Brendan Rodgers? Nah, Mikel Arteta is the Arsenal equivalent to a completely different Liverpool manager. And now the Rafael Benitez appointment is next.
Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.
Keane as mustardHas anyone else noticed that Maddison and Fernandes have been on fire since Roy Keane slagged them off? He may be a genius.
Robert, Birmingham.
HeadacheThe match hasn’t even started yet and I saw this quote from Maresca given before kick off.
“In this moment I think we are the second or third best attacking team in the Premier League. For sure, we can attack better and defend better.”
I’m sorry, but what the christ is he smoking?
Now to watch what might be the worst Chelsea 11 in 30 years.
Will (Maresca out? Shouldn’t have been in in the first place)
Yeah, Chelsea were s**t.
Will
Heartbreak or heroismIn my time as a Newcastle fan I have watched them play in 3 Domestic Cup finals and it was not pretty. In the first 2 they just became footnotes in the story of 2 juggernaut teams as they went about delivering trebles and doubles. They went out with a whimper in both, with the weight of destiny being a bit too much to bear.
The third one though really bothered me. We went up against a similar strength team in Manchester United with a good (at the time, is he still?), but not excellent, coach and an aging legend in Casemiro leading them on. They proceeded to score reasonably early and then kept the Toon at arm’s length for the rest of the game much like an older brother with their hand on their little brother’s head. Newcastle went on to beat them later in the season and finish 1 place behind them in the table. No destiny, no irresistible force, just a pretty good team showing up at the final and getting the job done as efficiently as possible. Man United, a little bit like a diet Real Madrid, believe they can do the job in the final. We’ve seen it many times before and we’ll probably see it again before long.
Newcastle, of course, play Liverpool this weekend. Sadly, Liverpool also believe they can do the job in the final, what do this Newcastle team believe this time? Last time we had Callum Wilson up front and, through a series of weird events, Karius in goal. If that’s not enough to destabilize your confidence I don’t know what is. This time we have 2 keepers to choose from and no obvious right answer (not ideal but a damn sight better than a Karius debut), Gordon takes the place of Pope as unfortunately suspended player (seriously, 2 red cards all season and one of them just before a final, you couldn’t make it up), and who knows what Isak will be on display, on fire, or starved of service? That’s still got to be better than 2023.
The team have been here before, so that should be in their favour and they have a confidence boosting win away from home under their belt to improve the mood. Gordon, Botman and Hall will be missed but the replacements have had a couple of weeks to bed in and gel.
Despite Liverpool’s difficult midweek, they have to still be the big favourites however. League leaders, cup winners in living memory, we never bloody beat them and the Mo Salah season stacks up to a lot to negotiate. But if Wigan and Leicester can win a final anything’s possible right? A win would be immense for the club now and going forward. But I just hope it’s competitive, I can’t take another underwhelming schooling at the hands of one of the big boys.
Derek from Dundalk (watching from behind the couch through my fingers)
Taking the MikHi there,
I’ve heard this idea that Arteta is Arsenal’s Brendan Rodgers, and I can see why superficially that might make sense, but I think the more accurate John The Baptist character from Liverpool’s managerial history might be Gerard Houllier. Like Arteta, Houllier came into a floundering and fundamentally unserious squad full of dilettantes, and conducted a root and branch reboot of the structure of the club, getting rid of popular but disruptive players (in this analogy Fowler is Ozil and Aubameyang is….Danny Murphy, maybe?) and putting the foundations in place for a later manager to be successful.
So Arsenal’s NEXT manager needs to be their Benitez, an incredibly talented structural manager who gets the best out of players despite being quite unfriendly with them, and who falls out with every other employee at the club before the very end. A genius with terrible inter-personal skills.
That, my friends, is Roberto Mancini. And he would do wonders with this Arsenal team.
Largely against their will, but nevertheless.
Dara (Seriously, though, why is Mancini never in these conversations? Sure, he’s spent the next couple of years in international management, but it’s not like it’s prison.) O’Reilly, London
Fixing ArsenalExcellent mail from Lee in Wednesday’s mailbox.
Before I get to that though, I would just like to point out the insane toxicity from this mailbox over the last few weeks.
