Gunners Hoping Basel Will Be Faulty On Wednesday
Sep 27th, 2016 by 'holic
Please stop groaning. You knew I would have to do that!
When I was a lad Basle was how we spelt the city from which our latest Champions League challengers have travelled. According to the Daily Mail it still is, so I am totally persuaded to switch to the Basel of today. Birthday boy Granit Xhaka, and most recently Mohamed Elneny, know from first-hand experience what the Swiss team will bring to the Grove.
I could claim to have a similar in depth knowledge of our visitors on Wednesday night but in truth apart from the highlights of their 1-1 draw with Ludogorets Razgrad I cannot remember having watched them since Elneny and his team-mates reached the Europa League semi-final in 2013 at Tottenham’s expense. I have to say both sides seemed to play well on match day one and we will need to carry forward the drive and confidence we displayed against Chelsea to ensure the points are secured.
The injury that sidelined Francis Coquelin on Saturday keeps him out for Wednesday’s fixture, and probably a couple more, so Granit Xhaka looks set to start on the opposite side of the pitch to his older brother, Taulant. The pair have played against each other before, when Albania and Switzerland met in Euro2016.
I wonder if Arsene Wenger might be tempted to give Santi Cazorla a breather to enable Elneny to also line-up against his former club? Other than that I don’t see us making too many changes from Saturday. David Ospina will probably get the nod in goal but a change to the four in front of him is surely unlikely.
The front four are like to be retained also, particularly because Olivier Giroud is suspended (and reportedly injured too) following his sending-off in Paris. Theo Walcott, Mesut Ozil, Alex Iwobi, and Alexis, were simply irresistible against Chelsea at the weekend and must be keen to thrill the home crowd once more.
The visitors are bidding to land an eighth consecutive Swiss Super League title, having won last season by a staggering fourteen points from their nearest challengers, Young Boys. After just nine matches this season they are already remarkably thirteen points clear of the same team in second place. They have won all nine and have scored twenty-nine goals in the process, conceding just seven.
Not only do they boast defeating Tottenham on their European cv, but also Manchester, United, Liverpool, and Chelsea. They are organised, quick to break, and we will need to be every bit as focused as we were on Saturday.
The ‘holic pound
The events of Saturday are still fresh in the mind. It really was a wonderful day and here’s hoping that our performance was not a one-off, rather a signal that we are finally clicking into gear after our pre-season preparations were somewhat limited by the staggered return of our Euro16 performers. I have to be confident in placing the Wednesday pound, and have decided to put it on a 3-1 home win at around tens.
I hope those going have another wonderful ninety minutes to enjoy, and that we are as quick out of the blocks as we were at the weekend. Basel will grow in confidence the longer they can keep us at bay.
Have a good one, ‘holics.
125 Responses to “Gunners Hoping Basel Will Be Faulty On Wednesday”
Good moaning
In the Allo Allo sense, obviously
Cheers H!
You not there for a warm Wednesday night Landlord? I’m looking forward to it. A nice kebab in the Apollo on Seven Sisters first with some good Cypriot wine (the owners are ST holders) and then on to the game!
One for Big Fat Sam;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fr8qltw4BXA
Fat Sam ..100% record!
Legend.
😀
I wish Sky would put some proper football on when it’s a CL night. All this Championship stuff going on and not even Jeff Stelling on Soccer Special.
ha ha ha ha ha about fat spam.
what a maroon.
I simply don’t understand the mentality. He’s just got the job he’s wanted his whole life. He’s being paid £3m per year. he goes out, weeks after getting the job when he must be full of plans and action and energy and shoots the breeze with strangers about how to break his employer’s rules.
Let’s even be generous and assume he would donate an extra wedge to charity (which is what Wenger does with his French TV fee).
Not naive. Just utterly brain dead.
Evening all.
Sorry countryman, midweek games are a hassle getting home on school nights. Will go through it for Bayern, Barca, etc. I understand how that looks too.
