Rashy confirmed overslept and showed up late to team meeting. Said it’s his own fault and he accepted what he did was wrong and it won’t happen again.
Matchweek 18 Game Thread
- Thread starter Mighty Joe Young
- Start date
Everton shithousing and timewasting every minute possible wish we had the World Cup time methods we’d have like a +14 here
Bournemouth crowd sarcastically applauds them getting a shot off. 2-0 Palace; field looks a real mess, tough to tell what percentage is Palace looking good as a bounce back after some games versus Bournemouth not having it today.
I think they’ve looked pretty good today. It would be hard to be worse than Monday though
I wasn't able to watch it live so watched the highlights. After the first red card I was like well at least it can't get any worse. That was almost endearingly naive.I think they’ve looked pretty good today. It would be hard to be worse than Monday though
I enjoyed Newcastle begging for extra time that Wilson caused with his stupid push on the keeper.
City and Newcastle dropping points to Everton and Leeds is a good start of the day for Arsenal. Let's see if they can get all 3 now.
Lineups are out. Arsenal the same as last have except Zinny at LB over Tierney who is back to the bench.
Tomiyasu is back in the reserves for Arsenal.
Tomiyasu is back in the reserves for Arsenal.
Everton played a really chippy match and wasted time and faked every injury they could. Fortunate to score on basically the only attack but I agree they deserved the point. The parked bus had City just making useless tiki taka in midfield.
I have no idea why Pep played an almost unchanged XI from a fixture just a couple days ago and then was slow to sub but he’s really irritating me this year. City often go on a long run in this period but City have played so much of our 3rd and 4th CBs and CBs at LB and so on. Everton should be a straightforward fixture but he plays that really slow Grealish and Mahrez tandem and KDB has an awful day and just nothing clicks. Got dragged into the nonsense with Everton and got completely taken out of our game. Nothing is over and this side can go on a run but dropping points to Brentford and Everton is not going to get it done
Arsenal look like the real deal. It's not super surprising because they do seem to have a great combination of young players coming into form all at the same time, playing together and growing as a team under Arteta. Really group job by the club identifying the right players and giving them time to develop.
Arsenal definitely paid the price allowing the kids to develop.. Still feels a bit like they're a year ahead of where they should be, but having young legs and having played together for years has been huge. Also.. not having one single striker (or two) that clogs up the middle and instead playing a team attacking style has been very fun to watch and paid dividends (all four goals today were from four different players). The additions of Odegaard and Gabriel has also been exactly what the team needed to put the team over the top... but they've also added depth and somehow Xhaka has stopped fouling everything that moves and has become a very high end mid as well. Doesn't hurt that their talent and depth at D has also been significantly increased at the same time.
Pep is doing Arteta a solid. "Take the league this year. Keep it warm while we go for a cup treble: Carabao, FA and UCL" Brentford and Everton effort and results were very concerning.
wasn’t it Wenger who said that the price of playing the kids is points in the table?
Everton played the kind of physical bus parking game you’d expect but I was not impressed with City. It wasn’t just a matter of a chippy Everton goading City into shenanigans, City were plenty dirty on their own. Both Haaland and KDB were lucky not to be sent off, KDB avoiding a second yellow and Haaland got a 20 yard running start to knock over Mykolenko, his studs were still “down” which kept it yellow. They were tired and the rain didn’t help but this was a peevish City side that didn’t look much like they wanted to play. Contrast with Arsenal was night and day, I think if you told Odegaard & co they could stay out there all night they’d still be out there banging in goals and having a grand old time.
He certainly seemed to coach that way at the end of his tenure at Arsenal as I recall.. that and making the assumption that Ramsey and Wilshere would be able to play all or part of each season every year.
The beginning wasn't pretty with all the kids that were out there, but it does seem to be paying dividends. I think the key, though, is that they've also added to that core with solid additions and additional added depth.
Arsene, at the end, seemed to pay for more "established" players with no backups and a consistent hole in the middle.
The Athletic had a nice write up on why Pep likes playing Grealish/Mahrez … basically because they are safe and boring.
https://theathletic.com/4041648/2022/12/29/jack-grealish-riyad-mahrez-manchester-city/?source=user_shared_article
Call it what you want- that’s an excellent job by Everton.
it was 5 at the back with Coady, Tarkowski, and Ben Godfrey, back for the first time since getting hurt 10 minutes into opening day. Godfrey was huge. The Coady/Tark pairing has been solid they are a bit long in the tooth, Godfrey has pace and athleticism that complements. Onana and Gueye sat deep, with Iwobi further forward, the best use of all of them, Evertons rough patch coinciding with Frank pushing Onana forward where he struggled. Gray was more central alongside DCL who didn’t do much but at least provided the proper shape and a hold up outket.
they kept it compact, showed discipline in keeping the shape, and had a bit of snide, all of which has been missing.
Are referees the rustiest group coming out of the WC break? There have been exhibitions throughout Europe on how not to control matches. TOTAVL looks to be another.
Why is this Spurs team playing like Nuno's Spurs? The CBs pass to each other, and they go over the top to wingers
It'd be a real shame if he ended up at a club playing in real tournaments in Europe that need his PK prowess rather than the bottom half of the table for Unai Emery.
I hope Villa show more ambition in the second half. Spurs aren't playing them off the park by any means. A point will probably feel like three points to Emery, but it really is just a point. Park the bus until Spurs eventually score is a shit way to play football.
Rebecca and the Robbies apologizing profusely, probably to the P&G ad execs who paid for the expensive space for that Downey spot
A tactical mistake as well I think. Spurs have been shit in first halves for months and even bottom half teams have been aggressive and punished them for it.
Ol’ Dracula is really going to regret giving Spurs no threat as they slowly chunked through the gears to get up to speed.
Such a blah outside the box potshot. Insert cliche about buying a ticket here, but that was a goal out of nothing, I am so irritated.