Arsenal: Szczesny, Sagna, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Arteta, Wilshere, Rosicky, Ozil, Cazorla, Giroud
Subs: Fabianski, Jenkinson, Monreal, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Podolski, Sanogo, Bendtner
Arsenal moved to within a point of leaders Chelsea after a 0-0 draw against Man Utd at the Emirates this evening.
Arsene Wenger made two changes from the team which lost 5-1 at Anfield, recalling Kieran Gibbs at left back, while Tomas Rosicky replaced Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in midfield.
Having conceded early in the weekend game, Arsenal almost did the same again in the 2nd minute. Arteta got caught on the ball, van Persie found himself one on one with Szczesny but the keeper made the save. It was a poor effort really, but a let off for Arsenal all the same.
Arsenal had two chances to opening the scoring moments later. After a good run a Jack Wilshere shot was blocked out for a corner, and from the set-piece Olivier Giroud headed wide with the goal at his mercy. All this inside 5 minutes.
Tomas Rosicky saw a shot deflect towards goal but it was easy enough for de Gea to deal with, and the game settled down after the hectic start.
In the 19th minute Robin van Persie beat the offside trap and got into the Arsenal box, but his right footed effort was skewed way wide. Giroud had another effort from a corner which was headed over under pressure from Vidic, and after good work from Mikel Arteta, the Frenchman shot over from the edge of the United area.
With tensions high, the game descended into a midfield battle of attrition with neither side comfortable on the ball for any prolonged periods, nor creating any real chances.
It was, frankly, not the calibre of game you expect from Arsenal and United, and the teams went in level at the break.
The visitors made a half-time change, bringing on Rio Ferdinand for Rafael, and caused an early scare when Carrick flicked a Juan Mata free kick across the Arsenal 6 yard box but out for a goal kick.
The game continued at the soporific pace of the first half with possession being traded easily between the two teams, and once more the fear factor inhibiting performances.
In the 62nd minute Arsenal had the first chance of the half and almost scored when Koscielny’s header from an Ozil corner was cleared off the line by Antonio Valencia. Giroud then went down under a challenge from Vidic, but the referee waved away the penalty appeals.
At the other end Szczesny had to be out smartly to head away from van Persie who had got in behind the Arsenal defence.
Arsenal brought on Oxlade-Chamberlain for Rosicky while United took off Mata for Januzaj. Arsenal’s best moments came for Giroud and he had a good chance in the 76th minute. Sagna crossed to the near post, Giroud got in behind Vidic, on the run, but couldn’t get a touch and it went out for a goal kick.
Moments later United almost scored themselves. Rooney crossed it for van Persie at the back post. The Dutchman powered a header at goal from close range but Szczesny stuck up a big hand and tipped it onto the bar.
At the other end Ozil and Cazorla combined to creat a shooting chance for the Spaniard but his international teammate de Gea got down well to make a good save at his near post.
Mesut Ozil had a free kick in a good position but hit the wall, and Cazorla, Arsenal’s most dangerous player, forced de Gea into another late save with a right footed effort.
In the end, despite Arsenal being the most adventurous of the teams, no breakthrough could be found and the game finished scoreless.
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Szczesny MAN OF THE MATCH!
That says it all.
When Szczesny at home is our man of the match against the man united of this season then you know arsenal have a problem
Strange thing there best player was there goalkeeper. Flat game until about the 80th minute then it picked up. Can’t fault any of the players they defended very well it seems that’s what we set out to do.
According to who, Michael Owen? Owen picked Scezesny because he’s a cunt. Owen, not Scezesny. Trying to portray our gk as the saviour which is bullshit even though that was a great save from Van Persie.
Agree completely! I said as soon as Owen picked Szczesny for MOTM that he was only doing it to make it seem like Man U were better. Completely misrepresents both teams’ performances.
Owen will forever be a cunt. Not only is he ridiculously biased when commentating but he is the most boring person to listen to. Probably the only negative of BT sports, someone should really start a petition to get him removed.
Ozil was our best player.
