Use this thread for general daily football discussion.
This thread can also be used to discuss Transfer rumours and to post Tier 4 sources.
If I have to read “the referee had no choice but to send Rice off” one more time, I’m going to explode and take a city block with me.
The City block? :)
Don’t give me any felonious ideas, lol
The entire appeals process is so broken. It seems like the only time there’s any serious impetus is at the end of the season, when the clubs vote.
I do so enjoy how no one ever bats an eye when City players feign injury to get out of meaningless (yes, meaningless) international fixtures but our boys are the “Pride of England” and constantly get fed into the woodchipper.
So, Nwaneri & Havertz in front of Thomas? With Trossard or perhaps Sterling up front? Makes me nervous, but would be pretty good fun to see that line up kick that lot up the ass.
Given the circumstances this sounds like the best possible lineup. Could be Nwaneri’s time to really shine and stand his place in the starting XI. He surely knows the chaos of the NLD, so he should be ready to some degree.
The thought is equal measures expiring and terrifying
Predictably, every Arsenal podcast this week has been discussing depth and how much rotation is the right amount of rotation. City and Real are the two examples held up - while they both have great depth, the star players play star player minutes and they start the majority of matches.
I think the difference between us and them is a) 500M euros, but that’s not important right now, and b) the desire/ability to win games early and shut up shop. The late winners we had last season were exciting, but the additional minutes put into Saka/Odegaard/White/Gabriel/Saliba’s legs add up. That’s why I’m so excited about Merino - say what you will about Route One, but it’s significantly less physically taxing. I would really like to see more of that going forward. We might be able to do this vs Spurs, but we definitely can’t against City. My hope, however, is that between Spurs and Atalanta, we’ll see some different patterns emerge.
Sigh. Injuries are going to screw us this season aren’t they?
When haven’t they?
Last season, arguably. We had incredible luck keeping Saliba, Gabriel, Havertz, and Saka fit. Sadly, this season may be a regression to the mean. We might end up behind Liverpool, who also had terrible injury luck last season.
tbh our left side got constantly decimated last season ngl. IMO we did good in spite of our injuries. Hell, Nketiah started 10 games at the start of the season.
True, maybe we didn’t notice because we funnel everything through the right side anyway
I’d argue we’re putting the cart before the horse there. We funnel everything through the right because Saka, but also because the left side hasn’t been able to find consistency and form. In 22/23 we consistently used Martinelli/Xhaka as an outlet.
Mmmm, maybe you’re right. The left side has been constantly chopping and changing and the right has been White-Odegaard-Saka for two years now?
Holy shit, international breaks are such a chore. This one is long enough to be boring but not long enough for Merino to recover from his injury.
Fuck… Sounds like Odegaard picked up a pretty bad into in Norway’s match. This is not good! We have basically no creative replacement for him for the NLD.
Ake stretchered off so there’s that
Oh, what a tragedy. I guess Pep will have to pick someone else from his stable of defenders.
Sarcasm aside, at least we’re not the only ones.
Cross everything you have that Arteta Jedi mind tricks on Carsley are effective. Zero minutes for Bukayo, please.
It’s over.
