Arsenal: Ospina, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal, Coquelin, Ramsey, Welbeck, Cazorla, Ozil, Giroud
Subs: Szczesny, Gibbs, Gabriel, Flamini, Rosicky, Walcott, Akpom
Harry Kane scored two second half goals as Tottenham came from behind to beat Arsenal 2-1 in the north London derby. The striker cancelled out Mesut Ozil’s early volley with a close range finish from a corner then headed the winner four minutes from time as Arsene Wenger’s men paid for a performance lacking in creativity.
Pre-game
The only change from the side that beat Aston Villa last weekend was the return of Danny Welbeck in place of Theo Walcott. The striker, who hadn’t featured since picking up a thigh problem on 28 December, seemingly picked to help out Hector Bellerin on the right hand side. David Ospina retained his place in goal, on the bench Rosicky and Flamini added experience to Akpom’s youth.
First half
Spurs saw plenty of the ball from the start, but as was the case in last year’s north London derby it was a clinical early attack from the Gunners that gave us an early advantage.
On 11 minutes Danny Welbeck raced down the right, crossed for Giroud and when the Frenchman’s miskicked attempt fell to Ozil he found the net first time on the volley with his cushioned left foot finish. There was a hint of offside, but replays showed Eric Dier playing the World Cup winner on. Just. (1-0)
Kane had already forced a save from Ospina on 5 minutes and Tottenham responded to going down with several breaks down Bellerin’s right flank. A Rose shot needed a strong hand from our Colombian to push the ball away from danger, a Bentaleb effort on 20 minutes whisked past the post. Rose flashed across the goal, Mason produced another diving stop from Ospina, then Eriksen and Lamela both shot over the bar.
As was the case at the Etihad, the policy was obviously to sit off, defend in numbers and allow Spurs to have the ball in our half. The home side were certainly dominant – the had 67% of possession in the first half – but for all their time on the ball our defence wasn’t overly stretched.
If there was a criticism of our performance it was that our defensive discipline seemed to stymie our adventurous side. Rarely did we commit numbers forward and subsequently the rare forays into the final third saw little created.
It wasn’t a physical game but Kane, Monreal and Welbeck all went into the book for mistimed challenges. The latter’s slight catching of Rose, just before the break, resulted in both men confronting each as the half time whistle blew.
Second half
The tension between Welbeck and Rose continued to simmer at the start of the second half as the two clashed on the touchline. Referee Martin Atkinson laughed off claims for a second yellow for the Arsenal man. Koscielny wasn’t so lucky though. A mistimed sliding challenge by Frenchman on Dembele on 53 minutes resulted in a yellow.
Three minutes later Spurs levelled. Koscielny deflected a Mason shot for a corner and from the resulting set piece Kane tapped in at close range following Ospina’s flappy save from an Dembele header. (1-1)
Spurs really should have taken the lead in the minutes that followed. A series of dangerous attacks forced us into last ditch, desperate clearances as our defence was turned inside out. The sustained pressure ended with an Ospina save from Dembele.
At the other end Welbeck’s curling effort saw Lloris tip the ball around the post. Koscielny headed the resulting corner straight at his compatriot. The game was end to end. Dier had a header cleared off the line, then Ospina fielded a Mason volley and made a top save from Bentaleb’s low shot from outside the box. Eriksen hit a free-kick over as the home side cranked the pressure up. Giroud headed wide from an Ozil cross.
On 67 minutes Arsene Wenger sent Tomas Rosicky on for Santi Cazorla, with 13 minutes left he threw Walcott on for Welbeck. The game turned into a real scrap with niggly challenges all over the field. Giroud and Mason made their way into Martin Atkinson’s book as the chances dried up.
It looked like the game might end in a draw, as it had at the Emirates, only for Harry Kane to edge Sp*rs in front with 4 minutes remaming. Out of nothing the striker rose to head home a cross from the left wing that left Ospina completely stranded. Questions really need to be asked about why Bentaleb was given so muc space to deliver his ball. (2-1)
Akpom came on and Rosicky and Monreal had efforts from long range but our attempts to find an equaliser were ultimately futile. A horrible start to the weekend and defeat in the derby stings all the more badly with the win putting Sp*rs into fourth ahead of us in sixth.
