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Wet Spam – a dish best served cold?

Oct 3rd, 2025 by

Embed from Getty Images

West Ham have long since been regarded as the fourth biggest side in the capital behind Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs. They have never won a league title and have never won much of anything else either. 

Yet you get the sense that their fans have a perception that they are much bigger than they actually are. Throughout David Moyes’ tenure, a period in which they qualified for European football three years on the trot after not being there for decades and won a trophy to boot, large sections of the West Ham fanbase dismissed Moyes claiming his brand of football was dull and he wasn’t to the standard of a self-proclaimed “big club” like West Ham. 

They may have had a point with the first one, after all, the football was dull. But when have you ever seen West Ham play attractive football for a sustained period of time? Not for a long time is probably the answer. And who cares about the brand of football if it brings about success, something West Ham have been starved off for the majority of their meagre existence. You’re West Ham lads, not Barcelona. I could never understand it. 

But despite West Ham being remarkably mediocre they have caused us problems on many occasions, not least in the last few seasons despite our very obvious superiority. 

So, can Arsenal avenge West Ham for the last two damaging defeats they’ve inflicted upon our title bids in each of the last two seasons? 

A shock 2-0 defeat in N5 just after Christmas in 2023 proved to be one of the games that cost us the title in 2023/24 and the 1-0 defeat in February all but ended our title aspirations there and then. In fact, West Ham are responsible for half of our four defeats in our last 42 Premier League games at the Emirates. 

These two results were made even more baffling given our last two results at The London Stadium: a 6-0 demolition back in February 2024 and the 5-2 humbling last November in which all five of our goals came inside the first half. 

We are up 11-2 on aggregate over in East London but 0-3 down on our own patch over the last two seasons. Football is a funny old game as the saying goes. 

On paper tomorrow’s match ought to be routine. We have enjoyed a positive start to the season, and we will leapfrog Liverpool at the top for a few hours at least with a win. Meanwhile, West ham have amassed a mere 4 points with just one win and they have sacked Graham Potter. 

But we all know what West Ham have inflicted on us recently plus we may well have to contend with the famed “new manager bounce.”  Nuno Espirito Santo boasts a top CV (apart from his stint at Spurs of course) and has a reputation for setting his sides up to be very difficult to break down and often dangerous on the counter. 

But it is only a few weeks since we had to face a team with the famous NMB and that was of course against Nuno’s successor, the hapless Ange Postecoglou as we trounced his Nottingham Forest side 3-0. A repeat of that against The Hammers would be very welcome indeed. 

In terms of team news, we will be made to sweat over the fitness of Gabriel who limped off with a muscle problem in the latter stages of the win over Olympiacos. Piero Hincapie remains on the sidelines until after the international break. 

As to West Ham, they will be without Thomas Soucek who is serving his suspension for his straight red card in the defeat to Spurs a few weeks ago. 

Despite our recent struggles against West Ham, I would still back us to win comfortably. We have a much stronger squad than we did last year, and we now have the players to be able to win these types of games with relative ease even after playing in midweek. 

We made six changes against Olympiacos from the last gasp win at Newcastle and we were still able to field a formidable side. Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice and Eberechi Eze all only played a small part of Wednesday’s 2-0 win over Olympiacos, and you would fully expect all three to start on Saturday. 

And even if Gabriel is unfit for the game he will be replaced by Mosquera who has been largely excellent since his summer move from Valencia. 

We now have undoubtedly the strongest squad in the Premier League, and perhaps even the most complete squad in Europe. Playing three games a week is no longer much of an issue for us now. That isn’t necessarily the case for our rivals. 

We should certainly have enough to beat West Ham, who let’s face it, aren’t very good new manager bounce or not. 

3-0 to The Arsenal. You heard it here first. COYG!!

