I normally write the match review directly after the game, but tonight I thought I’d give it a couple of hours. I thought maybe I’d feel a bit more passionately about the loss. Well, it didn’t happen… I just feel deflated.
How can I get angry?
If the dog keeps shagging the cushion, you can only berate it so many times before you have to accept the fact that the dog is always going to shag that cushion.
I wouldn't rest your hand on that...
It’s the same with this current team. There will be moments when you think they’ve finally got it sussed, then bang, out of the blue… we’re metaphorically shagging that bastard cushion again.
‘Beating the Scousers was fantastic but we must not get too ahead of ourselves… premature gloatation is a dangerous thing. I must say I am more worried about the impending games against Hull and Burnley. If Arsenal couldn’t motivate themselves for the first half at Anfield, how are they going to feel about playing away at Burnley or Hull?’
I felt bad writing that, even worse requoting myself like some sort of prophetic wizard but I had to put it down because it happens so often. All of the ridiculous gloating that comes the way of Le Grove after a solitary win annoys me, not because these people are retarded enough to think winning upsets us, but because at the back of my mind, I know it’s going to come back and bite them in the arse sooner rather than later.
Burnley deserve all the praise in the world for how they performed tonight. Mick McCarthy should look at what they did and feel ashamed of the team he put out against United. They caused us plenty of issues without the use of bully boy tactics. They hit the wings, they walked through the middle of us, they took pot shots and they fully deserved their point.
Arsenal need a team of fighters, not a select few players who want to turn up in the glamour games in the safety of the Grove. It’s debatable who those fighters are, but I’ve got a list in my mind who I’d want on my side when the chips are down… Song, Vermaelen, Gallas, Cesc and Arshavin are probably the only players who’d make it onto the list from last night. I know Arshavin might be a contreversial choice, but he’s a hard worker and I think one of the reasons he looks as if he goes missing is because he returns very deep to get the ball when things aren’t looking good.
We started off quite brightly, creating some fine chances, most of which came through the good work of Cesc Fabregas and Andrey Arshavin. We got our reward when Cesc lost the ball on the edge of the box, fought back to win it with Diaby, jumped on the loose ball, bundled into the box and slid it home.
Almunia pulled off a couple of crucial saves and commanded his box uncharacteristically well.
Burnley were are threat though and weren’t going to go down without a fight. Arshavin hit the post after some superb interplay with Cesc.
Not long after Vermaelen allowed them an opportunity to equalise when he rashly challenged in the box, the ref pointed to the spot, Alexander smashed home emphatically.
Arsenal came out for the second half like they’d been asked to repeat the first half against Liverpool. Cesc went off with a thigh injury and Rambo struggled to replicate the creativity of the Spaniard. Arsenal were a team bereft of ideas. The team had 50% fight in them. Gallas was bombing forward, Vermaelen too, Song was trying his hardest to force an opening but outside those boys, not much else was happening. Too many players are clueless. None of them have a plan b when threading the ball through the eye of a needle proves ineffective. Is it possible that the most intricate football in the Premiership has become predictable… one dimensional if you will?
Burnley were doing there best down the other end, striking the post and creating other chances. The most worrying moment of the second half was a cross that looked bread and butter for Almunia, he mistimed it and let it slip under him… Burnley put the ball in the net, luckily the lino flagged dubiously for offside.
Shocking, shocking goalkeeping. No excuses. That was one of the worst goalkeeping errors I’ve seen an Arsenal keeper make. If he isn’t dropped for the Hull game, consider him undroppable.
The game whimpered out. Arsenal had undone all the good from the Liverpool game. We slipped back in the title race once again.
So how do I conclude this?
Well, I think it’s safe to say we’re not out of the title race mathematically. We’re firmly in it. However, for me, tonight was a demonstration as to why I doubt we’ll win the league. In your heart of hearts, after watching that performance and numerous others this season, can you honestly see us challenging in May? Our problem is we lack fight. It’s the same old same old. If you don’t buy players with that hunger needed to win Championships, you’ll never win Championships.
Listening to the coach talk about the team being jaded made me laugh. We’ve got the youngest team in the universe, yet they can’t muster the stamina to beat Burnley.
So what is it? Is it the youth policy? When you pay kids huge sums at a young age, is it all a little too easy? Is it Arsene overlooking personality type when scouting players these days? Or is it just the wrong mix of players?
That’s not for me to decide. However, I’d say if we want to kick on we’re going to need to do something about the culture of this team because it certainly doesn’t smell like a winning recipe.
Ratings:
Almunia: Started brightly, then faded horribly. Letting the ball slip under you so easily is appalling. How can a professional keeper sleep at night after displaying such a lack of concentration. He must be dropped, time is up, he has to be replaced by Fabianski. 4
Silvestre: I thought he had a nightmare. I’d be pretty miffed as a Burnley fan that the ref didn’t give a penalty for his blatant handball in the box. Still, when every left back in the club has been cursed, your selection is forced. 5
Vermaelen: Clumsy challenge to concede the penalty, but overall, a great performance from a player who looks like he has a deep love for the club already. Give me 11 Verminators and I’ll be a happy man. 8
Gallas: A battling performance from a player who seems to feed off the passion his centre back partner shows. Again, for all his faults, he genuinely cares about winning. 7
Sagna: Unconvincing for me. He’s been very inconsistent this season, especially going forward. Not a great night for the Frenchman. 6
Fabregas: An inspired start to the game considering he went into the game with an injury complaint. He limped off early in the second half and apparently it’s serious. A very big worry for us. Wenger’s master plan is without direction if the Spaniard isn’t there. 7
Song: I thought he has a good game. He’s never going to tear open a defence, but at least he wears his heart on his sleeve and is prepared to fight it out. 6.5
Diaby: I thought he did ok for the first 40 minutes. The rest of the match was classic Diaby. No real direction, no real threat and very limited impact. He just doesn’t cut it at the moment. 5
Nasri: A player we all expected big things from, but so far, he’s in the same boat as Theo. He’s just not doing it for me. Although he has far more natural ability than the Englishman, he doesn’t seem to have much grit about him. He drifts in and out of game which is a waste, because skill like that should be forced on these types of situation. 6
Walcott: Did anyone see a short stocky player who looks a bit like Lewis Hamilton on the pitch tonight? I know I didn’t. Virtually zero input bar that look of shock on his face everytime he fired a shot 40 yards over the bar, or he misplaced a pass. A Very poor return from a player we were hoping was going to light up next years World Cup. 5
Arshavin: Had a very promising first half, but struggled to come to terms with the second half. There was no creativity from anyone else and he looked a little lost if I’m honest. 6.5
Le Grove is now smart phone compatible!
Pedro
Geoff
Okay,is It Fine ?,
Stupid sucking net connection
seems to be better now…hope it is not temporary thought
its been sad match yesterdays
off to read the post
hattrick ..is it
Top 5 and read the post first.
i am on podium today! yippeeeee
Lucky me
On the subject of which, can’t agree more. Put that performance togather with the first – no, make that BOTH – halves against Liverpool, and you just know we won’t win the league. Spineless springs to mind. Apart from the players you’ve already picked out.
As for Walcott……nuff said. Did those two shoulder operations also remove a backbone ?
FUCK WALCOTT!!! Get that clown out NOW!! That was the worst performance I have EVER seen from a so called attacking Premier League footballer.
top 10
Where is TAIG?
Heartless load of overpaid cocksuckers,an urgent need to get some fight back into the team,and not just for one half,lucky to get the result at liverpool,second Gallas tackle was a bang on penalty.There are to many *FANCY* boys in the team. I watched the Tottenham game and to be honest and” this hurts “they showed the type of determination we are lacking.Time for the sour faced,stubborn,whingeing,Frog to go,AND TO TAKE HIS YOUNG BOY POLICY WITH HIM.
Tell u what Pedro,
This post ranks one of the best match review post you have written pedro,
I just love the post,If anybody wants to read the truth and reality about our current arsenal team,just read this post
one of your best post pedro.
Much has been said about the half time hairdryer treatment that AW handed out against pool, but why should he have to do it? Why are the players so shit at the moment, they just don’t seem to have the passion for this club. I have said before; this club is not going forward, it is going backwards and will continue to do so while AW continues to put faith in his youth project.
I can honestly say that almunia is the worst goalkeeper that i have ever seen play for arsenal, but AW has complete faith in him and says that he is his number 1, so basically almunia can fuck up all he wants, but he know his place is safe, fucking unreal.
Walcott is not the problem, he is just so low on confidence, it’s embarassing…
How about Almunia though, he cleared the ball into touch umpteen times, and just does not command his area. Must be dropped!!
Where are our strikers? We have nobody up front! AA23 should NOT play centrally, we need a quick strong frontman and Eddy does not fall into that category…
North Bank Lew
”nuff said. Did those two shoulder operations also remove a backbone ?”
CLASSIC LOL
Mr Wenger dint make the third sub and We dint change anything to win the game in the last 20 minutes or so.
All he did was complain complain complain … about the pitch , workload, wolves. He cant see his teams faults.
Pedro
I used to write that here that I am always happy when WALCOTT is injured and people took offence. I am now glad that I am not seeing double and that my assessment of Walcott was accurate from the first moment.
The game that I lost him was when Wenger subbed Eboue for him and Evra came forward for the first time to setup their lead.
Could you please do a statistic of our performance with and wothout Theo in the side??????
Every time he is the side we perform very bad in terms of play as well…..
Wenger would say … Almunia saw the offside flag and let the ball slip and retain him for saturday
arsenal are spineless and lack a Gattusosque and a Drogba type of player in the middle. i think Arsene is growing senile by the day. Arsenal of today cannot be comparable to the times of SOl Campbell, PV4, Keown,TH14, Ljumberg and Bobby Pires and i wouldnt be suprised should Cesc want out. Arshavin thinks we need to buy, Cesc thinks so too and so does everybody else except for Arsene Wanker.
we must buy 3 solid player in Jan, but i know it wont happen because according to AW, getting three or more player is a technical risk in the team. Walcott is one dimentional and he will never be a great. so does Vela and Eduardo isn’t gonna be a goalpoacher we all expect him to be. he is a 2nd half bits player who specializes in putting the ice on the cake.Denilson, silvestre, Senderos and Diaby should be shipped.
I was down hearted before I read your post Pedro, now I am depressed – things are pretty gloomy and now we have Hull who I am sure will be rubbing their hands together
This is a massive January transfer window, surely he won’t let another one pass by without adding quality and a few match winners to our squad..
Pedro could not agree more with you’re assessments. some bloggers on here just go over the top when we win and overlook the flaws that as always come back 2 bite us.
Pedro,
I echo ur views,mathematically we are there in title race,but do we really feel in our bottom of hearts,that will we?… very serious question mark there pedro
it is so sad pedro,becos it is not just one ocassion we are talking abt, we r seeing that repeatedly
we saw this lacklustre in westham,sunderland,chelsea,firstHalf_anfield, and now burnley
how does one draw strength and confidence in our team,when we repeatedly suffer in our hopes,only becos of some overpaid ‘not_yet_earned_to_wear_arsenal_shirt” players/youngsters….
look how burnley gave everything,and look how much effort we gave to win it,and all this lacklustre from supposedly hyped worldclass players…
Pedro,maybe its the hype of these players and fact that they play for “THE ARSENAL” , that is preventing us to see the realiy,which is they are not good enough yet to be consistent…
what do u think
, and i dont want to give up hope yet…till there is breath,Fight…
such spirit is present in arsenal fans,and such spirit has to be displayed by our players..only hope is wenger reminds the players of this…
SIG – spot on!
A bit harsh on Nasri I would say, I would include him in my list of fighters. He is small but i didnt see him stop running all game, he was everywhere, trying to make things happen. the sad fact is if the rest of the team are static you cant do much about it. Diaby was a passanger all game, I dont think he left Songs side all match (almost as if he was hoping that if he stuffs up song will mop up). I was actually swearing at Theo all game, I tried really hard to give him a break being his 3rd start all season, but he is clueless on the wing, clueless going forward, and he cant even give a decent back pass to Sagna who was trying to support him as much as he could. I would actually excuse Sagna for his porr display last night, for the fact that he was covering for Walcott, how demoralising must it be every time theo had the ball , Sagna would make an overlappipng run or position himself to support, and then to receive a bad ball or no ball at all.
I had faith in Alumunia for a long time, but you cant deny he has lost any shred of confidence from the team. I liked how Sagna had a go at him, and a lot of the defence also had a go at him everytime he kicked the ball straight out, honestly i counted at least 5 goal kicks that went straight out. He is shite! Fabianski is wild but atleast has conviction.
Fingers crossed for Cesc! hope he is back soon, but i think it may be time for Merida to get a start.
“We’re metaphorically shagging that bastard cushion again.”
Top drawer
rico,but it is very sad,isnt it
Imo Wenger should have switched to 4-4-2 yesterday at half time, Vela and Eduardo were on the bench. This is how we can beat Hull.
—————-Fabianski(But I know Al is Arsene’s preferred choice)
Sagna———Gallas—Verminator——–Silvestre
—————–Song—————————–
Walcott—————————————–Nasri
——————–Arshavin
———Eduardo————————Vela
NON NON NON LE PEDRO , You have it all wrong , its not to do with the fact that we have no strikers , walcott is shit we have no grit / spine and Almunia looks like a deer in the headlights and Wenger has failed to buy a few quality additions the whole world can see we lack ……………
its the fixtures makers fault oh and now Mick mc carthys !!
can,t you see that ?!!
Walcott and Eduardo,our two current fit attacking players, ARE SERIOUSLY LACKING IN CONFIDENCE…
dont know what they need to lift them up,all fans back them..but still walcott,dude,vela recently very bad form…and it is hurting us very badly…
عيد ميلاد سعيد
Finestcuts Walcott on the wing? have u not being paying attention
SIG – yes it is very sad, we all love our club and to see such pathetic performances so often recently is heart breaking.
Just 2/3 players with grit and guts would change that in a very short space of time..
hi finest
dont u think,no matter what team we put,there is no point if half of our players dont show the desire,week in week out..
it is about how less one drops points to win league,and we are dropping more than our direct rivals…
we would win games,but how many r we dropping,more than our direct rivals,all this becos of no-consistent , no 100% effort in 3 out of games like chelsea,1stHalfanfield,burnley….
if there is no drive to do consistently,it doesnt make any diff with what team we put…dont u think so..
finestcuts,
Dont get me started on Eduardo..
SONG played him on 3 times in succession and he did not take advantage of any of the free chances….
but how long have we been saying that on this site Rico ???
How long does this go on ?
Who else have we got MG? Also, it depends which Walcott is playing, I’m hoping for a quick return to his England hat trick form.
But what Arsenal form Finest ?
You’re absolutely right Sabeel, they need to draw mental strength from somewhere, it seems tens of thousands of pounds every week don’t help.
gosh,if only more arsenal fans had more talent/ability in football than these overpaid youths…then these arsenal with top class football skill would have kicked out these de-motivated,less-self-confident players…from “THE ARSENAL FC team”
Sabeel thats true 2 an extent but 4 me if u play players like Merida and Ramsey and drop underperformers
that would be enough 2 change the mentality of the slackers
jules, ever since 2005, we all know what needs to be done, we just have a subborn manager who needs to go to specsavers!
finest,we should only hope that more and more arsenal passionate local players develop into worldclass players,to really display the title winning attributes…with this team,we lose hope at those times,when we know champions would stand up to be counted
It is pretty clear that we have a few players that are just not cutting it and have had long enough to do so . wallcot , diaby who you can not call a kid anymore as with denilson are just not good enough .
