Hello Kiwi. I'm primarily interested in Champions League qualification because I assume Arteta will have double the budget to continue rebuilding the team. As a competition I became less invested in it (when we were in it) because we would get routinely thrashed in the knock out rounds. Not confident about tonight but fingers crossed eh...

Light relief ... Jesus I wouldn't want that at my worst enemy's funeral ..... get this into you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9x0wbKHos0

George Robledo to score after lino failure to spot ball had gone out of play?

Much obliged Kiwi - cracking performer. Am knocking this one over the net - like a quality Newk volley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgaM43KCqT4

For those with long memories.

Yes, despite being called "Lucky Arsenal" we could get the wrong end of it, and way before VAR.

Gidday Bored ... I feel the same . Early seventies I lived and breathed Arsenal ...Sunday morning 8.am NZ ...this is the BBC here are the British football results
Wolverhampton Wanderers 2 Ipswich Town ... if his voice went up Suffolk had won , if his voice went down they'd lost if his voice was neutral it was a draw .
I stopped one year in the middle of the Ureweras ...a rugged mountain range in NZ .... Mrs Kiwi said "" why are we stopping ..? Ï had a 1964 Vauxhall Velox
at the time I said ... British football results .... blah blah Tottenham Hotspur 0 Arsenal 5 .
He hah .... I'd like to say we had vibrant sex but in truth the memories are dim .... these days I'd like us to smash Newcastle for that 4-4 and to piss Spurs off
but if we don't Ce La Vie ...we weren't up to it . If we had real Champions League credentials we shouldn't have dropped points v Palace Brighton and Southampton

How much for a 1-0 90th minute win tonight curtesy of a Joe Willock own goal? That would get plenty frothing at the mouth!

The biggest problems with var for me are the viewing still frames and ultra slow mo rather than an incident at full speed (as has been covered by others on here) also that the directive for it to only correct ‘clear and obvious errors’ is being ignored. There are times when you think the var ref is trying to find any reason possible to disallow a find any reason possible to give a penalty. And for me far too often this season we’re on the rough end of this whilst our rivals benefit from this sh*t show of officiating.

I’m not against the use of technology but when you have a bunch of incompetent referees and then give them further tools to be in charge of and incompetent with it’s only going to end one way.

Yes. A bunch of exclusively northern refs in an office in stockley park,

each of them DIH adjudicating a team of “ southern softies”

You ain’t getting fair decisions

Hi Old Man - I think there's a bit of confusion here.

The 'ball behind the line' final was 1932 v Newcastle when we were on the wrong end of a bad decision that cost us the match.

In the 1952 final also v Newcastle, having held on with 10 men for most of the match, Robledo scored late on with a header to win the game for them.

Good value ... you are changing .......... A quality Newk volley these days looks like a powderpuff ... watching old clips of Drobny , Seixas and Hoad I'm amazed how I didn't beat them myself in the late 50's .
Your mention of Robelow ...apparently John Lennon painted that goal into one of his album covers ""Walls and Bridges

Well remembered. I’m impressed.

Settle down Big Guy 1932 ...1952 ... in your declining years they all run together . I visited an old sheila at the geriatrics centre recently
...she had breaking news ... her husband [ who died twelve years previous ] had run away with a fifteen year old .

Stuff of family folklore. My Grandad was there in '32, the Old Man in '52. I have a newspaper cutting (somewhere) of the photo showing the ball over the line.

Chelsea’s situation is looking ‘interesting’ this afternoon. Could it yet all fall apart?

I'm going for a jammy 2-1 win for us with early goals from Nketiah and Ode and rest of the match pure torture.

Touch wood.

Newcastle have improved, but they’re not world beaters yet. I fancy a narrow win tonight.

It's all that LSD I'm afraid...

It would be nice, but finding a cat playing a banjo at the Albert Hall is more likely. Money will win.

I'm going 4-1 to The Toon - and another sending off for Gunners.

Last game Newcastle had was a 5-0 loss to City May 8. A nice week long rest. And we know what happened to Arsenal. Both sides coming into tonight's match each off a bitter loss.
Both sides should be up for it. Question is which one will be annihilated first. A draw won't do at all.

Gabriel and White both start. Tomiyasu and Tavares full backs, Emile Smith Rowe instead of Martinelli. The rest as expected

Smithers and Tavares start. Interesting selection.

Attacking Side.

Carragher has just said the Everton non penalty with Richarlison being obviously pulled is not a penalty. Surely highlights the problem here. Wot a plonker

So bloody nervous!!!
Come on Arsenal!!!!

I'm nervous too.

Me watching happily this evening…

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer ... -1.4880006

Hopefully this will become a nothing story in the future.

*%^@*** hell this is a really tall order

Come on Arsenal!

Yeah not happening. Just isn’t

Nervy start.

Unbelievable - yellow card for a tangle. we get booked for nothing challenges all the sodding time

If that’s a booking, we are utterly *%^@**

I'm sorry but virtually every team get away without that being a yellow card every single week. 8 minutes in to the game, the defender is pretty much actively trying to avoid the contact and there is a tangle of legs - give the free kick but it is just not a booking. Wait for the inconsistency in this game alone, it will happen. THat is a home crowd yellow without doubt.

Ffs get a grip.

People can keep denying it as much as they want but we are honestly refereed differently. 1 foul 1 yellow. it is a joke

Yep a joke.