2019 Kicks Off With Fulham At Home
Dec 31st, 2018 by 'holic
The shockwaves of what happened at Anfield are still being felt, but if you could select an opponent to face on New Years Day it would be Fulham at home, bless them. They may be unbeaten in three vital matches against two of their fellow relegation candidates plus a home match with Wolves (a draw that was beyond the Middlesex Nomads at the weekend), but this is looking like it will be a long hard season for them. I pray they survive. The Cottage is a great away day.
Unai Emery faces some serious selection issues, not least of which appears to be in goal where Petr Cech lost the number one spot purely because of injury. He was in very good form prior to that and over Christmas Bernd Leno has looked anything but an Arsenal goalkeeper. Similarly at right-back Stephan Lichsteiner’s shortcomings were exposed on Merseyside.
Defensively we are still without Hector Bellerin, Nacho Monreal and Rob Holding. If we are to stick with a flat back four perhaps Ainsley Maitland-Niles may drop into the right-back berth? Sokratis Papastathopoulos right and Laurent Koscielny on the left may be the preferred central partnership?
The midfield is again possibly shorn of Mesut Ozil (doubtful) and Henrikh Mkhitaryan. As long as he is our player I would start Aaron Ramsey in the absence of Ozil ahead of the defensive pairing of Granit Xhaka and Lucas Torreira. Alex Iwobi was excellent for an hour at Anfield and should get the opportunity to partner Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang AND ALEXANDRE LACAZETTE in the attacking roles. I find it incredible that we are routinely leaving our best player with his back to goal on the bench.
It seems astonishing that after a 22 match unbeaten run the new head coach should be coming under a degree of pressure on social media. Everything has a degree of immediacy about it, I get, but comparisons with Bruce Rioch appear to be premature to say the least. He deserves time and at least three transfer windows to impose his style on the team. That said whatever his style is seems a way off right now.
If I appeared too dismissive of the visitors earlier then I apologise. They do have proven goalscorers in Mitrovic and Schurrle who might enjoy taking on our current much-weakened set-up. The fact remains they are leaking even more goals than us, and it is only a dozen weeks since we put five past them at the Cottage. This should be a tough afternoon for them. If we are to challenge for a top four place we should be winning this one comfortably.
The ‘holic pound
We are such strong favourites to win the match that the bookies favourite scoreline, 2-1 to the Arsenal, surprises. I’m tipping the wounded animal to bite back harder than that, and have opted for the 18/1 against a 4-1 home win.
Pasta has been enjoyed as ground bait for the New Year celebrations to follow. It’s time for me to thank you all for reading this nonsense for another year. A number of you have become trusted and firm friends. I wish you all a very happy, and more importantly healthy, 2019. Let’s pray the club of our hearts also delivers an improvement in the months ahead.
Have a great one, ‘holics.
89 Responses to “2019 Kicks Off With Fulham At Home”
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Thanks Holic,
The wounds of Anfield are still fresh and methinks Fulham could provide the necessary tonic to get us back on track.
“You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.”
All the best in the New Year,
OG
Happy New Year to you Holic and all Holics.
I think a good Christmas for Fulham and an awful one for us will take their toll.
I think we will scrape it 2-1
Cheers H.
Happy New Year to all.
UTA
Bath @ 48 from the last drinks.
Welcome to the club. Well said sir. It’s been going on for years now. Nothing to worry about though. When financial fist play kicks in etc zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz ? ? ? ????
Fist play ???
Oo- Er!
Nice preview H.
Nothing but a convincing performance and result will do for tomorrow. Time to put the last result behind us.
Cheers H for another great year. To you and all other patrons of this establishment I wish you a very happy new year. Here’s to 2019 bringing us a new defence.
TTG
Ha ha ha
The irony. With a spillchucker special I might have actually found its true name???
https://mobile.twitter.com/bbcsport_david/status/1079775499042340864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1079775499042340864&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.101greatgoals.com%2Fnews%2Fdavid-ornstein-updates-on-arsenals-january-transfer-plans-and-aaron-ramseys-future%2F
And more evidence to show how Shambolic our transfer dealings have been….
Not sure why there’s a growing (apparently) lack of faith in a manager who was being hailed just a few short weeks ago for his inciciveness.