Almunia , edu and vela look shot in confidence and silvestre was just embarrassing
Jules, he isn’t a write off, he’s going through a dip in form, I still believe he can make it, if I’m wrong then I’ll accept it. I know none of us want to wait until he improves at Arsenal’s expense. The only other option in a 4-4-2 would be to put Ramsey, Wilshere or Eboue on RW at the moment, none of them appeal more than Walcott so it’s a case of making the best of a bad situation.
wenger has set this team up to try and win the champs league.. simple as.
we have a good chance in cup comps if he plays his “strongest” side in them. But, the down side is we have no week in week out team to go and battle out the tougher games.
We will never win the league with Almunia in goal.
Wallcot has to change position, he has to play thru the middle at some point.. If only to see if he can..
Diaby is the most inconsistent player I have ever watched.
no team needs Denilson and Song.. Song is by far the more effective. Play him, that will do.
Rosicky, RVP and Diaby are ALWAYS injured. Get rid of them, or make allowances for them.. Dont try and rely on them.
We always have at least 4 first teamers injured.. what is going on at Arsenal..? The medical staff question has been asked before.. how can we always have so many injured..? Well, perhaps it is the type of player we have bought..? Look at Arshavin. He has been kicked, elbowed, fouled every week, he has injuries and he gets over them. He has hardly missed a game in honesty, when similar arsenal players are out for weeks..
A couple of players, in certain postions would make a massive change. But not crocks, we want strong, physical players.. In fact, I would take them over skill at the mo..
And one last thing.. This kills me to say it, but who would you have out of Theo and Lennon at the moment….? (forget he is a spud..)
Rico , he needs more than that !
MetalGear
yes giving chances to merida,ramsey to make feel first timers that they deserve to earn there places is important,but dont u think such players like merida,ramsey,wilshere, no matter how talented they are,lack the experience to be consistent….
we saw such things against city,where such players were not good enuf…
isnt it risky to rely on them to play epl matches regularly…
finest
in this walcott current form…i would pick eboue over walcott…let him come from bench as impact…till he gets his touch and confidence back
Pedro,
who would u put now our Le-chump,and le-champ..
isnt it high time we put almunia as our le-chump…for playing like a rival player,barring couple of saves…
where r pedro,geoff…
r they watching some comedy programs to improve there sad moods like ours is…
Alfie Noakes
bang on and yes Lennon . walcott simply could not even control the ball at Anfield , gave it away every time , has nothing except pace .
we are so injury prone its incredible yet Wenger says he would rather wait for his injury prone players to come back rather than buy what we clearly need
so they can …….. erm .. get injured again !!
its a joke .
I don’t know about you guys but everytime we play, I ask myself which Arsenal is going to pitch up…
The fighters, the come from behind guys or the roll over and play dead guys.
This is probably the most “FRUSTRATING” team to watch.AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH FFS
jules, i know but just kept in ‘nice’
I agree re Theo, he needs to get confidence and twenty minutes at the end from the bench if we are winning is the best way.
It seems confidence is short everywhere amoungst our squad
better still Alfie give all the sick notes new long contracts!!!???
Morning all..
I think ramsey jack and merida need to be given chances,
I think all three would be better than theo.
morning all,. good stuff very honest post sums up exactly what i am thinking… basically we’re just no good enough to win the league!
with cesc out i wanna see nasri get a go in the middle 3, i think he’s much better there than in the wide role
Morning all….
So I didn’t get to watch the game last night, I’ve only read what they have said in The Sun.
How bad was it??
yep Rico
Walcott coming on at the Emirites for 20 minutes when we are winning he looks good !
not enough though !
TAIG… not awful from what ive seen, a bit toothless though, almunia seems to be sending his shitness through the team though. same old thing… crying out for leaders
Jules,
Exactly.. Add Vela to the growing list..
I thought what you did was offer these guys a good contract once they had established themselves…
Maybe Wenger is suffering from the memories of Flamini Gate……
Like I have said after we beat Liverpool, it can be like a tennis match…its not a break of serve until you hold your own!! What’s the point in breaking the opponents serve if you cannot hold your own!
I blame AW.
He has got Almunia thinking he’s Schmiechal.
Walcott thinking he’s Overmars.
Denislon thinking he is Dunga.
Walcott’s writing childrens books now.
WTF????!!!???
Maybe he should do us al a favour and do that permanently?
Now Cesc is out. Great.
2 new players in Jan or it will be same shit different year and it’ll be 5 years without a trophy.
TAIG
cold away night up north !! enough said ?
but now with the addition of andy pandy in goal
Sabel good point but I don’t mean give flock the first team with these youngsters though I except that was the impression I gave. what I meant was play Merida over the ultra inconsistent Diaby Wilshere on the right instead of Walcott. And then there’s the other problem where wenger feels the need 2 play Denilson and Fabregas together in midfeild it’s no coincidence that when Denilson came back and unsurprisingly walked into the first team arsenal have dipped in form I know some will say no its becuz VP got injured I say bullshit. we’re in truth struggling cuz the stubborn git does not realise Walcott should play through the centre that Arshavin is not a CF that Diaby should be no where near the first team and most importantly that he should if needed changing the formation can help.
catch you later, off for a while
Good post this morning I thought. Looked at rationally you’d have to say that 7 points from 3 games, 2 of them away, one at Liverpool, isn’t that bad. But the nature of the way this Arsenal team goes about it’s business is really concerning to me. With Amunia in goal there is a massive problem. It’s not a recent one either but it hasn’t been addressed. Diaby, over a season, is disastrous. I don’t understand where Nasri can play where he will be dangerous. What Walcott is doing out there at the moment remains a mystery shrouded in an enigma. I feel the same about Eduardo too but am reminded that his injury might be causing some psychological problems. I also think that he must have been deeply affected by the rubbish written about him after the Celtic game judging by his meekness when anywhere near a goalkeeper. I could go on but feel too dejected at the moment. The board owe Arsene at least one bout of huge financial backing but I doubt that he would take it, even if offered. Anyone can make mistakes but when you make the same ones year in, year out then surely something needs to happen. We know what we are seeing. It’s nothing new. Why can’t Arsene see it?
Alumunia – Not Arsenal quality
Walcott – Not Arsenal quality
Diaby – Not Arsenal quality
Silvestre – Not Arsenal quality.
Its as simple as that. Unfortunately we have no left back so Silvestre plays. I would play Eboue on Saturday at right back as he more attacking than Sagna. I’d even chuck Wilshere and Rambo from that start and Fabianski in goal.
We need to win Saturday and no ifs or buts, time to step up as Fabregas is out.
The number of injuries we are getting is abnormal. After each match we have a player(s) injured; there must be reason?
blogging from my mobile – hard work, this
great post, Pedro, I am absolutely gutted… Wenger needs to tell some of them that they now play for their dear life at Arsenal to see which of them give a shit…
I don,t know Lou
and it saddens me greatly to see us go from Th14 , keown , parlour , pv4 , dennis , pires , freddie , sol etc etc
to silvstre , denilson , walcott , almunia, diaby ,
etc .
what would you give for some players of that class back .
Great article I have a dog that does the exact same thing. I had a feeling we werent going to win, but a drawe aint that bad a result many teams are gogin to drop points at burnley. my annoyance is how come we had two really tough away games while united and Chelsea have had either easy games or been at home.
there would have been a time we soul;d have lost at burnley. We have an endless supply of reoccuring injuries cant think of the laST TIME we had a full strength squad. I think the only way we are going to challenge in th eleague in the future is to win something even a mickey mouse trophy we dont having the winning mentality.
please please arsenal just put a run together
very disappointing, but sadly predictable. Pedro, I wrote in that email to you that the Liverpool result would only be a good one if we followed it againt Burnley and Hull.
What annoying is that there are 2 weeks until the window. They’re going to string us along until the end of the month. They may pick up a bargain but they won’t go out there and make a transfer happen ie, with cash!!!
If I were running the show our Jan signings would already be complete and ready to play for us on Jan 1st!
Lastly. Calling for Walcott to die is beyond ignorance for me. I won’t name and shame but some of the comments last night were an absolute disgrace.
Once again Grovers let themselves down in the comments during a game. Don’t get me wrong, I love this blog and am here everyday, but during the game is to be avoided sadly.
How to be a complete prick in 10 easy steps.
1) Call the manager, Lord Wenger and think you are cool
2) See no wrong in a truly shocking keeper
3) Think we never need new players
4) Love project youth
5) Go quiet when we throw away 3 points with a gutless performance and bury head fast
6) See no wrong with not using your subs, even though you are playing shite
7) Think that it’s Ok because Burnley beat the Mancs
9) Never buy a season ticket
10) Winning doesn’t matter as long as the manager gets paid
I have no idea where that smiley came from, I can’t do them?
Jack would be ten times the player Theo is right now. Theo needs some time away. As for Almunia. Jesus Wept. Can this guy get any worse? I dont think so, but maybe I shouldn’t speak too soon. He is a fucking joke.
I agree with your list of fighters. Arsh is definitely a fighter.
I thought Vela’s pace would have caused them more problems than Eduardo’s lack of pace, and was surprised he wasn’t used.
come come now Geoff , you know its the fixture makers fault oh and now Mick Mc Cartyhs
nothing to do with Arsene !
Very very fearful for the Villa game. They play away from home better than any other team. we’ll need tactical nous from the players and management otherwise we’ll play right into their hands and it will be a repeat of last year.
Haha. Great dig at the AKBs Geoff
Exactly what I think
Ten steps….says Walcotts biggest fan !!!
You were doing OK, until you got to No.8.
Points 8 9 and 10 are wrong, silly and irrelevant respectively…imho
Morning All
a match-sharp eddie would have taken his chance, he’s rusty as fuck
So Barca will offer £40 mil for Cesc, first of all why would we accept half the money Real paid for Ronaldo?
Secondly, what did we do when we got £40 million for Ade and Kolo?
Nothing that’s what, and we’ll do nothing with the Cesc money eif we sold him either.
Wenger is great though, where would we be without him.
And don’t say at Highbury enjoying ourselves winning yet another league title because we fill our ground week in week out and we’re flush with cash.
I like being in debt with a team full of average players fighting for nothing each season.
I knew it would flush out the AKB’s though, Sharkey’s bang on cue!
I bigged these cunts up big time before the Chavs games, stating NOW was the time to stand up and be counted, take the opportunity to stake a claim at being big players at a big club, but they choked again. I was distraught at us being plainly not good enough, and being led my a myopic manager who has lost his way!
Since then we just about stumbled past a very poor Liverpool side, and now last night. For me it’s not really the result(s) it’s the performances that show me that nothing has changed.
Well my friends the writing is on the wall once again, are you happy to settle for 4th again, and battle it out to be the best of the rest. Well the reality is if you are then we stick with Wenger. However, if you have ambition and want to see true progression at our club then the answer lies in different management, for as long as Wenger is in charge the philosophy and policies will remain the same.
Great post Pedro…..
We really do need more fighters. You teased me recently about wanting 11 Song’s…
11 Songs, Vermaelens or Gallas’s would be great, even RVP and Cesc. Those uguys have abit of arsehole about them and play like they give a fuck in EVERY game.
I could almost say the same about Diaby, Denilson and Eboue in terms of at least trying hard in every game, of course their end product is very debatable.
Eboue should have been brought at half time for Walcott.
Overall I’m gutted that we just didn’t take our early chances and kill the game in thefirst 20mins !!!
jules. I hear you but the immediate future concerns me more. We do not have one player currently available who can play with his back to goal and bring other players into the game, so every ball needs to be played in front of out diminutive strike force and that is easier to defend against. What is the good of having a full back bombing on launching crosses into the box if you have no-one capable of heading the ball? Heading the ball in the opponents area often means retaining possession and many goals are scored from the second ball. We don’t have this option at the moment. We only have Gallas and Vermaelen from corners or free-kicks and this is severely limited. For God’s sake Arsene, go and buy a quality centre forward of 6 foot plus and forget about the effect it would have on the others. Let the cream float to the top. If they are good enough, they will play. Buy Dzeko perhaps but don’t tell us he is too expensive having sold Kolo and Adebayor for £40m. Pay through the nose if you have to. Sell the underachievers if you want. Then buy an animal ball-winner for central midfield, a tall defender who can win most things in the air and a goalkeeper. There must be 4 or 5 available at the right price who are better than what we have. The balance and shape of this team is wrong. Here endeth the lesson. Sorry for the rant.
What a terrible game. When was the last time we had a good performance for 70+ minutes???
All this motivation / stamina issues…. what a load of tosh. If you can’t be motivated to play in the Premier League why don’t you fuck off and play somewhere else. Simple.
There is a reason Man United grind out results. Because from the age of 16 they’ve been playing for THEIR CLUB… Manchester born and bred.
Wenger… the experiment is grinding to a halt. I’m looking forward to going to the Hull game this weekend, but I’m more going in hope than expectation.
Still, at least i’ll get to shout at that C**t Brown : )
Last night was disappointing. We should be capable of beating these teams. Alas last night and last year’s defeats to lesser teams away demonstrate otherwise. T
The fighters thing is a good point. The other missing pieces of the jigsaw is the lack of winners and leaders. We are so bereft of players with winners medals, who have been there, seen it and done it. Wenger inherited a bunch of winners and their attitude rubbed off on the players he brought in who in turn passed it on to the next batch. That in itself bred leaders with a desire and know-how to bring cups home. Sadly, we have lost that and a bunch of spoilt, overpaid wussies ain’t going to develop into a title winning team without having those types of personalities and players in the squad. As Wenger says it’s not all about talent.
Geoff,
very innovative idea…
Good list,atleast
personally,i dont think i fit into any of those 10 categories
AKB’s …y…a…w…n !!!!!
oh and Almunia. He is terrible. It’s one thing to stay on your line and not come for crosses, but did anyone check his positioning?
He was stood directly (almost touching) Vermy for every set play – thus reducing Vermy’s jump and space to move.
It’s amaturish. I remember Jens saying ‘How can you start with a guy who didn’t play first team football till he was 26???!!!!’
you can say what you want about Jens, but he knows a good goalkeeper…. and we ain’t got one : (
can anyone please tell me why Walcott is in the arsenal team ? No disrespect to english players but if arsenal have to play him to make their squad look english then its better to play all foreign players. I mean yesterday he was aboslutely SHIT. Why is getting paid so much money. Seriously he shud be sold to atleast save his wage money and buy a world class player who can atleast penetrate the defence.
I am an international arsenal supporter and regular reader of this blog and i feel really sorry for all the people that loves arsenal so passionately and spends lots of money to watch them and they have been giving them shit. This season will be more of the same.
Something has to give … sooner rather than later … and great post pedro .. best blog !
Metal Gear,
Do think such complacency could creep into merida,wilshere,ramsey,after some time…something really wrong with the way club is going,right,paying overly to bunch of youngsters who have yet to prove,that they are consistnt enough to play in “The Arsenal Shirt”
The blame lays firmly at the managers door, no one else, for me it’s time for a change, are we the only club in football that never changes a manager?
