Fans of Big Raddy are about to be seriously disappointed, although probably not entirely surprised. More than any, they will understand the challenges he faces in being a hippy, and the lasting effects of a life bombarded by cosmic rays and shit like that.
Right, me here, so brace up and deal with it.
We all know what’s going on tonight. We could win. Paris could draw. We could top the group.
As I said earlier, a classic risk assessment is needed. I’ve had a quick gander, and Sanchez travelling gives us a glimpse into the Wenger mind. We could top the group and still get a very tough tie in the next round. For me, we had our chance, didn’t take it, should smell the coffee and lie low.
Having said all that, we could still field a very strong side and gain much, in terms of progressing as a squad. Embedding new understandings and combinations that could serve us well later in the season.
Just so you know, Basel are already 12 points ahead of second placed Young Boys in their domestic league, and steaming towards their 8th consecutive league title. They may well field a strong team simply to take another scalp.
I think we’d all pretty much agree on the players for whom an injury would hurt us the most, so I’d like to see them rested.
Lucas Perez is someone I’d like to see more of, and as striker. He scored 17 goals for a very low placed Deportivo last term. Arsene has so far deployed him largely on the left, and while Ollie is a great option, Perez may be the one to rotate with Sanchez if we wish to keep the same style.
I won’t put up my guess for an XI, and leave that for you lot. I will be interested to see how you’d play things tonight, and of course, ultimately what Arsene will do.
Written by MickyDidIt89
Arsenal News 24/7
arsenalarsenal.net 
Well Sky spell it Basel, but thank you 🙂
Micky, lovely stuff. It is sort of expected, and I feel the same way. I expect to see changes, though I guess Alexis wants to play, and if he wants, he gets it. Maybe Perez should get a look in, or maybe not. EFF is rested, and he does reasonably well upfront in creating space and opportunities for Alexis and co. Unlike one other who shall go unnamed.
What I would not like to see is pulling in youngsters and scupper the chances of the young guns qualifying for the knockout stages in their game against Basel juniors. So no Rob Holding and co, please.
COYG. 🙂
I made the same mistake. 🙂
LB. Arsenal juniors play Basel away in the UEFA Youth League today in a MWG. PSG are sitting on 11 points, Basel on 9 and the young guns on 6.
They had two bad games, failing to win against Ludo away and losing 1-2 to Basel at home. Therefore they need to better the 2-1 scoreline today to progress. On the other hand, they did exactly as good as the seniors against PSG, 0-0 away and 2-2 at home, teh second including a last minute stunning equaliser by Mavididi.
Having lost the Mickey Mouse Cup game last week, this is now their best chance to showcase their skills. COYG.
LB. You may also enjoy this. Watch out for goalie Keto and striker Mavididi.
http://www.uefa.com/uefayouthleague/video/videoid=2424757.html?autoplay=true
Look out for familar faces in the coaching bench as well! 🙂
Cheers Micky
Expect Wenger to start with a very strong team as to respect the competition and the international exposure our team gets:
Ospina
Jenkinson Mustafi Koz Gibbs
Elneny Xhaka
Ramsey Ozil Alexis
Giroud
Total. Dont know about Jenks. Didnt Arsene say he is lacking confidence?
Wow, interesting Total
I assume from that Ollie has travelled
I don’t know the squad that has flown out, but I would have gone for similar to the Saints cup game last week ie: Mart, Jenks, Gabs, Hold, Gibbs, Coq, Elnen, Ram, Iwob and Perez
Changes for injuries of course.
Thing is, we saw 2nd half against W’Ham how fresh Sanchez and Ozil were, and I’d like them rested along with Kos.
It is a low risk game, Arnie, and there is no home crowd to sigh collectively….
I would do the same, Micky, but there appears to be a UEFA expectation to play strong teams till the end to allow for fair competition – There is still a UEFA league ticket to play for – and provide quality football for all the big sponsors till the end. I reckon we will see early substitutions, though.
Total
Who would be your first choice stand-in for the Mesut role, Aaron?
Arsene put Iwobi there against Forest, but I didn’t see the game
If all are fit, Micky, I would go for Santi as the most like for like. I love Rambo but I reckon for him to be a good attacker he needs space and a very free role (like he had for Wales). Iwobi is a good option, agreed. And what about Zelalem?
This seems to suggest Wenger will indeed go for a strong line-up. Good news that Ozil appears to be close to a new contract and that talks are continuing with Alexis’ representative..
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/dec/05/alexis-sanchez-arsenal-new-contract-money-arsene-wenger
https://twitter.com/illHAYES/status/806089422844338176
Cheers, Micky.
I suppose we’ll just have to wait to see who AW selects and then cross our fingers.
