Arsenal

[Steve007]

11 hours ago, Pavey said:

Here was my view, glad to see you weren't one of the few who left at 90 minutes Steve

 

 

Sanchez just didn't have that turn of pace today to beat anybody, definitely not match fit. 

 

I don't understand those who left 6-7 mins before the end.  For such a colossally important match (and an exciting one at that!) which kicked off so early, what was so urgent that these people had to dash off while there was still a chance of 3 possible results?

 

I can almost understand leaving a few minutes early if we were a few goals up (or down), but you don't walk out at that stage!  If they were more worried about getting to the pub before everyone else or getting a head start on everyone else going home then they had all afternoon to get where they needed to go or to get a drink.  Morons!

[Arc'Tan'Gent]

Couldn't agree more Steve. Arguably the most important game of the season and people leaving at a crucial time. Muppets. Imagine the Man Utd's fans' reactions of 1999, getting home to find out they'd actually won the European Cup.

I was there with a mate from LA. His face was a picture when we scored with the last kick of the game, Brilliant day.

[The Fox]

Yeah it seemed like loads of people left early. So weird.

 

Main plus points from yesterday for me were Giroud, who I thought was superb, and Chambers putting in a very assured showing at centre back. Hopefully Theo's goal will do his confidence some good, and obviously it's great to have Welbeck back. And it was great to see Wenger being brave with his subs after too much conservatism recently. Ending the game with a Ramsey-Ozil midfield pivot is pretty ballsy, even if it was against ten men.

 

Not so good were Ozil, who was pretty quiet and a bit sloppy in possession at times (great free kick though obvs), Ox, and Alexis. I think with him it's fitness, as has been mentioned, but I think there were a couple of other factors at play. Firstly he typically doesn't excel with Giroud at centre forward; nearly all his best performances have come with Welbeck or Theo up front, to drag players out of the way with their runs and open up space for him to exploit. Secondly Leicester play very compact and very narrow. Because Alexis is pretty one-dimensional (rarely runs in behind or goes outside the defender, just cuts inside all the time), he was just running into very congested areas.

 

Realistically I can't see us dropping Giroud right now. Without Cazorla in the middle we're basically bypassing midfield build up and playing very direct, which obviously makes Giroud very useful. When Santi is back we may revert back to the earlier setup with Ramsey on the right and one of the more mobile players up top. If that happens hopefully we'll see more from Alexis.

[The Fox]

15 hours ago, anders limpar said:

Lads I think we might win the league. 

 

Still maintain we're not really playing well enough, but we have much better options off the bench now so it's not impossible for us to turn it around.

 

I think we have a great chance if we're within 4 points of the top going into April. Our final seven games are easier than anyone else's on paper, we'll almost certainly be out of Europe by then, and we have a real chance to put a string of wins together in the home stretch.

 

Before that, I think we need to be taking at least a point at Old Trafford. I'd bite your hand off for a point at WHL, and Everton away will be a huge game too. Helpfully it's at 12.45 on a Saturday, when we'll have had Barcelona away on the previous Wednesday evening. Three points at Goodison in those circumstances would be absolutely massive.

 

 

[rllmuk_admin1]

@SeanR - testing two things here. Does this thread work for you now?

 

and this edit here

[choddo]

@SeanR and can you see this?

Or this edit?

[SeanR]

On ‎14‎/‎02‎/‎2016 at 2:37 PM, Shoes said:

yeah, AND I got an alert

 

shame this thing insists on remembering what you were doing on a per thread basis, hence the broken shoes quote above...

[choddo]

What, you had been quoting Shoes and it messes up your quick reply because of that?

[Shoes]

It does that to me too.  

[SeanR]

18 minutes ago, choddo said:

What, you had been quoting Shoes and it messes up your quick reply because of that?

I was quoting shoes yesterday,because I wanted to steal his gif, but the WYSIWYG interface no longer shows URLs, so I left it.

 

when I came to quote you today my shoes "reply" from yesterday was there waiting for me...

[SeanR]

now it says there's been a reply by admin1 or something and I cant see it?

[Dude Ranch]

3 hours ago, The Fox said:

 

Still maintain we're not really playing well enough, but we have much better options off the bench now so it's not impossible for us to turn it around.

 

I think we'd be mediocre champions. I'd take a title win, obv., but it wouldn't bring me the joy I got from the others. Leicester winning it would be amazing and *really deep breath* those up the road are looking very good. I think the fact that we still can't beat Chelsea, even in their most miserable season for years and years, is disappointing and sums us up. We haven't improved and at this moment in time we look like best or joint best of an average bunch. City haven't impressed me at all, United have been awful. Everyone else at the top has gone backwards apart from Leicester and Spurs. We've stood still when we could easily have pushed forward. Typical. 

 

I don't really think we'll win it, my last pound wouldn't go on us.

[choddo]

now it says there's been a reply by admin1 or something and I cant see it?

