Ben Ray

Samesies

He really is. The journo asks him a softball question (‘Do you think you’ll turn it around if given time’), and he laughs at him and tries to make him look stupid. Nice guy.

What do you expect from someone who dresses like a pound-shop magician

Last laugh Hahah. Hahhaa. Hhahaha

A tale of two managers, two Brazilians, one colosseum, and one sound: hahahahahaha

Yes, or showing things they think the referee has missed but then leaving it up to the referee to make the decision. Instead you get a system in which the referee is being told that one of his fellow refs thinks he has made a clear and obvious error, and the VAR then argues him round.

Yeah- talk about patronising. Wasn’t even as if Boothroyd was going for him. He was just politely disagreeing with him. Sign of the mindset of referees.

Its fucking awful- I have to watch with the sound off, just to avoid throwing something at the TV

Just so wearying

4D chess 📞🦅

If my life is anything to go by, 100% yes

0.9 xg against Port Vale, with that lineup, seems less than encouraging.

According to my count, we’ve been passing the ball in a horseshoe pattern since just before the French revolution

This is really poor

While accepting this is not an entirely rational reaction, that half made me more pessimistic than anything else I’ve seen so far this season.

And then (if your parents were still at work) a cheeky call to Teamtalk or Clubcall

I can still remember the day when I excitedly read that Ceefax headline! 😂🤓

This is great- thanks. You manage to put your finger on one of the things that I find so frustrating about a lot of modern football writing and online fandom: always forcing one to treat everything as a means to an end. Let me try to just enjoy the getting there, wherever it ends up being…

Interesting take- thanks

But, like you say, you’re entitled to express your opinion any way you like. And if I hurt your feelings by criticising your take, then I apologise. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Nobody said you weren’t. And I have also been underwhelmed. But I thought it was disappointing to see a normally measured voice getting stuck into a new Arsenal player after only 5 games. One of the reasons I’ve read Arseblog for god knows how many years is because you give players a chance.

(To be clear, the bit about people losing their minds and being entitled was linked to a more general point. But I certainly do disagree on a couple of levels with your ‘If I was a fan of another team I would call Gyokeres a donkey‘. But that’s fine, people can disagree, right.

Cool- then all fine

Exactly. It was obvious things would take time to gel, and we’ve had by far the hardest fixtures to start the season. Things are okay and the least the team deserves is for people not to lose their minds so soon. All feels a bit entitled, tbh.

Agreed. And thought Andrew using the ‘If I were a fan of another team I would…’ was really poor. Just a rather cowardly way of having a premature dig at one of our own players.

This 👆

I don’t know whether it is the effect of focusing so much on Arsenal or interacting with annoying fans on social media, but feels like a lot of Arsenal writers are really downbeat and overly pessimistic. People need to chill out. We’ve only played 5 games.

Yeah, that’s fair. The positional listings there also seem wonky (Merino surely played up top not in midfield in some of those games)?

For the record, I would have gone for Ethan over Merino. As the stats Scott posted earlier seem to support, Rice and Merino as the 8s just does’t seem to work that well. And while Ethan is still a work in progress, I think he gives you more.

Yes- exactly, which is why it feels a bit square peg.

Or mention his antics on the touchline, which were absolutely panto and much worse than Arteta gets pilloried for

And the difference in vibes between a frustrating, but deserved point and a gut punch defeat is absolutely massive. It would have been meltdown and pressure ramped up by the narrative brigade if we hadn‘t equalised.