Sometimes Arsenal do my head in. Today was one of those days. Despite the fact we played poorly, we should have won that game. Instead we drew 2-2.
Here’s how the the players rated.
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Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Sometimes Arsenal do my head in. Today was one of those days. Despite the fact we played poorly, we should have won that game. Instead we drew 2-2.
Here’s how the the players rated.
Predictable again. Shocking tactics, Shocking substitutions, and the defending for the Skrtel goal was some of the worst I’ve ever seen. Players like Flamini are still employees of the club. And damn, if anyone says “Well, Wenger’s not to blame, it’s just injuries and bad luck!”, if it was one season then fair enough but this has been the way for years. Something is clearly not right and we need to find out what. Even after all that we could have won, that’s how crap Liverpool are now. The Liverpool of last season with Suarez and Sturridge would have won… Read more »
What was our game plan? Alexis and Welbeck pressing high while the likes of Chambers and Flamini were standing off, allowing Markovic, Lallana and Coutinho to receive the ball and turn! We just didn’t look like a team today and that’s u to the manager.
Our game plan today was the same as it is every week. We send a team out without any thought for the opposition and sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t.
The only difference this time from last seasons humiliation was Liverpool had very little up front. Had they had a sturridge or the bitey bloke we would have been slaughtered again. Judging from that abysmal first half showing it seems we learnt no lessons from last seasons mauling at all.
This ^^^^ as a short summation is right on the money.
If they had Suarez and Sturridge up front in that first half, we’d have been sunk.
Exactly, was talking to my brother last night who lives in the US and he was telling me that the US began to ‘get it’ after this World Cup, that they began to understand ‘Soccer’ because they saw the US team play as a TEAM. And to me that is what A.W has failed to do this season, ok injuries are an issue but the ‘quality’ is there. There is a serious disconnect.
Yeah, and then there’s taking off Giroud right when it’s clear we’re going to be on the back foot and need to be defending a lot of set pieces. Replacing a striker with the Coq made sense, but not Giroud. Not when you’ve basically signalled you’re going to try to hold on. He’s far too important for us defending set pieces. Is it a mess that our center forward is our best defender on set pieces? Yes, it is. But it’s even more of a mess when you take off your best set piece defender right when you know you’re… Read more »
Giroud was giving the ball away all day though. He gave it away terribly on their first goal. I was wondering why Debuchy was not RB and Chambers in the middle. Can anyone think of the logic behind that one?
Debuchy is more experienced overall (granted, not at CB) so I think it made sense for him to start in the middle.. Chambers probably would have been worse off one on one v Sterling
At that point in the game we didn’t have the ball enough to give it away, though.
Giroud gave the ball away to gift them the opportunity for their first goal. His ‘funky chicken’ celebration reminded me of a turkey. A squad player at best.
Hell yeah to the original poster .
9 mins added on , a man advantage …..
I knew we’d screw it up.
take a striker off for a midfielder when winning 2 1 i can understand . but to take a midfielder off ( ox ) for an attacking player i cant understand ! sometimes wenger is in the twilight zone
I think I saw Ox raise his hand for a sub. I think he tweaked something again. Not sure who was left on the bench to come on instead.
Bring on theo – stretch the game, make their defenders think a bit…………..
Allow ‘questions need to be asked’
It’s more like ‘Heads must roll’
Is there any point in examining the minutiae of this game? Regardless of injuries, we have skillful players on the pitch on any given day. Yet from kick-off we were a shambles to a man yet again. The mentality of the squad is so weak it’s embarrassing. There was a panic across the team – a heightened nervousness from kick-off (a comment in the Guardian pointed out Arsenal looked nervous in the tunnel for god’s sake). Within a minute or so, players had lost confidence in themselves and their team mates, three passes could not be strung together. Any player… Read more »
And by the by…the fact that this performance has been laid off as a legacy of last years game is dubious. As the Arseblog noted, Debuchy, Chambers, Alexis and Welbeck were not even team members last year…
Hard to disagree witness ratings. Finally you’ve given Mertesacker the number he deserved kudos. Bit generous with Szcz. If one those shots had beaten we’d not be happy with him at all. And the Almuniaesque thing was crazy even by Almuniaesque standards.
again, idk why sczes is rated so high, sure he got golden glove last season but had to do more with the way we defended as a team than with him tbh, but guess playing anti spuds songs on piano rly make someone fan favorite
fuck your poor story! explain why you have problem with Szcz. I think his saves give us a point, again.
