FA Cup 3rd Round Sunday, 7 January 2018 City Ground USA TV: FS1 11:00am ET Off we go to Forest, a mid-table Championship side with some management troubles. A new (Greek) owner who was accused but acquitted of match-fixing, and who just fired their latest manager. Caretaker Gary Brazil has had 1 match in charge, a draw at Leeds. But he’s no newbie... he’s had to step in twice before... they’ve changed managers 15 times in 6 years... crikey! And missed relegation last season by +2 GD. Their heyday was in the late 70’s under the legend Nigel Clough, when they won the league and European Cup. When I learned the famous song back then, it went something like this: “We hate Nottingham Forest, we hate Liverpool too, we hate West Ham United, but Arsenal we love you” After a relentless festive period, with minimal player rotation, our A-team deserves the weekend off. Our DL is up to 7, if you include Xhaka who did his hammie a bit. So expect to see our cup-squad youngsters like Nelson & Nketiah, alongside veterans like Ospina & Welbeck. I see that as welcome change. Interestingly VAR will be employed this weekend. Should make Wenger happy. As long as the use of video review ends up benefiting us more than our opponent! The Chelsea match was insanely "entertaining". But the last time we played Forest (League Cup - Sept 2016), we beat them 4-0 at their place. So let’s have one of those comfortable outings... PLEASE! COYG!!!!
John Moss is officiating this match so it should be shitty football if it was either him or Mike Dean
Arsenal 13 Ospina 2 Debuchy 4 Mertesacker 16 Holding 61 Nelson 69 Willock 35 El Neny 30 Maitland-Niles 14 Walcott 17 Iwobi 23 Welbeck Substitutes 21 Chambers 22 Reine-Adelaide 32 Akpom 43 Da Silva 54 Macey 62 Nketiah 63 Osei-Tutu Bring on Osei-Tutu!!!
Apparantly Arsene Wenger has been served a touchline ban for this match, Alice let me know about that, he must've said something to one of the officials they didn't like so Steve Bould is in charge this morning/afternoon. COYF'n'G!!!
It’s almost guaranteed that Ospina will need treatment any time he plays. It’s usually a slow motion crumpling to the ground.
He was issued a 3 game touchline ban late this week, largely for his "going after" Mike Dean after his despicable handball/PK call against WBA. Luckily, with our immediate schedule, 2 of these 3 games are not in the EPL.
Sian Massey-Ellis MBE is the AR on the near touch line. Always nice to see her on the job, for several different reasons, including that she's generally good and that she's a running example of breaking another barrier in a male-dominated workplace.
....and showing up Andy Gray in the process (remember his and Richard Keys' infamous comments about "women not knowing the offside rule" which in part lead to him being sacked by Sky Sports in 2011).
Who in the hell allowed that guy to walk into a free header, mental error, down 1-nil because of it, SHIT!!!
Good ole Per with the quick equalizer. Woohoo! And we match their set piece potency as well. Although the free kick award was soft.
Oops, she got that offside call wrong. Luckily Ospina saved the day. Otherwise we'd be down a goal again, and the wrath of Arsenal would be on her. Phew.