Why are we all talking about injuries? Well, because it’s Arsenal. Also: the Champions League jeopardy myth is debunked and Arsene Wenger is ‘bitter’.
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Injuries only relevant now it’s Arsenal
When is an injury list a crisis and when should the club just “man up” and handle it, not use it as excuses?
Apparently the line is “when it’s Liverpool or Arsenal”, then it’s a crisis and mitigation. I see a lovely article on this esteemed site, getting the excuses in early on behalf of Arteta on a short number of injuries. One of which isn’t even an injury but the result of a self-inflicted absence.
How many times has this site insisted that the United, Spurs and Newcastle injury list last year wasn’t an excuse for failure? Actually, even within that there were clear differences, because Eddie Howe was “delivering in spite of” that injury list, while Ten Hag was given no such credit.
Of the list, only Saka and Odegaard are serious contenders. That’s two players. Two, and a couple of back-ups (who may even actually play?!). Influential, for sure, but not more so than, say, your entire first choice back line for pretty much the entire season, and six back ups, plus our striker, his back up and a new midfielder.
Why is it, I wonder, that mini-Pep gets such different treatment on this site.
Badwolf (Btw, Chelsea were second last year in the injury table, but didn’t get a mention)
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Ten Hag is one lucky sod
So after a decent win, showing a bit of character, does the manager stick with the plan and use the couple of days before a Europa League trip to double down on what is needed from his team, or does he tear up the script and spend those precious days trying to instil a new plan with players in unnatural positions?
Over to you EtH … you’re the man for the moment for sure.
And here we are, the guy STILL keeps his job.
Man, he must be the luckiest guy … I wish I could get him to pick my Lotto numbers.
ET King (MUFC)
Champions League jeopardy?
I’m struggling to understand the “no jeopardy in the Champions League new format” stance.
Take Liverpool, they have won all 3 games so far, in the old format they would now have enough points considered to be enough to progress and would have 2 home games, against teams already beaten, to possibly secure top spot. They have played teams who finished 4th in the Bundesliga and 2nd and 5th in Serie A.
They now face the current holders and Champions of Spain, the Champions of Germany, a team that went unbeaten in the Bundesliga and the Champions of Holland all with defeat a possibility, whilst on paper the two other games seem “easier”, one is against the team who have already beaten the defending champions and won away against Atleti!
Compare this to 2022/23, they were drawn against the team that finished 3rd in Serie A, the champions of Holland and the second best team in Scotland. Two of these equate to two teams this year but one is vastly inferior to all the others (apologies but a 7-1 win would support this) and they got to play these teams twice. Progression to the last sixteen would appear to have less jeopardy than this season. Despite winning 5 of 6 group games they were placed 2nd on head-to-head results and thus played a group winners with the second leg away from home.
Unsure of the exact format but I’m guessing that finishing in the top 8 gives you exactly the same benefits as winning the group, i.e. a second leg home game in the last 16, however finishing in the top 8 would seem to be more difficult. Finishing 9-24 adds yet another 2 games, meaning an additional 4 games have to be navigated to reach the same stage as being group runners up.
Under the old format, 4 straight wins in the group stage would give the possible option of being able to rotate/rest players, you probably need 6 in the new format.
Maybe I’m missing something but if they only pick up 1 or 2 points from the next 3 games, then progression becomes much more difficult, even 3 puts things in the balance depending on other results.
Howard ( ’bout time we beat Madrid) Jones
True Champions League/Old Sayings
In this mornings Mailbox Oliver, London suggests changing to a “true Champions League – 24 teams, 23 games each”. Surely a true league format requires equal home & away games to be fair so this would require a reduction in the number of teams, which would never happen. If you went with an ‘every team plays the others once, who would decide which are home or away, and which teams would get the extra home game?
On a totally unrelated subject Paul mentions an old saying “if only my mother had knickers” which t have never heard before. Is this the same as ‘if my auntie had bollocks she’d be my uncle’? BTW, I wouldn’t recommend searching for this at work or if you share a device with a partner!
A, LFC, Montreal
UEFA and the unintended consequences
People don’t like the new CL format, last season they didn’t like the old format. People don’t like the Nations League, preciously they didn’t like meaningless friendlies. Sorry, got that wrong, football supporters of big teams and big countries don’t like them (what do they like?), for the majority who are from the smaller nations they are a welcome way of getting a slice of the pie, and in Georgia’s case at this years Euros brightening the whole place up.
Last night I went up to Belfast to see the first all Ireland league game in Europe between Larne and Shamrock Rovers. The winner got €400k (Rovers outclassed Larne who to be fair are much further back on their development curve), to put into context how much that is, Rovers got €125k for winning the LOI last season. This is a massive boost for smaller clubs and leagues, see TNS. There can be conversations about potential imbalances this causes in the local league but would prefer that than the going bust conversation that league clubs have. So spread the cash, nobody cares about the CL until the knockouts regardless of the format, and never mind the big boy whingers.
Mel – Dublin, Berlin, Athlone Town
(Rovers fans gave great support except for the numpties signing IRA chants. If you are ever in Dublin and someone tells you their Da was in the Dublin brigade, it means c*****e is nearby)
Wenger sounding bitter
So Wenger is saying Chelsea came in and bought whoever they wanted which is true il give him that. But his comment “they bought my players” is a bloody stretch, outside of Ashley Cole I cannot think of another example of Chelsea buying anyone of note off Wenger, with the exception of Giroud and Arsenal wanted rid of him to accomodate Aubameyang.
It would be more fair to say that he bought players off us, such as Gallas, Lasana Diarra, Cech, and Benayoun. And Arsenal continued to buy our players after they binned Wenger, they came for David Luiz, Willian, Jorginho, Havertz, and Sterling.
Wenger wasn’t complaining when he was the one able to sign whoever he wanted before Roman and his millions turned up.
Aaron CFC Ireland.
I’ve been reading the Mailbox for a lot of years now but have to say this morning’s one is now my all-time favourite – checking in to see my own mail defending Villa, with my fellow Villa fans out in force too – and then the Joe Gomez album drop from nowhere. A meisterwerk indeed.
Have a great weekend everyone,
David Horgan, Dublin
…Truly sorry to hear about Hesh LFC’s mum.
For what it is worth, not one of my published mails down the years has been anything other than an attempt satire. Perhaps I should leave family matters out of it.
Sorry for any offence.
Finlay 🙁
