Arsenal vs Southampton. 2nd Feb. 19:45

[Power n Glory]

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.

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.

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.

[Özim]

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.
So why would you suddenly expect a comfortable win?

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.

Incidentally that's what I think should happen considering the fact we're at home and the opposition.

[Letters]

Why is Chelsea at home a pressure game and not Southampton? Southampton are above Chelsea!

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.

[Özim]

Why is Chelsea at home a pressure game and not Southampton? Southampton are above Chelsea!

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.

At home against this side I don't see this as a particularly hard game for us.

[Power n Glory]

Why is Chelsea at home a pressure game and not Southampton? Southampton are above Chelsea!

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.

Yep. I agree with that. Been saying that from the get go. Stop stealing!

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.

[Marc Overmars]

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.

[Dein-machine]

Pretty self explanatory I would have thought, we always lose to Chelsea and they also have better players than Southampton.

At home against this side I don't see this as a particularly hard game for us.

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.

[Maestro]

Has someone managed to take care of FY, because that is the only obstacle to victory tonight

[Alpha]

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.

Was Merts' red card rescinded ?

[Niall_Quinn]

Was Merts' red card rescinded ?

No, he served his ban against Burnley. It was only a one match ban and apparently you can't appeal to have it extended.