“If one those shots had beaten we’d not be happy with him at all.”
…but they didn’t.
…because he saved them.
…thus the high rating.
Haha, that quote reminds me of Michael Owens “that would have been a goal had it gone inside the post.”
Still not sold on Szczesny. He had two good saves (from Markovich and Borini), but he was helped by the fact that both shots were hit straight at him. I wouldn’t expect any keeper to save the goals we conceded today, but most keepers would have been able to make the saves that Szczesny made.
Are you lot seriously having a go at the one player that kept us in the match?
Some people are unbelievable. The Pole-in-goal was our best player by a mile and people want to slate him. Okay, the sweeper keeper stuff we could do without but with our defence being torn to shreds it was open season on him and he did brilliantly.
So,you ‘still not sold on Szczesny’ but you actually don’t know why,don’t you?
I am not mad on Wenger that we allowed Liverpool to play but how he didn’t see that Chamberlain was so poor. He should have been substituted at the latest at half time. Then again I think the first goal wouldn’t happen if Mertesacker was playing in the right side, he just can’t be on LCB position. Chambers was also poor. Then again I don’t see Sanchez in a team with Welbeck and Giroud. The statistics tell us all that he doesn’t fit. Ohhh and the second goal was again Wenger’s fault. How many goals do we concede due to… Read more »
“Ohhh and the second goal was again Wenger’s fault. How many goals do we concede due to zonal marking? ”
Absolute joke. You can always find an agenda if you want to. Everyone knows that zonal marking at corners was introduced by Bould.
If he listens to Bould, he’s wrong. If he doesn’t, he’s a dictator and also wrong. Make your mind up.
Why can’t we do a hybrid between zonal and man marking? Zonal mark with some of your smaller guys then man-mark the threats: big strikers and CBs, especially a guy like Skrtel who has made a career out of headed goals. It looked like a training ground goal…
We should have had the 3 points, not that we deserved them.
You think a plan for Skrtel would have been put in place seeing as he only scored 2 headers against us in the same fixture last year :/
Bottom line on their 2nd was Chambers – whether zonal, man to a man or a hybrid, you cannot legislate for a player simply blanking out on picking up (what most definitely was) a telegraphed run into the box. Monreal even flagged him to Chambers and he still allowed him a free header! Where I do have an coaching/management issue is that the entire footballing world knows that late runs and power headers are Skrtel’s forte… was our defence made hyper-alert to this in the pre-game and half-time chats? None of us will ever know – so it’s either the… Read more »
For the equaliser all the denfence has to do between them is to simply get in Skrtl’s way. There had been warnings too. Simply unbelievable that as a team we are unable to do the basics right. I hope that they’ve had to watch it a hundred times, say a thousand Hail Marys and be told to expect nothing other than a lump of coal for Christmas!
Only positive from todays game was an impressive performance from Wojciech.
Agree, Szczesny is overall a good keeper. He has little to do with our real problems. Mertsacker has a lot more to do with our defeats.
Footballs annoying
Wenger must learn to rotate, Sanchez and Per in particular look tired. And please God buy some decent players we actually need in the window!
We’re in desperate need for the cavalry to arrive – in the form of Kos, Arteta, Ramsey, Ozil, Theo, Jack and a new defensive signing. No room to rotate at the moment and down to the bare (tired) bones – even more so if Ox is out (surely his groin was responsible for the lacklustre performance?) All I can say is: could have been worse and we will be much better!
And, to be fair, who among us can say that a groin hasn’t resulted in our own lackluster performance now and again?
Indeed! Groin strains often lead to a lack of penetration and poor movement around the box.
After 20 minutes of calming my six year old down and putting his Arsenal posters back on the wall after he’d ripped them off, I find a text from my scouse mother in law gloating over their equaliser. I feel less guilty the cunt is on her own for Christmas now.
comment of the year? epic. cheers mate, made my day.
