I’ll Give You 3-0. Oh No You Won’t You Know.
Nov 4th, 2014 by 'holic
Time to rewrite the report on the first-half, already committed to the page at half-time in an attempt to publish soon after the final whistle and to enable a relaxing early night. Gone the talk of the visitors playing into our hands with their adventurous approach to the contest. Full marks to Anderlecht for turning up with a positive attitude.
The result of the visitors ambition meant trading of opportunities early on. Santi Cazorla, Acheampong, Alexis Sanchez, Praet, and Aaron Ramsey all had efforts blocked as an end to end contest took shape.
Midway through the half Alexis fed Danny Welbeck in and the striker was bundled over in the box by Mangulu. Mikel Arteta waited for Proto to move before chipping the ball just underneath the bar. Within four minutes the lead was doubled, and by who else but Alexis. His free-kick came back to him off the wall but he smashed the rebound into the bottom corner. It all looked so comfortable. Perhaps too comfortable.
I don’t know what the team talk was at half-time, but I would wager it didn’t bear any relationship to what actually happened in the second-half. To be fair it could not have gone better for fifteen minutes or so. The Ox and Danny Welbeck were denied, but when Alexis was allowed a challenge from behind and dispossessed his man he freed the Ox for a stunning third goal. I mention the Alexis challenge as it gains in relevance when the clock has advanced less than three minutes.
3-0 up and half an hour to go. We have had some fortune with our third goal perhaps, but this is a position Arsene must have dreamt of last night. With Dortmund also winning we have last 16 qualification in our grasp with two matches to spare. What followed beggared belief.
If Anderlecht were upset about our third goal we had every right to feel aggrieved about the one that Vanden Borre netted from a clear offside position to give them what was surely just a consolation in the 61st minute. Within a minute Mikel Arteta hobbled from the action and was replaced by Mathieu Flamini. According to what I have seen on Twitter since we have our scapegoat right there, but Flamini wasn’t one of those around him who continued to bomb forward whilst failing to offer a makeshift back four any protection.
Buoyed, Anderlecht started to take control of the game. Per Mertesacker and Flamini had to be alert to concede corners at the near post as twice Anderlecht broke down their left. We got temporary respite with a Welbeck header, comfortably saved. Then Mitrovic was grabbed by Monreal in the box and needed no second invitation to go down. We would have wanted a penalty at the other end so I have no issue with the award here, and Nacho can feel relieved his subsequent grab of the referees arm was deemed just a yellow card by Clement Turpin.
Those of you who know my opinion of referees, particularly in the Premier League right now, may be surprised by my assessment of the man in the middle tonight. Although he was let down badly by his assistant for Anderlecht’s opener I thought his overall performance excellent. There, I’ve said it. I particularly liked him demanding that Mitrovic should stand up and look him in the eye when lecturing he and the BFG for a clash on the touchline.
He also gave me an opportunity to write a positive paragraph in my recollection of the worst half an hour of football I have seen an Arsenal side produce in a long, long time. Even at 3-2 you would think we could shut up shop against a team that had only enthusiasm and the naivete of youth going for them, wouldn’t you?
And so in the 90th minute why did we allow them to play the ball unhindered from left-back to right wing, and allow Najar to cross unchallenged? (Yes, Poldi, I’m looking at you, among others.) Mitrovic got ahead of the BFG and the comeback was completed. Where was the discipline, the desire, the defending from the front? Basically anything starting with a d.
And what did the boss have to say?
“I was never completely sure that we were not in danger because all game you could see we didn’t defend well. It’s hugely disappointing.”
If only we had some strength in depth defensively, eh boss? Mea culpa, and all that.
Sorry, did you come here for perspective. Sometimes it escapes even me.
233 Responses to “I’ll Give You 3-0. Oh No You Won’t You Know.”
still tearing out my hair.
fuckity, fuck.
Can you people provide the perspective tonight please, and keep it sensible.
I’ve failed. Can’t understand why we have spoiled the ship for a ha’porth of tar 🙁
Alexis must be looking at that and thinking, “What the fuck?”
Congratulations on tempering your real opinions, ‘holic.
Öskar
Apologies to the bar for my foul language earlier.
I’m disgusted beyond description and am now crawling off like the vermin I’ve been sounding like.
A drink on the bar for anyone still drinking. Its okay, I washed my hands!
Oh well. A poor end to the game and the night.
Maybe it is too soon for perspective for some. And fair enough.
But I’m not that downhearted or particularly gutted. Over the course of both games we got 4 points which is more than we deserved.
As I saw written on a sign in front of a homeless man by Victoria station in the pissing rain less than 20 minutes ago “when you are going through hell- keep going.” If he can be stoical in his position I can manage to bear up under the stress of my team not winning a game. Perspective for those who want it…
Hmmm, just stopped in for a quick drink, but, on second thought, I think I’ll just mosey along and allow someone else to occupy my seat.
So much for a distraction from Mid-term Election Night 2014…
BMBD
Glad we had a three goal cushion in the first place to be honest.
Never thought we were going to win the group and now it’s clear we won’t. What though, can be gained from tonight? Surely that’s the only value in it?
As others mentioned, I’d have thought this was a match for Bellerin to play and Chambers to move to the middle and perhaps (just perhaps) this might make Wenger realise that some level of rotation is desperately needed to avoid the team only looking capable of sixty good minutes.
On the plus side, we’re looking far more capable of scoring since the first game in Belgium and (I fear) our best way of having a good season will be reliant on winning a good number of matches via the 2-1, 3-2 or even 4-3 variety of scorelines.
Last set of drinks though I fear people going completely overboard saying Anderlecht looked more dangerous throughout, worse than the Newcastle 4-4 etc. A bad evening to be sure but not one that derails anything we were counting on.
I’ll have a pint of absinthe, Homer, with an opioid analgesic on the side.
Öskar
sorry, ‘holic. i’m still trying to figure out how we did what we did tonight. no perspective available. good on you for trying, though.
Thanks for the excellent report. I had hoped an Arsenal win would help console me for the expected election results tonight. I will get to watch the game against with my husband tonight, pretending I am not spoiled for the result.
Ultimately our options in defensive midfield and defence are woefully inadequate in quality and quantity respectively and some sort of panicky cowardice has crept into the squad. Hardly unpredictable given the shortcomings of the last few years and depressingly familiar. We are stuck in football purgatory.
Hello MJ, and welcome. I hope the election goes better for you.
Thanks for the report ‘holic.
No perspective.
That was unforgivable.
Well written maestro.
I am speechless and incandescent.
I’ll have what Oskar is drinking.
Sleep well everyone.
Oh dear! haven’t seen the match but I guess if one keeps the expectations low, then it should be less painful. For instance, you expect a draw or a loss going in but if the team wins, yay, surprise! Maybe that’ll help till the glaring defensive glitches and other problems are sorted. Love Alexis. He’s probably ruing the decision to come over.
When that most balanced and sensible of summarisers, the estimable Holic reacts like this it underlines how frustrating our current situation is. I have just trudged 50 miles home and while I was standing in the rain waiting to enter the tube I speculated about the reactions of some of the usual suspects here.
Frankly I’m fed up with pointing to the inadequate job done in the transfer window. I didn’t get the benefit of a decent replay for the first goal but both second and third goals and the first were down to three things. Lack of tackling back, wide players or backs who didn’t hold up their wingers and inability in the centre of defence to cut out the resulting balls in.
I also agree with the Guvnor about the referee. I’d take him every week. He was up with play , scrupulously unbiased and didn’t do a Phil Dowd and send off both miscreants for the penalties. In fact he took the view that people had come to watch a football match and not him. This led to a fast open game and the trouble is we don’t know how to win fast open games other than scoring more than the opposition. If we lost a three goal lead to Real Madrid it might be forgivable but Anderlecht are a mediocre side in European terms.
On the plus side Sanchez is superb but how long will he want to labour in a team like this. Welbeck was willing but off key and Oxlade Chamberlain continued where he left off on Saturday.
Too many negatives to note but those who criticise Arteta should rethink his value to the team. Flamini is way past his sell- by date. Chambers understandably is a work,in progress and Monreal is a natural centre half any more than Leighton Baines or Kieran Gibbs or Luke Shaw. And when you don’t have a turbo- charged player like Koscielny covering BFG he looks vulnerable.
Anyway I’m too depressed to dissect the game any more!
Perspective, Holic ?
‘fraid not. Pathetic, negligent defensive performance.
No cover, no marking, no tracking runners. Their attackers had acres of space all across the pitch.
Yes, we have injuries to defenders but I’m sure I heard there was an opportunity to buy some cover in the summer.
Cazorla looks in desperate need of a rest. Ramsey needs to forget last season’s hype and try something other than worldies and back heels, and he needs to learn some positional discipline – in the reserves if necessary.
So why not rotate a little before the fatigue injuries kick in ?
Why not make a substitution before 70 minutes – it is allowed ?
When they came the substitutions were stupid, as were our tactics after conceding their first goal – whether it was offside or not. The offside goal doesn’t help but it is no excuse for what followed.
We have incurred our weekly muscle injury to Arteta’s hamstring, just to round off another great display of great mental strengths. When does the Forsythe effect kick in exactly ?
And like your comment above, H’, I can’t see us keeping a magnificent player like Sanchez, making Herculean efforts, with a mob like this throwing games away behind him.
Perspective ? Sorry.
Agree with every world ‘holic!
Well done Anderlecht and great fans you’ve got; far better than the Galatasaray hooligans!
Agree totally too with Paul Merson’s post-match analysis; “tactically clueless”! 3 nil up and still bombing forward all wanting to score! Unforgivable! No discipline or in-game intelligence after years of a repeating the same mistakes! Players come and go but one constant has remained during this time. Discuss???