Geoff,
is it the manager PLUS THE BOARD
are u 100% sure,if wenger goes, the board will pump money to buy costly players –> 100% sure about that too??
Almunia left me speechless last night !!
Still am this morning.
No point me ranting…all I can do is hope that he’s gone from the team on Sat and never gets close to it again.
Fabianski please…and let see how he does til the window opens, or Chesney’s ready.
“Chesney’s too young” – We can’t do worse than Manuel at the moment. Right now I’d play a 15 yr old Chesney ahead of Manuel
i know board comes and tells money is there,BUT RU 100% confident to believe what arsenal board says,which is one of most Non-transparent bodies i feel …what do u think
How long is fabregas out for?
Lou
don,t be sorry for the rant , you are right in everything you say , myself and many others on here have saying the same thing on here for two years now and nothing changes just more excuses .
yep , big proper striker, big midfielder, and big defender . and now a goalie too !
the tunnel of 04, seven players over 6 foot had the other team crapping themselves before a game .
Sabeel, yes. We are a football team in the Premier league not a building society, the minute we get taken over the new bloke will demand success, who wouldn’t.
Carry on like this and the new kids will support other teams. We will reap what we sow and by then Wenger will be sitting by his pool smoking Cohibas.
sharkey
common,i dont wanna offend u…a 15 yr old over a experience player….ru really serious..
common…i dont think thats rational…
the 15yr old “chesney” will make even more mistake day in day out,in all matches,becos of his “inexperience”…
We’re shit I dont care if we win our next 7-8 games we are shit.
choy… atleast out of saturdays game. it was a hamstring so they’ll have to scan him
First of all he’s not 15! Secondly if even Sharkey can see Almunia is useless then why on earth can’t Wenger?
Is it me or is he losing the plot.
Geoff,
not only willbe wenger chilling by the pool side with his ego of not buying couple more players,he will leave us by Some X years of total frustration and false dreams
sharkey
i agree almunia gotto be replaced by not an inexperience one,but by , rather an experience one like fabianski…
fabianski..commands the penalty box like anything..
The only thing in our defence is the huge injury list.
We are talking not only our best players injured but also a lot of our big men, fighters and PL experience. RVP, Bendtner, Cesc and Rosicky are big players for this club and we need them fit.
lost Geoff !
diaby “we have to beat hull this weekend” you have to beat every fucking team weather its hull or real madrid! why do those fuckwits at arsenal.com put this shit up?
I think I have seen enough of Walcott to know he won’t be great for Arsenal. Maybe for another club, just maybe. A dismal Eboue is still better than a dismal Walcott. I will suggest we sell the following and buy some more decent covers: Walcott, Diaby, Denilson (still have little hope for him though), Eduardo (sad to say it), Rosicky and ofcourse Silvestre and Almunia.
Gazzap, so what is the difference between this seasons injuries and the last 4?
It’s no defence, he buys crocks.
Diaby, Robin, Rosicky, Theo…
guys it is not about our injury list
it is about the following fact,which i wrote earlier
“burnley gave everything,and look how much effort we gave to win it”
Geoff,
I said last night that I actually think Wenger has lost it, im not joking when I say that. Its hard to rationally explain the decisions he’s made the last few years.
I think he’ll be in a care homw within a few years sitting in a rocking chair dribbling, occasionally uttering the odd phrase like “super super class” and “give me one more year”.
i think its too early to judge theo, hes played hardly any game and the ones he has have been away or with the kids… plus he’s been thrown into a brand new system
Sabeel
I would now go with Fab too , Almunia looks absolutely lost and scared .
hey though here’s a new concept …
you know that 40 mill we got last window !?
how about go buy the french keeper and a proper striker while your there !??
Funny I still think Walcott will be a big star, but if we played Almunia at centre back he’d be shit too.
Bad example because he’s a shit keeper but you see where I’m coming from?
Listen people I agree that Almunia is and imo has always been shit but do not mention Fabianski as the ideal replacement please how many times does it have 2 be said Fabainski is worse then Almunia.
Bottomline is…
How MUCH EFFORT r u going to give to win a game…we lack that effort consistently…thats the bottomline…
damn burnley are average players,they beat manure at there home ground…did we against chelsea….
just see how much effort we put,is my main point…
Can you imagine the pressure anyone of our last 4 managers would be under with all this money, a bunch of kids and no trophies for 5 years?
jules Says:
December 17, 2009 at 10:34
Sabeel
I would now go with Fab too , Almunia looks absolutely lost and scared .
hey though here’s a new concept …
you know that 40 mill we got last window !?
how about go buy the french keeper and a proper striker while your there !??
=========================================
jules,
thats where manager is not playing his part…he should have bought couple of more bodies in summer,knowing we have so many injury prone players,and so many inconsistent performers..
THIS IS where Wenger is Wrong..
It was pathetic to see yesterday that he dint use the third sub. We dint look like getting a goal in the whole of the second half. He was complaining to others. But he wouldnt make the third sub or change the tactics.
Then blame wolves.
the only time you’ll see me hammer into walcott is when he is actually played is his best position only then will it be fair 2 pass judgement on him
“Arshavin a hard worker”, your kidding right, he gives up too early and he doesn’t make space, he only tried to capitalize on defenders’ mistakes in either not clearing the ball, or miss timing the clearance.
Geoff
our prev 4 manager would have been under tremendous pressure,so now wenger is not, Is it not the arsenal oweners/board the difference which is making this happen..
Ojaimo / Geoff
give them all new deals !! that makes sense to use your funds with huh !??
also Arsenal Tom , I so agree , don,t you fed up with
bleeting in the media of our players who are not performing .
get
blaming wolves and the fixtures is just wenger deflecting the attention from the fact we fucked up!
that’ll take the news for a few days until we probably beat hull and then everything will be rosy in arsenal land again
Whoever the commentator was last night stated, quite profoundly that Arsenal have been second best all over the park in the physical battles….
Someone needs to remind AW that this is the English Premier League NOT fucking La Ligue, building a team of mini me’s might work in Spain and might get you the occasional good performance at home agaist the mighty (!) Stoke, but this collection of misfits will never win this league just trying to play pretty 5-a-side style football….
Like I’ve said before, nothings changed over the past few seasons, we’ve learned nothing from our mistakes or problems, and I fully expect nothing to change in the immediate future. AW may well go into the market in January, but don’t be too surprised if he buts yet another 5 foot 4 French speaking Senegalese 16 year old…….. same policies, same philosophies, same ‘tactics’…….. but, always hoping for a different outcome!
We are in a very worrying situation and I don’t see team selections greatly helping. We need theo, diaby and eduardo to step up. We need silvestre to work with his limitations and try to play a safer game until someone can come back in to take over the lb position. All of those things can happen but not if we drop players. I only want to see players dropped if better ones come in and I honestly don’t see the alternatives as being better.
Saying jack would be better than theo doesn’t make it true. Playing youth players would be a huge gamble, at least there is some evidence that theo and eduardo may click into form, they have done so before at the top level. Players like jack, merida, watt, vela etc have never done that and possibly never will. We have to tough this period out mainly with the team we played last night and hope we are still in touching distance by the time Nik and clichy get back.
The only player I would like to see dropped immediately is Almunia, I think Fabianski would be an improvement. Ramsey looks like he will get a chance in place of Cesc, I hope he plays a lot better than he did last night and starts finding some consistent form, then maybe when cesc comes back he can take over from diaby/denilson.
Jesus its hard to believe that we could see us field a midfield of Song, Ramsey and Diaby in the premiership this weekend. The invincibles seems a very long time ago.
with due respect to wengers achievements,
as of now Wenger is accountable only to his ideologies,not to arsenal fans who have backing him and the team blindly,
Otherwise if he was,he would have bought couple more bodies in summer…OR if he doesnt do buy this jan..
becos wenger knew from start,what a bunch of crock players we have,in addition to being some of the most inconsistent players…
Metal Gear,
I think the fact that Wenger & Capello never play Theo upfront tells its own story.
He is a poor footballer, end of.
Geoff, you are right to an extent. The problem there is no check and balance in place for Wenger. He’s surrounded by puppy dogs and a sycophants. He needs an equal capable of challenging him without undermining his authority too much.
I reckon we are 4 points behind where we should be to be on course for a title win. I think we can potentially make those 4 points up but every time we draw or lose to a team like West Ham, Sunderland or Burnley it makes it harder.
we can only make those points up by winning tricky away games later in the season. games like Stoke, Birmingham and Spurs will all need to be 3 points. we are putting a lot of pressure on ourselves to acheive that.
There are no excuses for the performance yesterday. It was so bad that I find it hard to find rational arguments to justify it.
The squad we have has players that are very good, but the problem is that everyone is in a comfort zone, players need to be dropped, and Almunia should be the first, to send a message to the rest of them.
can anuone tell me why Merida never gets near the first team in the league. i think wenger should play the youngsters with the senior players as that will help and are not thrown in the deep end like in the carling cup games. when you play one or two young players with the seniors makes sense to me
Personally I’d rather have David Blunkett in goal rather than that twat.
rayman, I dont think I have ever seen either Vela or Wilshere do things that Walcott did time and time again last night. I am not talking in a good way. But he ran into players, he gave possession away when no under pressure and he misplaced every pass and shot badly. Nothing he did was right. I have never seen the other two players have anything like a night like that before.
What is the point ingetting all these young players who have played 100s of games at the top level? Season after season we make the same bloody mistakes! We never seem to learn from our mistakes! Walcott is a passenger in the team, ge doesn’t bring anything to the table and once to opposing full backs stop him, it’s like we’re playingwith ten men! What is the point inhaving a rant at anfield and then allowing your players to play at turf moor as if it was a charity match?!! Blaming the pitch and the fixture list AND Wolves is just embarrassing! Burney showed great fight and determination! Villa went to Sunderland and won so no excuses about the fixtures. Sort it out Arsene! Drop Almunia whilst you’re at it.. Appreciate it!!
Gunneroo, if you watched all the game last night you would see Arsh was going everywhere to get the ball. He was left and right and central – anywhere to try and find possession. he was holding the ball at times but it was a thankless task. Point was he was putting 100% into trying and thats all we ask.
Morning,
Typical Arsenal get your hopes up with a win over L Pool, then fuck up last night.
Fuck off to
Theo
Silvestre
Almunia
At the end of the day the buck stops with the manager, who BTW I don’t listen yo anymore with his after comments, to embarresed.
It is all down to having similar players on the pitch, no hardman to mix it up with. No PROPER investment to the side will get you results like last night and Sunderland away.
No excuses for injuries, I hope Gazidis feel the same way as most gooners do, cause this can’t carry on.
as Tom is saying there is absolutely no point in saying that wolves did wrong in playing there B team
there are smart,they know they havent got a chance at old trafford,and wanted to keep them fresh for games where they can win…there is nothing wrong being smart…
what wolves do is none of our business…our business is to shut teams like burnley,by playing with equal effort as burnley players showed…Common…our players arent doing a favous for us…arent they paid to do that…
my boss would kick me,if i wouldnt perform…
DDM… any chat from you man in the know?
same old,same old
I really can’t see the difference with what Wolves did to what Wenger did against Olympiakos?
Fuck protecting players for the next match, surely it’s the duty of the club to field their best team and try and win.
I would have thought the fans that pay their money are owed at least that.
How dare he moan about Wolves the fucking hypocrite.
I’m down the gym, back later.
and how can the boss complain about wolves when he did the same thing a couple of weeks ago against olympiakos then tells the people who say he disrespected the comp to mind their own business!!
great minds Geoffrey!
and our fans paid fucking air fare, hotel costs and god knows to what to watch our lot!!
this old thing of “arsenal always do things the right way” is getting a bit stretched these days!
Morning all, like most when the Edward Woodward (equaliser) went in what followed had a grim inevitability.
Although I’ve never had a pet – or intend to in the future – I can empathise with how annoying a cushion-shagging dog must be like.
Maqtilarge – I tend not to come onto the blog during matches as I find the comments can get a tad, shall I say, overzealous? At the risk of sounding like a happy-clappy hippy, I feel it would be so much better if whatever you express at any time would not be made ineffective by removing the personal element from your points. Wanting Theo to die or fellow gooners to go f**k themselves seems a bit off to me.
I dont blame mccarthy, utd would beat his 1st team any way and being a game they are expected to lose why not? good management in my book he now has his 1st team fresh for a must win game at the weekend
I expect Cesc to leave at the end of the season, and in a way I kind of hope he does.
We’re talking about a guy who will be known as one of the greats of a generation, he deserves to win every trophy out there, and he wont win a thing as long as Wenger is incharge.
Also hopefully it will give a real wake up call to the AKB’s and highlight what a joke we’ve become.
so who do we want in the champions league draw tomorrow????????? happy fucking happy
there’s no point getting upset any more people we should be well used to this by now,the team is bollocks,get over it
Things turn around so quickly in this leauge this season and in a couple of weeks time if and i mean if arsenal can win there next 2 home games then they will get a bit closer, but that all depends on chavski and manure droping points which is possible as they both have 2 away games on the trot.
However having said all that arsenal will not win the league this season imo, but they must put a run of wins together to remain in the top four.
Like alot of other arsenal fans, i think that AW makes himself look a real twat with his post match comments these days.
i cant see us beating villa… we dont work hard enough a s a team to get close to them
How about our own anti-AKB banner in the stand? Reading stuff like “Arsene’s Lost It”, “Give Us Arsenal Players AW” etc….
will gazidis be happy finishing 3rd,as 4th place is not good enough for him or arsenal apparently
Fuck Wenger, fuck Walcott and fuck any other player that does not want to stand up and be counted.
How many times must we always hear…”We are growing, we have the mental strength, we are now competing, judge me in May”…and so on and so on.
I have had enough, FUCK me this is frustrating.
Arsenal Tom – you could well be right about the villa game, they beat us at home last season didn’t they.
The problem is; you never know what arsenal team are going to turn up.
Geoff – Or the difference with what Wenger did at Man City in the CC, stinks of hypocrisy to me….
just saw on newnow..cesc’s is not a hamstring and he will be ready for villa’s game
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1236598/Arsenal-boosted-news-captain-Cesc-Fabregas-NOT-torn-hamstring.html?ITO=1490
I m starting to believe that walcott is hopeless.
I d liketo give him aa second chance tho
SP ‘beat us at home’ is a nice way of putting it lol!!
they absolutely beat the living shit out of us, it was the most painful game of the season for us!
DDM… whats your informant got to say?
BBK… gazidis is just another puppet, he winds me up as much as arsene with his bullshit
BBK
i want stuttgart man
‘As for Walcott……nuff said. Did those two shoulder operations also remove a backbone?’
Classic…
Arsenal Tom – the most painful game for me was losing at home to hull!
SP… good point theres too many to choose from!!
id call it a tie… hull was us being arrogant pricks, villa was just embarrassing
ATom – I did speak briefly with him, the only ‘news’ he’s got is….
Cesc will NOT be allowed to play in a non-FIFA sanctioned friendly.
Senderos is 50/50 to go to Bayern Munich in January.
We are going to be in the transfer market in January, but he has no info on how much, how many or even what area(s) of the team will be strengthened….
