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Posted
1 hour ago, Firemans4Horn said:

You can’t win the league trying to scrape 38 1-0 wins. 
 

 

martinelli has got to lose his spot now that eze and madueke are here. we’ve been a black hole on the left side since 2023. RB >> Odegaard >> Saka. that and set pieces are the only ways we score. i’ve seen enough from our two new signings to want both of them to be well ahead of martinelli on the proverbial depth chart.

also, if all of our best players could stop getting injured that would really help.

Posted
16 minutes ago, Derka said:

martinelli has got to lose his spot now that eze and madueke are here. we’ve been a black hole on the left side since 2023. RB >> Odegaard >> Saka. that and set pieces are the only ways we score. i’ve seen enough from our two new signings to want both of them to be well ahead of martinelli on the proverbial depth chart.

also, if all of our best players could stop getting injured that would really help.

All those guys would be better if their coach would stop pretending he’s Jose mourinho coaching inter

Posted
2 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

All those guys would be better if their coach would stop pretending he’s Jose mourinho coaching inter

his strategy against our bigger opponents has paid big dividends. today was our first epl loss vs the big six in years. 

as for the rest of our schedule, we’ve tried to address our open play scoring woes with all of our attacking signings this summer, and we’re hopefully about to see big improvements in that area.

also, arteta is more like simeone at atleti than he mourinho at inter imo.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Derka said:

his strategy against our bigger opponents has paid big dividends. today was our first epl loss vs the big six in years. 

as for the rest of our schedule, we’ve tried to address our open play scoring woes with all of our attacking signings this summer, and we’re hopefully about to see big improvements in that area.

also, arteta is more like simeone at atleti than he mourinho at inter imo.

Those both suck and are small club strategy. His strategy against big clubs yields not losing. You have to win games.

Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, Derka said:

his strategy against our bigger opponents has paid big dividends. today was our first epl loss vs the big six in years. 

as for the rest of our schedule, we’ve tried to address our open play scoring woes with all of our attacking signings this summer, and we’re hopefully about to see big improvements in that area.

also, arteta is more like simeone at atleti than he mourinho at inter imo.


Not losing and winning are two different things. That top 6 streak was a fun fact but it also included Arteta intentionally playing for a draw in 22-23 at the Etihad when a win would have won the league. He didn’t lose any games against the top 6 last season and lost the league in Mid-April. You have to risk it for the biscuit in the league and CL sometimes. 
 

I’d agree with Simeone point but Simeone is underfunded against two behemoths. At this point Arteta has been given anything any manager could ask for. Today he started 4 centerbacks, 2 DMF’s and a box to box 8. Took until the 70th minute for him to bring on some creativity. 

Edited by Firemans4Horn
  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
Just now, Firemans4Horn said:


Not losing and winning are two different things. That top 6 streak was a fun fact but it also included Arteta playing for a draw in 22-23 at the Emirates when a win would have won the league. He didn’t lose any games against the top 6 last season and lost the league in Mid-April. You have to risk it for the biscuit in the league and CL sometimes. 
 

I’d agree with Simeone point but Simeone is underfunded against two behemoths. At this point Arteta has been given anything any manager could ask for. Today he started 4 centerbacks, 2 DMF’s and a box to box 8. Took until the 70th minute for him to bring on some creativity. 

Goals win games

Posted
7 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:


Not losing and winning are two different things. That top 6 streak was a fun fact but it also included Arteta intentionally playing for a draw in 22-23 at the Etihad when a win would have won the league. He didn’t lose any games against the top 6 last season and lost the league in Mid-April. You have to risk it for the biscuit in the league and CL sometimes. 
 

I’d agree with Simeone point but Simeone is underfunded against two behemoths. At this point Arteta has been given anything any manager could ask for. Today he started 4 centerbacks, 2 DMF’s and a box to box 8. Took until the 70th minute for him to bring on some creativity. 

like i said, we just now finally addressed our attacking needs, and we’ll see how it works out. kai havertz was our leading PL goal scorer with 9 goals. we haven’t had shit for attacking options outside of saka for years. i mean mikel merino was our striker all spring. we’ve finally added about three windows worth of attacking options all at one time. we’re trying to change the dynamic.

