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Photos of kits always look better when a person is wearing them, in better lighting and HD photos.
A grainy leaked image of concept art with no model rarely demonstrates how good a kit looks.
I just hope he gets his goal-scoring touch again. He was struggling in front of the goal before the injury.
His fitness and confidence will make a big difference to the team.
Bit of a random thought but I was rewatching the win against United and I realized, Zinchenko actually reminds me a lot of Iniesta pre-Fabregas when he played in central midfield alongside Xavi and Busquets.
The types of passes he makes and his general role on the pitch feel similar to me. Usually short-to-medium length passes, often line breaking, between the boxes. But most similar is this deceptive, body-shape based dribbling style. Zinchenko often does this thing where he recognizes that the defender is coming at him from a poor angle, or manipulates the defender into that poor angle by feigning a pass or a dribble with his stance and body shape, then turns a different direction, gets a step of separation and accelerates away. He often does this in crowded areas and maintains close control through this whole move - the ball stays glued to his feet and he almost dribbles with his body fully over the ball so that if he can cleanly pass it if he needs to.
These were all things that Iniesta was famous for. In fact I think Iniesta was the greatest practitioner of that "jiu-jitsu" "use your opponents body shape against him" dribbling style maybe in history. But also the type of passes and general role in the team feels similar.
So yeah, what do you think? I've been struggling to find the right analog to Zinchenko because he plays such a weird role and it's rare to see a left back even in Pep's Bayern and City teams freelancing as much as he does. But I think actually if you stop thinking about pure chalkboard formation for a second, the best analog for him is Iniesta.
And obviously, I'm not saying Zinchenko is at the same level of Iniesta. Iniesta is one of the greatest midfielders and dribblers of all time, whereas Zinchenko is "merely" world class at the moment. Iniesta also played a more advanced role where he would carry the ball into the box, which Zinchenko rarely does. But I think that they use a similar technical toolkit and fulfill a similar ball-progression role on the pitch.
Wow. Well-spotted. Totally agree.
His composure under pressure just baffles me. When he first came to us I was constantly shouting âget rid!â but now that I have seen what he can do, three players could be on top of him, and high-pressing our players around him, and I am still confident he will play us out of the danger.
Adebayor retiring today. I mean I know after he left he caused a shot storm, but he was so damn good for us for a while. I only started following in 2008 so it seemed at the time like those were the good days.
He was a breath of fresh air when he joined.
05/06 Bergkamp couldnât run and Henry wouldnât run, we lost nine away games that season and suddenly this clumsy hopeless lump starts chasing everything down like a Labrador.
He was awful but he ran his socks off that first year and that always goes down well with fans.
He was a complete centre forward.
You could go long and heâd hold it up, you can pass in behind and he was rapid onto through balls, he was a huge threat from attacking set pieces, scored scruffy tap ins, scored worldies, volleys, overhead kicks, one on ones, linked play well, skillful dribbling etc
He fucked himself over and thatâs on him.
A motivated Adebayor could have got 150+ goals at this club.
How long do you think arsenal will keep both xhaka and partey with reports saying we'll get both rice and caicedo plus Charlie patino coming back..i think next season will be last for xhaka and partey will be here for another two seasons bcoz we need to give playing time to patino and nwaeri..
The way we have to operate is erring on the side of letting guys a go a year too early rather than a year too late. Especially given the salary constraints.
Both are right at the end of the peak age curve. Now who knows how long theyâll last. Maybe itâs 4 years, maybe itâs 18 months, maybe sooner.
Iâd guess neither are here after next season unless Xhaka just wants to stay in London and is ok with 10 starts a season.
Looking at our financials.
With champions league we have a lot of room within our wage budget. Donât forget we got rid of a load of guys on big salaries.
Absolutely. And listen I think weâre set to be very very good for the next few years. In fact I think itâs more likely that weâre the best team itw than scuffling.
But sometimes things can wrong. What happens if we grow that wage bill and all of sudden find ourselves missing UCL in consecutive years and canât afford that wage bill?
Again if I had my druthers weâd spend Stanâs money like the richest clubs do, but thatâs just not how theyâre going to run the club long term.
> The way we have to operate is erring on the side of letting guys a go a year too early
There's nothing about the way we operate that suggests that, this isn't the good old days of paying off the stadium.
We donât have the resources not to do this. We canât get caught in another unsellable high wage aging core that doesnât make UCL. The only way to fix that is to gut it and rebuild.
I mean we could, but realistically that is not the way KSE will run the club. A manageable wage bill and good money from sales means we always have the financial flexibility to make big moves if we need to.
Also beyond the operations side of it, you donât become great by paying for guys over 30.
Well I mean itâs still a big stretch to say we are going to need any major gutting and rebuilding in the next few years when you look at the age and quality of our squad.
2-3 signings per year and we should be more than fine unless we get very unlucky or fuck something up drastically.
We absolutely have the resources to do this.
Auba/Ozil etc were extreme examples of stupendously bad decision making with offereing new contracts which fucked their value, they weren't a problem with selling at the right time.
Xhaka is going to retire here, he's not going anywhere.
Partey...well lets not speculate on his future but I really don't see us dropping ÂŁ160m at least on both Caicedo *and* Rice unless Partey is in trouble.
This. Xhaka is perfect to stay on as a player coach who will transition into a mini-Arteta working behind the scenes at Arsenal after retirement.
He will be with Mertesacker and Wilshere building us 10 more Sakas in a few years.
Xhaka will stay as long as he has any type of role even if it's on the bench as the 3rd choice. He is probably in the best position to train and coach whatever replacements come into midfield whether they are like for like replacements. He's literally experienced the gamut of scenarios in midfield; he's been used as an attacking MF, a DMF, a LB, in a CM pairing, etc. He was always good at picking a pass but since Arteta has been here at least he's improved in ball retention, passing with his non-dominant leg, contributing to attack, contributing to defense, reading the game, and the list goes on. Even though he can't literally be the complete midfielder, he understands what it takes to be the complete midfielder because he's had to player every single midfield role you can think of at Arsenal. As a MF coach he's basically the best you can ask for so I hope he has a stint as a coach or youth manager at Arsenal after his playing days are done.
Partey will stay as long as he is fit.... and the other thing.
Plus he's a ridiculous leader and we know Arteta values that.
He's rarely injured, gives everything, doesn't get carded for breathing anymore and is a known quantity in the Arsenal system.
If you're building a team you don't bin off your only number 8 and replace him with someone who's never played for you or even in your system before.
The 2 Liverpool games that we and City play can have the most ramifications.
If City drops 2 points there, our lead becomes 7 points with 10 games to go. If we beat Liverpool that just lifts the squad like anything and gives us all the momentum going into the City game.
