With a new manager hopefullyQuote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
And probably without Saliba
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With a new manager hopefullyQuote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
And probably without Saliba
That's it. If we can't even beat Villa then there's no chance of a title challenge. Much harder test to come and no indication they'll be passed. Gifting this to whoever floats to the top.
I am not sure why we let Odegaard take our freekicks when Rice is on the field.
His crosses always end up safely in the keeper hands.
Can’t be blowing 2 goal leads at home.
A game we should have won but we just aren’t the team we were last season anymore. Liverpool can win this league without getting out of 3rd gear and that’s on Arteta.
Well they say it’s Liverpool’s to lose but cannot see anyone doing enough to challenge them sad really.
Havertz has a bad rep with referees and probably anyone independent who watches highlights where they'll surely catch him doing one thing or the other.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
I still don't think it hit his hand, but his reputation precedes him.
Ultimately throwing away a two goal lead is totally unacceptable
I’ve hated this season so much. It’s just been unremittingly bad. The football, the squad management….everything
We’ve dropped 12 points from winning positions. And we’ve lost the one thing we had going for us, which was a sense of invincibility once we went in front
Been 2 years now that we've needed a striker. Or is it 3? Whenever Auba left. To go that period without one may have cost us 2 titles. Could have possibly made up those couple of points on city last year and this year it's the easiest in recent history. But still also rans. Always comes down to ignoring the fundamentals and going off on some fantasy trip about how football ought to be rather than what it actually is. Solid keeper, drilled defence, uncompromising midfield, strikers who know where the goal is. All extremely simple yet everyone wants to be Pep.
I didn’t watch the game because I was fatalistic seeing Partey at right back, Sky sports showed still images that look like it did hit his hand. But clearly still images are deceptive as he clearly moves himself out of the way, and it deflects in off what looks like his hip.Quote:
Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE
Like with the Brighton game, the decision is taken so quickly. We have been shit this season and deserve to win nothing but we’ve had one decision go for us this season (the corner against spurs) weighed against three ridiculously harsh sendings off, denied a pen and a goal against Liverpool, the award of the penalty for Brighton.
This daft everyone changes positions due to one injury thing has to stop.
Partey at RB, when will this die.
When he leaves at the end of the season presumablyQuote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
I hear Zubimendi can play RB.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
Too soonQuote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
I'd expect him there even then.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
Well anyway, you can't be thinking about titles when you blow a 2 goal lead at home against inferior opposition. So with that off the table, when are we getting a striker?
We messed this up in the summer by not only wasting the window to strengthen real problem areas, but by even weakening the squad by letting the likes of Smith-Rowe, Nelson and yes, even Eddie go with no like for like replacements.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
If you think about it, our first dip occurred when we didn't have Odegaard, if Smith-Rowe had been around, we'd have won the games we should have won then. Yes, there is no one like Saka in the squad, but at least Nelson could be trusted to do a few things right. Lets also not forget his refusal to give Nwaneri more of a chance.
Arteta lost this league ages ago and his silly signings have added nothing....in fact they've only confused him more and more as he feels the need to start them when there is no need to (Partey should in the midfield today instead of Merino and a proper defender would have probably stayed with Watkins).
Arteta remains his worst enemy.
The thing is, it's not clear at all that it hit his hand and I'm a bit confident that other images will come out showing it didn't.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
VAR is only suppose to disallow when its 100%...but we're unlikely to be lucky as everyone seems not to like us at the moment, which I can't fully absolve us of blame for.
I’m a bit confident that Dermot Gallagher will 100% back the decisionQuote:
Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE
He's one of those who hates us, he backs everything anti-Arsenal.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
It wasn't clear, it was blurry, his hands weren't extended, it should have counted.
I agree with you, that’s the point I’m making. That Gallagher will back the decision because of Anti Arsenal bias.Quote:
Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE
Ah....I think I've just seen the still from Sky with a hand extended, surely that was him turning away from the ball. The still doesn't even show the ball touching that hand.
Anyway, like I said, he has the rep already and won't likely get anything go for him.
I said the same to my brother, I’ve also despised this season. Which is a crying shame because of the progress we’ve seen for the past 2 seasons. I had a feeling we maxed out last season and missed the boat but still didn’t think we’d become such a sloppy mess.Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
Without Saka as his outlet, Ode is starting to look a bit ineffective, don't get me wrong he's a quality player but his fucking around with short corners and FKs and sideways passing or little looping balls into the box are starting to piss me off tbhQuote:
Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE
They weren't inferior over 90 mins because they had more attacking threat than us and made it payQuote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
At full strength yes we should win but losing Saliba was the final straw, with him on the pitch we win the game IMO
If he could cut this shit out 60% of the time we'd probably have an additional 10 points.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac76
But you would need a proper coach who has seen everything to give him proper advice....maybe a coach who had coached the likes of Pirlo and Kaka, but hey, what do I know
Well yes, that's where a rookie manager really isn't the answer and what's holding us back almost as much as arsehole refs and injuries ( no sarkiness intended on that final point but it's also true)Quote:
Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE
Villa have a goal difference in the minuses last time I looked. So for all their attacking prowess their defence is a shambles. We should have more than enough to walk past them at home.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac76
You do seem to have turned into a YouTube streamer, massively overreacting to every goal or set back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marc Overmars
You were calling for Arteta’s head or declaring “season over” at 1-0 down in the week.