Posted
1 minute ago, Derka said:

like i said, we just now finally addressed our attacking needs, and we’ll see how it works out. kai havertz was our leading PL goal scorer with 9 goals. we haven’t had shit for attacking options outside of saka for years. i mean mikel merino was our striker all spring. we’ve finally added about three windows worth of attacking options all at one time. we’re trying to change the dynamic.


The talent on the roster and what the coach wants to do are two separate things.

I think if we swapped managers today Arsenal could have won 2-1. 

Posted

also fwiw, i would have killed to have had the likes of falcao, griezmann, or diego costa during these last three runner-up campaigns. no excuses this year, even with saka and havertz (and saliba 😭) already out.

Posted
20 hours ago, Ted Lange said:

Set Piece FC gets Set Pieced 

Sometimes your guy produces a moment of sublime quality and hits a golazo into the postage stamp to win a match; sometimes the other guy does it to you. Gotta tip your hat and move on. 

Posted

Very happy with Chelsea's window outside of holding onto Raheem and his wages.

Liverpool and Arsenal did well

I think Newcastle ended up with some positive moves

Manchester United is a fucking mess, Manchester City's was meh

This doesn't include us fleecing Bayern Munich for Nico Jackson, so all good overall.

r/chelseafc - Kinsella: Chelsea become the first Premier League club to ever bank over £300m from player sales. It's a new record.

Posted (edited)

don’t know who this guy is but i couldn’t agree more:

Why Didn’t You Just Try To Win, Arne?

tl;dr: arsenal weren’t overly conservative, mikel didn’t play negatively, its simply that, for whatever reason, whatever arsenal does is wrong in the eyes of everyone with an opinion. and fwiw the author does a good job of using the argument against arteta and turning it right back around on slot. really drives home how lazy and slanted the narrative is.

https://redstory.substack.com/p/different-stories

Quote

Let me tell you a story.

A club wins the Premier League. No, that’s not quite right: a club stomps the Premier League. The final gap to second is ten points. They score fourteen more goals than anyone else. At home, in a stadium famous for its impenetrable wall of noise, a mythical place where the crowd wins games through strength of feeling alone, they lose once all year. 

In the summer following this historic campaign, they refresh and re-arm with ferocious intent. They spend €220m on two attackers from Germany, and are strongly expected to add the Premier League’s best striker for a further €150m. They drop €86m on new full-backs. They lose two key players, one in horrific circumstances; the other, a magician who was controversial anyway, is hurled abuse for daring to want away after a decade of dedication. Their talismanic attacker is crowned the country’s best player, and they surround him with just shy of half a billion Euro’s worth of new toys.

They step out onto their sacred field against last year’s closest competitors, a team led by a man who has never won there. But then who can blame him? So few do. 

The champions field their best eleven players, save perhaps one. Their opponents are depleted; the star player is injured, the nine is injured, the centre-half is injured, the captain is on the bench. The champions trot out the country’s best attacker and flank him with that €220m pair. Out into the storied atmosphere they stroll, the most feared noise in English football a vicious wind at their backs. 

In the first half these champions take two shots and generate 0.09 xG. By the end of the game, it’s 0.51 xG. Good for half a goal, if such things could count. 

Through a bolt of improbable lightning, they win the game. The narrative engine decides the moral of this story is their opponents were cowards. 

“Why didn’t you just try to win, Mikel?” Barney Ronay wrote, of Arsenal’s defeat at Anfield.“Why not score goals, why not lay on a banquet of free-flowing devastation, seizing the day, blowing smoke from your nostrils. Thrilling us all with your cold, hard will to power? Why not do that?”

Because he’s good at this, Ronay has touched the zeitgeist’s pressure point. He is far from the only writer or commentator to frame Arsenal’s 1-0 loss as an ideological failure. Perhaps referencing Arteta’s approach as ‘Starmer-ball’ is a little - how I put this lightly - fucking bizarre, but that’s his prerogative. 

