Arsenal Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

Pepe LeFrits

That was an embarrassment to the club. Fair play to Hull though who put in a heroic performance.

Arsene was stubborn again in the transfer market and it is costing us again. Some things, you cannot just fix 'internally'. Gallas and Toure will never be a strong CB pairing. That's the third goal already we've conceded from a corner this season, and we've given away very few corners. Johan Djourou has been our best CB so far this season; why is he on the bench?

Likewise Nicklas Bendtner has been our best striker this season, why is he on the bench too?

Furthermore today highlighted the problem we had in our midfield last season, and still have this season. Nasri has replaced Hleb which is fine by me, but then when Nasri gets injured - far too much creative pressure is put on Cesc. If Rosicky was about that might not be the case but then is Rosicky ever going to be about. It's not like this is any kind of surprise.

We have a very easy opening run of fixtures and we've already lost twice. Not good enough.

Pepe LeFrits

Anyway, at this juncture I have decided that the best solution to this issue is to go and get rat arsed.

Galvasean

Today's loss was a huge disappointment but so typical. Top of the league, mess up against a small team and lose it.
Nobody to blame but ourselves. We should have put the game to bed well before Geovanni's wonder strike brought Hull back to life. Add in Gallas' crossbar header and the brilliant save from Fabregas' long range effort and it simply wasn't Arsenal's day.

cson

Forgive me Galvasean, but I just don't buy into this "wasn't to be our day" shoite.

We're a top 4 club in the Premier League, we should be beating the likes of Hull City even if it isn't our day period.

OPENROAD

Roll on Tuesday night imo.

AnCapaillMor

All my fault i made adebayor captain in the fantasy footy. No intention of watching this game at all. It is'nt our day happens too many times. and amen to getting rat arsed.

Fuzzy_Dunlop

Bleh

Dunno what happened really. Just didn't seem like too much of a spark. Great defending from Hull on all those crosses and corners.

Fabregas and van Persie were our best players imo, although van Persie could have done better with some of the half chances that came his way, could have scored a cracker right at the end.

As Pepe said, we're really missing Nasri and Rosicky to add to the creative spark.I thought Walcott really made a balls of a lot of decisions today, was the biggest culprit of dawdling and trying to over play it. Adebayor was no great shakes and Bendtner would have been the right option given his recent form. All in all, a bit **** really!

Fenix

I honestly don't think that any team in the premiership can go into a league clash and 'expect' 3 points. Be it Man U, Chelsea, Arsenal and to a lesser extent (dig;)) Liverpool. Credit where credit is due, well done to Hull, and the likes of Stoke. No such thing as an easy league win!

As a Man utd fan I can compare feelings. I didn’t see the match today but from reading the above posts, i can understand a lot of those 'one of those days' sentiments. I learned a long time ago not to write off AW and his shrewdness in the market once again was for all to see midweek while embarrassing one of the championships hopefuls!

Maybe I'm the only one, but i honestly rank the gooners as bigger league rivals than Chelski or 'pool. I've no doubt Arsenal will bounce back with a vengeance and, well, Fergie said it himself, "A Man Utd Chelsea match will never compare to a Man Utd Arsenal game" or something along those lines ! Can't wait to see it, always the highlight of the season for me !

cson

Lads, I cannot understand those sentiments at all.

You want to win the Premiership you have to bully the smaller teams. When Mourinho was at Chelsea they were great at it. The amount of 4-0 wins against the small teams they got was unbelieveable. Arsenal were 1/5 to win this today for a reason; they should comfortably be beating the likes of Hull City off the park.

Pepe LeFrits

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

That was an embarrassment to the club. Fair play to Hull though who put in a heroic performance.

Arsene was stubborn again in the transfer market and it is costing us again. Some things, you cannot just fix 'internally'. Gallas and Toure will never be a strong CB pairing. That's the third goal already we've conceded from a corner this season, and we've given away very few corners. Johan Djourou has been our best CB so far this season; why is he on the bench?


