Hello and how are you? After our different journeys in different cups, we’re back in Premier League action, this time facing south-coasters Bournemouth AFC at the Emirates in a lunch-time KO.
A win is utterly crucial today, nothing would please more the Arsenal universe than thrashing the Cherries 5-0, although in the end I suppose we will take a 1-0 win ( even with high-blood pressure and bitten down nails)…
Bournemouth are no pushover though; they are undefeated in their last eleven and are hoping to clinch a Euro-spot for next season. Although, their last five were draws.
Merino, Saka, Timber! and the Calafury look unlikely, Eze trained on Friday, as did Hincapié, so who knows? Trossard and Martin Ø picked up knocks against Sporting so they might not start.
For Bournemouth; Adams, Soler and wonder kid Kroupi might return but Kluivert and Cook are AWOL.
The boys at Statto HQ ran over the numbers and have calculated the Arsenal have a 66.3% chance of winning and Bournemouth have 14.1%. Next up on Wednesday round two of the Champions league quarter final versus Sporting at ours. So COYG!
Mills
This is it boy’s, this is war, this is what we’ve waited for. As one very good looking German lady once said. At 12.30 PM Mikel will blow his whistle and send his most trusted warriors, over the top and into battle. And I expect that to be exactly what this game will be, a dogfight, a slog, and attempt to out fight the opposition, rather than out play them. A war of attrition. I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t see the handbrake being touched, let alone let off.
I really think this is it today, this is the league . Win and we go to City knowing a draw is a tremendous result, but on the flip side, lose and the roof falls in.
Recent results, and more importantly, performances, have shattered my confidence, lets hope the players are made of sterner stuff than me.
If I even believed there was a 1% chance that there was a God, I’d be on my knees right now. Fear and trepidation have consumed me. THIS GAME IS HUGE.
Pedantic George.
Positively Arsenal 
Wow, your Preview said it all lads this is the game.
A win here is all about us and nothing to do with putting pressure tomorrow as although a few weeks ago cities fixture at Chelsea looked difficult now they are at opposite ends of the form table and that looks worse if you look at the pensioners home form.
So it’s all about us and today we’re up against the hardest working team in the league, with the most sprints, most pressures and one of the fastest counters. They are also pretty good at set pieces as well.
Their biggest problem seems to be about scoring goals so if we keep it tight and manage another clean sheet then scoring a couple ourselves would see us through.
However they also have a good record of getting points from losing positions so this is a 100 minutes concentration game
With our first choice full backs out today we will need Ben and Miles to perform well and be adequately supported but the players around them.
We are at home and we have more than enough power and technical ability to win this but we cannot allow the horseshoe of death to slow us down and make the game stale.
Today we need to fly COYG.
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Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly, Zubimendi, Rice, Havertz, Madueke, Gyokeres, Martinelli.
Arrizabalaga, Mosquera, Hincapie, Norgaard, Eze, Dowman, Trossard, Salmon, Jesus
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Bournemouth take the lead
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we like to make things difficult for ourselves for sure. Grrr!
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Penalty to Arsenal for handball
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get in theeeeeeeeeeerrree!!!!
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Gyokeressssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss scores the penalty to make it 1-1 his 12th EPL goal of the season and his 18th overall
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https://x.com/i/status/2042938540984594907
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Need to be really different in the 2nd half, handbrake on as George says, can only see Red Max creating some magic? We are quite capable of dictating games and yet seem to play always to the strengths of the opposition? We dont need to chase or throw ths game away, if we just played, maybe ignore Arteta for 45 and take control? Anyway, we shall see. COYG!
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HT: 1-1
a very hard watch, we’ve been so poor, the passing is off, the movement is poor, a massive improvement is needed, passing has to speed up and be more accurate too.
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COYG!
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Eze, Dowman & Trossard on
Havertz, Madueke & Martinelli off
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Gyokeres has a goal ruled out for offside
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Arsenal not handling the pressure at all, this is woeful stuff
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Bournemouth ahead again and its no more than they deserve, this has been an abject performance, Arteta is not the man to lead Arsenal to the title, this football is puke football.
