Arsenal smoothed their way into the last eight of the Champions League with one of their most stylish and mature performances of the season as they overcame a decent Leverkusen side 2-0. It was a night when, notwithstanding the fact that they have a Cup Final to play in five days time, the side worked aggressively from the off, suffocating Leverkusen with their press and pouring forward as their passing was more vertical and creative.
Ned’s preview suggestion of the team was very close. Benny Blanco came in at right back and seemed to liberate Bukayo tonight meaning that there was no need to bring on our sixteen year old big gun, Super Maxie Dowman. Trossard returned at wide left with Gyökeres playing as a lone, and very mobile striker. Leverkusen’s crisp passing caught the eye early on. They played largely on the counter-attack, more by circumstance than design, as Arsenal won most of the key midfield battles with Zubimendi complementing Rice very effectively in recycling the ball and probing the German club’s defence.
Gyökeres and White went close early on and Gabriel missed what were by his standards decent chances with several headers from corners. After a difficult first ten minutes, Arsenal started to dominate although Hincapié had to make a superb interception when Kofane (a very useful and mobile striker) had caught Saliba out of position. A few weeks ago CER described Eze as ‘a moments player’. An excellent description which he fully justified in the 36th minute taking a bounced pass from Trossard, a few yards outside the area, and pivoting to lash it home past the excellent Blaswich who had provided a formidable barrier up to that point.
Arsenal 1 Leverkusen 0 – Eze, 36
Trev who I am delighted to say was sitting very near me likened it to that iconic goal that Henry scored against Barthes on one of the occasions that we beat United and it was indeed reminiscent of that great moment. The Eze that we hoped we were getting was very much in evidence tonight, showing some superb flashes of skill and being denied by two last-ditch tackles by Leverkusen defenders.
Arsenal continued to press until the interval and took a deserved lead into the break.
Half Time: Arsenal 1 Leverkusen 0
During the interval there was considerable mirth among watching Gooners as Chelsea and C130y’s travails were shown on the big screens. Arsenal were by no means done and dusted but after an initial second half flurry, they began to dominate again. Declan Rice was exhibiting a prodigious work ethic, covering all the key areas of the pitch and he effectively put the tie to bed in the 63rd minute when he strode on to a hurried clearance and buried a fierce right foot shot low in the right corner.
Arsenal 2 Leverkusen 0 – Rice, 63
Leverkusen still threatened on occasions, Saliba unconsciously bunting over his own bar at one stage, but Arsenal added a third when Havertz touched home a Saka header after great work by Gyökeres only for the dread hand of VAR to rule it out for Kai’s (fairly clear) handball. Raya produced an outstanding save to deny Kofane in the 86th minute, the sign of a top-class keeper and Arsenal took the opportunity to substitute White, Zubimendi, Gyökeres, Trossard and Eze after the second goal, bringing on Mosquera (who might have scored after brilliant approach work), Nørgaard, Martinelli, Havertz and MLS.
Final Score: Arsenal 2 Leverkusen 0
There are several ways to win 2-0. Last Saturday illustrated one way. This was a much more assured performance and we saw the value of our summer investment with the performances from Eze, Zubi, Hincapié and Gyökeres, who were all excellent tonight (one assumes the Hincapié deal is effectively done).
C100 texted me after the game noting that we had a swagger about our play and this was indeed the case. It was an extremely impressive performance with none of the angst of a few days earlier and no need for Maxie Dowman to leave his maths homework and bail us out from the bench.
We now face Sporting Lisbon in the quarter final, a team we beat 5-1 on their own ground last season before we bought their centre forward. He cost upwards of £55 million and Declan Rice was virtually double that . Frankly the latter was an absolute steal. His performance was awesome and on a scale of 1-10 merits at least an 11. On a night of high professionalism, his was the outstanding performance.
We now roll on to Wembley and whisper it gently, we are the only team able to entertain the Q word.
Thanks fellas.Yes I have no doubt himself and Himself will be up to their knees in pints
Because remember
WE ARE THE ARSENAL
WE ARE THE BEST
WE ARE THE ARSENAL
SO happy relegation spurs
God bless David Faber and here comes the league
Thanks everyone from all here and thanks for every brilliant review and preview you publish.
