Arsenal FC – Our away record against Everton

April 5, 2019

Everton was founded in 1878 by the St Domingo Methodist New Connexion Chapel in Breckfield Road North; it was named St Domingo FC and was created so that members of the congregation could play football as well as cricket. The club was renamed Everton in November 1879 to allow people outside of the congregation to participate.

The lock up tower featured on Everton’s club crest

On April 17, 1888 Everton became a founding member of the Football League.

Representatives of the Blues along with Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers met at the Royal Hotel in Manchester.

The move followed concerns that too many friendly games were being cancelled thereby depriving the clubs of gate money, and playing a set number of matches home and away should offset any losses derived from losing friendly matches.

Membership was set at £2 2s a year.

Everton’s nickname “The Toffees” or “The Toffeemen”, came about after Everton moved to Goodison. One of the possible reasons for the nickname was that there was a business in Everton village, named Mother Noblett’s, it was a toffee shop that sold sweets including the Everton Mint. It was also located opposite the lock up which Everton’s club crest is based on. The Toffee Lady tradition in which a girl walks around the perimeter of the pitch before the start of a game tossing free Everton Mints into the crowd symbolises the connection. Another possible reason is that there was a house named Ye Anciente Everton Toffee House in nearby Village Street, Everton, run by Ma Bushell. The toffee house was located near the Queen’s Head hotel in which early club meetings took place

Goodison Park clock 1970s

(Joe Mercer was born in Ellesmere Port in 1914. He joined Everton as a youngster and forced himself into the first team on a regular basis in 1935. Developing quickly, he became England’s left-half. The Second World War came and went and Sergeant Major Mercer, captain of his country, returned to Goodison Park having won 26 wartime caps. When he returned Everton had both a captain and a manager and Mercer, no longer a figure of responsibility became disconsolate. Arsenal heard about his disenchantment and signed him in late 1946 for £7,000. )

In 1925 they signed Dixie Dean from Tranmere Rovers.

Prior to the final game of the 1927-28 season Dean had been injured but was declared fit to play just before the kick off; the game was at home to Herbert Chapman’s legendary Arsenal side, he needed to get a hat-trick for the league scoring record. The Gunners had the famous Charles Buchan playing his final match before retirement in their defence and he was eager to ensure Everton’s young upstart didn’t steal his show. It was, however, undeniably Dean’s day. He scored the third goal of his hat trick and the record 60th of the season in the 85th minute. His record stands to this day.

A reporter wrote – “You talk about explosions, and loud applause; we have heard many explosions, and much applause in our long pilgrimage, but, believe us, we have never heard such a prolonged roar of thundering, congratulatory applause before as to that which ascended to heaven when Dixie broke the record.”

He scored 37 hat tricks for Everton – First: 17/10/1925, Last: 7/11/1936.

(Tommy Lawton one of the greatest goal scorers of his or any age began his career with Burnley and moved to Everton for £6,500, as an eventual replacement for Dixie Dean, in March 1937. He helped the club win the League title in 1939. In November 1953, Lawton was traded to First Division champions Arsenal for £7,500.)

Domestic Honours:

* 1st Division Champions (9): 1890–91, 1914–15, 1927–28, 1931–32, 1938–39, 1962–63, 1969–70, 1984–85, 1986–87

* 2nd Division: Winners (1): 1930–31

* FA Cup: Winners (5): 1905–06, 1932–33, 1965–66, 1983–84, 1994–95

* FA Charity Shield: Winners (9): 1928, 1932, 1963, 1970, 1984, 1985, 1986 (shared), 1987, 1995

European Honours:

* European Cup Winners Cup: Winners: (1): 1984–85

 

AFP

Everton’s 2018-19 home record.

Thirty one games played and we are down to our final seven games of the season; Sunday will be the first of the five away games we have to play and none of them will be easy.

If we win all seven games we will be guaranteed both third place and a place in the 2019-20 Champions League.

My breath is bated and I await the games with a great deal of nervous anticipation.