We’ve a chance to rectify things on Tuesday night against Leicester, but it’ll be a long three days until then.
In my humble opinion that was as tactically clueless as they come.
One thing to go to the champions and play on the counter. But to go to spurs and go 1-0 up and lose all ambition to hold onto the ball and try to build anything going forward is pathetic .
Most painful loss in a long long time
I dis agree, the difference between the city game and this was our inability to keep the ball. Ramsey and Cazorla were appalling
Spot on
Why didn’t Wenger take off Ramsey earlier, he was their best player.
Ramsey has become a real liability, heaven knows what his passing stats were today, but I’m sure they’d be appalling.
Wow. Really? Liability? Really ?
Ramsey has not become a liability. What would you have? Would you sell him ?
He’s a good player, had a bad game and not the only one today who had one.
Way to support your players.
It’s time to face the harsh and bitter truth – Ramsey is a decent player who had a freak season last year. He’s a good player when his attitude is right and he helps out the his defensive midfield partner. It might be that he’s still not completely sharp match fitness wise, but he hasn’t dominated the midfield like he used to. Too interested in getting forward, abdicating defensive duties, and looking for Hollywood goals. He sold out Cazorla and Coquelin too many times today for my liking.
Really? That bad?
Bet you thought he was ace against City and Villa.
You need to get a grip, the whole team played shite, yet you manage to single out players you reckon are “below par”. Roll back 12 months you all wanted Ramsey sold. Fickle indeed. One game though and he’s back to being shit? Don’t think so.
He’s been playing well below par for quite some time now. He does indeed become a liability when one of our other players has an off day, like Santi today for instance. I just wish Wenger could be more ruthless when it comes under performing players. Barring the goal he scored, Oezil was ABJECT today, showed absolutely no adventure or craft. Yes pace is not one of his biggest strenghts and yes there weren’t enough players from midfield making runs into the Box, but in times like these you really have to show some intent, more so when it looked… Read more »
He’s had a lot of bad games this season and has been playing with no positional discipline and held on to the ball too long.
For me I would consider selling him at the end of the season unless he shows signs of becoming more of a team player. He certainly doesn’t look like a championship winning midfielder to me
Good job you’re not in charge then . Will you sell Wilshere too?
I’ve lamely renamed him Aaron Rams-me for he play this season
“Aaron Rams-me” what, like up the pooper? Worst nickname ever.
Haha no I was thinking more along the lines of Stevie Gee/Me, look how good I am way. The selfish derelicting his defensive duties, losing the ball trying stupid back heels, Hollywood passing way!
Bloody hell people, how long ago was it that some people were saying Cazorla was over the hill, and look how his form turned around? Look at the difference between Giroud for large patches of last season, and the Giroud since coming back from injury. Look at Monreal, who went from being the butt of everyone’s criticism to one of our best defenders, keeping Gibbs out of the starting line-up. For Christ’s sake, I’ll never understand how some supporters are just waiting for our players to hit a bad patch, and then hurl abuse at him, saying we need to… Read more »
It depends whether or not you want to win the league?
People tearing pieces out of Ramsey. Sound familiar? These knee-jerk reactions from fans every time we lose a game really piss me off. We expect players to show us and the club loyalty but as soon as player has a poor patch we throw him under the bus. Yes we lost today and that’s shit, but that doesn’t mean our player of the season, who won us the only piece of silverware we’ve had in 8 years is suddenly crap.
Ramseys form is of legitimate concern, his average rating on this site for the season is 5.5, so nothing knee jerk about the criticism.
With that in mind I think his place in the team is definitely up for discussion if we have pretentions of winning the league.
How many games/seasons do you give under performing players?
Ramsey is one of the worse players that has ever pulled on a Arsenal shirt, 3 or 4 good games against shit teams 12 months ago, but other than that he has been shit, as for Ozil, scored a nice goal when spuds forgot about him for a split second, but he so light weight on the ball, his work rate is shite, no pace, not sure what he gives us in a game like this, what a waste of 42million, there is no power in our team, fucking Spuds walked on us, FUCK,
What a logical comment. Last year’s player of the season is the worst player that has ever pulled on an Arsenal shirt. …Ahh…the logic….much logic..
Well, at least we’re not overreacting.
