Injury Crisis Or Much Needed Rest?

Elliot Smith0:33Good news everybody. Arsenal have stopped ruining football with corner kicks and started ruining football by bringing their players home from international duty. This is the ArsenalVision Post-Match podcast. My name is Alex Smith, you can follow me on Twitter. That's right. Years ago, we were a naive club. Naive. Some might say childish. Some might say lacking the sense, the capability, the sophistication to win a league when we send our players off to meaningless international friendlies. Oh, but we've learned. Now we have the nous to bring those players home. And I dare say it is ruining football. And we are the villains. And we must stroke our cats like the Bond villains that we are and love our club. It's all we have left. But we have one other thing left. If you are listening to this on the day this pod is released, then in mere days, we will launch our fundraiser. And all kidding aside, all jocularity aside, this is the most important thing we do every year. The children in the Zattery camp are human beings who have one thing in common.

Elliot Smith1:33That they all want to find a way to build a better tomorrow for themselves as part of the wider world. They don't want to be forgotten. They don't want to be disconnected. And we have a program called Coaching for Life run by the Arsenal Foundation that helps them connect to the wider world, develop the skills they need to grow into adults who can someday potentially even move back to their home nation to build a life for themselves free of child violence, child labor. Gender based violence, child marriage, things like that, and into a place where they can take the skills that they've learned in the coaching for life program and help contribute to the society generally into a brighter future. And we want to help them do that. And now they need it more than ever, because a lot of funding has been cut off in the last few years, and our funding remains. So we will tell you how you can contribute what you can win if you can contribute what we're going to do to contribute, you're going to hear from people at Arsenal, you're going to hear from players at Arsenal, you're going to hear from people who have been to Zadari camp like myself, and others, and you'll hear what it means to these children. To love Arsenal and what it means for Arsenal to be their connection to wider world. I cannot wait to share all those stories with you and to do this together. Again, you'll have the chance to go to games, you'll have the chance to maybe do some stuff with us, the podcasters, if you even want to do that. So a lot of very exciting things to talk about over the month of April. And we hope you'll join us. And by the way, a little good karma for Arsenal in the month of April could go a long way as it is also the month where we will be confirmed into the Champions League final, be confirmed into the FA Cup final, be confirmed as Premier League champions, all those things, plus confirmed as the

Elliot Smith3:01Greatest supporters in the world as we support a great cause. So here with me now to discuss all things Arsenal are all the people we do it with. One of them is Clive. Hello Clive. One of them is Tim. Hello Tim. One of them is Paul. Hello Paul. And all of us are here to celebrate injuries. Guys, good news. All our players are injured. Clive, how happy are you that every Arsenal player is currently injured?

Clive Palmer3:23Sort of question is that I've got to listen to you talking about Champions League finals and things like that. You are doing everything that I don't believe in. Do not upset the football gods, mate. Honestly, do not do it. Yeah, as we are sitting here, I am watching videos of Piero Hincapié jogging back, not looking his brightly self, but then jogging off with muscle cramps. So. Hoping that one is okay, but who knows what we're find.

Elliot Smith3:56Well, let's deal with the ones that probably aren't okay, Tim, I think it's fair to say that Noni Madweke did actually get injured. I think the Pierrot and Capge one is a little more touch and go to actually there's a feeling of the muscle in a sprint and recovery. And so that that's a little worrying the others across the board in terms of players who have come back, including Declan Rice and Makayla Saka and Zubimendi. I think those others feel a little less likely to be anything Gabriel never went off to begin with, which is helpful. So, so Leib is not with the France team. But so let's talk about Noni and in capia for a moment. The Noni when he was in a brace after he had a contact injury on his knee, but the knee kind of maybe hyperextended maybe got bent in a weird position. So what are your thoughts on those two Noni and Piero?

Tim Stillman4:47Yeah, I mean, obviously, Noni Madueke has an issue and we cross our fingers and all of that, it's very difficult. We're just at that stage of the season, aren't we? A two monther and that's you done. Incapia, I would guess, is broadly the same as all the others. So let's put this very clearly. Clubs do not pull players out of international duty. They are not allowed. That is not how it works. It is one. 100 % the decision of the national team whether players can pull out or not clubs have no input There'll be discussions and stuff, but they have no input into it They have no say all that's happening now is that clubs and national teams are aligned because the World Cup is coming and National teams they don't care if they injure your players for three months in November They don't care because they don't have to worry about it till March at this point. They injured your players, their players, however you want to call it

Tim Stillman5:47For three months, they're out of the World Cup. So all that's happening is that clubs and national teams are aligned at the moment. And that's why the big, the big giveaway trend in all of these injuries, except Madoeke is that all players who are guaranteed to get into the teams and the squads. And then you look at some of the guys who aren't Mosquera, Martinelli, funnily enough, not pulled out injured. Italy had big playoff games, California, funnily enough, not pulled out injured. I think what's what that shows you what's happening here is all these national team managers. They all realize that these guys are going. They're in my squad. They're in my team. The World Cup's three months away. I know when they go back, they've got important stuff to do. They're going to play every minute of every game, Arsenal, particularly in three different competitions. It is expedient for them. It is not to do with Arsenal. Pulling players out. I'm sure Arsenal are very, very happy to. I'm sure Arsenal would love to do this in November and October as well, but they can't because the national teams won't do it because it's not in their interest. All that is happening now is that those interests are aligned. So hincapié, I mean, obviously I don't really know. What I would imagine is that all of these guys are on the edge of an injury. That's what I'd

Tim Stillman7:04Imagine. They've all got aches and pains. They all need massages. They're all, you know, a little bit stiff and everyone's just like doesn't serve me if they get injured and doesn't serve you. The plan, same for the players themselves. And this is a very rare opportunity where actually we could give them a bit of rest and that suits everybody as well. Know, Maduraki clearly there is there. I mean, you saw him go off. There's a knee brace involved. It doesn't look fantastic. Does it? Really? Like I said, usually you'd be quivering. Is that an eight weeker? Is that a 12 weeker? I mean, either one ends his season. Think be very surprised to see him again, which is a real shame, but there we go.

Elliot Smith7:46I mean, I guess you could say it's like a deep bone bruise and they're just stabilizing it and you don't know. Like it's hard to hypothesize. What I think is more interesting, Paul, given that we don't know is which of these absences you think gives us a bigger problem. The maximum number of games we can play the rest of the season is 15. That's the max. If everything goes perfectly, we play 15 games. So you're looking at can SACA give us 15 starts? You know, can California give us 15 starts? Well, California can't you feel like miles can come in there? If SACA can't now you're talking about like, are you gonna start max in a game? Are you going to bring Martinelli over to the right? It gets a little bit more interesting with that position. So do you find the non injury to be the potentially more damaging one to navigate if we were to presume that both are going to miss? I was gonna say substantial time. But Tim's point at this point, it could be the season if that's the case.

Paul Cassidy8:43Yeah, yeah. I found Tim's Tim nailed it, obviously, as he always does. And I found it very reassuring till he included his own fly with the ointment on Noddy. That's the on Noni. That's the one Nadi. That's a good, good combination of Noni Madiwaki and the tongue don't lie. Like we do have options between Saka, Martinelli off the right. It's weird. Think maybe it's that thing where players you haven't seen always seem better than many of the players you have seen. And, you know, we haven't seen Martin Helly so much off the right, but I think we've genuinely seen good performances and maybe it's just the opponent hasn't got used to that matchup yet, but he's been good off the right in my mind's eye. And so that's encouraging. Now you still want Saka to be doing your starting. But minutes shared by Martin, Ellie, it's an, it's a very different look if you're an opponent and you've, you've maybe just about handled Saka for 60 or 70 minutes. And then Martin, how did it comes on for 20, 25 minutes at the end. And from time to time, max down. I mean, that's, that's somewhat encouraging as a, as a lineup, but again, once the opponent knows that's who they're going to face in terms of Saka, then Martin, Ellie.

Paul Cassidy10:10Maybe they can come to terms with it a little bit more, but I think at least initially, that gives us some options, not as many options. You want Madwaki, but if we may not have them, I don't know.

Elliot Smith10:23Clive, which one for you is thornier to navigate if they're both out?