BBK – we played shit yesterday and drew because of you. You predicted a 2-5 win for us and look what happened. Please go back to predicting losses from now on.
the most painful for you was losing to hull,i would of thought the spankings we recieved by chelsea and united would of hurt more
DDM… sounds pretty good! at least theres a hint of buying!
ha ha inside,you try and be positive and this is what i get jheeeez you can’t win can ya
BBK… nah we were never gonna beat them, we aint got the balls for them games….same as this year
We need stengh in this team. A powerfull fw, a powerfull mid man a defender to replace senderos
And og course a keeper! Almunia hopeless
i went to the youth cup yesterday so i didn’t watch the match
Arsenal Tom – I was there for the Hull game, behind the goal they scored 2 at – it was complacency to an obscene degree, lots of crab/sideways passing football and very few players wanting to take responsibility and drive forward. I took my 2 sons there and I hope the trauma of it has worn off by now – but I don’t like to talk to them about it just in case.
I know Geoff talks of Wenger getting a bonus for not spending(as Wenger referred to in a press conference around last summer), but isn’t it time this clause was removed from Wenger’s contract if it’s there ?
I just read this from diaby re last nights game and he thinks that it wasn’t a penalty for burnley! lol what a fucking tosser.
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11670_5777084,00.html
DDM, expect some more teenage potential coming in
Good post Pedro, but I thought Wenger was again a bit more critical of the team than giving excuses. He suggested complacency, saying, ‘…we were a bit easy’ after scoring…I agree we didn’t not impose ourselves like we did in the second half at Anfield. Although disappointed, I wasn’t surprised by the result I did in fact point this as a more difficult match than the Liverpool one over a week ago!
We’ll beat Hull this weekend its Villa that’ll be a bother, win that and you never know…
Greetings earthlings
We wont imporove untill we have someone with true intentions to take the club forward is in power, and by that i mean the one and only Mr Arseanl DD.
Only he had the balls to take wenger’s case.
Chary – you are absolutely right about comments here during matches. Its as if internet connection to the asylum is turned on during matches.
until*
BBK, how was the youth cup?
Pedro,
could u give ur views on my comment @9.28
chary… what a game to have to witness live! in the pub was bad enough!
if that clause exists then its the most ridiculous thing we’ve ever done as a club. they should change it for a trophy clause…
PL/CL/ FA cup gets you 1m
2 of the above gets you 3m
than maybe we’d get a proper team
ATom – Yes, but buying what fella? Another fucking Woolworths style ‘bargain’ purchase of some semi-croked 16 year old Algerian midget!!
Wenger’slet this team due for so long, it now needs major surgery.
A proper GK like Buffon, the he can bin Clown Boy and Minnone, and give the two Polish lads someone of quality to learn from.
Another CB if Vermin/Gallas quality, so that he can bin Fish Head and Pinderos.
A proper, big, aggressive CM to pkay alongside our fancy dans, someone Song can learn from, that way he can bin that glass of water Denilson.
And finally, I’d sell all our forwards except RvP and AA23 and replace them with David Villa and Luis Fabiano….
Never gonna happen though coz he might upset a few of our overpaid chokers, ANC they’d have to leave their collective comfort zone and actually earn their livings….
I wish, Inside, at the very least we direct our anger at the PERFORMANCES of our players/manager rather than getting personally vindictive.
For me swearing at Chavs/Manks/ole 65% proof nose is a good way of letting off steam. I’ve spent a good many years getting abuse from Chavs/Manks so I just can’t bring myself to flame a fellow gooner however much I disagree with their point of view.
Sabeel, it’s a fantastic point.
I think poor performances are somehow overlooked because people don’t want to look silly by writing a player off in case they turn out ok.
Our players are not judged on their ability now… it’s always what they could be…
we lack fight some say cattermole and that type of player are not technically good enough for arsenal but technic we have by the bucket load but no bottle.
I really believe we need a no nonsense dcm and cb not because of how well they use the ball but how well they stop the opposition useing it.
we need two spoiler’s, one at the back and one in the middle get that and the rest will fall in line imo
DDM… fabiano’s the one!! he’d be a fucking king in our team. id keep theo though as he hasnt had a fair crack in this system and his pace is something no one else can offer us
senderos to go and he’ll replace him with another unknown.
maybe CF if we carry on struggling… upson and cole… 15m for the pair job done.
The GK’s a funny one cos if he brings one in he’ either saying to fab your not good enough or he’s bringing in someone below him even though he’s only 23 ish, whatever he does though something needs to happen
…to be fair I think Wenger has said it is time to judge his team (before the Chelsea match and before the season’s start). I don’t think Wenger has been publicly more critical of his team’s performances than this season – that’s another clue there!
I’d rather not see Walcott or Almunia in an Arsenal shirt again. They are rubbish. Eduardo will hopefully come good again but he sseems to have lost his bottle and confidence. I wish Bendtner was fit. Great post Pedro.
I apologise for insulting Gambon last night. I was a bit emotional
Yeah Charry you are spot on, we have to many ‘external’ enemies to focus on rather than bringing the abuse in-house.
Pedro,
Thanks for appreciating my point,
Do u think wenger realises this?
I deeply believe “wenger knows” that odds are against us to win the title with this bunch of crock and inconsistent performers.
knowing that,wenger knows that,it is so “shocking” that wenger is allowing this to happen,surely he must be knowing,the ego has won over him,
surely the rational side would be telling to buy a couple more,like he tried with melo…but still he doesnt deliver on what he thinks the team needs,which is couple more signings..
how can wenger allow himself to hit an axe on his foot,
there is a saying “when time of destroy is near,the mind doesnt work”
what do u think?
“They organise midweek games in a week where you have the Europa League already. That means you know that some teams will not play. Next week is a free week. There is no Europe.
“Some teams do not play at all but we play Sunday and Wednesday away then we must play Saturday against Hull, who have not played the whole week. It is the same for Burnley.
“You should organise fixtures on a day when you know teams are capable to play fixtures.”
May not be a good excuse – Hull and Burnley are relatively smaller clubs than Arsenal – but makes sense
Found this on another site sounds like we do have a world class keeper (in the making
) after all!!!
On-loan Arsenal goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny has confirmed he will return from his spell with Brentford on the 20th of December where he will study several ‘interesting offers’ before deciding on a second stint away from the club. The Poland international admits there is also a potential move to Italy on the cards.
Wojciech completed his 5th game for the Bees on Saturday where he made a handful of fantastic saves to keep out Leeds United. Notably from Jermaine Beckford where he tipped his lob onto the bar in the closing stages. The 19-year-old was given the Man of the Match award which included a bottle of champagne and a voucher for a meal for two people. The shy Pole didn’t enjoy the attention the prize brought which even saw Leeds fans asking for pictures.
“Come on now, I do not like these things, everyone is looking at you, do not know what to say!”
Brentford fans have been waxing lyrical about keeping the ‘keeper for an extended period but Szczęsny has revealed he, and Arsenal ,have alternate plans.
“They [Brentford] would like to me to stay, but I have more interesting proposals. I will return to Arsenal, and probably in mid-January, once again go out on loan. Maybe in England, perhaps to Italy. A potential move has not been agreed yet. But of course – I want to be Arsenal’s number one.”
The 195cm full Poland international still trains three times a week with Arsenal, only making the 40 minute journey across London for matches and key meetings. Charlton have previously attempted to sign the prospect but Arsene Wenger is looking for a Premier League or alternative top flight club to really test the credentials of one of the most promising glovesmen in Europe.
His penalty saving prowess and superb reflexes have all been on show at Griffin Park and with the first-team goalkeeping situation far from settled, could this youngster be Arsenal’s saviour
You have to check this video out.. Got to the page, and look at the little video on the right:
Arsenal Star goes back to the future at anfield..
I hate the Sun, but this is quite funny..
A little light relief for frustraed gooners..
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/
If you did’nt know on Arsenal.com Eboue in the section of Arsenal first team Eboue is under the midfeild bracket….nuff said
Nick what we need is a GK (Fabianski should get a chance at that) a CB like the two we already have, and forward players that shoot from outside the box, and threaten the oppo goal from crosses/corners/free kicks. Which means we need our full backs on intensive crossing training, (Eboue is very good at crossing by the way), and finally we need a free kick tacker who will score at least 1 in 10.
Sagna wasn’t great yesterday but his crossing has improved in recent matches.
Eboue’s done well in all the position she has played in this season, better than Theo I think
*positions he
i think we need the full backs to stay back and defend this is what they are good at then in midfield play offensive players with the sole intention of scoring and offensive play we have an abundance of this type of player vela walcott
ect
Stop playing players out of there natural position we should play a formation that suite our players not our players to suite a formation imo…horses for courses and all that
Well done GM. Respect for that.
It all gets a bit silly on here during the games, I’d rather come on the next day…
Exactly Inside – we must direct our fire outside, not amongst ourselves.
A Tom – I can’t remember the exact quote Wenger said, it was something like “If we spend less the club does well and I do well” or something like that. Appalling set-up if that is the case. It reminds me of the summer our CM transfer hari-kiri. The atmosphere in the queue for the tube station after the Hull game was subdued to say the least.
most full backs attack now and then ours with every attack get forward its predictable and leaves us weak at the back because they get caught out of position.
They should be more intelligent with their attacking play and vary runs ect this would be harder on the oppo then knowing a half ass cross will come in after a give and go with the winger
i also think wenger is doing to walcott what happend with henry but in reverse,juva brought a goal scorer with ability at a young age for top money the manager then stuck him out on the wing where he died and lost all confidence to the point where he was embarasing and everybody wrote him off.
A fellow that new him from old brought him stuck him back in his natural position gave him a few hugs and got the player back on track to fullfill his potential that time wenger done the obvious and got the plaudits this time his fucking walcott up and i can see arry redcrap saving theo.
Good honest post Pedro, I found myself agreeing with all of it.
chary, i cant imagine mate! and if gazidis is the guy he claims to be always talking about the footballing side and its all about the fans then that clause should be removed if he gets another contract which i think he’s 100% certain to be offered.
Walcott needs toughening up IMO. There’s no reason, that with a bit more strength, fight and agression, he shuoldn’t be able to play in a similar way to Agbonglahor, but with even more pace. The way he plays now its all about his pace so its predictable.
Stick him up front in the reserves and let him learn how to play with his back to goal and spin around and inbetween CBs.
Oh wait, the reserves is a creche for 16 year olds. My mistake.
Champions league last 16
Potential opponents
Bayern Munich
CSKA Moscow
Inter
Lyon
Milan
Porto
Stuttgart
Can we beat any of them? lol
I frankly want to stop reading all these interviews our players like walcott,diaby,song,denilson give…
i mean,they talk like they have won some 10 premier league titles…
these players interviews Get me on my nerves…They DONT WALK THE TALK…
YES WE CAN! SP but seriously we can, Porto would be the most difficult I feel
I think its Walcott’s decision making that’s suffered the most
Even Eboue would be better on the right wing than Theo right now and thats saying something.
The thing that bugged me about the match was that when Man U lost to them they were shocked. We were expecting this result. Of course the fact that they beat Man U made it more expected, but I’m sure if Man U play Burnley again they won’t lose, talented players or not all you need is determination to beat such teams.
Man
why u kept a name like dat,we all are Man,….
name is to identify oneself,how can u identify urself when we all are MAN here
enjoy the moments we are not title contenders so enjoy moments..
afternoon…
first of all another scrappy display..secondly for me you summed it up nicely Pedro..
i am more than surprised that players like almunia gets to play even though they are clearly not good enough…wenger this sends the wrong signals…walcott well you better start fighting not acting as some kind of sissy ballerina..Song i thought was very poor in the first half,improved in the second..still dont dare to let me down lad…Ramsey proved what quite a few in here has said not up for it yet…
Wenger can make a bit of a fool of himself can’t he
December 9: Arsene Wenger makes 11 changes to his starting line-up for Arsenal’s final Champions League group game with Olympiakos. Arsenal lose the game 1-0, thus leaving Standard Liege with no chance of qualifying for the second round.
December 15: Mick McCarthy makes ten changes to his starting line-up for Wolves’ trip to Manchester United.
December 16: Wenger accuses McCarthy of damaging the “international credibility” of the Premier League, stating “We compete with Manchester United over 37 games instead of 38.”
Muppet
Good question Sabeel, but have you got the time for the answer?
Lets just say there is a deeper meaning to the pseudonym…just joking…its shortened from Mandanda done for convenience
I think you might have just offended the female grovers
Patthegooner..i get your point still its far fetched to compare…and mick mcarthy has proven to be a shame for the premier…what a fecker..telling your own team that you dont believe in them…this will be wolves downfall and they will be relegated…karma..
Man
in fact i thought about female grovers while writing that,but still wrote it becos…i was thinking of the following…
If “Man” is to be applicable only to ‘male’ species,then what? is to be applicable to ‘female’ species ??? (definitely not Fe-Man right
)…
any answers people
Theo needs to go on loan rather than Wilshere.
Wenger is deflecting left center right nowadays. I will chose to ignore whatever he says. Empathy sake, he has got no where to hide. He kept upping his players for big things, but for me players like Almunia, Walcott, Song, Denilson, Diaby, Sylvestre do not cut it for this club imo.
I do not get why we are not playing Manone or Fabianski instead of Almunia. And why does Denilson get to play in the mid against Chelsea without playing for so many days.
Some questions will always go unanswered.
i hope it is not She-Man that female human species are called…confusing this…
Arsenal’s January target looks good but needs to bulk up a bit. He looks like a good winger which is what we need.
Human Sabeel
Sabeel – Woman
finest…
Human is called even to males and females
so if ‘Man’ is for Males Only (according to Man`s post @12.42),then what is it for females ??
oh yeah..albania..
its Woman,,u got it right…
but Man,we all are Man,and very Woman here…;)
Ikon..what one could observe theese days may ust be the downfall of project youth..wenger keeps looking for answers and the players fail to come up with any..wenger is walking a thin line….but its not beyond repair…and one could grant him some leeway for the injuries still wenger is not stupid and i think he knows that this team has to improve and show that they are worthy…if not im sure wenger will go back to he’s old recipe….and show us all again what a great manager he *can* be…
inside bit of a one trick pony him think the defenders might cotton on to that with age and experiance bar senderos of course
oh yeah..albania..
its Woman,,u got it right…
@Man
we all are Man,and very *FEW Woman here…;)
Magit – you out there ??
Went in the Royal coke last night for the game. Wondered if you were able to go down there ??
The joint opinion of the pub was Wallcot is cack !! They jeered everytime he messed up.
Nick – would you be surprised if we did sing him though? and this is a serious question
Songthegreat
I think what Wenger did was worse. He has cost Standard Liege any chance of getting into the knockout stages.
I have no problems with either Manager doing what they did. They both did it for the good of their squads with a busy Christmas coming up.
But you can’t come out and be critical of Wolves when you do the same thing yourself. Especially the line about credibility. The only person lacking any credibility is Wenger when he spouts such nonsence.
i wish someone would tell wenger that too mouch youth rips the balance in the team to pieces…one or two fine…like with cesc..still i guess he’s so damned stubborn that he had to see for himself..and well…once bitten twice shy..i hope ??
