Arsenal FC v AS Monaco
Hello and how are you?
Wednesday the 11th of December will see a visit to the barracks of the Mighty Cannon from the Monégasque as we play our next CL game against AS Monaco FC at 8.00pm ( western European time).
Well I think the damp squib that was the Fulham game has left a slight gloomy bitterness in Goonerverse but the games are coming thick and fast this December so I’m sure we shall be keen to put our riverside experiences behind us as we do battle in another crucial CL game.
What initially springs to mind in reaction to a visit from Monaco? What does a team like that conjure up in our minds? The place they come from? I’ve never been there, all I know is that’s its on the French Riviera and a few kilometres from Italia, it hosts the Monaco Grand Prix, some of the the 1966 film Grand Prix with the interesting Saul Bass graphics and montages was set there, its a microstate, of course Grace Kelly, Jacques Demy’s film La baie des anges, millionaires and more millionaires and even more millionaires, sunshine with clear blue skies and sunglasses and yachts and a few billionaires. I’m sure it has many other sides to its society and multifarious narratives to explore? Do you have any experiences with Monaco?
Despite being a principality, Monaco has no UEFA status, even stranger is that they aren’t a French team and yet are in the French league. The are 2nd in Ligue 1 at the time of writing this, second to PSG who we saw off on their visit to Ashburton Grove earlier this autumn.
Founded in 1924 they play their home games at the Stade Louise II, a stadium smaller than Craven Cottage, which has a capacity of 16,360, yet that number is half the country’s population. They’ve won Ligue 1 eight times and have also been runner up eight times and have won the Coupe de France five times and have been runner up five times. The were also runners up in the old Cup winners Cup and in relatively more recent years, the Champions league.
Monaco used to have this terrible manager who was senile and always dithering, especially in the transfer market, as well as being an abject failure, who somehow (probably by luck or corruption) managed to attract top-named footballers to the club and nurtured some second-rate players through the youth system, blokes who didn’t amount to much and are now forgotten; Emmanuel Petit and Thierry Henry. Anyway, this manager geezer was known for respecting to almost voyeuristic levels the tactics and game play of Stoke City. He didn’t amount to much and ended up coaching Sunday league, his name is Arsène Wenger. I know, I asked the same question: Arsène who?
Anyway, back to the Champions league, I’m sure you already know the Mighty Cannon is at the moment in lucky seventh in the table, whilst visitors Monaco are in 8th. Even though they’ve scored twelve goals so far, they’ve leaked seven, so they’d better watch out at corners! The people at stats HQ have given The Arsenal a 73.3% chance of winning and Monaco on 7.9%.
The game will also see the return of Arsenal academy favourite Folarin Balogun, who I’m sure wont be giving us any favours. Adi Hütter the Monaco manger has a 58.93% win rate. Head to head with Monaco its, won one, lost one, both back in the 2015 CL campaign.
Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces that I’m sure have made you feel like going off and swimming to the bottom of the Mariana trench instead of reading this.
Even so, here’s to a great game for us and lucky horses!
COYG and keep on keepin’ on!
Mills
Positively Arsenal 
The other thing to mention about that manager bloke, was it later came to pass that his trophy cabinet at Monaco would have been twice as large if it wasn’t for corruption from Marseille not being discovered until after he left.
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I think Gabriel and Calafiori will be fit tonight, to face the strongest opposition left of the three we have to play.
Apparently Monaco are organised and quick on the break, which we don’t like, but defensively frail on set pieces, which we do.
Home form should see us favourites for this and a win by two clear goals would put us at worst fourth after gameweek six, with two of the poorer teams to play
Mikel said to the press he couldn’t see how we only drew the Fulham game, which is a worry, but behind closed doors I’m sure the coaching staff analysed the failure to create good chances.
I’m expecting our attacking players to be much more decisive tonight and the flow to also be quicker. It is for these reasons I am expecting a happy evening COYG.
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well seeing as we are talking Arsene Wenger and Monaco I will tell you about something that at the time was annoying, but later meant I had a leg up on Arsene WHO as the media called him when he was appointed.
in the 70’s and 80’s, even well into the 90’s I read an awful lot of different football magazines, weekly ones like Shoot and Match, monthly ones like Football Monthly and World Soccer, there were many others whose names I can not recall, other than the News of the World annual book that listed every player and ground of the 92 league clubs. I spent nearly all my spare cash on them, couldn’t get enough of them.