I have had many disagreements with you in the comments over the course of this season, but that one, sir, is the comment of the century. Merry Christmas to you!
What infuriated me was our players not really functioning at all. Even if the tactics and formation and everything the manager has done is shit, then at least you’d expect them to be able to string a few passes together. There is absolutely no excuse and no blame to be put on the manager when the players are as poor as this. They looked out of form and like they were exhausted while the mugsmashers who played midweek looked to have a lot more energy. As for Wenger’s subs, as much as I love him I’ll never be able to… Read more »
Chamberlain wanted a change and Wenger only substitute players who can play in a position which was playing the substituted player. He doesn’t change tactics. But on the other hand, Chambo should be substituted much more earlier.
?
Coquelin subbed on for Giroud. In the 82nd minute, sole substitution for 10 min. Change of tactics to try and see the match out.
Nacho for Alexis.
Campbell for Ox.
I’ll give you 1/2 out of 3 correct for that statement.
So Arseblog gave Wilshere 1/10 against man utd after his poor miss which can happen to any player. But after Mertesacker’s absolutely bottles yet another header he gets 3.5/10. Gibbs who wandered off the line for no reason gets 5/10. Gibbs is too simple to be an Arsenal player. He has far too many brain farts.
I don’t think the players are to blame for being coached by someone who has totally lost the plot.
Even Clichy, who to me epitomised the fast but brainless wenger full-back template, improved as a defender when he went to citeh.
I don’t claim to be on the inside or have connections or anything rubbish like that, but If you listen to some people who have worked around the club, they will tell you that they literally do not even train the players in how to defend, and that a player who becomes solid is in spite of the Arsenal coaching, not because of it. And of course, it’s now open knowledge that we don’t even change or develop our tactics. Listen to ex-players who have left in recent years and they’ll tell you they don’t even know what their role… Read more »
Sources, please.
Fabregas in 2012 – “I was free to do whatever on the pitch at Arsenal, and I wasn’t tactically good,” he said. “I was playing wherever I wanted, up and down. Here I have to work much more for the team, individually, and think about the team tactically. That’s what I’ve improved most. I feel more mature as a player now.” Mertesacker at WC – “Lowe he does more meetings with us,strict with tactics, Arsene gives us more freedom to move our position ourselves” Szczesny in November – “You can’t just hope that the next one will be different and… Read more »
Not disputing too much is left to the players and I would definitely enjoy more organization, especially our pathetic set pieces at both ends. But that’s still a far cry from “Literally do not teach the players how to defend” or “don’t ever change or develop tactics”. Last year it was widely recognized we had a lot of sitting back more and solid defensive work (most of the time).
To me this match was our lineup of available players being a shitshow. And yes, of course there’s plenty of culpability and reasons for that.
Taken from the Guardian Friday 19th but apt…. “If Jenkinson is learning plenty of new things at West Ham then and he feels he has improved under Allardyce. “He’s been absolutely brilliant,” Jenkinson says. “I didn’t want to go on loan to a team that was just going to kick the ball long. I wanted to go to a team where I was going to learn and improve and I think I’m definitely doing that here at West Ham. We focus on defending in training and we do a lot of work on one-v-ones and heading and I feel I’ve… Read more »
Of course he’s doing More defensive work there. It’s Allardyce. He does more of that than near anyone. I’m really glad Jenks is getting that, and I can’t wait to see him bring that back to the club.
this was an interesting and apt quote from Jenkinson last Friday, 19th December in the Guardian (great article) …..”If Jenkinson is learning plenty of new things at West Ham then and he feels he has improved under Allardyce. “He’s been absolutely brilliant,” Jenkinson says. “I didn’t want to go on loan to a team that was just going to kick the ball long. I wanted to go to a team where I was going to learn and improve and I think I’m definitely doing that here at West Ham. We focus on defending in training and we do a lot… Read more »
I feel sick. Any good doctors here? please help….. This Arsenal team is killing me. Its like when you are young and someone (older) throws you up in the air and catches you on your way down. its a funny enjoyable experience. but my team is throwing me higher in the air and failing to catch me. my expectations of a soft landing are diminished the moment I begin the fall down. dont know if am making any sense but hell what I watched in that game never made sense to me either!!!!