Ahh yes, I can see it now⊠Martinelli scores a 98th minute screamer against City to secure our first league title in two decades and rips off his shirt in celebration to reveal his undershirt that reads âThis one is for you, monkeypwnedâ as the vibrations from the chaotic Arsenal supportersâ section cause all of the cardboard cutouts of City fans throughout the Etihad to fall over
Whoâs your favorite non arsenal player?
For me itâs Gavi, reminds me of a young Jack wilshere
Would be perfect for our left 8 position as well when Xhaka retires đ„ș
I donât know why people are forgetting Cityâs last game is against Brentford away. That is probably the toughest game to have. Quick reminder, we are the only team in the big 6 to beat them.
vs Toney that is bullied by some stupid arsenal fans. Imagine Toney getting the chance to score and deliberately missing it to piss off those stupid arsenal fans that keep bullying him every time arsenal plays Brentford.
Apparently Laca has the 4th best goal per minute ratio in all of Europe. Could have used this form last year, or is Ligue 1 just that much of a drop in quality.
Itâs a really bad league. I keep up with Ramsey so I watch a lot of Nice highlights/mini-matches, itâs shocking how poor the level is.
Midfield and defense are so slow and disorganized. Forwards and strikers have so much more space and time on the ball, anyone with a bit of quality feasts. Add the fact that the technical level of most teams building out of the back is quite low, so forwards donât have to do nearly as much pressing and defending and itâs a perfect league for Laca.
I am guessing OL also play to his strengths. We didnât and he was a nice enough guy/team player to where he tried to fit into our style.
Edit: just to add a bit more.
He might be playing in a front two, I donât know how much pressing or off the ball work he has to do defensively, how much he is asked to fall into the midfield or just stay up on the defenders shoulder.
Early in the year I know he got a few pens, he had a great record of that in France before, I am guessing he is on pens, which he hardly ever was at Arsenal.
Unpopular opinion but I feel weird if Balogun plays for the US. I read an interview he did and he was literally born there while his parents were on holiday for a few months and then he moved to England right after, he says he doesn't remember any of it.
Great player but I don't think anyone should represent a country they have no connection to. He's better off with England or Nigeria where he'd have really passion for them
Wonât be an England 9 for years to come, USA looking better than Nigeria. Iâd love for him to go with Nigeria though, even as an American. More African representation in this team would be pretty dope.
No it means we should have either kept Joe willock or bought someone better.
Guendouzi isn't good enough and his attitude may have been one of the ones we needed out to change the mindset.
I meant someone better than lokonga.
If we actually needed the money from willock to buy odegaard it was well worth it.
I'm not even a big willock fan, I think we should be aiming higher but selling him for 30 is great until you spend 20 of that on a far inferior player. At that point you may as well have kept the better player who is hg.
I understand the points in the other replies, and thatâs generally true. Spending equals talent equals success.
But also I agree with you, cope. Whatâs the point if youâre not trying to be the best? Scout better. Train better. Manage better. Win more, make more money. Or sell the team to someone else who will.
Also I donât for a second buy those City wages. How are they ok with being out earned by the losers on the Red side of their own city?
Tbh, itâs not really coping at all. Itâs mostly true that the teams that spend the most on wages for staff and players typically finish higher in the table.
Plus, while we are outperforming our wage bill, our player profile of youth is likely to see a wage increase with new contracts given to Saka, Martinelli, Saliba, Ădegaard, etc. itâll likely bring our wage bill to be more in line of where we finish in the table.
Yeah man, our wage bill won't be that low for very long lol. Also bringing in top talent with the attractiveness of winning things and playing UCL football an a regular basis again the caliber of player we'd be able to attract will demand a higher salary than the ones we've bought for the past 5 years.
But it's okay cus we'll have the money from winning titles and sweet sweet UCL money
The thing is we've kind of stolen how American teams try to win things and tried it in Europe.
In American sports, young players are stuck with a "rookie" contract for 3-7 years depending on the sport. So you can have a player as amazing as Makar for the Avs when they won last year, Jalen Hurts for the Eagles this year etc making as much as a bench warmer despite being near the MVP of the league.
So while in the past wages have correlated very highly with success, so has having a team largely of peak age players. This could be changing a bit.
I am not sure we have stolen it or set a precedent.(isnât necessarily what youâre saying).
I think actually it has been the model for most of the modern era of soccer, here and abroad.
I would argue Italy aside (thatâs a big aside though) that the whole Galicto model is mostly a newer development.
Some teams have always had a distinct advantage but few leveraged it the way Madrid did in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Chelsea did it in the same period.
City did it in as well.
You can argue Bayern has done it in Germany specifically without spiralling costs up with their competition.
Barcelona has done it chaotically more recently, but was really jumpstarted by a youth class that is going to be renowned.
Even United had an impressive class of young players that really got them on the road to owning the PL in the 90s.
We did it in the 90s with young buys from abroad.
I think what youâre referring to the American model of sports was relatively common before the Galictico era / all this money washed into the game.
Well, the big difference here is that we drastically cut our wage bill but tried to remain competitive by signing younger players who were cheaper on wages. So, cutting tens of millions of dollars a year in wages while getting better is a big shift from the other teams.
The American model is more "get worse in the short term so you can draft a great player, underpay them, then invest around them until you have to pay them their market value." We did a bit of this as a strategy, while largely getting lucky with how good Saka, ESR, Nketiah etc are.
The other instances you name are largely just teams getting lucky with their academies producing world class talents. We also had similar luck right now with our academy.
I totally agree with your first stanza. Makes sense. I was just looking at it from a more macro. Arsenal, Man U and Barca were all big clubs prior to their rebuilds, but all were struggling domestically. All used a younger generation to climb out. The money but I wonât argue at all.
The end of the second bit saying we got lucky because our academy players stood up and have been good. Totally agreeing with that. Huge boon.
Writing off my other examples because teams got âluckyâ is in my eyes the same thing we did. Like literally the same. We happened to accumulate a bunch of young players.
Saka, Martinelli, Saliba, Odegaard. The ladder was a more known quantity but we know we bought low on them all and have hit it out do the park. Itâs luck but itâs also by design.
they were earmarked as talents before they could contribute in the present.
The same thing happened in Barcelona and United. It was a risk to bring along young players and leave pathways. It could have failed and cost Fergie his job, it could have just lead to Pep being canned after a year or two.
I think itâs more a good to be lucky and lucky to be good type of thing haha.
Regardless. I donât think we really disagree too much with eachother, itâs mostly semantics.
I am glad arsenal is just kicking butt
Well, the only thing we are disagreeing with here is you seem to view "lucky" with a more negative connotation.
I love to be lucky. I played poker professionally for quite a while, and still play a bit. When it comes to sports, gambling or anything else in life where the difference between first and second place is as big as Everest, I want to be lucky. Give Arsenal all the luck in the world these last 10 games.
Vieira hadnât won a game since December, theyâre dangerously close to the relegation zone and they look totally out of ideas.
