PORTO - OFFICIAL THREAD

[Calo]

Oh Well it was a good 8/9 years to 2004/5. i think we now can be sure we are the 90s liverpool of the next few years. On the edge of things and very inconsistent. Loads of false dawns to wind us up. At least its not as bad as the 80s (yet ).

Bright side we should get rid of the glory hunters.

very true chippy that the only good thing about this

plums and cavair and pop merchants will soon desert us

[rodders999]

bendtners goals will fire us to champions league glory mark my words! europes top defenders are shitting themselves tonight at the prospect of having to contain the danish anus in the next round!

[Ted B]

bendtners goals will fire us to champions league glory mark my words! europes top defenders are shitting themselves tonight at the prospect of having to contain the danish anus in the next round!

our transition has got to the stage where i don't even find simple hearted posts like that, funny.

[King_Kolo]

Oh Well it was a good 8/9 years to 2004/5. i think we now can be sure we are the 90s liverpool of the next few years. On the edge of things and very inconsistent. Loads of false dawns to wind us up. At least its not as bad as the 80s (yet ).

Bright side we should get rid of the glory hunters.

very true chippy that the only good thing about this

plums and cavair and pop merchants will soon desert us

These would be the same glory hunters who do nothing but slag off the team week in week out when we suffer our first bad spell for a decade, due to the fact we haven't won a trophy for a shocking 3 years.

That's not a personal dig at chippy, i just find it quite ironic.

[rodders999]

bendtners goals will fire us to champions league glory mark my words! europes top defenders are shitting themselves tonight at the prospect of having to contain the danish anus in the next round!

our transition has got to the stage where i don't even find simple hearted posts like that, funny.

gallows humor. things are so bad it's all ive got.

[OT02]

It could be worse.

You could be a Spurs fan

Or Calo



Only joking mate

[augie]

Earlier on I really didnt care one way or another if we won tonight or not cos I thought that if wenger doesnt give a fcuk about it then why should I spend 90+ mins sweating on it Then I read a post on a different thread where it rightly pointed out the huge expenditure many Gooners went to in a bid to support their team tonight and then they get served up that shite It is all well and good for wenger et al talking up how important the backing of the supporters is to the team but then he has to realise that he cannot take the piss by playing 7 back up players and thus insultingthe fans who have travelled in the process. If the fans adopted the same attitude as the club and started to boycott travelling to those games that wenger decides to play his 2nd team then how will wenger and the club react ?

Really if we are all honest we didnt learn a lot from tonight that we didnt know already - song, bedtner, eboue and bedtner are not good enough and I will always maintain almunia also is in that group too. It baffles me how wenger took off ramsey unless he has some plan in mind for him at the weekend It should be said that if silvestre was a horse he would be put down by now to put him and us out of our misery - he is just not able to haul that fat arse about the pitch anymore and I even feel embarrassed for him Realistically fans are going to have to realise that we are light years away from where we once were and where we hope to be again If wenger had of invested in the summerin just 2 or 3 players we could well have been there or thereabouts but when you look at how low the confidence and performances are now and it has really shown up that several of this squad will not make it at Arsenal and that means that this squad needs a major overhaul and that is never going to happen with wenger in charge

[g88ner]

Earlier on I really didnt care one way or another if we won tonight or not cos I thought that if wenger doesnt give a fcuk about it then why should I spend 90+ mins sweating on it Then I read a post on a different thread where it rightly pointed out the huge expenditure many Gooners went to in a bid to support their team tonight and then they get served up that shite It is all well and good for wenger et al talking up how important the backing of the supporters is to the team but then he has to realise that he cannot take the piss by playing 7 back up players and thus insultingthe fans who have travelled in the process. If the fans adopted the same attitude as the club and started to boycott travelling to those games that wenger decides to play his 2nd team then how will wenger and the club react ?

To be fair, before booking tickets and travel, those supporters who went out to Portugal would have known full well it would probably be a dead rubber.

Every season, the final round of CL group stage games are usually pretty pointless, with qualification already assured. You only have to look at the teams fielded by Barca, Liverpool, ManUre and one or 2 others, to realise that Arsenal are far from the only club resting players.

The performance was shocking.. definately! but Wenger used that game to give half his Carling Cup team some experience, and I just can't be bothered criticising Wenger for this, because if we beat 'Boro on Saturday, then it'll be worth it, in my opinion.

As Wenger said...

"This was the only match we could try to protect our next fixture in the championship, that is why we did it. But many of the players who stayed at home were a doubt any way."

Anyway, there's little time to dwell on it, as we look forward to our HUGE game against Boro on Saturday, and then the exciting CL draw next Friday. We could draw Barca, Juventus or Bayern Munich.. and it's great European nights like that, that you look forward to and remember for the rest of your life.. so bring it on!