Quite vivid analogy, I encourage you to write a novel. You summed up how I feel.
we could use Alex Song and Jenkinson from West Ham. We need to slow them down, haha.
Mertesacker is infuriating to watch in set pieces. coward attitude from the skipper and our 6’6 defender who’s supposed to show character. yet he ducks like usual instead of giving his all to try and head the ball away.
Thank you Santi..it could have been worse…We need our full squad back..
So here we are , hoping West Ham and southampton slip away , and that we don’t get caught by teams below , so we can limp over the line to another 4th place finish. Yeah .
It’s beginning to feel a lot like christmas
Ohh to be a……
Hold on a second, we were poor but I neednt remind you that we lost this fixture 5-1 last season with a stronger looking side. A draw isn’t so bad but need to see some players rested or lose them to injury before reinforcements arrive.
A draw isn’t so bad on paper if you knew nothing about the game today, didn’t read the match report etc.
But if you did watch it, you’d be mightily peeved. We looked like Christmas turkeys out there. And against a shite mugsmashers side.
First half 0/10…Fucking woeful..
Second half 3/10…Extremely woeful..
Cazorla only player who can attempt to hold his head up high…maybe Giroud for his 2nd half.
At least darts and Guinness is fun
We were fairly shit from start to finish. Wouldn’t agree that we deserved to win. A draw was pretty much a bonus, considering for the majority of the second half you could have driven a double artic lorry through our CM and we wouldn’t have been near it. By 97th minute I think a draw was a fair result
Dropping 2 points in the last 2 mins against a team with ten men is not fair. The way the game before then is irrelevant. The point is, we were in a winning position with two minutes to go.
United left Emirates with 3 points despite having one shot on target all game and here we are glossing over a huge opportunity lost.
Why do other big teams find it easier to run down games than we do? Gutted.
Its starting to feel like putting us in the ‘Big Teams’ catagory is a bit generous.
Wigan won the FA cup too.
Not much to be happy about with that performance. We’re proving clinical finishers to some extent; Ox and Santi showed some fancy footwork and a rare bit of confidence on the ball but that’s about it for positives. Alexis loads of energy as always but uncharacteristically poor touch, and especially poor corner deliveries. In a game where we created few chances, at least get corners into the box. Can someone else take them next time please? Lost count the number of times Welbeck gave the ball away. Sorry but today Welbeck was way way off the quality we expect and… Read more »
I agree wit the midfield issue in second half. I actually thought our game plan was right – be a little more cautious and play on the counter. it was working perfectly, but after about 70 mins we needed to close up the CM and keep the ball. That our manager and none of these players could see the need to do that is scary. PM is having a terrible period of form. He was shite against Stoke and this was another bad day. I thought Chesney was outstanding. That save from Gerrard’s shot at 96 min mark was very… Read more »
It seems Alexis is overworked, based on what I saw today. He’s not doing as much of a strike role as of filling in for all the injured in midfield and even defense. Honestly, it’s time that Wenger give him a break. Possibly giving Poldi or Campbell a start against QPR and resting Alexis would be swell. As for midfield and defense, we have very limited options but we have to give subs more of a role. I observed today that all arsenal subs were very late(beyond the 80th minute) and I was left wondering why Wenger didn’t simply pull… Read more »
Major issue with a 3-5-2 is that for it to work well, it requires three quality center backs, and at the moment we have one fit center back in poor form. Then again, Liverpool managed to utterly pacify us with a back three of 33-year-old Kolo Toure, own-goal record-holder Martin Skrtel, and the most orc-resembling player in the Premier League in Mamadou Sakho (why isn’t he playing for Stoke again?). By the way blogs, now that Tony Pulis is at Crystal Palace, has Mark Hughes become the Orc king, or is Pulis still the Orc king, but in exile from… Read more »
its quite clear for years now that we need leaders on the pitch.. people who just yell at the others to concentrate throughout the game.. at this point i would just pay to see a fan holding a loudspeaker and telling the players to fucking concentrate .. appalling against 10 men.. made liverpool seem like bayern munich in the first half.. bloody hell.. a non existent midfield and the transition from defence to midfield was just not there..
arsenal really are giving me a headache nowadays..