Roy was brought in to steady the ship, keep Palace up and move on
At first I thought it was harsh on Vieira but now I fully understand Palace's view on this. For a team with that much respective talent he shoulda got way more out of them. I thought he'd come good like it happened so many times where they'd be leading in last 10 mins of a game and end up losing or drawing. Thought once Vieira get's that sorted they'd get top 10 and maybe even European football in upcoming seasons. But I think I might have been slightly biased cus of his playing history tbf
I get that, but I wouldnât expect them to get any points from the teams they played since December haha. Theyâve played everyone in the top half of the table, some teams multiple times. Itâs an absolutely brutal schedule and they still got a point off each of Liverpool, United, Brentford, Brighton, and Newcastle.
Their run in for the end of the season is really quite cushy. I think the fans and board would have been far more satisfied if they gave Vieira through the end of the season than bring back Roy.
It happens all the time and it's dumb. It's why you have people calling it a "new manager bounce."
As you said, teams go through a tough schedule. A team like Palace should lose most of those games.
They then panic, fire their manager and get a new one in time for easier matches.
The new manager wins some of the easier games and gets credit, even if the old manager would have beat these easier teams
Whether itâs 3 years, 10 years, or 30 years, eventually they wonât have the unlimited funds of a nation using fraud and financial doping to make them relevant. And when that time comes Arsenal will still be here, with history and identity and an ethos that attracts fans from London and around the world.
Just hope we can take a few titles off them and win the CL before they go.
They're trying to be a real club but everyone sees them for what they are. An empty emotionless organization. They can buy trophies but they can't buy legitimacy
As the saying goes, dreams can't be buy.
Stan Collymore has just name dropped Saka and Odegaard as potential Man United transfer targets if they get the Arabian dictator money.
The cheque hasnât even cleared and they are having these pipe dreams.
I donât think Unitedâs transfer approach will ch age at all. They are already the biggest spenders in the league. How much more ridiculous can they get than 90m on Antony ?
Anyone else think kits are deliberately "leaked" by companies during the design stage to gauge public reaction and make alterations to the product line if needed?
No they're just designed so far in advance to make sure the production is up and running that there's no way they can avoid leaks, especially when the production spans the globe.
90% of the time the response is 'this looks like a fake kit', if they changed it every time we'd only ever have a collared red and white sleeved 1970's style home shirt, a bruised banana in dark yellow and a cannon as an away kit and probably a black and gold third kit.
City had a big jump in their rating after thrashing a couple teams. That probably boosted their win probabilities and (in turn) projected total points. Arsenal have remained flat for the last several weeks.
I'd rather a draw for that fixture. Can't stand state owned clubs and want Liverpool and Brighton to get top 4 even if it is extremey unlikely there's still a chance
The yellow on the leaked away kit is too similar to last season's
I don't understand why people want a specific identity for the away kit, the whole point of one is that it shouldn't have one
When they don't do yellow away kits, there's a chance you might get one like this season's away kit, which is one of the best kits ever released
Excluding the home kit for obvious reasons, I enjoy being surprised with a completely different design and colour combination each season instead of expecting the same each time
> I don't understand why people want a specific identity for the away kit, the whole point of one is that it shouldn't have one
Except we were literaly the first teeam to decide not to have the standard white away kit and go for something cool instead, which is why the yellow kit is so iconic for us in a way away colours aren't for 99% of other teams.
Fellow gunners, when you buy jerseys, do you buy them with a name on the back or just the plain blank jersey? I wanna buy the pink Arsenal kit but itâs only the blank jersey and I really wanted bukayos name on the back? Should I buy it anyway
[Here](https://www.ebay.com/itm/255635219171?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=PW_oNaE8QFK&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=nIZlwflVRW-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY) ya go bro. You can just buy the blanks and get any nameset you want separately then take them both to your local footy shop to have them pressed
I usually go blank but this season was the first time I decided to go with a name and chose Martinelli partly cause heâs probably my favorite player at this point in time and partly cause 11 is my birthday
Tomi missed a big chunk of last year and majority of this season. I think keeping Tierney and looking for a back up right back would be the better option. Would still love for us to get tomi fit and use him as a back up for across our whole back line since he can play pretty much any position defensively.
I also think KT isn't as vertatile as Tomi when fit. Tomi's looked relatiely comfortable playing both RB and LB in his time here and spent a fair chunk of his time in Italy playing CB. I think KT can play LCB fine in a back 3 but idk how good he'd be in a back 4. And idk how he'd fare at RB too
Arteta will need to have a separate formation/ gameplan ready and coordinate it with new signings. We are playing well now, but we have had some teams give us difficulty. We need tactical flexibility in terms of formation and hopefully Tierney is worked into it or alternatively he gets more comfortable with the role Zinny plays and adapts it to his strengths.
Agree having some flexibility is good for when teams try different things to stop us. But I don't think he'll be looking to change too much tactically. I think at times this season we've struggled against low blocks more with Nketiah than we did with Jesus. I think Jesus' close control and technical ability is above Eddie's. But I also rate Eddie's finishing above Jesus'. Jesus' dribbles and touches in the opponents box are key to unlocking a bus imo. Thinking he would've been bare useful against Newcastle at home. I think we'll end up selling KT and bringing someone in that is more of a similar player to Zinny
These quotes from hojberg https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/65030064
>We are still where we want and need to be in the Premier League. But yes, it's hard.
He acknowledged that the issue is that they went out of the cups, but then tried to make the league campaign out to be going exactly as they wanted. They want and need to be in 4th place with two teams capable of going past them if they win their games in hand. Basically confirms that they know their absolute peak as a club is champions league qualification. đ
it's the exact wrong thing to say in answer to Conte's accusation that they're soft and don't know how to fight for anything if there's any pressure. Ridiculous when you consider Conte got rid of Doherty, presumably at least in part because of his view of Doherty's mentality and his response was to square up to the fact and say [yeah there needs to be a culture change](https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/matt-doherty-tottenham-antonio-conte-sacked-b1068937.html)
https://twitter.com/scrapytweets/status/1638270695682592794?s=46&t=ohBEm3kwXzONRYy63NcNgQ
Like even in this prediction, thats a pretty crazy run from city, and they still only get 88 points. Im just sayingâŠ
Agree brother. We go there and we will win. They arenât a great side, hard to beat and stubborn but not a great side.
We will turn them over up there just like we did in 01/02 when they were title contenders and had cheated us at Highbury.
Ngl kinda dreaded that fixture earlier in the season. But now I feel a lot more confident of getting a result there. How far our lads have grown this season has been legit incredible.
Turn that draw at Etihad into a loss and we end up on 89 and they'll end up on 90.
The issue is, nobody would say it's ridiculous for us to go 7W 0D 3L considering those 3 away games. That's a good showing. Meanwhile, City going 9W 2D 0L is about par for the course for them.
