Morning Gooners…
Top of the Group and a well-earned three points in The Stade Velodrome, a stadium known for possessing one of Europe’s most partisan atmospheres.
The stadium is under construction ahead of the 2016 Euro’s but despite one of the stands being empty, it was still noisy. 1,400 of our loyal fans were in attendance and in full voice, ninety mins later, they had a lot to sing about too.
Our side was the same as the one that beat Sunderland at the weekend, other than the injured Kieran Gibbs was replaced by Andre Santos and Andrey Arshavin was selected ahead of Gervinho.
After Marseilles’ thrashing of Dortmund in their last group fixture,which had been described as a ‘counter-attacking masterclass’, we all expected a tough 90 minutes last night and soon into the game, a moment of hesitation from Song just outside the area, followed by a tug back by the same player on Remy, gave the home side a free-kick in a dangerous area. Song also picked up a booking!
The free kick was easy for Szczesny thankfully..
Up the other end, Robin had a half chance, having got his head onto a cross from Walcott but it went wide. It wouldn’t have counted anyway as an offside flag had been raised!
Marseille controlled the early play and maybe they should have been awarded a penalty after a Morel cross caught Jenkinson on the hand. Lady Luck was with us it seemed. Ayew wasn’t happy with the decision and after protesting, he picked up a yellow card.
We picked ourselves after that decision and started to take a bit of control.
We had a couple of corners, one of which saw a Robin van Persie header cleared off the line by Diawara, who clearly hand-balled the original cross. Definite penalty not given, maybe Lady Luck wasn’t with us after all.
Remy was busy down the left, he worked his way past both Mertesacker and Jenkinson before firing in a shot/cross towards goal.
Nothing came of it.
Soon after, Gonzalez saw his chance go wide.
That was the first half over, half chances for both sides, but neither could capitalise, this game was wide open.
Second half was pretty much the same, just after the hour mark there was a bit of a scrabble in the penalty area and none of our defenders could take control and clear the ball, Song stepped in and the ball was cleared, well, hoofed out by Jenkinson – good, sometimes it matters not where it gets hoofed to, just clear it and that’s just what the youngster did.
Sadly for him though, he pulled up, hobbled off and Djourou replaced him at right back!
Shortly after, Theo Walcott had the best chance of the game for us so far, having got into the area, past Alou Diarra, his shot came to nothing!
Minutes after, he was replaced by Gervinho and Ramsey was the next to come on, in place of Arshavin.
Just as it seemed the points were to be shared and with little time left on the clock, Djourou crossed a ball from the right towards Gervinho. The big fella fluffed his control of the ball but it fell nicely to Ramsey who was lurking on the edge of the area.
Our Welshman controlled the ball, cut inside the defender and coolly slotted the ball home.
1-0 to The Arsenal….
The Final whistle blew and we went top of our group table.
What a night!
Over to you guys and gals to pick the bones out of that display…
The paps are enjoying their ‘Lucky’ headlines but I doubt there is a Gooner anywhere who gives a stuff……
Morning all….
1-0 to The Arsenal…
Nice.. 🙂
A win is a win!
Spot on Ling and right now, we’ll take a win, and i don’t think we were ‘lucky’ – we defended well in the main and deserved it…
I don’t think there was anything lucky about it, away from home and for most parts we dominated.
Hi UTA
The only bit of luck was Jenks handball not being spotted, after that, I thought we were pretty solid, the midfield still lacks a bit of flair and imagination though and I ccant see that changing in all honesty, not until Jack comes back or if someone steps up…
Hey Rico,
Agreed, Hopefully Rambo can start to pick up a bit of form and create a few sparks in the middle. Would be good to see the players be just a dogged and determined on Sunday, we all know what Stoke are all about, tis gonna be a battle. Hope we’re up for it.
Hope so too UTA
Ramseys game has been really struggling this season, maybe too much pressure on him in our side and Arteta needs to start stepping his game up too…
Morning Gooners.
Great post Rico.
Haven’t read the toiletpapers.
Either we can’t win ugly or we’re Lucky/Boring when we do.
