Morning all.
Another good month for Aaron Ramsey, not only did he win the Arsenal player of the month award for the fifth time in succession, he picked up the goal of the month award too with 49% of fans votes.
It was a pretty special one wasn’t it and what made it even more special for me is it was against the team I don’t particularly like, Liverpool. In case you have forgotten, he collected Mesut Ozil’s pass, took a touch and let the ball bounce twice before unleashing an unstoppable strike beyond Simon Mignolet.
Jack Wilshere, came second for his goal against Marseille and in third place was Santi Cazorla for his corker, also against Liverpool.
We could do with seeing a few more goals from Santi, he looks a bit low in confidence and from playing with style and slickness, he’s struggling to get a pass or shot to find it’s target. I’m sure his form will soon find it’s way back his feet….
He certainly struggled a bit against Everton but then again so did a few or at least they appeared too…
Hope he doesn’t tuck into too much of that over the Christmas period! Worn for a good cause of course, Save the Children’s Christmas Jumper Day – which is scheduled for this Friday.
Back to Sunday and is it all a bit too easy to write our performance off as being average? Did players struggle to play the way we know they can or did Everton just turn up better equipped and better prepared than we are used to?
Questions but none of us truly know the answer and perhaps it’s a bit of both.
Earlier this year, we were on a great run as we threw everything at the challenge to finish the season in the top four but Everton were again a thorn in our side as we managed only a draw. They tried every tactic under Moyes that day and with a weak man in control of the whistle, they got away with it but under Martinez, Everton aren’t that kind of side.
I know Arsene Wenger said that he thought some of the Everton players were a bit too physical at times and fouled our players a bit too often, but perhaps he should look at the amount of yellow cards some of our players have totted up so far this season. I think we dish it out just as much these days.
They play the way we do so often, with pace, they use the wings and when they are in possession of the ball, they make it very difficult for the opposition to disrupt their game. As someone mentioned yesterday, we won’t be the only club Everton take a point off of, in fact I fully expect them to do what they did to Manchester United to many of the clubs around the top half of the league.
Per Mertesacker believes that Everton are one of the best sides he has personally faced:
I think that was the toughest game we have been through the whole season. They pressed us high up, all the way through from the start until the end.
We couldn’t play that much and in the second half everything was possible on both sides, with chances here and there so I think it was a fair result.
When one of the best central defenders in the Premier League says that, it must be true..
My problem is that when we are on such a good run as we have been, a draw at home feels like a loss when a game goes the way it did on Sunday but I’m always the first to criticise Arsene Wenger for not praising the opposition when we drop points, maybe I’m just as bad….
Later today we head out to Italy needing less than a 3-0 defeat to progress into the Champions League knock-out stages….
Now this is a game I would take a draw in……
Finally, there is a programme on tonight that fans might want to watch called Keane and Vieira: ‘The best of enemies’ and it’s on ITV 4 at 10pm –
That’s your lot for another day…..
Morning all…game day already??
Morning Rico, Scott and all.
G’day Adam.
1-1 today?
Or is it tomorrow?
Bloody head is spinning atm…
Morning again Scott, Adam and all…
Tomorrow 🙂
Yep…just found out, Rico….thanks.
shouldn’t be a danger this one and we’ll be more focussed than the first half display against Everton. I think we’ll win if we start Theo, They will have to push up to create pressure on the ball – Ozil and Theo could have a field day 2-0 to Arsenal
Must be the time zone Scott..
Do City play tonight or tomorrow? At least they will be looking for a win in Germany to top their group.. Hopefully they get just as hard a game as we do..
Oz – I hope we can do as well against them as we did at home.. Stunning stuff that night..
The borefest that is the Keane and Vieira thing is about to hit our screens I see. Sad PV4 has already been gobbing off about us-again. Such a bitter old pair of sour, undignified men.
I think Wenger’s comments on the systematic fouling was because of the way the fouls weren commited and the referee’s reaction to them.It was a deliberate ploy by Barry and mcarthy to get to the ref every time he blew , and in the time Webb explained his decisions they got back into their defensive shape which prevented The Arsenal from moving the ball quickly and getting their move going again. As we are a team that doesn’t lump the ball into the box the team that fouled actually gained from the decision. Webb took too long to realise what was happening an early card would have sorted things out and possibly had he had the guts Everton may have finished one man short. Looking at both Barry and Jagielka here. We tend to pick up fouls because of the pressing that we are doing and because we are a small team and often are overstretching to get tackles in and as the modern day footballer has no sense of balance and falls over a the slightest touch usually with three twists and a somersault for good measure , refs fall for it every time. ( I would like to see the mayhem on the streets if such contact resuted in people collapsing all over the high street as they run for a bus).
