As we're unlikely to see terraces again at football, this is the virtual equivalent where you can chat to your hearts content about all football matters and, obviously, Arsenal in particular. This forum encourages all Gooners to visit and contribute so please keep it respectful, clean and topical.
northbank123 wrote:I have to say I really rate Oxlade-Chamberlain. Bizzarely, with the trend of the media wildly overrating any young English players they are pretty lukewarm in their praise for Chamberlain. Which is strange because for me he's probably the best of the lot.
Pace, power, workrate, directness, can skip past 3 or 4 men, happy beating men either side and two good feet. One of the biggest positives is that he still shows all of his traits after 80 minutes on the pitch which barely any of our players can say they do.
What worries me is that he will spend the next 2 or 3 seasons drifting in and out of the team, getting the odd game in different positions, showing real ability then finding himself on the bench for the next 2 games.
I do too but I have a bad feeling that he's going to play him in central midfield against the Chavs. I rate him highly but he doesn't yet have the maturity to play that role, especially not at Stamford Bridge and especially with our complete dearth of viable defensive midfielders.
I'd go with a front 3 of Sanchez, Welbeck and Chamberlain with Ozil in the number 10. I'm still holding out a slight hope that we'll adapt tactically this time around and not have both full backs and 2/3 of our midfield bombing on whenever we have the ball. I know we've played this way at that shithole for years now but surely having been beaten 6-0 last time and combined with their start to the season you'd have to be clinically dead to try the same thing again?
SteveO 35 wrote:With every week that passes it becomes more and more obvious why Dad's Army Milan allowed Flamoney to leave for nothing. If Arteta or Jack had lost the ball like that for the Scummers goal we wouldn't hear the end of it, but old statue man seems to still be widely accepted. Why, god only knows, because all I see is a headless chicken running round like a French Robbie Savage. No amount of chest thumping or clapping can disguise what for me is a player woefully off the pace in the top games and without a brain in his head
He's a limited player but sadly he's the only thing we have that comes close to a defensive midfielder. At least he tucks into the back 4 when he needs to and is positionally solid. No point getting on his back, it's not going to make him any better.
SteveO 35 wrote:With every week that passes it becomes more and more obvious why Dad's Army Milan allowed Flamoney to leave for nothing. If Arteta or Jack had lost the ball like that for the Scummers goal we wouldn't hear the end of it, but old statue man seems to still be widely accepted. Why, god only knows, because all I see is a headless chicken running round like a French Robbie Savage. No amount of chest thumping or clapping can disguise what for me is a player woefully off the pace in the top games and without a brain in his head
He's a limited player but sadly he's the only thing we have that comes close to a defensive midfielder. At least he tucks into the back 4 when he needs to and is positionally solid. No point getting on his back, it's not going to make him any better.
I diasgree. One of his big problems is that he's not positionally solid. He regularly goes chasing up to the edge of the opposition box, along with the FBs, leaving BFG and Kos 30 yards behind them, vunerable to any ball hoofed up the pitch.
He was an important player in the couple of years before he left us, but this time around he doesn't seem to have his head in the right place.
One of the funniest things I've seen at football in a long time yesterday. I was sat in the upper tier and getting a beer at half time there was a bloke in his late 20s/early 30s dressed in the full kit getting goaded by his mates singing "Full kit...full kit wanker"
After the game when I was walking back round the concourse, they let the Scummers out of their pit so was greeted by their chief morons singing "Fuck off back to Woolwich, North London is ours". In amongst it was 'Full Kit Wanker' fronting up one of their Neanderthals being pulled away by one of the coppers....just watching this bloke in his full red and white kit including socks pulled up to his knees giving one of their cap wearing *word censored* both barrels was fucking priceless.
If anyone knows this fella, buy him a beer from me
SteveO 35 wrote:With every week that passes it becomes more and more obvious why Dad's Army Milan allowed Flamoney to leave for nothing. If Arteta or Jack had lost the ball like that for the Scummers goal we wouldn't hear the end of it, but old statue man seems to still be widely accepted. Why, god only knows, because all I see is a headless chicken running round like a French Robbie Savage. No amount of chest thumping or clapping can disguise what for me is a player woefully off the pace in the top games and without a brain in his head
Agree totally, at the start of last season he seemed to do ok but has gotten worse with every passing week.
Someone on here blamed Wilshere for their goal which is bordering on insanity!
But this forum tends to have posters that feel the need to fit in and if a particular playing has been getting stick then they will conceive any notion of madness to lay blame to that individual
Got to say that mertesacker is looking worse with every game too.
GranadaJoe wrote:Our sooooooooo sloooooooow play is painful to watch.
We gave them so much time to get organised at the back that we made Kaboul look like Bobby Moore. Any team that is allowed to get ten men in and around the box will cause us problems. If we don't get the first goal early on we run out of ideas.
Apart from the City game and a 20 minute spell against Villa it seems to have been that way in all of our games too. Palace at home, Leicester away, yesterday, Besiktas x 2 and Dortmund (didn't see the Everton game so can't comment)....I've been amazed at the lack of energy in the performances. Yesterday and Leicester games in particular, it was almost as if the game was being played in slow motion
A few years ago, win lose or draw it was very rare that I would say I hadn't been entertained watching us, and in the early days the speed of our play was a joy to behold. Now, watching us do our impression of a poor man's Barca / Spain is so incredibly tedious, there are spells when I could actually fall asleep
At our best we are still good enough to pull plenty of teams' pants down, anybody at home. But whilst it's unrealistic to expect us to blow sides away for 90 minutes every week, we just don't play with anywhere near enough tempo for anywhere near long enough. It's not just a case of putting a tiny bit more effort and it all clicks, but too often there is no urgency, no creativity, no confidence.
