Hello, and hope you’re well, despite the Arsenal blues, or is it more like how Holly G describes her emotions in ‘Breakfast at Tiffanys’: the ‘mean reds’? Anyway, red, blue or placid green, the mighty cannon makes another trip over the channel and onto the San Siro Stadium in Milano for a Champions League clash against Inter Milan at 8.00pm (western European time) on Wednesday 6th of November.
Obviously we go into the game with much negativity swirling around the club, but then that’s been the case for many years now. I wondered if the outlets that make a lot of coin on the back of all this would still get their following if the Arsenal stayed mid or under mid- table or even had a flirt with relegation? Would they themselves even carry on? I’m not so sure, you? Trouble is, once you’ve been involved for a lifetime, yes we still have the pendulum of emotions but you still support Arsenal. If we got relegated, I would still support the club, even if we went out of all the football leagues, but I understand that other people have other fish to fry.
And despite playing badly I still think we were the the better side(whatever that might mean) and we were, at least, trying to find a way through the Geordie parked bus. In fairness to them, it was a great goal. On another day we might have converted our chances and come away with a win but still been disappointed with our style of play?
St. James’ might be a difficult ground for us in recent years but they lay in 12th at the start of that game so why was it being billed as a tough game, and this week being a tough week? Yes, Inter are the best of the three teams but Chelsea aren’t that great, not yet anyway. Has it been the case of playing the small guy psychologically? Are we sometimes fighting reputations and ghosts of seasons yore?
Are Timber! and Merino messing up last years system that was working pretty well? Obviously we are missing Martin but perhaps there are other factors at play, that we can only but speculate upon? I don’t know, but like you hope that the click happens again soon. I feel like trying to offer a positive perspective might just make things worse at the moment, so I’ll leave it there.
I don’t have any anecdotes from Milan, I did pass through and had to wait at the Stazione di Milano Centrale for some hours (sorry, but it left me cold), and lost my ticket, and discovered this not long before the train that was to take me onto the next stage was departing, which certainly got the old blood pressure racing! I do have some stories from Torino though, but maybe those will see the light of day if we play Juve.
Inter are sitting second in Serie A at the moment and have a 33% chance of winning this game according to those who predict such figures. In the CL we are 9th, Inter 7th, Aston Villa 1st. I’m not sure if those positionings actually indicate anything? Is this all really, not much different from the group stages and its the next round when things will look more interesting?
Our old friend Henrikh Mkhitaryan plays for Inter, as does Autriche Arnie who had a spell at Wham! Their manager Simone Inzaghi has a 58.39% win rate overall, and a 65.70% with Inter. The San Siro stadium (shared with AC) has a full capacity of just over 80,000, and as anyone knows who has witnessed football in Italia, it can get pretty noisy. We’ve only played twice before, won one, and lost one and that was back in 2003.
Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces that I’m sure have made you feel like going off and consider using component form notation for vectors.
Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses!
COYG and keep on keepin’ on!
Mills
Positively Arsenal 
Thank you Mr Mills. Sorry I missed you at the weekend, sounds like I didn’t miss much, football wise.
I have no clue as to the structure of the European Cup any more. Is it still a knockout competition at any stage?
I’m getting old, I struggle with change. I don’t think Mikel does. He’s like a wet dream for bloggers with all the changes he makes to our squad and now he’s lost his mate Edu too.
I don’t believe he likes changing his defence as often as he’s had to though. I think he likes to put out the same back five week in, week out. He recognises the value of consistency at the base of the team.
I think it’s Calafiori he misses most. An instant fit and a big hit, he was the missing piece in our defensive jigsaw.
As you so rightly say Millsy, we are old school, we’d be there if Arsenal were in the National League. And those of us who’ve been around the block a few years recognise the cycle in which these things move.
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Thanks Mills. I spent a day interviewing candidates on a hotel balcony with a view of the San Siro one sunny autumn day but the view was the closest I got. Impressive from a distance though and probably quite something with a full house of passionate Milanese raising the roof. With regard to last weekend we often seem to struggle at 1230 on a Saturday and always struggle when the pitch is dry and not conducive to slick passing. Finding a way through packed defences as good as most Prem clubs defences are is never easy either but I guess if we are serious about winning leagues then its up to the players and manager to find a way, however much of a struggle they find it.
But what I really think (and I know this marks me as a serial loser) is that if I can only enjoy the team when they are in League winning form all day and every day then I think I am setting myself up to be disappointed most of the time. Which as Nick Hornby pointed out many years ago now is perhaps the default setting for most football fans.