Sorry should read Monreal is not a natural centre half any more than….
the squad no longer believe
There is no team spirit other then when wining
There is no mental stength
Arsene looks scared to make any decisions let alone the right one
Bould looks unsurprised and without emotion
The bench is emoitionless also
The squad are too pampered IMHO
Alexis is showing them all up for what they are, pampered princesses
The craziest part for me is the workhorses and the players with the best attitudes all sit on the bench
Poldi/ rosicky/ bellerin etc…
All workhorses
DanC,
There’s one other constant through all those years.
The squad is unbalanced and consequently the team is unbalanced.
Last season Wenger attempted to get away with no attacking options – and just about got away with it, against the odds.
To go into a season with the sort of defensive cover – or lack of it – that we did was just ridiculous. We are now paying the price. I don’t like to say it, but this time Wenger’s stubbornness and arrogance has cost us dear.
The total lack of discipline, leadership and organisation on that pitch tonight is leading me to an unpleasant conclusion about the manager.
As a team we just never learn a lesson. Never.
Trev @21,
It’s so very sad for me to say, but I agree fully with that analysis!
It’s just one incomprehensible collapse too many to now be put down to bad fortune!
Until Wenger himself accepts the fact that he is now a really stubborn coach, we will continually go through whatever it is this team is going through presently. Stubborn to realize and accept the fact that we needed a DM/CB, Chambers we all thought was bought to be a replacement for Vermy, (what other reason was there for us not to buy CB).So why does he still use Monreal as a CB when we have Chambers, bellerin can play LB.Stubborn in terms of rotation and substitution. I respect and love Wenger, but I love Arsenal more. I don’t know where we go from here, no clue at all.
Meant to say RB, sorry.
A big part of any leadership role is to simply accept when things aren’t working and accept a need for some form of change.
If arsene wenger decides to stay after today’s disgraceful performance, then he needs to make on simple and immediate change.
Appoint alexis Sanchez as captain of the arsenal and build the team attitude and quality from there.
He should also give alexis the full right and freedom of responsibility to bollock the entire team as he chooses, before a game, during the game, at half time and at full time until the team get the message to play for 90 mins.
Also, I would rather see us get flogged each week with youngsters who give a shit and at least will work their arses off for the team and who give a fuck about it losing,then this lot, bar Alexis.
Arsene has made “My arsenal”, my chosen team, my second love in life after my family the laughing stock of world football in the past few seasons .
He and the club are now media fodder and I hope they tear the team to bits for the sake of a rebirth.
Ivan gazidis, Arsene wenger and the arsenal FC board should today all hang their heads in shame with the squad they have allowed Arsene to build at our great clubs expense.
Shame on them all…. Each and everyone of them
At the risk of being considered one who only appears when things are going badly I have to say that is the worst performance by any Arsenal team in many a long year – 3 up and coasting against mediocre opposition it is simply negligent in the exstreme to capitulate in that manner.
Undoubtably AW is our finest manager to date, but the writing is on the wall – agreed that the players must take thier share of the blame for losing the second half 3-1, but they dont pick themselves and they follow a pre set game plan. Unfortunately and sadly it has come to this – not a knee jerk fan reaction but one based on a series of less than stella performances.
Super disappointed.
And I suspect that “holics post was an amazing act of self control as well.
Well done sir – I salute your ability to remain a beacon of light when all around is dark.
I just wish I could share your relentless optimism.
Alexis must be looking at Pool and at us and then think well I’ve only marginally chosen better.
If we don’t get it together soon, would not be surprised if he left for one of our immediate rivals for a better deal…
🙁 🙁
Before the game, I wrote a satirical post comparing AW’s stubbornness in not rotating his squad with Brendon Rogers imaginative selection against Real Madrid. I deleted it before pressing the Submit Comment button. I thought that in the light of an expected home win against Andelecht, it would just look silly: we would play a settled team that would comfortably secure a win and a clean sheet against decent but inexperienced opponents. I now realize there is nothing in life that is beyond parody. I hope and pray that that last half-hour will turn out to be like the opening Aston Villa game last season: just a very bad day at the office in which we got some bad breaks. However, I say that without a great deal of conviction, but it is the best by way of perspective that I can muster at the moment.
Very Arsenal-esque capitulation, forgetting to defend and generally losing any semblance to organization, desire, tactical discipline.
Hard to accept, but it does happen. Happens a bit more to us than others, but in last couple of years we have generally been able to see off matches against supposedly weaker oppositions. Against better oppositions or similar teams in better vein of form we had a few horrific performances, but even that let us say can happen.
The reasons from Arsene? Poor defensive performance, Anderlecht better than they given credit for…yes, both reasonable.
But then the deeper reasons? “Fatigue” and “subconscious underestimating” .
Arsene is one of the greatest managers of modern era, a polymath genius in so many ways, also a superb articulate speaker who is generous with his ideas. He should really not use those two explanations.
Not that those are wrong, they may very well be right, but they are embarrassing to admit especially if right.
Fatigue? Just a few days back Arsene was saying how three day gaps present no challenges for players. And even if it does, how about a little rotation? Santi has been looking a little off lately so why not use TR7 from the start? Welbeck has never played game after game in the CF position and was looking less than his sprightliest best so why not start with Poldi? How about an early sub when it was evident that Rambo is doing everything wrong in the second half and simply putting pressure on him? And what would the highly accomplished Joel Campbell — who has CL experience and CL goal — have to do to get a chance especially given that in his last two cameo appearances he looked quite ready? He was not even on the bench and in his place was Sanogo who just returned from injury and unlike other long-term returnees didn’t even put in any minutes in the reserve level.
Our deep squad is ‘fictitious’ because Arsene is never going to leverage the depth fully (rotating the starting line-up) unless his hands are forced by injuries and he is going to play the same group of 15-17 players until injured. Poldi and TR7 are not stupids, they have realized that in this season no matter what happens on the performance front they are not going to start , forget being given a run, unless a few players higher in the pecking order gets injured.
“Subconscious complacency”? That, unfortunately, rests square on the shoulders of the team management. Not just Arsene, but the on-field leadership (ha ha!), Bould, team psychiatrists/counsellors, everyone. Someone like Jack, 22 years old and around the first team for nearly half a decade now, has a couple of good games in between some inconsistent performance and suddenly the Arsenal web-site has a feature about how he is ‘back to his best’. We score three goals, concede one and our midfield kingpin has to leave the field injured, and his partner at the base of the midfield doesn’t even wait for a conservative ten minutes spell to steady the game before bombing forward searching for the 4th and the 5h goal. These are fundamental attitude problems that the entire team management must take the blame on. What did stop Per or Flamini to shout at Rambo and ask him to just drop deep and see out the next 10-15 minutes?
Anyway, I think we will have performances like this again this season. Hopefully infrequently enough and not in key matches. Hopefully.
NBN @ 28: If we didn’t know Arsene to be such a rational and intelligent man, people may have conjectured that the “(almost) never rotate” and “(almost) never substitute before 70+ minute” policies to be superstitions. I am sure there are some good statistical analysis of modern football that have made up Arsene’s mind on these matters — and I say with without a hint of sarcasm — but there is policy and then there is dogma…
@30: I meant “I say that without…” …
Sometimes(more often than not nowadays) when I watch our team I get stone frogged : http://i.imgur.com/EXA4lN9.jpg
When you expect love at the match but see… : http://i.imgur.com/tJ1gfgf.jpg
How Alexis must feel after our games : http://i.imgur.com/lZdLcOx.gif
Time to show some desire and heart in the game ..bring on the swans!
As I said in the last round (#28) … “Rambo, Santi and Danny couldn’t possibly play as poorly as they did in the first leg when Anderlecht’s youngsters out-enthused them and were unlucky not to at least draw. Hopefully AW will have a plan to ensure that doesn’t happen again, which I hope includes the extra experience of TR7 and Poldi.” Seems I was wrong, they all could, and did, play pretty much as poorly s before and AW didn’t have a plan – not one relying on the experience of our senior players anyway.
It’s not rocket surgery M. Wenger.
Öskar
Oskar @ 32: The lack of humility and basic discipline showed today by Rambo was very very disappointing, for a player who had rebuilt his career on the basis of work rate, discipline and humility. And also equally the fact that none of the senior players told him to get his act together. And also the fact that they let him take that awful free kick when we had Alexis, Santi and Poldi on the field. It was reminiscent of Song in his worst days.
We used to have problems of this kind before but in the last season or so the impression was that we have left behind these attitude issues. We need to quickly find back that intelligence and togetherness.
It just highlights another thing we’re short of, Dr F, an Adams or Vieira-type captain. No reflection on Mikel who wasn’t on the field for Rambo’s free or for the worst of the capitulation, or BFG who gets the armband in his absence, but they really only get the job for want of an obvious leader. The one I have high hopes for in the future is young Chambers. He has the mark of Tony Adams about him and could get very authoritative with age and experience. Doesn’t help us now though. I just hope they don’t burden Alexis with it.
Öskar
Oskar @ 34: Absolutely agree. I thought last season Per was being very vocal and they were all communicating well. I guess with inconsistencies in his own performance — made more painful in absence of Koscielny — he lost the confidence to guide others.
TR7 does that well enough when he is involved, at least sets the right example by pressing and chasing from the midfield. But he is not one to ever gets really tough which is I guess we want when situation like this unfolds.
The anderlecht coach has even come out and stated post match
” the only reason they were able to come back was arsenal played the same way all game- searching for another goal”
quite unbelievably Naieve….
I see nothing wrong with searching for more goals. What was wrong was not bringing on the fresh legs and scare-factor of Theo and Poldi at the 60-minute mark to score them. At 3-0 we still had a chance of maximising our goal difference and challenging Dortmund for first place in the group. Now we will (probably) finish second and get Barca, Real or Bayern in the next round. End of CL till next season.
Nothing wrong at all with being ruthless. Being gutless on the other hand…
Öskar
Cheers H!
