Interesting to see the different fortunes of Burnley and Everton since sacking their managers. Burnley sacked Dyche and were roundly criticised but they've picked up points, are now out of the relegation zone and are playing a much more attacking and positive style of football.

Everton were 15th when they sacked Rafa and (in my opinion) made an incredibly ill judged decision to bring in Lampard. Listen to many pundits and they'll have you believe Lampard has either done a good job or the die was cast before he came so what could he do?

Way back when dinosaurs strode the earth (and City were a bit of a joke) I once posted a Religious Team on here:

Sepp Maia

George Kohen
Carlton Karma

Jermaine Janus
Ian Bishop
Ra Parlour
Yahweh Toure

Didier Dogma
Rabbi Fowler
Theist Walcott
Pope Robson

One or two still make me smile.

https://twitter.com/Arsenalfnatics/stat ... yPaKlwjG6A

Hadn't realised the penalty came from such a long sequence of play

Mohamed Elneny: “If Arsenal say, ‘We want you’, I don’t think about leaving. It’s my family for six years. I love this club. I will keep going, just focus on my performances to help the team reach our goal. The contract, I’m just waiting for the club to decide what they want.”

https://twitter.com/TheAFCnewsroom/stat ... ZJPVwaI6bA

Dermot Gallagher says the Bruno challenge was a definite red card

Sacked despite winning the French title?
Wow, vicious

nice, grounded, smart, wise

It’s the Champions League PSG want. Like Bayern winning the Bundesliga whoever’s in charge, PSG should win the French title whoever is in charge. The measure of success at both clubs is not winning the domestic league. It’s winning the Champions League.

I’ve mentioned before that I read Bayern forums that are translatable to English. Guardiola doesn’t have a good reputation amongst the Bayern faithful, despite them winning the Bundesliga three times in a row under him. They didn’t win the Champions League under him, and that’s what counts.

Does sound like Gabriel Jesus is the one. Sounds like City must have won the race for haalland and need the cash.


http://arsenal442.com/exclusive-gabriel ... h-arsenal/

How needy and fragile are their supporters though

They emptied the ground before their title celebrations in protest about their champions league exit. So the ground was empty when they won the title.

How childish and pathetic is that. Imagine if we did something similar when Chelsea knocked us out during the invincible season.

That simply isn’t true. The stadium was packed.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=uVFm92PsH5s

PSG

I hear Arizona is contesting Macron's win.

Happy (is that the right word?) Anzac Day, chums.

Respect.

Fair enough. As my post was about Bayern, albeit I did mention PSG in passing, I presumed you were talking of Bayern’s fans.

Yes the first paragraph was about PSG and I didn’t want to edit your quote as you get quite tetchy about that.

The clear majority of the post was about Bayern. That’s why I thought you were talking of Bayern’s fans.

I thought it was you who made a fuss about editing your posts. I don’t think I have a problem with it.

Perhaps with Pochettino as their new manager?

Lots of talk that the 3 key positions we’ll look to make additions this summer are 2 x strikers and a CM. This all makes sense, particularly if one of the strikers is a versatile forward like Gabriel Jesus and the other is a more classic physical No.9 like Abraham, Nunez, Osimhen.

I think if you then went through the squad and considered which player we can’t or struggle to replace in the starting 11 id pretty quickly get to Ødegaard. Emile Smith Rowe has played at 10 but his skill set is different to Ødegaard who is the attacking conductor for us now. I don’t know which player fits this bill but buying a CM who can play the role Xhaka does currently but also with the ability to slot in as a No.10 in an Ødegaard like capacity would be very handy. A current player to fit that mould would be Bernardo Silva, an older player Cazorla.

I wouldn’t be disappointed if they give Elneny a new contract. I don’t think he’s nearly as bad as some seem to think. He knows he isn’t going to be a first team regular but when needed as a squad back up, I reckon he is more than capable of doing a competent job.

Listening to this weeks Tuesday club

Think Alan Davies has jumped the shark with his misguided anger at Arteta. The constant lusting after Patrick Vieira being made our new manager is ridiculous. Palace are what 9 points above the relegation spot in 14th on goal difference. Does this remarkable performance from palace this season warrant the attention and adulation.

If this wasn’t an ex Arsenal legend would people honestly be championing him to replace our manager. It would literally make more sense if people were suggesting we should get David Moyes who has done a great job with West Ham.

I thought the same TG.

I looked at the paper this morning and Palace are 14th. That's sort of where I'd expect them to be. On checking, they finished 14th in 3 of the last 5 seasons under Woy. The other 2 years were 11th and 12th.

That's not exactly stellar progress, is it? Hardly justifies the hype.

100%. You have a bunch of Arsenal fans lusting after him and if we booted the manager he would be the favourite for the role but honestly that’s a pretty unremarkable season for Palace and to appoint a manager with his track record would only happen for an ex legend.