Keep your heads in the sand lads, sure these guys are better than what we see in the bottom half, but I thought we compare ourselves to the best
fuck off mate
G G its been a while. Did you travel to the moon this last three weeks ?
Completed 38 of his attempted 54 passes, leading the team in number of passes attempted but boasting a passing accuracy of only 70.4%, the third lowest in the team behind Ospina and Giroud.
For a central midfielder those numbers are terrible.
I agree with you that the execution was the main problem , but there’s no need to go and settle for second best against a team that we are techniqually better than . Should be going on the front foot
One of the big differences today was Santi’s poor game. It turned the tactic from being a surgical counter attack where we felt in control to a scrambling defensive effort.
Agree, said to my mate, same tactics as city but the difference that day was Cazorla particularly wiggled out of the high press.
Today we lost it almost immediately or went long to giroud too often.
Hard to take really but that’s derby day. We were outplayed and out hungered from whistl to whistle
Very true. We were just outplayed plain and simple. Sad but true
Thank you for this comment, and glad to see it getting credit. Too often there is a post hoc dismantling of the tactics which is based entirely on whether we won or loss. The tactical set up today was exactly the same as City Away, the difference being, like you said, that our key midfielders couldn’t perform anything near the level that they did in that match. The effect of this was obviously that we couldn’t relieve the pressure of their attacks with composed possession and counter attacks of our own. If you can’t do that, and try go 90… Read more »
At half time I said I would have been really pissed off had we not been one nil up, given the way that we were playing – every pass was misplaced, and our ball control was hopeless everywhere. Thought Ospina made some decent saves, but had a habit of not making sure the ball stayed away from the danger area. Hmmmmpppph.
Ospina had a good game. Made some truly fantastic saves. If Szczesney had made those saves he’d have been praised to the high heavens here. Felt the keeper was let down by the defence and midfield today.
Just wondering if Szczesny’s extra height would have allowed him to hold on to the balls that Ospina could only knock away which also led to Kane’s first goal and imo it looked like Kane’s header may have also been stopped by the taller Szczesny. Love Ospina’s mobility in goal but concerned with his height. Wish we could give Szczesny that mobility. Right now I am just sick with the loss and am trying to deal with it.
He was caught flat footed. He stood no chance. Height would have counted for naught in that case.
The difference in class between the keepers was clear today. Lloris was tipping the ball past the post while Ospina was palming it straight back to the opposition. The only reason he had to make half those saves was because he created those problems himself.
If this is considered a bad performance from Ospina, Ill take it man.
Thought Ramsey was overrun in midfield, lack of support from Coq and Santi.
I dont know why we lost , i thought our defence was alright, just Spuds midfield outplayed us in the centre.
Ospina and Welbeck were probably the only players that performed. Ospina pulled off some real good saves to keep us in the game, could have easily been a nightmare from the start. Welbeck’s effort cannot be questioned, and his speed and directness were about the only threat we had whole game, shame he cant last the 90. Ramsey’s game has been badly exposed today, to me he is never the ideal CM the team needs. I’ve said before, he is never short of running -attacking or defending, but my criticism is sometimes there isnt a need for such effort in… Read more »
Could not understand dropping Walcott for Welbeck that wasn’t scoring when fit and could not have been match sharp after that long out. Mental.
Welbeck did alright though
Yep, and asking Theo to give Bellerin defensive support would have been like giving the Sperms a 3 goal lead. Theo’s desire to avoid any physical contact makes Özil look like Beckenbauer.
Hai……….Theos back to he’s old tricks again, that used to wear down Sagna, quick back passes to Bellerin and running into a crowd that probably only DB10 can pick him with a pass not a rightback.
Geez I wish he’d cut that out and not put so much pressure on the rightback.
Except that Welbeck was our best player.
This. Owen Hargreaves commentating repeatedly said Welbeck was our best player and questioned why he was pulled instead of Giroud was was having a mare.
I hope it was because Danny is just back from injury…
Giroud’s foot and the ball must have been polar opposites the way they were repelling each other.