GunnerN5

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Posted by Bongo

The Run In

April 4, 2019

Can anyone explain the fixture list?

Why do Spurs have five home games remaining (4 after last night)  and we have 5 away? I know they play at Wembley which could have affected their programme but surely not to this extent.

Man Utd: 4 home, 2 away. We all know how much the FA love their pre-eminent brand, as do the big European clubs who still believe the hype about MU being a “Glamour Club” whilst knowing they are comfortably beatable.

Chelsea have 3 home and 3 away.

This gives a clear advantage to MU and Spurs.

Confirmation Bias? You bet.

Wouldn’t have happened under Herbert Chapman.

Unknown-1.jpeg

BR

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Posted by Erik the Red

Is Guendouzi really lightweight, Mesut really lazy, Mustafi an accident waiting to happen?

April 3, 2019

One of the topics of discussion from the Arsenal Toon game was Matteo Guendouzi and how different spectators see different things when watching his performances. This brings me to ‘confirmation bias’. Basically we choose what we want to see and, one would imagine that in terms of football fans, this phenomenon is positively viral in its contagion.

Here’s the Wiki definition of the term …..

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favour, and recall information in a way that confirms one’s pre-existing beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.

Back to some specific examples. Mattteo Guendouzi is still ten days away from not being a teenager anymore. Before coming to Arsenal he played a handful of games for Lorient in his debut season of 2016/17 (Lorient were relegated). He featured 21 times in the following season in the French second tier and Lorient finished 7th. So far this season he has made 34 (23 League) appearances across all competitions for a top 6 EPL side.  This is just background and may or may not be of any significance.

Photo by Stuart MacFarlane/Arsenal FC via Getty Images

What do you think the answer to the question is, ‘Does Guendouzi get caught in possession more times on average than Granit Xhaka or than Lucas Torreira?’ The answer is probably that for central midfielders, they all get caught a similar number of times – it’s the nature of the position to a certain extent, especially as the high press is the current fashion for every Klopp, Pep and Wagner.

How about ‘Does Guendouzi make more misplaced passes than the other two?’ Their pass accuracy percentages are 87.7, 87.6 and 85.2. Matteo top, then Lucas followed by Granit. Granit plays twice as many long balls per game which probably accounts for part of this difference.

Is Mesut lazy? If so, why does he clock up so many k’s over a season. (2016/7 season figures given just because they were handy)

2016/7 season

Is Shkodran Mustafi an accident waiting to happen? Does he launch into ‘flat on his a*se’ tackles at every available opportunity? If this is the case, why does he top the stats for tackles for the whole Arsenal squad?

It’s not so very far back that Aaron Ramsey was always slated on Arsenal blogs across the world for slowing the game down, being ponderous on the ball and indecisive when it came to the crunch. Now that he’s leaving, he’s suddenly become the best player since Zidane and absolutely crucial to Arsenal’s team play. Where does the truth lie? Somewhere in the middle, maybe?

Many Arsenal fans (well, it’s probably true for all fans of other teams, too) like to have their favourite players and also the ones they just can’t bear to see on the teamsheet. AdeBarnDoor was a prime example, Walcott another. What I find difficult to understand is that if you make up your mind that a particular player is pants, what do you do when they have a good game? Do you celebrate any goals they might score?

My particular strongest confirmation bias is against refs. Why are they all against us? Don’t they like the red and white shirts? Are they all from the North West? (Most are, as it happens 🙂 ). I realise that a lot of the time it’s irrational, but hell, I’m blowed if I’m going to stop doing it. I love it.

Anyway, enough of this waffle. All I’m saying is that we all see what we want to see and have our own multitudinous confirmation biases going on in our heads every time we watch a game.

After all, that’s where varying opinions come from and is partly what makes blogging or shooting the breeze in the pub so popular.

Thoughts?

chas

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Posted by Bongo

Arsenal 2 Newcastle 0 – Player Ratings

April 2, 2019

No Xhaka, no Kos, Curly is last man standing with Torreira banned. Iwobi gets a run with Auba and Micki as firepower off the bench.

