to play Arsenal. This is not one where I’m expecting to get any of the eight or
so points that we need to survive but stranger things have happened and I saw
us win at Arsenal once in the league… in 1987 when I was 18. We have however won a couple of cup matches
here in recent seasons when Wenger has played all those brilliant youngsters
that they have who never amount to anything much. With Arsenal having had the
Europa league match on Thursday and another one next Thursday, maybe Monsieur
Wenger will rest a few today.
for pretty much everyone else. Their
fans are in the main, entitled dicks but for as big a club as they are to go so
long without a league title and not change the manager is somewhat
strange. The criticism used to be that
they never spent any money but Lacazette and Aubameyang arriving this season
suggests otherwise. They have sold
Oxlade-Chamberlain who was never going to amount to anything with them and
Sanchez has left for Man United which, as he wasn’t giving a shit was smart
business anyway. They are just the two
central defenders and two decent strong midfielders away from being title contenders
and we’ll be saying the same thing this time next year when Wenger signs his
next contract extension.
Meanwhile, back in the land of clubs with real issues, after the West Ham
abortion, Mark Hughes said that he would have learnt a bit about a number of
our players and hinted that would be changes for this week. All of the usual
social media whores were sensibly quiet this week with the exception of course
of our resident rock star model Mario Lemina who made two Instagram posts, one
of him poncing around in some sort of designer jacket in a male model pose and
the other one was him and his girlfriend in full Posh and Becks power couple
mode. Focus on the football and have the tiniest bit of self awareness you
fucking dick. Even Cedric knew it wasn’t the time
to model a spray on shirt for another boy band audition.
When the team was announced, Lemina was conspicuously absent from the 18. I am
hoping for the long-term good of everybody that this was because he is a dick
though to stop people asking questions, it was hidden behind the standard ‘virus’
excuse. There was certainly a few changes with those of decent character coming
back into the fray. Yoshida, JWP, Romeu and Long were all chosen to start.
There was a change of formation going to a back five so both Stephens and Hoedt
stayed in, as did Mr Boy Band himself at right back. Lemina’s absence saw the
welcome return of Oriol Romeu but the Serbian Cloak of Invisibility once again
protected Dusan Tadic and he yet again kept his place.
gives us more of a chance. The defence
was so makeshift that Calum Chambers got a chance. Elsewhere Wenger handed a
debut to midfielder Reiss Nelson. Upfront, they had Pierre Emerick Aubameyang who
is of course cup tied and therefore cannot play in the Europa League. He has started
his Arsenal career with five goals in six games so no worries for us then.
midfield looks to have a good balance to it and we have actually selected the
right forted JWP on the right and the left footed Tadic on the left. I am
genuinely shocked. You can tell it’s
5-4-1 because Hughes has obviously sent them out to give nothing away in the
first 10 so we are rigid as fuck – a line of 5, a line of 4 and letting Arsenal
have the ball and knock it around. The
thing we have in our favour is Chambers and Mustafi at centre backs for the
Gunners and one long ball finds Shane in space behind a floundering Chambers and
Marriner the ref fails to spot Chambers pulling Shane back. Shane surprisingly doesn’t hit the deck.
he misses Stephens long ball to Tadic and he should shoot but squares beding
JWP who has to try and dig it out from behind him with his left foot. He gets it past Cech but it’s easily cleared
from in front of the goal. We recycle
and it eventually falls to Tadic on the left who beats Elneny and again should
just smash it goalwards from the narrow angle but tries to pick out a player
and it’s cleared.
up, we are going forward well and with purpose.
JWP finds Tadic who in turn finds Cedric on the right and though he’s
running out of room, digs out a cross and what happens next is a surprise to
everyone. Not that Mustafi and Cech left
it to eachother but that Long darts in front of then both and deflects it past
the keeper and into the net for only his second goal since man landed on the
moon. Fucking hell, we’re winning…. And from
the restart, Arsenal cross it and Stephens wins a header. What’s going on?
good 10 minutes in the context of this shithouse of a season. We’re 1-0 up away and the home fans, those
that have bothered to turn up are pissed off with their team – then they have a
shot. 1-1. It’s one of those typical Arsenal goals. The ball goes in Aubameyang’s feet and two
quick passes and a flick by Welbeck and Aubameyang pokes it past McCarthy
whilst we play statues. Shit. It’s a good goal – you could be critical of the statues but it’s a good goal.
shot. A ball down the right to Welback
with Cedric out of position and Stephens commits the cardinal sin of showing a
right footed attacker inside, towards the goal and onto his good foot. Yoshida could bale him out but turns his back
on the shot and leaves a leg dangling out which deflects the ball, giving
McCarthy no chance at all. Fuck
sake. Half time.
half – neither. It’s all Arsenal vs
McCarthy. He beats out one from
Aubameyang and Arsenal then tee up Xhaka from the edge of the box and McCarthy
gets down low to keep out the ensuing piledriver. Great save.
It’s Iwobi’s turn to have a free hit from the edge of the box and again
McCarthy is equal to it. We are staying
in position but not making any tackles.
Get into them for fuck sake.
again. A superb move up the left with
Tadic to the fore ends with Hojbjerg drilling in an effort from the edge of the
box which Cech gets down well to save.
From the resulting corner, Hoedt flicks goalwards and Elneny heads off
the line – bastard. Another cross from
Tadic and up goes Shane and heads downwards with Cech again preventing it
finding the bottom corner. He’s almost
as good as McCarthy.
from the edge of the box and Long sidefoots in before going into full finger
wagging mode at the linesman. Replay… is
it offside? Of course it is. More Saints pressure after Welbeck attempts
to win a free kick with a dive and Hoedt creams one goalwards which Cech again
saves.
and The referee is obviously ill as we win our first free kick at the Emirates
since the ground was built. We play it
quickly and nearly create a chance for Long.
