'Average' Arsenal defender has been exposed by 'f**ked ...

Arsenal are ‘so boring and unadventurous’, which is why ‘average’ William Saliba looks so good. But there is no saving the rubbish Gabriel Martinelli.

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0-0 to the Arsenal
Brian Moore. ITV Sport. Isn’t it? Famous five at the back. Adams makes a last ditch tackle. Oh – great penalty save from Seaman.

Anyone else get Arsenal circa 1994 vibes last night? Loving this new/old Arsenal.

Arsene never got it.
Graham Simons, Gooner, Norf London

Decent result, terrible game
I’m going to go out on a limb here. Your going to get atleast 1, maybe 2 emails saying Arsenal are s*** for only getting a draw away at last seasons Europa League and invincible stoppers who beat Liverpool 0-3 at Anfield. People have wierd expectations…

I’m just sad I had to watch that game, hopefully we can get a bit more attacking fluidity over the next few weeks without Odegaard and Partey finds his urgency by Sunday… oh and Martinelli shoots like me, and I’m s***. Just calm down and breath mate.
Rob A (hardest week of the season, 4 points so far isn’t too bad) AFC

There’s a few things to comment on. I watched all the English teams in the champions league and though only really villa looked good.

While we (Liverpool) won we weren’t amazing really and just took advantage of suspect set piece keeping. It was a fairly even game, goals aside.

City and arsenal were DIRE. How can two team fighting for so many points scoring so many goals last year be so boring and unadventurous to watch? It always baffled me how saliba looks average for France but looks great for arsenal and now I know, for France he’s not defending a back 8 all the time. He’s still a good player don’t get me wrong but would he be good in teams that play a bit more adventurously? I’m not convinced.

I think arsenal need to cut their losses on martinelli, aside from being fast he offers nothing. It’s ironic they signed sterling because he also offers nothing except being quick. Just ask city and Chelsea. Why doesn’t trossard play more? Admittedly I don’t watch him as often as arsenal fans but he seems the most productive of your left wingers and should really start.

That kit? Wtf is it? At first I thought they forgot to take their training bibs off. Kits don’t really matter at the end of the day but that’s one of the worst I’ve seen in a long time.

Big points to inzaghi for pretty much controlling the game against the ‘financial’ juggernaut that is city, similar to gasperini. Two teams with sets of fans who’ve done nothing but boast all over social media for weeks, and it’s nice to see them humbled ever so slightly. Before y’all say it we got our humbling against forest.

On the Atalanta game I didn’t actually think it should have been a pen. There were definitely two fouls, one outside and one inside but for some reason the ref decided the one outside the box didnt matter. It should have been a free kick, least Raya made it moot.

City must be praying to get their new best friend Michael Oliver for their champs league games, dude won them about 9 points last year as well as taking a few off both arsenal and Liverpool with highly questionable decisions.

Finally, I don’t mind the new format. We get better games (in theory) earlier. I would personally like to see it go back to being a knock out competition again though.
Lee 

Formatting problems
On the new CL group stage format, now that the first round has been played, a few points to mention:

First, this is not really a “Swiss Model” – don’t blame the Swiss for this. I know this is not on the forefront of most people’s minds, but I feel like if this goes unchallenged, the misunderstanding will stick. The only thing Swiss about it is that UEFA probably came up with it while being literally present in Switzerland. So it’s kind of like the Geneva Convention: not really about Switzerland, despite what they called it.

While we are on the topic, I took the time to guesstimate what the second round of fixtures would look like, if UEFA had actually incorporated a real “Swiss Model”, waiting until the first round of results before pairing teams up:

Celtic vs Bayern
Leverkusen vs Villa
Dortmund vs Prague
Liverpool vs Real Madrid
Sporting vs Juventus
Benfica vs Monaco
Brest vs Atletico
Inter vs PSG
Arsenal vs Bologna
City vs Atalanta
Shakhtar vs RB Leipzig
Barcelona vs Sturm Graz
Girona vs Red Star
PSV vs Stuttgart
Milan vs Lille
Bratislava vs Brugge
RB Salzburg vs Young Boys
Dinamo Zagreb vs Feyenoord

To be fair, it actually would lead to an absolute slew of interesting matches, both in this round and the rest of the group stage. Of course, it will never happen, for logistical reasons. But not necessarily because the clubs and supporters couldn’t manage it; this would be a major challenge, but not strictly impossible. But UEFA care about their own logistics as much as those of the athletes, coaches and fans. So instead, we’ve got what we’ve got, and I don’t think the scheduling/matchmaking side will be changed.

