Match Reaction Palace 1-2 Arsenal

[LDG]

Thought we played quite well for the first 30 and should have had three at leat before they equalised.

Really sloppy defending for their goal by Kos, and thought we looked poor defensively all round. Why does it take us half a season to get organised at the back....Cech hasn't settled it at all, in fact, it looks worse!

Good 3 points though at a tough place.

[Niall_Quinn]

I dont think today was about individual performances pulling us through, although Alexis has more desire and ability than most of the other 10 players. However, i do think today was a starting point, a game we needed to win first and foremost and a game we should have won comfortably.

Lets just hope the manager doesnt hamper us like he has done before and plays his best side from now on instead of benching the pacey players. We have an excelent first 11 plus about 5 or 6 others who claim a spot as well so im hoping this season is gonna be different.

We need to build momentum now, starting against Liverpool next week. Newcastle and Stoke after then Chelsea.

Do you see a single indication things will be different? Anything at all? Look at the first two games, what do you see?

[Xhaka Can’t]

Our first 3pm kick off is the 12th of Sep against the Stoke cunts.

I'm there dude.

[Syn]

He’s a great player to watch, isn’t he? Like a dye, seeping into the cracks, filling the gaps, making them his own. Picking out the pass you didn’t even spot on Sky Plus. Drifting, moving, teasing, toying: always present but never there. This was a wonderful showing from Özil, and had we not become somewhat accustomed to his peculiarly tangential genius by now, he would surely have been the man of the match.

But actually, he’s just as counter-intuitively cerebral when Arsenal are defending. Specifically, when they’re defending free-kicks or corners. Watch Özil as the bodies begin to amass in the penalty area. He’s there, he’s watching, occasionally he’s even marshalling or pointing. Özil’s spatial awareness is insane, and his ability to spot gaps before they even occur is equally handy at both ends of the pitch.

When the ball comes in, players start running towards the goalmouth. Except Özil. He goes in the other direction, trotting out towards the edge of the penalty area, about 20 yards out. Always looking for the space. Not only does it cover the area of the pitch most susceptible to a long shot, but you watch the number of times the ball gets cleared to that precise area.

And now, Özil’s in space. With the ball. Arsenal can counter-attack. It happened twice here, and the first time ended with a chance that Sanchez really should have scored. (One of the men haranguing Sanchez for not squaring the ball, by the way, was lazy lazy Mesut Özil, who had sprinted from the edge of his own penalty area to the opposition six-yard box in about 10 seconds.) You watch the number of times Arsenal counter-attack from defensive set-pieces this season. Özil will be at the centre of most of those moves, mark my words.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...e-learned.html

[Niall_Quinn]

Also:

There’s this old joke about an rich old lady who buys herself a Rubens painting. About a week later, she’s got a friend over for tea, and the friend asks if she can see the new painting. So the woman gets up and walks down two flights of stairs, into the basement, which is filled with gardening tools and rusting household items and all those sorts of things. The woman switches on the light. And there, partially obscured by a dusty billiard table, hangs the Rubens.

They stare at the Rubens for a moment. Then the friend says: “It’s beautiful. But why have you put it the basement?”

“Ah,” the woman replies. “That’s where there was a spare hook.”

Anyway, let’s talk about Santi Cazorla. Cazorla was man of the match here, but he shouldn’t have been, because Özil had another of those games when you physically need to grab him by the hair to get the ball off him. Perhaps that’s why he’s had it cut short. Always one step ahead.

We’ll get to Özil in more depth later. The thing about Cazorla – and really, the thing about Arsenal more generally – is that it’s one of those clubs where everybody wants to play in the centre. The centre is where all the fun happens. Cazorla wants to play in the centre, and so does Mesut Özil, and so does Alexis Sanchez, and so does Oxlade-Chamberlain, and so do Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere, and so does Theo Walcott, and so do Nacho Monreal and Calum Chambers. Petr Cech may have signed as a goalkeeper, but he did so with a very clear understanding that he would be allowed to challenge for the No10 role in time.

In an attempt to solve the enduring riddle of how you get Özil, Sanchez and Cazorla into the same team, Wenger has tried putting Cazorla out on the wing, but if you do that he simply drifts inside like a homing pigeon. So here we are: Cazorla now sits much deeper, a deep-lying playmaker rather than a defensive midfielder, but it’s a distinction that only matters when you have the ball. When Arsenal had the ball here, Cazorla was excellent. This should not surprise anyone, because Cazorla is an excellent player. He’s also the only Arsenal player who ever looks like taking a long shot, so you could argue that playing a bit deeper actually suits him.

The problem comes when you lose the ball, and if you break down that Crystal Palace goal you can see it more clearly. Admittedly, there’s a string of errors here: Monreal doesn’t see Yannick Bolasie behind him, and Laurent Koscielny turns his back on the shot. And let’s give all due credit to Joel Ward to a fabulous shot.

But where does he get the time and space? You can see Özil throwing his arms up accusingly, asking who was supposed to be covering. Coquelin’s just been fighting a fire over on the other side of the pitch. Alexis is still running back. The man who should have been on the scene, meanwhile, is just jogging into the picture, like the guy who turns up at your front door at 8am clutching 24 cans of Grolsch, asking: “Is the party still going on?” It’s Cazorla.

You could sum up Cazorla’s afternoon thus: when Arsenal had the ball, he looked like the best player on the pitch. When they didn’t, he looked ordinary. You could argue that he was even partly responsible for Coquelin’s booking, as it came just after Cazorla had failed to win the ball in the centre circle with a limp tackle.

You could argue it wasn’t really a problem here, given Crystal Palace’s openness – even if they’d scored six, you’d still have backed Arsenal to go up the other end and score seven. But the problem isn’t when you lose the ball against Crystal Palace. It’s when you lose the ball against Chelsea or Manchester City or even Liverpool, Arsenal’s next opponents, who will have been watching with interest. Cazorla’s feet are so good that he’ll win his fair share of tackles, but you can’t trust him to win the ball like a defensive midfielder, and you can’t trust him to cover the same areas of the pitch as a defensive midfielder. And anyway, why would you? It’s not what he’s good at.

Of course, we all know the answer. That’s just where there happens to be a spare hook.

Jonathan Liew must be new, because he's actually watched the game.

[Syn]

He's a good writer. I think he's a spud though, unfortunately.

Spot on about Cazorla/Wenger btw.

[adzzzbatch]

The Liverpool game is a Monday night match.

Can't we play at a reasonable time for once FFS?

I think the later the better with us tbf.

[GP]

Played well. Looked in control throughout.

Should have scored more.

[Blink 1nce Quince 2wice]

Did what we needed to do in the end... not too dismayed about the subs and I thought Cech had a good game though I missed the opening 20 minutes....

[Maestro]

Wenger In