Holding replacing Saliba last season was a big blow, especially considering Holding cant even get a game for Palace this season. I still worry if Saliba or Gabriel are out for a while but last season's injury to Saliba also coincided with an injury to Tomiyasu meaning White couldn't shift in to central defence. At the time Arteta didn't fully trust Kiwior I feel as well, only bringing him in as a right CB in the last few games when the title was gone.
This season is Saliba gets injured its White to CB and Tomiyasu at RB. if Gabriel gets injured its either White in there (Saliba to left CB as the opening 3 games of this season) or Kiwior comes in as a direct replacement. Give it 6-8 weeks and we might be able to consider Timber for minutes also. We're not perfect but I think we're better set than last season. Even Partey coming back gives an emergency right back option and Tomiyasu can play CB. With partey at RB we can still play midfields of Jorginho/Rice/Havertz/Emile Smith Rowe/Ødegaard/Vieira/Trossard............Elneny!

Agree with all this, but part of being a fan is dreaming of what could be. Everyone expects City to win it. Their bench in the last game had 8 top class players. They've proven that injuries don't really affect them so we need players to go off the boil.
I actually think we're better defensively as them - they're more than capable of the type of defensive lapse we criticise Arsenal for. The difference is the ruthlessness in front of goal and the ability of a number of their players to unpick the lock.
Feels like we'll need to beat them at The Etihad - but if we can get our best team on the pitch I think we're far better prepared to be able to do that this season

Don’t do it to yourselves. Enjoy the season for what it is, we have a good team but we aren’t winning a title. To achieve that we need an obsessive striker or player in the final third who can nick us goal when we aren’t playing well or don’t look like scoring. We just don’t have that. Feels like everyone needs to be on their game for us to win,

Table is a false economy. City will win it again. We have a good chance of 2nd or third which in my eyes would be continued and sustained progress.

Hopefully can have some fun in the champions league

I do wonder if it would be worth letting Gabby Jesus take our penalties every once in a while. Would bump his figures up and give him more confidence in front of goal. Would make his goal record get scrutinised less

There was a moment in the second half when Van Dijk and I think Kiwior both ended up on the ground and as Van Dijk got up he appeared to slyly knee Kiwior several times in the body. I haven’t seen any reference to this since. Did anyone else see this or was I just hallucinating (again)?

That's the difference. If we are in decent form and don't have major injuries, we can go toe to toe with any time, even against City at their place.

We've dropped too many points against lesser opposition--or at least in games we dominated.

In these games, we've sometimes seem a bit too reliant on having an excellent start and seem over-anxious to score.

City are very good at steamrolling teams in the 2nd half.

Assuming he didn't miss. What's his record like? I'm always in favour of the striker taking penalties unless there is a compelling reason not to.


Edit: his record seems to be 6 scored and 7 missed

https://www.transfermarkt.co.za/gabriel ... ler/363205

Yes, it's just so hard to see City dropping enough points to give us a sniff.

So, lowered expectations ... and if we do achieve a miracle then we can enjoy it all the more.

Champions League is another story.

Who's bigger? Arsenal or Chelsea.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xPg3j2glmrk

Saw it too. He kicked him in the head and made it look "accidental".

You have a good heart. Are you sure you lived all those years in Philly and remained so? But good luck with that with this bunch. lol. I've pretty much tuned out all the 'noise' (thank god for the foe button).

Anyway, I was back in Philly a couple weeks ago visiting my mother. It was cold, dreary and looks 'gritty'. 95% of the people seem like they are just trying to make it home praying someone crazy doesn't spoil it.

I flew into JFK and took the train down. Even New York looks happier than Philly.

