Condimentalist

18 hours ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

Just seeing the closeup of his build up to the pass for Ollie's goal.

Wow, it had to be perfect to pull it off

Running at speed, chops it past the first defender with perfect precision and weight (With Outside of foot ), then passes it though minimal space between 2nd defenders leg, with again just enough precision to evade the third defenders outstretched leg and perfectly into Ollie's path!

Yes that was an exceptional assist and he knew exactly what he was doing.

Man is red hot right now. 

This week is where JJs season finally begins IMO. Will go Villa win and him with a couple. 

Massive win yesterday. I was sat behind the goal in the Fulham end right by the the Villa fans who were outstanding all match. 

Torres was superb, Watkins brilliant, but a good, gritty team performance all round.

Have the bedwetters retreated today? 

First time I've seen him in the flesh yesterday. Outstanding. 

Having torn my ACL myself, the way he was walking off and down the tunnel suggests it may not have been a full rupture. Hopefully limited meniscus / cartilage damage too. That's the only reason I can see for briefing out a 5 month time line but I would be amazed if it's that soon. Hopefully we see him again in 2024. 

An absolute shitter and a real blow to the season given how important he is to how we play. 

I think Unai needs to come up with a new style as we don't have anyone else who is press-resistant in that role. 

22 minutes ago, omariqy said:

Plenty of strong rumours that he will be out for 9-12 months. 

That would be a real sickener and IMO would mean we'd have to change our style. Let's hope it's not true. 

Excellent! He's been brilliant this year. 

12 hours ago, Risso said:

Do we have to wait two years for Diaby then? 

I think he'll be better next season. We've already seen he's got it, he was excellent early doors. Unai also makes players better in the end. 

Could do with a decent contribution from him still this year though, perhaps especially in the Conference if he's not starting in the league. 

I'll go 7 but could be 9.

We played well today and usually respond to defeats. Pau back next week hopefully. 

Big game next week. If we don't win we're drifting, if we do we can go on a mini run and set ourselves beautifully for the Spurs game, which hopefully Konsa will be back for also. 

I'm not a huge fan but he was fine today. Made a good block early on. Not the reason we lost. 

To give him his dues, he had a good game

I feel more confident that he'll come good than I did Bailey. 

He's just shot of confidence. 

Fast start and an early goal would be good. Konsa is a huge miss so I hope Pau is back. 

Let's do this guys, massive game, could do with getting another home run going. 

19 minutes ago, TheMelvillan said:

really starting to regret using the word agenda in my original post 

but really what is the point in having a 20 team league when the ultimate prize isnt viably winnable by a team sitting joint third with 15 games to play? Just take the biggest 4 teams in the land and let them scrap it out

 

 

Oh and according to TNT Sports on Twitter today "Arsenal are unbeaten against the big six in the Premier League this season" citing City, Liverpool, Man Utd, Spurs and Chelsea. Factually correct but frustrating unimportant as they seem to have included a mid table and upper mid table team in that stat

 

I do think that 'the big 6' is an outdated concept and I think that Newcastle and hopefully ourselves will demonstrate that over the years ahead. But if nothing else, in terms of revenue, they are currently much bigger. 

These things can change though. It used to be 'the big 4'. Perhaps in a few years 'the big 8'. We'll see. 

4 minutes ago, nick76 said:

I’m not sure I agree, last week I watched a section on tv where they discussed Villa and whether we could get Top 4 and the next section Ange was about to do his pre Everton press conference and we were both on the same points and they were discussing whether Spurs were in the title race.  This is only one example of a few over the last few weeks.  

And probably the pundits said no?

That said, I do think there is arguably a bit of a pro Spurs bias more than anti Villa. Because they've had more success in recent years, but there are also undoubtedly a lot of Spurs fans in media roles. 

In the end, it's hard for a team that hasn't been challenging regularly to be seen as a contender. That underdog status isn't necessarily unhelpful for us though.

8 hours ago, Kiwivillan said:

Last 5 seasons 71, 71, 67, 66, 71 was the total 4th place got

Likely to be higher this year because there are so many poor teams. 

1 minute ago, TheMelvillan said:

Main article on the BBC website:

"Arsenal place themselves at heart of three way title race" by Phil McNulty

 

I mean I get it - Villa probably aren't gonna win the league. I'm realistic enough to know this. But the utter disrespect shown by that sentence is unreal. Villa have the same number of points as one of those teams, within 3 of second place and 5 of first! Form over the last 12 months as good as anyone

It's stuff like this that means we simply have to keep winning games cos it so clearly messes with the media agenda and they hate it.

This 'media agenda' stuff amazes me. 

It's an amazing story for the media if Villa win the league. They would love it. 

Pundits aren't saying it because it's highly unlikely (as you admit yourself) not because of an agenda.

It looked painful to me but not serious. Would be surprised if he misses more than Chelsea. Fingers crossed anyway. 

7 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

Like Buendia and Bailey at some point. 

Difference being that we'd signed those two on big money - but they also both showed more than Zaniolo has (albeit with more gametime). 

I actually quite like Zaniolo but I'm not sure he's demonstrated he's worth the fee and suspect Rogers will be his long term replacement. 

Hope we go for the kill here. GD could be vital at seasons end. 

Good line up 

Some of the posts in this thread 

Cult hero. Love him. All the best Bertie.