{"id":4196,"date":"2021-11-06T06:28:22","date_gmt":"2021-11-06T06:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4196"},"modified":"2021-11-08T11:55:29","modified_gmt":"2021-11-08T11:55:29","slug":"dont-go-breaking-my-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4196","title":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t Go Breaking my Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1227786686\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.66667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1227786686?et=FRfQcT1dQmdT-tVOsjUzHA&#038;tld=com&#038;sig=F-pPWa4Bw4_ZIB_Omheoo0936hucD4mA3HrZ6EO8LDI=&#038;caption=true&#038;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div><p><em>Has anyone seen his cojones?  What?  No one is looking?  No one cares?<\/em><p>\n\n\n\n<p>We welcome Watford to the Grove on Sunday for a late lunchtime kickoff.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When we last saw the Hornets <em>chez nous<\/em> we sent them away from the yellow brick road, taking their hearts on the final day of the season with a 3-2 victory in front of covid-empty stands. &nbsp;Having spent a successful year in the Championship, they won promotion and jettisoned the odious, tiny dancer called Deeney, testicularly lacking as he turned out to be.&nbsp; And like a candle in the wind they\u2019ve gotten rid of the manager that got them back to the Premier League, Xisco Munoz, replacing him in early October with Claudio Ranieri.&nbsp; Strange, that: they binned Munoz as Watford languished in 14<sup>th<\/sup> place\u2026and with two losses and a win Ranieri has shown his Fulham form rather than the touch he had at Leicester (early days, I know), bringing Watford all the way to 16<sup>th<\/sup> in the table, 3 points off the relegation zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I don\u2019t expect Watford to score many goals against us, unless something really bad happens.&nbsp; They haven\u2019t been prolific this season, their 5-2 result at Everton notwithstanding; they\u2019ve been held scoreless in 6 of their 10 league games (I guess that\u2019s why they call it the blues, eh?).&nbsp; Josh King scored a hat trick for them at Goodison Park; he shares offensive duties with Emmanuel Dennis, who returns after a 5-yellow-card suspension (5 cards in 10 games, what?).&nbsp; Dennis provided a goal and two assists at Everton, but their real dangerman is Isma\u00efla Sarr, a Rocketman of a winger who can also slot up front depending upon which formation the Tinkerman decides.&nbsp; I can\u2019t see how leftovers from the little team up the road will give us troubles, but Sissoko, Cleverley, and Rose could all be in contention to start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What of Arsenal?&nbsp; The team that saw Watford to relegation has seen much turnover;&nbsp; 1\/3 of the players that saw the pitch are gone or on loan, one is injured, and of the day\u2019s starters possibly only Auba and Laca will retain their place.&nbsp; I fully expect we\u2019ll see a team close to, if not identical to, the team that started against Leicester, though if Kieran Tierney passes his late fitness test he could be in contention to start ahead of Tavares.&nbsp; Still:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Ramsdale<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Tomi \u2013 White \u2013 Gabi &#8212; Tavares<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Partey &#8212; Sambi<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Saka \u2013 Laca &#8212; ESR<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Auba<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And a bench of Leno, KT3, Holding, AMN, Mo\u2019Neny, M\u00f8, P\u00e9p\u00e9, Gabi, and Eddie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After a seemingly interminable week, let\u2019s have a reminder of where we currently sit: riding an 9-game unbeaten streak, we&#8217;ve risen up the table from the bottom (after our first three games) to our current position of 6<sup>th<\/sup>, only 3 points out of 3<sup>rd<\/sup>.&nbsp; Since the dark day of our 5-0 thrashing by Manchester City we\u2019ve won 7 and drawn 2 in all competitions; most encouraging, since we tonked the little club up the road we seem to have found a way to play that\u2019s incisive, defensive, and energetic all at once, despite the draws at Palace and Brighton.&nbsp; We\u2019ve also advanced to the quarter-finals of the Carabao cup (even as Watford were knocked out by Stoke in the round previous).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Will we see the resurgent Arsenal of the past nine games show up for the home fans, or will we revert to our form at the start of the season?&nbsp; I hope we start the game on the front foot and leave Watford to fall quickly into   the relegation places.&nbsp; While we should go into the game confident, I want our defense to keep the gritty, organized shape they\u2019ve begun to show, so there are no stings in the tail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The \u2018Holics Pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I expect Captain Fantastic (Auba) and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (Laca) to share the spoils of a 3-0 victory with Smith Rowe, saying so much even Sir Elton will be singing a sad song.&nbsp; That is available at 11s; or take a bit of a chance and punt for 4-0 to the Arsenal, on 17-1.&nbsp; A backup punt against a nil draw can be had at 20-1!&nbsp; Any of those results would leave us 10 games unbeaten, an apt way to celebrate the boss\u2019 100th game in charge of Arsenal.  Even then I\u2019d not expect any previously vocal Arsenal supporters who\u2019d thought perhaps \u201cArteta Out\u201d was on tune to apologise\u2026because sorry does seem to be the hardest word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enjoy the game, every Arsenal fan that goes.&nbsp; COYG!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Has anyone seen his cojones? What? No one is looking? No one cares? We welcome Watford to the Grove on Sunday for a late lunchtime kickoff.&nbsp; When we last saw the Hornets chez nous we sent them away from the yellow brick road, taking their hearts on the final day of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4196"}],"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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4196"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4235,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4196\/revisions\/4235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}