Arsenal and their tactics are once again the subject of discussion after yet another victory after those set-pieces. It’s not pretty.
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An excellent question
Why does Robert Sanchez play for Chelsea?
Lawrence in Muswell Hill
READ: Arsenal need Raya, Sanchez and good fortune to stumble past infuriating Chelsea
Arsenal and medieval tactics
You have to hand it to Mikel Arteta.
He has single-handedly brought the centuries-long evolution of football tactics full-circle, stripping the game in this country right back to its primal origins of utilising scrummages to bundle the ball over the line, just as the peasants and serfs would rail-road a pig’s bladder between two posts in the next village way back in medieval times.
Jog on, Jogo Bonito! Tatty-bye, tiki-taka!
It may not be pretty, but the man’s a visionary.
Lee, football history buff
What is wrong with the Neville?
What on earth is going on with Gary Neville? I’d love someone to tally up his positive and negative comments for each team during Sunday’s game.
He was STILL banging on about Rosenior’s tactical masterclass in comfortably losing the League Cup semi to Arsenal. After our second goal he suggested that we were only going to score from set pieces, when Chelsea’s only real threat came from set pieces too. He said Chelsea were often too nice and needed to be more horrible ‘in all aspects’, when they’ve had more red cards than anyone and are full of objectively unlikeable players like Neto, Fernandez and Cucurella.
At one point he literally started a comment with ‘I don’t like Arsenal’! It was relentless and really tedious as an Arsenal fan watching. Chelsea are 19 points behind Arsenal but you’d think it was the other way around.
Overall not a brilliant performance but it’s all about results at this point.
Much love.
Simon Cochrane
A win is a win for Arsenal
Well that was fretful. A win is a win and all that. Three quick things:
Sanchez is so poor. Claiming a foul for the second goal when he pirouetted whilst looking at the floor is a fairly unique method. Good luck with that.
On three occasions the ref failed to play advantage, including Neto’s second yellow. It was years ago they started to let the play go before dealing with the offence. It was so obvious that Arsenal had a great opportunity to create with Martinelli free down the left. Really poor refereeing.
GNev. Is he moving into his ‘proper football man’ stage? Suggesting Sanchez had been fouled for winner indeed. Then doubting the offside before Pedro’s overhead kick. I run the line for my son’s u16 team and could’ve given that from south of the river. There are signs he’s relying on whipping up controversy rather than trying to explain what happened.
Up the Arse.
Roscoe P Coltrane
More credit for Arsenal please?
I know the easiest route to engagement and clicks is bantering Arsenal fans but at what point will proper journalism break out? It feels like football punditry and journalism has followed the vacuous influencer role on social media in that it is better to have 1000 people call you an idiot and your opinion is terrible than have 100 people praise you for something insightful.
From F365 this weekend
“Man City make another fresh Prem Title statement in ‘throwback’ win”
“Arsenal need Raya, Sanchez and good fortune to stumble past infuriating Chelsea”
Surely anyone can see that both title chasing teams won hard fought tight games where neither was completely convincing, City’s away from home against an in form but bottom half promoted team, and Arsenal’s at home to a Champions League chasing team who already pinched a point off City at the Etihad earlier this season. And it will likely happen many more times in the run in.
Both teams rode their luck with fortunate elbow/handball calls – Arsenal’s not having a huge effect on the flow of the game because Chelsea scored 20 seconds later. City’s coming in the 86th minute of a 1-0 win. Leeds out shot City 8-0 in the opening 30 minutes and then City largely controlled the game. Arsenal v Chelsea was an even game decided by 3 set-pieces and a red card. After the red card Chelsea had 1 shot in 26 minutes. Very similar wins.
You really could and should have written the same match report for both teams but one is so skewed to the positive and the other so skewed to the negative, you could really sense the bitterness and frustration that the author had to write up another Arsenal win with goals from set-pieces……are set-pieces bad again and destroying the league?…. because that went quiet for a while whilst Man U and Liverpool racked up set-piece goals.
