Arsenal Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2014/15

bad2dabone

Delighted with the points.

Irish Aris

Very disciplined performance.
Not impressive, but it will do just fine.

Soups123

Big indication of the swing in support with Arsenals away fans who are the hardcore showing a thanks but goodbye banner to Arsene

Looper007

Good Result. We played well, more of those kind of results should give us the confidence to kick on. Santi was brilliant and its great to have Kos back in the defence. But its a worry anytime one of our players go down. Giroud really is a great target man and we missed him the last two or so months.

Looper007

Soups123 wrote: »

Big indication of the swing in support with Arsenals away fans who are the hardcore showing a thanks but goodbye banner to Arsene

Stop with the negative for a minute will you soups. We won lets talk about that before the bashing begins again.

Fuzzy_Dunlop

Ramsey has lost the plot trying to score goals. What was he doing trying to shoot when the goalie was up for the corner at the end? He was never going to score from there and could have easily just given it to Ox or whoever to run it into their half.

Alfred Borden

Very happy with that. You wouldnt think thats our #3 in goals, feel very confident with him.

K4t

Defence was the key for Arsenal today. Back four were all superb.

Midfield is still a big problem, players fading in and out of the game will cost you against better teams.

emergingstar

Fuzzy_Dunlop wrote: »

Ramsey has lost the plot trying to score goals. What was he doing trying to shoot when the goalie was up for the corner at the end? He was never going to score from there and could have easily just given it to Ox or whoever to run it into their half.

He his having a mare of a season believing all the hype from last year

emergingstar

Marteniz looks the real deal too

Mr Blobby

Very good win.
Didn't we drop points there last season?

Only caught the 2nd half but our defence seemned very solid and Giroud looked good on his full return.

Ramsey does need to slow down with the constant shooting. His general play has improved but its bloody frustrating seeing him miss the 4th or 5th long range shot.

bad2dabone

emergingstar wrote: »

Marteniz looks the real deal too

Very assured performance

CatInABox

Defence was very solid, Kos has such an influence on those around him.

Never looked like losing this, even after the first 20 minutes when WBA had something like 65% possession. Which is interesting, did Arsene tell the team to just soak up the early pressure and then take control?

Gringo180

Mr Blobby wrote: »

Ramsey does need to slow down with the constant shooting. His general play has improved but its bloody frustrating seeing him miss the 4th or 5th long range shot.

Ramsey has been poor this season and should be on the bench if we were at full strength. But I wouldn't have a go at him for having a few long range efforts, its a nice change from trying to walk it into the net.

Its Only Ray Parlour

Mr Blobby wrote: »

Very good win. Didn't we drop points there last season?

Sure did: http://www.arsenal.com/match-menu/3643933/first-team/w.b.a.-v-arsenal?tab=statscentre

Irish Aris

CatInABox wrote: »

Defence was very solid, Kos has such an influence on those around him.

Never looked like losing this, even after the first 20 minutes when WBA had something like 65% possession. Which is interesting, did Arsene tell the team to just soak up the early pressure and then take control?

Could be.
It was the second game in a row that the team looked solid. Sense of purpose in the game and rarely losing it.

We need another 3 points against Southampton on Wednesday. It will be a good confidence boost.

WoollyRedHat

Southampton will have to use their squad, will have played a tough game against City on Sunday and we will have had more time to recover.

Alfred Borden

Even if all our midfielders were fit Ramsey wouldnt be displaced. Arteta-Ramsey is our best combo. Wilshere upsets the balance.

emergingstar

Very quiet in here

wonga77

Important 3 points, having Kos and Giroud back is great.
Things looking up, now if only some of the top 4 would drop points and it will be a good weekend

Alfred Borden

Buzzing still after the last few days. Hopefully we can beat the Saints midweek and we should start motoring then. City or Saints will drop points tomorrow too so we will close the gap on at least one of them. United look strong, I expect to be in a battle with them for third.

