Arsenal crashed out of the FA Cup in the third round for the first time ever under Arsene Wenger, going down 4-2 to Nottingham Forest at the City Ground this afternoon.
It was mad cup tie, with goals, penalties, a red card, but above all else a dreadful Arsenal performance against a Championship team who had one win in their previous eight games.
Here’s how the players rated today.
Hope Jon Moss, Mike Dean and Anthony Taylor get done for match fixing and they lose their livelihoods. Would celebrate if they all suffered a stroke too.
Woah, steady on. Let’s not start going round wishing life threatening conditions on people, no matter how incompetent and hopeless they are.
A bad case of the trots though surely that’s allowed to wish for.
Why because they made mistakes, come on we ain’t playing well admit it.
Not denying that we’re shit, but the least you’d expect is for referees to be able to not constantly keep influencing results from shocking decisions.
We deserved to lose – nothing to do with refereeing. Fed up with ref vendetta being used to cover up pitiful playing performances
‘deserve’ means fuck all. We were shit, yes, but if the penalty is chalked off then it means we still have ample enough time to grab an equaliser and our players’ mentalities change. There’s plenty of games where we’ve lost but ‘deserved’ more out of them. The simple fact is the referee influenced the outcome of the game.
Spot on. This team is seriously lacking, which first eleven we select hardly matters. But don’t worry we have a good mentality Lol Also so many people on this comments section continually have no clue about Arsenal FC. We win a game and Wenger is godlike, we lose and it’s the refs plotting against us. I even hear people say we can’t be expected to compete with Spurs and Liverpool and it gets upvoted! Honestly you have not got any idea about who we are! Thank god for the few who know who we are and demand we compete and… Read more »
You’re an idiot and ridiculously immature if you;
1. If you think this loss is due to the ref.
2. You wish death upon them.
Just makes a you a vile, horrible little toad, and a cliché internet troll.
Not wishing anything upon them. Just saying I’d celebrate if they had the misfortune to suffer a stroke.
You’ve just contradicted yourself in two sentences, please grow up!
No, what you said lower down was “Wish they’d all suffer strokes and we brought in non-English referees, tbh”
contradicted myself there, touché. Not in this thread though.
Scott; put the beer down and get some sleep. Dont stoop to ‘Dippers levels of abuse.
Go fuck yourself
Chill man!! No one really does that. Just frustrated…. Dont go all Nelson Mandela…..
How about the manager and players making the same mistakes week in week out. Yes we have a had a few bad decisions lately but it’s no way the decisive factor in today’s result or the performances in general particularly this season. We are boring to watch, predictable in most things we do and are falling further and further behind those teams we like to think we compete with. That’s the stark reality of arsenal these days. We are no longer a club other teams fear. We are a laughing stock amongst other fans and our best players want to… Read more »
Very true! We were about as useful as a three legged donkey. our players don’t seem to understand the concept of goal scoring and often made back passes instead of shooting for goal. Wengers CHOICE OF PLAYERS SMACKS OF STUPIDITY AND SHOWS A DEFINITE LACK OF QUALITY! We were simply not good enough across the board and the result shows it.
The ref didn’t influence that result at all, Arsenal did.
To be fair, Forest did have a bit of an influence as well.
Don’t blame the refs Wenger should not have over reacted with Mike Dean. Dean was ready to admit his mistake. Taylor gave us beneficial calls in the FA cup final before. Debuchy’s penalty may have been a touch iffy but he should not have been beaten so easily in the first place and I’ve seen them given for Holding’s foot. Fact is Wenger has now made it more difficult with the Refs out to make a point or two against us every game. That’s 4 penalties in 3 games and we haven’t exactly helped ourselees. We have no one to… Read more »
That arsenal side should be able to compete with any championship team especially a team that is as inept as forest in the championship. Utterly embarrassing and arsenal have only themselves to blame, not the refs or the linesman. Good on you forest.
You should not be celebrating strokes
Not even a stroke of luck?
Mate, that’s a bit thoughtless to say..
Just 3 officials !! .. Why stop there ..you should blame the whole fa for every arsenal’s disastrous performance..
Wish they’d all suffer strokes and we brought in non-English referees, tbh
You really need to give your head a wobble mate, it’s a game of football.