It’s a real shame we haven’t got a crucial Europa play-off like the spuddies. 😆
Good read Micky
Thanks for making the effort.
I’m going to wait until those mugs go down to £2 each before I pounce. lol
Thanks micky and apologies for earlier spelling mistake.
Obviously we’ll all be furious if a player is not really needed tonight, plays and comes away with an injury. But we also knows what happens if we make too many changes. Maybe AW will keep an ear on what is happening in the PSG game and act accordingly during our game.
Loving all the tweets about Wembley tomorrow night. Not sure whether to rib my baby spud about it – he’s likely to be on the bench. The squad have been warned that the stadium might be quite empty 😃 My other baby spud has to go and watch
Apparently the BT sport coverage of our game tonight is free either on Freeview or the website itself. Details here….
http://sport.bt.com/football/champions-league/basel-v-arsenal-live-stream-champions-league-football-online-or-watch-on-tv-with-bt-sport-S11364118236518
Thanks Micky, with great respect to Radders, the poor fella must need a rest 🙂 I’m not disappointed in the slightest.
You’ve got it right, the worst that could happen this evening would be injuries to key players. There’s very little in terms of possible opponents between coming first or second this time.
I don’t agree with everyone saying that second is not much worse than first based on who is likely to qualify…
There are four very strong likely group winners:
1. Barca
2. Athletico Madrid
3. Borussia Dortmund
and 4. Juventus
We can’t play PSG or Leicester so that leaves two reasonable options in Napoli/Benfica and Monaco – all of which are decent
Whereas if we won the group.
I reckon there are just two, possibly three very strong potential opponents:
1. Bayern
2. Real Madrid and
Possibly 3. Sevilla
That leaves again Napoli/Benfica as in option 1 plus Bayer Leverkusen who were pants against the Spuds and Porto- we can’t play Man City.
So would you prefer the chance to play Monaco with either Napoli/Benfica or alternatively Leverkusen and Porto with N/B. I also think that we stand more chance against Real and Bayern than Barca,Athletico, Dortmund or Juve?
Winning the group is significantly better by my judgement.
Hee Hee
no Raddy PM?? oh ffs, that’s is dire state of affairs.
Thank you micky for your take on things, highly amusing, as always.
I asked the question about the purpose of tonight’s game, I was sure we cannot go top no matter what. We can? Well, that puts a completely different spin on things and I am glad I didn’t shoot at the plane carrying Sanchez to the Alps.
A must win game all of a sudden 🙂
Good looking team. I wonder where Alexis will play
The free BT link works from that website above. (well, in the UK it does anyway)
I thought perez was going to flop it, he took his bloody time
oh rubbish really, I am off to bed
Sort of getting what I have been going on about, Perez for Walcott and all that.
Good game. Very relaxed 0 : 2 with the ‘new’ lad Perez doing the biz.
Nice pre-match Mickydiscious – Basle is the ‘English’ spelling and pronounced like Barl – the German spelling is Basel & pronounced like ‘Basil’ Fawlty – but accepted in English a lot too – there are 4 or 5 variations. I, of course, still refer to London as Londinium – and Terry calls it ‘Lunun init’. 😀
Ludogorets still beating PSG 0 : 1
I could be wrong about Basle – schoolboy memories can be pernicious. 🙂
Ooooh another hat trick hero 🙂
Are you watching totturnummm?
WHAT the heck is going on? 🙂
Only just got home. Tuning in now
Perez hatrick!!!
Get outa here
Lucas Perez or Jansen …… hmmmmmm 🙂
Going along swimmingly, I would say.
8 goals in 4 days so far. 😄
he he he Ludo 2-1
Walcott for Ozick …… not an upgrade 🙂
Cheers Micky
It’s days like this I wish I was Dutch. “Sexy voetball”
On LB’s excellent post yesterday, were much better than Chelsea. I’ve hated those Twats when as a kid I I spotted a panini card of Micky Droy and suspected he looked like a man from Norwich.
And yes, I still collect Panini football cards
The Ghosts of the Thirties are Stirring
We may be trying one or two too many Hollywood passes – shame for Ospina, he’s been excellent
Hmmmm, I think we are seeing that Arsenal started with the right eleven for this game – we’ve lost our shape and rhythm a bit
ha ha ha love all the Spurs ticket stuff 🙂
Well done Arsene for picking the right team and not giving up the chance of winning the group.
Dreaming of Benfica in the next round
yessss 2-2
And Eddie went to bed..
Ant
No way I’d have started Mesut or Sanchez
So lucky I was too busy to manage Arsenal tonight 🙂
And Micky maybe saw at least one of our goals!
