@LaboGoon gets the big Friday game underway

Hello Positivistas…

Arsenal host Liverpool tonight at the Emirates in a game where the result, much like last season, could be the difference between Champions League or Europa qualification. So for both teams a win is important.

This won’t be an easy game, Liverpool’s attack have an undeniable air of ruthlessness to them when given space, the kind that has already see them made light work of us at Anfield back in August. That is how Liverpool play, and that what we can expect. So if you want to take them on at their own game, as a team you need to work harder than them and strike a good balance between attack and defense with little room for complacency, or risk getting picked off.

Few teams – Burnley, Newcastle, West Brom, Big Sam’s Everton, Manutd who all took points off them – this season has worked out that by sitting back, flooding the midfield and defense, it can result in their “Fab Four” being ineffective.

Now I’m not suggesting that Arsenal should set up for a draw. There is a theory though that if you can keep their ‘gegenpressing’ tactic at arms length in the first half that they will open up more in the second. As legs grow tired their defensive deficiencies will start to show, leaving them vulnerable on counter attack or otherwise.

That is what I would like to see, especially with the visitors coming into this match in good spirits after scoring 4 first half goals vs Bournemouth.

As I already said, this will not be an easy game but if we can carefully navigate between attacking impetus and stay switched on in defense, be it playing with a back five or four… we should give ourselves a pretty good chance of coming out of this with all 3 points.

On team news: with Ramsey already out until the New Year, we’ve lost Larry too for at least the same time frame until further notice. Shkodran Mustafi however is back to bring more calm to our defense.

On the previous blog’s comments thread it was highlighted that fixtures will be a bit tight over the next few weeks. So ‘flair and panache’ could be sacrificed as our players are going to have to play through aches and bruises, putting their bodies on the line for each others and us.

One of those things man, because as the saying goes: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”.

To the Emirates faithful, you guys have had a great year, keep it up and going into next year. Gooners watching on the tv…. don’t ever quit losing hope.

Merry Xmas to the PA community and all readers.

Good Morning Arsenal Positive,

Another solid step for the B team last night against an ‘Ammers side who, on paper, looked strong enough. The players Moyes had picked wee good enough to win the tie and have had some good results recently, but never seemed to put in the 100% effort we saw from them a week ago. Maybe in the back of their minds the Premier League fixtures over Christmas were looming and on a Tuesday night they did not have another good performance in their tank. Complex creatures are footballers, very difficult to know what goes on between the ears.

However, not for a moment should the Ammers performance detract from what was good about our own lads. Danny poaching and eventually, after a dozen half chances buries it off his shin. Joe Willock (69) had a very good 85 minutes and Arse.com had his match stats up earlier to emphasise his effectiveness. (69 touches, 46 successful out of 50 passes, 4/5 dribbles, 3/3 long balls, 3 interceptions, 2/5 tackles, 1 key pass)

Callum Chambers and Holding were always too sharp for the West Ham strike force and Debuchy also took another step toward PL redemption. I am not sure if Sead will be fully fit enough for Liverpool but I suspect a Back 5 will return on Friday so I hope so.

Other than that not much to say. Another game, another hamstring, or two. Kevin Friend displayed the Christmas spirit to poor, poor Joe Hart. Another headless performance from the former England No1. Do you recall the fuss in the media a year ago when Pep dropped him and sent him off to Torino ? Well it is all quiet in the press box now.

Citeh slithered past Leicester, the red Mancs play Brissel and the Rent boys Bournemouth tonight so the most likely turn out of the top four teams in the country will face each other. The draw is after the end of tonight’s games, for those who are still awake. Whoever comes out of the hat it will be a hard two games for both sides.

Thanks to David Price  @priceyd101 for the top photo – Arsenal’s ‘other’ photographer with Stuart MacFarlane and always top quality. Love the night work.

Enjoy Wednesday.

@ReverendGooner goes easy on the media 

Now I’m no fan of the weekly pantomime that is Arsenal Fan TV but for now they are here and here to stay or until Robbie gets picked up by one of the majors to become a real football reporter which I’m sure is his dream job. The former reggae boy from the BBC created this monstrosity with his mate and AFTV cameraman Tai to supposedly take on the established professional pundits who comment on our games from a position of detachment in their finely appointed studios. In fairness if you look at the likes of Robbie Savage, Michael Owen & Jermaine Jenas et al its not difficult to disagree with the boys from AFTV. Some of the collective lack of wisdom from the established punditry genii makes you want to give your kids a damn good thrashing for not finishing their homework. Who can forget Owen’s immortal quote ‘whichever team scores the most goals normally wins the game’. Stone the crows if that quote isn’t full of divine wisdom from a man who played the game for 20 years and its living proof that you don’t need to be intelligent to be successful at football.

