Kiwior on at left back which may be the first time we’ve seen Zinchenko in a genuine midfield position rather than inverted full back

United are pure comedy it’s terrific

Sevilla had their only shot in the entire match in the 97th minute. They weren’t really adventurous at all, felt like they were going for damage limitation all game.

Really good from us. Much better tempo, particularly first half. Both wingers a threat. Trossard good in the false 9.

On to Burnley then 2 weeks off to get some bodies back after the international break

I thought Havertz looked a little better in this game, although the opposition were poor. But the missed header was terrible. He has now played 17 competitive games this season for us ( some against really poor opponents) and has 1 goal and 1 assist. And the goal was a gifted penalty. How much longer can we afford the luxury of choosing him in the team.

As long as Arteta is manager

Think you need to untangle that North Queensland underwear a little here Big Guy .

I'm thinking that Havertz's problems stem not from a lack of class but that he is trying to hard . All his actions point to the fact he is uptight ; desperately trying to do well and its just not coming off .

Relaxing is the key .... take Thierry Henry as an example . he arrived couldn't do a lot right ....even managed to put the ball out of play against Chelsea when dribbling upfield with no opposition within ten metres .

I remember thinking Jesus ***&^&^ what have we got here BUT he gets a goal the pressure comes off and VOILA we all know the rest .

Now I'm not saying Kai will reach those heights but I've got this feeling in my enlarged prostate .....when he finally buries one in open play he might blossom into a damn good player .

Agreed, and he's playing with more purpose.

Aside from his potential, on current form, he's also probably our best option in that 8 role given our injury list. Vieira also has the potential and strengthens our bench, but Havertz brings a lot more to the team just at the moment.

Ahhh the wonders of 21st century technology . Now I come from an era where if the kid down the road had a crystal set it was " Gosh really .... how cool "

Okay this morning I'm talking to a son ; Scotty Boy on Viber he lives in Copenhagen ...... avid Arsenal supporter .

I've got Sky Sport covers the Premier League but not the Euro .

He is watching the game so he turns his phone towards the screen and I can watch the game as well

admittedly in minature ...... but I mean how cool as that ...? All the while chatting about whatever .

Not sure about trying too hard, as he sometimes disappears altogether in a game. As a 65mill signing and highest paid player at the club (not sure how we let that happen) if he doesn't make quick progress he will be close to Artetas prostate as he will have us by the balls.

Quite funny watching managers, pundits and fans forcing themselves through gritted teeth to not say anything bad about refs after the grief they gave Arteta - you can see they know they’ll be called out as a hypocrite and expose them.

Obviously you just knew something would happen that would let Arsenal fans sit back and watch smuggly and sure enough we have a debatable red card for Rashford and a Napoli goal rules out for a push on a header.

Premier league clubs are meeting soon to vote on placing a temporary ban (for the January transfer window) on loans between multi club owenership. The move is thought to be a response to Newcastle wanting to bring Neves in on loan from the Saudi clubs.

Clearly a Saudi team owned by Newcastles owners should be able to spend extortionate amounts on players to then just loan them to Newcastle - that’s as brazen a way as you like to navigate FFP. But what about clubs who have affiliations through the owners, watford/udinese for example, or City and their City Group clubs. Generally City use these to put young players out on loan.

Amongst all the var chat I thought the way last nights ref dealt with Saka all night showed how far they can be from understanding the game and upholding the laws for the good of the game. Saka is kicked many times, particularly first half, rotational fouling and at least 3 from thee same player but no yellow cards were given. Eventually Saka has to gobble off injured and the ref can’t get his card out quickly enough because he deemed Saka was wasting time for not immediately getting off the pitch on the side he deemed. Absolute waste of space refs who want to make a stand on non existent rule breaking outside of the actual game of football.

I make you right kiwi. He’s easily in our best 11, was much better last night and you can see he just needs a goal. The impressive curler he hit was very close and you can see the frustration in his face after it went wide. I think he’s having some bedding in issues and I acknowledge why it’s frustrating for our fans but there’s a decent player in there somewhere.

