You're a consensus person at heart...

https://twitter.com/skysportsnews/statu ... 24737?s=21

Apparently there was no VAR at the league cup games. So can we assume that the FA will look at this and give Matic the appropriate 3 game ban for needlessly kneeing his opponent in the testicles?

Let’s hope not. We want Matic in their team as much as possible.

I think there is an idiot loose on here but it’s not the people you talk about. A roo loose in the top paddock.

Did you listen to the game at all. I did while walking the dog. This wasn’t an opponent who put out an u23 team like Westbrom and they are well organised and from what the Arsenal broadcast team said at least put us thru our paces. And a number of our players did shine. On your judgemental style none of the first team should get a game because failure to put large goals past Norwich and Burnley must amount to an absolute failure. You are pretty good with telling other people how we should get behind the team but are pretty quick to criticise when it suits you.

I quite enjoyed the game. Tavares was my man of the match. Nketiah scored a nice goal but didn’t do much else. Leno looked fine in everything he did. But he hardly had anything to do. Near the end Holding and Mari managed to give a Wimbledon player a free header from not far out to get a consolation, but he put it wide so didn’t even give Leno a save to make.

Top Gun expected us to play a back three at Burnley. I’m in two minds about the adequacy of Holding and Mari as back ups, let alone having one as the starter in a back three. Does the fact Arteta didn’t use one of them as the third defender at Burnley suggests he might be in two minds as well? Having said that, I think Holding and Mari would walk into a number of Premier League teams as the first choice central defence. They’re both adequate, okay, alright, not bad, or semi-decent squad back ups.

Numerically Wimbledon’s support was impressive. They took all the bits of the south stand lower tier given to teams that take their nine thousand allocation for cup ties. Having said that they didn’t make all that much noise.

It’s a general observation which is accurate, not criticism there’s a difference. Stick to walking your animal, at least you can talk nonsense to it without it pointing out your wrong.

Surely an opportunity to get half a dozen. Really: was that comment and if so what was it based on. As I said the same could be said of Norwich and Burnley - so to follow your line of reasoning the players in those games failed as well. My dog probably has more common sense than you. As I said a roo loose in the top paddock.

Reason for so few subs
https://www.football.london/arsenal-fc/ ... 4CiK8t3soc

Didn’t say they failed it just strikes me that an opportunity is spurned by players like AMN & Nketiah to shine againest vastly inferior side in Wimbledon who are a mid table league one side to put themselves in the shop window. Also my comment wasn’t entirely attached to that game but generally (there’s not many players giving Arteta selection headaches) but you are too dumb to understand.

A roo loose in the top paddock. Jesus wept. Try and post something insightful however you only post volume when we lose. Telling and rather pathetic

Did the story give the reason?

There are so many ads popping up I gave up and just ticked the 'afraid' option under 'how did this story make you feel?'

What sort of dog is it?

If this argument is going to go on, it would be very good to have some background info about the main characters.

And is it named after an Arsenal player of yesteryear? I’ve always liked the idea of getting a dog and calling it Ljungberg

There’s a coincidence. My younger son and his partner got a couple of cats and he called one Bergkamp. Bergkamp turned out to be female.

How apt, if Dennis Bergkamp was an animal it would 100% be a cat. Graceful, sometimes aloof, killer instinct… resists attempts to transport it places…

I have to say this has lowered my opinion of the guy. About money and nothing else.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58668646

Ignoring the Copa America and the African Nations Cup because I know far less about them, what happens to the Euro Nations Cup? UEFA surely won’t want it cancelled.

I know because of Covid there was a Euro Nations Cup finals in 2021 not 2020, but the normal timetable is for an international tournament finals which individual top European international players appear in every two years. A four year gap between each World Cup finals and the Euro Nations Cup means there’s one such finals every two years.

If this idea of a World Cup every two years happens and the Euro Nations Cup continues, then in every four year period there will be two World Cup finals and one Euro Nations finals. If the top European players appear in both, does that that means every four years they play in three international finals tournament (two World Cups and one Euro Nations).

