That was surprisingly stress free, and some really nice goals. Was thinking at half time it was nowhere near stressful enough for an Arsenal European knockout tie and surely they would head in a couple of corners and the last 10 minutes would be a tense nightmare we'd have to watch from behind our hands.
Guess it was always in the script that at some point we'd meet Emery who has won 21 out of the 21 two-legged Europa knockout ties he's managed.
good to see kola, wilock and AMN getting game time and making impacts during their loans. Hope they can come back and kick on.
Also saw something that Hector is off in this window and we are shopping around for an RB. Not sure who we'd look at but that kid at Brighton(maybe) is pretty handy.
Yea and I can’t believe the club would get involved. Feeling pretty angry. If arsenal get confirm as in( what they signed atm the mo is just the intent to play), then I’ll move on from supporting them.
Have supported the club and loved the badge though everyting but this is going to be a hard one to standby and continue with. The way the club announced it shows the utter contempt for the fans. The ultimate "thanks for your interest in our affairs." No longer a club, just a corporation. This was the Emirates dream. "Compete with the best in Europe" they told us.
Aside from the business angle of it, from a football perspective I couldn't think of anything worse than having to play Bayern and Barcelona every week. As if we're not enough of a laughing stock now without being humiliated every single week. And the owners wouldn't give the slightest fudge as long as the money keeps rolling in.
Essentially "thanks for your interest in our affairs" again. Relieved it's over and results and competition count after all. It's difficult but somehow need to disconnect the club from the owner and remember that love I always had for Arsenal. Kroenke is not Arsenal.
Now that is over, we can get back to focusing on stuffing up our season. Where were we with that? Oh right we’d drawn with Fulham, lost our captain and stand in to injury and xhaka was our left back. (Xhaka has done very well in left back in my opinion)
Absolute shambles over here. Sadly couldn’t join the protests as it was the mrs birthday.
I’ve signed up for the AST - if ever there was a time to pull together through a membership body now is it. KSE don’t want to sell, PM has announced a review. Would be very surprised if government forced the 50+1 rule like in Germany but wouldn’t be the end of the world.
On the team front, no Auba, Laca, or Tierney shows how badly our attacking output is challenged.
For Thursday I’d like to see Soares back at LB and our strongest midfield. Xhaka can do that thing where he drops into LCB when on offence too.
Leno Chambers Holding Gabriel Soares Partey Xhaka Saka ESR Pepe Martinelli
For me Nketiah did neither the hold up play or got on the end of crosses well. Martinelli is yet to score from the bench while Eddie makes it a habit.
While our mens team are playing some terrible football, our woman are playing really well! Check out the West Ham vs Arsenal highlights, it's absolute quality football all match.
I'd like to see a referee explain what he thinks Ceballos should have done there, he didn't change his stride or momentum to get into the guys way, he got disposed and his foot clipped the guy. Much like the red card for WH against Chelsea, the kind of thing you'd expect someone who hasn't played the game to give.
I'm still supportive of Arteta, but he really fudgeed up last night. That team selection was bad. But that's OK, it happens and things don't work. But to not change it at half time when you have 5 substitutions available to you? Madness, absolute madness. I think the Xhaka at LB thing needed to end after a couple of games. We're weaker when he's not in midfield and I'd rather have less attacking threat from LB and a more stable midfield than less attacking threat from LB and a less stable midfield.
As much as it pains me to praise Man United fans, what they did was fantastic. You have to put fear and uncertainty into the mix for the owners to pay attention. Banners and planes flying and chants only go so far. They did all that to no avail. This is the next step. Disruption of the football which disrupts the cash flow, the only thing these leeches actually care about.
Is anyone confident of getting a good result tomorrow? We need a good old fashion George Graham 1-0 to the Arsenal but I just can't see us keeping a clean sheet. Surely Auba will start.
It can't have been any surprise to anyone. Midtable without Europe is the foreseeable future now. Expect to see the few good young players we have like Saka, Smith-Rowe, Martinelli, Tierney leaving for the serious clubs in the next couple of seasons.
Willian finally scores when it doesn't really matter, FFS He's been a terribly bad signing. We were all sceptical given the length of the deal, but I think we all reasonably expected something better than what we've got. He's improved of late but overall he's been half the player we saw at Chelsea. Build next year's attacking end around Saka and Smith-Rowe please, from game 1. Would've been interesting to see how our season would've panned out had we done that at the start of this season. We spent long stretches of time spinning our wheels while we tried to make it work with Willian starting, we hadn't found Saka's best roles, and no viable no.10. Once Odegaard came along, and Smith-Rowe began starting, we looked so much better for the most part.