Based on this there was a definite need for a fan based TV punditry collective to put across real unbiased views from real fans. Well that’s what was supposed to happen but to be honest that would have been as boring as bats s**t and Robbie the brains of the outfit knew this. If you look at AFTV’s early offerings back in 2012=13 it was all pretty mundane stuff but they soon worked out that nothing sells like bad news. The shock jocks of the online fan tv had arrived. Robbie the skilled facilitator loads the proverbial gun and then gets his carefully selected Arsenal experts to answer the questions. These so-called experts are fans just like you and me but in the main they are anti establishment and anti Wenger. This is the crucial ingredient to the mix that either makes or breaks the YouTube views. The original go to pair were Claude & Ty the ‘Who’s on First’ duo of AFTV. Ty is one of the those rarest of species on AFTV, the eternal Optimist whereas Claude is just as he looks, Mr Grumpy. Its not a big stretch to think this is all partly scripted in an ad hock sort of way. I have it on good authority that Ty is a genuine sort of guy who truly loves the Arsenal and has followed them for over 20 years. Claude on the other hand is a bit harder to get a handle on because of his outward persona of just being perpetually miserable 24/7. Let’s face it the majority of their viewers are not Arsenal fans they are opposition supporters who want us to lose so they can watch the shenanigans unfold like a carefully scripted soap opera. Research has proven that when Arsenal win their views drop dramatically and I’m talking in the 100s of thousands which is a pretty compelling statistic so of course from AFTV’s stand point its better when we lose and even better when we lose badly like at Bayern and Liverpool.

I have been a harsh critic of AFTV at times because I’m a bit old fashioned and I believe in loyalty to the cause even under fire but hey that’s just me. The new Arsenal fan circa 1990 comes from the ‘want it now’ generation and are little less forgiving when we don’t spend half a billion every transfer window and don’t match their line up on FIFA 18 or fantasy football manager. Now before all the hate mail starts pouring in I’m not knocking those supporters its their right to support the team anyway they like but it is also very clear that we have two very different types of fan within our fan base. Robbie knows this and he knows his apples and his favourite apples come in the shape of DT and Troopz and I got to hand it to DT because I think he missed his calling in life, the man should have been an actor. Some of his rants are legendary and have football fans from across the different leagues and right across the globe tuning in for a laugh. Even celebrities like Gary Neville and Liam Gallagher tune in for a dose of the giggles because of the entertainment value they get from watching Robbie and DT do their Morecambe and Wise stand-up routine. Unfortunately for us its at the expense and dignity of the Arsenal football club and usually involves personal insults aimed at Stan Kroenke, Arsene Wenger and any number of players. These are not captains of industry or titans of the game dishing out the verbal battering’s, they are blokes off the street who until now have not tasted any fame or success in life. They want to be stars and have online fame I get it, they are trying to get their names out there in the media, I get that too. What I don’t get is all the hostility and agro that comes with it. Fights at the lane the lads from AFTV employing minders to get them in and out of the ground and Arsenal Fans turning on Arsenal fans on the Emirates concourse. This is not entertainment and its definitely not funny football is a family game these days and we don’t need or want the terrace wars of the 70’s. AFTV are well established now and have the real power to do some real good. They are not going to influence who owns Arsenal football club that’s done and dusted and as Stan Kroenke and his son Josh pointed out in their recent interview with the Daily Mirror they will never sell and they are here for generations. They are also not going to influence who manages Arsenal despite DT’s banner waving, marching and on line stamping of feet Wenger still got a new 2-year deal.

Instead of building the whole AFTV premise around Arsenal negativity, division and conflict why not promote the club its players and the fans. Sure, deliver constructive criticism where its due but be balanced in your opinions and display a measure of objectivity in your analysis. If you need to rant for content and views sake then rant about how many times the referee failed to award us a penalty or how many fouls and dives the opposition got away with’ Surely the FA and their inconsistent application of the rules deserve some measure of rage & of course the premier league for trying to schedule games at midnight on Christmas Eve in Siberia deserve a large slice of DT mania. Surely you can still build up an inarticulate rage frothing at the mouth while turning blue at any of these topics so why oh why do Arsenal have to be the butt of all the jokes?

