Morning all.
Another Sunday, another away fixture at lunchtime. Jeeze, when are we meant to eat our lunch?
Joking aside, Thursday/Sunday football has become the norm by now, certainly as we’ve progressed further into our Europa campaign but at least after today’s fixture, the players will get a week of rest before West Ham take the short trip across London to The Emirates. Arsene Wenger will be pleased no doubt as that gives Mkhitaryan longer to recover and the other players a chance to rest. I did read that he’s concerned about fatigue creeping in. Stop it!
There’s no doubting that our away form this season has been nothing short of dreadful. The performances have been awful, the results equally as bad and it’s that which has left us sixth in the league. Better away form and we’d probaly challenging Utd for second spot, if not City for the title but sport isn’t won on ifs and buts.
Wenger on our poor away run:
“There are certainly a few factors but there’s no real rationality in there.”
“After we have lost one or two, the confidence drops a little bit. We were sometimes unlucky and sometimes maybe defensively we weren’t stable enough.
“It would be good for us to finish strong away from home now in the Premier League.”
What would be better is to start the season strong away from home in the Premier League but it’s too little too late for that. We saw the lacklustre performance in Moscow when we had a lot to play for, so expecting anything different or better today when there’s little to play for might be optimistic.
As said, other than pride, there’s little to play for unless overtaking Chelsea is a target but I’d love to see a few of the fringe players today. The likes of Macey, Nelson and perhaps Eddie too. They’re are our future so see what they can do against a Newcastle team whose place in the league is safe.
I’d imagine both Ramsey and Wilshere will sit this one out after both suffered injury in Moscow and with Aubameyang back into the team, one of Welbeck or Lacazette will make way. Xhaka could return to the midfield after suffering a short bout of Man Flu, well, it only usually lasts a few hours doesn’t it? One sneeze and that’s it, bed! Ospina remains out injured so it’s a toss up between Cech or Macey. I’d go with the latter. Kolasinac will probably give Monreal a break at left back but with few options on the right, I’d imagine Bellerin will again start unless Wenger has some other cunning plan up his sleeve.
Not much else to write really other than I hope we can play well and record our first away league win in 2018…
Have a good Sunday guys…
Morning Rico and all. I imagine could well be a depleted team today, but that’s understandable. We need to really turn up though and maintain this string of good results, if not convincing performances. Get out there and give it a real go,
Wait and see
No prognostics.
Arsenal is a box of (bad) surprises
Morning Adam, Jm, all.
Agree re the team and yes, I wouldn’t blame Arsene Wenger if he rested half a dozen or more for the game, and all those which follow as long as we remain in Europa. Makes sense to me as we can’t afford any injuries.
Morning all. I’m just trying to generate a bit of pre match enthusiasm for today’s game.
Nope. I’ve failed!
Weak team? To a man, first team or not they’re all weak between the ears. Where is our Frank McLintock or Tony Adams? Someone to put a bit of ginger into our technically gifted weaklings? We haven’t got any have we? Mr Weger doesn’t employ strong minded, willful players does he? He can’t deal with them because they may confront him or challenge his doctrines. And, when you’ve managed football clubs as long as old Methusala has, you just know it all!
If we lose today at Newcastle, a poor team with a goodish manager, I think it will admirably sum up our season. We can look forward to being out fought, out thought, out played and all together pretty spineless. It would be so good if we won and we out played the toon in every department. A good old Arsenal performance. It would set us all up for the week to come. A bit of spring time optimism after such a dour winter.
Come on Arsene stick some fire in the bellies of our players and give us a Sunday treat!
I live in hope!
Ha ha Wavy, you’ve failed for me… lol
For us to be motivated the team needs to be as does the manager, so all in all, we’ve no chance… lol
Arsene Wenger:
“Honestly, it is very difficult…
“We land [in the UK] at 5am [Friday morning] and we play Sunday morning.
“The second thing that is very difficult, is that when you play [in the Premier League], everybody else has already played.
“Not only are you physically very jaded, but also you are under huge pressure each time to win the game, it is maybe mentally tougher than physically.
“Fatigue is a little bit of a concern because for long periods now, with the League Cup in the middle of the season, it’s a bit difficult.
