By 1970’s Gooner
Yes it was a dreadful performance. A performance that was littered with mistakes, inaccurate passing but above all not enough mental strength to counteract a difficult opponent on his own ground.
Chamach looked tired, Arshavin only lasted a half and Nasri was lost on the wing. Rosicky had his most ineffectual game and Wilshere kept making mistakes. The defence especially our full backs did well and on the whole Squillacy and Konscienly played much better than I thought they would.
But as is often the case we need to score at least two goals to win a game and sadly we were awful in that respect.
We lacked a leader in midfield to take the initiative and when Nasri drifted in the middle in the second half we looked more in control. But our “impact substitutes” of Fabregas, van Persie and Walcott added nothing in attack and so the game drifted to a sad end.
Let’s not duel too much on this defeat. We can and I predict we will put in a new run of wins together like we did after the Chelsea defeat to be genuine challengers. Some of you may be having severe doubts about our title potential but please consider the following:
1. Our current table position has been achieved without three very significant first team players
Fabregas (from the beginning of the season and also recently), van Persie (from the beginning of the season) and Vermaelen (for about the last three months).
I think that if all three were fit enough to start the game against Man Utd we would not have lost the game and judging by Utd’s average display we most probably have won it.
As these players are coming back to fitness I expect that we will soon be a team full of quality, creativeness and defensive stability.
2. We have played the other three major title contenders away already
Please take note of this. We will be facing Chelsea, Manchester United and Manchester City at home (I don’t consider Spurs as having the stamina and consistency to last the course).
And I believe we can beat them all. None of them are playing particularly well but more importantly we will be playing them with our full compliment of players. And when we do that we have every chance of winning those games .
3. We have found a pair of safe hands!
Bye bye Almunia thank you for your services. In young Szczesny and Fabianski we now have a pair of sound goalkeepers who we feel we can trust to keep us in games by making vital saves, like Szczesny did last night.
So stop the gloom and doom please. This team ain’t finished yet…..
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18 comments:
tru
nice to finally see some optimism :)
Sorry, but do you not see the recurring pattern? The same thing happens time and time again.
What give you any ground to believe this talented but unorganised, rudderless team can beat Chelsea or Man U at home? Our home record is worse than our away. 'Players coming back' doesn't wash, we lose these games no matter who plays.
It's not optimistic to support the status quo and delude yourself that somehow it's going to suddenly start working. Arsenal Football Club needs CHANGE.
do you smoke crack?
"I think that if all three were fit enough to start the game against Man Utd we would not have lost the game and judging by Utd’s average display we most probably have won it"
MOST PROBABLY HAVE WON IT???? exactley which part of the 0 wins in the last 10/11 games against the top 2 gives you this idea?????
"As these players are coming back to fitness I expect that we will soon be a team full of quality, creativeness and defensive stability"
WHEN HAVE WE HAD A FULLY FIT SQUAD IN THE LAST 3/4 YEARS???????
I need some of your drugs man, your an absolute dreamer . . .
We can still win the league but we'll need to do it without getting any points off Chelsea and Man U. It'll be a sneaky title, but it's doable, especially if we get knocked out of europe early.
Everyone else sucks too, we just need to make our quality tell against everyone apart from manU and chelsea.
The only way for Arsenal to show some seriousness is to go down and manouver again. We need to miss atleast two consecutive champiöns league for them to realize their phylosophy has been overtaken by events. 2nd don't sell Cesc to barca at any cost. I rather see him playing under Morinho at barnerboue than see him in red & blue stripe.If we sell him to barca we will give them more power to come and take any of our players as they want in order to disorganise and imbalance our growing maturity coz they fear if we kept our players together we will outclass them in the near future. Call me Mannix
Look, this optimistic nonsense is well-meaning, but it's actually a BIGGER problem to Arsenal than the lack of height, strength or defensive ability. This is merely sticking heads in the stand.
Look at it. Just look. Nearly one third of the games Arsenal have played this have been DEFEATS. This idea that Arsenal are title contenders has to stop now. Arsenal are NOT title contenders. They are Champions' League place hopefuls.
Wenger obviously has been promised a place upstairs when he retires from management, which is why he hasn't been sacked. His King Canute bit is now beyond ridicule and he is now patronised by former rival managers who don't take Arsenal seriously any more. Even worse: Tottenham - think about that: TOTTENHAM! - are now as close as it gets to Arsenal having a proper rival, i.e. someone who is on the same level.
Is this going to be Wenger's real legacy? That he allowed Arsenal to sink to the level of Tottenham in competing for 4th?
If he really cared about Arsenal and not himself or his ego or his intellectual snobbery or his image or his legacy, he'd nominate his successor now, resign as manager and take his position on the board.
