In the recent seasons, teams like Chelsea, Totnum, Pool, and of course Leicester, have profited enormously by not being in the Champions League and being able to field injury free, fresh XI’s on the weekends following Continental outings for League competitors.
This season was our chance to capitalise on fielding the reserves midweek, leaving the First XI fighting fit to spearhead a determined League campaign.
Certainly we have been able to field a more consistent eleven, but capitalise we certainly have not.
Following Christmas, the FAC will kick in, as will more tricky Europa fixtures, demanding the attention of our full squad, and thus the playing field will level off in the league.
We have failed miserably to make hay, but as I mentioned before the season began, I have a suspicion we are a Cup side. The League is awfully demanding, what with having to huff and puff through terrible weather conditions over so many games, whereas with knockout tournaments, there are fewer games before glory.
Of course we are still right up there in the mix for top four, but frankly, that’s getting a bit tedious. I really did have high hopes for a genuine league challenge this time around, but that has all but evaporated despite being handed opportunities almost every weekend by the stuttering CL campaigners.
The Cups it is, I believe.
Written by MickyDidIt89
Arsenal News 24/7
arsenalarsenal.net 
oh dear, I think you are right. After 14 years of hoping it is time to capitulate. Or maybe not?
Leicester instantly spring to mind, but that was a one in a million situation where the vermins capitalised on top teams restructuring. It won’t happen again, not in my lifetime anyway.
I am not happy with cups and top four, and Thursday football. it is not enough for me and I see it as a huge underachievement of a club like AFC. Time for a change, big change.
Europa draw at 12 today
Possible opponents: Borussia Dortmund, Napoli, Celtic, Spartak Moscow, Astana, Partizan Belgrade, Ludogorets, AEK Athens, Lyon, FC Copenhagen, Steaua Bucharest, Marseille, Ostersunds, Nice, Real Sociedad
No Zenit who are in another pool. Bugger!
I’d prefer Napoli or Copenhagen (hello Erik).
If anyone else was wondering, Astana is the capital city of Kazakhstan.
Bloody cosmic. Not exactly Madrid or Naples is it 🙄
Oh, and Östersund is in Sweden
are you planning on going to Astana? That could be a trip of a lifetime, I bet more interesting than madrid or Naples. Go Didit, go!
In
Astana?
If it doesn’t say Italy on the destination board, I’d be hardly tempted to leave home, so Astana would be really, really, really low on the priority list
It is over…I really think we do better as a 4-3-2-1 and we need to do something with Xhaka because he is really costing us a lot of points. Ozil has changed his attitude so we can rely on him more for the defensive work.
Away line-up: Cech – Bellerin, Mustafi, Kos, Koli – Ramsey, Coquelin (or Monreal – am telling you he can be our Kante), Wilshere – Ozil, Sanchez – Giroud
Home line-up vs Top 9 teams: Cech – Bellerin, Mustafi, Kos, Koli – Ramsey, Coquelin, Wilshere – Ozil, Sanchez – Lacazette
Vs other teams:
Cech – Bellerin, Mustafi, Kos, Koli – Ramsey, Xhaka – Wellbeck, Ozil, Sanchez – Lacazette
Man City may have a dip butn ot worth 11 points…
We have a tough batle for top 4 and am sad to see that we are doing only slightly better than Burnley
I think that Wenger may offload some players at X-Mas. Let us loan out Iwobi and get Arda Turan from Barcelona and let us move for real midfield enforcer (Gueye, Illarament….) at X-Mas already
RC
The problem I have with my slightly eroded usual optimism, is that I now feel it makes little difference who laces up, the outcome is the same
We simply do not go at teams as though every second of every game counts and that wins mean more than life itself.
Thanks Micky.
Cup team? Silverware is the aim at the start of the season, so if we achieve said aim it must be a successful season.
If the game was predictable we wouldn’t watch it. Like everyone else, I have no idea which Arsenal we will see – the pressing team we saw vs Spurs, the attacking verve vs Huddersfield/MU/BATE or the strange disjointed effort of yesterday.
It is cobblers to say the league is over. Remember 97/8. MU were were 13 points ahead of us a Xmas. City are not as good as the Invincibles
Erik
Oh alright 🙂
Hey, I like Cup football as I like the life and death situation of winner takes all, knockout stuff, so yes, I’m more than happy to win cups. Leagues are for wimps 🙂
Please not Dortmund again. How about Ludogoets, Astana or FCK?
Didit. We don’t spend the money to win the league. Sad but nonetheless a fact. We spend €100m on Pogba and we are contenders, spend €30m on Xhaka and we are not.
