Hello and how are you?
Premier league week 27 sees the Mighty Cannon hauling its Arsenal up to the waist lands of England to make a visit to PL third place Nottingham Forest and the City ground. Kick off 7.30pm western Europa time.
As I sit and try to cobble together some kind of rambling in the forest of my mind, it feels like we are at the beginning of the end of winter? Normally I love winter, the bare bones of the trees, the introverted feeling of hibernation, the silence, the expectancy of spring. This year I hated it, with the crowning glory being the turd that some twat shat-out in our stairwell at the weekend. Its seemed like nothing but a drag? Or a dag? The poor fentanyl heads are becoming more and more and getting with each day more aggressive, and what was once a nicey-nice! wander around the park is now on- the- edge- of- my -nerves in case of (as Tommy Tucker sang ): some fool might wanna fight. But then fear seems often everywhere these days, sometimes I wonder whether to not switch the internet on in the mornings and delve into its bubbling world of toil and trouble.
After the disappointment of the West Ham game, I’ve spent ages thinking how can I write something that’s a least a bit more positive for an intro to the game. Then I started instead thinking about all the things that are crap in the world, at least from my perspective, and saw the worlds hypocrisy and corruption lying before me.
“wtf is this?A John Webster play, the skull beneath the skin?
But for all of the nefarious shenanigans that wobble around in everyday life, there are still things worth getting up for, things worth engaging in. George’s heartful and honest piece after the meeting with the Irons provoked some great responses, the likes of which I haven’t seen anywhere for some time at least, not just opinions but really interesting thoughts, getting right under the dog skin of so many aspects of Arsenal world; what’s going on, how it is to be a supporter and how places like PA can give people a voice. And in all the midst of this is the fact we are still (for a while) 2nd, and when we want (allowed?) can play some good football, ok not vintage Wengerball, but ok football?
More and more, it feels like a season of missed opportunity, conservative mistakes and a kind of thwarting of play? To win 5-1 against City yet lose to West Ham is a great indicator of our yo-yo season. Even our goals at corners seem to have dried up.
“the food at the restaurant is so terrible”
“yes, and such small portions!”
Of course it isn’t over, but our gut feeling and those eleven points Liverpool carry, says it is. But surely isn’t it worth the team coming together and just concentrating on winning each game and forgetting the title race and forgetting the punditry and try to just start playing some more elaborate, intelligent, hungry, goal-scoring football? I’m mean, what else is there to lose?
“2nd place you fool, don’t you understand Artetaball?”
Forest were hurt badly by Newcastle, and were 4-1 down at one point, so who knows how they are feeling? I’m sure their fans will be pumped up for this, so I hope we won’t let them come at us and play with the handbrake on. Al Capones guns don’t argue, but Arteta’s handbrakes hinder?
However I was glad to see Mr.White back in action, something positive?
How do you feel going into this one? I’m sure Forest will be relishing the chance to put us to the sword, its been years since they found themselves in such a position and after us they take on the misfiring Man City and will want to be chipper for that one. They have good form but the thrashing by Bournemouth shows us that we can also give them a deForesting. Timber! Winning would put us nine points ahead of them, I’d rather have that than have them breathing down our neck, we have to at least come second this season to give us something to grab onto next?
The Arsenal have been given a 53.4% chance of winning and the Sheriffs men 20.4% chance of mustering up a win. So statto HQ still favours the Mighty Cannon. That was until after the visit of West Ham and its now gone down to 47.8% and Robin Hoodies are up to 24.6%.. Hold on, breaking news, the Arsenal are back up to 48% and Forest down to 24%.
As fans we were all hacked off by the result on Saturday, but so were the lads and Arteta, so perhaps they might all have had a dang good look at the situation and come bouncing back with a mighty win?
Now stop that laughing you lot!
