Arsenal’s risible injury record hit hard today as the Gunners, without key men like Arteta, Ramsey, Ozil, Wilshere and Welbeck, as well as the stupidly suspended Olivier Giroud and good bench fodder like Lukas Podolski, struggled to break down the Saints.
Coupled with mistakes from Wojciech Szczesny and some woeful defending, it’s little wonder that the lack of freshness was reflected in the poor performance.
Oh god is this what 2015 has in store for us? Wake up Arsenal!
Worse part for me is that at the start of summer to resolve our defensive issues all that was needed was strength in depth. We were defensively pretty good last year. Whether it’s because of overplaying or natural regression, I’m now pretty convinced we’ve going to have to look to add measureable quality to compete further. I’m a huge fan of Koscielny and I’ll sympathise with him having the odd bad game, but I’m starting to tire with Merte’s errors – although that being said, nobody at the back was good today. Frustrating to think 7-12 million over the summer… Read more »
Oh look at Chelsea! I would have been happier if they were demolished by another team not Tottenham though!!!!!
Potential Invincible season my arse!
But unfortunately it would have been better for us if the chavs had won today and at southampton
On the Walcott rating:
Surely when you’re on for around 30 minutes, and you barely touch the ball that means you deserve a poor rating rather than getting none at all?
(that’s not to say he’s not excused given his lack of game time, and the way the rest of the team were playing though.)
Wasn’t it Walcott that made the pass to Alexis just before the Southampton yellow which should have been a red? Nevertheless, he didn’t produce much today, but we never managed to get far enough up into attack to let Theo have a run with the ball it seemed.
we’re just not good enough
look at our mediocre squad
really
Alexis’ quality embarrasses almost everyone else
i mean since when a team with starters like Szcz and Gibbs can be a really good team?
also, Ozil’s last season’s first 6 months contribution is so underrated
you can definitely see that now
final thought:
if Wenger doesn’t leave in the summer, i think Ozil and Alexis will be gone in a year or so
I agree. Wenger’s blind, stubborn arrogance and, dare I say it, stupidity have changed what should have been a promising season into an utter shitstorm from the start. He can’t complain about our players being knackered, because it’s our lack of depth that’s lead to this situation in the first place. He’s been papering over cracks for years, and in defence he’s pretty much papering over the Grand Canyon! The sad thing is we probably won’t end up buying what we need in January, if we buy at all, because Arsene doesn’t like it when everyone’s telling him what he… Read more »
Everything about this post is correct. 100%. And it will NEVER get better until Wenger leaves. And I’m a fan of 40 years so you can f*** off if you want to slag me off.
He should have sold Wilshere and brought Cesc back, but of course he was trying to “prove a point” by not doing that and we can all see how that worked for him. His stubbornness will always be his undoing, but it will continue to unravel and in all probability for another two seasons yet, how sad.
Take a stress pill and think things over.
Gibbs is a good player. Szcz….I’m less certain about as time goes on.
We have a squad of talented players but it is poorly balanced, and very, very poorly organised. Would absolutely love to see our squad organized by a tactical coach – Koeman’s team is copybook stuff; the sum of it’s parts is better than the actual players it contains.
Surely that is the benchmark of a great manager – he makes the team better than the mere players within it.
here we go with the media-fuelled bullshit. wasn’t Szczęsny tied with cech on clean sheets last year? and now he’s suddenly shite? been really watching the media work this year concerning him and it’s almost unthinkable how big is the attitude swing. was tipped to be one of the best (in the world!) last year, now not seen as a PL standard. how fucking laughable is that. he ain’t on the top of the world (yet, i hope), but to say Martinez deserves a run is slightly fucking harsh. give the guy a similar back four for a couple of… Read more »
Even fuckin wenger agrees ospina will play sunday. Doesn’t that fuckin say something?
