You have to put yourself in his shoes the last time his team tried to play football against us they were hammered I think 9:0 I vaguely remember, he got the sack after that.
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I am at Heathrow waiting for my flight to the US and I read this 
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And yet, they scored four goals during their three first PL matches, and scored two against Derby in the league cup. They lost 3-0 against Tottenham, but had chances during that game. So they haven’t been that bad going forward until now. You don’t give our lads enough credit for their defensive work imo. It was top notch.
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Given how long I’ve been hanging around the place you’d have thought I’d have learned by now.
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A social algorithm served me some Arsenal content the other day. Two of their fans arguing about whether they’re actually good enough to challenge.
One of them was saying “we went to Anfield and were unlucky to lose and that’s our hardest game.” The other replies “that isn’t our hardest game. Our hardest game will be home to Palace or away at Brentford because they’re the games we’ll go into assuming we’ll win and then drop points. At Anfield they’ll all be up for it.”
Was about the most sensible thing I’ve seen one of their fan channel contributors ever say. No game is easy at this level. Teams like Burnley will do all they can to stifle a player like Wirtz as they know he could tear them to shreds otherwise. If you want to question his start then fine, but that’s going to be a tough game for him due to the lack of space.
He’s been brought in to help us win those games and did as much as anyone to unlock the door. But for him to succeed we’ve got to find ways to help pull players out of position and if everyone is having a bit of a “it’s only Burnley” type game then it’s not going to make his job any easier.
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I thought Wirtz had a half decent game. Ok, he didn’t find the killer pass or score, but he kept showing for it, and kept probing away. He is doing his job, steadily so far to be fair, but there is more to come. I see the touch he has, the vision he has, the ability to play off both feet, etc. As the movement of the others is learned I think it will click a bit more. I think he is going to link up with Isak a treat and I can’t wait to see that.
With all that said, Burnley’s approach to the game meant that a win was far from guaranteed, no matter who you put on the pitch to pick the lock.
They almost got a heroic draw, but in the end we got a deserved win - not deserved because we were playing stellar stuff, but deserved because under very difficult circumstances we kept going to find that breakthrough.
I always thought that the key this season for us will be to keep in touch at the top while the performance level improves as we go. So far it is four wins on the bounce, which is lovely, but I’d like to see some routine wins coming soon. An amped up Everton side will be a big challenge, as will Atletico on Wednesday.
Games are now coming thick and fast.
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Any chance that you could make your coffee after the first 5 minutes?
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Hey Rab, I haven’t questioned Wirtz I have the utmost faith in him and he is playing well enough but I also know he has higher levels that he can achieve.
Seems a lot of fans only see a players worth in goals and assists.
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Great post, I think the biggest points you make about building pressure is spot on and for a team playing that defensively is that they rely massively on luck and also being perfect, which is so difficult for 90 minutes.
This drains players not just physically but also mentally.
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Was not meant as a dig at you my friend. More a general observation about how quick some fans can be to come to their conclusion on players.
I think most know there’s more to come from him and now is not the time to judge, even if we’d all love to see him hit the ground running from day one.
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Better late than never mind 
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Scott Parker going full Brendan Rodger’s there
“Today at times we had to survive
We had to survive
Today we had to dig and go to places that not many human beings sometimes go to
It would have been easy to tap out
In life somethings there are a lot of people that tap out
My team did not tap out”
It’s like mixing WWF monologues with GCSE life coaching. 
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No it is not the same he was on medication in the Uk but a long haul flight might be DVT but they are still having a post Mortem.
He’s a poet
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There were a couple of times he got the ball into the box but there were no players getting on the end of it - as their movement and positioning let them down. I think that changes with Isak in the side.
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Just you wait until we lose a game…
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You think the punctuation will deteriorate even further?
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Well they used their arm same thing.
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The thing about Fergie Time it was often time no one seemed to know where it had come from, even after the boards were introduced he still seemed to get time added on top of it.
We’ve scored a goal (or in the case of Sunday been given the resulting action) in the alloted minimum time givn
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This narrative has wound me up no end.
We had five minutes of added time on Sunday, and it should have been double, the way Burnley were wasting time.
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