Poldi the workhorse? Heh! Writing was on the wall for the third as soon as he lumbered onto the pitch. My major criticism of Le Boss last night, would be the 2 unenforced substitutions. With 5 days till we play Swansea could n’t understand either of them.
@38 OTD
Agreed about the fresh legs, Arsene seem to almost always want to stick with the same team till the death.. (and it nearly happened this time too!)
And not resting players is also a sure way of losing them either through fatigue or injury or both! Notice that Alexis was also running out of steam towards the end of the match (can’t fault him for the amount of running he has done) and he’s chasing day in and day out for consecutive matches without a rest (substitution!).
Daresay he’ll be the next player whose game will suffer because he’s called on every single time and used to the whistle. He should have been substituted after 3 goals and much as I loved him on the field, I do not think we can afford an injury to the one player who’s pulling his own weight(and others as well!).
Arsene must shoulder the bulk of the responsibility for this game. Sub your key players when the game is comfortable and don’t play out of form players in key matches. I know it is easier said than done and everything looks simple in hindsight, for when is a game comfortable with our makeshift defense and some players need games to get into form. However a man as astute as Arsene should be able to discern this and get it more right than wrong.
What use is Campbell, Rosicky and Poldi if we’re not going to give them anything over 10mins in a match?! Might as well ship them out and bring in the youngsters, at least they’ll get more exposure and experience and they will be here for many more years too!
I think you’ll find we would have definitely shipped Poldi out until the Giroud injury in August.
Morning all, thanks for keeping it relatively respectful.
I have not been around too much recently. Been showing patience with the new shape of the squad.
I have not looked at any media since the final whistle last night and have not yet back drinked.
One thing I will say is that we didn’t have the discipline to see out a three goal lead towards the end if the game after peaking quite early on during the match.
The reason for this IMP is not a negative one. To me, we appeared to instinctively try to close the goal difference on Dortmund. This to me is because once the night strarted to work in our favour there was only one thing on our minds and that was topping the group. Obviously we couldn’t do it all last night, but we tried to make a start once we were three goals up. So to me in that respect, it was not a negative. However, if you look at the way Dortmund finished the night (4-1), you could see that with them, they were working to maintain their goal difference seeing we were three to the good after 56 mins. Had the scores remained the same at full time (3-0 or more and 4-1), it would have been game on between the two giants at the Emirates.
So what is the difference between the two clubs? I hear you say. Why did one team complete their task successfully whilst the other did not? Meaning the goal difference is now 6 and the points are now five apart (please could the stat-matician in the bar correct me without changing the point if I’m wrong?)
To me the difference is, one team is playing with confidence whilst the other isn’t. It is that simple for me. On the sunny side up again, I do believe we will see a different Arsenal going forward from here this season. I believe we will see an Arsenal who have only lost three times in all competitions so far this season. A side who are only looking forward rather than looking over their shoulder (comfortably). This is just a team low on confidence. I believe however upon reflection ( and soon I hope, rather than later), the confidence will slowly build. I say slowly, because we do not want a succession of results like last night where we tried to do it all in one match.
Let’s just work hard, because the hard work is beginning to show ( applause to the training staff and the team), keep our heads down, forget the negative attention ( because some a-holes have too much time on their hands) and the confidence will return, honestly through hard work earned.
Well done to the boys for trying. Hard luck and thank you for the first 70-80 mins of world class football again. I am still proud of what we’ve achieved so far this season (taking everything as a whole into account).
Once the nerves calm the results will come!
Concordia Victoria Creset
IAWT
Everything always looks clearer in hindsight, BB, not necessarily simple. What is simple enough to spot is AW’s reluctance to sub players until they absolutely have minimal chance to get into the game. Did either Poldi or TR7 actually touch the ball in this game?
Either AW is a genius in alone holding back to the 70th, 75th or even 80th minute before remembering he has a bench, or most other managers are wrong to start subbing at half-time or around the hour mark.
And if it isn’t silly enough waiting until so late it becomes absolutely ridiculous when the decision is finally made only for play to continue uninterrupted for another five minutes or more before they actually get on.
Öskar
Poldi touched it. Scuffed a shot from the edge of the area, then started shouting abuse at his own team mates.
Pete @37,
Mind-blowingly stupid approach, especially when goal-difference is not as important as the Head-Head results with Dortmund. Stupid and utterly incompetent! Negligence on a level beyond moronic! Unbelievable!
If the manager cant pull up players who cannot be arsed in putting in an effort for the biggest club competition in the world what chance do we have. Plus the square pegs in round holes approach by wenger.
rapidly destroying all the goodwill he has gained over the years.
In the words of Klopp describing his team’s current form – too many construction sites in this team.
@43 King GT
I share your optimism, just ranting out what was our misgivings in the last couple of games, and what (perceived?) misgivings I see about Arsene, otherwise not much to add. Am sure once that we have all our key defenders back and also with theo, the squad can only improve.
The rants are an accumulation of frustration over our last few games, the future to me does look considerably brighter, the waiting is the hardest part.
😀
The best head to head result we can get with Dortmund is one win apiece. If we also had equal points with them at the completion of group matches then goal difference would be the decider. Someone correct me if I’m wrong. Not that we’re likely to finish on equal points now of course, but we had that chance when comfortably leading 3-0.
Öskar
@ OTD
Simple, clear and peachy too : http://imgur.com/gallery/Ih00C
If only more of our players had the desire and legs to close down the opposition, we’re definitely missing the bite. Hopefully when we get our first team back, we’ll be back on track.
😀
Was anyone genuinely surprised by that and if so, haven’t you watched Arsenal for the last 10 years? Ask anyone who would be most likely to do something like that and they’ll all say the same.
Relax everyone. We’ll have our customary brave fightback against superior opposition in the first knockout round, so still 4 games left for us to see a couple of improved performances before our exit. Then we can focus on getting 4th, maybe reach the FA cup semis, another decent season.
See, it’s not all bad!
Holic – Not read the rest of the comments so someone may have mentioned this already. Defending from the front was fine, it was once you get to the midfield the problems started. Aexis and Welbeck were fine with their defensive efforts, although I did see Welbeck doing a bit of standing around and pointing at others just before he went off, but he’d probably run his legs off by then.
The substitutions were bonkers. Rosicky was a bigger cause for bafflement than Podolski for me, at first anyway, as Poldi had come on and looked lively at the weekend, but after the game I thought it was really odd to put him on as well. I’m not sure he knew where he was meant to be playing for one thing, and if he was intended to go central with Alexis in a straight swap for Welbeck, he’s not exactly the world’s best central striker.
I don’t know why Walcott wasn’t used with about half an hour to go. He would have stretched the game, needs the playing time, it was 3-0 and we were crusing. Ideal time to ease him into it. Instead we fell to bits.
I’m going to mention Ramsey again just to highlight the attitude of this side, at least in part, is not right. Playing to look good instead of playing to win the game has been a long standing curse of Arsenal sides and he drives me mental with the way he plays sometimes. He should have been subbed when he had that back twinge at half time, he was having a nightmare IMO.
Rant over 😉
Before the game started I looked at our goal difference and that of Dortmund and thought ‘we’re playing for second, we won’t close that gap.’
We’re still playing for second and we will qualify.
Fine first 60 minutes. Poor final thirty. Four points vs Anderlecht is one more than we deserved over both legs.
The team should come out at Swansea on Saturday wound up line a steel hawser auguring well for an away win.
Nice write up, Holic.
“wound up like a steel hawser”, wonderful imagery!
‘like a rubber band’ came first to mind, but, while likely more accurate, it lacked the steely rigour and defensive solidity I’m expecting 🙂
It was abysmal in the second half as birthdays do happen I had people on phone as soon as the game kicked off, very annoying.
Three nil up! What else could happen?
And then it happened! Anderlecht by all means deserved their draw they fought until the end!
We didn’t simples!
BtM,
Glass half full as always!
Goal difference was never going to be surmounted. We’re too flaky defensively. We’ve been playing for second since only beating Anderlect by one goal at their place. The morale victory against Dortmund on the way to second was the objective; that was clear before last night but now; it’s the manner of the collapse that baffles, yet again! Clueless! That’s why it’s unbelievable!
Serious question now…when 3 nil up with only 20 minutes to play, is there any manager of a top European club that would have risked drawing that match against a youthful but average side that? I’d really like to know? It only ever seems to happen to Arsenal I’m beginning to notice!
Wow@43- and those in agreement with @43.
I was wondering how long it would take until we were world beaters again.
Always world beaters ” in the future” but never ” now” or ” in the present”
So all of a sudden we are beating dortmund…..head to head.
I guess denial of any facts is as good as any plan.
May I suggest you don’t actually watch any actual footage of the past few matches of football… You may get a shock
Wenger not shaking hands yet again. Classy. Blames his own defenders. Classy. Let’s be clear, Wenger designed the strategy last night. After the last 20 mins v’s Burnley it was HE who decided to dispense with Flameta and play Ramsey way up the pitch instead. That lad was acting on instructions, clearly. Monreal also is balmeless. But who will suggest, respectfully, that it is bad manners not to shake hands and who will suggest that defending is in fact quite important and cannot simply be introduced for a few games every time we get humiliated ? Nobody. The American will be delighted with last night. “Jeez, looks like we’re gonna make the European play-offs again…Fan-tas-tic Arsene”. All the time our great club and brand slide away down the plug-hole. Sanchez will be gone next summer. If we’re 7th in the League in January, we won’t attract any good CB or DM either. Who is going to cry “Stop” ? I said I wouldn’t post again here but stake-holder activism and outcry is the only option isn’t it ? I suppose that started last night at the final whistle anyway.
A brief note to endorse what Esso has said earlier.
I couldn’t fathom what we were doing bringing Poldi of all players on to defend a lead. Its seems as though this was the managers pre-planned move as a nod for his cameo at the weekend against Burnley and not a decision that was taken in heat of the game as to what the team needed. Which is quite unbelievable really.