We have a very easy opening run of fixtures and we've already lost twice. Not good enough.

quite right. to be fair i don't think we lack in attack but at centre back mostly. both gallas and toure are crap. i too felt djourou should be playing and also that kompany should have been bought or someone adequate.

Wreck

It wasn't the (admittedly terrible) defending from the corner that cost us the match, it was the wasteful finishing. The game should have been over by half time. It's not even the 'trying to pass the ball into the net' scenario, it's a lack of composure/clinical finishing. Adebayor was the biggest culprit as he has been all season, but Van Persie was poor too.

Mossy Monk

Eboue looked for a pass with just the keeper in front of him. That's the sort of thing that will cost Arsenal titles.

Frisbee

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Gallas and Toure will never be a strong CB pairing. That's the third goal already we've conceded from a corner this season, and we've given away very few corners. Johan Djourou has been our best CB so far this season; why is he on the bench?

Likewise Nicklas Bendtner has been our best striker this season, why is he on the bench too?

Who do you drop though?
If you drop Gallas he'll have a hissy fit and possibly try and burn down the Emirates in a bout of childish rage.
And if you drop Toure, well... I just wouldnt like to see Toure dropped


Agree with you about Bendtner though. I have no idea why AW left Adebayor on the pitch for the whole game...

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

Anyway, at this juncture I have decided that the best solution to this issue is to go and get rat arsed.

Took your advice = ouch, now have an 8 hour shift and its all your fault Pepe... :pac:

Royale with Cheese

I got rat arsed yesterday. It was fun, better than watching Arsenal lose to Hull anyways.

Man this is depressing.

Pepe LeFrits

Also got rat arsed, despite knowing I had to work this morning. It was worth it though.

Frisbee wrote: »

Who do you drop though?

Drop Gallas.

Straight into the bin.

cson

It was his fook up against Fulham that cost us as well.

Same thing as yesterday, not bothering to mark his man. I mean, I wouldn't even expect him to win a header against someone the size of Cousin, but at least stick to him and put him under pressure ffs.

keano_afc

I'm still in shock. This time last week I was just home from the Reebok and thought, yeah, this is gonna be a good season. We were looking good and resting our bigger players. One week on and its pretty dire. We were unbeaten until December last season and its still September and already we've lost twice. I see somebody mentioned the lack of signings in a previous post, iirc the same person who said previously we'd a big enough squad. Well, we dont. Toure/Gallas needs to be broken up, 4 league goals conceded and 3 of them from corners tells its own story.

Galvasean

Adebayor and RvP need to step up their games considerably. They are great men for scoring when the going is good and we are walking over a team, but whenever the going has gotten tough this season they've both been found wanting.
Adebayor misses at least one absolute sitter per game while Van Persie has gotten so selfish, blasting shots with no precision from impossible angles and inevitably missing. I'd be very interested to see RvP's shots on target ratio, and similarly Adebayor's.

amacachi

I'd like to see the average distance Van Persie misses his free kicks by.

cson

amacachi wrote: »

I'd like to see the average distance Van Persie misses his free kicks by.

I'd like to see his free kicks at least get over the fooking wall.

PHB

Personally I wouldn't read too much into, it was just one of those games I thought.

L'prof

PHB wrote: »

Personally I wouldn't read too much into, it was just one of those games I thought.

Yeah, but it wasn't just one of those games...it was another one of those games and one of those games that I can see us having plenty more of.

PHB

PHB wrote: »

Personally I wouldn't read too much into, it was just one of those games I thought.

i don't think its a case of that. its a bit more serious from an arsenal point of view. i think teams have copped that arsenal are not able to cope with the aerial threat. against Bolton, Toure didn't win 1 header. Gallas was culpable for the 2 winning goals in the 2 defeated games, as his markers lost him on the respective occasions. the real fact is Arsenal or Arsene haven't addressed this problem which has been evident in the last two or 3 seasons. its very bleak at the moment and because of wenger's stubbornness things will only get bleaker. i think we could well even miss out on 4th this season

Frisbee

Adebayor has to be the least clinical striker to ever score 30 goals in a season...

