Five of Arsenal’s ten representatives at EURO 2016 have appeared already, here’s how they got on…
Olivier Giroud
France 2-0 Romania
Giroud made amends for missing three guilt-edge chances by outjumping Romania’s keeper to head home the first goal of the competition on 58 minutes.
Olivier Giroud goal vs Romania https://t.co/XHibEc5fOo
— Arsenalist (@arsenalist) June 10, 2016
It was a special moment for the HFB who’d been booed in the build-up to the tournament by his own fans. On a nervy night for the hosts, Dimitri Payet spanked home a last-minute winner from range after Nicolae Stanciu had levelled from the spot.
Laurent Koscielny
France 2-0 Romania
Koscielny played the full 90 minutes as he put in a steady showing alongside Adil Rami in the heart of Didier Deschamps’ defence.
Granit Xhaka
Switzerland 1-0 Albania
Granit Xhaka was voted man of the match as the Swiss just about overcame 10-man Albania. The Gunners new boy, playing against his older brother Taulant, was a composed figure in the centre of the park. Fabian Schar’s early header sealed victory the minnows spurned chances to equalise despite having Lorik Cana sent off for two yellow cards before the break.
Speaking after the game, ex-Arsenal man Johan Djourou, his Swiss teammate, said of Granit’s performance: “It’s clear that in terms of emotions it mustn’t have been very easy. Being brothers, you know each other’s weaknesses and strengths so I think it was a very special moment for both of them.
“He managed the pressure well and he managed his emotions. But that’s important. That’s what you ask a young player like that, to be able to keep his nerve and to bring his talent to the team.”
Aaron Ramsey
Wales 2-1 Slovakia
Aaron Ramsey delivered a telling assist for Hal Robson-Kanu as the Welsh, playing in their first international tournament since 1958, sealed a late 2-1 win. Losing his balance as he stumbled into the box the Arsenal man just about managed to touch the ball to the former Reading winger who bundled home with nine minutes left.
Aaron Ramsey match-winning assist vs Slovakia https://t.co/8T0nW7jSYX
— Arsenalist (@arsenalist) June 11, 2016
Ramsey’s performance was typically industrious after Gareth Bale’s early opener although his passing was a little off.
Jack Wilshere
England 1-1 Russia
Wilshere replaced Wayne Rooney in the centre of midfield on 78 minutes, five minutes after Eric Dier had given England the lead with a free-kick. The Gunner was sent on to play keep ball as Roy Hodgson looked to close out a deserved win only for the Russians to equalise with a header in the second minute of stoppage time.
Isn’t Djourou only supposed to face the media when the team loses?
Ramsey is great but I’m ready to cash in on him if Barcelona will bite and if we can lure Kante the other way.
They don’t play the same position so this doesn’t make sense at all.
Why would you want Kante?
We already have Coquelin and Xhaka in the same role. Elneny can also develop into a DM.
Ramsey is a creative player now able to push forward. His best position is in fact Ozil’s. Should Ozil get knocked, he is (with possibly Jack or Santi) one of the best candidates for the role.
Ramsey is dangerous around the box. His back flick goal this season was the best goal this season.
But he is too inconsistent. I have a lingering fear that he could have a similar career to Walcott. In the sense that you’ll keep waiting for him to have sustained level of consistency, only to find out he’s nearly 30.
PS:I know he had that one unbelievable year with us but Walcott had a great year too once, not quite as good Ramsey’s but he scored over 20 goals.
No Kante isn’t, but between Ozil, Carzola, Jack, Mohammed, Granite* and even the Coq,i think we have enough cover. Add Kante and I’ll be relaxed if we lost the surrogate Prince of Wales. Still love him but his ego though…
No way Barca are interested in Ramsey these days. He has become so inconsistent with his first touch and short passing, could you really imagine him fitting in with their style of play? Also, the number of times he slips or stumbles off balance for no apparent reason is really weird. His defensive positioning is also very poor. He seems to prefer to give his man a few yards head start before chasing back at them like a madman half the length of the pitch, than to just make the effort to position himself goalside to begin with. Talented player… Read more »
So you watched the Wales game at Euro then retained his loss of balance even though that ended with a vital assist and a couple of bad passes.
What makes you say that? I watch every (Arsenal) game of his and this one was pretty typical – lots of effort, a few bright moments, miscontrols and fluffed passes, slips, trips, stumbles, and undisciplined but willing defensive work. Granted, he does get the odd assist or goal but most games his sloppiness just isn’t worth it.
Bale made as many, if not more mistakes than Ramsey.
Wholeheartedly agree, spot on.
Sort of jumping on the Kante train there… We just got Xhaka and we have Coq for Kante’s position.
But we lost Arteta, Flamini and Rosicky.
It’s France 2 – 1 Romania.
