It’s only October but today was probably a pivotal moment in Arsenal’s season, losing at home to Chelsea, following a crushing Champions League group stage loss earlier in the week on the road to Bayern Munich; a real test of faith for fans right now.
Tim Stillman was in the press box – and pitchside – to take in all the action and share his takes on the match and much more.
Such a disappointing start to the season. Personally I don’t want to be knee-jerk and demand Jonas’s head, but unlike the bad times with Mikel and the Men’s team, I don’t quite see the vision here or how it gets turned around.
I don’t want his head either, what would it cost to the club with a contract of 3 years to break? He can lay back a few years for sure. My humble opinion it has come to a vicious circle. Every opponent is waiting on their own half for us. Ball possession will always for us. We can play along on our half while they wait till we loose the ball and counter with speed. Yesterday even Reiten , James, Ramirez don’t come to Van Domselaar , not even to our defenders who sometimes stop with one foot on the… Read more »
And we need the same speed of playing from the start of the game like we’re playing at the end of it. Feels like the bolero of Ravel at times.
But hey, I’ll keep watching and supporting this wonderful team.
Oh, good analogy!
Well put. I think that when things went badly for Mikel we’d already seen glimpses of what he was aiming at and how the style was developing. I think we also saw where the players at the time couldn’t necessarily deliver the vision, meaning the manager didn’t lose the majority of the crowd. I have been sympathetic to the reasons behind the struggles of the last two seasons (and appreciated the squad strengthening and increase in confidence against peer level teams). However, everything is now in place and problems from previous seasons are still there (and apparently they are the… Read more »
Not about the performance, state of the season or future of the manager as this is well covered elsewhere, but I wanted to say thanks for the increase of coverage this year.
Plus, the editing and production values of the vlogs has gone up a level with the cutaways and vo – great work.
Also, how you make a clear (and accurate assessment) of the game in progress is really impressive. Usually when I attend a live game I have to watch it again later to properly remember basic things like the build up to a goal.
Same
Really liked your contribution to the BBC, Tim!
At about 4:50, your caption read Arsenal 1 Man City 2 — hmmmm
Well, I just think that the board should give some clarification to the fans who support the women’s game, to calm things down, because fans behaving like that ends up influencing things on the field, that’s for sure.
That’s a good point – everyone is entitled to voice their opinions but the level of criticism has been OTT & is frankly unhelpful – back the team!
2 days later, and I still feel thoroughly miserable … anyone want to join me?!
I didn’t notice until I saw on a BBC video. Ref decided two things Cuthbert did were yellow cards. But she stayed on because the ref gave the first one to the wrong Chelsea player
And an assistant ref should have been close enough to correct the ref
Cuthbert should get a yellow card before she starts a match because she gets away with murder. She goes through players all the time.