Time to sort our lives out.
Probably have to pub this one though, Southampton won't have any fear after the Boxing Day mauling.
2-1.
Printable View
Time to sort our lives out.
Probably have to pub this one though, Southampton won't have any fear after the Boxing Day mauling.
2-1.
Easy win
uhm - just like every other game really. Slow start, tippy tappy going nowhere, full backs not allowed to join in & give us decent width but then 1 of 2 things will happen. We might score 1st which is always nice but results in the death of our game. The players automatically dropping 20 yards deeper to protect a lead, which is weird cos we're not to good at doing that & have failed to realise that if you give your opponent time on the ball in your half then they will create chances. Or probably the best option for us at the moment is to concede 1st, then L'Idiot will have to urge the players into playing quick attacking football ( which is how we train them, apparently ) in order to try an score an equiliser.
Nowadays, I believe we have far more chance of winning a game if we actually concede 1st. There is a terrible mentality in the team at the moment that seems hell bent on protecting a 1 goal lead no matter who w'ere playing. City don't have this problem which is why they win games by 3 or 4 goals & also the reason why they will win the league this season.
1-1 ( we take the lead ).
Home win.
3-0
Gotta be a home win. More interesting will be to see how fired up our players are to exact revenge for our recent humiliation at their place. Wenger says that his players have fight - now's the time for us to see it, because it wasn't there against the Chavs...
Impossible to predict it. No way of knowing if we'll bother turning up or not. With Alexis and Coquelin back we will surely do better than our last outing against this lot. Not that that would be at all difficult.
Arsenal 1 - FY 2
<_<
Sanchez to get a brace and us to scrap past 3-1 (only settling the game in last 5 minutes). Southampton have run into a bit of form.
Walcott and Alexis spark off each other so it would be good to see them both start, especially against a now more solid Southampton.
If we start well, we win. If not, a pubbed draw.
Hopefully:
Cech
Bellerin
Gabriel
Koscielny
Monreal
Coquelin
Ramsey
Ozil
Alexis
Walcunt
Campbell
Subs: Ospina, BFG, Gibbs, Elneny, Oxlade, Iwobi, Giroud.
I don't think the bookies are aware that fakeyank is going to the game.
Fill your boots.
I hate playing Koeman.
0-0 and the most boring uneventful match since the last time Fakeyank was over.
4-0
Revenge imo
Us giving out a thrashing. :lol:
We only receive them these days.
He'll start Merts and Giroud.Quote:
Originally Posted by Master Splinter
No doubt he'll start Merts and he'll dig in on this for the remainder of the season. He hates being proved 100% beyond all reasonable shadow of a doubt, definitively, comprehensively wrong.
Doubt he'll start Walnut up top though. Why would he? The guy's in the worst form of his life.
It's not even that. The Kos and Gabriel partnership wasn't good. Gabriel was getting dominated in the air and we conceded as a result. Kos was all over the shop as well. Based of that recent performance, I can't say it's an easy decision to bench Merts.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
As for Walcott, he'd probably play a lot better up front compared to on the left.
Walcott couldn't play better if you let him loose in Toys'r'Us. Giroud, for all his faults, at least has some clue where the goal is.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
Kos and Gabriel can't be judged as a pair from that farcical team that was put out against Burnley. If Wenger can swallow his pride and start these two for the remainder of the season we'll be a lot better off. Merts causes most of the problems with the players around him. They are covering for him all the time because he's so immobile. He's not that good in the air himself, so weak for such a big guy. But a pointless discussion, we all know what Wenger will do.
You say that now about Giroud but if he plays anything like his last couple of performances, I'm sure you'll notice the lack of movement and chances he's getting on goal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
What was farcical about that team and what does that have to do with being out jumped in a one on one situation? Stats say otherwise about Merts in the air also. In fact, it doesn't make sense to blame other players for the Kos and Gabriel performance on Saturday but then also say others have to cover for Merts weaknesses. Who played on Saturday that made Kos and Gabriel look that bad?
It's not a pointless discussion. It boils down to your perspective on what you think he should be doing instead. I've got my problems with some of Wenger's decisions but what your suggesting with the team isn't always right either. Gabriel was sent off against Chelsea when he started and when Merts was sent off, he came on. But we conceded minutes after the sending off. It's not clear cut that we'll do a lot better without Merts because so far we haven't.
Oh shite, people are seriously underestimating the FY Jinx effect. Do you know if he has landed yet? Is there anything we can do to stop him reaching the ground please?? :banghead:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
The boy is jinxed, seriously!!!!
