We have already got Tony Adams through the half way stage! What a fantastic achievement.
And when I say we, She Wore are taking not claiming that it is us who got him there. we are talking about Arsenal fans in general getting him there.
Momentum is building for Mr Arsenal and we are just one part of the cog that I am going to start caling Tony Adams Red and White Army.
In the last 7 days, a lot has been written about us (this time I am talking about She Wore).
There have been accusations that we are trying to “fix” the vote.
Now fixing a vote would imply that what we are doing is underhand. It is not.
All we are doing is telling reminding the 100,000+ Gooners that follow us across social media to vote for Tony. No one is forcing anyone. No one is artificially increasing the votes through hacking or anything else.
This is just Arsenal fans coming together, both withing the She Wore network and beyond, and voting for a living legend.
The real heroes are those lads sticking up reminders in WhatsApp groups at 8.30pm on a Saturday whilst they are on a night out.
So voting is now open. Lets upset the applwcart again!
So how do you vote?
Firstly, make sure you are registered on the BBC Website (if you are already registered, just sign in and head over to the Strictly homepage).
You only need to register once and you will stay signed in on the device you registered with unless you choose to sign out.
When the vote is open, it will appear at the top of the Strictly homepage. If you can’t see it, try refreshing the page.
To cast your votes, select Tony & Katya, click the ‘plus (+)’ icon next to their name so that a ‘3’ appears in the box between the ‘plus (+)’ and ‘minus (-)’ buttons.
Finally, click ‘Submit 3 Votes’ at the bottom and you would have now voted for Adams 3 times.
So lets get voting. And turn Adams from 100/1 outsides to 2022 Strictly Champion!
Thursday was a tough game to watch. But we are through, top, whilst not adding too much game time to our first string.
Mikel Arteta has rotates his squad throughout the Europa League.
Whilst some have criticised him for playing – or bringing on – the likes of Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus and Thomas Partey, his philosophy has clearly been about “sharing the work load.”
He has used a core 5 players that started every game (Rob Holding, Fabio Vieira, Eddie Nketiahm Kieran Tierney & Albert Sambi Lokonga), but for the rest, the minutes have been shared:
Those players with a less explosive, better injury record played the most, whilst those who rely on pace (or have were being protected from injury), played least.
Throughout the Europa League, Arteta was criticised for his subs.
Taking Martinelli off for Saka, or Xhaka for Partey.
“Why is he risking senior players” those with very little football knowledge cried. To the rest of his it was clear and obvious.
Often, these subs happened in and around the 60 minute mark. He was clearly sharing the work load.
You would have Martinelli playing 60 minutes, then Saka come on for 30. Then the next game Saka would play the 60 minutes with Martinelli 30.
It was often the same with Xhaka and Odegaard. Whilst often Partey was bought on when we were losing control of the midfield and needed his quality and experience to see the game out.
It meant that he could rotate his first team without weakening the side on the pitch, and achieve out ultimate goal of topping the group.
It also has not affected our league form.
Yes, there was the draw to Southampton, but you will drop points away in the Premier League regardless of the team you put out mid-week (Manchester City dropped points to Aston Villa). It is unrealistic to expect your team to win 38 out of 38 games; although the way some fans go on, a “perfect season” seems to be their minimum requirement.
Post Europa League, we beat Brentford (A – 30), Liverpool (H – 3-2), Leeds United (A – 1-0) and Nottingham Forest (H – 5-0). The only dropped points being in that Southampton game (A – 1-1).
The league table since 16 September (1st game week after the 1st European games) shows how well Arteta has done marshalling his squad:
Since 16/09
Team
M
W
D
L
G
GA
PTS
1
Newcastle United
7
5
2
0
17
4
17
2
Arsenal
6
5
1
0
16
4
16
3
Manchester City
6
5
0
1
17
5
15
4
Tottenham
7
4
0
3
14
11
12
5
Chelsea
6
3
2
1
9
6
11
6
Manchester United
6
3
2
1
9
8
11
7
Fulham
7
3
2
2
13
13
11
8
Leicester
7
3
1
3
13
9
10
9
West Ham
7
3
1
3
8
5
10
10
Everton
7
3
1
3
7
6
10
11
Crystal Palace
6
3
1
2
6
7
10
12
Aston Villa
7
2
2
3
6
10
8
13
Liverpool
6
2
1
3
8
9
7
“Burnout FC” as some fans have labelled us have actually got through the difficult midweek – weekend period with more points per game than anyone else.
