₦airaland Forum

coogar:
arsenal players are naïve in every aspect of the game. everyone exploits arsenal's weakness.
no real leader since vieira left. all you have had are bunch of infants who cannot even lead a pack of sheep.

Sad but true.
When Gabriel got his first yellow and I noticed the way he was approaching Costa, I expected someone to tell him to calm down. His first yellow for slapping Costa on the chest was unnecessary as well.
I agree, there's no clear leader in the team. All of them doing fine boy. Even after Gabriel got sent off, we could easily have riled Costa enough to get him sent off in second half. Not one player tried to.

My only positive from this game is that with Chelsea's display today, I don't see them doing well

raumdeuter:
Arsenal players didnt handle that incident properly. Koscielny should have gotten Costa sent off.

AFter Costa hit him, he should have stayed on the floor rolling and force the ref to make a decision.

If Costa had hit a Barcelona defender, do you think he would still be on?

Exactly!

Plus see the way Chelsea players surrounded the ref thus putting pressure on him. We never do that!

Aguero doing well?
Messi is an extra terrestrial

There's nothing wrong with Alexis. He'll get into his normal groove with time. I won't be surprised if he scores against Chelsea

Take it easy guys. Chelsea game is winnable. If you notice last night when we had our first team players on the field, we were close to equalising and I dare say, if we had 11 v 11, we may have even won the game.
The problem we had in the first half was that some of our back up players just didn't turn up.
Against Chelsea we'll be be back to the first 11 and anything can happen.
That said, a loss at S.B would mean nothing. It's not like we have a good record there anyway

"There's quality in this team.

Unless there's a major breakdown, im sure our worst critics know we will make it out of the group. Nothing to fear.
We need to do something about Giroud and quick too. His head isn't in the game at all. Maybe it's time to bring in a psychologist. With Welbeck injured, we can't afford to have Walcott as the only striker in our team

Team:
Ospina
Debuchy Gabriel Koscielny Gibbs
Arteta Cazorla
Ox-Chamberlain Ozil Alexis
Giroud

From what I hear, David Ospina will start in goal ahead of Petr Cech

Over to the two London clubs tomorrow

Santi has been very good this season. Same with Coquelin. I really don't know what we would have done without Francis especially considering AW wasn't going to get a DM and was almost going to sell off Francis.
The guys really covers up for our midfielders and defenders. He's everywhere on the pitch making important tackles. For me, he's the most important player at Arsenal at the moment

debosky:
So no one here mentioned Walcott today?

Like I said, folk enjoy misery more than success on here.

There's nothing to say that hasn't been said before over and over again. I think people are just tired of repeating themselves.
Walcott is a good finisher and perhaps the best finisher at our club (minus Alexis). But I still maintain Giroud should be first choice no9.


I'm glad we won today. It's 3 points plus 3 goals. Doesn't remove the fact that our goal/chances ratio is still too low. Positive is that this means we are creating a lot of chances (creating over 10 chances in a PL game is outstanding). Negative is that our strikers need to do better. Theo scored today but should have had 2 to 3 goals. Even Giroud who played less than 20 minutes managed to miss his first chance. A typical Arsenal game and Stoke would have equalised but thank God that didn't happen.

I must say though that I'm happy with our back 6 ie plus Coquelin and Cech. Gabriel is slowly making that CB position his. Per will have to be satisfied with Cup games now.

3 points and 2 goals. Good for me. Champ's league is next.

I personally don't think the argument should be about whether Giroud or Walcott is better as top striker. Both have very different styles which and the opposition set up should determine who should play.
In the EPL, a lot of teams are set up to defend and frustrate the top striker. You'll find CBs kicking and holding and doing all sorts. Giroud's strength and general hold up play helps us in this regard as he gives our other players room to move whilst the attention is on him.
Walcott on the other hand cannot play with his back to goal. He's also easily hassled off the ball and generally prefers teams that make the mistake of coming at us rather than sit back. He needs to learn to play with the ball at his feet. That said, I've seen enough of Walcott to know that a confident and match fit Theo is an excellent finisher.

In majority of matches in the EPL, I'll start Giroud upfront and Walcott on the right.

I pray we win today and other matches also go in our favour.

COYG!

And that's a "wonderful" thing? Hoping that someone will step up? Ok o.

Anyway, EPL is back so we're back to talking football. My team for tomorrow's game :

Cech
Bellerin, Gabriel, Koscielny, Monreal
Coquelin, Cazorla
Ramsey, Ozil, Alexis
Giroud

It's Stoke. They've got some real good players and we mustn't underrate them

What I don't get is, the same Wenger who once had Henry, Bergkamp, Kanu and Wiltord in the same team asides the myriad of upcoming young players, is now saying Giroud,Welbeck will win us the league

E go better

Danny Welbeck has missed more days through injury at Arsenal (189 days), than his previous 5 years at Man United and Sunderland (138 days)

Was just about to break the sad news.