Yeah I had that quote thing happen to me too.

That admin post was a test. I deleted it.

Thanks. Seems this thread is kind of ok. The other one was definitely wrong.

[Mars]

Watch the video in this article 

 

http://www.dv.is/sport/2016/2/15/rikki-g-gjorsamlega-tapadi-ser-i-lysingu-sjadu-myndband/

[The Fox]

14 hours ago, Dude Ranch said:

I think we'd be mediocre champions. I'd take a title win, obv., but it wouldn't bring me the joy I got from the others. Leicester winning it would be amazing and *really deep breath* those up the road are looking very good. I think the fact that we still can't beat Chelsea, even in their most miserable season for years and years, is disappointing and sums us up. We haven't improved and at this moment in time we look like best or joint best of an average bunch. City haven't impressed me at all, United have been awful. Everyone else at the top has gone backwards apart from Leicester and Spurs. We've stood still when we could easily have pushed forward. Typical. 

 

I don't really think we'll win it, my last pound wouldn't go on us.

 

It's still Leicester's to lose really, they have only one competition to worry about and the most comfortable remaining league fixtures. I do think though that they'll probably start coming up against more teams who treat them as top dogs and are happy to sit back and play for a draw. If they are to win it, they'll need to demonstrate that they can be proactive in those sorts of games, when their usual counter attacking approach won't work.

 

Spurs are definitely scary too, hopefully they beat Fiorentina to give them more fixtures to worry about. I find it really hard to see us winning at their place so I think we're reliant on them dropping physically towards the end to be honest. They have been very lucky with injuries so far, especially considering Pochettino has barely rotated the side.

 

I can't see City getting back into it now, their away form has been shit all season so I don't think they could really afford to lose two home games on the spin. They will probably make it through in the CL, unlike us, and still have League Cup and FA Cup games too. Hopefully they'll be out of the running by the time we go there in the penultimate game, assuming we're not out of it ourselves by then.

 

I saw a stat doing the rounds earlier showing how often the top 4 had had their four 'spine' players available at the same time. Arsenal and Man City were under 10 games, Spurs and Leicester were over 20. I think that goes some way to explaining why the top four looks the way it does.

[Mars]

I know the chances are slim-to-none... but if anyone has tickets for the derby that they can't use then please let me know as I have a friend who is visiting the UK for the week and looking to go.  

[The Fox]

Spurs away might be a bit of an eye opener for someone from overseas, to say the least...

[Mars]

Haha, I know but I said I'd ask.

[Steve007]

2 hours ago, The Fox said:

Spurs away might be a bit of an eye opener for someone from overseas, to say the least...

 

Aside from the tension, the biggest worry is after the match & having to walk down Seven Sisters road.  Obviously it's always best to go 'unmarked' with no team colours unless you fancy some aggro.  If we've lost it's generally not too bad, but if we've won then it can get nasty.

[The Fox]

Yep I've only been twice and I can't say it was a particularly fun experience on either occasion.

[The Fox]

Good thing from Tim Stillman on our recent more direct style: http://arseblog.com/2016/02/wide-boys-give-it-large/

 

Guess we're gonna play a similar team to the Burnley game tomorrow? Reckon it'll be something like Ospina; Chambers, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs; Elneny, Flamini; Welbeck, Iwobi, Alexis; Walcott

 

If Elneny does well I wonder if he might have a chance of starting against Barcelona, with Ramsey moving back as a right-sided midfielder tucking in a lot. Would maybe just give us a bit of extra solidity compared to playing Ox/Campbell/Theo on the right.

[Petrousgyre]

You're imagining a central midfield of Coq and Elneny I assume? Could happen I suppose but doesn't show much ambition for the home leg. Have to imagine Wenger will want to start Theo, try keep them pinned back.

 

Also, It's Hull tomorrow.

[Baring]

On 15/02/2016 at 9:35 AM, Arc'Tan'Gent said:

Couldn't agree more Steve. Arguably the most important game of the season and people leaving at a crucial time. Muppets. Imagine the Man Utd's fans' reactions of 1999, getting home to find out they'd actually won the European Cup.

I was there with a mate from LA. His face was a picture when we scored with the last kick of the game, Brilliant day.

Some Liverpool fans left in 2005 at Ht. 

[Rev]

If we were any other team I'd say field three dogs and a tramp against Barcelona, lose and concentrate on the league. We've not done our full collapse after fielding a weakened team in ages, but I think that is largely because we've stopped fielding weakened teams.

 

 

[The Fox]

1 hour ago, petrolgirls said:

You're imagining a central midfield of Coq and Elneny I assume? Could happen I suppose but doesn't show much ambition for the home leg. Have to imagine Wenger will want to start Theo, try keep them pinned back.

 

Also, It's Hull tomorrow.