I’m going to assume you’ve been watching the last five or six games, so I’m going to assume you’ve taken note of the number of brain farts which he’s been very, very lucky to get away with. These mistakes are an ongoing part of his game, and unless he eradicates them he is destined to be remembered as a Valdes-esque goalkeeper (if he reaches the top of his game, that is), though perhaps without the unbeatable team in front of him; one capable of great saves but who can never be truly trusted. I won’t insult you by suggesting you… Read more »
Schez mentioned his admiration for Neuer following the world cup, and seemed obsessed with Neuer’s ability as a sweeper keeper. From the start of this season Schez has tried to make a name for himself in the same vein. Except he can’t do it as well.
Tied cuz cech injury and because, last season we actually defended well, as a team, and were more compact, not much about his own skillset but due to the way we defended last season
In a nutshell!
Fair enough, the squad is mediocre when you take away ozil, ramsey, giroud, welbeck, wilshire, podolski, arteta and walcott (did he really play today? could’ve fooled me).
Call me optimistic, but that does not really worry me long term.
What worries me is the defense and goalkeeping.
Yup, both department have cost us dearly so far.
Disagreed! Half of our first team players are either injured or suspended! Unfortunately it will be a bit late this season when they all are OK but I still think that we can have a cup, FA or Big Ears!
Arsenal have the most intensive training sessions in England. Keep that fact in mind. Now see the injury list. Now take in consideration Wenger’s stubbornness. What’s the logical conclusion?
Theo just touched the touch like 5 times in 30 odd minutes..Where was he? A lot was expected of him especially others being so tired playing their third game in 6 days or so
Exactly. If Alexis had been the sub after being out for so long he would have been everywhere trying to retrieve the ball, not standing and being anonymous waiting for service.
That’s Theo’s game all over though, regardless of fitness.
True, Theo is a two trick pony, his speed and shots on target, as long as he gets the ball that is. No involvement in any of the graft or dirty work. Hoping he can prove me wrong now he’s back, allegedly. Although I didn’t notice him on the pitch…
Walcott’s game is mostly based on service though. At 2-0 down, I’m sure he was told to just be on the end of things, not “run araaaand a bit”
And this disregards the fact I think there’s a strong chance Theo is not 100% fit and likely should not have been on the pitch.
That noted, I think its fairly obvious neither is Ox or Kos.
He’s a fucking England international. He should go out there and make a difference. That’s what Alexis does. Wenger should have played him down the middle, but even out wide he should have done something. He needs a fucking kick up the arse. I’m sure Wenger just gave him a nice theoretical discussion after the game.
Lolwut? This was basically his first match in a year, give the kid a break!
1 step forward and 2 steps back – again. Wake up, Wenger!
Strictly speaking, it was 2 steps forward (against QPR and West Ham) and 1 step back today. But it was a huge step back. The defence (supposedly our best) was shambolic, the midfield (decimated) was naive and too often left the defence exposed, and the attack (ill-equipped/tired) was toothless. Big dent to our already shaky confidence. I always thought it would be difficult against So’ton at St Mary’s. They’re ahead of us in the league for good reason. But we handed it to them on a plate, we had no answer to their penetration. Their finishing was poor, frankly no… Read more »
Chambers was certainly poor and had we another fit midfielder… literally any other first team midfielder, he would be starting. The defense had a really bad game overall and require a bit of a run together to settle. I think Ox was as big a culprit our lost midfield battle as anyone. His instinct is to drive forward every time, just drive and fucking drive and when he runs out of steam he make an exhausted, inaccurate pass. Its that Wilshere mentality where he feels he needs to do it all on his own but isn’t good enough to. That… Read more »
It makes me weep to see Cesc in blue.
What a slap in the face of Campbell when a 19 year old Akpom is chosen before him!!! Arsene believes bench strength is for pussies, just to make up numbers as you said. Gibbs for all we can praise about is not more than average. Scz is a cocky idiot who always makes at least one mistake per match, they do not cost us always but when they do, we end up paying the most. We can go on and blame everything from injuries to referring decisions to tired players to the volcanic eruption in Hawaii some three years back,… Read more »
I second your analysis… its a truly sad state of affairs….. >Ooh to b a goona….
