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Is it me or has the scheduling of games this year changed a lot? Used to be a fairly standard balance between Saturday / Sunday. Majority of the games on Saturday, then the remainder on Sunday, and 1 game either Friday or Monday.
This weekend there are 8 games Saturday.,1 Sunday, 1 Monday. Two weeks ago, it was similar, just one game on Sunday. The 2pm and 4.30 Sunday games were fairly standard last year, twice so far this season we’ve had only one Sunday game.
You’re right, the schedule has been a little weird, but that extra days rest with CL mid week is huge.
The schedule is weird because epl has 8 teams in Europe. Also the European coefficient will determine if there are 4 or 5 teams in ucl. It’s in the leagues best interest to give all teams a better chance to make a decent run in Europe.
Eddie needs to wake up and smell the coffee and stop thinking that he’s ever gonna be England striker.
Nothing wrong with having the belief you can do it, but at the same time, be realistic. Gareth is never going to take him seriously, he’s just humiliating him.
The black stars know he’s not gonna be taken seriously either, he needs to make some decisions.
Maybe he doesn’t want to play for Ghana. Maybe he’s spent his entire life dreaming of playing for England.
I spent my teenage years dreaming of Jennifer Lopez but one day I had to face the fact it wasn’t gonna happen between me and her.
He’s at risk of wasting his international career being a England bench player.
It’s not a good analogy. I think saying “England or nothing” is a perfectly legitimate view point.
He doesn’t have to have an international career playing for a country he doesn’t want to play for.
Who exactly is going to be Englands striker in the 2028 Euros?
Neddie Edketiah.
Do you think Milan knew about Tonali’s gambling issue before they sold him?
Excellent (and sneaky) move if so.
Under every Rice post during the summer, people would talk about how Tonali went for half the price.
Even before this ban, he was dog shit for Newcastle.
Always something strange about the deal, like the clip of him getting a tour of the facilities and just looking like he would rather be anywhere else
I’d say so, moment investigations starts I think it gets back to the club. That deal seemed to be wrapped up super fast and Milan fans were super confused with selling him too.
There’s a couple videos out there on the web I feel we should all be caught up with.
First: https://youtu.be/4idQbwsvtUo?si=kWHz5SKJPxuSSIas (i know pierce is universally disliked within our supporter base but, this interview is headed straight for the history books).
Second: https://youtu.be/tX8TgVR33KM?si=pcAOZFSvcmGFHaTt
Mental Health Awareness day is a few days behind us now but, for whatever reason this incredibly powerful and thoughtful video didn’t seem to make the rounds outside of Norwich’s sub. EVERYONE should see this, especially football fans.
As a ⚠️warning⚠️ both of these videos will likely stir up a lot of emotions so I encourage you to approach them with a cool head. If you or anyone else is affected by the message of the second video, please please please talk to someone.
Have a good day, Gooners and please, 🙏🕓☮️
It’s pretty fascinating how differently I react to the tone of the first video in terms of taking on the information.
Yeah it’s quite the rollercoaster so I do apologize for that. I tried to be as up front as possible without giving too much away.
I had planned on posting the second vid this morning after I did some browsing last night, and I didn’t see it posted anywhere but the Norwich sub. I commented on the OG post and encouraged them to share it on r/soccer but I never got a reply.
Then, first thing this morning I watched the first video when someone sent it to me, and it took a few mins to pick my jaw up off the floor so I decided to share it as well.
Random question
You see before a football match? How players come out holding the hands of little kids?
What’s the significance of those little kids?
Are they just fans that their parent have paid for them to be there?
Or are they part of our youth academy and the little tunnel thing is just to show them what the atmosphere will be like when they succeed?
Thank fucking God jude Bellingham chose real madrid over citeh. Can you imagine this citeh team with a rodri kdb and Bellingham midfield
With fucking Haaland in attack
citeh
It’s absolutely mad how good he is. Him and that kid Lamine Yamal at Barca are both tearing it up right now. Hope to see Nwaneri and MLS doing the same for us soon!
People think the debate will be Haaland v Mbappe, but I think Jude has to be there. Jude is already doing way more this season, and plays for a club that can win CLs and a country that can win the WC. He can have the greatest legacy of them all if it all aligns.
I feel like I’ve missed maybe 7/8 games total in the Arteta era and at least 3 of those were against Chelsea. Missed the ESR breakthrough game, missed the 4-2 win, missed like 80% of the 1-0 win last season. Did watch us pump 3 goals in their net in 30 minutes though.
Thanks for your sacrifice. I’m torn on asking you to sit the next one out.
I remember at the start of the season lots of people here kept shoehorning Tierney into their starting 11 even though it was obvious Arteta didn’t fancy him. People would downvote and argue against me when I said this.
Was it just because he was popular people were doing this or did they actually believe he was gonna be starter for Arteta?
We tried out 4 or 5 different backlines from pre-season until the first league game, and Tierney didn’t start in a single one lol.
It was pure stubbornness from fans who liked him.
It was obvious to me when he started picking Tomiyasu over him at LB even though Tomi is predominantly a RB/CB.