Do better.
Rich, AFC
Arsenal ARE cheats
Anyone watching Arsenal defend corners and not give away penalties, and then say anything about a conspiracy against them is a level of insane they haven’t created words yet to describe. Chelsea had 2 incredibly blatant penos from corners.
Patrick O’Neill
To all those who celebrate…
Happy St Totteringhams Day everyone
A gloriously early one this year
I hope you all got what you hoped for on this beautiful day.
Alay, North London Gooner
Spurs look petrified
First, let me assert my firm belief that the main thing Tottenham have to fear is fear itself. Nameless un reasoning terror…
Against Fulham, they looked scared. Anxious and afraid. Tudor needs to exorcise fear from that team and install some collective belief, or we are at risk of a doom loop that drags us down.
They also looked bereft of onfield leadership, a point I come back to again and again when analysing this nightmare of a season. We miss Harry’s leadership and authority as much as we miss his goals.
I’d hoped that six points off Fulham and Palace this week would calm the mood, lift us clearer amd steady the ship. Clearly I was over optimistic.
But we’re not down yet. We are bad, but so are Forest. There is still time. Nil desperandum.
If I was Tudor, I’d tell them to play like you want to be picked by their country for the World Cup. If that doesn’t fire them up, they deserve to go down.
Sam
READ: Spurs set for relegation after latest nightmare performance against Fulham
Could it get any worse for Spurs?
It’s becoming so depressing as a Spurs fan that I’m starting to wish for the early arrival of the impending nuclear apocalypse, just to save my club from any more blushes.
Although, knowing Spurs’ luck, all the bombs would miss North London and they’d be left as one of only two football clubs in the world left in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, competing in a dual-club global competition with the bloody Gooners. And, spoiler, they’d still manage to finish third.
Chris Bridgeman, Kingston upon Thames
Balls!
Just watching Fulham vs Spurs with Richarlison battling with Bassey for the ball after he scored. It was a minor scuffle followed by a yellow card for both players. It did make me think though, why do strikers still fight with defenders to get the ball back when they want a quick restart? There are dozens of balls around the pitch now, they could just get one of those and let the defender holding the ball look like a lemon!
Nilesh (across the game’s biggest issues), Harrow
Reffing nonsense
Watched most/all of the Villa, Newcastle, City, and caught the tail end of the Burnley lunacy on the radio as Chappers couldn’t stifle a dejected sigh as he introduced Sports Report.
Refereeing (and/largely because of VAR) in this country is becoming an actual joke.
I don’t mean non-existent bias either – not the kind of infantile grifting on Tomkins Times that some Liverpool wingnuts BTL here actually believe, nor the kind of stuff that we’ve all had to endure from the Gooner faithful over the last few seasons. No. I’m talking about a drop in standards of basic refereeing to unacceptably, and unprecedentedly terrible levels.
I can’t be arsed to list the endless wild inconsistencies, name the gutless turds in the middle, or admin junkies in the VAR room, across the games I watched. Bar the City game which was just normal level shite standard, the others were of such a poor and joy sucking standard I genuinely think that the PL is in danger of alienating viewers and eating itself.
Still, we didn’t get beat by nepo baby gobshite Darragh MacAnthony and his six toed yokels in the derby, which I fully expected us to. Now get us out of the relegation places please Super Kev.
RHT/TS x
(Obviously Trump is f**king fascist geriatric mouth breather and this Iran attack will end in disaster, but those nauseating pricks in Dubai wearing loud Vuitton shorts telling everyone on Instagram how ace it is living in a soulless shit hole because you don’t pay taxes aren’t looking so clever now. Oh, and Khameni & Putin can f*** RIGHT off, one permanently, hopefully followed by the other in the same vein soon)
Howe now?
Chris NUFC wants Eddie Howe gone at the end of the season and I can see his point. It has been shown again that Newcastle’s thin squad cannot cope with progress in Europe, the league cup and being competitive in the league. Injuries to essential players render the team a lot less dangerous going forward and porous at the back.