Jenkinson handball was a lot less obvious than Diawara’s handball from the corner. And i agree there was nothing lucky about the win, we ground it out Graham style! There where some very positive points I can take from the game as well as some negative ones.
Positive first;
1) jenkinson. played well for most parts and is fast growing into a good backup RB. What I liked the most though was when he got injured the first, after a bit of a treatment he came back on and can I have some more please! If that was Theo he would have gone straight for the bench wrapped in a blanket with a hot cup of coco.
2) Kocielny. Who ever has been saying that he was a crap defender please go and look in a mirror and see the donkey! Arguably the man of the match for me and if he and Merts can continue to grow as a defensive pair even Verminator may find it hard to get a berth in defense.
3) Song. Apart from the first 20 min for me he was immense, tackled and closed down like possessed. If only he could just keep sitting in front of the defense and protect them instead of venturing forward!
Negatives:
1)Theo and AA
2)Theo and AA
3)Theo and AA
Morning AK, not up to Olivers standards though….
Blame it on me having slept since the game ended 😉
Hi TT
Totally agree re the Jenks pen, if that was in the PL though, i bet it would have been given, but then that’s beacuse its us..
Best game imho for Merts and Kos together, Santos was the only weak link at the back, too many shocking passes and could easily have seen red, again, another day he would have…
AA was dire, and Theo was just a little better than him, if only he’d buried his chance…..
Totally agree re Song, started badly but grew and grew….
Jenks, gutted for him picking up an injury, he grows every game, what a cross he has too…
So hard to believe that this time last year he’s was playing non league….
To me, it was a classic european game- rubbish. But the result was all that counted and i couldn’t give a fig about entertainment. Save that for TheGrove.
Good on the Away Gooners. Bet they had a great trip home.
Nothing beats an away win.
Morning HH…
Me neither AK, we all asked for a win, any win and that’s just what we got, good on the boys and the away fans…
Morning Lee…
Morning Rico,
Remembered something I said about Arsenal Football and Indian cricket, how times have changed! 🙂
Morning bnsb
what was that??
Its not easy on the eye these days, that was hard work last night, happy for ramsey, he’s one of only a few players that isn’t shy at having a shot at goal and he really took it well.
Don’t like to slag off players but arshavin was woeful, he should have been hauled off after 30 minutes.
We’re sitting pretty at the top with 2 home games to come, win them and we’ve qualified with a game to spare.
Hi Micko
Roy Keane said at the end about arshavin lasting 70 mins, he said he’d have had him off after ten, as much as i hate keane, he’s is right – i sometimes think Wenger sticks with players too much during a match…
Typical Paper sh*te! We played well last night and deserved it no live about it. The midfield spark is an issue but hopefully Rambo can step up. Theo and AA were very poor last night. Theo seems to take one step forward and then two back. Me I would try AA in the hole….it can’t hurt because on left wing he is generally useless. Kos wa immense and I also thought Merts was brilliant. His speed us not great but his reading of the game is brilliant. On set pieces we were much better and I think that is down to him.
Hi Sam
Who gives a hoot what they write, as long as we win, they will always hate it, well maybe it’s time for us to keep on winning and piss them all off a bit more…
Agree re Merts and Kos, if it was Strictly Come Dancing, Len would say:
‘That’s their best dance yet’ 😉
defence played well in the air scrambled a bit on ground should get rid of it quick no place to play football why are blogs and media still on arsenals back there were mistakes made but everyone does that now arsenal are moving forward
they love it g clarke….
Clarke, we’ve won the last 5 out of 6 so we’re going in the right direction, it just don’t feel like it, every game is like a struggle these days, as gooner sam says we’ve lost that spark in our midfield.
Why read the toilet paper? I never buy them any more and the reason was again highlighted this week. Man shitty struggle to break down a small Spanish team and the papers are waxing lyrical about their performance. Manure struggle against L’pool and ummm who was it again? And what have the rag mags to say about that? Dodged United overcome the mighty umm……… who ever.
And as for the spark in midfield, are we seeing classical action and it’s effect? is the midfield maybe concentrating more on its defensive duties, hence our improvement in defense at a cost of some of it’s creativity?