🙂
FatSam the Hutt now free to take over at either bottom of the table West Ham or Sunderland. Oh…..
holic, let’s speak uppah crust and say we hope that we gunners are hoping basle will be flat come wednesday…
(at least, i assume it’s that, my sister-in-law used to live there and was forever calling it, phonetically, “bahl”…and she’s very uppah crusty.)
Sympathies Guvna and believe me I understand. I’m taking early retirement this Friday at 59 – the world is my lobster (copyright A. Daley) and I apologise for feeling great and being a bit smug. May you get there soon.
Signing up to the Barmy Army for some overseas cricket in future years. Giving Bangla the swerve tho’ – if the Foreign Office say don’t go I’m not going against them!
Basel Faulty ?! ?
You should pay for,that with some manuel labour ?
Trev from previous drinks
I was alluding to the fact you might have been a bit grumpy having missed breakfast,before lining up Chris with both barrels. !!
As for fat Sam
Countryman @9,
Not brain dead mate ,just plain fucking greedy.
Apparently the paper that organised the con,have got the dope on several other managers/agents.
Going to be an interesting few days.
As for Basel,pay them the respect they deserve,unlike the Greeks last season,and we should beat them.
I would never have thought of that title H,i have always admired your ability to come up with a killer entry headline.
If we had a National Competition for Blog headline of the Year,you would probably finish first/2nd and third. !!
*Stops groaning but starts rolling over in agony.*
However their domestic wins may be mountain up, we will see the jammy Swiss roll over tomorrow night.
We’ll cut through their defences like a Swiss army knife until victori-nox for us at a Holic enriching 3-1??
Two can play at shocking puns, Guv ?
Clive, me grumpy ?!
I thought Chris would be delighted to see me singing Theo’s praises, instead of which he took another swipe at Mesut and accused me of not being able to count. !
There’s no pleasing the man !
scg@12: she’s right. It is pronounced /ˈbaːzl/
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/basel
Trev@18: You’re sharp tonight.
Heh Ned – ?⚔?⛏?✂️? ?
Sorry Trev. You, of all people, knew I would have to take the low ground tonight. 🙂
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NBN, scruz
I think it’s a French/German (possibly even Italian)-speaking thing. I have a distinct memory of seeing the city’s name spelled “Baal” (way) back in the day. No excuse for the headline, mind. Otherwise, nice preview Guv’nor.
COYG
Sharp objects already being brandished I see. I’ll be moving into a side alley with clear egress. 😉
Yup – its officially pronounced ‘Baal’ or ‘Bahl’. By locals. (I only know this having been on a few school trips there as a teen, centuries ago…)
However, as Switzerland has French, German, Italian and Romansch as its official languages, any variant goes!
Officially.
Languageally.
Dubs, thank you. You are the man. ☺️
I’m flying back from Dublin for the match, Ryanair permitting and I hope to see us continue our steady progression this season. I think we will win 2-0 but I think he will start Cazorla cos he always plays him.
I would love to see Elneny more, he is a top lad but I think Xhaka will play in midfield.
Giroud is not a Messiah he’s a very naughty boy or he was in Paris. I will take Sanchez and Theo to see us home.
Re last drinks: We’ve had a mild winter down here, Trev, so no excuse at all for me being tetchy or overly sensitive (if that’s how I’m coming across, and apologies for it). It wasn’t yourself in particular I was directing my Theo comments to. Several others in recent drinks have been surprised at the lad’s recent form, claiming to have been waiting a decade to see it.
Both barrels, Clive? I don’t think so, Trev is capable of far worse if he has a mind. Unless it was a barrel each of the mild and the bitter? -o)
I know stats don’t tell the whole story but those I quoted are quite telling. To make it a fairer comparison with MO10 (given AW’s often late subbing on of Theo) … In that period leading up to his major injury Theo scored 39 goals and provided 31 assists in 8589 minutes of actual play, compared to Mesut’s 20 goals and 36 assists in 9208 minutes of play since joining us.