First Half

Consider the Benitez Bus well and truly parked – the wheels were off and it was being shoved backwards and forwards across the 18 yard box on a massive trolley jack.

Nothing to speak of in the first 30 apart from a seemingly perfect goal from Ramsey ruled out by the replusive Taylor for some ‘six of one and half a dozen of the other’ shirt tugging which had no influence on the goal.

Finally a ball broke for us in the area with a cannily crafted assist from two Magpie defenders; Rambo’s left slotting it in off the far post.

Newcastle had one token effort from Rondon which was going wide before some nice interchange created the best chance of the half when Laca swivelled but his shot miraculously cannoned off a square head to leave the score at 1-0 at the break.

Halftime foul count Arsenal 8 Newcastle 4 – yeah right.

Second Half

More of the same from Newcastle – a tedious desire to suck the life out of a game of football.

Auba for Iwobi had an immediate effect. His pace was electric down the right wing but couldn’t quite find Laca with a driven cross. The second when it came was the same combination, an Auba header and Laca slipping round the back to lob the keeper.

Stuart MacFarlane on twitter

The chances now started to flow properly and we should have had a third when Taylor decided he’d seen a handball from Laca which came off a massive goalkeeping glove! He really was terrible tonight – the comical booking of SeadK straight out of the Mike Dean book of celebrity reffing.

Conclusion

A perfect start to April with Newcastle being the only fools on Fools’ Day. Bus parking got exactly what it received – absolutely sweet FA.

Ratings

Leno – nothing to do against the shot shy Toon  ….. 7

Ainsley – recovered from his knock and played competently throughout   ….. 7

Shkod – some on social media still having a pop even when he does nothing wrong -smh ….. 7

Papa – solid, steely, indefatigable ….. 8

Nacho – another fine performance from La Cabra – ridiculous booking dished out by the man from the Manchester region   ….. 8

Wardrobe – rampaging and rollocking, just couldn’t find that crucial final ball ….. 7

Guendouzi – still caught in possession too often but with no protection from the ref – must have touched the ball most? – never hides ….. 7

Ramsey – crucial goal – not sure what his injury was as he jogged off comfortably enough ….. 7

Iwobi – tried to unpick the bus station doors to no avail  ….. 7

Ozil – all over the pitch, needs to take his class to some away grounds     ….. 8

Laca – didn’t look like he was going to have a right place, right time night until he popped up chasing Auba’s header ….. 8

Subs

Auba – made a difference – he really suits that last half hour cameo  ….. 8

Elneny – he came, he saw, he Mo’ed ….. 7

Micki – time wasting sub to allow Mesut to get an ovation

Managers

Emery – Everything right again at home against an uninspiring negative Newcastle team – Let’s come up with an away plan now, Unai ….. 8

The Spanish Wagner – Tediousness personified ….. 3

Referee – so many calls wrong it was ridiculous – no wonder we can’t provide refs for big international tournaments – he’s meant to be one of the better ones …. 0

chas

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Magpies Munificence?

April 1, 2019

Firstly, thank you to all those who wrote posts during the interminable interlull, you are heroes to a man.

Tonight we get a proper game of football. None of that International nonsense – IMO the World Cup is interesting but the rest … mwaah.

Yesterday saw Spurs get Spurssy and both the Chavs and United once again bribing the officials (allegedly). The fight for the Top 4 is going to be very exciting.

Which makes tonight a must win game. You all know the runners and riders for the run-in so you are already aware that we must win our home games ahead of a tricky run of away fixtures.

Benitez brings an under-fire team to the Emirates. The fans are unhappy. The football the Barcodes are playing is uninspiring with a reliance upon defence, and we will witness this tactic tonight. Benitez has done a fine job under trying circumstances, working to reverse the decline in a huge club but narrowly escaping relegation is not enough. It wouldn’t be at Arsenal and neither is it at Newcastle.

