Nørgaard, Nwaneri and MLS are getting very little game time. We know that Nwaneri and MLS are well capable of slotting into the side and in Nørgaard's case, he looked a very competent footballer at Brentford. We really need to utilise these guys more.

Hopefully, Havertz can hit the ground running when he comes back. He was never a long term solution, but Ollie Watkins might just have been a better fit in the summer transfer window.

https://x.com/skysportspl/status/199796 ... -j6VVZXEoA

Only just seeing the latest in a long line of Romero awful tackles. I agree that this is lucky not to be a red. It’s a terrible tackle and lucky not to injure the player.

This is what retrospective punishment needs to come in for. Sod the guff about re refereeing the game, it needs punishing if the ref and var miss it. There needs to be a panel to review missed potential red cards each weekend and swift sanctions handed out so suspensions are served immediately

Red card for Romero

Highly out of control, designed to injure with scissoring motion

Brugge have sacked their manager 2 days before they play us.

In the CL they beat Monaco, drew with Barcelona (!), got hammered by Bayern and Sporting and were narrowly beaten by Atalanta

Portsmouth away in the FA cup 3rd round.
At least we’ve finally avoided a tough prem team. Should be rotating heavily for that game.

Spurs v Villa
Man U v Brighton
Newcastle v Bournemouth
Everton v Sunderland

4 all prem ties

I think I can see us being picked for the late night TV game, the TV companies will want to ramp up the chance of an upset

We played Portsmouth in the fa cup in 2020, this was the team:

Martinez, Sokratis, Luiz, Mari, Saka (left back) Guendouzi, Torreira, Nelson, Willock, Martinelli, Nketiah.

We won 2-0 and went on to lift the fa cup that season

This Wolves team are wide open. Making Man U look good!
56 minutes in and Man U have had 19 shots

Like something off partridge

Carragher making a *%^@ of himself


https://x.com/theawayfans/status/199813 ... 2SVs7ar8TQ

https://x.com/imzftbi/status/1998136066 ... -j6VVZXEoA

So following on from his column where Carragher is desperate to paint us as an over emotional team despite all evidence pointing to the opposite of that this season we have Carragher still peddling this narrative by using a video of our crestfallen players at conceding a last minute winner. I can tell you now whenever it suits Carragher he will weave in us being an emotional team as the reason for any dropped points or when we win and in his view celebrate too much.

Punditry in this league.
1. Pick an reason why a team won’t win a very difficult prize to win
2. That reason can’t be ‘they just weren’t good enough’
3. It helps if the reason is mental or workrate based rather than skill based. Phrases like ‘emotional’ ‘wanted it more’ ‘out fought’ ‘know how’ always go well here
4. Ignore any time your point is disproved
5. Weave your reason in to any time that team doesn’t win a game and ensure you tell everyone it’s the primary reason points were dropped
6 if the team do win the big prize tell everyone how you saw them overcome those flaws you correctly pointed out in the season or
7. Of the team doesn’t win the big prize tell everyone you were right all along about your reason being the only thing that stopped them winning

https://x.com/skysportspl/status/199812 ... -j6VVZXEoA

Calamitous first goal for Man U. There are 3 wolves players who could get back to help and only 1 belatedly sprints back and nearly saves it. That’s a worrying sign for the manager and fans

I'd fancy the Arsenal Women's team to beat Wolves. Awful.

It was one of the worst performances I've seen for a while. Teams have been beaten by more but it was the lack of any proper tactics, the workrate was awful as well. I've seen really weak teams decide to defend deep and rely on grit and determination, just tackle, block, head, close down and they can make it difficult for any team - Wolves didn't do that. Their forwards were chasing down the ball and the defence was back in their own half, made them so easy to play through. Man U nearly topped 30 shots. I can't see them being that bad against us as they will surely go to box retreat mode. The key for us as always in these games is the tempo of our play and passing. If we play slow and let them get settled in a back 10 pretty much all holding hands then we'll get frustrated. The passing has to be quick, the movement and runs behind have to be there. Look at Mount's goal last night, a midfield run, no one from Wolves tracked him and its a very easy goal

If we win our next 4 in the league we'd be on 45 points at the halfway point - on target for a 90 point season with (in theory) easier fixtures to come.
Next 4 are wolves (h), everton (a), Brighton (h), Villa (h). Not easy to win all 4 but it feels like 4 games we do need to find a way to win if we really want to be champions this year.