Why not change Ramsey for Rosa early, everyone can see the game was crying for him!. What he does keep Ramsey on. Ozil apart from the goal he was a passenger and light weight too, Theo should have replaced him earlier. We have two NLD legends and Mr clueless struck again. Wrong players for the wrong team. He will always play Jack or Ramsey when fit no matter how bad they are, is that written in their contract or something???. Dropping to this crap Spuds team 5 points this season is just a crime. Who the fuck are Dier, Rose,… Read more »
Oh, you mean the ‘has been manager’ that assembled that very same squad? And who has been mentioned by all our new acquisitions as one of the reasons for choosing Arsenal in the first place? That manager?
Did we watch the same game? Welbeck was one of the only players trying to at least keep some possession. Not to mention his tracking back and that brilliant burst of pace to trigger the goal… I’m all for pointing fingers but come on mate.. Welbeck was good today
Apologies, I wasn’t clear. As good as Welbeck was I couldn’t understand the logic in dropping Walcott who right now is on form and scoring goals. The one thing we lacked today was goals no?
Welbeck’s a class act but I just couldn’t understand the logic that’s all. You can argue that it protected Bellerin but then it could be argued that it failed in other areas because we didn’t score enough.
Shit result regardless.
We lacked any kind of staging point whatsoever
When we’re on we play around high pressure and punish the opposition.
Today we could not get the first couple of passes out of defence to midfield to stick
We wouldn’t have won that game even with Alexis. Midfield was shaky, we couldn’t build anything when and we were put under pressure but no-one really stood up to it. What’s most disappointing is that this was our chance to sit 3rd, 3 points off 2nd.. we were completely outplayed by a side with bentaleb and mason in it… made Danny Rose look a decent player.
Seems to be a trend, Soton did this to us as well. Bummer.
the reasons we lost are
1 . they were more intense than us
2. they wanted it more
3. cazorla and ramsey were poor
4. giroud should have scored
5 bringing walcott on was a mistake
6 the ref was an absolute disgrace ! nobody could be that bad without being biased !
rose should have gone off !
7 kos wont win balls in the box by turning his back on the ball !
You are absolutely spot on. I would also add Bellerin was left exposed and Coqulin couldn’t cover his position and Ramsey’s.
I think we suffered from going 1-0 up so early, cause we just instantly lost all momentum going forward. I would understand if we went 1-0 up in the 80th minute, but with virtually all of the game left to play, it is abit early for parking the bus completely like we did. At the very least if you are gonna sit deep for so long with only 1 goal advantage, you need to commit people going forward on the counter, but we were unwilling to do even that. The scoreline was even abit flattering towards us and did not… Read more »
You must of forgotten us losing from 2-0 up at the Emiratesin 2010
Ospina, simply put, made the scorelin respectable for ours, when we didnt even deserve it, we were fooking awful again after a couple of good games.
“The game was end to end.” what game were you watching arseblog?
since we switch sides at half time, then technically….
most painful loss indeed! i am really not interested right now in all these post mortem analysis bullshit..who did what or who didnt…..it dosent make me feel any better! for me, losing is bad enough….losing to fucking spuds feels a thosand times worse!…..i now have to switch off my phone to avoid my effing spud friends who cant wait to rub it in,,,,,,,dont blame them though cos i would have done the same if the table were turned!!! football can be cruel if you are off your best! the mighty Real Madrid, with all its “world team players” is losing… Read more »
Atletico are the champions of Spain and got to the champions league final last year, so them beating Real wasn’t hard to predict
My god is Ozil useless.
PLEASE, PLEASE prove me wrong about you, you World Cup winning champ. I know you have it in you.
firs
ok second
Giving Santos a bad name. Well done.
fuck off.
how about you feck off
Deflating stuff 🙁
Defending was poor, especially for 2nd goal.
Alexis’ hustle & cutting edge was missed.
I always go back to watch replays of games I’ve missed, even losses, but I really don’t think I can stomach this one…
Not sure it would have helped tbh. C*nts were more aggressive both in defending and attacking, they crowded us out easily cause their pit is fecking small. We on the other hand failed to do the same. Alexis has a tendency to lose the ball quite often cause he keeps it sometimes too long, and pretty sure that would have been the case today. We were outplayed and we weren’t hungry and aggressive enough today.
We’ve seen this one 1000 times. Scored too early, sat on it and allowed pressure (when we know they’ve been scoring late goals for fun lately). Poor management of the game really, but fuck it, we’ll bounce back.