Thanks
a bottle of a fine single irish malt for you on the bar, brendan, for you and yours, in honor of your dad, holic, and the arsenal!
Greetings Brendan ! Respect to your Da and the great Dave Faber . How much would they
be enjoying this season thus far.
Up the Arsenal how proud they are making us!
and ttg, an extra special californian negroni in the bar for you, writing such a fine piece. captured it well! i was so impressed with our defensive setup today, once we scored there was only going to be one winner…
What Scruz said @2.
You’ve nailed the match in your report, TTG. Unlike the first leg, we squeezed the life out of them and controlled the game by playing on that frontier where professionalism and swagger meet. Their playmaker, Ibrahim Maza, is a talented player, as we saw in the first leg, but he didn’t get a look in. Nor did their other key players, Alejandro Grimaldo and Alexia Garcia. You were right to mention in dispatches their keeper, Janis Blaswich. They have him to thank for the score not being four or five to nil.
Good to see Ben White back and getting 65 minutes in his legs.
Outstanding report TTG and greetings Brendan. Arsenal through to face Sporting in the last 8 and looking sharp with a cup final in 5 days time so nose to the grindstone fellas.
Great report, TTG – we saw quite literally the same game !
It was the first time I’d had the pleasure of meeting our reporter. Although I had seen a WhatsApp profile photo of him before I decided, before setting off, to have another look so I woukd recognise him at the ground. Unfortunately he had updated his profile so I spent 20 minutes at Block 100 looking for a man balancing an After Eight mint in his left eye !
Good to meet another fine Holic after all this time.
A very impressive performance last night. As I’m sure Mikel has said / will say, no game is easy at this stage of the Champions League but we really made it look pretty comfortable. Were it not for some of our finishing and Leverkusen’s keeper, it coukd have been 5-0.
Good to see you, Brendan. Bet the old man is enjoying this season.
Excellent all round. Declan is the personification of Roy of the Rovers, just better.
Win the next one and the one after that!
I just keep replaying Eze’s thunderbolt and young Max’s run and goal vs Everton over and over in my head. What a time to be a Gooner!
Another great night at the Emirates. I thought it was an outstanding performance. I watched the game back this morning. Although I wouldn’t swap it for the world, occasionally you don’t get the best view of Clock End activities from the North Bank row 9. I hadn’t appreciated just how good their goalkeeper was in the first half. Nor just how special the interplay, all volleyed, was to set Eze in for his thunderbastard of a goal. Wow. Has to be goal of the season. Naturally his song echoed around the stadium.
We can hear them crying at the Lane
Eberichi Eze scores again
One call to Mik Arteta, he said Wow
F*ck off Tottenham, I’m a Gooner now
To a man this was a special performance. The midfield of Rice and Zubi showed power and poise and directness. Eze was everywhere, shooting on sight. Viktor had a great game, holding up, laying off and putting in dangerous passes into the box. Hincapie is a warrior. It was great to see Benny Blanco back and Saka visibly benefited and was moving much more freely. Trossard had his best game since Christmas. The centre backs were their usual magnificent selves. And David Raya having had very little to do, pulled off a magnificent save in the 87th minute to preserve his clean sheet.
I’m off to Wembley on Sunday and have just bought my tickets for Southampton and City. I am so lucky to be able to follow this team, in this season, in person.
COYG!
Oh and wonderful to see you Brendan!
That’s the game I saw TTG. Thanks for a speedy and accurate report. I am in awe of your ability to produce such an accurate and detailed account on the train home from the game without the benefit of a TV review.
It was a superb performance by every man in red and white with outstanding work from Raya, Hincapié, Zubimendi, Rice, Eze, Saka, Gyökeres and Trossard meriting a special mention in despatches. Two spectacular goals, which in truth were the only way we were going to beat our determined, well-organised and fortunate opposition.
On to Wembeleeeeee!
