What a win, well deserved.
Oh the fallout in the media is going to be funny.
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What a win, well deserved.
Oh the fallout in the media is going to be funny.
Well deserved win . Really hard work. Well done boys.
Stuff of champions :trophy:
"Same old Arsenal, always winning"
Jammiest of jammy wins
We were shit but got lucky, Fools who do the same thing over and over again and sometimes get a result.
Very fortunate not to lose that one by two or three goals. An absolutely hopeless, momentum annihilating non-performance presided over by the most overhyped manager in world football.
False Dawn :bow:
Gutted that the team couldn't just go out and deliver some more football today. I'd rather see nothing at all than be teased by a couple of good performances a season.
3 points, all that matters
We had luck on our side. 3 points. Zero intensity from the players but Burnley were well organised and had everyone at the back and staying disciplined.
Well deserved win and three points for the old goat on his anniversary game.
'We lacked sharpness'. :lol:
'Played with the handbrake' :lol: Wengerism's. Every interview he says the same when we look slow.
Pub special :bow:
Koscielny's arm :bow:
'We were a little bit jaded' Why???? Change the record.
Wenger has never felt the need to explain the reasons behind his lame excuses.Quote:
Originally Posted by Goonermarvee
Beautiful to see all the rival fans and commentators and pundits crying.
WUMger delivers a great WUM on his anniversary.
Stats say Sanchez created 8 chances. Certainly didn't look like it. Nothing like our last game against Basel.
:cloud9:
Ox had totally fucked that up. Another one that shouldn't be near our first team.Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
:cloud9:
Terrible performance, just lucky we didn't lose.
Wenger can never motivate players on 'milestone' games :lol:
To win a tough away game when not playing well is what top teams do.
Happy with the win but must play much better next time.
Perfect - shows that it was not handball. It did indeed hit his arm but it was not intentional. It is only handball if it is deliberate. If only the commentators and pundits understood the basic rules of football instead of talking the crap - lets see what they say on MOTD tonight. I bet they call it handball.Quote:
Originally Posted by McNamara That Ghost...
:cloud9:
Having said that, it was offside and should not have stood! :d
Ox is in the England squadQuote:
Originally Posted by RomfordPele
He'll fit in perfectly.
Loved the way we win in the end. 3 massive points and it keeps us on a winning run and another clean sheet as well.
Some of our 'fans' seem to be crying too. A win's a win, every title win ever has had a sprinkling of pub team wins.Quote:
Originally Posted by Master Splinter
Moaning about other people moanimg is still moaningQuote:
Originally Posted by Letters
I think stirring shit is more important than avoiding rank hypocrisy. Besides, if you don't start trouble then how can you ride in on a high horse to ask for calm?Quote:
Originally Posted by Globalgunner
The morning after, I suppose what people have been saying is true. 3 points and nobody will remember the performance.
That said, I WILL remember the performance against the chavs, just as I remember the performance against Utd. You know - THAT performance, not the other one. The performance worth remembering. And when we rightly praise Wenger for the early years it's telling how fans recall the incredible football we used to play before they mention titles.
Yes 3 points. But what a shame we have to forget about the performance. Would be so much better if we had the points AND the point.
Watched the whole match until five mins to go as had to go pick the missus up <_<
Had it on the car radio and ended up waking both kids up in the back with a massive "YEAAAAAHHHHHHHHHAAAAHHHHHHRRRGHGHG" :lol:
What a shit match, but sometimes it's nice to pub one up.
Also nice to here the pundit on five live saying "I'm absolutely gutted...". Nice and impartial. Well mate, stick that right up your arse.