I reckon his comments are legitimate but without a doubt they will get misconstrued and thrown back at us as soon as one of ours does anything to step out of line.
Yes Adam, last line in the post, ITV4 10pm 🙂
I’ll be watching, or recording for earlier on another day…
Rico. I won’t. Can’t stand either of them. 🙂
But don’t we do exactly the same when a team is pressing forward on us? Arteta this season, and Flamini. And before then Song was forever giving away free kicks in dangerous areas just to stop the opposition from going forward and giving us chace to regroup, ok, it seldom did us any favours back then but…
I don’t think just Everton ‘crowd’ a ref after a free kick has been given, most sides do exactly the same, just they were better at re-grouping..
Potter.. I make you right there. Also there seems to be no such thing as the 10 yard rule where free kicks are given in the middle of the pitch any more. Refs don’t seem to mind opposition players standing a couple of yards from the ball, limiting its delivery angle, as long as they don’t stick a boot out.
No surprise there Adam. 😉
What we don’t do is to target the opposition’s most creative player and rotationally foul him. Perhaps we should.
Good Morning Lady, Sir, Gentlemen and Ladies of the house.
Scott………your inbox. 🙂
Just a short hop for now…….but one with a question.
How many teams were PLAYING FOOTBALL on Sunday?
If the answer is one than that was a fekking bad result.
If the answer is two teams than that is a fair and good result.
As Rico said…….many teams will loose points against Everton.
So before jumping to hysterical conclusions (like some twerps did after the game on the net) have another look at the game and decide whether or not it was two teams playing FOOTBALL.
Adam….you and I would instruct our team to rotationally foul the opposition’s most creative player.
But would AW do it???
Morning Devil.
Cheers Devil…I just responded 🙂
Morning peeps,
Does Poldi look slimmer in the photo?
I was concern with his weight with him hanging around with Frimps in every photo throwing up ‘gang signs’ recently. 😛
Excellent point Potter; the fact that it took Howard 43 minutes to issue Barry a card plus McCArthy receiving no card says it all…
Unfortunately, $hitty can’t finish above FC Munchen unless they beat them by 6 clear goals so I suspect Pellegrini is taking a weaker team. Yaya and Nastry are already rumoured to be injured…
No, we don’t do that Adam, and I would hate us to do so… but I’m sure we do our fair share of little niggly tackles..
Morning Devil. I saw some of the twitter comments, beggars belief!
Ts, maybe they will be going out there to get 6 then 😉
🙂 Rico
I think it was a case of a point gained rather than 2 points lost considering the strength of the opponents . I’m contend with this team competing this year rather than bitching and moaning every time this team fail to garner maximum points. This year at least we are in it ,for me that’s a success if you take into account the shenanigans of the past 8 or 9 years .Napoli have to break a scoring record tomorrow so its a no brainer 3- 1 to the Arsenal I say.
Sure we foul as I said usually not maliciously but we do seem to get pulled up quicker than other teams. As Adam has pointed out it is the rotational fouling that players know they will get away with. Everton are a good team and have some of the traits I wish we would incorporate, if we were to employ some of their toughness with our superior skills , I would be more confident going into games against United and chelsea than I am at present.
I hope they certainly go out to get the goals Ts, and pick injuries along the way 😉
They have a couple of players I’d like too Potter…
I agree of the traits – but as you said earlier, if we did it, our players would find themselves in the book…
Morning all,
Potter – ditto your 10.05 comments
Good observation on systematic fouling and persistent gathering around the referee by Jagielka and barry whenever everton fouls our boys to slow the game down and get themselves organised.
The key in that match was not to concede in that first 30mins because of everton high-octane pressing. Our CB and wingbacks did a good job in curtailing them. Just unfortunate that when we had those chances(2 in the first and 3/4 in the second) we couldn’t take them or rather unlucky that Giroud shot hit the post. But I still think it’s a good thing we drew to bring us back to reality and refocus for the shitty and chavs.
Good post b/w rico
Welcome Donald. You really think Napoli will be that easy?