The analysis of Clock End Mike that is…..
Can’t believe that comment on Coquelin. The level of bias in some these posts beggars belief.
Oh, so it’s not just me then?
Even being our best player over 2 games, arseblog has this unquenchable desire to write Coq off at every moment. The dude even played as a better DM than Chambers, a player stated as another reason for why Francis isn’t needed.
The boy could perform like a mixture of Gattuso and Pirlo and arseblog would still give faint praise with a caveat of “but will never be good enough”.
Coquelin could perform like a fusion of Gattuso and Pirlo and arseblog would still give a faint praise with a “still not good enough”.
He’s already been written off in the writer’s mind, no matter what he does.
I like Coquelin actually but I’m realistic about his chances here. If we didn’t have injuries he’d still be on loan to Charlton and when everyone’s fit again I don’t think he’ll be playing very much, if at all.
We need a presence in the midfield and some of his tackling today was very good, but I also think we need a better player than Coquelin (or Flamini or Arteta) for that matter.
It’s called player ratings, to rate the player’s performance over 90 mins of said game. There really is no reason to always mention the fact you feel he has no future after every single game, especially when it has no relevance to the actual game being reviewed. As for him having no future? Its ironic this is mentioned when one of the players keeping him on the bench, Flamini, in his first time with us at around the same age as Francis was meant to be sold off to a team destined for relegation, but squad injuries gave him an… Read more »
PS: That’s not to say we can’t get better, but that could be said of our CBs (per especially). And yet the fact that we can’t get better than Welbeck isn’t mentioned every time he plays either.
It just seems unnecessary to mention it, especially after the two games where he’s been our best player.
Coquelin is way better than Flamini & also 7 years younger (HG as well) , so I know who I would rather have taking a valuable squad position.
I didn’t say he had no future with us today. What I said was the fact that we played a central midfield pairing of Coquelin and Chambers against one of the teams who have performed best in the league this season tell its own story.
It’s also worth nothing that he and Chambers were extremely similar – this can be seen in the By The Numbers post, yet Chambers is being roundly dismissed on here.
Can’t reply to your most previous comment, but your actual comment was “having to play HIM”, not having to play THEM.
Just no reason for that.
I agree that Coq has been one of
the best players the past two games, some solid passing and tackling. I appreciate the job he is doing for the team right now. It’s a little crazy that he’s starting games when you think about it, isn’t it? That’s football though.
You making some valid points. In the last podcast when discussing Coquelin it was noted with (bizarre) surprise he was now 24 years old, as if passed it. I thought they might suggest Arsenal schedule an end of season testimonial for him, but then they asked about even needing to keep Coqulin past January.
That was a sincere WTF moment for me.
Hmm. I was perfectly able to infer that it is the entire situation of having to call him back from loan and pair him with an experimental run-out for Chambers at Mid in a match like this is what is ridiculous.
And in case you may have missed it, he DID get the highest rating of all the players – from the author, no less.
We need a better player than him for sure. But, when he plays well lets give him credit is all we’re saying. He’s 23( which is still young no matter how you look at it), and has hardly been given a run of games in the way that Ramsey and Wilshere have. If we can support them despite their considerable under performance at times then we can support our Coq. Poor guy, he’s really trying to stand tall at this club. He’s put in two good performances and frankly, if he can do this consistently, he does have a future… Read more »
All season have been saying things will be different once we get our first-choice back four together. Hope this woeful performance is a one-off….Drab, dreary, depressing.
we had four of the back 5 making silly decisions at the same time today. i give up now. no leaders on the pitch. without arteta sometimes we become a headless chicken. talking about chickens, even those shitheads are leading against chelsea. everyone dropped points today. we could have been 4th within a point of third!!
Need some authority in goal as well. I’d be happy to give Ospina a run.
Martinez even, thought he played really well the first and last- all in fact of the few games he played…….
I thought Sanchez and the Coq were the only ones who showed any spine today. The other ones just did not seem to care.
