Hello and how are you?
Saturday 4th of January sees the Mighty Cannon take a trip down Premier League lane to the south coast to take up positions in a bout against Brighton and Hove Albion at the at Amex, kick off 5.30pm (western European time).
Part 1. And?
January the 4th. This day always sticks in my mind, as many famous died on this date. Over the years its left a cold, bitter as the cud taste, a darkling moment before the antics of Sir Andrew Augecheek on 12th night and bye to Christmastide. Unless youre Orthodox, in which case its ‘hello Christmastide’?
This list is long of those that shuffled off the mortal coil on this day and I won’t catalogue them all, but some are; Albert Camus, Glynis Johns, David Soul, Humphrey Carpenter (who I phoned up aged 12 and got on his nerves. Tip: don’t list your phone number in the book because I might phone you up for a chat), Phil Lynott, Eve Arnold, Christopher Isherwood, Donald Campbell, Karl Janáček and my own two personal favourite bass players, Mick Karn and Paul Chambers, all said: adios guy.
Chambers dead at 33, and yet played on a ridiculous amount of records, some of them true peaks in the agreed highs of musical history. What is it about this day? Ever since I saw the spooky, black and white, slightly out of sync film with personal commentary of Donald Campbells accident, its haunted me. When Mick died it was like a a cruel joke, surely not on this day? Never again would those original, inventive, slithery bass patterns be heard again live.
As a kid you become slightly conscious of life, and are aware that it changes but you think it won’t change that much. Then one day look around and the landscapes totally different. TV personalities are different, values are different, design is different, the reflection in the mirror is different, football clubs are different, even the fans are different.
I find it exasperating, everything that seemed solid and relevant was just in state of flux and mutation, everything that was important becomes unimportant? How do we choose to find values? Perhaps the dualities themselves are both red herrings? Praise and negative criticism, which one is real, which one is true? What if neither of them are? Or both are real, but not really real? Not really real because, as we can’t find anything in them that is unchanging but they still exist, in some form or other? But I’m an idiot, as I want things to not change, so I suffer more, sentimentality can be a drag, but it can also lead to compassion, and although its the hardest of all humanly tests, maybe its the only one that might have some liberating element? How do you balance nihilistic attitudes like ‘everything goes to dust, so who cares?’and/ or ‘all things are important and worthy no matter their current state?’.
Any choices we make means elements are left out. Someone is left out, how do we stop this, can it be stopped? What are its ongoing consequences? It might seem irrelevant but such decisions affect managers and footballers as they search for harmony and victory, in a world where everything is against them, at least at some point. Choosing this means neglecting that. But what if that was the choice we should have made rather than this? It might sound pretty pretentious, but perhaps leagues are won and lost on such matters?
Part 2. Eh?
In one way we can look at the football season as a descent and an ascent? We start in the last languid golden days of August and head down the darkening yet colourful slope of autumn and hit the bottom of the valley in the silence of winter. The fairy lights of Christmas lead us across the dark, rocky plateau at the bottom of the valley and up and on to part two of the season. Its cold and hard, games coming fast and furious. Everyone has anxiety about a 3rd round FAC humiliation, and ManUre despite their bad form will be doing all they can to stop us, for them it would be giant-killing victory? He wrote with a wry grin, but not expecting it.
This coming period will mean the stretching of the squad, everyone wants to stay in as many competitions as possible. But the break- through of Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly has been good to see. I would have liked to have seen Sterling make more of an impact, but it might be too late for that plus there the opening of the transfer supermarket, with almost no special offers, but if there’s a piece of the jigsaw puzzle of perfection lurking in some bargain bucket I hope we sweep it up! I can’t see Isak coming down from Newcastle, and Rashford seems all wrong, at least on paper. Jesus has found some form, and that’s been something to cheer about…long may he find the back of the net.
Yet soon the games fly by as we climb up the other valleys side and before you can say ‘knife’ we are in the early days of June watching the CL final. We really need something, 2nd is very credible but Arsenal need some kind of silverware or a massive attempt to ascend to the summit. But it can only be one step at a time? At the valleys bottom is the spring board to May’s meadows of glory?
“thanks for telling us”
This January we have Villa, the Spuds, ManUre in the cup and City in early Feb, and we know that we can’t really afford to lose or draw again, so that’s an added pressure. Of course we are all hoping for a massive Liverpool implosion, like you, I’m not sure it will come, but it could…its interesting to see the amount of teams starting to make a bid; Forest, Chelsea, Newcastle, despite the 115 case, City themselves could make a comeback like Status Quo, so there much to be expected?
