We Lost, Yet Still Won
Jul 31st, 2017 by 'holic
It is wonderful being on holiday in the west country. Unless Arsenal are on television and you want to follow the match on Cornish wifi, or tortoisenet as it is also known. I caught something like twenty minutes of oft-buffered action which the Arsenal won by a first Laca goal to nil.
So I am turning over the next four paragraphs to those of you who were posting in the drinks. Thank goodness you did, and apologies for stealing your content.
Danny is a master of the unintentional scuff-dummy. I actually saw that! That goes down as an assist.
All that cash and he (Hector Bellerin) can’t even afford a bowl and pair of scissors. A valid tonsorial point, I’m sure you will agree.
Total nonsense that Sevilla didn’t win the mini competition (I concur) but who cares anyway? Thought Ox terrific, Laca the goal poacher, Ramsey industrious. I thought Elneny did all right in the middle of the three, lots of interceptions.
Gotta love a comp where you can lose half your matches and still beat a team that wins all of theirs!
So it would appear that Sevilla struck either side of Alexandre Lacazette’s first goal for the club. I still haven’t seen them as they are not on Arsenal Player tonight, or maybe totoisenet is unable to update the site.
General impression I have is that they were good value for the win and it was definitely not a good day at the office for us. Is that so worrying at this stage of pre-season when we are very much playing sides of a pick and mix persuasion? Perhaps not.
It would be more of a concern next Sunday when we should see something closer to the starting eleven against Leicester. In the meantime the struggle to keep up with modern day life down here will continue.
It’s not one I’m fussed about winning, either. The laid-backedess of this place is just great.
Have a relaxed one, ‘holics.
46 Responses to “We Lost, Yet Still Won”
Very inventive, ‘Holic.
This place takes after its master.
No apologies needed, H, you should see the stuff I’ve nicked over the years… nothing of any value of course, guv…
Nice one H. Pretty much sums it up.
We didn’t look bad going forward until creating chances are counted whereas they had someone/several players capable of cutting us open with incisive through balls or maybe our defending just made him/them look like he/they had DB10 quality vision and technique.
Maybe Elnenny isn’t ‘Kaizer Franz’ Mk II after all.
Enjoy your break H. I hope you took your snorkel and wellies.
Yep, you didn’t miss much Holic,
I saw the whole thing on Quest tv – again – complete with a repeat of the halftime french polishing lesson. Beats Carra into a coghghghed hattt any day of the week.
Personally, Ramsey bothers me in this team, especially at home when Özil is also in the side. Maybe he is instructed to do so but Ramsey seems to me to have no positional or defensive discipline at all.
Yes, he is industrious, as someone remarked in the drinks, but he seems to follow the game all over the pitch, often to the detriment of other players.
His apparent need to take so many touches on the ball, often slows down attacks and gives defenders time to get back in position and mark our forward players. There was one bad example of that late in the game on Sunday when he stopped the ball running through to an advanced Oxlade-Chamberlain, ran back towards his own goal with the ball, checked, turned back and eventually passed to – you guessed it – Oxlade-Chamberlain who was now marked.
He also runs centrally into Özil’s natural space, too often forcing Ozil out wide and leaving his holding partner very exposed to the counter attack.
His late runs into the opposition box are very good but far too often result in a scuffed or ultimately delayed shot.
He is a worry in a system that uses wing backs because he doesn’t naturally slip into a covering area when they go forwards – preferring to get into the heart of the attack.
His running is constant and i’m sure he has a great will to win.
For me though, he creates a lot of delay and confusion in our system, especially in home matches.
It’s not really a practical solution, but it would almost be better to play Ozil in the number 10 role at home and rotate with Ramsey in that position in away games.
Bat @4 – “Enjoy your break H. I hope you took your snorkel and wellies.”
Just don’t wear them both at once – whatever the occasion ! ?
No worries with plagiarising me, ‘holic, just call it ‘research’ as I do. 🙂
As Trev suggests, the obvious solution to the Rambo/Messup confusion is to drop one of them. The only difference between us is I’d have Rambo doing the playmaking all the time.
I also think we’re on different tracks with Ox, my view being it’s too easy to get dazzled with the lad’s tireless enterprise and aggressiveness and overlook the usually poor end results.