Sorry, Koscielny was MOTM for me
So this is how to respond to a 5-1 accident!
Where is the accident? We went gung-ho at the back against a creative attacking team, and sat back for a 0-0 due to lack of confidence, lack of substitutions and fatigue against a shit team. No accidents in these results, just playing completely into the gameplans of other big teams.
Yawn
Giroud I love you, I know you bring a lot of work rate and heart to the team.. But you should put at least one of those away
After the misses he’s had this season he should have put all those away.
Sczcesny drew us this match and Olivier Giroud Helped.
This is where our lack of transfer business comes to fore. would have won this match with a more cinical striker. i have no doubt in my mind
there were no “clinical” strikers this pre-WC transfer window. Chelsea with all the millions couldn’t find one.
In my mind, I think having walcott available we would have won this match no doubt.. And that shit faced cunt Valencia had to be at the right place to clear bosscielny’s header..
Just play the fucking strikers we already have!
On point! And to be honest, benteke would surely have converted one of those, after giroud failed to make any contact with that sagnas delivery, I flashed back to bentekes goal against us at villa park. Giroud is a great lad but for the sake of arsenals progress we need a proper finisher who anticipates like mad.. E.g Mario mandzukic(he bagged a hat this night) not that they were all stunning goals but he has a poachers instinct which sadly giroud hasn’t
Well there’s no point complaining about it now is there? We take what we have and go with it till the end of the season…
Come on Sanogo…
Giroud was isolated up front all game. Nobody ever makes runs into the box from midfield. He is one against two or three defenders every time.
For me, Podolski should have been the one to replace Rosicky, and the Ox should have replaced Wilshere. Both of those are much more likely to push up and offer options in the box.
Defend what you wanna defend I agree on your points. The point most are trying to make though, he isn’t quality enough as a finisher. He had 2 or 3 opportunities today. Flubbed them all, I never player bash, but Giroud is moving closer, and closer to getting bashed. Not that I count for shit anyway.
Yes, when Cazorla is our only goal threat, then you know we’re in trouble… He’s the only one who tries to make a bit of space and shoot. Everyoe else is either waiting for a pass or laying off. Awful.
I have to agree. Giroud should have scored today. It’s been like this in the big games at home this season, Although Cazorla was good we need our big striker to develop a goal scoring hunger. I don’t see any reason why he can’t be a Falcoa type. If he can’t develop that side shortly, then we would really need to spend big bucks on a complete world class striker. There aren’t many available either.
Part of it is to do with not having an adequate replacement to take some of the pressure off him, but yes his finishing isn’t on par with his hold up play, and when his hold up play is off…when we have another Bendtner on the pitch….something tells me that Sanogo could turn out to be the X factor…….
Giroud’s play has steadily declined as teams figure out how to play him. His touch and control in the attacking third are generally awful, can’t even count how many turnovers he has and really the only goals he seems to score are close in finishes, no ability to control, turn and shoot.
honestly I don’t think hes good enough, although I like him, he is just not the answer
Wenger should have brought on Podolski. We lacked someone who can just take a shot and has a killer finish. I’m starting to think Wenger has a problem with him and I’m afraid he might start looking elsewhere for first team opportunities. In fact, I find myself disagreeing with almost all of Wenger’s subs these days. He never makes a sub before the 70th minute and often just makes 1 or 2 on the 80th. Just look at Mourinho, if something’s not working and the team aren’t scoring he makes subs in the 55th minute to change the game. Also… Read more »
If we can’t do it against Liverpool and United, beating United and Chelsea is a big ask.
Not exactly the kickass response we expected…
Against big teams this year we’ve been so shit because we’re playign exactly into their gameplan. When we’re supposed to sit back and play cautious against teams with 40+ goal difference, like Man City and Liverpool, we go completely gung-ho. When we’re supposed to be more ambitious against defensive-minded teams, we are happy with a draw. Great game wasn’t it? Predictable as always, making 1 substitution “or else the team will be imbalanced!”, pushing NOBODY AT ALL forward except Giroud, and except in the last 10 minutes, and punctuated by rotational fouling. Finally, Mark Clattenberg, posing as if he was… Read more »
Cool, so what are the keywords that trigger “Your comment is awaiting moderation”?