Posted in Match Preview | 24 Drinks »

Arsenal labour to hard-earned victory against obdurate Greeks

Oct 2nd, 2025 by

Arsenal recorded their second successive victory in the Champions League group stages with a 2-0 victory at a pleasantly autumnal Emirates tonight. My night began most pleasantly as I met up with the sage of Hertfordshire, one Btm, who was having none of the 3-0 predictions suggested in Ned’s superb preview. His pessimism was unfortunately borne out by an increasingly edgy Arsenal performance.

It was a deceptive game, the early stages suggesting the Greeks would be comfortably beaten as Arsenal swept forward with a combination of pace, aggression and not a little elegance. Martinelli missed a free header in the second minute but Odegaard who looked back to his creative best was ripping the Greek rearguard to shreds. We took the lead with a twelfth minute tap-in by Martinelli after good work by Gyokeres. This presaged a potential thrashing for Olympiacos but a combination of careless finishing and dogged Greek resistance saw us reach the interval only one ahead. Gyokeres who worked hard and showed a mixture of subtlety and brawn up front was unfortunately the main culprit. He had done most of the spadework for the goal latching onto an Odegaard through ball which he squeezed under the keeper and onto the post whence Martinelli touched the ball over the line.

Arsenal 1 Olympiacos 0 – Martinelli 12 mins

Odegaard’s inventiveness set up two very good chances for our Swedish striker, but he snatched at both, and Raya had to produce a quite brilliant save to tip over a close-range effort from Podence after White was slow to anticipate the danger as the Athenians built up down the right.

In all honesty White struggled all through against the pace of Podence and looked in need of the game time. Whether we could afford to give him that opportunity became one of the questions Olympiacos posed as the half wore on. It was a curate’s egg of a half where beautiful midfield combinations mainly involving Zubimendi and Odegaard were slightly offset by a feeling that the Arsenal defence was not at its most impenetrable. But half time arrived with a general feeling of optimism.

Half- time – Arsenal 1 Olympiacos 0

Arteta who always cuts an agitated figure on the touch line chose not to make any changes at the interval and one sensed that part of his rationale was that players like White, MLS and Trossard needed game time in a competitive environment. Worryingly what began almost as an exhibition developed into a more even contest with Arsenal failing to find either the midfield rhythm or penetration of the first half. White looked increasingly shaky and it was no surprise when Rice and Timber replaced White and Merino.

Arsenal survived a scare when Olympiacos forced the ball home after a long ball through the centre but an immediate offside flag removed our immediate concern. Eze and Saka then replaced Trossard and Martinelli but not before Trossard had spurned a very good chance in the Olympiacos box. We suffered a review for a potential penalty which thankfully came to naught and Ødegaard saw a double wonder save thwart him when he met a Saka cross with a thumping volley and could not turn home the rebound.

The margin of superiority was worryingly thin, when thankfully Saka who had switched wings with the effortlessly elegant Eze drove the ball in from close range after another perceptive Odegaard pass, just as we entered stoppage time, the goalkeeper allowing the ball to slip under his body.

Arsenal 2 Olympiacos 0 – Saka 90+2 minutes

Cue massive relief around the ground and the final minutes were played out fairly serenely.

Final score – Arsenal 2 Olympiacos 0

In one sense, this was a solid continuation of our form in Europe this season. We have yet to concede a goal, and Arteta has flexed the squad effectively.

Less satisfactorily, we picked up three yellow cards: Gabriel for time wasting and Rice and Zubimendi for professional fouls which stopped dangerous Olympiacos attacks. Gabriel was taken off as a precaution in the second half to be replaced by Mosquera but Arteta has subsequently suggested that he sustained a kick and his removal was precautionary.

Rather like a cricket match where you can’t assess the pitch until both sides have batted, we can’t assess our progress in Europe without a better idea of how good our early opposition is. Nevertheless a repeat of the sloppiness that developed after such a good opening would be likely to be severely punished by Atletico our next opponents in the Champions League. In fairness we started with a heavily rotated side and there were fine performances by our midfield three and Gyokeres deserves, and seemed to get, credit for a wholehearted performance. There is however a justifiable concern about whether the injuries that have plagued Ben White over the last few months have taken away some of his sharpness and his ability to overlap effectively. It was noticeable that we looked much more secure when Timber replaced him.