Newcastle, having played a game more and not had any midweek football, are the only side to have gained more points than us during the period.
Manchester City and Newcastle are the only sides to have scored more – unbelievable when our strikers have been “misfiring” according to the press. And no team has conceded less.
Experts predicted that during this tough period, Arsenal would implode and tumble down the table. But we have actually opened up the gap on Manchester City (1 point), Tottenham (4), Chelsea (5) and Manchester United (5). Whilst Liverpool have won 10 less points than us during the period.
Arteta has also spoken about needing to prepare for next season.
If we are in the Champions League, we will not be abkle to afford to rest players midweek; so it was important that our young players get used to playing twice a week.
It is clear that if we are in the Champions League, we will need further strengthening – the fall off from Gabriel Jesus to Eddie Nketiah, Saka / Martinelli to Nelson and Partey to Lokonga is too great. But this is not something new.
On a side note, I have not mentioned Rob Holding. He is 4th choice centre back and we do not have “Manchester City money” where we can have a £40million defender, being paid £100k a week, as 4th choice. He is still a solid option.
Edu knows what he is doing and, along with Arteta, will recognise where we need to increase the strength in depth ahead of 2023/24.
A cover striker for Jesus, another wide option and a defensive midfield option will be top of the list over the next two windows.
We go and get (for example), Ivan Toney, Mykhailo Mudryk and Danilo and we are then building that strength in depth needed to maintain this league form next season when we have Champions League football.
Top of the league, through top of our Europa League group, whilst rotating the minutes and doing a great job sharing the load.
If you are still questioning Arteta, his line up and his substitutions every weekend, then perhaps it is time to find a new hobby.
Chelsea tomorrow. Noon kick off so there is unlikely to be a blog (leaving at 8am to meet in Victoria for 10am).
Thursday, 3rd November 2022. Kick-off time: 8.00pm
(4-2-3-1) Aaron Ramsdale; Ben White, Rob Holding, Gabriel Magalhães, Kieran Tierney; Mohamed Elneny, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Reiss Nelson, Fabio Vieira, Eddie Nketiah; Gabriel Jesus (c).
Substitutes: Thomas Partey, Bukayo Saka, Martin Ødegaard, Gabriel Martinelli, William Saliba, Cédric Soares, Takehiro Tomiyasu, (Marcus Vinicius Oliveira Alencar) Marquinhos, Karl Hein, Oleksandr Zinchenko, James Hillson, Matt Smith.
Scorers: Kieran Tierney (16 mins)
Yellow Cards: Gabriel
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 56%
Referee: Erik Lambrechts (Belgium)
Assistant Referees: Jo De Weirdt (Belgium), Rien Vanyzere (Belgium)
Fourth Official: Jasper Vergoote (Belgium)
UEFA Referee Observer: Dennis Higler (Netherlands)
VAR Team at UEFA HQ, Nyon, Switzerland: VAR Massimiliano Irrati (Italy); AVAR Hugh Dallas (Scotland)
Attendance: circa 50,000
Whilst we are guaranteed a “top-two” finish in Group A of the Europa League, we really do need to beat FC Zürich tonight in order to give our considerable efforts in this year’s competition some real definition. Because the group winners will advance directly to the last sixteen of the competition (whilst the runners-up will play in the knockout round play-offs where they will face one of the teams dropping down from the Champions League having finished third in their respective CL groups), a victory tonight is paramount. Just to remind everyone that the Champions League “dropouts” in the play-offs are Ajax Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bayer Leverkusen, Juventus, RB Salzburg, Sevilla, Shakhtar Donetsk and Sporting Lisbon, we desperately have to be utterly single-minded in our desire to win tonight to avoid any of that motley crew.