Its stubborn pride on Wenger’s part. Let’s hope he gets the tactics right against Bayern.
Jack needs a rocket up his rear end.How many times did he give the ball away tonight.
Take the point but not good enough.Well played Chessers
Jack is a fucking liability. He’s not a bad footballer, but I don’t know what happened to that 19 year old kid who dismantled Barcelona’s midfield. That kid who had a brilliant grasp of the basics of football, who did the simple things perfectly rather than attempt things he couldn’t do, and who actually seemed to know what his role in the team was. I don’t know if it’s because he’s been played all over the midfield, and now he wants to be an attacking midfielder when he’s playing centre-mid. But he’s completely forgotten what it is he’s supposed to… Read more »
Could a pply the exact same comment to aaron ramsey last season.
Yeah, well, at least someone’s trying to win us the game.
what game was I watching? I thought he played well!
How fickle we are, it was less than a month ago when Jack scored one and had a beautiful interception and assist when we beat Villa 2-1. After that it was all, ‘thats the man who was MOTM against Brazil, the old Wilshire is back’. A month earlier After Man City, Jack was held up as everything that was wrong about how we played. Jack is having an inconsistent season, like pretty much anyone who has missed a huge chunk of their short career to injury is liable to do. Class is permanent and Jack is 3-6 months of consistent… Read more »
Wherefore art thou Aaron Ramsey?
I don’t understand why Wenger let him stay on. He was a liability through out and should have been subbed instead of Rosicky.
Agree, I was screaming after 60 min to take him off. I have said it before on this site that he does not make himself available to get the ball enough. How many times was he hiding behind a w@nker in black in mid-field when his team mate needed someone to pass the ball to. And couple of times he lost it in dangerous positions, and then just jogged back.
Can’t believe the number of times he lost it in midfield, I think he lost it before Van Persie’s chance….he should have been subbed instead of Roza
If a striker fails to put a shot on target in 2 to 3 games, its the coach’s job to put in a substitute. I love Giroud and am not a coach, bt giving bendtner and poldi some good playing times will help this team, since we have no other options
Someone file a missing Podolski report
We’re lacking pace so badly up front.
A shame really because Manure really were begging to get shafted up the arse when we broke forward but there was no viable target to aim for at that speed. Manure, to their credit, were absolutely awful throughout but may have nicked it by scoring one and parking the bus.
let’s add composure and some responsibility/risk-taking as well to the list of things that have seem to have evaporated in the last few games… It’s the age-old ‘lacking confidence’/’pass instead of shoot’ mentality by the midfielders.
I am very supportive of Giroud as a striker, but right about now is a good time for him to get back into some goal scoring ways and lift the team up and instill some confidence because we’ve shown that we CAN do it.
Today I miss Theo. I love Ox and Gnabry but they are not Theo. I didn’t see the sense in substituting Rossa when Wilshere was way awful. How we can’t beat a small team like Man U is still beyond me!!!
Our attacking play has been poor since Ramsey and Walcott went out injured, only to be covered up by Cazorla and AOC. We so needed a new attacker in January.
Giroud was poor most of the time, I wish Wenger had replaced him with the Ox at 60min, and maybe Poldi out left for Ozil with Cazorla moving to the center.
Flaccid performance up front.
I’m not going to be overly critical of Giroud mainly because the service he got wasn’t exactly the best, and he was also the victim of a back Man U for that seemed to have nothing but elbows for limbs, but yeah, it would be nice if he could’ve just hulked them off and scored something…
four*
have we no plan b, seriously I knew giroud was not going to score, the poor bloke looks wrecked and add that to the fact he has no pace and it makes us completely toothless up top. Why on earth did podolski or even bentdner not come on or even sanogo just to give us a bit of urgency in attack. I watched giroud at about the seventy fifth minute and he could not stand up straight he was that tired and man u had possession right in front of him. I don’t know, I think we are way to… Read more »
True….Wenger used to LOVE pace, and midfield slashers/finishers before he started collecting ball players for fun….Anelka, Overmars, Ljunberg, Henry, Pirez…heck, you can throw in Wiltord as well….(OLD TRAFFORD, CHAMPIONS SECTION…etc).i think he gets obsessed with a certain kind of player in different periods of time
that kid Zelalem could had found better pass than some our midfielders !