You mean like “one small step for Man”?
In old English Man used to be applicable to the human species, but some feminazis claimed it was sexist, so it’s not so widely used nowadays. They were looking to prove a point that they had power and pretended to get very offended about it, so we try to stick to gender neutral expressions when referring to humanity as a whole rather than be accused of not being fair.
As for Theo, I would give him a spell in the reserves playing upfront with Eduardo. They both need some gametime to get their mojo back, and preferably gametime that does not fuck our season up.
Patthegooner ..Standard Liege had a very slim chance ..and most of all didnt take it anyway…so for me Liege can only blame themselves…
there is some vague similarity…ill give you that..
still lying down like a cheap whore in the premier like wolves…oh dear..
Last Night reminded me of how rubbish we were last season.
We had no shape, and no leaders on the park. We were not playing as a team and instead had 11 individuals.
Need to get a grip on it and fast, starting with Hull on Saturday.
Hull need a spanking after Tango Man’s spitting allegations, but unfortunately they will fancy themselves to get something.
That is the problem now, you constantly read in the press quotes from players from the likes of Hull and Burnley saying they will get something from us. No one fears playing Arsenal anymore and that is sad
patthegooner ill say sell em both..and make space in the squad for real men, not half witted sissy’s
Sabeel the question you raised can be taken deeper. The English Language was changed and developed when Christianity was introduced, as result it was influenced by greek and latin. In Christian belief God created Adam and then Eve. So without Adam there would be no Eve. This is reflected in the English language by the word ‘Man’. As you pointed out we are all huMAN, and the two sexes are MAN, and woMAN. So MAN is in all three words because it was the creation of ADAM (a man) that enabled all to exist. The same can be applied to MALE and feMALE, the word MALE is the common denominator as MAN is in the other three afore mentioned words.
So there you have it.
Song
It would not surprise me at all if Eduardo moved on in the Summer.
and even if im being fairly critical to our team,i still in some funny way cant write them off this season…..and patthegooner if we could only get clicking again we might be able to do it..havent lost the faith…never
Yes finest, that is very true.
agreed paththegooner, in fact i would hope so both for eduardo and for arsenal..
pat – it was very much like last season, the players really didnt know what to do or how to create a goal scoring chance.
Is anyone really surprised at what happened last night,i mean really?
insidealbania
thanks for a deep insight on the usage of these words…
we are predictable and easy to defend against if we mixed play up a bit whipping in low crosses around the 6yard box or shooting from out side it
we would add dimension to our game we need to do the basics because coming from us this is unexpected and catches defences out…more fucking snow 
wish it would do it properly if its gonna do it at all sounds like arsenal 
Wonderboy – it was more disappointment than surprise. Nothing can surprise me with this current team, apart from winning the league that is.
you are welcome sabeel
Maybe surprised was a bad choice of words, i mean we all KNEW this was gonna happen… the predictability of it is depressing, we always fuck it up somewhere.
Finest,
Should we refer to that thing on the street as a person/human-hole cover.
Yes Nick, this problem we have with shooting from outside the box (and sometimes even inside the box) is very disturbing. I mean do they not have the confidence to shoot? maybe. Are they told not to shoot? doubt that. Do they not know how to shoot? disaster.
The miss from Theo yesterday was unbelievable, the least he can do is hit the target, and there was I hoping Theo would get 15 goals this season.
OUr 2 best chances of the 2nd half were the 2 Song long balls over the defence. Sometimes a plan B can go a long way.
You either have faith in Arsene or you dont, I fall into the dont category.
Stories linking Cesc with Barca (yawn) have got me thinking that selling Cesc is going to be the only way that project youth is seen as the folly that it is.
Thoughts anyone?
I can’t help thinking back to the days of the Invincibles, with Bergkamp so often setting Henry in the clear. For most games, we never had to worry that we would score, because we were simply too good, and nobody could defend against us.
Speed and counterattacking is still very much part of our game, but how often do we now see an Arsenal player go clear in a one-on-one against the keeper?
I think Cesc can pick a pass like Bergkamp could, but where is our Henry? Where is our quick strong striker which can outrun defences and cause fear because of his speed? I think Wenger planned Theo for this role, but it just isn’t happening. Theo is also nowhere near as strong as Henry was…
Wenger is the only real FackER!!!!! Not our players!
Wenger has no tactical plans, he just say to the players: just pass and pass and pass…….
Wenger is cleuless, he is a facking joke. And he has the money to buy, so he must go shopping now!!
The only players that will have a shot are rosicky arsh and ramsey the rest want to tap it in
Look at UTD AND THE CHAVS even villa of late and what they do utd ruff you up and wind players up to stop em playing then force their game on you similar with the chavs the other thing they have in common is they will shot how many lucky goals do they get per season from hit and hopes 
When teams play them they are nervous coz you dont know where the shots coming from, plus when they lose the ball the opposition player is nervous coz he dont know where the kick is coming from he knows its coming tho thus stopping any rhythm.
The players all know their job and each others working as a team and individuals when needed.
Against us they sit back and watch us pass it between our selves wait for the moment to kick us and score on the break
It’s so depressing. The fortune presented us with an unexpected voctory at Anfield, and at Burnly we are 1:0 up after 17 min against a relegation fighter. So, go now and make a title contender statement! You do need a special mind set to waste this chance to get all 3 points. All in all, the feeling never goes away that at some point we will mess up. Totally unprofessional. I’ve never been more frustrfated this season than now.
we have never replaced pv4 or th14 the two players that much of what we won were down too.
Wenger keeps buying great players and playing them out of position when has this ever improved a player????
looks like shitty will be in for cb in jan lesscot out for 8weeks after knee op and kolo acn. sell em senders for 20mil good bit of business that
Were the players wearing different length sleeves last night, some in short, most long? I thought it was an Arsenal tradition that everyone wears whatever shirt the captain chooses?
I know it doesn’t really matter, but I hope i’m wrong because I love the unique traditions that make (made) the Arsenal standard the highest around.
Harry – i noticed that !
Yeah its always been the captain of Arsenal that chooses the type of shirts that will be worn on match day
Harry – I hope this is not one more example of traditional Arsenal values being eroded, if there were a hotch potch of short and long sleeve, can anyone who saw the game confirm/deny this?
I love little things like that – it separates us from the unwashed masses.
Release Walcott immediately. Worst of the lot.
If the victory at Anfield can not galvanise the team for a decent run, nothing will. Ever. The tanks are empty.
charry I just had look at a highlight vid and they all had long sleeves
Good afternoon to all. Just like I said, let’s make the win at Anfield count, if, we don’t win at Burnley and then beat Wolves, and hopefully beat Villa or at least not drop points then it will count for nothing. Once again we went out and proved to all that we will win nothing.
It’s the same if we drew to Liverpool, and beat Burnley, now it doesn’t look so good does it?
Thanks Inside, it’s nice to know they haven’t binned that tradition, along with the “Never say die” attitude we used to have.
Just got this:
I’d be better off following David Blunkett than Arsenal,
at least he can hang on to a fucking lead.
Tim howard or Rob green anyone?
Duke
None of them Louis.Jaskelainen or Sorensen.
Tim howard
ffffffffffucking shittttttttt at least his out bursts would fit most of the time 
what about wayne hennersey??
Yes, he is class Nick, but we do have many quality young keepers. I would have rather gave a chance to Szczęsny.
afternoon Grovers
second that, Maciek – WS is the new VdS in the making…
the good thing with him is he has been first choice for a few years he now has prem experience as well so young and proven i would go for him but, as you said all the young ones we have but are they good enough only one way to find out
Suga, why You rate Szczęsny higher than Fabiański?Of course I respect Your opinion. Isn’t it cos Fabian is a shy boy type of player?
Kevin Whitcher drew comparisons between Szczesny and Casillas once – fair point, the latter was given a go at 19 as well…
Maciek,
no, it’s because Wojtek is much better – a keeper must be a little bit bonkers to be successful, Fabian is a permanent no.2 as far as I am concerned…
Fab news! Arsenal boosted after it’s revealed captain Cesc has NOT torn his hamstring
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1236598/Arsenal-boosted-news-captain-Cesc-Fabregas-NOT-torn-hamstring.html#ixzz0ZxVGVd3d
Its just the daily mail.. you never know
Suga, I’ve been reading amazing things about Chesney…
Given would have been the solution, but thats gone so we need to resolve it internally or get an older keeper in like the two you mentioned freidel was a good bit of biz as well he really was a quality signing steady established match winner and moved with no real head lines
Maciek,
Jaaskelainen would be a great stopgap until Szczesny steps up – how many times this fella left me frustrated…
Choy, on this occassion I’ll choose to believe them!
Pedro,
apparently, Brentford don’t want to let him go…
I don’t think he would do much worse than the peroxided bimbo – if you take into the account his ridiculous raw talent, it would do him a lot of good…
was chesney the one that broke both his arms??
I like Fabianski, I don’t think anyone has seen enough of Chesney to really comment anything. How would be handle himself under pressure in the closing minutes against Chelski, with Drogba and Terry going for a cross?
Suga, I agree… give him a go… he’s massive, has raw talent and he’s getting rave reviews!
Mind you, I’m keen to see what Fabianski can do… he’s a top talent as well.
I’ve read Cesc is ok for the Hull game is that true?
Might as well put a younger goalie in the firing line, its not like Al is an experienced dependable Goalie.
Pedro,
a few things speak in favour of Fabianski: age, strength and experience…
both of them are better than Almunia – what he did yesterday for their second ‘goal’ was criminal, he started OK, but later disapperared…
Szczesny should be loaned out somewhere for a season to play regularly…
Yep Nick!
On a bench press I think?
gm… for villa i think
I hate the fact that YT keeps taking off the videos i used to love.
Damn capitalism!
Thanks Choy that’s great news
you mean 2 girls 1 cup Mayank?
the only thing Szczesny needs to do is to bulk up, as he is lacking a bit of upper body strength to cope with the likes of Drogba et al…
add that to the mix and he will be a fucking monster…
YOU. SHALL. NOT. PASS.
Duke,
he is mentally stronger and more intelligent than the other 3 combined IMO…
Nah not that one GM, I found a different site for that
Suga3, that’s exactly what my teachers used to say in school.
You are such a genius. Wenger is really sick with that excuse about the games we are playing.Every other team also plays the same number of matches.He should look at his team andbuy REAL CHAMPIONSHIP winning players.And as for Almunia only God knows what he has done to Weng!er
never mind the end of the week i cant wait for the end of the fucking year come on 2010 boat 20009 its time to fuck right off
Suga, I see you like the kid, but what do you base that information on?
Sorry to ask and question and leave, but have to go now.
Take care all.
it seems to be one of the biggest enigma’s in the modern world why wenger doesn’t get “it” – i.e. that a)this team doesn’t have the qualities, mentally especially, to win the league and b) you could significantly address the issue by spending some of our mountain of cash and c) not doing so is negligent
i really can’t work it out. he is a highly intelligent and driven man. but then it is an enigma.
anyone got any sensible anwsers?
Bascially moW he’s a cunt
basically*
Its such a shame that we have to go through this again and again.what a post by Pedro!!!!!!!!!!1 nailed right there on the head. lets tackle this issue piecemeal.
1. we lost because we could not match the physical nature of an opponent that lacks skill and any aestethic.
2. we will continue to lose games like this and we cannot not do anything about it.
3. we won in Liverpool, not because of the teams play but because liverpools’ level in the game dropped.
4. Arsenal will not win the league and we all know it.
5. arsenal players are good but only in a mid table team. honetsly how many of our pplayers are going to be in Man U, Chelsea, Liverpool, Barca, Real Madrid, team.
6. whether we like it or not, we will struggle in the champions league against any team we get but a few unknowns.
7. as for the FA cup, we have too much crocked players to achieve anything meaningful.
8. nothing wrong with the medical team from my perspective. something is wrong with the arsenal players players demselves. same medical set up in days of vieira and henry. and we never had it like this.
9. arsene should be in an advisory role now. he cannot manage a winning team or is afraid to do so. no wonder he does not want to go to madrid.
10. i love this club, being supporting the team for the past 16 years and i will do so for a much longer time. i just wanna compete.
Fixture congestion? Don’t make me laugh. Aston Villa play ManU and Sunderland away within 3 days (we lost both fixtures) and go away with 6 points. That’s what I call desire and profesionalism.
Not defending the teams performance yesterday, but even the invincibles drew against Fulham at home in nov and Liecester and Bolton away in Dec.
It’s always been a weakness imo, not like that’s an excuse but just to add some context to the whole situation.
Ok BBK, quite a broad theory then – he’s a cunt!
so why is he a cunt then?
i think wenger should just let our players be more creative…let them express themselves….nasri was doing all kind of trick at OM…since coming to arsenal…he has been very quiet…
Duke,
judging by his performances, Szczesny is a chip off the old block, only better – he could not have ended up at a better place
his old man used to be the Polish international GK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maciej_Szczesny
fella is quite ballsy and a bit bonkers, he headbutted a footy hooligan when he was attacked
szczesny cracks me up… he broke both arms trying to lift the same weights as mannone!!
that and calling the bloke who missed a pen against him after trying to stop his run in pre-season makes him a legend already!
I’ve read a lot of good things about Szczesny, he’s a nutter I’d love to have b/w the sticks. It’s been a while since we had one of those anywhere on the pitch.
@ MOW
After reading your question the Arseblog Arsecast bit went of in my head. The one when he calls in the doctor and he uses endless medical jargons to explain his hypothesis but in the end in lay man’s terms the answer is simple, SOMEONE IS A CUNT.
Not willing to call our greatest ever manager a cunt though.
If your not willing Zeus then I am.
Because if you dont see that he’s ruining our club then hes a cunt.
that was Szczesny senior who headbutted that twat
still, junior is very, very good…
http://www.sports.pl/Pilka-nozna/Wojciech-Szczesny-bohaterem-Brentford-w-meczu-z-Leeds-United,artykul,64542,1,379.html
some highlights from the Leeds game
I think Wenger wants to keep the tittle race close and refuse to buy the players we need so that when we end up with no Silverware once again he can point to the fact that we were close as he did in 07/08.
I for one dont want it to be close. I want us to win it by 10 points or more.
David,
this is soooo 2004
David Says:
December 17, 2009 at 16:41
If your not willing Zeus then I am.
Because if you dont see that he’s ruining our club then hes a cunt.Spot on david,all his good work has been undone,we are just another team now
It ridiculous to blame fixture congestion. We are not Wolves. We are arasenal. We need to have players to play 2 games per week.
Its ridiculous, wenger says the strangest things when we lose.
As someone pointed out earlier, Villa have played Sunderland and Mancs away and have got 4 points.
We played Pool and Burnley.. boo hoo
Its ridiculous, wenger says the strangest things when we lose.
As someone pointed out earlier, Villa have played Sunderland and Mancs away and have got 6 points.
We played Pool and Burnley.. boo hoo
I wonder if any Forest fans call Brian Clough a cunt. I think it’s probably the end of Wenger time but I don’t think he’s a cunt. I thinks walcott and almunia are useless but I don’t think they are cunts.
goonermichael they are useless cunts
anyone who continually ruins my enjoyment of watching AFC and gets paid around €60k a week for doing so is a cunt in my opinion…
When my wife walks across and stops in front of the TV when we’re playing, something all women are gifted at doing, she is also a cunt. Albeit without being paid a fortune to do so. However I forgive her as I am scared of her so that’s that…. the cunt!
nice to see phill brown has’nt passed up the opportunity to have a dig at wenger in regards to the so called fixture pile up.
