xSPURSINESS LEVELS HIT NEW LEVELS UNDER CONTE
Oh my fucking word, did you see that Spurs performance last night?
They broke the habit of a season and went 2-0 up against Manchester City, nearly gifting us the title in the process, then they went in for a chat at halftime and conceded FOUR GOALS IN A HALF.
Can you imagine having to suffer all the pain of Conte-ball, without the defensive security? That was what Emeryball was like!
xSPURSINESS, my new predictive metric for Conte’s side, was quite low. It would have been Spursy to lose to Arsenal then smash City… did I expect them to concede 4 goals in a half? No chance. Now, you could say ‘well, Spurs did it on purpose’ but you have to remember those players are not fans like you or I. They want to compete, they are desperate to be relevant by making the Champions League, they do not want to be humiliated in front of the world.
They were.
That was one of the most embarrassing collapses I’ve seen in a long time. I was actually in a bar chock full of Spurs fans in Liverpool Street. The atmosphere wasn’t even that toxic, it was the worst kind of reaction… total apathy. They know they are shit, the Conte dawn was false, and they are now at least 4 years away from being a decent side.
Where are all those voices that were in my Twitter feed when I was explaining how this would go?
Where are all those Arsenal fans that clogged up the LG comments telling me how elite he was?
Where are all the Spurs fans that were so vicious to me in the summer, even my Spurs mates said it was disgusting?
Crying into their Harvester brunch right now, that’s where.
The only inevitability of Conte is this will happen and it is BEAUTIFUL.
What isn’t nice about that result is it may have given City a bit of a kick up the backside. They are very good this season, but they are not great. The football isn’t as incisive. Haaland gives them goals, he doesn’t give them dynamism. If you can play around their press, there are goals to be had. It’s very weird there, it’s like the robots have become sentient and they know Pep is after one thing and one thing only: Champions League.
It was also notable that he took at pop at the City fans after they booed him at halftime… a shocking thing to do to a side that successful. Has he seen how Mikel has rallied Arsenal’s fans? Does he recognise that is a competitive advantage he’ll never have at City? Maybe.
Arsenal has signed Trossard to a 4 year deal for £21m. Honestly, you can’t knock it. Does it make me frisky? No. But that’s more because as fans we’re addicted to the unknown. What is the real job over the next 5 months? To not miss a beat. Mudryk clearly has the skills to go right to the top of the game, but it’s no guarantee he’ll hit the ground running there. Same for Felix, who has a boatload of talent, but he’s not physically there.
We have purchased a player that was desperate to join Arsenal, he turned down Spurs, and he did what was needed to get the move. He’ll fit right into our system, Arteta and his team will know how to extract the most from his game, and I have no doubt he has what it takes to be a difference-maker in games on the bench or in the starting 11.
I was wondering if that signing was a learning from last January. For me, it wasn’t. That was a different circumstance. Signing Vlahovic doesn’t change the outcome of last season to me because the real issue was twofold: We had a very good striker on the bench, but we didn’t have replacements for Tomi, Tierney, and Thomas Partey.
We did break strategy though. 28 years old is about 4 years out from where we normally are. I don’t expect this to be the norm, but do be prepared to see older heads coming into the squad this summer. Our rotation options are 22 and younger right now, that won’t fly when we’re in the Champions League, so we might need a few players that are tried and true that can help us rotate against top, top teams every other week. Remember, Arsenal are trying to win the Champions League at the first attempt, there will be no slow approach.
Right, we’re going to record a Before The Whistle a little later, it’ll be a BIG one, plenty of exciting things to gas about.
P.S. I’m trying to find out who Jakub Kiwior is right now…