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A blogger (can’t remember who) wrote that in the late 90’s Newcastle had the 5th biggest turnover in World football. Could they sign Shearer today? No chance.

Should we win tonight, it will be our 10th successive home victory, it would also give us more points than we won last season with 7 games to go. Mr Emery is doing well.

There is a fitness test for Xhaka but our other Internationals are fit and the remainder of the squad are rested and tanned following their trip to Dubai. Imagine how much money they must have spent in those fancy shops, it would be in the millions!

Newcastle have 9 clean sheets this season which is 4th best in the league ( I won’t tell you where we sit), so we can expect a frustrating night unless we score early. Given this, I anticipate AMN (Cons) will start ahead of Mustafi because we have no need to play a Back 4.

Is there a better creative midfield 3 than Mhki, Aaron and Mesut? Now Mr Emery has coached them to play together we look formidable. With Iwobi or Wardrobe supplying width on the left, we have balance. Terrier to replace one of the midfield should we be in front after 70 mins.

I am relatively confident, are you?

COYRRG

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What does April hold in store for Emery’s Arsenal?

March 31, 2019

Three Monday night games. Two home games, four aways in the Prem and a Europa quarter final against Napoli. Pretty exciting maybe?

Of the three Monday night games only one is at home, which just so happens to be tomorrow night against Newcastle. On April Fools’ night the UK parliament is going to, yet again, attempt to extract its head from its back passage.  Don’t hold out much hope for that, but at least we have a fighting chance of turning Newcastle over!

Next Sunday, March 7th, sees us at Goodison with a 2.05pm kick off. The Toffees are on the up and we’ll need to be better than the chavs were on their recent visit to the wild wastelands of the North West if we want to come away with something.

Mesut scores in a 5-2 win at Goodison in October 2017

We’re back at the Emirates on the 11th for the home tie of the Napoli QF. It’ll be interesting to see Unai’s priorities for each game in this really busy month. At present the League appears our best route to a CL place since we sit in a top 4 place (well we did before the mancs luckily sneaked past Watford yesterday). Juggling both Prem and Europa balls is going to be tricky. One game at a time, I suppose. 🙂

The subsequent EPL game is away to Watford on Monday the 15th April, which does gives us an extra day after the Napoli game to regroup if you were trying to look for the positives of Monday night footie. Watford are a bit up and down but can be a stern proposition at Vicarage Road if it gets buzzing and Deeney puts that hideous mask on again.

Three days later we head to Naples, hopefully to finish off the job we begun in London. This is Arsenal, though, so don’t expect 3-0 at home and a clean sheet away in Italy. We don’t do easy.

The distance to the pitch in Naples will help but it’ll still be a hostile atmosphere

Yet another three day break follows and on the 21st we entertain Crystal Palace at THOF for the 4pm kick off. I’m particularly excited about this one as it’s my next trip to see the boys in the flesh.

Wolves in midweek on the 24th of April will be a tall order after such an intensive series of games, but if we can’t match them under the Molineux floodlights ….. we shall see. For some reason, this fixture seems one of the trickiest of the month, so expect us to cruise it.

April is topped off on the 29th with the third Monday Night Football we’ll have to endure over the next month. Away at Leicester is never easy but it just so happens to be the venue for my favourite away trip fixture of recent years when we beat them 5-3 and the beer was just delicious.

All in all a very busy, very exciting and potentially rewarding month is in store for Unai’s Arsenal. After the arid, uninspiring desert that was the second half of March, it’s going to be a headlong, bumpy sprint riding on the back of a camel desperate to dip its head into the oasis.

Before you go, what do you think the dippers v spuds score might be this afternoon? Take a punt

chas 

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Arsenal FC – Our home record against the Magpies

March 30, 2019

Newcastle United Football Club (based in Newcastle upon Tyne) was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End. Their home ground has been St James’ Park since the club’s foundation the ground was developed into an all-seater stadium in the mid-1990s and has a capacity of 52,354. The club has been owned by Mike Ashley since 2007, succeeding long term chairman and owner Sir John Hall.