Our Swiss visitors kicked off proceedings, and in the first few minutes, with the smoke of flares drifiting across the pitch from the “away” end, FC Zürich showed some interesting play and proved that they were capable of good movement on (and off) the ball. We need to start imposing ourselves on this game, as in the early stages, the visitors are showing like they are certainly unafraid of coming at us as best as they can, which is worrying, to say the least. There was a bit of a hush in the stadium as the visitors got the first head to a corner and set up Aiyegun Tosin nicely in space for as shot on the turn, but fortunately he fired over and the linesman’s flag went up for offside; no doubt about it, FC Zürich have not come here to make the numbers up. However, on the sixteenth minute, after an excellent Gabriel Jesus chance which was blocked, Ben White overlapped on the right wing to cross the ball, Fabio Vieira saw his shot blocked but the ball fell to Kieran Tierney, who caught his shot perfectly, which flew into the bottom corner to open the scoring this evening. A lovely finish from our Scotland international full-back. We have now woken up and are keen to add to our tally, as Eddie Nketiah hit a perfect strike that Yanick Brecher in the FC Zürich goal saved. Since we scored the goal, we have been the dominant side, and there is a good feeling in the stadium again. The visitors had changed their formation to a more defensive one, as every time we move forward we look extremely dangerous indeed. On the half hour mark, Eddie Nketiah got in behind the FC Zürich defence; he felt a tug on his shirt that could easily result in a penalty, but to be fair to him, he stayed on his feet, set up Fabio Vieira for a shot which was blocked. Unfortunately, Gabriel Jesus was offside from the shot so when it came back again the linemsan’s flag went up. A minute or so later, Aaron Ramsdale was forced into a diving save from a Jonathan Okita shot which had the sting taken out of it by a deflection from Rob Holding. We got close to grabbing a second goal just after the fortieth minute when Eddie Nketiah got free of his marker to meet a corner and glance a header that looked destined for the net, and it would have been, had it not for a brilliant save from goalie Yanick Brecher. After yet another superb Kieran Tierney shot from outside the penalty area which was blocked, we continued to keep up the pressure on the visitors right until the half-time whistle rang out around the stadium
We kicked off the second half and within a minute of the restart, a right-footed shot from Gabriel Jesus on the left side of the six-yard box (following a set piece), caught the goalie and went off for an Arsenal corner, which subsequently went nowhere. Kieran Tierney won a free-kick after a FC Zürich player pulled his shirt so much, that it tore, and he had to have it replaced. So far in the second half, Arsenal were completely in control, and it seems a matter of time before they score a second goal (hopefully). We placed endless presure on the visitor’s goal, and just before the hour mark, Eddie Nketiah had a great chance to score, but his left-footed shot from the left side of the box was blocked. Mikel Arteta had enough, and shortly afterwards Mohamed Elneny and Gabriel Jesus (who passed the captain’s armband to Rob Holding) were substituted for Thomas Partey and Bukayo Saka in an effort to grab more goals tonight. Almost immediately after the introduction of the new players, Thomas Partey showed his class when he started spraying balls around, and although the final piece in the jigsaw did not come together this time when Fabio Vieira blasted the ball over the bar, the movement was still very good. On the sixty-seventh minute, a chill went over the stadium when Adrian Guerrero scored for the visitors, but thankfully some of his team-mates were in an offside position when he hit the ball, so the goal was cancelled out. Bukayo Saka looked as if he was going to score, but sadly he took the ball too fall and it ran off for a goal-kick. Martin Ødegaard and Takehiro Tomiyasu replaced Ben White and Fabio Vieira with seventeen minutes of the game remaining, and still we came forward looking for that elusive goal. Reiss Nelson tried a through ball, but Eddie Nketiah was caught offside, and the match started to lose its flow and rhythm as the game wore on, and with nine minutes of the game remaining, Bohdan Viunnyk whacked a ball from just outside the penalty area and his effort flew just wide of goal, with Aaron Ramsdale at full stretch. FC Zürich kept coming forward, and it was in one of those attacks that Takehiro Tomiyasu was injured, and as he could not continue, our substitute was substituted by Cédric Soares with three minutes of actual time remaining. In the five minutes injury time period, Eddie Nketiah was unlucky in not hitting the target with a glancing header, and as Kieran Tierney re-entered the pitch following treatment, Aaron Ramsdale made a match-winning save at the feet of Adrian Guerrero. Gabriel received a yellow card for a silly incident, and as we entered the sixth minute (?) of injury time, a last-ditch effort by FC Zürich flew over the Arsenal bar, just as referee Erik Lambrechts finally called proceedings to a halt.
Despite a dominant first half, we were unable to score more goals, and as such, it led to some extremely nervous moments throughout the second half, and we managed to show mental and physical toughness to get through this extremely demanding test of character. But despite all this and more, at the end of the day, we won, courtesy of an excellent Kieran Tierney goal, and being top of Group A we are straight into the final sixteen knockout round early next year. And for that, we can all breath a collective sigh of relief.
Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, 6th November at 12.00pm (noon) (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.
Steve
Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 