Consider this though, if Newcastle had got their first-choice targets how might things look now? Trafford instead of Ramsdale, Mbeumo for Wissa (our least successful signing this season) and Ekitike for Woltemade, would to my mind make the team much more effective.
Newcastle can’t compete for signings with City, Man United and Liverpool, even with Champions League football. What makes a player choose a club though? Wages, FFP etc means that can’t jump up there too soon. Club prestige, need better players/success here, so another slow increase at best, despite the new owners investment and last season’s cup. Location, seems unlikely Newcastle will move out of Newcastle. And finally the pull a big name manager can offer. This is the only one that could potentially be dramatically boosted in the short term, so I could see Chris getting his way.
For what it’s worth, this is the most I have enjoyed being a Newcastle supporter since the Robson era, and even that didn’t bring an actual trophy. Even this season of moderate disappointment, I have leapt off my seat during the Leeds game, Bournemouth were finally beaten (in the cup), Man City were beaten (1 out of 4 times) and a last 16 spot in the champions league has been secured. I’d like to give Howe another season at least, to see what might happen with a director of football present for more than half an hour.
Derek from Dundalk
Liverpool fan 50/50 on Slot
Montague vs Capulet, Sharks vs Jets, and Rebels vs the Galactic Empire. We have, for years, been told that we must have an opinion on one side over the other. Added to that, a 24-hour news cycle that must be filled and a need for instant gratification have left a lot of peanut-sized-brain social media contributors with an inability to think rationally or see both sides of any argument. Everything must be black or white. We are not allowed grey anymore.
However, this is where I am with Arne Slot. Do I want him to go or stay? I am honestly not sure. Starting in 1888 with the old First Division and moving past when football was “invented” in 1992, less than 4% of all those managers can say they have won a league title, and he is a title-winning manager. Even the greatest manager ever, Mr M Arteta, hasn’t won one!
So why am I conflicted? Well, to start with, he is not Klopp, and I loved Klopp. But that’s not a fair stick to beat him with, because Klopp is a generational manager, and Slot’s chilled approach last season helped us win the title.
However, his football this season has been quite awful. But that is not entirely of his own making. The “Handsome” (but silent) Richard Hughes oversees buying and selling, so Díaz going and not being replaced is not on Slot. Furthermore, injuries have played a big part. Three players suffering season-ending injuries without being challenged: that’s bad luck. Your new star striker has his ankle broken and is out for four months, a player who didn’t miss a game for three years has three different muscle injuries, and three of last year’s top performers are playing terribly for no obvious reason. Who could have foreseen all that?
None of that is on Slot. So I don’t blame him for the downturn that has caused.
Where I do think he is at fault is his seeming inflexibility around certain players. Good squad players such as Elliott/Morton/Quansah, all gone. Endo, Chiesa, Jones (for the most part), and Ramsey are all so frozen out that they might as well go the same way.
As I said, the football has been terrible for large parts of the season. It’s a chicken-and-egg scenario: do the crowd energise the players, or do the players energise the crowd? This is where the fact that he is not Klopp hurts him. The laborious horseshoe “U” football we were subjected to for months has eroded much of the goodwill that his title win banked. His current no-risk approach infuriates the crowd when we see spaces that a Klopp team would drive into.
Coupled with that is a new reluctance to effect change through substitutions. He acts like a man paralysed with indecision, unwilling to gamble in case it goes wrong. Last year, his changes saved and won games. Is he now refusing to change because he doesn’t trust his squad? Is this Handsome Hughes’ fault for not doing his job properly? Or have the injuries depleted his options? Or is he questioning himself?
Selling or losing half of the first team is bound to cause a period of transitional flux. I remember last year when we had a player sent off vs Fulham, and Slot tweaked the system three times in fifteen minutes to find a solution. I can see that he has been trying to find a working system to accommodate his players on a much larger scale this season. For that, I don’t blame him for the team being unsettled.