Which leads me to my second point: I don’t think this format is going to be as boring as I had initially feared, if they tweak it a bit for future iterations. The group stages were quite boring to begin with, so it’s not like we are risking much anyway. The main problem seems to be that there is no difference finishing between 1st and 8th, and no difference finishing anywhere between 9th and 24th. What I would propose is something like:

* Split the rankings in 6 groups of 4 teams, rather than 3 groups of 8 teams (1st-4th, 5th-8th, 9th-12th, 13th-16th, 17th-20th, 21st-24th).
* In the Round of 32, make it 9th-12th vs. 21st-24th and 13th-16th vs 17th-20th.
* In the Round of 16, find a way to make the draw marginally more favorable for the teams that finished 1st-4th than 5th-8th. Not sure how.
* In the QF and SF, give the team that finished higher in the group stage an advantage in terms of playing home/away first.

We’ll see what the ultimate outcome is on the quality of the latter stages of the knockout phase. I am guessing it won’t change anything at all, so ultimately we are debating “which format would be the least-boring CL group stage”, and complaining that they have introduced a Round of 32 that did not previously exist.

Last quick point: this is not a ‘stealth European Super League’. Nothing is ‘like a Super League’ unless it replaces national leagues. Let’s not exaggerate.
Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland 

The CL has f**ked around and become like the start of a World Cup or Euros. Where the first phase of play barely matters. It now feels like a pre-tournament to watch before the actual tournament starts. It never felt like that earlier inspite of having groups due to there being some jeopardy. I honestly thought it wouldn’t matter, more games for us fans, but then reality struck.

In my timezone CL football starts at 12:30 or 1:30 (depending on the daylight savings) and ends at 2:30 or 3:30am on working weekdays. And during the CL, I usually catch the 2-3 best matches every week no matter how shit the next day goes. But this time around, it genuinely felt like international friendlies were on. I couldnt be bothered at all. A lack of important matches (big team v big team), a lack of consequences no matter what, tooo many matches and a group stage that is toooo complex to remember at the tip of your fingers. I honestly dont know who Aston Villa or City will play, how the league is decided, what is the logic behind the match ups etc. I have read it all, but I honestly couldnt say if someone asked. It’s just too weird and feels tooo boring for a league/tournament that was functioning perfectly. On top of that, no away goals, so it genuinely doesn’t matter who does what. Just whack the small teams and you can afford a few slip ups and be safe.

Thankfully, this will help with my sleep and overall health. Will start watching once the knockouts start. And best of luck to Aston Villa, hope they win the thing.

Cheers
A

The new Champions League format is really a snoozefest. The group stage is long and drawn out, only for 8 of the 32 teams to be eliminated at the end. But I do understand the logic behind trying to create a Premier League-style format, where all the top teams compete against each other and every match counts.

The problem is, UEFA has done this in reverse. Instead of dragging out the group stage, why not start with the knockout stages? Begin with a Round of 32, followed by a Round of 16, and then a Final 8, each decided by one-off matches. The final 8 teams would then advance to the Champions League proper, where they compete in a round-robin format. Each team would play every other team, and the club with the most points at the end of this league would be crowned the Champions League winner.

In this way, the competition starts with high-stakes knockout games, keeping fans engaged from the very beginning, and the final stage ensures that every match between the top 8 teams matters.
Adeel

MORE ON THE RUBBISH CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FORMAT
???? How does the new Champions League ‘Swiss model’ format for 24/25 work?
???? New Champions League format is absolutely f***ed; there is no sport without jeopardy

Bargain hunt
My contribution to Chris’s bargain hunt breaks the rules a bit, but if Boubs Kamara had been fit enough to come on for Onana on Tuesday, Villa would have been playing Champions League football with a midfield 4 that cost £2.7m in total.

Getting Konsa, Rogers, Martinez and Watkins for less than an Antony is decent business as well too mind.
Neil Raines (Sandro Lauper was fouling us all through the night)