Well I’m not sure of the name of the monthly soccer mag that it was in, but I do know Brian Glanville was a main contributer to it, might have been world soccer monthly, he was a great and knowledgeable football writer and an Arsenal fan to boot. I remember him complaining in it that Arsenal had failed to sign Peter Reid of Bolton as a replacement for Liam Brady due to Arsenal actually offering him only the same wages he was on at Bolton, despite London being a much more expensive place to live in, and that Reid would have come if Arsenal had even offered him £50 a week more than his Bolton wages. Anyway to get back to Arsene and Monaco, well as I read so many different magazines I would often scan read some of them first to find the Arsenal stuff first, so any word that could be Arsenal, Gunners, Highbury, or any of the players names would catch my eye, so during Wenger’s time at Monaco, his name would come up in the World Soccer Mag every time, often a few times in one edition, so I’d see Arsene as I scanned and see it as Arsenal, so I then would stop and read the paragraph or even the full article. I’d be so disappointed that it was Arsene Wenger and Monaco and I used to hope Wenger would join Arsenal so that when I scanned articles it would mean no more frustration of it being about Monaco and not Arsenal. Reading about Monaco so much meant I had a soft spot for them and knew about Arsene Who when he joined Arsenal. Glanville had revealed that Wenger was on the verge of becoming Bayern Munich manager, but then the next edition he revealed Arsene had turned them down for the time being as he would not walk out on Monaco, by the time Monaco turned on him, Bayern no longer wanted or needed him, Wenger ended up in Japan. But when Arsene Wenger became Arsenal manager he was in no way Arsene Who to me and the fact that so many of the journos went with the Arsene Who soundbite opened my eyes up to the actual lack of knowledge of the game outside of England so many of them had and still have.
So here’s to Arsenal Wenger
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Nice story Ed! Must have felt good to be in the know rather the ‘who’ brigade.
Did you ever read ‘goalkeepers are different’ by Brian Glanville? I can remember that bit in it where he talks about Charlie George flicking the vs. Also the times they play against Arsenal and the end where the goalkeepers ( I cant recall his name or even if he has one) says he can keep any corner out as that’s all they have to do to win the cup.
If it had been against Arteta’s Arsenal he wouldn’t have kept the corner out! LOL! Quite a good document of football in the 70s that novel?
Amazing how times have changed, the days of Shoot and Match how you studied the pictures in depth? I can recall having the Match Annual for 79/80 and loved the pictures of the ’79 cup final- same in the Charity shield program at the start of that season; Pat with the ball’ Pat with the cup’ etc. Now we are overdosed!
COYG!
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Raya; Partey, Saliba, Kiwior, Lewis-Skelly; Rice, Merino, Odegaard; Saka, Jesus, Martinelli
Subs: Neto, Setford, Tierney, Heaven, Timber, Robinson, Monlouis, Jorginho, Nwaneri, Trossard, Havertz
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Mills on the photos I remember the SAS photo when we signed Clive Allen,
Sunderland Allen Stapleton
and on photos in mags I recall being on a school trip to Europe, and due to a strike at the ports in France we had to divert to Hollyhead and be bussed to Dover to get a boat to Ostend and we stopped in Swindon and I bought a football mag there, unbeknown to me there was a middle two page spread of a topless model, partly in a West Brom kit, it was a pleasant surprise but nearly got me it big trouble with the vice-principal who was a bit of a prude or to be more precise a craw thumping catholic, and he was alerted to something being up by too many lads being eager to see this football mag, he charged up the bus and demanded to see what we were reading, thankfully he didn’t stop at the center of the mag, it felt like he looked at every page of the mag except the ones that mattered thankfully. Just an aside about the vice-principle on that trip, we late one night were being bussed through Amsterdam, nearly everyone was asleep or close to being asleep when up he jumped at the front of the bus to point out to us all that there was something we all should look at out the left windows of the bus, can’t recall what he claimed it was we should be looking at but no one could see anything of note, but we soon realised that out the windows on the right was a row of naked women in windows of Amsterdam brothels, we were driving through a red light district, ha ha ha, if the gobshite had said nothing I doubt anyone was awake enough to notice.
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the best photo of the 79 cup final was the tribute to Willie Young – “we’ve got the biggest willie in the land” banner
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LOL! Brillant Ed, perhaps we were lucky you didn’t go off and support West Brom!
The vice principle sounds like that old Kenny Everett character ‘angry from Mayfair’? LOL!
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he used to be in charge of our GAA football team, and because he as an u21 player of note had his eye sight damaged while playing by getting kicked in the head we as players were not allowed to be physical even when our opponents where knocking lumps off us, we’d have to get our digs in without him seeing it or we’d be dropped off the team. We loved the games when he wasn’t in attendance as any of the other teachers would tell us to get our retaliation in first. There was the difference of night and day in our performances with the vice principle there and him not there, oddly the principle would actually tell us to put out of action any opponent “asking for it”, meet fire with an inferno
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Can’t have been easy. In his way of trying to make amends for his suffering he made you guys suffer even more? Great.