We move on to confront our bogey side Wet Spam on Saturday. Nuno would have watched this game with a mixture of trepidation and relish. Not unlike most of the crowd tonight.

Posted in Review | 16 Drinks »

Alpha Arsenal to beta Olympiacos

Sep 30th, 2025 by

Image from www.arsenal.com

And so to the Stadium of Stone on Wednesday evening, when we host Olympiacos for the second game of this term’s Champions League league phase.

Greek football remains somewhat of a closed book to many. There are a few well-known clubs, including our guests, their Athenian neighbours, AEK and Panathinaikos, and the Thessalonians, PAOK. Yet, few beyond dedicated followers of the Souroti Super League could extend that list much — if at all. Among UEFA’s 55 European leagues, Greece ranks 11th, which is a decent standard but not top drawer. 

Olympiacos is undisputedly Greece’s top team at the moment, and would claim that it has the trophies to justify that it always has been. It is the defending league champion and domestic cup holder, and remains unbeaten at the top of the Super League this season with four wins and a draw, having scored 13 goals and conceded three.

They come into this game off the back of a 3-2 victory over APO Levadiakos, although the winner came six minutes into stoppage time. In their first matchweek of the CL league phase, they drew 0-0 at home to the Cypriot champions, Pafos, 54 places below them in the UEFA club coefficient rankings, despite playing for an hour with a one-man advantage (and for a while, two if you count the presence of David Luiz in the Pafos team).

Fishy

My favourite ‘fact’ about Olympiacos, which is based in Athens’ seaport, Piraeus, is that the team got one of their nicknames, the Anchovies, after some Panathinaikos fans hurled crates of anchovies they got from the quays at Olympiacos fans. I put ‘fact’ in quote marks because the story falls into the category of being too good a tale to investigate its veracity. A history of bitter, class-based and frequently violent rivalry between the two clubs and their fans — matches between them are known as the Derby of the Eternal Enemies — lends at least a patina of plausibility.

Olympiacos wears its maritime working-class roots proudly, although several prominent members of the Piraeus business community were behind the establishment of the Olympic Association of Piraeus Sportsmen in 1925. They created a multisports club embracing Olympic ideals, which the football team remains part of to this day. The club has won European titles in six sports. The badge worn by all its teams features an Olympian wreath of laurel leaves.

Its football team’s trophy room is stacked: 48 league titles (five with unbeaten seasons), 29 domestic cups (19 as part of a double) and four super cups, all Greek records. Five sets of five or more league titles in successive seasons is a world record. Olympiacos is also the only Greek football team to have won a senior UEFA trophy, the Conference League in 2023-24.

In 1979, a group of eminent shipowners took control of the club. Among them was Miltiadis Marinakis, father of Evangelos, who would buy the club in 2010 and whose sporting empire now includes Nottingham Forest and Edu.

The opposition

Olympiacos is managed by José Luis Mendilibar, a 64-year-old Basque who coached a 13-year-old Mikel Arteta. He is well-travelled in La Liga, but this is his first appointment outside Spain. He arrived in February 2024 from Sevilla, with whom he won the Europa League. He was La Liga’s manager of the year in 2016-17 when he was at Eibar. He is a wily old head not to be underestimated.

He likes to set up in a 4-2-3-1. There will not be many familiar names.

Konstantinos Tzolakis, the 22-year-old Greek national keeper, is Mendilibar’s first choice between the sticks. 

Club captain, Johannesburg-born Panagiotis Retsos, another Greek international and who spent time at Sheffield United, will likely share centre-back duties with 23-year-old Italian Lorenzo Pirola, who captained Italy’s U-21 Team but has yet to advance to the senior team.

With the veteran Brazilian full-back Rodinei reportedly injured, Costinha, a 25-year-old Portuguese who came through Braga’s youth ranks and, like Pirola, earned numerous U-21 caps but has not progressed to the senior national team, will likely start at right-back, with one-cap Argentine international Francisco Ortega on the left.