We were decimated by injuries so I wasn’t too surprised.
Southampton are a force at home ; and the hallowed 4th place Cup is still ‘on’ so that’s all Wenger and Kronke worry about.
But once again, in terms of tactics and motivation the Leagues highest paid Manager is found wanting against his opposite number. It’s not as embarrassing as when that ON is Mark Hughes. But it demonstrates, once again, how limited a Manager Wenger now is.
It does, doesn’t it? Sometimes I feel that there is no tactics whatsoever. The players come out with the same motivation as if the old man told them to “go out and kick the ball”. Aimless running “looking for a killer pass” yet no one runs deep except Alexis. This is getting unbearable to watch…
wenger cant be blamed for players having their head up their ass. there was a point after the first goal when wenger looked like fuck this shit, i give up.
A football team is exactly that – a supposed unit that must takes it’s on field lead from its captain and – in the broader sense – its off-field/pre-field lead from its manager… If AW isn’t responsible for us having a disorganised and demotivated ‘team’, and a captain who is seemingly incapable of pulling them into shape on-field, then who is? The buck must stop somewhere: – injuries? Lack of depth, refusal to rotate, lack of attention to the growing disparity between our injury stats and the rest of the league (until this season!)… the manager’s remit – disorganisation? Experimental… Read more »
Wow, that’s probably the best comment I’ve read, hits the nail on the head IMO
I wish i had not posted that comment. as with the number of thumbs up and down, hindsight is 20 20 😛
A tired side, led by an uninspired manager. Still, a good signing or two, combined with all the soon to return injured. The season is a long way from over yet.
Why didn’t Walcott touch the ball? It’s ridiculous.
And if Poldi played for 30mins without touching the ball, people here would have been up in arms saying how he is useless, not defending, blah, blah, blah…that’s why AW does not give him playing time…
How was Theo meant to touch the ball, the midfield need to get hold of it first.
I think everyone should have 0.5s, with Coq and Ox with 6 or 7s.
Just poo.
The battle for CL places is well and truly on. 2 from us, United, Southampton, Spurs and Liverpool. Anybody who is taking 4th for granted should have a word with themselves.
Cant we give 0.5 ratings?
Coq and Alexis were the only ones who looked interested in getting any points today. The rest were a bit, like “oh well, time for us to go home” after the first goal. It was pathetic to watch. Nothing less.
dinosaur wenger should go.
Props to you Mr Blogs. After a game like that , you still have the patience to write a match report and player ratings
By the time we were able to take Chambers out of the midfield we were already 2 goals down. Frustration had set in and any hope of scraping a win at that point would have been due to individual skill and not that of a team effort. With Chambers and Coquelin at the base of our midfield is anybody really surprised that we were exposed as easily as we were today? Chambers will never be a DM. He looks less assured in possession than mertesacker even when he knows he has more than just Szczesny as an outlet. Arteta is… Read more »
Anyone blaming Wenger for today’s performance can fuck right off. The players are to blame plain and simple. Tired legs? Yes. Injuries? Hell yes. Spineless performance? Most certainly.
And who’s to blame for the injuries? Who has set the most intensive training sessions in the PL? Steve Bould?
Let’s hope the spuds beat chelshit sounds as bad as saying let’s hope shit cleans the toilet brush..I’m disgustingly disappointed..
Got your wish. Looking like 5-3, so f*ck off Mourinho.
Never like us losing and 5pur2 winning though.
When you have a player, with such little assurance in possession as Chambers has at the moment, partnered with a fellow midfielder, who has little experience in playing with the people around him, it results in what we saw today. Chambers looked like a baby giraffe out there today and the opposition was able to punish us for it before Wenger could place Walcott on the pitch and drop Chamberlain to midfield. Chamberlain in the midfield with Theo on the right would have been the obvious option if everybody on the teamsheet was 100%. Obviously Walcott is not ready or… Read more »
We make average teams look good and I thought we left that habit like a week ago..