Maybe I’m confused but isn’t this Arteta’s first job as a manager? Isn’t this the same manager who challenged for the title at least 2 years ahead of schedule(going by the phases in the plan)? Isn’t this the same manager who has not lost a big 4 game in 2 years? I can understand rival clubs (who whether they admit it or not cannot understand why they can’t win against us anymore) but to see Arsenal fans join in this farce is just foolishness.
Maybe your memory is short and you can’t remember Mustafi or maybe you can’t remember getting mauled by Bayern 5-1 home and away. Maybe you can’t remember 5 Nils in Manchester and Guardiola massaging our egos with “how they play beautiful football”. I certainly don’t have that type of memory. I’m sure glad the club doesn’t entertain people like you and your insane talk of replacing this manager.
Back to Lee. You raise some solid points especially on Saka being the only outlet and on who we should be targeting in the summer but I would just add this. The targets are specifically to
1. counter the evolution of tactics among smaller mid table teams and
2. based on the availability of priority targets. On point 1, mid table team are harder to beat now and are taking more points from the top 4 because of speed and physicality. On point 2, I think Arteta recognized one big problem in the team’s midfield, especially on how Odegaard is being used. Simply put, he simply does not have the unstoppable quality like KDB has/had especially in his prime. He takes too long on the ball (which is not necessarily a bad thing) and that makes him more Bernando like rather than KDB like. Which is what Arsenal really need. I think Arteta maybe missed an opportunity to move him to the left hand side after Xhaka left and have him influence the game from a deeper position, and release quicker on his stronger foot (again Bernando like). This is why I think the priority really has to be an unstoppable right-sided number 10. Nwaneri could become this person but to win the league now, we need one immediately.
I can’t completely blame the manager though. The problem is we don’t really see anybody right now in world football with those qualities. In fact, one can argue that Arsenal already have the top talent to look out for in this position (Nwaneri). This is why I think Sesko still makes sense over Isak. If we can’t get an unstoppable number 10, we need an unstoppable number 9. You’re right about one thing though. The argument for a number 9 has been lazy. Everybody simply thinks it’s because of goals but i think it’s more than just goals and it’s more closely related to this. This is why spending 60 million on Watkins simply doesn’t cut it. He would have only made Arsenal marginally better. He wouldn’t have gotten us over the line. Another advantage with Sesko is he could allow Havertz to play in the same exact way he played at Leverkusen (right sided SS) and crash late into the box.
In all of this, the truth is you still need an element of luck in every season. For example, I personally believe Timber alone would have given us the 4 points required to win the league last season. Unfortunately, he tore his ACL. It’s life. Slot was lucky to inherit this team and to get one final hoorah from Salah and VVD (who are both having a season to remember). Truth is he didn’t have to do much. It happens. That’s life. But to see the amount of abuse against Arteta is shocking. Stop it!
Damola AFC Bremen
Liverpool’s rebuildWith the CL now over and PL more or less tied up (watch that come bite me on the backside) and the article on eight players Liverpool should discard, I thought sights should be set on the summer and the rebuild.
So getting into Championship Manager mode, its time to clear the decks. Rumours seem to linger around the exits of Diaz, Nunez, Gomez, Jota and also Jones/Elliott would be good for PSR. That’s a group I think are sellable for decent prices and I hope Michael Edwards can work his magic there. If the ‘contract rebels’ all decide to leave then there’s also some sizeable holes there that need filling and at least 2 each in defence, midfield and attack. In my CM saves, I usually raid the teams around me in the league where budgets allow.
So keepers first, I actually think it’ll be Kelleher that goes not Alisson so its he and Giorgi. Defence and Bournemouth have some interesting players in Milos Kerkez and Dean Huijsen (I think this lad is class). I like van Hecke at Brighton as a CB option as well.
Staying at Brighton for midfield, I think Carlos Baleba could be a good buy. I like what I’ve seen of Hinshelwood as well. Over to Palace and Adam Wharton would be great but I fear he’d be too expensive for FSG regardless of his enormous potential. A cheeky bid for Kobbie Mainoo might have legs…
Forwards and Bournemouth’s Dango Outtarra has some Sadio Mane vibes – has a goal contribution every other game, maybe needs the next level? Alex Isak is a name that’s been linked a lot but will be expensive so maybe teammate Anthony Gordon would be better. I also like Brighton’s Joao Pedro and also Wolves’ Matheus Cunha.