“You look at [Man] City [who beat Arsenal in the League Cup final] and they look a bit like that in the second half of games recently.
“Fortunately, next week [after Newcastle], we can recover.
“I rotate as much as I can but unfortunately some players have to play all of the games.”
With an attitude like that and with those words ringing in our team’s ears we ars marvellously set up to lose. The excuses have already been made!
What a motivational genius Wenger is, really!
Stack my armpits!
2-0 to the Toon then?
Excuses at the ready then Kev… lol
Great finish by Lacazette
Red card for Kennedy on Laca. No intention to play the ball
Certainly should have been…
Long ball over the top does us again…
It was mustafi Cech combination again rico. .
Monreal doesnt look fit to me ..
Not impressed with chambers either. .
Some good play there. .but overall not near the level of our so called top 4 rivals.
Mustafi got caught out by Gayle though Kk, still plenty of time to re over though. I’m surprised Monreal wasn’t rested..
Rested rico……….half our lot need the practise lol.
Yes it was mustafi in both occasion rico..he’s really been awful most of the time. .
did we turn down 19 million bid for chambers !? only AW knows why?
Selling Micko.. ?
What a load of garbage again, second half especially.
Monreal looks as if he’s hit the wall, why didn’t that pillock play Kolasinac?
Ffs, he’s gonna give it large about fatigue in his presser, but then you rotate, that’s why you have a 25 man squad, but no, and what’s the point of not giving Nketiah at least 20/25 minutes, Lacazette looked knackered in Moscow ffs.
Agree wholeheartedly Kev.
Frustrating game for us. But nothing we haven’t seen before, many times. We never really put pressure on their defence or keeper. No midfield runner into the box and poor old Chambers looking out of time and place again. Lots to discuss, but no real energy to do it. The apathy around the club is cloying and surely we are way beyond talking about what has become self-evident to most.
The idea of another season of this is unimaginable.
rico you won’t find a pub teem defend like we do ..shocking. .absolutely shocking.
and this has nothing to do with fatigue or rotation, it’s more about attitude and organization…all come to coaching.
Look at the 2nd goal. .monreal going for the ball on the right side and none of the players covered his position on the left…you can ask why did he go for the ball in the 1st place, leaving the two attackers with acres of space ..just shocking!
Trouble is, it’s nothing we haven’t seen or talked about before.
It’s really boring now.
Good man Rafael. Shoestring budget and all. However has his excuse ready “grass was too slippery”. Told you that Rafa was a slippery customer. Get it. I live in Spain and just got in from the beach, saw the result and just shrugged.
Ha ha Paddy, it’s become the norm eh…
Rico, it’s frustrating but not surprising, tbh I’d happily take 7th if we win in Lyon.
As for Mustafi, he needs replacing asap….
We played with too much pride.
We have to go down to earth.
Be humble in the field.
Otherwise, the usual. Definitely, Chambers is not right back. The midfield of Newcastle was superior to ours in the will to win the ball, in the fight, in the delivery, to defend.
Highly watched and frequent defensive mistakes.
As always, a box of surprises in the negative.
Agree Kk. We are dreadful at defending..
Depends Kev, part of methinks if winning Europa means him staying, I’d rather we didn’t. But then on the other hand, winning it would be great.
The sad thing is the barcodes weren’t even trying that hard..
We have Manure to play away in between those two legs against Atletico. .should be another trashing then..
I know what you mean Rico, but the managers position isn’t clear because the leadership of the club is reactive.
I’m sick of the managers position, those in charge are seemingly unable to make a decision either way, so for me winning the UEFA Cup is all I’m concerned about and if we manage it I’ll be absolutely delighted.
I still can’t understand why Wenger didn’t go with a back three?
Chambers isn’t a full back.
Mustafi is better in a back three.
Kolasinac could have played LWB then Monreal could have been rested.
AMN could have been RWB
Wing backs would have given us an extra body in midfield.
That Utd fixture should be fun. Alexis will enjoy himself if Chambers is on the right…
If only the board would tell us Kev, but I guess if there is to be anything to be said it won’t be whilst we’re in Europa.
Thanks Rico, shame Wenger isn`t as consistant as you for quality.