Well, that’s it, a bit of a wander in the minds forest, I can’t see the wood for the trees, not much of a forest more a copse? But as Einstein said “people love chopping wood, they immediately see results”. Thanks Eini, not exactly the theory of special relativity, however I’ve passed your quote on to the Arsenal and they hope to chop down the Forest and get result, a three pointer.
Cheers, and look after yourselves.
Mills.
COYG!
Positively Arsenal 
Yesterday I had the saddest of news, one of my dearest and most cherished friends had died. I was devastated , blubbering like a child inconsolably. But her loss reminded me of the importance of friendship. So with that in mind I’m minded not to lose the friends from this community, all be it they venture by less frequently.
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Terrible news George, really sorry. In life sometimes you feel like the leaves are coming off your tree, slowly but surely, but an event like that must be like a blow to the roots? Its such a shock to the mind isn’t it?
Really sorry mate. Im sure all your friends here at PA are in deepest sympathy. Keep on keepin on though…as best as…
COYG!
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I am so sorry to hear that George, but you wouldn’t have cried if she (and friendship) wasn’t worth it – and with time you’ll remember her with a smile and reflect that in some ways she hasn’t really left you at all. Which doesn’t help your current devastation at all, I know.
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Sorry to hear of your loss George.
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It will be interesting to see how this evening pans out tactically. I’d assume that for both sides it will feel like a must win game, but whether that means both will commit to an offensive strategy remains to be seen.
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@ ian
“Gee, you may be correct however I based my judgement on the potential of the squads and personally I never felt we could beat one of best squads the league had seen.”
Agree to an extent for the last 2 seasons (with Rodri man city seemed invincible) but don’t think Liverpool are better than us this season, just had less injuries in important positions and PGMOL dont treat us the same.
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Extremely sorry to hear that George, unfortunately it’s an age thing and with close friends and soul heroes the frequency seems to be more intense.
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Sorry for your loss George
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I could and will pick a team of players that played for both Arsenal and Nottingham Forest, one will be Viv Anderson who I really rated at Forest and nothing he did at Arsenal changed my mind on that, another who we didn’t sign directly from Forest but again who I really rated at Forest was the great Tony Woodcock, what we do with a striker of his calibre now.
Now a player who went the other way, and maybe it was the first signs that Brian Clough was losing it, “we got the biggest Wille in the land” Wille Young
in recent years one of Arteta’s many goalies Matt Turner was sold to Forest so he’ll get the no.1 spot in the team. I’ll go for a 4-4-2
Matt Turner
Viv Anderson, Matt Upson, Willie Young, Nuno Tavares
Kevin Campbell, Aaron Ramsey, David Platt, Henri Lansbury
Tony Woodcock, Ian Wright
subs: Nicklas Bendtner, Karl Jenkinson, Jordi Osei-Tutu, Armand Traore, Chuba Akpom, Andy Cole
I’m sure i’ve missed out on some
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Our team for tonight’s game
Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Jorginho, Rice, Odegaard, Nwaneri, Trossard, Merino.
Subs: Neto, Kiwior, White, Zinchenko, Tierney, Partey, Sterling, Kabia, Butler-Oyedeji.
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we’ve got a real idiot of a pgmol game manager here tonight, everything to Forest
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HT: Nottingham Forest 0-0 Arsenal
AFC been the better team, but PGMOL game manger Madley having a stormer for Forest, what a wanker
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mind you, I thought he was nailed on to give a penalty and a second red.
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man utd 2-2 ipswich
ipswich took a lead 3 minutes in after a complete cock up by one of their defenders, think it was dorgu, then utd scored twice to take the lead before VAR review had Dorgu sent off with a straight red a couple miutes before half time, and then Ipswich leveled the game with a goal late in stoppage time
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foreverheady I think VAR stopped him from doing it
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I’m not sure we’ll get the result we want tonight, but I think we’ll end up having not too bad a season. They are clearly trying something different.