Part 3. Epilogue. Phew!
Brighton have slipped down to 10th which is not part of their overall plan for sure. They are the sort of team that can be a real tough one on the right day (he said like a truly monstrous, analytically-insightful nobel peace-prize winning expert). Our mates at stat HQ reckon the Seaweed have 21.7% chance of winning and the Gunners are at 54.1%.
Well that’s it, lots of bits and pieces that I’m sure have made you feel like going off and reading a Joseph Wrights Grammar of the Gothic language 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 
Excellently written thought provoking piece again Mills.
Every week you produce the chance win % and 54% seems to be one of the lowest in recent times.
Brighton are another team that have always been good at home and I believe they are another side, like Brentford, who have been playing better than the points on the board. Small squads and closeness of games spells disaster for these types of clubs.
Obviously, like Mills pointed out, on any given day these clubs are very dangerous as Brentford proved early on against us on Wednesday.
Most people seeing the line up before the game at Griffin Park, sorry got that wrong, and knowing the Bees home record would be worried about the outcome. In the end the longer the game went on the better the oddball team gelled.
If rotation carries on working like that then progress in all computations is more likely and the glass is definitely fuller.
I would say it’s great now to cheer on the team but that’s not the case anymore, for now ARSENAL “are far the greatest squad the world has ever seen”
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Arsenal are being linked with a move for Brighton’s Evan Ferguson, so that brings me to the players who played for both, we had Matt Ryan on loan here not so long ago, Ben White and Leandro Trossard are former Brighton players, and Danny Welbeck is still with them. if I’m not mistaken Martin Keown made his pro debut while on loan at Brighton before returning to make his AFC debut, before he left over a promised pay rise not being given when George Graham took over, and sold him to Aston Villa and ended up buying him later on for £2M from Everton.
My next two left Arsenal in summer 1981 for Brighton, Sammy Nelson and Steve Gatting, and not many will remember this but they were almost part of Arsenal getting Mark Lawernson, we in early 81 offered both Nelson and Gatting and one other player, not certain who it was, maybe David Price or more likely Steve Walford, but Brighton couldn’t come to terms with two of the players, Nelson was rumored to have wanted a loyalty payment from Arsenal but AFC wanted Brighton to cover it, but the deal didn’t happen and liverpool got him in the summer for near £1M. Another almost deal that time too was Michael Robinson, we went for him in the summer of 81 to replace Frank Stapleton but Brighton wouldn’t sell once they had sold Lawernson. As you can see Arsenal then much like now were the nearly men of transfers, always leaving themselves that little bit short
last summer Amario Duberry left our u21’s to sign for Brighton, he is on loan now in league one.
A guy some of you might remember, Colin Pates, he was one of the central defenders GG stock piled, a real steady eddie, played for them after he left AFC. And talking of central defenders Matty Upson who never quite fulfilled his potential had a spell at Brighton late in his career.
An irish guy that I had great hopes for, Graham Barrett played for both clubs. His Arsenal career was destroyed by scarlet fever or glandular fever, he had been captain of our FA youth cup winning team, and had already made his senior debut for us and was out on loan when he got ill. It was feared for a time that his pro career was over due to the effects of it, he had spells were he couldn’t train due to tiredness or fatigue but he eventually got over it but his AFC career was gone by then. And talking of young players who I had great hopes for brings me to the last of the guys I can remember playing for both, Paul Dickov, he joined Arsenal along with two other Scottish u16 players, (after scotland had lost the final of the world u16 championships) goalkeeper James Will and defender Scott Marshall who also played for our first team
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Mika Biereth signing for Monaco, looks like one that might come back to sting us in the arse.
If I remember rightly Graham Barrett was a really good forward. Scott Marshall was huge and was being billed as the new Tony Adams at one time.
Paul Dickov one of the most famous of those academy players who had a great career at loads of clubs. Even scored against us in one of the league winning games to worry us for a while.
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I think it might of been Gattings Mum who lived opposite the East Stand.
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Steve Gatting had a great winning record at the start of his arsenal career, he went something like 25 games before being on the losing side. At Arsenal he never really nailed down where he played, midfield or CB. Also it could not have helped that he was always being reminded by the media how good a cricketer his brother mike was. By the way Steve’s son was a footballer for brighton and also played first class cricket.