For the double pivot, Mendilibar will perm two from 35-year-old Spaniard Dani Garcia, Argentine international Santiago Hezze, 12 years Garcia’s junior, and Christos Mouzakitis, an 18-year-old who already has five full caps for Greece and is likely headed for Milan or Turin before too long. The Argentine Lorenzo Scipioni, 20, another of Olympiacos’s promising youngsters, is out injured.

Portugal international Gelson Martins would be Mendilibar’s first choice for the right wing. However, he is working his way back from injury, so Gabriel Strefezza, who arrived from Como in the summer after bouncing around Serie A for most of a decade, could start. The opposite flank is likely to be occupied by Daniel Podence, a Portuguese winger who Olympiacos sold to Wolves, then borrowed back, and has again been borrowed back this season after Wolves sold him to Al-Shabab. Ex-Newcastle winger Remy Cabella is ineligible following his transfer from Lille.

Chiquinho, a Brazilian who has played most of his professional football in Portugal, most recently with Benfica, is now the playmaker, following Brighton’s purchase of Charalampos Kostoulas for €35 million, a tidy sum for an 18-year-old. Charalampos’s father, Athanasios, played for Olympiacos in the noughties.

Ayoub El Kaabi, a seasoned centre-forward with more than 50 caps for Morocco, will lead the line. He scored 27 goals for Olympiacos in 44 matches last season, including seven in eight Europa League games. Roman Yaremchuk, a centre forward with 63 Ukraine caps, is out with a calf injury.

From the bench, Mendilibar will be able to call on veteran Iran forward Mehdi Taremi, who was in the Porto side we played last year and the Inter team we faced the season before that. The manager also has Giulian Biancone, a French utility defender who was previously at Nottingham Forest, and winger Stavros Pnevmonidis, another promising teenager who has come up through Olympiacos’s youth teams.

Olympiacos added experience over the summer to support its young players for this CL campaign, but that has resulted in it having the third-oldest squad in this season’s CL, behind Inter and Pafos, with an average age of 29 years and 263 days.

Head-to-head

We have played Olympiacos a dozen times: four CL ties (2009, 2011, 2012 and 2015) and two in the Europa League (2020 and 2021). The tally stands at six wins apiece. The home games split similarly: we won the first three and lost the three most recent. The away games are a mirror image: we lost the first three but won the most recent trio.

The last time the two sides met was in 2021 in the Europa League round of 16. We lost a match played behind closed doors because of COVID-19, 1-0, but progressed 3-2 on aggregate. Only one Arsenal player who started that match, Gabriel, is still at the club, although Martin Ødegaard and Gabi Martinelli came off the bench.

The Arsenal

Piero Hincapié and Noni Madueke join long-term absentees Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz on the off-games list. Arteta says everyone else is available. He also says he expects a tough game, as he always does, but I suspect he will utilise our squad depth to get some minutes into lesser-used legs. Thus:

Raya

White, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori

Ødegaard, Zubimendi, Merino

Saka, Gyökeres, Martinelli

Many of Dowman, Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly, Rice, Mosquera, Timber, Eze, Trossard and Norgaard should get a decent run-out off the bench.

The momentum from Sunday’s win up North should carry through to Wednesday evening for players and fans alike. We should be faster, higher and stronger than our opponents, so I’ll hazard a routine 3-0 to take them down from their mount.

Enjoy the game, ‘holics, far and wide.

—-

Posted in Match Preview | 26 Drinks »

We Are The Arsenal, And We Are The Best, We Are The Arsenal, And, Well, You Know The Rest…

Sep 28th, 2025 by

If you want to win the Premier League, then you know it will be tough. This is true for everyone.

But it is especially true for Arsenal.

When Liverpool came to St James’ Park a few weeks ago, Anthony Gordon got himself sent off for a ridiculous first half challenge, and even though the ten-man Toons still battered Pool for the second half and scored two goals to level the match, a last-minute winner gave our main rivals the points.