Some perspective on recent criticisms from the excellent Adam Clery:
Goal contributions by Arsenal’s summer signings:
Gyokeres: 18 (16 goals, 2 assists)
Eze: 15 (9 goals, 6 assists)
Madueke: 10 (7 goals, 3 assists)
Zubimendi: 9 (6 goals, 6 assists)
Hincapie: 2 (1 goal, 1 assists)
Arsenal’s summer signings have a total of 54 goal contributions between them!
“We should’ve blown the whole budget on Isak” “Sack Berta now!”
Cheers TTG. A much better performance indeed, in so many ways our best match in a month or two, and still indebted to a splendid Raya save to make sure there were no nerves.
Great article title there too!
Cheers C100. Enjoy Wembley, looks I’ll miss out on a first domestic final in a while (unattendable COVID one notwithstanding). Not even the chance of a Silver ballot. Strange how I remember the previous one having Silver tickets available, and even, at the time, based on that stranger criterion of matches attended.
Mind you, while my FA Cup record is 100% good (3/3), my League Cup record is currently two losses out of two…so maybe that’s for the greater good (I jest, it makes no difference).
Idly trawling through the weeds of the stats of the Leverkusen game — I really must get out more — I was surprised to see that Declan Rice was our slowest outfield player, as measured by top speed hit during the game, and that Viktor Gyökeres was our fastest. Looking back over our other CL games this season (the stat isn’t readily available for PL games), that is not an anomaly.
Lots of caveats, of course. Never take a single stat in isolation, and the number shows the top speed hit, not how long it can be sustained and how frequently (data that the club’s performance analysts will have, but not us mere mortals). One can calculate that Rice’s average pace in the Leverkusen game was almost 5% higher than Gyökeres’s, for example, but not get more granular than that.
I will hold my hand up to acknowledge that I am among those who have said that a lack of pace is Gyökeres’s Achilles heel. Yet of late, I have noticed him making longer and faster sprints. Perhaps it is a case that the raw speed has always been there, and that the conditioning staff are starting to get it out of him now, another example of Arteta seeing potential marginal gains that others don’t.
Another data point confirming the evidence of our eyes is that Saka hit a higher top speed in the past couple of CL games than he was doing earlier in the season. We were right when we all thought he looked ‘off the pace’.
An interesting discussion between Henry Winter and Christian Purslow on the PL’s somewhat lenient sanctions for Chavski’s many years of corrupt practices that helped them cheat their way to many trophies and enhanced commercial income:
The podcast is also available through your preferred sources.
Thanks for that link, Bath. A thoughtful and nuanced discussion about the dark arts of financial doping between two people who know what they are talking about. A couple of thoughts:
First, as these concealed payments were discovered by Clearlake during their due diligence for the takeover, was a deal struck between Clearlake and the PL that there would be no more than a slap on the wrist, so the deal could go through? There was a lot of pressure at the time for Abramovich to be removed from the club’s ownership in short order.
Second, what are the implications for the City charges of the fact that the PL seems to be setting a precedent that sporting sanctions (ie, points deduction), will only be applied for breaches of financial sustainability rules? Which of the charges against them, if any, City get held to be guilty of by the PL is going to matter hugely in the sanctions applied to them. I do wonder if City’s lawyers now have a blueprint for a plea bargain/settlement that will cost the UAE a few bob but no points or trophies.
Ned, I am sure that a deal was done to get the deal through. The straw I am clutching is the emphasis the PL put on the self-reporting and subsequent cooperation by the new Chav ownership is a major mitigating ffctorfor the absence of a points deduction, deferment of any transfer ban and lower than originally intended financial penalty. My reading of the Shitteh saga is a series of obfuscations, obstructions and lies.
Goal, Codes!
Bath@18: I think your reading of the City saga is correct. However, only 12 of the 115 charges against City are in connection with financial fair play. If Purslow’s reading in the podcast is correct that those are the only ones to which City is at risk of sporting sanctions, then I can see City’s lawyers concocting a deal under which City accepts wrongdoing over some, perhaps even a lot of the minor breaches, and pays a huge fine (no Chavesque triple mitigating circumstances) and the PL decides the financial fair play cases can’t be definitively resolved, or City settles the lot without admitting any wrongdoing and pays the PL a huge amount of money. So, whatever the mechanism, the points- or trophy-costing breaches go away. Case resolved — with everyone but City and the PL fuming at the injustice.