Steve was a coach at Arsenal the u21’s and u23’s, but it all ended in controversy over bullying.
oh and talking about Gatting’s son playing pro football so did Martin Keown’s son
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ah Biereth, he only left in the summer, Arsenal will get a sell on fee if he joins Monaco, and it seems the reason why Monaco are signing him is cos former Arsenal striker Flo Balogun is out for the next 4 months with a shoulder injury
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Todays transfer rumors
Arsenal are actively working on securing a January transfer for Matheus Cunha, though Wolves remain strongly opposed to letting the player leave during this window, Wolves want £75M for him and AFC value him at £50M
Celtic have held talks with Kieran Tierney over a bosman move in the summer and are confident of completing the deal.
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Well Millsy, you’ve done it again. Thank you, especially for the bass references.
You got me thinking about music and football and the parallels between the two.
If the defence is the drummer, the absolute foundation of our song, the midfield those tricky keyboard and guitar licks, and the centre forward the headline grabbing singer who can get away with doing nothing of note for the whole gig, then steal the show with one goal, then who is our bass player?
Who ties the crunching beat of defence with the improvised fancies of attack? For me it is Thomas Partey. My favourite player now Xhaka has gone, he glides about the pitch without apparent effort, unnoticed and unappreciated by so many, capable of mercurial melodic twists and yet happy to do the dirty work all day if it keeps the rhythm, the heartbeat of the team ticking along.
He was written off (again) in preseason by the transfer hungry ‘experts’, keen to get rid, for him to be replaced by something shiny and new. The band leader on the other hand, the man who’s decisions actually matter, knows a genuine talent, understands his value to the group as a whole.
Thanks again Mills. Peerless blogging in four four time.
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Arsenal: Raya, Partey, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Jorginho, Rice, Merino, Nwaneri, Trossard, Jesus.
Subs: Neto, Tierney, Lewis-Skelly, Zinchenko, Kiwior, Odegaard, Kabia, Butler-Oyedeji, Martinelli.
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Havertz still out with illness
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The rotation continues, hopefully with the same success as against Brentford.
Does the football sods law mean Mr Dead (Trossard) scores today against his old club that would be nice.
Nwaneri flying on the right again COYG.
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Odegaard ill, and Martinelli carrying an injury, Timber suspended, that is the reason for the 3 changes to the starting 11
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our sub Nathan Butler-Oyedeji is 22 today, would be a written in the stars story if he was to come on and score the winner
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Nwaneriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii makes it 1-0 to the Arsenal
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Ethan Nwaneri is the first player to score more than one EPL goal for Arsenal before his 18th birthday
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HT: Brighton & Hove Albion 0-1 Arsenal
Nwaneri with the opener
we’ve been the better team but Brighton have had a couple of chances too.
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might be best if we sub Nwaneri off at half time as he was booked and knowing Anthony Taylor he will try and find a reason to “he had no other choice” but to send him off
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Arteta does the right thing and takes Nwaneri off, Martinelli on
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Anthony Taylor being Anthony Taylor, what a cunt
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Taylor now gives Brighton a penalty, what a cunt
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VAR does not over turn it, it was a clash of heads, only the sort given against arsenal
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1-1, the 12 mean draw level
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Odegaard on for Jorginho
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20 minutes left to beat the 12 men
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we are not doing enough to get the win
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10 minutes to go, Arteta should bring on one or both of the young forwards we have on the bench, but he won’t, cos he accepts draws or low scoring defeats
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stoppage time
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FT: PGMOL 1-1 Arsenal
Taylor an absolute disgrace, but the PGMOL will be oh so proud of him
Once again an Arsenal result decided by one of those pgmol decisions that you will not see in any other game.
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5 points behind liverpool who have two games in hand, 7 draws so far are totally killing us, and Arteta has not in any of those 7 games do anything to chase the win and risk a defeat, this mentality has cost us 2 league titles and looks to be costing us any chance of this one too. Its not 24 hours since Arteta done a big PR piece about how keen he is to give our Academy players game time, yet here we were once again today meandering to a draw and two Academy forwards on the bench, and our forwards having a mare, and we all knew that not a cat in hells chance of Arteta bringing one or both of them on to change things, cause a bit of mayhem with something different, no it was risk averse and accept the draw. Arteta hasn’t the bravery to win a title.
