind trying either. Something easy and neutral, like a match report. It would be a good exercise.
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Do it Birdy, Im sure it will be good!
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Well it looks like we have missed out on Felix if we were ever serious contenders anyway.
I wonder what team will be out tonight, we obviously want to see the squad players doing well but need to get a “team” which gels enough to get through the tie.
Having said that seeing our league position and the draw in the next round it may be an advantage later on in the season if we didn’t progress. The only trouble with that is we would have to suffer a defeat and no one wants that especially as it would be quite an embarrassing one.
Maybe we should still dream about the triple this season COYG.
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Turner; Tomiyasu, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney; Elneny, Lokonga, Vieira; Saka, Nketiah, Martinelli.
Subs: Hein, White, Zinchenko, Xhaka, Partey, Odegaard, Smith Rowe, Marquinhos, Butler-Oyedeji
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former arsenal youth player marcus mcguane starts for oxford
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Miguel Azeez is set to join Wigan on a permanent deal, some suggestions that AFC will include a buy back option as they have done a few times in other sales of young players
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Craig Pawson will take charge of the north London derby with Paul Tierney on VAR.
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