We had some choice psycho and wanker( one bloke always in his stock room) teachers too. Most of them would have been slung out by todays standards. Seeing an adult teacher punching a kid out was something to behold, plus abh was pretty regular. Gave the fear for sure!
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thankfully Mills times has changed, don’t know any kids now who are afraid of the teachers, or who really hate school
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Must be pretty nice, I bloody hated going!Had some great times to though, despite the fear.
COYG!
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Sakaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 1-0 to the Arsenal after a great bit of play by Lewis-Skelly, who fed in Jesus on the left, who in turn played the ball across the area to Saka to tap home
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Jesus x2, Odegaard and Martinelli have all missed clear scoring chances, we really should be out of sight here but its only 1-0
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need to sub Martinelli off before he gets sent off, he is on a yellow and has committed two more fouls that could easily have been second yellows
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oh my God Arteta has left Martinelli on, if he gets sent off this is on Arteta
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looks like a triple change on the way for Arsenal
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Timber, Jorginho and Trossard on
Lewis-Skelly, Rice and Martinelli
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we need a second goal to take the wind out of their sails
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Havertz on
Jesus off
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woeful effort at a pass on the break by trossard
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Sakaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 2-0 to the Arsenal, after a defensive cock up Saka pounces to fire home
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Nwaneri on
Odegaard off
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Man City are 2-0 down v Juventus, currently they are 22 in the Table, on 8points just below Celtic on 9pts, and Real Madrid are 20th on same points as Celtic
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Havertz makes it 3-0 to the Arsenal, fires into the roof of the net from a yard out from a saka shot
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FT: 3-0
currently 3rd in the table, will stay that way if Barca stay ahead, time almost up
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What did you guys think of the game?
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I thought the performance was very up and down great in some areas, awful in others.
Monaco are known to be better going forward than defending and that was certainly the case.
After a first half where we should of been 4 up the second started badly a we couldn’t get back control.
We have never been very good on the break so the old absorb and spring just didn’t work. Mikel made three changes on the hour but again they didn’t work and it wasn’t until the fourth change in Kai Havertz that actually made a difference and we come back into the game and was pressuring them in to mistakes.
Reiss and Eddie would have been ideal for this game. Partey again slow and cumbersome and he once again should of been hooked rather than the hugely impressive Lewis Skelly.
Jesus couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo and his time surely is long overdue.
Little B got MOTM but it absolutely should of been Kai.
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I thought Kiwior was very solid, but I’ve seen him slated all over the net so maybe I was watching a different game
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Do you guys think we can click as a full team this season or still lurch from win to draw, and not quite pull it together enough to really challenge for the league?
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I don’t think Mikel would admit it openly but I think he thinks the league has already gone, barring some dramatic change in the fortunes of Liverpool and chelusa.
I believe, and I think Mikel does too, that the Champions League offers a chance to get really far and maybe even win it. This is based on our lack of consistency and the fact on our day we can beat anyone.
When you blow hot and cold cup competitions will always offer you the better chance.
At the moment, there are several areas of the team that don’t look completely right and the squad back is even worse.
Mikel’s strict style and lack of adaptability is also hampering the potential of the squad.
I believe we reached a point in the summer where a lot of players had realised their performance was never going to get them a regular place in the side irrespective of merit. With the initial pot of gold running out as well the puts and ins were never going to be in balance. This may have been another reason for Edu’s departure, if he realised “the process” was always going to fall a little short.
Having said all that I do think we have a realistic chance at CL success and are a top four certainty, so not bad at all and certainly not a reason for doom and gloom.
We definitely need recruits in January and if they don’t come that might tell us more about the club finances than the ability to bring people in.
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Mills I think we won’t win the league cos our football is too rigid, there is no room in artetaball for off the cuff football, its paint by numbers football, its effective safety first football, its why we can’t do come back wins, and that we don’t do come back wins will cost us the title, that and the squad having far too many injury prone players in it, and of course players Arteta does not want to use and will not use. Maybe we will add the players needed in January, but I very much doubt it
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Shamrock Rovers managed by former Arsenal Youth player, and former AFC scout, Stephen Bradley, have become the first League of Ireland club to make it to the knockout stages of a European Football Competition. They have made it through with one group game to spare, that group game is against Chelsea.
Its said that the run so far has netted them over £5M which is a massive amount to a League of Ireland club.
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Ed didn’t David O’Learys brother play for Shamrock Rovers? I can’t recall his name, but I seem to recall seeing a photo years ago of the brothers substituting each other in an international match for the Rep.Ireland?
Remember the banner on the ’79 victory bus ‘Arsenals Irish wizards’? COYG!
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It was Liam and he also played for Celtic. David and Liam played against eachother in David’s testimonial at Highbury.
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It came to me while I was shuffling around in the kitchen, wasn’t it Pierce?
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New post is up.
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