An early kick off on a Saturday up in the wilds of the North East and who knows what the 90 minutes might bring. If Eddie’s theory about the players training in the mornings and having a kip in the afternoon is correct, then let’s hope the lads hit their perfect peak at 12.30 today.
So far the Mackems are having a dismal season with 2 draws and 7 defeats from their first 9 fixtures. Let’s hope and pray that it’s not us who allows them any release from this calamitous run.
Whenever we travel to Sunderland, I have to remember it’s a degree or two cooler up there, though, today, the weather looks mild, with a light breeze and little chance of rain. Perfect October weather for playing football it would seem. The Stadium of Light pitch should be in good nick, too.
Hopefully we can keep the crowd quiet early on and maybe nick an early goal. In other words, the normal recipe for a day of reduced tension and low blood pressure.
In his post match interview on Wednesday evening, David Moyes was asked about being sent to the stands by Chris Kavanagh (the referee). Moyes had to ask who Chris Kavanagh was! He does seem a little lost since he left Everton.
Sunderland also intended to travel straight back after the match in midweek but were kept overnight on the South coast by fog. Hopefully that also disrupted their plans for today’s game. I’ll take any advantage, me.
Team news
It appears that Ramsey and everyone’s favourite Frenchman are back and in the squad. Perhaps neither will start, though with the continued absence of Santi, there does appear to be an opening for Aaron to provide some creativity in the box-to-box role. By the way, the signs for Santi are good and there’s even talk that he might have a test to see if he can play. It never seems a good idea to rush someone back, especially if there are able deputies, so I still think Santi will be out.
Theo and Nacho also face tests. Nacho is covered by Kieran. Lucas is out for a while after being clobbered by a Reading Neanderthal, so maybe the Ox would be the obvious replacement on the right.
C’mon you Gunners. Three points would make me feel a whole lot better and set the weekend up nicely.
(BR is without internet at present, hence the short, hastily written pre-match. Hopefully normality will be resumed for Tuesday.)
Written by chas
Arsenal News 24/7
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very nice, Chas. perfect curtain raiser. are you making the trip? COYG.
3 points in the bag, and we can start looking for ROLFs everywhere else. COYG. 🙂
A cracking Post, Chas, complete with weather forecast. 🙂
Not wishing to be a Job’s comforter or anything, I have to say that whenever we have a chance of going top or beating a struggling club we tend to blow our chance, such as the ‘Boro game last weekend.
However, if you, and the good-looking sibling are going, perhaps that will bring us luck – but do not let the gentle breeze from the east blow up your frou-frou.
Excellent chas …. they should really rename the place Gloomderland 😕
So this is just the sort of game we would have tripped up on in recent years. We’re expected to win. They will park the biggest bus we’ve ever seen and they have that annoying little ex-spud up top who is an archetypal goal poacher.
If we want to be genuine title contenders we have to prove that we have moved on from those days of vulnerability and win by whatever means it takes … and I think we will 🙂
I honestly didn’t realise as I was reading that it was written by anyone other than BR.
Nice one Chas. Thanks.
agreed, LB, same as the one a week before. Brilliant, Chas. 🙂
good to have “everyone’s favourite Frenchman” back, IMO. good option to have against a parked bus.
teams, anyone?
of course I am right! And it might be that the lads will be in peak form at noon, but my body clock is going to be severly disrupted – no early afternoon nap.
you are a real sport to write while in agony, fair play to you! I enjoyed the prematch, thanks. I forgot that Moyes was at Sunderland this part of the season, good reminder. BTW, is Sunderland in Scotland 🙂
Dear Arsene – do not risk playing Santi today. We NEED him for the derby, let the little lad rest. Same goes for other key players – play the strongest, most physical oaths and go easy on the precious ones, especially Mezut.
3 points almost guaranteed, but it is not going to be easy. For some reason the micky mouse teams take great pride in making us sweat, bloody northern b***s. but we can do it and we will today, no doubt in my mind.
Evonne, nice to see you in fiery form! 🙂
Is Theo rested, or carrying a niggle?
Interesting thoughts from Monsieur Venga this week on the question of resting the hyperactive Chilean. 🙂
thanks, Chas. 🙂 forgetting my manners.
Interesting team, actually. Gibbs starting, and glad to see Jenks back, if only on the bench.
So what happens if Gibbs gets and injury, does Maitland-Niles (Conservative) play there?
well, I suppose the first option will be to rush Monreal back. but seriously, that is two top left backs. how many more do we want, or can we afford, in the team?
Beautiful goal. Excellent cross from The Ox
Back on web just in time to see us score a fab team goal.
Deserves many a replay..
Enjoyable game so far. Sunderland stopping AFC by regular violent attacks upon our players. We need punish them for it because the ref isn’t.
Ox playing well
Noice post Chas.
Weather in Sunderland looks very similar to what we had in Melbourne today. It’s very civilized watching an early game before midnight.
Ozil has had his chances to score.
VP- You are right – we should be three up. Let’s hope we do not rue those missed opportunities.
Ref has been atrocious.
Terrible from Atkinson who could easily have cost us points having denied us a clear penalty..
Sunderland should never have 11 men on the pitch – they have spent the entire game kicking our boys and getting away with it.
1st touch Giroud, Goal!!!
Raddy,
Pienaar should’ve been off first half. He tripped Sanchez when we were on a clear counter and Atkinson didn’t book him because they ‘crossed paths’ and tangled legs, which the replay showed was a joke. Then he clattered Coq and got booked.
He’s given loads of petty fouls against us but them get away with loads.