Irish Aris

emergingstar wrote: »

Very quiet in here

unsurprisingly. . .

emergingstar

I think the switch back to last years style of sitting back and soaking the pressure is the right way to go

Irish Aris

emergingstar wrote: »

I think the switch back to last years style of sitting back and soaking the pressure is the right way to go

I agree.
There is enough firepower upfront to score 1-2 goals in most games, so keeping it tight at the back is important.
And counter attack suits us perfectly now.

efb

Flamini was solid too

Mr Blobby

efb wrote: »

Flamini was solid too

Flamini didn't play..

...Sure Flamini always gets carded and fouls, so that can't have been him :pac:

tayto lover

The win is very welcome but we are still not taking advantage of our possession.
Thought Flamini, Cazorla and Koscielney were excellent today.
Once again Alexis was busy as a beaver but played some very poor passes.
Ramsey is still not back to anywhere near his best. His passing was very poor and he never plays the simple pass. Welbeck and Giroud made some great runs and I though Martinez was solid.
They still managed to make us sweat against a poor outfit.
Another clean sheet today which is great.

Irish Aris

tayto lover wrote: »

The win is very welcome but we are still not taking advantage of our possession.
Thought Flamini, Cazorla and Koscielney were excellent today.
Once again Alexis was busy as a beaver but played some very poor passes.
Ramsey is still not back to anywhere near his best. His passing was very poor and he never plays the simple pass. Welbeck and Giroud made some great runs and I though Martinez was solid.
They still managed to make us sweat against a poor outfit.
Another clean sheet today which is great.

Surely tayto, you must be used to it by now!!

tayto lover

Irish Aris wrote: »

Surely tayto, you must be used to it by now!!

When you have good money on them at 4/5 you sweat when we're only 1 up and they're pressing

Soups123

Looper007 wrote: »

Stop with the negative for a minute will you soups. We won lets talk about that before the bashing begins again.

Would you cop on how the fcuk is that negative just repeating what was said and visible from the game, I didn't write the the bleeding banner

symbolic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tESo42c0gUA&feature=youtu.be&a

emergingstar

I thought flamini and Ramsey were terrible on the second ball today

When they started going long they were winning every second ball, I can think of two at ye edge of our box as well

Mr Blobby

Henry supposedly playing his last ever game tonight

Mr Blobby

Mr Blobby wrote: »

Henry supposedly playing his last ever game tonight

Should mean coming back to us in a coaching role

Its Only Ray Parlour

Mr Blobby wrote: »

Henry supposedly playing his last ever game tonight

Second-last if they win. It's a semi-final in a cup.

Oranage2

Pretty dull but expected after a European game, happy with the win, also happy for welbeck too,

Bobby Baccala

Not often we score the type of goal danny bagged himself today, more of this is needed!

Colonialboy

Arsenals loanee Benik Afobe scored a hat trick for MKDons in League 1 , thats 9 for the season in the league.
Pity he wasnt scoring in Ligue 1 Wenger might take notice.

Delighted we ground out a 1-0 , the team will learn alot from having succesfully defended a lead.

Sacksian

Colonialboy wrote: »

Arsenals loanee Benik Afobe scored a hat trick for MKDons in League 1 , thats 9 for the season in the league.
Pity he wasnt scoring in Ligue 1 Wenger might take notice.

Delighted we ground out a 1-0 , the team will learn alot from having succesfully defended a lead.

18 in 23 games in total, according to wiki - his contract is up at the end of the season though, I think. But I don't think he could reasonably expect to be playing much when you've got Giroud and Welbeck and then Podolski or Campbell who aren't playing much.

The game today was pretty how much Arsenal picked up so many points last year - there were a lot of controlled (but nervy) tight games against weaker teams where it needed a lot of resolute defending towards the end. Ramsey was still trying too hard to score though!

