Good evening, ladies and gents! The season 4 finale of DH's Awaydays has arrived and this week we take a trip to not just one but two of our (fake) North London neighbours with Arsenal Mania and Goonersworld providing this week's material. PRE MATCH Biggest NLD in recent memory. This is going to be like a cup final. I'm almost not looking forward to it. I can see why... Missing this. Probably a good thing Probably. Biggest game since the Europa League Final imo. Be such a shame if it's a similar outcome. My stomach is in knots. Like your defence Biggest game of the season... only one result is acceptable. Agreed. This is like xmas day as a 5 year old. Yeah but you got given socks that were already owned by your alcoholic uncle after a night in Benidorm. The dog is insisting on sitting too close to me!!! Ready to comfort you. We need to s**thouse this lot. You were **** in our house. They will massively try to rile Xhaka to get him sent off & it's something that could quite easily happen, let's face it. Holding wanted centre stage this time. I think I had a dream last night where we won 0-1. Dreams are often better than reality. Shiiit son vs Cedric Yeahhh it almost feels unfair even from our perspective. FIRST HALF Holding - The Hero Holding. Loving him so far That's what I love from Holding, he has character. Naughty from Holding...... Good lad F**k you Cedric you f***ing gimp. Dogshit little wasteman right back. Did say it felt unfair... Kane yearly penalty against us. Like clockwork Ramsdale no chance with that. Standard. That's the Kane goal out of the way. Let's win this now. No, he might want another. Son will probably get jealous too. Holding 2 - Heroes Fall Get Holding off before he gets sent off for **** sake. Holding is gonna get a red card this game Holding playing like a crackhead. Holding out of his depth. No point sugar coating it. No way Holding will finish this game! Pepe is going to save us, no worries Said no one ever. Holding 3 - The Villain HOLDING OFF FFS What a f**king idiot Rob Holding you **** That’ll be that. What a ****ing idiot. Holding and Cedric need to be sacked Holding you are a complete c**t. F**k off to the championship you complete bell end. Furious. Disgusted. Holding came here as a kid and been part of team constantly been told they are kids. So he never became a man. This hit deep, somewhat philosophical. Holding needs a new hearing aid. Mikel told him to “hold up Son in attack”, which he appears to have misheard as slap up Son whilst high on crack”. Superb I blame Arteta, asking Holding to Man mark Son was a recipe for disaster Often is for defenders trying to mark Son. Kane 2-0 Game over TV off Stick around! How the hell does a defender lose Kane at a corner.. Kane.. of any other player Lego head's tactics but he'll keep blaming the ref. We always lose the big games with Arteta. Long may it continue. Lads seem overwhelmed at the moment... where is our Captain? Last I checked, playing for Barcelona. SECOND HALF 45 minutes to get a draw. Optimism. What a terrible start. Realism. Good plan for the 2nd half that Great plan. I’ve seen Kane roll Gabriel a few times over the past couple years now. Standard Kane. Tactical genius must have given an amazing speech at half time. Yeah Conte did indeed. Ben bloody Davies is a man possessed under Conte Gwaaarn, Ben, lap up that praise. Kulusevski underwhelming and not good enough for Arsenal A-M told me. Whoever A-M is clearly don't know much about football. We should never have postponed this match. Would have been better losing weeks ago when we had an actual excuse. Yeah it's embarrassing from you lot, isn't it? POST MATCH Credit to Spurs for handling the occasion, professional job from them. Why thank you. How many red cards under lego man now? Even they call him Lego names! Funny that Leeds gave us a much tougher test when they went down to 10 men than we did tonight. That was a Leeds team managed by a Walmart cashier. Walmart Cashier When Davies got a yellow card, he became calmer. When Holding got a yellow card, he became more angry and stupid. Davies is a defender, Holding is an oaf. Conte is a one dimensional manager with one style but he plays it well. *very well, just wait til he gets more of his own players too. Poor tactics, poor man management, poor everything, this is down to him. Conte schooled him in the art of management.
And he complains about every one of them and they never change. A good manager should learn from his mistakes, as should good players.
16. Averaging 1 red card every 8 games under his tenure. Awful would be an understatement. I don’t quite get why this keeps happening as frequently as it does, but it has to stop. We used to shoot ourselves in the foot a lot under Wenger and Emery, but this is crazier than that. Discipline is a massive issue.
I prefer managers not to engage in this, but if they do I seek more subtle WUMmery. For example, if I was Conte and I wanted to have a dig at anything Arteta has said about fixture scheduling (dates, rimes, congestion etc) , I would say the following about week 37 ... After the derby game, Spurs will face a very hard game against Burnley, who are fighting for their PL life. I expect Arsenal will have a far easier time against Newcastle, not least due to an extra days' rest.
He clearly doesn't punch Son in the face, as the clip claims, but it's a clear red. Should've been off for the kick in the ribs on the first one.
I posted this on the matchday thread on the Prem board. No other club has received more red cards than Arsenal since Arteta took over. It's clearly a major issue and whereas Ponkie et al. cried national conspiracy, the overwhelming evidence is that there is a major disciplinary issue at Arsenal, both on and off the pitch (taking into consideration the clashes with Aubameyang and rumoured clashes with Saliba and Lacazette).
You forgot about the poor man's David Luiz that they got rid of for being a twat at Brighton...bragged about his wages to one of their players while they were 1 up and ended up losing iirc...think he was the one who also mouthed off to Watford fans about the goons leading as he was subbed off only for Watford to equalise
We've scored twice from corners recently, very unlike us. Both Kane headers, one near post and one far post, so he is obviously taking up different positions. Has Conte recognized how useless we have been over the years and decided to coach the team on set pieces?
Although sometimes I do think referees have been a bit too happy to dish out cards, when you have as many as 16 red cards in 2.5 years, you can’t keep blaming the referees. If you broke down most of the incidents, it’ll either be a dangerous tackle, persistent fouling or failing to control temper. Rob Holding’s red against you lot was his 1st ever career red card. Arteta clearly instructed him to antagonise Son and get tight to him at every moment/let him know he was there. It was a ridiculous tactic and was never, ever going to work.
Depends on : 1. how scientific you want to be about it 2. the temperament of the player For example, for #1 you do a training session where Holding is tasked to deal with a Son-type character. You record video solely focused on Holding. You do not stop the session whenever Holding fouls. You get a PGMOL accredited bod in (PL clubs have done so) to watch all the incidents/fouls, and tell the player where a yellow card would be given immediately or cumulatively etc. That tells the player where the envelope is. For #2, if the player has the same knee-jerk temperament that he is hoping to provoke in the opponent, then perhaps the player cannot do it. Given how events played out, I doubt #1 was done, and Arteta did not know there is a #2 in Holding once things do not go his way (ie his first yellow card) .
This is well worth a lunch break. Also I'd like to meet the 2 or 3 streamers who agreed it was a nailed-on penalty. They're either Spurs plants or the exception that proves the rule.