On the one hand it was very nice to see a 2-1 win. On the other it was something of a stomach churning nail-biter late on as they took advantage of their 10 men – and it really shouldn’t have been that difficult.
Here’s how the players rated.
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Friday, December 20, 2024
I’m awesome. Arsène should play me more.
Nobody can be blamed for this but Giroud and Mr.Atkinson.
Giroud was an idiot for getting sent off that way and this even has long reaching effects.
As for their penalty it was bullshit but he later denied them a pen for the Zamora incident.
Alexis was magnificent even if he missed the pen (Actually Isla pointed to the goalie before Alexis took it, so he dived before it was even hit) with a goal and assist.
Also huge props for Rozza who showed that we should be playing him a whole lot more.
it was Vargas. always that one prick who has to correct everyone…
True Giroud is going to be a big loss when we come up against fat Sam’s team next
I don’t share your views re Sanchez. He gives the ball away too much for my liking. Wenger needs to coach that out of him
And whenever he does give the ball away, more often than anyone can reasonably expect, he wins it back again. Straight away. And off he goes again.
Now why would anyone want to coach what Alexis does out of him.
Wait wut? You’re complaining about clearly our best player tonight, no offense to Rosicky. He completed a league high 11 dribbles in the match today, winding his way thru with easy and honestly rarely giving the ball up, even though their defense was complete shit. He did everything he could to punish them, and even further went out to retrieve the ball after he lost it. If I had the option, I would play 11 Alexis’ on the pitch at once
Well, maybe an Alexis not in goal, though ? 😀
But, yes, certainly ten in the starting line-up and another four on the bench !
Great to see Rosicky back I think our midfield looks so much better with him in the team and I hope he gets a run now. The plus side of all those injuries is that he doesn’t have as many miles on the clock as his age would indicate! 🙂
Very disappointing from OG.
QPR was there for a beating and his red robbed us of the opportunity to give Rio & ‘Arry a proper Christmas stuffing.
Alexis was brilliant, as well as Santi.
Gave Giroud a 0.5, would of given a 0 if possible. I’m a big fan of him but what he did to today was totally needless and inexplicable, despite how the other player reacted. Like his match description says, we are now robbed of another first team player for 3 games in such a busy and important period of the season, and with an already depleted squad it makes rotation that bit more difficult, although thankfully we are strong in that area in terms of numbers.
All in all a good win, just what was needed.
I dont get why people are giving Giroud a big rap about this. They guy CLEARLY shoved giroud into oncoming traffic which could have resulted in a very nasty accident. I honestly think when Giroud took the ball to the face from the shove his immediate reaction was ”what if that was the keepers knee coming flying out 50.50”. I would have been angry too so fuck it. Glad he showed some fight in him it shows his character imo.
You can do that without headbutting the other guy. Even if it was a soft headbutt. Everyone knows that is a 100% red card no matter what. You don’t need to get yourself sent off for 3 games to register your anger at being pushed into the goalkeeper.
Don’t think that was really a headbutt but the QPR bloke really sold it as one. I have more respect for the guy who blew his lid than the one who intentionally shoved an opposing player into his own keeper then fell down faster than Terry’s pants in front of a teammates Mrs at the slightest hint of contact.
But it is really annoying that Oli is out for 3 matches. Could we put some goggles on him and lend him a #11 jersey?
Oh Onuhua was playing for it the whole time no doubt. He was obviously trying to get Giroud sent off from start to finish and it was a super sleazy thing to do. But Giroud knows as well as anyone that when you square up to someone and make head to head contact you’re going to get a red no matter what.
If Onuoha had squared up like a man, which I think Giroud assumed he would, seeing as he’s a big boy and all, both would have received a mere slap on the wrist, I see those head tilting clashes week in and week out with no punishment, Onohua was the true villain here. However, Giroud was playing like a dead donkey and we actually looked better with 10 men until we went 2-0 up and sat back and Wenger subbed on stupid sit back subs when what we needed were proper wingers on the pitch to keep them pinned back… Read more »
Atkinson is a clown
Gibbs is a clown. He has the footballing brain of a dead goat.
Time after time, he has massive brain fart moments in a game. Nothing is being said or done about this.
It was only because of Martin Atkinson’s incompetence that we got away with his stupid tackle.
Funny. I’m thinking ‘fortunate nothing came of that mistimed tackle by Gibbs against a guy that intentionally put an elbow into his face as they fell to the ground on the previous play’.
