{"id":8232,"date":"2023-08-26T05:55:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-26T04:55:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8232"},"modified":"2023-08-27T11:05:01","modified_gmt":"2023-08-27T10:05:01","slug":"the-cottagers-visit-the-new-home-of-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8232","title":{"rendered":"The Cottagers Visit the New Home of Football"},"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\/1418536834\" 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:76.09428% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1418536834?et=rP2Q4Dn6QEt7AjOWmDOicg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=jqtuJGThkNQ-Pma87G1f_K9RHpk58830SdDglU6oHTM=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"452\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Undefeated Arsenal welcome the better team from the Kensington and Hammersmith boroughs for a 3 pm (London time) kickoff at our not-so-craven not-so-cottage home in Ashburton Grove.  The visitors are coming off a difficult West-Southwest London derby loss to Brentford, a 3-0 result that must have really stung.  They are down in unlucky 13th place, on only the three points gained from their win against the grain at Goodison Park.  Arsenal are level on points at the top of the table with Brighton and Manchester City, third on goal difference.  We&#8217;ve two wins on the trot, in spite of the antics of a blind old Coote against Crystal Palace last Monday reducing us to 10 very well-drilled men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In our last five versus Fulham we&#8217;re undefeated, having drawn once.  Last season we did the double over them, including a 2-1 win in this fixture last August, almost a year ago to the day.  \u00d8degaard and Gabriel scored after Mitrovic capitalized on Gabriel&#8217;s mistake; the latter&#8217;s relief when he scored in the scramble after a Martinelli corner was palpable.  Contra to our recent record is that we face referee Tierney, <s>against whom<\/s> in whose games we have apparently not won since 2021, a run of four losses and one draw.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Fulham<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two big notes and losses for Fulham as the end of the transfer window draws near.  Mitrovic, their leading goalscorer last season, has taken the money and run, very quickly, to the land of the (alleged, for the lawyers) Khashoggi killers.  His 15 goals will be a loss; though Fulham scored frequently enough through their midfield and wingers, having the big Serb as a target man created space and second opportunities of which they could take advantage.  Recently-recruited Raul Jim\u00e9nez, signed from Wolves this Summer for a very modest sum, will try to replicate the &#8220;big man in the middle&#8221; for Fulham; if not, I suppose they could always bring on Willian (if he doesn&#8217;t miss the game through injury) to try to score against us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Their second loss for Saturday&#8217;s game is center back Tim Ream, captain of the squad, whose sending off for a second yellow during the Brentford game means he misses this game by suspension.  He is the heart of a back line consisting, usually, of Robinson, Ream, Diop, and Tete.  New boy Bassey, signed this window from Ajax (from the same defense as Timber, big sigh), is probably down to slot right in, though we could see the more familiar Adarabioyo instead.  Marco Silva has some thinking to do, especially if he&#8217;s going to keep his standard 4-3-3 formation.  Missing Ream makes the defense as suspect as the offense missing Mitrovic; we can only hope that our own Mikel Arteta has figured out how to exploit those weaknesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While we are still adjusting to the loss for the season of Timber, the possible  loan of Tierney, and the probable sale of Balogun, we welcome a return by Jes\u00fas from the injury that ended his participation in the Community Sheild against his former employers.  What surgery he had appears indeed to have been minor, and he is expected to be named with the squad for Saturday.  Other than Timber and fellow long-timer Mo&#8217;neny, we will miss big Tomi due to his own suspension given by <s>too-yellow<\/s> &#8220;two yellows&#8221; Coote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This should leave us with a team somewhat resembling the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Ramsdale<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">White &#8212; Saliba &#8212; Gabriel &#8212; Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Partey &#8212; M\u00f8 &#8212; Rice<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Saka &#8212; Eddie &#8212; Gabi<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>with Jes\u00fas, Trossard, Havertz, Nelson or ESR, Jorghino, Holding, Kiwior, and Raya on the bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Excepting Eddie up front, this looks to be our strongest team; given Fulham&#8217;s lack of goals and potentially porous defense I hope Mikel sees it the same way.  The relative turgidity of our first two wins with Partey playing the Zinchenko role on the right has to change, and the absense of Tomi makes it the perfect game to play with our most successful spine from last season.  If there&#8217;s any game we can get away with Zinchenko&#8217;s not-the-greatest-defense, this would be it; Wilson running at that side of the defense ought to be easy meat for big Gabriel.  And Rice can both shackle De Cordova-Reid and prevent balls from reaching Wilson in his forays up and down in front of, and aside, Zinchenko.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Is a win guaranteed?  Hardly.  In Marco Silva Fulham have an inventive and thoughtful manager.  We can go into this with nothing but determination and the drive to both limit Fulham&#8217;s opportunities and crush them with multiple goals.  Whether we can achieve such an outcome should give us a good picture of where we actually stand after three games, as Fulham&#8217;s 13th place is probably not a true indication of their actual strength and capability.  So, a bit of a beware, even as the portents are mixed-good: let us not be caught wearing milkbone knickers in a dog-fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Holic Pound<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal are odds-on favorites to win this one, so getting good odds require you to hope we match or beat our 3-0 win at the Cottage in March; that&#8217;s available at 7s or 8s.  Not a great return, but if you back 5-0 to our Gunners those rise to 20 from the 11s at 4-0.  Perhaps a punt on Declan Rice as first goalscorer?  At 16s it might just be worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Enjoy the game, those who go, please report in the drinks.  For those in the USA the game is on at 7 am Pacific time on, apparently, the USA network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Come on you Bloody Good Reds!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Undefeated Arsenal welcome the better team from the Kensington and Hammersmith boroughs for a 3 pm (London time) kickoff at our not-so-craven not-so-cottage home in Ashburton Grove. The visitors are coming off a difficult West-Southwest London derby loss to Brentford, a 3-0 result that must have really stung. They are down [&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\/8232"}],"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=8232"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8240,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8232\/revisions\/8240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}