Clive Palmer10:28Well, I look at it from a key player perspective. The key players are for me, the two centre mids and the two centre halves. If they're fit and available and fresh, because the centre mids haven't looked fresh for a while, if they're fresh, I think we'll be good. Saliba's had an ankle from almost Anfield, and you see he misses your training session. It's the same ankle again. Had a fantastic game against City, he was the only one. So he's been taken out. Big Gabby's got the knee. Probably that looks a little bit strategic, shall we say. I'll probably say the one that concerns me probably the most is probably Maloeké really. But who's to tell? When you read these things, you're not sure what's true, right? Because we've mainly played a few minutes every day and he's come off with knee pain. What does that mean? You just don't know, right? So it is a worry. And I know Paul was talking about solutions there. What's really interesting, I can think of loads of solutions. I'll tell you what really, really focuses the mind. Say we're one nil down against Bournemouth 15 minutes ago, what do we do? Are those solutions good enough? Now, Martin Ely is one of those players that's playing. I read earlier today that Brazil are playing in Orlando on Wednesday night. So

Clive Palmer11:49We're all expecting to play against Sam Pantel. He'll probably be the latest player back. So that's a player that potentially we won't have on top of Madueke being out, on top of Eze being out, Eze potentially back for Man City, but who's to know? I just read that just now. So he's a concern. And the press conference this week is going to be, it's going have a world record attendance, I reckon. It's going to be massive to find out the information, right?

Elliot Smith12:16I think the problem with the nonny injury is that it's exacerbated by the ESA injury because you might have thought one way we can keep some similar qualities in the squad is moving Saka inside and playing nonny off the right, right? And then have nonny beaten guys to the byline, you have Saka providing some end product and final third contribution in the absence of Ebrich ESA. And you can keep Zubimendi and Rice in there and the roles they're familiar with and that feels good. If you take nonny out, you've got to start Saka off the right, which I have no problem with. But now your midfield options start to sound a little bit like Zuby, Rice and Kai, who we don't think can play 90 minutes every week, let alone 90 minutes at all. Your midfield options get really thin. I honestly think you're looking at Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield. I think you're looking at creative solutions. You might be looking at Max Dowman starting games that feel a little bit beyond where we want to be starting him now. And that's the thing, Tim. I think within cap yay out, I don't want to be someone who's relying on California's fitness. But when he's fit, I think we should be leaning into California for reasons we've covered about our technical level, our creativity, our ball progression. Fine. But if you said to me, can I trust California to start and play 90 minutes for 15 games? No, candidly, I don't. You have miles. And whatever we think of where miles is in his current arsenal career trajectory, he's a player who started at the Bernabelle.

Elliot Smith13:40He's a player who started against PSG over two legs, he can be called upon and I think he can be trusted. I don't know how we set up the midfield in a scenario where Kai can't go or we don't want him to go. And that scenario maybe as soon as Southampton if we want to keep him wrapped in cotton wool for Lisbon, sporting Lisbon. I don't know Tim, like what is the midfield solution? If Noni is in fact out and as I said back until City or later.

Tim Stillman14:07Yeah, I mean, God,

Elliot Smith14:10Yeah, yeah, yeah, he could be back. Everyone's been screaming that at their device for the last 30 seconds, so I'm glad you brought it up.

Tim Stillman14:16And, uh, I mean, it says a lot that it slipped your mind though. Um,

Elliot Smith14:20It totally did, yeah.

Tim Stillman14:21I think he's played something like 34, 35 % of the minutes so far this season. And I, you know, we've, we've said it so many times, particularly during the second half of the season, we're waiting for like a hero, as it were, just someone to just have a good two months, you know? Well, yeah,

Elliot Smith14:37It's all setting up for him to be that guy right now.

Tim Stillman14:40Cause it kind of looked like it could have been Eze. It could be like, Oh, we found him. We've worked out to play with him. He's very confident. He's having. You know, 25 shots a game. Then, yeah, of course the injury gods were like, really? Which is, which has basically been the story of the season in attack. And has contributed to the fact that our attack just hasn't looked cohesive all year. Part of it is just having a lot of options, part of it's injuries. Everyone just keeps getting injured. So it could well be her to God and look, what did the man say? You know, what all the stuff that came out of the man city game, you know, look, that's man city as well, but like, stuff we've we've seen like at Wolves and Chelsea and Brighton where we couldn't keep the ball and couldn't keep teams off us and we've had to sit back in shape and my Odegaard can help with a lot of those things. I mean, obviously the current trends do not support the idea that Odegaard's going to come in, stay fit and be his self pre ankle injury. None of the recent trends point to that, but doesn't mean it can't happen.

Tim Stillman15:47But we might like without Madueki, for example, we might get into a position where we probably will get into a position where we'll have to use Max Dowman at least to some extent, even off the right and, kind of weirdly, cause I think really like really correctly, we're obviously trying to look after him, like not bringing him on in the Carabao Cup final when we were two nil down. When I'm sure Arteta would have wanted to, but I think he must've thought, I can't put this on him kind of thing. But it's almost different when you're forced to play a player because here's the thing, he is really good. Like he is really, really good. And again, sort of, know, conscious about the way you talk about him and applying that pressure and everything. Like, I guess what I'm saying is that in two months time, we could be sitting here going, actually wasn't it a blessing in disguise that we had to play down with a bit more? It might be, again, I don't want to put that on him. There are a lot of senior attackers still there. I'd still like rather talk about Odegaard being, you know, and he's certainly going to be the one who you'd think is going to start most of the games and et cetera, et cetera. And I think he would be very cognizant of the responsibility. I think Odegaard would relish the chance as well, because I'm sure he knows he hasn't had a great 18 months.

Tim Stillman17:10And I'm sure he'd be sitting there thinking, do you know what? Let me at him. Let me at him. Like I, I, I need this and my team needs this. Like, let's go. I hope that's, that's kind of how he's thinking. Cause he's capable as well.

Elliot Smith17:25Maybe I'm being a little bit naive about player mindsets, but in a way, it's also probably very clarifying for him to come back at a time when Merino's not fit, Kai's only ever half fit, Ebrich as is not fit. It's not like he's coming back and has to prove he should be trusted by the manager and win people back. He's coming back at a time when people will throw their arms around him and be thankful he's back and he can go in. There's no one else to call on. It's your chance. Be the captain. Go play your game. You don't have to worry you're going to lose your place to Eze if you have a stinker. You don't have to worry you're going to lose your place to Merino if you have a stinker. You don't have to do anything other than play the best you can because we need you right now. And maybe that's a clarifying situation for him after such a injury hit season and a couple of seasons where he's just not had the opportunity to come in and play at his best level for a consistent period and get into shape. So that could be helpful. But Paul, I just want to ask about the other players quickly, just because I don't want to rush past it with assumptions? Do you assume, like I think many people do, that all of the other players who have returned to Arsenal are fine? And if you do assume that, what's your reaction to it? Because I find myself pounding the table going, finally, finally, we've reached a point where we have enough to play for and something important enough going on and enough clout and credibility with national teams that sent that

Elliot Smith18:49They're reaching a point of being sensible and reasonable about how our players are used. But am I being naive here?

Paul Cassidy18:55We need the filter of time. Needed another week or so to see who got back. Who's the walking wounded. You just don't know. It can't be that they all magically perfectly timed their, their Nagle. Like there's going to be something in there. There's going to be somebody where like, crap. He actually does have something to deal with. And we won't know. Won't know particularly who, who it is. You'd like to think beyond the right wing, have enough options. If Odegaard's back, ready to go, you know, we have Noorgaard. I know he hasn't been trusted, but he's been okay when we've seen him play. And I'm not saying he'll be a starter, but he may be able to do the minutes that he hasn't got earlier in the season. I don't see why he doesn't get more 15 and 20 minute gigs. We've got Myles Lewis-Skelly who can. Maybe do a stint in midfield. Could, we could play a game or two later on in the season where you got Noorgaard with Zubimendi and Rice as the midfield and Zubimendi pushing a little forward. We've seen that used on the right-hand side a few times.

Paul Cassidy20:10So you just hope there's enough options all around, but we need the filter of time, another week or so.

Elliot Smith20:16Yeah, you know, it's crazy. If you imagine in a title winning season in a treble competing season, you'll get to April and you'll be like, well, we know our best group and we put that group out there and that group out there plays well. And all season, it feels like we've been changing the calculus and moving the chess pieces and figuring out how to cope with an absence and figure out can someone can we move SACA into midfield? Can this player come into this position? It is crazy that we've achieved as much as we have this season to put ourselves in a position to win things. And still have not really been able to settle on a group that we want to put out there in winning time. So Clive, I wonder, I've been, I think, pretty vocal in my criticism of our forum recently and where I think some of the issues have been. I think a very fair rejoinder to that is simply fatigue that all the teams are running on fumes. Know, look, look at city dropping points to Forest and West Ham, right? Look at the way they got hammered by Ray on Madrid. Look at some of the, you know, I think jaded performances we've put in. It's a tough time of the season for everybody in the Premier League who's competing on multiple fronts. Do you think that these players being called back and having potentially not just a week, but more than a week, depending on what we do at Southampton to really get their legs fit again. Do you think that this could be bigger than any of us imagine in terms of what we might see from Arsenal performance wise in April, grabbing this moment to get some of these players?