The main thing this year is injuries. Last year we were pretty lucky, this year we’ve been quite unlucky.
Obviously we need a striker but at full strength there are more goals in this team than we are getting.
TBH I'm struggling to think of enjoyable moments in this season. I mean besides the double over the Spuds (who are generally doing poorly) there hasn't really been any other highpoints seeing as we've failed to beat all our other rivals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Oh and I'm not counting the Man U win because it was a bit pathetic to only be able to beat a struggling Man U with a party trick at home...and as predicted our inadequacies did come back to bite us in the ass in our FA cup fixture also at home.
Though the CL campaign hasn't been that bad with the win over Sporting being the highlight.....but hadn't Amorim resigned by then?
I think the utterly joyless way the ref deestroyed the Citeh away game was hard to recover from, that was a travesty, not just for us but the game itself, millions worldwide had their viewing experience ruined by one egotistical idiot in the middle - if the FA really cared about their 'product' they'd clamp down on that crap if for no other reasonQuote:
Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE
I can’t think of a single season where we’ve had so many debatable calls go against us. What alarms me about PGMOL is that they can’t not be aware that even if they feel confident that they have all the decisions correct, the perception that has been created through inconsistency. At its most generous, you can say the Havertz decision last night showed different things from different angle and the more I look the less conclusive it is, and yet they were content in less than ten seconds not to award the goal. Even with the Gordon goal last season you could argue that they took their time and even though their was legitimate questions over whether the ball had gone out of play or whether there’d been a foul on Gabriel…they wanted to find a reason to give the goal and although the goal was against us, I’d rather officials find reasons to give the goal than find reasons not to.
The only time I’ve known VAR really agonise over a decision was whether to award Martinelli’s goal against Southampton, and I won’t lie it felt like they were looking for any reason not to give it, it was a borderline offside call but one that getting the lines out should have resolved quickly.
Where we as a club have gone wrong is to put ourselves in a situation where these calls operate on fine margins and they shouldn’t. We should have been in a situation where we were comfortably ahead and the chalking off of the goal wouldn’t have mattered…a bit like a few years ago where Jesus goal got scrubbed against Bournemouth (very tight call but probably about right, but we were already 3-0 to the good so no one cared).
Squad depth is what solves that. We don't have any.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
There have been passages where we have played like we could play every match. Forward passes, higher tempo, solid defending, stand-up keeper performances, we've had some moments. But they are transient. The big problem right now is the consistency, we just can't achieve it. And that's an old story that was re-written for the first time in a couple of decades last season. This season though, back to the same old. That consistency is a mindset, something I have been talking about for years. Everyone probably laughs when I complain about white shirts with white numbers, it seems irrelevant. But every small piece of excellence combined is what makes the excellent final product. Allow shit into the mix in any way and you can't have that feeling and that confidence and that presence like the Barca or Utd or Liverpool and, certainly, us under Wenger at his height experiences before they even step on the pitch. And the opposition experiences it too, and half of them are defeated before a ball is kicked. Excellence doesn't have a single chink in the armour. This club needs to learn how to get every, tiny, single instance of excellence right and not let a single one slip. We can see what city are up to this season, same team, same operation, but Pep has dropped a notch. It matters.Quote:
Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE
The Sporting Lisbon game is the only game I can think of where I thought we played well for 90 minutes. It helped that we had probably for one of the few times this season our strongest team starting. We didn’t do anything extraordinary but we clicked.Quote:
Originally Posted by 21_GOONER_SALUTE
He's right though, this season has sucked the life out of me compared to the last two.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Our football makes my eyes bleed, it's awful to watch.
You cannot blame injuries either, we started the season 3 players short of a full squad (which is a disgrace) and because of Arteta's incessant tinkering when we lose one player has been the root cause of more injuries happening.
Where is the backup to Saka who we all said will get injured if he keeps playing all the time?
Where is the top striker replacement for Eddie, Auba, etc?
Where is the replacement for Xhaka?
Where is the backup for Odegaard?
What about Partey?
Instead it's square pegs in round holes - we've been there before and that was a disaster too.
Why does he keep playing Partey at RB when it doesn't work? It didn't last season either when he tried him there so why do it all again.