The type of people moaning about Havertz are the type who dialled 999 when KFC ran out of chicken,

Nailed it TG ...and the last sentence

It was clear that Saka and Martinelli were instrumental in our victory last night.

What was clear is that they were not doubled up on in the same way as they are on the PL, and therein lies the problem.

How do we change our patterns of play to somehow make our wingers just as impactful when this doubling up occurs, which is practically every game in the PL.

Havertz had a decent game last night. Not great but he showed glimpses of what he can do. He still looks a little languid in possession and maybe takes a split second too long at times to do what he wants to do. Just a fraction too long to get a shot off for example. I think its a confidence thing.

He needs something to go bang and he could be away.

Yes but from tonights game he is definetly on the improve as TG points out that curler was bloody close it was executed well and the anguish on his face because it missed was there for all to see .

Now if your 78rpm record has a scratch in it and just keeps chirping " our highest paid player " .." our highest paid player " ..."" our highest paid player " then I'm afraid there is no hope for you

I think it was Rice that was booked. But your point stands. Cards are out for silly reasons but not for the persistent and fairly dangerous attention that Saka and Martinelli were getting.

Why did Sevilla play like that? Was it something we were doing right, forcing them to come narrow and leave the FBs exposed. Or was it their tactics? i.e. 'ok, you can have it there and we'll deal with the crosses as they come in'. And it mostly worked. Both of our goals came from fast transitions when we managed to get behind their whole defence. Despite Saka and Martinelli's dominance, we hardly succeeded in playing through them and creating big chances.

the “he’s languid” repetitive comment about Havertz makes me laugh for some reason.

Blokes 6.4, he probably has to kneel down in a photo booth instead of sitting when he has his passport picture taken just to fit inside.

There was also another really good strike earlier in the second half that looked like he skied it but was actually deflected over.

Hi Decaf,

No idea but if they'd been watching any PL games they would have seen the trend towards doubling-up on Saka and Martinelli as a decent tactic.

You are right, though, for all Martinelli's good work his crosses were a bit average at times, not helped by the fact we had no striker attacking the ball.

What people do forget is that Martinelli is right footed so all his crosses when he goes down the line are being hit with his weaker foot, thus actually picking out a man is more difficult. If we had two or three players busting a gut to get in the box when crosses do come in, in the way that the likes of Scholes used to, it might increase our goal output but it's not the way we play.

*face palm*

https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/ ... t-decision

There is an ‘independent’ panel made up of 5 people, someone from PGMOL, someone from the premier league and 3 ex players who review decisions.

This article said they were 5-0 in favour of Havertz being a red card but only 3-2 in favour of Bruno also receiving a red card. They were split 4-1 that the was no foul by Joelinton. The panel also said that Udogie should have been a red card but var was correct in not over ruling the refs decision. The last part is just bonkers.

I’m not sure how independent a panel can be when one of them is a PGMOL rep, we’ve seen how ex refs on tv stick up for virtually every decision made on the pitch. One is from the Premier League who would no doubt like to stop the heat on refs and var. then 3 unknown players with who knows what affiliations when they were in the game and I’d guess no refereeing experience at any level at all.

If 2 of the panel believe that punching a player in the head is not worthy of a red then it shows up the validity of such a panel.

By the way, this same panel said the tackle Nketiah made on Vicario in the NLD (quite similar to Havertz one) wasn’t a red card.

I’m sure that none of the decisions were in any way influenced by the media outcry over this game and Arteta’s reaction!