My naive point would be that if City hadn’t hidden / disguised / otherwise lied about their financial shenanigans they might very well have been in big PSR / FFP trouble.
No amount of money is going to bother the oil clubs at all. The Premier League surely lose all credibility as a competition if it’s shown that you can buy as many titles as you like by simply ignoring all the rules.
The only silver lining to the leniency shown to Chelsea is that the pot of money from the forced sale earmarked for the relief of the people of Ukraine has been reduced by only £10 million, and not more.
Trev@21: Sadly, I think you are on the money, so to speak.
Ned
Both Everton and Forest have received points sanctions in the past with part of the punishment relating to lack of co- operation. . There are a very large number of charges relating to C130y’s lack of co-operation . The situation is becoming farcical especially if the Premier League are minded to make a points deduction .C130y deny all charges but presumably if they were completely innocent it woukd have been announced by now .
When do you do it? If they did that now it would give us the title and would force C130y down the league which would take them out of European competition. If at the start of next season it would be a huge handicap depending on the size of the deduction. But these charges relate many seasons back and sides who might have lifted trophies if C130y had not been able to proceed financially as they did are likely not to receive recompense or trophies they might have won .
There are lots of asterisks likely to be attached to trophies won in the second decade of this century
TTG@23: I am summarising Purslow’s analysis in the podcast to which Bath provided a link (and it is well worth listening to), but, in short, he is arguing that with its Chelsea ruling, the PL is laying down a doctrine, ahead of any decision in the City case, that non-cooperation with investigations gets punished with a fine and breaches of financial sustainabilty rules get punished with a sporting sanction (points deduction or transfer ban). As he is a former senior executive at three PL clubs, to me, his view carries considerable weight.
If it is the case, as Purslow implies, that the PL is prepping the ground for its decision in the City case, then my point @17 becomes highly salient: Which charges, if any, City get held to be guilty of by the PL is going to matter hugely in regard to the sanctions applied to them. If the PL finds City guilty of any of the 12 out of the 115 charges that relate to the financial sustainability rules (its or UEFA’s), then it will now be difficult for it not to impose sporting sanctions. Even if it does that, however, that wouldn’t necessarily mean asterisks against titles or trophies annulled. None of that has happened as a result of the Chelsea ruling.
It is my jaded view of football governance that led me to suggest that City’s lawyers, if they think they are at risk of losing, will be poring over the PL’s reasoning in the Chelsea case to see how they could strike a settlement with the PL that would avoid sporting sanctions, and the PL’s potential receptiveness to such a deal. I doubt that I will be alone in this fine establishment in thinking that when it comes to the PL, money talks. With 103 charges that it could make a song and dance about imposing fines for, the other 12 could easily get lost in the hulabaloo. The golden goose lives. There’s nothing more to see here. The best league in the world moves on.
And on a less world-wearied note, I felt sorry for Aaron Ramsdale today. Being beaten seven times in a game is no fun for any keeper, but doubly so when he didn’t have a chance to stop any of them, so woeful was Newcastle’s defending.
I have never believed that any meaningful sanction would be applied to City. They have moved from being owned by a dubious kleptocrat with obvious domestic political protection to being owned by a dubious oil state with an obvious grip over an energy and industry poor country. I see no reason to change my opinion. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
Sorry I expressed that poorly. City haven’t moved in that way. I meant to say Chelsea were let off, effectively, and as Ned says the precedent is set. Everything was already known about Abramovich and yet he was allowed to set up shop in the UK and dish out C&D notices at will to stop discussion of his obvious corruption. City have exactly the same political cover, with the added benefit of actually being owned by an oil state which buys a shed load of weapons. Much like during Covid when extended supply chains were shown to be a weakness not a strength, so our industrial and energy policies are likewise. Jobs and heating are more important than football. No meaningful penalty will be levied.
Never have I wanted to be more wrong.
TTG, belated thanks for a super quick match report, about 12 times quicker than my laggardly response by my admittedly iffy math. Fully agree with your various conclusions,
a good win and for at least a few days we are a step closer to our of winning it all.
