Will Reiss Nelson's goal against Bournemouth be the Steve Bruce moment?

I believe it could!

lurka • August 22, 2021 7:20 PM BST

They had to go for the cheap manager option because of FFP wage rules, but they don't apply this year which is why they can spend so much after a year of reduced revenue. Now is the first time they can go out and spend on a manager but instead they've given a guy who has done nothing for 18 months a 100m warchest. The FFP rules will be reintroduced in the next year or two. The owners are clueless mugs and money men but there's no way they want their 200m spent so badly. That makes no sense.

This is the opportunity to go out and throw 15-20m a year at Conte while he's free. Might not get another opportunity to do that for years once the rules are reintroduced. He will more than pay for himself twice over in terms of what he'll get from these players but the owners are so clueless that they can't even see this.

Great news.....Conte is free again. Let's not make the same mistake again.

lol I was wrong about Arteta but show me your posts from the time disagreeing with me instead of aftertiming. I was the worst for giving Arteta stick on here but nearly everyone who posted was as depressed as me with the football, signings, manager, Edu and owners. Nobody was saying give Arteta more time that I can remember, yourself included.

Remember saying give Arteta a 10 year contract, a 300m war chest, he's the future, we've got ourselves a World class manager here, can't believe anyone would have doubted him, I guess you've either got foresight, or you haven't.

The ex-City boys & Saliba the main drivers for me.

The point I was making re going after Conte was that it was the first time since Wenger that we had the funds to attract a top manager in terms of both salary and money to spend and that would likely not be possible once the FFP rules, which had just been relaxed, were reinstated. How else do you think we were able to spend that much after a long period without gate receipts and losing our euro revenues last season? I said a few posts after that that Conte mightn't be the right fit for our situation but was an example of an available top manager. I didn't think there was any prospect of it happening as they were clearly sticking with Arteta and I thought that was a mistake as I didn't see much improvement up to then and it looked then like we wouldn't be able to spend at that level again any time soon.

The track record of spending by Arteta/Edu was pretty awful to that point too, so trusting them with even more funds looked like a mistake to me. But I've been proven wrong and Arteta/Edu have also freed up a lot of funds by getting a lot of wages off the books since then, but most of them players they had signed or re-signed on those wages at that time, it must be remembered.

I didn't see any improvement in our top level until this season. We improved by beating the lesser sides more consistently after Xmas 2020 and finished that season very well after some abysmal football before that, picking up close to 2 points a game after Xmas, which was 2nd best after City. I thought last season was much the same top level and having only one game a week was more of a factor with United and Leicester dipping too, rather than a noticeable improvement. Our top level was still around a EL KO stage team throughout, which is where it was under Wenger and Emery. We had Laca leading the line last season, scoring 2 from open play and 2 penalties. We had a better goal difference the prev season where we finished 8th. Despite the points we've accrued this season I don't think our level is as good as a top CL side or the City/Pool sides of prev years but that just means there's room for a lot more improvement (and spending) going forward, something I couldn't see until this season.

I think Saliba and Zinchenko coming in have made massive differences. Saliba is a big improvement on White at CH but White is also a big improvement on Tomi at RB, esp going forward, so it's a double improvement at the back.

I don't think Z is better than Tierney defensively or going forward in the LB position but he plays as an inverted LB in midfield and allows Xhaka to play either as LB or further forward and I think he is better than Xhaka in midfield and Xhaka is much better further forward than in midfield, so a double improvement there too without even signing a new midfielder. Tierney is unlucky but he can't be relied upon to play 30 games, Tomi too. We'd have got 4th last season if they were. Lost 5 of our last 10 and the two of them barely featured.

You have to give the manager, Edu, Xhaka and the owners (who have not injected any money but have restructured debt twice to free up funds to spend - something they didn't have to do) huge credit and happy to have been proven wrong by all of them. Wouldn't have backed any of them to get it right before this season and I don't think even the most optimistic of fans were expecting a title challenge.

Don’t see no fat lady yet

Gotta say that was Very unfortunate today. Really thought you had it in the bag @ 0-2..

April 26th

A point gained.

Win the next 3, title's in the bag.

If Allah the Merciful wills if Arsenal can still deliver a knockout blow at Citeh

The Christian God  might have something to say about  the money lenders who run Citeh for the Heathen

I fear however we will not get much help from Yahweh in N17

It was a good result on paper given their home record and ours up there, a good result the way the match panned out because we didn't deserve to win. But you could see a noticeable drop in desire to score a third from very early on 2nd half, more content to keep the ball and play it backwards than move it quickly up the pitch like we had for both goals. We were weaker at the back with Holding in there, full strength in midfield and attack and they got a pen within 10 mins. Had carved them open fairly easily to score twice, but seemed content to invite them on and not threaten their goal. That only encouraged them. Seemed pretty obvious to me for at least half an hour that despite the pen miss they would equalise and maybe win and we prob wouldn't score.

I've seen some people say Konate had a good game. He was pulled out of position for both our goals and missed a sitter near the end. They were out of sorts at the back but we didn't seem interested in exposing it again after 1-2. Made them look good. No changes til 80 mins. If you are content to defend like that for 45 mins then surely Tierney is a better option than Z for a game like that? If you are not so content then change it up earlier because it clearly wasn't working. We are a free scoring team top of the league. That wasn't the case in previous seasons where we sat back like this quite a lot away from home. Just found it strange that we had that approach when we might have got 3 or even 4 if we'd gone for them like we had in the first 30. Seemed to show more desire for a 3rd in the 9 mins after 2-2 than we had in the 42 2nd half minutes before that. Hard to criticise anyone after 8 wins in a row but it just seemed a mistake to me.

Getting a draw at Anfield is no disaster - they certainly aren't mugs when playing at home.
Just means we need a draw at City & Newcastle & win the rest.

Cheers

Re Xhaka, that first goal came 1 minute later. Team prob lost some concentration and some may have been out of position because of it. May have been more of a factor than him getting the crowd up.

He's 30 yo and the most immature player on the team. Still took the armband when Odegaard went off. 0-2 up going for the league, crowd nothing to cheer about, 4 mins to HT. Complete idiot but not the cause of the 2nd half.

This Xhaka scapegoat stuff is just haters trying to spread discontent.

Pool were hardly likely to just lay down & accept defeat without some kind of fight.

On day 1 this would have been a good result, chasing the title, it's a bad result, it's all going to come down to that City game at the Emptyiad, I'd drop Xhaka for that game, they'd target him.

Champions win at Anfield and Champions have stronger benches. The Club has failed the team but the innocence and arrogance of yoof may still prevail particularly at the home of The Money Lenders and we have Jesus.

City lost at Anfield. Only Leeds have won there. I don't think we need Rice or Bellingham to mount a challenge if we have without them this year. Ourselves and Liverpool shouldn't be trying to compete with United/City/Chelsea for top price players. City rarely do at the top level despite being well able to. We will have plenty of money to improve with the return of CL and can attract more players too. First time you'd have full trust in the club to go out and spend it well.

Rice and Bellingham are good players but whatever price they go for will be a gamble for any team. Not sure Bellingham is Real level either. Real signed Camavinga and Tchouameni for less than what either Rice or Bellingham will cost. I doubt they'd have much interest in Bellingham after that and they prob have two better players on their books already. Should be looking at prospects like that, getting them cheap and improving them, like we did with Saliba. If it doesn't work out you'll not be stuck with them for years like you would R/B at 100m+.

Same again this week. Penalty miss not the reason for it.