Rodney Bewes and Ian Le Frenais St James’ Park 1972 – Newcastle Chronicle

The club is the 17th-highest revenue producing club in the world in terms of annual revenue, generating €169.3 million in 2015. Newcastle’s highest placing was in 1999, when they were the fifth-highest revenue producing football club in the world, and second in England only behind Manchester United.

Newcastle has been a member of the Premier League for all but three years of the competition’s history and has been in the top four on five occasions.

Currently Newcastle is eighth in the Premier League all time table.

The club’s top goal scorer is Alan Shearer, who scored 206 goals in all competitions between 1996 and 2006. Andy Cole holds the record for the most goals scored in a season: 41 in the 1993–94 season in the Premier League. Shay Given is the most capped international for the club, with 134 appearances for Republic of Ireland.

Newcastle Club Honours

Football League First Division: Winners (4) – 1904–05, 1906–07, 1908–09, 1926–27

Second Division / Championship: Winners (4) – 1964–65, 1992–93, 2009–10, 2016–17

FA Cup: Winners (6) – 1910, 1924, 1932, 1951, 1952, 1955

FA Charity Shield: Winners (1) – 1909

European – Inter-Cities Fairs Cup: Winners (1) − 1969

UEFA Intertoto Cup: Winners (1) − 2006 (Outright Winner)

Woolwich Arsenal’s inaugural Football League appearance was played before a crowd of 10,000 at the club’s “new” ground, the Manor Field in a Division 2 game against Newcastle United on September 2nd 1893 and ended in a 2-2 draw.

Here’s a Arsenal History match report of that first ever game in the Football League.

Classic Match Report: Arsenal v Newcastle 2 September 1893

Arsenal has won 17 of our 23 home games against Newcastle with the last loss coming on November 10, 2010.

Theo scores in the 7-3 thriller of December 2012

Ray Kennedy beats Bobby Moncur April 1971

Hopefully our good home form will see us over the line against the barcodes.

GunnerN5

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Posted by Bongo

Arsenal’s Century Club – Joe Hulme

March 29, 2019

Nineteen players have achieved the feat of scoring 100 goals for the Club over the past 96 years. The players are sorted by the number of games taken to reach the 100 goal mark. Joe Hulme sits at number 18.

Joseph Harold Anthony Hulme (26 August 1904 – 27 September 1991) was born in Stafford.

Early on he played for the Stafford YMCA usually on the right wing. He started his career in non-league football in October 1922 with York City and moved on to Blackburn Rovers in February 1924 where he made 74 league appearances.

In February 1926 Arsenal manager Herbert Chapman was looking for a fast skilful winger and he purchased Joe Hulme for £3,500. He joined a team that included – David Jack, Jimmy Brain, Jack Lambert, Bob John, Jack Butler, Andy Neil, Jimmy Ramsey, Billy Blyth, Cliff Bastin, Herbert Roberts, Alf Baker and Tom Parker.

Joe Hulme made his debut against Leeds United on 6th February 1926. He was an immediate success and by the end of the first season Hulme’s startling pace had become his trade mark, his main trick being to push the ball past the opposing full-back then tear past him.

Photo by Barratts/PA Images via Getty Images

Hulme won his first international cap for England against Scotland on 2nd April 1927. England won the game 2-1. Hulme retained his place in the team and that year played against Belgium (9-1), France (6-0), Northern Ireland (0-2) and Wales (1-2). Other members of the England team that year included Dixie Dean, Tom Cooper, Stanley Earle, Edward Hufton and Alf Baker.  In total Joe won nine caps for England, between 1927 and 1933.

In October 1927, Herbert Chapman signed Eddie Hapgood, a 19 year old milkman, who was playing for non-league Kettering Town for a fee of £750. This was followed by the purchase of David Jack (£10,000), Cliff Bastin (£2,000) and Alex James (£8,750).

