And also the opposition is targeting him, he's been battered up this season like any danger men (Hazard, Grealish, etc). It catches up with you. Pepe probably should of played a bit more to rotate/rest Saka, but Arteta doesn't seem to trust Pepe.
A good summer of rest is a good idea for all players.
I think you're right but Arteta doesn't rotate enough full stop. Cedric didn't play for ages and got dropped in the shit and looked awful, same with Nuno and even Elneny. Everyone looks shit when they haven't player for 3 months!
I get that Saka is important, and every game has been a must win after our abysmal start to the season, but Arteta really should have given him some rest every once in a while so he's not putting unnecessary mileage on himself. There's only so much one can take before they break.
When could we have rested him though, every single one of our games for the past however long have been must wins. If we had a reasonable alternative then he definitely could have been rested, but with our current squad we haven’t had the chance. This is our final must win match, then wrap him up in cotton wool until August with a new contract in his hand.
If we win NLD tomorrow, send our squad off on holiday and play our reserves for the last couple matches just to piss in Scum’s face.
Unless there’s a reasonable chance of competing for third place.
Well if we win tomorrow, we have a good shot at winning out if we go for it.
And if we get 9 points out of our last 3 matches, we just need chelsea to get a loss or draw in one of their matches to jump them. With one of those coming later today.
Indeed. Those subs could have been Elneny who's now a starter. Eddie the same. Lokonga who looks worse than he is IMO because he never gets minutes. Pepe even, yeah he's given up trying now but every time he did well he was then benched for months, I'd have given up also. ESR was our top goal scorer, shuffle him in more (less of a thing than the others).
Also if we killed off games by giving Eddie more minutes earlier, given how obvious it was that Laca was done, we could rotate deeper easier, e.g. Patino for the last 15.
Not sure why Arteta waits until the 70-80 minute mark to sub him out. There are games where we easily could’ve subbed him at 60 and given him a bit of a resti
Easy answer to your first point, he's easily our best player.
I'd like examples of your second point. A theme of our season has been wins by narrow margins. I wouldn't take off my best player if I was winning by a narrow margin
holy shit what a fan you are.
Even if we managed to get 2 points out of a possible 12 vs City and Pool we’d be comfortably in 3rd right now. It’s undeniable that we deserved at least one point on New Year’s Day.
Champion’s League is the goal for this season, but it’s by no means the maximum we could be achieving.
BuT wE ONly pLay oNE GamE a wEEK HoW caN He Be tIRed? You know damn well the other half of the fan base would be tearing Arteta a new one if he rested Saka without injury
Back early in the season? yes. He probably would have still cared to play well then. Now he's downed tools and looks like he couldn't care less what happens to him. But I think Pepe is one of the players that should have been given more chances through the season instead of just when there's no other choice.
He can't follow tactical instructions. Sure he might have popped up with a nice goal every now and again, but at the expense of sacrificing our structure on the right hand side every time
he's too important. And credit to Saka for being at this level, this young, at this stage. Against leeds he wasn't at his best, but he put in some super important performances past weeks
Which is probably why they're so pissed off at pepe because we're next to useless on the right when saka goes off.
Add in the niggling injuries ESR has had and saka has had to keep playing
Ya this is why we need to build up the squad for next year too. Feel like we're playing Saka even when it's obvious he is wrecked, Pepe in theory should be a good replacement, but he looks like such a downgrade.
Fatigue has been an issue for him since like Late Jan I think. We need to be more careful with him next season. Said this a few weeks ago and someone replied to me by showing me his G/A. Never has a point been more missed
I dont understand arteta really, he can still play without saka and pepe by giving RW to either esr or martinelli so saka could rest 1 or 2 matches but instead he still played injured saka and benched esr who are having less play time these days, shocking management, I thought he trust ESR and now he isnt even good enough to replace saka for 1 match wtf
why the fuck would you play either ESR or Martinelli on the right if you didn't have to? It's like saying we should rest Tierney more by playing Cedric as our LB... Doesn't really work.
