Good afternoon Positive Arsenal fans,

A fine game of football between two high quality sides, both sets of players underlining the professional  aspect of their trade, with a display of concentration and controlled physical aggression over 94 minutes. Clearly defeat at the end of the contest is a sour result but I’ve no serious complaint. 1-0 did not flatter them.

Of our brave lads I thought it was an excellent defensive display. Admittedly we  were clinging on at times as the Totties cut into us,  ragged in the opening ten minutes of the second half which cost us, and Cech made 2-3 good stops. Some of Petr’s footwork was a little alarming today but nothing the matter with his positioning , handling or shot stopping. Bloody hell that 200th clean sheet is proving an albatross for our stopper though. Our defensive unit of Kosc, Shkodran, and Nacho gave  110% and Hector, in my opinion,  was our best player.

Further forward was probably the difference between the teams today. It was always likely to be difficult to control the ball, hence our set up in the first half to hit them on the breakaway. But we just did not make enough of the possession we had. It was c. 70 minutes until our first shot or header on goal I think ? That is just not us !

Of the midfield personnel Jack was our most creative player, Granit dependable and did not waste the ball, and Mo made 50 blocks, tackles, half tackles, nudges etc.   I thought Mesut had a poor game today by his formidable standards, though he had little time or space to work in as a white swarm settled on him.

The last fifteen minutes  we just began to get a modicum of control, and for the first time in the match seemed to have more possession At last we huffed and we puffed a little. But even then the home’s side seemed steady, and held us at arm’s length.

I had probably settled for the defeat by the 90th minute, to everyone’s surprise the 4th official popped up 4 additional minutes. And being football of course we then created two clear cut chances, both of which certainly should at least have drawn a  same from Lloris, but neither of which were on target. What a  different mood I would be in if either strike from the Frenchman had gone where they should have. I suspect Lacazette feels worse than I do about those two disappointing efforts, but he is a hard man to read, facially speaking.

So there we go – gritted teeth – beaten on the day by the ………….bbbb…  bbbbeee….

No I just can’t do it.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Morning Positive Goons,

Another thumping home victory on a Saturday, wholly deserved, and an appropriate conclusion to the 31 days of media fuelled hysteria we have recently passed through. Goodness me it seemed a long month, traumatic at times*. Amidst the noisy transfer turmoil  some old playing components, some much loved, others less so,  had been replaced by AW. We were hopeful  that the apparent ‘upgrade’ would enhance our footballing performance quickly and decisively, but with Arsenal you just never, ever know.

In Everton we had opponent’s holding a respectable league position but suffering a shaky recent run. Historically the Toffee’s are easy meat (ouch), but historical record exists to be torn up and refashioned. They too had been adding quality. Even in this usually severe PA forum Mr Allardyce’s warm, reviving embrace of Theo raised a favourable murmur of approval. Aye it was an interesting prospect as the players emerged into the early evening downpour, for so many reasons.

The answer was almost immediate.  The Arsenal engine purred into life in about three minutes from Mr Swarbrick’s opening whistle. We tore into the hapless blue crowd who were unlucky enough to find themselves in our way. Iwobi, Ozil and Mhki picked passes, moved and shimmied across the glistening turf, PEA lurked threateningly on the shoulder of the EFC back three. The first goal was pure Wengerball, triangle, triangle, triangle, side-foot, goal. The second was goal from the corner again demonstrated what precision delivery of the dead ball and hard work on the training ground can achieve. Our third, and the boy from Caerphilly’s second was what happens if you pin opposition in their box and keep battering them. Our fourth a combination of a tricky through ball, sharp £56 million worth of movement over 3 meters and poor eyesight. Setting aside the defective vision of the lino the chip over Pickford was excellent from Aubameyang.

