Warning: Arsenal are dangerous for your mental health (15/2)

[gooner.ed]

usual thread starter... can anyone really say that they enjoyed the game last night. torture of the first degree i am telling you. why do we have to make it so damned hard? oh of course - that would be because we're arsenal

[Rilo II]

I think that's going a bit overboard. I agree last night was horrible to watch at times, but it was nothing more than a freak night. It wasn't because we are poor finishers, it's not because we can't take a penalty. It was something that can't be explained, just a freak night where the ball just wouldn't seem to go in.

Questioning Gilberto being a penalty taker is easy to do now that he has missed one, but how about all the spot kicks he's tucked away this season. Take a man with nerves to so calmly put one in against the spuds.

Perhaps the beast wasn't the best choice to take the second. After the night he had I knew as soon as he stepped up he would miss. Nice to see he still had the confidence after 2 hours where very little went right for him.

We won the game playing some absolutly beautiful football. I never get tired of my manc friends who can do nothing but praise the football we play. We may have made hard work of it, and my heart certainly skipped a beat or two, but lets not read too much into it. Another day we would have won that match by 4. Rather than concentrating on the missed chances, lets praise the fact that in a season when the problem has been creating chances, not taking them, we tore the defence up time and time again.

I have taken something from last night. A strong belief that we will go far in this competition. A new Wembley deserves a match of the quality that only we can provide. We must be there.

[johnfeeney]

I know I will be in a minority of one but I thought last night was a glorious game of football. Do people not realise what a genius AW is. I am not talking about his ability to unearth talent,or the vindication of the faith he has show in standing by Aliadiare and Freddie. He appealed to Big Sam's huge ego and convinced him that Bolton can beat Arsenal by playing football. While everyone raves about what a fantastic ref we had last night,and he was good...why was Anelka not sent off.

[proudtosaythatname]

john, you're not in a minority of one, but my nerves have only just recovered after a couple of beers and glasses of red wine (French, of course!). Our football was awesome, but I thought our performance in front of goal was nerve-shredding. Adebayor's miss made Tom's against CSKA look like a blinding strike on goal. The main thing, however, is that we won and much as I dislike Fat Sam he had the good grace to have a laugh with Pat Rice at the end (but just the bare handshake from the Prof). The word to describe the game I've seen in most newspaper reports today was "bizarre" and I couldn't agree more. Never seen anything like it. And Freddie did one thing right, but boy, what a goal!