Hello and how are you? 26th of November sees the Mighty Cannon host a visit from Bayern Munich in our next Champions League match. Kick off at the Emirates is at 21.00pm Central European time (8.00pm UK time). Expected weather is partly cloudy, temp: 7°(feels like 4°) and between 4 and 72% chance of rain during game time.
After beating the Spuds at the weekend we now face out biggest challenge of the season so far(?) against a very much in-form Bayern Munich.
Arsenal are second in the Champions league (only on goal difference), sandwiched between Bayern (top) and Inter (third), all those sides have won all their games, but the Gunners the only side yet to concede a goal. An Arsenal victory would mean our 16th successive win at the Emirates in this competition.
Bayern are as yet unbeaten in the Bundesliga, and have drawn only once and that was a 2-2 against Hertha Berlin.They thrashed Freiburg at the weekend, 6-2.
Head to Head its: P 14 Bayern wins: 8 Draws: 3 Arsenal wins: 3. I’m not going to trawl through all our prior CL clashes as I’m sure you can recall them well, for good and sometimes shockingly bad. But this game feels different….
Big Viktor Gyokeres (hamstring), Gabriel Jesus (ACL), Gabriel Magalhaes (hamstring), Kai Havertz (knee) are all sadly ruled out for the Gunners, on the doubtful list is Martin Odegaard (knee). Max Dowman didn’t train with the first team either.
Kompany and co will be without Luis Diaz (suspended), Jamal Musiala (ankle), Alphonso Davies (knee), ex Arsenal favourite Serge Gnabry is doubtful although press reports are now saying he will be available. Expect rising star Lennart Karl to fill Diaz place, hes a real dangerman, one for the Gunner to have an eye on.
The heads at Statto HQ sent though the facts and figures and they give the Arsenal a 43.3% chance of winning and the Bavarians a 30% chance. Next up a top of the table clash with neighbours Chelsea. SO COYG!
Mills
You can almost taste the excitement in the air for tonight’s clash and the Chelsea game. My worry is that despite how we we played with 2 false nines against Spurs, the lack of a striker might catch up to us. I’ll be honest, I’d take two draws right now. treading water for a week until the cavalry arrives wouldn’t be a bad thing. And they are coming by the way, a hoard of them. A difficult couple of games, because Spurs they are not.
Enjoy the game and I’ll see you on the other side- UP THE ARSENAL.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
Excellent again lads.
Quite honestly no one are spurs right now, especially Bayern. They are a proper team and probably the PSG of the knockout stages of last season.
They play possession football and yet are excellent on the break. Along with their high press and their gods defensive record they are good in all areas.
A draw would be a great result tonight, that doesn’t mean we can’t win but just the degree of difficulty has just gone up massively.
We know we can win from the bench if need be and sometimes that can be our greatest strength COYG.
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Dowman will not be part of the squad tonight as he played the full 90 minutes for the U19’s v Bayern Munich today, scoring the 4th goal for us in a 4-2 win, and it was an outstanding goal with some very fancy footwork from the lad. That game also saw 13 year old Luis Munoz come on as a sub to become the youngest player to ever play in the Youth CL. He turns 14 next month.
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Raya, Timber, Saliba, Mosquera, Lewis-Skelly, Zubimendi, Rice, Eze, Saka, Merino, Trossard.
Subs: Kepa, Setford, White, Hincapie, Odegaard, Martinelli, Norgaard, Madueke, Nwaneri, Calafiori.
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the dowman goal from the u19 game today
https://x.com/i/status/1993695841652178959
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Timberrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr heads home from a Saka corner 1-0 to the Arsenal
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we really should be out of sight here but have fecked up a few good chances.
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and its 1-1, that’s what happens when you don’t take your chances.
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Trossard off injured, Madueke on
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Saka off, Martinelli on
Lewis-Skelly off, Calafiori on
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Maduekeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee fires home after some great interplay in the build up, 2-1 to the Arsenal
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That was Madueke’s first goal for Arsenal
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Martinelliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii shoots into an empty net after rounding the keeper not far from the halfway line, 3-1 to the Arsenal
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other latest scores
liverpool 1-3 psv
psg 5-3 spurs
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Timber off White on
Eze off Odegaard on
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Liverpool have lost 4-1 at home to PSV
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Brilliant! Great squad performance! COYG!