So agree. There never appears to be any strong on or off field leadership on display during the game.
Danny Welbeck did not play well today but even the commentators noted he was shouting at midfield for them to get their act together and press more. As for the captain, why even get into it? It simply feels like wearing the capains armband is a fillip that comes with no particular responsibility.
I don’t get all the complaining. It’s not like we haven’t seen or said the same things for years. Or that Wenger is suddenly going to change his approach to these games. Or that the Emirates stadium is suddenly going to be half empty on game day. I say f… it. Get smashed before road games against the Manchester clubs, Stoke and Chelsea, all the rest, put my feet up and enjoy it best I can. Life’s too short for this kind of aggravation. There is nothing either you or me can do to change the way things are done… Read more »
Well, being fan is a special experience and all about passion for some and perhaps a mere occupying boredom for some others.
Well, supporting with passion does not always mean tearing the players to bits and going after the manager wielding an axe because we didn’t get our lollipop.
In away matches against Chelsea and today, I feel we had been setup to counter, to play with caution.
I feel thats a completely acceptable strategy
Against Chelsea we didn’t create much but today we did and were clinical but we ceded possession too often causing our defence lot of problems.
Reminded me of the 1-0 away at Spurs(Rosicky wondergoal) when we soaked pressure
Yes, chambers doesnt have pace but Ox was meant to cover for him which he didn’t at many instances.
For the first we didnt throw bodies around coutinho (and ceding possession by Giroud).
Set up to play with caution? By leaving a massive hole in midfield? 3 forwards pushing on to their back 3? Don’t talk daft.
This is the way we are forced to play when we have BFG playing. With the players we have at our disposal surely we should be pressing the other team making the pitch as small as possible for them, letting Alexis, Welbz & Ox pressurize, win the ball back and play attacking football the way we should be.
One last thing……zonal marking…..L O L
Another frustrating result and another poor team performance. It is just not good enough. Liverpool dominated us throughout the game and if they took their chances we would be smashed like last season. Wenger also made some poor substitutions. With an extra man we should have held onto the lead. The defending off the corner was horrible and the worst defending i have seen, we were nowhere and should never allowed skrtel that perfect run from the edge of the box. Another worrying sign is the fact that most of our players looked unfit and not ready. We must rest… Read more »
Steve Bould was hailed as the man to fix the defending; maybe can’t do much wirh folks like Mert and Calum around.
Scant consolation but we could have lost this last year.
INJURIES have been our bane this year; about 5 first teamers out tonight.
I remember a story making the rounds that Wenger didn’t listen to Steve Bould when he was first appointed. Perhaps there was–or still is–some truth here.
wouldn’t have mattered … we bottled it. Wine or whine? I think wine.
Things need to change at Arsenal and it has to start with Wenger. Again stupid tactics, substitution and such poor gameplay. Why Wenger resorts to ‘soaking up pressure’ is beyond me. We have one of the most leaky defences in the league and will almost invariably concede. I actually laughed out loud when they scored because it feels like some sort of SICK JOKE that even after Liverpool throw the kitchen sink at us and get a man sent off, with only a few minutes gone we cant even hold out. Pathetic. Not to mention, we could not mount a… Read more »
And this concludes tonight’s episode of ‘Damned If You Do’.
Again, the tactic was never to soak up pressure. If it was the 3 forwards would not have been pressing their back 3. If that was how Wenger sends a team out to soak up pressure and play on the counter then he is dumber than I thought.
We were just abysmal and Liverpool were toothless, if they were any good we’d have got smashed. More holes than a sieve in our midfield. Did Wenger ever tell Cazorla and Ox to sit in and Welbeck and Sanchez to drop back to fill the midfield? Did he bollocks.
”Arsenal, meanwhile, continue to act like the reverse Houdini, unsurpassed in their ability to engineer themselves into difficulty. They can snatch despair from the jaws of hope like no other side in world football. Will that ever change under Wenger”? Indeed. Also, hopefully the memes of Mertesackers embarrassing antics of ducking under the ball continues to fly around twitter. I have seen at least 4 that he has done this season…all costing us goals and points. The rest of the players must see this and its time someone pulled him up on it. When your captain and biggest defender doesn’t… Read more »
agree 100%. is there any reason for our tallest CB to be ducking on a corner kick??? seriously, Per needs to be whipped for that. too bad we don’t have cover at CB. Per starts again next match no matter how shite he’s been.