Well done wenger, lets put pressure on ourselves and motivate the opposition, by whinging after a bad result.
I have nothing left in my locker for our team and our manager. Nothing. I said it last night. I don’t know my team anymore. I have no feelings for most of them bar one or two. And they are the one or two that I would forgive for fucking off to win something before they lose their chance. I wouldn’t blame them because this arse of a manager has lost his sanity at our cost. The only thing I can say in the players defence is its not their fault. They’re only playing to the best of their (in)ability and the manager is the one who picks them. Goodnight all and Good Luck to Ye.
anyway, cunt or no cunt the Arsene Enigma exists. if our most rational way to explain it is “he’s a cunt” then i think it proves the point.
more interesting is whether it will end, i.e. will wenger change his whole mysterious philosophy.
surely the only hope we have is that wenger changes, or is replaced. i’m sure most gooners would prefer he changed.
we’ll find out in january if he has.
look last night in the heat of the moment people make angry comments ,
in the case of walcott , someone said he should die!!
i called him a overated a c…
thats after watching another non display from the great hope of england.
look he gets paid 60,k a week, look at his performances even though he is probably playing out of position.
he does not fight, close down when we loose the ball and his first touch is woeful.
lets face it the fact that he is english lets him get way with him being ordinary at best.
if he was french or african the press would cane him , he quite simply has no football brain ,
his pace is the only thing he has in the 80′s villa had a wide player called tony daley he was the same.
my friends this kid has played to many games now to be a project it’s time to be real and admit that he’s simply not good enough.all those who defend him go on about his hatrick for england i dont give one lets look at what he’s consistently done for the arsenal .
Almunia is the worst keeper i have seen at arsenal i thought that shabin was bad.
last night showed us that these pampered prima donnas (bar gallas, arsh,cesc, vermy) are just bottlers.
we need to admit that really if we are serious about winning titles we get three points and dominate games against the burnleys of this world.
THIS MANAGER HAS GONE AS FAR AS HE CAN,
bring back a winning mentality , with hungry players and coaching that brings plan a,b,c, to games .
another master display of substitutionsfrom wenger again last night , wenger and rice have morphed into taylor and neale.
I don’t blame the players, they are not good enough.
It is arsene telling them and the whole world that they are good enough when they are not.
This youth thing has been taken too far.
“Cesc Fabregas is desired by us for many reasons,” Laporta is quoted by The Sun. “Barcelona have decided to fight for the kid for next season.
“The money? This will be decided at the end of March to prepare for a deal.
“Cesc is such a big player. Our intention is to convince the Londoners about the sale.
“It won’t be easy, but we have good relations with the Gunners.”
Now theres a fucking cunt.
Only Denilson back for Hull City.
we will see OGL’s dream midfield then: Song, Denilson, Diaby…
God help us all…
Traore might be back against Villa.
Its Hull SUGA. ALl those players are better than Hull’s midfielders.
Denilson and Diaby won’t play in the same midfield anyway. Ramsey, Song, and one ofDiaby/Denilson
Pat,
we have lost to them at home last season once in the league and won the other time in the cup thanks to a dubious goal…
nevertheless, I hope these cunts will feel the wrath of a wounded predator
besides, Diaby + Denilson will be what we will be seeing in January week in week out…
And why is that?
I think Wenger will sign a CDM and get a striker on loan, hopefully Adriano
WE ABSOLUTELY NEED TO SIGN ROMELU LUKAKU.
He’s 16 years old, next Drogba and scored 2 goals away against Ajax today, and its only the 55th minute.
This kid is brilliant.
He had 9 goals in 15 games for Anderlacht before today…and he’s only 16 ffs.
I hate it that we always miss out on players like kaka, Ribery, CR, etc.
Sign them early Wenger and you won’t have that problem. Overpay a bit and it’ll end up being worth it.
Enough kids pat..
With kids come inconsistency.. we don’t need that.
5 in a row?
Both his goals were headers btw
no more kids
I seriously hope so, otherwise we are fucked…
I just figured out one the thing about ‘killing’ players – why keep useless peroxide bimbo in goal instead of letting a ‘talented youngster’ to express himself against a mediocre side at home?
a few players had a go at Al during the game – I hope Wenger will see the light and drop him for the team spirit sake…
Choy, not with this kid. He doesn’t even look like a kid!
He’d trouble CBs more than any of our forwards, fact.
we’ve been crying out for a presence up front, he’ll give us that.
We get kids that no one else wants. We should get the kids everyone is after. Thats the difference.
exactly suga.. that is typical wenger.
hypocritical.
nope.. kids everywhere are the same..
far too inconsistent.
He’s proving himself in the europa league at the age of 16. Thats speaks volumes
Im totally lost for words after that non performance last night,when is AW gonna face up to it that this present shambles of a team is not gonna win anything in a month of sundays,the fans see it,ex players see it,but AW blames every one else when the solution is staring right back at him.If he fails to resolve the situation in next months transfer window,time for him to take the only way out offer his resignation and let some else fix the problem.If Cesc or any player wants to leave with him? fuck off and leave as we the fans are sick and tired of the bullshit that Wenger comes out with,other clubs/managers are laughing at us and its all down to AWs stubboness.
choy,
we shall see on Saturday
if he won’t drop Al, then he’s lost it…
11 in 16 doesn’t seem inconsistent to me.
SUGA3 Says:
December 17, 2009 at 18:56
we will see OGL’s dream midfield then: Song, Denilson, Diaby…
God help us all…
———————————————————
Spot On. The football Gods are really having a laugh at our expense. It being a home game I hope Ramsey gets the call but thats just crazy talk. Crab football it is then come the weekend.
Kolo Toure to Barcelona rumors appearing.haha
Btw, watching barca recently, all their CBs are struggling atm. Pique, Marquez and Puyol
Pat we can’t have a 16yr old spearheading our attack!
The Arsene Enigma.
We all want more than anything for Arsene to raise the EPL/CL trophy so we can all have a laugh at the pundits and tell all devils…especially the red ones to go to hell.
Remember when We used to be skint?
ROFL.
there were quite few flat performances on the day from some of the players but thats not what worries me because that will happen at times they realy lack penetration at times and they realy need a target man so badly.i feel when it comes to edwardo he just lacks confedence i cant remember the last time he played a full 90 minutes once he gets his confedence back you will alot better performances from him but there is no dought that cesc is a huge huge miss.almunia realy worries me he does communicate well when it comes corners he looks very unconvincing i realy think should fabianki more chances
Fact is that im afraid Arsene isnt interested in winning trophy’s.
Hes more interested in kids coming good. Even if it means they do it in their 40′s.
Choy, he’s better than Eduardo and Vela, and probably better than Bendtner as well.
No More Kids.
Anyone miss Denilson last night?
i feel edwardo is top top player but is lacking in match fitness and confedence ,bretna is not best player but they could with right now he would have given them a different dimention his physical presence would have helped no end.vela is quality player without dought but he is only 20 and this only his second season the prem the kid just needs time he will get there has lots trickery just needs to beef up,i realy feel with edwardo fans should be a bit patient i think people forget just how long he was out injured and alot of it mental for him wenger has realy protected and i think he is quite right.whom ever brings in must be a big trouble maker,someone who hold the ball up and deal with set play and corners,a play maker but is very strong and powerful with alot stucture and i dont think its a matter of better they something different to what they have right now and all the players wehave all are very good play makers but none can bully defenders like rvp and bretna
MnM,
do you seriously think that Denilson would do OK against an ‘in your face’ side playing away?
think again…
erm… I think he did more than ‘ok’ against Liverpool away (man of the match) and is one of the few players who basically can always be counted on.
SUGA, Burnley aren’t really an “in your face” side.
Funnily enough, Denilson usually does well against those type of teams, especially if they’re below the top 9 or 10.
I’d rather play denilson instead of diaby.
Man of the match?
‘scuse me…
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah
aaaahahahahahhahahahahaha hahahahaha
*cough*
hahahahahaha aaaahahahahah hahahahaha
keep’em coming…
Hello Grovers
Is the CL draw tomorrow?
Pat,
we got absolutely outplayed & outpaced by Burnley…
the last thing we needed there was another crustacean merchant – at least Song played OK without him…
these two toghether on the same pitch is a recipe for a disaster, unless the opposition is completely cack
Every year we get worse IMO.
Every year we lose our best player’s and some shit youngsters take their place.
Managers are supposed to replace players with better ones, that’s if they let them leave…..
We should have replaced Henry,Adebayor,Viera,Campbell,Lehmann
Yep the draw is tomorrow:
One of the below teams.
Bayern Munich
CSKA Moscow
AC Milan
Inter Milan
Porto
Lyon
Stuttgart
I would be happy with any of them team’s tbh.
Lyon or Inter would be hardest IMO
The rest are piss….
Burnley outplayed us hahahhhahahhahha
Especially Chris Eagles. He is alot better than Walcott.
Why can’t we have a player like Lennon. He plays well in everygame. He usually causes LB’s hige problems.
Walcott just stand there and cant be arsed in general.
Sell Walcott, Almunia, Diaby, Rosicky, Traore, Randall, Denilson, Mannone…….
huge*
Pat,
we were unable to string three passes together and Burnley had more clear cut chances, Burnley for fuck’s sake…
we looked much better in the cup last season even though we lost…
Lennon was even worse than walcott at his age.
The problem with this youth policy is that there is too much pressure to perform.
Thank you Choy.
and who is at fault for that choy?
Mr. Arsene Wenger.
The policy is flawed and he is busy blaming the fixtures.
Angel Di Maria, guys?
Guy at 49:00 reminds me of song. I think his name is song too.
choy,
Theo is 20, Lennon is 22 – problem is that Lennon has developed and Theo is regressing…
SUGA. Theo isn’t a winger. He is a striker.Give him a run in the middle and You can judge him.
It’s just his 3rd or 4th start suga.. and most of the games have been away!
New formation, and he’s been out a really really long time.
Walcott is only 20 and it’s not his fault.
WTF is Wenger doing to this club.
Our best DM’s are Song and Denilson.
Our best RW is Walcott.
Best GK (in Wenger’s opinion) is Shit Al.
Walcott would be fine on the bench for Arsenal but he is not starting material. Same goes for Almunia,Song,Denilson,Diaby.
We should be playing(When fit);
________Fabianki__________
Sagna–Gallas–Vermy–Clichy
_____?????–Fabregas–?????___
___Van Persie–?????–Arshavin_________
Subs;
Szczesny
Walcott
Gibbs
Eboue
Rosicky
Eduardo
Bendtner
Maciek,
I love the fella and really want him to do well, but he is not suited to play CF in 4-3-3 IMO…
he has fuck all ball shielding ability and does not do turns
SUGA,
But he can run,run……..run.Run, Theo, run!LOL.
samir you dont sell a player of the quality and experience of risicky unless you have extremly good replacement and how can put lennon in same class as risicky dont get that as troae is good up commimg player but the rest i have to say i just see them making it
choy,
that is all because he went to bullshit U21 tournament and did not get the rest like he was supposed to – that was some fucking idiotic thing to do and for that he should be fined and hung out to dry by AW…
but no, he is getting paid £60K per week and can finally afford to buy his girlfriend a fucking Ferrari and obviously has plenty of time to write kiddie books – what the fucking fuck?
I think we need a player like Eljero Elia.
Burnley had more clear cut chances? No, not really.
We had Nasri 1 v 1, Cesc hit the side netting from 8 yrds, Arshavin post, and Cesc penalty appeal.
Burnley had post. Anymore to the left and if would have hit Almunia anyway!
The offside goal, which I wouldn’t call clear cut cause Almunia saw the flag and let it go…hopefully!
Thats it. 4 to 2 max
We had a better passing percentage than Burnley, so don’t tell me they passed better than us, cause they didn’t.
Burnley ffs? Umm, they’re one of the best home teams in the league mate.
SO if we fail to score against Birmingham away, you’re going to say Birmingham ffs?
HINT: They are 2nd on the clean sheets table.
Stop judging teams by their name. Shows complete ignorance and lack of knowledge
SUGA, and the sad thing is, Theo was probably one of the worst English players at that tournament!!!
Maciek,
so can any headless chicken…
I am so disappointed, as I really rated him and it was painful to see him struggle…
any normal team puts such player in ressies to let him gain confidence and come back to form: Malouda, Downing – shall I carry on?
Gooner 786. Ellia is CLASS! But HSV have just bought him and do You honestly belive uncle tight arse(ne) will splash about 10m to buy him?
Suga, it’s an academic question, but would You rather have Milner or Downing than him?Just a thought.
Di Maria scored 2 today.
And David Villa must be one of the worst penalty takers in the world(for a striker)!
Every time I see him, he seems to miss his penalties. Did so today again
Downing played in the reserves cause he was coming back from injury. Same goes to Malouda.
Pat. Di Maria is class. But he will end up in Manchester( City probably). I just can’t see Wenger paying 20m for him. I like Arda Turan, Elia.
Pat,
like I said, I know that there is just one team that managed a win at Turf Moor and it was Blackburn (who managed to bang in 3 goals) – this is the plan B we are lacking: power, power, power…
leaving Ebowie out and selecting out of form Theo was clueless, as is continuing with that 4-3-3 bullshit without having personnel to do so…
and no, I am never judging teams by their name – it’s always 11 vs 11 and the team that wants it more wins, barring games where absolute quality meets absolute cack
We need actual wingers in a 4-3-3. That would make our style much more fluid and faster
Pat,
and where was Theo for the last few months? on holiday?
Maciek,
neither, but if I was to choose between the two it would be Milner for being more powerful and less injury prone…
Well Lean TBH I would take Lennon over Rosicky today(Not before).
Less injuries and creates more chances.
IMO we need a huge and strong DM,CM,CB and CF!
If Eboue started and was shit, you’d be complaining SUGA. You were heralding Theo before the game, so you’d definitely be complaining if Eboue was shit. Admit it! =D
CB, CF & DM will do for me…
we could do with a battering ram to break down the teams who park the bus: Cetin, Inler & Jones would do…
but we shall continue with the midget nonsense, right?
Pat,
yes I was and I am not denying that – but he shou;d be on the bench and should be introduced in the 2nd half…
being subbed in the halftime could provide him with a necessary kick in the arse, but Wenger always makes substitutions in the 60th minute (give or take 3 minutes) – so predictable it’s ridiculous…
Wenger was happy that he can still surprise a few people after 13 years – well, you are not surprising anyone here Arsene…
Eboue should be introduced, that is…
Theo is shit, not an actual winger. WIngers have intelligence, Theo doesn’t.
After again watching the first half of the burnley match, i think we were extremely unlucky not to score the second goal ..
Arsh had two great chances which were much easier then the liverpool goal he scored ..
The second half I am not gonna watch again ..
walcott isn’t a footballer.