I'm not talking about one-off games, I'm talking about Merts as a glaring liability over the course of a season. Our entire defence was shit against Burnley. Not surprising considering Wenger sabotaged it before kick off? What was wrong with the team? Wenger. He doesn't do rotation, he does vandalism. You put a jumbled up defence in with a jumbled up midfield including a player making his first appearance and then you say to them just play any way you want to. It's a unique style of management, that's for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
All fan discussion is fun but ultimately pointless when it comes to Wenger. I think one post yesterday summed it up. We'll be rid of him when the owners get sick of making money hand over fist.
It's too late, he's in the country.Quote:
Originally Posted by Maestro
Will try to mug him for his tickets at The Pins later. :(
Hello, police?
Yes, there's a shifty looking brown gentleman talking about Alan's Snackbar and bombs and stuff...
Still having nightmares about the 4-0 at St Mary's. We should be able to turn Southampton over easily, they've gone backwards IMO, saying that it's Arsenal and you just never know with us. Think we'll pub it 2-1.
My 9 year old nephew (and my sister) are watching this game in a box with Robert Pires, who is taking him to the changing room to meet the players afterwards. Lucky b'stard!
If Merts was playing with that team would you excuse that same mistake and blame the team around him?Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Coquelin was back in the squad, Gibbs and Chambers are hardly strangers at wing back. It's no excuse really. You'd have a stronger case if Gabriel has a solid record for us but he doesn't. It's patchy so it's very hard to assume he'd be miles better than Merts.
Of course his record is patchy, he hardly plays. I'm talking about taking out a recurring liability and playing two CBs who are suitable for this league and giving them the time to strike up a partnership. I believe the risks in allowing the time would be smaller than allowing Merts on the pitch. We won't find out though because Wenger probably doesn't even see any problems in Merts. And no, I wouldn't have been singling out Merts for that hyper-shit performance against Burnley.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
Expect us to win this game comfortably, they may have thrashed us earlier in the season but they aren't a great team this season.
They've been on a good run recently and you keep saying we're no good under pressure - and this is surely a pressure game given our recent results.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
So why would you suddenly expect a comfortable win?
Personally, I don't think the Gabriel and Kos partnership is better than Merts and Kos and I wouldn't tinker with that understanding at the tail end of the season.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
Check the stats and you'll see we've lost more games with the Kos and Gabriel partnership this season. We've lost 9 games across all comps this season but 4 of those games we've lost with Kos and Gabriel as CB pairings. They hardly keep clean sheets either. Best to explore that partnership next season but for I wouldn't switch things up now when they haven't been successful so far.
We're at home, they are nothing special this season and we should be winning this easily enough. I don't consider this a real pressure game, Liverpool away was and certainly Chelsea at home, but not this one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
Incidentally that's what I think should happen considering the fact we're at home and the opposition.
Why is Chelsea at home a pressure game and not Southampton? Southampton are above Chelsea! :lol:
Fact is all games are pressure games, some more than others but from now to the end of the season there are no inconsequential games.
Pretty self explanatory I would have thought, we always lose to Chelsea and they also have better players than Southampton.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
At home against this side I don't see this as a particularly hard game for us.
Yep. I agree with that. Been saying that from the get go. Stop stealing! :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
But it's a pressure game. We should be favourites to win but that doesn't mean the pressure is off. We need our revenge considering the last tie.
If you're in a title race every game is pressurised. Though some fixtures will are bound to have different psychological impacts, undoubtedly the Chelsea defeat hit us for 6, so if we can win tonight and put on a performance then we have to take the positives out of it because the heat is certainly on right now.
Southampton aren't great but they're one of those teams capable of beating any of the top sides, as we know all too well.
Nor did I against Burnley but we have zero killer instinct these days so I'm afraid unlike you I never think we will win comfortably. This team has as much chance of beating City by playing Wengers new found counter attack system as we do beating Villa because we cannot open up defenses with our lack of movement. When we do we've got 2 of the worst finishers in the league in Giroud & Theo. Its why we have this mentality running through the team of holding onto a lead, assisted by L'idiot making it worse by taking off our best players for the likes of Arteta & Gibbs - then crossing his fingers for the final 25 minutes. Lets see what happens tonight if we have a 1-0 lead after 65 minutes. Ozil & Sanchez off - Flamini & Gibbs on. Its pathetic.Quote:
Originally Posted by Özim
Has someone managed to take care of FY, because that is the only obstacle to victory tonight
Was Merts' red card rescinded ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
No, he served his ban against Burnley. It was only a one match ban and apparently you can't appeal to have it extended.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alpha