I think because Timber came in, it could have arguably pointed towards the possibility of Tierney becoming the bomb on LB, the equivalent job to Ben White, just with us inverting from the opposite side. There was some logic to those ideas but it’s clear now we’re headed down the 4 CBs route eventually.
It’s blatant missing of hints enabled by echo chambers. You point out a glaring point and people make up arguments to go around it, heavy on the downvotes.
I’m always of the view never trust a manager’s words 100% in press conferences. They barely play down any player. Just see their actions. People were seeing Kiwior, Xhaka, half-fit Zichenko, and Tomiyasu all playing LB and still maintaining that Tierney was part of our plans.
Ramsdale was another example. Deep down, you’d know that Ramsdale was screwed but the sentimental part of us made up stories to convince ourselves otherwise. And just because Ramdale started the first few games, we thought we had “won” yet there was glaring proof that Raya was better.
In a funny twist, even Arteta made up some weird tales about subbing off GKs yet he knew who would start.
There are many additional hints in that team that either backfired because of injuries, failed transfers or even a player immensely improving.
I don’t think he made up weird tales. I think his point was he genuinely wanted to sub the goalkeeper on a couple of occasions.
Which makes ramsdale look even worse. There were probably times where arteta didn’t have enough faith in ramsdale to keep us in the game, or perhaps wanted Turner on for penalties, who knows. I remember having no faith in ramsdale against Lisbon. I was actually disguised that he couldn’t save one
Yeah you put it perfectly. Really it’s more about what people want to believe rather than the reality of it.
It’s interesting though because you can sort of gather hints from his decisions. For example dropping Gabriel and putting Ben White in CB earlier in the season makes me think White is higher in the pecking order but in my eyes Gabriel is the better CB so I disagree with Arteta where I think a lot of people don’t want to openly disagree with him.
The former.
It’s just like how ALL the predicted XI or “best XI” teams omitted Partey. Literally every single one between July and early August.
For about 90% of those teams, Partey wasn’t chosen because of “non-sporting reasons”. Saying “I just prefer Rice” was just an easy way to avoid starting the conversation again.
It took some quite a while to realise and to come to terms with Zinchenko’s importance-- even whilst Tierney was doing a notable ‘Zinchenko impression’ whenever Zina was hurt last season.
There are a small number of others who would argue that we should be starting Tierney, rather than that we would: some for less sensible reasons, some for more sensible ones. This wasn’t prediction but disagreement with Arteta-- which is of course reasonably possible, if difficult and likely fruitless.
The most sensible version of that argument (which I’ll admit I still didn’t find persuasive) was that while Tierney offered much less in the buildup, he offered more in defence and in the final third: specifically in the effective width he offered, which would allow the LW (especially Martinelli) to play more consistently inside, and have had the LCM (Xhaka, now Rice orHavertz) sitting more or less where Zinchenko did and still does.
Arteta clearly wants the wingers to hold width (and provide the lion’s share of our crossing) and values their movement inside more than their presence inside; he also clearly wants more diversity in our buildup, and really values what Zinchenko offers both there and in the final third, where he’d rather see the wingers and CMs attacking, and the FBs only overlapping and attacking the box occasionally. (Interestingly, while there is a general impression that White does this more, his per 90 crossing is almost identical to Zina’s.)
Sad to see Kalvin Philips career absolutely ruined by City.
He won’t be the first, City has a history of ruining talent.
That label “ruining talent” is more applicable to Man United than compared to Man City.
The new Scott Carson, the only benefit City are getting is a safety for the home-grown English limit.
They didn’t hold him at gunpoint to move there, he was never going to get in the team.
In a few years, Phillips will say he never cared. As long as he got paid. You shouldn’t feel sorry for him.
Less than one month away from the next international break, yay.
🫣
Ugh.
Booked a 2-week holiday earlier this year and it just so happens to fall in that break. Absolutely delighted. No having to get up at the arsecrack of dawn to watch Arsenal from the other side of the world. And I can completely ignore whatever shite games england are playing.
Me: thank fuck Jude signed for Real.
Also me, thinking we might play them in CL: Motherfucker must be stopped.
Don’t worry, we have a Declan Rice and a William Saliba
Declan v. Jude is a matchup I look forward to watch.
Only 3 days to watch Tricky Mik and his super reds back in action.
Is Reece James’ body even suitable to be a sportsman? I’ve never seen an athlete who gets injured so easily. Surely he has some serious fitness issues?
He’s also their captain too.
😂
Come on we’ve had tons of players like that at Arsenal over the years let’s not be disingenuous.
Brother we literally had Abou Diaby on the books
This is our season. I’ve seen the light
How long of a ban tonali is going to receive? He bet on milan games while playing for them. Dont remember if toney’s case was practically the same
If we’re going off Fagiolis punishment, 2.5 years.
3 years for betting on other clubs, 5 years if it includes your own, but 50% off if you plead guilty and cooperate.
He didn’t bet on Milan games, its based on him using an illegal betting platform, Fagioli took a plea deal to pin it on Tonali and got 8 months, usual ban is 3 years before mitigating circumstances
didn’t he just admit to betting on milan games?
Yeah I was wrong I hadn’t seen that until just now