Per Mertesacker has revealed that training ground talks after the West Ham game helped the team re-focus for the win over Crystal Palace yesterday.
The German hinted that the lack of things going wrong in the pre-season games meant there was no need to take stock of mistakes, but that the reaction from the team in the 2-1 win is a sign of good things to come.
“Obviously when everything goes very smooth in pre-season, you avoid those talks which are sometimes very important,” he told the Press Association.
“That was the case last week when we came out of the match where no-one knew exactly what we did, so we just had to come back to our game.
“You could already feel something when you are in the relegation zone, and not having in that game what everyone expected from you, so it was important to bounce back.”
And the German saw signs of recovery from the performance at Selhurst Park.
“Against Palace, it was good possession, to play the ball through the midfield and penetrate them. We have a good strike force. We created good chances, but we could have executed better, especially in the first 10 minutes.
“We made it difficult for ourselves, but overall it was a very encouraging performance from top to bottom.”
Hopefully the fact that we won doesn’t gloss over the fact that there were improvements to be made from Sunday (i.e. Kos, as Blogs pointed out) and they will still have these talks.
Did anyone else watch MOTD2 yesterday? Did you see the highlights from the Man City – Chelsea game? Did you notice how MC dominated those cunts from beginning to end? How strong they looked and just in general how well Citeh played. It was actually a joy to watch. Our game looked weak in comparison. I really don’t want to agree with anyone on that show but Shearer was right when he said Arsenal didn’t manage to control the game. We won comfortably enough but compared to Citeh’s mauling of Chelsea I think we lacked their power and ability to… Read more »
Because every game is different and City will inevitably lose to someone worse than Chelsea this year and this entire method of argument is absurd. Unless you literally expect Arsenal to “control” (whatever that actually means) 38 league matches from start to finish. If it were as simple as you seem to think, and the better team should just always “rip the other to shreds” then every season the league table would look like this: 1) Team A – Max points 2) Team B – Max points, minus two defeats to Team A 3) Team C – Max points, minus… Read more »
A mere observation that while Citeh looked strong we looked like we are still finding our feet. To pose the question why is surely not unreasonable?
Awesome response.
You take his post too literally, he didn’t say man city were going to be perfect. But you have to admit City looked like the team that went on a tear first half in that 13-14′ season and then cruised to the title. You can see Yaya Toure looks a different player than last season. And that another thing that’s going to be hard for us is because we’re expecting a more competitive title race because the lower teams supposedly improved and we’re expecting a low point total to win the title but with city starting out so convincingly, you… Read more »
2 games in jiminy…2 games. Leicester look pretty formidible too so far but I don’t see them challenging long term.
Yes Man city look good. We’ll have a better idea after about 10 games. And even then it can all change so quickly
City were very good but Chelsea were awful. No protection for their back 4 at all. Favregas was dreadful and Matic was poor. Too early to say YaYa T is the player of old. He ran out of steam last year
Jiminy, you yourself made reference to the improvement of the so called lesser teams. So all away wins are going to be extremely valuable, especially in London derbies, and especially after the disatrous start we had. I get a bit bored of teams being crowned champions in August and others being written off, when we all know very well that the very nature of a 38 game season means there are usually so many twists and turns. Man City will drop plenty of points becasue they just seem to have that in them, and it wil be close, and we… Read more »
Not once did I say pundits, and especially THAT particular one, should be listened to.
Chelsea’s defense are old and kinda cunty. Citehs forwards are young and kinda cunty. Young cuntyness wins more often then not.
Just to add: While the game finished 3-0, Citeh’s last two came in the final ten minutes or so, I believe, and Chelski had some clear cut chances that they didn’t finish. That’s how matches between top clubs sometimes go, but it adds a bit of nuance to the crushed narrative. Also, Chelsea didn’t look against Swansea last week either and could easily have lost that match. So far this season, Ivanovic looks half the defender he was last season. Culpable on two goals yesterday and cut apart by Swansea’s Moreno the week before. In that context, Citeh’s win, while… Read more »
Citeh’s win doesn’t spell doom and gloom for Arsenal and our somewhat lacklustre start doesn’t mean the season is lost either but I would have liked to see us be more decisive in this second game. Citeh, regardless of what some may think of them, were an example to anyone. We have the players to be as good and as ruthless as they were yesterday. I’d like to see it.
I agree that on their day, $iteh do look very impressive. They have some really excellent players. But you could say the same about Chavski as well.