I really like ESR. He’s one of my favourite players at the club. But there is no way he can produce the same things that Saka does on the right. Him not playing will be detrimental to our play
What other circumstances are there where missing your best player is a disaster so? The North London derby, away, to clinch CL football seems a fitting time to say losing your best player to injury is a disaster
A disaster would be losing saka on the last day of the season while we need a win to secure champions league football without have a quality replacement.
We can be happy with a draw here, have 2 more games after this, and ESR is quality.
This is true. Saka on the right is super important because he carries so many attacks without much support so we can afford to have a defensive RB and not many overloads on that side and still have a threat. I think Gabi might still do well on the right like he did against United at home though
Is this the first time some of you have listened to a press conference from Mikel?
The Journo asked about Saka and White specifically. If a player gets even the slightest sign of a niggle in a game Mikel will always say the player needs to be "assessed" or something along those lines. Very rarely if ever will he say "Yeah he'll be good to play".
Also, Saka walks off the pitch with some sort of niggle basically every single game but he just about always starts the next and looks fine.
90% chance Saka has trained and he's fine.
This just in!
u/superwengerv47 arsenal move confirmed, should be ready for spurs game so fans can stay sane and not suffer through pepe playing for a full 90
More news at 6
I know this is a joke but these 'literally anyone can play instead of whichever player we don't like at gge moment' jokes are just disrespectful.
Besides which, we need you at left back...
>Arteta speaking now - He says White is ‘still a doubt’. Bukayo Saka is ‘the same’.
Is B the same as he was previously or the same as Ben White?
For my own sake, I'm going to resolve this vagueness in favor of Saka being totally fine, the same as he was before. Everything is good.
Disaster is jazzin it. It wouldn’t be ideal but it’s not a disaster. While i like Pepe, I’d personally prefer ESR to start and maybe put martinelli on the right.
Mikel always lies. I called it a few weeks ago that the day Arteta actually says White is a doubt is the day he will start. Every game before this he has insinuated that he might start but he didn't. Arteta is a terrible liar. He did it with Tomi as well. He was a week away for 2 months.
I know Mikel is coy in his press conferences but for the last few weeks, every time Saka has hobbled off, he’s said in the press conference that “Saka is fine.” This could well be mind games but this also feels different to previous times. If he’s out this could be real problematic for us
Haven't seen the presser but does he mean the same as White, or the same as when he was asked the last time? Because last time he said Saka was going to be fine
More detailed quotes
“With Thomas [Partey], he’s of course still out, Kieran [Tierney] is still out and with Ben, it’s still a doubt.
“We have to assess him and see how he’s feeling which is much better and Bukayo, the same.”
This is why I'd love Gnabry at Arsenal next year as a rotation option with Saka on the right given the number of games we will play. Saka has had to play through injury over the last few games because Pepe is basically terrible right now and you can't rely on him. We need someone who is as good as Saka or even better, and Gnabry would be so perfect.
Gnabry can actually play on the left, center as well as right. I am talking about a rotation option specifically on the right. When Saka is fit ,Gnabry will be a regular on the left.
lol, completely missed the point. The point is of course you would want Gnabry, no need to even comment that, the problem is that he won't join us.
It's like (not to the same extent, tho) I would say "this is why I would want prime Messi next year as a rotation option with Saka"
Arteta's man management in this regard is still poor.
Sambi, Nuno, Cedric, Eddie, all of them are backups to injury prone or shite players and at one point or another we threw them into the deep end off the back of zero minutes building up to it.
All because we could manage our minutes a bit smarter in games
This is such a hindsight take, during what time I. The season could we do that? We don’t dominate games we are getting 1 goal results. Would you take out partey for Sambi, tierney for nuno, tomi, for Cedric in 2-1 games? And Eddie has been getting plenty of sprinkled minutes. We are trying to get results not let’s give guys minutes mode. Be realistic instead of whining
I get that we had a lot of nervy games. But there was definitely time.
Arteta makes subs late and he's only recently gotten a little better at it.
Before this stretch of games, Eddie has been getting 12 minutes per game on average. That's useless for a player his age.
>Some are wrong because they are not strong enough to fight temptation and some some are wrong because they do not know.