Worst away start in a calender year for 93 years………5 losses and heading for a half century of goals conceded and Wenger making “fatigue” excuses before the game has started………………play the youngsters you muppet !……………youngsters playing today would have been better on so many levels…………..resting your so called “fatigued” players……….even if we lose, the fans would be behind the youngsters and they get experience !
He might aswell be making excuses for next season as we will probably be playing Thursday/Sunday next season and according to him playing cartch up !……………..what a mug, it should be his opportunity for easier chance of getting top 4 by not being in CL, but this is Wenger we are talking about as if we were in CL there would be morew excuses of CL football for why we cant win the league, he always has an excuse yet he`s not to blame !
Speaking to my Wenger Idolising mate yeaterday and I said I was looking forward to our EL semi for the reason of scouting a new manager and he said………” but Simeone would make us defensively boring!”………….obviously my mate loves seeing lots of goals even if they are too many against us !…………i dont think he understands that too win a top trophy you need to be hard to beat first and foremost !
We conceded 45 goals in the PL this season so far compared to Burnley 29
We conceded 67 I guess in all competitions. ..
We are 33 points off man c at the top and 13 points off spurs at 4th
Now that’s what I call stat ?
Kk………………………13 points behind the Spuds is too much …………I might aswell have a cheese laden mouse trap down my pants and left to spend the night at a mouse zoo at Mouses “R” US !……………..the pain of it all !
Lol LC….??
It’s funny that there are still people out there telling us it ain’t all bad and we should cheer on the team no matter what!
Lc, so I take it you don’t think Burnley won’t overtake us. ?
Thanks by the way…
It is a little bit of the story of the season away from home: we went 1-0 up, we don’t put the game to bed and we made mistakes defensively,” Wenger said.
“But I felt overall today the fact we played on Thursday night, in the second half we couldn’t raise the tempo and keep it up in the first half.
“That is what happened many times this season, that’s all we can say today. It’s baffling how we lost this game today because from those chances we lose 2-1. On the other hand, the result is there.”
We had lots of other opportunities in the first half and unfortunately there were promising things in our game many times but we live at the level where we need to be realistic and transform all the chances.”
Arsenal are still in sixth, just two points above Burnley with Wenger now left to ponder how he can help improve his team’s form away from the Emirates.
“How do we address it? By now making the same errors we have up to now, it’s quite baffling because traditionally we have been very strong away from home. I believe as well that this week we had to give a lot on Thursday night and the players who played on Thursday night you could see the game was a bit in their legs.”
What game was Wenger watching on Thursday?
Which players played in both matches?
Game of Thrones probably rico..
? Kk
Test.
Where is Rahul when you need him ? Perfect example of what we said yesterday.
Indeed.
Can we get the residents of the new Highbury square to look for Georg’s legnth of string and give tit to Bouldy and see if he can remember how to use it.
Not bad only two mistakes, still that’s better than our defence.
Well done Man City. Totally deserved Champions…
Night guys..
Night rico ..
wait for micko to tell us what a bunch of ungrateful whinging so and so..
and we could be like manure who are in crisis loosing at home to a relegated team??
We did not win a single game away in 2018!
rico, Pep will go on building a legacy for a while yet and will no doubt have the good sense to know when to call it a day, can’t see him being at Citeh in 2038 at the grand old age of 67 !!!
Kk, man up, we’re still the FA Cup holders you know lol
Jm, that should have been the title of the post, looks like rico missed a trick again !
So we lost the New! Well there’s a shock!
Wenger should be gone along with his safe, illustrious history. Pleeeeeeeeease.
The new = then!!!
He will indeed Micko on both accounts.
New post up.
Morning Rico and all. What a miserable, underperforming club Arsenal have become. Wenger bleats for days about avoiding complacency before the CSKA game – and the team deliver? Complacency. He seems to spend his time coming up with new excuses and post-mortems on the truly shocking performances that he manages to extract from his players. It’s almost as if he thinks that explaining why we lost is all part of the job and shows his vast and detailed insight, while, at the same time acknowledging that doing something about it is completely beyond him these days.
Yet, as we see, there are still those who think he should be further indulged for another season-at least. I sometimes wonder just what it would take for these people to come to the conclusion that, for Arsene, it’s all over.
Morning Adam.
The man talks in riddles. He’s well and truly lost the plot imo.