Arsenal have never in their entire history been a European power house and even after Wenger goes in 2019 who is to say we will. We have won the old 1^stdivision/Premier League in patches through our history and our most successful period was in the 1930’s winning the league five times. We have never been consistent like Utd and we were mostly considered a cup team in the 70’s and 80’s so why try to make out we are something we are not. Money?  Its all about the cash, because there is so much cash in the game now and so much more in clubs like Utd, City and Chelsea some people think we should be matching them dollar for dollar. In their 112 year History Chelsea have won 23 trophies 14 of which they won after Abramovich took over from Ken Bates in 2004. Manchester City were playing in the 3^rd division as recently as 1999. The game has moved on in to a new era of even more money and sadly for many teams they are never going to win any trophies let alone the FA or league Cups but AFTV and many of their fans say that the domestic cups are worthless or secondary trophies yet Chelsea, Utd and City have won the EFL Cup a combined 9 times in the past 12 years so they obviously don’t think so. We all want to win the league but because of the influx of cash it’s getting harder and harder every year. Leicester was a one off and its highly unlikely that will happen again. A supporter from one of our most bitter rivals told me that they love watching AFTV because they have turned our club into a sad pathetic joke where are own fans and fan tv hate us more than our rivals do.

Food for thought.

Good morning Positive AFC,

As we all anticipated our excellent home form carried us over the line against Toon. It was a little messy at the end and as we discussed last night by not slotting a second and ideally a third goal we left the chance available for the visitors to scuffle something from the game in the final few minutes. Despite a couple of misdirected efforts from Ayoze Perez in that phase we were ok.

There has been a bit of debate as to the quality, or lack of it, of Arsenal over the 90 minutes. As Arsene had suggested in the pre match press bash a little more speed and craft were required to score goals.

Mesut is always creative although first half he seemed to be playing further back than usual. His goal was a peach, the work of a world class footballer.  I’d say with Alex Iwobi and Jack starting that more creative spring was in place. Alex would pop up one moment on the left side dribbling into the Toon box, in the next move he’d be crossing from the left. We shot more and we shot accurately. I think therefore that ball carrying/crossing/using the full pitch was better. Newcastle were pulled about and opened up. As in the West Ham game all they could do for long periods was clear it them wait for our next attacking wave to arrive.

Where more work is needed is in the finishing as having opened the opposition up wide twice more (at least) we did not add to our goals tally. Laca’s chipped effort that sailed over Elliot and the bar by six feet was a shock – for the Frenchman as well as the 60,000 spectators. To be fair, and I’m always fair, I thought our Chilean did rather better yesterday than in recent matches and put in a couple of excellent crosses, one to Hector first half and a second to Larry, either of which could/should have been converted. Sanchez can cross a ball superbly – and that is what wingers do. Do more of it.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles ? That crazy slalom first half run! The finish that hit the side netting with Elliott flailing. A right footed midfielder at left back ?!? What is it all about son? In any event your first PL home debut and hardly a foot put wrong. You may therefore receive the MotM award from this fan. Please enjoy the day.

So on to the Ammers and the Cariboo on Tuesday, a very quick turnaround, before a big Friday night in prospect. B team to dispatch what I guess is likely to be the Claret and Blue B team. We have more than enough quality to put them away. Friday though …………… that is the game I am already looking forward to.

Enjoy your Sunday.

Good morning Positive Arsenal fans,

It is a morning after the night before that I admit I have struggled to put pen to paper in respect of the post match review. Some games have too much action and incident to condense into a 600 word piece, and the result of other matches, either good or bad, carries the narrative along on the creative wing. I can gush with the best of them.

Last night’s game in contrast had almost no incident, and while I have attended a few excellent 0-0 draws last night was not among them.

In line with our mission I was able to identify a number of positive aspects in our play over the 90 minutes. First among then I thought Jack was most impressive, always hungry for the ball, winning the ball regularly and taking the ‘Ammers on across a crowded midfield. He managed to get into a position that could have won the game, but blazed over. Nevertheless JW was the only man who all second half really got into that goal scoring position. The second positive was Ainsley Maitland-Niles and a very solid PL debut against Antonio who, if anyone watched the Ammers bash Chelsea at the weekend, is no footballing mug. Because he has been around while I had the impression he was a developer but he is just turned 20. While young Ainsley and has his backers and detractors among AFC fans that was a good, professional left back job. Finally, I thought the back four collectively put in a much better performance and the home side hardly had a sight of our goal. Only a prize Charlie like Hoddle to award Arnautovic the MotM. On the defence though WTF happened in the 91^st minute when we gifted Chicarito a chance to rattle the bar I don’t know.

