Told you

And guess who we got.

I’m pretty sure Salah and Mané will be at the African nations cup for both legs of the semi. Maybe Klopp will rotate, maybe the tie will end up as a single leg.
If everyone went full strength Liverpool are the team we’re least likely to beat, but we’ll be huge underdogs - let’s give it a go and see what happens

Leicester took 6 penalties in the shootout and Vardy didn’t take one of them. I had to check that he wasn’t subbed off and he wasn’t. Strange

Hadn’t thought of that.

That’s 2 major omissions that would even it a bit.

Now all we need is firminio to get covid and we are back in the game

The ref alone for the 2 legs of the Arse v Liverpool semi should be interesting.

VAR will be used for EFL semis don't forget. And the final.

I've never seen us win the league cup. I'm not optimistic it will be this season.

The finals we lost to Brum was very hard to take.

People might say the jammy Scouse f %$&&^## in scoring so late ... but in truth as the game wore on Leicester tired Liverpool ground them down .

We can lay on the ocassional slick movement but generally the accuracy of our passing is pretty cr&&p .

I'd say we'll be "all hands to the pump" from the outset

They didn't have Salah and Mané in this game and it didn't effect them in the slightest . Having watched Salah float around on the periphery in their last game I don't think they'd be disadvantaged without him .... Virgil van Dyke is more a miss

I saw the highlights of all the cup ties on Quest and after that one, Rodgers said Vardy finished the game unable to run. I assume Leicester must have used all their subs up if, after he presumably picked up a bad injury, they left him on the pitch to keep the numbers up.

I would like to wish everyone on this forum a lovely Christmas and a Healthy and safe from Covid 2022 !

and the same to you Young Lady ........ plus seasons greetings and all the best for the New Year to all "Gleiberites "

Happy Holidays. You'll be happy to know I've been mostly nice and not too naughty on here.

All the best to you and the family.

Ian Wright has such a big personality. Three generations...wow!

Thought you were doing an anagram there for a minute.

Happy and healthy Christmas to you and all the Gleiber family too Judith, indeed the same to all on the forum.

Seasons greetings and good health to you Judith, and of course to everybody else here.

Isn't Eddie a shoe-in for Lacazette and Aubameyang. Arteta should tell him to watch Lacazette as he has played in recent games and tell him that's what we expect from him and his young legs.

Didn’t effect them in the slightest? They were 2-0 and 3-1 down at home and needed a 95th minute equaliser to take it to pens. Klopp played a weakened team and needed to bring in all his senior players at half time to get back in to the game.
As for Liverpool not being disadvantaged without Salah….this is the guy who has 8 goals and 4 assists in 10 league games against us, and who already has 20+ goals for the season.

How would having Salah and Mané on the pitch stop them letting in three goals as you so stridently shriek ...?

I'm not denying Salah is a class player just the last game I watched he floated around and did very little . The problems we are going to have is competing with their midfield . Jota scares me more than Salah .

Bring all his senior players ........ well he didn't bring in the two you focus on .

Hi Judith,

Thank you for those sentiments.

I hope that you and your loved ones have a great Christmas and a happy, healthy new year.

Let's hope we see some sort of normality return to the world next year, although I said the same thing last Christmas.

Thank you to all those involved in running this fantastic forum, for allowing idiots like me somewhere to vent their frustrations and post ridiculous kneejerk reactions.

And, thank you to Steve for his vision and foresight in providing a wonderful virtual meeting place for fans from all around the world.

So I could not put this after a message so I put it as a separate posting.

Thanks for all those kind words to me and my family, it is just wonderful for me to see Steve's " baby" still alive and bringing pleasure to so many Arsenal supporters! My great thanks to Roger and the other little helpers, without them, this would not be on the internet and of course without you all, wonderful forumites it would be pointless! It is amazing to see so many familiar, may I say old names, after almost 17 years of Steve's passing! After all I am sure there are several other Arsenal Forums!
Have a Healthy New Year and hope sometime soon, we will all be back to "NORMAL"
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart!