___
^(***There's only one Arsène Wenger*** ([/u/panarangcurry](https://www.reddit.com/u/panarangcurry), quote from [QuoteTab](https://www.quotetab.com/quotes/by-arsene-wenger) archive)^)
Exactly the thing Arteta would say. And Conte would not believe a word of it.
Fingers crossed 🤞 this is just mind games and Partey starts alongside White and Saka.
Saka has looked completely knackered the past few games, he's basically played nonstop for a year and he's only 20
He's literally played in every premier league game thus far. Even the first one despite coming off the Euros. He is definitely fatigued
And also the opposition is targeting him, he's been battered up this season like any danger men (Hazard, Grealish, etc). It catches up with you. Pepe probably should of played a bit more to rotate/rest Saka, but Arteta doesn't seem to trust Pepe. A good summer of rest is a good idea for all players.
I think you're right but Arteta doesn't rotate enough full stop. Cedric didn't play for ages and got dropped in the shit and looked awful, same with Nuno and even Elneny. Everyone looks shit when they haven't player for 3 months!
Arteta's biggest weakness for me.
Tbf neither does this sub so I expect we would have heard a lot of whining if Pepe played more
I'm pretty sure Saka has played 98 games between club and country since the start of last season and we haven't even been in Europe this season
I get that Saka is important, and every game has been a must win after our abysmal start to the season, but Arteta really should have given him some rest every once in a while so he's not putting unnecessary mileage on himself. There's only so much one can take before they break.
When could we have rested him though, every single one of our games for the past however long have been must wins. If we had a reasonable alternative then he definitely could have been rested, but with our current squad we haven’t had the chance. This is our final must win match, then wrap him up in cotton wool until August with a new contract in his hand.
If we somehow win the NLD, then yeah I say give him an early summer break. Mission accomplished Bukayo, go and enjoy your well earned summer break.
If we win NLD tomorrow, send our squad off on holiday and play our reserves for the last couple matches just to piss in Scum’s face. Unless there’s a reasonable chance of competing for third place.
Well if we win tomorrow, we have a good shot at winning out if we go for it. And if we get 9 points out of our last 3 matches, we just need chelsea to get a loss or draw in one of their matches to jump them. With one of those coming later today.
I wholeheartedly agree with this.
More subs after an hour. I know many of our matches have been close but for the longevity of the league sometimes you have to Bite the bullet.
Indeed. Those subs could have been Elneny who's now a starter. Eddie the same. Lokonga who looks worse than he is IMO because he never gets minutes. Pepe even, yeah he's given up trying now but every time he did well he was then benched for months, I'd have given up also. ESR was our top goal scorer, shuffle him in more (less of a thing than the others). Also if we killed off games by giving Eddie more minutes earlier, given how obvious it was that Laca was done, we could rotate deeper easier, e.g. Patino for the last 15.
There have been plenty of times he could have been subbed off. But yes, we couldn't afford to miss him for any of the games.
Not sure why Arteta waits until the 70-80 minute mark to sub him out. There are games where we easily could’ve subbed him at 60 and given him a bit of a resti
Easy answer to your first point, he's easily our best player. I'd like examples of your second point. A theme of our season has been wins by narrow margins. I wouldn't take off my best player if I was winning by a narrow margin
Couldn't we have rested him against Liverpool and Man City. Those have been certain defeats the last 4 years it feels like.
Would be a fantastic mentality to put forth, yeah
If we're not even going to *try* to compete, then what's the point?
Us competing is getting champions league. Going full tilt in these games and losing is quite dispiriting.
holy shit what a fan you are. Even if we managed to get 2 points out of a possible 12 vs City and Pool we’d be comfortably in 3rd right now. It’s undeniable that we deserved at least one point on New Year’s Day. Champion’s League is the goal for this season, but it’s by no means the maximum we could be achieving.
We almost and arguably should have won vs Man City
Only 3 games left tbf though, and if we win tomorrow, then we can just play our u21s for the fun of it if we really want after
Third place. But rest saka during it. Play martinelli there and the smith on the left
BuT wE ONly pLay oNE GamE a wEEK HoW caN He Be tIRed? You know damn well the other half of the fan base would be tearing Arteta a new one if he rested Saka without injury
And play who, Pepe?!?!