OPENROAD

Looks like their will be some changes on Tuesday

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/arsenal/article4842957.ece

Wreck

Its not often Wenger is critical of the team in public. Would be delighted to see a change up front, ideally I'd like Bendtner and Vela to start against Porto but I'll settle for one of those. Will be really interesting to see if he changes it up at the back.

yahoo_moe

Mossy Monk wrote: »

Eboue looked for a pass with just the keeper in front of him. That's the sort of thing that will cost Arsenal titles.

That's the one that stuck out for me as well - absolutely shocking. And despite the end result, I thought Theo (who's supposed to provide a more direct threat) took too much out of the ball on his run for the goal, as he did a few more times too.

As for defending, I think I'd almost rather see us concede a penalty than a corner at this stage.

keano_afc

Team predictions for tomorrow night? I see Nasri is back and Song is out. Cant really see Nasri starting, maybe Vela on the other wing? reckon he might go with Rvp and Bendtner up top. Cant see the defence being shifted about too much.

Galvasean

PHB wrote: »

Personally I wouldn't read too much into, it was just one of those games I thought.

Unfortunate;ly we have far too many of 'those games'. That's why we don't win titles anymore.

Frisbee wrote: »

Adebayor has to be the least clinical striker to ever score 30 goals in a season...

A real world class striker (ie: Fernando Torres) probably would have got 60 goals last season if he got the service Adebayor was getting.

Wreck wrote: »

Its not often Wenger is critical of the team in public. Would be delighted to see a change up front, ideally I'd like Bendtner and Vela to start against Porto but I'll settle for one of those. Will be really interesting to see if he changes it up at the back.

I was hoping to see Vela and/or Bendtner start against Hull. Particularly Bendtner who is the team's in-form striker at the moment.

yahoo_moe

Galvasean wrote: »

I was hoping to see Vela and/or Bendtner start against Hull. Particularly Bendtner who is the team's in-form striker at the moment.

I wanted Bendtner and RVP myself but Bendtner had just played Carling Cup on Wednesday so was rested which was fair enough.

Funny thing about Bendtner (and I rate him a lot) is that if you think back to last year, his best performances came early on when he was playing to try and break into the team and prove himself. Then he went off the boil for a bit in the middle part of the season. As I said, I rate him pretty highly but I hope he's not one of those players who only performs out of wounded pride - don't think he is though.

Frisbee

I was hoping for Nasri to start but ideally I cant see thaty happening.

Ideal team for me for tonight would be:

---

Almunia

---

---Sagna---Gallas*--Toure---Clichy
--Walcott--Fab---Denilson---Nasri---

---

Vela----Bendtner

---

*I have Gallas in this team but ideally I'd like to see him dropped for Djourou but I cant see Wenger doing this for fear of upsetting him. He's a world class defender when on his game but his ideas seem a bit bucked up. Drop him for one game even and see if there's a change when he comes back.

But to be honest I'd say we'll probably have Eboue starting ahead of Nasri. With RVP or Ade in ahead of Vela, maybe even both in ahead of Bendtner, hopefully not though...

Pepe LeFrits

I'm pissed off with tonight's line-up. Actions speak louder than words and Arsene's actions make it appear that saturday's performance was no big deal.

So far we've had 7 corners and created absolutely nothing from them; they've had 1 and had a shot cleared off the line. How ****ing hard is it to do some work on set pieces?

Pepe LeFrits

heh and as I say it, great team goal.

Quazzie

Pepe ya forgot the fact that they nearly scored on the counter after one of our corners.

was just about to press post when adebayour scores from a corner(albeit very awkwardly) to shut me right up.

I wonder if we keep posting complaints will they keep scoring?

Pepe LeFrits

lol, how did Theo miss that? Looked like he had too much confidence!

Quazzie

Pepe LeFrits wrote: »

lol, how did Theo miss that? Looked like he had too much confidence!

Nasri. SNAP!!

AnCapaillMor

Goals up on 101greatgoals.com if anyone is matching the match like me.

Quazzie

Vela showing some real class again. This boy looks good.

