Arsene Wenger has been using the word ‘lucid’ a lot in the last few days. It was part of his reply a couple of times when talking about his future, and when discussing Arsenal’s approach for Tuesday night’s Champions League clash with Bayern Munich, it cropped up again.
It sounds as if the Arsenal manager is looking for his team to channel the obvious frustrations that exist around the club at the moment into their performance against the German champions.
Chances are it will be little more than saving face, the idea of a 4-0 win to go through seems highly implausible, but after four defeats from the last six games, he needs a reaction from his players.
“What you expect is that you go out there with a mixture of lucid rage,” he said.
“Total commitment, but not a silly one because you have as well, in our game, always to make intelligent decisions, to make the optimal decision and for that you need a good combination of commitment but as well I think to keep your vision.
“Look we missed 45 minutes at Bayern Munich and we have an opportunity to put it right.
“Let’s not fool ourselves, we have a one or two per cent chance. But you never know. We have to give our best. It’s in a difficult climate at the moment, so we have to earn our freedom to play because at the moment we play a little bit with the handbrake.
“In this game, maybe because we have nothing to lose, we can let the handbrake off and play with more freedom.”
I hate that stupid handbrake.
Is Strictly Come Dancing on the tele tomorrow night?
We aren’t talking about just beating some random side 4 nil. We are talking about probably the best team in the world right now. Pound of pound, I think they’re better then Barcelona and Real Madrid. I just cannot see us being able to score 4 goals in this game. I struggle to even see us winning the game. When we played them at the Allianz Arena, even at 1-1 we were having to play at full capacity to keep them at bay. I still felt that even with Koscielny on the pitch Munich still had another 2 or 3… Read more »
Just don’t know what to expect from the atmosphere tomorrow night. I’m thinking possibly flattest ever?
Let’s hope not. The last thing Arsenal needs is for the fans to turn their backs; the owner is a cunt, the manager looks spent and the players are playing and behaving like a bunch of wankers.
Come on you Gooners! Please make me happy for a change…
LUCIDARSENE – NUCLEARISED
This season is destroyed.
TEAM HANDBRAKE – HATED BRAKEMAN
Putting the brakes on.
If you’re flat for a game against Bayern then maybe you should give your seat up to one of the thousands of Arsenal fans who would kill to be there.
Dead tie or not, it’s still a fucking Champions League game at home to one of the biggest sides in the damn world. Pull your fingers out.
If you want one there are thousands on the ticket exchange. So it looks like people are taking your advice but finding it difficult to find buyers
Well if you want a lucid act Arsene then be lucid. When we have 1-2% chance then why dont you try something really lucid?
Ospina
Holding Mertesacker Koscielny
Xhaka Chamberlain
Bellerin Monreal
Sanchez
Lucas Welbeck
Whatever happens doesnt matter. Go at the press conference afterwards and say: we tried something lucid because we wanted to do the impossible.
But, it’s not happening anyway.
It’s 3-5-2, obviously the page doesnt allow bigger spaces between words. It shrinks them.
we are more flaccid than lucid nowadays…
Just rehash or mix up his quotes from the last decade and you pretty much have what AW is going to see next.
Delusional
Completely. The handbrake making an appearance again.
If we’re up to it we’ll win. I really hope the players don’t let Arsène down, if somehow they can turn it around hopefully the negativity will start to go away. Regarding his future, unless the players put in a committed and good performance to show that they’re still behind him I can see him walking unfortunately. COYG.
We’ve got to come out of the blocks firing in a similar manner to how we did against Chelsea at home and Man United at home last season. It’s a must that we score 2 goals before half-time without conceding to have even a minute hope of progressing.
The boys have an opportunity to make history….the least I expect of them is to not bring even more shame and embarassment to Arsenal Football Club.
walking unfortunately?
more like walking, hopefully.
It should not even be his decision, the club should announce their intention to hire a new manager ASAP.
Wenger should try not to let himself down for once.
That pesky handbrake yet again costing us in the Champions League. What a nightmare.
Handbrake out
Must be tough to work in the arsenal PR department right now. Unless you’re buying it, in which case you’re not very lucid.
Will be very happy when I no longer have to hear that “handbrake” metaphor any more.
^^ Amen to that ^^
This is literally the first time in my life I have wanted a ‘Handbrake’ of any variety to completely, entirely and gracefully fuck the fuckity fucking fuck off…with it’s bullshitter mate ‘Mental Strength’…:(
I just bought a car with one of those automatic electric handbrakes and it keeps coming on when I don’t want it too. I can be at some lights, and I know green is coming, hell I’ve had the whole queue to prepare for it, but when it comes to it I just can’t get out of the blocks. Then when I finally do go the lights have changed again and I missed my window. Every time. I tell my girlfriend that the car is top top quality and not to judge me on that performance, but at the end… Read more »
Are you Rambling Pete in disguise?