Spurs will not finish above us this year.
Spurs were all over us and we didn’t have the composure to keep the ball. I’ll say they played well and their energy was incredible. We didn’t keep the ball well and that’s not down to the manager, that’s down to the technique and passing of the players letting them down. Sorry, but when that’s poor you don’t have a chance, particularly when the opposition is all over you. We saw the center halves give it away a lot, Ramsey and Cazorla didn’t pass well. Ultimately we went long to Giroud and he did his best, but overall we lost… Read more »
Definitely, our passing was everywhere. Spurs have an annoying ability to disrupt play and force the midfield to play at their pace, which is ok when you can cope with it but if the passing’s not going well it’ll just play right into their hands. We sorely missed Santi’s dancing feet out there to hold up play, though Ramsey was probably most at fault for poor decision making/losing possession too quickly today. Ah well. You’re right though, Wenger wasn’t really at fault, just wish we’d gone out there with a bit more attitude in attack. On another note, Ospina had… Read more »
Hate to say it but poch totally outsmarted Wenger. He knew we would come with our new found tactic of sitting back and told his players to squeeze us and not give our players a second on the ball. A tactically astute team would ha e ridden this out by simply smashing it in to touch after we scored to frustrate and break up their possession. But our players tried to play which is exactly what they wanted with their very tight pressing. What we should also have done is smashed it down wellbecks line knowing that he was capable… Read more »
He absolutely did. Our players looked clueless and how the manager is absolved from this is beyond me. Once gain, any chnage in tactics as the game progressed to attempt to take control back?
Agreed, and Ramsey had a mare, but I don’t want to see Jack play there either.
We done the same thing and won last year. Short memories, ay.
i hope your right RLT . But in all honesty I cant see us finishing top 4 ! lot of teams capable of finishing above us , we are prone to fuck up , as we all know !
Fucking cunts. You know they’re irrelevant when they celebrate throw ins. Make a dvd about that you twats.
Anyway, I’m pissed as shit, but probably shouldn’t blow things out of proportion after one game, especially the emotion-clouding derbies.
Me too, so depressed now thanks to that shitty performance
Finally a level headed comment. We’ve been in great form, tonight was awful, let’s hurt, get behind the lads and get back on track.
Another poor referee performance, how many more can this ‘top league’ surprise us with?
Don’t blame this on the ref. He was poor but he wasn’t the reason we lost. They gave us an offside goal so they did their part.
Refree has to take some blame, most of their crunching tackles should have been avoided had he booked the spurs players in first half. I don’t want referee to favour us but he should be fair. He kept yellow carding any arsenal player who makes any foul whatsoever but Spurs players got away with Murder time and time again.
But he isn’t the reason we lost.
You really think it was offside? Heh…
Let’s not mention our penalty then.
I was crying out for Theo to be brought on from 60 minutes; attack being the best defence and all.
He was offside and what penalty?
The, although not deliberate, handball in the first half. Knocked up and hit him right on the arm in front of the ref.
He wasn’t offside.
He was not.
He was offside and I remember the handball now and that was a penalty.
Bullshit offside. If the line drawn on the screen was thinner his foot would have been in
I don’t remember saying that it was the reason we lost, I just said it was a piss poor performance from a referee in the premier league, yet again. As for the ‘offside’ goal, it’s marginally, to the point whereby we’re talking centimetres. The FA rulebook states that if its not conclusive, give the benefit to the attacking player, it wasn’t conclusive (only with modern technology, freeze frame and 4 boring pundits discussing it beyond death). So the referee made the only call he should have made. As for the countless yellow cards that were not yellow cards and the… Read more »
He was shit and he gave everything to Spurs. Booked our players for absolutely nothing. But he isn’t the reason we lost
I think the chickens wanted this more than us. On paper we have a better team, but that means nothing in a derby.
Where is the energy? The desire. and how about that team selection. F=== off
I’m not even angry. Not one player played well, apart from maybe that one welbeck run and ozil finish.
Spurs wanted it more then us, that’s the only difference.
Kosc had an absolute nightmare in the second half.
Yet again were conceding stupid corners.
They deserved to win, no two ways about it.