Our midfield is a real concern, if only someone could step up, we’d start to create more, score more and kill sides off….
We have too many adequate players in midfield, and not enough real quality….
Creative wise i mean…
TT i make you 100% spot on.
I don’t buy a toiletpaper anymore. It a habit we grow into but they’re full of lies & crap.
Same with SkySports, they’re television’s version of the Sun.
If you see the game then you don’t need some bigotted hack telling you what you already know.
Cast your mind back to 1990~91. Arsenal only lost one game that season in winning the League.
Did we get any credit? Did we f@ck.
But can you recall the glee in the Press when we lost the semi~final to the scum…? They loved it…
Samit Patil 50 in 36 balls.
We need 290/300 to give it a go Rico.
298 for 4. That’s a decent score. Now it’s down to the bowlers.
TT – good question re the midfield, maybe thats behind Arteta’s ‘we have gone back to basics’ comment….
AK, I’m busy doing housework, forgot about the cricket, much better score though…
morning all…good post rico…i see where the “lucky” tag comes in – i have seen it in numerous other places…i shall beg to differ slightly, in that we did what we needed to do for 91 minutes and then made our own luck in the 92nd. we weren’t supposed to be as organized as we showed last night, but we coped very well with what was in front of us…on the few occasions om put us under real pressure, we dealt with it – even that second half moment where mert and song needed like four attempts to get the ball away from our box…
om were poor and rather unambitious for a team boasting 2 wins from 2 in the competition so far, which an oportunity to pretty much confirm qualification last night…they looked like us at the start of this season…
but that is not arsenal’s problem…perhaps we would have won more comfortably if we took a few more chances earlier, but i think the first aim was always not to lose…so if ramsey hadn’t scored, it would still be considered a good result…
flawed persoformance notwithstanding, perhaps it is time to consider that we have now won five of six in all competitins, so that is certainly some momentum. and we have scored late winners in each of our last two matches. our problems are going to take time to iron out, but as long as we get results, i think we can feel reasonably optimistic that a really good run may not be too far away…perhaps it is already here…we’ll know in a few weeks with stoke, chelsea and om again up.
Don’t forget Bolton in the CC Oliver so its Stoke Bolton Chelsky and OM. Get 4 points in the prem from the two there and win the 2 cub games and we will be on our way to recovery….
Good point Oliver & good morning.
Get past Stoke & Bolton with positive results and the Chelsea suddenly takes on seminal proportions.
Maybe the woorm is gradually turning.
Rico, a women’s work eh…? Multi~tasking.
I’m full of admiration… 🙂
Alright who’s hungry? I ve got tons of humble pies to dish out. Hey yo adam2, where are you buddy? Kosheiny is shit now ain’t it. Am so glad he had a great game yesterday. As if he heard my staunch defense. Alright come and get it…..am looking at you rico! Morning all!
Hi oliver – thanks re the post…
I thought we were lucky not to have the penalty given against us, they were far luckier not to have ours given…
Other than that, we grafted imho and got exactly what we deserved in the end..
Lucky, we’ll let the media and paps write that, but if they want lucky, then perhaps they should look back to last season and how the mancs won the league, that was lucky 😉
i agree that creativity remains a problem…as is our penchant for too many touches and too many passes…buildup is often too slow and our players refuse to get into the opposition box enough, so support is often lacking…there was one second half break – i think it was robin, where he went free on the left, but by the time yet got to the box, only orange shirts were home, no support…
Rico,Len Goodman would give you top marks as you tango with the feather duster… :-). 🙂
Shoot! Did I say morning….I meant afternoon all.
The yellow card for Song too early, got me worried.
Walcott is still the same player that is not seen in the field.
Gervinho have to play every game because it goes away in January.