Real Madrid vs PSG. What a cracking tie
Cheers, Micky.
We have definitely blown it.
Far too many shite results.
Even if we had made a better fist of our League campaign, we would still be nowhere near City’s points haul.
I’m just hoping they lose a game soon so that I can relax about the Invincibles record.
My assessment of the season so far – pretty garbage apart from beating the spuds.
How are Juve doing this season?
Should be tough for the spudulikas.
Hey we missed Dortmund Napoli and Atletico.
Astana still left in. 😊😊😊
Phew missed astana
Ostersunds it is.
Within range for you, BR?
Shit, missed the draws
Can anyone post the whole lot?
ha ha ha
Looking for draw, found this tweet
Incredibly, I have found a weather forecast for Ostersund on 15 February. Feel free to totally ignore it. It looks like it’s going to be cloudy with flurries of snow, and somewhere between -5C and -10C. On 15 February this year it got down to -7C
CL
Juventus v Tottenham Hotspur: 13 February & 7 March
Basel v Manchester City: 13 February & 7 March
Porto v Liverpool: 14 February & 6 March
Real Madrid v Paris: 14 February & 6 March
Chelsea v Barcelona: 20 February & 14 March
Bayern Munich v Besiktas: 20 February & 14 March*
Sevilla v Manchester United: 21 February & 13 March
Shakhtar Donetsk v Roma: 21 February & 13 March
Eurodisney
Borussia Dortmund v Atalanta
Nice v Lokomotov Moscow
Copenhagen v Atlético Madrid
Spartak Moscow v Athletic Bilbao
AEK Athens v Dynamo Kyiv
Celtic v Zenit St Petersburg
Napoli v RB Leipzig
Crvena Zvezda v CSKA Moscow
Lyon v Villarreal
Real Sociedad v Salzburg
Partizan Belgrade v Viktoria Plzen
Steaua Bucharest v Lazio
Ludogorets v Milan
Astana v Sporting
Ostersund v Arsenal
Marseille v Braga
Juventus v Tottenham
Basel v Manchester City
Porto v Liverpool
Sevilla v Manchester United
Real Madrid v PSG
Shakhtar Donetsk v Roma
Chelsea v Barcelona
Bayern Munich v Besiktas
https://twitter.com/fumbucker/status/940202830056640512
Ostersund, mmmm, looks like we can send the B team out there while the A team focus on the tilt to the title.
It’s never over until it’s over.
Thanks for the read Micky.
chas. A long drive but possible, however getting a ticket will be difficult as they only have a ground capacity of 8,000 😯
As LB says, we do not need to send out the first team.
Only negative of the draw was so few of the big teams being drawn together.
Erik
Might Ostersund be the kind of place to be heaving with stunning Swedish ladies and communal, tackle out saunas?
Have we been able to field a more consistent team thanks to the EL? I’m not convinced. It took a while before Özil, Sanchez and Lacazette played together, and our back 5 has been shuffled constantly due to injuries and rotation.
I was hoping that the EL would allow us an opportunity to get over poor results quickly by beating poor sides in Europe and thus allow us to be a bit more consistent, but because we play 2 entirely different teams, it hasn’t helped at all in that respect. What it should definitely have done is allowed us to play our best 11 more often and kept them fresh, but once again we have struggled with injuries in defence and it has highlighted, rather alarmingly, that beyond our first choice 11 we are not up to standard. Having Mertersacker or Holding as your next best CB is a prime example. It’s not good enough. Same goes for Elneny and Coquelin in midfield, Iwobi and Walcott out wide, Debuchy and anyone else at wing back etc etc.
Whilst our second squad may be good enough to get through a very easy EL group, I’m not sure they fit in well with our other first 11 players when it comes to the PL.
Micky. I believe so but then that is true of all Scandilands
FGG
In my well researched post I said we’ve been able to field a consistent First XI.
You say this isn’t true. You are right, I simply pay no attention to the detail. Or do any research.
I count goals scored and keep an eye out for fast incisive football.
That’s it. I’m weak and un-thorough 🙂
Now Erik. Sweden 🙂
Out of interest, given that it snows a lot in Feb up Sweden way, and it’s always -70, at least, how come there’s even the remotest chance of the game going ahead?
oh micky, you asked some fooking ridiculous questions for a seemingly intelligent guy.
In northern and eastern parts of Europe there are provisions made for severe winters, including extra warm long johns for the players, pink hot water bottles if they are Chavs, beverages for fans, meeting full approval of ant and his brother, free plentiful sex to keep the circulation going…they survive. Don’t worry, the game will go ahead
In this country it would cost millions to prepare for 2-3 days of winter, so it is cheaper to suffer the freezing inconvenience for a while.