Double amen
The handbrake has very strong mental strength, too strong for the players.
I think we win tomorrow, maybe not by the required 4 goals… sods law we will get 3 and go out on away goals as usual..
I do hope he drops Iwobi though in favour of lucas or welbs. We need a good performance tomorrow to try and stop the rot.
COYG
Sorry meant we will score 4, but concede one to go out on away goal
What you mean is we will score 6 and concede 2. That’s going out on away goals. 4-1 means we lose 6-5 overall.
We have a coq for a handbrake.
When’s the deluded old fool going to go, man yer worth milions just go and enjoy life for f….. sake.
It’s not your club , you did NOT build it etc. Look at Conte, Klopp, Poch, Pep even Maureen and see what a dinosaur you are re coaching, managing etc
Classy
#disrespectfulclasslessfansout
Like a mad man shouting at the rain
Just shut your mouth till may. Enough of your stupid talk. All you and your players do is talk big and flop. Bloody chokers will probably not win the game.
4th place is at risk. Just leave Wenger…please I’m begging you. Leave.
Can we not just get that bastard handbrake fixed !
Fuck the handbrake! It’s always on.
for years we asked for a new physio when we really needed a mechanic
Lineup to go for tonite:
OSPINA
BELLERIN KOS MERT MONREAL
XHAKA RAMSEY
OX IWOBI WELBZ
GIROUD
Possible subs:
PEREZ WALCOTT GIBBS
Lucid rage is a cool name for an 80’s action hero
a thousand times yes
Luke cage vs lucid rage
Lucid Rage in the nemesis of Dale Tempest.
Lucid Rage? I think Arsene’s been watching too many ‘women behind bars’ B movies.
Comment:This guy(
Arsene Wenger) is a Jack of all trade.From being a manager, coach, the other day a voyeur, a priest and now a heavy commercial vehicle driver. Hilarious
That does it. In a selfless act of solidarity, tomorrow morning I’ll go to my car and tear that damned handbrake right out, then I’ll shake it at the football gods, laugh hysterically, and toss it in the trash.
#handbrakesbegone
“I didnt see it” says the Ancient football god
Wenger, be lucid enough yourself and leave in the summer. End of
#handbrakeout
Man I’ll be watching Napoli tonight never have I done something like that and never has my team broke my football feelings like these days. Maybe years.
That’s been the problem. Its as if the team has been “too careful” starting games. Fear of making mistakes and over caution has actually provided the very outcome they are trying to avoid. Alexis wants the team to press higher as a unit against Bayern but our midfield sat deep instead ceding possession. When we invite them in, its inevitable that eventually the Cbacks will give way under pressure. There’s not much they can do. Instead of attacking the ball, the players tend to ball watch. They need to keep their heads on a swivel watching the runners but they… Read more »
What else were you expecting? And infact Wenger has been gradually moving on to a very good poet. Retirement autobiography in bound?
Lucid…flaccid more like
another pasting beckons. of course this time the excuse is easy. it was a dead tie anyway.
I’m not in England so I wouldn’t know, and I’m probably wrong, but true followers of the club should create an encouraging atmosphere WHATEVER the equation maybe. Every apart, it’s about football, and football is about energy. Not only a physical one, but a psycho-emotional one, and good energy and testing belief can make ordinary people do extraordinary things. Look at lower teams that are just glad to stay up. Bournemouth sing songs even in defeat. It makes players want belong. I know this sounds cheesy romantic, but hey, football’s also just that sometimes.
Lucid Rage, sounds like a death metal song. I’d love the team to play more death metal and less jazz, though..
Sanchez
Welbeck Perez Walcott
Xhaka Ramsey
Gibbs Koscielny Mustafi bellerin
Maybe, finally, Arsenal will start pressing like they really mean it, rather than pushing forward in bits and pieces. We’ve got the players to do that. But there is just no courage and self-belief
No coaching don’t you mean?
Correct, Arsene just isn’t interested in pressing, and it shows.
Fuck what has been going on. I dont care whos in charge and whos playing tonight. At the whistle everything is about the win.
4-0 arsenal. Come on boys.
If Bayern put their first team tonight i can’t see Arsenal win the game, Bayern is so good playing with the ball and Arsenal is so bad playing without the ball. The best for Arsenal is draw and ofc there is a big possibility they will lose badly as in the 1st leg.
My prediction is Bayern 4 – 0 Arsenal.