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hadning it over to City?
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Thats tough to take. Collasping like 89, but i cant see us making over the line in anyway at all. Sporting rubbing their hands together, You Tube rants clocking up 250,000 views after this and everyone laughing at us, even Championship Spuds.
George called it…
Whats the prediction for the City game? Losing 4-0? Maybe more?
A wot a waste.
Grrr!
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the result now means city have it back in their hands too, if they win all their remaining games we can only match their points tally. we have now lost 3 of our last 4 games, playing absolute puke football. This is spursy.
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as for Arteta all I will say is
he is not the messiah he is a naughty boy
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As we been saying and have seen Mikel is an excellent coach but if the game isn’t going out way he has no idea how to change it.
The three like for like changes replacing Noni, Kai and Gabby was ridiculous. That wasn’t the problem, it was the attitude and tempo of the play.
Continually playing backwards and slow was never going to do anything and we payed for it big time.
Raya, Gabriel and Saliba were solid Gyorkares was very good again and Myles was excellent. Unfortunately when your big players like Declan, Zube and Kai are all having poor games you need to be brave and change something but Mikel won’t do it.
They talk about momentum but what people really mean is form and we are so poor at the moment I think that was Declan’s worst game in an ARSENAL shirt.
If you change things and still lose you have to hold your hands up and say fair enough but when you play the same for the first 80 minutes you only have yourselves to blame.
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thing is Ian can we really say arteta is a great coach when he can’t come up with a game plan that sees us attack with energy and purpose. Everything our players do tactically is completely down to Arteta, the horseshoe football, the risk averse football, the like today 38 passes to Raya, yes 38 passes to our goalie, the lack of quick first time interplay in attack is all on arteta, this is his vision of controlled football. He has made the small details so important to his tactics that they have consumed his tactics and now almost every games is decided on the small details.
I’ve seldom seen a manager or coach who is so geared for media duty, as Arteta is, but its all gus hedges waffle, distraction. the bullshit yesterday from him about the fans needing to bring their big game, was a joke, its up to the players to serve up the energy and purpose to get the fans on their feet and in full voice for 90 minutes. We have seen this same play book from arteta for years, we seen it last season for example in the PSG game, then we didn’t lay a glove on them. He talked the talk before the CC final, and oh my that was a shameful performance, but todays was worse.
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I couldn’t help but laugh once again today watching Madueke once again run the ball out of play and creating nothing and thinking back to how Pepe was drummed out of the club by Arteta despite his actual good output re goals and creating chances, and his performances that was so key in us winning the FA Cup under Arteta, but Pepe used to lose the ball trying to create, and that left us open to Arteta’s biggest dread, the counterattack. Madueke doesn’t score much, or assist much but he doesn’t lose the ball as much in challenges as Pepe, he just gives the ball to the opposition for throw ins and goal kicks. That is acceptable to Arteta as there is no counterattack, and for me that sums up Artetaball and his view of the game.
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our midfield pairing today of Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi lost possession a combined 29 times today (Rice 17, Zubimendi 12)
both Nigel Winterburn and Thierry Henry said today that what Arsenal produced today was not what any team going for the title do, the lack of any sign of real belief was on show. They both said that Arsenal, the players and the manager do a lot of talking about winning the league, but then go out and put in an abject performance like that.
Its seldom Winterburn is as critical as he was today, it really shows how poor the performance was in so many ways. There was no show of determination or desire
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not my post, took this from twitter, think its class
It turns out the reason Arteta told fans to bring their lunch and dinner was because, as usual, in crunch time he wasn’t going to serve anything up for them
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Yep it’s not the results in themselves are disappointing but the performances within them.
All teams lose and you can blame individual errors, the ref or the other side being excellent but we can’t claim any of those it’s simply boring, stale backwards football.
Before the amount of money was raised for each place in the league and the chance of getting into Europe was extended to virtually everyone in the division, the teams who had nothing to play for were said to be on the beach and that’s how we played today.
If Sunderland and Newcastle win their respective games Bournemouth will be twelfth and they totally outplayed us.