The goals in the first half were the main course yesterday. Second half we clearly had eased off, and Fat Sam jiggled his resources a bit more effectively. I think we probably eased off a notch too much. Everton could have had 2-3 goals yesterday and I would not overlook both our centre backs who put in a hard afternoon. For the first game in a while I thought Hector was excellent yesterday, particularly in the first half, constantly available on the right hand side and when he had the ball using it early and accurately. Nacho off early again – “ill” I hear ? Nothing serious I trust.

Just as we had settled for another 4-1 however up stepped Aaron to snap up the Man of the Match award. How could it be otherwise ?

An interesting contest  had turned into a very satisfactory result. We remain a little off the CL places but with every reason to be confident of making up ground over the next 2-3 weeks. And our Welshmanlikes Wembley.

Enjoy Sunday.

*I may have a touch of “Fenestraphobia” by the way, a morbid fear of windows, or possibly defenestraphobia, a fear of falling out of windows. (I thought you’d want to know).

@LaboGoon says what he likes about Allardyce (?) 

Good morning one and all.

What a week we had, down in the dumps the one day, high on positivity the next – as the saying goes: what a difference a day make!

Speaking of days ……… Arsenal host Everton today at the Emirates, to not only shake off the disappointment of our last game but also build on the joy of events these last few days.

Everton is a different beast to the one we trashed 5-2 last time. And credit to Sam Allardyce, he inherited Koeman’s imbalanced side and there’s no denying that their results has picked at since. They had a bump recently losing 3 PL games on the bounce, then they signed Theo Walcott and boom, they drew vs WBA, Theo providing an assist, then beat Leicester, once again Theo scoring a brace. So he return to his old stomping ground riding a wave.

Of course Everton hasn’t basked in the glory of an Emirates victory yet, something Theo is quite familiar with but hopefully he won’t turn out being the straw breaking that particular camel’s back.

(any excuse for a picture of a camel)

Arsenal, oh Arsenal. What do we bring into this fixture. Swansea wasn’t fun eh? Over the course of this season we have seen our defense being absolute warriors, but we’ve also seen them looking completely lost in a few games too many.

With us looking a difference beast too in attack with the former Borussia pair, we should be expecting a response. Not one where “attack is the best form of defense”, but just finding a balance between attack and defense in equal measure. Because if you have defensive solidity to not concede unnecessary  goals, you don’t need to be handing out thrashings.

This will be an interesting game though, with our new talent it’s crucial getting all in roles that’s suited to them to maximize the overall output of “the team”. Sam will be aware of this and will set up to deny us space and making his defense difficult to penetrate.

Say what you like about Big Sam, but he enjoyed his battles with Wenger, not very successful but he did came out of retirement to renew the rivalry with his old foe.

To all going to the Emirates, do crank up the noise to give our new boys a warm welcome.

PS: on behalf of the PA community I just wanna say thanks to Mesut Özil for committing the rest of his peak years to the Arsenal. You are a model professional and truly deserving of the game’s gratitude.

Pep Guardiola is on a mission, He has started using press conferences and after match interviews to call for protection for this hugely expensive assembly of very talented and skillful players. He is demanding that referees give them protection from the deliberate assaults on them.

We now see many of the great and good journalists agreeing with him because it’s “only a matter of time” before one of the delicate little flowers get their legs broken. And do you know what? Pep is right and so are they. We have seen disgusting attempts to injure them in recent weeks.

These assaults are justified, by some, because less skillful players have to find a way of stopping them,otherwise they get battered. Even “good teams” like Spurs do it, with England’s finest, Kane and Alli, bang at it. Both of these two should have seen straight reds last time they met.

Every team, bar Arsenal and Liverpool perhaps, are at it. They are not going out to be strong and compete ,they are going out to injure. Of course they don’t want to break legs and ruin careers, they just want to hurt them enough to stop them playing well in that particular game. However, because the intention is to hurt, there is a huge chance that this approach leaves the victim with career changing damage. Its like driving past a school at 90 mph and then claiming you didn’t mean to kill the child you ran over, It was an accident, you are not that kind of driver. Dangerous play leads to injury. Simples.