In the balance of these three games, I think this turned out to be the best we played. We have 7 points. We need to at least three more go to the Europa League, four more in principle to be 2; 6 to be almost the first (and avoid Madrid, Barcelona …)
morning kev, rico and gs…i thought both pens should have been given to be, honest, so two wrongs actually did make a right in this instance…
again, i see where the luck is mentioned, but if anything, i thought we made our luck…by the 92nd minute, both we and om appeared to have mentally settled for the point, but we got the winner. i don’t think it was pretty by any means, but how many times have we been slammed for not being pragmatic enough? when we attack and get hammered, all we hear is that we lack resilience and toughness. when we grind one out, like last night, we get hit for a lack of style…cannot have it both ways.
at the end of the day, nothing – nothing – was as important as the result…i would consider a point and a clean sheet there a good result, this was better – not pretty – but better.
Allezkev next time you watch an Arsenal game on TV turn the sound off. I did that last night and it really opens your ayes. There is no commentator to disagree with or to influence your thinking. Watching that game in silence helped me evaluate Jenkinson and his performance. Apart from few hairy moments he was quite good and considering that this was the CL he was outstanding and showed great attitude, something Walcott and AA totally lacked. Furthermore the immense game Song had after the first quarter of the game. He was my man of the match along Kosielny. Midfield of Song Arteta and Rosicky shielded the defence very well and stifled their midfield and attack which was OM strong point.
😆 AK, radiators, i hate doing radiators grrr
Hi gooster, i did say he was growing on me 😉
TT – i think i might try that too and put some music on, the only pudit i think is fair on itv is southgate, he seems to have no axe to grind….
AK, three way tasking – blogging, cleaning and watching the cricket… 😉
I feel quite optimistic after last night, I have a feeling that we might just start to put some results together and get back a bit of confidence..
For me in the Jan window if we could get a decent striker and a creative centre mid we could be OK.
Plus of course if Flappy goes (I wouldn’t cry to much), a reserve keeper
So 3 players………I’m dreaming aren’t I!? 🙂
Think we are getting there but we are still lacking creativity and our winger are not stretching defenders…… 3 valuable points
Hi Sam, and another CH…
Howdy Erick, hows you…
Slowly we are improving, now to beat Stoke …
Not sure that our bowlers are gonna do the job for us Rico. A bit suprised that Finn isn’t playing.
Just checked scorecard and he is playing.
Only 22 runs from 6 overs.
Nobody else has been as economical.
I was all light and sweetness all day today. I wonder why…
1-0 from now until the end of the season will do me just fine. 😉
Hello, all. 🙂
As geoff boycott would say ‘my old mother could’ve caught that in her pinny’
Did anyone notice how frustrated rvp was getting last night as the 2nd half was being played out, liam brady was saying how lack lustre we looked and he has to be careful what he says.
That’s not so good AK 🙁
Howdy agag, that’ll do me just fine too, we’d win the league i’m sure 🙂
I see Mr Gaddaffi is no longer……
His death should act as a warning to others who think it is cool to experiment with drugs.
How are you, rico? Pretty graphic videos, too… Had to stop watching the news.
Hello, Micko. 🙂
Bit of a bolt out the blue that news… hey ho eh…
Good thanks agag, busy bee as usual, but all good thanks – you??
Indeed Micko…
Off for dinner, back later…
Europe League on tV …:-)
Good evening guys and chicks.
Welcome to SPURSDAY……the day of the week when we enjoy kiddies football.
Evening all,
We all know we are not playing that well. but the 3pts were hard earnt, Wenger said its starting to come, i will still wait till we can pick a full team before i would say that, we are short of players in the calbre that we need, a couple of injuries has proved that, once again Theo dissapointed me. hopefully Jenk’s injury is only short term but when Sagna is back fit, it would be interesting to see Jenks play further forward, he deserves to be played more in my mind, he strikes me as a real tryer. good post rico made me feel as if we deserved our points.
devil, i won’t celebrate anything Spurs until ‘that day’ arrives… 🙁
Evening Steve – we did deserve our points, they worked hard and beat a OM side who thought they would batter us…
Complacent – yes they were, but thankfully, we were not….
Seems everyone has gone to bed 😉
Catch you all tomorrow guys and gals…
Nighty night all….
Totenham 1 Rubin Kazan 0 … 2 min.more…
Pool Results from http://www.eurosport.com: “who scored the goal of the weekend ?”
Ahead: RVP – 46% – 8.701 votes 🙂
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