If you didn’t know our position in the table how would anyone know we had ambitions to win the league in fact with such a poor home performance you would suggest the team had lost confidence, given up and were accepting relegation.
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we have played 13 league games in 2026, and believe it or not today was only our second defeat, but we have only won 7 of the 13 games, and we’ve had 4 draws, we have in those 13 games failed to score twice, both 0-0 draws, and we have scored only once in 3 of the other games, including today’s defeat. we drew with Wolves 2-0 having been 2-0 up, and we lost 3-2 at home to Man Utd.
14 dropped points in those 13 games, so on that sort of form we are looking at dropping another 6 points in our remaining 6 games,
we currently have 70 points and if we only take the 12 points from remaining 6 games we’d end on 82 points.
Man City currently have 61 points, but they have 8 games to play, a potential 24 points, so a possible 85 point maximum so they’d too have little room for error, for example if they were to draw with Arsenal next week and we did manage to get to 82 points city would have to win all their other 7 games, including against Chelsea tomorrow.
our remaining 6 EPL games are
Man City – away
Newcastle – home
Fulham – home
West Ham – away
Burnley – home
Crystal Palace – away
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The roof has collapsed
Sent from Outlook for Androidhttps://aka.ms/AAb9ysg ________________________________
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Trouble is I cant help but stay hopeful, despite it crumbling like 89 and probably not much chance of even the slender goal difference win like then. I know it makes me look and idiot or not knowing the game.
Sometimes I wish football was less political, every trick in the book floated out, transfer this transfer that, scandal this scandal that, speculation here and there etc.
Often I dont understand why a team thats waiting judgement are so beloved and Arsenal are the enemy of all humankind. It was there before Wenger but until the stadium was built we were so good they kind of had to swallow it. After 2010 its seems the clubs been fighting off the pitch even more than on it.
Dont get me wrong, I dont understand why we are not so scared and so conservative, I realise theres such vast pressure to win the league, but its not as if the last twenty years were fair and even and to an idiot like me there has to be some fairness otherwise its not worth watching, or paying.
For me, on YT theres too much banter, click bait also in the mainstream media. I realise a lot of people make money on the back of it all, but looking back it sure seems easier in the old days, where banter was confined to the pub for a bit or a scrap in the streets if that was your thing.
Now it seems so spoilt as if football clubs have to do everything to win so people can have a moment of ectasty and we watch them. Why?
How would have the 89 team have faired now when the collasped like fury.
This whole bottle job bullshit gets on my nat wat bat gat tats, its so clichéd. A few years ago everything was a shambles, shambles this shambles that. If I was a City fan I would be insulted, as a implying we bottled the final means that we couldnt do it under pressure. Was that the case or were we beaten fair and square in the second half by a superior outfit? Bottle jobs? Dang! look who we’ve beaten in the last two years, PSG, Bayern and Real.
Should we not really look at City how they are structured, their experience, their manager( the best in the world?), the money they have and the confidence they have and the abilty to attract players. I mean they can still pull of the treble…and media-wise they are quite simply more liked than us.
Also fans of teams stiching us up for being 2nd, but thats better then 11th and no hope year in year out? I bet the Spuds would have swapped everything with us the last few and especially this season. And West Ham. All all seems oddball to me.
But dont get me wrong, the Bournemouth game, it really was more than irritating or frustrating. Its been a long season, we look super wobbly, and yet how much do the You Tubers support the club? Im sure everyone at Ashburton Grove feels like us, I mean there are not on the streets of Lexington Avenue strung out. Shouting at the rain wont stop it raining, but building an umbrella might help a bit? But of course many are pointing out, like you guys here whats going wrong.
But the supporter side of football has passed me by, I cant understand them anymore, they semed to think they are owed something. Odd thing is a friend of mine who supports Leeds asked me how I felt etc a few months back, and I said I felt cautious and had stepped back a bit and even all that time ago didnt expect us to win it.
I read that it wasnt the Titanics owners who said it was unsinkable but a magazine. This whole quadruple thing wasnt mentioned by Arsenal even once, but by everyone else: build it up and knock it down. Entertainment, which means money. So what about those of us who enjoy sport?
