{"id":10523,"date":"2024-12-21T05:50:31","date_gmt":"2024-12-21T05:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10523"},"modified":"2024-12-21T21:04:46","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T21:04:46","slug":"golden-chance-to-leave-eagles-all-at-sea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10523","title":{"rendered":"Golden Chance to Leave Eagles All at Sea"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A very reliable striker, even on a cold Tuesday night on the Tyne \u2013 courtesy of Alamy<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Part One \u2013 The Recap<\/strong>
The Gunners will make the short journey across London this weekend for the return leg of our seasonal double-header against Crystal Palace. After a slow start to the first game an \u00d8degaard\/Jes\u00fas inspired attack was far too sharp for the pleasingly ponderous Palace defence, an eventual 3-2 victory enough to see us march into the semi-finals of the Wotjamacallit Cup and the Eagles flap despondently through the cold, dark night on a bitter return to their soulless South-east London dump. It was an enjoyable fifth win in a row against them in Cup and League and while no doubt this weekend\u2019s league game is the more important of the two, it was a useful confidence booster against what was basically their first choice XI. Can we do it again? That is the question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A striker anyone?<\/strong>
Well, now is not the Winter of my discontent and so I can\u2019t see any good reason why not is the quick answer. Three points are certainly needed as a couple of good performances against Man Utd and West Ham have been followed by two underwhelming draws against Fulham and Everton. Eight points out of the last twelve isn\u2019t quite the end of our title challenge with 20 games left as the more ridiculous<\/s> sensitive amongst our brethren in the Goonerverse may have bewailed, but getting back into the winning habit as Santa\u2019s reindeer-exploiting sleigh approaches would certainly be welcome. If we could do it while also knocking in a few goals that would be just peachy, especially if it stopped, even briefly, the plethora of learned why, oh why don\u2019t Arsenal sign a striker articles. Just to be clear, I have absolutely no objection, of course, to signing a decent attacker if we can in January or a decent player in other positions too!  Does anyone seriously believe by now that MA wouldn\u2019t sign a quality striker that would help the squad if he could? Of course he would, quicker than he\u2019d drink a glass of rioja that\u2019s for sure. However, and just to add, as a plug for a new journalistic concept I have invented \u2013 I call it \u2018balance\u2019 – the team knocked in our 49th<\/sup>, 50th<\/sup> and 51st<\/sup> goals of the season in all competitions midweek. Can we be more clinical? Certainly, and that is always true, but as it stands right now, I\u2019m still confident the current squad can win the league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Us<\/strong>
What will be our starting XI? There are a few questions for the boss to consider as he enjoys his 5th<\/sup> anniversary as our saviour but having seen his surprisingly informative injury update on Calafiori, Declan and Zin we do have some answers. However, we could ask ourselves does anyone desperately need a rest? Should we leave Jesus in to plunder another hat-trick? Which of our seven possible left-backs will start? Maybe, Yes, and Er, that one \u2013 those are respectively are my own personal answers. However, I have to guess a starting XI or I don\u2019t get remunerated and so\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya
Timber Saliba Gabriel Calafiori
\u00d8degaard Partey Rice
Saka Havertz Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Personally, I would rest Rice (just a feeling he needs it more with tougher games to come) and start Gabriel Jes\u00fas (strike while the iron is hot) but I do not believe MA will do any such thing. At left-back I selected Cala as he seems to be MA\u2019s preferred choice but personally I wouldn\u2019t mind if he played MLS, Zin, or even Mustafi<\/s> Kiwior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Them<\/strong>
What about them then? Well, hopefully they will still be a little depressed at how easily we carved them up in the second half.  As to their team\/approach for this game, I think Ned and the ever-reliable monks have already covered<\/a> that divinely in this recent exemplary preview of the Cup game here.  I don\u2019t believe Glasner can or will change anything though perhaps he will shoehorn Eddie in somehow after his expertly taken goal (I don\u2019t believe for a moment Eddie will do that again and actually I don\u2019t begrudge him the goal as in the circumstances it didn\u2019t matter a whit). Regardless, one thing I do hope to see is that they leave three players forward for our corners again as I would greatly enjoy seeing us leave just one back, outnumbering them in their own area and nodding one in (preferably when we are already 2-0 in front to be honest). Apart from that what else can I say about Crystal Palace that hasn\u2019t been said before? Not a lot really as they have no meaningful history as such, have never won anything worthy of note and as long as they pretend it\u2019s financially necessary to just cash in on their best players they probably never will. Harsh I know but, in truth, I feel it\u2019s nothing less than Parish and his greedy, hypocritical chums deserve. I don\u2019t like them, I don\u2019t like Glasner who hasn\u2019t treated our old friend Pensacola<\/s> Capitola Rob [sheesh!…eds.] well at all, and I don\u2019t like that they have a new eagle to pointlessly fly round like a toy for the amusement of their mainly simple-minded support (TTG\u2019s nice, old friend excepted!) Free Rob and the Eagle!! Hopefully, both will fly the nest this Winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, that about covers everything folks barring the small matter of the result \u2013 I think a clean sheet with a rebooted defence is certainly doable, goals for Kai and Jes\u00fas and a comfortable 2-0 victory sounds about right to me though I imagine the odds are not good. I am sure several of you may be heading to Sydenham Hill for the game and so a safe journey to you all, and an enjoyable morning, afternoon, or evening\u2019s viewing to the rest of us wherever we may be!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part One \u2013 The RecapThe Gunners will make the short journey across London this weekend for the return leg of our seasonal double-header against Crystal Palace. After a slow start to the first game an \u00d8degaard\/Jes\u00fas inspired attack was far too sharp for the pleasingly ponderous Palace defence, an eventual 3-2 victory enough to see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10523"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10539,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10523\/revisions\/10539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}