Also agree with Ned’s sympathy for poor old Aaron Ramsdale – an unfairly trashed loser in the Battle of the ex-Arsenal Goalies Cup
Props to Ned for acknowledging the situation of Aaron Ramsdale . He made some very good saves but the Geordie rearguard was pathetic, especially in the second half.
Imagine how his career has imploded. England keeper , probable deputy to Pickford at the World Cup. A nose away from the title at Arsenal but eased out by Raya and compensation moves to Southampton to get regular first- team football and gets relegated ( again) . Loses England gig but gets a competitive opportunity at the Barcodes where he tussles for the top spot with Nick Pope . When he gets the first team spot, he is surrounded by that defending yesterday .
Meanwhile he wouldn’t be human without a wistful gaze across to Arsenal and the situation Raya is in. Raya is a considerably better keeper but is his situation at Newcastle better for his England prospects than what he faced at Arsenal? I suspect he might have been the right fit for Chelsea . Football can be tough to
Ned, Purslow’s summing up adds clarity but several clubs have already had points sanctions because of non- co- operation . Everton were sanctioned as were Leicester . With charges stretching back several years you can’t suddenly impose a new sentencing philosophy halfway through .
A lot of the big Premier League clubs have American ownership and I can see huge objections to a volte face midway through the process. Once those charges were made the Premier League has to show consistency and backbone
TTG@30: We are going to have to agree to disagree — or follow Brian Clough’s famous maxim, we can ‘talk about it for twenty minutes, and then we decide I was right’. 🙂
In the previous cases, Derby, Everton (twice), Forest and Leicester, the charges against the club were for breaches of FFP/PSR, not for concealing information or failing to cooperate with the PL investigation. Those last two categories account for 103 of the 115 charges against City.
Everton’s points deduction was mitigated for ‘pleading guilty at the first opportunity’. Nor does Leicester really count as an exception. While it also faced a charge of a disclosure breach (for not providing a set of annual accounts when the PL first asked for it), even that charge fell under a violation of FFP rules. The PL independent commission ruling on the case decided that the disclosure breach charge was sufficiently material to the other charge that, when it came to a sanction, it should be considered as a mitigating/exacerbating factor in the overall penalty, rather than treated as sui generis for punishment.
All those cases have established that sporting sanctions, not fines, are the appropriate penalty for clubs found guilty of breaching FFP/PSR rules. Indeed, the commissions have explicitly rejected clubs’ arguments that fines were the appropriate sanction for FFP/PSR violations.
However, while the commissions have commented in their findings on the level of cooperation the various clubs involved have provided to the PL and acknowledged that cooperation can be a mitigating factor in the decision on the severity of any sporting sanction, they have not had to rule on a charge of non-cooperation.
My argument is that the Chelsea decision draws a thick double line under the idea that there is a distinction between FFP/PSR and other classes of charges, and thus sets a precedent of distinguishing between playing sanctions for FFP/PSR violations and fines for others. The lengthy discussion of why Chelsea’s failure to disclose agent and third-party payments didn’t affect its FFP further reinforces my view.
If the PL commission finds that City has violated FFP/PSR, there is no question that it will have to impose sporting sanctions, although their severity will be another matter. CER’s pessimism in this regard is well-founded in my view, though, like him, I hope we are wrong and that the PL honours what the commission expressed in its Forest decision: that the integrity of the competition is more important than the harshness of sanctions on an individual club. (I know, dream on.)
The conspiracy theorist in me says that the timing of making public the Chelsea ruling several months after that commission reached its findings is prepping the public for the City decision, and particularly that fines will account for a significant part of the sanctions on City, for any of the charges which are upheld against it, because the overwhelming majority of the charges are non-FFP/PSR-related.
I also expect that, whatever the commission’s decision, it will be appealed. That is a racing certainty if City loses substantively. I would expect any points deduction to be stayed pending the conclusion of that. It is then that we may see a settlement deal. I doubt the PL has the appetite or money for another lengthy legal battle, even though City will.
