If I've hacked anybody off in 2021 ...

We’ve got a few bottles in (piper, veuve and all sorts) so It makes sense to wish you lot a happy new year now and wish everyone an amazing 2022 before I forget.

It’s a really odd time. This covid stuff has messed things up so much I really don’t know what the next year will bring. I’m praying for a return to normality but I fear our lives will be very different for some time now.

If I’ve hacked anybody off in 2021 I apologise (kind of) , I’m probably guilty of overstating stuff on occasion but please remember I’ve been going to Arsenal since I was very very little so if I see something nonsensical I’m probably guilty of hammering it too much. Expect more of this in 2022

Anyway have a good un

We’ve got a few bottles in (piper, veuve and all sorts) so It makes sense to wish you lot a happy new year now and wish everyone an amazing 2022 before I forget.

It’s a really odd time. This covid stuff has messed things up so much I really don’t know what the next year will bring. I’m praying for a return to normality but I fear our lives will be very different for some time now.

If I’ve hacked anybody off in 2021 I apologise (kind of) , I’m probably guilty of overstating stuff on occasion but please remember I’ve been going to Arsenal since I was very very little so if I see something nonsensical I’m probably guilty of hammering it too much. Expect more of this in 2022

Anyway have a good un

Happy New Year to all Oz and Kiwi friends who post on the forum here.

Games are being called off seemingly based on a combination of covid AND injuries. Rules are something like 13 fit players plus 1 gk, and any young players need experience at this level.
All seems a bit arbitrary and open for abuse. If you had a number of covid cases could you just not exaggerate some injuries to get a game called off? The sort of injury a player might normally play through the pain barrier for. Also a lot of clubs have no problems delving in to their youth set ups for cup games so why can’t they use their very deep squads for prem games. I understand not every club has 30 first team players and the same for U23, but the way games are being called off is almost certainly being used often for a teams advantage rather than any serious concern over infection and player welfare.

Happy new year to everyone.

Thanks Zed ...same goes to you , plus all others ...... was in bed by 9.30 read a book for an hour , went to sleep ...... never had a drink .

Will anything change in 2022 I doubt it ..... Covid , world unrest , US sanctions , EU blustering , anti Russia / China waffle

Oh here's one .......... maybe we will give Man City a damn good sort out . 5 -1 to us .

Starter for ten ............ greatest stand out Arsenal moment ...?

The Fairs Cup win under floodlights. Seventeen years without a trophy until that great performance. Please indulge my use of space, but a while back I remembered it this way:

"On 28th April 1970 many Arsenal fans rose with the first sparrow and spent all day oscillating between optimism and pessimism. The team was about to be measured and we were about to mingle in one of those great affairs of football. Would it be yet another anti-climax? In the evening the crowd arrived at the ground earlier than normal and the atmosphere was as thrilling as a beehive. The weather in Islington was very British. If the night was starred with promise, the heavy rain and clouds hid it. The wind spat dirt in the eyes of players and spectators alike. However, the muddy pitch did not detract from the quality of the play.

This happened at Highbury. Kelly dummied the defence and shot Arsenal ahead on twenty-five minutes. The Anderlecht front line of Mulder, Van Himst and Devrindt were dangerous in response. At half-time, still behind on aggregate, McClintock went out and gestured to the North Bank to get behind the team. The fans, pumped up as tight as a tyre, were almost immediately punctured by van Himst, who forced Wilson into a crucial save. On the hour Nordahl put the frighteners on again by hitting the post. A frantic quarter of an hour passed until Radford shook the night with a trademark power header. If the last image fastened on my eyes is that Radford goal then I will not die unhappy. A minute later Jon Sammels had our hearts pumping in pandemonium when he scored the third goal. ‘Charlie George hit a great cross-field pass to me; I knocked it past one of their defenders and hit a low shot into the far corner from just around the edge of the box. It was in front of the North Bank and the noise from the fans was so loud I felt they were lifting me up and carrying me over them, it was amazing. I think everyone realised that goal had maybe clinched the game for us and it was a huge relief,’ he recalled. Armstrong almost scored a fourth with a skidding drive, which would have been too hard on Anderlecht. So, the only major cup final ever played at Highbury went to Arsenal and a single night redressed a thousand slights from the years before. The glory of the win caught us like a rip tide and carried us away through the surrounding streets, the wind lifting our songs and tossing them high in the night sky.

Before that we had to run onto the sodden pitch. Amongst the crush of countless bodies was Bob Wilson, who chose to stay on rather than go to the safety of the dressing room. He recalled the scene. ‘Having swapped my jersey with Jan Trappeniers, I ran, walked, and bounced my way round the whole of the Highbury pitch. All the way slaps of congratulations turned my naked upper body to a deeper red than the Arsenal shirts. Elderly supporters brought up on the 1930s sides and Tom Whittaker’s team in the early fifties were in tears. So was Frank McClintock, his personal jinx of losing in finals broken at the fifth time of asking.’ Sammels later wrote of the significance of the result for the players. ‘The joy of our fans was nothing compared with our own. For us, that great victory was both a beginning and an end. An end to the strange conviction that, somehow, destiny was against us and that fate had decreed that Arsenal would never win anything again.’ "

Oh ffs I must have heard wrong.

The ref has changed according to comms. Not caught it all but thank God it's not Attwell he never gives us anything iirc correctly.

Proven true early on.

Poor touch by Ødegaard though (surprisingly)

and to be fair it was Var's decision not Attells

Our new defence has so much more confidence in them

Our whole team has so much more confidence. Deservedly so.

Partey is winning a everything

You can’t ask for much more than this. Amazing first quarter