BORING BAD ARSENAL... IS GOOD
Come on, you were all geared up to have a very bad evening after Arsenal dropped another totally forgettable performance against weaker opposition… but then you saw Europe bloody the collective noses of the English in an act of collective brutality worse than the wretched passport queues now we have blue passports.
Too political to start?
Ah, who cares, we can all admit that waiting in line is probably more entertaining than watching Arsenal clump around in games like that. But when assessing a problem, you must always ask what the opposite of that problem looks like?
Atleti 5-2 Spurs
Madrid 3-0 Man City
PSG 5-2 Chelsea
Galatasaray 1-0 Liverpool
Who wants to be fun for the neutrals? Part of think pieces asking if English teams are too focused on power vs technical output? Drawn into conversations about well rested European clubs hammering the English? Not me.
The only other English team not hammered was Newcastle who earned a point at home to Barcelona.
What would you prefer right now? Nursing a draw that was quite boring or trying to comprehend how you were made an example of by Europe’s elite?
Exactly, the only people complaining about a 1-1 draw away from home are the emotionally weak, unserious ones among your friends that you actually don’t like that much and wish you could exit from the WhatsApp.
Be serious. A 1-1 draw away from home is absolutely fine. Even if we’d gone one down to a team struggling in their domestic league, I think it’s quite realistic that we could score more than one goal in the return leg. 32 goals were scored across the 8 games in the round of 16. I am unsure if Bayer will play as well in the second leg and deeply hopeful we won’t play as poorly at home.
But what can you really say about the game? Most of the 11 had a week off and they played like they were trying to dejuice any sort of speed from minute one. My overarching feeling around Arsenal at the moment is there’s just no chemistry in the final third.
Bukayo Saka was a non-entity for the full 90. This season has been underwhelming for him, but you kind of hoped he’d explode in this sort of game, against defenders who aren’t quite at the level of the Premier League. Wrong. It was his worst blowout to date. No shots. No chance created. I’m praying we see a tweet that says he was ill, because he looked very out of sorts and, say it quietly… slow.
Martinelli landed a start, but he didn’t fare much better. Though his game is a very different story if his shot that rattled the bar is 3 inches lower… or the big chance he created is converted. Can we really hammer him considering what he’s doing for our CL rep this season? I don’t think so.
Big Vik, again. I get hate mail on this subject, but honestly, if we lowered the bar any further, we might strike oil. He created one chance for Martinelli, which was nice, but very table stakes… outside that, it was another zero shots on target or off target. What are you defending at this point? Players don’t pass to him because they know. I write about football, I can’t ignore that because 4 people who I want OUT of the group chat whine about it.
At least Arteta acknowledged the foul stench of bland in our attack, removing Saka early, and getting Kai on for Gyok for the last 15 minutes. That changed the course of the game. Noni, a player I was criticised for celebrating on The AOP last week, showed up again with a positive mindset and a difference-maker attitude. He asked questions of Bayer… straight runs, at speed, with some great skill. That let him into the box to get clumped over for a Champions League penalty.
King Kai stepped up, against his boyhood club… and stutter-stepped his way to a horrible strike that only crept in because it was so painfully close to the keeper. I thought it was funny that he went nuts when he scored against Chelsea, but chose to drop a no-celebration cele in Leverkusen. Top boy.
‘If you aren’t going to win, don’t totally f*ck things up and lose’
We didn’t lose, we take the second leg back to The Emirates, Arteta can spend some time thinking about why our attack is so insipid (100+ goals in all comps haha), and hopefully he can find a way past the filthiest mid-block of the season this weekend when we play an Everton side who will have had 11 days rest ahead of their trip down to London.
Arsenal’s record this season is 35 wins, 9 draws, 3 losses. That’s a 74.4% win ratio. We’ve only lost 6% of our games this season. The Invincibles drew 11 games in the league. It doesn’t matter how you chop it up, we’re a great team that rarely loses… if you’re unhappy with that, save the nonsense, and drop yourself out of the group chat because I’m telling you, everyone hates you in there. They’re literally setting up side groups to gossip about your poor understanding of Arsenal’s greatness. It’s actually sad.
But… we live to fight another day. The home leg will hopefully be very different, and if we have a good night, it will likely be the imperious BODO in the next round after they shellacked Sporting Lisbon 3-0.
Before we go, what do we think about Man City now? They were very bad. 0.63 xG created to Madrid’s 2.63! Their amazing £500k a week keeper from PSG dropped an early howler and also gave away a penalty with a sloppy foul later in the game that he saved. But how does this land with City? I don’t really want them going out. I am intrigued by how this will play into the West Ham game at the weekend, but hopeful they could stage an emotionally draining comeback at home. We don’t want a team prone to fatigue getting rest days moving forward, and that is bad for Arsenal, especially after wondering if that performance this evening was linked to tiredness. But, Valverde, a man who scored 3 goals in his first 75 CL games, getting a first-half hat-trick, is amazing. It also doubles down on what we all feel… City can be got at this season, they aren’t who they were before. Hopefully the weekend is leggy.
Chelsea? I don’t care about them. But it is funny to see them go down so brutally against PSG and read their fans vent over Liam’s decision to drop Martinez for Jorgensen. A £2b transfer spend and their two keepers are dreadful! Kvaratskhelia though… what an outrageous player. Would have loved him at Arsenal, but I’ve heard he has one of the most complicated and expensive representations in the game. Wouldn’t he be magic? Alex Hleb but with speed and actual output. Maybe that’s unfair, he’s just a very fun watch.
Spurs… oh my. They say it’s classless and unfair to laugh at this point. But I have to. I’ll never forgive the celebrations against Man City and nor should you. Do not take your foot off the moment, not for a second, and joy-maxx the f*ck out of it. I always own my football mistakes totally, so here’s me owning one: I thought Spurs would be better in the Champions League because of the shop window effect. WRONG. Igor Tudor, the worst caretaker manager hire of all time, dropped Vicario, and Kinsky was SO bad they had to take him off after 17 minutes. Horrible for the young man. But ultimately, there will always be collateral damage in moments like this and I’m fine with it.
Things are so bad at Spurs, there are rumours that Sean Dyche might get the call to save them. Imagine? What made the Atleti night even more amusing is Poch was in the stands. The sliding doors moment for their decline was when they ditched a manager who wanted to build greatness there and subbed in Mourinho for some short-termism… and I think Levy for that.
Liverpool were also taken down by Gala in Turkey. Again, don’t really care, but it is clear right now that the second coming of Klopp, Slot is not.
Ok, that’s me done. Get the On The Whistle from Jacob and JC below by becoming a member right now! x