Liverpool fielded a side last night in sheer hope that they would not be beaten in an embarrassing manner by the European champions. They have both eyes firmly fixed on the weekends encounter with Chelsea. For a team that has won the European Cup 5 times, it is a damning inditement of the CL now that they are more interested in earning the revenue that comes with qualifying for next years rather than actually competing to try to win the bloody thing this year. Say all you want about Wenger, our lack of defensive discipline and our capitulation last night. But Liverpool capitulated before they even took to the field.
Disgraceful.
Still drying out my wet weather gear ( I sat in the rain).
Too fed up to comment further!
Pete
We all get angry but qualifying for the Champions League 17 years in a row doesn’t make you a laughing stock. Even Tottenham aren’t a laughing stock completely!
Arsenal are underachieving this season and Wenger erred badly in not fixing the holes in the squad but clubs with Sanchez, Ramsey, Koscielny, Ozil , Gibbs etc are hardly laughing stocks.
I suffer angst too. I was there last night and suffered in the rain but we played quite well for sixty minutes. I think the problem is that Wenger’s length of tenure is now seen as a negative rather than a positive. He doesn’t change enough and supporters give up hope but maybe only because he has produced arguably the greatest English club team in history in the past and that has affected our expectations. Many clubs eg Spurs would give their right arms to be in our position
I’m just happy this came in this group and not in the league. This Ramsey is NOT good for the team. The man from last year that racked up tackles and took responsibility for defence was the player of the season. Today he played like a second striker at times. Chambers(who was way to central at times) was left alone on that right side many times because both Oxlade and Ramsey ran off.
We need to go back to stability. Last season was perfect, sit back after the first goal and surely we can counterattack some goals with a frontline of Alexis/Welbeck/Oxlade? Atleast the attacking was satisfying at times, direct football, but it can never come at the price of defensive responsibility.
Someone said Podolski is a workhouse? Really? The man comes on with 10 minutes left and jogs slowly back into defence, in both ties last time he got the winning goal though so who cared back then.
Hopefully they learn from this, Ramsey especially.
‘I said I wouldn’t post again here……..’ oh please, we’d miss your cheery disposition and constructive critiques 🙂
Unlike Arsenal, Joe, Liverpool are in a deep and darkening hole. Now that their ‘young, refreshing, inspiring, British coach’ has lost the bitey one and spent his 100M, he and his ideas are looking tired and old and far from refreshing and inspiring.
“But at least his team didn’t lose a three goal lead at home” cry the BBB. 🙂 They’re having a laugh. So am I.
@63 Good stuff, ttg!
If Poldi is a work horse, Foinaven is a Grand National winner. 🙂
Hi BB @ 48. Good to hear from you again. As I say I have not back drinked. But if you say you’ve been ranting etc, then I believe you. 🙂
Remember, everyone is entitled to their opinions and mine were only mine. However, if you rant it’s not actually a rant. 😉 I would call it constructive criticism. 🙂
Take care!
utterly
Oh dear
TTG – fair and reasonable points about our past glory days and raised expectations.
Problem is – the raised expectations are so far in the past, they are now past tense, not current.
Not even close
Anyways as BTM has suggested above;
– All is fine because we played well for 60mins.
– it was all poldis fault, he will do as a scapegoat in lieu of any blame on those that played for 80+ mins or the manager
– And of course, the old favourite excuse after another poor performance-
– We are better then liverpool/ UTD And of course the great fallback position, we are better than Spurs..
Hilarious stuff…
The chaos that followed the departure of Arteta from the field of play was akin to the circumstances of Foinavon’s win. Thankfully the final whistle came before Anderlecht did a Foinavon.
The thing is as Blogs pointed it out we started making steps forward but this is a fucking huge step backwards!
Nothing to add really! Confidence down again! The worrying thing is it seems to be a normal thing for Arsenal! Some sort of a emotional roller coaster and it keeps on repeating itself over and over again!
Frankly there are excuses for last night end off! I know we can make excuses because of that and the other. It’s like a disease we keep falling under it every season and even though we are in the 21st century we don’t seem to know where the remedy will come from even from a bloke who earns 6 million a year!
Excuses and excuses….
Apologies rant over!
Off to Nandos now to rectify my unhappiness!
Heh, Arthur !
I had no idea Holic earns 6 million a year ! 😉
Just to add if anything perhaps we should have moved to three centre backs and bring on Bellerin to a right back position if the intent was to defend our lead.
If you’re going to quote or paraphrase any comments of mine, at least do me the courtesy of doing that accurately, if you can…… don’t go adding or subtracting wee bits of your own to change the intended message (not that old primary school trick again 🙂 )
Pleased your mood seems to have lightened a little though.
Trev
Seems I have now opened a can of worms! 🙂
@ 68King GT
Likewise GT, till the next game!
Do pop in more often if you’re able, really enjoy the banter ….especially with those juicy transfers 🙂
Have a drink on me!
😀
the great Arsene Wenger is putting me off football in general. which is probably not a bad thing. I must thank him some day.
BtM, I only corrected your typo in my quote…mild plagiarism I guess, but certainly not a case for being hauled in front of the dean and given 6 of the best?
Universities should really start doing that…
we always win every match ” next week ”
Watch out – I fear your glass maybe overflowing
It begs the question- where was the leader of the team yesterday?. Per has been poor and he continues to defy logic of playing him but then we dont have a choice do we. Flamini, enough said. Chambers had a stinker but then Santi Cazorla needs to hold his hand up and say sorry to Calum because he never tracked back and the results was their for all to see.
Except Sanchez and Ox, to an extent danny, the rest of the team were appalling. It hurts to slag players because i adore each and everyone who wears the famous shirt but then do they realize the importance?
Wenger needs to hold his hand up and see the reality of the team, it is imbalanced and needs a major re-haul defensively. Until unless he does so, we will end up being the same, flatter to deceive.
I still want someone to explain to me why we keep playing Chambers in RB, if he was bought to replace vermy ( former captain ) for 16million. When we have bellerin to play that position.
Dr F@30: Points well made, and I don’t doubt for a minute that you are right that there are all sorts of stats about 70-min substitutions. On rotation, I think AW’s default position is that the better team wins, so, logically, you pick your best team available week in week out. Perversely, there is some academic research from Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists that shows that football is the least predictable of all the main US and UK sports. While the better team wins more often than not in all five sports, the not comes more frequently in football than in American football, baseball, basketball and hockey. There is an abstract at http://cnls.lanl.gov/~ebn/pubs/sports/html/.
As for yesterday’s game I am still baffled about the final 30 mins; not so much the what or the how, but the why given that we were comfortably in control for the first hour. Anyone who has played has experienced games where leads inexplicably disappeared and self-doubt rushed in as they did — and games in which you nick a result despite being outplayed. Funny old game.
Ned @85 – we were 3 up but we were not comfortably in control. Like another limited team Leicester before them, Anderlecht had run through our defence and opened us up several times without reward in the first half with apparent ease.
Somehow we found ourselves 3-0 up (through excellent play by Welbeck, Alex O-C and most particularly, Alexis) and much of our first half advantage had been due to a fine performance from Arteta breaking up what he could in midfield and recycling the ball quickly and maintaining possession. (Simple maxim – if we have the ball, the opposition can’t hurt us)
When Arteta went off, it seemed as if we lost all our intelligence. We could not keep possession, kept giving them the ball back and when we did regain the ball hurled our midfield forward as if there was a group bonus for a fourth goal. The lack of intelligence displayed by our players is bad enough but the lack of intelligence from the bench was utterly, utterly disgraceful.
For God’s sake, we see it displayed against us in the Premiership at THOF week after week. Organise the team! Today we will have player after player declaring that they will learn from this. No they fucking will not. Neither the players nor the bench have shown an ability to learn from our errors. We keep repeating them.
The inability of the bench to get the team to close the game down, maintain possession and run the clock down was as criminally negligent as was the failure to address our deficiencies in defensive midfield and centre back cover in the summer. Moreover the lack of adequate strength in MF has been evident for several years. Failure to address that has meant that we get muscled out of games despite our ball skills. Nothing will change until that is addressed.
Groundhog day will be repeated. It’s the Arsenal way.
Top Post Bath.
Got to give it to their fans too. Even at 3-0 down they kept singing and willing their team on.
It’s maybe a Scottish thing but I cannot disagree with a single world the Baffmeister has penned @ 86.
Still spitting feathers here…… 😡
Bath @ 86…..excellent synopsis of where we are at this time. Like you I am equally frustrated by the lack of action from our bench to cajole our players into more sensible play rather than gung-ho attack – particularly at this time when our defence is sorely depleted. Surprisingly,after all this time, many still appear to be tactically inept – what are they coached? Frustratingly we continue to remain so near yet so far.
Trev @ 75….mahoosive heh 🙂
Zico @ 89….. Got a grouse have you ? 😉
Bath @86,
Top, top, top post! Utterly incompetent on a level beyond belief!
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Repeatedly! Repeatedly! Repeatedly! Must end! Must end! Must end! Now! Now! Now!
Will do BB. Life is good. 🙂
We were piss poor last night.
We’ve been piss poor in the past, recent and distant.
We’ll be piss poor at some stage in the future, whoever the manager is.
And I’ll be on the piss again as well. Give a fuck.
Nope, Ups.
Rum and the lash perhaps. I’ll leave the middle bit for Wolfie. 😎
Just a little digression but relevant I think:
When I first became a consultant in one of the biggest specialist hospitals in London, I was in complete awe of the senior consultants who were now my colleagues and who had actually trained and mentored me. Six years on from my appointment, now most of them have retired but the hospital continues to operate as successfully as ever! Arsene Wenger’s now a very senior consultant in my eyes in the twighlight of his Arsenal coaching and managerial career! The hospital must still remain successful!