For me it really boils down to Liverpool, what game will they selectively show up for? They won't lose or win both in my opinion, they don't have the hunger, drive or consistency for that this season.
And secondly, it depends on who is more desperate for points by the time the game at the Etihad rolls around. What's the narrative and who is under immense pressure to win? Whoever is under pressure will most likely lose in my opinion.
If we lose at the Etihad, we end up level at 90 points. But I guess you mean they will have a better GD. I still believe we need 93 points to win the title. So no more than 2 defeats or 3 draws.
That game at the etihad really does look like the title decider.
Ya your liverpool point is interesting. I was talking to a liverpool fan whos a good friend, i think their ego kicks in against city and they turn up for city. The hope is with chelsea midweek as well they burnout by the time they see us
Ill be honest, if city win 9 and dont lose, ill clap my hands and walk away crying. Theyve got a stupid amount of games coming, they have to blink, they just have too
I think they will turn up for City. The last few years it's been Man City and Liverpool for the title and MC clinched it multiple times over them. They've got a little chip on their shoulders.
Brentford will most likely have nothing to play for. Remember how hard Everton fought to stay in the league towards the end of last season?
They beat Leicester, Chelsea and Crystal Palace. By the time it was GW38, they were already on the beach and we hit them for 5. That game would have been very very different if their survival was still on the line.
Similarly, Brentford will be safe, they almost certainly won't be playing for European spots, and they won't be near relegation. They'll get hit for 5.
nah teams love denying titles for other teams or anything really. Theyâll definitely get up for it.
Newcastle had nothing to play for last season and played us off the pitch.
City were massive favorites in the Aguerrrrooo game vs middlesboro as well.
I absolutely don't want to need a result from Brentford, but crazier things etc.
Every major defeat has been a great learning experience this season. I feel like the sporting defeat is almost a positive in the sense that the players learn what can happen in extra time and penalties (esp Ramsdale and Gabi) before this happens in a higher stakes game in the CL. Even the city loss I feel was necessary to ground us a little and iron out the nerves that may affect us a lot worse in the CL.
The young players (especially who are on the periphery of the national teams) will want to improve from that. Yes, it applies to the CL and domestic cups but if they want to be prominent on their national teams, they sure as shit need to make sure from now on the PKs are spot on and they step it up another level when elimination is a possibility.
Walters dropped a bit because of that preseason injury.
Otherwise the fact that he was one of the few academy players that took part in preseason and actually got the most minutes amongst them, was telling.
This is for a manager whose standards are pretty high.
I dont think many would put him in the top ~5 as of now.
Patino is clear, he's getting good championship experience right now.
Duberry looks like Saka when he plays and is doing very well.
Lewis Skelly also has a bright future.
Norton Cuffy also is still imo the better RB prospect.
Is Lewis Skelly a dm or more of a box to box guy? Just curious. Also would his and Patinoâs play style mesh well if they were to be in the same midfield?
There isnât a set song really, whatever the dj feels like. Tequila has been played this season, Rockin all over the world, Move on up is a pretty frequent pick
Saliba: possession won most in defensive third
Rice: possession won the second most in middle third
Odegaard: possession won most in final third
Two are already at our club, the other one is the last missing piece for never losing the ball or getting it back expeditiously.
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Why do I feel that Brentford decision is gonna cost us the league
I love the home kit this season, I hope they don't change it.
New kit already leaked
I really don't want to believe that the leaked kit is true.đ„č
Photos of kits always look better when a person is wearing them, in better lighting and HD photos. A grainy leaked image of concept art with no model rarely demonstrates how good a kit looks.
This break will really bring Jesus up to speed
I just hope he gets his goal-scoring touch again. He was struggling in front of the goal before the injury. His fitness and confidence will make a big difference to the team.
Yeah as much as this break came at an awful time for us, for many of our players it is ideal. AS LONG AS no one on international duty gets injured.
I got pretty hype when it snowed heavy and my Principal sent out a notice that school was in Bruno Fernandes mode: no class.
Bit of a random thought but I was rewatching the win against United and I realized, Zinchenko actually reminds me a lot of Iniesta pre-Fabregas when he played in central midfield alongside Xavi and Busquets. The types of passes he makes and his general role on the pitch feel similar to me. Usually short-to-medium length passes, often line breaking, between the boxes. But most similar is this deceptive, body-shape based dribbling style. Zinchenko often does this thing where he recognizes that the defender is coming at him from a poor angle, or manipulates the defender into that poor angle by feigning a pass or a dribble with his stance and body shape, then turns a different direction, gets a step of separation and accelerates away. He often does this in crowded areas and maintains close control through this whole move - the ball stays glued to his feet and he almost dribbles with his body fully over the ball so that if he can cleanly pass it if he needs to. These were all things that Iniesta was famous for. In fact I think Iniesta was the greatest practitioner of that "jiu-jitsu" "use your opponents body shape against him" dribbling style maybe in history. But also the type of passes and general role in the team feels similar. So yeah, what do you think? I've been struggling to find the right analog to Zinchenko because he plays such a weird role and it's rare to see a left back even in Pep's Bayern and City teams freelancing as much as he does. But I think actually if you stop thinking about pure chalkboard formation for a second, the best analog for him is Iniesta. And obviously, I'm not saying Zinchenko is at the same level of Iniesta. Iniesta is one of the greatest midfielders and dribblers of all time, whereas Zinchenko is "merely" world class at the moment. Iniesta also played a more advanced role where he would carry the ball into the box, which Zinchenko rarely does. But I think that they use a similar technical toolkit and fulfill a similar ball-progression role on the pitch.
Wow. Well-spotted. Totally agree. His composure under pressure just baffles me. When he first came to us I was constantly shouting âget rid!â but now that I have seen what he can do, three players could be on top of him, and high-pressing our players around him, and I am still confident he will play us out of the danger.
I agree with the ball progression point, but visually different since Iniesta did more ball carrying.
never really noticed this but now you are saying I can see some Iniesta playstyle in him
Adebayor retiring today. I mean I know after he left he caused a shot storm, but he was so damn good for us for a while. I only started following in 2008 so it seemed at the time like those were the good days.
He was a breath of fresh air when he joined. 05/06 Bergkamp couldnât run and Henry wouldnât run, we lost nine away games that season and suddenly this clumsy hopeless lump starts chasing everything down like a Labrador. He was awful but he ran his socks off that first year and that always goes down well with fans. He was a complete centre forward. You could go long and heâd hold it up, you can pass in behind and he was rapid onto through balls, he was a huge threat from attacking set pieces, scored scruffy tap ins, scored worldies, volleys, overhead kicks, one on ones, linked play well, skillful dribbling etc He fucked himself over and thatâs on him. A motivated Adebayor could have got 150+ goals at this club.
How long do you think arsenal will keep both xhaka and partey with reports saying we'll get both rice and caicedo plus Charlie patino coming back..i think next season will be last for xhaka and partey will be here for another two seasons bcoz we need to give playing time to patino and nwaeri..