There's no use wasting time discussing Wenger's arrogance (or non). We just have to hope and pray for Giroud now. As it is Campbell seems to be the next option we have close enough to playing that role as I don't rate Alexis or Theo in that role.

If you've supported Arsenal for more than 10 years now then this shouldn't be too difficult to handle.

Pataki:
Of course you are right. But my point is that even the best strikers in the world can be found missing in a game attimes.

Nobody is talking about one off games. Over the course of a season, come back and compare Barcelona and Arsenal.


By the way, Verminator was not "rotting" on the bench last season. He was injured for most of the season.

Really funny!




Wenger's take on the inflated transfermarket:

'Look, if the price for food double the solution isn't always to buy. Sometimes you have to look in the cupboard and you'll be surprised by how much you really have. I found this two-year old radish in the cupboard this morning, but because I didn't buy it, you say it's not super quality?'

I can attribute our lack of signing an outfield player to one of two things

1. Arsene has allowed Mourinho get into his head. Remember Mour accused Arsenal of "buying" the league. Perhaps Wenger wants to show he doesn't need to spend to win

2. Wenger has looked at our performance last season and concluded that we faltered in the early stages because we lacked numbers defensively. Adding Gabriel, Coquelin and Cech, he now believes he's solved the defensive problems and we should now automatically improve.

I'll go for 2 above. However our games so far this season has shown otherwise.

Looking forward, Chelsea finished 15 points ahead of us last season and John Terry said Cech is capable of helping us win 15 points. We can only now hope and pray.

Update on our young guns

Zelalem is living up to his Ozil MK2 status. He now has 3 assists in two games for Rangers. I personally think this loan move is good for him. He needs to build his muscles though.

Crowley is also doing well at Barnsley. Scored his first goal in the league cup game against Everton last week. He's one player I'm expecting great things from. He's a combination or Wilshere and Rosicky. Not flashy but gets the job done.

Martinez started well at Wolverhampton but had one really poor game and he's been sent back to the bench.

My man Szczesny has been in top form for Roma. He made a fantastic last minute save in last weekend's game against Juventus.

Akpom has withdrawn from the England U20 team due to injury. Hayden who is also on loan at Hull has been a regular player in the center of Hull's midfield

.

Arsene is actually in Paris. Whatever for, I don't know but trust journalists to put 2 and 2 together and emerge with 5.

If we don't bring in a forward, AW will need to explain his line of thought. Did we win the league last season or did we miss out on winning because our goalkeepers were poor?

@debosky
Benzema was on the cards. His sale depended on Madrid getting their 'gift' to Benitez. Sadly that didn't happen and we didn't get our man.

@patakisport
No worry @proudlysports can reliably inform you that Arsenal may or may not sign someone before 6pm tomorrow

debosky:
So you sef dey fall for that Charlie Austin nonsense?

You for kuku suggest we're trying to re-sign Benik Afobe to address the striker issues while you're at it.

Lol. Lack of reliable transfer news and nothing to do on bank holiday cause am o.

Truth be told, after we missed out on Benzema, I lost hope of us signing any big name player.
So na siddon look mode I dey.

We'll need to let go off at least 2 players to create room for a big name player. As it is, if all our players are fit, we won't be able to accommodate Rosicky and Wilshere.

purplekayc:
well, The .man is unpredictable ,there are reports now he's going after cavani

Cavani rumour has been on for weeks now. I'll wait till Sept 1 6.01pm

Those saying season has just started should remember that this was the same excuse we used last season only to turn around at the end of the season to blame our failure to win the league on poor start.

Sometimes I wonder if AW actually sits down to do a critical assessment of his team. I'm sure he probably does but I find it hard to understand how anyone will assess this team and feel confident going into a 38 match season with Giroud upfront and Theo/Welbz as back up.

Per is sick and Kos slightly injured

Bench:
Ospina, Walcott, Oxlaide-Chamberlain, Gibbs, Arteta, Debuchy, Flamini

Team for Pool game

Cech
Bellerin, Gabriel, Chambers, Monreal
Coquelin, Cazorla
Ramsey, Ozil, Alexis
Giroud

My team for tomorrow

Cech
Bellerin Per Kos Monreal

Coquelin Santi

Chamberlain Ozil Alexis

Giroud

^^^
Lol @patakisport
Shey we no go start our own blog at this rate?

Meanwhile Chuba Akpom came off the bench to score for Hull last night. His second goal in 2 games

Flams as proudlysports revealed a few months ago, has now been told he's surplus go requirements at Arsenal.

Looking at the rate we're sending players away and out on loan, are we creating space for new players?

What Henry said is true. The IS NOT ready to play that role for Arsenal. The needs pace to operate and in that role, you have CBs and midfielders breathing down your neck. In our current system, Theo is better off playing from the right or left. If we were playing 442, perhaps a support striking role would suit him.

So unless Walcott is willing to go on loan to learn how to play the lone striker role, he should be satisfied with the role he's given at Arsenal