On today’s podcast me and @shotta_gooner take a look at the Brighton and WBA games, but mainly I go ballistic about the stupidity in the media and our own fanbase. So sorry about that.

Pedantic George.

Good Morning all.

In today’s podcast @shotta_gooner and me talk about the great 3 points we got from Chelsea and wonder if it will be the start of a change or if we will revert to previous when the “old guard” become available again?

You can also listen to and download this podcast over on uncensoredarsenal.com .

Have a good holiday

Pedantic George.( @arseblagger )

#CHEARS match preview by Shard aka @shardgooner on Twitter

Time can be such a weird thing. I was away from Arsenal and Twitter for about a week and it feels like everything has passed me by, and yet nothing has really changed. We lost again. The same arguments are raging. The same outrage, counter outrage, and outrageous opinions, all mixed with some hope (denial) that things will work themselves out.

A week may not be much time, but what of 3 years? In that time frame we have gone from complaining about top 4 not being enough and why Wenger is wrong to somehow it still being Wenger’s fault.

Well, if plus ca change is to be the theme, that might work out well for Arsenal. 5 months ago Arteta was celebrating winning the FA Cup against Lampard’s Chelsea. After all that has happened since, could things be the same again?

No.

Shoelaces tied and lead weight in our socks

Unfortunately, we go into boxing day with our shoelaces tied together, some serious lead weight in our socks, and with our gloves filled with hot air. Our mouth piece though. PRsenal is gritting its teeth, and showing that it is alive and kicking itself in the shin. All good there, then.

Meanwhile our opponents’ pockets and gloves are loaded, and pack quite a punch. They average over 2 goals a game. Tammy Abraham and Timo Werner lead the charge and the likes of Mount and Chilwell provide the ammunition. Kante is their leading tackler, while Zouma is a rock at the back who has also scored 4 goals. Arsenal have to stay sharp for the whole 90+ mins in this game or it could very easily lead to another goal fest against us.

Not that goal fests are bad if you can attack. Chelsea can be got at, but I have no faith in us doing it. I’m not sure anyone really knows what the plan is. The best I can figure is that we hope to repeat by sitting deep and hoping to catch them on the counter. Do a Mourinho. I mean why not. Arteta has been doing that more and more off the field, so maybe this is just the best we can hope for.

Gallows humor to open contempt

Here’s all I care about really. Arsenal are not only no fun to watch, they give me no sense of pride to follow. Pride which has nothing to do with results. By now my gallows humor has turned into open contempt. I never thought such a day would come. Well, at least it’s something new.

Not new is Granit Xhaka being a figure of hate for Arsenal fans and we can look forward to tweets blaming any and all failures on him as he’s back from suspension. Gabriel is back as well, but the Christmas Partey is cancelled. Auba and Martinelli are both being assessed, while Lacazette is only going to be judged. Oh well, we need martyrs for the cause, don’t we? What cause? Can I say MAGA?

Oh, and just to add some good cheer, take a look at where Ivan Gazidis’ new club sit in Serie A. (Anyone who quotes Emery and Villareal at me is getting banned)

I’m not even daring to wish for a Miracle on Hornsey Street. If one is due I hope it goes towards something more important and more deserving than Arsenal FC. I recently got called the Grinch. I hope I’m not ruining anyone’s festive celebrations, but Arsenal doesn’t bring me any good cheer any more. Enjoy your eggnog to go with the likely goose egg coming our way in terms of points.

Merry Christmas, folks…… If the guy(s) in red and white let you down, you know you can only blame yourselves for having been naughty and flying those planes with banners…… And a Happy New Year to all.

Written by Shard aka shardgooner on Twitter.

You can also read this and comment over on https://uncensoredarsenal.com

Good morning all.

Tonight we play the Manchester City Globetrotters in the Carabao Cup quarter-final at The Home of Football.

Under normal circumstance this would be a mouth-watering encounter, but these are anything but normal times. We are in the midst of a run of form that is the worst in living memory for most of the Arsenal fanbase. I know City would visit us expecting to win no matter what form we were in, but they must expect to brush us aside tonight. I don’t joke when I say I can’t remember when we last played well enough that we might have a chance. They are unlikely to play their best eleven, but their 2nd best 11 is so much better than our best that it’s not even a comparison.