Elliot Smith21:4110 days or two weeks of recovery time.

Clive Palmer21:44I think it's critical and think Tim's point about alignment earlier is the one. We all know the minutes now, don't we, that people are playing. And so it's quite easy to see which ones are on the edge. And so I thought Tusha was really, really good by putting out that list of players that have played a lot of time and then telling them, everybody, why he's done it. Of course, the English media went a bit crazy. Come on, England first. How can you do this sort of thing?

Elliot Smith22:12Wearing his three lions shirt for people who can't see it. I'm sure he was there booing Ben White the other day, but we can get to that in a moment. Go. Okay, so you weren't there booing Ben White the other day. I take it back.

Tim Stillman22:16I'll point out it's an England Lionesses show actually, so.

Clive Palmer22:23So yeah, but you know, when it comes down to it, it's sports science, right? So the actual injury list is quite daunting actually. And I know we're talking about it because we have to, because it's just come up. Part of my concern at the moment is not who's injured, but how are going to play? You know, because the last performance in my mind was not one that's really filled with pride, you know? If go for that list, just go for it. We should go for it. Timber, we don't know where he is. He hasn't played for a while. That could be anything. I'm hopeful he's going to be all right. I wasn't sure how close he came to being selected for the final. In fact, I'm sure I saw him in training, which surprised me when he missed the final. Know, going across the back four, obviously, Hinkapu, just learned about. Cary Fiori has a proper game on Tuesday night. And so he's going to play two, know, two 90s. He's already done one. It's Northern Ireland. It wasn't the end of the world and he was brilliant. But it's a proper game he's going to play. In the midfield, Zubimendi,

Elliot Smith23:21Gyokeres as well. Outcoming office hat trick.

Clive Palmer23:24Going across, I'm just going to keep it in order earlier. Zubimendi, knee pain, Gabriel, knee pain, sliver, ankle, but we probably know they're going to be all right. As we know about calf looks like man's city, man's a weke that worried me. The brace is used to stabilize the knee. You're gonna limp when you're walking with that, because it's meant to make you limp. You don't want it moving. But that's a worry when that settles down. What does that look like? No updates yet, but there'll be one soon. Somebody on Twitter will soon say something. Those things, when you have knee-on-knee contact, they never feel like a week or two, do they? You you're looking, I might hopeful prognosis you three weeks or something like that, but we'll see. Saka's on the edge of something. If he's breaking down in warmups earlier this year, we know he's on the edge of something. His form will be explained by his injury and how close he is. Know, Trossard pulled out. Again, you know, there's another one we haven't even mentioned. Jokere's got a proper game, as you said earlier, and he's going to play. He's going to lead the line. At the moment, Touchwood has been quite robust, but you know, anything can happen there, right? And he's going to play, and we need him. Although people don't, everyone's behind him, but.

Clive Palmer24:34We absolutely need him. Havoc's played an hour the other day and that was good minutes for him. But I watched him walking behind the goal in the Wembley final. He looked absolutely battered. So I just hope that he's just fitness and not injury. And so we got a big group there. Mark Nelly, we know he's exposed to minutes. Norgard's played the first game. He's exposed to minutes, but good minutes. Myles played under 21s. I watched that game. He was okay. Steady game, 1-1 against Andorra. Okay at left back. I think this is a reset moment. I really do a reset moment for us mentally and injury wise. And we'll soon know when that training video comes out where we are. Again, the press conference team, know that rune, they might have to extend it. But then the training videos might have a million views and people scouring those pictures. So yeah, it's gonna be interesting for you,

Paul Cassidy25:30And they'll get no answers.

Tim Stillman25:34I'm there on Friday for Rene's press conference, so I'll probably be able to sneak into the back of that one. So I'll do all the body language reading for you.

Clive Palmer25:38Yeah, exactly, mate. Do some disguise photographs, you know what mean? Like a little click, click, click, click.

Elliot Smith25:43I'll be carefully watching the WhatsApp chat to see what comes through. But look, I mean, think this is an interesting one, Tim, because we don't come back from internationals right into the thick of the Premier League title race. We come back from internationals into an FA Cup quarterfinal against Southampton. Now Southampton, in way, could be tricky under the lights, right back from internationals. What's really exciting, though, I think about the best I've ever seen Arsenal be under Mikaela Ortenen. It was after Dubai. Right. And one of the things that you just don't get anymore when you're a club of our stature competing on our on our multiple fronts is preparation time, tactical development time, just training the muscle as Mikel likes to say, working with individual players on individual bits, you're just getting them rest, going over the tactical plan and then going off and playing the next game. Tim, there's a lot of time here for Mikel. If he wants to tinker to try it in training to try different things. To work on the areas he thinks he's been struggling to really make sure they improve. There's a decent amount of time here to get players not only rested, but really back into their best form tactically and from a training standpoint in a way we haven't before. I think it's a huge advantage. And then you come into games like Southampton and even Sporting Lisbon potentially where that immediate intense pressure of the league isn't right on you. Could this be a, without wanting to be over.

Elliot Smith27:07Optimistic about stuff, but a Dubai esque moment at the absolute time we needed it most.

Tim Stillman27:15I wouldn't go that far just because I'm sure most of those players aren't training. Even if they're like really fit, like I'm sure that Arteta would have just said, like especially like the first week, like just go away, go somewhere else, maybe go on holiday, get on a plane and go. So I'm pretty sure the guys that pulled out straight away, Trossard, Timber, Gabriel, Saliba, you know, no Instagram stories from any of those accounts. Over the last week, I'm sure they've been looking at sunsets and stuff like that and rightly so. So for those players in particular, know, hopefully again, I'm sure that they were on the edge, but at least on the edge of some kind of injury. So obviously that would require treatment. So it's more the rest and recuperation that the kind of, so that like the training part, I don't think will be there unless like, maybe they can come back into training a day earlier. Than if they'd gone away, you know, and, everyday counts. Don't get me wrong. So like, maybe they can come back in Tuesday instead of like returning on Wednesday, having a rub down and then training on Thursday. Maybe they can bring that all forward 24 hours. I think what will be really useful though, is the staff just being able to review things. I mean, how many rewatches do you think Mikel's done of the Carabao Cup final now? Like triple figures by now?

Tim Stillman28:40Just. Looking at it with the clockwork orange style kind of things in his eyes and you know his wife desperately You know kind of saying come to bed mickael. No, no, no, I'm I must watch how we were passing out from the back here. So, you know, I i'm sure like Yeah, and look maybe even mickael had a mental reset himself Maybe for the first couple two or three days. He maybe he just went. Do you know what? I'm having two days off from this because I'll have plenty of time after that. You know, I think definitely, yeah, hopefully some of those players that pulled out have been on a beach somewhere, you know, with a masseuse with them. And hopefully the staff have been really, really putting the work in, like all of the technical staff looking over what we're going to do next.

Elliot Smith29:33If you said to me I could wave magic wand and make five players at Arsenal, even four players at Arsenal be 100 % tip top rested and fit, I would have said Gabby, Celeba, Declan and Bukayo. That would have been my list. You know, you could you could nitpick a timber or Zubimendi in there if you wanted. But like those would have been my four. And all of them are right now. At least if we believe what we think we believe are resting and relaxing and recovering and that can only be a good thing for us. Paul since Tim mentioned it, something happened to me psychologically. But we don't,

Paul Cassidy30:10We've all said that for a long time.

Elliot Smith30:12We don't have time for all that. We have time for some of that. I said a million times before the cup final, whether we win it or lose it, it will drive a lot of narrative, but I don't think it will actually matter. Right? That that was my thought. And yet I find myself feeling that it dented my confidence quite a lot. That seeing the way we were outplayed, especially in the second half, seeing the degree to which they were able to outclass us, the quality they brought to that game and our inability to do the same, like it had more of an impact on me than I was expecting. I'm guessing the same is not true for you. And I know you said you immediately went to the learnings, but do you have any hangover from that? And is it impacting you in terms of your assessment of where we are and where they are as we try to run the sort of last little bit of this track that we have to. Run to get over the line.

Paul Cassidy31:03So it definitely had an impact on me and I'm sure it had an impact on them. It doesn't necessarily mean in the longterm, like, think anybody looking back on it now would say, even if you're in the camp that says it's all about the trophies and screw your learnings, that would be the reaction on the day or the day after the day or the day after that. But surely, like, I also think it's about the trophies, but when you don't get a trophy. Yeah. Second prize is some learnings. So we got some learnings and nobody thinking back in that can think we didn't need some learnings. Mean, we were bad, right. And we got a schooling. Yeah.

