Goonerholics Forever

Brighton used to be a team that I quite liked. A nice seaside town (albeit rather ‘Green’), good fish and chips and a well-run club that seemed to have an amazing worldwide scouting network that unearthed gem after gem, played good football and appointed a series of intelligent, fair-minded coaches. Then Hurlezer arrived. He adopted a snarling, cynical demeanour in interviews and his teams mirrored a not dissimilar approach on the pitch. The gamesmanship that resulted in Declan Rice getting a second yellow from a muppet referee (who I believe has been selected for this game too!!) who ‘didn’t have a choice’ lives long in the memory as do the coach’s subsequent remarks supporting the sending off. Such calumnies tarnish that club for me.

We have played Brighton on only 34 previous occasions. That’s because they have spent almost their entire history in lower divisions with which, of course, once promoted to the top tier in 1919, the Arsenal have never soiled their shoe leather, unlike certain London clubs, inclined to posture, that I could name. 

We first played Brighton in 1935, in an FA Cup tie, at the Goldstone Ground, their home from 1902 until 1997, and won 2-0 with goals by Joe Hulme and Ted Drake. We didn’t face them again until 1979 after their promotion to Division One (remember that era, chaps? – ask yer pa if you don’t). Over the years, we have won 19, lost 8 and drawn 7. In league games, at their place, those numbers are 5 wins, 3 draws and 4 defeats. Since Brighton’s return to the top flight in 2017, our Premier League record at their place is 3 wins, 2 draws and 2 defeats. Most of these games have been very tight, one goal margins, though we did have an excellent 3-0 win at the Amex Stadium in April 2024 with goals from Saka, Havertz and Trossard but, on the other hand, Brighton did beat us at the Grove by the same margin a year earlier. We need a repeat of our 3-0 away win and those three goal scorers from 2024 may all be available for the forthcoming match to repeat their scoring feats.

If you want an analysis of how Hurzeler’s Brighton can be expected to play, check out Ned’s excellent preview to our home game against them from just after Christmas. Brighton are coming off a 2-1 home win against Forest, in which they had 54% possession, made 522 passes, had 14 shots, 7 on target, had 2 clear cut chances and gained 3 yellow cards but they did allow Forest 14 shots, 1 clear cut chance and 4 corners. That was Brighton’s first home league win since beating Burnley at the beginning of January. However, their home record isn’t too shabby, having won 6, drawn 5 and lost only 2. Nonetheless, that home record has deteriorated since the home defeat to Villa in early December: they have drawn at home against West Ham, Sunderland, Bournemouth and Everton and lost to Palace. Brighton currently sit in 11th place with a goal difference of +3. Their season isn’t going as well as was expected and Hurzeler has been under recent pressure so this game is extremely likely to be another scrap as the German tries to relieve that pressure with a statement result. As far as I can see they have no key players absent apart from longterm injuries to Tzimas and Webster. Ayari is returning from injury but this game may be too soon for him.

So, what of the Arsenal? We started well against the Chavs on Sunday, had a wobbly middle period, recovered our mojo then had an extremely nervy final ten minutes against ten ASBO’s during which we were extremely grateful to Raya for his superb reflexes. We need to sort out those nerves – we really should have kept the ball and used our extra man advantage in the final phase of the game rather than get defensive jitters and, yet again, show a suicidal tendency that may yet harm our title challenge. I don’t know whether the late addition of multiple attackers with fresh legs from the Chav bench made the difference against our tiring midfielders and defenders or whether it was the result of deep seated anxiety primed by the late equalisers conceded at Wolves and Brentford or a mixture of both. Either way, it needs to be sorted or we will not achieve our objectives.

Although it would be reasonable to argue that we need to make changes to the starting XI for this game, if only because our late jitters may reflect tired legs and tired minds, the fact that the subsequent game is an FA Cup tie against Mansfield Town gives a bit of leeway, as key players can be predictably and more safely rested in that game. Raya who was superb on Sunday, clearly keeps his place and Timber, Saliba, Gabriel and Hincapié had, until that late mass wobble, excellent games against the Chav forwards. White is apparently still unfit. However, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Calafiori start at left back given how much Hincapié has played recently (and very well, he has, too).