But what would this blog be if we all agreed, eh Trev? One of your usual is waiting on the bar. But don’t leave it there too long with this lot…
Problem above closing the bracket, sorry.
Oops, looking back I’m not sure it was Trev championing Ox, more likely someone in the previous drinks. Apologies all round.
Mohamed was, is
and will be great
end of
I thought he was excellent at CB, SSY. But so long as we play 3 at the back I can’t see AW picking him ahead of at least 3 of Kos, Mustafi, Nacho and Holding, or even Per. Xhaka and Elneny ahead of them looks most likely. But that leaves the question of Rambo, and I’ve already expressed my opinion on that in #7.
Speculation today that if they fail to land Coutinho Barca may go for Mesut instead. http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/834950/Barcelona-Liverpool-Philippe-Coutinho-Arsenal-Mesut-Ozil-Transfer-News-La-Liga-News
Ozil must be rubbish if Barca are in for him, eh?
I agree with Trev and Chris that Ramsey’s best position is No 10, where he plays for Wales. He is fitted into the pivot with Xhaka to get him into the team, but it is not his optimal position though he has the box-to-box physical attributes to play there. I wonder if we were ever in for Matic, who seems a value buy for Manure at £40 million.
I doubt Barca are serious about Ozil, Ned, more likely just trying to limit the ridiculous fee Poo are trying to extract for Coutinho.
I dunno why the chavs would part with Matic anyway.
I refuse to criticise the Emirates Cup. I went on Saturday with my family for my grandson’s Arsenal initiation and it was wonderful with lots of children able to see Arsenal and a benign atmosphere so different to normal match days. ‘ No Giroud you big French poof’ from behind me or ‘ Wenger just go’ which was an occasional remark from a guy a few seats along’. Just fun and adulation. I composed a short blog to help out Holic who is away but it has been overtaken by events I suspect. I forgot about Cornish wifi now that Norfolk wifi , where I am now, has improved so much.
Trev is spot on about Ramsey. He is a bit of a positional menace but not for the opposition! He and Ozil are fighting for one position. But I’m glad he was there against Chelsea in May. Elneny is a terrific continuity player, very hard working and intelligent. Far too useful to sell for buttons. I think we are working on a back three who take passing risks but okay out from the back more excitingly than most back threes. Not sure if it won’t end in tears.
Meanwhile congratulations to Stan on launching a bloodsports TV channel. Now the rest of the world, not just Arsenal fans hate you. What a lack of PR savvy on his part. I’m judging it without seeing it because I would not watch a channel like that. I think PHW was right all along he us not our sort at all.
When it comes to hunting it’s hard to tell which are the animals, the hunters or the hunted. Actually it isn’t, it’s pretty obvious to anyone with a conscience.
As I said before, Kroneke out Usmanov in
Good opp to swap owners donchu fink?
If Usmanov wasn’t so litigious I would make a comment about swapping hunting for something else distasteful, but as he is I won’t.
Still… Stan Kroenke. A man for whom, if the word cunt didn’t already exist in the English language, it would have to be invented.
Well if I had to choose…
Ramsey’s best season, or half-season, was 2013/14, when Ozil first arrived. To allow Ozil time to acclimatise to the Premier League, AW played him out wide and played Ramsey at number 10, where he was clearly our best player and scored a hatful of goals, resulting in the team being top of the league by the end of January. Then he and several others got injured and, guess what, we finished fourth. It’s still a bit of a square peg round hole situation of which we have had too many in recent years. Maybe AW is hoping the three at the back will allow Ramsey the freedom to follow the game over the pitch and surge into the box. It didn’t work on Sunday though. I agree he sometimes has too many touches and slows the game down. Generally, I thought the better team won, Elneny was very good at the back and the Ox was excellent in the right wing back position in the second half.