In the 1929-30 season Arsenal finished in 14th place in the First Division. However in the FA Cup they beat Birmingham City (1-0), Middlesbrough (2-0), West Ham United (3-0) and Hull City (1-0) to reach the final against Chapman’s old club, Huddersfield Town. Arsenal won the game 2-0 with goals from Alex James and Jack Lambert and Joe Hulme had his first cup winners’ medal.

Joe Hulme on the right

The following season Arsenal won their first ever First Division Championship with a record 66 points. The Gunners only lost four games that season. Jack Lambert was top-scorer with 38 goals. Other important players in the team included Joe Hulme, Frank Moss, Alex James, David Jack, Cliff Bastin, Eddie Hapgood, Bob John, Jimmy Brain, Tom Parker, Herbert Roberts, Alf Baker and George Male.

Joe Hulme scored his 100th goal for Arsenal in his 307th game.

In January 1938 Hulme was transferred to Huddersfield Town. His last senior appearance was in the 1938 FA Cup Final against Preston North End making him the first player ever to appear in five Wembley cup finals.

Honours

Arsenal

Football League Division 1 winner – 1930–31, 1932–33, 1933–34, 1934–35

FA Cup winner – 1930, 1936

FA Cup finalist – 1927, 1932

Huddersfield Town

FA Cup finalist – 1938

Joe Hulme was also a fine all round cricketer he was a right-handed middle order batsman, right-arm medium bowler and superb deep fieldsman. He represented Middlesex 223 times between 1929 and 1939 and accumulated 8,103 runs (av. 26.56) with twelve centuries and a top score of 143. He hit 1,000 runs in a season three times with a best of 1,258 (av. 34.94) in 1934. He bagged 89 wickets (av. 36.40) with a best of 4 for 44 and he held 110 catches.

1936 Middlesex CCC – Denis Compton and Joe Hulme – Colorsport

After World War II he worked as a police reserve and played for the Metropolitan Police side; he went on to manage Tottenham Hotspur for four years after which he became a sports journalist up until his retirement in 1965.

He passed away at Winchmore Hill, Middlesex, aged 87, on September 26, 1991.

GunnerN5

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Shkodran Mustafi – give the man a break!

March 28, 2019

This post was prompted by yet more whingeing from Arsenal fans about Mustafi after a failed block in a friendly in Dubai, for heaven’s sake. 

Shkodran Mustafi signed for Arsenal from Valencia in August 2016 for a reputed fee of £35m. In his first two seasons under Arsene Wenger he played 26 and 27 games respectively, missing a few games in both with hamstring and thigh muscle problems. For quite a while now, he has been the whipping boy of the Arsenal fans and many were hoping to see the back of him at the end of last season.

With the long-term injury to Kos, this never looked likely to happen. Under Unai Emery, Sokratis had been bought from Dortmund in the summer and Rob Holding chosen to fight for a first team place in preference to the unlucky Calum Chambers, who was sent out on loan to progress his playing time.

Looking a bit gormless isn’t a crime

Almost undetected, Herr Mustafi has become an invaluable part of the Arsenal squad. Unai Emery chose him to be the regular partner of Sokratis at the start of the season. When Papa was injured in October, Rob Holding stepped into the breach to partner Shkodran and quickly looked to be maturing into the role very nicely indeed. Rob’s injury in the away game at the Old Cowshed has been absorbed by the gradual return of Captain Koscielny and by Papa establishing himself as a no-nonsense old school defender who can adjust to the rigours of Premier League football.

Throughout these upheavals, and aside from a hamstring in December which kept him out for 7 games, Mustafi has been a constant in the Arsenal defence. Admittedly part of that has been down to the shift to a back three to allow Sead Kolasinac into his favoured left wing back position, but even so, Shkodran has never baulked at his opportunities to pull on the red and white (or pistachio!) shirt of the mighty Gunners.

His 24 appearances are testament to that. So far he has played 1987 minutes of Arsenal League season, the 5th highest.  Can he really be as terrible as everyone makes out? Let’s take a look at some of his other stats.