December 11th
I’d like it if they fought from the start.
That blue kit is disgusting.
No wonder they play so badly in it. 🙂
https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/940457476650078208
https://twitter.com/lyallr/status/940250654911684608
I’m with FGG, last season by this stage the first XI would likely have played 20 odd games together only sitting out for the League Cup andmaybe tge odd rotation for injuries.
This season the first XI has only really featured in the League and even then with injuries etc the team has probably only played a handful of games together.
For me we have over rotated in Europa League and also under-utilised the squad in the League. Few of the squad can be dropped in to the first XI.
Hang on a mo. there Mr Exile
I didn’t get me facts right, however, we can’t have it both ways. So this term our good players play less and still get injured, whereas last season people kept going on about the advantage of non-cl teams having less fatigued superstars and more time to prep tactically for the next league fixture
Seems to me we haven’t gained an advantage on any front
ps could easily have my facts wrong again 🙂
pps Morning all
you removed another excuse from underperforming team. Congestion of fixtures and demanding CL games have no longer played part in poor performances.
Who’s the more effective left wing full half back, Sead or Nacho?
Morning All,
Too much mead last night and Festival of Sankta Lucia tomorrow. 😦
I used to walk my dog with Fanny Craddock and Johnie in Highgate Woods. Charming lady who wore a full length fur coat in winter much to the disgust of the Highgate lefties.
Nacho is getting on in years and perhaps doesn’t have the stamina required for the LWB role.
Cheers Micky. Have we blown it? Good question but I find myself facing up to it with an apathetic acceptance that this is what (deep down) I expected. If it was what I expected then I suppose I can’t feel we have blown anything.
I am not dismissing the money spent side of things but I feel it is often over-simplified and overused to excuse us each season now. Obviously it has an effect but it is not like we don’t have the opportunity to spend and I do feel that there are many other variable factors when comparing the impact of spending at each club that can’t always just be explained by 1 number or figure……does that make sense? 🙂
I am saying the same thing I have said for a few years now that there are far more intrinsic factors regarding the coaching and playing side, and the type of player recruited, that undermine us more than money and injuries and what competition we are in or not. I think our traditional missing 12-15 per season points (that take you to title challenging bracket) can be found right there in those intrinsic factors.
GB
Can I help you as you appear to be struggling to explain.
We’re shit and no-one gives a shit. Defeatest, victim mentality running down from the chairman to the whingy fans.
Weak, statist, lefties the whole shower
Helpful? 🙂 🙂
Eeeks, incoming, hatches down, dive dive dive
Just a continous thought:
If the Arsenal can play the same back 3 or 4 for 10 games in a row, there is a strong possibility that they can climb the table. Simple really, all other analysis to me does not matter until they get the D sorted.
Damn it, going to miss game tonight.
Please tell me it will be dull and Hammers are no longer the academy, rather pre-school boring bus parkers, then I won’t feel so bad
micky – the game tonight will be dull, Hammers are no longer the academy, rather pre-school boring bus parkers.
raddy – what is modern Dannish language like? Does it still resemble the old Dannish? I am asking because I absolutely abhor what is being done to Polish and English languages.
Modern Polish resembles English with native suffixes, for example ‘to a shop’ became ‘do shopu’ and Wayne Rooney ‘Wayna Rooneya’.
English is even worse. It is now accepted that ‘you was’, ‘would of’, ‘there’ instead of ‘their’ and no apostrophies. I hate it and I am sure chas does too.
Eddie, I hate how people replace No with Na and Yes with Yep
Morning All,
Really excited about tonight’s game. Moyes has already changed the Hammers style of play, modelling them on the Barca teams of Guardiola. They will attack, attack, attack and we will see goals aplenty.
Eddie. Danes are traditionalists and the language remains as it was. However, there is a tendency in the youth to litter their language with English swear words which annoys the f*** out of me. 😀
VP – yep, that’s the one 🙂
thanks for pointing it out to me, I use yep regularly.
Raddy – same in Poland, many cannot speak even Polish, yet they can swear in English better than me.
Big day for Eddie today, wish me luck
Eddie, Na ya dont do ya
Erik 🙂
I have my first ever Christmas do
Me, three geeks, and a soggy prawn cocktail for my crypto group
good luck Eddie
Eddie
Should we ask the reason?
Getting married?
Or divorced?
Hot date?
Cold date?
Probably an appointment with a lawyer . Good luck Eddie.
Micky. A crypto group has it Xmas party with caviar and shampoo. We had ours last night, it was a bacchanalian feast – think Babettes
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