Flamini was very disciplined and delighted that Cazorla had a good 90 minutes - it'll do his confidence a world of good. He's not afraid to take responsibility, which may be why he sometimes gets a bit more flak when the team is playing poorly.

No idea where everyone's going to play when they're all back. Presumably Walcott's back in the next couple of games. Ox was great in midweek. Ozil back in January? Debuchy back soon. Would also like another couple of games for Martinez, but he's probably going to drop back to no.3 when everyone's fit. Gnabry will have to go out on loan too. It's almost better when there are fewer options!

Colonialboy

Spanish Johnny wrote: »

Our current woes are well documented. I am absolutely furious about our defensive situation and lack of signings. I am p***ed off about it beyond belief. By the same logic Mourinho cost the Chelsea the title last season for a failure to sign a striker in January. We should have had one more centre back and I would have liked a new ‘DM’ as is the rage. Am I p***ed...yes! Is it a sackable offence IMO...No. I do believe efforts were made on both sides…didn’t work out and so they were no panic buys. Still frustrating!

.......

But I guess I am happy with 4th every year and am a Wenger apologist:rolleyes:

Thanks Spanishjohnny, you have highlighted Wengers problem better than any of the non-apologists could have.
Mourinho messed up a title challenge cos he didnt sign a striker, everyone said it, everyone saw it , the dogs in the street knew it, so what did Mourinho do the next summer, he went out and bought a top top striker (Costa) and also took an experienced top striker (Drogba) to provide squad cover. He fixed the problem in 1 season.

In the last 7-8 seasons, Arsenal have had similar issues, developing a CB when we had a great midfield and attack, getting a supporting squad striker when we had a solid defense, getting an experienced midfielder when we were lacking leadership, or now the need for a DM thats been going on for nearly 2 seasons.
But Wenger ignores these problems, trys to find the solution in the French u21 squad, or worse he lets them fester for 2 or 3 seasons to fix it and when he eventually does by then we have an issue in another area and are back to sqaure one.

So you can take your 4th place down the pub to your mates , obviously thats been enough for you the last few seasons so you can rib your drinking buddies about what they are doing on a tuesday night in November.

Spanish Johnny

Colonialboy....i think you might be the man down the pub with yer mates by the look of the above.

To Raf, Bob, Tayto...not ignorin your comments....will reply thoroughly as deserved as soon as i get to a laptop and not a phone! Agree with many of your critiscisms but not the overarching view that it's a sackable or manager changing event.

Good win today....not pretty but progressive.

gosplan

I think Wenger's been hugely unlucky this year.

At the close of last year, we had three big issues.

1: replacing Verm and Sagna
2: scoring more goals
3: performances in the big games

What we had to build on was a lot of very very solid performances against most of the teams and the basis of a very good points total needing that extra push to take us to the top of the table.

So Wenger...

1: signs the best RB and Chambers doing a pretty good job of replacing the two
2: signs Sanchez and waits for Walcott to come back
3: tweaks the formation

3 fairly low risk sensible measures designed to attack our weak points. Added to that he found the best injury guy to try and tackle the ongoing problem there.

extra gravy

How would we feel about signing Thierry for the rest of the season so he can retire as an Arsenal player and then having him move to a coaching role?

Pierce_1991

gosplan wrote: »

I think Wenger's been hugely unlucky this year.

At the close of last year, we had three big issues.

1: replacing Verm and Sagna
2: scoring more goals
3: performances in the big games

What we had to build on was a lot of very very solid performances against most of the teams and the basis of a very good points total needing that extra push to take us to the top of the table.

So Wenger...

1: signs the best RB and Chambers doing a pretty good job of replacing the two
2: signs Sanchez and waits for Walcott to come back
3: tweaks the formation

3 fairly low risk sensible measures designed to attack our weak points. Added to that he found the best injury guy to try and tackle the ongoing problem there.