Chelsea and City haven't played each other at all yet. Villa are yet to play Chelsea or Man U.

Both City and Villa have 3 away and 1 home to round off the halfway point. Lets see after 19 games what the table looks like

https://x.com/MoSalah/status/1998331841296683068?s=20
First twitter post in 3 weeks from Salah a picture of him alone in the gym while his team mates are in Milan for the game tonight. He's really doubling down on this fight.

Saudi clubs need to play this to their advantage, give Salah the high wage he wants but don't give Liverpool a fee. He's a £400k a week problem for Liverpool, the Saudi clubs hold all the cards now.

Saliba is back with the squad and will travel to Belgium for the CL game. We desperately need him back. It would be nice if Jesus could get some minutes. I don't know if I'm a fool but I still find Jesus as an enticing player capable of technical brilliance and can really add something to our attack. Even that little spell he had last season before the ACL showed a skillset in a striker we don't currently have.

Ken: (as he stares at a tower, excited) Come up?

Ray: (Still not enjoying this, and cold) What’s up there?

Ken: The view.

Ray: The view of what? The view of down here? I can see that down here.

Ken: Ray, you’re about the worst tourist in the whole world.

Ray: Ken, I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I’d grown up in a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.

Paul Scholes :‘I still don’t think they’re (City) quite right but they always get better in the second-half of the season and the thing with Arsenal is they can’t win a big game. ‘Until they start winning big games they’ve got no chance of winning the league.

‘They lost to Liverpool, they couldn’t beat Man City at home when they were struggling. Aston Villa are a good team, don’t get me wrong, but Arsenal just can’t win big games. They couldn’t beat Chelsea after they went down to ten men.

‘If you’re going to win the league you’ve got to start winning some big games, you’ve got to beat your rivals, and they can’t do it

It is such a strange narrative to continually beat us with, Scholes is famous for also saying you HAVE to beat your nearest rival away from home to win the league. We've beaten Man U and Newcastle away from home. City lost away to Newcastle and also lost away to Villa.

We went 3 seasons without losing to a big 6 side. Last year we beat City at home and drew with them away, we drew twice with Liverpool. The season before we beat City and Liverpool at home and drew with them both away.

I posted earlier about pundits having their chosen narrative and constantly peddling it despite any actual evidence.

Scholes is even thicker than Carragher and Neville, plus deeply biased

I won’t waste my breath on such an ignorant cretin

“And then we have the situation of Gabi, who we were expecting to be training with us by the end of December. But Gabi has been pushing every single day and he kept telling everybody ‘I am going to be earlier, earlier, earlier!’ and he has done it.

Very good on Gabi…..touch wood

Because someone was a good player doesn't make them a good pundit. A lesson TV stations need to learn. Apart from Rich no one cares what the pundits think.

“And then we have the situation of Gabi, who we were expecting to be training with us by the end of December. But Gabi has been pushing every single day and he kept telling everybody ‘I am going to be earlier, earlier, earlier!’ and he has done it.

Very good on Gabi…..touch wood

Forza Atalanta!

You mistake me caring what pundits say with caring that we have to put up with terrible punditry.
https://onefootball.com/en/news/paul-sc ... y-42066366
The irony here of Scholes telling Keown he was biased in his co comms, the years and years we've had to put up with virtually every pundit being ex Man U or ex Liverpool and the first hint any of them has that an ex Gooner might be a bit partisan and they're calling them out. Keown is definitely biased to Arsenal just as all pundits are, but they rarely call each other out for it unless its part of the act of a Neville and Carragher argument.

So saka and Ødegaard have travelled. I have to say I’d have given saka the night off.

awful defending for spurs goal there, comedy own goal. When I saw the Leeds v Liverpool goals there was one foe Ekitike that the defender just passed straight to him and he ran through on goal and scored. No pressure on the ball just a woeful mistake. It made me wonder how many of our goals are from genuine terrible mistakes from the opponent, where we did nothing to deserve the goal, no hard work, no pressure - just a gift. I can't think of many times that has happened to us.

