Afternoon all.
Another game, another draw, another really cheap penalty given against us.
‘Farcical’ said Arsene Wenger and who can argue that he wasn’t right? I certainly can’t. Hector Bellerin went toe to toe with Hazard, the Belgian international dropped to the floor clutching his shin and Taylor bought his cheating antics. This all took place just before the seventy minute mark after we were playing our best football of the game. Courtois had denied us several times before Jack Wilshere blasted one high into the back of the net leaving him stranded on this occasion.
Yes, Chelsea had had chances of their own but it’s hardly our fault Morata was rubbish on the night was it? Cech made a few decent saves too.
The penalty, which had Cech not gone to ground would have saved, lifted the away team, who then went onto take the lead. That’s what cheesed me off so much about that ‘farcical’ penalty decision. Chelsea were out of it and we were looking in full control of the game. Credit to the team though for not giving up, credit to Bellerin for taking his chance and grabbing the equaliser.
Going forward, we looked great at times, we really did and it’s such a shame that our three in Ozil, Sanchez and Lacazette are soon likely to become two, worse still should Mesut Ozil depart. Our defending though remains comical, well, frustrating. If only Arsene Wenger would admit defeat in this department and delegate this part of the squads training to someone else. We could sign the best central defender in the world, but our defending will stay the same. Our defensive unit needs help, serious help because it’s costing us so much. I don’t blame individuals, I blame the manager. But just how good was Ashley Maitland-Niles? Ok, he got beaten which allowed Chelsea to cross for their second, but who the heck was tracking Alonso? No one! School boy stuff.
I’m sure the Chelsea fans will be saying that Jack Wilshere shouldn’t have been on the pitch when he scored our opened having committed two yellow card offences and perhaps they’d be right but I thought sending him off would have been soft as I don’t think he dived for that second one. No doubt people will disagree and suggest I’m biased. Hey ho.
With the scores at 2-2, Chelsea nearly stole all three points but thankfully the woodwork got in the way and honours remained even when the final whistle blew.
After the match, Arsene wasn’t pleased and I’m not surprised as we were robbed yet again. That doesn’t excuse our defending for their second, or the other opportunities we gifted Chelsea but unless Wenger accepts some help or he leaves, nothing in that department is likely to change.
As a player, I think Eden Hazard is outstanding, but he’s a cheat and I don’t like cheats. His post match interview showed is nasty and arrogant side, unlike Hector Bellerin who showed maturity and decency.
Unlike Thierry Henry who these days sees to have fallen into the Sky Sports ‘let’s pick on Arsenal’ agenda. Well if that’s how he wants to be after all the club did for him, I’d rather we didn’t ever see his ugly face back at the club. He can stick with Belgium and his little chums like Hazard…
What more is there to say really?
Gossip:
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is Arsenal’s first choice to replace Alexis Sanchez if the Chilean joins Manchester City, according to Sky Sports in Italy.
Greek wonder kid Konstantinos Mavropanos is highly likely to sign for Arsenal within the next few days before heading out on loan..
Notts Forest next at the weekend in the FA Cup. I watched a bit of their game last weekend, they were dreadful…
See you in the comments…
Afternoon and thank you Rico.
From last post can someone point me to the item where we are said to be the second richest football team on the planet !
Cant wait for the FA Cup game where we are the best at it………………think one day I`ll watch our last 3 finals one after the other, each one had it`s differant kind of spicy story………………….with a good ending !
🙂
Google it Lc.. lol
I think it was more to do with spending money wisely…
Wenger is in trouble with the FA again. Surprise surprise….
Maybe he’s read my comments and decided to go to war. Hope so.
Me too. Wonder when the hearing will be, think he has to respond by 5pm tomorrow..
5pm tomorrow for the WBA match.
Tuesday 6pm for yesterday’s comments.
According to reports, he’ll contest both charges..
Rico good afternoon !
Bellerin kicked his boots not the ball …though not leg breaking.
Ref call it right for me.
Fact is Bellerin not intelligent and not good at defending.His body languagge was on par with ref decision.He did not show a slightest hint of besument at the decision.
As you say it the defending is absolutely shocking .
Mustafi except in few games show average ability i have seen nothing to make me think other wise.
Chambers…..is just another lucky Feo on the pay list.I wold call him for pub game.
Evening Rick, Alex.
Happy New Year to you too Rick and thanks re HH.
What did you make of Maitland-Niles?
Alex, you could apply to be a referee if you think that was a penalty… lol
Evening Rico and the House
Belated New Year Greetings to the Lady of the House and fellow Gooners who help with some excellent comments
But a very special thank you to Rico for some wonderful posts during the last year and I look forward some more of the same in the year to come.
What pub do you play for Alex
Mavrapanos has signed then..