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spurs fans must be delighted, they are losing 1-0 to man city
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we’ve been on top but haven’t had a shot on target in the first half
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Tierney coming on for the second half
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Calafiori off
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liverpool leading newcastle
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their goalie makes a fine save from a merino header at a corner
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10 man Man Utd have taken the lead v ipswich early in the second half
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we are very much on top but need to make it count
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need to make one of these corners count,
when was the last time we scored from a corner
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Zinchenko on for Jorginho
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Sterling on for Nwaneri
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running out of time here, about 5 minutes plus stoppage time to play
white and partey on, instead of bringing on the actual forwards we have on the bench
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timber and odegaard went off
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our game the only EPL game without a goal
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4 minutes of added on time to be played
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FT: 0-0
just not good enough, dominated the game but created sweet fuck all, but that is Artetaball, he will claim we should have won cos of our possession and the corners we had and the one or two efforts we had on goal.
once again we needed a goal and Arteta just made like for like subs, he ignored the two young forward options we had on the bench, it would never do to do something different or risky
Arsenal now 13pts behind liverpool with 11 games left to play, 6pts ahead of forest, only 7 points ahead of city, and 8 points ahead of chelsea
9 fucking draws so far this season, and this draw confirms that we will end the season with less points than last season.
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9 draws in 27 EPL games, 1/3, that is Arteta ball, risk averse.
As Adrian Clarke said in the commentary that our subs was just like for like, and our tactics remained the same.
I say it once again, Arteta accepts draws, he will not risk defeats.
the 21/22 season scared Arteta, we only drew 3 but lost 13, he decided then that this would not happen again and since then there is no risk football, he has openly admitted he does not want us overloading in attack cos it leaves us open to counter attack, he also does not want us to speed up in attack cos it too leaves us open to counter attack
We will not win the league if don’t add some freedom, speed and risk to our attack. Its what turns draws into wins, and losses into draws
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Arteta says he does not expect Saka or Martinelli to be back before the international break
That’s PSV (a) Man United (a) PSV (h) Chelsea (h)
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A totally uninspiring game. I would say dismal but I think that’s a bit hard on the players bashing their heads against a brick wall.
Although we are risk adverse in our set up we continue to leave forwards one on one with the last defender. Faster forwards than Woods would have probably scored a couple last night and I really don’t see a need for it.
I wonder how many ARSENAL fans can say they were truly surprised by last night’s result and at the final whistle I was so resigned by us not getting a win my disappointment was minimal. It has long gone past that stage.
I do think the dynamic duo coming back will make a difference but it could seem like a very long wait until they do.
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I was so resigned by us not getting a win my disappointment was minimal. It has long gone past that stage.
Me too Ian. I looked at many loud voices today just to see how they were reacting, and it was same old same old. I’m not sure what they expected,considering how the season has been. I didn’t even expect us to draw. But Forest we much poorer than I thought they would be.
Trouble is when I hear those voices I react and become a bit too loyal too Arsenal, but those people work with high ideological standards that can’t be reached, so it makes them righteous when they complain. But of course I understand their complaints. And their need to click bait and to deliver for their subscribers. etc. I think it has a lot to do with identification and hierarchical systems?
I know I’m a billy soy for being too positive and too compassionate. And they have a good argument against me. I’m not going to change. Grrr! If Arsenal lose it doesn’t mean Im a twat it means Arsenal lost. Anything else is my bs. Don’t get me wrong half my life I reacted to billy banter and carried around crap for years.
Being a football supporters a weird thing especially over many eras, as you accumulate a history and compare and contrast which is an odd one as each era is different? Sometimes it helps sometimes it doesn’t, there’s no guide book to survive it?
Its tough when you want something and don’t get it? I suppose this might be a season will look back at and think “if only…”? We all had such big hopes this season. Although 115 was always going to cast a left field weird shadow over things? i.e. City had that over their shoulders and couldn’t concentrate in a way they might normally have?)
Looking around today it was the first time I didn’t see any voices sticking up for Arteta and the lads ( I’m sure there’s some out there on twitter etc or somewhere?) I understand the disappointment that the leagues done ( it always was?) but we are still in the CL and no need to throw that away before we’ve even played? Even if we don’t really have a hope to win it, we should still give it a go? I mean that’s what everyone’s paid to do?
