If anyone came to Arsenal with an imaginary offer of peak Bruno Fernandez or peak Luiz Suarez, I'd kick them in the dick.
Yup and Wrighty's aged well, like a fine red wine. Compared to how he was 10-15 years ago. At least from my POV. As he seems to have evolved, I certainly have towards him.
Could be. I missed that kick-out, though I heard others talk about it. Taylor's talk w/ Big Gabi was early in the match maybe around 10 mins in?
One last(?) thought on our personnel today... Eddie Nketiah. Eddie bagged a brace, two REALLY well taken goals, especially the last-minute game-winner which had all the instinctiveness and skill of a veteran CF. Plus he did a bunch of other things as well today. Not to mention that he has 7 goals in 7 starts, I believe. And yet he didn't seem to be lauded as much post-match as I would've expected. Immediately after the match the DJ had the crowd singing the Saka+ESR song for like 5 mins it seemed. Leaving little chance for an Eddie song (like the new "you're defense is in trouble..." one) to take root. Yes Tim Howard singled him out for praise, and he was selected for the tunnel interview w/ his mate Bukayo. And yes he was one of 4 choices on Arsenal.com for MOTM. But people seemed to be gushing about Zinchenko and Saka, more than Nketiah. And sure those two had arguably more key involvements, and in OZ's case he was a force everywhere, and a very strong case for MOTM. But if I was Eddie, I might feel just a tad slighted, given the performance he just delivered. Anyway, the main point is... WELL DONE SON! You more than earned your keep today.
Laughable that he said City would win the title and United 2nd and we would fall into 3rd. United were absolutely charmed today, it should have been an absolute wash but they got 2 goals from our errors. Neville is a horrendously shitty, one sided pundit and the less I have to hear him shit talk us the better. Once he started learning to cut in and beat players with crosses on his left and right foot I was telling everyone who would listen either this season or next he will pick up the Arjen Robben playbook and he will learn to cut in and smash them off the left. What a ********ing rocket of a hit. Not too long after that goal he sent one just wide. Soon that one that went wide will curl into the corner. You can just see it in his development. Saka is going to be a top 3 winger in the next 3 years. After Brunos shit tackle he absolutely kicks out at Gabi which is why he gets up and chews him out... AND THEN GETS A TALKING TO. And the commentary on my feed ********ing ignored the kick out while it was being shown. Incompetent officials and bias commentary makes wins like last night the sweetest. If David Luiz has kicked out like Bruno did, it would be a straight red. 100% of the time.
He had maybe one or two good runs at White, who admittedly has had one bad game in 18 at RB, but other than that he was a big ol' nothing burger. Did even less when Tomi came on and quite a few times didn't track Tomis runs.
That run where we had Flamini, Cesc, Hleb and Rosicky absolutely bossing the midfield was one of the most fun Arsenal teams to watch and the fact they never won the league is a disgrace. I remember watching the 06 WC with a mate, in an Aussie pub watching USA v Czech Republic and my mate goes "isn't Rosicky the guy your boys just signed?" and as he says that Rosicky hits that ********ing goal from distance.
I know this sounds weird but I can still so vividly visualize the body shape Rosicky got into to hit his inside-out bending passes
Yeah - i remember when Arse were struggling vs Bayern pressing and then he'd just casually loft balls over the top to the open player His injury troubles was such a tragedy
Something I do notice about Arsenal is how tightly they have trained in the automatisms - something that was always tragic in late phase Wumger. Especially the snapped no look / body fake square ball. This is something I long thought could come to football since i saw it appear over recent years in rugby. eg. a player will pop an over the shoulder no look 'miracle' pass to a supporting player - maybe he gets a call but also because he knows someone will have busted a gut to be there. This is sometimes shown on the overhead drone camera - that a player runs a special line to get into position for an anticipated pass - similar to how a 9 makes his final post run - but in general support play. Also just dropping this off from Martin Ozilgaard Let’s just talk about this pass for a minute… https://t.co/NM2V8py9oW— Max. ✍🏼 (@AFCMax9) January 22, 2023
A while ago a journo i like posted a great analysis of the sydney ABs vs wallabies fiasco. He went substack so doesn't have to trot out the party line for access media coverage anymore. The whole point of this stuff is to troll to an epic level to generate what is known as 24/7 story lines. So Oz tv called up an array of ex-players to get very angry on tv about the 'robbery' - the whole point being to troll fans on both sides and keep the story going. This is reason for the never ending anger/conflict from the neville/souness/keane/carra circus Keane and Neville have been trolling Utd fans for years in this way
Yeah I know, outrage clicks, which is why I call Neville laughable. Going to spam his socials with that comment and Odegaard holding up the EPL trophy if we win the whole thing.
One of my favourite examples of it was when the pundit team had a huge debate about whether one of the teams (liverpool?) had only 'one way to play' - a topic engineered for brainless pub discourse, and Jose absolutely schooled carra and neville - revealing they didn't grasp some of the basics of tactical management - and they are supposed to be the data/tactics guys! Jose - who can be a huge troll himself - showed in his stint that mostly the discourse is at a dumb level that wouldn't be taken seriously in any actual top team. IMO this is why 99% of punditry always comes back to some version of moral failings, lack of heart, motivational rants etc See all the current praise of dotETH where his genius is supposedly his tough mentality
That pass was filthy and deserved more. There were a few passages of passing last night that had they ended in a goal, they would be a sneaky chance for goal of the season.