Hard to find a good pass when you got nobody running onto them. We need penetration in the form of Ramsey and especially Walcott. Without the pace of Theo we are simply very predictable at times.
Pass to who at times when we broke in the first half we attacked with a grand total of three players. Tactics were just negative.
SZCZ said no Robin, SZCZ said no.
What a save.
fuckin Man U, just, pushing and shoving always to try to break our game. Moyes isn’t even needed, the players have it ingrained in their cheating ass blood.
The new Stoke?
Stoke United feeding crosses to their Dutch Crotch.
We love Giroud but to be honest we need a striker this summer.
Yup. He aren’t just good enough realistically.
Not horrible, not great
We’ve been like this throughout the whole season. It’s a miracle that we are where we are, so there’s that.
We’re 3 points ahead of Pool and 6 ahead of Spurs. Being second right now isn’t much of an achievement. Their game in hand is home to Sunderland. The team has dug deep this season, but there’s so little cohesiveness, especially without Ramsey.
I’m so done
See ya!
You make wee Davey, look good
make wee davey, look good
Oh arsene wagner,
even wee davey’s looking good.
Hes still shite.
I don’t get it, why didn’t we used all our subs and replace those tired legs which gets really obvious in the final 15 mins.
Because substitutions have always been Wenger’s weak point. He just seems blind to the obvious, and sometimes you just need to do the obvious. It’s been like this for years.
Wenger said the players were nervous…i think Wenger was nervous in his subs, as always…a bold substitution sends a message to the team, as in “We’re gonna f*ckin gonna pull our fingers out “…even ten minutes isn’t long enough for a player to get into the rhythm of a game
I think he was nervous about RvP, which in my opinion was a well-reserved risk – he knows Arsene Wenger as well as anyone and how to open up the team. The only two real scares were from the traitorous cuntsie, and by adding in someone to go bombing forward, he would take a risk. Personally, I would prefer that we just went for it, and had some more faith in sczez and mertescielny, especially since Arteta would stay on for the full 90, but you know, hindsight is 20/20. A sub after 80 really has as good a chance… Read more »
Giroud you maggot!
2 points dropped… Light on ideas up front
Hello? 5 points dropped in the last two matches. 0 goals scored from open play.
The reason Giroud’s poor is because he has no competition
The reason Giroud is poor is because he is poor.
Giroud’s not poor.
Exactly. He always has plenty of chances…
No, he just can’t score when you need him.
wengers dream striker giroud !!!! hahaha
He frustrates our playmakers and makes them look like they’re playing poorly..when its this things that he keeps on doing.
eg not connecting his passes
Piss poor finishing.
Terrible ball control
etc.
the main reason Giroud is poor, is because he has no wide pacey players running and widening play. he plays with his back to the ball and that’s great to create space in behind, but there’s no one there to take it up! our attacking game plan has gone to the dogs
Times like this (seems to happen every season), when I wonder if Wenger has a plan for scoring goals, most of the time the team looks lost and only tries to keep possession before squandering it on some hopeful ball.
Also, why do we always pass to players that are under pressure? So many time possession was gifted by passing to the feet of a player that was well-marked by a United player.
Arsenal (mostly Giroud and Ozil) need to find some attacking mojo, and pronto.
People tend to forget that Giroud is playing 2-3 v. 1 at almost all times every match. Once you have your back to the goal, that’s it. You can’t turn, you can’t shoot – which is why I think Wenger is telling Ozil to have a go more often. Makes sense to me but who knows if it will happen…
What attacking plan?