However, all is not lost, stranger things have happened, freak result regularly pop up, but make no mistake, for us to go through we would need the freakiest of freak results. Look, it’s not impossible, we did get a freak result in the FA cup semi just a few months ago. We can hope, so let’s do that? Hope! Hope for the best. Hope for a Christmas miracle.

Normally team selection and set up is difficult, but today it’s impossible for me to even hazard a guess, so I won’t bother.

It would be a good night to throw Ozil into the mix, Arteta could blame him instesd of the maths.

Personally I would play all the youngsters that are on the fringes of the first 11 and the likes of Saliba. However, even then it would mean allowing them to play something other than the PLAY BY NUMBERS rubbish that Arteta churns out week after week. And that won’t happen either.

Try to enjoy the game , IT’S CHRISTMAAAAAAAAAAAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pedantic George.

In today’s podcast @shotta_gooner and me take a look at the recent games and look for a way out from the vortex we are in. It’s grim stuff.

Pedantic George

Arsenal have a trip to Merseyside to play Everton at 5.30 P.M. today.

Given our recent results and form, this is somewhat daunting, they are in good form and we are not. And that’s being kind to us. An unkind man might say our best chance is to get a player sent off early doors, and put up the barricades in the hope of a 0-0, but not me, I wouldn’t be that unkind.

It’s not all doom and gloom though, oh no, not at all. Everton are short of two vital players in James and Allan. They might be rubbish without them? Right? They will have to be rubbish for us to win. I’m joking, I’m joking.

Ok, that was the good news, so what’s the bad news?

Well, Xhaka is out, although many fans will say that’s good news. Many fans are thick though. Partey is out injured, for the foreseeable, so I think it will have to be Elneny and Ceballos. These two have long since been labelled “not good enough” so it’s an ask for them to pull a Rabbit out of the hat today, we can but hope.

I suspect we will go back to 3 at the back, with the 5 being Bellerin, Holding, Luiz, Tierney and perhaps AMN?

I also think we will see Aubameyang back on the left with Lacazette in this weird No.9/false9/No10 hybrid thing with Willian back on the right. This isn’t what I’m hoping for, just what I think will be the case.

Any kind of a result will be welcome and any sort of performance will be acceptable if we get one. Wengerball is a distant memory and Arteta dishes up football by numbers that is better called sufferball, but we are in such a desperate situation that somehow, anyhow, we have to get some points. I don’t believe we will be relegated, but if we are not careful, we could be in the mix. I said before the season started that top 4 was out of the question, after a couple of weeks that top 6 was out of the question and now I think top half is out of the question. We are in a real fight to be a mid-table team for the next few years.

But what do I know? Actually, I can answer that question, it’s Feck all. So don’t let me dampen your spirits, it might be grand in a week or three.

Pedantic George.

Good morning any positive gooners left.

It’s the worst of times, at least the worst of time following 20 odd years of the best of times. I feel like not only is hope lost, but we are struggling to find the hope that there could be hope. It’s grim folks, grim I tell ye.

At 6 P.M. we take on Southampton, a team at the opposite end of the hopeful spectrum. They are a good team playing well. Sometimes teams go on a good run that is a surprise, getting results which are as much a result of the rub of the green as they are to good play, but Southampton are not such a team. They are good players playing well. They are a team preforming in the way that I think Arteta is striving to get us playing like. Every player has a specific role and they action it well. They are hard working, solid and inventive. Just a good team, I won’t be at all surprised to see them in the top 6 come the end of the season.

As for us? Oh my word, it’s hard to think it could get worse, but it likely will. Two of the current whipping boys, Xhaka and Bellerin, are out. Whatever people think of these two (personally I think they are two of our very best) they have both been mainstays for Mikel. Options to replace Xhaka are very limited, what with Partey also being out, so it looks likely to be Elneny and Ceballos in the middle. Cedric will probably come in for Hector, as AMN seems to somehow have become another  persona non grata since he said the whole squad was behind Ozil.