Against us, however, the barcodes allowed themselves no silly slips. They made it tough. And that is just what we have to get used to. If we wanna win this league then nobody is giving us anything; not the opposition, not the officials (or their VAR henchmen), not the pundits, and certainly not the average fan in the street. Hell, there are plenty of people who claim to be Gooners who can’t wait to stick the boot in.

The only way to respond is with guts, balls, and by taking the bloody points. We did that today, and the entire non-Arsenal football community can put that in their pipes and smoke it – to use a less sweary phrase than many might consider in order.

I’m not in the mood for a blow-by-blow account. Let’s just hit the highlights.

Joelinton took less than sixty seconds to foul Saka in a way that could well have earned a yellow card. I’ve no problem with the ref keeping his cards in his pocket that early, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t a point to take control of the game. Unfortunately, Jared Gillett, the Liverpool fan judged an appropriate person to referee a game between Newcastle and Arsenal, never did. Not that anyone was surprised.

Newcastle fans have a reputation. They are hardcore. They are the salt of the earth. They know their football.

Except, these days, they are trading on old credit. Right now, their club is owned by Saudi Arabia, and instead of showing all that proud Newcastle grit and protesting with the vehemence many might consider this development to deserve, they have rolled over to have their tummies tickled. They have a team who are incredibly physical, and they get a lot of generous home decisions, but when another physical team turns up to challenge them, do they relish the battle? Or do they assume as a matter of course that their own fouls should go unpunished and then cry blue murder whenever a nothing incident results in one of their own supposedly hard as nails players rolling around on the floor?

Of course, they do the latter.

All fans are partisan. We all try to make the most of home advantage. And there is nothing wrong with that. But Newcastle are the team in this league that most pushes the physical edges of the game, and it is also fair that everyone else is well aware of what they are trying to pull when, despite their own robust approach, we see their fans whinge and cry for fouls when their players dive on the floor after innocuous challenges, and conclude that this lot aren’t the hard nuts they claim to be. They are oh so precious. They love to give it out, but they can’t take it take.

Barcodes?

Magpies?

I call them the Pearl-Clutchers.

It’s a moniker they earn every time I see them play. “Hurt opponents; pretend to be hurt” – theirs is the worst creed in football.

They may not like us. But we sure as all hell don’t like them either. Utter shower. And we are both tougher and more skilled.

We were much the better side in this game. We played well and the best player on the pitch was ‘Steal the bishop of Rome, 4,4’. (One for the Morse fans).

I’ve got two issues with the non-penalty. But first… if Pope touches the ball, then, under the current interpretation of the rules, it should be overturned. Fair enough.

However, if the touch on the ball is so slight that it makes no difference to the viability of a goalscoring opportunity, then the current interpretation is blatantly wrong. Pope’s touch does not remotely interfere with Gyokeres’ ability to run onto the ball – it is the contact with Pope’s knee that does that, and thus denies a goalscoring opportunity. It should be a penalty.

Furthermore, yesterday I watched Salah make a handball just before a Pool equaliser. The ball hit his hand. The ball changed its trajectory, and Salah’s hand was knocked forwards by the contact with the ball. But the VAR decided that they could see no ‘conclusive proof’ that the ball had hit his hand. I genuinely don’t know how to respond to that beyond asking “don’t you have eyes?”

So, today, after watching a lot of replays, I think I am minded to accept that Pope did touch the ball (although, unlike in Salah’s case, not in a way that materially affected the subsequent action) but I am really struggling to understand how one of these incidents was allowed to pass on the basis it was ‘inconclusive’ while the other was considered obvious enough to pass the (illusory) ‘clear and obvious’ threshold, and even to justify a change of decision?

With the best will in the world, the decisions are not equitable. I’d have no problem with the decision today, if it fitted in with a recognised standard. But as fans of every club will tell you, they change the way they enforce the rules every week. You just have to hope you support a team that regularly benefits, not one that regularly gets shafted.