Managers are sending players out to “get in their faces”, “leave some on him” and ” slow him down with physicality” They are asking players to overstep the mark and see how much the referee will let them get away with. They can deny it all they like, claim “its a contact sport, but anyone with half a brain knows what is going on.

Pep and his friendly journalist are right, they should be protected.

But here is where I have a problem, Arsene has been saying this since 2004, when United decided they couldn’t win a game of football, and with Mike Riley’s help, they would kick us off the park. That day they literally kicked José Antonio Reyes out of the game and all the way back to Spain.

In 2008 ,Arsenal were 8 points, clear, playing much like City are now, except with a far thinner and less experience squad. We all know what happened, rotational fouling of Fagregas ,Hleb, RVP and Rosicky was the norm and Eduardo was smashed beyond repair.  The injuries bit and we didn’t have anything like the required quality to come in (unlike City). The best football I have seen Arsenal play, was ended by brute force that was sanctioned by the referees.

Was there outrage in the media? Was there bollocks. We ,and specifically Arsene , were told to “man up”. We were told we had a soft center. Were not up for the fight. Were fragile. We were told we were a team of lightweights that were not up to the English game.

Pep Guardiola is 100% right, its disgusting what is happening to his team, but it has been happening to us for 14 years and continues every time we take the field. Ramsey effectively lost two years, Jack for God knows how long, and I suspect we have lost Santi because of the constant assaults on his achilles, Diaby?, and many more.

Where is the outrage from the press been for 14 years?

Pedantic George @arseblagger .

Good morning Positives,

I can still feel the damp discomfort of last night’s result but the effect is gradually reducing, dulled by time and the opportunity to review the event and look forward.

It would be difficult for anyone to add much more to Arsene’s comments about the game pivoting on a number of mistakes by us, from experienced defenders on several occasions and the absolute  howler from Cech. Having had a second watch of the ‘highlights’ this morning that we went home beaten 3-1 was not as bad as it could have been.

I think as well as those crucial lapses there was just not enough quality in our attacking threat. A beautiful ball from Mesut and finish from Nacho for our first, a bit of trickery from Alex Iwobi, some nice movement from Aaron and Laca but it was nowhere near enough to unsettle the Swans back four.  I watched Klopp’s Liverpool lose at the Liberty last Monday, and Fabianski put in a MOTM performance and made a 10-12 excellent saves. Last night he had perhaps 2-3 stops to make. I saw a little bit of what I wanted from Henrikh but it was no night to make your debut, chasing a game in a monsoon.

A man I would excuse from criticism last night was Mo Elneny. He put in one goal saving tackle in the first half that was almost perfect. Not the man to replace as it turned out or the time to replace him, thought at the time I can see why the change was made.

Apart from the instinct to chase  the players and the managers’s through the streets demanding their blood and waving a rope can we earn anything from last night ?

Well my fourpence worth would be to decide to either play with a back four, or a back five. I don’t care which but stop changing from one to the other. Hector and Nacho seemed to be playing very wide and  up the pitch, as wing backs in fact, leaving Kosc and Mustafi on their own. When  Mo went off their isolation became critical.

At the other end of the pitch we saw the home side much better able than us to find space around and to open up the gaps in our defence, and they did that by aggressively running with the ball at their feet towards the aRsenal goal, inviting our defenders, Mo and Xhaka to either get stuck in or get out of the way. It was the SPEED at which they ran towards the defender with the ball that fractured us, not the quality of the attackers’ touch.

I would finally say a deserved win for Swansea. Clucas, Ayew and Mawson all stood out as impressive but a very good ‘team’ performance. Considering a few of them had played 90 minutes against Notts County in the Cup on Saturday they kept at it to the very end. If they are able to continue with that they surely will not end up relegated.

So six days on from the burst of joy and adrenaline the win against Chelsea gave us we bumped back to earth on the green, green grass of home.

