Arsenal v Spurs SF

Mad Dog

2-2 Baptista...What a night he's had !!!!

Villain

2-2 Where was Robinson going?

WhiteWashMan

spurs passing haas become very sloppy.
what i wouldnt give to have jenas on the pitch right now.
keep up the momentum in mid field

and ****, arsenal scored

Mad Dog

irish1 wrote:

2-2 Where was Robinson going?

I think he has a touch of the David James's

kinaldo

Spurs crumble again. Brilliant game though, I always enjoy watching Arsenal's second string team.

gandalf

Looks like Baptista is hitting form just when we need him when Van Persie is injured !!

Fuzzy_Dunlop

Ah yes!, what was robinson up to? And why does Hleb keep passing as soon as he gets anywhere near the goal?, awww great now hes injured

Mad Dog

Game over 2-2, I think Spurs missed a big chance here tonight and will be surprised if they get through the 2nd leg now :cool:

WhiteWashMan

bah, still, good game. i think we will take it at highbury. disappointing to lose two goals as we did.
thought the first was lucky rebound but nicely put away, second was robinson dancing around the box.
i think the young guns did enough to play in the next game

GrumPy

It should just go to penalties in my book

kinaldo

Tonight was Spurs' big chance and they blew it, big time. They haven't got a hope in hell at the Emirates (but if they do somehow pull it off I'll accept a large portion of humble pie)!

Fuzzy_Dunlop

WhiteWashMan wrote:

bah, still, good game. i think we will take it at highbury.

hmmm, i don't know about that now;)

gandalf

Jaysus only got the see the 2nd half and very happy at the performance I saw. However they must have sucked in the 1st half because the Possession was 69% to Spurs at one stage.

And Baptista got another hat trick, well he did score 3 goals LOL. Should be a cracker at the Emirates

Pepe LeFrits

Cracking game.

Must say, Denilson looks to be a super little player. Looks like he's got all the ingredients to be a top all-round midfielder.

Royale with Cheese

Thought Baptista was pretty poor today, but he did get two goals in the end so I can't complain. His first goal shows promise. Scrappy goal in the box, used his strength to put it away, something which could be handy for the rest of the season.

Mossy Monk

wonderful 2nd half for Arsenal. just how good is Fabregas really am glad i got next Wednesday off work now

Pepe LeFrits

Mossy Monk wrote:

just how good is Fabregas

Exceptionally. He just gets better and better, and he's not 20 for another month or two yet. He's simply phenomenal.

I thought Hoyte had a very good game today, and Eboue and Hleb showed their difference in class when they came on. On the other hand, at the moment Theo looks best suited to cameo roles at the end of games, and Toure and Senderos had dodgy games today. Yet again two goals conceded from crosses/set pieces. It needs to be sorted.

Three injuries is very worrying though, hopefully they were nothing serious but I fear Hleb may have done his hamstring and he would be a terrible loss right now. Our players must be made of glass, they are just unable to stay fit for any extended period of time

Savman

Great game, more of the same next week please.
Fabregas looks like a future candidate for FIFA Player Of The Year.
He's how old?!!:eek:

ErinGoBrath

Savman wrote:

Great game, more of the same next week please.
Fabregas looks like a future candidate for FIFA Player Of The Year.
He's how old?!!:eek:

Agreed. He's got unbelievable awareness, vision, passing and he's toughening up nicely. At one point he was sticking his tongue out at one of the Spurs players taking the piss.

Still have my doubts about the Beasts ability after all his goals

jank

Our players must be made of glass, they are just unable to stay fit for any extended period of time

Agreed. Why are they so injury prone??

Hopefully Cesc will get the young player of the year award

WhiteWashMan

you didnt sign a physio from newcastle did you? :P

gandalf

No but I reckon Wenger should sign Given from Newcastle!!!

therecklessone

kinaldo wrote:

Is that really true? You mean after all that bickering over the 15% away allocation they couldn't even fill up less than that?

I'll take it Erin's use of the word allocation confused you and you thought he was referring to our paltry alocation at the Death Star? All 5,173 tickets we received for the 2nd leg sold out to Season Ticket holders with 188 Loyalty Points. For the record, I was 70 short of the magic number (I've held my ST 2 years now and purchased an extra 21 tickets in addition). On average, a ST holder for four years who attended 5 away fixtures against the likes of Boro and Wigan each year would have qualified.

As for last night, official attendance was 35,485 (97.9% full) which is disappointing considering the opponents, pricing the game as category A had to play a part in the decision of those who stayed away (the Park Lane and Paxton Rd stands were full, both are the chepaest to sit in), with tickets in the West Upper costing £71 last night (STs costing well in excess of £1,000). I can only assume a number of ST holders chose not to attend last night, as our home game to Arsenal last season sold out in one hour with in excess of 30,000 individual queries logged by the ticket office systems attempting to purchase the 10k non-ST seats.

