Good morning all.
Before we get into my deep tactical analysis of our game against Mr. Emery’s villains, a moments thought on the loss of the great Denis Law, who has passed ages 84. Some player he was.
We have another home game against a good team that has taken too many points off of us since Emery took charge. This really is a tricky fixture given our injury list and problems putting the ball in the net. We should of course win, but it’s by no means a shoe-in.
As I predicted, the win against Spurs has massively lifted the previously depressed mood, as it should. We really should have ran away with that game, but won by a single goal, so the nerves were jangling right up until the final whistle. That mood could be scuppered if Emery gets the better of Arteta, the “Arteta Out ” boys would jizz themselves.
Given the talk of Saliba’s hamstring injury and Sterling’s unimpressive outing , my team prediction is Raya; Timber, Kiwior , Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly; Odegaard, Partey, Rice; Martinelli, Havertz, Trossard. By the way, I’m hugely impressed by Lewis-Skelly, it might be early doors, but I’m calling him for an Englans call up before he gets the key to the door.
Well that’s about all I have, all we can do is keep pushing and hope Liverpool faulter, it’s unlikely, but we would be kicking ourselves if they do and we are not in a position to capitalise.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
Ruben Amorim has described his Man Utd side as “the worst team maybe in the history of Manchester United”
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I find it so funny seeing all the praise Arteta is getting for Myles Lewis-Skelly’s recent performances, if any of Calafiori, Zinchenko or Tomiyasu had been able to stay fit this season young Myles would still be waiting for his first start for us. Lets not forget that Kiwior was selected at left back for a few games ahead of Myles this season. He was that bad there Arteta had no other choice but to give the lad a chance.
Just like with Nwaneri it took a big injury crisis to see either of them get a start.
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@lequipe report that Saliba is out for two weeks
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looks like chelsea are signing 20 year old winger Alejandro Garnacho from man utd for around £60M
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Calafiori and Nwaneri were back in full training today
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12 days of the transfer window left, and Arteta says Arsenal are open to or trying to do business. Well if we do sign one or two we are likely to break the £1b mark for transfer spend since Wenger left Arsenal. So either this month or certainly by end of the summer Arsenal will surpass a £1b spend, Wenger left AFC in the summer of 2018.
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just one aside on our near £1b spend, Nottingham Forest who are level on points with us this season have a record signing costing £25M, imagine if they had a generational manager like Arteta in charge
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Mikel today explained the decision to play Timber at CB and Partey at RB was because we had no fit right footed CB available.
I always thought CBs could play both sides and we brought players because of their versatility, obviously not.
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seen that Ian, its a cop out, we’ve had many CB pairings that were both right footed, and there was no problem, loads of clubs have had that without it even being mentioned, but for some unknown reason its a no no to have 2 left footed CB’s. I’ve seen AFC in the past have left footed left back for a number of games, the very one footed lefty Nigel Winterburn first got into the AFC team at right back cos Kenny Sansom was still very much our left back.
We had right footed CB Maldini Kacurri in the subs, so we very much had an option, but as we know Arteta sees youth as no other option but to play a senior player out of position if at all possible before the youth. Its a damn good job that we’ve had the injury problems this season or we would still be waiting for Myles Lewis-Skelly and Ethan Nwaneri to start an EPL game. Generational coach who loves youth Mikel Arteta who has brilliant talent ID, was such a visionary that he bought Calafiori last summer despite having MLS coming through. He even played Kiwior at left back instead of him earlier in the season.
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also Ian this is the same Arteta who had no other option but to play Saka in the CC game at home to Bolton this season, who last season in the dead rubber CL game had no other option but to field the first team. The young players are seeing it and are leaving, it was unheard of before Arteta for an Arsenal Academy player to turn down a pro deal but now its two or three a season.
Sooner or later we will lose someone who will go on to be a superstar, maybe that will be Chido obi Martin who has so far this season scored 10 goals for Man Utd Academy despite missing the start of the season as his transfer to them was being cleared.
Ayden Heaven looks to be the next to turn his back on AFC, and Arsenal are going to by the look of it give Max Dowman his debut this season, maybe even tomorrow if he is eligible, so as to try and convince him to stay with us, as many other clubs are trying to convince him that they will handle his development better.
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Ed, absolutely correct again.
The youth issue was one of the problems we highlighted in Mikel’s first couple of seasons and it hasn’t changed.
His in game management was another problem highlighted early on and something we are still having problems with today.
His post match interviews when things haven’t gone well are getting stranger and stranger.
I think that while he is being backed with loads of money he does ok but when it starts to dry up he struggles.
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New post is up
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