We are fortunate to have a game on Saturday to clear the head and set the course for the run in with 13 PL games to go. Enjoy Wednesday.

@LaboGoon spies out the Land of My Fathers

Good morning Positivistas.

It’s the day before the transfer window slam shut and Arsenal is travelling to Swansea City, and as it’s known on these streets, to escape the transfer hoopla even if just temporary.

Last time we played Swansea they were in a bit of a mess but in Carlos Carvalhal they now have a new man at the helm. Life has been pretty kind to him thus far as his new team, while still rooted to the bottom, seem to be finding their stride a little bit as they come in this fixture having lost just once in his seven games in charge. Them playing in the FA Cup this past Saturday make this a short turnaround while Arsenal is coming in a bit fresher and off the back of two convincing victories, which they will want to follow up with another win to stay in touch of top 4.

When Carlos looked at the Swans’ fixture list and saw Liverpool and Arsenal in back-to-back PL games he probably told his team that if they can pick up 3 out of 6 points here it would be a great return. After picking up the 3 points vs Liverpool it now mean that although they can still fancy their chances, they can also afford to revert to a more defensive approach by looking to just restrict us whilst waiting patiently for chances to open up, which would be fair enough when even getting a single point will do it for them.

That being said, with our away form a bit of a worry we can expect a difficult game, so tonight we will have to put in another great all round team performance to batter through a proverbial bus.

On team news: Giroud is back from injury and our new boy Henrikh Mkhitaryan look set to make his debut in what is expected to be a very strong line-up and bench.

After a bumpy start to the year this last week has been great for us. We can sense there’s a real feel good feeling in and around the club, so win here tonight and we will have an opportunity to really kick on as we approach the final quarter of the season.

Good luck to everybody going to the game and all watching via the small screen. With Deadline Day looming… the Arsenal squad look set to be in much better shape than we started the season.

Come on you rip roaring you know what’s!

( a little musical interlude to get you in the mood – very emotional the Welsh)

Good morning my positive friends.

When Andy Nic. and I arranged a job swap for this game, I have to admit I thought I might have gotten the shitty end of the stick. But no, not at all. I sit here in my bed in Blackburn (I’ll get up soon, I promise), with a smile on my face and an easy task.

We sent out the same team as we did vs Palace. No doubt hoping for a similar early display, champagne football , but no, Chelsea were all over us, pushing us back, forcing errors and rushed clearances, controlling the game and frankly making us look distinctly ordinary. They quickly worked a great goal, and i feared the worst.

Then we went to plan B. Dig in. Refuses to panic , roll up the sleeves and work harder on being solid. Monreal attacked the ball and fired a header goalward , It took two ricochets and ended up in the net . 1-1 . Better. For the rest of the first half it was more of an even game, but a fair man would still say Chelsea were shading it.

Then half time ,and the chance for Arsene to reorganise, plan C emerged . It appeared to me (I say “appeared” because I am far for a tactical expert) that we went to some sort hybrid system between 5 2 3 , 3 4 3 and 4 3 3 . The player dictating the changes was ElNeny.

He seemed to be playing as a CDM when we had the ball and a CB when they had the ball. Our wingbacks were more fullbacks off the ball than usual too.

There were odd moments of free flowing football,as you would expect, but this was a more grit,determination and sheer force of will performance . The winning goal was all about  effort over excellence from both Lacazette and Xhaka, fortunate, but earned.

Monreal was exceptional, ElNeny outstanding  and young Iwobi worked harder to contain them than we could have expected, and of course Mesut was glorious.

It was a fantastic effort from everyone involved. Working together as a team, fighting tooth and nail, just what the “experts” constantly suggest we cant do.

So we find ourselves looking for a 10th consecutive Wembley win against The UAE FC . I cant wait.

We can all enjoy this for a few days. and then a few days more.

Pedantic George ( @Arseblagger ) @arseblagger