{"id":10758,"date":"2025-02-02T04:09:19","date_gmt":"2025-02-02T04:09:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10758"},"modified":"2025-02-02T19:36:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-02T19:36:21","slug":"unlikely-but-not-impossible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10758","title":{"rendered":"Unlikely, but not impossible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In recent years a rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester City has slowly started to simmer. Following City\u2019s Arab takeover in the autumn of 2008, the blue side of Manchester has begun to take a hold over the English football landscape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For many years Arsenal were mainly preoccupied with the red half of Manchester but when Emmanuel Adebayor left N5 for the Etihad, and proceeded to celebrate a goal in front of his former fans a few weeks later we began to take notice of what was previously a very nothingy club.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

City would also pinch Samir Nasri and Gael Clichy from us later on as they went on to dominate English football, a monopoly that is only now showing signs of thawing. Since 2012, City have won eight League Titles, a host of domestic cups and one Champions League in 2023. Prior to their takeover, they had a mere two League Titles in well over a century. That’s less than Preston, Leeds, Sunderland, Huddersfield, Wolves, Aston Villa and Everton. But the same as Tottenham. It just goes to show what miracles can be achieved with a bottomless pit of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During my time in Manchester, I found the geographical location of the fanbases of the respective Manchester clubs quite amusing. Whilst we always mock United fans for being from London and most away games being more like home games for them, the bulk of City\u2019s following comes from Greater Manchester. United have fans from everywhere but the city in which they reside and City have fans from Manchester but nowhere else. I was there almost three years and virtually every United and City fan lived up to that stereotype. I suppose you can buy as many hollow trophies as you wish, but passion cannot be bought. Not with money anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an interesting city, Manchester. Historically perceived as a working class industrial hotspot, it is famous for three things; football obviously, Music and most notoriously, rain. And not just any rain. Cold, slanty, drizzly, ever present rain. In Manchester, it never rains, but it never pours either. It just drizzles. Constantly. Manchester has received a great deal of government funding since the turn of the millennium. It’s a city full of dull, characterless high rise buildings, much to the disdain of it\u2019s three million residents. I know Birmingham is officially the UK\u2019\u2019s \u201csecond city\u201d but really, everyone knows it\u2019s Manchester. Just a shame it holds two nauseating football clubs. nauseating for very different reasons of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheikh Mansour has undoubtedly transformed City\u2019s fortunes unimaginably. In my school days I was lucky enough to embark on a football tour to Manchester City where we visited and played at their state of the art training ground and it really is something special. To their owner\u2019s credit, much of Manchester\u2019s regeneration project has been down to them. I think that\u2019s what we now know to refer to as \u201csportswashing\u201d. It really is a form of hypnosis. Look at all these really lovely things we\u2019re doing with our dirty laundry, marvel at it instead of wondering where it actually comes from! What a bunch of thoroughly wholesome and decent chaps we are! We\u2019ve taken this previously also ran club (if that) and turned it into a global superpower almost overnight. Aren\u2019t we clever? Well perhaps they are because up to this point, City have well and truly got away with it. Of course the hearing regarding their 115 (so we\u2019re told) charges concluded some weeks ago and we await the verdict with baited breath. So maybe they won\u2019t have got away with it for much longer. I\u2019m sure those rascals can find their way out of it. They always do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course we don\u2019t have much insight into what their punishment should their alleged guiltiness be proven will actually entail. Relegation down several divisions would be nice. For the entire club to spontaneously combust would be the best possible outcome. Does spontaneous combustion come under the remit of the investigative body? Even if it does not, I’m sure it can be arranged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about the game itself? Well I suppose a win would be jolly nice. We haven’t had many of those in recent times. Against tomorrow\u2019s opponents that is. We have actually won quite a few games in recent times. But what is recent? A week? A year? Nine years maybe? Lots can happen in nine years. 115 breaches of financial fair play for example. We only have one league win over city in nine years although that came in this fixture last year as a late Martinelli strike deflected deliciously off Nathan Ake\u2019s backside gave us a 1-0 win over pep. A repeat of that would be lovely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So who will make the 11 tomorrow? Here is my prediction. Please don\u2019t take it as gospel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

In all honesty, we have little room for manoeuvre in terms of changes from the Wolves game. I think you just have to start Partey as the 6. Let Rice do his thing further forward. And I would assume it will be Trossard off the left to start with and Gabi on the right. Expect them to interchange as the game goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a game we kind of have to win to keep in touch with Liverpool but then again every game is a must win at this point. What does must win even mean? What will happen to us if we don\u2019t win? Will we all spontaneously combust? Will Martinelli\u2019s legs turn into a block of cheddar? No, if we don\u2019t win we will still be second, and Twitter will go into meltdown. Which happens every day anyway so who cares? The title is unlikely but lots of things are unlikely but have still happened. The chances of you being born and reading this article are roughly one in four trillion. That mainly applies to you being born and not so much reading this article. I don\u2019t know what the odds for that would be. Probably a few more trillion. And what are the odds of Arsenal winning the league this season? I don’t know but probably better than one in four trillion. Unlikely but possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep that in mind as we motor on to the end of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COYG!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent years a rivalry between Arsenal and Manchester City has slowly started to simmer. Following City\u2019s Arab takeover in the autumn of 2008, the blue side of Manchester has begun to take a hold over the English football landscape. For many years Arsenal were mainly preoccupied with the red half of Manchester but when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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\/10758"}],"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\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10760,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10758\/revisions\/10760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}