In such circumstances, it is a special thing to come away from this ground with 3 points. Despite dominance in every metric, and being much the better side, we were 1-0 down until fifteen minutes from time. And everyone and their dog had their knives out and were circling.

Well, given I’ve said nothing about the events of the match, how had we got here?

Nick Woltemade scored when we got caught cold from a short corner routine. Gabriel realised he was not gonna get to the header and so pretended a touch in the back from the big German was worthy of a foul. It wasn’t. That was a good header and a perfectly good goal. We let ourselves down giving that away.

After a lot of effort, we equalised late in the second half when substitute Merino nodded a whipped Rice cross past the PC’s goalie, who didn’t even make a move to save it. In off the post. Not bad for a player who many of our own fans don’t seem to judge as a player capable of hurting the opposition.

In injury time, after a lot of corners through the game, we finally got one right, and Gabriel headed the winner to send our fans in the gods delirious. I must admit, I rather enjoyed that one myself.

From what I’ve seen so far, I think we are the best side in this league. But it comes down to points. We’ve got to put the points on the board. Today was a day when we could have dropped points but had legitimate grievances (not that anyone would have cared).

If you wanna be champions, then legitimate grievances are worthless. Points on the board are all that counts. We got them today. Let’s hope this is a template for all of our players to recognise what counts, and what doesn’t. As a club, we’ve got to keep our energy for those things that help us win trophies. If today could be a reminder for our fans that any energy spent on anything that doesn’t further our bid for trophies is energy wasted, then all the struggles this afternoon would have been worth it.

They are all out to get us. We have to win anyway. We have to win together.

Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Posted in Review | 40 Drinks »

The Arsenal Must Edge It on Tyneside

Sep 27th, 2025 by

And so to St James’ Park, where Geordie Arabia will host us for the second of Sunday’s Premier League fixtures.

It has not been a happy hunting ground for Arteta. The only away ground where he has lost more games as a manager is the Oilands. The solitary victory in our last five visits came on the day after Coronation Day in May 2023. It was also the only one of the five in which we scored: Martin Ødegaard in the 14th minute from 30 yards out, and a Fabian Schär own goal in the 71st. 

The skipper’s goal took him to 15 league goals for the season. With Gabriel Martinelli already having put that notch in his tally stick, it was, remarkably, the first time that two players had scored at least 15 league goals for the club in a season since John Radford and Ray Kennedy for the 1970-71 double-winning side.

Woolwich Arsenal’s first trip up north ended in a 6-0 thrashing by a Newcastle team still smarting from being put in the Second Division of the Football League despite applying to go straight into the First. 

On a showery final day of September 1893, in what was their third and our fourth league game, Toon’s centre forward, Willie Thompson, and inside left, Joe Wallace, scored hat-tricks for the hosts. ‘The Woolwich team were no match for their rivals’, reported the Sporting Life. St James’ Park had a notorious slope in those days. Four of Newcastle’s goals came in the second half when they were attacking ‘down the hill’.

We have visited the history of our hosts, their ground and their hinterland on several previous occasions. I would particularly commend you to Bath’s previews of the corresponding fixtures from last season, and the one before that.

I will add only that, when St James’ Park had opened 13 years earlier on a patch of Town Moor, then much larger than it is today, local butchers still grazed their future sales on the pitch, which was near the city’s gallows, hence the stadium’s Gallowgate end. 

Speculation about relocating to a new 70,000-seat stadium in Leazes Park, which sits on the land between St James’ Park and the remaining part of Town Moor, has resurfaced. New chief executive David Hopkinson, who is replacing cancer-struck Darren Eales, has reportedly been discussing funding options with the club’s owners, the Saudi Public Investment Fund (80%) and the Reuben brothers (20%). The Bloomberg financial news service reported on Wednesday that the club had also been talking to potential external investors about a £1 billion debt and equity package, aiming to move into a new home by 2028, a somewhat optimistic target.