Wishing strokes on people?! Only from behind a keyboard eh pal.
Disgusting.
You’re a disgrace to our club.
I was being sarcastic btw :/
Mate, methinks these Refs are loving this. The sad bitter whinging old Frenchman, who’s years past his sell by date. I think they will stick it up him till he’s gone.
No matter who are selected on the line up, we keep having the same defensive fratalities. It is clear that the problem is not the players, it is the manager who are no longet able to motivate the players to perform. AW loose the dressing room and it has been going on for years. Sad.
Its both.
The players are not good enough. Mentally not properly prepared but also some are just technically poor.
But the gaffer has also failed to instill structure and discipline to our defensive side of the game. The off ball running is poor.
AND to top it all, the mollycoddlying, deflection of pressure merely shield these players into a false sense of security when frankly we are delivering mediocrity and they don’t have to fear they will get the cut because Wenger won’t spend when need be or tries to promote half baked product.
There is no coherent strategy.
Scott – There’s a huge difference between: A) blaming a ref (or refs) when we are playing some class A & outstanding football, with all players at the tip top of their game, continually peppering the opponents goal with shots on target, a team line up that makes perfect sense & a game plan that both dazzles & bamboozals our oponents – yet calls not going our way. And… B) blaming a ref (or refs) when we are playing like a bunch of utter shit wankers, including players that have been effectively off for weeks yet look exhausted 5 mins… Read more »
You realise you can shit on both the referees and the team performances at the same time, right? We’re shit enough right now as it is, having referees constantly giving stupid decisions the opposition’s way doesn’t help either. The least you expect is for them to do their job properly.
Welbeck listed as 55/10?
I dont think ratings matter for any player for a performance like this.
0.55 out of ten, I think he meant. Welbeck is so awful I’d sell him before I sold Walcott.
Apart from our first team we just don’t have enough quality in the squad. Players like Mertesacker (long past his best), Elneny, Walcott, Iwobi Are not on the required level. How Iwobi keeps making the match day eleven is a mystery.
Fans rating of 2 for TW14 seems too generous. Blogs rating of 4 for him is very odd
I’ll throw in Welbeck too. I’ve never seen anything ‘special’ in Iwobi. Bizarre that he’s been given so many chances.
Welbeck too.
PS Be nice if you sort that moderation crap/glitch out.
When Moss fell over, I fully expected him to get up and award Forest a penalty and send one of our guys off for tripping him. Was hoping for Theo but no such luck.
Bleh.
Always a big ask with this lineup. Away to Bayern was never going to be easy.
Knew it wouldn’t be our night when Welbeck “headed” his first chance off his shoulder. I’m telling you, he will be the first footballer to have his You Tube highlight goal scoring video feature the theme from Benny Hill.
Na that’s Gervinho
What a performance. Lucifer himself could threaten to eat every one of them if they lost and they’d still pass it sideways and backwards. Where was the urgency? How about a few senior players taking the situation by the scruff of the neck? As sterile a showing as anything we’ve produced this year, to be honest.
Only AMN and Nelson took it by scruff of neck. Sad times at Arsenal. However there is reason for optimism – AW will hopefully disappear in 17 months and we have a strong crop of youngsters coming thru. COYG.
Tell that to Elneny. As one of the more experienced players he should have been driving the team on but instead the passiveness in his passing would have made Denilson proud.
Really wonder where the club is heading under Wenger now. Not a lot coming through, three of our best players could be leaving, not much noise about anyone of worth coming in….. quite depressing.
On another note, when they come and wheel Arsene out of the dug out in thirty years, I don’t think Steve Bold is the answer.
Steve Bould is the very epitome of yes man. He probably goes home and sits in front of a mirror and practices what he’d really like to say to Wenger about the defence, then cries himself to sleep. If he really does have any degree of say in how that defence is run then he should be sacked and replaced on the bench by a photograph of Pascal Cygan wearing eye liner and a sleeping bag coat and holding aloft an inanimate carbon rod. Same difference
On the other hand, we could have used him at center back tonight
Squad players, all of them, other than amn who has a future if played in the right position. Holding gets worse each match he plays. Welbeck is welbeck. Walcott has lost it. Elneny is a scrimmage player at most. Debuchy was jogging in the second half. And we’ve given up for pens in the last three matches. Odd line-up? No starters even on the bench? Saving them for wed??? Total joke. Lots of jersies in the 60s This garbage match aside, we are at least 500 million dollars away from challenging for the league. We need two world class center… Read more »
You don’t need world class centre backs to win the league. Two solid ones would do. Out of City’s centre backs this season, Chelsea’s three centre backs last season, Leicester’s two centre backs the season before… how many of them are/were world class? We need an overhaul but let’s not go overboard.