If we dont win anything, it was for a long while a valiant effort, and of course it meant that certain tactics meant we didnt get it over the line. Already the Tubers are calling for Artetas head, and now outlets are saying Cesc will be the new messiah. How will that look? Another six years of project Fabregas? But if they were willing how would a Klopp or Ancelotti or some power house manager look like? Could people like that get our squad playing like Champions?
If Arteta is given the push it could mena climbing the mountain again, do some of the YT outlets have such patience? Im sure many clubs will want Arteta.
Do you still like the PL? Im not sure I always do, its seems to greedy and monied, VARs been poor this season, it wasnt just us playing not so fantasic football, although we’ve had our moments. During the commentary of the Sporting game the guy said, Arsenal out of the league cup and out of the FA cup. Out of the league cup? Yeah we lost in the final.
Weirdest thing of all was we had the better stats against Bournemouth. Statically we were better than the team that beat us. But on another day would we have hit them at least for four? its odd that our defending thats been so reloslute all season seems to be crumbling and frail.
Do you think Martinelli plays better in CL?
Anyway, I know you can rip me a new one, but what do you do in our climate if you support Arsenal win or not win? I suppose Im just not that extreme, if we win its more than great, but if we lose, thats football. Every competition means only one set of fans will be happy at its conclusion.
I can handle us losing but its the whole media that I cant, everyone playing absolute, saying this and that to get clicks which means advertisments/sponsorship. Saddest thing is that I predicted all this in an article on Utold abotu ten years ago. I wished Id been wrong!
One thing that strikes me even if we did beat City how would we play in the other games?
Sorry for the ramble, helps me a bit though.
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Jack Wilshere has won his first trophy as a senior manager, his Luton Town side beat Stockport County 3-1 at Wembley today in the EFL Trophy Final
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good post Mills, I know exactly what you mean.
I don’t watch any podcasts on football, I don’t interact almost at all with fans of other clubs online, I do of course talk football with my friends who support all sorts of other clubs, and I can be open and honest about not only my team but about their team too, which does not go down well with some of them, I do think some of them are into the online by dad is bigger than your dad bullshit. I will not have a chelsea, spurs or utd fan try and laugh at Arsenal, but at the same time I will not lie to them and say I enjoy the football we play most of the time under arteta. but then again the spurs fan has to admit he is horrified by what he is seeing from his club. the best thing I did for my football sanity was to get SKY out, fuck them and their clickbait bullshit.
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Man City won today so they are now 6 points behind Arsenal, but with a game in hand. We play Man City away next weekend, it really is the most do not lose game we ever had in the run in of the league.
Here is an odd stat for you all
Arsenal will win the league if we win 4 and draw 2 of our remaining 6 games, that is 14 points.
But we could win 5 and lose one, which is 15 points and not win the league, we could lose the league on goal difference to city if the one loss is to them and they win all their remaining games
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Aaron Ramsey, one of my favorite Arsenal players of all time retired from football this week and Arsenal.com put up a video of his Arsenal goals, and what struck me was that an amazing player like Ramsey would not be allowed strut his stuff in an Arteta team.
oddly the day after I watched the Ramsey video some put up a clip of the one touch interplay goals we used to score under Wenger, the Cesc, Hleb, Rosicky, Cazorla, Ramsey, Giroud, Ozil, Alexis, sort of stuff, and it just hits you so hard in the face that Arteta does not see that as being good football. Can any of you point me to a really impressive team goal scored under Arteta in the last 4 or 5 years, there must be some, but for the life of me I can’t think of one, maybe its having so much dull football that has me forgetting even the great stuff.
there was a passage of play last Tuesday in the Sporting game that summed up the whole problem with Arteta ball, Rice had the ball 5 yards inside our half and Odegaard was about 10 or 15 yards inside the Sporting half with a few yards of space, facing Rice. Declan played the ball to Odegaard, who one touched it back to Rice who passed it straight back to Odegaard, who in turn hit it straight back to Rice, who returned it again to Odegaard who just hit it back to Rice, at that point Rice went elsewhere, but Arteta on the sideline applauded this.
