By Bulldog Drummond
Sports Mole have as ever obliged with a clearly laid out lineup, published early on. No Lacazette for them, although he normally does rather well in scoring against the Palace.
Leno;
Chambers, Holding, Mari, Tierney;
Partey, Elneny;
Saka, Odegaard, Smith Rowe;
Aubameyang
The Standard predicts that Palace will win 3-2 and give the Arsenal line up as… exactly the same as Sports Mole.
The official Crystal Palace web site don’t give us an Arsenal team, and we wouldn’t expect them to, but they do have the wonderful headline:
Palace v Arsenal: full match details and how to watch on TV …
Well guys, I think we can help. You pick up the remote and push the on-off switch and then with your channel selector you move around the variously named BT Sprout channels until you find the right one. Wasn’t too hard was it?
As for the Sprout itself, it has a web page dedicated to the game, in which all the formatting has gone, logos are about five screens tall and there is a lovely bit that says
Hey there
Live commentary will start when the game kicks off.
Which is good to know. I mean if it started before kick off…. well … that would be odd.
They may have got themselves sorted out by the time you are tempted to look, but it is rather droll if you can catch it before it is reformed. They do have a link to the teams – but it doesn’t go anywhere.
The Radio Times doesn’t have a team prediction but it does tell us that Palace will win 2-1.
Alley Sport, who I don’t think we have focused on before have a line up, and it pops up on page 2 of my google search for team predictions. Unfortunately in includes Ainsley Maitland-Niles so is probably not relating itself to this match.
The Daily Canon has the headline “2 out 1 back” but don’t give a lineup and it wasn’t clear to me who is whom in that accounting.
Football Critic has…
Leno;
Chambers, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney;
Partey, Elneny;
Saka, Odegaard, Smith Rowe;
Aubameyang
And then finally we have a real alternative with UK Movies – a website I’ve not called on before, but desperate times….
Leno;
Chambers, Holding, Mari, Tierney;
Partey, Elneny;
Saka, Odegaard, Smith Rowe;
Lacazette
OK it is only one variation, but at least it was one.
However I can offer one diversion for you if you have not found it already. The AISA Arsenal History Society is continuing to gather together videos of matches involving Arsenal, and then bundle them into groups relating to individual teams. And so now we have on offer
Arsenal v Crystal Palace: a history in videos
The full list of the collections of videos organised by clubs is here. And there is a list of 268 selected Arsenal videos – all free to view – indexed on the website here.
And we have the team:
Leno
Chambers, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney
Partey, Elneny,
Saka,Smith Rowe, Pepe
Aubameyang (c)
Substitutes
Ryan, Cédric Soares, Mari, Xhaka, Ceballos, Odegaard, Willian, Lacazette,
Martinelli
PGMOL at their usual best showing yellow when it should have been a red. Walton the pundit on TV calls it orange- a new bastards colour. Another kick to Tierney ignored by all.
It is the same old smae old.
Palace should be down to 9 if the Laws of The Game were being implemented. It’s only 10 mins into the game!!
1-0 to the Arsenal but the PGMOL cheating goes on. Benteke after elbowing Saka off the ball sticks his arm into ElNenys kneck. VAR sees it as mild – very much worse than Xhakas hand to the kneck but The special Laws for Arsenal are in play.
sp – neck not kneck
Menace, Palace should now be down to 8 players
Palace still with a full complement of 11 in team shirts and 4 more in FIFA badged cheat shirts. All of this backed up by Peter Walton direct from saying good night Riley boy!! 😉
Meanwhile back in cloud cuckoo land where the beer spouts from below Aston Villa scored twice to beat booed off Spuds 1 – 2.
Arsenal get cheated by the officials and the score is now PGMOL Palace 1 Arsenal 1.
Eventually Odegarde puts a beautiful left footed cross spinning into the far post where Martinelli controls the ball well and puts it in the net!!
PGMOL Palace 1 – Arsenal 2.
Just in the Kneck of time 😂
While the Arsenal are taking the time to do everything in proper management style, the smart Pepe takes the ball into the Palcae area and puts it in the net…
Thats 3 – 1 to the Arsenal with pundits and Palace upset by the simplicity of Arsenals eventual victory.
The Red Knose is back ;} 😉 😉
Arsenal have to play against the bias of PIGMOL , how did Schlupp stay on the pitch when PEA was sent of at Selhurst Park in the last fixture there against Arsenal , we have to compete under a different set of laws/rules .
Indeed he is Menace. Personally I prefer all the other Reindeer myself. So does everyone else it seems as he’s firmly at the bottom of the list. Here’s what the Holidappy holiday web site has to say about all the Reindeer. Sounds about right to me. 😉
Dasher – He loves to go fast! Sewing.
Dancer – Completely extroverted. All kinds of dance.
Prancer – A bit vain, though affectionate. Prancing.
Vixen – Slightly tricky. Magic
Comet – Handsome and easy-going. Good with kids.
Cupid – Affectionate. Bringing people together.
Donner – Loud. Singing.
Blitzen – Fast as a bolt! Can electrify others.
