Tonight it’s Cardiff with no defenders….

Leave a reply

Hello, Keeons has buggered off for a while in order to sit in the sun whilst a few fellas try to hit each other with a tiny red ball, so Im going to try and put a few thoughts down…But dont worry it will carry on with the high standard of typos and grammar errors…

Tonight it’s Cardiff, who due to recent circumstances will be handing out badgepins to Arsenal fans and will have a big banner in the ground, I hope they are taken in the spirit of what they’re given.

Leno should be back between the sticks tonight. I never liked Cech, he was a season past his prime when he came to us and his decision to retire is ok with me, I hope he’s not needed again this season.

Our defence is royally screwed, I can’t remember a time ever when we have had so many defenders out injured. Kos should be back soon, its only a bruised jaw, some say, but trust me that bloody hurts ! The Big Greek fella is out for 4-6 weeks too. Which leaves us with Mustafi and Monreal who hasnt played since himself being injured.

My guess is the back 4 tonight will look like Monreal, Mustafi, Xhaka, AMN. We will need 3 goals to win this game and Attack will be the best form of defence tonight.

Midifield 3 should be Torrira, Sideshow bob  (who i bloody love btw) and Ramsey. Toniht’s game is perfect for Ramsey, he always puts on a show Vs the Welsh teams.

Upfront I can see no change Iwobi, Auba and Laca. They will need to be a bit more clinical than of late, Cardiff will want to keep things as tight as they can for as long as they can. An early goal and hopefully it will be a comfy night and a much needed 3 points.

Onto Emery, Im a big fan of not only how hes trying to change things on the pitch, how he jumps up and down on the sidelines, but also how honest hes being to us the fans. He is a winner and will prove so at ours.

We all knew what a huge rebuilding job Emery had on his hands (cheers Wenger and Ivan!) and not having a settled back 4 or 5 has really cost him since the unbeaten run stuttered to a halt. There is going to be a huge turnover of players starting this summer and fingers crossed they can bring in the 2 players hes after this month. Give him time, he will get it right.

Enjoy if you are going  tonight, wrap up its gonig to be a cold one !

Up The Arsenal

Gav

A weekend ruined before it has even begun

Leave a reply

The plan for the weekend was simple. Cricket.

And then Jason Holder hit 202 not out to give the West Indies a 628 run lead in the first test against England. 2 days still to play, it will be an uphill task.

The deluded optimist in me will be saying “the Windies were 415-6 when they declared. There are still 2 days to go. England have 50-odd on the board with 10 wickets in hand. The pitch has flattened out and the Windies bowling attacking is not great”.

But we all know how it will go. England will get to 80-odd. Lose the first wicket, then a couple more. Root and Butler will put on a battling 150, giving you that bit of hope again, before England lose the final 5 wickets for about 20 runs.

The match finished in 4 days, at least those out there will get an extra day on the beach instead of being in the cricket ground.

Hopefully the second test will be better.

Last nights defeat against Manchester United was certainly deja vu.

Over the last 10 years, under Wenger, Ferguson, Mourinho and more, Arsenal facing Manchester United has often followed the same script.

Arsenal dominate possession, have chances, miss chances, United score a couple on the break and win the game. And that is exactly what happened last night.

The Gunners were not poor yesterday. The statistics show we dominated the game. xG had us winning about 9-0. And that is why statistics are ultimately pointless. The only one that mattered was Manchester United scored 3 to Arsenal’s 1.

Manchester United scored 3 goals from their 4 shots on target. Not only do them seem capable over withstanding our pressure, they also have a habit of scoring goals against us without many chances.

A bit like the defeat against Chelsea earlier in the season, there are plenty of positives to take out of the game.

Despite losing our 2 central defenders, we battled well and matched a rejuvenated Manchester United.

Manchester United certainly have a feeling of the Roberto Di Matteo’s about them.

Di Matteo took over from André Villas-Boas at Chelsea. The senior players, Didier Drogba, Frank Lampard, John Terry, had downed tools. Made it clear they did not like the manager and got him sacked. Di Matteo came in and their form improved. It was nothing he did, it was just the players decided to start playing again.

They won the Champions League despite him.

The same is happening at Manchester United.

The likes of Paul Pogba, Romelu Lukaku and Alexis Sanchez clearly stopped playing under Jose Mourinho. They forced him out. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has not made them better players. They were already top draw players. They have just decided to start playing again.

Like Di Matteo, it would not surprise me if Solskjaer  led the team to a trophy, and even top 4. He will then get the job, the shine will rub off and he will be sacked in November. He will return to the manager that was sacked by Cardiff after 9 wins in 30 games.

You have to feel for Unai Emery at the moment. It just does not stop at the moment.

Some will say we have now lost 5 in 10, and he has to shoulder some of the blame for that, but we must stick with him.

It is not Emery’s fault that Sokratis and Laurent Koscielny suffered injuries last night. Koscielny’s was a freak accident. The pair have also had extended time off this season.

You then have Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding – both out for the season.