I can also point to a comparison that Cannon Calls did a year ago … http://cannoncalls.weebly.com/blog/arsenal-up-front-assessing-our-strikerspart-2 … in which Theo also outpoints Alexis in most key measures.
As I say, stats don’t tell the whole story and I’m not trying to put down either Mesut or Alexis. I’m just very surprised that so many are surprised by Theo returning to his best form (which wasn’t as long ago as some claim) after finally (hopefully) overcoming some chronic injuries.
And that is more than enough about THAT. D)
Can’t seem to get my emotis right … D: O:
bloody Alzheimers…
Chris, please get a life.
Fat Sam on the Lam could be headed South to Mexico or Morocco, or East to The Orient or Leyton Orient. North to Bolton or Blackburn? West to Newport County or Ballymena?
I’ve got one, IF, and it’s a good one. It’s even been great at times. But thanks for the suggestion…
As for the match, this could be trickier than it looks and we shouldn’t be deceived by the chav’s capitulation into forgetting the stop-start nature of our season so far. On our day, no problem, but there’s nothing like over-confidence to bring us undone. Urgency from the start and actual goals rather than a casual-no-worries-plenty-of-time-to-put-this-lot-away approach and we should be fine. 3-1 looks about right, so long as theirs is a consolation goal. I wouldn’t want to see them score first.
Training ground pictures at arsenal.com feature smiles on the faces of many players, and a good one of AOC and Carl Jenkinson. His career has gone through some interesting permutations since the last season he was part of the Arsenal squad. Three years it has been if I’m not mistaken, and the composition of the Arsenal squad is quite different too.
Morning all. Work commitments mean that I can’t make tonight’s game. Not really too sure what to expect. I know little about our opponents and equally as much about our potential team selection. It does frustrate me when we play weakened sides in Champions League matches. Especially after such a resounding performance on Saturday. I would hope that Granit will start and begin to cement his place in the side. It could lay the foundations to an impressive Arsenal career.
I don’t see Basel making much attempt to play attacking football. An early goal would settle the nerves and pave the way to a resounding victory.
A word on Fat Sam. I’ve said many times on here that my love of football diminishes as each season passes. I hate all of the big business and the extortionate amounts of money in the game now. I hate the way that greed ensures that the rich get richer and little respect is shown to those who invest a lot more than their hard earned cash into a club. The arrogance and greed shown by Fat Sam epitomises all of that. The general contempt shown towards a nation and its supporters is quite frankly appalling. It just shows you how detached from the real fans that many in the game have become. Personally nelly I hope he disappears under a rock and never surfaces again.
Realistically this could just be the tip of the iceberg. There could be many more names to follow no doubt.
Tonight? 4-0 to the good guys.
Bring it on
Pangloss, Basel/Basle is also Bâle in French.
What Steve T said about the greed in the game @37. Telegraph saying it has video footage of eight managers discussing taking bungs. This is going to get more dispiriting yet.
Steve T
You’d have to have a heart of stone not to want Granit to begin to pave his way to a great career.
I took a vow to not watch a second of England while Allardyce was in charge. It marked the nadir of English football to have appointed him. I managed to avoid the Slovakia game completely and can now return,
I understand the ToryGraph is claiming eight unnamed managers took bungs. That’s just over twenty years after George Graham was punished for doing it , but no one else was. There is no desire to root out the corruption in the game because corruption has been endemic for so long the game might collapse if it was all exposed.
Frankly the ToryGraph will have to do better and tell us something we don’t know . At least with Wenger in charge we have the most principled manager in the game. I don’t expect many heads to roll.But at least one of the most odious has rolled already
More exactly, that it has video footage of agents saying they bribed managers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/27/exclusive-eight-premier-league-managers-took-transfer-bungs-clai/
Ned. An interesting read indeed. It’s just one massive car crash.
TTG. Well spotted. Thought I would get slated for that.