Why does tony pullis feel the need to comment on wehger? cunt
Despite scoring, cesc is not a natural finisher .. The chance he had immediately after scoring, he goes for the near post while good finishers would have curled it to the far post ..
samir lennon is good player very good but the fact is a fit risicky is a world class player and right now is see him as squad now but he quality player but he not played full game yet as for thoe he is the same thoe all he can do is run has no vision no trickery nothing the fact winshire is far ahead of him and i would pick aa risicky nasri and edwardo before him
Pat you’ve got yourself confused there, generally in terms of intelligence wingers have less than anyone else, because you don’t need intelligence to be a winger, as you do in every other position. Theo isn’t a winger though, he’s a goalscoring wide man, as ljungberg was.
leon,
Rosicky epitomises what is wrong with this club – class he may be, but he cannot keep fit and makes an illusion of making up the numbers – offering him a new contract is beyond ridiculous: what is the point? it’s not like he has any resale value and cannot stay fit…
A,
when I think we used to have players like Freddie, something boils inside me…
same thing when I think how Bobby was treated just to give ex Manc 2 year contract a few years later…
in hindsight, Bobby would do better than Rosicky (at least he would stay fit)…
SUGA3 he had a real long term injury, that was cured and with that cured it will take time for his body to rebalance itself and get to a point where he can play a number of games on the bounce. Writing him off now or not giving him a new contract would be ridiculous, there’s no reason to believe he won’t contribute alot, and to buy someone of his quality would be incredibly expensive, and a waste of money that would be much better used elsewhere. Whether he plays 25 or 50 games a season he’s only there until Wilshere and Merida come through anyways
Gotta disagree SUGA, Pires when he left us was nowhere near his former self, and nowhere near Rosicky level, and physically not up to playing in the premiership
A,
he is going to fuck off on a free anyway, mark my words…
Who is SUGA?
sylvestre hopefully
Rosicky – he is going to do a Flamini…
anything but a pay as you play deal is a waste of money, as he will never be fit to play regularly – like I said earlier, Owen doesn’t think he is too good for that…
Silvestre is almost certainly off on a free, that’s how I interpreted Wenger’s comments anyways
How about Merida. Wenger said they’ve agreed in principle but his head may have been turned.
Oh ok SUGA, I’ll be shocked and very pissed off if he did do that SUGA, he doesn’t seem the type, I’ve always liked him.
Owen isn’t actually on a real pay as you play, he still has a decent size base salary, he just gets more the games that he plays, it isn’t like he isn’t paid anything if he wasn’t playing.
goonermichael,
Silvestre’s situation will be ‘sorted out’ in March according to Wenger…
and surch Owen style deal is what he should be offered – any ‘real’ contract would be a pisstake…
but then again Theo, Dudu and other underachievers got new improved contract without contributing shit…
gm yeah I hope Merida signs up soon.
Sending off pires and offering silvest a 2yr deal was heartbreaking.
Pires would’ve stayed here for life, that I am sure.
Pires left at the right time imo. One of my favourite players and an absolute legend for us but his time was done when he left.
A,
no, he would still be excellent for us – would still contribute a lot just like Giggs does for Manure…
Vieira was past it, but not Bobby…
plus, the club lost a lot as a brand by letting all the legends go…
There is no right time, he could’ve done the business, not in every game but as a substitute.
Imagine theo and the younger lads learning from him.
He gave everything for the club and we couldn’t even offer him a 2 year deal.
thing is A, Wenger wanted to keep him, but only on a one year deal (perhaps more later) – what a twat, that was fucking insulting…
SUGA3 that last season with us he wasn’t effective at all. He was never the strongest, but a gust of wind would blow him over towards the end, and we didn’t have a team of strong players like Utd who could accomodate someone like that. Tie in we weren’t financially capable of having Pires on a good wage, and bringing in someone else, and the fact that he wanted first team football, and he left at the right time imo.
Yeah I agree choy, if he’d stayed as a bit part player then it would’ve been great, but he wouldn’t have accepted that, and I don’t believe we could’ve afforded to do that and bring in another player too, so it was the best for everyone when he left. Ljungberg was kept on at least a year too long too imo.
yep, A, we don’t do power, do we?
fucking great plan – and effective too…
I dunno SUGA, I was thinking yesterday, with Song and Diaby in midfield, and Bendtner and VP up top, we’d actually be pretty powerful
I think Freddie was past it fitness wise, unlike Bobby – should have flogged the former and kept the latter IMO…
and we would have more than enough dough to keep him, but we just have to spend zillions on some fucking teenagers, eh?
Wenger: “after we conceeded, it was like a cup tie for them”. So, we have a manager complaining that the team did not give up againts Arsenal. But do you know what? The next team (Hull) will be playing like it’s a cup tie final (oh, yesy, there is a history here). And the next team (in-form Villa) will be absolutely up for it (admit it, you already have wet pants thinking about another Chelsey-like home beating). And resergent Avram Grant’s Portsmouth away… But here a suggestion. May be EPL is too tough for us? Should we play Barnet instead? (oh, wait, 2:2 in the preseason). “Mentally, we are in the title race now”… Now. We are not, and have never been.
no, we’re not, don’t let their size deceive you – out of these only Song & RvP make good use of it…
Song was brushed aside by Bikey yesterday like he was anorexic…
We’ll thrash Hull at the weekend, I just hope Vela starts, and both he, Eduardo, and Theo get goals, they really need them
a i would not bet silvest going he is very good for young players and can do job for 1-2 games if clichy ,gibbs,troae, or if gallas or vern gets injured when it comes to risicky he an experienced class player he not out for long willback in few weeks and can do very good job off the bench he has got the one thing this team is lacking experience
SUGA Song has bullied every team we’ve played this season, and I didn’t see that, Song was our best player imo against Burnley. Diaby battles well too, and Bendtner is incredibly strong. If Traore takes over at left back too we’ll have a pretty powerful side as a whole….
Rosicky will be back sooner than a few weeks leon, he’s back in training this week, though might not be fit for villa
next week even
fingers crossed, A…
*prays to football gods*
like I wrote earlier, we got beaten in the league by them last season and we managed a win in the cup thanks to a dubious goal…
frankly, wrath of a wounded animal is our only hope, as they will be well up for it…
and with midfield consisting Song, Diaby & Denilson?
leon,
waste of space, waste of money – we are not a fucking charity…
A,
I’m not sure this weekend’s game is good to give out of form strikers a chance. On the other hand, we do not have other options (apart from unfit Arshavin). Why do you think Vela did not come on the pitch yesterday? Not a sign of big trust to him from the manager.
I don’t think we’ll thrash them tbh,
We are struggling for goals.
This season Chelsea apart we’ve thrashed every team we’ve played at home SUGA, that isn’t going to change home against Hull, and there’s no way that’s what the midfield will be. It’ll be two of those three, plus most likely Ramsey, or possibly Nasri dropping back there, with Theo and Eduardo either side of Arshavin.
A,
————-Fabianski—————
—-Usual suspects in the back 4—–
—————Song——————
——–Denilson—–Diaby———–
—Theo——–Dudu——-Vela——-
yeah, that will teach them
Wouldn’t go that far choy, we’re struggling away from home, but at home we played Stoke, and scored 2 goals, the least so far at home, but well and truly spanked them and should’ve scored more.
I felt bad writing that, even worse requoting myself like some sort of prophetic wizard but I had to put it down because it happens so often. All of the ridiculous gloating that comes the way of Le Grove after a solitary win annoys me, not because these people are retarded enough to think winning upsets us, but because at the back of my mind, I know it’s going to come back and bite them in the arse sooner rather than later.
————————————————
yes i have that problem too !
too many people like ‘A’ bigging up the team ,
belittling others accurate opinions on the way thru for good measure , well you just have to fuckin say i told you so every now and then to keep the delusionals Honest !
there are several problems preventing me feel happy with the team , and the obvious one is project youth / quality ..
mentality and commitment ,consistency preformance wise , most of the players on the pitch only give a fuck about themselves recently , the attitude is obvious .
on the odd occasion they can work passionately as a team together , things happen ..
but not often enough nowadays ,
if i was honest i haven’t really been happy with the way wengers ran the squad since the flamini / hleb walk out …
we were 2nd that season ! and the last time we played good enough to warrant a bit of hype about ourselves ..
A,
we have played a bunch of fucking nobodies, and much nearer the full squad…
this is gonna be tough, really…
Not a chance in hell of that being the midfield three SUGA. I hope Fabianski does start though, and I’d like Eboue to start rather than Silvestre to give us a bit more going forward.
who is going to play in midfield then?
I think we need to focus on keeping a clean sheet first, no use scoring if we keep conceding!
I’d call Hull no tougher than any team we’ve played at home this season SUGA!!
In fact Hull have the worse away record in the league, a massive 2 points so far this season, scored 5, the second least in the league, and conceded 21, the 4th most in the league! Hull are in fact more nobodies than anyone else we’re played at home this season!
We’ll absolutely destroy them, wait and see
SUGA3 I said, as usual, two of Song, Diaby, and Denilson, then a creative midfielder replacing Cesc, most likely Ramsey, though possibly Nasri.
suga lets just agree to disgree,a it is clear we need bretna right evon is finishing could be better there no way that john terry could have bullied he is trouble maker,iwould start edwardo in next game he needs a run oiut get sharpness back ge a very good box to box striker i know they need point man but they have one yet so its wate of time moaning about it
yes, but we are down to bare bones, A…
we cannot overwork AA, he could really do with some rest, should start on the bench and be introduced only if absolutely necessary…
we are supposed to do well without him, right? that is why he was left out in the FA Cup semi as far as I remember…
Burnley the new club rumored to be after Wilshere.
I really hope he goes there, to be honest
leon,
Eduardo should be dumped to reserves to get his confidence back, I don’t want him to be pressed too much and fuck up where it counts…
A, Burnley only have 1 ot away, no?
point*
Down to the bare bones?! After the defence our team will consist of
2 of Diaby, Denilson, Song,
1 of Ramsey, Nasri
3 of Theo, Arshavin, Eduardo, Vela, Nasri
I wouldn’t say we’re down to the bare bones at all, except at left back, which is obviously a bit of a fucker, but going forward we’re absolutely fine, and will even have good options on the bench.
Song, Diaby & Nasri for me then…
Song & Denilson form a toxic relationship, which stifles any creativity – should never be played together…
Oops Pat, didn’t see them, apologies, the second worst team in the league!
SUGA3 this home game to hull is a great opportunity for him to get his confidence back, same with theo and vela
A,
2 of Diaby, Denilson, Song – OK
1 of Ramsey, Nasri – Nasri for me, Ramsey as a sub
3 of Theo (fuck no), Arshavin (bench), Eduardo (out of form), Vela (out of form), Nasri (already deeper)
Yeah I’d go with that SUGA, though i’m not fussed either way, Song and Denilson would work well against Hull too. Though maybe a good time for Ramsey to play the Cesc role, Nasri wide left with Theo and Eduardo, keep Arshavin on the bench
no suga i would play in the first half of next game he just needs time
In fact my team would be
Fabianski
Sagna Gallas Vermy Eboue
Ramsey Song Diaby
Theo Eduardo Nasri
Subs: Almunia, Silvestre, JET, Denilson, Wilshere, Vela, Arshavin
Ethangunner,
I do not have any problem with the “project youth”. The fact that other teams are replicating it says that there is no other feasable way to properly run the club (and certainly not a club with a new stadion’s debt). But the mental weakness and absence of any progress here just drives me mad.
Nasri is wasted in the front three – too isolated on the ‘wing’ (could do better as a classic winger in 4-4-2), should play deeper in 4-3-3, as he has quite a blast from distance on him…
————-Fabianski————–
–Bac—-Willy——-TV—–Ebowie–
—————Song—————–
——–Diaby———Nasri———
–FUCK ALL OPTIONS IN THE FRONT 3—
leon,
ressies all the way – that at least would happen in any normal club…
Not at home SUGA3, he can drift in and score goals, as he did with his brace when he’d just returned from injury.
If Nasri is back there though then there are still one of Theo, Eduardo, Vela, Arshavin on the bench, so plenty of options. Even if they aren’t on form they’re all top players and international players.
Whatever team we’ll play we’ll win, so it’s a good opportunity to get Ramsey playing in the Cesc role and developing into a decent understudy.
A,
many options up front? The last minutes at Burnley Gallas was playing a forward himself not trusting anyone to score! We have Eduardo, Vela and Theo, but all are, well, below par.
Yeah they aren’t at their best SV, but most teams would still kill for them! We’ve got loads of injuries, yet we have five possible options to fill the front three, six if you include Eboue.
Hull is a great opportunity for those three to get some confidence too
SV, CBs from every team in the world go up towards the end to salvage a point of 3.
That has nothing to do with him not trusting anyone
if we cant beat hull after last years humiliation then surely this project will have all been for nothing,ffs,our girls could beat hull.
OK fellas, I’m off for a bit, I’m off to PL for Xmas in the morning and need to pack – back soon
A,
a good point to give out of form strikers some playing time would be when we are 2:0 up, otherwise to risky (ask Wenger).
SV Hull at home is a great opportunity to get players their confidence back. Our league cup team would beat them at the emirates
Pat,
you are making a good point. However, going up and playing the target man in the box is different. Who was supposed to play in the box at the time? Gallas’s striker instincts are stronger than of our attacking players! (may be because he was starting as a striker).
what like last season a
Who is CHelsea playing this weekend?
We have a great opportunity to catch up to united, since they play Fulham away without Rio, Vidic, Brown, and Evans. A few others as well.
If Fulham play like they did against us, I can’t see United winning.
SV, Song then drops into CB OR the fastest defender stays back as the last defender. CLichy, Traore, even EBoue have done that for us countless times.
Gallas did the same for Chelsea. Scored a screamer against the SPuds to win or draw a game.
Last season Hull had the 8th best away record in the league, and we failed to win in 8 of our 19 home games.
This season Hull havn’t won a single game away from home, have the second worst away record in the league, and apart from Chelsea we’ve thrashed every team who’s come to the Emirates.
pretty different situations
Pat Chelsea are away at West Ham, far from an easy game.
Pat,
a good link. I also remember his late equaliser against Manu at home in 2007, but it was rather a midfielder late run. My point is that he was closer to scoring positions and scoring itself than our strikers!
Sometimes at the end of games that’s true SV, because he’s the extra man, so can get free as their defenders are busy marking our forwards
He’s good in the air for his height and he has a lot of passion.
I really hope Almunia gets kicked out for good. A lot of our players gave him looks of hatred against Burnley!
A, West Ham away without Carlton Cole will be a walk in the park for them. I hope that Diamanti fellow starts. He’s talented
chelsea always turn them over sunday will be no different
If you look at the points we’ve dropped, most of them were our own undoing.
Chelsea and Sunderland are the only 2 games where the other team deserved to win, although I’d argue we deserved a draw against Sunderland.
West Ham, Burnley, United, City(to a lesser extent) could have all been prevented.
We struggled against Burnley in the FA Cup last season at the Emirates.
No different to what BBK? Chelsea’s game at home against Everton, or away against Wigan? How about Villa or City away?
Pat part of football is finishing, so unless it’s a refereeing mistake then imo if you lose you deserve to lose, if you win you deserve to win, regardless of possession etc
Pat we won easily against Burnley at the Emirates…. We were always comfortable
I meant Hull CIty haha
We didn’t even play Burnley in the FAC, did we? I thought it was Barnsley
Yeah we beat Burnley 3-0 Pat, Vela and Eduardo both scored class goals if I remember correctly! Can’t remember who got the third though?