But I guess some people are just looking for reasons to go at their own club’s players.
All the present PGMO (PL) refs are clowns at the moment.
The worst set of Refs that English (OK, & welsh) football has every had.
Look, Olivier lacked overall quality of his hair due to little bit of rain today. But I belive Martin Athikson was clearly the difference today.
thought the substitutions were a bit bizarre, in my humble one i think we showed far too much respect to QPR but hey, we won and we blocked some efforts tonight that maybe last week would’ve gone in.
Rosicky looked again like he’s turning back the years; always feel happy and sad to see him play, even more so when he scores. You can tell how much this club means to him and I can’t help but feel wistful that he’s in his twilight years of playing football (though his performances bely that).
We have lost 11 points from winning positions this season, including throwing away a 3 goal lead against Anderlecht. Even with the subs I was having a nervous breakdown every time QPR put the ball in the box.
………..QUE?
0/10 for Rio Ferdinand for being a useless prick who should’ve been carded again for the neck grab on Giroud. Stick to tweeting.
Trevor Morley was in the studio here in Norway as usual. His opinion was that both Giroud and Ferdinand should have seen the red, and I agree.
The look on his face when Giroud headbutted Onuoha said it all, he still has intense hatred for us from the days that he used to get bullied by Paddy and humiliated by Henry.
Cunt.
Another game, another day with referees nearly ruining the game. First Giroud stupidly headbutts Onuoha he was shown a red, fair enough. But why wasn’t that cunt Ferdinand shown a second yellow for grabbing Giroud by the neck?
Then Debuchy goes in and gets the ball and from literally 5 yards away the ref gives them a penalty, what a fucking joke.
They showed the incident fromba good angle here after the match, looked pretty much like Debuchy didnt touch the ball at all. Hoilett let his leg hang back and threw himself down, but there was contact.
Read the Arseblog match report he got a touch
http://arsenalist.com/f/2014-15/arsenal-vs-qpr/horrible-penalty-decision-against-debuchy.html
Thats very difficult to judge. It would help if replays from both angles were in slo-mo.
You’re taking the piss, right?
Debuchy definitely got the ball, but from the ref’s angle it may not have looked like it. He also pulled his leg back and Hoilett had to force the contact himself. Again, the ref was skillfully conned. To the ref’s credit, he didn’t call a pen on Gibbs later. If we had to lose depth at a position, forward is where we can most afford it. Giroud’s our best option up top, but Welbeck can move over and Podolski come into the wide left spot. Or Sanogo can be put up there. We can survive this. I’m more concerned with… Read more »
Wait but no matter how little contact he got on the ball look at the replay again there was SO little contact on the player
Stick to the scriptures bruv….
Sorry Taz, all the replays I saw he conclusively got the ball and was drawing back before the contact that Hoilett completely moved away from the ball to make happen. Shockingly the commentators had the same opinion. Refs don’t have replays, but if they did no way that’s a penalty. Debuchy didn’t scream and shout because he’s not a cunt, and because he knows he plays for the Arsenal so the call is not going his way.
Debuchy got the ball and in PL that’s a penalty. If he was playing for Qpr it is not. Mertesacker was cut down in the Qpr box and the retarded referee waved it on. Offcourse giroud gets a red for pressing his forhead against against another players forhead. Had he at least tried to strangle him with a chokehold
Atkinson could have let it slide, like the alexis episode against Stoke. To touch someone with your forhead is really bad.
the fact that the ball was out of play leaves the referee with no choice, it’s a professional foul; it was literally the only thing happening on the pitch at that moment and it also happened a few feet from the referee, directly in his line of sight. it’s really hard to argue against that call. nowhere near as disgusting as the chokehold on alexis vs stoke though.
Technically, it’s not a professional foul, it’s violent conduct. Even if Ohnowhore had stayed on his feet instead of dropping like a hooker’s panties, Giroud still would have been sent off. What I still can’t understand is how Atkinson didn’t see Ferdinand’s grabbing Giroud by the neck. That conduct was just as violent as Giroud’s, perhaps more so, and should have been a straight red.
Alexis Sanchez is such a fantastic player. He will become a club legend! One of the best players I’ve seen as an arsenal fan. More to come from him as well I believe!
COYG!
Had my usual dose of heart attack.
By the end of this season, I should think we will all have developed immunity to heart attacks for the rest of our lives.
Either that, or die before the season ends.