Football365?
I’ve only just watched the game on delay because I’m an old man that can’t cut it at 2am anymore, but these comments are totally incongruous with what I’ve just seen. I thought Cazorla had a very ‘snappy’ game and generally the team defended better than they have all season when it became apparent Liverpool were in charge from the get go. It was very poor for the Skrtel goal, yes, but overall I can’t quite understand the (vast majority’s) vitriol on this one. We were quite scathing of Arsenal for having Liverpool-esque stats against United and nearly pulled off… Read more »
Chambers in particular was woeful.
Actually Mertesacker cost us…yet again…I’ve lost count how many points he’s cost us this season
I’m not going to join the whole wengerout bandwagon, but the truth has to be said, he made one of the worse substitutions I have ever seen In my life by bringing on nacho monreal, a fullback a minute or so after liverpool lost a player, instead of him to send in a midfielder or even a forward to keep possesions or pile the pressure on the opponents,that’s like management 101.No, he decided to invite the pressure by bringing on a fullback and allowing his team to defend and let ten man liverpool attack them and inevitably scored. The worst… Read more »
“he made one of the worse substitutions I have ever seen In my life by bringing on nacho monreal, a fullback a minute or so after liverpool lost a player, instead of him to send in a midfielder or even a forward to keep possesions or pile the pressure on the opponents,that’s like management 101” So according to management 101, who he should have sent on then? Since Campbell was already on, I presume you want Theo or Podolski. Let’s see. Management 101 says we should send Podolski on to defend a lead in dying minutes. Sounds good yeah? Until… Read more »
with all the injured players the one we missed today (besides kos ) is arteta, and we missed our captain badly, he is calm as you like to start attack and his great passing ability, we could’t start the attack from midfield and that is why we lost the ball to many times in midfield.
We dont look a top 4 team this season. Even worse I dont see us snagging 4 th place this season. Looks like we’ll end up where we’ve been all season…6th. I hope we miss Europa cup place so we can rebuild properly.
That was just dreadful!
Giroud was our best player and Wenger took him off? I joked when I saw Coquelin coming on, I said Wenger will probably take Giroud off.. Trues nuts, he took him off… Liverpool are down to 10 men… Why sit back and allow the pressure? What. The. Fuck.
Chambo and Chambo had disasters. Were they roofied the night before?
It’s hard to be a pressing high team when you’ve got Giroud who is not agile and really gives up after a short burst of effort on defense and it’s even tougher when everyone else sits deep. They all need to be on the same page or it’s just going to be a waste of energy for the few like Sanchez that want to press. Shocking that after what Skertel did to us there last year we wouldn’t have had someone on him as he was by far their biggest threat on a set play. Everyone else can zone up… Read more »
WHAT the fuck was he thinking when he took off Giroud. Hes one of the biggest guys we have in the fucking team, plus he’s dam handy at defending corners.
A blind man could see that they were going to throw everything at us in the finish 10 men or not and what does wenger do take off one of the best headers of the ball that we have.
Swear to god Wenger drives me fucking nuts sometimes.
Let’s all just be honest. This is a very average Arsenal side who sit exactly where they should be at this stage of the season. The reasons for this could be discussed for many an hour, and there are many but simple fact is we are as far away from being title contenders as we have ever been under Wenger. We were utterly dominated by a poor Liverpool, with the same failings cropping up: didn’t turn up, can’t defend. Sick of this dog crap and to anyone who has the audacity to dare state but we didn’t lose so get… Read more »
Sadly I have to agree.
On the “bright side”, we will finish above Pool (you would hope!). There is still half a season to go too. Wenger has kind of always overachieved over the years, but it seems this could be the first time in a little while where we may underachieve.
With our resources we should be challenging, no doubt about it. That is what makes it hard to take for most fans now.
These ratings are frighteningly high.