Yep, a day later and I’m still fuming mad both at this squad of light weights and the fact that we are collectively a laughing stock of the football world right now. Brentan the charlatan thanks us for taking the heat off of him.
On the bright side, however, perhaps a wake up call and new focus is just what the doctor ordered ahead of Swansea. Let’s see a response to that humiliation last night. Best one can hope for right now.
Cheers all.
Hear, hear
Unchallenged cross comes in to the box…
Boom!!! Another collapse is complete! 3 – 3!
Walks away consolately thinking, “how the feck, yet again, has that happened?” Shakes head apathetically knowing he’ll still be playing in the next match, regardless!
Heh and congrats @101 Danc.
With a self-assists though, but it doesn’t matter as you already know you’ll play in the next match.
The inability of the bench to get the team to close the game down, maintain possession and run the clock down was as criminally negligent as was the failure to address our deficiencies in defensive midfield and centre back cover in the summer.
It’s only an inability to get them to do it if you actually try in the first place. The players should know what to do themselves of course, but if your coaching staff/manager just sit there and do nothing as it all unravels….
@ Lurky,
Thanks. I’ll be there in the defence at Swansea this weekend!
Alexis at CB … problem solved in defence… but who’s going to sore all those goals?!
😀
Very well said, bath.
I seem to have written that myself in bits and bobs so many times. But then we have played the same game so many times. The Ox was first on the box last night, declaring that “we know we can’t afford to be complacent …….”
I haven’t been bothered to go looking for quotes today – just too sick of the whole thing.
We don’t have any identifiable strategy, or tactic even, when going forward. Since the arrival of Sanchez it seems to be “give him the ball and see what he can do”. Our attacks are totally random – maybe that is the tactic, to confuse the opposition – the trouble is it seems to co fuse our own players as well.
Crosses are delivered to nobody in the box – players pass around endless triangles, presumably hoping that opposition defenders will fall over or fall asleep. At 0-0 we never seem to get anyone running ahead of the ball. At 2-1 or 3-1 up, we have five or six of the buggers all trying to add unnecessarily to the total.
I’m all for scoring six when the opportunity presents, but when you need to see a game out, what the hell is Ramsey doing launching free kicks from 30 yards out into the back of Club Level. Or maybe he thought with 5 minutes to go there wouldn’t be anyone there to throw it back !
So many players out of their normal positions or refusing to obey team orders. I kind of hope it’s the latter, otherwise it probably means there aren’t any team orders.
Surely not ……….
Thanks for the kind words all. I needed a rant.
But still fuming here. 🙁
“…what the hell is Ramsey doing launching free kicks from 30 yards out into the back of Club Level. Or maybe he thought with 5 minutes to go there wouldn’t be anyone there to throw it back !”
Love it Trev. 🙂
…On the bright side Bill Murray has already been signed up for the upcoming biopic “Le Boss”.
Trev @106,
Very well put and depressing at the same time!
Would Arsene Wenger stepping down from coach and manager at the end of this season really be a bad thing? Some fresh ideas and drive from a new leadership is never a bad thing if planned for properly, unlike the Red Mancs have contrived to do. Change after so long is never easy but is inevitable. Better to leave like the late Nelson Mandela in universal reverence than the murdred by his own, Muammar Gaddafi or Saddam Hussein, in universal vitriol. Not that Arsene is a totalitarian dictator in any way whatsoever…
PT @108,
Heh! Liked in him in Caddyshack and Space Jam! 🙂
Even the best cakes go stale eventually.
@81 I wasn’t referring to you, PR. You made me laugh, so the only six of the best required come in small crystal glasses of amber coloured liquid 🙂
Maribor 1 nil up against the Chav$! 😀
Cite$h 1 – 2 down! Not so easy at home after all in Europe! 3 – 3 not a bad result after all with a proper defence! 😀
Financially doped clubs!
Chav$ draw at Maribor (CL newcomers)!
Cite$ lose AT HOME to perennially poor Russian travellers with two two red cards!
Not so easy this CL thing after all!
Good of $hitteh to make an effort to cheer up a lot of sad Gooners.
Maribor v Chelski.
attendance 12,500 … can that be right?
Hilarious. And no Silva and no Yaya next game for City.
Yep, i do feel a smidgen better.
And we think we’ve had a bad CL week….100s of Millions of British Sterling Pounds spent for both the Chav$ and Cite$ and yet to qualify from their group with 8 and 4 points respectively!…..Heh Heh Heh 😀
Careful, Dan. Pete doesn’t approve of comparisons with the performance of other English clubs in Europe. You’ll be nit-picked 🙂
But, hey, if Arsene is an aging consultant, Manuel Pellegrini is an aging mortician – two points out of twelve, nine players on the field at the end, Toure and Fernandinho out of their next must-win game against Bayern and their CL future hanging on a thread – they haven’t made it out of the group once yet – I’d say he’s on the slab already 🙂
Shit – he even stood on the line and shouted and THAT didn’t work either.
Meanwhile, with the aging, out of touch, tactic less French inadequate steers the team in red nicely into the next round with a game to spare for what is it, the fifteenth consecutive time? I’m losing count. Cut him some slack and don’t let that hair pomade seep through the hair follicles and cloud the brain 🙂
Arsenal are right in this, the league and the Cup. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
COYRRR
If Man City don’t offer some perspective this season then nothing will…..
So DapperDanC @118, you dont think drawing a game against a third tier team in Europe after going 3-0 nil up with 30mins to go is a bad week? I do.
Not trying to make a case for Mancity, because 2pts from a possible 12pts is very poor indeed. But that group is way tougher than our group, I don’t know how we would have faired in that group either with the kind of defending we have going on right now. CSKA is way better team than Anderlect and Galatasary combined, and that’s suppose to be the weakest team in the group.
BtM,
As always, a wonderfully levelled and pragmatic perspective.
The pomade shall be gently applied am following the cut-throat shave by James the butler! I bid you good night my erudite, optimistic friend! 🙂
A double vintage malt, straight and neat of course, for my erudite and optimistic gentleman friend please bar-keep! Salut!
SAG @122,
It’s still not been a good week by a very long way for our club, but it’s now been a bad week too for the financially-doped English Club; which is somewhat, in a small way, a silver-lining. Shadenfreude is a wonderful thing in competitive sport, especially when you’ve played like cunts!
Annd for one final bit of comedy, I just saw a post on the Guardian city thread, that was NOT taking the piss and that actually included the following quote, after just having slagged off on Zabaletta:
“Time for Mansour to get the bloody wallet out and bring in some world class talent.”
Well done city “fans” – mood is lifted tremendously now.
Bath@86: I’ll dial that back to reasonably comfortably in control, but no further. I defy anyone in this bar to say they would have put up their hands at half time to say they didn’t think we’d win the game. I can’t disagree with you that once Arteta came off we started playing like headless chickens, which is inexplicable. I also agree that we need a top-drawer DM. Arteta is getting neither younger nor steelier, and he was not particularly either of those things when he came to us, but made up for it with his intelligence.
Trev: the ‘didn’t think anyone would be there’ line was priceless.
So you reckon Arsenal is a hospital now, Dapper D (#96)? More like a home for the bewildered if you ask me.
Öskar
The Thursday after Champions League is a crucial day. We need Wenger not to come out with the ‘ I’m not thinking of buying a defender line’. I haven’t look at club quotes today but I wouldn’t put it past him!
I wrote a very depressed piece the other day after the Hull game and don’t intend to repeat it.
My big worry is what Alexis Sanchez thinks at the moment. He could play for any team in the world and ends up with us during a particularly sham loci period. Apparently he loves London but unless Wenger dhows some ambition and awareness of our needs in the winter window he will surely be having a word with his agent.
And what has happened to Shad Forsythe’s magic properties? We must be suffering more injuries than ever before of a non- contact nature. Like Bould is he not being allowed to do the job as he wants to?
I wondered what Frank McLintock and co thought last night. They held onto a 3-0 lead a bit better against Anderlecht!
Not one of the four English clubs won in this CL round, so we are at least sharing the laughing stock tag, with perhaps $iteh an even bigger joke. They were as bad through the whole game as we were in the last 20.
Like us the chavs should have won, and easily with the ball just not bouncing their way, except when Maribor missed a sitter from 3 yards. Otherwise they were mostly all over them, plus Hazard meekly tapped a pen at the keeper. But THERY are still top of their group so could afford a small hiccup.
Öskar
I for one do not expect us to come out firing at the weekend seeking redemption. I fear the most likely reaction will be a team suffused with nerves conceding early and never getting into the match. I’ll be happy with a draw frankly. Unless we put some of the old pros on the bench into the game early. At least they won’t be guilt-ridden and hopefully in a mood to prove their worth. That’s if their backsides aren’t too numb to get moving.
Now prove me wrong please.
Öskar
Didn’t see the match as had to work, but I feel I’ve seen this one a few times before.
Bath @ 86 sums it up for me.
This stuff isn’t rocket science: please can we go back to basics, defend as a unit, protect the back line properly and avoid getting drawn into these daft see saw games of which we seem so fond?
As was said by virtually everyone at the time, the failure to sign a DM in the summer was a huge oversight, and I would be surprised if we correct the error in January, always a tough month to make additions. We are therefore going to have to soldier on with what we’ve already got.
All of that said, BtM is entirely correct to point out that we are relatively well placed in the league and will qualify in the champs league. The result was classic Arsenal, in many ways – always determined to do things the hard way.
Tough game ahead at the weekend. Get a result there, beat the Mancs and life will look a bit more positive.
COYG
NZ Goner, I am with you in regards to Wenger most likely not getting any addition, forget additions, in January. Don’t know where we go from here. There is something about this group that I can’t put my hands on. I don’t see us going on any kind of major run of say 6-7 wins in a row. And you are right that we will qualify from the group, but we all know that’s where it ends, because as usual we will get a lucky draw of facing any of the best 4 teams in the next round. It feels like we are stuck, not moving forward or backward. How are we sure that things will turn around after we get all our injured players back if we don’t have a new mentality, or like you said, going back to basis.