Uncharacteristic mistake by the usually relaxed Giroud. Welbeck I think needs to learn how to make runs from Giroud. His pace is wasted during counter attacks because of poor decision making. Finally, Wenger needs to talk to Sanchez about making simple passes rather than dribbling through 3 or 4 opponents all the time. He kills the attacking momentum when he loses the ball. As for the ref…WTF
Girlie didn’t expect onuoha to go down so easily. You can see that from his reaction. He was just trying to confront him. Which was probably a bad idea. But definitely didn’t try to headbutt him.
*Giroud not Girlie. Stupid autocorrect.
Everyone stood up to be counted. I saw a unit, backs to the wall, determined to make the best of a mess created by one of their own. Those 10 warriors deserve a 10 too. I wouldn’t bother to rate them individually except Giroud who should learn not to lose his head – a 1 for him.
Alexis (the general) and Rosicky ( his leutenant) deserve special mention though and maybe Flam for that last minute block.
Even the goal they let in was made by the referee.
1 goal, 1 assist, 11 take-ons and 4 shots from Alexis Sanchez. An explosive performance from the lad!
The stupidest thing about Giroud’s red card is that he was having a pretty decent game up to that point. If I could rate Atkinson in negative numbers, I would. He was dreadful, although to be fair at least he was dreadful once towards QPR as well. Still, I’m not going to get upset over the match. We won, and there were some real star performances. Rosicky was brilliant (SO glad he’s finally fit again!), and Cazorla and Sanchez were sublime. We were solid at the back, and Monreal and Flamini in particuarly both had very good games. We should… Read more »
I love it when santi plays in deep midfield(albeit against weak opposition). He seems to play well there, even though it would be unacceptable against a chelsea or man city. I feel like if possible we should field a front three of santi – welbeck – walcott maybe podolski instead just so that we can rest sanchez. I have this fear that some thug from west ham injures alexis and if that happens lord knows what would happen to us.
Sanchez has played December 6, 13, 21, and 27. He was subbed off in two of them. Why does he need to be rested?
because he was the most hardworking player on the pitch?
Because the next match is tomorrow, following by 3 days later?
Honestly don’t see Wenger buying a CB in January if Montreal keeps opposing forwards in his back pocket like he did today.
We have 2 ACTUAL center backs in our squad, Wenger has to buy another CB.
Amazing that inept refereeing did not cost us today. Poor, shocking decisions all around the league today which is unfortunately pretty standard. Three sweet points!
It’s likely he cost us points (a point?) against Chavski, so he was just trying to be consistent.
For me Flamini deserves 7.5 for his energy and the positive attitude. How come Wenger does not use Rosicky ? Are we Barcelona or Real ? Even for those teams he would deserve to get in as a substitute. Welley, thanks for your hard work but you are a striker. What about a couple of goals ? Plus, allow the boss to bench Giroud for a long run.
TR7 has been injured quite a bit this season (but not all the time).
The positives: – Great to see Rosicky back, amazing how he stepped right in gave 80 good minutes with playing so little this year, a true professional in every sense. – Carzola continues to be one of our best players (along with Alexis) this season. He is all over the pitch, comes back on defense to help defend, works to receive the ball all over the field, has such great footwork and is one of the few professional players anymore that can use both feet equally well. So glad Wenger didn’t sell him. – Monreal I don’t think gets enough… Read more »
We are light in the MF at the moment due to injuries but we’re ‘winger’ heavy at the moment as well.
Game was complicated but glad the squad was able to defend the lead. However, Welbeck in particular needs to do something in order to score. Its almost pathetic, that a winger is our top scorer (thanks AS17). As a forward, if you cannot score goals, you shouldn’t be on the starting eleven.
Not really, have a look at Madrid. Theres a winger there who scores way more goals than the rest of the team combined. However Benzema still gets to play, because he makes a nuisance of himself allowing Ronaldo space.
can Jenkinson play against us on Sunday? or does his contract with West Ham forbids him playing against us?
He probably won’t be allowed which would be extremely hypocritical of Wenger.
Arseblog any stats re: Alexis, I’d like to know how many times he turned over possession. Seems to be like 80% of the time he gets on the ball he makes a bad pass or gets tackled. However the other 20% of time he is simply amazing.
IIRC it’s a premier league rule. Every time this comes up Arsene makes some comment about how he doesn’t like that rule and would void it if he could, so either he’s been conning us all for a decade or it’s not up to him.
Can’t wait till Mesut, Theo & Ramsey & Alexis all play at the same time!!
