[West Ham United v Arsenal: match preview](news_archive.php)
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_**Preview Percy**‘s been basking in the bragging rights he obtained over his Geordie mates earlier this week. Well it serves them right for inflicting Ant & Dec on the rest of us. Meanwhile the old fool turns his attention to Saturday’s visit of Arsenal..._
Next up we play host to Arsenal at the Olympic. Kick off is at 5:30pm GMT for the benefit of TV, as everything seems to be these days. Engineering works east of Pitsea to contend with so the late kick-off may enable you to arrive on time. Check before etc etc.
So Arsenal then. Is it me or do their supporters appear to be turning a bit Tottenham? Last year the league was definitely theirs. Except it wasn’t, as Declan Rice had to come to terms with a trophyless season. This year was the same. For a while. However a wobbly spell over October/November seems to have tempered that somewhat, despite Manchester City having apparently decided to have a year off. They started comfortably enough, winning five and drawing two of their first seven. However it should be pointed out that four of those five wins came against Wolves, Southampton Leicester and Spurs. A few warning signs came as they went down 2-0 at Bournemouth, 1-0 at Newcastle and dropped further points at home to Liverpool and away at Chelsea. It took them until last weekend to return to winning ways with a 3-1 win up at Nottingham Forest. All that has left them in fourth place, level on 22 points from 12 games with Chelsea in third place and Brighton in fifth. Tellingly they arenine9 points behind league leaders Liverpool and, whilst one wouldn’t be surprised if Man City were to rediscover their Mojo and bridge their own eight-point gap, it’s difficult to see Arsenal doing something similar. Daisy was mightily relieved to discovered that they only brought in two permanent and two loan players this summer, if you don’t count David Reya, whose signing was the regularising of the previous season’s loan deal. (And she doesn’t.) First to arrive was Riccardo Calafiori who cost £33.6m, potentially rising to £42m with add-ons, when arriving from Bologna. In Italy he has been dubbed the “new Maldini†- which is usually the kiss of death for any young player. Calafiori’s goal in the 2-2 draw with Man City was adjudged to be Arsenal’s goal of the month for September. He was part of the Italian Euro 24 squad and played in the group stage. However, two yellow cards in the group stage saw him miss out on the last 16 round, which saw the Italians eliminated by Switzerland. Mikel Merino cost them a rumoured £32m on arriving from Real Sociadad. He didn’t have the most auspicious of starts, a collision with Gabriel fracturing his shoulder and delaying his start until October. He was on target with a header in the 2-2 draw with Liverpool. The Spaniard, who has over 30 caps for his country, Is now in his second spell in the Premier League having spent a season or so with Newcastle around six years ago. The loan signings came in the form of ‘keeper Neto, who is in for the season from Bournemouth as cover for Reya, presumably filling the Aaron Ramsdale-shaped dent in the bench seat vacated by Southampton’s current custodian. The other loan signing was Raheem Sterling. The arrival of new Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca saw the writing on the wall for the former England striker, it being clear that he was going to struggle to get minutes for the Pensioners. â€I told him he would struggle to get minutes for us†said Maresca. On the injury front they will be without England refusnik Ben White and Takehiro Tomiyasu, both of whom have knee issues. Gabriel, who has been experiencing discomfort in his “other†is also a major doubt. However, Declan Rice, who has been playing with a broken toe, should be fit to return to the club with whom he actually won a trophy. And so to the wild and wacky world of Association Football. Well the scandal of Cootegate, as nobody else is calling it, continues to develop. The latest developments appear to see the official sending messages which could be interpreted as suggesting bets be placed on his issuing yellow cards during a West Brom v Leeds match a few years ago. As ever, it should be pointed out that Coote denies all wrongdoing, falling back on the usual explanation of “it was just banterâ€. Either way, if he still has friends who like a punt I’d recommend avoiding any wager that involves Coote still being a top-flight referee this time next year. What worries me is the question of whether there are anymore Cootes out there. The late Preview Alastair was acquainted with a former match official who claimed to have been told pre-match by their assessor to caution a particular player and, as mentioned ad nauseam, PGMOL’s protectionist attitude fosters a climate in which such spot-match fixing can take place undetected. Ideally any