₦airaland Forum

daveP:
1W and 3L is all they need.

They're 8points ahead of Brighton. Lol.

well it is still mathematically possible for them to lose ucl spot even down to the last day. It's better for us that all the remaining city games are against teams fighting for Europe.

For the first time since we started competing for the title, this is the first time we won an epl match in April. Let's build on this momentum and beat Fulham by 2 or 3 goals and hope Everton does their Monday night magic as usual.

daveP:
Kai vs Bournemouth after Raya give am direct pass from back and he pass to opponent from midfield 😂😂😂😂😂😂

Gyokores at advantage to assist a sweet goal with Martinelli and Saka awaiting and he passes rubbish too, ending the attack. 😭😭😭😭😭😭



On a straight line for all of us.



Arteta should trust 7×7 over his beloved 6×6 abeg.

If we have to be honest, Gyokeres has cost us games this season more than any other attacker, but i know you are not ready for that conversation.

daveP:
Aston Villa fit lose their next 3 games and still qualify for ucl


Which kine levels be dat?


They fit see City and open ynsh like that year again

how did you come to this conclusion bro, cus the calculation is wrong.

Roland17:
One day all of una wen still dey support this scam go talk. Whether you decide to speak in publicly, in your privacy or your mind, una go talk…

He is bang average!

personally, Havertz isn't an elite striker and can never be. The two forms of Havertz showed in this game. His aerial game and hold up/link up play was evident in the first half, and his not clinicality showed and killed us in the second half.
That's Havertz for us. Gyokeres can easily score that chance but can't guarantee the type of ball we played in first half.
Fingers crossed to see what happens after the season.

Eze needs to come out!!!!!!!!!!

An intense first half display. Havertz being the best player in the pitch for me. exactly what was expected of him in this game.
Madueke needs to come out sooner than later.
Mosquera should get his sh!t together.
We need full concentration in the next 45 minutes.

iamoyindamola:
The Saliba hairstyle is fake jare

I wanted to tell you same before I saw your post. And the white hair looked so good on him. What do you think of this front three, this is the first time of them playing together.

iamoyindamola:
We haven't lost 2 EPL games in a row this season

we can only hope.

A good starting xl to get a result if they put their mind to it. And even a better bench to finish up the game. Brave of Arteta to drop both Trossand Martinelli for Eze in lw. Just attack and finish off chances as early as possible.
God abeg!!.

iamoyindamola:
Goodluck hairstyle

I am trying to visualise an ending where we lose today but my brain is failing me. I am only seeing a case of where we leave without a loss. If we eventually lose today, e go crash my mind, hope and faith well well.

mostob:
Lol they thought we're hating. Gyokeres is a poacher like you said. Maybe next season, we will tweak something for him so he can score more. I believe everyone should understand why Sesko was in the conversation then.

Wetin pain me pass na the muscle wey man gather. He shouldn't be losing duels with those muscles. 😂😂

early in the season Ian Wright said if Gyokeres can get 15 epl goals, it would be considered a successful seaon for him. And few fans said he was looking down on Gyokeres. If Gyokeres was still in sporting by now, he would be at 30+ goals that's fact cus even his downgrade is doing better. Now imagine we signed sesko and he gave 20 goals in all competition while Gyokeres in sporting gets 40+ or 50+. One factor that a lot of people checked when signing Gyokeres (i included), was that we need a striker who is old enough, experienced enough and would go out and all to win us the league, a proven goal scorer and not sesko that is still young and will be learning on the game. But..........
Na next season we go enjoy Gyokeres more, but that will also depend on if we win this epl.

mostob:
I don't really dig all this argument about rest and whatnot. A player who has played little minutes can still get injured. When you're at a front foot in Europe and you have City breathing down your neck, you go wan rest your best player? VVD, Benardo and the likes have been playing regularly. The only exception is if a player is injury proned. Should we even talk about injuries these guys brought home from international break.

Let's not overflog this issue. Injuries are just unfortunate situations.

I understand you, I do. In the case of Saka, this lad started playing minutes after minutes from a young age. I don't think there's any forward player at his age that made or has the same number of minutes as him. Fatigue can affect muscles and tissues, and it can be a factor in how fast or slow you recover from injuries. Many times Saka have played through injuries, you know what constantly playing with pain can do to a player, so no need to talk on that one. Injuries can happen to anyone at anytime without even playing, that's right. But overpaying a player can also contribute to issues that can bring about injury. These are muscles we are talking about after all.

mostob:
BTW, Gyokeres should start from the bench today please. We need an aerial outlet especially with Guehi and Khusanov likely starting. Kai should start up top with Eze in #10.