Which brings me to a question for any of you, have you ever seen Arteta go mad at any of our players for turning back and playing the ball back from a good attacking position. Have you ever seen him furious for us going from the edge of the opposing area all the way back to Raya with 3 or 4 passes, only to spend another six or seven passes to end right back up where we had been. That is the problem, that is the mindset. That is why regardless of whether we win the league or CL or even both this season the football we have played, especially in the EPL, will not live with me for long, or with any fondness, of course a handful of the goals will stay with me, but this has not been an enjoyable season for me. I’d be ecstatic if we won the CL, and that would be the case even if we were to be outplayed in the final and our winning goal come from the ball hitting a freak divot and going in off someone’s backside.
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German football club Union Berlin has made history by naming Marie-Louise Eta as manager, making her the first female head coach in Bundesliga history, following the sacking of Steffen Baumgart. Eta, who was given the job on Sunday, becomes the first female top-flight coach of a men’s team in a major European league
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Any thoughts on Wednesday? It could really be an odd fixture, will the fans get behind the team or still be irritated as hell about the Bournemouth game and stay cold? Will they hold onto their emotions?
I think certainly the result against the Cherries has opened a door for Sporting. It going to be really tough if we lose this to get motivated against City? But if we win its back to back semis, and that is a psychological boost.
But perhaps one thing in our favour is that we’ve been written off and the title already handed to City? Too much hubris? None of us are expecting anything but maybe a draw at best, so who knows…but if we play like we did the other day it will be a five-nil and there probably wont be a way back from that? But if we play like we did against Real or Bayern then City wont know whats hit them. Theres some talk that OReilly might not be fit, but I expect the Lazarus effect.
He might leave the Zube out because of the yellow, but I dont think he will risk Timber! Makes you wonder about Saka for next Sunday too?
How much have we missed Merino? I hope he doesnt go for Havertz in midfield we know it doesnt work.
It weird, I feel no hope for either of these games, yet know that odd scores could pop up because we cant see whats going on behind the scenes?
If it came to it what would you rather have PL or CL?
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Tbh, hypcritically I listened to a lot of YT punditry tonight and every single one of them had an interesting angle and thoughts, and I agreed with all of them.
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Arsenal U21’s lost 2-0 to Crystal Palace U21’s this evening, and it was another poor performance. Even their football is not fun to watch.
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Mills the fans will get behind the team on Wednesday if the team give them reason to get behind them. If they give them front foot football the fans will respond, but if its stale slow backways, sideways football the fans will respond in kind.
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Mills I feel there is no reason why we can’t beat Man City on Sunday if we go there and have energy and desire, and of course in big games you need a bit of luck too.
As we have never won the CL I would dearly love to see us win it, and in all honesty we have played most of our best football this season in the CL. Looks like if we get past Sporting it would be Atletico Madrid, and we should not be in fear of them. And if we make the final its a one off, anything can happen,
The league is probably the big one as its over 38 games, although the CL feels like its 38 games sometimes. As down as I feel about the football we too often play in the league, we are six games out and on top of the table, there is no good reason why we can’t get it done if we find the energy.
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Thing is Sporting will come at us Ed, they have to, an early goal for them will make our fans silent or frustrated and anxious.
Im worried we will just play as Straitjacket FC , it too much now. I started thinking, even if we win something how enjoyable will it really be? Yes loads, but its so odd these days. The Bournemouth experience was inexcplicable.
I was thinking while listening to everyone tonight and looking at a how our players have changed. Martins a shadow of his best, Martinelli, Saka, the Zube, Ben White too. How long before the before even gets to Dowman and he closes up? how could Saliba nd Declan also be so off form? Weird FC?
I have no clue how this will pan out as I dont feel that glimmer of hope like we still had in 89, even after the West Ham game when Liverpool smashed them and that was it. Somehow there was that strange chance, and even lads I knew form other team sthought we would do it, now who would back us?
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My view of the reason why the football is the way it is under Arteta is that the team is over coached, there is no freedom of thought in our players, its drilled football.