Wilshere should be Englands box to box player. What the hell was Rooney doing playing in that position? Yet again we get to the finals of a major tournament and the past mistakes of playing old has been comes back to haunt us. If anyone tells me that Jack is not fit enough what is he in the squad for?
Get a grip Roy before its too late.
Rooney was England’s MOTM in my opinion
Agree. Despite me being annoyed he played at all, I thought he was excellent. Raheem Sterling, on the other hand, made me want to punch something, preferably him. Why he started and then stayed on for so long baffles me – he is absolutely pointless. All he does is run into blind alleys endlessly. I know it’s not hip to care about England but I was generally annoyed at how the game finished. England were really good apart from finishing the chances they created. I know reports have been that Russia were poo, but I thought it was more of… Read more »
Reminds me of Jesus Navas, both do a whole lotta nothing!
Harry Kane in fairness, didn’t get adequate service
Ramsey was ok.. Passing was off as
per usual though. Wouldn’t have put on Wilshire for Rooney if you want to keep the ball. Wilshire is the kind of player to dart forward and make an impact. More of a criticism of Roy than Jack.. Played well when he had the ball though.
I admit Rooney didn’t play poorly but when he supposedly plays well in midfield it’s because he’s done a Gerrard, i.e. demand the ball a lot so he can “show off his range of passing” by hitting a steady stream of hollywood balls to either fullback. It’s so, so typically English: absolutely zero subtlety.
I think it’s somewhat harsh and misleading to describe Giroud as
having missed 3 “guilt-edge” chances.
They were far from “guilt-edged”, and much closer to “half-chances”, ones
that any striker could miss.
In terms of Wales, the less said about Ramsey’s performance the better,
despite the assist that he didn’t know much about.
Hate to be a dick but it’s *gilt-edged* not ‘guilt-edged’.
Please don’t kill me
Unless they were guilt edged…
When they’re missed they’re guilt edged.
Don’t you know that, according to some fans and pundits, any chance that Giroud misses is a “sitter” that even a new born baby can score?
That goes for many Arsenal fans too. And some Arseblog followers. It’s like he needs to apologise for not missing chances gracefully.
Well done Ramsey for staying on his feet and delivering a perfect little pass to his team mate who scored that vital goal. While otherwise a bit so so that one took skill. England were let down by late and shit subs. Kane should have gone off after 60 minutes as it was clearly not his day. Sterling was shocking. Hard to imagine this is the same player who impressed everyone in Brazil 2 years ago. I didn’t mind who he was subbed with but it happened FAR too late. Should have been replaced by Wilshire at the 60 minute… Read more »
I agree with pretty much everything you say. Sterling should have come off at half time, if not before. Much as I dislike Kane, he’s earned a chance, but was being so Sp*rs yesterday that Vardy should have replaced him by 60 minutes, or even Rashford.
The defensive changes when we patently should have scored at least one more goal to stop the inevitable (as an Arsenal fan!) happening had me (and those with me) expecting the inevitable denouement.
Rooney was probably our man of the match.
Am I correct in that Woy only made two subs? I mean Jesus Fucking Christ, Grandad, you have three, no point saving one of them for later. This is not the Depression you know. Football works differently. Use them! All Three! Yes?
It seemed to me that Milner didn’t do his job. He got passed to set up the corner, and then he didn’t stay in front of the Russian who crossed for the goal. Honestly, they should have kept Sterling on, as poor as he was, and England would have 3 points. Plus, why does Lallana let fly from distance with a couple of minutes to go when he can recycle the ball?
Milner isn’t the greatest of players and I can believe he didn’t do that well either but Sterling had o come off. A better replacement would have been Wilshire. Pacey, aggressive and hopefully no as one to lose the ball every time.
It’s water under the bride now. We’ll never know if it would have worked or not.
I hope they (Woy) capitalise on their resources a bit better from here on. This could have been an easy win which turned into a draw and feels like a loss.
It’s water under the bride now.
Definitely water under my bride.
Anyway I thought Rooney was excellent, cross field balls aren’t ‘hollywood’, they open up space. He also played a couple of exquisite through balls, one to Alli in particular.
Sterling is the new Theo but with better ball control, in that he doesn’t have a clue what to do with the ball.
Kane had an off day but I’d start with the same team I think and put Vardy in for Sterling from the left.
Nothing tells you it’s over like when the water is under the bride. Not even a fat lady singing.
Ramsey never meant that assist.
He worked his balls off I thought, but nothing seems to be working for him at the moment.
England scored a great free kick early in the game, before Sp*rs conceded a late equaliser
I’m stepping in sp*rs here, but wasn’t it The Lad whose Mark drifted away from him for the header and two dropped points?
Stirling is just another Theo, fucking hopeless..
theo at least has some end product. sterling is one of those players that looks good on the ball and that’s it.
you can add andross towsend to that list and just about any other ‘english winger’. no end poduct, just look good on the ball. theo is horrible on the ball but at least can score or give an assist – go figure.
