добро утро (dobro utro) Positive friends and fans of The Arsenal,

Yet another pleasant Autumn morning here in Norfolk as I scribble the further instalment in what is turning into a very pleasant season indeed, on all fronts. Oh yes the pen is flowing across the page like warm creamy custard over a fresh peeled banana.

Of last night’s game Ludogorets came and, for the opening 30 minutes, gave a good account of themselves. They had done their homework and understood that to get something from the evening required a swift smash and grab of a goal, or better still two, then a retreat behind the barricades and let us do out worst. Those opening few minutes I would have to say their tactics nearly came off, with Wanderson, Cafu, Misidjan and Marcelinho ( I wrote the names down so as not to forget) buzzing around our half of the pitch and our defenders, and even Le Coq, hard pressed to keep a grip on them.

On two occasions in the opening 20 minutes Ospina pulled off saves that kept Johnny Bulgar at bay. Yet again the patient Colombian was called into immediate action after games on the bench and responded impeccably. Let in an unexpected goal at home early on CL night and it can be a long, long evening. Looking at the final score line one might forget our keeper’s key saves at a time when the game was very much in the balance. It would be wrong to do so.

Our first goal, delightful as it was, only temporarily halted them back and even then they pushed forward. Up the 41^st minute this game was still a real contest, though one we were gaining a stranglehold of.

Our second goal however, young Theo’s unexpected but deadly strike from 25 yards to the top right hand corner, rocked the visitors. The flicker of hope which had sustained their energy through a bright first half was extinguished. They knew at 2-0 down that there was no realistic chance of restoring parity. Probably the timing of Theo’s goal meant that what would have been an upbeat orange sucking half time in the Ludogorets dressing room at just 0-1, was a much more sombre, “backs-to-the-wall-lads”, conversation.

Goals 3,4,5 and 6. The second half we dominated without, oddly enough, really hitting our best game I thought. As the visitors tired larger and larger spaces appeared and we have players who just love space and know what to do with it. In other games and so comfortably ahead we have sat back more but not last might, and the Ox and then Mesut helped themselves to the next four as we all saw. To a degree part of the shellacking the Bulgarians eventually suffered was down to a couple of questionable saves from the unfortunate Stoyanov but even we occasionally run into a keeper not at his best. An 11 minute hat-trick ? Ridiculous, but enjoy it when it comes to you son.

Match ball for Mesut. Relaxed end to the evening, everyone went home happy, probably even those 000’s who left at 4-0.

The game played in the right spirit. No cards, no diving, no obvious rough stuff. Hard but fair from both sides. Referee Dias a good effort. Who knew that Ludogorets have a London fan club !?! I see them as well able to steal third place from Basel. The only jarring note last night was some bizarre punditry on BT. I will not bother to name names or repeat the absurdities. You know who they are.

Two days break before Boro, a team whose confidence has sunk like a stone since a couple of decent opening results in August. A fragile opponent. I fancy our momentum will continue onward and upward. Whose to say when our scoring spree may end.

Enjoy your Thursday

I wanted to put in words my feelings on the whole Xhaka red card malarky. It’s hard, because when I tried on Twitter it came across that I thought he was a bad lad and I agreed with the sending off. Neither of these things are true. So when I saw  comment from our very own Arsenal Andrew, that perfectly summed up my feeling about not just that incident, but the overall state of the team and our position, in typical fashion, I thought “I’ll nick that”. 

Also, Andrew has been conspicuous by his absence (a bit like me really?) on the articles front, so this is my way of forcing the shirker out of his slumber.

“I’d be surprised if we see much more of Moss in the future, his ‘display’ left everything to be desired and had he succeeded, sorry, had Swansea succeeded in scabbing the draw we’d have never heard the last of it, and rightly so.

It’s rarely a single incident that riles fan rage but a culmination of confounding decisions that eventually add up to a deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the overall refereeing performance. And so it was on Saturday with Moss’s reckless ignoring of two Arsenal head injuries ahead of his joyous sprint to over-punish the over-stretched Granit.

Personally I love it when cheats are punished and would happily see all such unfootballing activities dealt with via the red card. But they so rarely are which makes Moss’s over-the-top intervention, in the context of his earlier tolerance of Swansea’s thuggery wholly confounding and ultimately unacceptable. Hence the outrage.

Which was a pity because refereeing shenanigans aside it was a thrilling game, thoroughly enjoyable and a terrific win for Arsenal. Except come season’s end, it won’t be remembered for that, will it?

And what of Arsenal’s wider form? As Shotta reminds us from time to time, we appear to be in the midst of a statistically significant run at the moment, though we have all been here before, right?

Our traditional Autumn Run tends to derail itself with a pile-up of injuries that clear themselves up in time for the end of season express train run-in. The difference this season, if any can be expected?

This will become manifestly clear over the next 8 weeks but to me we must be perilously close to having genuine strength in squad depth across all positions. Surely no team could absorb a loss to the side such as that presented by injuries to Ozil and Sanchez? I’d suggest that, brilliant though both clearly are, neither have hit top, top form which suggests the rest of the side – and the replacements in the wings – must be pretty decent.