Shkodran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal and Saed Kolasinac have also spent time in the medical room this season, and Kostadinos Mavropanos has not been seen. Ainsley Maitland-Niles broke his leg in the first game of the season.

The only defender not to suffer an injury this season has been Carl Jenkinson.

To have so many defenders consistently out injured is just unlucky. We went into the season with 5 central defenders, and all 5 have spent time injured. You simply can not legislate for that.

So we have a race for 4th (I still think we will finish above Spurs) and the Europa League  left to look forward to this season.

Two chances to return to the Champions League, one chance to lift a trophy.

Emery will get things right, it will just take a couple more transfer windows.

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 1 – 3 Manchester United

Leave a reply
Arsenal (1) 1 Manchester United (2) 3
FA Cup Fourth Round
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Friday, 25th January 2019. Kick-off time: 7.55pm
(4-2-3-1) Čech; Maitland-Niles, Sokratis, Koscielny, Kolašinac; Xhaka, Torreira; Ramsey, Iwobi; Aubameyang, Lacazette.
Substitutes: Elneny, Özil, Lichtsteiner, Monreal, Leno, Mustafi, Guendouzi
Scorers: Aubameyang, 
Yellow Cards: Koscielny, Kolašinac, Guendouzi
Referee: Craig Pawson
Attendance: 59,571
This is the kind of match that everyone needs to start the series of games which make up the fourth round of the oldest club competition in the world. Quite naturally, reputations and memories of previous meetings between these two clubs come to mind, but tonight the only thing on everyone’s mind is a place in the next round of the cup; apart from the return of the controversial Alexis Sánchez in a Manchester United shirt, of course.
Right from the start, you could feel the nervous tension in the stadium; as early as the seventh minute, Petr Čech was called into action when he spread himself at the feet of Paul Pogba to neutralise what, at best, could be described as a half chance, but at this level you really cannot take the gamble. Unfortunately, after ten minutes on the clock, Sokratis landed awkwardly and twisted his ankle. Although he tried to continue, it became obvious that it would be foolish to do so under the circumstances. And so our first substitution of the night came afater just seventeen minutes played with Shkodran Mustafi replacing him in the defence. A few minutes later, Alex Iwobi was desperately unlucky not to open the scoring with some clever passing in the opposition penalty area; ironically, if he had squared the ball to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang we may have had our noses in front. After half an hour on the clock the unthinkable happened. In a clever movement, Romelu Lukaku slotted the ball through to enfant terrible Alexis Sánchez who coolly rounded Petr Čech to open the scoring for the visitors; just as if that was not bad enough, little more than two minutes later, Romelu Lukaku found space on our left hand side and advancing towards our penalty area, looked across and a quick ball found an unmarked Jesse Lingard who wasted no time in increasing the Manchester United score. Three minutes before half-time, our clever play finally paid off with the soon-to-be departing Aaron Ramsey collecting a ball from the excellent Alex Iwobi, and jinking his way through the United defence, crossed the ball for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to get one back for us. Now we started to put some serious moves together, and Alexandre Lacazette was desperately unlucky not to equalise the scores in injury time.Just a minute into the second half we were desperately unlucky not to score with a clever Aaron Ramsey header that Sergio Romero somehow tipped over the bar. This incident spurred both sides to play exciting, end-to-end football with little margin for error. The pace was electric, with Aaron Ramsey showing everyone what a first-class player he really is. A tragic accident that saw Laurent Koscielny walk off the pitch with a nasty head injury which took the heat out of the proceedings, albeit briefly; this also added a further ten minutes on the clock whilst he was being attended to by the Arsenal staff on the pitch. He was replaced by Mattéo Guendouzi, who wasted little time in getting into the swing of things, as did Mesut Özil, who entered the fray in place of Alex Iwobi with 25 minutes left on the clock. With just five minutes left of normal time, and despite pressure on the United goal, Paul Pogba broke away and ran through the middle of Arsenal’s defence; his subsequent shot was parried by Petr Čech, but sadly Anthony Martial was on hand to merely tap the ball into the open Arsenal net. The match now got scrappy with an unsavoury incident between the two sets of players that saw Sead Kolašinac booked, and a poor mis-timed tackle during injury time by Mattéo Guendouzi also saw him enter the referee’s book. And despite one or two attempts on goal by both sides, that was that. 

Things we did well; move forward quickly, good first touch, good spirit and overall a fairly good desire to win. Things we did badly; defend. We also did not having enough awareness of the dangers that the quick Manchester United forwards posed to our defensive shape (if there was one). Mr. Emery is on the right track but needs some top class defenders fairly quickly otherwise we will just continue to be found wanting at the back. Time after time this season, our defence has been in absentia whilst the midfield and attack are doing their very best to win matches with class and style. This situation will be resolved in time, but what damage will be done to the team by then? We simply cannot carry on in this manner, score one, let in two. Or more to the point, win one, lose one. And now we have injuries on top of all this mayhem. Five days and counting until the end of the transfer window for loan deals. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as these early days are going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. 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.