Declan Rice pulled up in the late stages of the Chavski game, with what looked like a muscle issue, after haring back to cover a breakaway and was limping as he came off so he was a doubt for this game. However, in his pre-Brighton press conference, Mikel Arteta was confident he would be fit. If he wasn’t fit, I expected Nørgaard to start as our holding midfielder with Zubimendi at left ‘8’, but given the likelihood that Rice will play, it may be that Zubimendi will get a rest either during the game or even from the start. 

The absence of Merino is certainly coming home to roost as our key midfielders are getting no breaks at the moment. It sounds as if Ødegaard isn’t going to be fit for this game though his knee injury is ‘not serious’. If he had been fit, I would have started Ødegaard rather than Eze as the former provides far greater game control albeit, these days, he offers fewer ‘wow moments’ but Eze was quite disappointing for much of Sunday’s game and didn’t provide the defensive cover that Ødegaard regularly offers. We will need reliable tracking back if Rice doesn’t make it after all and for this reason, Havertz, if fit enough for 90 minutes, might be a better option in the advanced midfield role than Eze. Of course, another option would be Saka with Madueke playing wide right. That would certainly give Brighton’s left sided defenders a challenge but I suspect that’s well down Arteta’s list of options.

If there are no issues about our midfielders’ fitness, my front three would be Saka, Gyökeres and Martinelli. Saka was our best forward on Sunday when the attack didn’t exactly shine. Gyökeres needs to rediscover the élan he displayed against the neighbours but his recent scoring rate makes him first choice striker ahead of Jesús and a rehabilitating Havertz while Martinelli added energy to our attack when he replaced a somewhat lacklustre Trossard on Sunday and the Brazilian must be determined to regain his starting place. Although Trossard is likely to be keen to play against his former employer he didn’t do himself justice on Sunday and I think he’ll start on the bench.

However, if we haven’t done the business by the hour mark, I’d have a low threshold for freshening things up with several options from the bench to craft the win that we need. While I am confident MA8 has run through all these permutations in his mind, I expect that, given his conservative approach to team selection, his starting XI to be:

Raya

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapié,

Zubimendi

Eze, Rice

Saka, Gyökeres, Martinelli

I expect another spiky, tight, ‘in your face’ contest so 2-1 to the Arsenal strikes me as a likelier final score than a 3-0 canter, although the latter would be extremely welcome. If it’s not to be a canter, a consummately professional performance, dominating and controlling the game, while we come out confident winners with no hint of late nerves or injuries, would be very acceptable indeed.

Enjoy  the game Holics!

If you can! 

And so to the Stadium of Stone, where we entertain the SW6 Spendalots on Sunday afternoon in the last game of the Premier League’s Matchweek 28. Yes, just ten must-wins to go.

Barnum and Boehly’s Circus last visited just shy of a month ago for the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final. They arrived needing to overturn a first-leg deficit. Their still-new head coach, Liam Rosenior, was praised for his tactical acumen in hunkering down, with the acclaim in the popular prints not diminished one iota by our progression to the final, having won both legs. Funny old game, football.

That said, Chelsea has thrived under Rosenior, establishing a level of consistency in securing results that they struggled to achieve under Enzo Maresca. Aside from the League Cup matches, they have won eight and drawn two of Rosenior’s other ten games.

As a result, at time of writing, they are sixth in the Premier League, three points behind the defending champions, who have played a game more, and Michael Carrick’s resurgent Red Mancs, who occupy the coveted fourth spot that will secure qualification for next season’s Champions League, bringing spondulix much-needed in the heavily indebted parts of London SW6 and Manchester M16.

Not Maresca’s 4-2-3-1

On the surface, Rosenior’s Chelsea team plays a 4-2-3-1 as they did under Enzo Maresca. However, there are key differences in how the two versions try to play through the opposition’s press, in their pace of attack, and in how Rosenior deals with what doctors call Amorin syndrome, where a star is forced into the team out of position because the system is sacrosanct, yet the star cannot be dropped.