Cedric eventually picks it up, plays a 1-2 with Tadic and surges into
box, drops the shoulder and gets to the line before rolling across and there is
Austin to knock it in from a yard.
Superb from Cedric and I hope he buys himself a really really tight shirt to celebrate his second assist and it’s a deserved equaliser. Hughes switches to 4-1-4-1 with Shane wide
right and away we go.
favourite, the cross from our left into the Stephens/Cedric Corridor of Uncertainty and everyone
watches as Wilshere gets it back into the middle and Welbeck manages to miss an
open goal from one yard out. Then, THE
chance. A long ball, helped on by Tadic
and Austin is in behind the defence but on the stretch can only poke it to
Cech. The good news is that his
hamstring didn’t go.
and been kicked everywhere so he has to come off and interestingly, Hughes goes
to Sims ahead of Redmond and Boufal to come on and then disaster. Iwobi avoids Tadic’ pathetic efforts to stop
the cross, chips it into the Stephens/Cedric Corridor of Uncertainty and
Welbeck has an easy header into the net for 3-2. Fuck off.
shirt off his back, to which Jack responds with a kind of clothesline effort
which dumps Wilshere on his arse.
Stephens has to go but the horrible little twat Wilshere just gets a
yellow. I would imagine a 3 game ban
will follow for Stephens. Elneny then gets involved
in delaying the free kick, pushes Cedric in the face and Marriner decides to
even it up. If the ref had blown his
whistle when Wilshere first started hanging on to Stephens then two players wouldn’t
have been sent off. We have one final
effort which was a decent shot on the turn by Tadic which Cech again kept
out. The end… fuck it.
this defeat would be seen as some sort of unlucky heroic effort. We played
pretty well in fairness, especially when compared to the absolute bag of shit
that the other two games mentioned served up. It was a game that overall,
reminded me of the EFL Cup Final last year. We played well and at times look
threatening going forward and at 2-2 I genuinely believed we were going to win but ultimately, we are far too easy to score against.
The first goal is fair enough. It is classic Arsenal and the flick from Welbeck
to Aubameyang would have undone most defences. The second goal is absolutely
tragic from Cedric, Stephens and Yoshida with Maya ballsing it completely by
leaning out the way and sticking a leg out which ultimately deflected the ball
past McCarthy. The winning goal is one we seem to have conceded loads of times
this season with an unpressured cross from our left, over the top of Stephens
and a striker appearing in front of Cedric and behind Stephens and scoring. You
only have to go back to the second West Ham goal from last week to see exactly
the same goal.
There were some good performances for us out there today, unbelievably, led by
Shane Long who scored one, nearly scored with a header and had a goal disallowed
for a tight offside. Romeu and Hojbjerg combined well so we didn’t miss our
Instagram Rock Star Model and JWP did pretty well. Tadic showed that on the
left hand side is the only position that he can play and he was decent going
forward though I do wish he would shoot occasionally instead of looking for a
pass every single time. The negatives are all about the defending. Cedric was
excellent going forward was a disaster defensively, Stephens we’ve already
touched upon and Yoshida can be partially excused because he is somewhat rusty.
A lot of the media focus after the game will be about the shit storm that was
completely initiated by Jack Wilshere. Wilshere’s
contribution to the game was to basically give the ball away and then stop the
subsequent Southampton break by grabbing hold of Jack Stephens shirt and
hanging onto it for about 15 seconds before taking a second bigger tug of the
shirt and ripping it. Stephens then throws him to the ground which meant that
he was always going to get sent off whilst Wilshere did what he always does and
made a massive meal of it before bouncing back to his feet and getting in
Stephens face again. There is also the suggestion that he stuck a knee in as
well as he bounced back up. For all this, Jack Stephens got a red card and Jack
Wilshere, who had initiated the whole thing only got a yellow. Wilshere’s
antics also encouraged Elneny to get involved when he had absolutely no
business in getting involved and his push into Cedric’s face meant that he was
softly sent off as well. I’m sure part of that dismissal was Andre Marriner
wanting to even things up because Wilshere had been such a complete prick.
Wilshere even got involved in that, acting like the big peacemaker. All a big
act to hide that a) he gave the ball away horribly and b) he’s an odious little
twat. The media love Jack Wilshere though. Fuck knows why as he has done
next to nothing for the last three years.
Having said all that about the little shit head, his contribution didn’t affect
the result in any way. We still have lost regardless – the only effect on us is that Stephens will get a 3
match ban which will be Chelsea in the league, Leicester away, and Chelsea at Wembley.
If we had produced this performance under Hughes three months ago, when
Pellegrino should’ve got sacked, then everyone will be talking about a brighter
future for us but unfortunately because of the procrastinating by the board,
all it is is another game gone by and the chances of us getting relegated have
increased further. Make no mistake, there were positives from this performance
but we need results and we need one in our next home game against Chelsea. I
realise that I am sounding like Captain Fucking Obvious here.
Another ‘must win’ coming up and this time it’s against last season‘s Champions.
Luckily, they are not what they were last season so we have a chance. I can’t
see Hughes playing the same formation because Stephens will be banned, unless
he’s been impressed by Bednarek or Alfie Jones in training or under 23 matches.
After today and despite the loss and another game drifting away, I am feeling a
little bit more optimistic. We have to finish above Stoke and Huddersfield and
to be honest, both of them are as shit as we have been but I don’t think they
are capable of any better – whereas we are. We now have to prove it.
League 1 Minus 10 
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