Thanks emma, Giroud was very very unlucky…
Rico,
I was initially puzzled by the Post headline referring to Poldi and pudding until I saw the photo and laughed, as well as admiring him for being such a good sport. The rest of the article was really spot on especially the ‘continuous fouling’ comment.
You are of course correct that as a team we do make the occasional ‘professional’ foul, and because of his lack of pace, Arteta, one of our defensive lynchpins is often guilty of the pull back or trip to stop pacey forwards getting away from him, All teams do it at sometime.
Anyone who thinks females know nothing about football or sports in general just needs to read your articles to learn the truth. 🙂
If we get one early v Napoli, we will catch them on the break once or twice more.
Sportsdirect reporting that sagna is close to signing a 2-yr deal. That would be great news if true
Well said Henry.
The lady knows her stuff!!!!
Sychophant ( joke ) can’t get the smiley to work.
🙂 Hb, he was not the only one but too many photos to add..
Thank you re the post, not sure I know as much as many on here but I give it a go 😉
Bits Scott, but that’s about it … 😉
That would be great news emma, great news and fingers crossed…
Morning all. Nice article rico while we wait for matchday again.
Just tried the Arsenal personal xmas video, after an email received from official site. Looks fun, your imported face appears alongside Ozil, Walcott, Wenger etc. Except, although it looks ok as a still when you get an email back, it wont load in IE (with Flash) and in Chrome my face is blanked out!
Anyone else get the email or tried it?
Thanks Ah, I get it, but seldom read it these days….
Hi all on the foul debate I would like to say that yes we commit fouls but the difference is more often that not we get booked for it where as the opposition seem to get away with the same thing.
It took Web ages to dish out a card for the many fouls Everton did commit most of which deserved yellow cards, if he hadn’t taken that approach it would have meant a hell of a lot less fouls against us because they would have worried about what the ref would do.
This has always been a problem with ref when it comes to matches against us. I was watching a program with Kewon in it and it was about the night we won the title and Old Trafford, and he said that game was a war Manure went out to hurt us and the ref done nothing letting a lot go and when we tried to get stuck in the cards were straight out. He also said that when a foul was given against Manure for one of their leg breaking tackles he hardly dished out any cards and if he had dished a few cards out early he would have stopped it straight away. He also said that Manure always did it and so did most of the teams because that was the only way they could play against us because they knew had they tried to play football we would have beat them every time. He blamed the ref and not the other teams saying that the ref could easily stop it by giving out a few cards early in the game but very rarely did.
I feel that during this trohpyless spell that has been a huge factor behind it, because we haven’t really had players that can get stuck in when needed, other teams bully us around and because the ref does nothing about it, teams get away with it, refs need to sort it out and stop taking orders from betting syndicates and grow some balls. The answer isn’t us to get stuck in too because as Kewon said the refs then had no problems giving us cards for the same thing the opposition would get away with.
I really think so Dave , our tactics have to be spot on, I feel this is one match we could do with some real width and genuine pace so we could do with a start for TW 14 and may be a rest for Jack or Santi .Unlike other games when we unnecessarily use the double pivot this one is where we can do with it.I have often enjoyed these kind of matches when teams try to come at us , with a strong back line such as ours and a firm midfield I think we will enjoy watching Mesut working the channels in tandem with TW 14 .Clinical finishing is imperative in this match as well. Theo has also shown the kind of hunger we have come to miss from an Arsenal bench these past years, 2 assists in the last 10 minutes of 2 of the last 3 matches we have played from the bench is the sort of display we can really do with from the onset.3-1 to the Arsenal is an achievable result against Napoli
Until the step in, or Riley and the boys in his pocket leave the game, things won’t probably change. Or of course, Sky Sports/Bt Sport start highlighting the discrepancies each week..
Wrong site Donald?? 😉
Interesting points re: fouling…
The problem stems, IMO, in the fact that Arsenal don’t make enough of a fuss about the duplicity of the FA/EPL/Referee’s ‘unspoken’ anti-Arsenal policies…
If Hill-Wood & co had spent more time criticising that unholy trio of tossers, instead of moaning at his own fans, then maybe more of a spotlight would have fallen on them and we might have had a fairer deal….
See how Wenger’s digs at MotD have had a positive effect…
It’s not rocket science, and Ferguson/Mourinho et al do it all the time…
It’s a kinda football politics…
No ,Rico just can’t wait for tomorrow I guess. On Rotational fouling , we seem not to employ the same tactic but moan a lot when we suffer from it. I have a suggestion for it.How about our team start with it especially on Saturday just to get even with teams. Everton escaped with a point as a result of this .
