Rapid Viennanginas A Europa Group phase KO 1755

[rodders999]

Fucking horrific, can’t put 2 fucking passes together

Where's that fucking "smug irony" emoticon....?

Don’t you fucking start

[falkirk goon]

Just watched the highlights back again and fuck me furiously Leno had a mare of the highest proportions he can't cope with the ball at his feet ffs he's shite he's a panic merchant and every manager of every team we play from now on will pinpoint his shiteness.Fucking great move punting Martinez

[Herd]

I was actually nodding off a lot until they scored and then it livened up a tad.
What did we learn not much really Lacazette is Lazy how long shall we say Pepe is a work In progress ,Leno can't do play out from the back under pressure.
But Party looked good and we won in the group of death. Can someone tell me why with no crowds why the fuck are Dundalk playing in the capital??

[Herd]

I was actually nodding off a lot until they scored and then it livened up a tad.
What did we learn not much really Lacazette is Lazy how long shall we say Pepe is a work In progress ,Leno can't do play out from the back under pressure.
But Party looked good and we won in the group of death. Can someone tell me why with no crowds why the fuck are Dundalk playing in the capital??

[Ray C]

Very average. Only a couple of decent performances tonight. No need to mention who. With Leno's fuck ups & the missed pen against Saka's hand ball, we were very lucky to get away with the points. Not many teams in the PL would have such a tired looking forward line as we do. Laca is rubbish. Can do much better. When is Martinelli coming back ??.

[nut flush gooner]

So glad we chose Partey over Auoar. We would have lost last night with the latter in the team.

He (Partey) is the first proper midfielder we have had since Gilberto, can tackle pass long and short, dribble out from the back and set up attacks. One interception in the first half saved the game for us. The most impressive thing about Partey is his willingness to take the ball facing his own goal turn look up and get forward passes going, unlike Elneny/Xhaka whose default is to pass back.

I will take shit performances with positive results while we are rebuilding. Away from home Elneny and Partey seems like a good shield for the defence.

We got a proper baller here boys.

[rodders999]

Dundalk’s ground is an absolute shit hole Herd and does not meet UEFA’s criteria to host games (even with no fans).

[rodders999]

Any ‘Allo ‘Allo fans amongst us? No? Thought not.

Anyways......

"Listen very carefully, I shall say zis only once"

We needed to raise as much cash as possible during the summer to help fund incomings but we struggled badly to offload the shite - Ozil, Sokrites, Kolasinac etc. because they are on obscene wages and couldn’t be shifted.

We didn’t have the luxury of holding on to both keepers so one had to go, I would imagine the Partey deal depended on it.

Leno is on decent money so would be harder to shift, none of the top 6 in the league who could afford him are in the market for a keeper and only Bayern back home would spend that type of outlay on a keeper and he ain’t going replacing Neuer.

So that left Martinez, a guy who spent the previous season on loan at Reading and who was on tiny money (relatively speaking) as the more sellable asset as it was much easier to do a deal.

And that’s basically what happened. One had to go and the easiest one to sell went.

Whether the better one left I’ll leave up to you absolute bitches to moan about ad infinitum

[Wengerballs]

Livescore had them as Rapid Wien so heading should've been Rapid Wieners against Arse.

[Bradywasking]

I was actually nodding off a lot until they scored and then it livened up a tad.
What did we learn not much really Lacazette is Lazy how long shall we say Pepe is a work In progress ,Leno can't do play out from the back under pressure.
But Party looked good and we won in the group of death. Can someone tell me why with no crowds why the fuck are Dundalk playing in the capital??

The players and press facilities at Oriel Park Dundalk are not up to.UEFA standard. Apart from that they have a plastic pitch (which is allowed ) and a dreadful kip of a ground even by League of Ireland standards.

[Midz]

Just watched the highlights and Leno had an absolute nightmare didn't he.

I think he'll be ok and come good again. All keepers make some mistakes and every time they do people will be extremely critical.

[Bradywasking]

Just watched the highlights and Leno had an absolute nightmare didn't he.

I think he'll be ok and come good again. All keepers make some mistakes and every time they do people will be extremely critical.

Yes I agree that he had a nightmare and I also think he is a good goalkeeper. From when Leno got injured in Brighton to the beginning of this season he didn't play, and Martinez excelled. Arteta still had a decision to make on his first choice keeper and at that point Leno had done nothing wrong except get injured.
He made a choice that either way would be a gamble. The spotlight on whoever he kept would be intense. Martinez has started well at Villa, but got away with a horrible mistake in one game because VAR intervened.
Look back to October last year. Look at the comments on the Liverpool away in the League Cup thread about Martinez. One comment was on the lines of "can't believe people want Martinez to replace Leno"..another called Martinez a disaster or a joke.
Martinez was and maybe is better than Leno at playing out of the back. But we are living in hindsight on our first choice keeper. It can't be changed. There were comments on threads about Jack Grealish not being good enough, and now it seems he is all we need,. Imagine if we had been linked with Barkley,
Hindsight is wonderful, Before the Brighton game away last season, how many would have picked Martinez ahead of Leno? Not too many I guess. I wouldn't and maybe Arteta didn't either.