Elliot Smith31:50Yeah, at least for the last hour, let's say it like that. We had our moment to begin with and then,

Paul Cassidy31:56Yeah. I mean, you could say, I think you could argue for the whole thing because, you know, we, after a bright, whatever 15 ish or so the game settled into its setter settled pattern. And you could see the seeds of our demise at that point, because we didn't have an answer for four to four from, from city. And that was apparent for quite a while. It was just a question of them doing what they do, which is getting in a stranglehold over time. And we didn't do anything different. So, okay. It's it's outcome based, but you can kinda, it's not hard to write the narrative that, that that was coming. And with every passing five or 10 minutes that we didn't change something, it was even more. It seemed even more inevitable. So there were lots of learnings to have out of it. You could also say, well, the one big learning is I'd start with Dava dry up and that's a different game. So. You got to be careful as well with the learnings. It would have been a different game and we would have had options. Mean, Kepa should have been able to do more from the back. Wasn't all down to Kepa, but it wasn't like that was where your chain of, of issues started. The foot at the ball at the foot of the keeper was move number one and Raya would have been different. Now you might've gone long.

Paul Cassidy33:21Rather than passing it out, but he might've gone long better. He got it might've gone long differently. We might've been more attuned like. So there's, think there's two worlds. There's the world where the simple answer is, well, what would have happened with Raya? And then there's still the world of why weren't we better and how didn't we respond to why can't we string two or three passes together? Wasn't, no, not everything started with cap at the back. Were plenty of other. Breaks in play in which we did not find common. And we've seen this many times this season. I've not been able to string more than two passes together. So there's, and let me jump to one other thing you were talking about, you know, it's great having everybody back and is this our Dubai matter moment and like, can we come up with new ways to, don't think there's a time of the season where you come up with new ways. Cause there's that mental fatigue on the team too. And the players are coming back in dribs and drabs. What you can do is. Open up the playbook for things that have worked for us in the past that maybe you're overlooking at the moment. And I think that's what Arteta will be doing right now, who'll be saying, what does this team know that we can lean into for different games? So I think it'll be very beneficial this period of time, mainly for Mikel and the coaching team to

Paul Cassidy34:36Start to plot the last, as you said, it might be 15 games, the last 15 games, who, when, all the what if scenarios in terms of, we might have this player for that, that player for this and start kind of planning out those moves and what tactics do we use? Which tactics do we use that best help this team perform? I think. Mikel and the coaching team will be the big winners from this period. Mean, everybody. Yeah.

Elliot Smith35:02I see which Yeah, no, I see what you mean. You're using this time to really understand what can we lean into that we do well and how do we turn the volume up on that? Yeah.

Paul Cassidy35:08Plotted out the what ifs.

Elliot Smith35:10I'm gonna say something that I don't want to upset people, but I hope it will make sense. I wasn't gutted by the cup final because we didn't win a trophy. I mean, obviously, I would have liked to win the trophy. That would have been great. But if we end the season with the FA Cup, the Champions League and the Premier League, no one will ever think about that game ever again. Like literally no one, I think honestly, we just win the Premier League. No one will think about that game ever again is my belief. I was gutted about it because of the performance and the concerns that it turned up to a red alert for me that had been simmering just below the surface. And I do think we had come off better performances against Bayer Leverkusen and Everton Clive, but these were some concerns. So I'm wondering now that you've got some distance from the cup final and had a chance to think about that performance and the knowledge that even if we think the league is ours, it's a fait accompli, that trip to the Etihad is going to feel, I think, weighty, you know, I think it will feel consequential. So how have you with a little bit of distance from that game internalized our failings in it and what if any meaning it has for what's to come?

Clive Palmer36:18Yeah, the city game was such a, it hurt. It was such a poor game. But, Elliot, mate, tactically, it's so easy to analyze and it's like the easiest thing in the world. And we weren't brave enough to overcome it. We didn't push enough people into the back line to create an equilibrium of numbers. Every time it went long, we were, they had two more players there to pick up the second ball. We lost like the second ball. The dual numbers were shocking. Also the team based on duals. So as you see that dual analyst, you think we got it wrong. You see that again and they're splitting the centre backs to our midfield too. So you got back four there, you got four of their players and you got our midfield too trying to find an angle. You got full backs not quite pushing on. That means you've got six people behind the ball. So anything we do going forward, we're playing into four v six. So we're not going to win it. That is not difficult for elite coaches. Honestly, mate, isn't. And we didn't do it. We weren't brave enough. And that's the bit that concerns me, our lack of bravery. And so this break for me is all about mental freshness. Because when you see people that are mentally fresh, can provide the solutions. They start to dance through people. They start to be braver. They start to turn out the right way, be more aggressive.

Clive Palmer37:40Push on, you just start mental freshness to really go and step out of your zone rather than stand in your zone. And I just didn't think we as a group, as players and coaches that we recognize what was happening. And we weren't brave enough until we were two goals down and then we were thrashing around, right? And made changes and put more people against them. They just stood up and watched us. So it is a concern. Have I had that concern this season? I haven't. Honestly, I haven't seen us technically that dumb all season. We haven't always played well, but that's down to us. And maybe we've been quite conservative and we say, you know what, we're in four competitions. Sometimes you just need to sit and hold. In this game, we were sitting and hold. If Ray is there, we don't drop it. And then we may see that period off and go again, right? So, it's just one of those. And I've been conscious this week not to put too much on this one game, though it's hard because. You know, you're there and you see it and it's big and they're dancing around Wembley because they haven't beaten us for a while, don't forget. They haven't beaten us, you know, you see Pet running down that sideline. It meant something to them. It really did.

Elliot Smith38:46Well, it's also a cup final losing cup finals. I mean, like Baku hurt, you know, you know, and that that's a competition I don't even care about.

Clive Palmer38:51Yeah, well, that's a whole new ball game of hurt that is. That's a whole new ball game of hurt that one was. But like, so yeah, they recognize that this is it. Can we chin them? Can we make the money? And they did it and they really rammed it home and they enjoyed it. And now we have to react. I'm hopeful that we get back to being us, you know, and sometimes we look at an opposition that does their stuff on the ball. Tactics are. So you think, we need to do more of that on the ball. We need to do more of that. No, no, Just get back to being us. Let's get back to being a forceful, hard running, dual winning team that creates many transitions, hits the box hard, runs down the side and does things in a positive way. You know, and we have set pieces because we own the territory and we put crosses in and if they get blocked, we get a set piece. Really threatening. We control the psychological nature of the game. That's who this team is. Let's get back to being that first, you know? And then when we're that, then we can develop more on the ball, et cetera, et cetera. So that's my little worry. I've just forgotten. Was, Everton, Leverkusen, I was there and I was really positive. Rocking up to Wembley, it's quite clear that we didn't have to write players on the pitch for that day and they had to write mentality.

Clive Palmer40:07And so let's focus on that. We fixed that, get our players back and go again.

Elliot Smith40:11Kind of, I want to take your temperature on one thing real quick. And I kind of want to ask Tim and Paul the same thing. I see a lot of talking about the league, like it is a fait accompli, like it is done.

Clive Palmer40:21I don't like it.

Paul Cassidy40:22Nope, nope, nope.

Elliot Smith40:24That, look, I'm with you. I think in the arsenal social circles, I travel in, you know, both in person in digital spaces, there is a lot of it's done kind of talk like we it's done. And you know, if you like the data and you know, Scott does fantastic work with data, obviously, so I can't always look for his projections in his models come out opt to has a model. Everyone's got us 90 % or above to do. And I close my eyes and I try to picture the red ribbons on the trophy and the trophy lift and the guard of honor and the parade. And Clive, I can't picture it yet. I'm not there. I can't picture it. I feel like there's still work to do. And in the in the sort of vacillations of form I've seen from this team. I think the idea that it's done to write off a team that's won all the fricking titles in last decade, that's usually good at going on a run on the run in, I think it's dangerous and it scares me and we still have to go to their place. And yet it's a team that dropped points to West Ham. It's a team that dropped points to Forest. It's a team that got shredded by Real Madrid. Maybe what I need to accept is the Premier League is different. Teams dropped.

Elliot Smith41:34Points, and we're going to and they're going to and we're going to get there. But where are you in terms of feeling like we, we can close our eyes and start picturing it, it's going to happen? How? How are you thinking about the extent to which the job feels done to you?