?
Stone me! Enough with the Xhaka puns already.
Xhaka scoring in successive games ……
Does that count as a Swiss roll ? ?
At least with Wenger in charge we have the most principled manager in the game.
Well let’s hope so 😉
The timing of all this is set up for England to appoint Wenger next summer. Southgate has four matches, which takes him up to March, I think. If they’ve done a deal with Wenger he would be in place in time for the qualifier in June.
Would it give the club another lift to beat Basel and set them on a slippery slope out of the competition.
Sorry, Pangloss, it all started going downhill with your @42 ?
Fat Sam is only a soft Patsy in the greater scheme of things. His greed and stupidity meant he became an easy target. Nothing in comparison to the real criminals and spivs who actually run the game.
A soft Patsy, Joe ?
He looks more like a crusty Pasty to me ?
I have to say, with a total lack of modesty, that my ski puns are right in the button.
But many more of them might become a bit of a drag …….. ?
Damn – in = on ?
Nice preview Guvna.
Like many, I know nothing about tonight’s opposition. However, if we take them seriously, put in the work that we did on Saturday and create and take the same opportunities, we will win.
With a broken Coq, we need Granit to start to re-inforce our otherwise potentially rocky midfield.
Three words and three letters this time!
Another big one!
UTA!
bath no excuse for knowing nowt about basle
2minutes on google makes any and many an expert
sure aren’t the bars fulla high stool doctors
cruciating away like gooduns
join the fun
i hear young fnürglehooffen is back in the squad for them
and we all know what a force he is
he’ll be chipping away at granit für sür if he’s picked
Arsene won’t get the England job.. Moaninho was asking for it before ManU and will probably be next….soon!
😀
Not sure if it’s true or not but Fat Sam got fatter with the sack with at least a seven-figure pay-off.
I say appropriate punishment should be to EXTEND his contract instead.
😀
49
heather mills doing the hokey cokey
“ye put yer left leg on”
“yer left leg in ”
.
and fuck away off ‘offended on someone else’s behalf’ numpties
she scammed a beatle
a wanker is what she is
a wanker
Yeah but it was only Paul “drain the atmosphere out of Live Aid, Live 8 and the Olympics” McCartney, cba.
hardly the yardstick to judge someone’s quality
i enjoyed queen at live aid but can’t fuckin stand queen
Trev.
Not up to your usual standard. You’re going downhill fast.
Xhaka can( see what I did there) be a great signing -a pillar in defence , a man mountain in midfield and can lead us to a landslide victory. But Wenger sees him more as a Quartzerback linking attack and defence .
I’ll get me coat?
?
‘holic’s bar’s coat rack empties apace
So after spending the best part of 3 weeks in the beauty that is British Columbia I get back just in time to watch Arsenal Thump Chelsea, Back read that Mourinho is already starting on a mini meltdown and had lost 3 on the spin and then the dove of good news drops a big fat juicy Fat Sam in alleged bung taking exclusive on my Lap – Well I didn’t see that coming ! The only surprise is anyones surprised, What a great week to be alive !
*enters*
*spits on floor*
Right – which one of you cunts has nicked my fucking coat?
Try David Hillier, might have matched the briefcase 🙂 🙂
Scruz – I hope you’re well out of the way of the forest fires.
?
call this a coat esso ?
where i’m from we call these blouses !
and not even big girl’s blouses
*hides*
Arsenal team: Ospina, Bellerin, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Cazorla, Xhaka, Walcott, Ozil, Iwobi, Alexis.
Arsenal substitutes: Cech, Gabriel, Gibbs, Elneny, Reine-Adelaide, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Lucas.
*throws blouse out*
iffin i’m gonna get battered
fucksake
don’t want me family mortified with embarrassment
“floral”
seriously esso ?