Low cut backs once Martinelli gets to the dead ball line are the way to go. Much easier to play an accurate cross that way than a more traditional cross of his weaker foot

Having finally lost patience with Havertz against West Ham, I thought the last 2 games he has shown a significant improvement. Its a shame his fierce effort narrowly missed

Funny reading some Man U fans hating Robbie Savage’s commentary of them. Savage whenever I’ve listened to him commentate or on podcasts has always been a bit of a brown nose to Man U, he was in the academy with the group from ‘92 and basks in some reflective glory of it. But Man U fans reckon he’s changed ever since Man U let his son go from the academy. I’d quite like it if that’s the genuine reason he’s started hating on Man U in his commentary

Man City’s next 4 fixtures:
Chelsea (a)
Liverpool (h)
Spurs (h)
Aston Villa (a)

If they are still top after these then fair play. Compared to our next 4 we have to be making up some points on them in this run. The margins for dropping points in this league are so fine that you need someone like City to drop at least 4 points in this run minimum

Of course I may be hearing : Chamouk, Grevinho, fox in the box and many other names. If he has 10 goals and 10 assists in the EPL by seasons end , all will be okay.

I went to the West Ham vs Olimpiakos match last night and stood in the away end. First time I’ve been to the London stadium and may I concur it is not a football stadium. You are miles away from the pitch, there are giant weird gaps in the stands, and the atmosphere is rubbish as it’s hard to generate in such a spacious arena. I’ve never been fond of our own stadium largely because I grew up with the intimacy of Highbury, but thank goodness we didn’t end up with a version of the London Stadium.

England squad announced and Southgate specifically talks about the potential to drop Ramsdale if he isn't getting more minutes closer to the Euros. The same Southgate who continues to pick Phillips despite him playing just 89 minutes of football this season and only 291 minutes of football last season.

So of a possible 4410 minutes over the last season and a bit in the league Phillips has played just 380 minutes

....and picks Henderson who is playing Pub football.

I saw this newspaper headline:
"Gareth Southgate resists temptation to change things for England"

Doesn't mention if it's personnel or tactics but the same headline would apply to pretty much every squad he's ever picked. We currently have a really good bunch of young and talented players but you just know that Southgate will naus it up with his deeply conservative selections and naive, school-master tactics and set-ups.

Ange Postecoglou for England!!!




(....see what I'm doing here?)

It was pretty staggering spurs wanted to move there really. Would have been A big change.

Thing is the deal West Ham got from Boris was insane. Another Johnson cock up


https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/ ... s-11622716

As I recall, the Spurs proposal was to demolish and start again. Made a lot of sense.

Maddison's injury for Spurs looks to be a longer lay off than first thought. That one game has really decimated Spurs squad - now is the test for them as everyone said they had a good 11 but no depth.
Without Udogi, Romero (suspended), Van der Ven, Maddison, Richarlison, Solomon, Davies, Sessengon, Perisic (all injured)

Bissouma, Sarr, Son all missing for a month in January for the national team tournaments

In contrast to strikers there are a lot of top class central midfielders around at the moment. Doing any deals in January is difficult (Luiz and Zubimendi for example are going to be no go) I wonder whether Edu has something up his sleeve from South America as their season has ended so much easier to buy in January.

I still think central midfield is the place we need to add a player. You could even argue that with Tomiyasu being away for a month in Jan/Feb at the Asia cup you could argue that the defence will look a bit bare bones. We'd be down to 5 first team defenders for that month assuming they themselves are all fit. Timber won't be returning I would guess until spring

I wonder how many times the words 'bungled' and 'Boris' have appeared in the same sentence

Carragher:
I wanted VAR as I wanted the game to progress & get more of the big decisions right. But it hasn’t worked & nobody likes it, VAR is ruining too many games. It’s influence needs limiting to goalline technology & automated offsides.

Carragher after the Newcastle v Arsenal game:
The Arsenal statement and complaints from their manager about officials & VAR is way over the top

It is almost like these pundits are picking and choosing their argument based on the person and team.

Is this a bit similar to the Man City stadium, City paid £20m as part of the conversion of it from the Commonwealth athletics stadium and currently pay £3m per season to lease from Manchester City Council. I would assume City foot the bill for all the running costs etc but also take all the profits from ticket sales etc. It seems like too much of a good deal compared to other clubs who had to build their own stadium.