The idealist in me is heavily on TTG’s side here. I get all the arguments above but cling to the fact that without concealing huge amounts of money / sponsorship coming into the club under false pretences, City surely would have broken at least FFP rules. UEFA had already established that but City even managed to wriggle out of that one at the CAS in let’s call them odd and contrived circumstances – allegedly, of course.
No need to answer, Ned, CER. I’m clinging to the wreckage here but I’m not letting go yet !
CER is on standby, Trev.
My old man put me onto this. Well worth a watch.
GSD@34: Flewers point is well made. Sadly, I doubt any of those to whom it is addressed will be listening, or, if they are, care.
That’s an excellent piece, Dino. Thanks for forwarding it on. All we want is consistency. The only consistency we have from PGMOL is their utter inconsistency. Along with an obvious multi- season anti-Arsenal bias as shown by the table Flewers puts up. 6 seasons rules out statistical error, I would have thought. It’s a pattern of behaviour at that level.
Tuchel puts four Arsenal players for his England squad. Rice, Eze, Noni and Saka. It’s a World Cup in the summer. The players want to be there.
Apparently so, C100, although it’s one I could imagine many wouldn’t want to be in.
You mean for political reasons Ollie? I doubt that. I think most professional footballers, to use a quote about Mike Gatting, wouldn’t know a political nicety if they found it in a cheese and pickle sandwich.
Isn’t the bigger question whether a modern footballer would recognise a cheese and pickle sandwich?
Heh @ both above :-).
CER@36: To be a statistical pedant (would you expect anything else?), one club having a net VAR score of -12 is right on the frontier of being a statistical outlier if VAR decisions for and against were randomly distributed among PL clubs. How one should interpret that that one club is ours, I will leave to you…
ESPN kept a detailed club-by-club track of VAR’s 108 overturns of the ref’s on-field decisions last season. What struck me about the numbers was that while we had the second-largest set of unfavourable decisions overall, how weighted they were towards goals struck off, more so than any club except Bournemouth.
Our scorecard:
Overturns: 8
Leading to goals for: 1
Disallowed goals for: 5
Leading to goals against: 0
Disallowed goals against: 0
Net goal score: -4
Subjective decisions for: 0
Subjective decisions against: 2
Net subjective score: -2
Red cards for / against: 2 / 0
https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/40894476/how-var-decisions-affect-premier-league-club-2024-25
C100 + Ned, 🤣🤣
Jonathan Liew at his very best
If he is a Spud fan he is a very exasperated one !
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/mar/12/why-relegation-needs-to-happen-for-tottenham
Like a dog with a bone I looked up Everton’s initial 10 point deduction on January 2024 . It was arrived at because of substantial financial breaches (and was later amended to six points because of legal errors ) The punishment was affected by two other factors –
Misleading Information: The original commission found that Everton had been “less than frank” in their submissions regarding stadium financing costs, which was deemed an aggravating factor.
“Utmost Good Faith”: The commission concluded that Everton failed to act in “utmost good faith” with the Premier League. Could anyone claim that City have co- operated with this inquiry during its period of investigation? UEFA punished City for lack of co- operation in computing the original fine in their proceedings which ultimately failed because of time limitations.
Kieran Maguire who may of course turn out to be misinformed but is probably the closest football finance expert to these proceedings was predicting a very significant points deduction based on the Leicester and Everton precedents which were for single breaches . This was before the Chelsea verdict but Chelsea’s claim of self- reporting and co- operation with the inquiry appears to have substantially affected the decision.
Maguire’s conclusions were based on the following
Key Points on Potential Deduction:
Severity of Charges: The allegations span nine years, including failure to provide accurate financial information and player payment details.
Precedent-Based Forecast: Experts have suggested a 40 to 60-point deduction, comparing it to smaller penalties given to other clubs for single-season breaches.
Potential Outcome: A 60-70 point deduction is considered possible, which could make the team candidates for relegation.
Timing will be very relevant here and any punishment will be appealed but I still maintain that City will not avoid a points deduction of some sort . As Ned says we are likely to agree to disagree on this one!
Cheeky wall pass.
Passed with utmost good faith of the sort that not even TTG could deny.
Relegate the fucking cheaters, and multiply the penalties according to the number of times they appeal the original decision.