Not keen on the selection of Ospina. Nothing against him, but I don’t think we should be playing about with a key position and it is the only change we’ve made I think, apart from Xhaka starting for Coq.
hijinx bullshit aside
is it on btsport3
there’s a spinning logo here
for btextra
is it on in usa or canada ?
got it
europe
We are wearing yellow this evening. Someone take all the red shirts along with the coats?
Come on.
any links to showings in the us of a, boys?
or small, moving bodies of water through a pastoral landscape?
UEFA make Arsenal wear their yellow away kits because Basel’s home and away kits are deemed to be too similar to Arsenal’s home kit. Isn’t that Basel’s problem?
Or is Basel favored because Switzerland is UEFA’s “home country”?
basel are wearing white. red is closer to white than yellow? or is it because our reds have white sleeves?
i’m guessing it’s because puma said “it’s time to sell more away jerseys, boys”.
COME ON YOU REDS!
COME ON!!
crickfree is a nice, small body of water.
ooh, almost a brilliant pass, theo.
Theo!!!!
great freaking movement! young alex is just a gem.
theooooooo!
GET IN THEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
gracious, that’s a nice start.
Sucky is going to get sent off.. Alexis to win all those battles!
😀
COME ON!!!!!!!!
Theo again!!!’mmm
theoooooo!
en fuego!
Beautiful !
GET IN!!!!!!!
Theoooooooooooooooooooooo!
Nice passing between Alexis and Walcott who threads the needle. Theo is on fire.
Sell the shit cunt!
That was a penalty…but nevermind…
COME ON!!
Get Another!
oooh, should have been 3. we are ripping them apart.
Playing some lovely stuff, this could be any score we like.
Arghhhhhhhhh!
Could have had 6!
COME ON!!!!!!
their keeper has kept it from being a cricket score.
We’ve kicked the ball to bits!
COME ON!!
Ozil-Alexis telepathic movements…
In over 10 years at the Arsenal, I have never seen Walcott play as well. Fair play to you Theo. Continue in that vein and you’ll win many a heart back, mine included!
And from where I’m sitting, it certainly looks as though we have found ourself a top class centre forward…!! Its very early yet, but already I cannot see how Alexis is not going to lead the line this season. The more and more he plays there, the better and better he looks and the better we are as a team for it.
Spot on Joe.
And we finally have some strength in depth too.
This is certainly going to be an interesting season.
Excellent first half..movement fluid and when we lost the ball we kept pressing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&persist_app=1&v=6DJmI2kVxyw
WE ARE THE ARSENAL
shocks of mighty
Brilliant first half it has to be said Theo on fire which I’m enjoying to see as always keep it son!
The whole team plays well and I hope to see some more of that in the second!
Come on Arsenal!
The switch of this team has been flicked on…
After two years of searching for an identity this team has finally found its version of Wengerbal.. And what joy it is to watch them in action.
you said it, joe. another outstanding first half.
chris, i hope you got to watch that. theo really was brilliant.
Swiss defense is reminiscent of their cheese. As is City’s, with Celtic up on them 3-2.
so many almosts this game…
Alexis 10-0 Sucky!
Go get him!
jean, i thought manchester cheese was rooney…
The second game of this intensity in four days will test our stamina. Hope we don’t run out of steam as the match progresses.
iwobi is so good with the ball. both feet, nearly always gets out of trouble.
ooooooooospinnnnnnnnaaaaa.
Iwobi and Bellerin are real finds, look like they belong in this team almost from day one.
They have created two chances in the last five minutes and are having more of the possession. Nice save by Ospina.
How did Alexis miss that
oooh, alexis.
agreed, ksn.
Ox and Elneny coming on for Iwobi and Walcott…
great game, theo and alex!
Alexis is amazing, still chasing everything. Just unlucky today to not score.
89′ minute and Alexis still frustrated and showing passion…
Extend his contract please!
Come on..get one more!
Great play and win again. Well done boys. Proud of how you guys played today.
well won, boys. that was beautiful, if a tad frustrating.
well played theo!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Citeh draw 3-3 against Celtic.