Clive Palmer41:47Yeah, I'm with you. I haven't thought that at all. I'm just taking it step by step. This weekend, I was at an event at the British Library, Tim was there as well, and there were some very, you know, prominent arsehole people there and journalists there. And it's only one conversation to have, right? It's about what we're doing, how we're playing, and do you think we're going to win? Some of the people there, maybe non-arsehole people, saying, yeah, you've got it, it's done. I spent a bit of time talking to Alan Davies and he's wracked with fear.

Elliot Smith42:14There you go.

Clive Palmer42:17Much like myself. It's not my fear, it's like, we know this is so important. It's so important for so many reasons. And I don't want to be one of those people who over-celebrates too soon. People saying, see the parade, Clive, I'm thinking, mate, do not say that. You know? I just want all I'm focused on is Bournemouth. You know? And I'm not there yet, Elliot. I'm not there yet. And I think. It'd be great if it happened. I'm knee-said when it happens. It'd be great if it happened. But what's really overcoming, what's in the front of my mind is, what if it doesn't happen? What does this mean for everybody in the group, et cetera? And that's in my mind. But then there's another bit. What if it does happen? And the cultural explosion of Arsenal Football Club will be something that we've never seen. It would go places that I've never seen. And that's what I want to see. I think I know what's coming. I think, you know, we won the league last time. Didn't, you know, the globality and the globalisation of the club was not where it is today. The amount of people around the world that support us is just a different place now. And so I want it for everybody and I want to see what it looks like. And I want people to realise, particularly in London, they'll soon realise who runs the show. And so

Clive Palmer43:37It's going to be an interesting time. So I'll just take it step by step. I'm where you are, Elliot. I'm not celebrating. No open talk buses for me, mate, not yet.

Elliot Smith43:47Yeah, I want to get Paul and Tim's take on this too. I just want to take a quick breather to give everybody the brands they need to improve their life because without that, I don't think they can absorb the intelligent contribution that is to come on this podcast. And I want to make sure that you're in a position to do that in most productive way possible. So let's tell you about some brands that are going to be really important for you moving forward. Okay, glad we did that. Tim, what about you? Where's your head at in terms of feeling like you can picture it, feeling like you can manifest it in your mind, you can close your eyes, you can picture the ribbons, you can be on the streets surrounded by other Arsenal supporters. Where are you at?

Tim Stillman44:31I mean, obviously I can picture that. I've been picturing it for 22 years. But, like, so let me preface this by saying, I think we will do it. I think we'll, we'll grit it over the line cause that's who we are. And that's probably what has to happen at this point anyway. I don't think anyone plays champagne football in April. Right. And I cast my mind back to years when we did do it 2004. We got 90 points and won the league unbeaten. But there was a point where we were 2-1 down at home to Liverpool and it looked like we weren't going to do it at all. And a month later we'd done it. In 2001-2002, one of my biggest memories was we had two home games in a week against West Ham and Ipswich. And we were 0-0 in both of them on 80 minutes. Scary times. 97-98? I don't know if. Any of you guys remember this game at home to Derby? Was actually night Bergkamp went off injured and that meant he was missing the cup final. So we had a bit of trauma late Emmanuel Patigo 1-0 Derby will rubbish that season, but it was tight. It was horrible. People forget this stuff and like justifiably so it's been a long time. But most league titles at this stage, if you're going to win it, unless you're in a procession, which we are not, it's

Tim Stillman45:56It gets, you know, I could even go back, Elliot, to 1953 on April the 1st, 1953, Arsenal was sixth and they won the league. The days of two points for a win, but like,

Elliot Smith46:12Say I really hope the team that's in six currently does not win the title.

Tim Stillman46:17I like I guess what I'm saying you just said it at the top of the show and I know they're not all league games we could play 15 more games this season 15 that is a lot of games and Something rubbish is gonna happen and at least one at least one like Probably more like let's face it. We're probably not gonna win the treble we might we might but like what I'm saying is there's a high likelihood that some pain is coming somewhere. You know, and we've just experienced some, haven't we? So like this part is never plain sailing. So no, like my head is not fast forwarded there. And I think the Etihad looms large. I think it's as simple as this. Think what I've thought for a long time, City, I think have to be us in that game. Like that, think they absolutely have to be us. I think that's been apparent for a while. And if they don't, then I start visualizing, then I start ordering the crates and yeah.

Elliot Smith47:17Think it's a fait accompli if they don't beat us. Yeah, I mean, unless something crazy happens, like we lose to Bournemouth and they beat Chelsea and then we draw the Eddie had this to be work to do. But even then, I think like it's a fait accompli if they don't beat us at the at Eddie had

Tim Stillman47:28So no, I'm not, think we'll do it. I do think we'll do it, but no, can't force fast forward that much yet. There's, too much to go yet.

Elliot Smith47:37Paul, you've been chomping at the bit to get in on this one for a while. Sorry, but where you at?

Paul Cassidy47:42Yeah, well, just like those models are great, but I have the same problem with them every year. And it's pretty easy to see, right? If if they win at the end of the hat, if they get their extra three points, none of which seems particularly ridiculous right at this moment. Mean, I'm like, I'm still generally positive. But and then we lose first. Like, watch the numbers on those models flip.

Elliot Smith48:11Yet let me say it this way, if they win their game in hand, and they beat us at the Eddie head, what do you think the models are saying? You know, it's a three, it's a three point gap. It's not 90 % at that point. Let's put it that way.

Paul Cassidy48:23I know the models are based on science and yada, yada, yada, but at the end of the day, you can also say, but also.

Elliot Smith48:27Paul, there's a bit too much yada yadaing of science at the moment, so I'd appreciate it if you would not go down that path.

Paul Cassidy48:33Yeah. But if you take the other path, which is the simple human thing, all we got to do is screw up before they screw up and they win the couple of games we talked about, which doesn't seem ridiculous. This is not a procession. This is not done. I mean, that's, that's nuts. What are you doing to yourself? If that's the way I can tell you, Mikel doesn't think this is done. These players don't think it's done.

Elliot Smith48:56I just say one thing in defense of the people that do think it's done? Their argument would be your concern is predicated on city being a team. They have not been all season because city are in worse form than we are right now. Like there's no debating that it dropped points to West Ham and forest as I said, so I think that the it's done crowd would be basing it not only on the models, but on the idea that there's nothing to suggest city are about to become the team we're scared of them be.

Paul Cassidy49:25Well, there's nothing to suggest that their form will be worse than our form going forward. Right. It's a rear view look and like fine, but like, all right. If that's, if that's how you want to see the world, be, be prepared for one hell of a white knuckle ride. Yet a Willenda, am I right? From the flying Willendas, a tight rope Walker. They had to hose her off the pavement to use a line out of Mad Men in 1962 because she looked down, right? Now she should have been able to get across that high wire line in New York, but you just need one off day and things get very interesting for you. And we just need one off day and things would get very interesting for us. And run ins are different. We know that. So. Look, I feel generally, I think we're going to do it. I feel positive, like any, but I guarantee you between now and the end of the season, those people who think it's done. We'll have at least one or two weeks where they're like, Holy shit. What was I thinking?

Clive Palmer50:40No, I agree. This is. Well, you know, I can only. Yeah,

Elliot Smith50:43Well, shit, I wasn't expecting this from all of us.

Paul Cassidy50:48Generally positive though.

Clive Palmer50:50It's very difficult. We are where we are. We're right close now. We can all feel it. We're close. But we're also scarred in recent years, aren't we? We're scarred and the Cup final maybe reawoken some of those scars. I think this team is made of different stuff. We scored the most goals, we see the least goals, we got a good goal difference. If you're a mathematician, then you're going to see what you see, But I'm a human being that's still got Wembley Way walk back to the tube stop in my mind, right? Those.

Elliot Smith51:24I thought you were a tactics football computer wearing a human being suit.

Clive Palmer51:28Well, there's an emotional connection to football that you have that's just not written in any spreadsheet. It just isn't. And that connection to a game and that connection to a team is individual to the person that has it. And you have to work in that connection and you have to, you build it on your structure and your experience and your exposure to the game. That's the thing that I try my hardest to work on. And when you connect to your team and your club emotionally, you see every single emotional dip and it hurts and it stays in your mind and you walk with it, you go to gym with it, you walk your dog with it, go to work with it. It stays in your mind and you extrapolate, you make it bigger. Then someone comes along and says something, oh, that's actually calming down, it makes me feel better. Then someone comes along and that makes you even more worried. Then you go into the emotional washing machine and then you sometimes forget that your team is actually quite good. And maybe, rather than losing a saliva and a tear in the initial national break or around this period when we lost Tommy Yasir around this period.

