Morning all, a very quick Sunday round-up for you.
It’s one of those days where things are quiet because of what happened in our last game, and that’s fair enough. Keep stuff in-house as much as possible because that’s where the reaction has to come from. Get the heads down, get back to hard work on the training ground, and perhaps for Mikel Arteta a bit of space to put his thinking cap on.
There’s a bit of a training video if you fancy, as the lads get put through their warm-up paces by an Irish man and then an English man. My main takeaway from it is that Emile Smith Rowe looks happy. Obviously I then extrapolate that happiness into him scoring around 9 goals in the next five games, but that could be the dreamy cheese again.
Where it won’t be quiet is tomorrow at the Emirates because the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Wolfsburg is now sold out. Amazing stuff. It’s finely poised at 2-2 after the first game, so let’s hope we can use that incredible support to put in a performance to take us to the final. Fingers crossed, and we’ll have an Arsenal Women Arsecast for you tomorrow.
If you can stomach reading about Man City, this is a good piece by Barney Ronay in the Guardian. I’ve seen comments this season from Liverpool fans along the lines of ‘Now you know how it really feels!’, and I think there’s something to that. When you’re not competing against them in the very real sense, for the title itself, it’s easy enough to just think ‘Ahh Man City, yeah, it is what it is’, and then move on as they win another Premier League.
As I wrote the other day though, as much as you have to acknowledge how good the sporting aspects of the organisation are, the foundations of that are impossible to ignore. It’s not sour grapes, it’s reality. And when you’re any other football that is trying to compete, you have to build what you need to build and do what you need to do within that context.
All eyes will be on Craven Cottage this afternoon as Fulham host Guardiola’s team. Always liked that Willian fella, hopefully he can make a difference. Can Bernd Leno, formerly of this parish, be the hero?
“And it’s Cedric Soares standing over this last minute free kick with the scores level. It was a sloppy foul by Haaland to concede it. It looks like he’s having a go …. OOOOOOOOOOOH, WHAT A STRIKE FROM THE FORMER ARSENAL MAN!
“AND SOMEHOW HE’S MANAGED CELEBRATE WITH HIMSELF TOO!!!”
Dreamy. Fecking. Cheese.
Reality: Fulham 1-25 Man City (Haaland 24, Ederson)
Have a great Sunday folks.