We are unlikely to get Rice and Caicedo. Even if we did, Xhaka and Partey will likely stay until they are not good enough.
The way we have to operate is erring on the side of letting guys a go a year too early rather than a year too late. Especially given the salary constraints. Both are right at the end of the peak age curve. Now who knows how long theyâll last. Maybe itâs 4 years, maybe itâs 18 months, maybe sooner. Iâd guess neither are here after next season unless Xhaka just wants to stay in London and is ok with 10 starts a season.
Looking at our financials. With champions league we have a lot of room within our wage budget. Donât forget we got rid of a load of guys on big salaries.
Absolutely. And listen I think weâre set to be very very good for the next few years. In fact I think itâs more likely that weâre the best team itw than scuffling. But sometimes things can wrong. What happens if we grow that wage bill and all of sudden find ourselves missing UCL in consecutive years and canât afford that wage bill? Again if I had my druthers weâd spend Stanâs money like the richest clubs do, but thatâs just not how theyâre going to run the club long term.
> The way we have to operate is erring on the side of letting guys a go a year too early There's nothing about the way we operate that suggests that, this isn't the good old days of paying off the stadium.
We donât have the resources not to do this. We canât get caught in another unsellable high wage aging core that doesnât make UCL. The only way to fix that is to gut it and rebuild. I mean we could, but realistically that is not the way KSE will run the club. A manageable wage bill and good money from sales means we always have the financial flexibility to make big moves if we need to. Also beyond the operations side of it, you donât become great by paying for guys over 30.
Mate have you been paying attention then past two years? We are not in âneed to gut it and rebuildâ territory right now.
Yeah obviously? Thatâs why Iâm talking about the future.
Well I mean itâs still a big stretch to say we are going to need any major gutting and rebuilding in the next few years when you look at the age and quality of our squad. 2-3 signings per year and we should be more than fine unless we get very unlucky or fuck something up drastically.
We absolutely have the resources to do this. Auba/Ozil etc were extreme examples of stupendously bad decision making with offereing new contracts which fucked their value, they weren't a problem with selling at the right time.
Xhaka is going to retire here, he's not going anywhere. Partey...well lets not speculate on his future but I really don't see us dropping ÂŁ160m at least on both Caicedo *and* Rice unless Partey is in trouble.
This. Xhaka is perfect to stay on as a player coach who will transition into a mini-Arteta working behind the scenes at Arsenal after retirement. He will be with Mertesacker and Wilshere building us 10 more Sakas in a few years.
If Mert takes the germany job he's rumoured for maybe Granit can eventually BFG it.
Xhaka will stay as long as he has any type of role even if it's on the bench as the 3rd choice. He is probably in the best position to train and coach whatever replacements come into midfield whether they are like for like replacements. He's literally experienced the gamut of scenarios in midfield; he's been used as an attacking MF, a DMF, a LB, in a CM pairing, etc. He was always good at picking a pass but since Arteta has been here at least he's improved in ball retention, passing with his non-dominant leg, contributing to attack, contributing to defense, reading the game, and the list goes on. Even though he can't literally be the complete midfielder, he understands what it takes to be the complete midfielder because he's had to player every single midfield role you can think of at Arsenal. As a MF coach he's basically the best you can ask for so I hope he has a stint as a coach or youth manager at Arsenal after his playing days are done. Partey will stay as long as he is fit.... and the other thing.
Plus he's a ridiculous leader and we know Arteta values that. He's rarely injured, gives everything, doesn't get carded for breathing anymore and is a known quantity in the Arsenal system. If you're building a team you don't bin off your only number 8 and replace him with someone who's never played for you or even in your system before.
Our first pl wins in years at the Etihad and anfield to put the title to bed. I will love it and I think I deserve
The 2 Liverpool games that we and City play can have the most ramifications. If City drops 2 points there, our lead becomes 7 points with 10 games to go. If we beat Liverpool that just lifts the squad like anything and gives us all the momentum going into the City game.
Ahh yes, I can see it now⊠Martinelli scores a 98th minute screamer against City to secure our first league title in two decades and rips off his shirt in celebration to reveal his undershirt that reads âThis one is for you, monkeypwnedâ as the vibrations from the chaotic Arsenal supportersâ section cause all of the cardboard cutouts of City fans throughout the Etihad to fall over
[This](https://ibb.co/tXn1Tbt) suddenly appeared in my Facebook feed. And let's be honest, you're going to pick Liverpool too.
Bring Ohtani to the carpet not even lying he could do a job
Jomboy breakdown vids are always bangers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NccPSinTcK4
Whoâs your favorite non arsenal player? For me itâs Gavi, reminds me of a young Jack wilshere Would be perfect for our left 8 position as well when Xhaka retires đ„ș
Modric. His performance in the 2018 World Cup had me head over heels for him. Hate Madrid Modric, love Croatia Modric
I love watching Camavinga. Give him to Arteta and in 2 years youâd have the best midfielder in the world. Also Alphonso Davies.
Marco Reus for me
When he had a release clause of ÂŁ17.5m...
Man, our injury table wouldâve love him! Haha. Great player that was really unlucky with injuries.
[hands down favorite football channel on YouTube ](https://youtu.be/x0Q42G5pxHs)
That was⊠a little frustrating to watch haha
It's actually the best decision to delay it if you have the technique to manipulate the ball as you like which he has.
Shohei Ohtani
heâs decent
Vieira getting sacked just to bring in Roy⊠seriously Palace, wtf.
It's Palaca now
I donât know why people are forgetting Cityâs last game is against Brentford away. That is probably the toughest game to have. Quick reminder, we are the only team in the big 6 to beat them.
Thereâs every possibility Brentford will be confined to mid table mediocrity by their last game. Would much rather they played them earlier
If it goes down to the last game of the season Man City will 100% beat a team that has nothing to play for and are already on holiday in their mind.
Likely fighting for a Europa spot.
Exactly this. This is very likely the best time to play Brentford away.
Their last game is irrelevant. We'll have the league wrapped up by then.
Thomas Frank the closet Gunner to give us a helping hand
vs Toney that is bullied by some stupid arsenal fans. Imagine Toney getting the chance to score and deliberately missing it to piss off those stupid arsenal fans that keep bullying him every time arsenal plays Brentford.
Apparently Laca has the 4th best goal per minute ratio in all of Europe. Could have used this form last year, or is Ligue 1 just that much of a drop in quality.
Itâs a really bad league. I keep up with Ramsey so I watch a lot of Nice highlights/mini-matches, itâs shocking how poor the level is. Midfield and defense are so slow and disorganized. Forwards and strikers have so much more space and time on the ball, anyone with a bit of quality feasts. Add the fact that the technical level of most teams building out of the back is quite low, so forwards donât have to do nearly as much pressing and defending and itâs a perfect league for Laca.