Just a few counter points:

1. Ultimately we had to replace Verm, Sagna and Jenkinson. I would also argue that we were short stocked at the back last season as it was, evidenced by the fact the Bacary Sagna played center half at Sunderland. So in truth we needed to sign 4 defenders, but bought 2.

2. Can't complain with the argument here. Signed Sanchez and Welbeck to help with the goalscoring issues.

3. We've played City(H), Chelsea(A), and United(H) and are currently a point worse off then we were for the corresponding fixtures last season so any formation tweak hasn't seemed to work.

greendom

extra gravy wrote: »

How would we feel about signing Thierry for the rest of the season so he can retire as an Arsenal player and then having him move to a coaching role?

love the guy but at this stage of his career he wouldn't get game time. I wouldn't mind him in a coaching capacity though. Imagine he could do great things with Welbeck for sure.

emmetlego

greendom wrote: »

love the guy but at this stage of his career he wouldn't get game time. I wouldn't mind him in a coaching capacity though. Imagine he could do great things with Welbeck for sure.

No. Wenger can do great things with Danny, the same things he did with Henry…. Really have high hopes for Danny, REALLY HIGH!:)

gosplan

Pierce_1991 wrote: »

Just a few counter points:

1. Ultimately we had to replace Verm, Sagna and Jenkinson. I would also argue that we were short stocked at the back last season as it was, evidenced by the fact the Bacary Sagna played center half at Sunderland. So in truth we needed to sign 4 defenders, but bought 2.

2. Can't complain with the argument here. Signed Sanchez and Welbeck to help with the goalscoring issues.

3. We've played City(H), Chelsea(A), and United(H) and are currently a point worse off then we were for the corresponding fixtures last season so any formation tweak hasn't seemed to work.

Yeah agree with that. Also the formation hasn't worked but as soon as we came back

BANG!

Lead CF out
New RB out
Best CB out
Best AMF and other CB massively out of form and then the former gets injured
Best DMF option and probably the most important overall player to our dominance of the weaker teams (perhaps along with Kos) constantly in and out of the team.

You can't just let Wenger away with his errors, I get that.

But if we're saying 'oh Jose would have sorted this out, it's all about buying a player', then take Matic, Fabregas, Costa, Terry away from Chelsea and see how they do.

I also think people don't have a clue about the type of DMF we need. People think 'oh, that guy's a tough tackler, he'd do - FFS WENGER, WHY HAVEN'T YOU BOUGHT HIM'.

But it's clear that Arteta might be THE most important player over the last few years. So you can't just get a tackler, you need a Xabi Alonso ... or you need to bed in people like Sanchez, score more goals and then maybe replace Arteta.

The DMF thing is a narrow sighted myth for simplistic pundits IMO.

Not signing a CB was. Far greater crime.

greendom

Sanchez 13 (8)
Welbeck 6 (3)
Ramsey 3 (2)
Giroud 3 (2)
Ox 2(1)
Gibbs 1 (0)
Koscielny 1 (1)
Podolski 1(0)
Wishere 1(1)
Ozil 1(1)
Cazorla 1 (0)
Chambers 1 (1)
Arteta 1 (0)
Sanogo 1(0)

K4t

emmetlego wrote: »

No. Wenger can do great things with Danny, the same things he did with Henry…. Really have high hopes for Danny, REALLY HIGH!:)

He was the most unselfish player on the pitch today and still scored the only goal. I don't know if that's a good or bad thing but hopefully he'll go on a run of goals himself now. I expect him to reach double digits by the end of January.

jonneymendoza

Spanish Johnny wrote: »

Colonialboy....i think you might be the man down the pub with yer mates by the look of the above.

To Raf, Bob, Tayto...not ignorin your comments....will reply thoroughly as deserved as soon as i get to a laptop and not a phone! Agree with many of your critiscisms but not the overarching view that it's a sackable or manager changing event.

Good win today....not pretty but progressive.

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