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FT: Arsenal 3-1 Bayern Munich
Timber, Madueke and Martinelli with our goals, we now are clear at top of CL table with 5 wins from 5.
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We have an incredibly strong squad, when you look at who are still to come back, and we still have quality everywhere and really good subs to bring on to change the games. We really need to believe in ourselves and nothing will stop us.
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just seen the goals form the psg v spurs game, and Vitinha scored 2 wonderful goals, first one outside the area, the second on just inside the area, real power and placement. He got his hattrick with a penalty.
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the dowman goal from the u19 game today
https://x.com/i/status/1993704771782345063
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Bayern were considered by most as the best team in Europe so that was an amazing win, especially when you factor in the German’s domination in the first half (although we did have the better chances)
Apparently we spanked the spuds so hard, they celebrated defeat against PSG as only they can.
Winning with the bench is becoming such a habit that you need to look at the sub’s almost as much the so called “first eleven”
The win against the old foe was important for the fans, the win against Muchen was a statement win and important for confidence in the latter stages of the CL, but ironically a win against the bank of America club at the weekend would be the most important and the most difficult especially with them getting the extra days rest.
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if you want to be really successful in football you have to follow international rugby’s way with game finishers. Its a squad game now more than ever and you have to be able to alter things from the bench and also like rugby now, the starters can go full on for 50 or 60 minutes, run themselves to a standstill and then get replaced by a player just as good to finish the game.
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Any of you guys like the band The Byrds?
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American Byrd’s or English Birds
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American Byrds.
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I like the English band too, I dont have too much stuff Youre n my mind, maybe some other tracks, I think it was on a Deram reissue Freak Beat cd? I recall they were a bit naffed at the Byrds when they turned up with the samish name, didn’t they try to sue them, and served it at the airport when the Byrds landed for that terrible first tour?
I just asked about the Byrds as some blokes done a deconstruction of Lady Friend, its not brilliant but you can hear sperate tracks for Michael Clarkes drums, Hugh’s trumpets the vocals except the scat singing is missing(?) and Hillamns bass. Crosby was right that Usher production was mush, I dont mind it though…I wondered if he had heard the acetates of H+V during 66/67 as Brian had quite a weird mushy production on all the versions he made, even the reamke of Smiley. I cant think why else Usher would have done it as the Notorious B bros is clear as day.
Anyway its on YT and worth a look if you like that song. Hes done some others the version of Goin’ Back the later remake after Crosby had got the boot. Hope he does Draft Morning. COYG!
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Jesus and Nwaneri played in the behind closed door friendly yesterday, think it was against a Man Utd ix
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seen a tweet today
Jamie Carragher doesn’t know what is going on with Liverpool after all these losses. That’s weird, he seems to know everything about all the other teams when they’re not winning.
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Jeorge Bird
@jeorgebird
U15 player Kian Darcy, who was playing grassroots football, has been selected to join the Arsenal development centre ahead of a potential trial
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a slight correction, the behind closed doors game yesterday that Jesus and Nwaneri played in might not have been against Man Utd as there is a friendly game next week against them, but maybe its just a return friendly as it seems we are playing them away.
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Arsenal U18s drew 2-2 away to spurs u18s
Arsenal finished the game with 9 men and spurs with 10.
O’Neill continued his fine scoring form but it wasn’t enough to end the U18’s winless run, which I think is now at 10 games. They last won in September, and with the FA Youth Cup starting next week they need to change that quickly
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spurs lost 2-1 at home to fulham, they are 11 points behind Arsenal, with us having a game in hand, so a win tomorrow and we would be 14 points ahead of them after 13 games.
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Gabriel Jesus and Viktor Gyökeres are with the Arsenal squad for tomorrow’s game at Chelsea, both will have late fitness tests to see if they can be included in the match day squad.
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George sent the Chelsea preview over. COYG!
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