Clive Palmer52:31We can go back to those key injuries that we've lost when we were exposed squad wise and maybe we learned some lessons. I look at Liverpool squad last year and I look at their back four that played a lot of games and they never got injuries in those areas. And no one talks about exposure to their squad. This year they've suffered injuries and they've lost some rhythm. City suffered injuries last year. They reloaded their squad. We suffered injuries. We've reloaded ours. We're still suffering injuries. But I think we've been quite cautious with how we've pull people, even in warm-ups, people out so not long injuries. We need a break. We need a break with the Maserweke thing. We need a break with the Eze thing. We need a break. We need a break. We

Elliot Smith53:11Not an actual leg break though, like we need to catch a break.

Clive Palmer53:14Also need a break with form because we've got players returning. We've got players in our squad with good names. You know, you read their names out. They're good names. They've got good wages. They've got good history, but we need form. We need bravery and we need form. You know, we haven't mentioned Gabby J. Zeus. He's one of our captains in our club. And we've lost people in wide areas. We don't talk about him because we haven't got a memory of recent form. Martin Odegaard. We haven't really seen recent good form. The picture of the player, he's top three player in the league two years ago and league team with a season. Right? We haven't got that player for a while, but we need him to come back. Our star player. The form around it, needed to come back, Havertz, we need this to come back. And I find myself looking at the people that have built this house, the architects of this team, that built this group in the Jesus, the oligarchs, the Havertz, have been in a few years. They're the ones I almost want to see them carry us over the line. I want them, the Sackers as well, to come and carry us over the line. So.

Clive Palmer54:23Because the squad mentality of the new players have really allowed us to be in this position. Now we're here. Come on lads. This is it now. This is the time for you to step up. That's the overriding feeling that I have. I can't get away from it. I can't get away from thinking about ball moves to be honest.

Elliot Smith54:39Yeah, and I think it's just interesting, right? Because having anxiety or apprehension about us being able to do this, I think is natural and human. It is the case that Manchester City have not been very good this season. They just haven't. Their longest win streak this season is six games in the league. And that was Leeds, Fulham, Sunderland, Palace, West Ham, Forest. Other than that, they have a four game win streak. They're currently on a streak of two draws, Forest and West Ham, and a couple of losses to Madrid, by the way. So they've got to prove they can be what we're worried about. You know, that that's part of it. And one thing that we could get lucky with too, by the way, is where they place that Palace game that has to be rescheduled, that could get put into a tricky place. What could be interesting, by the way, it could get put depending on what Palace do in the Europa Conference League. Things when they're in, it could get put on the last week of the season. It could get put mid week for the last week of season. Now the irony is, if we make the FA Cup final, we could have Burnley put mid week of the last week of the season. And that could make for a very, very interesting final weekend would certainly make for an interesting union champion weekend for us looking ahead to that. But Tim, it does bring up the FA Cup and the Champions League. And

Elliot Smith56:05This is what's so weird. Neither the FA Cup nor Champions League feels like it's even started. We played lower league opposition in the FA Cup. And so our biggest conversation around the FA Cup has been how much can we rotate? We're into the quarterfinals, but we win one more game. We're to Wembley again. And yet the conversation inevitably even with Southampton is going to be how much can we rotate? Who can we rest? And in the Champions League, we walked our way through the league table phase without much ado about any of it. And then we played a team we were heavy favorite against and got past them. And now we're to face another team we're heavy favorite against with a chance to get into the semi final of the Champions League, which we've only done. Is it four times now in our history? If we if we do it three times ever? Is it weird to you how these cups which we value and cherish, and especially in the Champions League case, when we've never won that they don't feel like they've even started or come into our collective consciousness yet? And how strange is that for you?

Tim Stillman57:00It is, but at the same time, even if in the FA Cup, we'd knocked out like, I don't know, Man City in Liverpool or something to get here. I just think the league is so big for everyone that I still think that'd be in the rearview mirror a little bit. And it's interesting, you know, same event as Clive yesterday and talking to Arsenal fans and also a wedding on a Friday evening for my dear friend Ricky, who's a, who's a listener to this podcast. I think some of you know as well, and, you know, just talking to a lot of awesome fat and so many people are like the league is all I really care about. And, and I, I really do think that that's really prevailing. Think if we were on this champions league run, like last season, it doesn't matter who, um, we'd be, everyone would be talking about it. It would be the big thing. But I just think everyone's got one and three quarter eyes on the league, a quarter of an eye on the Champions League and the FA Cup, you know, kind of feels like a nice to have in that scenario, which feels like a weird thing to say when you haven't won anything for six years and you kind of got to try and win something. So I think definitely the FA Cup, you know, would have quote unquote suffered in the conversation anyway. I just think everyone's got all eyes on the league.

Tim Stillman58:22Um, really, and I've said before, I'd rather win the champions league just cause I just want to do it once. And then I'd never say that again. Um, to be honest, I was having, yeah, I was having an interesting conversation with someone else on Friday night as well. Cause like with the champions league thing as well, it's like once, right? We're not catching up Liverpool or Real Madrid or any of those teams. Like that's not happening while I'm living and breathing. So like. If we do it twice, like obviously fantastic, if we do it twice or three times or whatever, but like, I just want it once. That's, that's, that's the kind of thing. And then I would always, always say the league after that. So I just think that's where everyone's head is at quite naturally. I don't actually think who we've played in the cup and the champions. It's probably, you're right. It's probably contributed a bit, particularly in the buildup to those specific games. If we had like Man City on Saturday. We'd probably still be saying who can we get away with rotating and stuff like that but yeah I just think the league is all to pretty much everyone I think.

Elliot Smith59:28Yeah, and not to put the shits up people but like it is the case that we could go to the Eddie had in the league in the very next weekend be playing city again at Wembley. Like, I mean, it could be and then the Newcastle home game gets moved to the midweek and it all you know and if we were to somehow beat city at Wembley go to the final then the Burnley game gets moved to a midweek and may could suddenly have all our hopes and dreams in its hands. We could have Barcelona twice and city at Wembley and a Wembley final and I mean, it could be

Clive Palmer59:58Can I ask a question Elliot? It's a very

Elliot Smith59:58It could be, man, yeah, yeah.

Clive Palmer1:00:02Difficult question. Would you give up the FA Cup against Southampton?

Elliot Smith1:00:09Give it up as in like, just like, no, no, I wouldn't give it up. I mean, if you said what are you giving me in return for

Clive Palmer1:00:16Well, a clear fixer list to make sure we win the Alpha 2.

Elliot Smith1:00:21So this is where people scream at me. I wanted to crash out of the league cup at the first turtle. I bet you all wish we'd done that now. But like, the problem is, if we beat Southampton, we're in a semi-final to win a cup we love and cherish and is tied to our history and connected us in a deep way. And I want the treble. You know what, guys? Screw your I only want the league. I want the treble. If we really believe we're great, if we really want to write our names into history, if we really want to etch ourselves onto the mountaintops of the great teams of all time and stuff that worst champion ever talked down their throat and stuff that ruining football talk down their throat, then don't run away from history, run towards it. You've got a clean path to the semifinal of the Champions League with no dominant team in Europe except maybe Bayern. You've got a reasonable path into Wembley in the FA Cup and you got a good chunky lead at the top of the Premier League that you should be able to hold on to. Don't run away from history. Go chase it and write your name up there with the other treble winners and no one will ever be able to say shit against Arsenal and this Arsenal ever again. So maybe that's naive, but once you get to the precipice of this kind of history, why would you back away from it? I just, we have the players, we have the right manager, we have just enough depth to do it. We're too close now Clive to answer your question for me to pick one over the other. Now.

Elliot Smith1:01:43If I can only have two, it's the league and the Champions League, of course, that everybody agrees on that. If I can only have one, normally to Tim's point, I would have picked the Champions League because I think it's absence is a blot on our record book, a blot on our CV. But if we fail to do the league now, the damage that we'll have from this position, I think will be lasting. So we have to do the league. I'd pick that over all of them. But let's go chase history. And Paul is shaking his head vigorously. He does not want the treble. He does not want to win three trophies. I'm not sure he wants to win. Any trophies because as we know it is about the learnings and we would learn so much from winning nothing right Paul?

Paul Cassidy1:02:19We're not at the precipice of history. Just to, you, you went to the math earlier, like let's say we got 90 % on the league and we got what 20, 25 % on the FA cup probability of winning it.

Elliot Smith1:02:33I think we're higher than that, but yeah, go ahead.

Paul Cassidy1:02:35Not much. I mean, there's a lot of good teams left. Why would we, okay, let's give it 30%.

Elliot Smith1:02:40You keep talking, I'm gonna give you the odds that we have to win FA Cup and the odds that we have to win the Champions League.

