Goonerholics Forever

Les Dogues in this case are Lille, or LOSC as they appear in the Ligue 1 table, short for the Lille Olympique Sporting Club as they are fully declared in a curious mixture of French and English. Les Dogues is French for The Mastiffs, which nickname originally belonged to Olympique Lillois, one of the two clubs that merged to form LOSC.

The moniker first appeared in the regional and national press (such as L’Auto, the precursor to L’Équipe) around 1920 when a Parisian journalist used “dog” or “mastiff” to describe how fiercely and tenaciously the Lille players fought through a tough match. While initially intended as a somewhat unflattering description of their aggressive style of play, the club, its players and supporters embraced it as a badge of honor representing toughness and determination. The mastiff officially made its debut on the club’s crest in 1981 and remains a central symbol of LOSC’s identity today, complete with a large mastiff statue at their training facilities. I can feel Win the Labrador back at Shenley quaking in her boots. 

Aggression is clearly de rigueur for the French as the phrase they use for a simple “don’t push your luck” is “il ne faut pas pousser Mamie dans les orties” – which translates as “you must not push Grandma in the nettles!” Charming!

The Opposition 

Lille were founded as a result of a merger in 1944 between Olympique Lillois and SC Fives, named after their home suburb in the east of Lille. Both clubs were founding members of the French Division 1 and Olympique Lillois were the league’s inaugural champions. The club’s most successful period was in the post war decade from 1946 to 1955, when the first-team won seven major trophies, including a league and cup double in 1946, and was known as La Machine de Guerre (“The War Machine”) – yet more aggression! They won another double in 2011, their fourth league title in 2021 and their first Trophée des Champions in the same year, making them the fourth best French club in the 21st century – so far.

In European football, Lille have participated in the Champions League ten times, reaching the knockout phase three times; competed in the UEFA Europa League on nine occasions; and got to the UEFA Conference League quarter-finals once. They also won the UEFA Intertoto Cup in 2004 after finishing as runners-up in 2002. Lille are also one of the few clubs, still in the first division, to have at least 15 final top-three appearances in the history of the French championship.

They currently sit in fourth place in Ligue 1 with 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat earning them 10 points from their first 5 games. They are a team on the up and their home support is growing steadily from an average in the 2023/24 season of 39,000 to an average so far this season of 45,400, the third highest in the league. As an aside, if results had gone other ways in Ligue 1, it would be possible to look down the table and find consecutive teams named Nice, Lille, Brest. Ah, bless the French!

Arsenal and LOSC Lille have never played against each other in any official competitive match or friendly, making this their very first meeting. 
There will be a recognisable name or two amongst the Lille entourage. Thirty-nine year old Olivier Giroud is still plying his trade there and will most likely appear off the bench. Their main striker is Ayase Ueda, a Japanese international with three goals this season. Tiago Santos, a twenty four year old Portuguese is another of their leading players but is unlikely to feature as he suffered a knee injury against Le Havre on Saturday. Nabil Bentaleb is also listed, apparently among their best players, having made his escape from the hapless mob at the other end of Seven Sisters – so the less said about him the better.

Let’s hope for our players’ sakes that their on field tactics are less confusing than the string of names by which they are known. At any rate, they weren’t good enough on Champions League Matchday 1, losing 2-3 at home to Hector Bellerin’s Real Betis.

Davide Ancelotti, Carlo Ancelotti’s son, is the Lille head coach. He was nearly the subject of the Any Other Business section but I couldn’t resist the piece on Arsene Wenger and Man City’s* cheating, just in case anyone hadn’t seen it. Basically, Ancelotti was talking about the time he served under his father at Real Madrid, and his opinions on Vinicius Jr, who may, or may not, have been close to becoming an Arsenal player in the summer. I will keep this very short. He thought Vini Jr was an amazing player, very quick, always very direct and attacked ALL the time. That was not for changing and the success of a team with Vini Jr in it depended on the structure behind him because there was no chance he would be persuaded to defend. It certainly doesn’t augur well for a comfortable marriage with Mikel Arteta, any more than it did with Xabi Alonso who he accused of substituting him too much. That spat eventually resulted in Alonso’s time in Madrid coming to a premature end. Add to that his rather ridiculous dismissal at the weekend for pulling an opponents hair and he sounds very much like a bullet well dodged. 

The Arsenal

With a Premier League game away to Nottingham Forest on Sunday, this game should give Mikel Arteta a chance to use the squad and manage some playing loads. Kai Havertz seemed to struggle a bit at the weekend after picking up an injury in the international break. Bukayo Saka looked off his best too. We have two Spanish World Cup winners in Zubimendi and Merino who could come in, and after scoring four times in as many games for Sweden, Viktor Gyökeres may enjoy some success against a less physical and capable defence than he usually encounters in the Premier League. I would have gone for Hincapié but he suffered some sort of ankle injury in the post match warm down on Saturday. He also had to leave his Ecuador duties early in the international break due to injury. Similarly, I would have included Christhian Mosquera at centre back but he suffered a hamstring injury at Aston Villa in August and has not featured since. Tzolis and Saliba remain unavailable.

And just as I was about to submit this piece for publication, I heard that we lost not one (Hincapié) but two players to injury in the post match warm down on Saturday – Zubimendi also picked up some kind of injury and is also ruled out. Seriously, we have a whole new team of doctors, physios and strength and conditioning people since the summer. How do TWO players get injured in a warm down? They now both await scans and assessment!

I’m guessing my selection will meet with a lot of disagreement but I would go with:

Raya

Timber, Konsa, Gabriel, Calafiori

Guimarães, Rice/MLS, Merino

Madueke, Gyökeres, Eze

(P.S. – less disagreement now as there’s hardly anyone left!)

Any Other Business 

“IT RAISES THE REAL QUESTION ABOUT THE CREDIBILITY OF FINANCIAL FAIR PLAY. THAT IS WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT. THEY GIVE US THE MESSAGE THAT THEY CAN GET AROUND IT BY DOING WHAT THEY WANT.”

Over 15 years ago, all the way back in the summer of 2011, Arsène Wenger said the above about Manchester City’s* then record breaking £400M sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways.

The Arsenal manager was extremely critical of the suspicious deal because Etihad Airways was owned by the Abu Dhabi government, tying it to Manchester City* owner Sheikh Mansour. Wenger believed that the deal was inflated above market value in order to help City* bypass UEFA’s new FFP rules, allowing them to operate on a different financial level to other clubs.

He was ridiculed by various branches of the media for claiming top four finishes were a prize while he had to watch City* buy so many of his best players year after year as Arsenal fought to pay off The Emirates Stadium debt honestly by qualifying for the Champions League with many second and third-string players.

So now the game is well and truly up. City* might have temporarily bought success, which will hopefully soon be expunged from the record books.

They cannot buy class. As usual, Arsene knew.

PS. – City’s*, let’s say, over-exuberant celebrations after their match with Liverpool on Sunday appeared to be a huge two fingers to the authorities. All of them. That’s cultural. “We’ll do what we want and no-one is laying down rules for us. If we need to lie and cheat we’re just fine with that too. We just don’t care!”

Well, everyone else does care and sanctions need to be decided and implemented asap. Manchester City* is currently reducing English football to a farce. They, like us, are now involved in another European campaign where UEFA has failed to restrict their corruption. At the end of this particular road we may well find lying in wait either them or PSG. Surely they couldn’t be too, could they ..…?.

Try to enjoy the game, Holics. These are very strange times.