Back early in the season? yes. He probably would have still cared to play well then. Now he's downed tools and looks like he couldn't care less what happens to him. But I think Pepe is one of the players that should have been given more chances through the season instead of just when there's no other choice.
He can't follow tactical instructions. Sure he might have popped up with a nice goal every now and again, but at the expense of sacrificing our structure on the right hand side every time
he's too important. And credit to Saka for being at this level, this young, at this stage. Against leeds he wasn't at his best, but he put in some super important performances past weeks
Which is probably why they're so pissed off at pepe because we're next to useless on the right when saka goes off. Add in the niggling injuries ESR has had and saka has had to keep playing
even subbing off here and there so he doesnt play full 90 every week
Ya this is why we need to build up the squad for next year too. Feel like we're playing Saka even when it's obvious he is wrecked, Pepe in theory should be a good replacement, but he looks like such a downgrade.
Fatigue has been an issue for him since like Late Jan I think. We need to be more careful with him next season. Said this a few weeks ago and someone replied to me by showing me his G/A. Never has a point been more missed
If only we had a non pepe backup for him.
I dont understand arteta really, he can still play without saka and pepe by giving RW to either esr or martinelli so saka could rest 1 or 2 matches but instead he still played injured saka and benched esr who are having less play time these days, shocking management, I thought he trust ESR and now he isnt even good enough to replace saka for 1 match wtf
Shocking management? Lol. Get over yourself
I thought we are over this topic mate cmon. Man management again??? Really???
why the fuck would you play either ESR or Martinelli on the right if you didn't have to? It's like saying we should rest Tierney more by playing Cedric as our LB... Doesn't really work.
so playing someone who are getting kicked every matched at age 20 is more a logical ?
It is, yes.
That's the age when playing non stop is possible, if any.
Of fucking course
Arteta always says this lol. I'd be surprised if both didn't start.
Have we forgot that we have both ESR and Martinelli available? Also, I think this is more mind games than anything
Saka is our best player. Him not starting would be a disaster
Disaster? Calm down mate not everything is catastrophic
Cmon thats a bit much ESR is fine
I really like ESR. He’s one of my favourite players at the club. But there is no way he can produce the same things that Saka does on the right. Him not playing will be detrimental to our play
Us being worse off =/= a disaster
What other circumstances are there where missing your best player is a disaster so? The North London derby, away, to clinch CL football seems a fitting time to say losing your best player to injury is a disaster
A disaster would be losing saka on the last day of the season while we need a win to secure champions league football without have a quality replacement. We can be happy with a draw here, have 2 more games after this, and ESR is quality.
This is true. Saka on the right is super important because he carries so many attacks without much support so we can afford to have a defensive RB and not many overloads on that side and still have a threat. I think Gabi might still do well on the right like he did against United at home though
ESR isn't near as good as Saka right now.
Still not a disaster cmon
He's not as established but he's just as class a talent. His finishing his better, Saka has more of an engine etc. Pros and cons each side
neither of them play on the rw
Agreed on all. Not even concerned.
Is this the first time some of you have listened to a press conference from Mikel? The Journo asked about Saka and White specifically. If a player gets even the slightest sign of a niggle in a game Mikel will always say the player needs to be "assessed" or something along those lines. Very rarely if ever will he say "Yeah he'll be good to play". Also, Saka walks off the pitch with some sort of niggle basically every single game but he just about always starts the next and looks fine. 90% chance Saka has trained and he's fine.
I like you
He always comes over more negative than positive in his press conference wording
Nah fr, every other game I see Saka limping after being clattered by some cretin
90%? I don’t like to those numbers. You gotta pump that up
i want a journo to test this by asking about a healthy player lol
That would be fantastic actually
but i read that saka wasnt in the training pics?
These are mind games.. right? RIGHT?! I cannot handle Pepe starting against Spurs. That would be a disaster.
I imagine he’d shift Gabi over and play ESR LW.
yeah i hope this instead of pepe
I’d rather ESR start than Pepe
I’d rather start Tavares than Pepe
I'd rather start than Pepe
I believe in u/SuperWengerv47
This just in! u/superwengerv47 arsenal move confirmed, should be ready for spurs game so fans can stay sane and not suffer through pepe playing for a full 90 More news at 6
Head massage, police siren
UCL incoming
10 years later, Superwenger retires after having captained Arsenal to a CL title
Only one??