I always have a similar thought on the 'var reprieve', where the onfield decision is a goal against arsenal, or a penalty against arsenal etc and we get the microscopic scrutiny of var helping us out of a jam. When do they happen? I see plenty that get chalked off for us - so deflating when it happens. I can't recall the last time someone scored against us, everyone thinks its a goal as no infringement is clear and var rules it out?

I think scholes and carragher have reached Elon musk levels of twatiness if I’m honest.

Saw musk and Ted Cruz lambasting the judge who sentenced turbo div Joey Barton earlier like Britain was some authoritarian state. It’s so boring that behaving like an absolute *%^@ seems to be a talent these days and my goodness a lot of the culture comes from the US

The fairly transparent current tactic of undermining Britain by that lot is, well it’s Russian through and through. What possible advantage to the USA is there in that?? Plenty for Putin’s Russia though. I cannot eat the amount I want to vomit over them both.

I think you can only hope that it’s temporary communication in the lead up to a peace deal to appease the Russians then after it’s done normality is resumed and the ridiculous rhetoric about Europe and the EU subsides.

The strategy of sourcing our arms from the US needs review though. The MAGA lot can’t be trusted with supply chain dependencies and the SA80 replacement should come from Europe.

Mason Greenwood is flying for Marseille, he has 31 goals in 48 league games for them, added 2 more in the champions league tonight. But for his history every big English team would be desperate to sign him right now. I don’t think there is a way he can come back and play in this country - it will be interesting to see what happens of Marseille have to play an English club away in the knock out rounds

Just as I was talking about getting absolute gifts Liverpool have just been given a total joke of a penalty by VAR in the last 5 mins v Inter. The defender has hold of Wirtz shirt but it’s fleeting and then Wirtz just throws himself down - utter joke penalty.

Wirtz should be booked for diving. Awful refereeing

We have 15 points and a home banker last game against Kairat Almaty. So we can call that 18. Liverpool are in 8th with 10 less goals on 12 points maximum they can get is 18 and they aren’t toppling our gd. Basically I think we’ve got top 8 already.

A point against Brugge tomorrow with no serious injuries, rest some first team ever-presents and minutes for Gyökeres and Madueke and anyone else coming back is a great result for me.

He’s got to look for some advantage from weighing less than 3 sparrows and a woodlouse soaking wet.

If Liverpool make the top 8 at city’s expense who will then play two extra games I won’t be too sad about that.

Rice had a sickness bug, likely played with it v Villa. Touch and go for tomorrow. Just give him a rest, play Nørgaard/Merino/Nwaneri/Eze in his place.

Sorry Rich, you and I think totally different. Saliba: 'we desperately need him back.'
We are playing Bruges and Wolves in the next 2 games. If we can't win these games with a second team then 'the process' is a total failure. If Saliba travels to Bruges it is ridiculous and if he does and plays even 1 minute in Bruges then we set ourselves up for more injuries. 10-15 minutes against Wolves at most and no sitting on a plane. Watch the game on TV. Play the long game. But I would give Jesus some time if he is fit. We may be able to flog him off in January.

Good man management is for Arteta to speak to the current CB's: tell them Saliba is fit but tell them that he has every faith in their ability and he's not needed in Bruges & for Wolves, if they concentrate. Embolden them. Its man management 101. And if you say, what if they get injured. Well last time I looked a bloke White plays and he was a CB, there is your back-up.

Leave Rice home FFS. And give him a rest from Wolves as well.

My ‘desperately need Saliba back’ is a more general thought rather than desperately need him to play against Brugge even if he’s not 100% fit. We’re down to the bare bones in defence so we need him back.
Arteta himself spoke in his press conference that the knock on effect of injuries is the extra loading others have to take. White playing 3 games in a week after not playing much all season isn’t ideal, timber hasn’t had a rest all season.

If Arteta doesn't rotate heavily tonight then I will begin to wonder if he will ever get us over the line.

We are already seeing the fruits of overplaying players again this season. Despite having a stronger squad to call on.

I get the bit where cluster injuries are not easy to cope with but the likes of Nwaneri and Nørgaard have barely had a sniff all season. No wonder players are not fully up to speed when they do eventually get a chance.

Our players look dead on their feet and yet we are only 2 points ahead of City who have lost 4 games already and 3 ahead of Villa who had a dismal start to their season.