As Carrick has done with Bruno Fernandes at the Old Toilet, Rosenior has done with Enzo Fernández: remove him from the double pivot, where his skills are not ideally suited, although he is a good enough footballer to do a decent job, and push him further up the pitch to where his abilities are a better fit and where the player prefers to operate. 

Fernández now starts on the left side of the three attacking midfielders. At times, he fulfils the role of a winger; at others, he comes inside, a junior 10 to the roaming Cole Palmer’s lead. With one of the first-choice wing/full-backs, Reece James or Marc Cucurella, overlapping and underlapping on the wings depending on where Palmer and Fernández have moved, this allows Chelsea to attack with a front line of five or six. 

It also lets Rosenior deploy a player who is considerably more press-resistant than Fernández alongside Moises Caiceido in the double pivot. For now, that is Andrey Santos. He undertakes the unglamorous but indispensable role in the system Rosenior evolved at Strasbourg of playing third-man and one-touch bounce passes to keep possession while waiting to break the opposition’s press and get the ball quickly up the pitch to attackers waiting in space between the lines.

What? I hear you say; not much of that in the Premier League, where teams squeeze up with high lines, press man-to-man relentlessly and space between the lines is rarer than a hair out of place on Arteta’s head? This isn’t Ligue Un! 

And, gentle reader (gentle reader!), not only are you correct, but I can see that you are ahead of me.

Wait and bait

Rosenior’s cunning plan is to stretch the gap between the opposition’s back line and its second bank of pressers to the maximum extent by using a wait-and-bait strategy. 

At Strasbourg, his defenders patiently circulated the ball around the edge of their penalty area during the build-up, trying to lure the opposition’s press as close to their goal as they could, to open up space in midfield. As soon as the opposition had taken the bait, Strasbourg launched the ball into the newly created gaps into which its attackers had dropped, and they were off to the races.

This high-risk tactic depended on Strasbourg not losing possession while they waited and baited. Reliable, press-resistant DMs were essential. Rosenior also made the keeper an active part of the back line to create a numerical overload.

In Ligue 1, the tactic largely succeeded, at least until this season when teams learned how to counter it. Nonetheless, Rosenior has carried the concept with him across the Channel. Santos in the double pivot is one indication. Fernández on the left, rather than an out-and-out winger like Alejandro Garnacho or Jamie Gittens, is another. 

A third is some hairy moments when Chelsea gets turned over with Robert Sánchez far from his net. Sánchez, though more skilled with his feet than many give him credit for, is not as good as Djordje Petrovic or Mike Penders, the two keepers Rosenior had at Strasbourg, both on loan from Chelsea, as it happens. Rosenior has been flexible enough to adapt.

Rosenior has also been fortunate in having had a benign run of fixtures to implement his tactics. Brentford is the only top-half team Chelsea has faced in the league, while Charlton and Hull were their FA Cup opponents, and they played Pafos and a struggling Napoli in the Champions League. We are the only top side Rosenior has faced, and he lost both times. 

It remains uncertain how effective Rosenior’s wait-and-bait strategy will prove against elite pressing teams and those capable of pinning back Chelsea’s full/wing-backs and cutting off the supply lines to Palmer, Fernández, Pedro Neto and Joao Pedro, thereby negating the greater speed and directness in Chelsea’s attack. After Sunday, they face away games at Villa Park and Anfield, and host Newcastle and both sets of Mancs. Proof of the pudding, and all that.

The opposition

Most of Rosenior’s likely selection for Sunday will be familiar enough that reciting an inventory of Boehly’s extensive, expensive, and seemingly haphazardly assembled squad is unnecessary. For some reason, Beachcomber’s Anthology of Huntingdonshire Cabmen comes to mind: ‘Acheampong, JK; Adarabioyo, Abdul-Nasir; Badiashile, B…’

The preview of the League Cup second leg https://www.goonerholicsforever.com/?p=12772 can serve as a reminder, if needed.