So as my Sky TV isn’t working (and how annoying that my son with the magic touch is not around to fix it atm) I suspect that this evening I will be better off re-reading Fever Pitch rather than following the anguished annoyances of the social media crowd.
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Stew/Heady many thanks! Great posts.
Stew, this is how the CL works, first the ‘league stage’, then the top 8 automatic qualification to the rnd of 16. Teams 9th to 24th compete in a two legged affair in oder to qualify for the last 16. Any team under 25th is eliminated. Theres a seeding system in place meaning that the automatic qualifiers play the second leg second at home.
After the league stage its knockout like it always was.
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Great set up again Millsy,
At a time of the most ever money in football and the the biggest suspicion of corruption, since Liverpool and Utd were openly buying matches at the beginning of the 20th century, this league looks the most open to manipulation.
Seeing as the potential of any eight fixtures is really arbitrary, there is no real way of knowing how difficult each set is until the games have started. If you look at our eight now they look at a much higher difficulty than other clubs.
With the style of Italian football generally, Inzaghi’s history, our managers cautiousness and our current situation, you can’t imagine the game will be easy on the eye.
Looking at the state of the league, a draw or a sneaked win would put us in a decent position at the half way stage.
However Inter are a very good side so this will have to be ARSENAL at their most professional COYG.
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Thanks Ian, also great post Theres only a few of us left but still great comments. COYG!
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Arsenal: Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Partey, Merino, Trossard, Saka, Martinelli, Havertz.
Subs: Neto, Robinson, Zinchenko, Myles-Skelly, Kiwior, Jorginho, Odegaard, Nwaneri, Sterling, Jesus, Butler-Oyedeji.
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our u19’s lost 4-1 to inter milan u19’s earlier today
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Inter Milan: Sommer; Pavard, De Vrij, Bisseck; Dumfries, Frattesi, Çalhanoglu, Zielinski, Darmian; Taremi, Lautaro Martínez
subs: Martinez, Di Gennaro, Acerbi, Bastoni, Dimarco, Buchanan, Asllani, Barella, Mkhitaryan, Arnautovic, Thuram
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That’s pretty much our strongest team at the moment. Considering our injuries it’s not too shabby either.
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1-0 down at half time to a soft penalty, after we had a good shout for a penalty turned down when the keeper punched Merino in the head. For their penalty Merino was adjudged to have handled the ball when an attempted clearance came up and hit his arm.
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far too slow in our play, taking way too many touches, man on the ball too isolated
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Zinchenko and Nwaneri on for Timber and Trossard
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odegaard on in injury time for the injured havertz, who got a nasty cut on his head from a clash of heads
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lost 1-0, it was less than inspiring, lots of effort, but it was rigid football, our wide players were isolated, and we kept putting in high hopeful, or should that be hopeless crosses to no one really, our main forwards hid in a crowd, always behind the defender heading or clearing the ball. This was George Graham football without a lethal striker like ian wright to bail us out.
Our play was way too slow, way too many touches, we almost never played a first time pass or shot, it was 3, 4, 5 or more touches then recycle the ball or hit in a high cross to no one.
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arteta said after the game that merino was taken off at half time due to the punch to his head, and there was me thinking our manager had been proactive for once with an early sub, silly me
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havertz a doubt for Sunday as the cut to his head is according to Arteta a deep one
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Declan Rice has a broken toe, and its not clear yet if he will be available to play on Sunday
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I see a lot of arsenal fans online today and most of this season and in fact much of last season too be very critical of Martinelli, I’d say I’m among them. Two seasons ago he hit 15 EPL goals in 36 games, most people expected that it could only get better and better from him, that he had made the big step up, but his output has nosedived, few goals, few assists, lots of blind alley running and crosses to no one. So why the fall off in output. Lack of desire, lack of talent, lack of good coaching, the system, all of the above, or is it something much simpler, the easily replaceable Granit Xhaka has not been replaced.
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Ed, absolutely right, we have been commenting on this since Mikel’s first season.
If you take Odegaard half way across Europe then he must be fit enough to play 30 minutes. If he is fit enough to play 30 minutes then in the situation we were in that’s what you play him for not 2 minutes.
Our only other creative player in the squad (apart from Saka) is Nwaneri and he was only given 10 minutes.
If you get rid of three attacking players and don’t replace them you need to trust the academy players in your time of need. Unfortunately Mikel has never trusted in academy players.
We played reasonably well first half again, after the opening 10 minutes, but again second half we had little idea apart from corners. Sommer is a Dracula keeper, great shot stopper but horrendous at crosses and we had 74 corners and only come close a couple of times.
Inter are a very good side and the two pen decisions going the other way and it’s a very different game and possibly a very different result.
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New post is up,
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