I don't think it's this bad. I'd be open to the idea of selling any of them for crazy money if the right offer came in (£70m+ etc) to continue the squad rebuild, but I doubt we'll just let players like them leave willy nilly when there are other members of the squad to go.
It's going to be a hell of a summer with Torriera, Guendouzi, Kolasinac, Bellerin, Lacazette, Chambers, Mavropanos, Nelson, Nketiah likely all up for sale. I'm hoping we say goodbye to Luiz and don't re-sign him, while Ceballos & Martin O head back to spain with hopefully the latter coming back again. Willian should go, but I'd be surprised if we actually managed to get rid of him.
When you look at that list you'd think there is easy £100-150m in there, but even if we don't recoup that the savings on wages alone would be huge.
We'll likely need to invest in another LB & another RB, another CM, and another CAM or Winger, while assuming we sign Matt Ryan on a free.
To PaulM's point I'd like to see us start next season with:
Auba Pepe ESR Saka Partey New CM Tierney Gabriel Holding New RB Leno
Leaves you with a second 11 of: Martinelli AMN Willock New AM Xhaka Elneny New LB Mari Saliba Soares Ryan
That's not a bad looking squad, especially when their brief is to focus exclusively on the EPL and not dealing with an extra 10+ european matches.
Pretty much agree with all of that brumbys! We're going to have some issues retaining and attracting players without europe, but we are actually fairly well placed to field a decent squad next season, if we recruit smartly. We need to get straight back into a european spot to remove the retaining/attracting problem before it takes hold.
Of the potential departing players this could be a PL side that could just about avoid relegation; Lacazette Nelson Ceballos Nketiah Torriera Guendouzi Kolasinac Chambers Mavropanos Bellerin Luiz OK, maybe only if they got a goal keeper that wasn't Luiz...
If you're referring to the cohort of Bellerin, Xhaka, Leno, Willian, Luiz I think Leno & Xhaka are the two we can't afford to lose. Enough to do in the squad without replacing key current starters. Xhaka has his faults, but I'd rather we had to rely on him less than lose him quickly in the middle of a rebuild with youngsters needing support. Same for Leno. Although he's come out and denied it all 🤷
Dunno, from where im sitting it's us who are looking pretty woeful. Lucky to be gifted a goal (although the finish was good), and being absolutely dominated the rest of the time. Feels like a goal is inevitable, it's a tough watch! This reminds me of us last season. Defending well, but not able to get any decent possession. We are really missing Xhaka too.
pretty woeful all a round to be honest, Chelsea looking good in the build up, but their delivery has been average, no finishing. We have also been pretty poor in delivery to the Auba up front. 1-0 will be the result as we cant control the ball and score and Chelsea couldn't score in a brothel right now.
I know the europa league is important financially but to be honest I'd prefer not to be in it next season. I'm sick to death of the bloody thing. I would love to be able to have one season where we can consolidate, carry a slimmed down squad, and have decent breaks between games. And from a NZ perspective it would be nice to get the saturday night/sunday morning games regularly again. However, I'm still heavily invested in these last couple of games for one reason: we've got a sniff at a Saint Totteringham's day. We play Crystal Palace and Brighton. Must get 6 points. Sp*rs play Wolves, Villa, and Leicester on the final day. We need them to drop 5 points, so a loss and a draw in there. It's possible. To dare is to do (lol).
Just read a stat that we're the third best in the league since Xmas day and the mind is boggling. Doesn't feel that way. Perhaps we've played more games? Must be a catch... Points since Xmas day: 57 Man City 44 Man United 41 Arsenal 39 Chelsea 39 Leicester 37 West Ham 33 Leeds 31 Spurs 29 Everton 26 Liverpool
We’ve played 1 more than most teams and 2 more than some, but good to see we’re up there.
Spuds have 8 points on us for goal difference so we’d need to make some ground up otherwise we need them to drop 6 points. Losses to Villa & Leicester aren’t out of the question, but that relies on us beating Brighton & Palace which isn’t a lock with this team.
If we get 6 points we finish on 61. If they get 4 points from their last 3 (win, loss, draw), they finish on 60. Goal diff only comes into the equation if we win two, and they win one and draw two...
What does everyone think about the future of Joe Willock. I've seen his name listed amongst players that may be sold but he has been playing for Newcastle and consistently scoring including the goal that put Newcastle 3-2 up against Man City this morning before City scored two quick goals. Reading comments from Newcastle fans, they would love him to be signed permanently but I wonder if the form he has been showing could be good for us.