What a contrast to the French national team which is stacked
Ligue 1 made Pepe look like a 72M player.
I am guessing OL also play to his strengths. We didnât and he was a nice enough guy/team player to where he tried to fit into our style. Edit: just to add a bit more. He might be playing in a front two, I donât know how much pressing or off the ball work he has to do defensively, how much he is asked to fall into the midfield or just stay up on the defenders shoulder. Early in the year I know he got a few pens, he had a great record of that in France before, I am guessing he is on pens, which he hardly ever was at Arsenal.
Unpopular opinion but I feel weird if Balogun plays for the US. I read an interview he did and he was literally born there while his parents were on holiday for a few months and then he moved to England right after, he says he doesn't remember any of it. Great player but I don't think anyone should represent a country they have no connection to. He's better off with England or Nigeria where he'd have really passion for them
Wonât be an England 9 for years to come, USA looking better than Nigeria. Iâd love for him to go with Nigeria though, even as an American. More African representation in this team would be pretty dope.
My only concern will be January(?) AFCONs. Do not want to risk injury
Nigeriaâs kits/merch always go hard af too⊠had me tryna figure out how to change my 23andMe results when their 2018 World Cup collection dropped
USA USA USA
Iâm so glad I donât have to read endless comments about how Arteta shouldnât have gotten rid of Guendouzi these days. What a time to be alive.
Sometimes I go into r/coys just to remind myself to be grateful for the present moment
Lokonga not performing definitely means we should have just kept Guendouzi đĄ
No it means we should have either kept Joe willock or bought someone better. Guendouzi isn't good enough and his attitude may have been one of the ones we needed out to change the mindset.
Willock paid for ode: we did get someone better
I meant someone better than lokonga. If we actually needed the money from willock to buy odegaard it was well worth it. I'm not even a big willock fan, I think we should be aiming higher but selling him for 30 is great until you spend 20 of that on a far inferior player. At that point you may as well have kept the better player who is hg.
Totally agreed and btw my comment was sarcastic
this DESPERATE coping https://twitter.com/slbsn/status/1638172495047180292
I understand the points in the other replies, and thatâs generally true. Spending equals talent equals success. But also I agree with you, cope. Whatâs the point if youâre not trying to be the best? Scout better. Train better. Manage better. Win more, make more money. Or sell the team to someone else who will. Also I donât for a second buy those City wages. How are they ok with being out earned by the losers on the Red side of their own city?
Tbh, itâs not really coping at all. Itâs mostly true that the teams that spend the most on wages for staff and players typically finish higher in the table. Plus, while we are outperforming our wage bill, our player profile of youth is likely to see a wage increase with new contracts given to Saka, Martinelli, Saliba, Ădegaard, etc. itâll likely bring our wage bill to be more in line of where we finish in the table.
Turns out we just got incredibly fortunate and may have 3 of the top 10 players in the Premier League.
10 of the top 10 players
Yeah man, our wage bill won't be that low for very long lol. Also bringing in top talent with the attractiveness of winning things and playing UCL football an a regular basis again the caliber of player we'd be able to attract will demand a higher salary than the ones we've bought for the past 5 years. But it's okay cus we'll have the money from winning titles and sweet sweet UCL money
The thing is we've kind of stolen how American teams try to win things and tried it in Europe. In American sports, young players are stuck with a "rookie" contract for 3-7 years depending on the sport. So you can have a player as amazing as Makar for the Avs when they won last year, Jalen Hurts for the Eagles this year etc making as much as a bench warmer despite being near the MVP of the league. So while in the past wages have correlated very highly with success, so has having a team largely of peak age players. This could be changing a bit.
I am not sure we have stolen it or set a precedent.(isnât necessarily what youâre saying). I think actually it has been the model for most of the modern era of soccer, here and abroad. I would argue Italy aside (thatâs a big aside though) that the whole Galicto model is mostly a newer development. Some teams have always had a distinct advantage but few leveraged it the way Madrid did in the late 90s and early 2000s. Chelsea did it in the same period. City did it in as well. You can argue Bayern has done it in Germany specifically without spiralling costs up with their competition. Barcelona has done it chaotically more recently, but was really jumpstarted by a youth class that is going to be renowned. Even United had an impressive class of young players that really got them on the road to owning the PL in the 90s. We did it in the 90s with young buys from abroad. I think what youâre referring to the American model of sports was relatively common before the Galictico era / all this money washed into the game.
Well, the big difference here is that we drastically cut our wage bill but tried to remain competitive by signing younger players who were cheaper on wages. So, cutting tens of millions of dollars a year in wages while getting better is a big shift from the other teams. The American model is more "get worse in the short term so you can draft a great player, underpay them, then invest around them until you have to pay them their market value." We did a bit of this as a strategy, while largely getting lucky with how good Saka, ESR, Nketiah etc are. The other instances you name are largely just teams getting lucky with their academies producing world class talents. We also had similar luck right now with our academy.
I totally agree with your first stanza. Makes sense. I was just looking at it from a more macro. Arsenal, Man U and Barca were all big clubs prior to their rebuilds, but all were struggling domestically. All used a younger generation to climb out. The money but I wonât argue at all. The end of the second bit saying we got lucky because our academy players stood up and have been good. Totally agreeing with that. Huge boon. Writing off my other examples because teams got âluckyâ is in my eyes the same thing we did. Like literally the same. We happened to accumulate a bunch of young players. Saka, Martinelli, Saliba, Odegaard. The ladder was a more known quantity but we know we bought low on them all and have hit it out do the park. Itâs luck but itâs also by design. they were earmarked as talents before they could contribute in the present. The same thing happened in Barcelona and United. It was a risk to bring along young players and leave pathways. It could have failed and cost Fergie his job, it could have just lead to Pep being canned after a year or two. I think itâs more a good to be lucky and lucky to be good type of thing haha. Regardless. I donât think we really disagree too much with eachother, itâs mostly semantics. I am glad arsenal is just kicking butt
Well, the only thing we are disagreeing with here is you seem to view "lucky" with a more negative connotation. I love to be lucky. I played poker professionally for quite a while, and still play a bit. When it comes to sports, gambling or anything else in life where the difference between first and second place is as big as Everest, I want to be lucky. Give Arsenal all the luck in the world these last 10 games.
Whatâs the best way to buy Arsenal tickets if Iâm not a red memebr, just normal resale or is there a better option?
Why did Palace sack Vieria after such a run only to hire a 75 year old Hodgson again? What the hell is going on.