When i saw the lineup with Chambers at DM with Coquelin I knew we would not be very fluid with the ball and it would cause issues against a squad like SH on the road. . The role of the holding mids to keep and control possession in our games is so underrated. That is what Arteta does so well. You could also clearly see the impact that Giroud’s red card had on this match without that physical presence in the middle (why are we sending so many crosses into the box in the air with Alexis as our target????).… Read more »
Was at the game Mertesacker is just plain awful; I know he has been pointed out before, but he is that bad he has to be accounted for; he does not have any qualities for me to justify continuing playing him
He’s our only player over 5’7″?
Not good enough…
Yes, he s but he doesn’t use his hight, and ducks headers… ffs
Balance of team was poor today. Some baffling selections. Calum is a talented player but clearly on a learning path. SOuthampton away is hardly the place and time to play him central midfield. Coquelin has improved in performance but again, those who suddenly heralded him as ‘better than” Flamini should wake up. We missed Flamini today BIG TIME. I also preferred Rosicky next to Flamini as a link man and as experience shielding th ack two central defenders. I feel the Czech is better played from middle and deep where he can pick out crosses better or drive us forward.… Read more »
Fun fact: 33 goals scored today in the EPL. Arsenal was one of the four teams thay didn’t contribute. The three others were crystal palace and Aston villa (who played each other) and Everton.
No positives from todays game. Our fully fit defence is crap and we couldn’t score a single goal. I don’t see the point of putting cross after cross into the box when we have exactly zero attacking players who can jump/head the ball in (since Giroud was absent)
The tactics sucks. Wenger has effectively isolated both Sanchez and TR7 yet ironically they, along with the Ox, were the only ones trying to make something happen. Per should be only a backup after this transfer window
Scz to the bench! Not the first shit performance of the relatively young polish keeper. And an extra 0 star for Giroud because he left the Arsenal in deep sht. Was that heading intentional? Intention for an extra rest.
Stuttering campaign this season. Again I have mentioned it time and again, we need a good Cback to be able to rotate through Meterscielny. We cannot rely on Metersecker not to receive a knock at some point. Lots of disdain thrown his way but as you can see, Koscieny is not without blemish either. The player coming in must have attributes of both (some pace some height 6’3 over preferable) and be between 23-25 with sufficient ready made bog game experience (see Calum). Not so easy to find given others are also in the hunt for similar merchandise. We do… Read more »
Mertesacker is a decent player but not good enough to consistently play a high line. And until Arsenal play a high line they will never be dominant with possession. Mertesacker needs to go or become 3rd choice. As for leaking from crosses – poor coaching, our players seem to have been told to not get tight and prevent crosses. Why? because the stats guys will tell you crosses are low percentage and the FBs arent good enough to not get turned. Debuchy is easily turned and so is Gibbs, if they get too close. So, they stand off in no-mans… Read more »
So who starts against Hull? at this point, I think we may be better off with Martinez in goal, Monreal at CB, and Bellerin at RB. This is what I expect to actually happen: Alexis will probably be so exhausted but wenger will have no choice other than to roll him out on Sunday with an IV hooked into his arm the entire second half, and then see if he can make things happen while Walcott watches, forgetting he’s not still sitting on the bench while Podoloski tweets from the six yard box and Szcz sees if he can play… Read more »
It drives us all to drink. Have another for me.
Ospina will be in goal, we have to remember the FA Cup is our only realistic chance for silverware this year so need a strong team.
That actually made me laugh out loud. Under the circumstances no mean feat!!!
@brent
I concur, and thanks for the larf. Not many about if you are an arsenal fan. Plenty if not….
I’m just not a fan of mertesacker, end of.
We need a player like wanyama, for me he made the difference today. I’ve never been a fan of szczesny, always makes the most painfully rash decisions. I liked both vito and lukas better than him, why not go for cech and if mourinho being the prick that he is refuses to sell, go for begovic or someone then get not one but two center backs. But that’s just my opinion, who gives a shit right?
yeah, Wenger will buy ANOTHER goalkeeper after just signing Ospina and having 2 more GK’s in the team. because that’s just classic Wenger – buy! buy! buy!
