- Child abuse in football isn’t being dealt with in the new football regulator bill
- The bias against Arsenal is not pre-meditated. It’s far worse than that
By Tony Attwood
So the draw for the quarter-finals of the League Cup is known and not too bad for Arsenal…
- Arsenal v Crystal Palace
- Newcastle United v Brentford
- Southampton v Liverpool
- Tottenham Ho v Manchester United
The games will probably be played on 17 December or 18 December at the latest, and looking at that list we might expect Arsenal, Tottenham, Newcastle and Liverpool to make the semi-finals.
Meanwhile Ethan Nwaneri showed as what he could do. “One of our own,” and quite right too as he was born just up the road. (Well, Enfield actually, where all the top people are born). He’s played in two games and scored three goals which is not bad but Transfermarkt has his value at just £12m. He’s surely worth far more than that, but let’s hope that issue is never tested. Or at least not for a long while.
And now he has scored three goals in the League Cup and hit the bar as well. Arteta was of course enormously impressed saying “Seventeen and he can come in and take a game on like that. He’s a big talent, he’s got the right attitude, he’s got the right players and context around him and we need to make sure we build him brick by brick, but we have some player there.
“He is going to dictate how fast things are going to go but I’m really happy with him. There is so much personality there. He wants to impose himself, he wants every ball and he wants to make things happen. You see his teammates giving him the ball all the time.”
Preston were of course hampered by the fact that in their previous game they had gone three up and then let the victory slip, and also until one hour before kick off they didn’t know what sort of Arsenal team they would face. Arteta shuffled the pack a bit, and indeed the only thing that has got in the way this season are those wretched injuries.
Calafiori, Tierney, Odegaard and Gabriel however all seem to be getting close to a return, leaving only Takehiro Tomiyasu as the one player who is still on the long term list. So maybe then in the coming weeks we might have something much closer to a full squad.
But inevitably given the insanity of the Uefa-Fifa duopoly we are almost at the next international break, and you know what is going to happen – international managers will demand the players back even though they have not been playing for Arsenal and then off we go again with more injuries. That next wretched affair is November 11 to November 19, and this will only get worse and worse until the clubs and supporters come together to rebel against both organisations.
But at least we know we have some good youngsters coming through. Like Tommy Setford in goal, although to be fair he didn’t have much to do, and must have wondered what all the fuss was about.
So overall Arsenal had 72% of the possession – and the chance to experiment, although as ever some commentators seeing such experimentation immediately denounce it as the manager not knowing how to run the team.. Sterling playing on one side of the attack in the first half and then on the other in the second half has been seen as an Arteta mistake which was remedied, but more likely a deliberate move to confuse the defence who would have come out for the second half expecting the players to take up their same positions as in the first half.
The fact is Arsenal had 72% of the possession and were able to dictate the game, so it was a perfect time to experiment and see exactly what might be done.
It is also interesting that there is virtually no comment on the fouling, with Preston committing almost three times as many fouls as Arsenal. This is however what Arsenal are suffering in these sorts of games.
This is interesting because over the last couple of seasons Arsnal have been working at reducing the number of times the team is fouled. This season Arsenal have been fouled 9.8 times a game on average. Two seasons ago it was 11.4 times a game. The team is clearly creating tactics that doesn’t allow the opposition to foul them so often, and instead allows Arsenal to keep moving forward. It’s not mentioned in the media, but it’s there.
Next up, Newcastle, Saturday lunchtime.
Tony
Re Fouls.
Yep, as you say, not a mention, as usual.
But to be fair, apart from a nasty late tackle on Havertz near the end that was yellowed, (but could possibly of been a red), they wasn’t ‘leg breakers’, more desperate. I also think the referee dealt with them okay issuing 4 yellows for 11 fouls is above the average.
But even though the refereeing was okay, he still failed to award us an absolute stone wall penalty when Sterling was up ended by Holmes in the 64th minute after pouncing on the rebound from Jesus’s effort on goal.
It must of been ‘stonewall’ because even Ally ‘I like to see the ref play on when Arsenal are fouled’ McCoist said he thought the referee was going to give it.
I mean he didn’t make anything of it of course, why would he it’s only Arsenal after all, but still.
As for Nwari. I can only repeat what Arteta said in his post match press conference. “We have some player here”. Enough said.