2pm: team announcement
Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly, Partey, Rice, Nwaneri, Trossard, Martinelli, Havertz.
Subs: Neto, Porter, Tierney, Zinchenko, Calafiori, Kiwior, Jorginho, Sterling, Butler-Oyedeji.
By Bulldog Drummond
As the Arsenal site puts it, “Arsenal have scored in their past 34 meetings with Wolves, since a 1-0 home loss in February 1979. It is both the Gunners’ longest scoring streak against an opponent and Wolves’ longest run without a clean sheet against a side.”
But Talk Sport can still find a negative telling us that even if Arsenal “were to win each of their remaining 16 games, there would be no guarantee that Mikel Arteta’s men would be champions.” Still, they have had time to do the calculations and tell us that, “At their current rate of accumulation, league leaders Liverpool are on course to finish the campaign on 90 points. Meanwhile, 16 wins from 16 would give Arsenal a final tally of 92 points.”
However they do eventually conced that “Arsenal are missing Bukayo Saka and it could take them a while to break Wolves down, so do not be surprised if the score is level at the interval. The visitors should prove too strong overall, though.” And they have this great tip on how to watch the game:, “Not being shown live in the UK.”
90 Min offer us a line up of
Raya;
Timber, Kiwior, Gabriel, Zinchenko;
Odegaard, Partey, Rice;
Martinelli, Havertz, Trossard
The Standard confirm that “Ben White, who has been out of action since November after undergoing knee surgery, is progressing well in his recovery but is not quite fit enough to return this weekend.” For their line up they offer
Raya;
Partey, Timber, Gabriel, Zinchenko;
Odegaard, Rice, Merino;
Martinelli, Havertz, Trossard
And this turns out to be one of those games where different people have different opinions as to the team. The Metro goes with,
Raya;
Partey, Timber, Gabriel, Calafiori
Odegaard, Rice, Merino;
Martinelli, Havertz, Trossard
Plus there is one thing I would add here, and that is that Arsenal have maintained their position at second in the league despite the huge number of significant injuries.
Arsenal with six men missing at the moment are not the worst club for injuries in the Premier League (that remains Brighton), but on the other hand Nottingham Forest have no injuries at all at the moment, and Liverpool have one, according to Sky Sports..
Now this differential is rarely if ever mentioned in the media, and if it is it is touched upon, it is often written in a way that suggests the injuries are Arsenal’s fault either because of the way the club plays, or because they have bought in injury-prone players. But the fact is that both Nottingham Forest and Liverpool have been and are being greatly helped by the lack of injuries, and no one mentions this.
Injuries of course come and go, but they don’t always even out in the end – much depends on the level of protection players are afforded by the referees. Liverpool do seem to get more protection because, I suspect, they are projected by the media as a free-flowing team, and thus the implication is that any tackle is not seen first as a reasonable part of the game against them, but instead viewed as a way of stopping their free-flowing approach by any means.
It is a subtle tendency and I fully admit I can’t prove it, but it does seem to be there when watching recordings of them play.
But anyway, now we can focus on today, and hopefully a good win against Wolverhampton.
Red?
The PGMO will never allow us to win the league.
5th red card against Arsenal by mr Oliver since the start of 2022 !
All those years we have had to suffer Riley and then Dean and now we have to contend with Oliver, possibly the worst of the lot.
All called Michael. Biased cheats all three of them.
That’s eight red cards given to us by Oliver: Man City and Liverpool have received just one between them. Nothing fishy about that is there.
Maybe the media will comment on that. Pigs may fly.
I could name several more of the cheating rats but these three take first prize.
As Arsenal supporter from Holland, I ended my viaplay subscription because it was very clear to me that the premier league is nothing more than a pro wrestle spectacle with rigged refs who will favor anybody but Arsenal. So I didn’t see the red card offence and I am happy I didn’t. I am beyond sadness and madness, because when it’s so obvious, you gotta move on and end this cycle of pure frustration. Hope supporters, fans and club stay united and channel all the justified anger against Pigmob. We need drastic measures to end the corrupt reign of pigmob. Why not leave the field collectively? It s no use playing along. COYG
Well, the fans who paid to see Oliver got their money’s worth. Safest bet in football.
Up yours Oliver, we still won you cheating ****.
Listening to ‘Soccer Saturday’, the first thing the anchor said was:
“That’s 4 red cards for arsenal this season”
No reflection on the fact that all the others have been dubious (at best ) technical offence’s
No suggestion that todays was yet another poor decision against Arsenal.
The immediate inference is what a dirty/ill disciplined side we are.
F*** em. That’s what I say.
Mick Shelly
Hear hear.
What a W****R that man is.
Final score pundits backed the referee , also not sure on this but did VAR influence the ref or was VAR letting every one know that the sending off was for violent play or conduct . We were told by the pundits that MLS made the referee make a decision an extreme decision , isn’t that their job anyway .
RondeJong
Well said.
Andrew Crawshaw
“The PGMO will never allow us to win the league”.
My God, they are trying their best.
Trawling the press there seems to be a polite silence on the outrageous red card. Except, interestingly, for the Telegraph, where Keith Hackett says:-
.”It is a major error by the referee, Michael Oliver. Arsenal will definitely appeal this.*
How on earth can they say this is a red card? A certain yellow of course, but it wasn’t extremely dangerous or violent foul. Just clipping his foot… those fouls happen 13 in a dozen in each match…. Yes he stopped the possible counter but just outside the Wolves penalty area…. oh well the PGMO will find a letter in the law that will say it has to be a red because it is an Arsenal player…
Just watched the two sendings off on Sky. Gomes was issued a second yellow for an incident that was at least equal to Lewis-Shelley, contact was considerably worse. Why was one adjudged to be a yellow and the other a red. The consequences are that a straight red is a 2 match ban but 2 yellows one.
Another example of clear bias by Mr Oliver.
Blimey, it must be getting bad. This on the SKY Sports web site:
Five issues with Myles Lewis-Skelly’s red card in Arsenal’s win at Wolves
“More freak dismissals for Arsenal – Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard were both sent off for kicking the ball away – but have we seen any since? Joao Pedro’s penalty at Brighton despite William Saliba seemingly getting the ball. Arsenal are getting freak decisions this season and it seems to be heavily weighted against them – so it is little wonder their fans are becoming increasingly frustrated.”
It wont last of course. By Monday they will of found a way to justify everything.
Sorry guys I’m just a bit pissed off as I never had this site down as being pro-censorship.
I pointed out on the last post that serious errors were made in the statistical analysis. I actually apologised for pointing it out.
Show some balls and take it on the chin. I expected so much better having been a stalwart supporter of the site for nearly a decade.