Then you have the 2 pens. He couldn’t wait to give the one against us. If we win this we’ve beaten 12 men today.
I wonder what the lowest number of touches there has been to score a hat trick. Giroud might be on course!
Ozil misses his third and then Giroud scores his second…
Cheeky! What a great finish.
Great response after the equaliser.
Saw a great stat earlier about how Rodwell has not been on the winning side in the PL in his last 32 starts! Make that 33!
#badomen
Iwobi and OX go off and Giroud and Ramsey come on. Love that bench, noice depth on its woodwork.
Have to say we rode our luck a bit there. It was all a bit too easy in first half and you could see us get a bit lazy some of our actions. I don’t mind us conserving energy but I’d rather do it when we were 2-0 up. Whereas the team seemed to think a second was only a matter of time and we kept pushing men forward and leaving unnecessary gaps.
Thankfully we got ourselves back in it and changed up the gears but we really shouldn’t have let them get back in the game.
Nearly got ‘Atkinsoned’ (a new verb to sit alongside ‘Deaned’) there. Great response to the equaliser, and would have been a travesty if we hadn’t won that.
Nice to see Gibbs back in lineup hope he keep his place for the rest of the season
We had 21 shots to their 3 and 8 corners to their 0.
And we were the away side!
Robert Madley (a referee) just gifted Spurs a goal.
ha ha ha ha, cannot complain. COYG. 🙂
Do you know that awesome feeling when you get into bed, fall right asleep, stay asleep all night and wake up refreshed and raring to go the next morning?
YEAH – me neither!!!!
Perhaps a draw against Boro was a decent result despite my concerns
Wow, that 21 pass build up looks even more impressive when highlighted on its own.
MU had 37 shots and didn’t score. Ibra had 12. Hahahaha
GIE- Agree with everything you say except the first line!
Match Stats
Possession Home34% Away66%
Shots Home 3 Away 21
Shots on Target Home1 Away 7
Corners Home 0 Away 8
Rode our luck!!!!!!
how may pints vs pies ant?
1 pint plays 2 pork pies Eddie.
Did you stay awake and watch the whole game today?
Just for Micky..
Nice to hear the crowd singing “one Arsena Wenger” today
Apparently Rambo has more assists than Pogba this season after playing 2 minutes.
ha ha ha, Ant, good form! 🙂
Hi GiE, yes, the first sentence is a bit tongue in cheek! No? 🙂
FGG – Love this quote, “If we win this we’ve beaten 12 men today.”
JC says that every week.
Not giving that Sanchez penalty was ridiculous.
They were only mini pork pies, courtesy of Chas, Eddie!
Great to see Ant on good form.
Liverpool are great to watch this season. Really entertaining unlike the Chavs and Spurs and MU and MC and Hull and Burnley and Stoke and
Liverpool’s new goalie is (almost) as bad as that Ludogarets genius.
Agree that Liverpool are great to watch BR and their defence gives us lots of hope.
1 pint!! Disgrace, waste of a good trip away 🙂
Giroud was fab, the fans loved him
Ant – they were singing all the time, louder than usual and must have run out of chants, hence the ‘One Arsene Wenger’ 🙂
I am still not sure about Ox. He wasted good few chances, could do better.
But Sanchez, work horse! What a guy!
TV pundits were drooling over Liverpool today. I was a good game, micky would have enjoyed it – all attacking and no defending on either side. i’m surprised it was only 6 goals
oh here we go, LB to rate players – 10 all around for a change 🙂
you give ox a 10 and I will resign myself from this blog
Lol good one ant
You will have to wait and see Eddie.
The post is in drafts, it needs pics and a proof read wouldn’t go a miss
Hi LB, just had a quick look at your MR …. enjoyed the DM 🙂
Anybody notice how slow the Sunderland pitch was today? That’s what did for Mustafi when they won the pen. The long ball had backspin and turned like a Shane Warne googly! At the Emirates it would’ve just skidded on and Mustafi wouldve mopped it up instead of being wrong footed.
Owen Hargreaves was getting a bit too excited about Liverpool. One of the terms he used was ‘what makes this Liverpool side so special….’
So special? Really? They are very good going forward but their defence is awful. Time will tell just how ‘special’ they are.
Rasp
What does DM mean? Or anyone else if you know.
Doh, the penny has just dropped.
Glad you liked it………….
Let’s see how many it catches?
Ok Rode our luck wasn’t in the most literal sense, more in the “we took our foot off the gas and could have come a cropper” sense of riding our luck.
DM to my knowledge means Direct Message
Dirty Mind
chas, how are you?
ant – how is chas??
The leg is coming off tomorrow.
fooking hell, that looks painful!!
did you go to hospital?
this must be the worst selfie around 🙂 🙂 🙂 where is micky to take the piss properly ha ha ha 🙂 🙂
Morning all …… what’s happened to chas?
he got a good kicking for being such a smug ********
I love you, too.
I know 🙂
where is that overrated player marking by LB?
chas. I rudely forgot to thank you for coming to the rescue of the PM. May I congratulate you on your excellent punctuation – a lesson for us all 😀
And horrible about your knee. Could put you out for the season. Does it hurt?
Cheers, BR.
It only hurts a little.
I’m going to the NLD next Sunday come hell or highwater. 🙂
I know everyone loves these xG line maps. 🙂
Here’s ours
Here’s the mancs with their 37 efforts. 🙂
BR
I’ve no idea if the excellent punctuation comment is a pisstake or not. 🙂
Getting bored waiting for the new post.
Been up since 5 as I thought the clocks went forward.
NEW POST