{"id":1129,"date":"2020-07-25T16:47:23","date_gmt":"2020-07-25T15:47:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=1129"},"modified":"2020-07-27T22:40:12","modified_gmt":"2020-07-27T21:40:12","slug":"flap-arms-at-high-speed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=1129","title":{"rendered":"Flap Arms at High Speed"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure><figure><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1196521757?et=u4R7bww0S85EG1aZLpPnxw&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=Ra9mj4vS55pGX7u7-jAMaaeBjsZqsB4bqa45MnjckKk=&amp;caption=false&amp;ver=1\" width=\"594\" height=\"404\" align=\"middle\"><\/iframe><\/figure><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Tomorrow we play the last game of a funny old season in a funny\nold game. Oddly, considering it is our worst league campaign for 25 years I\nfind myself feeling quite chipper. We could send Watford down and win our 14<sup>th<\/sup>\nFA Cup in the next week \u2013 the latter would make me very happy whilst the former\nwould be, well, funny. I will leave it to more capable hands to write a season\nreview after the FA Cup final next week but after such a poor season we must I\nthink take our chuckles where we may. &nbsp;As\nMikel Arteta has already said even if we win the FA Cup this has not been an acceptable\nseason for a club such as The Arsenal but a win today and a good performance to\ngo with it would send us into the Cup Final next week in good heart. That game\nis the one we will remember in seasons to come not this one, which leads us\nrather cunningly into the thorny question of team selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Our\nbest XI or not?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There has been much debate this week as to the number of eyes\nMikel should keep on next week\u2019s game when deciding the starting XI for today.\nTo play our best XI or to clear the benches, that is the question. All options\nhave some merit in my opinion and so I will back Mikel in whatever he decides. My\nbest guess is he will steer a judicious middle course resting perhaps three or\nfour but playing most of next week\u2019s team. Without access to recent fitness\nreports though it is somewhat of a lottery guessing the starting XI this week\nand in the circumstances what follows is the team I would pick. The absence of\nMus, Mari and Calum plus a seeming reluctance to play Papa somewhat limits the\nchoice in the centre of defence and as a result I would go with a back four if\nonly to give Tierney or Luiz a rest. In midfield I would perm two from the three\nof Dani, Lucas and Xhaka and give Joe Willock a start in front of them. Up\nfront I would like to see a young front three with Eddie back in the centre,\nNelson on the right and Saka on the left. Having said all that, though\npersonally I would play them I suspect that Mikel may not start so many\nyoungsters in potentially an uncompromising battle as Watford struggle to avoid\nthe dreaded drop that the conduct of their players, and owners come to that,\nhas so richly merited. My XI in other words would be brawn at the back,\nfleetness at the front. Hector, Keiran, Dani, Auba, Laca and Pepe in reserve.\nPapa, AMN and Macey to round off the bench. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Emi<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Cedric  Rob  Luiz  Kola<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">&nbsp;Xhaka  Torreira<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">&nbsp;Nelson  Willock  Saka<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Eddie<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I\u2019ve got that lot right I will treat myself to a nice can of\nVAAM. I am sure you all know this but just in case \u2013 VAAM is a sports drink\nmade from the larval saliva of Japanese giant hornets. I wonder who sat down\nand thought let\u2019s see what hornet spew tastes like, certainly someone who\nmarches to a whole different orchestra you\u2019d think. Anyway, I digress, but\nactually I really am in cunning form today as that segues very nicely into the\nnext segment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pest\nControl<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have no idea who is in charge at Watford currently, and I suspect I am not alone in that regard*. I do know they fired their manager, Nigel Pearson, a few days back. I have watched Watford several times this season and in some games I would certainly have questioned the attitude of their players if I had had the singular misfortune of caring one way or t\u2019other. Annoyingly they tried quite hard against us in the second half of a 2-2 draw back in September but on the other hand they did rollover Liverpool 3-0 to our relief at the time. They recovered quite well from a shockingly bad first half of the season and then as I said they fired Pearson, who appeared to have rescued them from a large hole &#8211; no, not Watford itself, I mean their league position at the time \u2013 and to my mind that act of leadership richly deserves relegation but we will see on Sunday. As to our tactics for this one, Hornets, as we all know, are a pest that must be dealt with quickly and firmly, except that is for the Welbz Knee Hornet, which is unaccountably friendly and usually only stings by accident. It would be well advised to get out of it\u2019s current home while it can. In particular the Giant Tubby Hornet has been in the news recently as its oafish behavior has been irritating several members of the Goonerverse. Fear not people, I have scoured the web and found that Japanese bees have solved this problem already and I pass on the scientific advice exactly as read \u201c<em>when the Tubby Hornet flies into the bees area they immediately form a tight cordon around it and rotate their wings extremely quickly until the steady build up of heat causes the less hardy hornet to implode from the excessive heat generated\u201d<\/em>. If during the game tomorrow you notice a cluster of Arsenal defenders flapping their arms very quickly around a tubby looking hornet Do Not Adjust Your Set it is simply nature taking it\u2019s course. Brutal but effective apparently, something the mouthy Deeney should surely appreciate as he accidentally elbows one of our players in the head again and then talks about it afterwards whilst the referees and FA do nothing about his cheating. That I think is enough tactical analysis on Watford. We all know they aren\u2019t very good, a smidgen worse than Aston Villa in fact, so that should be no problem then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>* in late news &#8211; it seems a bloke called Hayden Mullet is Interim\nHead Coach, I thought he was the wooden one in Star Wars but apparently not<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The\nHolic Pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The final punt of the Premier League season and as ever it was we\npunt to win. Although it may well be a tough attritional battle ending up as\n1-0 to The Arsenal, I feel we will score early, they will cave and the sun will\nshine. The general vibe at Watford seems very negative just now and they lost\n4-0 last time out \u2013 the same score at 35-1 represents good value today. If Auba\nshould play he needs a hat-trick to catch up with another well known accidental\nelbow cheat for the Golden Boot \u2013 20-1 but who knows if he will even play. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, I wish a happy and safe game for all our players, it is\nalways sad to see stories like the unfortunate Mustafi missing out on the big\ngame (again after 2017!). &nbsp;Let\u2019s hope for\nclean bills of health all round tomorrow. For the rest of us I wish an\nenjoyable afternoon \u2013 an Arsenal win, Watford down and Manure or Chavski to\nmiss out on the CL works for me but as always each to his own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tomorrow we play the last game of a funny old season in a funny old game. Oddly, considering it is our worst league campaign for 25 years I find myself feeling quite chipper. We could send Watford down and win our 14th FA Cup in the next week \u2013 the latter would make me very [&hellip;]<\/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\/1129"}],"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=1129"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1139,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1129\/revisions\/1139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}