I suspect we might even see a return to 3 at the back tonight, we have lost every game with 4, (as far as I can remember) and as Aubameyang can’t scrore right, left or centre, he may as well go back on the left, allowing our new creative hub, Lacazette, to be this No.9/false9/10 hybrid thingamabob. Pepe should come in on the right, but who knows?

All that said, I think we could win tonight, I feel strangely optimistic, 5 home losses on the spin is unacceptable, well when I say “unacceptable” I actually mean unthinkable. So, if I can’t think it, I must think we will not lose. Brilliant logic, don’t you agree?

I think that’s enough nonsense form me, but if nonsense is your thing, here is another chance to listen to yesterdays podcast.

Pedantic George.

Good morning all.

Today @shotta_gooner and I look back at the Burnley game and try to work out how the club can climb out of the hole we find ourselves in. We have a novice manager that has landed us in a situation that was unimaginable for over two decades. but is there an exit plan?

You can also listen to and download to this podcast over at https://uncensoredarsenal.com/index.php/arsenal-spiraling-into-a-downward-vortex-ccn-the-club-be-saved/ , these podcasts are Shotta’s work and you can help him by visiting his site and liking the podcast.

Pedantic George

Good morning all.

This evening we play Burnley at the home of football, and I can’t stress how massive a game it’s become for Mikel Arteta and the fanbase.

Burnley have had a terrible start to the season. They have won one game and only scored 5 goals, while conceding 18. But despite their form and awful record in this fixture, the game fills me with fear and trepidation.

Burnley literally don’t have a player of any note. They have two old-fashioned big lump strikers and two old-fashioned big lump centre-backs. The play an old-fashioned 442 and they just try to bludgeon their way to wins. They should be meat and drink to a team like Arsenal, but I suspect Sean Dyche is licking his lips at the prospect of his trip to London.

We sit in 15th place and a loss or a draw will likely see us stay in 15th place, a win will propel us up the table to the dizzy heights of 14th, so hardly a sea-change, but the damage to confidence – of the team and fans – to Mikel Arteta could be huge.

I get the feeling that both the dressing-room and the fan-base are tottering on the brink with their belief in the Spaniard and even his perfect hair won’t be enough to turn the tide.

When it comes to the point where the board have to come out in support of the manager and there is open rebellion of 3 or 4 players, the end is usually nigh.

Ozil, Guendouzi, Saliba, Pepe and team captain Aubameyang have, sometimes directly and sometimes through their agents, broken ranks and voiced their displeasure with Arteta. Even Willian, his pet Brazilian, is looking to distance himself from Arteta and the club that was desperate to pay £200k pw to get his signature, a few short months ago. The faith of the fans is shifting towards the young squad members, but as Arteta seems to have no inclination to put similar faith in them, even they can’t help him. I suspect there are more players, just like our big twitter accounts, bloggers and podcasters, that are waiting for the moment that they can shift their public position towards Arteta, safe in the cocoon of public opinion.

I have no idea how we will set up, who will play and where they will play. Nothing seems to work and no combination of players have looked good. We have not been unlucky, because all the measures of how well we are playing, has us in the bottom 5.

We can argue how good a squad we have in comparison to others, which could reasonably be said to be between 4th and 8th, but no way is it 15th. So something is seriously wrong and something has to seriously change. It might be an exaggeration to say that Arteta is in the last chance saloon, but it must be getting close to that. Make no mistake, our owners will be watching closely and will do whatever necessary to protect their investment, the future value of commercial deals and the share value.

Good luck to everyone involved, because we need it.

Pedantic George.

Good morning all.

Today myself and Shotta @shotta_gooner mull over the disappointment of the NLD and those of recent months. The conclusions drawn are grim. and that Arteta’s day’s are irreversibly numbered. for football reasons.

You can also listen and download to this podcast over at https://uncensoredarsenal.com/index.php/the-demise-of-arteta-is-the-rise-of-pochetinno/