Oh and martin Atkinson , I hope you fucking prick your dick on a cactus. Every dive we got a yellow card. Every blatant foul they commitred we got nothing.
Fuck this shit.
My sentiments exactly
I also thought Ospina was downright terrible today. He kept parrying the ball straight back to the scum, time and time again. Probably half the saves he made today were caused by problems he created himself, not to mention when he decided to pull a wrestling move on Kane trying to punch the ball after it was long gone it could have easily been a penalty. Admittedly Kos was at blame today but everyone else in our defence was actually pretty consistent in clearing the ball. The game was lost in attacking midfield and attack where we just couldn’t string… Read more »
downright terrible? are you szczesny/wilshere in disguise? without his saves, I’m sure we wouldnt have held the lead for as long as we did. 1st goal conceded – would have been be dealt with by coq on the line, but being a GK its never easy to take such a chance, especially when a ball is flashing across like that. Maybe you should look at who’s marking Kane (or in this case not marking). A few shots came in from far, good efforts that were low and on target, he dealt with them albeit not ideally but again, he recovered… Read more »
Sczcesny, is that you?
I thought Ospina was brilliant today.
Agreed. How many times did he palm a ball out for a corner or back into a dangerous area when he could have caught it. Every other pass back to him went straight out for a Spurs throw. Dreadful today, absolutely dreadful.
are you fooking insane? if not for Ospina the match could’ve easily ended 5-1 against us
Conceded what 17 corners at Man City.. didn’t concede one goal from them, in fact hardly a chance. One goalkeeping mistake and it’s “Yet again were conceding stupid corners. ” .. Yeh, the defenders could have stopped that going in. /sarcasm
lol…….well put
I hate them but the scum played well. We needed Sanchez’s desire.
No, no we don’t. The players need it! All of them! I demand that they stop playing like scared wet dogs every time they feel a bit of pressure! No desire whatsoever! What Wenger needs to ask them is quite simple: Where are the guts, boys? And Ramsey… I’ll stop here. He was by far our best player last season. Let’s see how long he can hold on to that unless he starts giving his all like he knows he should!
We got precisely what we deserved, sadly :(. Not many performances to write home about. I think Giroud was our standout player. Need to win against Leicester to get back on track! Forward
eh? Compare Giroud and Kane – if Giroud is our standout player……………we must be bad
Ospina? Made some fantastic saves but not much he could’ve done about either of their goals. He hasn’t had much to do in the previous games so his performance today proved his quality. That’s the positive I am taking away from this game
Totally, thanks to him we got out of White hart lane with just a 2-1 scoreline….could’ve been easily 5-1
Giroud did what?
fight for fourth it is.
Oh, come on…
I thought the intensity of the game was crying out for Rosicky’s control in such situations. Cazorla, great as he’s been lately, wasn’t able to cope with their pressing. Ramsey off it as well.
Also, Harry Kane has a bit of Piers Morgan about him, don’t you think?
I’ve just seen Kane in the post match interview – he seems like a right thicko. I would say Rooney’s IQ is higher.
Bleh
Fucking balls 🙁
the scum were literary fire up and going for every ball chasing and closing,we take the lead and played without passion without running to make up space in attack we were very static and the players thought that the game will won it by itself. poor performance. plus they gave all the media and pundits to bush us again and to say that the city win was one time thing. disappoting
i wish those wankers were literally fired up
We fell on our swords for playing Mourinhoball
Respectfully beg to differ. If the Arse had been totally committed to parking the bus after taking the lead, we would have won. However, the players seemed to be caught in two minds – consolidate vs more attack. As a consequence, the team lacked the compact shape evident in the win vs man city. Instead we were a bit more loose and not as tight; that’s fine against a piss poor villa side at the Emirates, but not in the North London Derby. The midfield three didnt keep their shape well enough. Ramsey kept bursting too far forward, leaving cazorla… Read more »
I agree, Ramsey has become a real weak link. He doesn’t have the discipline to play in a midfield 2, nor does he do enough in the attacking third in a 3
Man City, played 90 minutes.
And his partners Coquelin and Cazorla were the 2 best players on the pitch
Let the Ramsey hating begin. It’s RAMSEY’S FAULT WE LOST. Boo hoo. One player making a run forward caused us to lose. I expect Sky Sports to give you a ring soon.