I’m quietly confident.”

Bore da pobl y Positives,

What a cracking game yesterday. One that will stick in my mind when the record of the 2016/2017 Premier League season is published.

Of the game itself? I admit I anticipated an easier afternoon, against a Swansea team in the bottom three, not won a game since the opening day of 13^th of August in any competition, who have struggled this season on their travels, and who rolled up at the Ems with the unknown Mr Bradley in charge. What threat could they provide to an Arsenal side that has been flying of late, a virtually fully fit squad, quality all over the pitch and the Ems a relative fortress with the Scarfists silently peripheral in their misery as winning game follows game.

I should know better although until the 38^th minute everything proceeded as I expected. We dominated the ball, passed well, slipped in the first with Theo showing the strength of a young Hercules, then doubled our lead. The visitors really did not have an answer. They chased us desperately but were always a yard behind. “Welcome to the PL Bob, this could get a bit tricky for you though”.

And then in the 38^th minute that silly error from Granit, the ball given away needlessly which Sigurdsson slotted beyond Cech. That was a hell of a finish from a player who is not supposed to be a striker. Over those few seconds our dominance faded and/or Swansea sniffed the possibility of recovery from what a moment before had been a serious beating. One of THOSE moments.

Thereafter for the remainder of the match we found ourselves in an even contest, lots of energy, Alexis buzzing, cut and thrust, both sides playing a good passing game, their man Barrow a constant pest, both sides attacking con brio. We eased a little further ahead with an outstanding ball from the Chilean and a super finish from Mesut. And then, damn them, SCFC managed to drag us back to 3-2.

I could sense the manager’s unease when he put on Le Coq in place of Iwobi. This was going to be a hard last 25 minutes, the points were far from safe.

Moss’s choice of card colour was, as Arsene said, “harsh”. Whether Barrow was in fact injured I don’t know. A trip would not normally cause an injury but he appeared to be limping afterwards and exited ten minutes later so perhaps he was.

The final 20+ minutes were end to end stuff. Swansea had most of the ball, we defended carefully, solidly, cleanly, and kept them at bay. Our earlier looseness in defence was replaced by steely efficiency. Much our credit we also were (almost) deadly in our counter attacking, with two more chances for Theo that would and, in the case of the second one, should have finally hammered the Swans to defeat.

Of the result ? Very, very important. We stumbled in the 38^th minute but managed to stay up. We had less possession than Swansea, and ultimately less players, but we had we used more effectively. Three points on a day when our rivals slipped up. Three points in a game decided by a pass and a finish from our two world class players. As you may gather from the photograph above the game took it out of me.

The significance of the game and the result ? Our sixth Premier League victory and we settle on the shoulder of the blue Manchester team, breathing lightly on the shiny dome of Pep. As I said in opening on such days are League Championships won, and lost.

Therefore enjoy your Sunday and we shall see what the champions of Bulgaria have to offer later in the week.

Today’s article is from our very own Gf60

Neither offside nor handball as clearly shown by this image, courtesy of Arsenal.com

Andy Nic chose a very good weekend to visit the D Day memorial in Normandy.

Even his cultured prose would have had problems with this game.  As Steww mentioned in his preview regarding fans’ superstition of travelling North of Watford after a Euro game: “The best we can hope for is to survive and nick the points…”.

By the way, where did all those virgins go Steww?

Superstition 1, Steww 0.

Having watched most of our ‘1-0 to the Arsenal’ games it is no lie to say that this was probably the closest finish we’ve experienced, with no time to even kick off after Kos’s winner… or was it Ox’s winner? Whatever it was, it must be termed our scrappiest goal of the season and Burnley supporters will argue that off-side and/or hand-ball should have been called.

Incorrect of course, it was 1-0 to the Arsenal and that is never wrong.

No changes to the side from the Basel game, bar Petr coming in for Oosp, but we definitely saw a change in tempo. Perhaps a return to planet Earth was due and the stygian gloom of the North-West would not have helped. For sure we seemed to be playing at half the pace seen during the previous eight days and it took us some fifteen minutes to acclimatize.

Even then, it was noticeable that our midfield was a bit heavy-legged, nobody doing much wrong but having nowhere near the control that we’d previously shown.  Fortunately our back line was working well and despite a couple of chances were holding Burnley at bay. The Koshodra partnership was very sound as was the covering for any defender caught upfield.  Petr made some good saves when needed, one particularly special in the second half.

Up front, Alexis was running around like the butcher’s dog but not getting the reward his energy deserved.

He’s such an unselfish player and had a few shooting possibilities that were laid off to others. Time to get the selfishness back Alexis? You did that on Wednesday as well trying to give Theo his hat-trick.

Theo’s good work in defence continued. He really has improved in that area. Pity that his shooting let him down, as was the case with Oz. Theo however was responsible for the header that led to our goal so he can be forgiven.

Oz just had an offish day.

Now for yet another interbloodynational break …

Let’s hope all the guys called on come back fit and ready to eat some roast swan.

Keep the faith.