However, it is his fault for continuing to play out-of-form players for extended periods. Gakpo has received a lot of unfair press, but he has not played well, nor have Salah and Mac Allister. Players like Rio, Chiesa, and Jones could, and perhaps should, come on sooner in games. Continuing to play Szoboszlai at right back when we had no midfield has cost Liverpool points this season. Again, Slot has seemed paralysed when it comes to making changes.
What is worrying is that I am reading that “Handsome” Hughes is going to conduct a thorough end-of-season review. Hmm. When I worked in a secondary school years back, the Science department had awful exam results. The SLT member in charge of that department undertook a review. Unsurprisingly, they reported that they were doing a great job, and the poor results were down to the head of the department! So, if Liverpool do not secure CL football, nor win a trophy this year, will Slot get the chop? If he goes, will Edwards, Gordon or Henry review Hughes?
This is why I am still 50/50 on Slot.
Ian Hewison
View from Bristol
Whilst Dave’s latest article about his Definitely Big 6 Spurs, No Really (TM), gives me warm and fuzzy feelings inside, I wanted to say a few words on some football down the leagues instead.
Visiting my son at Bristol Uni for a week or so, I managed to visit the Memorial Ground for Bristol Rovers v Grimsby last weekend and Ashton Gate for Bristol City v Watford on Friday night. In short, both game experiences were a breath of fresh air compared to the awful Premier League fan experience these days (particularly at the London Stadium, but also generally).
The weather at the Memorial Stadium was shocking. Sideways rain and wind whipping around the ground. There was some limited protection behind the stand but very reasonably priced beers warmed the cockles. There were good food and drink options outside and inside the ground and even live music. I don’t think I’ve been in a standing section at a league game for 30+ years, and it was a joy. Reminded me of standing on the Chicken Run at Upton Park.
The players can clearly hear the fans and you feel right in the midst of the action. No one seemed to mind us carrying a plastic pint onto the terraces. The quality of the football was mixed, but a f@$# tonne more fun than watching almost any EPL game with the endless passing across the back line. Rovers are hovering above the non-league abyss, and the ground was impressively full. The Rovers fans were very vocal throughout, with those in the Thatchers Stand keeping up a brilliant and constant loud racket.
The contrast with the atmosphere at our top division mega stadiums was stark. A couple of very early goals (the first a cracking 20 yard volley) set up Rovers for a crucial win. A quick word on the Grimsby fans; they took a surprisingly large contingent down and did their team very proud.
It was a different but no less entertaining experience at Ashton Gate. The stadium is lovely, one of the better modern-ish 25-30,000 seaters. Best of all, as a fan you feel genuinely valued rather than treated like a cash cow. Outside the ground there was entertainment and loads of food/drink options. The shop was great and getting a City shirt printed (with on loan Hammer, Earthy 44) took just 8 minutes. Inside the ground, under the stands, are huge fantastic concourses very similar to those found at the very ‘fans first’ stadiums in the US.
Despite the high attendance numbers, it didn’t feel over crowded, the refreshment areas were very large with organised queues which went very quickly indeed. Prices were no more than you’d pay in a pub. I only had a sausage roll but it was genuinely posh bakery quality for about £4. Hey Sullivan, you disgusting slimy crook, take notice or give us our club back. There were club staff walking around with signs on tall polls saying “Here to Help” or words to that effect. As a WH fan I found the whole thing a mixture of heartwarming (being highly valued and respected as a fan) and depressing (being confronted with how shoddily we are treated at our own soulless money grabbing bowl). On the field, Watford won 2-1, the winner an absolute screamer from former West Ham youth player Ngakia (you couldn’t make it up).
City looked short of confidence, perhaps not surprising given that they were forced to sell their top scorer Anis Mehmeti to Ipswich last month after not being able to get him to sign a new contract. Regardless, the whole game experience was top notch.
Apologies to any City or Rovers fans for the lack of specifics on the players or game details. Would be great to hear your more informed views on that score. Just know that I for one am immensely jealous of your game-day fun.
Mike, WHU