Hull last season were flying high at the top of the table, we were struggling to break teams down at home.
This season Hull havn’t won an away game, and only drawn 2, and apart from Chelsea we’ve thrashed every team who’s come to the Emirates
chelsea’s record against west ham,that’s what
stu
i think all top clubs should do a PROJECT YOUTH .
but the difference is , DONT rely on it !
not at this level …
Last year they won 1-0 and West Ham missed a penalty….
Eduardo does not work upfront in a 4-3-3.
And Eduardo and Vela are embarrassing themselves out there.
What does Wilshere have to do to get a game?
Eduardo should work very well out wide in a 4-3-3 imo, gives him freedom to time his runs and get into goalscoring positions escaping defenders’ attentions, though I’m not sure whether 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 would suit him better. I don’t like him centrally in 4-3-3 though.
Wilshere since he came back from injury has been playing with even less confidence than Eduardo and Vela, he was terrible in the reserves, League Cup, and Champs league, much worse they have been, and if it wasn’t for Merida’s suspension I doubt he’d even be on the bench. A loan will be good for him though, help him get his spark back.
What does Wilshere have to do to get a game?
david
i do have theory ..
because ive said the same thing ! many times !
whos he got to fuck to get a game !?
wenger doesnt want him being included in the WC squad obviously ..
he’d be another theo !
can only think wenger is keeping him under rap’s until after the world cups over ..
Or it could be because he’s started two games in the last two and a half weeks and been very poor, and was very poor in the reserve game he played as well….
Yes we’re suffering because we dont have too many options in the point.
A 4-4-2 would suit us better. The positives being that Cesc and Arshavin have a great understanding with each other and it is necessary to play them off one another. Can we afford to Rest Arshavin at this point?
Ofcoarse not.
Which makes the Semi finals of the FA cup appear all the more inexplicably stupid.
As much as I like Nasri he’s not very adventurous going forward with the ball.
Who should we loan Wilshere to second half of the season? I wouldn’t mind him going to a Burnley, though it might be better for him to go to a Championship side at the top end of the table, a team that dominates and attacks more so that he has more of the ball. In a team at the bottom of the Prem he’ll have games in which he barely touches the ball, and might not be picked because the manager is adopting a negative approach.
Also wonder what’ll happen with Lansbury with Watford going into administration, guessing if he’s sent back we’ll find a different club for him, though he was doing well at Watford and things seemed to suit him there.
I dunno David, i’d say Nasri is at home, but for some reason he really isn’t away from home, and does very little offensively.
I disagree about the 4-4-2 though, in the current system we’re much more solid through the middle and the extra man there means we can’t get bullied, and it gives the wide men more freedom to attack too. Things just aren’t clicking at the moment, but I wouldn’t blame the formation, I reckon we’d be worse in 4-4-2.
Cheers Ethan,
A,
Its not like we’ve had Wilshere for only 2 weeks.
So much for the 4-3-3 and trying to win the ball upfront further up the pitch.
What a load of tosh.
Im tired of the Wenger Tosh.
If we played with any desire to win the ball back i bet we win all our games.
No room for Lansbury in the team im afraid.
Wilshere would do fine in Burnley.
They didnt exactly park the bus the whole game
Yeah David, but you play players on form! If a player hasn’t even broken into the team, AND is very off form, you aren’t going to throw him into the first team!
David imo we are winning the ball higher up the pitch still, we just aren’t doing enough with it when we have. We’re still winning it back and we’re still much more solid through the middle, which is why we’re having the majority of possession, and no teams have been able to dominate us through the middle this season, however poorly we’re playing
One thing is quite clear.
We need to spend. Not necessarily big..but spend and we do need about 3 players.
Yeah David I agree, no room for Lansbury in our first team, wonder if he could move to a Burnley or equivalent in the prem rather than another Championship side? This is all assuming he gets sent back, which would seem likely, a very easy way for the administrators to cut costs, unless of course they aren’t paying much in term of wage contribution, so it would be a good way for them to save money and flog their own players!
Yeah Burnley could be a good shout, they do try and play football, though they still don’t have that much possession in games.
Fulham dominated us well and proper in the middle of the park A.
We were reverting to long ball tactics and it worked.
Surprisingly.
And i dont think the problem has been possession. As we have seen last season we have always had possession.
But The story of Arsenal…is we have all the possession…the other team does all the scoring.
3 players where David? I’d say we just need a sub centre back, and someone else who can play the central role up front, that with Fabianski in goal and we’re sorted imo!
Fulham didn’t dominate us in the middle of the park at all David! People seem to think being dominated is not creating, it really isn’t! Last season we were dominated in midfield, and teams constantly broke through the middle and had their midfield running straight at the defence. This season not one team has done that, teams have scored through getting the ball out wide, and stopping us creating. That isn’t us being dominated though, it’s not being good enough going forward.
Fabianski doesnt fancy himself as a goal keeper.
He gets beat to often at his near and far posts and he cant stay on his line to save his life…he comes for everything! And some things u just have to let the defenders deal with!
Id say we need a GK, CF, and DM.
Wouldnt mind a LW too.
LW?! Arshavin when we have someone central, Vela, Eduardo, Rosicky, Nasri?!
Why do you think we need a DM? imo Song has been one of our best players this season, and the second best DM in the league behind Essien
Oh how quickly we forget A,
Fulham dominated us well and proper in the midfield,
We are ALWAYS hard done by the likes of Danny Murphy and we were on the back foot from constant pressure/losing the ball…etc…etc..
We struggled to create…but they did bully us in the middle of the park!
I really rate Fabianski, his speed off his line is amazing, he’ll stop a hell of a lot of one on ones and break aways because of it, and don’t see how he gets beaten at either post easily.
I want him in goal now, imo he’s already a top quality keeper, shocked he’s not already between the sticks.
I wouldn’t say that David, compared to last season, where they walked through the middle of us. This season we weren’t bullied at all imo, they just pressed us very quickly and we couldn’t get a string of passes together, but they never looked like they were going to take control of the midfield, or put any passes together themselves.
Yea Arshavin doesnt fancy himself to be playing on the left wing A.
Id play Arshavin off of the Striker we have with Cesc right behind him.
Vela, Rosicky, Nasri, Eduardo on the left = Not going to break any teams down
Fabianski didnt do so well on 1-1′s when we conceeded in the CL.
Imo…he’s no better at shot stopping than ALmunia.
Infact I submit to you he rarely has a clean sheet in goal.
In this system Arshavin’s best position is wide left, and it’s where we’ll see him when we have a central striker. I’m also very happy with any of Vela, Rosicky, and Eduardo on the left in terms of breaking teams down, all of them are top quality and all offer something different to each other! All three have shown their abilities to break teams down too! I’m not sure who we’d ever get who’s better than them?? Nasri is good out there too but just has to learn to take responsibility and try and make things happen more.
David imo he was very very unlucky, he came out incredibly quickly and was unlucky not to save it, it went through the tiniest gap between his legs. Also imo he’s an amazing shot stopper, capable of wonder stops which almunia isn’t! Almunia was in there to be Mr reliable, Fabianski is someone who is capable of amazing saves, in the Given mould, but much more commanding on crosses
Its clear we need a DM….someone with alot of pace and someone who has a bite of a challenge.
Dont get me wrong i do like Song. But Im not sure how he will be when he comes back from the ACN.
Look at what happnd to Toure’s form…
One has to be prepared for such things.
Van P injury?
I say we should get a winger that can play on either wings…
A CF…and a GK…an real old bastard till the likes of Szscheny is ready.
Re: the Ribery story, if we bought him I’d panic so much that I would chin my missus.
And Fabianski kept 8 clean sheets last season in his 16 games, so half of his appearances were clean sheets….
What Ribery story AA23?? I’d be so happy if we bought him! Won’t happen though, I couldn’t see him and Arshavin playing in the same team
Well we disagree on Fabianski A,
Because in order to make an amazing saves you have to do it when called upon…and fabianski doesnt do it consistently enough?…Sound familiar?
We need ready made in goal instead of gambling with talent.
As i said for all the talent he has he rarely ever keeps a clean sheet or makes an amazing save for all his talent.
I mean i cant count how many goals he’s let in and then people tell me there was no keeper in the world that couldve saved that.
Then how does a keeper make amazing saves then?
Just my opinion.
Arshavin plays on the right off the striker in Russia.
If we bought Ribery. It would make us lethal..but we would still need a big CF imo.
David that’s not true about clean sheets at all – he had 8 clean sheets last season from his 16 games, one clean sheet in every two games is very very good….
David we don’t play with a system where that position exists, we play a 4-3-3 where Arshavin’s best position is left mid. Ribery is also a left mid. They’re a bit similar in terms of their styles of play too imo.
Still, Ribery is an amazing player, and very underrated, so I’d be delighted with it, though couldn’t see it happening. He’s about the only winger I could see who would improve us, only a top top player would improve on the options we’ve got out wide, and that would cost a fair bit.
Actually Fabianski played 21 times last season.
And kept a clean sheet 10 times.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1236618/Chelsea-target-Franck-Ribery-puts-Arsenal-red-alert-Bayern-Munich-exit-plea.html
I don’t believe we need a big CF, but we need a bigger CF than Arshavin. We just need someone around the 6′ mark who can do a bit more with his back to goal, link up the play, as well as run in behind
Oh and keeping a clean sheet once in every 2 games is a terrible record A! Specially for a top club!
Ribery has 18 months left on his contract and he said he’d leave Bayern if they don’t strengthen.
Bayern can’t compete with “Real madrid, Barcelona, Arsenal and Inter”
Funny he doesn’t mention CHelsea or United!
You including international games David? Or sub appearances?
He started 16 games, came on as sub twice
Chelsea have the most clean sheets so far, at 9.
Take into account that a club who plays like we do will concede more than Chelsea and United.
United’s defense is really poor, considering they have a solid structure where only Evra bombs forward, while we have Verm, Gallas, Clichy, and Sagna who all go up!!
Birmingham has 7 clean sheets!!
Huh David, seriously?!
This season Cech has played 16 games, 8 clean sheets, and that’s with Chelsea’s amazing defensive record at home….
And Almunia has 2 clean sheets in 11 this season, last season i’d put a bet on that he didn’t have one clean sheet in two!
The bigger the better. I certainly am not saying that u need to be tall in order to score goals…but im pretty sure it does help on set pieces.
And with the way arsenal have started playing when we are bereft of ideas with Sagna crosses it might be our get out of Jail card.
Arshavin can only do so much.
A,
Memory serves me correctly you dont rate Cech at all so thats a bit of a funny analogy to give.
Clean sheets are one thing..making saves are another.
And Lukaz rarely makes a fantastic save when called upon.
This season Freidel has 6 in 17, Given 4 in 16
Last season Freidel 14 in 46, Given 11 in 47
In fact I’d best that apart from VDS, and maybe Cech and Reina noone else was close to one clean sheet in two. To say that it’s terrible shows a ridiculous ignorance and desperation to ignore the facts because you’ve already made up your conclusion!!
David it wasn’t an analogy, and I was using Cech because I was assuming with Chelsea conceding no goals at all at home he would have the best ratio between games and clean sheets, and his ration is the same whilst being the best in the league….
Ignorance?
Are you trying to make an argument using last season stats and convince me that New Castle is a top side?
Funny how you mentioned all the keepers in the top four and failed tried to use new Castle and Villa’s incredible melt down from last season as an argument.
Really Ignorance?
I agree regarding set pieces, and a plan B with Sagna, though Bendtner will be that when fit.
Imo it isn’t set pieces or a plan B we’re missing, it’s a centre forward who’s just average height, and can hold the ball up with his back to goal, and win flick one, but also strong and technically gifted enough to link the play up, and come deep, as well as getting in behind, so needs to have a bit of pace.
There’s no way we could function if we actually bought a big man imo, it has to be an all round player or it’ll cripple the whole team
Szczesny will be world class
“keeping a clean sheet once in every 2 games is a terrible record A!”
David, that is simply a completely incorrect statement, which would indicate ignorance.
To one clean sheet in two terrible, when the keeper with the best ratio in the league this season has one in two, is ignorant, isn’t it?
Either ignorant because you didn’t know whether it was good or bad, or lying, I made the assumption that it was ignorant because that’s better than lying imo!
Either that or you don’t understand the meaning of the word “terrible.” Having what would’ve been the fourth best ratio in the league last season could never be described as terrible…. Or the best equal in the league this season….
Anyways it’s past my bedtime, night David, and anyone else still about
Its not so ignorant seeing that there have been record amounts of goals scored this season..as compared to last season.
You left out the “especially for a top side part”
Arsenal are a top side. And we deserve better than a keeper with a goal every other game ratio.
Ultimately a keeper would be judged by the number of clean sheets he keeps and i will still submit to you that Fabianski rarely makes a great save and never knows when to stay on his lines….wasnt that fucker in midfield in the CL at one point?
nite A, Pat…anyone else out there.
Guess i shld be off as well.
Diaby mouthing off about how we need to beat Hull.
Duh, Really?
why dont you keep your dopey mouth shut you mug.
“Diaby who will be filling in for Fabregas…”
oh Jesus.
This squad is “just not good enough”
If we win championship with this squad it will be a major surprise. I would even have 11 Arshavins (yes as the goalie and the defenders as well) than 11 Diabys or god forsake 11 Walcotts or 11 Denilsons.
Height and build doesnt come into picture when Arshavin plays, and it doesnt come into picture even when Diaby plays.
2 players of note in Jan and we could still be in for the title.
No additions = no trophies.
It’s as simple as that.
http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Manchester-City-stars-in-dressing-room-bust-up-after-defeat-to-Tottenham-article260519.html
no “proven” additions = no trophies ..
second that.
Yes.
I reckon a decent GK and CF should do it.
Really David?
Rarely makes a great save? I think this wouldn’t go amiss in a Seaman compilation.
Citeh fans complaining about Ade drifting wide and not holding the line hah!
“Shoots like a donkey”
“Toure is getting worse with each game”
hahah, nice doing business with you Hughes!
As a matter of fact, he did make it to one just alongside Seaman. No. 5 and 4
Lol Pat, now to convince them that Sendy is the next TA. Although he’s a gooner an I’d rather he goes somewhere else.
Senderos is def off in Jan…
To Bayern most probably…
http://desigunner.wordpress.com/2009/12/18/an-arsenal-overhaul-or-sustained-faith-–-take-your-pick/
new post ??
Georgisan – I reckon Geoffers has got snowed in – at least a foot of snow in most parts of the London area/Home Counties.
Sabeel must be tearing his hair out in anticipation.
This must be killing Sabeel and taig, good job Pedro
Oh and morning…
NEW POST!
Ol’ Finn Gunn loves posting an AKB article over here doesn’t he?
Yaaawwwwwn
Yeah, I’ve done it all of 2 or 3 times. Sorry if it wasn’t up to Le Grove’s usual ‘boom boom’ standards.
Just trying to get you lot to see that everything isn’t black or white. Or in your case, black. Supporting the most frustrating team in the world is hard enough anyway.
And I still think that we should all get out more.
Have a good one.