Of what was less satisfactory last night I think a few posters last night had the correct analysis of a timidity around the edge of the box and an inability to translate overwhelming possession into goal chances or, even better, GOALS! And overwhelming it was, with the Ammers over long periods in the second half totally unable to do anything else than kick it away for us to start again. For all that ball possession Adrian spent a fairly comfortable evening. I had no expectations of Moyes at the London Stadium in arresting West Ham’s decline but a narrow defeat at the Etihad, a win against Chelsea and last night suggest I may have been wrong. They really did put in a determined defensive performance.

Where do we go from here ? Well the lack of goals away from home is spoiling what has been our good home form and last night was simply another chapter in the Stoke, Watford, Saints series of games we have dominated possession but not been decisive in the box. I doubt very much we will see or require much of a tactical revision for Toon on Saturday but at Selhurst Park it may be Arsene ponders a 442 with Giroud and Lacazette in tandem against the lumbering Palace central defenders.

There we are then, Thursday to enjoy and just 48 hours until the Geordies are in town. Newcastle is always a game I associate with floodlights, Winter weather and goals.

@GoonerReverend contemplates St Augustine’s advice to “Love the Sinner but Hate the Sin”- sort of.

It seems to be that wherever there is Mourinho and a football match there is drama. I don’t know what it is but the man and the headline just seem to morph in to one big soap opera right in front of our very eyes. Outwardly he is a fantastic coach & that cannot be denied. Whatever you think of his methods or his style of football in a result based industry he has the results to back up that argument but there is just something about him that makes you want to lash out irrationally. His long-standing rivalry with Wenger the ‘Mr Nice Guy’ of football is well known and even more widely reported on by the Jose loving media. Who can forget the day they squared up on the touch line. Everyone remembers that October day at Stamford Bridge in 2014 when their absolute dislike for each other boiled over into a shoving match on the touch line. The normally civil & urbane Wenger was ready to give as good as he got & his actions seem to scream “Ill F%#@in Ave You Son”. Mourinho gets under people’s skin. He coaches his players to get under opposing players skin, its his way of deflecting any scrutiny away from him or his team. His career to date has been either trophies or the sack. Virtually every club he’s been at has been asked to leave because his methods are toxic and ends up causing his club unwanted attention for the wrong reasons and it has been proven that it really does affect the moral and performance of his players eventually. His most famous and regrettable ‘Cause Celebre’ was the events that took place involving him and his team doctor Eve Carneiro during a game against Swansea in 2015. Even by Mourinho’s standards this debacle was off the Richter scale as far as damaging to both Chelsea and his reputation not to mention the absolute misery and insult he inflicted on the poor doctor just for doing her job.

This was Mourinho in full uncontrolled flight at his absolute worst. His team were playing poorly and had just conceded a penalty so he lashed out at the nearest person to come within his mounting rage. The poor team doctor.

Jose if only you had let it go at that & that being as bad as it gets when your Jose Mourinho but no he had to take it to the limit as a sign that he the ‘Special One’ whose authority was without question. He went on the offensive with even more diabolical behaviour against the good doctor turning the farce into a sexism row. This was in August and by December Chelsea had seen enough and the ‘Happy One’ was now the sacked one, Again. In 2016 Mourinho replaced Louis van Gael as the manager at Manchester Utd promising to bring back the Ferguson glory years while spending an obscene amount of money at the same time. To his credit he won the league Cup & the Europa League in his 1^st season at the club but on the down side he finished 6^th in the Premier League with the most expensive squad ever assembled. This season appears to be no different he has assembled a very expensive squad but the PL all but looks to be riding away over the hill to his noisy neighbour’s City.

He has publicly squared off with his City Rival Pep Guardiola a few times this season but yesterday’s incident outside the changing rooms after suffering a 1-2 loss at Old Trafford have Mourinho stamped all over it. Lukaku slinging a bottle at Guardiola’s deputy Arteta, Mourinho himself squaring up to City’s goalkeeper Everson and getting soaked in Milk and water for his trouble and a general melee was had by all if you believe the Press. It is Christmas folks so its pantomime season and there is no better panto villain than the MOU. What the FA will make of all this is anyone’s guess but the battle lines have clearly been drawn and you can be sure Pep won’t be on Jose’s Christmas card list anytime soon.

But if you take a closer look at yesterday’s events they bear a striking resemblance to his previous foibles* (steady on – there are children reading)  and his need to deflect any closer inspection of what could be going wrong at Utd. Its hard to see him taking down Barcelona, PSG, City or Bayern in the CL and with his loss the PL possibly bit the dust yesterday so where does that leave Mourinho this season after all the cash that has gone to fill his Christmas stocking this season. When you are at a club with the stature of Utd you have to win something or your rivals will start circling and then you’re no longer the shark in the goldfish bowl but rather just another one of the goldfish. In this new world of social media scrutiny and tall-poppy bashing we all want to see Mou get sat on his arse this season and go home with nothing because it makes for great drama. But every drama needs a bad guy and this soap opera that is the English Premier League needs its serial bad guy Jose Mourinho and we need him too because our Mondays mornings would be that little bit duller without him.

