Benfica Second Leg - Instant Reaction

This team has never produced under pressure. Emery first season - bottled the league and Europa final, last year in the league. Bottled. Different management, different players. Mentality issue is spot on. Think it is from the top no desire to be the best, just to stay profitable.

That’s fair. So does that mean no objective view of arteta’s role in results and ongoing issues? If so why? That’s my point

Neither Emery or Wenger had to deal with the Pandemic, lack of a Pre-season etc - the emotional drain of the Pandemic and lack of fans in the stadiums - yes other teams are having to deal with this, but had a greter stabilty within their clubs structure and personnel.

I know the point of the pod is to analyse the detail of the game but we are bad at attacking and arteta still hasn’t shown the ability to go beyond rational coaching into the emotional side of leadership that makes men into mountains. Can we take a step back and ask why are we so bad and if mentality is an issue why do we choose a leader who lacks the charismatic quality that makes men forget their fears.... let’s talk macro please as this has gone on long enough and we can’t keep looking at the deck chairs on the titanic. In full seasons, wenger and emery achieved better results yet we keep refusing to properly analyse arteta and a year of poor performances. Can elite players play to their talent if they are so focused on the detail and drone behaviours!?

Getting to know Arteta know, I fear a bit of this: Cruyff often said his tactics - and therefore Pep/Mikels - only worked with having a team of worldclass players. What we see now is him playing this possession based model and preferring very secure players like, ESR, Odegaard and Willian over the ones that are more adventurous of the same quality; Pepe and Martinelli. As long as we dont have more world class forwards like Saka, we're seeing more of the familiar pattern: a team that's disciplined but lacks aggression and penetration. My fear is Arteta doesn't rate pace and intensity high enough as he didnt have that as player, which will see us get Odegaard and/or Danny and keep Xhaka, who I feel all lack that factor AND are improving the first eleven. So very very big summer ahead where he need to get that world class forwards and midfielders that will do the job for him. I can see Pepe sold, because he is clearly not seeing him as the missing puzzlepiece.

Great instant reaction pod 👍🏼👍🏼 I think Tierney needs a mention for his assist on arsenals 3rd goal, he took a shot in the guts, almost crumbled but straightened up and the ball went up the field for Auba’s winner!! Great stuff 😃

We all laughed

It’s been less true recently but reared it’s head tonight

Yeah no doubt. Ceballos had a mustafi tonight

❤️

No mention of the golden child, thought we are out cause I couldn't see arsenal scoring two while playing passive football, am happy, relieve and surprise, love you guys

Our in game emotional intelligence is non existent. Summed up when ceballos CHOSE to head it back to his keeper without looking. I don’t care if Leno is in the sweeping position, just fucking clear it! It was their first attempt to go direct from the keeper!

I hate how often our wins are due to a small handful of individuals stepping up rather than the entire machine working well.

The ultimate humiliation, for certain. Now I'm kinda hoping for the matchup, just to hear the conversations.

Arteta was 2 mins away from his reign ending. I really hope this can be a turning point for him. I also hope that the evidently tired bodies there at the end is remember as we play in less than 72 hours. Don’t want to see Tierney Partey or Saka playing Sunday.

I still can't believe Paul choose Tierney as his LB when you guys were choosing players... man is a visionary :D awesome pod as always, keep it coming.

Anorna

17 Covid cases to their squad

Benfica were genuinely awful they’re in legit turmoil, watch their managers press conference, Paul literally no Benfica fan thinks they’re a good side, that’s why this performance was that bad, they put that much effort and organisation in because they genuinely felt they could knock us out and they almost did

I laughed so hard at Clive’s quote about the arsenal washing machine revving up 😂 Good work boys. Great pod

Winning this game is just a setup to get matched against Villareal and Unai in the next round and bounced then.

Means a lot 😆

There was one in a car in Cleveland, OH I promise you that 😂😂

I KNOW WHERE WAS MY LAUGH THERE??!!

“The inches were in our favor” line from Eliot is genuinely an all-time line on this podcast and neither Clive nor Poz reacted. Gutted.

Did you try the help link I sent? If this doesn't get it done, let me know! https://support.patreon.com/hc/en-us/articles/212052266

Also can someone help me get on discord? I followed the thing posted but I didn’t get access

Yayyyy. First time watching as a patreon. What a horrible game. Arteta pissed me off with substitutions.

This game took 5 years off of my life