Tbf with the way Arsenal leave their defenders exposed, they need to be world class or they look terrible. A couple of years ago I would argue Koscielny was genuine world class, but the way we play made him look simply “good”.
More than anything you need some sort of system. These days no one seems to know what they’re meant to be doing. Free for all!
leicesters are arguably pretty poor technical footballers BUT they new their job and they functioned as a unit.
we on the other hand look lost and unaware.
I would say Leicester are a chance to catch us in the league
This right winger might be available soon if he carries on provoking his boss for much longer.
https://youtu.be/iWIUp19bBoA
I think it is time to invest in second string players who are quality. I would be happy to see AFC go into debt in order to refresh and renew a club who has been limping past the finish line the past three seasons. Quality from the youngsters tonight was unquestionable if unspectacular, the senior players failed catastrophically to contribute. While in my view the FA cup isn’t the greatest loss in the world it makes me sad to imagine that the Carabao Cup and Europa League are now our only avenues for success this season. Second tier trophies for… Read more »
Sorry for the young fellas who would be short of opportunities now as I dont think Wenger will take any chance by playing them in other competitions. For Welbeck, Walcott, Mertesacker, I dont think they will make the team unless someone gets injured. Iwobi needs to look himself again because he doesnt look fit, nor he knows which position he is playing and when to press, wasting his energy needlessly pressing alone. There was no organisation today and it is shocking to see so many experience players involved today. The game never picked up for us. Credit to Nottingham Forest… Read more »
Wenger should have a rating as well and ZERO for him.
Way too generous with the player ratings. Holding was exposed by an 18 year old and his decision making and positioning was abysmal. Iwobi has gone in my opinion, he needs to get away from Arsenal next season, the pressure looks like it has got to him. Walcott and Welbeck are at best mid table team players. Elneny is not a premier league player one bit. Debuchy wants to leave so shouldn’t be playing full stop. Only Nelson and Niles deserve some credit today and they can’t blamed for what is turning out to be another shambolic season for Arsenal.
The worst part is that no matter how bad we are at the moment, we all know that Wenger will not buy anyone good in January
I’m not against buying players, far from it, but given how the team and the club as a whole is set up, I can’t see any player making much difference. Something is fundamentally rotten at the core of the club, and until it’s addressed I can’t see us making any progress.
There goes the dream for the quadruple this season.
Love the fact you say not to blame the young players then instantly rip Iwobi who is 21 ?
He’s had two seasons in the first team, not like the others
Also, Iwobi IS a bit shit.
I hate to have to rip into our players, especially the young ones but if Iwobi is a bit shit (which he has been recently) what is Holding? He’s absolute garbage at the moment! Iwobi might have had one more season in the first team but is one year younger
Q: What is Holding?
A: Yet another decent defender having his potential destroyed by playing for Wenger.
55 for Dat guy… Niceee
Wenger should be ashamed.
and gone.
Sums it up .. months ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxu9ES_H7sE
Honestly it’s hard to tell if we simply have really poor players or if our poor coaching / lack of a tactical strategy makes decent players look really bad. I suspect at this point it’s a bit of both. Every defender we have sans Monreal looks like they don’t know the first thing about defending / positioning etc. Given we have two German World Cup winners, a French starter, a player Barcelona wants and one of the bundesliga players of the year that’s astounding
Welbeck really sums up Wenger. Came here as a decent player, started well and under wengers guidens have developed into a very poor footballer…. That really sums it up for me.
Welbeck was never that good.
As Arsenal fans, we regularly mocked him at United. We just did that thing fans do when they’re forced to find a reason to believe in a player they once mocked now he plays for them.
Agreed he was never that good. But he was never this bad neither….
