After hints of a crisis, Manchester City laughed as they sat on the couch on Sunday, watching all of Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Arsenal drop points, while Liverpool barely scraped a win thanks to a fortunate penalty call. It wasn’t exactly a scintillating day of soccer on Sunday, but it might have been a very important one.
Arsene Wenger is running Arsenal’s squad into the ground
He can’t blame his injury woes on bad luck anymore.
Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
Sunday’s scores
Injuries doom Arsenal
The loss of Francis Coquelin was a massive blow to Arsenal’s defense. They lost Laurent Koscielny to injury against Norwich too. This is what happened to his replacement, Gabriel.
Pancaked.
Alexis Sanchez was subbed off injured too, and he probably had no business playing in the match.
So Wenger says before the game that Sanchez had a hamstring problem but still risked him - a gamble that has backfired spectacularly.
— Phil McNulty (@philmcnulty) November 29, 2015 Santi Cazorla looked like he was struggling mightily at the end of the match too. Once again, Arsenal are going to have a title challenge thwarted by the injury bug, and it looks like it’s explicitly Arsene Wenger’s fault. He could have rotated in some backup and youth players on Sunday and he could have made more signings in the summer, but he chose not to do either of those things.
Don’t take your whole squad to Azerbaijan
A point against Chelsea isn’t bad for Spurs.
Well, this was always going to be the most likely scoreline, wasn’t it? A point against a bunkered Mourinho team isn’t a bad result.
— Cartilage Free Capt. (@cartilagefree) November 29, 2015 But, like, maybe don’t fly all of your best players to Azerbaijan and have them play most of the game the Thursday before a massive Premier League London derby?
.@ChrisEriksen8: "It was a fight and a tough game after a long week. We're disappointed not to win though." pic.twitter.com/B0WJ8rR8b7
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) November 29, 2015 Tough week! Didn't feel we had the same energy today as usual. But still not a bad point. Recover now for West Brom! pic.twitter.com/CASRsH0rVL
— Harry Kane (@HKane) November 29, 2015 You know. Just a thought.
Christian Benteke is struggling
Daniel Sturridge is fit again, and on the evidence of Benteke’s performance against Swansea, he’ll get into the starting lineup sooner rather than later. Here’s Liverpool Offside’s real time reaction to Benteke’s performance.
- Benteke has absolutely massive feet, which allow you to see just how terrible his touch was on a take from a lofted, dreamboat of a ball from Can. Be better, Tekkers ...
- We're not sure what we're paying you for, Christian, but cheeky little layoffs when you receive it in the area with space to swivel and strike is most certainly not the fuck it.
Yikes.
Yoooooooo this free kick!
West Ham vs. West Brom was basically your standard-issue mid-table 1-1 draw, except for this goal.
What a hit by Mauro Zarate, and probably the goal of the week.
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