Hello and welcome to a brand new R-Splug R-Scast right here on R-Splug.com. How are you?

I hope you're well. It's been I think a pretty good week since the last time we spoke we've had a North London Darby which went swimmingly well.

Again against Manchester United which didn't go quite as well as we might have liked but still when you consider that we had taken just three points from our previous 33 that we could have taken at Old Trafford.

Going back to 2006 which was the last time we won there manual Eddie by your scoring the goal and we just played it to our be which took a hell of a lot out of the players and we lost two players to injury.

Rob Holding will talk about in a while Aaron Ramsey of course going off at half time as well all those things taken into consideration four points from six from those games.

I'm alright with that I'm alright with that and I do get the the opportunity missed kind of thing with Manchester United because well it's not the strongest United team we've ever seen and we didn't really cover ourselves in glory when he came to their goals.

Both goals I think you could say we could have done better with in terms of our defending not great from Alex and Obi on the first one against United didn't react and also was way deeper than everybody else on that free kick was taken.

So the offside which was really marginal against Herrera would have been more emphatic had he kept the defensive lines so that was one thing and then he didn't really close the ball down quick enough not sure Rob Holding did quite enough but I'm not in the mood to give Rob holding any grief because it does look as if he is going to be out for some time they fear at the time of recording that it may well be a crucial injury crucial need ligament injury which if it is the case is going to rule Rob Holding out.

So we're not going to rule Rob Holding out for the rest of this season that's a worry for us because we're not necessarily the strongest team defensively anyway and in terms of strength and depth we don't have a great deal of that we're playing three at the back and we played our three center halves against Manchester United against Tarnamann in the previous game as well.

It's also worth pointing out that both Socrates and Mustaffey are on four bookings each in the Premier League so that means next time they're booked in the Premier League they have to miss a game through suspension as Granis Jacke did against Manchester United during the week.

Now we do have Lauren Cassiani coming back from injury and the timing of that is is very welcome indeed he played for the under 21's on Monday night or Tuesday night in the Czechotrade trophy they lost to one he limped off after about 85 minutes he had cramped which is understandable considering how little football he's played since Mayan he is may he is way back from a very serious and very traumatic injury so the timing of his return is fantastic but and there is a but he is.

So he is coming back from a really really big injury one that would have been challenging at 23 let alone 33 and it might well take him some time to get back up to full speed if indeed he can ever get back to full speed there's got to be question marks that's all I'm saying obviously I hope that he can and I hope that he can make a big contribution because I think we need him we have defensive issues this.

But I'm sure Unai Emery would prefer if his team wasn't quite so profligate at the back in 14 Premier League games you've considered 20 goals which is much more than anybody else in the top five.

I'm not counting Manchester United in this but compared to Tundum Chelsea Liverpool a man city obviously those two in particular I've considered far fewer goals so we do need something to make us more solid at the back in injury to Rob Holding is not going to be one of those things but maybe they're going to be a good match.

I'm not going to be a good match but maybe the return of of natural Montréal and Lauren Cassialney will help as we go forward and go into a very testing period of the year the festive fixtures really mount up we're going to talk about some of those in a little few minutes time with our guest just to tell you what we've got coming up as well we've got a t-shirt competition for you chance for you actually for two of you to win a t-shirt today from good honest pro.com they've got some good arsenal t-shirts on there so listen out for your chance to do that a bit later on it'll be a good match.

I'll ask you a question which will of course be fiendishly difficult and you can answer the question and you might win yourself a t-shirt I'll also give the winner of the David Squires book David was on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and we'll have the winner of that competition around the same time as I give you a chance to win something else what else oh yeah I just want to say thank you very much indeed to everybody who listens to the show not just for listening to the show but for your votes and for all you support because the first time I've been in the show is the first time I've been in the show and I'm not going to be a good match.

I've been in Dublin I committed to that event before I knew we were one of the finalists so they were there they had a lovely free meal and drinks and all that kind of stuff and they got to win the award so we are not only best fan media but best Fran Marida nobody can come close to us when it comes to being the best Fran Marida we're the best Fran Marida we can possibly be so we're all very very happy with the award because it wasn't just for me or for Andrew or for James it was for everybody that contributes to the site we've got a big team of people who are really happy with the award and we're going to be a big team of people who are going to win the show.

We're going to be a big team of people working on our blog Tim Stillman of course you know who is doing Arsenal women and whose column you read every week on our blog.com George Bird who does our reserves and youth coverage we've got a new match reporter this season Hata he's doing that.

Scott is doing the by the numbers the stats pieces after all our big games this season on our blog news as well and Tom who looks after things from a technical point of view has done amazing work in the last four or five weeks.

We were having some issues with the site whenever something got a bit too big or a bit too exciting our servers would sort of go and Tom has made it all better so everything is working great and thanks to him for that and thanks to all the team for the work that they do and for making sure that you guys have got great

Arsenal content to read and to listen to and to watch and everything else so we're delighted and we want to thank you very much for for being with us all the way it's coming up on 17 years now since our blog began and you know I like to think we're doing a good job in this ever changing new media landscape but we couldn't do without you and we couldn't do without you being with us on a consistent basis and supporting us both here.

In the podcast on the site on patreon and everything else so I just want to say a big thank you to you thank you.

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