However $iteh played against a team that looked poor. It certainly wasn’t the Chavs day as they gave Siteh lots of space to play in.
I just wish they played that poorly against us occasionally.
Arsenal are notoriously bad down the years at responding to setbacks. The Invincibles sulked for a couple of months after losing to Utd and that ultimately cost them a shot at challenging that season. As setbacks go, losing on the first day of the season is pretty bad, especially with the performance we put in, so to turn up at Palace, get 3 points and play well is pretty satisfying in my book
Not arguing the joy of us pinching 3 points. My comment was about how much stronger and more ruthless Citeh looked in comparison and knowing that we have the potential to be like that but at the moment we aren’t.
Apparently that’s enough to be thumbed down to the point of rivalling FG. Complementing another team for playing well and wishing us to aspire to that level is obviously enough to warrant such a reaction. So then keep thumbing until your hearts are content.
Form will come and go through the season for both us and our rivals. Look at Chelsea and Arsenal last season. Don´t get too hung up on what other teams are doing after 2 games, so long as we get the points
Chelsea didn’t register a shot on target until minute 70. The shots they subsequently had didn’t particularly test Hart. Despite what the Conceited One said, there was nothing fake about the result.
From what I saw Chelsea didn’t have a shot on goal until the 70th minute because Citeh bullied them off the ball at every turn and they never let up. It was a beautiful thing to watch.
Besides which, citeh was playing at home, whilst Arsenal played away. I know it doesn’t mean much, but it still means something.
You do realize we lost at home the week before, strawman???
Footballers memories eh? Why do we need fresh mistakes to learn from, we have a huge back catalogue!
Now i have to wait till next monday for my next Arsenal fix, what fresh witchery is this?
Catalog needs some new pictures
Exactly what I thought (and like others I am beginning to despise these explanations which sound like they come from a hacky PR department). I was hoping (against hope) that Monaco was the last game in this era where we needed to learn any lesson. However, I also felt the team should have received way more flack for not retaining second place through the end of the season…which in my opinion showed a weird lack of resolve. The idea the team was not focused on the opening day, not determined to set down a marker for the season has left… Read more »
Apparently they were all in a circle and they just pointed at Giroud and said “it was your fault! you didn’t score 3 goals against West Ham. WCS would have scored 3 goals.” I know this because i read it on twitter, so obviously it’s true.
Please talk to Cech too so that He can start keeping clean sheet
Corporal Jenk had his goalkeeper debut. According to stats, that’s one game one clean sheet. So better record than Cech, Bergovich, Lloris, Fabiansky etc. Cech watch your back as the Corporal is coming for your jersey
This worries me.
Gooner do not worry. The Corporal is a true Gooner and better goalkeeping record. Nothing to lose
Anti what are you smoking mate? 🙂
Only the ones prescribed by my psychiatrist mate. Nothing illegal I swear.
Kos needs to man up a bit and be prepared to take one in the face if necessary for the team. The goal might have been prevented if he hadn’t bottled it.
Chill. He’ll learn from it. He’s the boss
The team obviously need this kind of talk often to get the kind of positive results we expect. No need to wait for a negative outcome to do so.
Well you may have to repeat the West Ham teamtalk after every match then.
Are we playing Palace every week?
I think Cech and his back four looked more settled in general yesterday. Sure, there were still some kinks to work out, but as the weeks go by there will be more communication and more understanding between Cech-Mertesacker-Koscielny. Liverpool will be a test next week, and I hope these guys show even more cohesion. On a related note, Bellerin needs to start every week if he’s fit–his ability to add width on the right (and his recovery speed) is needed. Debuchy is good, but right now he doesn’t have the sharpness of Bellerin with the current central pairing. Hector’s only… Read more »
In other news Madrid have signed Kovacic from inter. So many attacking midfielders in one team so you know what that means er er?
Illaramendi is probably off to getafe or what the press will add up tomorrow
The team will get better with time. Sanchez still not upto full fitness. The defense will also settle down. I can only see better football with more games played.
what is all this needless talk of how city smashed Chelsea and we barely beat palace??? there are going to be games where we’ll smash teams and city will struggle to win games too.. selhurst park isn’t the best of places to visit, check how many big teams won there last season including city..
Personally I dont understand why we only arranged friendlies vs teams with whom we we’re huge favourites to win. Only Wolfsburg of all our preseason teams who we’re anywhere close to our level. Hard to map our deficiencies and areas to improve on if we only challenge teams weaker than ourselves.