I was involved in coaching in Badminton 20 years ago, at that time there was no coaching allowed during games(a rule since changed cos so many players and coaches broke the rule) so they only time you could coach during a match or tournament was between games, it was best of 3 sets to 15 at that time. I had a batch of fine youth players who got to represent their province, Ulster, with a couple of them playing for Ireland. Ulster at that time were the dominant province in Badminton in Ireland.
I and my players got our eyes opened when they went to train with Ulster, the squad in training played games against other, but at the break between games the coaches were not allowed to tell them what they were doing right or wrong, or what tactics to change to help them win, all we could do was encourage them or calm them down. But what we as coaches were asked to do was get the players(it was level doubles and mixed doubles) to think about what was working for them, what was not, what the opponents were doing well and what the opponents were struggling with, and how to change it or take advantage of it. In other words think for themselves, work it out themselves. When these players went to the inter-provincials the dominated cos they worked it out as they played, the opponents when things were going wrong would be looking for their coaches to fix it for them, while the Ulster players didn’t wait for that, they took responsibility to figure it out.
Not sure why Ulster Badminton went away from this model of coaching but they did while Leinster went to it, and now they dominate.
Anyway what I’m saying in a long winded way is that Arteta needs to let the players play with more freedom of thought, and stop his constant stream of instructions during games.
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Oh Mills I have stated many times recently that if we win the League I will be over the moon, but I will not remember the football fondly in years to come, actually never mind years to come, I wouldn’t remember it fondly the day after the season ends.
If we win the CL I would remember the football we played in it more fondly, but nothing like how fondly I remember the one touch inter play fast flowing attacking football of the Wenger football, the Cesc, Rosicky, Hleb, Cazorla, Ozil etc etc etc.
By the way, I like many others call that sort of football off the cuff football, but the truth is that it was never really off the cuff, it was practiced over and over and over, every bit as much as Arteta has them practicing corner kick routines. Its only off the cuff cos they had so many different options to take and the freedom to make those decisions for themselves.
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So we could say that Arteta is the anti-Wenger, when comparing the two styles. LOL.
Tonight I thought of a weird scenario, Arsenal lose the next two, Arteta is sacked. Wenger steps in to save the day and wins the league!
Wil be interting to see how Liverpool do tomorrow…
Anyway thats it for me tonight, see you tomorrow Ed.
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I don’t necessarily think sporting will attack us especially straight away.
They are geared up to counter so they might sit and let us attack seeing as we are the home team.
As the game goes on, if it’s still just one nil, then they will have to come out but that might not be until the last twenty minutes.
Most CL games in the later stages are played in phases and we have to control those.
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Im sure youre rigth Ian, I know next to nothing about Sporting, only really from the first leg.
When I did the first preview the place I get my stats etc from reckoned they score early in about 68%-70% of their games, first team to score in about 78%, but closer to your thoughts they score more in the second half 82%. I read also that in their league the like to start strongly.
Of course youre right that doesnt mean anything and who knows how they might come out. At the time of writing it was just the way I felt (utterly pessimistic) and thought they will look at Bournemouth rather than City as a way to get us wobbly and get the fans flustered and frustrated,so I was projecting my fear rather than going with form or past fact.
But as you say if thye like to counter then they will invite us over Mae West style and see if they can turn into the bolter and grab a goal?
Do you think Declan will start? Apprently he didnt train, so either Arteta thinks Im saving him for City or he’s not really crocked and is about to do a Lazarus. Except Lazarus was dead and not injured!
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Bournemouth manager Andoni Iraola is leaving the Premier League club at the end of the season
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Barcelona score after just eight minutes
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Barcelona winning 1-0 in Madrid, they are 2-1 down on agg
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I see Terry Neill gave his CL press conference today, oh sorry Mikel Arteta, and he outright lied, saying this was the first time that Arsenal in our 104 year history ever got to the QF of the CL 3 years in a row.
But Arsenal.com changed it in the transcript to second time in our history.
Oh following up from bring your dinner last Saturday now he wants fans to bring fire. I’d like the team to bring fire that would ignite the fans.
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Barcelona make it 2-0 and 2-2 on agg
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Atletico score, 1-2, now 3-2 on agg to Atletico
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