I bet Jeff would have been front of the queue to sign up had the Ukraine crisis happened in his youth.
Can’t be arsed with senile old men telling young people that they have to die for a country that they increasingly have no stake in, let alone trying somehow to equate it to a footballer refusing to play for their country.
Arsenal v Liverpool: Gunners fans banned for tragedy chanting during FA Cup tie:
I’m glad to see that they have taken action. TBH, I always thought Arsenal were one of the better clubs but I suppose anyone can attract dickheads.
Long before Arteta Arsenal fans were dickheads. Youre just fooled by the elegance of their team for the last 25 years into thinking their fanbase would mimic it.
They rain coins and bottles onto away fans every game.
Seems the Arse fans are cunts as much as stupid: like everything in life, if you lie through your teeth, you’ll never get caught. Just ask City or the Tories or Trump.
Happy Easter.
I’m afraid Mikel is a lost case when it comes to finding some eggs.
Predicted his approach to todays match a month ago or so but can not find my post anymore.
I M T I R E D R O B B I E
when’s it gonna end Robbie?!?!
You know, I don’t really blame him. Not many teams have the courage to have a go at Man City. It’s a bit like Ferguson’s Man United, it’s one of the main reasons they are winning so many trophies. It’s a bit funny, though, because Arteta used to be his second in command, one would think he knows a thing or two about how to rattle Man City.
If Arsenal fail to win the title this season, it will be twenty years since their last one, we know that feeling all too well, unfortunately. It will take time for them to become the winners but they probably have to be a bit more patient if they don’t win it now because Klopp will soon be gone and I can’t really see Guardiola staying much longer, especially if PL show some spine and throw the book at them.
A point away at a title contender is solid. They need help from someone to catch LFC, but the toughest remaining fixtures for either (by current table) are Villa and Spurs, arguably a tougher run-in that City has. They are very much in the race, this wasn’t the day to risk it all to close the gap on Liverpool.
One thing is to plan having a go, taking possession, another thing is actually succeeding at it. Not many teams, if any, are able to takeover possession against City. Arsenal already went with a “less possession” approach a few times under Arteta, even against lower level sides than City. From what I remember, they had good results when they opted doing so. But it wasn’t often of course.
They got the result they came for to be honest.
I think the issue might come in other games
Oh, I agree on this, I’m not forgetting that this is 115 FC we’re talking about. If you asked me at the start of every season, I’d bite your hand off for a point at Etihad. Nothing is lost for either, considering that there are nine more games to be played and that we have to play Man United, Everton and Aston Villa away - we all know that the former two will actually put up a lot of resistance (and those grounds make our players freeze for some reason).
So, I think that Arsenal will be really pleased with a point but this was a Man City team without Ederson, Stones and Walker (the former two are particularly important to their build-up) and they also lost Ake early in the match, while Kovačić was unusually wobbly. You’d think that Klopp would have smelled blood there and instructed the boys to exert more pressure at Man City’s wings. Arteta simply chose the passive approach, hoping that they would be able to nick it like they did earlier in the season.
I don’t think Arteta quite has the confidence in his side to open up a little in a match like that. I don’t think they controlled the play sufficiently to make him change his pre-conceptions. They did a decent job getting off the ropes late in the match, but in that 60’-75’ period they could easily have lost control.
I understand why the Ferguson comparison would come up, but Fergie’s sides were never as tactically defined as is the case in modern football. Putting Phil Neville in CM and asking him to sit deep and kick anything that moved isnt anywhere near as big a deviation from their normal as Arsenal’s approach was today. They have shown tactical versatility this season, and the presence of Jorginho in CM normally portends to an approach that lets the game come to them a bit more (kind of medium press where they dont start trying to win the ball back until the centre circle), but they still press aggressively in those areas and still try to dominate the game. What they did today was not that. It was abandoning what got them there. Arteta may claim that the result justified it, but this was a City there for the taking. They had the opportunity to land what would likely have been a KO punch on a dangerous opponent and didnt even try.
He spoke a bit before the game of the importance of playing the game and not the occasion, and he quite frankly now looks like a bit of pillock because they did today exactly what he was blustering about it being important not to do.
Thinking Arteta knew if that they had lost today… the wobble would have set-in and it would be curtains
Not for me.
They were on a 8 game winning run in the league with some impressive number of goals scored Already beaten City this season. Most goals scored / fewest conceded. City far from their best.
You want to go for the title? Go for it with everything you have today.
You want to stay in the title race for as long as possible? Cowardly change your approach like Arteta did today.
You could have understood the approach if we had dropped points a draw would have kept the status quo but we didn’t they had to win. Its like Arteta became obsessed with not losing and lost the fact its a 3 horse race this year not 2.
It’s like Southgate talking about improvement after three games without a win.
Poch saying ‘numbers say we should be very high in the table’
ETH saying ‘we’re not far away’ after getting beaten by City and being 16 points behind them.
It’s all about protecting yourself.
Or, just play your own game and do the things your players are good at. I don’t think it is any more high risk to do that than it was to sit back and let City have so much of the ball.
For me, I keep coming back to how on their arse City looked in the second half against us. I dont mean by any means to downplay how we good we were then, but if you’re arteta and think you can win the league then surely you back your guys to be at as good as that and let them go and replicate it.
Just seen numpty Lee Judge moaning about Taylor after not showing Rice the most obvious yellow all season.