She wore, she wore, she wore a yellow ribbon,
She wore a yellow ribbon in the merry month of .....August???

It’ll be sad to have no fans at an FA Cup final, apart from a small band of people attached to each club, hired helpers at the stadium, and television crew and reporters and journalists. Suppose it’s happened with each semi, but it still seems odd.

I imagine Stan will feel obliged to come over for it, as I assume owners will get in. Not because he wants to, but because he may feel he has to.

Man Utd or Chelsea?

Chelsea for me.....................

Chelsea for me also. At least if Manchester United get knocked out today there’s no chance of them equalling our record for winning the FA Cup.

Would prefer Chelsea, I think we’d have a better chance of beating them. Simple as that

I like Ceballas as a player but I think if he's not consistently starting he will quickly grow disillusioned and be a spanish version of Özil. The amount is a decent amount for the quality of player but attitude and willingness to play your role, is just as important.

Had no idea we were capable of shutting out City in a big game. None. And to score 2 goals to boot.

https://youtu.be/PuAJ9Y3VgSY

Remember this?

Bad haircuts, crap singing and some with absolutely no idea what they’re being asked to do.

Tierney has been superb in the back 3. Arteta won’t want to move him back to full back now.

Has to be United - the classic north v south game. For all their success and talent Chelsea never set the pulse racing - unless you are a Blues fan.

And not on home turf too.

Arteta knows their secrets I tells ya !

And the goalscorer wore number 14. How about that, eh...

You all may be surprised at just how popular the EPL has become in America. A number of people I know follow them. One of them is a huge Chelsea supporter. 20 years ago, I would be hard pressed to find another American who I could discuss the game and the league with.

Now, I could probably walk into most sports bars an strike up a random conversation about the league and get a host of fans.

That said, my Chelsea supporter friend has been following them for several years. He said something interesting. He said he was surprised how many Arsenal fans he knew or on forums who criticized Giroud but non Arsenal fans he knew rated him. They love him at Chelsea and while they don't seem him as transformative as Cole, they see him as a great addition who have gotten them out of trouble on numerous occasions.

I always liked him and supported him on here. We probably should have kept him. I'm not saying we should have kept him till this season but he was great off the bench for us and he loved the club. We got rid of him too early. And his real sin to Arsenal fan was he was not RvP.

Is that Ingrid Bergman in your avatar?

It's an aspect of his game I must admit I either didn't notice or didn't know before.

Many years ago, sitting in the British pub I went to in LA, a supporter of another team said "Arsenal were always a cup team", when we did well in an FA cup game we were watching. I kinda took offense to a certain extent because he said it in a derogatory way. I took it as suggesting that we did well in cups but not in league play.

But the number of FA cups we have won, our performance in finals, says we are a very good cup team. (Even though I've never seen us lift the league cup. )

Complicated or what?

Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United are still in the competition. If the FA Cup winners finish inside the top five in the Premier League, then the Europa League place transfers to sixth place in the league. Only Arsenal may finish outside the top five of those teams still in the competition.

So if Chelsea or Man United win the FA Cup this is what it means:

Europa League group stage: 5th, 6th
Europa League second qualifying round: 7th

If Arsenal win the FA Cup, then they take the place in the group stage and the allocation for the Premier League is unchanged.

Europa League group stage: 5th, Arsenal
Europa League second qualifying round: 6th

Santi, Santi Cazorla.
Be nice to see him as assistant coach to Arteta.
Or he could have changed his mind a about Villarreal due to Emery's possible arrival.

No matter the result of the match, so far, I must grudgingly admit Lampard is a good manager.

The pros of having foreign players in the league is obvious. The skill level is on another level. The negative though is the play acting and faking. I was most attracted to the English game because they were honest, straight forward players, similar to the professional leagues in America. La liga, SerieA, turned me off because of the faking injuries, etc. The Dutch and German league were also attractive because of the lack of the simulation, etc.
However, the huge influx of foreign players in the PL has made simulation, etc, prevalent and annoying. It really needs to be stamped out

I thought Cazorla and Emery got on well. I’m sure Cazorla advised Emery to take the Arsenal job, when he was appointed.

