Just over a week ago I returned from 10-days in Egypt and bought something back with my that has seen over a stone in weight loss in that time. Some will say that is not a bad thing for me! The stomach bug hit me for 6 and completely drained my energy.
Today is the first morning I have woken up and not had a bowel movement that resembles the Niagra Falls. Sorry to all those tucking into a Friday morning bacon roll!
Sadly the illness led me to miss the Sheffield United victory (and could not even get out of bed to watch it on TV) and I have also sold my Brentford ticket. Hopefully this is now the recovery and not a false dawn!
This blog was never supposed to be a daily one. I only ever really wrote when I fancied it. But in the last year and a half, it had become something I was doing each and every day. The last 3 couple of days with no blog broke a daily writing streak of more than 500 days!
That Sheffield United victory seems a lifetime ago right now.
I remember writing to some mockery back end of last year that Mikel Arteta was ‘negative splitting’ his season. That we were holding back in the first half of the season deliberately to ensure that we had more energy for the final kick.
This is something you see distance runners and swimmers do. They will try and complete the second half of the race quicker than the first half, taking advantage of others who might have put too much energy into the first half of the race.
It is something Manchester City under Pep Guardiola have always done so well. Done just enough to get through games in the first half of the season before being unbeatable in the second.
Last season was the perfect example of how a team that has a better 2nd half of the season will usually finish ahead of a team who start fast and has a good first half.
Now some will argue that “we have left too much to do” and started out drive to the finish line too late. I really do not think being 2 points off top after 27 games is leaving ourselves with too much to do.
Yes, these fans will point to Fulham (both games), West Ham and other fixtures, but football is not perfect. If you say “Arsenal should have won those games” then you also have to concede that Liverpool and Manchester City “should” have won games they did not. The issue with fans at times is that they expect their own team to be perfect all the time, but do not hold the same bar of expectation to others.
On to Brentford tomorrow. A late kick off and a game I was really looking forward too. Instead I will be watching it from the comfort of my sofa, hopefully having kept down the last 48 hours food!
Morning! How was everyones weekend with no football? For me, I spent most of the time watching the snooker. Ronnie O’Sullivan – what a sportsman.
There was only half the Premier League games on this weekend due to the winter break, and none at 3pm Saturday. The Premier League got their wish of every game being televised.
I am part of the problem as I watched every single live games (in between the snooker).
Manchester City injuries
Whilst other majors continually point to their injuries as to their poor form (Postecoglou, Howe), very little has been made from Pep Guardiola or the media about Kevin de Bruyne and Erling Haaland missing so many games.
Alongside Mo Salah, they are the 3 best players in the Premier League. I doubt any other team would have survived without players of the quality of de Bruyne and Haaland out for so long.
Of course, part of that is due to how much they spend one wages.
In their place they can call up a World Cup winning striker (Julian Alvarez) and a £100m midfielder (Jack Grealish).
A lot is made about how much Mikel Arteta has spent since he came in, but that is dwarfed by the investment of Manchester City over the last decade building the squad they currently have.
“Net spend since Arteta came in” does not take into account the signings of the likes of de Bruyne, Rodri, John Stones, Kyle Walker, Bernardo Silva and Ederson. Nearly £300m worth of starting talent that these pundits act like they do not just because they were signed out of the chosen time frame.
I also had to laugh at the weekend when I saw one armchair pundit say “this is the difference between Arsenal and Manchester City. They bring de Bruyne off the bench whilst we have Reiss, Nketiah and ESR. Arteta and the spineless director need to be buying world class game changes”.
It ignored that fact that KdB was only on gthe bench due to coming back from injury, that no other team in world football had a player of his quality on the bench, and that he earns in excess of £300k a week.
In 2022/23, Manchester City spent over £100m more on wages than Arsenal. It is the equivalent of having an additional 9 players earning £200k a week! For that you would expect them to have a deeper squad, more world class game changers on the bench.
The recruitment is not the issue at Arsenal. It is the finances. We need to close the gap on both Manchester City and Liverpool, and we only do that by consistently finishing in the Champions League.
If we take Manchester City out of it and compare to Liverpool, you can see the differenct in the squads when you look at the front 3.
Both starting 3 are fairly comparable – Salah, Nunez, Diaz v Saka, Jesus Martinelli. But Liverpool than have two quality replacements in Diego Jota and Cody Gakpo. Both are a similar level to Martinelli. Meanwhile we have Leandro Trossard (who is the level below), and then ESR and Nelson (who are levels below the Liverpool 5).
We only close the gap in terms of squad depth by getting that additional £80m a year in Champions League revenue, and investing it in better players than what we have.
Strikers misfiring
It was intersting over the weekend watching two lads who we were heavilly linked with 2 years ago – Dominic Calvert Lewin and Alexander Isak, but opted for Gabriel Jesus.
One accusation labelled at Jesus is he is not a clinical striker, and due to that we need to be looking elsewhere. Had we signed DCL or Isak, the same claims wouldbe made.
Both are decent strikers, but both miss a lot of chances.
Were Isak more clinical, Newcastle would have easily beaten Manchester City. The Swede reminds me of Emmanuel Adebayor that he has it all (physicality, speed, technique), but his performances are inconsistent and his finishing unreliable.