The opposition

They are brutes. Other b words are available.

Howe’s heavies

Eddie Howe has stuck with his preferred 4-3-3 at home this season despite switching to 5-3-2 for away games. In the glove-buttling department, Nick Pope is likely to continue to keep Aaron Ramsdale, formerly of this parish, on the bench. In front of him, it gets ugly: Trippier and Livramento at full back and Dan Burn and, in the absence of the injured  Schär, one of Sven Botman, the bad boy from Badhoevedorp, or Malick Thiaw, bought from AC Milan in the summer for €35 million. The midfield should be Tonali, Joelinton and Bruno Guimarães: Uglier yet. 

The recently acquired 6′ 6″ £69 million man, Nick Woltemade, who, given a crimson cape, looks as if he could do a decent impression of a cardinal from Monty Python’s ‘Nobody Expects the Spanish Inquisition’ sketch, will lead the line in Yoane Wissa’s enforced absence through injury. However, he is more of a number 10 than a number 9, and like our own VG and Sesko at the Red Mancs, he is still finding his place among his new teammates.

Woltemade will be flanked to his left by Anthony Gordon, returning from suspension, and, on the opposite wing, Anthony Elanga, signed from Forest in the summer, partly in anticipation of Alexander Isak’s departure, or Jacob Murphy, who is nursing an Achilles heel problem but is available for this game. 

Among those likely to get walk-on parts as the game progresses are Harvey Barnes, the two Lewises, Hall and Miley, a local lad who received good notices for his performances against Bournemouth and Bradford City over the past week, and Joe Wllock, another formerly of this parish. Howe will also have two more defenders, Jamaal Lascelles and Emil Krafth, to bring on when he decides to go full Pep with a back five or six.

Jacob Ramsey, who arrived from Villa in the summer in exchange for £43 million, also has a sick note from Matron. Nor will another summer recruit, Martin Mark, be on the pitch. Yet he will be heavily involved. He is the highly regarded set-piece coach hired from FC Midtjylland. His match-up with Nicolas Jover could decide the game, especially as Newcastle, for all their defensive — how shall we put it, sinew —  have struggled to score this term with Isak gone and Gordon suspended for three of the five league games.

The Arsenal

I can’t see Arteta doing anything but start his strongest available starters. Gabriel Jesùs, Kai Havertz, Noni Manduke and Piero Hincapié are definitely out. Ødegaard is a maybe, but Bukayo Saka will be available, Arteta says. I suspect the skipper may come off the bench rather than have his shoulder ripped apart early doors by what one local newspaper columnist euphemistically calls Newcastle’s ‘tall strapping lads’. Thus

Raya

Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori

Merino, Zubimendi, Rice

Saka, Gyökeres, Eze

Howe rotated heavily for the League Cup in midweek. Only two of the team that won the trophy last season started against Bradford City on Wednesday. The holders breezed past the League One side more easily than we dispatched Port Vale. 

Yet, Carabao Cup form is an unreliable guide. Overall, it has not been a sparkling start to the season for the Geordies — one win in five, three draws and a loss to the Scousers. However, St James’ Park is always a tricky trip. The Toon Army, having been taunted by Bradford’s travelling faithful — ‘2-0 up and still you don’t sing’ and ‘where’s your famous atmosphere’ wafted down from the clouds where the away fans are put — will be up for our visit. And they really don’t like Arteta.

My general theory on how to win the league (beat the bottom half home and away, and the other nine at home, and secure at least a draw away) suggests that a point on Sunday would be a satisfactory, if not optimal, late afternoon’s work. However, having lost at Anfield and drawn at home with City, bringing all three points back down South is now the order of the day. 

That’s doable — if we get 90 minutes of football rather than wrestling. Howe has told his team to bring their ‘edge’ to the game. An intense and fiery match is in prospect: a hard-fought, classic 1-0 to the Arsenal, I reckon.

Enjoy the game, ‘holics, far and wide.

Posted in Match Preview | 33 Drinks »

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