I will therefore only relay the injury and suspension updates. Levi Colwill, Jamie Gittens, Marc Cucurella, Filip Jorgensen, Dário Essugo, and Estevao are all gone in the fetlock. Wesley Fofana is suspended after receiving two yellow cards during the draw with Burnley last weekend. Mykhaylo Mudryk remains on the long-term suspension list (What a dope, I would say, if I had Trev’s humorous touch). Reece James will return from injury, and Romeo Lavia, who rejoined the matchday squad for the Burnley game for the first time since last November, may get some minutes.

The Arsenal

Arteta was his usual obscurantist self about our walking wounded. Mikel Merino is definitely out. Ben White and Kai Havertz are almost certainly and probably unavailable, respectively, I would venture. Max Dowman played a half for the U-21s on Friday. He is en route to rejoining the first-team matchday squad, but not there yet. Bukayo Saka trained this week after twisting his ankle against the neighbours last weekend, so one assumes he is available.

Martin Ødegaard or Eberechi Eze is the big question. Playing both if Saka is not 100% to start is not inconceivable.

Raya

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Hincapié

Zubimendi, Rice, Eze

Saka, Gyökeres, Trossard

City has cut our lead to two points, so yet again, this is a must-win. Chelsea possesses a potent attack with players able to conjure up goals, but is vulnerable defensively. Rosenior says his job is to identify our weaknesses. I think we will be better at exploiting theirs. I’ll go for 3-1.

And did I mention that we could be celebrating St Totteringham’s Day on Sunday, possibly even before we kick off, if the old boys do their job at the Cottage? If so, it will be the earliest St Tott’s Day on record, beating 2008’s March 9.

Enjoy the game, ‘holics, near and far.

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends
We’re so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside
There behind a glass stands a real blade of grass
Be careful as you pass, move along, move along…”

Karn Evil 9; Emerson, Lake & Palmer (1973)

Greetings and salutations from the Republic of Tejas! Please pardon this brief epistle, as circumstances this week have conspired against your humble correspondent from the New World. I hope you find these musings a satisfactory amuse-bouche given the inability of Eddie Howe’s Magpie Army to set today against €iteh a suitable table for our enjoyment.

As many of this fine establishment’s regulars know, I grew up as the son of local elected officials in the State of Georgia. This was a burden most of the time. There simply wasn’t much leeway to engage in the usual teenage hijinks when your father held county-wide office. Everyone knew, and was ready to report, if I showed-up at the “wrong” party or associated with the “wrong” person. Heaven forbid I get detained for a harmless high school prank…but I digress.

One of the few perks, however, came in the summer when my dad attended his yearly conference sponsored by the National Association of Counties. While he was busy getting his accreditation hours (or some such nonsense), my brother and I would be free to explore whatever attractions were available in the host city. Although we traveled to various cities across the U.S., for purposes of this story, my memory returns to a conference held in that veritable bastion of sophistication and cosmopolitan joie de vivre that is Sarasota, Florida. Exactly.

My mother planned several diversions for our week (yes, I said week) long stay in what is basically the armpit of Florida. Of course there would be some time reserved for the beach, but she seemed unusually proud of one particular entertainment and educational opportunity, the Circus Museum. You see, Sarasota was the headquarters of Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus. Yes, that Barnum. P.T. Barnum of “There’s a sucker born every minute” fame (or infamy). We’d have the opportunity to tour the winter headquarters and training facilities as well as learn the circus’ history and see some oddities. There was just one small problem. I don’t like circuses. Never have, never will. I don’t like clowns (and I still don’t, whether they be in circuses or political office), and I don’t believe animals should be caged for our entertainment. Notwithstanding that baggage, I ended-up enjoying the museum. Turns out, circuses and their accompanying oddity shows make similar bargains with their patrons as magicians make. They show you somewhat “normal” people doing extraordinary, sometimes unbelievable, things all in service of The Show.