 

Yeah Coq-Elneny which I think was the pairing we used vs Burnley, Elneny playing more box-to-box. He probably won't do it but I'm just worried we'll get murdered with Alexis/Ozil/Ox behind Giroud. The defensive play from those attacking players isn't good enough to compensate for having one less CM than Barça.

 

If we do lose the first leg, even though I'm paying a fair old wedge to see the away game next month I'd be happy to see us rest some players for that and just try to keep the score respectable for morale purposes. We have Everton away at 12.45 the following Saturday which is a potential banana skin if ever I saw one, and I don't think there's any point tiring key players out at a Camp Nou game we're never winning in a million years. Different story if we're not losing after the home tie of course.

[Petrousgyre]

1 minute ago, The Fox said:

 

Yeah Coq-Elneny which I think was the pairing we used vs Burnley

 

Ah, misunderstood your point about Burnley. I can see the merit in playing two more defensively minded midfielders against Barca, if Elneny can link up play with the attacking contingent then great (not seen enough of him to gauge how effective he is in that respect)  but I'd be surprised if he was more of an attacking threat than Ramsey. I much prefer Ramsey playing centrally too - he's wasted out wide and deprives us of a Theo/Ox/Campbell outlet. He hasn't figured too much of late but Campbell might be a decent choice - he tracks back well to cover Hector's runs and plays some exquisite passes in the final third. Not the last word in finishing mind you.

[The Fox]

As that piece I linked to says, I think Campbell hasn't played lately because we've been playing this direct style of football lately, building through the left side instead of through the middle, and he doesn't offer much on the right when we're not overloading that side and giving him lots of passing combos.

 

As for Ramsey, clearly he's better centrally but to get the most out of him he needs the right partner and since Arteta died I'm not sure we really have that guy in the squad anymore. A Ramsey-Coq pivot should be fine for league games but I'm not sure about Barcelona.

[Rev]

5 hours ago, The Fox said:

Good thing from Tim Stillman on our recent more direct style: http://arseblog.com/2016/02/wide-boys-give-it-large/

 

Guess we're gonna play a similar team to the Burnley game tomorrow? Reckon it'll be something like Ospina; Chambers, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs; Elneny, Flamini; Welbeck, Iwobi, Alexis; Walcott

 

If Elneny does well I wonder if he might have a chance of starting against Barcelona, with Ramsey moving back as a right-sided midfielder tucking in a lot. Would maybe just give us a bit of extra solidity compared to playing Ox/Campbell/Theo on the right.

 

Just read that article.

 

It articulates, in a slightly different way, why I've recently leaned into the Wenger Out fraternity, albeit in a more well-meaning way than most there. He feels massively removed from everything these days. It started with the lack of response to the chance we could win the league, as if he hadn't noticed how badly the rest of the potential league champions were playing. Then there were the things about the company regarding the ticket prices and such but also, as that article mentions, in the football. It doesn't feel like we're being managed by Wenger any more, it could be anyone making the decisions as it's always the obvious way out. There's very little philosophy or stubbornness or (as you'd hope) innovation to any of the decisions we're making, it's just all fairly standard stuff.

 

If it was just "we must win the league, lump it up to the big man" but it clearly isn't based on all the stuff in the transfer window. It's clearly "we've got nothing else left, I can't be bothered, lump it up to the big man". If it was 2007, we'd have been throwing on some u18 that would grow into the role we were trying to fill, regardless of whether he was good enough. Now we just pick the easy option, which I guess is fine but if you're having the negatives of Wenger, you want the positives too and we're just not getting those any more.

[The Fox]

He's much the same as he always was though isn't he? Tactically he's better than some give him credit for (he pisses over, say, Pellegrini, for instance in that regard), but he doesn't truly excel in that area compared to younger coaches like Pep, Tuchel, Pochettino etc. He's still one of the best developmental coaches in world football though.

 

Without Arteta and Cazorla we have have to play more direct, it just makes sense with no passing specialist in deep midfield. Ramsey has been doing a decent enough job in the last couple of games but it's not what he's best at. And if we're playing that style then it makes sense to play Giroud more often than not, because long passes and crosses will stick to him more easily. That said, I'm not sure it's fair to describe the current style as 'Lump it up to the big man'. It is a bit more sophisticated than that.

[Rev]

Precision ball from a talented footballer towards the big man, then. As much as Ozil and Sanchez contribute, we've become almost wholly reliant on Giroud's ability to accept a lofted pass and it's a very long way from the constant attempts at gorgeous football that we had at the end of the Highbury era. Obviously injuries come into it, but it seems unlikely a similar injury situation then would have had us playing in the same way we are now. Perhaps the new approach gets us more points in the short term, but it just feels...Lazy. 

 

He obviously hasn't become a bad manager, but he's certainly not an innovative one any more and I think he seems disinterested and fed up with going through the same things every year. The whole "Wenger Knows" thing was the suggestion that there was a plan in the background, whereas I can't see any evidence of that now. We either win a match or don't.