I’d be moaning a lot more Kev, that’s for sure…
You threw me re the ‘dave’ Donald…
Off now for a walk, catch up later…
Report: Sagna ruled out of Man City game with injury. He wont be back until Chelsea game:
😀 😀 😀 Hansen: “Mertesacker & Koscielny are outstanding. Positioning, reading, intercepting…make it seamless.”
Marek Hamsik misses out tomorrow great news for us; me think…
Super piece again Rico.
10 mins left we should of been more experienced and closed shop.
To be fair Everton deserved a point.
Point gained rather than 2 lost…
Good call on Santi, not returned to pre injury level.Passing is off, maybe trying to fit in with MO11 being the new main man.Not sure…
Good point HenryB.
On this blog we have two fantastic female writers in Rico and Emma.
They bleed Gooner Red hard.
Emma -That would be a fantastic Christmas present in BAC signing.
I feel TW,TR07, MA08 and Flam need to start 2mrrw.
Come on You Reds. Cheers
Gonna be some interesting rotation tomorrow!
Now I wonder if Wenger is gonna go with Bendtner?
Monreal, Rosicky and Arteta, I’d save and start Flamini up at Wastelands…
Time to give Walcott a start in Naples perhaps?
Afternoon all. Thanks A117..
Kev, I am not so sure, AW won’t want to lose this one..
A117, don’t forget we have Agag as well….
Hi Rico, yep, I see your point…
Not seen anything re: Sagna offered/signing a new contract?!!!
Hope it’s true, of course….
Yawn, it’s pretty damn quiet today, on the streets…
Martin Atkinson will officiate City v Arsenal.
Hi Kev, me neither re Sagna – shame…
Sorry Agag – My wrong.
Think AW will start with a strong team and when the games won? He’ll make ‘saving my players for saturday’ substitutions then,, late in the game. This one game is really, really important to him. It may even determine the outcome of his contract talks/re-signing or even resigning! If we end up with Thursday footy then he will feel he has failed and decide to go for his pipe and slippers and renew his membership of Saga!
Roberto Martinez for us then?
Martinez :- fair shout.
As do I Wavy but I can’t see him walking away if we get knocked out..
Adam won’t be pleased, he doesn’t like Martinez… 😉
Off for dinner..
I believe that Adam favours Bobby Mugabe as the successor to Wenger…
Morning all.
That’s more like it Kev.
Hi Scott..
Seems like everyone has gone again so I will too…
Night all…
Let’s hope that Bayern absolutely thrash the living daylights out of the Northern Oilers…
I sure do Kev…
Night to you…
1-0 Bayern 🙂
Night Rico
Bayern 2-0 🙂 🙂
Go the Germans 🙂
city won 3-2?
Dodgy penalty apparently haven’t see it yet.
Bob for me every time Kev. If only for his dance moves.
Having seen it now , I would love to ask the ref the difference between the Milner one and the one on Ribery.
Adam, apparently, Bob Mugabe does a wicked ‘moon walk’…
Maybe we’ll see him on Strictly Come Dancing…?
Although it would take something special, for Bobby to outdo the Hairy Biker…
Happy Birthday to me, btw…. 😀
Night All…
Happy B – Day Kev.
Happy Birthday to the Birthday Boy. 🙂
How old now???? erm let’s see.
According to WATH, a reliable old source, who remembers THE HOBBIT being written, bless his woolly socks and hairy toes, it seems as if Kev was born something around the middle ages of last century. It was the summer years of the 20th century, he claims. That must make it around pension age. The last time he commented, WATH said that Kev remembers a spuddie lifting YE OLDE ENGLISH LEAGUE…..althoug the latter claims that now that is a distant haze.
So Happy Birthday KEV. May you have an enjoyable day full of all that you wish for.
Happy birthday Kev…….hope the lads make it one to remember.
Morning all.
Devil, check your inbox in a minute.
checked and replied mate. 🙂
Morning Rico and all.
Happy birthday Kev. See you later. 🙂
Happy birthday AK!
Morning to you all…
Thanks again Devil.
Happy Birthday Kev, hope you get a good present later, three points wrapped up in shiny paper with a big fat bow on them 🙂
Morning Adam and all…
New post up now…