This optimism in the face of evidence is not proper optimism; it is fallacy. It is ignorance. It is emperor's-new-clothes mentality. It is insanity. And it is the worst thing, in my humble opinion, that fans of Arsenal football club can possibly do for Arsenal football club. And it would not be tolerated anywhere else where teams consider themselves to be title contenders.
Look, I'll give you optimism. I hope that I'm wrong about this. I hope that, in this decade, Arsenal win 7, 8 or 9 titles. I really, genuinely, honestly, earnestly, painfully hope that, because I'm an Arsenal fan. It took 7 years to win the league after '91 and it looks like it's going to be at least that again to the next one.
So my stance is this: Arsenal fans should stop considering their club as title contenders. Arsenal are Champions League qualifiers and that's all. It will be all Arsenal are this year, next year and probably the one after that. That should be just accepted. For now. And if it takes a new manager to harvest what Wenger has built with youth and his system, then so be it. Frankly, Pat Rice needs replacing with Steve Bould and he or Claude Puel should be the next guy in charge. I don't really care about names at this stage, but it's important to know what Arsenal are and what they are not. It's important to realise what stage they are at and what stage they are not at. And sadly, I think Wenger should step aside.
Look, this optimistic nonsense is well-meaning, but it's actually a BIGGER problem to Arsenal than the lack of height, strength or defensive ability. This is merely sticking heads in the stand.
Look at it. Just look. Nearly one third of the games Arsenal have played this have been DEFEATS. This idea that Arsenal are title contenders has to stop now. Arsenal are NOT title contenders. They are Champions' League place hopefuls.
Wenger obviously has been promised a place upstairs when he retires from management, which is why he hasn't been sacked. His King Canute bit is now beyond ridicule and he is now patronised by former rival managers who don't take Arsenal seriously any more. Even worse: Tottenham - think about that: TOTTENHAM! - are now as close as it gets to Arsenal having a proper rival, i.e. someone who is on the same level.
Is this going to be Wenger's real legacy? That he allowed Arsenal to sink to the level of Tottenham in competing for 4th?
If he really cared about Arsenal and not himself or his ego or his intellectual snobbery or his image or his legacy, he'd nominate his successor now, resign as manager and take his position on the board.
This optimism in the face of evidence is not proper optimism; it is fallacy. It is ignorance. It is emperor's-new-clothes mentality. It is insanity. And it is the worst thing, in my humble opinion, that fans of Arsenal football club can possibly do for Arsenal football club. And it would not be tolerated anywhere else where teams consider themselves to be title contenders.
Look, I'll give you optimism. I hope that I'm wrong about this. I hope that, in this decade, Arsenal win 7, 8 or 9 titles. I really, genuinely, honestly, earnestly, painfully hope that, because I'm an Arsenal fan. It took 7 years to win the league after '91 and it looks like it's going to be at least that again to the next one.
So my stance is this: Arsenal fans should stop considering their club as title contenders. Arsenal are Champions League qualifiers and that's all. It will be all Arsenal are this year, next year and probably the one after that. That should be just accepted. For now.
Three reasons why we wont win the title:Wenger,Wenger and Wenger
If Arsenal can beat Chelsea then maybe we challenge for the title.
I'm afraid Wenger has dragged down Arsenal with his tactical incompetence. He only wants to attack that is a one dimensional approach. He doesn't want to play anti soccer pack the midfied.
His mantra is you score one I will score two. Sadly he is out of touch with the realiteis of the modern game and is causing the gunners to go backwards.
Btw i hope he reads the frustrated comment of gooner fans.
good article, the tittle is up for grabs
Appreciate the optimism! I think much of what you say is true, but lets cast our minds back to last season's "EASY RUN-IN" on paper it seems like things are in our favour in the later part of the season, but football is football and you can take nothing for granted!
Up the ARSEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
To all the Arsenal doom and gloom monsters, firstly please look at the league table. Yes we are still in the hunt for the table.
I do agree the performance from the Aresnal boys on monday night was poor, but please remember going to old trafford is no walk over, and historically we have never donw well there.
I think the columunist has made some valid points, look at the players we have out, and to go to places like old trafford and get points, you need your best players match fit. Just look what has happend to chelsea over the past few weeks with the players they had out. It can be argued we have had more key players out then then and we still have more points then them. Playing our "rivals" away from home in the first half the season has not been easy, but i feel its our hardest games out of the way already. So when it comes to playing these teams at home, yes we can come away with 3 points.
Man utd will drop points, as will chelsea. We just need to make sure we drop less.
@bac, have you seen the league table recently, we are 6 points clear of totscum, so i dont see how they are our rivals for the league title? please think before making such bold and ridiculous statements.
Im not sure if some of these statements are knee jerk reactions and just the anti wenger brigade having another chance to make there bigot voices heard.
All i have to say is, we lost, get over it, move on to the next game, we stil have our best defender, best midfielder and best striker to come back from injuries. lets support the team and see where we are come may.