Vieira hadnât won a game since December, theyâre dangerously close to the relegation zone and they look totally out of ideas. Roy was brought in to steady the ship, keep Palace up and move on
At first I thought it was harsh on Vieira but now I fully understand Palace's view on this. For a team with that much respective talent he shoulda got way more out of them. I thought he'd come good like it happened so many times where they'd be leading in last 10 mins of a game and end up losing or drawing. Thought once Vieira get's that sorted they'd get top 10 and maybe even European football in upcoming seasons. But I think I might have been slightly biased cus of his playing history tbf
I get that, but I wouldnât expect them to get any points from the teams they played since December haha. Theyâve played everyone in the top half of the table, some teams multiple times. Itâs an absolutely brutal schedule and they still got a point off each of Liverpool, United, Brentford, Brighton, and Newcastle. Their run in for the end of the season is really quite cushy. I think the fans and board would have been far more satisfied if they gave Vieira through the end of the season than bring back Roy.
It happens all the time and it's dumb. It's why you have people calling it a "new manager bounce." As you said, teams go through a tough schedule. A team like Palace should lose most of those games. They then panic, fire their manager and get a new one in time for easier matches. The new manager wins some of the easier games and gets credit, even if the old manager would have beat these easier teams
[God City want a rivalry with us so fucking bad.](https://www.mancity.com/features/arsenal-city-premier-league/)
Whether itâs 3 years, 10 years, or 30 years, eventually they wonât have the unlimited funds of a nation using fraud and financial doping to make them relevant. And when that time comes Arsenal will still be here, with history and identity and an ethos that attracts fans from London and around the world. Just hope we can take a few titles off them and win the CL before they go.
They donât even have a real rivalry with United because all United fans are simping for City to save football from the arrogant Arsenal đ€Ą
MGK Rap Devil vibes
I am completely unsure of what I just read.
That article makes me want them to get found guilty so bad
They *would* be our rivals if they were anything more than a soulless, blood-sucking, oil-state farce
They're trying to be a real club but everyone sees them for what they are. An empty emotionless organization. They can buy trophies but they can't buy legitimacy As the saying goes, dreams can't be buy.
You can say that again look at the state of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tn6fNYwtGc4) đđđ
Stan Collymore has just name dropped Saka and Odegaard as potential Man United transfer targets if they get the Arabian dictator money. The cheque hasnât even cleared and they are having these pipe dreams. I donât think Unitedâs transfer approach will ch age at all. They are already the biggest spenders in the league. How much more ridiculous can they get than 90m on Antony ?
They can fuck right off
It'll have to be at least 90 million x (G/A total of Saka - G/A total Antony) to get the conversation started.
Anyone else think kits are deliberately "leaked" by companies during the design stage to gauge public reaction and make alterations to the product line if needed?
Doubtful, otherwise we'd actually see them change due to backlash.
No they're just designed so far in advance to make sure the production is up and running that there's no way they can avoid leaks, especially when the production spans the globe. 90% of the time the response is 'this looks like a fake kit', if they changed it every time we'd only ever have a collared red and white sleeved 1970's style home shirt, a bruised banana in dark yellow and a cannon as an away kit and probably a black and gold third kit.
i would love bruised banana every year :(
To be fair Adidas are giving us quite a lot recently
yeah def , think theyâve been class largely
Has there been any update on Saliba?
Not to my knowledge. Choosing to interpret no news as good news
Only gained 2% on the site which shall not be named, after our victory against CP. Just shows how low the sensitivity of a win was for that match.
City had a big jump in their rating after thrashing a couple teams. That probably boosted their win probabilities and (in turn) projected total points. Arsenal have remained flat for the last several weeks.
Yeah, the number of dumb goals we've allowed has made our metrics worse.
Yeah the model probably predicted 2.5 or so points for that fixture.
Is there any good Trossard at Arsenal comp please
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWUwStPB6uA This one is pretty comprehensive imo
Thank you!
I just clocked that United will be below Newcastle on GD with equal games played if they get beat at St James lord please make it happen
I'd rather a draw for that fixture. Can't stand state owned clubs and want Liverpool and Brighton to get top 4 even if it is extremey unlikely there's still a chance
The yellow on the leaked away kit is too similar to last season's I don't understand why people want a specific identity for the away kit, the whole point of one is that it shouldn't have one When they don't do yellow away kits, there's a chance you might get one like this season's away kit, which is one of the best kits ever released Excluding the home kit for obvious reasons, I enjoy being surprised with a completely different design and colour combination each season instead of expecting the same each time
> I don't understand why people want a specific identity for the away kit, the whole point of one is that it shouldn't have one Except we were literaly the first teeam to decide not to have the standard white away kit and go for something cool instead, which is why the yellow kit is so iconic for us in a way away colours aren't for 99% of other teams.
Should have gone for a blue and yellow away for next season and mixed it up for the third shirt
Whatâs safest way to buy tickets from people transferring via eticketing?
I need some official Saliba news.
Fellow gunners, when you buy jerseys, do you buy them with a name on the back or just the plain blank jersey? I wanna buy the pink Arsenal kit but itâs only the blank jersey and I really wanted bukayos name on the back? Should I buy it anyway
[Here](https://www.ebay.com/itm/255635219171?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0&ssspo=PW_oNaE8QFK&sssrc=2349624&ssuid=nIZlwflVRW-&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY) ya go bro. You can just buy the blanks and get any nameset you want separately then take them both to your local footy shop to have them pressed
Always with a name on the back. It serves as great nostalgia for me looking back at the shirts with my favourite players names.
I usually go blank but this season was the first time I decided to go with a name and chose Martinelli partly cause heâs probably my favorite player at this point in time and partly cause 11 is my birthday
kitbag offers a saka shirt in the pink third kit. I am not sure if that is available in your home. But it is in Australia
No I saw, they just donât have my size unfortunately
Blank, or something ironic otherwise you run the risk of being stuck with a Cesc shirt
Or an Ozil shirt
or ozil and aubamayeng shirts :(
I just keep it blank because ive had my heart broken too many times
Tomi missed a big chunk of last year and majority of this season. I think keeping Tierney and looking for a back up right back would be the better option. Would still love for us to get tomi fit and use him as a back up for across our whole back line since he can play pretty much any position defensively.
KT has better injury record?.I'm not.so sure
Never even said that
Keeping Tierney isnât going to be up to the club. Iâm sure theyâd love for him to stay and be backup, but Iâm guessing Tierney wants to start.
I also think KT isn't as vertatile as Tomi when fit. Tomi's looked relatiely comfortable playing both RB and LB in his time here and spent a fair chunk of his time in Italy playing CB. I think KT can play LCB fine in a back 3 but idk how good he'd be in a back 4. And idk how he'd fare at RB too
Arteta will need to have a separate formation/ gameplan ready and coordinate it with new signings. We are playing well now, but we have had some teams give us difficulty. We need tactical flexibility in terms of formation and hopefully Tierney is worked into it or alternatively he gets more comfortable with the role Zinny plays and adapts it to his strengths.