Flewers again. He’s almost making me want to give Manure a fair crack of the whip. He’s ust so reasonable and compelling.
Condemns Carragher and raises bat
Squares the ball at the top of the box to…
Realizes that OM has already put the ball in the back of the net and the squared “ball” was actually a balloon. Sneaks down the tunnel hoping nobody noticed.
Brendan was in the bar. Good man. Yer da was one of our own.
We didn’t always see eye to eye or moo to moo. Mainly cos I love The Clash (the only band that matters) and he, ahem, did not.
But the best band who have ever played are indeed Led Zeppelin.
Each individual member is in the top 5 of their instrument by any sane measure. And you’d be hard pressed to put Plant or Bonham as anything other than the best frontman/drummer. Where you rate Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones is up to you. But taken together they are simply the greatest.
Anyway,, here’s a former opera singer taking half an hour to disect one of their most well known tunes and explain just how good it is.
Well in OM, and good to see you were there behind him ecg just in case he had had a sudden cardiac arrest before scoring the critical goal 😊
The quadruple is on.
Even if we get nowhere close, it’s a good moment to remember what immortality looks like.
It looks like Kashmir.
UTA
Led Zeppelin 👎 (excepting some songs, but not that one)
Clash 👍🏼
That makes us half agreed, GSD.
But leaving both aside, here’s one I heard today for the first time in many years and it brought back good memories:
Thanks for the links GSD.
I never listen to Carragher and Neville or read anything they write as I
expect it just to be a biased load of old bollocks anyway. But it was funny
to watch a Manyoo fan mailing them and the media too.
Well in for the half ton, OM.
TTG@45: I commend you for being a man of integrity and good faith. I just expect the fix to be put in.
if you like led zeppelin, you’ll love this.
from their very beginnings (whereas that kashmir was from knebworth, one of their last-ever shows).
and, sorry bt8, a version of kashmir from page and plant’s “unledded” tour a few years after bonham’s 1980 death, with the awesome michael lee on the traps (also RIP now):
Nailing not mailing
Thanks for Led Zep gents
TTG @45 – excellent post, well researched 👏🏻
I’m with you 100% on this. Ned and CER may well turn out to be right but I believe that a harsh footballing sanction is the only fair outcome and that has to count for something. What City did over many seasons cost the Arsenal and potentially several other clubs footballing success and consequently financial gain, if money is to be the most important meter in all this.
The fans (bear with me, I know) and owners of the clubs who lost out must be as angry as we are. Those owners are themselves rich and powerful people who will not take kindly to having been cheated while trying to play according to the rules.
The difficulty, possibly, is trying to determine exactly which clubs have lost out, and how much. To be honest, that looks like an impossible calculation to make.
So I cling to the hope that a footballing sanction is deemed to be the only solution that could attempt to appease all the wronged clubs equally. In other words, relegate City and leave the rule abiding clubs to play on their own for a season or two.
Call me an idealist, a dreamer – that’s fine. We all are really or we wouldn’t be here 😉
Lovely interview on Arseblog this morning: Merse with Bukayo Saka ❤️
Bravo Thomas Tuchel
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/england-squad-announcement-world-cup-b2942830.html
Another thoughtful take on the Chelsea sanction by Stefan Borson, head of the sports practice at the City law firm McCarthy Denning:
How Chelsea’s Sanction Agreement brings Premier League consistency issues into sharp focus https://x.com/slbsn/status/2033696324835586534
The paragraph that caught my eye was:
The remarkable implication [of the Chelsea case] is that deliberate financial deception, even of the most serious kind, does not in itself automatically warrant a points deduction. City’s legal team will have noted that surprising conclusion with interest, especially if, like Chelsea, City can show that any established breaches made no difference to its PSR compliance.
TTG @44 – thanks for the link – a brilliant piece of writing. Jonathan Liew is reportedly a Spurs fan. Despite any doubts that piece might raise, he actually has to be to write it with such passion. I think a lot of Spurs fans will agree with every word but, like all other fans, they are powerless to do anything about it.
It’s a cautionary tale to all club owners who still have any desire to be successful at actual football.
>>>>>>>