He’s not going to get it right all the time and it’s hardly his fault that we have three liabilities and a novice in our back four at the moment.
We’ll be fine with Emery.
IF he is backed by the executive branch.
Personally though I would be picking Jenkinson at right back rather than Lichsteiner. Which is a bit like choosing a firing squad instead of the gas chamber but the lesser of two evils and all that.
Happy New Year, ‘Holic and holics.
Late to this party. Apologies. And slightly the worse for wear, but hey ho, as the much lamented cba might have said more elegantly. (Come back, all is forgiven! We miss the cows (and the music).)
Another fine preview from the Guvna. here’s hoping that our much beloved pull up their socks and give us a performance later today.
I drink my final toast of the night to our Guvna. Another year of dedicated tenure of this, the most sane of Arsenal blog sites. Lang may his lum reek and his creative energy sustain him. Holic, yer a star, pal.
And happy new year to all Holics everywhere. You are special.
Thanks for all the posts of 2018
and for all the posts I hope will
continue in 2019 Guvnor.
It’s much appreciated.
Talk of firing UE is just bizarre
I think. Barring criminal behaviour,
a complete loss of the dressing
room or a sudden slump to 15th,
I’d give him at least two seasons.
No idea who UE will pick for the
Fulham game. Not many don’t
deserve to be dropped really.
AMN scored I suppose.
Anyway I’d prefer 3-0 to 4-1 as
a clean sheet would be good just
now.
And play Sokratis to stick on
Mitrovic
Happy New Holics football aside and all that……..
You bunch of hansens!
Thank you all, and welcome to 2019.
Agree with you re cba, Bath. I hope we see his musings again soon.
Have we signed anyone yet???
Looking at what Ramsey is supposedly looking for in salary from his new club, and you’d assume this is accurate as the story must be coming from his “team”, it seems very slim pickings in terms of what we’re already paying certain players.
If he’s really looking at around £7m a year and we’re brick shitting over a sum like that, it doesn’t bode well.
I know he’d be having a nice fat signing on fee on top, but you would think we could afford that sort of money.
Unless Emery doesn’t want players who embroider everything they do because think they’re better than they are, can’t be disciplined, won’t fit into a style of play etc etc
It does seem an odd one though, if it is purely financial.
Cynic.
The Ramsey situation for me shows the massive ineptitude of those at our club at that level.
If Ramsey does not fit into Emery’s plans then he should have been sold for a decent sum in the summer. But he was offered a deal and it appears that negotiations were ongoing. If he wants £7 million a year then that’s less than half of Özil’s reported wages.
I accept that for nothing, he is an attractive proposition for many clubs but I would suggest that clubs aren’t going to take him on unless they see him fitting into their plans. The fact that the likes of Inter, PSG, Juve and Bayern are all said to be in talks tells you that if nothing else, he has some financial value. Certainly in this market. The fact that we are prepared to spend £85 million on Xhaka, Mustafi and Perez, but let Rambo leave on a free I will never ever understand. If we rely on a self sustaining business model then I would suggest we need some major changes behind the scenes.
No Hector, Nacho or Ozil.
But the good news is that
Mus is fit.
Leno
Sokratis, Kos, Mus
AMN, Guendouzi, Xhaka, Kola
Iwobi, Laca, Auba,
Torreira on the bench. Ramsey,
Eddie, Licht, Elbert, Sako and
Cech.
Leno, Koscielny, Mustafi, Sokratis, Maitland-Niles, Xhaka, Guendouzi, Kolasinac, Iwobi, Aubameyang, Lacazette.
Subs: Cech, Elneny, Ramsey, Torreira, Lichtsteiner, Nketiah, Saka.
Torreira benched for Guendouzi. Laca starts which is always good and Koscielny in.
Happy new year to Holic and all holics. Hope we get a good start to the new year today.
I could do with a bit of sunshine.
coynyg
happy new year for all the holics
Head honcho holic happy hunting for a pleasantly polished pound too.
Just noticed that Afobe went to
Stoke for 12m.
