Thoroughly enjoyable game and so good to be back, and to look like we belong. That's an opposition who beat us only last season in the Europa and who have knocked us out of the CL previously too. Also how good is it to hear things at half time in the studio like "Don't forget tomorrow Liverpool plays in the Europa League on channel blablabla."
Re-signing players has gotten pretty easy these days eh! Boy havent Arteta and Edu done wonders. Gotta hand it to the Kroenkes. They stuck it out, found the right management team, fully trusted them, and backed them with funds.
Totally agree Buffon, I think this January or summer we need a Raya-level ruthless signing to upgrade striker position. Not many around who can offer more, but having seen the way he's gone at Newcastle I do think we missed a trick with Isak. V worried about the injury count, with Rice, Martinelli, Trossard, Partey, and Timber all out this early in the season.
Very disappointed with that performance. Felt confident during the first half, our press was all over them, looked like we should totally dominate. But as the game went on we got sloppier and sloppier. A lot of unforgiveable mistakes when in possession. We should've only conceded one, and scored many more. Arteta will be ripping shreds off them after that I reckon. Injuries are a concern now. We missed Trossard in that one. Surprised he didnt give Nelson or Smith-Rowe a start instead of playing Nketiah.
Second half showed how reliant we already are on Rice. Man City should be fun if he's out. He played 150 games without injury for West Ham and only missed 1 game when he had a cold. Typically it only took a handful of games here. At the time of the Havertz signing I said we should have gone for Maddison instead if spending that sum and that opinion hasn't changed. There just doesn't look to be any sort of player there.
Personally I thought Havertz was very good when he came on? Transformed that left side, Vieira had done very little. Typically blazed his one chance over, mind you. Very different player to Maddison. Maddison for me reeks of Van der vaart - all gung ho and fun to watch when you're playing spurs style football, but not elite, and not big club calibre. He might have a good season or two, but fun spurs will be his ceiling.
The case could easily be made that Arsenal-Spurs is currently the biggest game in football.
I did nicely out of it in FF by captaining Saka and having Son in my team too.
Dropped Saliba to the bench. Thought Romero didn’t have a bad game at all, but just got hammered by all the attack going through him.
Martinelli is injured? Surprised Smith Rowe and/or Trossard didn’t feature earlier. In fact thought after preseason Trossard was going to score all your goals.
Injuries starting to pile up already. A handful of games in and we're already down to our 3rd choice DM and 3rd choice LW and dangerously close to both Cedric and Elneny being on the pitch.
Slightly digression but have secured tickets to Arsenal Burnley 11 November! My last (and only other) emirates experience was the 2019 2-2 draw with Palace where we were robbed of goal by VAR/a penalty on Chambers and Xhaka flipped off the hostile crowd after being dragged. Lineup of: Leno, Chambers, Sokratis, Luiz, Tierney, Guendouzi, Xhaka, Ceballos, Pepe, Laca and Auba. Only player I saw who is in the lineup was a fresh Saka coming off the bench (for Xhaka). It was a terrible atmosphere to be fair so I am looking forward to hearing The Angel echo throughout the ground and a much better result!
argghhhhhh bein do you know if the FA Cup will be on Sky or Bein? If its Bein, and we progress in the Carabao tomorrow, then I might take the plunge and subscribe
nope its Bein, but their services is shark, I signed up for the week trial, stunnign first experience, video fails as soon as it kicks off, sound is great bu no video - horrid.
nope its Bein, but their services is shark, I signed up for the week trial, stunnign first experience, video fails as soon as it kicks off, sound is great bu no video - horrid.
FA Cup is definitely still on Sky. Bein have basically picked up what was on Spark Sport last season - guess they offered more money than Sky. And also didn't renew their deal with Sky so they are a now a separate product - previously they had a deal where their stuff was on Sky channels. https://www.sky.co.nz/discover/sky-sport/football
What device are you using for Bein? I haven't had any issues via the Sky Pod or my phone so far, other than there not seeming to be a watch from start option this morning - I was a bit late getting sorted and couldn't seem to start the stream from the start so switched on as we scored.
Edit: Interestingly you can go from start on the phone app but wouldn't let me do it via Sky Pod.
Safely through and the draw for the next round happens shortly. Hard to believe it's 2023 and Cedric and Elneny are getting on the pitch for us but there are limited backup options at the moment.
4th round draw: Mansfield vs Port Vale Ipswich vs Fulham Man Utd vs Newcastle Bournemouth vs Liverpool Chelsea vs Blackburn West Ham vs Arsenal Everton vs Burnley Exeter vs Middlesbrough
Didn't realise Man City had lost this morning until noticing they aren't in the draw.
Looking at the draw with City gone and United or Newcastle out in the next round it looks winnable so don't see why we couldn't do it. City, United and Liverpool are happy to keep winning it so I've never really got why it's supposed to be beneath us. City have won 6 of the last 10.
It may not be the top priority but a trophy is a trophy and winning breeds winning and all that. Obviously other than the players who have come from City or Chelsea, our squad is largely made up of players who have never won anything so that first trophy can't hurt. Crazy to think we won the FA Cup only 3 years ago yet not a single player who started the final is still at the club. Only Nketiah, Saka and Nelson were on the bench, and only Nketiah got on the pitch.
It's been a good week for us. City & Sp*ds out of the league cup (latter earlier round). As noted, one of United or Newcastle is out next round, and it is a manageable draw for us. Then, an exceptional result against Bournemouth on a day when City, Liverpool, and United dropped points. You have to feel sorry for Liverpool when PGMOL issued an apology at full-time, given how poorly VAR shafted them. Interestingly, it means only us and Sp*ds are undefeated, and both of us are 1 point of City. Given the required load management and the injury situation, I'd expect us to rotate a bit for Lens away, similar to Brentford, especially since Lens have won 2 from 7 this season.
Finally, a shout-out to Odegaard, giving up penalty responsibilities with the game at 2-0 to give Havertz a chance to get going. It's reminiscent of Aubameyang doing something similar for Pepe.
Finally, just to underscore the shambles of UK broadcasting, I've seen only highlights of both games as no UK broadcasters ponied up for TV rights for the Arsenal v Brentford league cup match (no wonder it's a pointless competition), and Bournemouth was in the protected 3pm slot. In protest I watched the rugby instead.
And by VAR, I mean that’s the worst one yet “we thought the goal was given, but when we realised we didn’t think we could intervene”. Unsure how on earth Howard Webb has made things worse. Man needs to get hair implants so he’s got some to pull out.Buffon II
ajc28
Happy Invincibles day all*. 🙂
*Unless you expect Spurs to go the season unbeaten.
Their luck will run out soon. Unsustainable to keep getting bailed out in injury time.
While disappointed in the loss, we had chances to win it and didnt take them. Oddly though, I was very impressed by the way Lens played. Really a good test of our system and structure. They pulled players in and out of position, particular focus on playing through zinny when he was pushed up and in. Really enjoyed their approach. I hope Arteta and coaching team look at this beacuse they were able to open us up without giving up too much defensive structure. Also, their fans made that stadium look awesome.
Giroud's highlights from the Milan game this morning was not what I was expecting but definitely worth the watch!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37A-ONyiO-M