So early season talk of the big broom, the big clearout, proving totally premature as I predicted with Wenger’s flat wage structure biting us well and truly on the arse. We can’t keep the quality he doesn’t bother tying down with contracts at the going rate (mid season collapses don’t help) and we can’t sell the mediocrity he overpays on 3 and 4 year contracts. How not to run a business. But to cap it all, to be telling possible new recruits that they will be utterly messed around with contracts and possibly left to run down to T-zero on salaries below their actual worth on the open market, it’s mind-dumbingly stupid when we’re still on the market. We must stop this man and his ramblings, none of which make sense and are – and this is being generous – just vanity-inspired efforts to sound a bit different or somehow put his finger in the air as to what might or might not happen in the industry in 10 years time. Just like he hopelessly miscalculated the last 10 years on transfer fees, FFP and the growth of player power (specifically star player power).
Happy August, everyone. May it be a good month for the Arsenal.
A happy August for me would be winning the Community Shield and victories over Leicester and Stoke and at least a draw against Pool in the league.
for me
peace on earth and an end to world hunger
and ……
a tv
a big tv
and money … lotsa money
Hope you get your two tvs and lots of money, CBA, they are realistic aspirations. Peace on earth and end to world hunger are not happening during our lifetime.
Kos available for Community Shield:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/arsenal-koscielny-chelsea-community-shield-10912161
Sounds like a fair swap 🙂
Chastened by Holic’s insistence that I’m personally responsible for a droplet or two of the haemorrhaging of cash from this game of ours, I’m on the hunt for greater value. I’m becoming more discriminating, while still maintaining the high hurdle rate of quality that has been one of the hallmarks of my profligate years.
And so Sunday afternoon saw me seated in the centre section of the vintage, art-deco stand at Dens Park, Dundee for the local derby, (Dark Blues v Arabs). My seat, right on the half-way line, at a height equivalent to Emirates Club Level cost the princely sum of £12 (senior), less than a tenth of its Arsenal equivalent. With a pint of Nessie’s Monster Mash in one mit and a famous Forfar bridie in the other, I felt satisfied that I’d applied a tourniquet sufficient to stem the flow for the next 90 minutes.
Arsenal featured prominently with the presence of former Young Guns Glen Kamara and Roarie Deacon in the famous dark blue of the home team. Kamara played DM, sitting just in front of Dundee’s back home throughout the game. Deacon, who judging by his profile, has already become an aficionada of the aforementioned Nessie pints and Forfar bridies, was positioned on Dundee’s right wing and scarcely ventured more than one yard from the white line on that side of the field.
Expectations of the former Gunners are high. Kamara’s reputation is already sky high based on pre-season games. I thought he had a good game. His distribution was good, if somewhat conservative, and he broke down a lot of attacks without once going to ground. He’s speedy and athletic and will likely do well. He was awarded the man-of-the-match on this occasion.
Deacon had a very mixed match. He has one trick. He dummies his right foot right around the ball before flicking it passed his defender and charging down the wing after it. (Steve T would have loved his width). This worked well on the day and he put in quite a few good crosses. Late in the game he was put right through on goal and should have scored the winner but completely fluffed his shot. The game went to penalties and Roarie blotted his book further by side-footing a pathetic effort a yard inside the left post for an easy save by the Arab’s keeper for a win to them (B*st*rds!).
There were few signs of the silky skills that might have been expected from two notable graduates of the Henley finishing school. Neither Kamara nor Deacon would ever have made it at Arsenal. I think Kamara may do quite well for Dundee but my jury is still out on Deacon (pies and pints factor). Amazingly, both teams went through to the next round of the League Cup and even more amazingly were drawn to play each other in the next round next week so I’ll see both of these worthies again then. If Chuba Akpom is looking for a game next season, I’d love to see him in the top once worn by Alan Gilzean, Mr Wenger.
There were only 10,360 souls in the stadium but it rocked much harder than the Emirates ever does. Both sets of fans were loud, funny, irreverent and totally politically incorrect. (No bleats. No boos). Both sets of customers contributed to the coffers and added to the £90,000 chipped in by the TV company. I was happy to be both fan and customer, two sides of a single dark blue coin with a blood red heart.
Hardly a haemorrhage of cash in, but it’s highly unlikely that Glen and Roarie are on anywhere like one tenth of the £400kpw that Alexis wants and so the haemorrhage out is not something that would be expected to raise our barman’s blood pressure ☺ But then again……..
