Lush Vlad

Someone needs to step up in his absence. As I’m still not convinced we have anyone able to cover his LCM role. Willock so out of form it’s untrue. Longstaff is poor there and I’m not a fan. Miley is still a kid. But it does feel like he deserves a chance now. I guess we were going to rotate this weekend regardless. I also think the sort of 5 at the back will be used against City. But it won’t work against Forest. So it would be good if someone could step up and really shine in midfield in Joe’s place.

Well travelled around mainly the south of the country accent? Fuck knows. His parents are from the NE, his Mam definitely is. I think he was brought up not that far from me. As I believe his parents used to own or at least run an American Diner on the A10 called Arbuckles. Out the other side of Ely and on the way out into the sticks in East Anglia. He definitely doesn’t sound as fen as the carrot crunchers out there. He’s sort of quite well spoken but has hard A’s at times. So not like the generic southern accent that could be from anywhere within a 2 hour radius down this way

Gabriel goes from one of the biggest gobshites and most aggressive players in the league. To looking like a scared little boy against Isak. As for Saliba, well. Redknapp stole my American Football Quarterback (Sam Darnold) analogy that I used for these two after the first leg. “It’s like he’s seeing ghosts out there/it’s like he’s seen a ghost.” He looks so shaky and unsure of himself on and off the ball compared to usual. Baring in mind this is one of the tightest CB pairings in the league and best in the world. Who regularly do a quality job of controlling Haaland and bossing him physically, even. Three games this season: Goal after finding space between them for a bullet header. Goal after pulling off and finding space where they’re not from a free kick. Shot that was saved and led to a goal. Goal ruled off because of a gnat’s cock offside. Hit the post after rinsing Saliba and it led to a goal. MOTM in at least 2/3 games and ran them ragged all night. If we win the 4th game to nil and he gives them the runaround again. I might die from smiling too hard

So he’s missing those 3 big games we need him in due to injury. Not a couple of them because of his expected yellow card ban. Hope he’s back soon. Not sure that system will work every week and we don’t really have anyone else to play LCM. Willock is horribly out of form.

I would imagine and hope it is. Of course it could be the other knee. But it has been sensitive as fuck in my knee ever since various ops. Always paranoid that a slight tweak or sprain means it’s gone again and all. Mings took a lot longer to come back from his. The other week everyone thought his ACL had gone again and he himself looked like he thought the same. Sounds as if it’s pretty minor.

Oooh. Arteta hates this woman asking him tough questions. LOOOOOLLLLLLL.

Squares bar and then a protein bar for me

Yep. Wired to the moon. Not sleeping for a long while. May as well just stop up. Baby will be up soon I’m sure.

Really happy for Murphy. But if that shot went in….. The finish for the first, which was offside by a cunt hair, was outrageous enough. But nearly putting it top corner on your weaker foot like that. Wow.

Yeah. Sounded really good over the TV. It rarely sounds good on the box. Even when the atmosphere is half decent in the ground. Neville was very complimentary. Was saying how Arsenal were struggling with it.

That interview, man. What a guy. I’m never going to be nasty about him again. What a lovely fella

Just come in to say similar. Finally, post and in

Ohhhhh Lord. Fabian Schar.

I would personally still have Pope back in. But at the same time, he’s not really done anything wrong? I don’t think he was flappy at all and had a solid game.

Rice genuinely seems like a hard but fair player. I reckon Schar sticking to him like glue made him have a complete head loss. Was carrying on like a right cunt towards the end.

TBG finally got his wish. He played in midfield……. Sort of. Well, may as well have been up front at times

Sat here feeling a bit melancholy. Whilst also buzzing inside. My Dad died two weeks ago today and he was a Gooner. I would have been enjoying some light piss taking with him now. Still got a whatsapp from him that made me smile at the time over how aggro it was This was after an hour in the first leg: “Not watching. Tie is done. Good luck in the final 👍⚽️x”

Captain Shithouse. Set the tone with that. Wanted to fight every cunt in red and white

He’s been poor on the ball and with some of his daft challenges of late. But we really do take his off the ball work and running for granted. Not Hall’s fault at all. As not many players can do what Big Joe does and play 3 positions at once. But I thought he struggled positionally a bit at times that half. Seems like the Joelinton/Anderson slightly wider at LCM then LB out of possession role for Hall tonight. Pretty niche.

Went bananas for Isak’s goal. Even though I thought he looked off. I’ve been far more reserved since VAR has come in. Didn’t celebrate Murphy’s. Almost felt sweeter

Almost picture perfect. Another goal on the break so that I have some fingernails left would be lovely. They’ve had one great chance, another decent one and their flurry of corners. We’ve been solid otherwise.

Plus Burn v Martinelli is far from ideal I think Trippier and Hall will tuck into midfield at times in possession. But Hall won’t be playing there in a 4-3-3 I wouldn’t have thought.

I reckon they’ll start Martinelli and Nwaneri.

True. They didn’t need to be their usual Stoke’like self against City though. Mainly due to big mistakes from City and some good fortune. But they barely relied on set pieces at all. I’d rather we stuck with our same system and think we’d manage the game from open play much better that way. We’ll find out what the team is in 27 minutes. I should probably just wait until then to comment

Yeah. Trippier and Hall would be coming into midfield a bit I would have thought. But I’m guessing they will have been drilling this and Howe must have liked what he saw. Whilst I don’t like the look of it on paper and I think it sends out the wrong message psychologically. This isn’t like the Pardew and Bruce days of just changing formation on a whim and almost week to week. If we were to go with 5 at the back. You’d like to think it has been drilled extensively over the season at different times in training.