{"id":4633,"date":"2022-01-19T18:59:56","date_gmt":"2022-01-19T18:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4633"},"modified":"2022-01-20T22:40:28","modified_gmt":"2022-01-20T22:40:28","slug":"fearless","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4633","title":{"rendered":"Fearless"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe title=\"Pink Floyd - Fearless (Remastered - HQ)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sl_apx8JoMw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p>Throughout Pink Floyd&#8217;s song &#8220;Fearless&#8221;, from their album &#8220;Meddle&#8221;, is woven a recording of Liverpool&#8217;s Kop singing &#8220;You&#8217;ll Never Walk Alone&#8221;.  I&#8217;ve always thought it odd to be there:  Roger Waters and David Gilmour are huge Arsenal fans.  Right, let us listen to the song in a different way, not as (somehow) a paean to Liverpool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You Say the Hill&#8217;s Too Steep to Climb<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider the events of the past three weeks.  Liverpool&#8217;s false positive Covid tests led to the first leg of our Carabao Cup semifinal tie being postponed until tomorrow at the Grove (20 January, 7:45 pm GMT).  We were beaten soundly by Nottingham Forest, ending our FA Cup run before we&#8217;d really begun.  Then we played the putative first leg of the semifinal at Anfield last Thursday.  We held on for a 0-0 draw, showing grit and determination with 10 men for the last 70 minutes of the game after Xhaka&#8217;s inability earned him a red card.  And Sunday&#8217;s league game with the Hampstead Woad Wearers was postponed on request from Arsenal.  Since the first leg postponement Liverpool have continued their winning ways, beating Shrewsbury in the FA Cup before the draw at Anfield.  They beat Brentford 3-0 in the league on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So which team is heading into tomorrow&#8217;s game with less fear?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Idiot Faced the Crowd, Smiling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal comes into tomorrow&#8217;s game potentially still missing a raft of players.  Thomas Partey won&#8217;t make it back from Ghana&#8217;s AFCON exit in time for the game.  Auba is still out of favor, and now has left AFCON with Covid-related heart lesions.  P\u00e9p\u00e9 and Mo&#8217;Neny are still involved with Ivory Coast and Egypt at the tournament.  While \u00d8degaard should return from his Covid absence, Tomiyasu, Saka, Cedric, Smith-Rowe, and Chambers are all recovering from knocks.  No announcement has yet been made about who will pass their final fitness tests and be available for selection.  Xhaka is suspended, and we no longer can call on Kolasinac (now a Marseille player), AMN (on loan at Roma), Balogun (loaned to Middlesborough), or Mar\u00ed (heading to Udinese on loan).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Until we know which of our injured players are returning this leaves us with a really skeletal squad.  Are we going to involve the really young kids?  It could be something like this, from who we have available:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Leno<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">White &#8212; Holding &#8212; Gabriel &#8212; Tierney<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Lokonga &#8212; M\u00f8<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Laca &#8212; Patino &#8212; Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Nketiah<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, this leaves us with a bench of Ramsdale, Tavares, and&#8230;and&#8230;  They are the only known remaining first team players available.  Maybe we&#8217;ll see Osei-Tutu and\/or Rekik in support of the defense?  M&#8217;Hand for the midfield?  We&#8217;ve recalled Azeez and John-Jules from loans, but are they ready to be on our bench?  That would be 7 subs, covering most of the necessary positions&#8230;but wow, you can see through it it&#8217;s so thin.  A very steep hill to climb, indeed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Who&#8217;s the Fool, Who Wears the Crown?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In second place in the League, in the Champions League knockout stage, in the FA Cup: Liverpool have had much success this season. They beat us badly in the league at Anfield two short months ago.  Arsenal has a threadbare squad.  All the signs and portents point towards a Liverpool victory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Herr Klopp, he of the 40 false positives (still waiting for all the names, Jurgen!), will not be able to select Phillips, Elliott, Origi, or Thiago due to injury.  Mane, Salah, and Ke\u00edta all remain at AFCON.  Oxlade-Chamberlin is a doubt after Sunday&#8217;s Brentford game, where he rolled an ankle.  They can still field a comfortable squad:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Kelleher<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">TAA &#8212; Matip &#8212; Van Dijk &#8212; Robertson<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Henderson &#8212; Fabinho &#8212; Jones<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Minamino &#8212; Firmino &#8212; Jota<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They&#8217;ll have a solid bench of Alisson, Konat\u00e9, Gomez, Tsimikas, Milner, Williams, Gordon, and Morton, at least.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I daresay Klopp will be frowning on the touchline, but that&#8217;s his usual state, isn&#8217;t it?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Every Day is the Right Day<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s going to be a tough game for us to win.  Unless we get folks back from injury it&#8217;ll take even more grit and determination with 11 than we showed with 10 last week to get a result.  Liverpool is favored by the bookies to win, but a 2-2 draw at full plus extra time will get you 15s.  If you want to back the Arsenal to win, you can get 11s for 1-0, and a tasty 23\/1 for a 2-0 victory.  If our defense can keep another clean sheet, either of those scorelines could be winners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Sound of the Faces in the Crowd<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want to close this with a comment about how magnificent our away fans were at Anfield.  They outsung the home supporters, and lifted and supported our players as they ground out the 10-man draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the Arsenal fans who are making their way the game, make it a right day.  As has been reported here in prior posts and comments, the unity among our supporters is strong this year.  We can expect the home support tomorrow to be loud, proud, and generate the right kind of energy to lift and support our boys again and again throughout the game.  Give them everything you can, everything they deserve.  Let&#8217;s hope by the end of Thursday evening we&#8217;re all singing about Wemberley, having climbed that hill in our own way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>COYG!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Throughout Pink Floyd&#8217;s song &#8220;Fearless&#8221;, from their album &#8220;Meddle&#8221;, is woven a recording of Liverpool&#8217;s Kop singing &#8220;You&#8217;ll Never Walk Alone&#8221;. I&#8217;ve always thought it odd to be there: Roger Waters and David Gilmour are huge Arsenal fans. Right, let us listen to the song in a different way, not as (somehow) a paean to [&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\/4633"}],"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=4633"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4650,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4633\/revisions\/4650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}