You’ve just demonstrated Theo is the best english winger, lol.
I’m not usually in the business of flattering players from rival clubs but as unfortunate as it is for us Theo would be over the moon to have half the talent Sterling does. The latter can actually dribble and occasionally pass, for once. Sure his decision-making is still a bit suspect at times, but he’s still only 21 so there’s a lot of time for it to get better, and he’s miles ahead of where Theo was at that age.
Theo was totally anonymous for England yesterday. Typical.
I think England are missing our wingers… Welbz, The Ox or even Theo would have been useful yesterday. I think all of them have more footballing intelligence than Sterling and all of them are much more natural wingers than Lallana. (Not to mention the goals of Welbeck in the qualifiers)
I definitely think Welbz would’ve provided much more than Sterling if he was available, if off of the bench. I think he’s a big miss to this England squad.
Anyone would have provided something better to Sterling yesterday. He was so woeful that at the end of a long (too fucking long) frustrating spell on the pitch they could have replaced him with Woy himself and it would probably have improved things. Something, ANYTHING, needed to happen there.
who was the most productive english winger for 2015/16? (i cant be bothered researching) but i bet it is not any one in the current england sqaud.
The Ox is about as useful right now to any football team as a fart to a first date.
Normally hold them in until at least the second myself
Honest question: who was Granit Xhaka voted man of the match by? I haven’t heard anyone be mentioned as man of the match in any of the games so far, so I’m wondering if it’s some kind of online vote via UEFA’s website or something?
I think it would’ve been difficult to vote for anyone as man of the match in that game, which wouldn’t have been the case if ANY of the strikers on the pitch could actually finish. It was unbelievable how many clear cut chances BOTH teams wasted.
Granit set a new Swiss record for most touches by a player in a euro match.
He made 101 passes, with the next closest players having 70 and 62.
He had completed 6 long passes by halftime (some beauties) , created 3 chances during the match, made 3 tackles and 5 interceptions.
He was dominant, easily the best player on the pitch.
I didn’t say he played badly, btw.
So the fact that the strikers couldn’t finish means nobody else played well?
At the very least you’d think this might reflect well on the Swiss goalkeeper, who made a few great stops.
Sounds like a crazy statement, doesn’t it?
I don’t know why I thought that, it just didn’t seem like anyone was actually playing that well. I guess the players making all the guilt-edged chances that were missed couldn’t have played that badly…
Maybe I’m jut talking nonsense. (Probably).
No he didn’t seem to have all that much to do did he, although he made a few crunching tackles and some nice passes. Looks like he will be a good player for us.
Xhaka can…Xhaka can!
As the added three minutes ticked away I turned round to my family (who I was watching the match with) and said: “watch England balls this up” – they duly did
It’s your fault
upvote purely for your name
I really can’t get behind the England team, I really don’t like any of the players apart from Jack, who annoys me quite a lot actually as well! 🙂
So the HFB missed three ‘guilt-edged’ chances. Is that a misused homophone or some kind of pun?
for some reason, I’m irritated with the way Sterling runs. The fact that he runs into blind alleys just makes it worse. Pity England didn’t beat Russia and I’m dismayed by the yob violence (England, Marseille ultras) and the more sinister Russian variant (Putin’s nationalistic Moscow club thugs). French media think some England fans were predictably unacceptably disgusting, but have singled out the Russians as organised thugs. Would be nice to see Russia head out of the competition so hope Wales stuff them. Giroud played ok. He’s Giroud, a good striker, not world class. He scores about 1/3 or 1/4… Read more »
We have 9 players to watch. Giroud – I mentioned to the chap next to me when the commentator was typically going on about how he only scores 1 out of every3 or 4 shots at goal, that he had missed 3 already and he was going to tuck in the next. He duely obliged. 24 goals this season 16 in the league. 20+ goals last 3 seasons. IN his best season for us Walcott scored 21 all competitions. Alexis scored 26. A bit of perspective before bleating on about how GIroud isn’t world class. He has scored more than… Read more »
The other thing to mention is the number of Spurs players (and ex Spurs players)
I believe the media counted 10 and made a big deal as per usual out of it.
But when you consider the likes of Bale and Modric use to play for them (thankfully they sensibly moved on to greener pastures), you wonder how all these seasons as bad as the media would deem Arsenal to be, we have still managed every year to finish above them.
We must be very poor.;)
Giroud and Koscielny were good, and rated decently by French publications (sixes and six-and-a-halfs, compared with eights and eight-and-a-halfs for Payet, and fours for some others).
It was a fairly standard nervy opening match by a good team so I (since i want a French victory) I have high hopes.
Cech and Rosicky were very good for the Czech Republic, even though they lost in the end. Just about every Czech attack seemed to start with Rosicky. When’s his testimonial? It won’t feel right if we don’t see him at least once next season.