It would be so funny if you were the manager
LB says:
December 4, 2016 at 8:05 pm
We were so lucky with Mustafi, it is so rare that a player hits the ground running in the way he has; I mean. it is so impressive that we have not lost a game since he joined the club. (With him playing)
Xhaka is more the norm, he is slowly finding his feet, although, he was finding them yesterday some will have noticed –Yellow Cards? None. That man has not just been sitting on the naughty step he has been spoken to my AW. He put is a very different performance a far more calm controlled one and one that I am sure we will see more of.
Now we get to Perez; he is an attacker and they always take the longest time to find their feet. This applies to all the big names: Bergkamp, Henry, Pires I could go on, although of course if Perez turns out to be half as good as anyone of those I am sure we will be happy, equally there have been some duds. I think people are holding judgement and so they should, he is a very talented player and could still turn out to be the signing of the season.
I was working Ant
Doesn’t happen too often. Falling asleep, maybe 🙂
https://twitter.com/thearsenal49ers/status/806252850418479106
Ant
The entertainment would be off the scale 🙂
I think you need to start with a Sunday league team and test out your tactical strategies, Micky.
I would travel down to see that.
You could be right LB 🙂
I’ll make to sponge boy 🙂
Shattered. Nite all
A bit tired tonight folks, not going to be able to write anything so if there is anyone who has had a few too many espressos and is feeling creative it’s over to you.
nice results all round, feel good feeling, LB, we are listening. The jury is still open, but I have to admit that was good 🙂
What was more disconcerting is the last five or ten minutes post subs when we took the ball players off, suddenly the ball stopped sticking up top and we were defending a lot more than we would like.
Bloody marvellous other than that, particularly liked Gibbs performance and Perez’s movement was good. Could watch Ozil’s and Alexis kick a ball round a dustbin all day, you just know they’d find ever more creative ways of making it look beautiful.
GIE, Wenger probably did that on purpose to get a bit of defensive practice in
Lining up for some interesting cl pairings next round
When is draw?
12.00CET, 12 December, Nyon
The UEFA Champions League round of 16 draw will be streamed live on UEFA.com from 12.00CET on Monday 12 December.
I’m working and haven’t time to do any sort of post-victory gloatification post. Soz.
Thanks Chas.
Thanks for CL draw
Oh bloody hell, come on, I need someone to tell me how good Lucas was.
I’ve looked at the ratings on the only reputable Arsenal blog I know, and scores went from Aaron on 7, mainly 8’s or 8.5 to Granit with Lucas on 9.5!!!
Seen goals on Arsenalplayer, but they don’t merit 9.5, so I’m guessing his all round game was top notch. Brilliant if that was the case.
True?
seriously?? we are top of the group?? Hello Barca.
A friend of mine sent me this. “Perez is Theo’s distant cousin . Less running more brains. He’ll be better for the home games as well, better close control, let’s hope last night was just a taster.”
Actually reading that I forgot how much my friend knows about football hmmmmm.
Love GIE’s thought about being able to watch Ozil and Sanchex kick a football round a dustbin all day. It makes you think doesn’t it? And then you realise that actually it would probably be very entertaining watching those two all day.
They are both worth two players so might as well pay them two players wages.
the first 2 Perez goals hardly count – even Feo would score from those assists.
Morning Man and Woman
Agree LB about Exile’s comment. Defo. worth wages x2. Thanks for Lucas update.
Eddie
Even Feo? People on here are being very harsh about Theo. At the beginning of the season (with Santi, I know) everyone was raving about him and his new work rate and runs and goals and stuff like that.
My guess is that Mrs Theo is a leftie, and expects him to be all girly and get up in the night to feed and change Theo Junior. The bloke is bloody knackered. Give Mrs T a hard time by all means 🙂
Tin hat on. Head down. Incoming
Ant’s 9:50
So so good it’s becoming a classic
micky – strangely enough I was thinking about footballers and babies. And WAGs. Do you really think they get up in the middle of the night to feed a baby? Or change a shitty nappy? And lose out on the beauty sleep? No way Jose. They have nannies, I am sure of that. And probably a paid father figure to kick the ball in the garden when daddy is ‘at work’. And I know for a fact they eat a lot and Colleen Rooney admitted they have a huge kitchen but she doesn’t cook!
Look at the prices of really good pots and knives. Only rich people can afford such luxuries. And yet rich people don’t bother cooking. So who buys the bloody pots worth £1000s ???
Can we win the CL? Is it too early to start dreaming?
they eat OUT a lot
Motning all.
whats happening? we need a few lines to start celebrating properly. Should I do something quick and dirty?
yes arnie, of course you should
yes, indeed, 15 mins. 🙂
some thoughts sent to nuts! 🙂
New Post
Apologies for any errors. Not easy on my phone.