Ah, BtM, £12 sounds steep. I’m sure along at Forthbank the Binos have been charging a tenner, or a fiver to seniors such as your revered self! Chuck in £45 plus a tenner a year (a fiver for non wage earners, also as your revered good self), and you could be a co-owner via membership of the supporters trust. You could spend an afternoon in the directors box or the executive bus to an away game. You can be sure we don’t pay anyone £400pw (what does k mean?) although I cannot guarantee following the Binos will not increase the blood pressure, a rousing rendition of ‘Rave On’ should solve that, however. 😉
ksn@25: That Mirror story is beating up something out of nothing. We knew before the Cup Final that the Community Shield wouldn’t count towards Kos’s suspension. The rules state clearly the ban is from games in competitions and the Community Shield is not a competition.
BtM@27: Old school. Football from days gone by. For some reason made me think back to the days of Joe Baker (31 goals in 42 games in 1963), Geoff Strong (21 in 39), Laurie Brown, Billy McCullough, Jimmy McGill and Jack McClellan (along with George Eastham, the stalwarts of the ’63 side. But given the choice, would I prefer to watch them or Giroud, Sanchez, Koscielny, Ozil, Bellerin, Cazorla and Cech?
Some talent coming through:
https://youtu.be/tk5RdPswreI
Sc@20
Not withstanding the fact there is still a full month of the transfer window to go,I see you are already warming up nicely for the new season.
A few left jabs to the head,and a couple of nice right hooks to the guts,has you in good shape to take Arsene down if things go pear shaped early doors.
Along with your offsider Cynic,who was also in fine early season form slagging off the Arse defence against Sevilla,we are in for a very interesting,dare i say feisty,season in the bar.
Great read BTM @27
That post alone is worth more than a months worth of the rubbish posted on here recently.
Certain posters who know who they are excepted.
I don’t think I was slagging anyone off against Sevilla, I was critical of the total shambles on display in the Benfica match, but anyone who saw those goals we conceded and didn’t think it was atrocious needs their head looked at.
Getting a bit sick of your “My shit doesn’t smell” attitude anyway, so I will take my leave.
I’m sorry I only managed to turn up in 1968, clearly that 49 years pales into insignificance against your shiny Prefect badge.
Good stuff BtM. Felt I was there. I can smell the Forfar Bride the now. Or is that cba’s feet?
Heh @ Clive. Nice one, sir.
Still, having checked, it’s nice to see that ONE post about our defending in the whole weekend was enough to ruffle your feathers.
Get over it.
The end.
Dear Cynic
Your childish school boy responses do you no credit.
It has nothing to do with how long either i have been supporting,or you have been following the Arse.
It is your tedious constant negativity that does you no service.
You obviously have a lighter side,as is witnessed in your interactions with cba and H,i just wish you would bring some of that to your posts when the manager and the team are trying their best for the club over a long and tough season of football.
Goonersince54 & Cynic will be staying behind for detention when everyone lives.
In light of Bayern 0 Liverpool 3 maybe it is time to take the Scousers seriously. Salah and Mane not going to ACON this season can’t hurt them either.
Liverpool will be a danger this season, especially if they hold on to Coutinho and Mane. Klopp has had a season to bed his team in and bought in only Salah this window, unlike Guardiola, who will have to spend the season rebuilding a much changed Man City. Chelsea will show how much of Conte’s success last season was down to Guus Hiddink righting the mutinous superyacht Mourinho left floundering, but it is probably their title to lose. Mourinho himself is still remaking Man United in his image but has nailed his colours to the Pogba mast. Koeman at Everton has a big task shaping his big spending into a team that can break into the top four. So if we stay fit and don’t have too many dips in form (ha, ha), we could sneak in.
Let’s hope WE can break into the top four, Ned. One more quality signing and top three could esily be on the cards.
So Alexis has been told he will NOT be sold to a Prem club ‘this summer’. Which could mean he will go to a Euro club or stay with us or be sold to anyone in January. We’re still no closer to getting this matter sorted ffs. 🙁
Morning all.
I did not catch a great deal of the weekend’ action so I’m grateful for the comments from those that did. TTG explains exactly why the Emirates Cup exists. I’m glad that everyone enjoyed their day out. BTM reminds us just how lucky we all are. The fact that Dundee United have justvout their keeper up for sale on Twitter just oozes class. What on earth is a Forfar Bridie????