Starting Gyokeres at CF and Kai in midfield will be even worse.

Against city in the efl final khasonov won all the aerial duels Against Gyokeres and most of the ground duels without even fouling him. I was telling a Gyokeres fan this and baba wanted to turn it to an argument of leaving your best player again like kepa and Raya stance. Gyokeres isn't great with hold up play and 1v1 duels, at least kai can provide aerial threat and hold up to open up an attacker like Eze. Gyokeres is a goal poacher but take out his goals he really doesn't offer something significant to the team play, only twice have I seen him play really well all round. Kai and jesus that can play that kind of game are not clinical as him, so over all we are fuccked. No matter who starts, we should focus on winning this game, if they can't win then don't lose.

iamoyindamola:
But we all predicted this would eventually happen, how he overlooked it is surprising

shows how stubborn and rigid he can be. He should allow Saka and Odegaard get back to full fitness before rushing them out again. Find a way to win matches with the players we have till these guys are ready enough.

mostob:
All this talk about saka and Ode playing too much sounds funny especially considering where it is coming from. When we drew against Forest, many here swore at the manager for playing Noni and Martinelli when Saka (who should be resting) is on the bench. According to them, the coach is not serious about winning title.

MLS and Noorgard....
We all watched this two drop a stinker against Southampton. I'll give Noorgard a one off though.
Everyone has the right to criticize but please let's be consistent.

Bro, we all know Saka and Odegaard needs rest. He is the manager and he should know when and how to rest them, not just only Saka and Ode, but also others too. Fans can only complain when the result don't go our way. Many other matches that Saka sat out and we won none of them said anything. Our fan base is too emotional which is why we are always targeted by rivals and pundit to creat rage bait and generate traffic. Some fans just wait for one thing to go wrong before the criticise and then their criticism goes extreme because of how rivals and pundits paint it.

Today the world will witness the biggest game in epl this season. Not entirely a title decider but a match as important as any other title defining game.
Today the whole team needs to be on their best, a 10/10 performance from the whole team and we would be walking out of etihad with maximum point. this is a kind of match this team is made for, a match that cancels the questions and doubts if we get the maximum point.
regardless of who starts where, we need to be clinical and convert our chances, zero room for errors in both boxes.
we have shown many times that we can compete and come out strong with the best teams and Today is another day to show that.

iamoyindamola:
Why did this man managed and his Saka's injury from us
1. He doesn't want to miss WC
2. Playing him more can wear off the injury, but this is the Achilles here

These footballers are just turning into robots and risking their lives

Saka and Odegaard has played the most minutes under Arteta which is why their injuries this season hasn't been something out of the blue. They have been Arsenal's best players for a long time with no worthy deputy for years. He should learn from this and rest other important players more often than usual.

Personally I think this game needs Havertz as a CF than Gyokeres. Victor can come in later but let Havertz start as cf and not anywhere near the midfield. With what I saw in the efl Cup final, kai can disrupt the city defence more than gyokeres, with both link up play and aerial prowess, which isn't a strong point for Gyokeres.
City will try to attack from the beginning, it is left to see how we can neutralise and absorb it and how clinical we can be in the final third.

iamoyindamola:
Even the players don't give themselves hope with the rubbish they play in Europe

one of the games this season that i liked the strong will the team showed was against Brighton, the game where Saka scored early and we defended till ft. The attack was dead that day but every other department was good. They held their own and played with passion and believe to see the game out. Lately that coordination isn't there anymore but it can always show up if they believe. If Zubimendi can come out strong and give a positive display after many games of criticism and show of shit, then they all can come together and get their shit right. We don't even have to play beautiful football with city to get the maximum point, we only have to play our own game and avoid unnecessary mistakes.

Fkforyou:
That apology is from a parody account..o

That Wednesday fixture is supposed to give us a mental and emotional reset before the man city game.

Also, I want the coach to back off the team for now, let the guys decide if they want to write their name in history or not.

the coach back off?, I don't understand. Our first trophy wasn't meant to come as a hand out to us, we have to bleed for it and show character development and maturity. It was always going to be hard and that's where Arteta and his boss shows what they are made of. This loss should open their eyes, if they go on to win the league, the respect would be great because they showed strength. We can only hope Arteta does better and think correctly going forward.