Unai Emery was once widely mocked for desiring Arsenal to be ‘protagonists’. It was a silly thing to say, but not because his team were about as heroic as a limp fish. It was foolish because Arsenal are always protagonists, even when they’re bad - especially when they’re bad. Arsenal are the centre of every story. Win or lose, they did it wrong. There is only one way to do this correctly, and that is with a rip-roaring, buccaneering domination: ‘a banquet of free-flowing devastation.’ Just don’t do that and lose, because that would be naïve. 

Here’s another story: the runaway champions of England retooled the best attack in the land with €220m, walked out into the most impenetrable stadium in the country, and needed a moment of one-in-a-million brilliance to defeat a depleted challenger who finished last season a million miles behind them. 

Why didn’t you just try to win, Arne? Why not do that?

Show me ten teams who head to Anfield to deliver a banquet of devastation and I will show you ten teams who go home looking like they’ve been in a derailed train. 

Why didn’t Mikel Arteta simply go to Anfield and win 3-0” is not the gotcha it is being framed as. This was simply a game between two juggernauts who knew the weight of loss might outweigh the thrill of victory. They were both as bad as each other: cagey, probing, willing only to score when it were safe to do so. The best time is when the ball is not moving at all. 

I thought Arsenal still looked every bit a side capable of heading to the most difficult fixtures the country can throw at them and winning. It’ll be ugly, a little painful, but suffering is inherent to glory in this game. The lauded, all-conquering Paris Saint-Germain side of last year settled for Gianluigi Donnarumma heroics when Arteta came to town. At the Parc des Princes, Arsenal generated a staggering 2.91 xG from 19 shots. The banquet of devastation was delivered to the best team in Europe, and the victory went to the side who dug in. The argument Arteta only knows one approach fails with a cursory glance at history. 

Margins, details. If Ebere Eze pulls the trigger there, through on goal, the story changes. If Declan Rice remembered to wear football boots instead of his Wellingtons, the story changes. If the ball bounces just a little further…

Arsenal leave with many positives. Christhian Mosquera, in his de-facto Premier League debut, looked in every moment capable of deputising for the injured William Saliba. Martin Zubimendi continues to prove he will set tempo in the face of any noise. Noni Madueke’s ability to move the ball from his half into the opponents’ box is a definitive superpower. Riccardo Calafiori is one of the most bizarrely effective attacking mavericks in the league, capable of twisting games around his gravity even as he seems to forget how to play football. With Eze shifting inside of him, the future of Arsenals’ left looks like wonderful chaos. But those stories are buried, crushed beneath the weight of a moment.

A football team does not really decide whether they are protagonists. That responsibility lies with the beholder. Perhaps we should tell a different story. 

Why didn’t you just try to win, Arne?

 

Edited by Derka
Posted

Looks like Emi's not going to ManU after all.

Wonder how the Holte End will treat him?  It might have been different, had Bizot actually had a good game... but since he didn't, we really need Dibu between the posts right now.
 

Posted
4 hours ago, Derka said:

don’t know who this guy is but i couldn’t agree more:

Why Didn’t You Just Try To Win, Arne?

tl;dr: arsenal weren’t overly conservative, mikel didn’t play negatively, its simply that, for whatever reason, whatever arsenal does is wrong in the eyes of everyone with an opinion. and fwiw the author does a good job of using the argument against arteta and turning it right back around on slot. really drives home how lazy and slanted the narrative is.

https://redstory.substack.com/p/different-stories

 


 

I like that guy. I’m going to Venmo him some money and see if he can write a fan faction story about how Texas beat Ohio State because we out gained them by 130 yards. Scoreboard be damned. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Firemans4Horn said:


 

I like that guy. I’m going to Venmo him some money and see if he can write a fan faction story about how Texas beat Ohio State because we out gained them by 130 yards. Scoreboard be damned. 

 

image.png.6f918a6b7d6c0587d5583d2864ee4a53.png

Posted

loving what grealish has brought to everton...almost like he's teaching our team how to play offensive soccer.

that said, every time we get something nice like james, ancelotti, etc..., something horrible happens so i expect grealish to get run over by a truck over the international break. fun to see some consistent quality play though instead of just relying on random chaos working out for you more than not.

we have got to do something about our back line though. my god the back four suck shit. pickford is actually right to run around screaming like a complete dipshit lunatic for once.

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