A clean sheet now would make it a real good night in my eyes

Wreck

Wreck wrote: »

Its not often Wenger is critical of the team in public. Would be delighted to see no changes up front, ideally I'd like Van Persie and Adebayor to start against Porto because I think they will score at least two goals each.

these aren't the droids you're looking for

L'prof

Wreck wrote: »

these aren't the droids you're looking for

Haha, more like this:

Wreck wrote: »

Its not often Wenger is critical of the team in public. Would be delighted to see a change up front, ideally I'd like Bendtner and Vela to start against Porto but I'll settle for one of those. Will be really interesting to see if he changes it up at the back.

gosplan

missed the match tonight due to training but seemed like an excellent result.

Who shone?

Has Nasri become essential all of a sudden?

Vela on for long?

leninbenjamin

gosplan wrote: »

Who shone?

no one really. the first half could have gone either way, but Adebayor and RVP did something really unusual in that they were actually clinical. Walcott was probably the best player on the park i felt, though he didn't really take his chances when they came to him. but overall i felt no one really shone, it was just a good team performance, made all the more easy by the fact Porto just capitulated.

gosplan wrote: »

Has Nasri become essential all of a sudden

i don't think essential is the right word. he wasn't fantastic tonight, but it's obvious he offers much more in and around the box than the current options, while still providing the width when needed.

gosplan wrote: »

Vela on for long?

nah, for less than 30 mins. looked good on the ball, but nothing really came from anything he did.

Frisbee

leninbenjamin wrote: »

nah, for less than 30 mins. looked good on the ball, but nothing really came from anything he did.

Was in work so only saw the highlights. Felt he really should have shot that chance when he put Bendtner through and he missed then milled it out for a throw...

Also would like to thank RVP and Ade for proving me completely wrong about thinking Wenger should drop them...

L'prof

leninbenjamin wrote: »

no one really. the first half could have gone either way, but Adebayor and RVP did something really unusual in that they were actually clinical. Walcott was probably the best player on the park i felt, though he didn't really take his chances when they came to him. but overall i felt no one really shone, it was just a good team performance, made all the more easy by the fact Porto just capitulated.

RVP maybe, but Adebayor was far from clinical tonight for me...should have had 2 more even! That said, I'll take his offsides and missed chances if he can put a few in.

Galvasean

yahoo_moe wrote: »

I wanted Bendtner and RVP myself but Bendtner had just played Carling Cup on Wednesday so was rested which was fair enough.

Since he was subbed off I taught Wenger may have been considering to start against Hull.

4-0 great result. Bout time Ade and RvP got their boots on.
Some horrific misses though, particularly Walcott, Nasri and Eboue (who after a recent run of good form looks back to his old self; step overs that lead to nothing, back heels to nowhere and missing open goals).

Lets not let the result get us carried away. It was a close game to a point with Porto hitting the woodwork and Clichy clearing one off the line in the first half. Once the second goal went in Porto pretty much the in the towel.
I expect tehm to put up a much better fight in front of their home fans.

Pepe LeFrits

I wanted players dropped because it would send a message that they need to perform to keep their places. I knew they could still put on a perform if they were selected tonight. It is the long term implications that concern me. We lost to Fulham not so long ago, only to bounce back and put in a few performances... and then lose to Hull.

Fabregas had his best game so far this season last night which was the key factor imo.

AnCapaillMor

Hope we don't fall into the Henry trap with fabs, in that we rely too much on his performance.

Evil_Clown

AnCapaillMor wrote: »

Hope we don't fall into the Henry trap with fabs, in that we rely too much on his performance.

IMO we definately rely too much on Fabregas performance (thats why we need Rosicky back asap) when he plays well we usually win like last night. When he is missing (or to an extent not playing well) it is much more noticeable than when any other player is missing by a long way and I think this will continue until we can get Rosicky fit who can at least half fill Fabs shoes.

AnCapaillMor

The little that he has played forus, Rosicky has'nt really set games alight.

cson

Out of interest, when is the last time Rosicky (Such an aptly named player) lined out for us?