I must be Giroud's good luck charm. I mention him, he scores.

How did De Gea become so bad so quickly? Must be a nerve/confidence thing. Lonely position to play.

Quite funny to have heard various media salivating over a Manchester derby cup final, looks very much like a London derby now. United have been outplayed.

De Gea hasn’t been a top GK for 2 years now. I think he’s made at least 10 direct gk errors that have lead to goals. If that was Mustafi or Luik with that sort of mistake they would never hear true end of it.

Ole has messed this up. He changed a winning side. I must admit Ole was starting to turn my opinion on him but deep down I still don’t think he has the nous and intelligence to be one of the best young managers in the game.

Many of our players have the potential to be excellent in a good team. It is not surprising that players like Lacazette, Mustafi, and Xhaka stank when we were so shapeless and constipated under Emery.

Now it's 3. United getting embarrassed.

Me too. Although judging form today I'm not so sure.

He extolled giving Emery more time at Arsenal, but maybe he doesn't desire to work with him at Villarreal. He was the one who did help Emery prep for Arsenal job, though.

I've found Arteta's tactical strategies quite fascinating so far. He had the unbalanced formation with the left back pushing high, Xhaka filling in and the right back tucking inside. Now he's gone to a back 3/5 with a high press. It seems like the two shouldn't exist together.

What it has shown in the last 2 games is that Arsenal can play a high press, not necessarily with the intensity and swarm like approach that Liverpool do, but one where traps are laid and passing lanes are shut off. Having 3 or 5 at the back, and two good technicians in central midfield has meant the team can trust each other in possession deep in our half. It is no coincidence that Mustafi was phased back in and Sokratis phased out simply due to the ability on the ball.

What Arteta needs to solve now is when teams like Spurs don't press us, barely engage with us at all until the final 3rd. That's where we are lacking the guile and creativity at the moment. Also I thikn we lack the numbers in attack. If a team sit off us and we play a back 3 with wing backs and Xhaka+Ceballos there isn't much goals or creativity. It doesn't matter so much when you are able to bring the opposition on to you and use the attacking trio plus maybe one of the wing backs to form the attacks because quite often you will be attacking 4 v 4.

I'd make the argument that if a team sits off us so much we need to either move to a back 4 or start pushing a CB further up field. In yesterday's formation that could easily be Tierney taking a sort of inside left midfield position, allowing someone like Xhaka even to push forward more

I saw an article analysing the City game in the Athletic that said we did basically that. Out of possession M-N was part of the back 5, but in possession Tierney went to marauding wing back and Ainsley went into midfield.

It obviously didn’t happen loads as we had bugger all possession, but Ainsley’s contribution stood out to me on the day.

Lauren Bacall.

I haven't seen DeGea enough recently to know if the game last night was just a bad game or a pattern.

Movie - To Have and Have Not

Definitely a pattern

Lots of talk this morning of Chelsea being close to Kai Havertz signing, £80-100m. The kid does look the real deal. Chelsea could line up with Ziyech, Havertz, Pulisic, Werner next season.
They need to replace Willian and Pedro, Giroud has done a decent job for them. It will push Mount and Abraham down the pecking order.
They still need to sort out the defence though, 49 goals conceded in the league (4 more than us). Azpilicueta is the only one they can rely on and they have a problem with their GK just like Man U.

I've been out of the loop for the last couple of days, so apologies if this has been covered.

If Chelsea finish 3rd, as seems likely, they're already in the CL so if they beat us in the Cup Final, they won't take up the Europa spot. Does that mean we would take the 'spare' place regardless?

The FA is busy at this very moment amassing all the possible computations...