We lost away 1-nil against 12 men at Odd Triffid - the home of the PL referee. We didn't play well but only lost 1-nil. Start moaning if we lose these games at home where we really do need to start winning the 'Big' games.
all this talk of arsene steping down and being out of touch with the modern game is as pathetic as it comes, arsene is the modern game, does no one remember that most teams now follow the arsenal way and there training methods which all came to this club and country because of arsene, we are arsenal fc and we love to play the game the way its suppossed to be played with our team playing beautiful football, not just buying all the best players from all over the world, arsene buys young potentail and turns it into world class talent, so its been 5 years without a trophy so what no team can win a trophy every season, one team domanates for a few years then another team takes over thats the way its allways been and will allways be, so just be thankfull we support arsenal and have arsene and not benitez or some other manager who would have us playing boring defesive football with still no trophys, all i can say is arsenal is my team and i`ll support them if we win trophys or not, IN ARSENE WE TRUST
I agree with many Gooners out there that Gael Clichy has been out of sorts in recent times.
It's a shame because he is a such a loyal player to the club and is the last link we have to the Invincible team of 2003/04.
It's hard to pinpoint the exact reason why Clichy seems to have regressed.
Maybe the current formation doesn't suit him as he doesn't seem to get a lot of protection from whoever plays in front of him.
I'd say that Gael looks a lot more comfortable in the 4-4-2 formation Arsene Wenger used to use.
So much more comfortable in fact a couple of years ago I was confident that he would one day become the best left-back in the world so I'm certain that he can't have turned into a bad player overnight.
Maybe Gael needs a time-out to recharge his batteries and get his head together.
Obviously Kieran Gibbs is next in line for the left-back slot but his injuries are so common at the moment a regular run in the side for him is impossible.
I feel for Kieran. He clearly has potential but every time he gets a chance to shine he gets injured. Despite him being injury-prone I've no doubt that he will be Arsenal and England's future left-back.
Whilst Clichy has been inconsistent and Gibbs spends a lot of time in the treatment room I think that Thomas Vermaelen could be a short term answer to the position.
Of course he is injured at present but when he recovers he could play there and a back four of Vermaelen-Djourou-Squillaci-Sagna looks very solid in my book.
There is the problem that Vermaelen is probably our best centre-back so it may seem daft to take him out of the centre of defence but surely it would tighten us up at the back?
Thomas plays left-back for Belgium quite regularly and did so for Ajax too. He is used to the position so I'm sure he would be comfortable there.
We all know he likes to get forward and Wenger encourages his full-backs to roam forward at every opportunity so he would enjoy it.
The most important aspect though in my opinion is that he defends first and obviously is a natural defender, definitely more so than Clichy and Gibbs at present.
And Arsenal need to defend better.
It will be different. We will win. I will regret writing this post. Simple.
Last season we travelled to Barcelona and lost 4-1. On the night, we played the following team:
Almunia
Sagna – Vermaelen – Silvestre – Clichy
Denilson – Diaby
Nasri – Rosicky – Walcott
Bendtner
This year, if all goes well, we will play this team:
Szcznesy
Sagna – Vermaelen – Koscielny – Gibbs
Wilshere – Ramsey / Song
Nasri – Cesc – Arshavin
Van Persie
That’s quite a few reasons why we would stand a better chance…
Out of those two teams, only Nasri, Vermaelen and Sagna played last season.
So that;s 8 reasons why we could beat them. Plus they don’t have Ibrahimovic any more which means they won’t be able to do any long balls…
There I said it! Ha, come on the Arsenal…
one thing i have learned from being an arsenal fan over 35 years is you should never right us off.our history tells us that when the chips are down we come up fighting.lets look at several ie’s of this.nobody,not even the most ardent of arsenal fans thought that we could go to anfield (of all places)and not only beat liverpool but needing a 2-0 scoreline to win the title,what did we do win 2-0.another final nobody give us a chance was parma one of the best footballing sides in europe at the time and we were without a few first choice players,what did we do smudger scored a corker and we won 1-0.i was only a nipper when the 1971 cup final was played.we went 1-0 down in extra-time only to come back and score 2 goals to win the double. another game a lot thought we couldn’t win was when we won the title at old trafford.i remember a lot of pundits etc say that we probably wouldn’t win at old trafford and would have to rely on beating everton home to win title,what did we do prove everyone wrong by winning the title at old trafford.sometimes arsenal’s great history has shown that we thrive as a club when we have tougher challengers.i have had hearbreak as a fan loseing to the likes of york (fa cup) & wrexham.nobody will give us a prayer against barca but i do.if some fans don’t want to suport the team then that’s their problem.all i would say is have a look back at our great history and you will see that we have had these challengers on many occasions and will continue to do so.if everone thinks that barca will be happy with the draw then you are wrong,they won’t be.yes they will be big fav to go through but one thing i love about being a gooner is we always,ALWAYS have a chance. keep the faith folks.
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