Good Afternoon Positive ladies and gentlemen,

Well the positive  news is clearly that we gained a point on an afternoon when, I admit, I had my doubts that we would exit St Mary’s with anything other than a damn good jeering.

As matters turned out a fine headed finish from the old French master above. The best ball flighted in that we had all afternoon. An intelligent header from Oli and the decisive moment. Hard evidence that we must never give up, and a harder lesson for the home side that  in a game of professional football concentrating for 89 minutes and 45 seconds just won’t do.

Of the game itself an appalling opening, no other word for it. For the second weekend running a highly experienced German central defender under only slight pressure scuffed a clearance and gave the ball to an opposition player 40 yards from goal. The aforementioned highly experienced German defender then scampered after the Saints player who had bypassed him and then slipped  over!  His defensive comrades were too far away to the right, Kosc, and too far away to the left, Nacho, to offer any real challenge of barrier. The wing backs in the back five arrangement ? I have no idea where they were. Defensive cover or a hasty foot in from my man Granit ? No – not today.

Straightforward one-two, tidy finish, Austin – just three minutes on the clock.

There then followed another 5 minutes of three other similar almost disasters, with the lino intervening twice and Cech pulling off a good save to stop a second bulge in our netsack.

As I believe Mandy said earlier to be caught cold and punished once is slightly embarrassing, to be caught twice in a row, is FUCKING inexcusable.

Let us move swiftly on.

After we managed to wake up individually and collectively we dominated possession but, other than a tidy shot by Ramsey on 43 minutes we did not achieve much. There was loads of good approach work but no decisive ball to open the Saints’ defence. Unlike De Gea last Saturday Foster was under-employed. We just never seemed to have enough players in the box.

I was expecting a little more vim in the second half but, sadly, the pattern repeated itself with Saints firmly entrenched, with an occasional worrying breakaway, and AFC passing it back wards and forwards, forwards and backwards et cetera.  We have players of huge attacking ability, Mesut, Sanchez, Aaron, Lacca  but they seem reluctant to take an opponent on.

Serious question as I may have missed it. Other than Sanchez’s free kick which Foster punched way did we have a shot on target in the second half ?

This week hurling Giroud, Jack and Danny into the contest just got us enough momentum to cause the home side to crack eventually, but it was close, damn close.

Enjoy your Sunday.

@LaboGoon opens the programme on Arsenal vs Southampton

Arsenal travel to Southampton this afternoon looking to bounce back after shooting ourselves in both kneecaps last weekend.

In that game from 10 minutes in till the end whistle we put in quite a credible performance, but it was ultimately the “Oh FFS” moments in the initial 10 that did enough damage. And that’s the lesson in humility that should accompany us for not only today, but onwards.

Going to St Mary’s has never been an easy trip for Arsenal. Our victory there last season has been the only one in the PL this decade.

Mauricio Pellegrino have his boys well organised in recent weeks. In their last three matches they scored 4 goals vs Everton thanks to a good attacking display, turned Pep into a demented banshee after keeping his gunslingers at arms length defending in numbers, before coming from behind to draw vs a very spirited Bournemouth team. That they can take a lot of heart from that performances, varying tactics, should be enough to give us pause for concern.

In our four matches following the FIFA week we’d been in good form, playing with energy, confidence and togetherness, besides that 10 minute freak show of course.

With the PL so unforgiving it’s hard to gauge how hard you need to go one game to the next during these congested times. So as default we need to keep the intensity and tenacity up, without getting ahead of ourselves. The PL is a steeplechase we go one hurdle at a time.

Chelsea allowing West Ham to pin them back in the opening stages of their game gifted the Hammers an opportunity they didn’t look back from. That’s a risk we can’t afford to make (again). When the ref blow the whistle to signal the start of the game we switch on, and stay on till full time.

Being the “most important game of the season” I have no doubt Arsène Wenger will field his strongest team from the available players. Those are the same as last week beside Shkodran Mustafi who’s missing out with injury. We could see either Holding or Mertesacker taking his place. Might be too soon for Chambers who only just came back from injury.

Arsenal are going into hostile territory as the St Mary’s crowd will be on our players’ back from start to end. So let’s keep our fingers crossed they keep their wits about them.

Good luck to all watching the game wherever you find yourselves, and don’t quit speaking out against those who seek to divide the Arsenal fan base. COYG

**