SUNDERLAND HOME - MATCH THREAD

[LeftfootlegendGooner]

4-1 to the arsenal, bendtner to get a hat trick, sol with the other and flappy to get theirs ........................................................Fuck me this ganja is strong shiiiiit....................

[safcftm]

Doesn't this put it in any kind of context for any Arsenal fans. I'm as pissed off as the next person - however, it could be a hell of a lot worse. We've spent a hell of a lot less than £80m I'd wager. I'm not saying that we should settle for 3rd year after year, but equally we need to be grateful for what we do have, and be proud of our successes, whilst still aiming higher.

you make a valid point, although i suppose what probably annoys the gooners is that you really dont need to spend anything like 80m over 3 seasons- with 2/3rds of that investment you could easily be looking to win the league but, despite this, it seems that for whatever reason (whether to pay off the stadium, or whether wenger truly believes in his "project") the cash isnt being spent

Our 80m is a bit of an anomoly in that we effectively had to buy 2 teams. Having just won promotion, we needed to buy a side capable of staying in the prem, which meant that we had to spend relatively big money on the likes of Chopra (£5m), Jones (£6m, and at the time unproven), Greg Halford (£3.5m) etc. Once survival was achieved, we had the ambition to try and move up the league and become an established top flight side and this meant almost buying another team (letting chopra and halford go amongst others and spending again to bring in more established players- bent £10m, Cattermole £6m, Cana £5m)

This means that, in this period, we have spent a fortune and have had to let players go relatively cheaply just to get them off the wage bill to let better players come in. Arsenal dont need to do this as they already have a very strong base- they just need one push to go from near challengers to title winners- probably one really good striker, a good midfielder and a defender would be enough to make this a real possibility. Bearing in mind the fact that you could sell players to help make this happen, you could probably do it for not a huge outlay.

If you were to target the likes of david villa, you could spend say £35m but could let bendtner go if you got him and someone would probably be daft enough to pay £7 or 8m for him so the net spend wouldnt be too bad, bearing in mind that if you were targetting 3 players, he would be far and away the most expensive

If the board wanted to i get the feeling (although obviously im not as up on the situation at the arsenal as most others on here) that they could finance a big push for the title- you're not far off as it is so it really only needs a few finishing touches to the side. Why they arent able or prepared to do it is a different matter however

[Lethal]

expect a easy enough win and then wenger to claim all is ok in the world again and that denilson can do well in the holding role

[flash gunner]

4-0

Fabianski 4 own goals

[NBM]

3-2 win. Bent is bound to score at least one.

[euphoricone]

LOL i am pretty sure fabianski will not have a bad game against sunderland, 3-1 or 4-1 victory

[hugh jardon]

I predict 0-0

[Dan_85]

Almunia & Song back. Diaby out. Gallas, Arshavin & Eduardo still out.

[SPUDMASHER]

I'm so pissed off that I'm going for a 1-0 Sunderland win

[Red107]

"We discovered it today. He came in today and he had pain in his knee"

Do they have to whinge about every little pain in their knees. Everyone has a pain in their knees when they wake up.

All the injured players will be sat nice and cosy behind the dugout. None of them ever walk with anything resembling a limp.

[North bank girl]

I'm going for 3-1

[flash gunner]

Almunia & Song back. Diaby out. Gallas, Arshavin & Eduardo still out.

Thats fucked my prediction up

[AFCWozza]

Can we please please please go back to 4-4-2 for this one Arsene, please?

Almunia

Eboue, Vermuelen, Campbell, Clichy
Nasri, Fabregas, Song, Rosicky
Bendtner Walcott

I fucking hate 4-3-3/4-5-1 bollocks

[M-50]

You'd expect us to win this.

Sunderland are woeful away from home in the League. They have failed to score in 4 of their last 8 away matches and each opponent on their travels has scored against them this season except their 1st away match (v Bolton).

Sunderland have conceded a total of 46 goals in the league, 26 of them from open play. Of our (Arsenal) 61 goals scored in League (almost double of Sunderland have notched up), 44 of them have come from open play. Given these stats we should really expect to hammer Sunderland on Saturday.

We have kept a clean sheet in almost half of our home games in the league this season.

A worrying statistic still for us is that we've only managed 1 goal in the opening 15 mins of a game this season in the league.

Note that this corresponding fixture last season (almost the exact date too) finished 0-0 and in our last 4 fixtures against them we've only managed 2 goals!

[franksav63]

You'd expect us to win this.

Sunderland are woeful away from home in the League. They have failed to score in 4 of their last 8 away matches and each opponent on their travels has scored against them this season except their 1st away match (v Bolton).

Sunderland have conceded a total of 46 goals in the league, 26 of them from open play. Of our (Arsenal) 61 goals scored in League (almost double of Sunderland have notched up), 44 of them have come from open play. Given these stats we should really expect to hammer Sunderland on Saturday.

We have kept a clean sheet in almost half of our home games in the league this season.

A worrying statistic still for us is that we've only managed 1 goal in the opening 15 mins of a game this season in the league.

Note that this corresponding fixture last season (almost the exact date too) finished 0-0 and in our last 4 fixtures against them we've only managed 2 goals!

So..... and after all that you predict the score to be............