Welcome back to the Little Mozart! I look forward to more of him in the 2nd half of the season.
As for Giroud–well, Wenger should put him over his knee and paddle him for that silly fit of pique.
Very harsh rating for flamini . Credit where it due he did HIS job very well today. At least 7.5 if not an 8 or 9.
Agreed! Did some great work defensively in the last few mins.
Flamini did really well today, his positioning denied them a late goal as well!
Welbeck is ignored by his teammates cos he makes the wrong runs. Look at the Rosicky goal for instance, he runs INTO defenders with Sanchez on the ball instead of providing an option to pass to and stretching the QPR banter defence. Good a thing Rosicky made the right run and nicked the goal. I love Welè’s workrate though. He’ll be a top class player eventually with Wenger’s guidance
I’m sure i saw welbeck making a great run on the left side like rosicky did on the right and was free but alexis that time decided to cut inside and shoot and ball was blocked off out to a corner.
I thought welbecks movement on that play was excellent, created space for alexis to run into and opened up space for Rosicky. I think welbeck does this a lot and needs to be recognized
See the bigger picture, Wellbeck’s run helped create the space for Rozza to run into that to his credit, he finished brilliantly. Great to see TR7 back. Now Wenger just needs to make sure he stays there!
Anyone know what made L’Oreal so cross in the first place? He seemed to just decide to act hard for a bit
Giroud needs to control his emotions. Having a poor first touch/not synchronizing well with our attacking players doesn’t mean he can square up to the fist defender that hangs a big toe on his Achilles
Oh – and yes, that was a nailed on penalty we gave away, despite how much he made a meal out of a starter.
I understand Jenks cant play.
Good lad!
Welbeck doesn’t identify the space or move into it quickly enough for our playmakers to reach him. If/when he does he is moving into the same areas as Giroud. Meaning Giroud is the preffered big-forward option as he makes brilliant runs all the time but fails to convert.
It’s easier to work on finishing rather than positional awareness. There’s a reason why Pirlo, Gerrard, and Lampard are such brilliant holding-ish midfielders, it’s because their positional awareness is basically flawless at their age.
Lampard hasn’t ever been a holding midfield player, Gerrard has been for a season and a half and been pretty awful at it too?!?!
So what are the chances the FA will make it a 1 match ban after viewing the videos? I mean there wasn’t “contact”, you know…
Being Arsenal, I’d guess zero chance, unfortunately.
They’re more likely to make it a five match ban.
It should be a one match ban based on common sense. However, the game of football is not governed by such subjective rules and what Giroud did warrants a 3 game ban. Unfortunate but true.
Violent conduct is 3 games, sounds fair to me. Headbutt is a headbutt, they can’t write rules to say if he’s crap at headbutting give him a less punishment.
I agree 100% it was a dumb choice for him to touch foreheads.
The level of officiating has been appalling across the board. You can count on 2-3 blunders every game. You just have to hope it’s in our favor more than against us.
‘more in our favour’, That won’t happen!
Although to be fair, this season all the refs are crap in all the games, not just ours.
I know this rating is just for fun and all, but 6.5 for Flamini? He’s been great I think, as long as who ever players playing along side him are discipline enough. & even tho that was a bad judgement by Giroud, let’s be fair here, it’s not like he actually head butt the shit out of that defender, it was barely a touch is it? It was a sinister & dangerous push that he just received. He reacted badly, but it’s understandable to me. With the attacking talents that we got, I think we can cope the next three… Read more »
Flamini is the type of player that will carry his wrong-doings with him from match to match based on the simple fact that his task is thankless and often goes unnoticed when he does job correctly. All the greatest holding(dictating) midfielders generally play second-fiddle to whomever they are passing to.
Flamini however, is a below average midfielder past his prime with good intentions. It’s a managerial issue when he’s our only alternative to arteta or an aaron/jack midfield basis.
I am thinking maybe Wenger was holding back Rosicky for the 2nd half of the season.
We play with more pace when he is in the team
in the last 5 minutes of the game when we were defending the lead i saw 2-3 players throwing themselves out to block the shots, that’s new i couldn’t believe my eyes, i don’t remember when was the last time that our players defended like that throwing themself to block the shots, if they do that type of defending in previous games i’m sure we would have 7-8 points more to our tally.
