I know this is a cliche, but this Summer will make or break us. If we **** things up again, we are going to be stuck in mid table obscurity for many, many more years. Let's focus on staying in the division and trying to get through the season. In Summer 2021, we will have a bit more breathing space because a lot of high-wage players have contracts expiring. Ozil - £350k a week Sokratis - £92k a week Mustafi - £90k a week Luiz - £120k a week Those four players alone will free up £652k a week (£33.9m a year) in wages. I expect a couple of sales (Lacazette, Guendouzi, maybe Torreira/Kolasinac?), so that should help us, too. IF (and it's a huge if because we've ****ed it up before) we redistribute that money wisely, like we did with the signings of Gabriel and Partey, then we can slowly start to begin feeling hopeful again. In the immediate future though, we just have to brace the bumpy ride and begrudgingly accept that there will be more pain inflicted on us. Hopefully we can do just about enough to soldier through it.
It's probably bad for us that Xhaka and Bellerin will miss this through suspension. Presumably he'll have to play the younger players that have been performing well in the EL and will be fired up to prove they should be starting in the PL too. They still have quality attacking players, and if they decide to turn up it will take a top performance from us to come away with anything. On form you would say we have a fantastic chance to get a win, and maybe it's just because I always err on the side of caution, but it just feels like the Burnley game was rock bottom for them and they will pull something out the bag here.
Having watched arsenal's last few games, I will be disappointed to lose this. Obviously they have a lot of quality, which could fire into life at any time, but they have been truly truly **** this season. If we get an early goal, I think we will go on to score a few. They couldn't handle villas intensity the other week, so hopefully they can't handle us in this form.
Match thread on the Arsenal forum... and I thought we were the kings of meltdowns!! They make us look like happyclappers https://arsenal-mania.com/forum/thr...ecember-2020-ko-18-00-gmt-amazon-prime.34668/
Read some, not all....nice to see that they don't resort to being vile. Perhaps they are nicely brought up, like us
They don't know much about us though - "they're not very good....defensively shaky.....they'll sit deep and try and counter us" What league have they been watching?
As a long term resident of North London, I can confirm that they’re a pretty civilised bunch on the whole, Arsenal fans. Spurs fans, as @The Ides of March will doubtless confirm, are much more of the dark side.
He did say upon joining Saints that he enjoys a challenge - maybe things are just too easy for him nowadays
So when we played arsenal away last season it was on the back of that Leicester game and defeats to man city and Everton. The talk at the time especially with the bookies was who would get fired first - Hassenhutl or Emery. It ended with a 96th minute equaliser for arsenal and within a couple of weeks Emery was gone. Arteta won't be looking forward to this, Ralph on the other hand is going from strength to strength. We March on
And if the BBC can be bothered to take any interest, perhaps Jermaine Jenas could be asked to memorise the names of our players. I'm sure I heard him mention PEH being part of our set up on Sunday! Also on Monday morning's Today programme's sport report, it seemed we were not in the PL as the top two got a mention, Arsenal and both the M Clubs. I'm all for keeping a low profile but it's like we're the least respected team by the BBC!
Just a medium load in the dishwasher tonight. I'll leave it until the morning to empty, but if i fill up the kettle to the brim for Mrs No7 tomorrow, we've got this.