I was looking at our resilience late in games, I went back over the last 2 and a half seasons and found 40 instances in the league where we were either drawing or winning a game by a single goal going in to the final 10 minutes of the game and we have only ended up losing points due to a goal scored by our opponents in the final 10 minutes + injury time on 4 occasions.
21/22 Everton (a) Lost 2-1 when Gray scored the last minute thunderbolt
21/22 Man C (h) Lost 2-1 Rodri last minute winner
22/23 Liverpool (a) drew 2-2 Firminho 87th minute equaliser
23/24 Fulham (h) drew 2-2 Palhinha 87th minute equaliser

When you see the pressure teams can be put under by any team in the league when they're only a single goal ahead it is quite a remarkable stat and shows that the supposed weak mentality and soft underbelly of Arsenal has well and truly gone.

Nowadays I feel much more secure when we defend a goal lead late in games.

Yes I saw that, sky did show a few replays of it and suggested van dijk knew what he was doing.

I was almost mildly irked in the very last seconds the ref gave a handball against us when it hit our player clearly in the chest and the pass had already been played through to Trossard who was clean through for number 4!

Good idea if his record wasn't very poor. 13 taken, 6 scored and 7 missed!
https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/gabriel ... ler/363205

I get it, its the hope that kills you. But surely its also the hope that excites you also.

The key for City is Rodri - he's the one player I'd take out of their team given the choice. Rodri has only missed 344 minutes of league football this season
3 x 90 minutes
1 x 45 minute due to a sending off
and 3 early subs in easily won games
Those 3 90 minutes he missed are the 3 games City have lost in the league this season

While I don't think it will be easy given its a fairly big London derby, I do think we will beat West Ham somewhat convincingly. I'm guessing...hmm....2-1 after being up 2-0 or 1-0 but control the game. The win against Liverpool has the boys thinking title race. Then there is the matter of being embarrassed at home by them and wanting to set things right with themselves and the fans.

Marquinhos has joined Fluminese on loan - option to buy at the end of the season. Low risk transfer will probably be a low fee if it happens

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footb ... es-FC.html

Lloris offered 'golden handshake' of £2m by Spurs when he left in the summer. In other words they paid up the remainder of his contract to get him off the books

Villa v Chelsea cup replay tonight. It would suit us for Villa to win. That way our game v Chelsea in a few weeks won’t get postponed with the other games. I’d rather get the games done as scheduled then have a backlog.

I like it when fans put up their in/out transfer wish list. Always without fail they underprice the cost of the signings they want and think they'd get loads for the players they want to get rid of.

I've just seen a spurs fan say that they should get £30m for Hojberg, £20m for Bryan Gil, £15m for Spence and £10m for Reguillon!

I think they'd be lucky to get £25m for the lot

Fingers crossed

Not good enough for us then

Was listening to a Man Utd supporters youtube channel and she made some good points I didn't think about but knew subconsciously. We struggle against sides that park the bus. And the reason why we have a great record recently against the big sides is they come at us and play a fairly high line. I'm thinking 'duh' but never thought about it much.

She actually picks us to win the CL because of that. We do well against the top sides because they are more attacking and the CL suits us in the later rounds if we are up against top sides.

anyone see Keir Starmer around block 133 sunday.

smaller than he looks on the telly

Yep, teams that have generally tried to attack us and take us on have been usually beaten. Our gk and defensive players bait the press then beat the press. Look how often Rice waits until the opponent is all but committed to try to tackle or intercept before he passes the ball. Lots of our players put their foot on the ball as they wait to be closed down.

We’ve had two subs combine for a goal 6 times this season - a premier league record

Last season Ramsdale caught about 5% of crosses in to our box. This season Raya is catching 15% of crosses in to our box.

He’s getting far more comfortable in the team, the players know his game more and he them. The fast breaks from his catches aren’t a coincidence- our forwards are anticipating it and are on their way already

Have you seen all the talk of blue cards etc. they can’t even get the red or yellow right now let alone giving a further decision, maybe it should only apply to non binary individuals.

Not on Sunday but I've seen him there a few times. I'm in 133. Darren too.

Yep - that's the answer. If all else fails, invent a new rule.

So what happens if a goalie yaps back at the Ref?