He was great at the start of the season but he hasn’t been himself since the 2nd injury. How quickly you forget.
Joe Willock — a 6? What am I missing? He was awful and rightly subbed. It’s not his fault that we was selected, but he looked poor out there (and frankly, has never looked terribly convincing).
Gotta agree.
I’ve kept quiet, but really been surprised at the previous praise he’s got from this site. I’ve got the Iwobi vibes off him; not quite sure what everyone is seeing.
He’s very tidy on the ball and a quintessential Wenger academy CM product. But I don’t really see anything striking in terms of ability (I’m hope I’m wrong).
But never felt he was that much at academy level. Chris was a different matter altogether.
Absolutely. Willock was terrible and looked completely out of place. Would have been better to play Chambers there or play a back three. But of course, not Joe’s fault that Wenger played him.
We say Iwobi has lost confidence (was he ever that good?) but what about another alternative…. We keep seeing young players either get bought or come from the academy (remember, they’re not coached by Wenger and the first team coaches there) into the first team, look explosive and generally something unlike what Arsenal have. The more they spend time under Wenger and first team coaching, and the more they learn the Arsenal way, the more average they become. Iwobi Ox Chambers Holding Coq And many more. Can’t be a coincidence anymore, surely? I’m actually more concerned for the likes of… Read more »
I couldn’t agree with this more! So many talented players have somehow lost their confidence and gone backwards. It feels like it happens to us more than other teams despite the fact that we give more playing time.
Humiliated by forest today….hope wenger today saw that this arsenal team is average with zero mental strenght. Worst arsenal team for a long time. They played like they were constipated the whole match….really find it tough to find some positive in a game like that….like it or not….today wenger really deserve the sack
I don’t blame the young players who are thrown in this mess, but what about our ‘senior’ players?
Debuchy played like he’s already off (like Ox vs. Liverpool).
Like blogs said, Elneny doesn’t have the quality to control the midfield.
Welbeck is infuriating, too clumsy on the ball.
Last but not least, Walcott went AWOL with little impact on the game – IMHO he’s ok with the mediocre performances while collects 130k/week.
Arsenal’s season is hanging by a thread called Europa League
I feel so sorry for Elneny. The man plays his heart out, always available for the ball and gets the ball from defense to the attack but no one helps him. Willock was there but he really did not show. On a few times he was running for the ball being passed between 3 forest players busting a gut only to see Walcott just chilling behind the play.
I agree…he really tries hard but he plays it way too safe. He does have a quality final pass (that pass for Lacazette’s 1st goal against Leceister was outstanding) but unfortunately he refuses to take risks and that is what we needed today. Forest had a team full of risk takers today. It doesn’t always work but playing it safe will usually get you a draw or worse at best.
Another very poor display. I was left thinking what exactly are we trying to do? we go through the same routine over and over it becomes horrible to watch and predictable. We’re moving the ball around so slowly from side to side even the BFG would look quick playing against us. After the last few games we’ve played surly it’s time for wenger to seriously help this team become solid defensively or we’ll suffer more slaps as the season grinds on and the confidence is drained. With so many players looking out of sorts It’s easy to pick on them… Read more »
For years we have had a squad of about fifteen first team players, and this year we have about twelve. Added to this there has always been what are prosaically referred to as “deadwood” and always a few youngsters. This is a result of Arsene’s favouritism, he refuses to drop players when they are out of form; his inability to rotate, which means some of the first team are played into the ground while the others rust, and his failure to spend money, in case he upsets some of his favourites. We are always dependent on one or two star… Read more »
Out of the title race out of the fa cup and out of top 4 and Wednesday out of league cup. Wenger destroyed his reputation.
I hope Southampton weren’t watching that Walcott performance.
Don’t worry, they will feel the same way about Theo as Liverpool felt about the Ox.That they can coach them up and you know what? They may be right.
Ha ha, you made a boo boo! You scored Elneny and he wasn’t on the pitch!!
What?
Oh.
I know this has little to do with our insipid performance, but for those listening on BT sport… my days Robbie Savage’s commentary was utter garbage! Nearly had to put the match on mute!