I know today was a bad day from szcz and koscielny, but per mertesacker does not help my nerves at the back at all. And this is not just from today. He can’t clear the ball well, he doesn’t head out many dangerous balls/crosses, he doesn’t tackle a great deal at all, he doesn’t make us feel like there’s a captain on the pitch. I’d like to know how many balls does per head in a game? A stat would give us a clearer picture. As for szcz and laurent, you can drop them to show them a lesson, that… Read more »
Can’t be arsed to write a fat paragraph like I usually do, just fuck Gibbs, do some of these guys even train on technique ?? fucking woeful, the most of them are so poor on the ball
of all the players today Gibbs was the one you were annoyed with? was the best of a bad lot today. playing the inexperienced duo of Chambers and Coq together when Schneiderlin is suspended and when you have Campbell on the bench is just not good enough from the manager. i think that if we played a 4-3-3 with Coq as the DM, Rosicky and Cazorla as the CM’s and Alexis, Campbell and the Ox as the attack we would have been much more balanced and better going forward.
I felt sorry for Gibbs actually, rosicky naturally drifted into center midfield and so he had to cover lw and lb. I honestly don’t understand the basis of gibbs recent criticism, just looking for a scapegoat. When he goes forward and tries to pick someone out people complain why didn’t he shoot and when he shoots people complain about that too, not gibb’s fault he has no options.
Totally agree. Gibbs and other players are being made to look woeful as there are simply no tactics to be seen at times.
Take Gibbs out of this team and place him in another I would bet someone else will end up with another Ashely Cole….which is an ironic statement on many levels.
it’s Gibbs fault he has no technique… he never takes responsibility, we need fullbacks that are capable going forward and i’m sorry but Gibbs isn’t good enough. Hasn’t been for a while and he’s fucking 25.
Still think Szczesny’s critics are little overreacting. For the first goal I think it was more of Koscielny’s fault – at first he was outmuscled and then he should closed up Mane and not go back. But still it was also an Szczesny’s error and like every goalkeeper he was also affected by that – he was less confident through the game. But goalkeepers are rated by how many mistakes he does and not how many good saves he has. But look closely how many his mistakes lead to goals? And how many good saves by him brought points. But… Read more »
Chambers was certainly poor and had we another fit midfielder… literally any other first team midfielder, he would be starting. The defense had a really bad game overall and require a bit of a run together to settle. I think Ox was as big a culprit our lost midfield battle as anyone. His instinct is to drive forward every time, just drive and fucking drive and when he runs out of steam he make an exhausted, inaccurate pass. Its that Wilshere mentality where he feels he needs to do it all on his own but isn’t good enough to. That… Read more »
Chelsea’s attacking midfield trio moves all around the place, and you don’t know what you’re talking about when you call Oxlade-Chamberlain’s attacking runs bad/wrong. There are few players in the PL that can ‘drive and drive’ through the middle and they’re highly valued. The only reason we are doing better in attack and are creating more chances/winning in the CL/PL however many games we won is because chambo turns defence into attack quickly and doesnt give the opposing defence time to reorganise their lines. Cazorla was the player of the month, but Ox was a close second no doubt. Sure,… Read more »
Wenger out… Surely wenger out?
Had we had another fit midfielder? But we did. Why didn’t we play Coq with Rosicky and Cazorla in the middle and gave Campbell a chance up top with Alexis and the Ox on the wings? Would have given us more in attack and perhaps more balance in the middle. But no, let’s play an inexperienced duo of Chambers and Coquelin and hope for the best. Wenger certainly knows best…
“Campbell will get his chance”. – Wenger 2k14
He is doing everything he can to not get podolski and campbell in the team. Honestly our manager is a fucking dinosaur. Belongs in a museum.