Paul Cassidy1:02:45Good, yeah. And let's say it's 30 % for the FA Cup, 30 % for the Champions League. Multiply them together. You're at.

Elliot Smith1:02:5634%, depending on probability markets, I think, for the FA Cup.

Paul Cassidy1:03:00You multiply up 34 % and 90 % and another 30%. You're at about 10 % chances of winning the three. So what do I want? I just want the premier league and the champions league Elliot. Um, so just the two.

Elliot Smith1:03:17Just those two, We're plus 230 for the Champions League. All right, I'll give it to you. What

Paul Cassidy1:03:23Yeah, nobody knows what that means in the UK.

Elliot Smith1:03:26Is plus 230 in percentage? It is.

Paul Cassidy1:03:31Is like the ArseCast, you know where Andrew does it. I'll just look that

Tim Stillman1:03:33It's like 46%, isn't it?

Elliot Smith1:03:35Plus 230 odds is 30.3 % probability, implied probability.

Paul Cassidy1:03:42I said 30. I mean, I was guessing wildly. So you got 30 by 35%. You're at like not good numbers with even if you give a hundred percent of the league for those people who want to be a hundred percent, you're nowhere near the precipice of history.

Elliot Smith1:03:55Well, let me ask it to you another way. When have we ever been 30 % like 30 % one in three to win the Champions League?

Paul Cassidy1:04:05Yeah, but I feel you don't know what 230 percents in a row does to you. But you do. You do, Elliot. You do.

Elliot Smith1:04:09Yeah, I know it gets it gets it low. Do I do. You went to the mat like, like, I get we're not on the precipice. But do you let me ask you this, Paul, let me put another way. Do you think we'll get past Southampton?

Paul Cassidy1:04:20Not if we put out a bad enough team. Yeah, I do. I do. Yeah.

Elliot Smith1:04:23All right, do you think we'll get past Southampton? Okay, do you think we'll get past Sporting Lisbon?

Paul Cassidy1:04:29Yeah, but it'll be close, yeah.

Elliot Smith1:04:30Okay, so that means we'd be two games from winning the FA Cup, three games from winning the Champions League, and right there with a good shot at the primary, like Clive, talk me off the ledge here, man, I'm all the way back in, I want the treble now, and I'm not walking away from it, I want the treble.

Clive Palmer1:04:44There'll be people out there that think that, and I'm not sure I am, I don't care. I'm in one game, I mean, I'm not, about Southampton, mean, you the FA Cup. Yeah,

Elliot Smith1:04:48I do. Yeah.

Clive Palmer1:04:52I'm in one game at a time, though, and when you're sitting here with 11,

Paul Cassidy1:04:55Yeah, me too.

Clive Palmer1:04:5612 injuries, that's a valid question, right? You've got to raise it. It's a broad church, right? There people thinking like this. I have scars. I

Elliot Smith1:05:05That's a good point, yep.

Clive Palmer1:05:06Have scars from 2004, when we were. Juggling an FA Cup semi-final and we had Chelsea in the Champions League. Tim will know this, he knows what I'm going to say. Well, it's not even that.

Elliot Smith1:05:19It's my most painful ever arsenal moment, I think.

Clive Palmer1:05:23We didn't quite commit to the FA Cup semi-final and lost that. We then blew our gasket against Chelsea and we ran out of juice towards the end and lost that. And we nearly blew our gasket against Liverpool. And at that point, at that 2-1 down, I tell you now, you want to know what trauma feels like in that ground? I mean, that was trauma. And so I often felt, historically, I wish we'd have chucked the FA Cup because that team deserved to win the Champions League. And that was a year to do it. So it's a valid question. I'm not sure I am. I'm in one game at a time mode, but I think it's a valid question. And when the injury reports come out. Then I think we'll all feel a bit more confident if everyone's okay. If everyone's not okay, we might have a decision to make.

Elliot Smith1:06:14Paul, you've raised your hand, so I will reluctantly cede the floor back to you.

Paul Cassidy1:06:19Yeah, well, I want to make a point that even you might agree with on this. Why have we got to where we have today? Can call us Set Piece FC. You can call us whatever you like. Can call us defensive. Our bench, our bench has contributed the goals and assists that city has. Like zero off their bench. I'm making numbers up, but they're not far wrong. We've got like 21 goals and assists off our bench. I'm making that up, but I think it might actually be based on something. If we were at our bench, that has been our superpower. So we got to be very careful how we, we only have so many beans. You can't spread them around too thin. Mean, I'm, I'm with Clive on this. 100%. I don't think we're anywhere near the edge of history because I don't think the bench spreads across 15 games and keeps giving it like the bench is getting thinner and thinner and we got to preserve it. Hence, I think that's the way we go.

Elliot Smith1:07:25Where Cup football though is really different. And I want to emphasize this, Arsenal Football Club have played, how many games have we played this season? Tim, you probably know this, 50. Okay, we've played 50 games and we have lost three times. Once, four times, sorry, yes. Once to United, which I had memory hold, but once to Liverpool, you know, off a late winner in a nothing game. Once to city were outclassed in a cup final less said about that the better and like and Villa Yeah, again, one at the death. Here's what I would say there's no game we play where I think we're gonna lose our games where I think we're not going to win because of goal scoring issues. But in general, we don't lose a lot. And Tim, like, if we get past Southampton, and you say we have city in the semi final, or Chelsea. I don't I'm not saying I think we'll win it. But I think we're harder to beat than anyone. And in a cup, you got to beat somebody. So, you know,

Elliot Smith1:08:25I'd like our chances. And I'm not saying we're definitely pass sporting Lisbon because I don't think we were so good against Bayern Leverkusen that we can take anybody for granted. And I certainly don't think Barcelona be a walk in the park. That's for damn sure. Let alone a, you know, a Champions League final against Bayern. So I want to be careful about saying we're on the precipice. But what I mean is, I like our team to not lose games. Now in the league, you got to win games. And I don't always like our team to win games because I think scoring is hard, but I like our team to not lose games. Granted, the cup final just dented that a bit. I just say there aren't gonna be many seasons in your life ever where you have a chance to win a treble. We've never done it. I mean, who's ever done it? Is it United and City? Is that it? Okay. I just feel like if we really, really want to look at this situation, say we've got a team that's really hard to beat, doesn't lose much. Is it should it be in our mind? I realize it can't be in the players minds. I got to play one game at a time. But we've mostly laughed it off. And everybody here is protecting themselves. I just want the league I just want the league. I'm pretty sure United fans the season they won the trouble going I just want the league I just want the league. City fans I don't know because they're they aren't out there aren't there aren't any of them. But like, how do you navigate at least acknowledging that that possibility is out there and it is a chance to write your name in history in a very serious way.

Tim Stillman1:09:43Of course it is. Course it is. Well, this is like whatever you want to call it. Pontoon 21. You're on 17. Are you sticking or twisting? That's.

Elliot Smith1:09:51Yeah. Gosh, yeah, it is, isn't it? It's like that's such a good point. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Tim Stillman1:09:57Do you want to go for 21 or are you sticking on 17? Because, know, one of the things that, you know, as, as Clive said there, probably in 2004 cost ourselves the champions league, but, and we did breast players in the FA cup semi-final, by the way, we did play Jeremy Ali Adier up front. It was pretty much it

Clive Palmer1:10:16Was it only one player though, Tim? Was it really Henri? Was it? Yeah, yeah.

Tim Stillman1:10:20Would, they played Bergkamp and Ali Adier up front and it was Reyes and Henry against Chelsea. So they arrested the front too, but, and, and actually

Clive Palmer1:10:25Yeah, fair point.

Tim Stillman1:10:27The squad wasn't really big enough then to do that. It's an under remembered thing about the invincibles. It was 15 players really like Edu, Ray Parler, Canu, Wilt Ord. Beyond that, not many guys on the bench you'd want playing to be honest. And that was kind of a moment in time as well because we had so few injuries that season. It comes down to, are you prepared to potentially jeopardize one of the big two? In the interest of getting all three. Because where it would come down to it, we all know what we're going to do in the league for the rest of the season. There's going to be no rotated 11s there. So like Christian Norgard, unless we're three and a lot, mate, you're not getting a kick in either of those. Southampton is the last time that there's any chance of that. Because after that, like FA Cup semifinals, you're not playing a championship or a league one team again. You're going to you're be playing a serious, not sorry.

Elliot Smith1:11:27No, because it's going to be Liverpool City or Chelsea.