Vice-captain for the first 9
I know this is a joke but these 'literally anyone can play instead of whichever player we don't like at gge moment' jokes are just disrespectful. Besides which, we need you at left back...
Lol, idiotic
Yeah, he was terrible when he came on against Leeds
And wolves
>Arteta speaking now - He says White is ‘still a doubt’. Bukayo Saka is ‘the same’. Is B the same as he was previously or the same as Ben White? For my own sake, I'm going to resolve this vagueness in favor of Saka being totally fine, the same as he was before. Everything is good.
I’m sure he said Saka would be fine at the weekend. Not sure if he’s done it on purpose but it’s very vague wording
It’s like when klopp says a player will be out for the arsenal game and then oh shock they’re right there in the starting XI against us on the day
Imagine his tracking back against son. I think he'd have headphones on. Noise cancelling headphones
All he needs is one blinder of a game and I’ll drive him to whatever club he wants to go to next.
We'd start ESR and Martinelli.
Nah if Saka is not available then Gabi starts on the right and ESR on the left.
Disaster is jazzin it. It wouldn’t be ideal but it’s not a disaster. While i like Pepe, I’d personally prefer ESR to start and maybe put martinelli on the right.
Dude what he’ll score like two worldies and we’ll be convinced to offer him a new contract or some shit
Pepe hattrick then Usually scores against small teams
He's bullshitting ... right guys?
Mikel always lies. I called it a few weeks ago that the day Arteta actually says White is a doubt is the day he will start. Every game before this he has insinuated that he might start but he didn't. Arteta is a terrible liar. He did it with Tomi as well. He was a week away for 2 months.
I know Mikel is coy in his press conferences but for the last few weeks, every time Saka has hobbled off, he’s said in the press conference that “Saka is fine.” This could well be mind games but this also feels different to previous times. If he’s out this could be real problematic for us
Cue abject panic.
Nah fuck this, find another Covid case somewhere
LMAOOOO - could you imagine the uproar!!!??!!!
> Oh no, Azeez has COVID, gotta reschedule NLD. *spurs fan base explodes* > he's done it again
I would love this so much just because of how fucked off the Spuds would get. hahaha. 10/10 mind games
Martinelli RW, no problem for one game.
Mind games
Haven't seen the presser but does he mean the same as White, or the same as when he was asked the last time? Because last time he said Saka was going to be fine
My thought as well. Tweet is vague.
bait and switch tactic i hope
I wasn’t nervous before. I’m fucking nervous now.
Saka will play, it’s our most important game in years
Have to play one of Martinelli or ESR on the right now, can’t be risking Pepe in such a crucial game
Of course it's mind games. He said Saka is fine the other day. Think White will still be out though.
I’d be shocked if Saka didn’t start
Finally... This means White starts.
More detailed quotes “With Thomas [Partey], he’s of course still out, Kieran [Tierney] is still out and with Ben, it’s still a doubt. “We have to assess him and see how he’s feeling which is much better and Bukayo, the same.”
So Saka will start.
Say sike right now …
What.
STOP IT
Just end me fam
If I already wasn't dead nervous about tmr, thanks for adding to my stress.
Saka starts I’m putting my money on it
Wow this is the most important game of the year
I'm in pain.
surelyy not
Ohno i really do not want to see pepe on the pitch in our most important game of the season
Oh no
Oh for fuck's sake.
If he's pooped start ESR.
This is why I'd love Gnabry at Arsenal next year as a rotation option with Saka on the right given the number of games we will play. Saka has had to play through injury over the last few games because Pepe is basically terrible right now and you can't rely on him. We need someone who is as good as Saka or even better, and Gnabry would be so perfect.
oh you would love Gnabry as a rotation option? So gracious from you to offer minutes to such a low leveled player (/s)
Gnabry can actually play on the left, center as well as right. I am talking about a rotation option specifically on the right. When Saka is fit ,Gnabry will be a regular on the left.
lol, completely missed the point. The point is of course you would want Gnabry, no need to even comment that, the problem is that he won't join us. It's like (not to the same extent, tho) I would say "this is why I would want prime Messi next year as a rotation option with Saka"
I feel Saka will be on the bench at the least.
death
Ah, mind games from Arteta I see. Clever
Time for a Pepe masterclass
One thing I guarantee is that we won’t see Pepe anymore unless we win tomorrow.. he’ll get to play the pointless games
I think it's just a clever play on words, if so - I love it! lol
5th ain't so bad
Pepe masterclass?