Basics, sorry.
Had we won we would have had TWO dead rubbers remaining in the group stage and could have rested practically everybody for two midweek games. Absolutely criminal that we now have to play everyone against Dort and, stuff that up as form suggests we will, also against Gala. AND I will have to watch and suffer the full 90 minutes+ each time regardless how many we might be leading by.
Only 64 years and counting as a supporter, and I still wonder if they care what they put us through sometimes… 🙁
Öskar
Re: Trev on how we endlessly pass the ball around in aimless triangles hoping defenders will fall over or fall asleep. You left out a third possibility. The odd defender just might drop dead too. 😉
Last few rounds of CL performances and results continue the recent trend of English teams not living up to the reputation of PL, and confirm the analysis that PL is not the best league in Europe. Most competitive league maybe with a lot of technical and physical qualities spread all across the different teams, but neither have the best players, nor the most tactically advanced approach.
The hurly-burly approach with the manic devotion to pace and tackle are easily found out for their limitations in Europe, as England gets found out in international football.
We should be mighty proud that we are having a rather surprisingly consistent run in CL appearance, group stage as well as second round, and we owe a lot of that to Arsene’s knowledge of football and his ability to put together teams with right balance of technical and tactical abilities. I think our continuous presence in last 16 but less and less in last 8 also indicates accurately our true rank in Europe, around 10 or so, which is a drop from our heydays in the early years of this century. The challenge would now be to move up this European ladder while improving our PL consistency.
I am not entirely convinced that it would be as easy as we hope, even if we spend some more money on defensive signings etc. Say what you want about that Anderlecht team and how supposedly weak they are, for a bunch of 20 year olds they showed actually good discipline and understanding of the game. How many 20-21 old players in the English set-up do that? I find the vast vast gap in youth talent between all top Footballing nations and England to be quite inexplicable and hence our plan to build an Arsenal future around an English core, appealing an idea may it be for the purpose of team loyalty etc., doesn’t convince me.
I think Ox is an exception, and the only exception in his age group.
I received a notification on my phone saying the sky blue Galacticos lost 2-1 at home and the dark Blue Galactico’s were held to a draw by an unknown team.
Quick sack Maureen and Pirelli tyres!!!
Hey – hoo!!
🙂
Let’s go for the king while we’re at it!!!
The King? Treason I call it!!
Off with his head!!!
Ding, dong, ding…quick draw for the amo!!!!
BTM – you are obviously very content with the team and the coach.
And of course you are welcome to your opinion and just like Arsene Wenger I suspect that won’t change until it’s way too late.
But please don’t assume the rest of us should conform to your beliefs that all is well and good and it is just a one off.
Even the most ardent of wenger supporters can see the fit is no longer right.. And they are now voicing their opinion loud and clear.
I am sure Dapper Dan can make his own judgements on the future hopes for the club.
As others, including Dapper dan, have very succinctly stated above, the club is bigger than One man and always should be.
SAG@133 – I believe the answer you may be searching for with this team and the reason for the inconsistent performances has been well summarised by trev above in earlier drinks.
Team balance.
The balance is all wrong now from front to back and especially down the spine. The squad has been built with good intent, with budget restrictions, but it just hasn’t worked.
The team balance is now so out of sync, when you add a few injuries, it causes these inconsistent performances and you have what we see today.
A backline where the players individual weaknesses are exposed too easily
A midfield of all similar players of average ability bar a few
No DM to even speak of… So no cover to the spine.
A forward line that gets starved of quality balls when the midfield is pressed correctly.
Speaking both for and against the most of ardent of Wenger supporters? F Scott Fitzgerald would be proud of that performance.
The club is, was and always will be bigger than 1 man, be he player, manager or opinionated supporter. I’m not sure if that is tautological or merely stating the bleeding obvious.
1 straw man went to burn, burn in a fucking meadow.
I’m off to stand on the side and do some shouting.
Esso @ 141: “I’m not sure if that is tautological or merely stating the bleeding obvious.” 🙂
That’s a brilliant line. Needless to say, obviously!
Esso … I think Fitzgerald, if he were to consider Arsenal today, would view it as cautionary tale about the decline of Arsene’s dream in the face of the excesses of the rich, in the same way The Great Gatsby illuminated the decadent downside of the American dream.
I hope we have all read it? It is not only one of the greatest books of the 20th Century but also one of the shortest. So no excuses.
Öskar
Here’s a question
Who is currently the most successful premiere league manger – outright!
The answer is in the question
“Alexis bloody Sanchez, Alexis bloody Sanchez, la la la hey, la, la, la…
Off with his head!!!
@ Oskar: A good novel that stands up well today. A little too joyfully sordid and somewhat overrated. 🙂
I read a book, once.
Green, it was.
A great interview with the beast:
http://www.arsenal.com/news/features/20141015/julio-baptista
Results last night have certainly put me in a better mood already! Weekend nearly here too as N7 pointed out above beat The Swans on the weekend and Mancs after and we all should be in a very happy place!
I sincerely hope we will strengthen in Jan for now we will have to dig deep and hopefully we will be getting some of out walking wounded back too.
BTW where the hell is Diaby?
Arthur @148, Abou Diaby is currently in the classroom at Colney receiving intensive lessons on how to play CB so that he will be revealed in January LANS to add cover for the run in (at no additional expense). :/
Funny Bath!
Then again you never know with Arsenal ( scratches head in disbelief) 🙁
ATG@148, I don’t see Wenger buying anyone in January. As long as Arteta can go two games, pull his hamstring/ come back after two weeks, while using Flamini while he is gone, We should be fine. As for CB, we will have to pray and hope Koschielny stay healthy after he comes back from his injury, till the end of the season. Why buy new players? when he had three months to do it, we couldn’t find anyone that can make this team better (having a laugh). We will need more than 30 days to do it this time around.
Zico @ 146: 🙂
GT @ 147: Was originally published in the Arsenal monthly magazine. Well worth subscribing for some good interviews, especially Arsene’s and ex-players’, and the historical features.
Last one had a pictorial overview of TR7’s career, focusing on the Arsenal days but Sparta Prague and Dortmund well represented as well.
SAG, ATG: If past form is a guide, AW will only buy if he believes he is adding better than he has got, or has to fill an unexpected gap. Nor will he pay wildly over the odds. He won’t buy for the sake of buying, nor flash the cash to appear to be ‘doing something’. That will probably make for slim pickings for us in the January window.
Hey Dr F,
Yes, need to be more consistent with my monthly magazine purchases. Soon though.
Interesting to know that it stemmed from there. 🙂
NBN, my point exactly. He rarely buys in January, regardless of the situation.
Puts this myth about Arsenal doesn’t prepare specifically for opposition to rest.
http://news.arseblog.com/2014/11/szczesny-blasts-arsenal-stupidity/
[The keeper also revealed he’s a keen study of upcoming opponents using clips sent to him via his iPad.
“We have a great, new system of match analysis,” he said. “The individual clips, designed for specific players download to our iPads wirelessly, so it is very convenient.
“You watch it yourself at home or on the way to the game, to observe the habits of opponents, and much more.”]
From Szczesny @156, on iPad clips,
“You watch it yourself at home or on the way to the game, to observe the habits of opponents, and much more.”]
Do you think they have observed that very annoying habit the opposition teams have of running straight through stonking great gaps in the midfield just in front of our back four ?
Or, back two, depending on how far up field our full backs are at the time.
As Arseblog says today – lesson, lesson, lessony lesson, blah, blah …….
How many times lads ?
Trev@157: It is kind of hard to say though whether individuals do not always learn as much as they should or whether our team set-up and tactical approach overestimate the players’ abilities to respond to situations.
The team is capable of playing with defensive discipline and protecting leads — as we did much of last season — but also capable of extraordinary fragility as we had displayed against Chelsea or Liverpool away.
Is this strange gap in tactical discipline by the same group of players due to them not fully comprehending the subtleties of managers’ directions and/or lack of personal discipline or both? It seems from outside when we go with the approach “do not concede, the goals will come” we play in a certain assured way if not as excitingly as we are capable of but when we go with the approach “attack them guys” we simply forget about the other side of the game.
http://www.espnfcasia.com/club/arsenal/359/blog/post/2132462/arsenal-are-the-most-frustrating-club-in-the-world-to-support-iain-macintosh
What makes it all so fist-gnashingly ridiculous, so grind-your-teeth-into-dust annoying is that Arsenal seem to make the same mistakes again and again and again and again until you start to think they’re doing it deliberately as some kind of vindictive performance art.
—————–
Maybe it’s psychological.
😀
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20141106/team-news-arteta-wilshere-and-giroud
Giroud back in training next week.. wow that’s fast!
Jack’s back for Sunday.
NBN,
What, you mean he really has to find a better defensive midfielder than Flamini or Arteta ?
Damn …… Mission Impossible or what ?
To be fair to Arteta it was only after he went off that things fell apart. And I don’t want to slate players for their ability to play positions that are not natural to them but Flamini is supposed to be some kind of defender.
And regardless of ability, a complete lack of discipline is very much open to criticism. And endless repetitions of it even more so.
Come on please- Kim Kallstrom is raring to go and promises he won’t play beach football beforehand this time!
Sol Campbell should have done his book launch and could become the latest returning Invincible who we resign. CB cover of the highest quality.
Sorted!
Man United releases official manager’s portrait:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UnicGvrGpYU/TvT2SBwP1wI/AAAAAAAAANM/ZwyWsqfEHmE/s1600/Fat+Dutchman.jpg
Excellent analysis tonight by Tim Stillman:
http://arseblog.com/2014/11/arsenal-get-the-drop-on-er-arsenal/
Very interesting, bath, if a bit scary.
