Arsenal are travelling to Nottingham Forest tomorrow to begin their defence of a trophy that they have won for 3 of te last 4 seasons, and to try and increase Arsene Wenger’s incredible record of having won 7 winners medals with the same club. It is very doubtful that anyone will ever get close to that figure ever again.
But with the gruelling congested Christmas schedule in the Premier League, the boss is desperate to give most of his remaining first team players a rest and has promised to rotate his players as much as possible. He said in the pre-match conference: “From before Chelsea, nothing has changed,” he said. “Kolasinac, Koscielny, Monreal, Ramsey, Giroud are all out.
“From Wednesday night we certainly lose Granit Xhaka, who finished with a tight groin.
“I will rotate a little bit because play three games in six days.”
Having already lost 6 first team players he is unlikely to play any other stars like Ozil and Alexis, and he is even giving Petr Cech a rest as well. Luckily we are only playing a Championship side so we could still win with a weakened team, but he admits that he is desperate to win the trophy again and he feels the extra pressure of being holders. “Yes, of course, but there is an incentive as well to maintain our record, and overall the FA Cup is a very important competition. To win trophies – in every country – is so difficult, that everybody really goes for it, absolutely and completely.
“That’s why we want to be successful when we come into the competition. Overall I believe the group is focused, positive in the way we play football and it’s important to have a continuity there.”
So he will be using the whole ‘group’ and will pick a side that he believes is good enough to beat Forest. Let’s all just hope that his optimism is not misplaced and everything works out. We have to admit that he usually gets it right in the FA Cup!
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Liverpool just got 140 million from coutinho sale, and seem targeting lemar and mahrez, meanwhile we are still talking about extention contract of sanchez, oziel and wilshere.
Oh wait, we just buy new cb, who instantly shipping away to bundesliga.
They are after Goretzka too. Klopp is building a good team
Liv got the best of that deal if true. You’d get three Coutinhos for that money. Goretzka is a better addition than Coutinho as they need his type of player. They can afford to get another top CB, a top gk, and a star player. The VVD money is what they would of had for the kitty without sales. LG is free.
They won’t go for Mahrez because he plays in the same position as Salah.
I said it before mahrez is a quality player.
we should not let liverpool get him ahead of us.
let them have lemar but not mahrez.
140 million, crazy, if we want quality players, we need to pay…
Just woken up to bad news. Liverpool buy Mahrez while we think of buying the mediocre Evans. Truth is, AW has not moved with the times. We were promised a new stadium and then success with FIFA FFP. Our ‘English core’ flopped and other teams are spending big on stars from all over the world. This was monumental miscalculation by management … do not blame the players.
Goncalo Guedes is just 21 years old but he has everything I say everything not just to replace Sanchez but to win the d’or in a very few years. Go to youtube guy, you will end up talking of the fringe players. Guedes struggled at psg due to many big name players, look what he is doing at Valencia is world class, I’m 100% sure if we sign him he will have the same path as Continho did from Milan
I am not saying Guedes isn’t any good, but I remember watching Arshavin, and Gervinho on Youtube, and they both looked WC! Reality it home once I started watching them in an Arsenal shirt for full games.
Also ..a few quality moments inside every match can be dampened pretty easily without 90 minutes of concentration or care or willingness etc etc etc.
You need to see them on a game basis to really know if it’s what we need. Many players can be flashy or a little greedy but not too many are team players with a drive to see the team succeed.
The problem with Arsenal is that they are a big club with small club expectations.
Self sufficiency is nothing more than a fancy way of saying we cannot compete with the big teams like Chelsea, United and Liverpool.
The model at Arsenal is failing miserably. We cannot compete for the best players and if we cannot compete with the best players we cannot compete for anything.
I would prefer Arsenal to be honest and say they will not compete and are happy to settle for a good cup run and just aim to finish as high in the league as they can.
It gives people are choice when they decide to pay £100 plus a game to travel and watch the team play.
But honesty, respect and decency is clearly not in the vocabulary of Keswick, Gazidis and Kroenke….
I completely agree about honesty. I have said for years now that the board should tell us that we are happy with mid table, but to claim each year that we can fight on all four fronts is clearly a nonsense. Just be honest otherwise you ante conning the fans.
And as we all know, our current regime would NEVER CON OUR FANS, would they!
Great post and great last sentence too, which would have been more complete, had you included on your list of dishonourables a certain Arsene Wenger too.
On topic it is no surprise we field second string as we have done for some seasons now as indeed do most teams.
‘Are’
Well the good news is that Xhaka is not fit to play. (I could equally well have said ” not able to play” even when fit.) Meanwhile, a full week into the Jan window and still no quality player signed, just the 2 million Greek, a 2018 Kallstrom equivalent. Liverpool, our theoretical rival for 4th place, have signed a quality CB, and got £145 mill, which they did NOT want to get for their best player. And now watch them use that money to strenghen the team. We have half a team injured, are fighting on three fronts for trophies , plus having to play in the PREM as well, and have got a Greek kid, who is loaned out. You couldn’t make it up!
The problem was not Ashravin, Gervino etc. The problem is the stubborn AW. Even if you buy CR7 @ AFC AW will destroy him. Just hope news that he is stepping down at the end of this campaign is true. Will happy to c his bsck .