Gunners

Despite being frustrated, I've learnt through the years of "suffering" to find some positives. There were actually many about this week, once I had a think.

• Away at ~~Topspurts~~ Hotspurts, Atalanta, Man City in the space of a week and playing on Thursday in Italy…we've done pretty well.
• All this with no Ødegaard (or Merino for that matter)
• We've definitely got in the heads of the blue side of Manchester. I def detect that their crowd knows how good we are. We are on their level, no doubt
• Defended superbly against The Best Team In The World™️ for 55 mins despite the shit interpretation of the laws of the game by the Howard Webb Referee Travelling Roadshow
• Califiori's banging debut goal
• Timber and Califiori at fullback at the same time. Looked great.
• Trossard only misses the Bolton game, I think

There's more, but I'll leave it there. This is so much better than the dark, dark Mustafi days.

COYG

7 minutes was bullshit in the first place, whole bunch of fergie time nonsense.

The set piece goal was glorious. The camera was actually tight on Gabriel before the kick, and it showed Walker messing with him, poking him in the ribs. And then it showed Gabriel feinting right, doing a swim move, and getting completely free of Walker before heading the ball in with authority.

What's amazing is that that camera angle is exactly what you'd expect from a replay. But, in this case they strongly suspected who was going to be scoring, so they were showing him right from the start.

1:30a kickoff, so I time-shifted this. I’m both very proud of the performance after getting shafted by the ref, but also fucking frustrated. You could tell that the ManC fans were scared of us.

So much happened in that game that this one gets lost, but: Rodri!

The guy dives in the first second of the match when Havertz bumps into him. Just a few minutes later he's punished for that lie by going down with an actual injury from another innocuous collision.

Annoying to lose that lead in extra extra extra time. But honestly, if you have offered me a draw vs Man Cheaty at the Emptihad I would have taken it. Especially when factoring in being down to 10 men for half the match, not having our best playmaker, and with the usual shit officiating.

All the headlines are about us having our hearts broken, but this was a very good result considering all the circumstances. It shows phenomenal character and grit.

Oliver was the difference. Gifted them a draw. But I'll take it.

On the plus side, at least Bukayo got a rest. Edit-I hope he’s not injured

This feels like the City game of 2 years ago or so. In a dominant position, but the refs fuck us over with a controversial red card and we conceded late on.

Not to mention we got another controversial red card. Such bullshit yellows can't be reviewed when they make such a difference in the context of the game.

I hope Pep gets asked whether he thought they were lucky to draw.

115 PGMOL 2-2 ARSENAL

You know what though, we are going to win the whole fucking thing. We held our own given our circumstances, our set piece goal was perfect, Richy made his statement, we came to win this shit even without our captain and it was far from a boring game like the previous matches.

We even managed to weaken them by taking out that cunt Rodri 😏

I'm worrying for our next game tbh, even less midfield.

I just want some consistency, from minute 1, on those cards. But since they aren't consistent, we keep getting screwed, and everyone else gets off.

A point is a good result. We just have to stop getting cards.

Hey, 4rsenal is back.

Ratings will be later tonight

I just feel so helpless right now. Idk how to take my mind off of that.

Not sure if you heard John Stones interview after the game. This is part of his interview. It looks like we have them spooked. There were no dark arts or cheating in that second half. But it certainly seems we have them running scared.

Did anybody notice how Partey was playing? In open play he still had a few issues, but I think he was one of the best players once Arsenal was settled into a defensive block. He was tucked in next to Rice but unlike Rice, when the ball got near him he exploded out of his position to put pressure on the opposing player and really hurried them. By contrast, Rice was fine, but he was jogging into position and wasn't as effective at those pressures.

I honestly didn't think he had it in him anymore. It makes me wonder if this is something he learned and practiced under Simeone.