I don’t know what’s more worrying, the team’s lack of performance or the sentiments expressed by someone as seasoned and level headed as ‘holic. Against Hull, ‘holic said he wasn’t confident about our chances; and the tone of this piece. If someone like him who’s been through the ups and downs of the club is moved to this state, it is truly depressing.
That and Wenger saying he was never confident from the first minute. Wow!
Here’s my two-cents, see if it makes sense:
Disappointment, anger, frustration, and similar feelings stem from expectations. It’s also due to helplessness. We as fans can do f*** all about the decisions made by the club and how they deal with performances like this one.
Now the reason for our expectations is the way we used to play a few years ago, and it started with the manager, who among achieving many other things, transformed the club from a boring one to a scoring one.
Until 2007/8. Various baffling decisions, ineptitude at management level we have no privy to, transfer window inactivities, quality of players, handwringing on the touchline, the handbrakes, final third problems, overpriced/paid players not showing when it matters, have contributed to the current situation of both the club and the fans.
Of all these, the indifference of players who get paid millions of dollars, who get cheered every time they touch the ball (not Eboue), whose jerseys are bought by hopeful fans, is the one that irks me the most.
That and the complacency many of us have which finds expression in sentiments like, ’16 other clubs will kill be in our position’. Of course. And there are probably 50 other clubs equally willing to shed blood to be in the top 20 that doesn’t mean we should slide down happily.
To be competitive, to stay at the top, you need to compare yourself to the teams ahead of you, and be inspired to beat them, not keep saying we are better than the other 16 and keep struggling for the fourth place, which is where we will be, if we are lucky, this season, the way we are ‘playing’.
When Man City and Chelsea lose, we are buoyed by that, but then we don’t take advantage, instead we go and lose or draw. And when they win, we don’t follow. We still lose or draw. The infrequent victories blind us to the shortcomings which make us fall again. Oh well, it’s only football.
Yep. Its all Wenger’s fault. Its so clear now and really just that simple. Let’s tar and feather the bastard!!!
In other news, Bendtner came as a 75 minute sub for Wolfsburg scoring a brace yesterday. Just saw the second goal, decent one.
SAG: We are on the same page.
Trev: Finding a DM that is available and affordable in January is Mission At Least Tricky, though that is not to say that it shouldn’t be undertaken.
Video of the Bendtner brace: http://www.ntvspor.net/video-galeri/wolfsburgkrasnodar-51
Not enough standing on the side shouting.
Agreed, Ned – it wasn’t a dig at your comment.
I wonder whether he might (AW) be thinking of trying Coquelin as DM again as he’s sent him on loan to Charlton for a month.
A few warm up games before first team action ?
I’ll put down our dismal performances due to the number of first team players out/unfit. Clearly our replacements are not good enough. Will wait and see once we get back Theo, Giroud, Kos, Debuchy and Ozil.
But certainly Wilshere and Ramsey are performing below par. Hope we show some heart and desire against swansea.
Alexis to star yet again!
Cautiously optimistic.
😀
Is replacing Wenger the solution to all our problems? if so please do so for the great man that he is will not want to be considered that after having done so much for the club. Is he outdated? if thats the case who decides it? results? then every other club bar the winners are failures. So for everything saying Wenger needs to go is just scapegoat the go to man.
Swansea are a pain in the neck, they play at a pace which will hurt our defense which is already reeling. The only counter is we will also have chances to score. Alexis my man, sorry it is you again who has to win it for us.
Love the confidence on here when all around us is doom and gloom about the team
it is so pleasing to hear others who still believe in the team and especially our amazing manager
He has just been a tad unlicky
Well, what do you know?
Big Ivan strikes again!
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20141106/gazidis-named-premier-league-ceo-of-year
Off with his head! 😉
As the old song goes, “Money makes the world go round.”
Please keep sending it in, you brilliant supporters. ;s
You’re the best.
Thank you.
Old man can’t play : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGEfNcvntno
😀
All and sundry know that we can’t defend… well we’ll just have to carry on attacking then, we do miss Theo, Giroud and Kos, very effective as shown : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNRy5IR3CJU
Good Times.
😀
Ray’s on the pull! But as he’s as sharp as a wooden razor.
Hope you enjoying the Friday night pintage, Holic. I am, even if its in me own kitchen. Slainte!
Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched. I never do. 😉
AFC Bournemouth now lead the Championship and have never before played in the top flight of English football since their formation as Holcombe in 1899.
BB@179, so I guess we can’t blame our defending on injuries. Watching that video, don’t know if I was happy about us scoring 7 goals, or frustrated that we conceded 5 goals.
I have a couple at the battle Esso, now I’m on the tinnies too. 🙂
Evening all. Preview tomorrow as it is a Sunday match. I am now going to drink properly 🙂
Sunday match. Seems set up for heavy drinking. 😉
The Stillman article Bath circulated ( which was excellent if depressing) has worried me about the Swansea game. We won it fairly easily last season but Tim points out how a confidence team tale a long time go recover after a shock like Tuesday and feels the team will find Sunday difficult. I don’t rate Swansea as highly as some but the absence of Arteta leaves us very vulnerable . I’ve been on fire in predicting league matches recently ( well the last two! ) but I may be guided by the trusty Holic pound tomorrow before making public my prediction- and he has taken to the drink!
As I said at #131, Ttg … “I for one do not expect us to come out firing at the weekend seeking redemption. I fear the most likely reaction will be a team suffused with nerves conceding early and never getting into the match”. And I’m still of that opinion.
And still hoping to be proven wrong of course. 😉
Öskar
A bit rough blaming Jack, BB (#173), he’s been out injured for the last several games! No, we haven’t seen the best of him this season, but we’ve been even worse without him., and if he plays Sunday I expect the midfield to be better organised. At least he won’t be suffering guilt after Tuesday.
Öskar
Evening all.
Back in the bar after being without internet access since last Sunday.
I’m too tired to knird properly, but dipping into the drinks i see that everyone is posting along the lines that they usually do, as indeed am I.
I sometimes wonder why we all bother. We are all to be commended on being so faithful to our beliefs, but we seem to find it a little harder than we should to realise that if we don’t convince everyone after the first couple of (hundred) times, we probably aren’t going to convince them ever. Still, let’s all keep shouting our opinions ever louder.
Swansea on Sunday. Bring it on.
COYG
NBN @170. Wouldn’t this be the height of desperation, watching videos of Bendtner scoring goals for a German bottom half club? 😉
Actually, it would be but Wolfsburg are in second just four points behind Bayern Munich at the moment. No doubt they are that high due to their star striker, whose name is ….
Well, Olic if you really want to know. 🙂
But Bendtner is playing a lot more than he would be at Arsenal. Olic has played 647 minutes and Bendtner 297 so he’s not exactly rusting on the bench. And Olic is 35 years old so Bendtner might be needed more in the second half of the season. I wonder how Pires is doing in India …
A respite from all the doom and gloom, 3 years?! whatever happened to 3 months? : http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/louis-van-gaal-need-three-4587478
@187 Öskar the dog
With regards to Jack, I contend that he’s on par or has the potential to be as influential as Ozil. The only issue with that is that they both were not playing to their potential, whether it’s injuries or fatigue.
Am hoping once everyone comes good we’ll see a resurgence of the team.
😀
Yep that will surely be the turning point in the season
Jack wilshire returning
still laughing
The only par he is equal to with ozil maybe golf
Both have huge ability, I agree BB, but only one has the right attitude, imo. And I’d be surprised if the other doesn’t feature in a major swaps deal either in January or the summer.
Let’s hope Jack stays fit and finds some form. Starting Sunday would be good!
You may not like him, Ray, but no excuse for not spelling his name correctly. That is ignorance.
Öskar
Lofts an aerial ball into the box for those who wish to clash heads.
bt8
Here i am with a storning header — nick bendtner style!!!
And hey Ray:
Way to keep the faith. Solid work ….
Good job Homer. 🙂
I thought jack said of himself only weeks back ” you are now seeing the best of me…
Must be true then
What Wilshere said, Ray, was … ““For a player of my age, I’ve missed a lot of football so I’m just trying to play as much as I can, train as much as I can and I’ve always said that when I get fully fit you’ll see the best of me.
“I said at the start of the season that it was going to take some time to get back to my best. Ever since my first injury, it’s always taken a run of games – probably between five and 10 – to get back to my best.
“Some players are different, some players come back and are at their best straight away. But some need a run of games and I’m one of those players.” …
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20141006/wilshere-you-re-seeing-best-of-me-now
None of which means we’re seeing the best of him yet. Especially since he was injured again almost immediately after saying the above.
Not that I’d ever believe a word any player says regarding his own form anyway. They’re obviously biased!
Frankly I believe he’s suffered too many long-term injuries ever to realise his full potential, but he’s still the best midfielder we have on his day. Good luck to the lad, he deserves some.
Öskar
# Correction: The new boy Alexis is of course our best midfielder by a mile currently. Jack #2.
Öskar
…unless you count Alexis as a forward, in which case… 🙂
Öskar
Oskar – your consistent and solid defence of jack is always admirable.
I hope he does you proud one day.
I’m fucking depressed about The Arse really. I reckon there’s a good chance we’re gonna get utterly cunted tomorrow, by a side that’s a smidgeon above the league’s average at best.
Its a fucking disgrace Monreal is being selected at centre half and an insult to both him and the club’s supporters. We’ve got players in the stiffs/youth team whose job description reads ‘Centre Half’ or ‘Right Back’. Fucking stick them in the team, needs must and if it fucks up, it cant be any worse than what looks potentially possible at the moment. Without Arteta and a whole different attitude from the entire midfield (unlikely) defending is going to be difficult enough tomorrow, without a 5′ 10″ left back playing at centre half. And if it fucks up, I for one, would still prefer said fuck up, to be with a defence with players (however inexperienced) playing in their correct positions.