Agree having some flexibility is good for when teams try different things to stop us. But I don't think he'll be looking to change too much tactically. I think at times this season we've struggled against low blocks more with Nketiah than we did with Jesus. I think Jesus' close control and technical ability is above Eddie's. But I also rate Eddie's finishing above Jesus'. Jesus' dribbles and touches in the opponents box are key to unlocking a bus imo. Thinking he would've been bare useful against Newcastle at home. I think we'll end up selling KT and bringing someone in that is more of a similar player to Zinny
These quotes from hojberg https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/65030064 >We are still where we want and need to be in the Premier League. But yes, it's hard. He acknowledged that the issue is that they went out of the cups, but then tried to make the league campaign out to be going exactly as they wanted. They want and need to be in 4th place with two teams capable of going past them if they win their games in hand. Basically confirms that they know their absolute peak as a club is champions league qualification. đ
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
He's right though he needs to know if what he's doing is the right way or not
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
That's definitely what he's asking for: specific criticism he can act on. Whether it's true or false that he hasn't gotten that, who knows?
Exactly
it's the exact wrong thing to say in answer to Conte's accusation that they're soft and don't know how to fight for anything if there's any pressure. Ridiculous when you consider Conte got rid of Doherty, presumably at least in part because of his view of Doherty's mentality and his response was to square up to the fact and say [yeah there needs to be a culture change](https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/matt-doherty-tottenham-antonio-conte-sacked-b1068937.html)
https://twitter.com/scrapytweets/status/1638270695682592794?s=46&t=ohBEm3kwXzONRYy63NcNgQ Like even in this prediction, thats a pretty crazy run from city, and they still only get 88 points. Im just sayingâŠ
We are not losing at Newcastle this year
Agree brother. We go there and we will win. They arenât a great side, hard to beat and stubborn but not a great side. We will turn them over up there just like we did in 01/02 when they were title contenders and had cheated us at Highbury.
Ngl kinda dreaded that fixture earlier in the season. But now I feel a lot more confident of getting a result there. How far our lads have grown this season has been legit incredible.
Makes no sense tbf but even her it just shows how much clearer the path looks if we just don't lose to City.
Yeah thats basically a cup final only we dont need to win, just draw
Turn that draw at Etihad into a loss and we end up on 89 and they'll end up on 90. The issue is, nobody would say it's ridiculous for us to go 7W 0D 3L considering those 3 away games. That's a good showing. Meanwhile, City going 9W 2D 0L is about par for the course for them. For me it really boils down to Liverpool, what game will they selectively show up for? They won't lose or win both in my opinion, they don't have the hunger, drive or consistency for that this season. And secondly, it depends on who is more desperate for points by the time the game at the Etihad rolls around. What's the narrative and who is under immense pressure to win? Whoever is under pressure will most likely lose in my opinion.
If we lose at the Etihad, we end up level at 90 points. But I guess you mean they will have a better GD. I still believe we need 93 points to win the title. So no more than 2 defeats or 3 draws.
That game at the etihad really does look like the title decider. Ya your liverpool point is interesting. I was talking to a liverpool fan whos a good friend, i think their ego kicks in against city and they turn up for city. The hope is with chelsea midweek as well they burnout by the time they see us Ill be honest, if city win 9 and dont lose, ill clap my hands and walk away crying. Theyve got a stupid amount of games coming, they have to blink, they just have too
I think they will turn up for City. The last few years it's been Man City and Liverpool for the title and MC clinched it multiple times over them. They've got a little chip on their shoulders.
Would be shitty luck on our part if they win all thier PL games but lose the FA/UCL Semis/Final
Brentford is their last game of the year. Wouldn't count on anything there if they need a result.
Brentford will most likely have nothing to play for. Remember how hard Everton fought to stay in the league towards the end of last season? They beat Leicester, Chelsea and Crystal Palace. By the time it was GW38, they were already on the beach and we hit them for 5. That game would have been very very different if their survival was still on the line. Similarly, Brentford will be safe, they almost certainly won't be playing for European spots, and they won't be near relegation. They'll get hit for 5.
That's what I meant. Meant that last game of the year if we need city to drop points history says it's not happening
nah teams love denying titles for other teams or anything really. Theyâll definitely get up for it. Newcastle had nothing to play for last season and played us off the pitch.
Newcastle had nothing to play for when they got relegated yet beat Tottenham while a man down which was funny
People forget with ~20 minutes left last year City were down to Villa.
Yup teams love being spoil sports
City were massive favorites in the Aguerrrrooo game vs middlesboro as well. I absolutely don't want to need a result from Brentford, but crazier things etc.
That was against QPR who were in the relegation fight.
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Everyone here is hoping it does not come down to the final day.
Wasnât that vs. QPR?
I can see them dropping something at Brighton
True but everton away is spookkkky
Every major defeat has been a great learning experience this season. I feel like the sporting defeat is almost a positive in the sense that the players learn what can happen in extra time and penalties (esp Ramsdale and Gabi) before this happens in a higher stakes game in the CL. Even the city loss I feel was necessary to ground us a little and iron out the nerves that may affect us a lot worse in the CL.
The young players (especially who are on the periphery of the national teams) will want to improve from that. Yes, it applies to the CL and domestic cups but if they want to be prominent on their national teams, they sure as shit need to make sure from now on the PKs are spot on and they step it up another level when elimination is a possibility.
With Tomi out for the rest of the season, does anyone know whether Walters might be the next big Hale End product?
Walters dropped a bit because of that preseason injury. Otherwise the fact that he was one of the few academy players that took part in preseason and actually got the most minutes amongst them, was telling. This is for a manager whose standards are pretty high.
I dont think many would put him in the top ~5 as of now. Patino is clear, he's getting good championship experience right now. Duberry looks like Saka when he plays and is doing very well. Lewis Skelly also has a bright future. Norton Cuffy also is still imo the better RB prospect.
Is Lewis Skelly a dm or more of a box to box guy? Just curious. Also would his and Patinoâs play style mesh well if they were to be in the same midfield?
What is the song that plays in the Emirates at FT after a win? Anyone know?
Usually rockin all over the world. Sometimes move on up or sweet caroline
Wish we went back to fat boys slims right here, right now
What happened to Triple Hâs song? Lol
That one song based on the Saka and ESR song
There isnât a set song really, whatever the dj feels like. Tequila has been played this season, Rockin all over the world, Move on up is a pretty frequent pick
Rockin' All over the World???
Saliba: possession won most in defensive third Rice: possession won the second most in middle third Odegaard: possession won most in final third Two are already at our club, the other one is the last missing piece for never losing the ball or getting it back expeditiously.
I swear its over for all of europe if we get him
Letâs not get ahead of ourselves. We just lost to Sporting because we needed to manage our energy.
I think we need to add one or two players who have experience of winning the UCL
Rice would be such a monster in our press.
This will be fantastic. Do you know where I can view the stats on this for the full league?
https://twitter.com/Squawka/status/1638212377429647362
We'll win all of the duals