[nut flush gooner]

Just watched the highlights and Leno had an absolute nightmare didn't he.

I think he'll be ok and come good again. All keepers make some mistakes and every time they do people will be extremely critical.

Yes I agree that he had a nightmare and I also think he is a good goalkeeper. From when Leno got injured in Brighton to the beginning of this season he didn't play, and Martinez excelled. Arteta still had a decision to make on his first choice keeper and at that point Leno had done nothing wrong except get injured.
He made a choice that either way would be a gamble. The spotlight on whoever he kept would be intense. Martinez has started well at Villa, but got away with a horrible mistake in one game because VAR intervened.
Look back to October last year. Look at the comments on the Liverpool away in the League Cup thread about Martinez. One comment was on the lines of "can't believe people want Martinez to replace Leno"..another called Martinez a disaster or a joke.
Martinez was and maybe is better than Leno at playing out of the back. But we are living in hindsight on our first choice keeper. It can't be changed. There were comments on threads about Jack Grealish not being good enough, and now it seems he is all we need,. Imagine if we had been linked with Barkley,
Hindsight is wonderful, Before the Brighton game away last season, how many would have picked Martinez ahead of Leno? Not too many I guess. I wouldn't and maybe Arteta didn't either.

Leno crept under the radar a bit before Martinez broke through at the end of last season in terms of scrutiny but if the truth be known I never felt he was a world-class goalkeeper. Good shot stopper yes but constantly getting found out with his distribution when the opposition is pressing high. Add to that he likes to flap a lot, it's inevitable he will make mistakes in every game he plays, it's just a question of whether he gets away with it.

We do need to move on though, the net effect of the Martinez sale was we got Partey in who for me is the first proper midfielder we've had for years.

[Clash]

Just watched the highlights and Leno had an absolute nightmare didn't he.

I think he'll be ok and come good again. All keepers make some mistakes and every time they do people will be extremely critical.

Yes I agree that he had a nightmare and I also think he is a good goalkeeper. From when Leno got injured in Brighton to the beginning of this season he didn't play, and Martinez excelled. Arteta still had a decision to make on his first choice keeper and at that point Leno had done nothing wrong except get injured.
He made a choice that either way would be a gamble. The spotlight on whoever he kept would be intense. Martinez has started well at Villa, but got away with a horrible mistake in one game because VAR intervened.
Look back to October last year. Look at the comments on the Liverpool away in the League Cup thread about Martinez. One comment was on the lines of "can't believe people want Martinez to replace Leno"..another called Martinez a disaster or a joke.
Martinez was and maybe is better than Leno at playing out of the back. But we are living in hindsight on our first choice keeper. It can't be changed. There were comments on threads about Jack Grealish not being good enough, and now it seems he is all we need,. Imagine if we had been linked with Barkley,
Hindsight is wonderful, Before the Brighton game away last season, how many would have picked Martinez ahead of Leno? Not too many I guess. I wouldn't and maybe Arteta didn't either.

Good post BWK.

I think Leno has been a bit unlucky because after Martinez did so well at the end of last season, Leno probably felt he had to prove himself all over again, even though he had already performed very well for us before getting injured. In my opinion it t would have been a big gamble to replace Leno with Martinez but I do think we should have kept both keepers. Leno has definitely made some bad errors this season but the ones last night were more a case of errors by the goalkeeper than goalkeeping errors (if that makes sense?!). I mean they were not handling type errors. I put equal blame on Arteta and trendy modern coaches for this nonsensical persistence in trying to play out from the back. The risk is not worth it but teams carry on doing it.

And I agree with you about hindsight too. I thought it was a disaster at the time Leno got injured. The way Martinez performed played a big part in us winning the cup but it was totally unexpected. Talking of hindsight it is frustrating hearing people (not anyone on here to be fair) mention the hindsight thing when it comes to someone like Gnabry. It isnt hindsight thinking he should have been given a chance at Arsenal. A lot of Arsenals fans I know liked what little they saw of him before he was let go and wanted to see more. Ridiculous decision to persist with the likes of Walcott over him

Good point about Grealish as well. I have been a critic of his but he seems to have matured this year and your post on another thread about him being one of the few players around who tries to make things happen by being a bit different is spot on.

[rodders999]

Well said nut flush.

People make out like it was just a simple straight decision to sell one of Leno or Martinez when in fact it was far more nuanced than that and as I outlined above it was actually Martinez that was the easiest to move on, which is obviously what happened.