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Arsenal 1 Liverpool 1 (Nov 3 2018)


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Dave Usher

 

I’m not going to complain about a point at Arsenal. I don’t think we played well and it’s frustrating not to have been able to hold on having got our noses in front, but so far this season we’ve drawn with City, Chelsea and Arsenal and we’ve beaten everyone else. Can’t really ask for more than that, surely?

 

It’s hard to be completely objective about these things because of how much Man City have completely skewed everything, the financial doping cheating twats. They’ve artificially set the bar so high that any point dropped feels like it might be catastrophic in terms of the title. I mean, since when is a draw at Arsenal a bad result? The answer is never, yet it almost feels that way, especially because City have already won there. They played Arsenal at the right time, before they’d fully adjusted to what Emery wants from them.

 

The Gunners look much stronger now. They’re certainly much better without the ball than we’ve become used to. I still feel as though we’d have battered them if we’d been anywhere near our best but it’s hard to beat anyone when the front three perform like this. I had hoped that the two easy wins we’d had prior to this would have been enough to get them going again, but sadly not.

 

The goal we scored came from Milner and the rest of our best chances all fell to Virgil. Where were the front three? Aside from Firmino’s clever lob that hit the post in the first half, they barely threatened.

 

Mane followed that one up and tucked the rebound away but he was ruled offside. Apparently under the current rules that was an incorrect decision and the goal should have stood, but fucking hell, I don’t think I want to live in a world where that is considered to be onside.

 

I mean come on. He runs in behind the defence and is a yard offside when the initial ball comes in. He even goes towards the ball but Firmino beats him to it. When Bobby takes the shot Mane is obviously onside at that point, but the only reason he is first to get to the loose ball is because he gained a huge advantage over the defenders by running offside in the first place.

 

If the rules now state that this is ok, then the rules are a fucking joke. But then we knew that anyway. Look at Cardiff’s goal at Anfield last week, if that’s a legit goal then Mane’s should be too. The inconsistency bothers me, but other than that I can’t get worked up about it when to me that should always be given as offside. 

 

The real problem is that nobody knows anymore, not even the linesmen. It’s not their fault either, the whole thing is just a farce now.  

 

Maybe if the goal had stood the forwards would have grown in confidence and made more of the space that Arsenal were allowing them. We’ll never know. What we do know is that it didn’t stand and that was pretty much as good as it got for the forwards.

 

Salah always looked like he was on the brink of doing something but he never did. Firmino never really looked on the brink of anything other than being substituted, which he eventually was, while Mane was just really hot and cold. Mostly cold.

 

 

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I've just read a stat that Roberto Firmino has played in 69 matches since the beginning of last season. That's a lot of matches. And only 2 more than Salah.

 

I think they're cream crackered and need a break. Hopefully they will get one soon.

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18 minutes ago, Shooter in the Motor said:

I've just read a stat that Roberto Firmino has played in 69 matches since the beginning of last season. That's a lot of matches. And only 2 more than Salah.

 

I think they're cream crackered and need a break. Hopefully they will get one soon.

whatever the reason, Firmino's turd at the moment.  So he does need bombing out of the team for a while.

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35 minutes ago, stringvest said:

for whatever reason, the team has lost its urgency.  And I'm not talking about that running around pointing, avoiding the ball and shitting himself captain.  I'm talking about hunting in packs, snapping into the tackle, anticipating and intercepting.   Sort it out Jurgen.

 

 

The team has conceded 5 goals in 11 league games. That includes away fixtures at Chelsea, Tottenham and Arsenal, facing 15 of very arguably the top 50 or 60 attacking players in the world, with hardly a shot conceded. The facts just don’t bear this out.

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My only irritation was the Trent fell asleep for their goal - if you look, he is claiming for offside whilst Lacazette is preparing to shoot - if he had not done that and got to him asap, the shot would have been blocked and no goal...

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15 hours ago, Chip Butty said:

How can the team be ruthless, if the manager isn't ruthless. 6th game on the trot we have been meandering through the game. Klopp needs to start cracking the whip. 

Yeah we need to get back to last season when we finished fourth, drawing 12 , losing 5 and shipping 38 goals.

 

I know it's not as fluent at the moment going forward but we are becoming a fucking tough nut to crack and being honest playing City, Arsenal, Spurs , Chelsea and throwing in a competitive Champions league group I think we are doing really well.

Agree though with Dave regarding City they have set the bar ridiculously high but that people are going over the top if we aren't walloping everyone like they are. 

The last time we went into November unbeaten was 2008-09 and then we lost to Spurs on the first day of that month.

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We've our best start to a premier league season ever.  The problem is people actually expect us to be competing with a billion pound squad with two quality players for every position, something we're quite obviously not going to do unless they drop a fuckload more points than they look like doing.

 

There's no shame in that.  

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If we beat Fulham on Sunday we’re averaging exactly 2,5 p/match – on course for 95 points. That includes away matches against Arsenal, Spurs and Chelsea.

If ManCity continues as they've started they will break their own 100p record from last year and win the PL comfortably. Will they? Maybe or maybe not. Wouldn’t be the first time a team being absolutely invincible in November looking like a complete different team later in the season.

We’ve had our dip in form this season. Let’s see what happens when they have theirs.

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in your report dave you said alisson looked ropey, i know i'm probably the only one who thinks this and people will think i'm friggin bonkers, but i think alisson IS ropey he makes me nervous i cant put my finger on the reason why,  i just dont have complete faith in him i really hope he proves me wrong

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2 hours ago, rhylerpudlian said:

in your report dave you said alisson looked ropey, i know i'm probably the only one who thinks this and people will think i'm friggin bonkers, but i think alisson IS ropey he makes me nervous i cant put my finger on the reason why,  i just dont have complete faith in him i really hope he proves me wrong

I think you are right.

You probably are the only who thinks that.

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23 hours ago, SasaS said:

I think you are right.

You probably are the only who thinks that.

chris bascombe todays daily telegraph," alisson looking suspiciously karius-esque in his failure to deal with an ambitious strike from distance", i hope he goes on to be a fantastic keeper for us but i have my doubts

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Nah, he'll let goals in here and there, but it's way too early to call him ropey or compare him to Karius. These past 3 month were the first time I felt we had a keeper who is an asset and not a liability since young Reina.

That was just a good strike yesterday I think.

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