The reason Giroud’s ‘poor’ is because the rest of the team are playing poorly. 180 minutes of paceless football nonsense. Hardly any attempts to run into space. Pass-pause, pass-pause.
Gnabry and Podolski, please. A tactical re-think necessary.
I’m sorry but, as hard as he works, Giroud can’t be our main striker next season.
Yes he can. It’s just that he needs support in the form of pace just as much as Ozil does. Stick Walcott on the wing and Giroud’s movement will open up space for him. Having said that, bringing in a quick, mobile striker as an ALTERNATIVE option (not above Giroud, not beneath Giroud) is an excellent idea. We don’t need to get rid of Giroud, because Giroud is a perfectly good plan A. The problem is that everyone knows our plan A, and we have no plan B.
THIS. +1 my man.
Or just get a striker with all the qualities of Giroud but whom also got clinical finishing and excellent atk positioning, like Cavani.
But Personally i think we would be better of with a big midfielder like Vieira was, or like City have in Yaya Toure, or Chelsea in Matic. This way we could employ a goalgetter striker up top without missing out on set piece aerial power.
We have Ramsey, he will be back.
Somebody with insight finally. Giroud doesn’t work when there is nobody making runs in behind the defence.
Right? What’s the point of a quick 1-2 if the ‘2’ puts you back where you started..
Could say the same about Ozil…he needs someone running off him. As much as everyone is craving a clinical striker, I just think the team needs more pace.
Rambo and Theo are badly missed at the moment and I think its shown by how pedestrian we look.
Gutted, we could have won and we should have won.
Lord bendtner could had done a better job than giroud..
We need a winger, so much that will give a bit variation, but ohh … is too late now
Where is Yaya Sanogo anyway ?
Jack was not making those runs we badly needed.
2 points dropped.
Sigh
its 540am in Malaysia btw
We couldn’t beat the worst Man U team ever! How’s that sound?
It sucks. And we already lost to them away. Ramsey can’t get well soon enough.
Giroud has been wasteful and tired. I don’t know why Wenger is reluctant to substitute him. In general, Wenger’s aversion to making changes when we need it, is a bit baffling.
2 Points lost for me. We were so much better than them. But we were sloppy in the middle of the park with Wilshere and Arteta unable to hold the ball. Should have gone for a win.
PS: Ozil was pretty good today
Man of the match i thought, no movement, utd parked the bus
It was not just the inability of holding possession. There were no forwards runs from midfield. All 3 of Rosicky, Cazorla and Wilshere decided the best thing was to sit back in space and make themselves available for the backpass and sidepass. Only Ozil took responsibility and tried to force the issue. Seems to me that the priority from the beginning was not to lose. P.S. I have had enough of this direct free kick into wall tradition we insist on repeating each match. New rule should be introduced where if a player kicks their free kick into the wall… Read more »
I wonder sometimes in these situation where Wenger should try and change the game by trying out something new. When he made the substitutions, I think he should have brought Ox for Arteta and Podolski for Rosicky so that we have another option up front in close games where having players committed up front can open the game up.
It did certainly seem like our main priority was not to lose, which is right but our aim should have been not to lose but go all out for a win. We needed this to get back in the title race.
I think we were always in the title race, win, lose or draw this match. This match has more sentimental value to the fans and hence the extreme frustration when we failed to take advantage of their weak campaign.
Giroud just frustrates me, not that I think he is shit just that he is overplayed. Badly needed a striker and didn’t get one when we had the chance, I get that people will say nobody was available but I don’t think thats a good enough excuse not to find backup.
Seriously? If no one was available, then that is a good enough excuse. It’s actually about the best excuse you can have. I’m just not sure I buy it. “No one available at our price hit,” maybe. And that may not be good enough.
At least ozil looked better today
arteta is shit in this match to b honest
Arteta went to the college of sideway passing and came second in his class with Carrick taking top position.
Wilshere man u’s most creative midfielder.
Don’t care if I get thumbs down – fuck every single person in this stadium who started booing our team before the final whistle even blew. They need our support. We’re second in the goddamn league, have some perspective. Regardless of your feelings with the performance, booing won’t *ever* be constructive.