Of course we will give it a go, everyone wants to win, they just have different ideas on how to achieve it?
At least I hope we can not give up second, go a bit further in the CL and see what we can do next season.
Oddest thing I saw today was someone gonig on about the Invincibles being overrated. Anything for a click? You can trash anything if you want I suppose? Until you examine it deeply and see how things are constructed and see how complex structures of success really are? And system of failure too..?
COYG!
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First if all credit to the lads for the performance and giving 100% till the end.
Could have won it with Califori strike and if it had hit the post on more of an angle could have gone in off the post.
Playing with a central midfielder as a striker is always gonna be hard so getting a draw to a side who are 3rd with a few games to go is good but not great for any title aspirations we had.
Just hope the lads can continue playing for each other and working hard, that’s all you can really ask of who is available until we get some players back.
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“Oddest thing I saw today was someone gonig on about the Invincibles being overrated,Anything for a click? You can trash anything if you want I suppose? “.
Yeah this is the age of man babies were we all spit our dummy’s over the most trivia of BS. Some one showed me clip of troopz frothing at the mouth cause the millionaires he supports lost to another set of millionaires, he reminded me of spoilt kids that tell the mothers to F off cause they been asked to clean Thier rooms.
I stay away from large sections of the Webb too much garbage and bin juice is not good for the mental.
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the biggest mistakes of last summer’s transfer window was that from what was fed to their favorite bloggers, Arsenal set out to get floor raisers, not ceiling players, how think about that, the notion put out there was that the reason we failed to win the title last season was that our squad players were of too low a standard. Sounds fair, but it is to assume that our starting 11 last season can not be improved upon, which is ludicrous, but lets go with it anyway, so that might explain we went for floor raisers. Floor raisers should be easier to get, the bloggers and it seems the club decided to blame the likes of Emile Smith-Rowe, Aaron Ramsdale, Reiss Nelson, Fabian Vieira and Eddie Nketiah for not winning the title. So thats a back up keeper, couple of attacking midfielers and a winger and a striker. So they all were moved out, and in came Neto, Calafiori, Merino and Sterling, so that as you can see is one player less in than out, so a think squad got thinner, the back up keeper is not even close to the standard of the one he sold, for me he is not even close to the young Hein who we sent out on loan, a left back, yeah thats what this squad was crying out for, another bloody left back, and to think people like to try and claim Arteta knew how good Myles Lewis-Skelly was going to be, and was just protecting him by not playing him earlier, a Midfielder and a winger who Chelsea were so keen to dump they paid 2/3 of his wages so he could wander about the Emirates pitch.
So for me we weakened our squad, not only a little bit but big time. By the way Merino we were told was the Xhaka replacement we had originally hoped Havertz was going to be, but once again all that has been shown is just how very underrated Xhaka was by the club and fans. The loss of Xhaka for me has had a massive impact on our tactics and on one player in particular, Martinelli, to a lesser extent on Saka, but that is down to tactics. Without Xhaka dominating the left side of our team it has seen Martinelli goal output drop massively, there is no one supplying him and no one occupying defenders they way Xhaka did, so he is now as some describe him as a blind alley runner, cos there isn’t the brains of Xhaka to make use of him. Now the second impact, the tactics, well with the left now stifled the ball is now going to Saka on the right far more often, and opponents know it and are doubling and trebling up on him, and it has seen us do our horseshoe recycling of the ball and become sterile.
I will say one other thing on the floor raising notion, its a very good idea if its done correctly, and that is not done by just replacing the squad players you have with slightly better or even a lot better new signings, the way you genuinely do it is bring in new first choice players and make the current first choice your floor player. For example when we brought in Raya and demoted Ramsdale to back up keeper, we probably had the best back up keeper in the league. That was the sort of signings that needed to be done in several other positions.