investigation into Coote would look at the wider state of refereeing in England. It won’t and the most likely result will be Coote, if found guilty, being kicked out on his backside with lots of backslapping over how isolated an incident this all was and how wonderfully honest everyone is in general. Elsewhere Coventry City have, inexplicably, signed up Frank Lampard Jnr as their new manager. Clearly Lampard Jnr has been to the same CV writing business as the Chancellor Of The Exchequer, failing to get Derby promoted, prompting a player revolt in his first spell at Chelsea, nearly relegating Everton and taking Chelsea into a bottom half-finish for the first time in donkeys’ years being the sum total of his achievements at the helm. And so to us. Well such was the dismal showing against Everton there was no way I saw that one coming on Monday. As you may remember from previous previews, I have various connections with the Newcastle support, largely as a consequence of my long-standing friendship with the much-missed and aforementioned Preview Alastair. During the course of the match on Monday I received numerous messages, all of which were gracious in defeat and most enquiring as to what sort of transfer fee we might seek for Bowen. In truth, numerous players had by far and away their best matches of the season. Paqueta, notwithstanding a few bits of potentially-costly showboating towards the end, showed us glimpses of the pre-investigation player of old. Soler too showed what he is about for the first time and those two worked well together with Daisy’s favourite, Tomas Soucek. Soucek’s goal came from Emerson’s corner, the Brazitalian seemingly haven taken over corner duties from Bowen who, for all his skill and hard work, has been pretty ineffective in his delivery from the flags. It wasn’t all perfect. There was the off defensive wobble here and there and Mavropanos was a bit lucky not to concede a spot-kick in the second half – if I’m honest I’d have moaned had It happened up the other end. Still that probably compensated a little for the number of fouls on Antonio not given. The one where he quite literally had the shirt ripped from him but gained nothing was a particular delight from the ref. Lopetegui’s complaint, which I presume was something along the lines of “look at the shirt the clues are there ref†earned the boss a yellow card which will see him banished to the stands on Saturday. I guess we are all supposed to be grateful Antonio wasn’t given a red for being improperly dressed. Also on the naughty step will be Mo Kudus who has one match left of his ban, unlike Alvarez who I had forgotten had received two reds this season and thus had an extra night off up at Newcastle. Todibo limped off with an unspecified injury and is rated as evens to be fit. Fullkrug? Let’s move on, shall we. So the prediction, then. Well there is that usual thing about swallows and summers to contend with. Also it is so us to follow up a decent performance with a lousy one. On the other hand, maybe, just maybe the team will have got the taste for actually working their socks off given the reward. My gut feeling is that we will struggle to get a win, but I wouldn’t rule a draw out of the question. So this week I will be putting the £2 that was going to be spent on having my CV rewritten by Lampard’s advisors will instead be going on a score draw when I get down to Winstone The Turf Accountants. Shall we call it a 2-2 draw? Yes let’s. Enjoy the game!
When last we met at The Olympic: Lost 0-6 (Premier League February 2024)
Having turned them over in the previous two meetings we decided to put in our worst performance in years. They still had a leg up from the ref, Saka converting a spot-kick earned from a dive “earned†after he had been offside in the build-up. However, there was such little effort from the players their shirts were collected up, placed on hangers and sold as brand new, unsullied as they were by anything resembling sweat.
Danger Man: Martin Odegaard
Whilst not likely to top the scoring charts he is arguably the player who makes them tick. Their recent iffy spell coincided with his absence through injury.
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Buffoon who seems to think strutting about and being bossy to players makes him a good official. Someone ought to tell him that a proper application of the laws of the game might be a better place to start.
Percy and Daisy’s Arsenal Fact Of The Week Type Thing
For years they have been trying to get themselves a song like other clubs. They played Presley’s “The Wonder Of You†for hundreds of matches to no effect. Somehow, they have alighted on “The Angel (North London Forever), a dirge so depressing that you’d have to be particularly “special†to think of it as an anthem. Rumour has it that they went through the entire back catalogue of Leonard Cohen first but found him too cheerful.
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