Are we not allowed to discuss the form of our players now?
I love Rambo, but there were some simple things that he needs to get right on a consistent basis. Possession is given away to easily at times, just more noticeable in losses though.
Still lots of football to go though
I agree with that. As good as we looked against Villa, we didn’t spark at all today. No one player was by far the worst. I think that Ramsey isn’t sure what he’s supposed to be doing, but he is a good player. If we had the same team as last year his surging runs would be applauded but this year they’re not needed. Sanchez can do that, Walcott, Wellback and do that. Ramsey leaving an young inexperienced Coquelin to fend for himself meant we kept losing the ball in the middle. Bellerin looked poor, but thats not his fault… Read more »
Yeah, this was nothing like the Man City game. Here we dropped deep but were not pressing and making tackles. Spurs played the ball to and around our penalty area without any concerted challenge the entire game.
We were confused from the off.
Fuck. I hate losing to those smug cunts, just seeing them celebrate that win as if it was their cup final ruined my fucking weekend.
On top of that we were utter shit, they made us look like a pub team.
My God Ramsey has been useless this season.
Difference between this game and the Citeh game? The wings. Alexis and Oxlade willing to help out at the back and be there for the counter attack. Not slagging off Özil or Welbeck, just saying that that system worked cause of those 2 players who today would have also made a difference.
And also didn’t seem like we were up for it which is astonishing. Just when I thought we were turning the season around…
Bad day at the office. The boys were not at the races at all. Arsene promised to attack; what happened? Takes nothing away from the boys. Dust ourselves and get going again. No time to feel sorry for ourselves.
WOW… the number of times ramsey,coq given away possession was ……….
we really WEAK against HIGH,FAST,PRESSING team…
luckily MANC not play like that…
that’s the thing it ramsey an cow gave possession under pressure because all other players were static and they didn’t open up for a pass, even when ozil santi and welbz were getting the pass on the wing in their half they literary didn’t have any options to play someone giroud on his own isolated other players very static, i thought arsenal players would die today fighting got every ball running double the miles then any other game, but they didn’t which the scum did and that’s why they won the game.
At the end of the game, I am only left wondering what the result could have been had Rozza started today. 🙁
Our passing went at a different level altogether upon his introduction.
Ramsey should be dropped for Rosicky for the next few games. He needs a shake up like Sir Chesney. Getting too comfortable thinking he’s undroppable.
Holy! Shit. But. Martin Atkinson is more shit!
Santi & Ramsey were terrible! Of course Tottenhams man of the season was fit and firing while ours is injured when we fucking need him! Walcott did nothing when he came on, I know he’s been out for a year but about 30 seconds before the goal he made an unacceptable and pathetic attempt to track Danny shitface rose! So pissed right now but at least we’ve champions league to look forward to
Can’t blame this one on the manager. We sat deep, took the lead and should have kicked on from there.
It doesn’t help when your players don’t turn up. Apart from the coq and welbeck we were utterly useless.
I don’t blame this on the manager but he should have made the subs erlier to at least try to change the game.
We were totally dominated and deserved to lose. NO EXCUSES or whatsoever.
Why wenger had to take off welbeck who was having a good game instead of giroud is baffling.
Ramsey was poor.
Coq had a disiplined performance.
Giroud was poor…can’t create chances for himself, can’t dribble, missed a good header, mishit the shot ozil scored from.
What a way to start my day.
6th place…so much for still being in the title race.
Anyone who defends this performance or comes up with some silly excuse clearly has got some issues.
Showed too much respect. This was not a game to counter – we should have attacked them from the off. But there were so many mistakes, our attack was disjointed.
Completely gutted. The defeat is bad enough, I think it’s even worse to know we got the result we deserved. I have no problems with playing more defensive and going on the counter, but we gave the ball away way too often. Just under 70% pass accuracy today- when have we ever had such poor passing.
Our passing out of defensive was criminal, I have never seen the ball given to the opposition with such regularity and Mert chesting it to Spuds players twice!
Very poor performance.
Fuck it!
Outplayed and outfought by a lesser team. Neither the players nor the manager were up for it and fuck, that actually hurts.
We missed our little Chilean today 🙁
Yep, but TR7 was fit and should have started.