Our Show has enraptured us for three seasons now. We’ve watched as an erstwhile servant of the club and winner of FA Cup honors returned “home” and transformed us into a parsimonious defense that also featured, at times, an offense that was “guaranteed to blow your head apart.” Our onfield talent supplied us with manifold memories and unforgettable moments, truly extraordinary, sometimes unbelievable events—Martinelli’s break-away goal at Villa; Saliba’s stunning rocket at Bournemouth; Big Gabi’s late winner at Newcastle; Ødegaard’s strike at Brighton; Rice’s free kicks against Madrid; Madueke’s olimpico; Saka’s brilliant hit against United; and Eze’s hat trick against the old enemy. And an anthem organically became our fortresses’ mantra that our blood will forever run through the stone.

Each year, however, as we approached the summit, as we attempted our most difficult trick, our most memorable feat…winning THE title…events conspired to snatch away our glory. Injuries, poor form, hard luck, and bad timing all contrived to spoil our show. Barkers outside the tent shouted up and down the promenade building-up our credentials, calling us all but champions in order to gleefully tear us down. Still do. While inside the tent, hecklers (including many of our own “fans”) attempted to diminish our progress, downplay our potential, and sow discord in minds of players and supporters alike.

It’s been a helluva show, and, yet, we eagerly applied for this season’s ballot. We all got our ticket. The Show is playing out right now. This very minute the light blue, Mancunian petrol halberdiers have cut our lead to two points. I believe they will get no closer. Pundits have headlines cued to celebrate another Arsenal debacle and tragedy. I believe that copy will not be printed this season. I believe we will win the Premier League this season…I have to. A wise woman once said, “the path to paradise begins in hell.”

Speaking of hell…

The Opposition

The Middlesex marsh dwellers have made wonderful jesters and provided dedicated comic relief over the past eighteen months or so. P.T. Barnum would have been proud. Although they managed to win a European trophy last season, they flirted (and still flirt) with relegation. Having sacked Big Ange and Thomas the Frank-engine, the lily whites secured the talents of Igor Tudor a fortnight ago. Ostensibly the Croatian historian will provide the new manager bounce that the Haringey faithful desire. Mr. Tudor will need to cobble together a functioning team from a motley crew of uninjured and unsuspended. At last check, the spuds have at least twelve absences from their senior team including Romero, Porro, Kudus, and Richarlison. According to Orbinho, since November 2024, sp*rs have gained 19 points from a possible 81 points at the Armitage Shanks Arena. If we are to successfully conclude our most anticipated trick in over twenty years, we will need to make that 19 from a possible 84.

Arsenal XI

Arteta has hailed his players’ response to dropping valuable points at Wolves. Rice has said “We need the supporters more than ever.” €115y is breathing down our necks, and we have several injuries and players just now returning to health/searching for form. I think Ødegaard and Calafiori come straight back into the squad. Given, that sp*rs are a wounded animal who have had twelve days of rest, recovery, and preparation, I expect Mikel to start the game somewhat conservatively by leaving reinforcements (like Havertz, Martinelli, Zubimendi, Timber, and Madueke) in reserve. I think Mikel will go with:

Raya
White — Saliba — Gabriel — Calafiori
Ødegaard — Rice
Saka — Eze —Trossard
Gyökeres

Eze simply must be given the chance to reprise his hat trick heroics, but we should have plenty of options to change things from the bench on sixty minutes if needs must. The most essential element for The Show tomorrow (and through the end of May) is mentality. Who will show the aggression, desire, focus, and professionalism to kill this game off by getting the third goal in the first half? Who will step up and say, “Get on my back, boys, and I will lead you to the Promised Land?” Although many of you know my thoughts on that particular question, the answer to which I will not include here, we need several players to answer the call. Regardless, my ticket is in hand. Is yours?

The ‘Holic Pound

I am staking my colors to the mast. I believe we are going to win the League, this season. Starting with a resounding win Sunday against them lot. I expect an energetic first third of the contest, but we will exert our dominance, and sp*rs will fall away as our quality and commitment shines through. I think 1-5 sounds about right.

Try to enjoy the game tomorrow fellow ‘Holics and Gooners. Although I will post the colors in the morning, I’ll be seated near the touchline as my boy attempts to push his goal tally this season to nine for club and school. Welcome to The Show.

Come on you Gunners!

MCMBD