:scarf:
Presume that last word should be performance. And yes, of course. But no team plays like we did against Chelsea every game, sometimes it's not happening and you have to dig in and get the result. Didn't see it but by all accounts we got out of jail yesterday but we got the result. Obviously if we keep playing like that then that we'll get nowhere but we've shown glimpses of what this team can do so let's hope we can get back to that level.Quote:
Originally Posted by Niall_Quinn
No, I didn't mean performance, I meant point. The point of football for me is to be entertained. If that doesn't happen then the points don't mean shit. Parading around with a trophy at the end of a season where you provided zero entertainment, for example the last chav title, comes with little merit. Which great teams do we remember? The great Brazilians? The Argentinians. France at their peak? Greece? All winners, but which is the odd one out? All winners but there's a lot more to it than that if you are going to stay true to the point of the game. Winning at all costs is not sport. Ask Ben Johnson. We win in the right spirit of the event or it's a shallow win at best.Quote:
Originally Posted by Letters
We were teased by witnessing a flashback to the great Arsenal football of a decade ago and it was marvellous to see. But in the end a tease because if we intended to get back to what we have always done best under Wenger then we'd have approached this latest game with the same energy and ambition as the last two. But we didn't. We reverted to the bare minimum required to win. The spirit was missing. The purpose was gone. The whole point of the sport was missing. We were chavs for the day and I'll never be happy about that, 3 points or otherwise.
I don't expect us to hit the heights every match, that's unreasonable. But I don't expect us to plunge from the heights to the lowest of depths in the space of a few days. That shows there are still major problems at the club, the sort of problems that mean not only will we fail to be entertained for the majority of this season (like so many seasons before) but ultimately it will mean we won't compete either. Same old, same old and it all comes down to the conservatism of one man. He knows how to get us top 4 season after season. That's the one trick in his bag and it's old now.
I can't think of a single team in English football history that won the league title by entertaining in every single game...it's not always possible.
Whilst i totally appreciate where you are coming from, and do broadly agree....i've always felt that playing at home it is incumbent on the team to give the crowd value for money...i think away from home the priority is more to grind out the points where necessary.
I think for instance as a fan if you've travelled 200 miles to some godforsaken back water, i think you are going to feel more disappointed if your team has provided the footballing equivalent of cirque de soleil and ended up losing rather than an industrial three points. Ideally you would like both, but given the choice winning is the most important.
Really yesterday as much as i hate to say it, we would have benefited from having Giroud and Ramsey in the team.....whilst neither have the ability to play in the big games, both are the type of players to pop up with a goal in a fixture like this.
Most worrying yesterday was Iwobi showing signs of having Wengeritis
If it continues he might be forced to leave or it could have terminal effect on his career
Not everyone is going to bend over for us and there will be plenty of other teams like Burnley who make it a slog.
If these dour, negative performances are the exception rather than the rule then I have no problem with that. As you say, the expectation to play well for every game in a season is unrealistic. But what I can't take, and what we've been getting for the last few seasons, is a serving of shite on a regular basis. Yes we've ground out wins and we always accumulate enough points to secure that coveted top four spot. But if all we get in terms of entertainment over the course of a season is a handful of games with the rest of it being eyeball torture then that's not acceptable at all. That's where the English game has gone and to much the same extent the European game. Expansive attacking football has gone out of style and now we have whole tournaments such as the Euros where teams are quite prepared to bore their way to "glory". There are hints this might be changing in the PL, or at least the trend is going into a slow reverse and thank fuck for that. Who could have watched another season as bland as the last few we've had to endure.
My main concern is the immense gap between us playing well and then one of our shitty performances. How can we be so good one moment and abject the next? It highlights something beyond simple form. There's a method behind this bland shit we resort to, something negative and unwanted. And for all our negativity and ponderous plodding yesterday, what did it get us? We were lucky not to lose that game. Better strikers would have done us in. If we were gaining something other than the top four trophy (which surely we all loathe by this late stage?) or it made us more secure at the back then maybe you can accept it. But that's not the case. Attack has always been our best form of defence. We just aren't very good at being Stoke and his amazing that Wenger hasn't grasped this yet given the number of points we've stupidly dropped when sitting back on our heels.
Anyway, if this game was a blip then no problems. But what are the chances we're back to normality now with another false dawn behind us? Time will tell but the question is how much more time does this manager need to stick a decent team together and build some momentum and confidence? He's had years.