I haven’t bothered trying to find values per player as it could be anything come the summer, all I know is the investment would be vast. And I’ve stuck to the PL at the moment, maybe the next chapter will be venturing to the mainland starting with going to Slot’s former team for some talent.
Most importantly – the manager names I usually use in CM? Hash Brown or Jeff Leopard.
Cheers,
Adam, Black Cat Roundabout (LFC)
Push it real goodIs this the most irritating thing allowed on a football pitch right now?
Apologies for the click-bait opening, we’ve all got to survive in this attention economy.
But hear me out: pushing in the back. I don’t mean borderline shoulder to shoulder that turns into shoulder to back. I don’t even mean a classic tangle of arms or a seat belt. I mean a flagrant shove in the back with hand or forearm, by a player NOT attempting to play the ball in any way, and with no hope of gaining possession.
This is well tolerated by officials, commentators, pundits and even players. If you’re behind your opponent, as they go to play the ball you’re allowed to give them a little shove with your actual hand or forearm, in their actual back. The consensus is the receiving player just has to be strong enough to deal with this, unless it crosses some undefined threshold of force (or something).
By way of example, two Konate incidents:
1. Final Goodison derby. Beto doesn’t get off the ground and pushes his forearm/elbow into the back of Konate as he goes up for the ball, putting him under a clearance he would easily make otherwise. Not sure what happened after that.
2. PSG first leg away. Shoe on the other foot, Konate pushes Barcola in the back when he’s through on goal, sending him sprawling. Should have been red.
Neither one whistled or VARed. Were either fouls? Both? Neither? On the basis of what? Force? How much force?
For me, they were both clear fouls. Konate’s push on Barcola more obvious to the eye test, because it was on the run rather than in the aerial melee of the box. Konate is also much bigger than Barcola. Both incidents exist in the expanding grey area of how much of a cynical shove in the back is allowed.
UPDATE: wrote most of this earlier, now watching the Real Madrid Atletico Madrid game. Conor Gallagher gets a proper shove in the back that sends him lurching forward as he tries to play the ball, right in front of the lino/assistant match official. All good.
UPDATE 2: Unintended consequences dawning on me. Probably prefer a higher tolerance for pushing to a complete intolerance for contact. Hate those technical free kicks where the player waits for a whisper of a touch from behind, goes down, “and the ref has to give it”.
Rob, LFC, NYC (referring to Atletico Madrid as ‘Atleti’ is back…did it ever go away?)
Stadium chatDear MC,
I’ve just been reading Jim Ratcliffe’s thoughts on stadia with a wry smile:
“”The north of England has won 10 Champions League medals, London has two. But London has Wembley, Twickenham, Wimbledon and the Olympic Village,” said the United co-owner.
“The north of England deserves a stadium where England can play football, where we can hold the Champions League final, and one befitting of Manchester United’s stature.”
He’s absolutely right but has somehow missed the fact that such a stadium already exists. It can be found at Bramley Moore Dock in Liverpool and will be home to the mighty toffees from the end of this season.
Best wishes
PhilT
Double touch
Player (maybe) kicks ball twice when taking a penalty. Disallowed, no retake.
Keepers saves penalty but was off his line. Retake, but not an automatic goal for the penalty taker.
Does that make sense?
Gary AVFC, Oxford (That’s an actual Champions League QF spot)
Matt Stead writes that the footage showing the double touch in that overruled penalty was ‘deeply inconclusive’.
I guess he hasn’t seen the angle from behind the goal, in which it’s clear that the standing (slipping) foot does indeed brush against the ball. It’s available on the BBC website.
Personally I think ruling it out for that is contrary to the spirit of the game, but that’s the whole purpose of VAR. Undoing goals for reasons imperceptible to the naked eye is basically what it was invented for.
Martin, BRFC
Fat Sam must be raging that VAR wasn’t a thing in 2004.
The winning goal in the league Cup final was a clear double touch by Bolo Zenden taking a penalty for Boro against Bolton.
God bless Mike Riley who claimed afterwards he saw it but let the goal stand.
James Clarke,Dundalk ( One Job on Teesside)