Several have highlighted positional deficiencies within the squad. For me it’s another one of those age old problems. We have too many players who want to play in the same position and too many where we are still not sure where their best position is? All again down to the balance of the side.
The current transfer policy seems bizarre. I do actually agree with AW and think that in 10 years time there will be a lot more players with shorter contracts who go from club to club for free. However, until that time arrives, the current situation with the likes of Sanchez, Ozil, AOC, Jack etc is quite simply ridiculous. Especially for a club that has pleaded poverty for the last 10 years and has been fully committed to a “business model.” How this has been allowed to happen is even more evidence of gross mismanagement in my opinion. The sooner that situation is sorted, the better.
@32. Balance is good in any discussion. Challenging the status quo is healthy, especially in a week when our owner has shown his true, despicable colours and our manager has spoken even more codswallop than usual. The latter is a the helm of our great football club, more unchallenged than ever, but is clearly out of touch. If you can’t see that, I don’t know what to say and I fear you will be ill-prepared for a very disappointing season. This will produce poisonous dissent and rancour around the club. I’m only “since71” but that breaks my heart. I’m amazed others are so relaxed and resigned about it. If this is going to be a “head in the sand” forum until the annual unravelling whereupon, amusingly, people then announce the manager is useless and should leave, then I also will be tuning out. I’m clearly not welcome anyway from what you’re saying. COYG.
I am totally with you Goonersince54 regarding negativity about AW and the running of the club. I am sure that some of the match day negativity had a debilitating effect on the players and some of our league performances. Personally, I hope that the loyal supporters and Arsenal stewards will be far less tolerant of the rancid banner and placard wavers this season.
As for AW’s recent comments about players entering the last twelve months of their contracts, I took them with a pinch of salt. He gets asked the same questions by our wonderful media every single day. The questions always have a negative spin attached to them. No other manager has to endure the same daily assaults. Ironically, Sir Alex Ferguson gave fulsome praise of AW at the end of the last season and in particular his resilience in dealing positively with constant negativity from the press, pundits, some “fans” and some of our ex players, who clearly have shit for brains. Ferguson was in no doubt that AW had once again proved himself to be an amazingly strong manager and we were very fortunate to have him. It would have been good if one of our ex players had thought of saying something similar, but I tend to despair whenever they open their mouths.
As for this season, no doubt we will hear and read the usual rubbish after the first disappointing result. As always, it will be an extreme, unmeasured overreaction to one particular result. Personally, I am optimistic and hope we can win every competition we are involved in. However, I don’t expect us to. I expect us to work hard and try to play entertaining attacking football. I expect AW and the the board are doing their best to bring the new players in and to sell the players we no longer need or who no longer want to be with us. Some of these transactions will work out and some won’t, that’s just the way it is.Given the opposition, i.e. 5 or even 6 other clubs in with a reasonable chance of challenging to win the league, for us to win it would be an amazing achievement. Achieving top four would also be very commendable, although our media, pundits and some ex players and some so-called “fans” would turn it into abject failure
Fair enough Devon Stu. You are, unambiguously, a Wenger fan. We disagree fundamentally but that’s fine. Your position is not merely that we should all support our team regardless, it is that the current manager is doing a fantastic job. I actually appreciate your honesty and clear position. Many fans merely trot out this notion of unwavering support without actually being so open. It’s funny, because I stood on the terraces throughout the 80s and followed avidly from Ireland in the 70s. Even when we had limited success, the fanbase was always united and we believed in our club, it’s ethos and it’s operating model. Whoever was the manager, we were not treated with disdain, we were not taken for mugs, nor were we continually lied to by the Manager. We also knew that if the manager did underperform, he would be moved along. It was dynamic, unpredictable, interesting and healthy. We were not told we would be the best team in Europe in the best staidium in Europe on the one hand, but that getting in the top 4 domestically was the objective on the other hand. That helped a lot. The manager has done a job on you though I’m afraid Stu, as illustrated by your very limited objective of challenging for top 4. Here’s hoping we are at least in and around but I’m disillusioned and bored, not greedy and entitled, just disgusted at how badly the club is run. COYG.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>