By Bulldog Drummond
Arsenal had 11 players picked to be part of squads playing in world cup matches during the the run up to today’s match, although thankfully a modicum of sense was shown and the South American games were called off because of travel restrictions.
Not everyone played of course because of selection options and injuries but below is the list of those who missed training with Arsenal to go meandering around Europe and Africa during a pandemic.
Fortunately the south American games were called off.
- Bukayo Saka (England)
- Bernd Leno (Germany)
- Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (Gabon)
- Martin Odegaard (Norway)
- Emile Smith Rowe (England u 21)
- Eddie Nketiah (England u 21)
- Cedric Soares (Portugal)
- Granit Xhaka (Switzerland)
- Nicolas Pepe (Ivory Coast)
- Mohamed Elneny (Egypt)
- Runar Alex Runarsson (Iceland)
Meanwhile, according to the media who know everything, this summer is going to be the time of the big departures with player after player being moved on for various reasons. And indeed if they do go, the moment we get one of our regular injury crises the media will be out in force telling us how stupid we were to sell all these players.
The current list of departees being touted include…
- Hector Bellerin
- Alexandre Lacazette
- Matteo Guendouzi
- Martin Odegaard
- Lucas Torreira
- Mohamed Elneny
- Ainsley Maitland-Niles
- Sead Kolasinac
- Konstantinos Mavropanos
- Reiss Nelson
- Joe Willock
So let us see if, in contrast to the above, and with our current couple of favoured players out injured, we can put a team together.
Sportsmole has a note to the effect that in addition to our already noted injuries “Granit Xhaka has been dealing with a bout of sickness and is also doubtful, while Gabriel Magalhaes and Rob Holding should form the centre-back pairing with David Luiz injured, but Arteta has a huge call to make on the right-hand side of defence.”
Their possible line up is
Leno;
Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney;
Partey, Elneny;
Pepe, Odegaard, Aubameyang;
Lacazette
They predict a 1-1 draw.
The Guardian has Willian and Xhaka both as doubts and go for
Leno;
Bellerin, Mari, Gabriel, Tierney;
Partey, Xhaka;
Pepe, Odegaard, Aubameyang;
Lacazette
iNews gives us a list of five players Arsenal could sign in January
Leno;
Chambers, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney;
Partey, Elneny;
Pepe, Odegaard, Aubameyang;
Lacazette
Their five signings are Isco (Real Mad), Aouar (Lyon), Boulaye Dia (Stade Reims), Christian Eriksen (Inter), Emiliano Buendia (Norwich).
Squawka has predictions up but our blocking software tells me that site has been infected by malware and doesn’t want me to go on it, so I’m by passing them this week, and hoping then get it sorted quickly. (Although I should add it could be my software that is giving us a false alert, so I’m not saying for sure there is something wrong. Given the number of sites we visit in preparing Untold through the week we tend to err a little on the cautious side).
The Standard brings in a variation of what we have seen above…
Leno;
Bellerin, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney;
Partey, Xhaka;
Pepe, Odegaard, Aubameyang;
Lacazette
The Hard Tackle offers the same line up as the Guardian. But Who Scored come up with a surprise…
Leno;
Bellerin, Mari, Gabriel, Tierney;
Partey, Xhaka;
Saka, Odegaard, Aubameyang;
Lacazette
Since WhoScored are the masters of the stats and inside knowledge, and maybe they know something no one else knows in suggesting Saka is fit (although in the listings below the layout they do say he is doubtful). They are, like most of the pundits from non-Arsenal supporting sites, are going for a Liverpool win.
The picture above is courtesy of Arsenal Independent Supporters Association
Other match comments for Arsenal v Liverpool
- Arsenal v Liverpool trends and stats, and maybe one that is wrong
- What the stats tell us about Liverpool’s style and the refs’ reactions
- Arsenal v Liverpool, and Liverpool’s bizarre home/away record this season
The Arsenal video collection: free
Fifa in crisis
Hopefully we can’t play that ally again this season.
Well I hope we never see such an insipid and uninspiring performance again. That was woeful and the only bright spot was Arteta’s post match interview.
It’s a sad day for Arsenal when the senior players, almost to a man didn’t seem to give a shit. Second to everything and so poor. It is shameful that these men, who receive more in a couple of months than half the country does in their lifetimes, could play so poorly.
Ok, if they put it behind them and get a win in Europe, that will be some solace but it really was sad to see our senior players fall over and die before a ball was kicked. Pathetic. May it never happen again.
full stop!
It’s really funny to see the idiots fans at the blogosphere long for a top4 finish.The entitled brats mocked Wenger for 20 consecutive entries.
I don’t know if it’s just me but I saw it slightly different. Personally I don’t think it was lack of effort that was the problem but lack of ability?
Now before anyone jumps down my throat I’m not blaming the ref for the loss. By far the better team won. But that doesn’t change the fact that yet again I felt the referee applied the laws of the game in 2 different ways according to whom he was judging, especially early on.
I felt Liverpool’s ‘aggression’, sometimes ‘over aggression’ in their challenges was never called by the referee, yet the moment we did the same the whistle went, and that set a tone that helped an already superior team get the complete upper hand in the physical battle.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe everyone else sees it different, either way, as I say, I don’t even think that was the major problem. The biggest problem as I saw it was the basic inability of our players to pass the ball to a team mate.
Even when not under pressure I don’t think I saw us ever string more the 2 or 3 passes together, and even if we did it was sideways and backwards. But the truth is 2 or 3 passes on a regular basis would of been better than what we saw, which was players simply hoofing it up the park in panic, or worse putting a slide rule pass strait to a man in Aqua Marine !!
Honestly our inability to handle the ‘press’ in any way shape or form was really very poor, and I felt it was that rather than our attitude or lack of effort that saw us totally outplayed.
Just to add, personally, amongst all the debris I felt Chambers had another very good game. One positive in amongst quite a few negatives alas.
I find this team so frustrating. Only the other day I was saying how I felt this squad was good enough for a top 4 finish next season, which some performances have suggested, then we put in another 30 minutes of garbage (like at West Ham) or 20 minute of garbage (like at the end against Spurs) or an entire match like yesterday, and I think we’ll be lucky to finish mid table. Infuriating. I still love em though.
We were well beaten yesterday by Liverpool and I don’t normally dig players out , but after a good run in the team I’ve noticed that Rob Holding has a problem of turning off , ball watching and not reacting to a situation .
First against Aston V after Cedric’s mistake he didn’t react at all , against MC Sterling scores a header and yesterday against Liverpool Jota scores , these 2 are short ( in height ) and should never be scoring from crossed balls , is it unlucky on him or what I noticed in his game .
@Nitram, as regards the referee, indeed we all saw it differently (lol). The team that was better by far won, referee had no influence on that. The midfield was key, theirs totally dominated ours. Partey needs to up his game. Ceballos is too light weight and Liverpool showed Odegaard that Westham are not on the same level
Arome
I agree with all your points.
None of that changes the fact that the referee let Liverpool get away with more than us, including one particularly poor late challenge right under his nose that was a definite yellow that he didn’t even call a foul.
Similarly that doesn’t change the fact that the better team by far won, but it may be part of why this team doesn’t get ‘stuck in’ or as Tony keeps pointing out, even tackle very much.
I’m just saying, maybe this constant fear of being carded for the merest transgression is behind such an insipid display. I don’t know but it’s possible.
Just a thought before the international break Liverpool were running on empty , with games coming every 3 to 4 days . Klopp’s style of closing down the opposition is tiring and without rotation and the amount of injuries they had you could see that their results weren’t very good , the break gave their players a good rest and they looked like a revitalised team .