As for the game, Jol's tactics again saw us surrender possession too easily in the 2nd half, allowing Arsenal the initiative which inevitably told in the end. The loss of Berbatov to injury was a huge blow, Keane had an appaling game which cannot be solely attributed to him playing left midfield for periods of the game. At times, Spurs were layed out 4-3-3 with Defoe up front, and Keane/Lennon in behind him. That could not work, Defoe cannot hold the ball up to allow others get forward.

Our biggest problem last night was in central midfield. Zokora's no-show on the night left Huddlestone exposed, his lack of pace could not compensate for the Ivorian's laziness and disinterest. As a result, the Arsenal midfield dominated the 2nd half, and the CB partnership of Dawson and Snoop Gardner came under increasing pressure.

Robbinson should be dropped after his howler for the 2nd goal, and he should never wear the captain's armband again...:mad: His long kick outs were the main reason for us being under pressure for so long, I think he passed short once all night.

Roddy23

taken from the BBC:

2051: News emerges from the Emirates that Tottenham are down to four substitutes instead of the allowed five. It appears that Spurs thought they had notified the officials that they were not putting Aaron Lennon on the bench, as we thought, but had named Charlie Lee in his place.

Lee started warming up only to be stopped by the fourth official, who said he did not have him down on his list of substitutes for the match.


eh wtf?

sigh reminds me of the last game of last season......another mess.

Roddy23

Adebayor ye beauty 1-0 to the Arsenal

Gillie

Mido!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
1-1!

Gillie

Mido shoulda won it for Spurs there! Inches wide!

Gillie

1-1 (3-3) at full time.
Extra Time coming up after the Break!
Both teams had chances to clinch it at the end!

2-1 Aliadiere

Gillie

2-1 to Arsenal. Alliadaire!
Just on the stroke of Half Time of Extra Time!

Roddy23

Aliadiere 2-1 doesnt really change anything though. Spurs still need a goal to send it into peno's.

county

3-1 game over

Gillie

3-1. Radsicky!
Ball was defo over the line!

Thank you and Good night.

Royale with Cheese

It was an og though. Rosicky's shot wasn't going in until the defender managed to bundle it in. Dunno who it was.

Gillie

Chimbonda I think.

Gillie

All over!
Arsenal Vs Chelsea in the Final.

Should be a cracker!

Royale with Cheese

I really hope Arsenal don't field a completely full team against Chelsea. The youngsters deserve to play a final. At least keep the better ones in the side... actually as long as Denilson plays I'm happy.

Pepe LeFrits

Royale with Cheese wrote:

actually as long as Denilson plays I'm happy.

Agreed, I love the kid! Classy player and a no-nonsense attitude, proper midfielder!

Great performance and the deserved result. Finally, a CC semi-final win! Woot

Mossy Monk

good win

first time in a long time i will actually give a **** about the mickey mouse cup final

will be good for the young players

jank

Great show again for the youngsters.
Denilson looks the part for me. Id say we are going to see alot more of him in the next few months.
Diaby looked good too.

Its brilliant that a team full of youngsters can comprehensively out play Spurs over 2 legs.

Hopefully they can cap it off with a win in Cardiff.

Would a cup double be regarded as a successful season for Arsenal this season?

therecklessone

Lost to the better side last night, we can have no complaints on that.

jank wrote:

Its brilliant that a team full of youngsters can comprehensively out play Spurs over 2 legs.

From Football 365:

The Stat No-One Seems To Be Mentioning As They Discuss Arsenal's Magical Kids

Average age of the Arsenal team that finished the Carling Cup semi-final: 23.

Average age of the Spurs team that finished the Carling Cup semi-final: 24.

Of the Arsenal side that bet Utd 2-1 in the league, only Henry and Lehmann played no part in the CC semis.

Pepe LeFrits

therecklessone wrote:

Lost to the better side last night, we can have no complaints on that.



From Football 365:



Of the Arsenal side that bet Utd 2-1 in the league, only Henry and Lehmann played no part in the CC semis.

I can't recall Van Persie being involved either. We all know stats can be used to show anything, such as the average age of the team at the end of the two legs. Why not the age of the team at the start, or the average age of the team over the 210 mins? Or the average age of the players who played the most minutes?

In the first leg Arsenal were missing Lehmann, Gallas, Rosicky, Clichy, Gilberto, Ljungberg, Van Persie, Adebayor and Henry. In the second leg, Lehmann, Gallas, Eboue, Hleb, Ljungberg, Van Persie, Baptista and Henry were missing. Calling the Arsenal side 'kids' may not be completely accurate but they were severely depleted sides nonetheless.

therecklessone

Pepe LeFrits wrote:

I can't recall Van Persie being involved either.

Apologies for the ommission, I'd discounted him because he started the ManYoo game on the bench and he's currently injured, which would make it difficult for him to play either tie.

jank

Agree with Pepe here. One only has to look at the injured players to see how well Arsenal did over the 2 legs.

The team that finished the game was probably the most experienced fielded over the entire competition this year.

Gillie

I really believe that Arsenal are on the Verge of becoming a really special team!

Amazing players in the team at the moment!