That's a good point. What is disappointing is that both Spuds and Man U have been so poor that they sacked their managers yet we are still probably an outside bet for 4th.

Totally crazy to play him midweek. You could have given him 2 days off and come into this game fresh and it could have been the difference between winning or drawing trust me.

You just don’t have the players to compete so eventually you are simply pretending you can.

I’d take Shane long on loan right now. Honestly Lacazette misses a chance every week that your most bog average striker puts away. It’s simply crazy, he slashes wildly at everything. Ffs Lacazette take a breath

Artetas comments on transfers kind of indicate to me the club are afraid of creating a long term problem with a short term fix like we’ve done in the past.

All in all 4th is still on but the summer and next season are the big moment for the manager and the current regime. After that the honeymoon period will be over. Next seasons squad has to be built to compete

I think our inability to win when playing poorly is going to cost us 4th.
If I was to put all our league games in categories this season you could have:

Lost and played poorly: Brentford, Chelsea, City(a), Everton, Liverpool
Lost and played average: Man U
Lost and played well: City(h)

Drew and played poorly: Palace, Brighton, Burnley (h)

Won and played well: Spurs, Villa, Leicester, Southampton, West Ham, Leeds, Norwich (a)
Won and played average: Burnley (a), Norwich (h), Watford (h), Newcastle (h)
Win and played poorly:

I think that is 13 out of 21 games where we've been average or poor and we've only won 4 of them.

Read that Tammy Abraham has 12 goals in his last 12 games for Roma. We went for him and I think for sure he'd have joined us over Roma but we couldn't get Aubameyang/Lacazette/Nketiah off the books. That has cost us this year. Even if it wasn't Abraham, another forward was surely on the wish list but only if we move those guys on.

I also think we missed a trick by not moving for Patson Daka in the summer. £20m, very young, has a good set of attributes for a CF. He's better than anything we currently have.

Vlahovic isn't coming is he. Why would he, apart from a big pay day. He'll have better options in the summer.

If he's watched the last 3 games he definitely isn't coming.

I admire our pluck in trying to sign him but lets move on to a more realistic target because let's face it we aint finishing top four without a topclass CF coming in.

And he doesn’t really want to play for us anyway does he? Simply ‘doing us a favour’ by picking up his paycheque.

Yep, and I don’t think you even need a top class one either

Highly unlikely he’s coming this type of transfer in January is very difficult

Alexandre Lacksathreat more like. That miss was appalling.

Playing Partey was a high stakes gamble. Definately a risky long shot but there was a chance of a Wembley final and a significant boost for the rest of the season if we prevailed. Clearly the decision bit Arteta on the arse today as we were desperate for a midfielder who could progess the ball rather than go back and sideways. Then again Partey may of only been setting up Lacazette or Nketiah to miss. Talking of hindsight, the decision to keep hold of Nketiah seems really daft.

They will most likely beat us so the answer is yes.

There’s one a week. Watch it again

https://twitter.com/pablosali/status/14 ... 36770?s=21

V Liverpool. Look at this one, after he misses he screams at the Lino for not calling him off , he was on !

https://twitter.com/messimx30ii/status/ ... 14632?s=21

Why do we have to move any of them on to sign a forward this window? Lacazette and Nketiah will both be leaving for nothing in the summer. I suppose we might be able to get some sort of fee for Aubameyang if he goes to Saudi Arabia, but I’ve little or no doubt we won’t see the back of him until the summer whether we get a transfer fee or not.

We surely have to sign a forward now whether or not Lacazette, Nketiah or Aubameyang remain on the books.

Gidday Bernard .... yeah that's much what I'm saying .

Seems to me when we had our great team Bergkamp , Henry , Vieira , Petit , Pires , Campbell etc it seemed we had a team packed with superstars whereas todays Liverpool seem a collection of tradesmen where the whole is greater than the sum of their parts'.

Oxlade Chamberlain ...... classic example . Pretty wayward with us and now knows where he fits the system .

Exceptions ... ? maybe Van Dyke ... maybe because he looks a lot cooler than Gabriel or White

I’m going to nominate Sakas goal against Man City as the goal of the month : there are no other nominations.

Must admit I’m not as convinced as you presumably are that Partey consistently progresses the ball forward.

Here we go ... we are on the same page Rich .

Picture me 3 AM ... perched om a swivel chair in front a computer monitor watching that schi****zer . I nearly went back to bed

Arteta raging about time wasting .... are you kidding ....you've let this collection of d**cks play the ball nonchantly back , sideways , back , sideways , sideways , sideways , back ........ which is a form of time wasting

Must admit, after hearing about what a great passer he was, I haven’t been that impressed with White’s passing so far. I think he’s done well overall, despite the nightmare he had on his debut at Brentford. But I’ve not seen much evidence of outstanding passing from him. There might have been one exceptional pass today, though I’m not certain it was him. But even if it was, I’ve actually been more impressed with his defending than his distribution. Not that that’s a bad thing. I’ve just found his passing usually safe but unspectacular. But from all the talk I was expecting a little more with his passing.