Of all the teams in the league who rely on their forwards as the first line of defence Liverpool are the best. They win the ball high so their defence rarely comes under pressure. Salah and Mané are actually also supreme at taking the pressure off the defence by fantastic hold up play from long balls or clearances from the defence. Surely you must see that Liverpool are a better team with Salah and Mané in, their overall team performance is better, their defence is therefore better and any team in the world would rather play Liverpool without those 2 line up against them than having to face them?

So you’re judging Salah on the last game v Spurs rather than the other 20 this season and the last 3 seasons where he’s clearly shown he’s the most explosive and dangerous forward in the league?

Oh and he didn’t bring Salah and Mané on because neither were even named on the bench!

Merry Christmas to you and family too!
Stay well, and have a wonderful 2022!

Merry Christmas to everyone!
Be well and have a wonderful 2022!

Partey and Elneny will be off or the ACN after the Norwich game. After that we play 7 games in 25 days with only Xhaka, Lokonga and AMN as senior central midfielders. It is too much to ask Patino to step in for any of those games bar maybe giving him a run out against Forrest in the FA Cup perhaps.

If our primary CM targets are not gettable in the January window, which is a much more difficult window to work in - and we'd have to get the signing done in early January to mitigate the ACN effect we could look at a loan signing. I wonder if we could tempt Wijnaldum back from PSG for 6 months, there are rumours he's unhappy there.

Frank Kessie at AC Milan only had 6 months left on his deal, he's a fantastic player probably set for a bigger club than us but we could put in a cheeky bid in January

To Judith and family. To Warrior. To all who contribute to, and all who read, this forum.

Whether or not Christmas is relevant to you, may I wish you all

Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda from Wales.

Here's to everyone we love, and have loved.

Best wishes

John

Thanks John - A quick google shows "‘Nadolig Llawen a Blwyddyn Newydd Dda’ is Welsh for ‘Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’."

I thought the cat walked across your kb. ;-)

Wolves Boxing Day match with Watford called off because of Watford covid cases. Tough for us because we play Wolves less than 48 hours after playing Norwich whilst Wolves will be coming in to the game off 9 days rest. The randomness of the postponements is creating some very unfair situations in the league

Can add Liverpool v Leeds game off on Boxing Day as well.

Across the top 5 leagues in Europe Saliba has played more minutes than any other player aged 20 or under

Kessie would be a good signing. He'll also be away at the ACN so wouldn't help immediately.

I'd be putting all my money into Vlahovic. From what I've read 70m euros might be enough in the winter window but by the time the summer window comes around it could be more.

The efficacy of the vaccine, the possibility of a global economic crash and why Saliba isn't playing for Arsenal are the greatest questions the world is currently pondering.

Hi Rich, how are you defining bigness in football club size? There’s no hard or unarguable right or wrong answer. But your comment must mean you have some belief what makes a club bigger than another.

Excellent assessment , succinctly put

As everyone knows , one of my attributes is fluency in the Welsh language .... so Johnny Boy might I wish you , your family and Tauranga Girl a Dffllydydy blendoweyeon Carrrdiffian megllyffenyllongggg LLenythyl Pontyprifffggg

........ translate that one Warrior

In the video seeing Ben White dribble through the opposition's middle, a thought came to mind. Let's say Saliba comes back and plays as well as some of us believe he can and will.

What about Ben White as a defensive center mid if needed in addtion to center back?

It is always a good debate what constitutes a big club or the ranking of clubs by ‘bigness’. Everyone will have their own categories and importance of those categories.
In no specific order my categories to judge bigness are: trophies, fan base, fan base size, stadium size and recent placings.
In terms of the Kessie transfer, teams who if they wanted him would be ahead of us in the queue and maybe in Kessie’s mind would be (again in no order) barca, Real Madrid, Man U, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man City, bayern, Juve, PSG….
Also if we were talking about a young 18 year old prodigy then teams like Dortmund, Ajax and maybe others might be ahead of us as well