We have to play too many games in few days so we had to make many changes. Starting XI were reasonable. But it felt bad all the time not having any possible game-changer on the bench. If we could have brought Ozil and Sanchez on the pitch for the last 15 minutes, we could have changed the game, and they would still have been ok for wednesday.
Having to rely on Sanchez and Ozil against Nottingham Forest is the very reason they want to leave this club.
Rightly fucking so too.
Bonus rating: 55/10 For Danny Welbeck
We have the worst ‘Senior’ players in world football…I will lose all respect for Theo if he does not leave…The guy has not advanced for 10years and he still wants to sit on the bench. Looks absolutely petrified when someone has the audacity to pass him the ball and expect him to do something like that’s not the job he is being paid 100,000 a week to perform.
Niles and Nelson the only ones who can look anybody in the eye after that.
Arsenal and even more so Wenger, total garbage today. Wenger deserves the same treatment Hughes, a good sacking!!
Think the readers ratings were far more realistic on this one
When will we do that thing again where we replace song lyrics with Arsenal related satire…got to find amusement somehow, no? since the performances aren’t doing it!
Ha! We suck.
Finding it harder to give a shit all the time.
With all due respect blogs, you may think Theo was awful, but Danny was way awfuler. I’d reverse their scores and take a point off each.
But Danny accidentally scored; that has to count for something.
Heh, you’re right. He gets an extra half point deduction for only scoring the ugliest goals of the season.
That one was vintage Welbeckian.
Our club has become a joke. Sad.
Our squad is average, but I think talent wise better than the results suggest. Wenger is definitly not maximising the squad’s potential, limited though it is.
Is it so hard to admit we are shit and have been for a while? But perspective please. I remember the in the early/mid 90’s when we were just turgid to watch.
It’s almost as if history is repeating itself and we are trying to win 1-0 but without any of the defensive strength.
The worst bit is we are in need of about 5 players at least as for me I think some are past it (BFG) others are suspiciously playing below par (Bellerin) and others are just taking the piss (Walcott).
Welbeck – Honestly he is so erratic with touches. Giroud and Lacazette ahead of him by a mile. What is the point of pace when you don’t know how to use it. Walcott – Sell. Should have sold last summer but no buyers. We lack creative depth/technical skill beyond Ozil and Alexis. Even with the two top players we could do with an added option. Like Mahrez. But Liverpool likely to strengthen instead first with Van Dyke next with the Algerian. We will rely on Wenger’s Little Britain project. Iwobi – He needs to be played deeper in midfield holding.… Read more »
I hope that’s the last we’ve seen of Walcott in an Arsenal uniform.
NO spending won’t resolve all our tactical issues but if anything Wenger needs to show some cojones and ruthlessly cut players that do not deserve to be there. Add a player that can at least support or replace your top players.
No Evans nonsense no Elneny quality players.
We need genuine ready to go quality and preferably more creativity/techicality.
Not good enough to rely on what we have. It will be hubris.
None of the players had confidence. Yet more penalties against us, starts to build some stress on the players that whatever they do might not be enough.
It’s starting to filter around the squad and the weakened starting 11 backfired as the youngsters ceded possession all to often.
Game was crying out for an experienced midfielder to settle things down and control the pace of the game. That player should have been elneny.
Just shows how much we are exposed without vision in the team. We really miss Jack, Santi and Zelalem
It probably didn’t help their confidence any knowing there wasn’t quality reinforcement on the bench in case they get in the pinch we always get in.
Now I’ve seen it all.
Stuff like 8-2 admit it but we are no longer competitive with top6 for some time. Wenger has been at the club 4-2 long.
I mean its like before, you felt the pain as if someone was stabbing at your leg everytime we had one of these poor results.
Now you’re numb because its happened so often than frankly your legs have fallen off. The wheels on the bus go round and round.
We play the same crappy style and have the same issues no matter whos playing. We alsways cut inside rather than playing wide…..we always get exposed on the counter attack. We give the ball away in our half or fail to clear the ball. We snatch at players in the box….we dont shoot when we have a chance…..
Seems like tactical issues to me….or all our players stink.
Most other teams did play stronger sides though. I guess were prioritizin the caribou cup
With the prices of players in the current market, i’m afraid we are well and truly out of the race for the next 5 to 10 years under the current regime. sorry folks