- Everton deliver an unexpected gift as Arsenal prepare for Atlético tales and taunts
- Could it really be that there is something going wrong with football in England?
By Tony Attwood
So here we are approaching the semi-final part 2 of the Champions League with a wub if any shape or form being enough to send Arsenal to the final. Meanwhile the Standard, a daily London newspaper running the piece, “How many points do Arsenal need to win the Premier League title?” while forgetting to ask “What score will get Arsenal into the Champions League final?”
But you know these journalists – always down the pub rather than doing their job…
And yet one can understand the journalists’ problem – they have been telling us so often how Arsenal are soft, need another centre forward, and are getting distracted by getting to the end-game in various competitions… etc etc, that they are bound to fall apart. And yes, they got their wish when Arsenal failed to win the League Cup and the FA cup.
But now we are down to two competitions, and even for journalists who notoriously have a very low regard for their readership, it is hard to make the point that Arsenal don’t quite know what they have to do now.
Indeed by and large, even the journalists have worked out that Arsenal have three league games left: West Ham away on 10 May, Burnley at home on 18 May and Crystal Palace away on 24 May.
ManC have four games of course, Brentford at home, Palace away, Bournemouth away and Villa at home. If both teams win the lot, the table will show Arsenal with 85 points and ManC with 83. So there it is, completely back in our own hands. And so we can then spend the summer asking why, with 110+ guilty verdicts, the ManCs were allowed to continue playing, and what (if any!) punishment should be handed down to a club that has been found guilty of quite so many crimes.
And I wonder, if we get to next August and there is still no punishment, will the media ever once dare mention it? I doubt it.
The problem of course, is that other clubs found guilty of multiple offences have had vast numbers of point deductions made during the course of the season. Apply that on the same scale to ManC next season and they will be lucky to avoid relegation. Maybe they could just go and play in the United Arab Emirates 1st Division instead. Maybe they have already applied.
However, this current situation does give the opposition today something of an advantage, as they know Arsenal will be distracted, needing as they do just seven points from three games to win the league. The problem is, as we have all seen over the season, a team that starts taking its foot off the accelerator can quickly get into trouble.
So we come back to that old saying of taking one game at a time, and indeed that brings us back to the team tonight – and the first point is that Atletico Madrid will be 100% aware of Arsenal’s position vis-à-vis Manchester City in the League. So we can expect some fairly nasty early fouls, saying to Arsenal, “give up on getting to the Champions League final, and we’ll ease off on crippling your players, so you’ll have a full team for your remaining three Premier League matches. ”
This is, of course, part of the problem of playing in multiple competitions at once, and having an ultra-secret society that virtually no one seems to trust, running the refereeing side of the game. Plus rather obviously, a compliant media.
Thus we look at the teams….
Raya;
Mosquera, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapie;
Rice, Zubimendi;
Saka, Eze, Trossard;
Gyokeres
Who Scored go with
Raya;
White,, Saliba, Magalhães , Hincapie;
Odegaard Zubimendi;, Rice
Saka, Gyokeres, Martinelli
Football 365 offer us
Raya;
Mosquera, Saliba, Gabriel , Hincapie;
Zubimendi;, Rice, Eze
Saka, Gyokeres, Trossard
So I guess we can take it that it will be something from among that collection. And really, given that Gabriel and given that Magalhães and Gabriel are one and the same, the level of variation in small it seems.
And here’s a final thought: if Saka can continue the evolution as he showed in the last game, Arsenal should sail through this, the remaining three league games and the Champions League final. Not that I am prone to making predictions, but the season is nearly over, and I’ll soon have to start thinking about what we can discuss in the summer. If you have any ideas (apart from my not writing at all) do let me know. You might even like to contribute an article (although it doesn’t need the end of the season for that to happen).
But here’s an amusing little thought. Since we started repritning and comparing the suggested starting XIs published by the mainstream media just before each match, the number of outlets publishing team predictions has declined. That, of course, is probably a coincidence, but if they ever were embarrassed by us pointing out how many predictions they got wrong, that would be slightly amusing.
Well, at least it makes me smile when it happens.
Fingers crossed.
Previously….