I’m not being unfair by comparing it with Franz Beckenbauer who was on another unrealistic level. Or Bobby Moore. But Ben White’s passing isn’t as good as Peter Simpson’s by a long way. Or using more modern examples, I certainly don’t think he passes it anything like as well as Rio Ferdinand or even Ledley King. Tommy Caton and Pascal Cygan were competent passers. I’d put White’s passing around that sort of level.

From what I’d read about White I don’t think I was expecting 60 yard defence splitting balls, it was more about his all round good technique and comfort with the ball at his feet meaning we can play out of the back and progress the ball accurately and quickly in to midfield breaking the lines. The other aspect was his ability to bring it out from the back with a dribble himself. I’m not sure I’ve seen much evidence of him being one of the best in the league at it but I think he’s been an improvement from what we had.

Perhaps my expectations of his passing were unrealistic then. He does have all round good technique. But I don’t think his dribbling out from the back is good enough to make me feel comfortable when he does it.

French midfielders this year. Bruno Guimaraes from Lyon is absolute stand out. Also interesting that Guendouzi seems to have his role changed to being almost a pure creator with little defensive responsibility

I have watched extended highlights of some of the games he has been involved in and you are correct. He is not a defensive midfielder

I didnt say he consistently progresses the ball forward. But given Liverpool boxed us in so comprehensively I could understand the thinking if he was brought on to at least try and get the ball forward.

The Chelsea first goal is an example of why simple yellow card offences matter early in games. Tanganga was booked and when Hudson-Odoi turned him and ran past him a lot of defenders would see the dangerous situation and take the booking for the team, Tanganga couldn’t do Hudson-Odoi advanced further and eventually found the pass to Ziyech who scored. This situation feels like it is what the yellow card was invented for.

I'd be interested in the stat for how many of those Red's (or 2nd yellows) were unfortunate or borderline vs those that were from outright stupidity. I recall a lot of them being the latter.

Partey only came on in the 72nd minute which I don't think requires a massive physical effort after a flight from the ACN. Arteta probably asked him whether he was up for it and I'm pretty sure he told him he was. Partey even said it himself in the media “I came back with the mentality to make myself available for the team to get to the final but it did not happen as planned.". With that decision now also potentially impacting the Burnley match.

I agree with TG that the squad is wafer thin at the moment. Loanees being unavailable (a strategic decision to either get them game time to improve and / or transitioning them to the exit lounge), injuries or ACN absentees. I'm guessing that the powers that be are probably giving Arteta another couple of transfer windows at least to build the squad he wants and are ok with the strategy on the loans.

Will be interesting to see what happens in the next week in the transfer market while what's left of the squad gets a much needed rest.

Bernard have you seen this




https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/a ... ssion.html

TBH I don't think Lacazette's miss is as bad as some are suggesting. It's not like it was dead centre and he had to stretch to hit it with outside of the boot with Mee sliding in.

The team is only able to Distribute the ball forward quick enough when Partey is in the side. He’s our only midfield passer who is happy to make dynamic passing good enough to create attacking spaces for our wide players and play on the half turn. I’m honestly surprised anyone would suggest otherwise and this even needs saying, and yes of course he consistently progresses the ball forward.

I’d say bar Saka he’s our most important player in the whole squad as when you take him out of the equation the team doesn’t look right at all. Bar saka and arguably possibly Tomiyasu that is.

It’s another shocking miss. An open goal 6 yards out at a slight angle.

Eventually you run out of excuses. He misses a nailed on goal every week.

Afraid not. I clicked on your link but it wouldn’t open. Same thing happened the last time I tried to open a link you had posted, if my memory serves.

We missed Tomiyasu badly. White wasn't able to link up with Saka, he stayed back most times.

That’s weird the link works

Anyway it’s an article about the TV adaption of the ipcress file coming out on ITV

ITV have given viewers a first look at their upcoming adaptation of spy thriller The Ipcress File.

The upcoming series is adapted from the 1962 Len Deighton novel, later made into a 1965 film, with Joe Cole taking on the lead role of Harry Palmer.

Set in the 1960s, the show follows Palmer, a working-class British sergeant, who becomes a spy to avoid military jail after a series of dodgy dealings.…

I had the same issue with one of your links last week Bernard. Here it is again...

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/a ... ssion.html

I agree that Lacazette has been snatching at shots and mistiming them badly throughout his Arsenal career. Just that this one after watching the replay a few times wasn't as easy as it seemed.

Sadly I can’t open your link either.

Thanks Top Gun. I will watch it when it comes out, but it’ll have a lot to live up to.

Getting Top 4 is still in our own hands. Games in hand over MU & WHU. Beat Spurs in the NLD, and we are good.
Quickly get the striker and additional midfielder in!

I hope the captain(s) have a team meeting or Arteta does and re-state to them how far they have come since the first month and if they want CL football its there for them. And that getting top 4 this season, with some canny buys coming in to fill in the gaps, there is no reason they can't start challenging the top 2 like Chelsea are doing.

Tell them don't let this opportunity go.

Hey Bernard.

TG's links are working ok. Are you using a popup blocker at all maybe ?
The links open in a new tab/window so your popup blocker/ad blocker may be stopping them.

You can either allow popups for this site or you might be able to right click the link and copy it, then paste it into the address bar.

Two dumb arses ...... Bobby Fischer had 188