Shkodran makes on average 3.4 aerial duels per game which is the highest for any Arsenal player. He also tops Interceptions at 1.9 p.g.  and Clearances 5.3 p.g. These are not the stats of the completely incompetent player we see described all over the Arsenal blogosphere.

How about his passing? Is it the accident waiting to happen constantly mentioned on twitter. Well, it’s surprising to find out that he’s third on the list of Arsenal passers at 1319 in terms of volume, a hundred less than 2nd placed Torreira. Yes, a fair few of those have been sideways or back to the keeper as the team attempts to implement Unai’s ‘playing out from the back’ policy, but his pass accuracy is 83% and according to the official stats he hasn’t made any errors directly leading to a goal.

His tackles made and fouls conceded per game are both 4th in the list and he sits on 6 yellows, the same as Torreira, 2 behind Xhaka and 3 behind our imperturbable Greek. Have we paid for his perceived tendency to launch himself into reckless challenges? It appears not quite as much as his reputation would have us believe.

Yes, he may end up on his backside on occasion and the odd pass may go astray but all players make mistakes. The odd lapse shouldn’t discount the other 98% of a player’s overall performance. Can anyone remember when Koscielny was coming under constant criticism for not being good enough in his first couple of seasons?

Shkodran played in one of our best performances at home to Liverpool, was subbed on 70 minutes in the thrilling home victory against the spuds with Arsenal pushing for the win and he also scored the first goal away at Man U.

Yes, our first choice centre back pairing has become Kos and Papa in a back four but don’t rule out a few more starts for Mr Mustafi in the run-in – especially if we go to a back 5 to make room for the Bosnian battering ram.

Here’s Mustafi’s bullet header from the away game in Cardiff back in early September.

This season Unai has relied on the German Albanian enough for him to have started 80% of our League games. In a reasonably successful season so far for the Club, can we really say Mustafi hasn’t earnt his money as a decent squad player?

I suppose what I’m getting at is, regardless of what may or may not happen in the summer, please cut poor old Shkodran some slack. He may well yet play a crucial part in this season’s finale as we seek a CL place, be it either through the League, or via the Europa Cup.

chas

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Posted by Bongo

What makes a great Coach?

March 27, 2019

I have been watching with jaw agape the massive improvement in Raheem Sterling and wondered what has happened. This chap went from being a raw, undisciplined teenager at Liverpool into becoming, one of the best players in the PL. He excites. Then the penny dropped … Guardiola.

One of the essential qualities of the good coach is the ability to improve a player and help him reach their maximum potential. A manager/coach can come into a successful team and get them playing better – the new manager bounce is well known, but anyone can do that, think Roberto Di Matteo or OGS. It takes real talent to truly improve the team and the individual players, there are not many who can.

Of the current managers Klopp and  Guardiola are the first who spring to mind.

Klopp: This chap can clearly coach. Just look at Jordan Henderson. Used to be a Denilson, now a Gilberto Silva. Or Milner, was Stephen Hillier, now Ray Parlour. Up front Salah has gone from Sanogo to Ian Wright!

Guardiola: He has improved players throughout his career. Messi was a water carrier before Pep got to work (joke). Bernard Silva, Walker, Sterling etc are proof of his prowess.

Then there are the coaches who take a team and get them to punch above their wight – Eddie Howe and, this season’s probable Manager of the Year, Nuno Santo at Wolves,.

And what of our chap, Mr. Emery?

So far so good, but let’s look at how he is doing with individual players. Who has improved under his coaching – certainly Rob Holding. Before his injury the lad wasa revelation. Iwobi has become integral to the team. Xhaka is also much improved as is Lacazette. So, was Bellerin. The chap who has made the biggest advancement is Kolasinac, who has become an automatic first choice when last season he was a liability.

Young players are coming through under Emery’s tutelage with Douzi leading the way.

Players flocked to Wenger’s Arsenal because they knew he could improve them, I think Emery has the same ability – it bodes well.

written by BR

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Posted by Erik the Red

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