Only one Brazilian Beast in Eindhoven (Feb 21)

[gooner.ed]

usual thread starter... so how about some predictions. come March 8th will we be Carling Cuo holders? Preparing for Citeh in the quarter final the following Sunday? In the UEFA goldfish bowls for the last eight? The quadruple's still on I'm telling you!!!!!!!!!!!! (Nurse - straitjacket please)

[proudtosaythatname]

positive spin ed - great - but I thought Arsenal's passing really deteriorated second half. You're being generous but we will win the second leg. And 'll stick with Almunia for now

[clive waterman]

Dear Kevin.
I cannot believe that you watched the same game i did on tues night.
If you claim to be happy with the spineless,clueless performance in the 2nd half,then you are very easily pleased.
Facts;PSV were without 7 first team regulars and were so short of personnel that they could only name 5 substitutes instead of 7.
They were there for the taking and we blew it.
Why AW changed a formation that took us to within 13mins of winning it last year only he knows.
He claimed he was going for the away goal,but i seem to remember we scored a perfectly good away goal against Real Madrid playing 4-5-1.
What's the old maxim,'if it ain't broke don't fix it.'
He should know how crafty and cagey Koeman is from past experience,so why give him a sniff of anything by playing an attacking formation away from home.
The panic in the defence after the goal was scored was pathetic and we were lucky not to concede a 2nd goal.
This performance had alll the hallmarks of the poor performance away to CSKA Moscow earlier in the season,particularly the 2nd half,where we showed no fight or application.
If Liverpool,Man U or Chelsea had played PSV,there is no way any of them would have lost that game.
There's another old maxim,'Beware The Ides Of March'.
Let's hope and pray it gives the Emirates Stadium a very wide berth.!!

[gooner.ed]

i just throught psv played much better in the second half, forcing our mistakes. yet chances were still created by arsenal. not as many due to psv's improvement, but still i don't expect many clear cut chances in thsi kind of game. i tend to look at the CL as a big step up from the normal opposition and by extension tend to give the boys the benefit of the doubt, crediting the opposition rather than criticising arsenal unless i feel it is valid. the performance in villarreal last season was an example where the team got away with it and did deserve criticism. on tuesday night they played better but got a worse result. in any game with two decent sides, there are spells for each side. often the team that capitalises on theirs gets the result. that's what happened on tuesday. i am not going to slam the boys because the mistakes were partially due to psv's own pressing ability when they went for it. they played a good game in the second half and made arsenal look a worse outfit than in the first. but i did not feel the team played badly. the bottom line is that on another night arsenal could have had scored 4 playing exactly the same way, but for an inspired keeper and some near misses. and then everyone would have been raving about the performance. such are the margins at this level of football.