Decent performances but Giroud mate, you let is down
Debuchy got the ball and in PL that’s a penalty. If he was playing for Qpr it is not. Mertesacker was cut down in the Qpr box and the retarded referee waved it on. Offcourse giroud gets a red for pressing his forhead against against another players forhead. Had he at least tried to strangle him with a chokehold Atkinson could have let it slide, like the alexis episode against Stoke. To touch someone with your forhead is really bad.
Onuoha should win an oscar, so should hoilett.
0/10 stewards for kicking out more fans for standing…
Ohhh please… I would like to see you how calm are you? Yes it was dumb decision from Giroud but not because he rubbed him a little but he should hit him harder for a red card, too soft to get it imo. For me I know that I wouldn’t be so nice. I admire footballers because of this how calm they stay through the game. We fans would be fighting each other but they don’t. They are mentaly so good prepared. So don’t be mad on Giroud. He had a solid game until that. Our poet said once “only… Read more »
Spot on Welbeck analysis. Worked hard, but didn’t get the ball from his mates too much. Obviously works better with chambo.
Fucking hell people, are you being serious?!? ‘Sanchez should be BETTER ON THE BALL!’ I seriously can’t believe it. This guy ran more than I’ve run in my short life, he chases down, he harries and most importantly he takes us through games. If this was a Ronaldo or a Messi or a Hazard everyone would be cleaning up their jizz. The reason we won the game was because of him. Yes at times he may hold up the ball, but maybe that’s because he’s the only one that is a REAL threat. I love santi and tr7, but at… Read more »
Only 1 game but…Rosicky > Wilshere, can’t believe the manager decided to play his out of form youngsters until they get injured, then only decide to rotate by necessity. He could have used combinations of Rosicky/wilshere or Ramsey/ rosicky instead but choose to persist with his stubbornness of playing both when they’re out of form and then wen they find some, are out injured because of the non-rotation… And then what was that Chambers sub to RB about? Hoilett, if he was more skilled on crosses would have killed us on that wing in that last period… God thank you… Read more »
“can’t believe the manager decided to play his out of form youngsters until they get injured, then only decide to rotate by necessity” / “choose to persist with his stubbornness of playing both when they’re out of form” Absolutely ridiculous point substantiated by 0 facts. Yes, Ramsey and Wilshere played a lot together at start of season, but were they not rotated? No. If you even remember, or actually watch our matches, you will know that they were rotated with Santi/Ox for all those games. That was back when we had Ozil and most people fit, so obviously Tomas hardly… Read more »
I think the point he’s trying to make is that Rozza should be part of that equation. Neither Rambo, Ozil or Santi have been at their best this season plus Jack attracts loads of knocks due to his style of play. Rozza should have been part of the rotation as our midfield is always slicker and quicker when he plays.
TR7 has been injured a bit this season as well.
Yes, my point wasn’t to highlight the weakness of the ramsey/wilshere partnership, my real gripe was that Wenger decided to play any one of them even if they’re clearly not playing well. You have a big squad to rotate not only for injuries…but also for players who haven’t been performing well. And you didn’t need to remind me how he likes to put players out of position to accommodate Wilshere in that no 10 role ie ozil and santi being push to the wings
Thankless task. Flamini. Considering Chambers has made way more mistakes that have led to goals and people tend to be less critical of him. The fact is that we have been decent against teams with DMs like Wanyama or Bender, we have not been rolled over as predicted and we do not have a soft centre. We have a back 4 that is limited in number which has added an element of unfamiliarity that has cost us this season. In Arteta’s absence, Flamini has stepped up and been a solid rock for us. No DM can cure our ills for… Read more »
Agree with you maddyclaires about Thomas and more rotation from the boss. The Chambers to RB switch scared me too but I can only think that the manager was worried that Debuchy could pick up a 2nd yellow on a tricky Hoilett. If Hoilett could cross, we would have been punished. I’m not a big fan of young Chambers at RB at the moment. He gets turned too easily by technical guys. He’s still learning the game, so he can never be the fall guy for now. But for now, Monreal should be considered 3rd choice CB until we sign… Read more »
Didn’t like Martin Keown tonight. Thought he misrepresented the club the way he criticised us. Who did we replace with Vermaelen? Chambers maybe? Come on Martin, don’t fall victim to BT Sports and their inept commentary.
Haha, absurd. Chambers had never played CB before in his life, and currently Wenger prefers both Montreal and Debuchy at CB over Chambers.
he has, with England U20s
Sanchez is absolutely immense. What a wonderful player.
*Giroud not Girlie. Stupid autocorrect.