The Fulham we face today is going to be very different from the one we beat 5-1 away. Our players should not forget that Fulham is now managed by a manager who led Leicester to winning the league playing solid defence and counter attacking football. Fulham have pacy players like Sessegnion and Mitrovich who will cause problems for our slow defenders. I hope we are not set to play a very high defensive line.
Those who can’t be arsed to hunt for streams, BBC Radio London has commentary avalable online
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/45121523
Could of been a very quick start.
Then nothing happened. Then a
lucky escape.
Defending.
Just some daft enterprise that other teams seem to waste their energy on. Suckers.
The crowd are not happy..
First Fulham chance offside
Are we playong at home???
Get in all the best for that one
Yes we scoref but ar the back???
*scored
Get in Xhaka.
Undeserved but I’ll take it.
Good ball in
Genduzi charging makes me feel better
Better that sideways – backward shit
So Xhaka
Laca always working hard as usual.
Move the ball faster boys.
Good goal but full of mistakes waiting to happen
Iwobi and AMN both putting in effective performances.
It’s paradox he scores and he is shit!
Sokratis!
Defending is for chumps. So our CB runs up the left wing, does two men, shoots on target and wins a corner.
2 mins later he gives away a dangerous free kick after mistiming a challenge. Normal service resumed.
Sokratis just shocked me!!
Then escaped a blatant yellow as
well.
Iwobi great SSY ?
Hit the target Auba ffs
A 1H won, yipeeeee
Any top ten team would have scored a couple against us by now. Lucky to be leading at half time. The chance Sessegnion wasted would have been buried by Salah and his like. We have learnt nothing from the Pool game.
Need a win hear nothing elew will do, however I will feel much safer when Xhaka leaves the field, in all honesty I don’t have have flipping clue what he sees in him….
a half-time lead
Xhaka showing Auba and Laca how
to finish
AMN and Kola both doing ok.
Centre looking a bit holey.
Three golden chances conceded to Fulham. Half time score could have been less flattering. Still, a first half has actually been won, albeit at home against the poorest team in the league.
Are we playing at home again?
Now this is The Arsenal play
Great goal by the team and a cool Laca.
Great goal spoke too soon as always ?
Laca needed that big time, well taken
Then he misses a 1 on 1, Fulham on the ropes, a third goal is still needed
Kung fu kick, but no blood, so no penalty
No pen for Laca. I disagree.
No foul on Torreira. I disagree.
Our defence is not fit for purpose. Who can disagree with that?
Are we playing at home?
We are so shit at the back it’s unbelievable.
We couldn’t defend to save our own life.
Guys we are struggling until now
Is Torreira being Arsenilised? Tired? A couple of mistakes leading to goals lately
We are being shoved easliy, Emery now subs Laca of course
Seen the penalty incident once. I didn’t think it was a pen.
Need to see the Torreira incident again but it happened 40 yards from goal and the subsequent defending was shocking.
The manager is now over thinking this. You are losing the plot dude. Why on earth are you taking out Laca – should have taken out Iwobi or AMN.
Iwobi looking leggy. I would’ve taken him off, not Laca.
Laca was excellent, as usual.
These fuckers are being paid thousands of money a week!!
What a ducking waste of space
Great goal
No desire?
Rambo!
Unai knows.
Never in doubt.
Auba could have had a hat trick.
How fast did Rambo sort his feet out to bury that?
Frustrating spell but calm finish
from Ramsey should steady the
nerves.
Round the keeper damn it
It’s just not Auba’s day today.
Unlucky Auba but Ramsey adds a few more dollars to his salary with the new club.
We looked really shaky but Ramsey’s goal has settled nerves.
Finally Auba nets – 4-1.
Ball of the year (so far) from Guendouzi.
Finally Auba, phew
Auba! Finally!
‘holic pound!
Certainly missed a few till that
one Auba – get in though
Poor Eddie. On the bench while Saka gets on.
Who thinks Arsenal defend like Fulham?
And who thinks Fulham defend like Arsenal?
If I had a drink every time the commentators mentioned the Liverpool game I’d be wasted.
Great result boys
Hope the score stays as is for the landlord. Go Holic.
Nice one, ‘Holic, an excellent 18/1 poke to start the new year!
Well in H!
That’s the stuff!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I will take the win but it was more of the same shambolic defending and the result could easily have gone against us. Congrats Holic.