You know why Flamini often looks overrun in midfield? It’s 10% lack of help, 90% doing absolutely nothing himself. He shouts, and points, and is the championship/league one standard footballer he is. The man we signed on a free because it was the cheap easy option.
Our squad is cowardly and it’s built in the image of its manager.
Great result considering Liverpool were brilliant and we were rubbish. I can’t shake the feeling that with Ozil and Walcott back we will click, and it will be good times ahead.
We can have everyone back and it’ll be the same.
Only thing surprising about the game was how quickly we equalized, that’s so unlike us.
The funny thing about their 2nd goal was we had 8 defenders against 4 attackers I believe and the attacker wins the ball unchallenged.
To compound it, Gibbs abandons his post – presumably as instructed. It’s just crazy and so easy to fix. But we keep letting it happen.
If Giroud put his boot into Skirtls head a bit deeper we would of won lol
But no, head injuries are never anything to laugh about.
If it was any deeper, it would be involuntary manslaughter…
Need to give Coquelin a go in my opinion, his distribution is far better than Flamini’s, something that really frustrates me about Flams game. Chamberlain isn’t a natural passer of the ball, he wants to dribble before anything else, he’s a natural winger and it’s infuriating to see him play in the middle. Cazorla and Szczesny were class today.
Give the ‘smashers credit, they played well. Fair result given the flow of the game. We’ll get them at the Emirates, fuckin scousers. Up the Arse.
For us was a lucky result even with dropping two points late. We did take advantage of two of our few chances, but we were seriously outplayed. This was a team without Sturridge and Suarez and for the most part had Sterling playing through the middle which made it easier on us.
Il take the point.
that image of a bandaged up skrtel rising above the rest of our team, with per and nacho cowering in the middle of the box, says so much about our team and lack of leadership on the pitch. i hope that picture is blown up and hung on the dressing room wall across from per so he never forgets. this team doesn’t have a captain worthy of the arsenal badge.
Ffs, Santi didn’t show his nipple for this..
I remember Mertesacker’s first year with us when I thought he wasn’t especially impressive. He improved markedly his second season and I concluded I had been unfair in judging him. But now it looks like he’s regressed to a form worse than my memories of his first Arsenal season.
Also, can we please learn to take a corner correctly?
1) We were lucky to get away with a draw. The way we invited them to come in and how we sat so deep, it was a disaster waiting to happen on the percentages. 2) Hind sight but perhaps the gaffer was looking toward the fixture congestion ahead to rest players and protect the lead. Still he must have figured we would be under sustain pressure with a very predictable 9 minute extra time. Thought he could have added a bit of protection and threat at RW where Alexis tended to be too in field and Calum did not possess… Read more »
Just saw game again and before the corner for their 2nd, Monreal notices an unmarked Skrtel and tells Chambers to cover him. Chambers was late and maybe Monreal should have picked up Skrtel but he was covering someone whereas Chambers wasn’t covering anyone.
Chambers is a kid so these things happen with kids. Doesn’t excuse why the team concentration and over all marking for that goal was so bad.
Same old Arsenal. It’s becoming a broken fucking record. So frustrating!
What’s the point of arsenal these days? We finally spend to get an ozil and then Wenger plays him out of position. We spend to get Sanchez but then leave the team short at the back, and even loan out a defender. Sanchez is having an amazing season but it’s going to waste because we have no defense. So we get everyone back and finish fourththen next season come in servinsecond in our group and due to injuries we are out of the title race by December only to rally and finish fourth again with no chance at even reaching… Read more »
So, should I say “I told you so”? The two 4-1 victories were a fluke. Nothing was changed in the tactics since that Stoke game, if not earlier! Either our “beloved leader” has given up on trying to motivate the players, or he’s doing something horribly wrong! You can have a couple of players that are on their off day but you can’t have the entire team not playing! We didn’t deserve a point! Hats off to Cazorla for being the only one who understood that there was a game on! I can bet right now that Wenger will either… Read more »
Yeah there are some obvious questions right now over Wenger and his tenure, which personally I think may be (and should be) coming to an end in the summer, but to call a legendary manager senile makes you look like a muppet. Neither of the 4-1 victories were a fluke, the only fluke was ending up with a point yesterday.