MSGAMBLE9:
Do you know Raya received 38 back-passes only on Saturday against almighty Bournemouth...

Rice and Zubi has been mis-used playing needless minutes in a game with healthy leads...Norgaard has suffered

God help us this coming Sunday...

i have this flicker of hope that we would come out of etihad without a loss. I saw Zubimendi's apology post, thank God he knows the gravity of his mistake on Saturday and accepted responsibility. It's left to see how he and the rest of the team react on Wednesday and sunday. 4 league losses should be the maximum number if we are serious about epl trophy, anymore loss would be a big jeopardy. If we can avoid a defeat to City, then 15 out of 18 possible point is enough to win the league.

MSGAMBLE9:
Our gameplay is very cautious with heavy emphasis on ball retentions which allows most sensible teams to get back in defensive shapes when they lose the ball... I watched Spain vs Turkey ( both home and away), do you know that Merino created more big chances than Pedri and Arda Guler in both games....

I would not excuse Zubi for his bad recent performances but statistically Rice has been worse in duels and giving possessions away but he covers it up with hardworks... If it was Mosquera that did what White or Gabi did yesterday, he would have been skinned alive by the British press and Arsenal fans respectively...

I want us to win this Title and get this overtly cautious approach over with...

you see Rice matter, e get as e be. He's a warrior and a fighter for sure but he makes silent errors a lot. His errors are always undermined because he puts up a fighting spirit to recover most times. This is two times that I am focusing on Rice play and seeing him direct players to pass the ball back. He go dey point to zubi to pass back, na so he been dey tell Martinelli to pass back against sporting. They play with too much caution and it's affecting their mentality how they don't even notice.

MSGAMBLE9:
This is what have been saying ; the team has been generally poor recently not excusing anyone including Rice with Team lowest duel-won % yesterday, White comical defending recently and Gabi error leading to the second goal yesterday etc....

But it all down to Zubi who we played close to 25 minutes without yesterday and still we couldn't progress the ball from deep....

My number issue with Arteta is that he is seeing that Zubimendi is tired, I think at this stage with what we saw on the pitch yesterday, it is now getting to a psychological part, cus tell me why other players are all trying to cheer him up. He is feeling the impact of the errors he keeps making, but Arteta would still start him next match. While not rest him and maybe give him a day break to be with family or whatever.

iamoyindamola:
Our LANs are back fear not
I don't know why I am still having this feeling the league is ours
Just don't lose to city moreover city still have Brentford and villa with palace
We have Newcastle and westham

we dey together.

I knew that efl cup final would have an effect on any team that won, I said it here and it is happening. And the fact that we also lost to Bournemouth is giving city every reason to believe they can win this epl. It's just to win us next week and win their match with Palace and it's all done.

iamoyindamola:
Finally you agree our players don't have freedom
Hallelujah somebody!!!

baba it's been cleared all along, na just say we dey manage win matches. When every match day most touches by our players are from defenders, when even the leaders in the team encourage back passes. It's obvious that something should change. It's not even about singling out a particular player anymore, because every match day there's a new person to single out if we really check it. Arteta needs to do better, the deal from the first half of the season is gone and we're just hanging on a thread waiting and hoping for this season to end. For us to believe truly again, he has to go to etihad and come out with a win.

iamoyindamola:
Be like everyone is tired
Get it done or get embarrassed out

to be honest who wouldn't be tired. In as much as I love Arteta, I still recognise deficiency when I see one. We have been playing shit for a long time but have been managing to win games. It's been a reoccurring issue and he should have found a way to work on that. Our players play like robots controlled by positional play. No one plays with freedom and suddenly every player is making errors upon errors. Rice lost possession about 17 times yesterday and Zubimendi 12 times, when your midfield keeps loosing balls like that, it attracts pressure to the back line. Let's hope he doesn't lose to City at the etihad. Let's just hope.

I just de see the mumu reason Gyokeres gave for today's failure. "Pitch was too dry". Chineke!!!. Na striker wey suppose give us league dey talk dis kind rubbish. Our home pitch ooo, no be away pitch. Your home pitch was too dry that the away team was so comfortable to beat you in that dry pitch. Yeye dey smell.

Zubimendi is mentally down, first season and Arteta wan over work am. At some point Rice,Skelly, Gabi and Madueke was talking to him to lift his confidence and fron his body language you can see that he's tired. These guys need a big mental push, abi dem no get team psychologist ?. All of them just playing as washed as ever. Nonsense and ingredients.