Assuming that Utd win all their remaining 4 games they will finish on 66 points. So we need 7 more points to be sure of finishing above them.
Were West Ham to win all their games we need 5 points more to finish above them.
The likelihood is neither of them will win their remaining games so likely we will need even less than the 7 and 5 respectively.

I said a few days ago that beating west ham on sunday would guarantee us top 6 at least as west ham could not catch us.
I think Im wrong as i didnt take into account that west ham could still finish above man utd thus depriving the 6th place team of a europa spot(only if they win the europa league)

If we beat West Ham they can’t finish above us, but they can finish above Man U…if West Ham did finish above Man U then that would have us in 5th place in the above scenario. Also if West Ham win the Europa they go in to the CL as the 5th English team (assuming they don’t get top 4) but I still think there would be 2 Europa league places for 5th and 6th and 7th would be conference league.

I thought the reason why we couldn’t guarantee 6th as a minimum if we beat West Ham was that Wolves with their game less could still finish above us mathematically- although hugely unlikely.

I think two reasons people consider Vieira to have done a good job is he has totally changed the style of play almost over night, and the squad has had quite a shake up because there were loads of palace players out of contract at the end of last year. Vieira’s signings have generally done well. It is one of those strange situations where at the end of Hodgson’s time Palace we’re going nowhere and the immediate player situation was taking them backwards so Vieira might be considered to have done well by keeping them in the same place.
Of course I completely agree that Arsenal fans shouldn’t be wetting themselves and fawning over Vieira when we have a very very good manager right now.

Hi Rich
If west ham win the europa league and finish out of the top 6 then 5th and 6th get a europa spot.
However if west ham finish in top 6 and win europa then 5th gets europa and 6th gets europa conference.

Next 2 games for us
West ham away
Leeds home

Spurs are
Leicester home
Liverpool away

Whisper it quietly but we could be 5 points clear going into the game at Spurs if they beat Leicester and as expected lose against Liverpool.
Get a draw at Spurs and we could even afford to lose against what is looking a very very tricky game vs newcastle as long as we win our last game v Everton then champions league for us!
All swings and roundabouts though.
We have to beat West Ham.

Obviously.we have to beat West Ham and Leeds to get that 5 point lead!!

https://arseblog.com/2022/04/tactics-co ... l-chaotic/

This is a good read if you like the tactical side of the game. Very interesting to see that we had possibly prepared two ways of setting up v Chelsea and within a minute the key players in the team (Xhaka and Ødegaard) along with Arteta were signalling to change to plan b

Someone has worked out a set of results that would have Arsenal and Spurs finish level on points, goal difference and goals scored meaning a play off would be required…..

I would definitely take Gabriel Jesus.
Premier league ready.
Great attitude and workrate.
Knows where the goal is.
With a year left and Haaland soon to arrive we have a great chance to get him.
Anything like 30 to 35 million is a steal.
He could be Brilliant for us.
Strong rumours Edu has agreed terms with his agent.

Jesus and Jonathan David both for 70 million??
Cant go wrong there.

Don’t understand why any Arsenal fan would turn their nose up at Gabriel Jesus. Pep trusts him in big games, goals, assists, real team player, quick, understands how to press and with just one year left on his deal the cost will be great value

I like David but I think Arteta will go for a more classic 9 with a bit more physicality and height. Abraham/Nunez/Osimhen but the price for those three could be around £70m

I will always love Vieira for the player and man he was at Arsenal. Hopefully his time will come as a manager with us - not yet, but one day.

Playing Devil’s advocate, he hasn’t always been a starter, if anything he started more when he first got there at 21.

I think there could be the slight perception that we’re getting Man City’s cast offs.

He isn’t lightening quick, I think, or big and strong. And he’s somewhat a known quantity so fans can’t imprint their own wild fantasies on him.

Iheanacho is a similar profile of player signed from City who has been good but not great.

My own opinion is I’d much rather have Iheanacho than Lacazette or Eddie and Jesus is better than him. I think it has all the hallmarks of a great signing but strangely he’s been Pep’s fill-in grafter for much of his time there rather than a genius Maverick goal scorer like Van Persie for example. I think that might be why some fans might be a bit underwhelmed.

I wonder if he could be quite expensive, I’m not sure what it will take to get him year left or not. Like someone said anything around 30m would be fine, expensive for a year left. Above 40m I’d be questioning the value for a 25yr old with 1 year left.

Remember when we were linked to Benzema??

A cracker of a match between City & RM. Maximum entertainment value. And Mahrez, what a player!

Barca loses again
Aubameyang missed sitters all day

Sunday's derby should be a real delight. Mike Dean has been given the honour as ref to oversee his last Arsenal match.