That’s too much in my view. Also, think of all the qualifying games to get into the finals. I think there are too many anyway, but they would surely have to be reduced. Top players need breaks for the sake of maintaining energy and avoiding injury. That’s why their employing clubs rest them. Moreover, it’s the top players who will be performing in all three, whether they’re internationals from England, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and wherever else. I know next to nothing about the Copa America but I assume a similar point could be made of Brazilians, Argentinians and so on.

I’m perhaps not the right person to speak about the specialness of the World Cup. I’ve always been far more interested in club sport than international sport, whether it’s football with Arsenal and to a far lower extent Middlesex rather than test cricket. I would get more from Arsenal winning the League Cup than I would from my favourite international team winning the World Cup.

But many people appear to see the World Cup as special. With a World Cup finals every two years instead of four, will that compromise the specialness of it? I wonder if there’s a danger of too much international football. Myself I think there is already. The international breaks bore me. Am I alone in that?

A border collie cross

Lovely. The comparison would have been been a bit rough on Top Gun if it has been a Chihuahua or Pekinese, although they also do bark a lot.

Nice doggie, love dogs!

While I am not sure about a WC every two years, I do agree with Wenger that the international calendar badly needs to be reformed. Top Gun is completely wrong that it is just about money.

What make international football so boring and excessive isn't the big tournaments. It is the pointless friendlies and endless qualifiers interfering with the seasons, especially the deadly dull miss-matches against inferior opposition (I think England have Andorra, San Marino, and Albania in their WC qualifying group?).

Its even worse for African and South American players because of the travel. Again, when the ACON can be a pain in the neck, its is the qualifiers that really create the biggest club vs country problems.

Beautiful dog mate. Intelligent as well, collies, so you might have a point.

That dog looks miserable

Make sure to fill your petrol tanks up today folks !

I honestly don’t know what’s happening to this country

Extremely apt. One could also get a greyhound and name it Thierry (perhaps train it to cheat against the Irish too?).

Funny you mention barking. He does not have a bark. We believe he has a bit of Bernese mountain dog in him and they often don’t have a bark. His history is vague as we got him as a rescue dog as he was surrended by people who did not want him. It’s always nice to have a dog around if you have the room to allow them to have a run and have time with them.

Hi Decaf,

International breaks are so boring and just interupt the momentum of the PL season. You get the occasional game where one big nation plays another if they are unfortunate enough to be drawn in the same group but otherwise it's just dross.

When was the last time England had a tough qualifying group?

https://www.arsenal.com/news/team-news- ... ad-derby-1

Can we mark this day in the calendar "All players in the men’s first-team squad are currently fit and available for selection"

Not that I want him to play badly to prove us right in selling him but £25m for Joe Willock is looking quite good at the moment. Any pundits (or fans) that fell for his burst of 8 goals in 14 games and expected that to be the norm were a bit wide of the mark

Careful, the same could be said of his current situation in the future.
Pundits who laughed at his 0 goals in 5 games, will have egg in their face when he suddenly gets into form.

You never know what's around the corner these days. We had our moment with Aubameyang. Desperately signing him onto a bumper contract, and then get an off-season from him.

It's never too early for my annual angst. Need Chelsea and 'Pool to lose a game. Not so worried about Man Utd too much. lol

Well, we do know, but we're not allowed to say and no one is allowed to mention the "B" word All caused by Covid apparently, nothing to see here. It's only going to get worse and they'll soon run out of road when it comes to the excuses.

Quite right. But even if Willock became a decent 1 in 4 goalscoring midfielder for Newcastle I doubt they'd be getting top half of the table and I still couldn't really see a fit for him in our team. The £25m is worth more to us than the player - however much we want academy prospects to prosper in our first team.

Super smart dogs those ones.

Hard to work out what has improved due to the B word other than being able to buy a pound of spuds. The downside is absolutely huge and very clearly visible.

The only down side with him is the name with which he arrived. Given he answered to it I couldn’t really change it: Kane

A cutie.

Yep. Straight Outta Colney.

Friendlies are boring. Maybe good for under used or unrated players to get playing time they wouldn't normally have, as they most likely wouldn't make the first team in a regular season or a WC call up.
Also AW mentioned breaks in October and/or a 2 month break of March and October. No matter it will affect domestic club matches. Be interesting to see what the South America/Africa take is on this 2 year plan.