6 games he has played him there and we have won once and drawn 5
The reason - because we lose control of the midfield without Partey there and Merino is fucking tragic and cannot hold the midfield in the same way.
Rice would be the obvious choice to playing a holding role at that point but he's being used as an attacking midfielder - without the attacking part.
You think there are more goals?? Where from??
Every time one of our players shoot, they either kick it over the bar or hit it straight at a defender - EVERY TIME!!!
It's actually fucking insane the number of times this has happened this season.
Too many to suggest we are unlucky, more to suggest it's something we are doing wrong.
Havertz looks like it's his first professional season, Martinelli looks out of ideas and Trossard has been pretty shit since he had a strop for not being started in games.
Saka is our only decent creative attacker and without him the rest are a total shambles.
I don’t think you can dismiss injuries, how many times this season have we been able to put out our strongest team. I know we live in a world of binary consideration but the fact is you can both excoriate Arteta for the choices he has made both in the transfer market and tactically. And at the same time understand that with constant injuries (and yes he takes responsibility for that as well) and the fact that officials have been atrocious with us hasn’t helped either. It’s the perfect storm
I’ve wanted to solely blame Arteta because of how furious I was (and still am) that we won’t be winning the title this season and in all likelihood won’t be for the next ten years, as the vibes being sent out by Man City are that they are going to be allowed to get away with what they’ve done. Which shows that money doesn’t just buy you silverware, it buys you leniency as well.
But I have to concede that even if we had a different coach than Arteta, who didn’t keep infuriating us with these tactical idiosyncrasies….Im not entirely convinced we would be any better off. It doesn’t mean he’s good enough to win us the important things, but ultimately there are so many factors at play.
What’s noticeable is that Arteta is talking about our lack of options on the bench, which feels like a thinly veiled dig at the owners. Arteta of course isn’t removed from blame from this, he took the decision to bring in Calafiori and Merino essentially gambling that our attacking players would stay fit and score as many goals as last season.
Take away the anger and disappointment which I don’t blame anyone for feeling and it all just feels more complicated than get rid of Arteta = major trophies. Which isn’t a suggestion we should keep him (although that’s a decision that’s clearly out of our hands, Wenger wasn’t removed because of fan pressure he was removed because he failed twice in a row to get us top four).
He's not right to post "Arteta :wave:" when we go 1-0 down in the first half of a game :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by KSE Comedy Club
Sorry, dude, that's just ridiculous over-reaction. I mean, you may be aware we actually won that game!
That said, I'm not disputing that this season is feeling like a slog.
Yes you can. Of course it's a factor. Losing players like Odegaard and Saka for a period definitely affected things. You can blame a lack of squad depth, and that is fair, but we have had far more injuries to key players this year and of course that is going to have an impact.Quote:
You cannot blame injuries either
Saka, mostly.Quote:
You think there are more goals?? Where from??
And yet at this stage last season we'd scored...1 more goal than this. And while we're here, we were 5 points off the top last season - Liverpool were top.Quote:
Every time one of our players shoot, they either kick it over the bar or hit it straight at a defender - EVERY TIME!!!
This year it's 6 and they have a game in hand, but my point is things can change quickly.
I don't think those two things are contradictory. It can be true that the lack of a proper striker is hurting us (and that definitely is true) and it can also be true that we've been unlucky in some games where referee decisions have cost us points.Quote:
It's actually fucking insane the number of times this has happened this season.
Too many to suggest we are unlucky, more to suggest it's something we are doing wrong.
But as I said overall what it all adds up to is us being in a fairly similar position to this time last year. I'm struggling to see us winning the title and it's frustrating what a procession it could be for Liverpool. But I'm not ready to throw in the towel just yet.
Football fans are likely to respond to things in an emotional way shockerQuote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Whilst I think a term like emotional intelligence is oversold, it’s not entirely without merit and it’s almost like you can’t figure out that even though the fingers should act as an interlocutor, its no less likely that people come out with things in the heat of the moment when typing as they the spoken word.
The difference between MO and a you tuber is one is just feeling angry and fed up, and the other is trying to leverage the anger of others for engagement
I always find it a bit odd when people of a certain age do it - people who have been following football surely know how quickly things change during a season, during a game. At 2-0 and cruising on Saturday all was right in the world, and then... And in the NLD we go 1-0 down. OK, that's bad. But it's the first half and...lads, it's Tottenham. I believe in the history of Tottenham...Quote:
Originally Posted by HCZ_Reborn
Of course it's less likely. By definition you have to type something and post it. That all takes time, it gives you a moment to calm down. Of course you can send messages in anger but, again, as you get older it should become less likely as you learn to think a bit about what you're writing.Quote:
it’s almost like you can’t figure out that even though the fingers should act as an interlocutor, its no less likely that people come out with things in the heat of the moment when typing as they the spoken word.