First State Kopites

Poor Arsenal, all those situations to deal with…. S6 E11

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The Reds had a difficult away trip to the Emirates on Sunday, improving on last year’s performance with a draw against Arsenal. We will look ahead to Brighton at home (after we’ve played Brighton away) and Leverkusen in the Champions league. If we have time we will look at what else is happening in the footy world - including the sad departure of our favorite Man Utd manager (maybe even more than Olly). 

Part One - Arsenal 2, Liverpool 2:

  • xG - 0.92 to 0.81 - 0.77 to 0.37 in the first half
    • Lots of overloads on the right side, but surprisingly few clear cut chances (2 big chances - Merino?)
    • Robbo - much discussion about his trajectory, 
    • First half performance:
      • No corners, but 5 ‘daft’ free kicks.Set piece at 43 - Partey soft foul, Gabriel blocking Konate, not enough for it to be a foul.
      • Could Ali have saved their 2 goals?
      • 39 long balls from Kelleher, did it hurt us to bypass midfield so much?
      • 18 - beautiful corner - using their aggressiveness (Macca and Ibou) against them
      • Saka and Havertz go to ground very easily - although VVD’s couple of hacks at the latter were tasty. Gabriel getting a foul while holding onto Darwin is laughable - ‘a fuckin Joke’ in fact.
      • Second half - we held onto the ball longer said Virgil
        • We started more on the front foot - 63 with the changes, felt like we had already started to look better
        • Arsenal stopped pressing as much - trying to slow the game down. Watching back I was prepared to hate their time wasting. I don’t know if I can honestly claim there was that much of it
          • Gabriel and Timber both looked injured
          • Trossard kicked in the face by Grav at 68 - oh wait Antony Taylor gets another one wrong
          • 70 to 80 - Sean Rogers thinks we were terrible. The stop start of the game really seemed to get to us. Timber went off at 72.
          • Didn’t create that much
            • Some Salah moments - 57 just delays the ball to Diaz, but Diaz could have held his run?
            • Saliba vs. Konate and other delusional Arsenal fan media. Anthony Taylor gave them everything said one not particularly unhinged Arsenal fan. Usual inconsistency with his yellow cards - Rice committed multiple fouls, Macca just 1 I think.
            • Arteta - ‘we did well given the situation we are in’. Twitter response, ‘Is the situation in the room with you right now, Mikel?’ Injuries (try being without your center backs for half a season, 30 minutes is nothing), decisions.
            • Have to mention the victim mentality that Artie is instituting. Esp amongst fans who are outraged that their third goal was chalked off, after three fouls, and hand ball and a potential offsides.
            • Graeme Le Saux more of a dick than Stephen Warnock? This is brilliant from Arsenal -  his first half observation. End of the game - numbers were even, but Arsenal edged it for me….


              • Part Two - Brighton and Leverkusen - 2 home games

              Also - Ibou, Jota and Sunday

              • Narratives
              • Team selections 
              • Predictions


                • Part 3 - elsewhere:

                • Could need 3 replacement defenders next season:O
                  • Trent wants to win the Balon D’Or - err, not happening at Real Madrid mate.
                  • Amorim then -  2023-24 Out of possession, Amorim’s side boasted one of the meanest defensive records on the whole continent last season (‘Chance prevention’, 98 out of 99). Only Arsenal and Feyenoord had a lower non-penalty expected goals (xG) conceded than Sporting’s 0.78 per 90 minutes across Europe’s top seven leagues.


                    • We will be back next week with a review of the Brighton and Leverkusen games. Thanks to Daz and Enrique for joining me, Paul. And most of all, thank you dear listener for joining us.

                    If you enjoyed the pod, please share it with a friend. Follow us @FirstStateKopites on Twitter  – we only tweet and retweet from sources we think are credible. Music is courtesy of Hypenotic – they are a Welsh electro-pop band – https://hyperfollow.com/hypenotic

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