Totally agree with you that booing is not the way forward. I do think they were booing the fact that it looked like the team had settled for a draw (for the last minute or two, when they didn’t even try to play forward). Lesson learned from the home game against Dortmund, I guess, but still not quite the ambition and pride we’d be looking for.
Constant booing is definitely frowned upon, but if you watch, for example, some of Bayern’s games you’ll see that their own supporters will start booing if the team is playing slow or passing it around the back. Maybe its not pleasant, but it gives the team a kick up the backside and tells them they need to play with more energy. Football tickets have never been more expensive and having your team casually pass it around with no threat becomes an insult to you, having paid a healthy sum to watch 90 minutes of supposedly exciting sport.
Well, if you watched the match, you saw how the players reacted when people started booing. It was a kick IN the ass, not a kick up the ass. They looked frustrated. They weren’t tapping it around casually, they were looking for a pass to make and couldn’t find one. And it didn’t help to have several thousand people booing. And I know people are going to say “oh, poor millionaire professional footballers,” but how they “should” react and how they will react are two different things. Fact is, they react poorly when people boo, so that only makes it… Read more »
Also, so many empty seats towards the end of the game when we’re drawing against Manure or whoever is an embarrassment.
What a shirt game!Giro I’d is frustrating to watch…no movement from the team everyone just static. Bayern next?
I hear you bro, what with all these players wearing shirts and stuff….what a shirt game really
Almost as bad as the arsenal city game a few years back, we were so blunt in attack. No effort to score at the end either, almost broke my laptop when we were playing keep ball at extra time!
The Napoli Arsenal game this year when we were playing keep-ball (in the corner) while losing, in the full knowledge that we would come second in the group if we lost, and be eliminated if Marseille scored another couple of goals.
Not signing a striker is costing us the title. Pissed that we cant beat a second rate united.
Not second rate MU … THIRD rate MU.
We have no natural goalscorers in the side, Giroud may have good hold up play, but the bottom line is you need a striker that can score goals to win against the big sides.
To be honest, I’m not that impressed by monsieur Giroud’s hold up play. He isn’t offering much at all to our play, but Poldi doesn’t have the strength nor the speed to stake a claim to the position. I really hope to see an improved performance… if not then Bendtner or, dare I say it, Sanogo will have to step in.
Why does Giroud never turn and shoot?
To be fair Poldi is a fairly clinical goal scorer but I suppose it’s hard to score sat on the bench. Has a decent cross on him too. Seen as how manure really couldn’t be bothered attacking today we could have played Santi central with Jack dropping to the bench and Poldi on the left playing along side his pal Gibbs. Oh well it’s over now move on bring on the bin dippers.
No willing runners
Giroud poor finisher
Rosicky with a game ro forget.
Ozil superb, should shoot more though.
Terrible freekick takers.
Fuck this.
I thought rosicky was one of our better players, would not have taken him off.
I am simply tired of seeing Giroud lying flat on the ground every time he misses a chance. And the fact that it happens too often in a game has a small part in it as well.
Should of went in for the kill
Should have
Should’ve
I cannot understand where “should of” comes from. It’s really fucking upsetting.
Somewhat expected it.
At least Ozil looked great and everyone seemed to have positive attitude. Hope it will spurs a lot of wins just like after playing against City and chelsea.
Giroud is crap ,he missed chances against Chelsea today he was hopeless ,wilshere lost the ball innumerable times and for fucks sake Wenger takes off rosicky ,why the fuck you have podolski on the bench just fucking sell him if he isn’t gonna play we let stupid team like united take 1point fuck man can’t watch games against city and Chelsea hopeless Wenger bought karlstorm
Eloquent. Helpful. Thanks….
Quite right sir! Some of the comments here you get the feeling like they are plain scared to say it like it is or don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. Fucking dorks!
Come back gervinho all is forgiven!
no Ramsey, no Walcott no title me thinks…
Bollocks
Ozil was very good. Worked his socks off.
and from the cut back to cazorla we should have scored.
not happy with girouds performance. Ciuld have done better.