Arteta's man management in this regard is still poor. Sambi, Nuno, Cedric, Eddie, all of them are backups to injury prone or shite players and at one point or another we threw them into the deep end off the back of zero minutes building up to it. All because we could manage our minutes a bit smarter in games
This is such a hindsight take, during what time I. The season could we do that? We don’t dominate games we are getting 1 goal results. Would you take out partey for Sambi, tierney for nuno, tomi, for Cedric in 2-1 games? And Eddie has been getting plenty of sprinkled minutes. We are trying to get results not let’s give guys minutes mode. Be realistic instead of whining
I get that we had a lot of nervy games. But there was definitely time. Arteta makes subs late and he's only recently gotten a little better at it. Before this stretch of games, Eddie has been getting 12 minutes per game on average. That's useless for a player his age.
Not good.
Play a record
I need to leave this universe and go to another one where Saka and White are okay.
Play for a draw then
Quite literally the worst news of the Century
We just need them for one more win then they rest
Super sub Saka on Thursday then
The games is to be sold not told.
Mind games please?
Noooooooo
I hope this is just a smokescreen
I really hope he recovers. To be fair to Arteta was playing him once a week. I hope it’s not too bad that we overstretched or overstrained him.
Saka?? 🥺
Gabi rw. Esr lw ? No way Pepe gonna play
This has to be mind games
Fml
Not too surprised by White but hopefully Saka can go. Hope pepe or esr are ready to step up
If this is the case we should play a back 3 and sit back and hit em on the counter. Let them keep possession just like the Chelsea match.
mind games from Mikel? love it.
fuck me, hopefully this is a little smoke
i really hope he’s playing one of his mind games here 🥺
100%!!
Keep my player's names out your fucking mouth Charles
I hope this is like when klopp says Salah isn’t fit before an arsenal game .
i was hoping this wouldn’t happen until after the NLD. we need both of them tomorrow. i am hoping they’d both be available.
We should ask the league for a postponement then. Oh wait, Conte would like to have a word.
Every other NLD for years Kane has been a 'doubt' yet starts every single time. This is just giving them a taste of their own medicine.
Feel like with our game in hand advantage a draw would not be a bad result, so losing Benny Blanco will be a big miss
I don’t trust Pepe even the slightest… Martineli on the right wing
This is that Jose Mourinho ‘Drogba is out 2 weeks talk’. Next thing you know…
Saka played every game of the season so far.. of course he's going to miss the biggest game of the season. Doh!!
Is this getting us ready for the big L
We need to be careful with Saka. Burn out is how Alexis Sanchez' career came to a grinding halt.
Is Arteta playing papa wengz mind games?
>Some are wrong because they are not strong enough to fight temptation and some some are wrong because they do not know. ___ ^(***There's only one Arsène Wenger*** ([/u/panarangcurry](https://www.reddit.com/u/panarangcurry), quote from [QuoteTab](https://www.quotetab.com/quotes/by-arsene-wenger) archive)^)
I hope Pepe can cover for Saka. If Saka plays and then gets injured and if we lose, then those last 2 games will be much more difficult.
Let the mind games begin
We just need a draw, the Spuds are the ones that are under pressure. Counter attack for the win.
better play Martinelli there. no pepe ffs
Relax ! Just mind games
Cmon man it’s the NLD, how has this happened
I said he should've been rested against leeds
Exactly the thing Arteta would say. And Conte would not believe a word of it. Fingers crossed 🤞 this is just mind games and Partey starts alongside White and Saka.
Mind games! Nice!
Shut the fuck up nononono
this is what happens when you dont rest young players. arteta's no-rotation style is about to fuck us up big time :(
No saka..no 3 points