As mentioned, Arsene has been using the word lucid a lot these past few weeks, he does it to discredit the criticism he’s faced as irrational and emotional. The truth is it’s part of an increasingly manipulative tone he’s recently started to take to engender sympathy amongst the easily swayed. Arsenal don’t need to play with lucid rage, or any rage for that matter, what the players need is to be coached properly. Coached how to defend, coached how to press, coached how to track runners, coached a defensive team shape without the ball. Our team look lost without the… Read more »
Arsene ‘Donald Trump’ Wenger
I hope that hand brake fails and they become uncontrollable ?
maybe he has watched vanilla sky film lately. 😉
Os-bellerin musta kos gibbs- xhaka ox sanchez- lucas welbeck – giroud
I’m sitting at Belfast airport waiting for my flight to London. Not my first match by aong chalk but my first night match and first CL match. A month ago I couldn’t wait. I expected a first leg deficit but a fighting chance. Now it feels more like I am going to a funeral of an old friend. Sad it has come to this. We don’t need anything quite so intangible as “lucid rage”. We need players to know their jobs with and without the ball and to carry them out. For instance it would be nice if Coquelin played… Read more »
I feel like echoing what the Sutton manager said about playing us, there’s a chance,a very small chance. part of me is already seeing a 3-0 win with a last minute chance to make it 4 missed, but I’ll be there and won’t be on the players backs like some of our fans, if we pull it off it will be an amazing evening
From the clips I’ve seen on YouTube, Lucid Rage should be our first summer signing.
I have a sneaky suspicion we will see a performance tonight. That would be enough for me right now (baby steps).
On a side note, I wonder how much of a fanbase melt down would occur if arsenal finish the season empty handed, out of the top 5, below spuds (who somehow manage to win the league against all odds), wenger signs a 2 year deal, sanchez leaves for half his value, ticket prices increase and we make no major signings (Welbeck LANS)? The thought made me chuckle, and then cry a little bit.
If there is any set of football fans that deserve it it is us. We don’t support our team in the stadium, we put up with this sick board and manager at the time when we should be protesting, we just sit doing nothing.
Fans of other clubs would have changed things long time ago, but we are bunch of spineless wankers.
Fair point, but I am not sure we are alone. Fans of all top clubs are for the most part entitled, stupid wankers. I seem to remember Utd fans didn’t really do that much to fix the Glazier problem, or address the form slump of their team under Moyes, or protest against a manager who is an ego maniac and is driven to destroy all of the values they hold dear. In Britain we like to whinge a bit, but essentially we are fickle and easily controlled.
Also, it is not really in the nature of the prawn sandwich munching brigade at the emirates to full on riot, so we can expect little change. The board is only trying to keep them happy, and everyone else is irrelevant.
If we don’t straight out collapse like we have been doing lately then I expect us to win by 3-0 or 4-1.
You know, looking for that elusive final goal, Arsenal style
….which of course will not fuel our drive into top 4 and leave the fans happy that at least we saved some face by the end of the season. thus a renewed sense of hope, then AW signs a new contract. then repeat again come February 2018. I respect AW so much that i want to see him leave on a high but that is obviously not going to happen. For the first time in my life I’m beginning to genuinely lose my love for watching football due to the mind numbing repetitive roller-coaster of mediocrity that is this AW’s… Read more »
I’m taking my daughter for the first European game with a ‘big’ team, my son usually goes but has decided to sit this one out. She’s really excited bless her and she thinks we’ll win 4-0 lol. The blind faith of youth, I used to be like that at her age, she’ll learn.
It’s a win-win situation tonight. Pull off the greatest turnaround and we’ll be celebrating like it’s 1999.
Or lose meekly, and then we can wallow in all these blog posts and make lucid comments…with tags.
Either way, it’s going to be an adventurous night.
Damn spellcheck. Not “with tags”. I typed something so completely different that I can’t even remember what I typed
…with tags = …with rage
Completely bolloxed up my witty post
Oh why not. Only fun I’m likely to have with it today – If we were to throw caution to the wind or write the match off it’d be a fun experiment: Despite how it looks, 3-5-2. —Perez —— Welb/Walc/Gir (switch Welb+Perez sides) —————Alexis———— Gibbs—–Xhaka—Ox————Bellerin —–Monreal—Kos—Mus/Gabi/Hold ————-Ospina Gibbs and Monreal to Kick Robben, Middle three of xhaka, ox, Alexis at AM, Speed and craft in the top two. Easy transition from 5 in the back to 5 in the front, and wide coverage to where they killed us last time. Another probably unpopular opinion: I’d be tempted to rest Mustafi.… Read more »