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Andy Kelly
Arsenal are now safe from relegation. Next season will be their 100th consecutive season in the top flight of English league football. Now THAT’S the season to win the league.
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Tomorrow evening Arsenal U18’s play Man Utd U18’s in the FA Youth Cup quarter final at the Emirates, kick off 7pm, the game is live on Arsenal.com, coverage starts at 6.55pm
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just a stat to consider,
27 games played,
5 games we have not scored in,
7 games we have scored only 1 goal in.
8 games we have scored 2 goals (oddly we have had three 2-2 draws),
3 games we have scored 3 goals in,
1 game we have scored 4 goals in
3 games we have scored 5 goals in
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That’s a typically well-thought out analysis Ed, but I wonder if it is as easy as all that to raise the floor. If a player has been first choice for a couple of seasons he may react badly to being relegated to back-up status and seek a move to a club where he will be a starter. Unless of course he is willing to accept a large salary in return for being a squad player, which is where I suspect Manchester City have had an edge over the last few years. I couldn’t have been sadder to see Smith-Rowe leave, and I know others felt the same about Nketiah. But I suspect that for their careers it was right to move on, and that’s no doubt how it felt to them and their advisors this time last year. It is of course horribly ironic that if they had stayed fit and well they would both now be commanding regular starting places for us. Hindsight is easy, foresight less so.
I wonder too how much social-media (often mainstream pundit led) opinion has an effect on decision making. I felt that Xhaka’s card was marked from the start (and whether fanciful or not I chose to believe that the likes of Gary Neville, having berated Arsenal over the years for being soft saw him as a player who would make all the difference and immediately set an agenda that he was a rash red-card waiting to happen) and this soon turned the so-called fan-base against him. To Arteta’s credit he didn’t listen, but I suspect that Emery might have.
So with regard to floor raisers you can understand the attraction of signing players like Luiz, Willian, and Sterling. Their days of pomp were over, but surely they could do a job and happy perhaps to do so in a new environment. How strange though they must have found it to suddenly be carded for tackles they had always got away with, or to find penalties no longer given when they went down in the box. But that’s another story – but I think it’s a story worth exploring at some stage, especially if it affects the decision making of potential star signings. Why, for example, would Isak choose Arsenal where he would receive little protection from the PGMOL, when a move to a different club would see him seemingly get all the help in the world?
It can also be hard to manage the first-teamer turned squad player. I remember good cricketers no longer in favour affecting the minds of the younger players, and fermenting a negative atmosphere. No names, no pack-drill as they say, but the club were better off once they left – and so, in two notable cases, were they.
But it does seem that this summer will see The Arsenal somewhere between a rock and a hard place, and watching what they do, and don’t do, (and also allowed and able to do) will be fascinating and tell us much. The influential bloggers will be all over the flashy big-name strikers and creative midfielders and disappointed when they don’t come, while others will see fixing the dry-rot as more important than the shiny new conservatory.
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Arsenal U18 team v Manchester United: Porter, Clarke, Salmon, Sweet, Ogunnaike, Ibrahim, Murisa, Copley, Dowman, Harriman-Annous, O’Neill.
Subs: Ranson, Onyekachukwu, Tahou, Marciniak, Bailey-Joseph, Casey, Oyetunde
No Heaven or Obi-Martin in the utd squad as they are now part of their first team squad
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reminder that this youth cup game is live on Arsenal.com from 6.55
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utd took the lead from one of the Fletcher twins, they had been the better team for most of the half, but Copley has just scored for Arsenal with a cool finish lifted over the keeper, he ran onto a great long pass from Sweet.
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HT: 1-1
Arsenal playing second fiddle to utd for most of that half, and need to be much braver in the second half.
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Brilliant 50 yard run from Dowman and he wins a penalty
Dowman scores the penalty, 2-1 to the Arsenal
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Dowman injured himself celebrating the goal, looks like he has jarred his groin when doing a slide celebration
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Casey on for Murisa
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