Tim Stillman1:11:29Exactly. Yeah. You're going to be playing one of the like the big premier league teams. So, so then it comes down to what do you do for the FA cup semi-final? If we're there, that's what we're talking about here, right? FA cup semi-final comes around. Let's say we are in the champions league semi-final. What are you going to do?

Elliot Smith1:11:46Yeah, well, and let me set that table for you, Tim, because it could be this. It could be we lose at the Etihad in the league. We have, let's just say, Chelsea in the semifinal and Barcelona wrapped around that game.

Tim Stillman1:12:00Yeah. I mean, I don't, I think there'd be some decisions made for the FA cup semi-final, which again, we did, we did, we're not even talking really modern football here. We did that 22 years ago. We made that choice to some extent. So, I, think, I think he'd make those choices again. I don't think like full complete rotation. And again, it would depend like where are your injuries and stuff like that, but. Yeah, I think, I think he'd potentially make some choices and, and, and you're still kind of gambling there, aren't you? You're gambling on, can I leave soccer on the bench against Chelsea or Liverpool, bring him on with half an hour to go and that win and win the game, even if it's on penalties or something. That's just, that that's just how this stuff goes. Man United, when they won the treble 1999 FA cup final rested their front two. They rested Cole and York. Because they had the Champions League final on Wednesday. They actually had a weird situation where their midfield duo were out of the Champions League final so they could play then full beans to the FA Cup final. They were in the FA Cup final and they made those choices as well.

Clive Palmer1:13:11Do you remember May United in the replay in 99? They switched to front two, didn't they? They went sharing them and Solskjaer for

Tim Stillman1:13:15Mm. Yep. And SoulShark.

Clive Palmer1:13:20That game. They almost half gave it up, didn't they? Half gave it up and got away with it obviously in spectacular fashion and ended strong. So, decisions to make. And I'll tell you now, mate, that injury ball is gonna be key.

Elliot Smith1:13:35I have a comment to make about that, Paul has politely raised his hand. So Paul.

Paul Cassidy1:13:38Yeah. Like Tim's analogy with pontoon 21 is good. It's useful. But the problem is, you know, all your probabilities. I prefer the analogy of the Titanic's going down. That's a bit of a downer. Okay. But you're in a lifeboat. So that's good. You got two spots left. Your wife and three of your children are swimming around in the water. You got two spots, but you're not sure you might have three. Might get away with it. You don't know how much water is going to come in or not. Like dirt.

Tim Stillman1:14:10That would bring the report cards into sharp focus, wouldn't it?

Clive Palmer1:14:15About your girlfriend? Is there room for her?

Elliot Smith1:14:18Your wife and your girlfriend? I don't think you want them both in the lifeboat, mate.

Paul Cassidy1:14:21Unlike you Clive, I kept my girlfriend nice and safe on dry land. Yeah. The point being you don't know if you can get two people

Elliot Smith1:14:26Look, I do just want to say something. Right.

Paul Cassidy1:14:31Into the boat or not. That's another calculation. We don't know what happens. There's so many unknowns that the, the safer you get. That's why I go to safety in this case, because like precipice of history, I don't think so. I think we're miles back from the cliff. It's three competitions. Like you're going to do what you're going to do. You're going to put out a rotated, but functional team. And like, in the end, the fates decide.

Elliot Smith1:14:58Yeah, the thing that makes this unusual is the way that fixtures fall, right? Coming back from an international break to lower league opposition to get into the semi-final of the FA Cup. And then going to Lisbon when we know we have the return like back at home and we're favorites before you get back in the league. That's just a really weird construction of the schedule. It is not remotely far-fetched that we could have come off losing at the Etihad in the league to make the league more nervy. But be in the semi-final of both cups and have this exact scenario, city at Wembley, Barcelona on either side of it, like, and then a league fixture that's really important. I'll just say this, and this is the thing I don't think people will like, because nobody likes this. Nobody likes to believe that luck plays a role. Everybody wants to believe that if you just do all the right things the right way, you're in control. And I think luck is gonna play a role here. I think one of these teams, is going to have a ball bounce off somebody's ass and go in or one team isn't. I think injuries are going to play a role. I think someone's going to get an injury that they weren't expecting. And it's going to play a big role. Maybe we get players back. Maybe Mikel Merino can play in May. Just enough. When these last little fixtures come around. Probably not. Let's be fair. Like,

Elliot Smith1:16:16Yeah.

Tim Stillman1:16:16I, I was just going to say, one of the things I was going to finish on is if we don't win the treble, Mikel Arteta has done, you know, I'm talking like the general consensus.

Elliot Smith1:16:25He's done. Yeah.

Tim Stillman1:16:27He made this massive bloody mistake. We were just talking about the invincible season there. And it's like, why didn't he bloody do this in the FA Cup? So the greatest season in our club's history. And we're going, why didn't he do this in the FA Cup semi-final? Like, unless we go perfect and win all of these games and win the treble, then that's not what I think. But Michael Arthet has been an idiot and he's cost us. Yeah, that's where it's gonna come in, right? Yeah.

Elliot Smith1:16:51Well, this was where I was going. This was going because to your point, like Alex Ferguson made the same decision rotated some players got away with it. This is what I'm saying. Mikel is going to have to make some hard choices and get away with it. And sometimes in football, you do get away with it. It has not been

Clive Palmer1:17:07We have to squad that in.

Elliot Smith1:17:08Our history recently to get away with it. Every injury that could have happened at the worst possible time has happened. But maybe as it comes back, and maybe Kai is rounding into fitness, and maybe Noni's injury isn't as bad as we think. And maybe, maybe, maybe Odegaard's back and he looks good right away. I think luck will play a role in this to an extent we don't want to acknowledge. But if the players are fit, you cannot convince me we aren't favorites in every game we play to not lose it. And not losing it is a way to win cups. So, boy.

Paul Cassidy1:17:41You can be favorite in every game, but not favorite in all games together.

Elliot Smith1:17:45Of course, that's how probabilities work, right? But but that's the thing for managers, you can't manage all the games at once you can manage the game in front of you. I think it actually the hardest management period you guys the hardest for McKell will be Southampton in sporting Lisbon. Because after that, I do think it's clarifying. I think you play your best available team against Barcelona if you're in it. I think you play your best available team against city or Chelsea or Liverpool in the FA Cup semi final. I think you play your best available team again against Barcelona and you play your best available team in the Premier League. And that that's probably it. The hardest one, ironically, if we wind up in this situation is the FA Cup final. Because it comes before the Champions League final and before what would potentially be a two match week in the Premier League. So we'll see this. This. Mean, the butterflies in my stomach are like, are like pterodactyl size, just talking about it. So it is as Tim has been pointing out all season going to be absolutely excruciating, but we are really lucky to be on the ride where we are like, that's the thing I can't stress enough instead of connecting to anything bad about where we are. I'm trying to connect to how exciting it is to be chasing the things we're chasing. And Mikel tried to say that, right? His whole get on the boat thing was focus on what the history we can accomplish. Don't focus on what we could lose. And that is there's two sides to every sports fan, right? There's a sports fan is like, our team's the best and our team will win everything. There is a sports fan, like in fever pitch, it was like, our team's a bunch of see you next Tuesdays they're

Elliot Smith1:19:09Gonna find a way to choke it all away. And that gong. Lets me know that we have reached the end of the podcast. It is the Gong Show. If you're old enough, you know what I'm talking about. Clive, thank you for indicating that.

Clive Palmer1:19:18Sorry. Thank you very much.

Tim Stillman1:19:22My pleasure as always.

Elliot Smith1:19:23Great job, Pop.

Paul Cassidy1:19:25Woohoo! Elliot, I hope we've done one thing in this show and if we've done this, I think it was worth all of that. What else? I hope we've terrified the people who thought the league was a lie.

Elliot Smith1:19:35Yeah, I hope we've just terrified everybody generally about all this because I know it did it to me. And if we've done one other thing, I hope it's convinced you that we need your help for the fundraiser coming in a couple of days. We'll have a lot of announcements we'll be giving. I know Andrew is going to help us out from the ourscast. I the club are going to have some people that want to talk to you about it. I know that some players have some stuff to say. This is a really critical moment to give and I do know I do want to emphasize this. There's a billion causes out there that are worthwhile. There are a billion people that I've need. And ideally in a world you help all of them. But wanting to help all of them can give you analysis paralysis or choice paralysis. We help none of them. So we have a cause, our club picked it. It's brilliant what they do. They do so much work in the North London community, but this community of young people, they're just kids. They need help and we're gonna help them. So I hope you will join us in doing that.

Paul Cassidy1:20:21It's the premier league of causes.

Elliot Smith1:20:23It is exactly, well done. We love you. And we will talk to you after Arsenal 10 South Hampton Hill.