Rico
We can differ on that …but …what did you make of Bellerin ….had he felt innocent would have definetly complained to the point being yellow carded.
He knows is guilty and even on the interview did not say it while Hazard was adamant in his talk.
Chambers for 16M ….are you crazy ?
He does not ….run noo pace at all
positioning himself absolute…..rubbish
Passes and tackles …rubbish…
Physical presence…..nothing to show
Is just another over rated flop Wenger buy.
And if he had, he’d have probably got a second yellow Alex.
It’s easy to criticise all our players as you often do but until a different coach gets hold of them, certainly the younger ones, who knows how good or bad they really are?
It’s the way we defend imo, not the players..
Have you ever got anything positive to say about the club you allegedly support?
Quality defenders are hard to come by and most of the world’s best are either in their late 20s or early 30s.
Calum Chambers ratings against West Brom by some of theTabs:
He was good today again, on a day when there was little positive he was one of them. The penalty decision was abysmal.7
A little better than last week and should never have been penalised for the penalty. Should get an even longer run in first team now that Koscielny is injured again.7
Handled Jay Rodriguez well for most of the game, without much help from Hector Bellerin or Alex Iwobi. His distribution, as usual, was very good, and with his second Premier League start of the year, he is beginning to establish himself as a key member of the squad.7
Sorry to be supportive of young defenders on here..But
I will never forget the stick Big Tone got from all and sundry
when he started out…Hee Haw
Donkey won the Derby Fred , I seem to remember.
The problem of all this penalty / diving is interpretation. When I played a player doing what Hazard did would have earned a smack in the mouth. Going down for a penalty should be when a players progress has been impeded but as time has gone by it has been reduced to if a player is touched and leaps to the ground the ref has a decision to make. The media trot it out and ex -players also , they devalue the game and any spirit it may have had. If the touch on Hazard was enough to bring a grown man to the floor then bodies would be strewn over every high street as people jostle and run for buses. When I last looked football claims to be a contact sport or is it only if it’s an attacking player in the penalty area. Contact as minimal as that takes place all over the pitch and play goes on . Giving penalties for it is plainly wrong and only encourages the likes of Hazard , Sterling , Richarliason etc to do it more . Unfortunately The Arsenal has had our own proponents of diving in the past but the criticism of our players has run out across the media , seems it doesn’t count when other players do it.
Funny though how we seldom get a penalty decision even when our players are really fouled.
Well said Fred
Rico
If there is any positive to say about this bunch of over rated group are the only two players Sanchez and Ozil.
Other than that in my eyes they are all over rated and hyped prima donnas.
But if there is one positive is that Ozil has improved under Le prof based upon the last games.
That is the positive .But if you are like the one happy for the 4th trophy enjoy with the
Chambers
Wellbeck
Willshere
Feo
Bolding
Xaka
Coq
El Neni
Check
Mustafi
Sorry i could go for ever but battery running out
Lol
Potter. I make you right with your last comment. It seems odd how the interpretations of what actually constitutes a penalty these days seems to have changed. When I played it was a foul in the box but it appears as if the referees have been so dishonest that they have used a far looser interpretation in order to punish teams they, for whatever reason, want to penalise in a big way. The rules seem to have become a moveable feast and it’s not hard to see how referees can easily affect who and who doesn’t get a CL place or even who gets relegated.
Seems to me that corruption extends far beyond simply accepting money to ‘tilt’ a result one way or the other and it’s not hard to think that’s what we might be seeing, organised or not.
Could this Greek kid be worse than Chambers, I doubt it, so play him in Caraboa and Europa. To think we forked outhe 16M for Chambers!!!!
He’s going out on loan Patrick.
http://www.football365.com/news/soccerex-100-arsenal-richer-than-man-united-real-psg
Rico ,
mixed feelings with AM Niles. Very pleased with the way he is coming on , I have always thought he had it in him yo play like this.
The downside he is not and never will be a full back , drop Iwobi and let him play where he plays
I’d second that Rick but that’s the Wenger way isn’t it…
Night guys.
Rico re the T/H comments.
I believe he has become a very bitter ,twisted and vindictive man.
To help him get his bages Arsene allowed him to coach the U16s on a part time bases . He then asked him to go fulltime which he turned down and went with Sky.
Now with the club in the midst of a major overhaul he knows he made a mistake and js thinking he could have been part of the new setup.
I think he blames Arsene for not letting him stay on as part tme and missing out on a plum job.
You make your bed now sleep in it.
Great defence is about partnerships, not individual lapses from players who are in one week & out the next. For instance,Tony Adams had his other 4 @ the back to back him up during his donkey moments. If this team is to ‘move on up’, then Wenger needs to stick with the same partnership, & with standby’s who play to the same same system/organisation at the back when injuries occur. I don’t agree with singling out Chambers for blame @ the back when he is fobbed around & never given a chance to grow into a team role. The same with Holding.