I thought ramsey was absolutely terrible today. poor control, poor passing, not able to get a grip on the game. sadly, I’m starting to think he’s a mediocre player who had an incredible season last year. ozil was anonymous, aside from the rather lucky goal, and that’s not exactly something you want to see in a guy who cost 42 MM.
side topic – ref was poor but that did not impact the result. we were just poorer.
Totally disagree, that was a class finish from Ozil, and he put in a shift defensively..
1 step forward 2 steps back. Any novice could see the danger in the first 30 minutes where Welbeck was put to play. He is not a midfielder and wants to be attacking but instinctively doesn’t revert back to the position. Should have made changes as if we started with Walcott we would have had a chance. Failing that why then not just sit back like we did against City, instead of doing this half and half thing where we were not going forward or staying back with so much space behind us. This game was lost in the dressing… Read more »
If only kos and giroud had taken their chances
Reg tactics , if a team presses intensely I dont think we can control possession. So I think the sit back ploy is part tactic shift and part enforced
Ospina had a decent game I feel
i guess we have to win the CL then
Any NLD loss hurts, but in the grand scheme of things i’m still very optimistic about this season. If we go on to win the next 9 games against bottom table opposition we will be in with a shout of the title. Add that with Boro in the cup and Monaco in the CL. Lets the spuds have their day in the sun, and we;ll have ours in May, and their settle for channel 5 football. Trust.
A shout at the title?
Are you on drugs?
Yes and yes, but I don’t see how that’s relevant.
And saturday is now ruined
Ospina was the only bright spot today.
That double save though 🙁
Gotta hold our hands up and say the best team on the day won. We’ll be back but once again my weekend is fucked before it’s started. Luckily, i start work soon
Poor poor performance. Cazorla & Ramsey went missing while Welbeck clearly wasn’t up for starting (even though he contributed well to the first goal). Very disappointed.
Welbeck had a good game all round, shouldn’t have been subbed, imo.
Sadly wenger bears some responsibility for the second half looking like the first. Neither him nor the team showed any ability to change the pattern of the game. Really shoddy passing and movement from the midfield on put our back 5 under intolerable pressure. Spurs are a decent side but they are not Chelsea. It’s an over used phrase but we have shown them far far too much respect, pushed our luck tactically and got well beaten. Not going to slam individuals but would say it was one big tactical mess with no adjustment at any point.
I’ve said this before, when you play this bad, sooner or later your luck runs out especially against a good team.
we have better players than spurs but played like a pub team. same thing happened at liverpool. the pattern is kind of clear except perhaps to Wenger.
Spurs showed against Chelsea that they are very good at home. Still feel we have made big progress with the win at City and what came after. If that game had been anywhere other than WHL we would have won. We will finish top 3 but I think Spurs will miss top 4 again.
And it’s only 7am here. What a horrible way to begin my birthday weekend!! Hopefully I can watch Chelsea lose now to look for something positive.
Against Villa? Let’s be reasonable please.
I know it’s extremely unlikely, but I’m now desperate for some positive result.
but I see Atletico are 2-0 up on RM.
Two good games and then back to the same old shit. Spurs were much better than us. Fourth if we are lucky
Tricky to execute a defensive game plan. Way to much respect shown which had us on the back foot and coupled with the fact we passed the ball badly it was never gonna be easy.
I would have had Theo on from the beginning, he would have pushed Rose and Eriksen back.
We were second best today, we’ll finish ahead of them of course. I still see us finishing 3rd, we’ve got a few very winnable games now, roll on Tuesday
Am I getting 60 thumbs down for bashing Ramsey again? Also. Ozil is worth 12.5 if Alexis is worth 35. The work rate isn’t comparable and much more importantly neither is the passion. Might as well be a rent boy. Giroud wasn’t the right choice. Should have been Welbeck up top and Theo on the right. We can’t keep wasting an entire flank of the field because Ozil doesn’t want to run.
who scored our goal again?
I’d guess that rent boys are generally pretty hard working
It just hurts too fuckin much . Harry kane has successfully ruined my entire month. Ah Well win or lose arsenal till I die .
I feel like we get out “passioned” by them every time we play. It’s great that we were smart against city but this game needed something different.