By Bulldog Drummond
- Arsenal tipped to buy centre forward but get 3 keepers and a left back
- Apologies for our absence but we are now here again
Arsenal play Liverpool in the very early hours of Thursday morning in a match which a lot of the media are telling us is on Wednesday night – which I suppose reflects the lifestyle of many football journalists – but not necessarily their readership.
And although there are occasional mentions of the game in the media it seems like Manchester United is the order of the day The Telegraph has no less than four Man U stories under its “Football News” heading, plus one on Nottingham Forest and nothing on Arsenal.
These tales include the exciting “Ten Hag’s training drills analysed“ and Exclusive Man Utd move closer to signing Bayern Munich defender “ and “Eriksen: Streamlined US tour will ensure players hit ground running“ and Ten Hag pleads for players and warns next season will be ‘survival of the fittest’
And maybe we should be pleased by that because it shows once more than Man Uted are in a state of flux and turmoil while the only thing anyone can find to say about Arsenal is, as the Standaad puts it “Liverpool and Arsenal meet in Philadelphia on Wednesday night for an intriguing glimpse into how the Premier League giants are shaping up for the new season.” (See I told you it was Thursday).
And then of course they follow up that “Wednesday night” line with the news that “Liverpool vs Arsenal is scheduled for …the early hours of Thursday August 1, 2024.”
Anyway it is on Arsenal TV if you are awake and if you want to pay and it is widely agreed that Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Magalhaes will certainly get game time and could indeed even start, given that they came off the bench for the last match,
It is also noted that the two 17 year old players Ayden Heaven and Ethan Nwaneri both played in the earlier American games and so could come on as subs once more.
Liverpool have recently won a game, beating Real Betis 1-0. And after the Arsenal game they have what is called a “friendly” against Manchester United on 4 August which I am sure they are all looking forward to.
The League itself of course doesn’t kick off until 17 August when Liverpool are away to Ipswich. If they don’t win that one then we will all know they are in some trouble. Liverpool have been a bit of a bogey team for Arsenal of late and the club often seem to put in a display that journalists like to call “vigorous” and with PGMO doing the dishonours, it does get results.
Indeed Arsenal have only won two of the last ten games between the sides in league and cup – that was a 3-2 win at home in the league on 9 October 2022 and a 3-1 win last February. also at home in the league. Otherwise there have been three draws and the other five have been defeats – including knocking Arsenal out of both the league and FA Cup in the last couple of years.
And yet last season Arsenal ended up seven points and 17 goals (in GD terms) better off than Liverpool. In the 2022/23 season the gap was even bigger with Arsenal Liverpool finishing fifth, 17 points behind Arsenal and again Arsenal with a 17 better GD.
But while Manchester United and Newcastle United (both of whom finished above Liverpool in 2022/23) then went walkabout, Liverpool improved. Their 67 points in 2022/23 grew to 82 last season – quite an improvement indeed!
However Arsenal were most certainly the more effective away team last season, picking up eight more points than Liverpool away from home, scoring six more goals, conceding 11 fewer goals.
The interesting thing about Liverpool on tour – and this of course is just judging from afar – is that they appear not to have a striker. but maybe they have just been doing that in order to confuse Arsenal.
Although Liverpool only finished five points behind Arsenal last season and nine behind Manchester C, I am not seeing much serious talk about them putting in a challenge for the title. Indeed, as ever, most pundits are doing their usual trick of reprinting the table for the end of last season and then saying this is how it will finish again in the coming season.
And certainly, it seems hard to imagine the ninth and tenth clubs from last season (West Ham and Crystal Palace) getting into the top eight.unless one of the top eight from last season has an almighty collapse. Aston Villa were the side that forced themselves into the reckoning but I am not sure they will be able to do that again. We’ll take a look in subsequent articles.
The BBC obsessed with Net Zero commented at the end of their report on the United game complained the grass pitch was laid for the game & taken up afterwards. This after compiling a league table of the carbon footprint of all PL teams where Spurs were at the top of the league for the largest carbon footprint . I commented on HYS that this was BBC hypocrisy of the highest order considering a 98 year old Attenborough had spent a lifetime flying all over the world to make programmes for the BBC & is now hectoring the public against flying.
I also made a comment on another HYS when the BBC provoked outrage reporting that Ratcliffse wanting government investment in building a Wembley of the North. I asked why the outrage when Starmer within 2 weeks had promised the ex civil servant to the Tories who became a Labour advisor to Starmer Sue Gary was promised £350 million pounds to renovate a dilapidated stadium in her small home town in Northern Ireland while “Robber” Reeves the chancellor grabbed the pensioner’s £200 Winter Fuel allowance.
Our aklleged bastion against fake news censored & removed both comments that are factually correct of their actions.
Adrian
I know it makes you sick.
It is irrelevant whether I agree with you or not, so I wont say, but it is an utter disgrace that your views are not published. The BBC are supposed to be neutral and as such reflect all views no matter how diverse. They fail in that directive almost every day. The media of today, in general, pretend that we now live in a society more open and diverse than we have ever lived in, yet in reality it is narrower than it has ever been.
I couldn’t be more ‘middle of the road’ if I tried. I don’t mind people being rich. I want to help the less well off. A far society. It’s not an easy balance to achieve, I understand that, but as long as our governments try to achieve that I am happy. But they don’t. Beyond that I would never ever reveal my thoughts on the nuances of our society because you just cannot do that.
If you have a single view that doesn’t fit the narrative you are a ****ist, ****ist, or whatever.
As I say Adrian, whether I agree with you or not is irrelevant. The BBC are supposed to be a neutral, public platform, and as such should reflect all points of view, and put simply, they don’t.