Olive – Admits when she’s wrong. Good at hide-and-go-seek
Rudolph – A little full of himself. Talks out of his backside. Nose glows
When Arsenal commit an ‘orange’ type tackle it turns red and with other teams an ‘orange’ type tackle becomes yellow.
Very suspicious!!!
Pepe sent off for moving his head towards a Leeds player
Benteke does not get red because he doesn’t hit Elneny very hard in the face. Meanwhile Elneny gets yellow for putting his face in the way of Benteke’s fist.
Palace goal was offside following a foul on Arsenal defender.
All in all Palace should have had 3 red cards.
Despite the cheating match officials and Saha constant diving, Arsenal win 3-1
FANTASTIC
Until the Hammers came back in the second half, we actually had a real possibility of qualifying for Europe…after all that has happened this year. Amazing. And, we could still celebrate St. Totteringham’s on Saturday…so, despite all our ‘obvious’, though quite clearly media-fed weaknesses, we are pretty much equal with West Ham, Everton,Leicester, Chelsea, Sp*rs and Liverpool! We are still a ways of first but…Heads up boys! Regardless of where we finish this year, next year still has potential.
Can’t believe that a fore arm smash to the throat can be considered as anything less than a red and a minimum three match ban (but potentially five)……. but this is Arsenal. Thank feck we have VAR to ensure the rules are interpreted fairly and equitably!!! PGMOL disgrace yet again.
The three numpties on BBC MOTD ignored the nasty fouls and very crafty evasion of Red cards.
Do we have any chance of winning the league or of getting a fair game next season? Not with the corrupt PGMOL and the media that hide the truth and promote select groups of people.
Is football worth watching? Yes it is because despite the corruption and bias Arsenal can achieve within the handicap.
Sending young players out on loan is generally seen as a way of improving their skills and abilities. Joe Willock is the youngest player in premier league history to score in six consecutive league games.
I’m sure the dissenters will find a way of criticising Arsenal but I’d suggest the shrewd management decision to loan the young player out was very wise. But hey, it’s so much easier to criticise when you don’t have a clue about top class management…………..
The most amusing is the fact that 4 clubs are on the brink of a trophy that our supporters were not happy with and feel in with the media and got Wenger to resign.
Indeed its the 4th place trophy that Wenger achieved to pay for our stadium. These clubs know that the financial reward is huge and caters for squad improvement. Thankfully Wenger left us with a group of young players that are maturing into the 1st team. That will eventually stop as his selective vision was unique and the incoming youngsters may not be as good.
The shamless idiots that do not have a clue about the structures that a manager has to maintain, besides a squad of footballers that need to be coached, followed the media like lemmings and sadly didn’t fall over to their ‘deaths’. The incredible job Wenger did, truly shows up other managers. The basic structures were copied by Chelsea and literally duplicated by Manchester City by buying in ex Arsenal intelligence and extracting intellectual property to develop the likes of Foden.
4th Place is not a trophy ……. it is a goldmine.
Menace
I always believed the Media actually knew Wenger was right, in as much as qualifying for the Champions League is, and in actuality always was more important to ‘elite’ clubs than winning the FA Cup.
It was more important financially, first and foremost. Then it was more important in regards to attracting players, especially ‘foreign’ players.
It’s just the media ‘chose’ to bash Wenger with it because that’s what they do, but they knew he was right.
The ex players that bashed him, such as Carragher in particular, claiming players would prefer the FA cup to champions league qualification, knew damn well that the top players saw champions league football as the pinnacle of domestic football.
It’s just ex players such as Carragher and the rest ‘chose’ to bash him because that’s what ex players did.
The only group that never really ridiculed him were managers because they knew. Okay the bitter and twisted little clique of Fat Sam, Mark Hughes, Harry Redknapp and Tony Pulis constantly stuck the knife in, but by and large any manager that actually won stuff, you know, good managers, they knew. I just wished they’d been more vocal about it but they probably felt they would be opening themselves up for ridicule if they were seen to support Wenger.
At the end of the day the Champions League established you as an elite club and attracts elite players. The FA Cup gives you a wonderful day out.
Well that was a fine display of PGMOVAR cheating…. yuck…. How on earth that the VAR didn’t change the cards in to red is beyond me. But Riley’s boys did an excellent PGMO job by turning a blind eye to some nasty fouls and challenges. Great that we won in the end. The fact that Benteke scored the equaliser made it extra grimm as he should have been sent off in the first half. But thanks to Pepe and Martinelli we managed to get the 3 points.
Pepe seems to be improving and Martinelli should get more match time for me.
Alas Aubamayang once again being almost invisible for 90 minutes.
Menace and Nitram
True and true.
Watched a repeat of the Palace v Arsenal game and guess what? There’s a patch of the game missing 3.28 – 5.57. It is the red card studs to the shin of Chambers incident.
Now why would a broadcaster do such a thing? It is not a highlights broadcast but a repeat of the live match complete with Voy being felicitated, teams taking a knee but lets keep the truth out!!!
They showed the forearm smash to ElNenys throat but brushed that aside like it was during the game.
I think that is the common practice Menace, anything that suggests the ref might have missed something is cut.