DCL is similar, missing a host of chances against Aston Villa as they drew 0-0.
Whilst both of these would improve our squad depth, I do not think either is better than what we have. And that is the headache for Edu and his team right now – there is a lack of top strikers in Europe and very few have proven on a consistent basis that they are clinical.
Sunday League performance
The irony of Manchester United playing on a Sunday was not lost on me during the game as both sides put on a performance that would not have been out of place on Hackney Marshes.
A 2-2 performance where neither team played with any structure, the defending was all over the place, and the teams just lumped in forward to their strikers in the hope of some individual magic. It was a Sunday League performance.
Ange Postecoglou is not a tactical genius in his “gung-ho” methods. His teams play with very little structure because he has the inability to coach teams in a more structured way. He is no different to the Sunday League manager who is not really a manager, and just there to do the subs. And Erik ten Hag is no better.
It was a dull 2-2 draw where both managers showed they are poor coaches.
And what about The Arsenal…
Not much happening still.
Emails went out last week reminding us of the importantance of either going to games or selling on the Ticket Exchange.
We now have to go to 17 games (or have posted them on TX) to retain our season ticket. I think it is a brilliant policy. You use it or lose it.
There will be cases where fans are unable to make that many games and unable to sell on TX, and the club will take into account individual circumstances. But ultimately if someone is only going to 10 games a season, and can not be bothered to sell on TX, then they should not have a season ticket.
Good to see that Jack Wilshere bought in David Seaman for a few coaching sessions. I always think it is benificial for legends to come in on an ad-hoc basis. Whilst they might not be the best coaches, just coming in and speaking to the players can have a huge impact, especially for youth players.
All in all, a good weekend for Arsenal as Aston Villa and Tottenham both dropped points (playing away from home). We now need to get back to winning ways next Saturday at home to Crystal Palace.
A victory will return us to 3rd in the table. Not bad for a team in crisis (see Newcastle for an actual team in crisis!)
1) Arteta should rest everyone. The league is our priority. No need to risk players in the FA Cup.
2) Arteta needs to play everyone. Keep the momentum. Winning breed more winning.
Rest them all
Tonight we face Manchester City away, and I really can see the pros and cons of both arguments.
We need to keep rotating the squad. Give key players a break when we can. Especially the likes of Oleksandr Zinchenko and Thomas Partey (injury issues), Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka (over playing) and Eddie Nketiah (only striker).
We need to go “all-in” on the league and give these players a weekend off.
And even if they did play, City will probably beat us anyone, which will be even more damaging.
Play them all
Winning breeds winning.
We stick out our first team and give ourselves the best chance of going through.
Beat City in the cup then confidence will be high when we play them twice in the league. Play a 2nd string and get dicked, it will eb away at that confidence.
Our last game was Sunday. That was 5 days ago. Our next game is next Saturday, over a week away. There is no need to rest players. We have a week without them playing.
And we should be looking to win as many trophies as possible. The FA Cup might end up as a consolation prize for us if we do not win the league. We have to stay in it to give ourselves the best chance of winning it.
My view? Probably half way between both.
We need to play our strongest possibile team, but also need to give a few players a break.
Matt Turner will get a run out in goal, whilst Takehiro Tomiyasu should start ahead of Ben White in defence.
White certainly does not needs a break, but right back is an area where we can make a change without seeing a drop-off in quality. A run out for Tomiyasu keeps him fresh.
Kieran Tierney should come in for Zinchenko on the left. The Ukranian has had his injury issues so two weeks without football will not be a bad thing.
Despite the accuisation of Jakub Kiwior, I would not expect him to start tonight. Nor should Rob Holding start. I would stick with William Saliba and Gabriel. Keep that strong middle.
Mohamed Elneny will come in for Thomas Partey.
Partey is the best defensive midfielder in the Premier League and our chance to be Champions is linked directly to his fitness. No need to risk him in either the FA Cup or Europa League this season. Just have him fit for the 19 remaining Premier League games.
Although this is what I had written before Elneny’s injury. I think we will see Lokonga given one last chance to show he has a future.
Martin Odegaard and Granit Xhaka should both start.
Odegaard did not play in the World Cup and the drop off from Xhaka to Albert Sambi Lokonga is too great.
Lokonga’s future needs to be questioned and we saw in the Oxford game the difference in class between him and Xhaka
I would make one change in the front 3, with Leandro Trossard coming in for either Eddie Nketiah, Bukayo Saka or Gabriel Martinelli.
You can probably make an argument for all 3.
Saka has played the most for club and country this season. Nketiah is our only out and out striker. Trossard was mainly bought in as Martinelli cover and competition.
I would probably go for the later.
I think Trossard for Martinelli will be the most likely substitution when we are chasing a game.
Left wing is Trossard’s most natural position, and Martinelli is less of a threat than Saka.
We saw the sub work to great affect against Manchester United on Sunday, and I can see if becoming a regualr 70 minute change.
So how seriously should Arteta take the FA Cup? I am 50/50, As is the team I would select:
Turner Tomiyasu Saliba Gabriel Tierney Lokonga Saka Odegaard Xhaka Trossard Nketiah
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 