We're not Man City. So often they turn up sluggish for half the match, turn it on for 15 minutes and score twice and then coast the rest of the game. Most of the games they win they only turn up for 15 or 20 minutes and it's enough. We did it last week at an atrocious Villa but generally we are not good enough and certainly not solid enough defensively to play shit for 75 minutes. Defensively we have really gone backwards this season, last year we took those hidings but generally we looked a lot better than we had in years at the back and that was the foundation of us actually being anywhere near the top as it allowed us to turn over nearly all the lower half teams even when we weren't playing great because we only needed to score once. This year we have looked like the shaky Arsenal defence of 2009-12 and we are worse at set pieces (at both ends) than I can ever remember.
Painful to watch, didn't feel like a derby in that first half and we allowed them to get set up and ready to frustrate, can't knock them for this approach when teams watch how easily Chelsea do this to us every time and then wait for the inevitable mistake.
Nothing needs to be said about Sanchez on the bench, can't be many that don't think it's completely retarded.
Ramsey and Arteta getting injured forces his hand now to change to a formation that gets the best out of the player last week that was behind our best display, complete madness to change it for the Derby when it worked so well the week before, I thought Ozil had a decent game tbh but the approach for this game at home was small time from Wenger.
Feel sorry for anyone that paid £90 to watch it, the only advantage to having a ST now is that we get to see such pathetic displays for a little bit cheaper.
Gunnersaurus wrote:Painful to watch, didn't feel like a derby in that first half and we allowed them to get set up and ready to frustrate, can't knock them for this approach when teams watch how easily Chelsea do this to us every time and then wait for the inevitable mistake.
Nothing needs to be said about Sanchez on the bench, can't be many that don't think it's completely retarded.
Ramsey and Arteta getting injured forces his hand now to change to a formation that gets the best out of the player last week that was behind our best display, complete madness to change it for the Derby when it worked so well the week before, I thought Ozil had a decent game tbh but the approach for this game at home was small time from Wenger.
Feel sorry for anyone that paid £90 to watch it, the only advantage to having a ST now is that we get to see such pathetic displays for a little bit cheaper.
Maybe Sanchez was a little bit jaded from his exertions v Southampton ? If only we had squad players who actually needed game time that we could have played or a promising, hungry, youngster to have kept Sanchez fresh for a vital derby match with 3 very winnable points at stake.
SteveO 35 wrote:One of the funniest things I've seen at football in a long time yesterday. I was sat in the upper tier and getting a beer at half time there was a bloke in his late 20s/early 30s dressed in the full kit getting goaded by his mates singing "Full kit...full kit wanker"
After the game when I was walking back round the concourse, they let the Scummers out of their pit so was greeted by their chief morons singing "Fuck off back to Woolwich, North London is ours". In amongst it was 'Full Kit Wanker' fronting up one of their Neanderthals being pulled away by one of the coppers....just watching this bloke in his full red and white kit including socks pulled up to his knees giving one of their cap wearing *word censored* both barrels was fucking priceless.
If anyone knows this fella, buy him a beer from me
Quality. Some slightly more serious aggro on the holloway rd! Our visitors beat a pretty hasty retreat.
i thought pace-wise we were okay in the first 20 of each half - ox and welbeck and ozil seemed to be pass and moving, when jack was in the middle he made some good runs, chambers and gibbs got forward pretty quick too. ox had a go a few times, ozil too.
the problem was when the attacks stalled - only once did we switch it quickly - Caz's 30 yr inch perfect pass to Ox, otherwise we just tapped it around waiting for an opening. with only welbeck waiting in the box there was no option to lobb a ball in.
one time there was caz, ozil, sanchez and gibbs all within 5 yards of each other on the left edge of the box...
ozil and sanchez should have run into the box and let caz or gibbs swing it over for them and welbeck with Jack on the edge to pick up the pieces.
we don't create space around or in the box with our movement, we don't pull defenders out of position or stretch their back four once we are over the half way line. its rubbish.
everyone bar flamini seemed to put the effort in yesterday, they just don't know what to do.
SteveO 35 wrote:One of the funniest things I've seen at football in a long time yesterday. I was sat in the upper tier and getting a beer at half time there was a bloke in his late 20s/early 30s dressed in the full kit getting goaded by his mates singing "Full kit...full kit wanker"
After the game when I was walking back round the concourse, they let the Scummers out of their pit so was greeted by their chief morons singing "Fuck off back to Woolwich, North London is ours". In amongst it was 'Full Kit Wanker' fronting up one of their Neanderthals being pulled away by one of the coppers....just watching this bloke in his full red and white kit including socks pulled up to his knees giving one of their cap wearing *word censored* both barrels was fucking priceless.
If anyone knows this fella, buy him a beer from me
Quality. Some slightly more serious aggro on the holloway rd! Our visitors beat a pretty hasty retreat.
Eboue-Why? wrote:If you fancy making an easy £50 for your beer today then open a Paddy Power account and get Arsenal at 5/1 to win!! Max bet £10 but very tempting
....which only goes to show what a mug's game gambling is!!
I heard a lot of scummers were fronting up to the george, got chased by the gooners outside. nothing special, just the usual spuds trying to cover themselves in glory by doing there danny dyer impressions, and getting embarrassed in the process
Seems one spurs fan doesn't know their club's history...
