I said on here 'gone by Christmas'.

Could still happen.

Yep, after Chelsea they have saints but then United in the league cup follows then after that Liverpool in the league.

At that point the “we need to get a proper spurs man in charge not a foreigner” stage will be well underway prior to the final stage where their fans start suggesting they put Gary Mabbutt in charge to “settle the ship” .

Looking forward to it all.

Fulham away will be really tough. They were very unfortunate to lose to both Man U on the first day and City at the Etihad where they were the better team. Impressive midweek 3-1 win over Brighton, Iwobi is on fine form and they have quite a settled team. Hopefully we can bundle in a couple more Stoke-esque corners off our backsides

Referees will award a corner to the opposition if a goalkeeper holds on to the ball for too long, under a new system being considered by football’s lawmakers.
of course there is a rule to stop gk holding the ball too long but it just isn't enforced.

Jover must be rubbing his hands at the idea of more corners. However I think we know it will be a rule that is applied randomly but plentiful when it first comes in before it peters out and no one bothers any more

Indeed, and you have the added London derby factor which all seven of the London teams have to overcome. Having said that, we are playing some top football right now, with Ødegaard and Saka in that very special category.

https://x.com/iokmm/status/186502701088 ... -j6VVZXEoA

Like this from Arteta

Gary Neville on Nicolas Jover: “He’s the most annoying bloke in football“

I think you should look a bit closer to home Gary. Joking aside it’s such an absurd thing to say, born out of jealously and rivalry. Neville and Carragher are allegedly our two top pundits in this country and they simply cannot comment objectively on anything because they’re too deep with the club they support.

Mikel's dark arts

I saw someone write that to all the Man U fans complaining about us scoring from corners should maybe remember how Man U beat Bayern in the greatest night in their history

The more he speaks, the more respect he loses. That is, if he ever had any from anyone (except United fans).

Entitled United fans, as always

David Ornstein has said he’s not aware of any firm interest from Arsenal in Gyokeres, that it’s a different profile of striker we’re looking at. It makes sense considering how we use Havertz and our bid for Sesko in the summer. In terms of that kind of profile Isak is the best bet.

Yeah. There is a lot of laziness in it. It is easier to create and repeat narratives than to think.

Arteta on the other hand comes across as totally on the ball. He's been very impressive in interviews this season.

Let's hope we can keep our London form going.

The top four all have tricky away games. Everton seem unlikely to trouble Liverpool but their home form has been strong lately.

Everton v Liverpool is off due to the weather. Chance for us to cut the gap to 4 points.

This is good news for us, gives them more fixture congestion later in the year. We simply must win and really start putting the pressure on and see how they react. We win and the gap goes from 9 to 4 in the space of 4 days

City struggling again. Lots of sterile possession and can't defend.

Forest also score a corner v Man U. It was crazy how all the talk and criticism after the game came the way of the team who are good at scoring corners and won the game rather than the team who couldn’t defend them to save their lives. We should have scored 4 from corners.

Sticking with our corners it has to be one of the most damning parts of Southgate’s time with England that he had Foden taking them as outswingers at the Euros whilst Rice and Saka watched on.

Jamie Bynoe-Gittens looks like some player. Left City’s academy on a free to Dortmund, only 20 but playing really well in Germany, left wing, fast, skillful very good dribbler and scoring goals. Have a look at this guy it’s the profile I want on our left wing.

There was almost no criticism. Pretty much all the commentary was on how good we were at corners.

Not from the pundits, but United fans completely lost their *%^@. They genuinely think we are fouling with impunity at every corner kick.

https://www.football365.com/news/arsena ... ily-pradas

Interesting

Nothing like being 18 and hopeful.

Goals from open play in 2024, but yeah we’re Set Piece FC

It's a different story for the 24/25 season. We are currently 9th on the list of goals from open play. All goals are equal on the league table, but there is a reason why our set piece goals are the subject of discussion.

As fans, we are only too happy to take wins via corner kicks, but I'd certainly prefer if we scored more from open play.

We could certainly do with more goals from Havertz (and Martinelli, Trossard and Ødegaard). And its a slight worry when when certain players actually seem to be playing for corners and penalties.

On the other hand, Liverpool are far more reliant on Salah than we are on corners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-jzvcG8ARU

Our corner tactics objectively discussed

Salah has scored or assisted 21 of Liverpool’s 28 league goals this season. Of course if he was missing they can replace him with a very good player but they are very reliant on him.

We were. And as I said up thread so does everyone else. If the rules were applied we'd have two penalties a game on corners. Most pundits were more measured accepting fully that if you are good at getting goals from corners go for it.

Very true. Take Salah and Van Dijk out and they would not be as potent.

Dan Ashworth sacked from Man U, they spent £3m to get him from Newcastle and he’s only been there for 5 months.

Differences of option with Radcliffe and criticism over the summer transfers to blame. Summer recruitment was awful.

Ten Hag's transfers were abysmal. Antony has to be up there as possibly the worst transfer in PL history.

https://x.com/fodenprime/status/1865440 ... -j6VVZXEoA

Thoughts on the second yellow card for Rico Lewis yesterday.

I wouldn’t want one of ours to be sent off for that, but you can see justification that he didn’t get the ball and was diving in, that the palace player caught Lewis as well is a bit irrelevant as he’s the one who has cleared the ball.

It’s a harsh one for me

I can’t think of a single decent signing Man U have made in the last 5 years. Some of these players may be better in a better and more stable team and properly coached - Martinez was wanted by Arteta after all.

Even someone like Leny Yoro who could be deemed quite a coup for £65m as one of the best young players in the world wasn’t the right strategy for them. They have an inability to identify players around the £30m mark and see the potential to turn them in to title challengers.
Gabriel, Saliba, Raya, Calafiori, Timber, Tomiyasu, Zinchenko, Jorginho, Ødegaard, Trossard, merino all average out and are close to £30m per man.

Rumours are no Gabriel and Calafiori again. Possibly no Zinchenko either. Could be Partey at RB, Timber left back and Jorginho in CM
Trossard starting ahead of Martinelli

2 right backs, 2 left backs and main CB all out injured.

That would be Trent, Bradley, Robertson, Tsimikas and VVD missing for Liverpool - which would make their defence Quansah, Konate, Nallo, Gomez

That would be Walker, Lewis, Gvardiol, Ake, Dias all missing for City - which would make their defence Akanji, Stones, Simpson-Pusey, Wilson-Ebrand

We move Partey to right-back which helps, I’d like to see the candidates from City or Liverpool’s midfield who would fill in at Right back

Lewis-Skelly is on the bench. So Arteta maybe had the option of bringing in MlS at left back and being able to play Partey and Timber in their natural positions.

Rotten away kit.

Yellllllllloooooows

Leno is not coming to claim corners