{"id":8188,"date":"2023-08-11T15:35:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-11T14:35:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8188"},"modified":"2023-08-12T20:37:43","modified_gmt":"2023-08-12T19:37:43","slug":"here-we-go-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8188","title":{"rendered":"Here We Go Again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<a id=\"y06MacaUQ05p6yJXA010bw\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1437727944\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'y06MacaUQ05p6yJXA010bw',sig:'HI3FczgeCXM_-A3jbYTm_efHciJI2lmMI2MRh0Kld7E=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1437727944',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" async=\"\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">As it happens, it fell to my lot last season to write the preview for the first league game.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\"><p><em>A new season. New faces. Big new hopes and dreams. Yet, for all the preseason promise and the pleasure and puns it provided, this is where the football starts in earnest. Arteta&#8217;s team must begin turning potential into potential realised from the minute we kick off the Premiership opener at Crystal Palace on Friday evening.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Sub in Nottingham Forest in North London for Palace in South London and Saturday lunchtime for Friday evening, and what I wrote a year ago still holds good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After last season&#8217;s unexpected 2nd-place finish, with the top spot so cruelly slipping from our grasp at the last, expectations in the Goonerverse are running high, perhaps unrealistically so. Cooler heads \u2014 including Mikel Arteta&#8217;s \u2014 know this will be a more testing season than last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For one, the burden of expectation has only increased with the draining of more than \u00a3200 million from the Kroenkes\u2019 coffers to strengthen the squad with Rice, Timber, Havertz and Raya and to pay for new contracts for Saka, Saliba and Nelson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For another, the competition will be fiercer:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Regardless of the Community Shield result, come the league, Pep&#8217;s blue Mancs will be as driven as their manager to become the first PL side to win back-to-back trebles. They will be a younger and stronger side following their summer business;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Ten Hag has been at the Old Toilet long enough to show he is starting to right the listing red Mancs and the jetsam is swelling;<\/li><li>The Scousers are unlikely to have another season as off the pace as they were last term, especially as Klopp is close to completing his long overdue midfield rejuvenation with the surprise signing of Caceido;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Eddie Howe is getting the money to build on the base he has patiently laid down at Newcastle, and with that will come high demands from his Saudi paymasters;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Pochettino will get things sorted out at the Bus Stop, helped by Boehly turning his attention to buying clubs rather than Chelsea players wholesale;&nbsp;<\/li><li>Emery and de Zerbi will keep Brighton and Aston Villa in the mix for European places but while Postecoglou is good enough to do the same for the neighbours, he also has to contend with being in Levyland.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>For a third, all being well, it will be a long season, up to 61 games potentially. As 21st Century Gooner observed, keeping the squad primed and prepared for that many games so we do not suffer a recurrence of late-season exhaustion will be a new skill for Arteta to master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The opposition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last season, Forest defied the expectations of many, your correspondent included, by not being relegated straight back to the Championship. Untypically for a season that saw a record number of Premier League managers sacked, Evangelos Marinakis, the Greek businessman who bought Forest in 2017, stuck with the manager who in 2021-22 had taken the club from the Championship relegation zone to the Premiership. Steve Cooper endured 18 of the 38 Premier League&#8217;s match weeks in the relegation zone before his charges clambered up to 16th place by Match Week 38, four points clear of the drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last season, Forest bought 30 \u2014 count them \u2014 30 new players. This season has seen more modest reinforcement. Ola Aina, a Nigerian international right back, has arrived from Torino and Anthony Elanga, a 21-year-old left winger, from Man Utd. Chris Wood, ten years Elanga&#8217;s senior, has turned last season&#8217;s loan into a permanent move from Newcastle.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesse Lingard and some ageing club stalwarts, like Jack Colback, and journeymen like Andre Ayew, are the most notable departures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Cooper&#8217;s pressing problem has been replacing departed loanees Dean Henderson and Keylor Navas between the sticks. Attempts to sign Henderson permanently are floundering but continue. Meanwhile, Forest has bought Matt Turner. With Wayne Hennessey injured, Turner will likely make his Premier League debut against, not for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another priority for Cooper is hanging onto his two talented, young attacking midfielders \u2014 Morgan Gibbs-White, like our own ESR, part of England&#8217;s winning Euros-U21s side, and locally born Welsh international Brennan Johnson, who is linked to move to the wrong end of the Seven Sisters Road, following Djed Spence into that maw that devours promising young careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As is Cooper&#8217;s wont in away games against better sides, he will likely field a 3-4-2-1, which also got him the 1-0 home league win in May against us and the shock FA Cup win by the same score in January 2022. When he tried an attacking 4-3-3 at the Emirates last season, Forest got a 5-0 thrashing, the only one of his three games against us he has lost. The record books show Forest visiting the Emirates only twice and losing 5-0 both times. A three-peat would do just fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last time we lost a home league game to Forest was in March 1989. Your nugget of history trivia: we started 10 Englishmen in that match. We have never beaten Forest at home when we have started 10 Englishmen, a total of six games over the years. The overall record is scarcely any better: a 21% win percentage against Forest with 10 Englishman versus a 54% win rate with any other number of Englishmen. There&#8217;s not many people that know that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are some scores to settle for last May&#8217;s 1-0 defeat at the City Ground. Not only did it secure Forest&#8217;s Premier League status, it ended our title hopes. Arteta is becoming adept at using such hurt to motivate his team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>With Jesus off games (again!) along with Sambi Lokonga (remember him?), and Zinchenko, Reiss Nelson, Flo Balogun and Jorginho all still getting over knocks, it is tempting to think that Arteta will field the side that won at Wembley last Sunday. However, his preference for sticking with his first XI come what may be less in evidence this season. He has deepened the squad for a reason. Thus, I hazard that Eddie will start in place of Havertz.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Ramsdale<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Partey, Rice, \u00d8degaard<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Saka, Nketiah, Martinelli<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That team would also give us five English starters, a quota that has never failed us in 11 games against Forest in the league.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>City remains the overwhelming favourite of the gentleman of the turf and the ex-pro pundits to lift their sixth title in seven seasons \u2014 and to win the FA and league cups and the Champions League. To be in there with them at the death next May, at the very least, we need to repeat last season&#8217;s fast start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With Palace and Fulham to follow the Forest game before the Red Mancs visit in early September and we go to Everton the following weekend, we have the opportunity for 15 out of the first 15 points. We then just have to keep the pace up after that. Simples this managing malarky!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The &#8216;holic pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The bookies have us at short odds favourites to beat Forest. Scant value is to be found in the score betting until we hit four or more. Four-nil is available at twelves, but the more realistic 3-0 is only sevens. If you fancy, the three-peat, 5-0 is available at 22s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enjoy the game, &#8216;holics, near and far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>PS: The <strong>GHF PL Predictathon<\/strong> is now closed.  GHF raised <em><strong>nearly \u00a3600<\/strong><\/em> for The Willow Foundation!  Check out the new information on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?page_id=8112\">GHF Contests<\/a> tab discussing the contest, and to learn how the collective wisdom of the bar expects the season to play out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images As it happens, it fell to my lot last season to write the preview for the first league game.&nbsp; A new season. New faces. Big new hopes and dreams. Yet, for all the preseason promise and the pleasure and puns it provided, this is where the football starts in earnest. Arteta&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"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\/8188"}],"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\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8188"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8200,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8188\/revisions\/8200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}