Should’ve had a pen.
Moments after that the ref gives a free kick against Sagna (I think it was Sagna anyway) for a “push” on a Utd player.
Could be a good point come the end of the season.
I love giruod. Like a lot, but we need another striker. He’s hard working, great teamplayer and handsome as fuck, but right now he is not clinical enough.
Oh, and btw why the fuck didn’t we use our subs?
I’m surprisingly unhappy about this. Normally I’d take a draw against United, but this is probably the worst United side we’ve faced in decades, and they’re not likely to get any worse than this. One loss and one draw against them when they’ve hit rock bottom just isn’t good enough. It almost felt to me like we were satisfied with a draw. Why else would we have three forwards on the bench (Bendtner, Sanogo and Poldi), but only put on Ox for Rosicky? We could’ve used either some pace (of which we have very little of at the moment) or… Read more »
was screaming for podolski to come on for giroud, and i know he works and i know podolski aint a great stc, but he does have PACE and hes better with his feet. i say extend bendtner AND sign a different type stc walcott being out really exposes us ox is too different
we need aaron back ASAP
Race for top four is on!
Sorry sight to see. You can’t convince me this team can win the title. I’m sure many will not be happy with comments like this but let’s be realistic for once. Playing like cowards to a shit united team.
I am not sure if anyone else noticed it or not but i find it sort of sad that every time Ozil runs forward with 3-4 defenders ahead of him, he is looking like going for that pass which would unleash the man ahead through on goal but instead chooses to hold it back and slow down the tempo of the game because he knows there is no pace ahead.
Of course there is no pace ahead of him; often today there wasn’t even a PLAYER ahead of him (except for double- and triple-marked Giroud).
This was a big problem. Several times Giroud won the ball against Vidic or Ozil was doing a terrific run, but they were practically alone. I guess we were being a bit overly defensive, which is not surprising given the Liverpool match. Still somewhat annoying tho.
So many times Ozil would make a great run and then a great pass to Giroud and then Giroud would lose it.
Think this was mainly because we had no-one running in to the areas where he would play the pass…
That was a clear penalty non awarded! Proved to be costly in the end thanks ref! 🙁
And Vidic should have seen red!!
Arsenal FC totally deserved to be roundly booed at the final whistle. With 2 minutes to go and in need of a winning goal, what do we do? Waste all that time exchanging passes between Koscielny, Mertesacker and Arteta. Yeah, very likely to see a goal coming out of that. I’ll be fucked! I’m from a time when Arsenal dared to win. And I’m sick and tired of this tikka takka rubbish, 5 meter passes that doesn’t take us anywhere. This super possession football may work against smaller teams, but stronger opposition knows exactly how to defend against that, as… Read more »
You’re about as stable and helpful as your name. That wasn’t tiki-taka. I was yelling with others: we had the momentum. But a time when “Arsenal dared to win”? Get over yourself.
On that we can agree. We had momentum and United was cornered indeed. Yet instead of seizing that moment of pressure, we spent the last 5 minutes of the game passing it at the back with the serenety of a team who’s leading 3-0. So, yeah, the team didn’t dare enough. Maybe that old mental block gets in our way once again. It’s now 14 matches against ManU and we’ve only managed 1 win. You’d expect it would be different against Moyes, but it’s not the case so far. I’m afraid it was United who had the 2 best chances,… Read more »
wengers dream team ! AHHHHHaaaaa
Not the best but a positive showing after a really hard game. One less poor finish, or one less good save, or one less velencia off the line and we would has won it.
this result has hurt me more than the Liverpool catastrophe… why? Because we fucking pussied out, we just didn’t want to lose, showed no invention or desire to win the game until the last 15 minutes. So annoyed. To any delusional fools out there who think that we don’t need to replace Giroud- he has now missed two clear cut chances against both Chelsea and United at home, which if he had scored would’ve won us the game and we would have been 4 points better off. we’re not beating bayern next week, and we’re not winning the league. only… Read more »