To me, it genuinely feels as though the dust has barely settled on the last North London Derby in May, but here we are, traveling to the Emirates to take on our beloved neighbours this Saturday for the weekend’s early-kick off (12.30 PM BST KO).
Indeed, that encounter over 4 months ago saw us take a huge step towards securing Champions League football at the expense of our hosts, yet we find ourselves behind the Gunners after 7 games. Admittedly, Arsenal have improved since the back end of last season, and Arteta has them playing some great stuff, but I think they’ve had the “easiest” start to the season out of everyone in the top 6 – Palace (A), Leicester (H), Bournemouth (A), Fulham (H), Villa (H), United (A), and Brentford (A).
Although I’m of the school of thought that dictates there’s no “easy” game in the Premiership, every game you’d expect a top-four team to win, they’ve won, and the one match many doubted they would win (United away), they lost. Although on the balance of the 7 games they’ve played so far it’s difficult to argue that they don’t deserve to be where they presently are, I don’t think they’ll be up there for much longer.
Although this is technically a “top-of-the-table” clash, it’s worth pointing out that it is not even October yet, making it too early to jump to conclusions in calling this a “title decider” or even a “top four” decider. As much as I’d love to beat Arsenal and would hate to lose on Saturday, this is a match fraught with peril – Arsenal always turn up for this one at the Emirates, and it won’t be easy given our dreadful record at their place over the years.
Indeed, our solitary league win since they moved there in 2006 in November 2010, the iconic 3-2 triumph where we snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
Moreover, the away team tends to lose this win, with the last away victory in the league being Arsenal’s 1-0 victory at WHL in March 2014.
There are some injury worries for Arsenal, with Kieran Tierney, Thomas Partey and Takehiro Tomisayu all having to withdraw from their respective national teams’ squads with various injury problems of their own. Emil SMith-Rowe, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny are likely to be out, with Oleksander Zinchenko a doubt too.
Up until yesterday, we had a clean bill of health in terms of internationals, but news has come this morning that Dejan Kulusevski has picked up a hamstring injury while playing for Sweden, making him a doubt for the weekend. Hugo Lloris is also doubtful with a thigh injury he picked up before the international break. We currently await Conte’s quotes on the state of those guys along with the rest of the squad, including Lucas Moura, who has been out since August with a calf injury, and Ben Davies, who picked up a knee injury against Sporting Lisbon a few weeks back.
The derby thread is here folks – discuss away!
That was a half that had my heart thumping and the blood flowing. 1 x 1 is about right at the half.
Constant chatter between our Richarlison and the devil’s Gabriel. You’re not a canary, Gabsy. You may wear no.9 in Emirates, but not with the canary yellow jersey. That’s what Richarlison wears.
Feck it all to bloody hell.
Time for Lloris to retire.
Yet again giving teams so many attempts on goal and of course it’s only a matter of time before you score
stupid play red card. WTF!
should be a yellow, but still stupid play.
damned red card has lost the match for us. down a man and two goals. damn damn damn.
could use a 13 minute hat trick, Sonny. if you’d please.
Royal the weak link since last season, not sold still playing, time to give Spence a chance
Oh dear. As I keep saying we have no midfield and we are far too defensive. We were out played particularly in midfield.
Sending off was harsh.
Our subs ….well. All very average…Doherty, Sanchez, Sessegnon. None would get near the Arsenal bench.
Very disappointing which shows our weaknesses and lets us know exactly the problems.
The (questionable?) red card changed the match completely. The first half was worth watching because it was good football. The second half belonged to the man with the whistle.
We need a bit of depth added during the next window.
Emerson Royal provided the chance for the man with the red card in his pocket to pull it out, even though it really was a yellow card offense.
But that’s football. Like life, it’s not set up for fair calls all around.
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Conte seems to think Spence isn’t ready to play in Conte’s system. Let’s hope Spence satisfied Conte soon that he is ready.
I preferred the first half! The game was completely different to the one I watched tomorrow.
Conte got it all wrong again, same team, nobody on the bench, son or Richie needed to be on the bench and play bissouma with 3 in MF. Back to spursy again.
TK seems a lot of players are on the same vote. We have been poor all season. The players still have the weak mentality tag. And playing defensive counter doesn’t work
Look again at how many attempts we gave them, if we are setting up to defend they should have limited chances.
I know that I was negative about our chances but I didn’t even think that we would lose like that
Are Emerson’s brains in his boots?
What is it with our right sided defenders?
Sanchez and full back whos name I can’t remember
As for Lloris
What a way to lose a match !!
Geof,
That’s the problem with quantum time where observation changes what happens in the world, and causes are brought about by their effects. It’s the apple falling that causes gravity.
If you hadn’t watched tomorrow, then yesterday wouldn’t have happened today. So our lads always were a step behind, and the man with the whistle thought yellow was red as the spectrum shifted and the match couldn’t match the speed of a photon trying to decide if it will be wave or particle this time. Turns out that the will to win is a wave goodbye from a bus that never parks but always enters the highway going backwards.
How else can we explain that red card call? Observation distorts the world as time winds the clock counter clockwise.
Of course, today always is tomorrow down under, where you live, and where the embers manage to rise from the fire on their own. Some campfire poet told us how it was tomorrow where the rising sparks marked the end of the match.
In brief, this match wasn’t our best hour (and a half) by half.
It looked far better when the future was yet to come to ready its turn into another yesterday. Now the match is so unlike the match observed tomorrow and is so sour we want to spit it into the past. When viewed from yesterday’s tomorrow it looked like the lilies of the Spring fields readying themselves to wilt into being the tomorrow of their passing.
I think some man name Bohr said that when fighting with Albert Einstein, but then no one could follow what he said or whether he meant it before he said it.
We cannot blame Emerson for the bad call against him, except that he provided the opportunity for the man with the red card in his pocket to pull it out and wave it in Royal’s face.
Never tempt that man to pull out his card. He just might do it whether it’s justified or not. Lead him not into temptation. You often will pay the cost as we witnessed today. (I don’t remember witnessing it tomorrow.)
At least CP is leading Chelsea early in their match.
Absolutely not a red card offense. But having said that I see no benefit in having Royal continuously play as our right fullback. He’s just so unsure with ball and never makes a solid cross. Well at least this will force Conte’s hand in starting someone else there for the next match.
Today was not the game for Perisic to play. He couldn’t defensively handle Saka which meant other defenders had to go help out. On top of that Son is the winger on that side and his ability to defend and double team is suspect at best. Both of their first two goals came off our left side because of the inability to stop f’n Saka.
The Lloris howler though really took the wind out of our sails. How he misses that rebound is beyond imagination.
We need a boost in our midfield. This constant soaking up the pressure is such a nervy style to set up with. We have these incredibly talented strikers absolutely starving for service.