by Bulldog Drummond
Next up we have the issue of goal line technology and whether it is working. As we know, had Arsenal remembered to turn their goal line gubbins on, we would have drawn 2-2 with Chelsea since the ball was clearly over the line for Arsenal’s second. Not turning it on for last week’s game was a bit of an “own goal” I suppose one might say.
Bukayo Saka has returned to training we understand, but it would seem a little silly to bring him on against Tottenham H when the result doesn’t matter. Gabriel Martinelli is still away with Brazil at the Olympics with his team winning gold for the second time. As the Guardian said, following the realisation that there was an Arsenal player in the squad “Nobody cares about men’s Olympic football. Why don’t they just play it on horses or introduce a swimming round.”
Perhaps we should note that Martinelli did not play in the final, nor was he even in the squad. So we lost him from our pre-season and the next few weeks as he has a rest and then starts training again for… well, what? Not playing for Brazil.
I didn’t play for Brazil either – so I guess I have something in common with Martinelli.
Anyway back to Tottenham. The Arsenal History Society video collection has been growing through the summer (there is a full index of 18 games against Tottenham – indeed an index sorted by Arsenal’s opponents here) And if you just want one, how about the “surreal free for all”
So back to the present and we have an injury to each of Gabriel, Eddie and Partey.
Which means that Sports Mole gives us a line up of
Leno;
Chambers, White, Mari, Tierney;
Xhaka, Elneny;
Pepe, Smith Rowe, Aubameyang;
Lacazette
Sports Keeda have a few variations in defence as well as the fact that they also do first names…
Bernd Leno,
Hector Bellerin, Ben White, Pablo Mari, Kieran Tierney,
Albert Sambi Lokonga, Granit Xhaka,
Nicolas Pepe, Emile Smith Rowe, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang,
Alexandre Lacazette
As for Tottenham’s team, the Evening Standard tells us, rather helpfully I thought, that given Harry Kane went AWOL from training this season, “he is unlikely to feature on Sunday.” They don’t actually give us a full team but they do go for a 2-2 draw.
By and large the teams generally include four players that the media has been telling us all summer are leaving Arsenal. I wonder if that is a first – to use the pre-season games presumably to parade the players you want to get rid of. The four are Leno, Xhaka, Elneny, Pepe.
Or could it be that those players are not going as we have been told they are. If that is the case it will be the fault of Arsenal for being too slow.
90 min offer us the same team as Sports Keeda – or maybe it is the other way around. And indeed Football.co.uk do exactly the same as well.
Football.co.uk gives us
Leno; Chambers, White, Mari, Tierney; Xhaka, Elneny; Pepe, Smith Rowe, Aubameyang; Lacazette.
We’ve also offered a few other pieces on the forthcoming match…
And finally to get you back into the mood of what football in England really is all about…
Gaslighting: how refereeing in the Premier League is manipulated, and why the media never speak about it.
- 1: Are the referees and the media really out to get Arsenal, or am I just imagining it?
- 2: How discussions about refereeing are deliberately stifled by the media
- 3: Referees: the odd statistics that are simply never revealed or discussed
- 4: How we have been utterly misled about football: part 4
- 5: Hiding the problem of refereeing is destroying the credibility of the Premier League
- 6: Revealed: PL referees are not 98% accurate but actually just 75% accurate