‘Campbell will get his chance’, thank god, come back quickly Sol.
this team should be doing better.. that’s all .. hire a psychologist or a hypnotist
If chambers is not a RB and not a CDM….we just bought a backup CB for 16m and there’s no guarantee he’ll actually flourish there….so much for “versatility”
Chambers will be one of our better players soon enough, his early season performances earn him that at least. But Gibbs today… made bad decisions and executed poorly particularly in the final third. had some moments where there was plenty of space ahead of him, and he wasn’t patient enough to get to the byline or wait for a telling pass to open up. He didn’t stretch the pitch properly today. And lots of people abuse Giroud, but he’s not a repeat red card offender and it’s Wenger’s task to put together a squad capable of covering his absence. If… Read more »
Sczesny out. Martinez in for next game vs Hull.
This result did not surprise me in the slightest. And until we address the obvious deficiencies in our squad performances and results like this will continue to rear their ugly head on a relatively frequent basis. We’ll edge past Stoke, lose at City, and so on… Lack of leaders, fighters and quality defensive players will do for us over and over again. Just being honest, negative yes but only because I’m talking the truth as I see it. I go to the Emirates every home game and can honestly say I haven’t watched a particularly memorable performance this season. Newcastle… Read more »
I couldn’t help but think Artur Boruc would one day haunt us with his goalkeeping calamity a year or two ago .. felt like he did today through Wojtek.
Way to ruin New Years Day Arsenal! Making the top 4 is going to be very difficult this season. Are inability to put a run of winning games together is very concerning. Chavs and City will fight it out for the title. United look a decent bet to at least 3rd or 4th. So that leaves us, Spuds, Saints, Scousers and maybe Fat Sam to fight it out for the last spot. Let the annual 4th place trophy fight begin! Arsene will be a legend if he can guide this team to 4th! I also thought our Coq did OK… Read more »
Probably 80% of the people who said Chambers shouldn’t be playing CDM today / Chambers was shit are the same people who said “Chambers could do a job at DM”/ “We should try Chambers ahead of Flamini & Arteta” Probably 100% of the people who said Walcott did not contribute at all/was a useless substitute are the same people who said Wenger is an idiot for not bringing on Walcott vs West Ham and QPR / “his pace could threaten their defence”. Wenger may not be the best manager, but at least he’s judged by his decisions and comments every… Read more »
Good point. It’s easy to call the game from the stands. Chambers was not the worst player on the pitch. Koscielny probably was and from an armchair manager standpoint I would have pulled him off and put Chambers in defence. Wenger didn’t want to hurt his feeling though. I think that Wojciech hesitated on the first goal because of all the reds he has racked up too. Shit shit game. But hats off to the better team. We didn’t deserve more than a draw.
Even fuckin chelsea let in 5 goals! Was there any team that made 100% successful wins this holiday schedule?
Cheer up, mates! We are not approaching Doomsday yet. 6 points out of 9 is not that bad.
Good game, Coq. You’re getting better.
Chambers should remain understudy for the time being.
It’s time for Szczney to learn from Ospina.
Anyone contacted Arsene for permission to stay with the team for 10 days yet? Awaiting the feedback then.
team looked jaded.nice one from the coq.feel sorry for campbell. arsene is playing mind games with him or will use him in an exchange deal?
Funny how Blogs was mocking Wanyama for not being able to play football properly on the liveblog. The truth is, he was easily the best player out of the best team on the pitch. But I suppose it’s easier to make fun of someone rather than realising that he is everything Arsenal’s midfield has been lacking for years. And, more importantly, that addressing these problem is not managerial rocket science. But, then again, that would mean Arsene is not a genius.
The live blog is often full of nonsense and tongue-in-cheek waffle. Don’t take me too seriously when I have a pop at an opponent.
Agree this is an area we can improve on.
We lacked the energy and know-how to get back into the game. AW’s sides have been able to come back from an “unfortunate/self-inflicted” goal or two in the past. It just seems there are too many injuries (again) to build any fluency in our attacking game this season.
Much of the goals we give away come down to concentration and are avoidable, that is what most infuriates me. Watching a team which is capable of getting a result do its best to mess it up is hard to take every other week.