That was again down to the stupidity of the tactics. When you are up against a defensive team then the last thing you do is slow it down. Well not quite the last thing. Stupidly forcing everything into a congested centre is the final straw. You up the tempo against teams like that. Shake them out of their patterns. Stretch them all over the place. Test their discipline relentlessly. It was all too comfortable for Burnley yesterday because we played it the way that suited them. And that left Iwobi having to make things happen by himself. I commented on it yesterday, stop trying to ask a young kid to be Ozil just because he's had a few good games. He's a very good player but if Wenger continues to waste him in this manner then he'll go the way of all the other good players we've had here recently. Notice also that Theo's progression was sharply halted and he because ineffective too. Again, the stupidity of playing to the opponent's strengths rather than forcing the flow of the game ourselves. That's when our players do best, when their superior technical ability is used at a high tempo. But play it static with these players facing a massed rank of defenders and it becomes a slog. Alexis too. Because fuck all was happening behind him he had to resort to coming deep. Waste of time. Xhaka. He was winding me up with his short little taps sideways and backwards. Where did all the decisive forward passing vanish to? Surely the player himself didn't decide he'd change his game in such a negative manner? I just don't know what possesses the manager to sit there and watch these types of performances unfold without doing something about it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herbert_Chapman's_Zombie
I think what essentially has to change is that players need to just get themselves into the box, where at the moment we have too many players who want to play hot potato with the ball outside the box.
In this game it would have been better as you say to have employed Iwobi and Sanchez as traditional wingers but instead of constantly putting in crosses to no one (don't think either are exceptional ball crossers anyway) get the ball in behind the full backs and encourage Walcott, Ozil, Cazorla to push up so there is a chance one of them can be found by playing the ball across the goal and creating chaos in the penalty area, eight times out of ten the last ditch tackle or the hurried clearance will prevail but it's about playing the averages and having people in there to stick a boot on the ball in the direction of goal.
We used the same tactics that beat Chelsa and Basel. Iwobi has been finding his way into the middle all season and you only have to compare the 2nd goal against Chelsea as an example. I saw us attempt the same overload towards the left of the pitch with Theo and Bellerin staying to the wide right but nothing came of the moves. Sanchez has always dropped deep for the ball and that's what gives space to Theo to drop into that space. Against Burnley it wasn't working because the defence weren't shifting out of their space and we lacked the same intensity to our game. It's the tempo and intensity that was missing. Complacency. It's always been our problem. 2nd half we tried to up the pace but after 20 minutes or so you could see the mistakes creeping in and frustration. Xhaka made a few long ball attempts that didn't pan out, Iwobi with that woeful shot, Ozil blasted the ball into...I think he was trying to cross it....it just wasn't happening for us.
This is where it would help if the coach could step in and give a little more advise rather than just saying to pass the ball quicker. Or have a Plan B! It's the same old story. We'll struggle against teams that park the bus if well organised and we're slightly jaded and not at our best.
That was yet another difference, the lack of players in the box. It was very noticeable in the two games leading up to Burnley how quickly we were getting players into the danger zone. And we can say that Burnley were more defensive but Basle were pretty defensive too and they are a much better team than Burnley. On Sunday we had Iwobi, Bellerin and Monreal having to hold the ball rather than play it because no fucker was anywhere near the danger zone. Yet again, can that be the players making a conscious decision to do the exact opposite? Wenger really does waltz through the raindrops after these kinds of performances. A few mutterings about handbrakes and little bit lacking sharpness and that's it, he's off the hook and all the emphasis is on the players. Somebody should ask him, WHY did they lack little bit sharpness? Why did they go from a high energy, high tempo style to a slow plod? Are they not fit enough for the demands at the top of the game? And if so, why not? Then man should start taking more responsibility for these non-performances.
CLEARLY we didn't use the same tactics. I have no idea why you would say that when it was blatantly self evident we used entirely different tactics. Tempo and intensity are part and parcel of the tactics, so how can you say the tactics were the same and then say certain elements of the tactics were missing? We also didn't press the ball like we did in the previous two matches. Probably because Wenger just doesn't respect the opponent and doesn't feel the same amount of effort needs to be applied against what he considers to be inferior opponents. He got a lucky 3 points as an ill deserved reward for his lack of preparation and his typical lack of respect.Quote:
Originally Posted by Power_n_Glory