Beyond that I go no further. I’m an Arsenal supporter and have been since 1969. Nothing will ever change that. I’ve been through far worse times than this in terms of results and performances. I’m in the business of supporting the club, not making judgements or offering cosy platitudes.
Don’t mean I’m not pissed off with some things though!
Good on ya Esso.
Nice to hear some fucking truth and passion on here.
The team need more of that
Esso@205, you mean sticking Bellerin at RB and Chambers at CB. Instead of Monreal playing CB! Well Arsene knows best and also very stubborn too.You keep playing Monreal there and shatter his confidence, then when Gibbs gets injured, Monreal will come in his real position and play like shit and we will all start complaining that he is not good enough.
Esso, SAG: One of the things that Amy Lawrence’s book on the Invincibles makes clear is that AW believes good players can play anywhere. Right or wrong, it helps explain a lot of team selections over the years.
Just cant stand these chelsea cunts
Esso – every word.
See, apart from what Esso said above, this is the sort of thing that drives me mad – this time about our medical team:
Speaking on November 6, ahead of the Swansea City game, Arsene Wenger said: “Koscielny has a little chance to be back after the international break.” – from Arsenal dot com.
According to the press conference yesterday – November 7 – he now has no chance of playing after the international break, and is out for at least another 3-4 weeks.
Waiting for Achilles inflammation to go away can be a long wait indeed, but how do we get two such disparate stories on consecutive days. As if things aren’t frustrating enough already.
Sick feeling in my stomach , every time chelsea win …. can they go unbeaten …. that is the only thing left for us goonrrs to brag about in recent times
Chavs will probably lose to west brom or newcastle, never fear. They just happen to park the bus and rely on fast wingers and costa to do the damage.. can’t last forever.
That being said, for our team, wonder when we’ll get to see Bellerin make some starts. He’s certainly good enough and we definitely need a bigger pool of defenders who are up to it.
Might as well start the scouting for Arteta and Flamini’s replacements too. With Campbell and Poldi out of favour, looks like we’ll have at least 4 and most probably 5 new first team players next season.
Bournemouth are no longer top of the Championship proving for once and for all that fame can be short lived. 🙂
BB@213, we will see Bellerin getting starts as soon as Chambers gets injured (knock on wood). That’s the only time Wenger makes changes or rotate his team selection.
Word Esso.
Motes said it would take a year. Van Gaal says three years. Assuming we have spotted a trend here I wonder how long the next manager will say it will take.
Trev: My guess would be that an unintended indefinite article slipped into “a little chance”.
arselove@209: ain’t that the truth. Mourinho’s Chavs are getting to be as loveable as Revie’s Leeds United.
Agree with every word, Esso. Especially the ones beginning with f 😉
The situation of Monreal at CB is indeed depressing, frustrating, and potentially game-changing against strong opposition. You sure don’t win PL titles with Monreal as CB — I think he is technically and tactically better LB than Gibbo, though I know I am in the minority, but physically too slight for a PL CB — for a long stretch of games.
However is it really unexpected? After all these years? After Ashley Cole, Lauren, Kolo, TV5, Djourou who all were played for substantial amount of time in positions not natural to them, some became excellent and some floundered.
Arsene would give example of Sagna, 5 ft 9 and all, who was eventually converted to a 3rd choice CB as good as any in the league.
I guess we just have to grin and bear it and hope that Monreal quickly makes the necessary adjustments as the Kos situation does indeed appear to be of the alarming variety that we specialize in with respect to injuries.
The Man City match showed how crucial a top quality CB is to the success of a team. Without Kompany on the pitch they looked disheveled in the back against QPR, and Vargas and Zamora gave them a hard time in the 15 odd minutes spell I watched.
Speaking of Vargas, I think next season he will be picked up by some top-6 team. Not as technically good as Alexis, but similar type of hardworking player.
Trev
I noticed the correction of the prediction on Koscielny. I think this problem manifested itself at Wembley against Citeh in the Community Shield.
Chambers who had never played CB before he came to Arsenal was our only alternative yet the transfer window ran down and no action was taken to cover Koscielny. The chap I sit next to is friendly with Isaac Hayden’s family and his initial injury was felt to be relatively minor by the medical team. He is now likely to be out for about two months!
This is all a cock- up of the highest order and I feel for Monreal who is not cut out for playing centre back and exposes Mertesacker’s lack of pace because of his indecision. Even if Chelsea weren’t sailing away this lack of cover would have killed any chance of the title well before Christmas and must rate as one of the poorer decisions we have made . The Koscielny injury exacerbates an already serious lack of cover. I note Vermaelen has yet to,play for Barcelona so he has been well and truly kibosh end by several years in our treatment room as well.
TTG @ 222: This is just a guess, and I could be wrong, supporters like you who are so much closer to the inside information would know better, but I think Arsene didn’t push as much for a CB as he should really have because he genuinely thought he had this covered with Chambers as 3rd choice CB and Hayden as 4th. He likes Chambers as a CB — and maybe a DM in future — and not as a RB.
Unlike before the club does not make too much public noise about its up-and-coming youngsters, but I think Hayden has been in the plans for a while. He used to write a column for Arsenal magazine a year or so back and if he was displaying that kind of intelligence in his training and discussion with Arsene you could see why, the physical and technical attributes being adequate enough, he would catch Arsene’s attention. Then since last year he started regularly appearing in first team’s practice session photos. I guess Arsene thought that if the injury situation gets so bad that the he will need to get to the 4th choice CB for a while he thought he could get Hayden to play in this position for a short stretch.
If not as much as Kos’s tendonitis, Debuchy’s injury had really unbalanced our defense as evidently Bellerin cannot yet be trusted to start in PL against most opponents unless absolutely needed. I think Debuchy’s injury has unbalanced our attacking scheme also because he plays in a very unique and interesting way while in attack (always positioned to quickly recover, something that even Sagna was having trouble in last year) and actually does a a superb job covering the whole right flanks against counter-attacks. Another guess: but the move towards a more thrustful 4-1-4-1 may also have relied on Debuchy’s excellent crosses and mobility down that flank.
Mourinho reckons Chelsea are the champions of Autumn? Great, another bloody trophy we’ve missed out on.
Doc@223, my question is why are we not playing Bellerin as a RB and Chambers as a CB. I thought he was suppose to be ahead of Jenkinson and that was the reason why he was sent on loan to west ham. When is he going to get the experience. Just making that change will balance the defense, rather than playing monreal out of position. And personally I really don’t see chambers as RB. More of a CB/DM. We complain that we can’t compete against the money bags but, when we have a coach with 19 years experience in the same league that should be a huge advantage for us. But it feels like Wenger is new to the PL.
Bravo esso.
I am with you there.
“Dictatorship of poor player coverage…”
My apologis for being thick, but that makes no sense.
In fact it sounds as if cut/paste staright from le grove.
Shall i check, or shall you save me the effort?
Honetly lad, enough already.
Cheers, Ray.
I agree with you, Dr F, that Nacho is a better LB than Gibbs, so who is to say he can’t learn the CD job, become more confident in the role and end up a key defender? He is after all taller than Sagna who made a fair fist of it when asked. Stranger things have happened (although an example escapes me presently).
Interesting note in your #208, Ned, about AW believing good players can, or should be able to, play anywhere. My point entirely about would-be No10s in the squad.
The chavs have minimal hope of going unbeaten. They came from behind again today, and you can’t rely on that for a whole season. During 2003-4 we were lucky on several occasions and very nearly managed to screw up against minor teams. The mind games that go in in close games can make even the best players fallible to mistakes. There’s a reason it’s only been done once since Preston went unbeaten in 1889 – playing just 22 games to do it incidentally.
Öskar
A good point, SAG (#225). If the corp was still in the squad I have little doubt he’d be playing at RB currently with Cal at CD. So why not Bellerin? I’ve seen very little of the lad, but he’s looked competent enough in his cameos.
Öskar
Hey Ned (#218) … Have you seen the movie The Damned United recalling Brian Clough’s short stay at Leeds and his war with Don Revie? It turned up on TV here yesterday and I watched the first half, with the rest recorded to catch up on later. Absolutely brilliant recreation of the type of thuggery played back then, on pitches resembling cow paddocks.
I couldn’t help wondering whether those slippery quagmires weren’t a lot easier on the limbs than today’s perfect lawn bowls greens where there is precious little give in the surface to absorb tackles. Just a thought. Trev?
Öskar
Dr. F
Very insightful comment from you as usual. I understand young Hayden was rather put out by Chambers’ promotion ahead of him as he was above him in the pecking order for England Under- 20s. His elevation to the first team squad may have pacified him and he must be enormously frustrated by this injury. I was very impressed with him in the Capital One Cup and thought he looked more at ease than Chambers.
As I think I have sic here there is great optimism about Pleguezelo the 17 year old Spanish boy and O’Connor who signed a professional contract last week.
Wenger likes to raid Barca and Bellerin and Jon Toral who joined with him from there are highly promising Toral is out on loan for the first time at Brentford and coping very well after serious injury problems last year. They tend to develop a very decent crop of youngsters and if he can fast- track them into the first- team squad it improves our chances of raiding Barca successfully again!
Good point about Debuchy also. He began very positively and is making good progress , ahead of schedule I believe. I echo the comments on here about Jenkinson. My West Ham friends are delighted with him and hope to sign him eventually. It would have been much better to keep him but hindsight is a wonderful thing!
OTD
I’m sorry I think if you look at the Invincible season we were very rarely lucky anywhere. We got the rub of the green against Portsmouth at home but otherwise trailed very rarely. Van Scumbag hitting the bar was the pivotal moment but after that we weren’t really troubled until we had won the title and took our foot off the gas.
Sadly I think Chelsea have a realistic chance of going unbeaten. Firstly they have far and away the strongest squad, they have already played City, United , Everton and Liverpool away and they get many less injuries than most of the other teams. They may well slip up in a silly game but like us I think they will be able to cope. Their biggest problem may be fixture pile- up
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>