The Liverpool apologists were trying to blame Liverpool's missing forwards for their tentative display. I think that is not giving us enough credit. I can only think of a couple of games this season where we've been under the cosh for sustained periods. We're really good off the ball and on transitions/beating the press, which means that teams need to be very careful about throwing players forward. Of course, this is only when we are not being tentative, which has occasionally been a problem.

We are actually not that bad against a low block either. It looks laboured and/or profligate but we generally do score if teams try to park the bus.

Ødegaard has created more chances from open play than any other player in Europe's top 5 leagues this season

The idea of a sin-bin is a really good one. But the blue card does seem to be too complicated. Why not just have a sin bin for yellows? If a goalie gets one, allow the team to make a temporary substitution of another player for the reserve goalie. Rugby union does that with front row player so why not?

Similarly with injuries. Get a temporary replacement on while the player is being treated/assessed rather than hold everything up for 5 minutes.

That's very interesting. I've thought he's been excellent barring a few lean spells, but somewhat under the radar because we're not capitalising on his good work.

Liverpool midfielder Curtis Jones on Mikel Arteta's fist pump celebration:

"The gaffer [Klopp], the way he fist pumps the crowd, that’s kind of our thing.

"If they want to be stealing our stuff, it shows we’re on the right path if they’re copying us.

"They can have their moment and stuff, but there’s a long way to go,"

This has got crazy. Fundamentally everyone is missing the point. The question being asked to everyone by the media is ‘what do you think of arsenals over celebration’ getting people to decide if they think people should be allowed to celebrate as they want or should calm it down. How about asking whether the celebrations were considered OTT in the first place?? For me they were no different than what plenty of players and managers do every week in this league.

You can tell we’ve got people rattled when Jones is getting salty over a perceived fist pump from Arteta which is apparently patented by Klopp. And that even if it was true that Arteta was purposely copying Klopp’s celebration that that is evidence that Liverpool club are on the path to greatness because of us copying their managers celebration.

Just stop talking guys

They're just feeding the trolls (if that is the right expression).

It's breathtakingly stupid and/or arrogant to try to patent the fist pump as Scouse. Its being done by a German, and is in any case is an old American sporting celebration. Jimmy Connors comes to mind for some reason.

I'm not sold on the blue-card idea. Isn't it just another completely subjective decision that refs will be totally unable to be consistent on so will just be another way of diluting the game. Will there be var checks for blue cards?
Sin bins for yellow feels too much. Yellow cards can be given for the most innocuous of things all the way up to the most redish coloured yellow cards for really poor fouls.
What I'd advocate for is refs simply properly clamping down on the very things that they say will come under the blue card. For much of this I think you need to be able to understand the mindset of the footballer to see what is a deliberate cynical ploy and instantly punish those with yellows. Where rotational or persistent fouling is in the game, spot it early and give a final warning that really means a final warning even if the next foul is weak bring our the yellow on the basis of the 2-3 that went before. If a particular player is being targeted warn the captain that the next foul on that player by ANY player will be a yellow (that follows the way Rugby refs work). Stop having higher thresholds for 2nd yellow cards over and above 1st yellow cards and allow var to review 2nd yellow cards because they have just as much impact on the game as straight red cards which they do review. Footballers have an inbuilt instinct to try to cheat and pinch and gain any advantage they can, moving a ball on a free kick, gaining yards on a throw in - these things rarely have a direct impact but its an ego thing that the player has got away with it, any advantage they can get. The throw in thing winds me up, almost exclusively when the defending team have a throw right by their corner flag it will always get taken 10 yards up the pitch. Refs just tell them where the mark is and that's where the throw is taken from......I could go on

The whole blue card nonsense is a terrible idea.

Was I wrong about Havertz?

Just as I said before people are showing Carragher up for his awful take on our celebrations and his only response is to turn it round to claim others are obsessed with it or him. It’s a classic tactic when you’ve lost the argument is to change the focus and gaslight others or make out as though you were never serious about your opinion and so those having a go at you have just taken your bait and have been shown up to be stupid by taking him too seriously