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arsenal dropped a total of 25 points last season, after 20 games this season we have dropped 20,
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Arteta revealed after the game that he took off Nwaneri cos the lad has a muscle injury.
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Arteta on whether he’s received an explanation from the officials about the penalty:
Oh, yes. yeah. He said, yeah, we’ll have a look at it.
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our next 5 game are at home, 3 in the league one in the league cup and one in the fa cup
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the 21/22 season affected arteta big time, we only had 3 draws, but 13 losses, so he went full on risk averse, got us 6D and 6L 22/23, and 5D 5L 23/24, & now 7D 2L in 20 games in 24/25, the draws have cost us 2 league titles & heading for 3 in a row.
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FT: Liverpool 2-2 Man Utd
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MOTD showed Saliba heading the ball before he clashed heads with Pedro. Obviously this would be easy to miss from a ref, even one standing three yards away, but not from VAR who should of spotted it.
All the pundits and ex players from every channel saying they had never seen a penalty given in those circumstances. Many of those have been watching football for over 50 years
This type of decision is called an ARSENAL decision in the dictionary. A decision which has never been made before in the history of football and never will again but will only effect ARSENAL.
So yes the ref was making it difficult the whole game and the penalty was wrong but after Brighton changed personnel and shape at half time Mikel didn’t do anything and Ed says that’s the problem.
Thomas Partey turned in a MOTM performance and one of his best displays against Brentford and he was rewarded by being played at right back where he has always struggled.
So it’s not just up front that Mikel won’t trust the usual players but at the back as well. After Brighton scored it was they who were in the ascendancy but nothing was done. When Mitoma came on to tear poor Thomas a new arse hole still nothing was done.
Yes we shall know that Pigmol will always try a beat us but we need to do ourselves a few favours as well.
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a rumor doing the rounds is that Andrea Berta who has just left his role of Sporting Director at Atletico Madrid is set to take up a similar role at Arsenal, it may be the usual making a rumor out of circumstances but we have to appoint a replacement for Edu sometime and with the transfer window open the sooner the better
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good point ian about Partey at right back, could we not put Saliba to right back and put kiwior or even calafiori at CB, why gut the midfield, especially with Odegaard out too, or how about. Or how about 24 hours after all the guff Arteta spouted about giving youth a chance couldnt he throw in Josh Nicolls in at right back and then only have to change Odegaard in the team, both player wise and positionally
Risk averse is the reason why Arteta does not do the simple and obvious choices
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a transfer rumor update, reports today suggest that after talks with Celtic, Kieran Tierney was also given the opportunity to join West Ham this month, and that the hammers agreed a small fee with AFC but that Tierney is not interested and wants to return to Celtic on a Bosman in the summer. Its reported that Celtic want to take him for free this month.
That Tierney can go for free in the summer put it in my mind that of yesterday’s 20 man squad 4 of them are set to leave arsenal for free, Neto is on loan so will go back to AFCB in the summer, as mentioned Tierney is out of contract and so too are Jorginho and Partey. 2 more of the squad, Kabia and Butler-Oyedeji are likely to leave either on loan or permanent, for NBO its most likely on a permanent, he turned 22 yesterday, if he remains with us he would have to be given a place in our 25 man senior squad to be able to play.
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by the way FC Zurich are trying to sign Nathan Butler-Oyedeji this month on a permanent deal.
another transfer rumor is that Arsenal made an offer for Botafogo striker Igor Jesus, a loan deal with an obligation to buy in the summer, but it was turned down. Some reports say Botafogo not interested in selling at all, other reports suggest they are willing to sell but won’t do a loan deal first, its buy now or nothing.
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the winger we should go for, but won’t, is Tyler Dibling, who turns 19 next month, he has been the shining light in a poor Southampton team this season. A good size offer might see them take it so they can strengthen this month to give themselves a chance to survive in the EPL. Dibling is a very good dribbler, a big talent, he is one of those players who never seems rushed, but he is not the sort of player Arteta signs.
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Arsene Wenger to Anthony Taylor in 2017: “You are dishonest to your federation.”
almost 8 years later and nothing has changed with the PGMOL, if anything they have got worse, they are more untouchable
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Nwaneri is out for a few weeks with a muscle injury
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PG-sent the preview, but forgot to add a title. Duh! COYG!
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New post is up.
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