[paulinohio]

but Wenger used that game to give half his Carling Cup team some experience, and I just can't be bothered criticising Wenger for this,

Most of them were on the bench

[g88ner]

but Wenger used that game to give half his Carling Cup team some experience, and I just can't be bothered criticising Wenger for this,

Most of them were on the bench

Bendtner, Vela, Ramsey, Song, and Djourou started at least 2 of our 3 Carling Cup games, and they all started tonight... and Randall, Wilshere and Gibbs came on as subs.

So we had 8 of our Carling Cup team involved tonight... 5 of which, started.

Anyway, we're in the hat for the next round... that's the main thing

[QuartzGooner]

So would you have preferred us to play the first team then? Despite the fact we'd probably have lost anyway as they knew they'd already qualified. And you wouldn't have complained if we'd lost Clichy/Sagna/Cesc or whoever for 6 games through the inevitable injury they would have picked up??

hes not asking for the first 11 to be played

hes complaining that the squad players are total and utter shite

and hes right

I agree but we knew this already!! The fact is we're through and we haven't lost anyone to injury. Some of those playing tonight were purely out there for experience. Ok, Eboue, Song, Bendtner - they've had plenty of chances and are clearly not good enough. But Ramsey, Wilshere, Vela, Djourou - tonight would have been good for them whatever the result. They will hopefully be playing teams like this for years to come so it's only right Wenger used tonight's game to break them in.

Exactly, a bit of perspective.

Only thing that bothered me was I would have liked to have see a more balanced formation at the start.

Why waste Denilson out of position who needs a bit of a break?

Why not start Gibbs at left back, and start Wilshere left midfield?

Or if Djourou needed a run out then try Gibbs left midfield?

[Yankee_Gooner_Dandee]

awful performance

[SPUDMASHER]

Fucks sake people let's have some perspective shall we. I guarantee if we'd put out a strong team tonight and lost Cesc or Clichy to injury, everyone would be whingeing about Wenger not resting players, and we could just as easily have lost. The fact is we qualified with a game to go which in our current sitiation is more than acceptable in my book. Plus some of our bright young stars got an invaluable experience on a big Eurpoean stage instead of the pointless Carling Cup. It doesn't matter anymore whether you finish first or second, I personally think we play better against big sides anyway so I'd rather get a Barcelona or a Juve. We know some of the players out tonight aren't good enough but they are squad players, you can't compare them with te first team of 4 years ago, it doesn't make any sense. Don't forget we also had the likes of Luzhny, Cygan, Stepanovs etc. Lets just be grateful we're in the draw.

utter bollocks....utter utter bollocks. Grateful my arse.

That performance was a fucking disgrace and if useless c**ts like Bendtner, Song and Eboue are considered good enough to be squad players even, then I'm a purple banana

So would you have preferred us to play the first team then? Despite the fact we'd probably have lost anyway as they knew they'd already qualified. And you wouldn't have complained if we'd lost Clichy/Sagna/Cesc or whoever for 6 games through the inevitable injury they would have picked up??

Even more bollocks

Do you know we would have lost anyway?
Do you know a key player would have got an injury?

No you don't.

We threw away the opportunity to top the group. To go into the next round as group winners. Much of what happens on a football pitch is in a player/teams head. When we face our next opponents they will be playing against a team that couldn't win their group. That gives them a psychological advantage. We had an opportunity to show the rest of Europe what we were about and we didn't take it.
We had another defeat in a season littered with them. You need confidence in camp if you are to do well and no matter how you dress it up with excuses about second string players one fact remains. Arsenal lost a first team match and again broke their momentum.
There was a lot of experience out there last night as well as youngsters and they should have been able to do better than that. They were fucking woeful. That was the single worst performance I have seen from a Wenger team. They couldn't even string three passes together and Bendtner looked like he had no idea what a football is. The sooner that *word censored* fucks off the better.

[Meds]

i am absolutly LIVID, just came back from oporto,spent money that i didnt have,had to get a day off work, a day that i could have spent with my son and in return i get to watch one of the worst performances i have seen for ages.

We need some major changes in the summer, we need to get rid of few players and replace em with the same quality we used to have i.e pires,henry,ljungberg,bergkamp etc.......

what is the point of that tall danish bloke, he was absolutly useless

Gooner4ever

[SPUDMASHER]

i am absolutly LIVID, just came back from oporto,spent money that i didnt have,had to get a day off work, a day that i could have spent with my son and in return i get to watch one of the worst performances i have seen for ages.

We need some major changes in the summer, we need to get rid of few players and replace em with the same quality we used to have i.e pires,henry,ljungberg,bergkamp etc.......

what is the point of that tall danish bloke, he was absolutly useless

Gooner4ever

Feel sorry for you going all that way to watch that shite. Loyal supporters such as yourself deserve better.