Also, There is too much finger pointing by supporters who have never played at the highest level, but think they are experts anyway. Though I understand the lingering of Arsene in his current role does give many the sh*ts.
Scotty2Hotty are you on Xmas break?
Morning Rico and all. Any transfer news to get interested in?
Morning Adam, not that I can see, other than Wenger wants Walcott to stay which possibly means he’s off… 😉
If you are bored though, there’s always his press conference to listen to…
Can’t find any , in or out . Which is strange considering the number of games we have coming up at the beginning of the window.
And, that Wenger asserted that he would be very busy during the window, searching for ‘replacements’ so he could fortify his depleted, disallusion end and demotivated squad!
Morning all.
Rico. I never miss his press conferences as you know.
I actually thought that the one after the Chelsea game was very good. Seriously. 🙂
But he’s signed a defender Wavy, that’s busy for him…
Yes Adam, Bellerin spoke well… 😉
Rico. Bellerin made that weasel Hazzard look pathetic.
Didn’t he just Adam.
The bit that really pissed me off was when Bellerin was being interviewed post the game (With Tom Daley standing next to him!) he didn’t utter a word about him going over like an old lady on an icy morning holding his shin….. cheating fuck!
The FA would have had a go at Bellerin though Lee, they have it in for us and I suspect someone told Bellerin to stay calm. Cech had his rant though after the WBA game which was good to hear I thought..
Cech got booked after one of the games had finished i think?
He did, your’e right, the WBA game. Booked for asking a simple question…
I believe that Cech was booked by Dean for having the temerity to argue coherently in a second language that the Wirral based man couldn’t understand.
Another farcical decision by Dean.
Glad we didn’t go near R. Barkley. A flop surely.
Morning all
I have a theory and that’s all it is.We know we have a few new background staff including head coach, and Gazidis and Wenger are not seeing eye to eye on several matters and therefore we will not make any major signings in this window as the possibility on no CL football is a reality and that the club are banking on Ozil,Sanchez and even Wilshere to help us get that forth spot and then they or one or two of them can walk away free and the cushion will be the money received for qualyfing but it’s all a big ambe.If we fail to get CL I believe Wenger will go at the end of the season.Surely things can’t carry on like this or can it?
Wit regards to having the least debt, City get round the rules by literally sponsoring themselves with shirt and stadium rights as The Mansours own Ethied and can just keep pouring money into the club
Patrick, do we call you that or Paddywack?
It’s hard to keep up as you switch IP addresses…
I doubt we’ll get top four Kelsey, with or without Ozil and Alexis.
Interesting that nobody has really paid much attention to the Aubameyang rumour!
He’d be a good signing for us and would allow Wenger the opportunity to let Giroud move on, but I can’t really see Aubameyang, who at one time spoke of an ambition to play for Real Madrid, wanting to move sideways to Arsenal…
Who knows how much Dortmund would want even if they were prepared to sell him and heaven knows the wages he’d want in what would be his last big move?
Of course Wenger could always do a Griezmann on him…
Nope, it all seems like a load of bollocks to me, at a time of the the season when transfer bollocks is in the ascendancy.
Mind you anything is possible I suppose, I mean if Andy Carroll can be linked to Chelsea then who am I to sniff at the Aubameyang story.
The Carroll rumour did make me laugh… ?
Wenger was asked about that this morning Kev, he ruled it out..
Rico, I know what you mean about top four, but I still think we’ve got a chance of sneaking in, especially when the CL starts again, Arsenal can rotate more for the UEFA Cup than can say Chelsea, Liverpool, Mancs & Spuds, who I think will drop more EPL points as the CL progresses.
That is why I was glad they all qualified for the knockout stages, let them go all the way to the Q/F and S/F, loads of high pressure games for them, bring it on….
As far as Theo is concerned, I see absolutely no point in letting him leave on loan, especially if we have to pay a percentage of his wages, so those Serie A clubs can jog on…
If a club wants to pay his wages, all his wages, and pay a transfer fee then fair enough, but otherwise I’d keep him. Who knows what’s going to happen injury wise in the 2nd half of the season. There’s still a lot of games to play. I’d keep Debuchy as well, unless Jenkinson comes back that is…
Yeah, I saw that Rico, but did you believe him? ?
Kev, but our Europa kicks off at the same time too and I reckon the further we go, the stronger the team AW will put ut. Plus we have so many injuries…
I’d keep Walcott too, just because of the Europa…
No Kev, never have.. 😉
That’s true Rico, but if we go further and at the same time look more likely to finish top four, I think he’ll focus on the top four, he always has.
If we fall further behind then he might focus more on the UEFA Cup, it’s all down to how lucky we are in the draw I guess.
I mean, if we were away to Tottenham on Sunday and not Forest then that would influence his team selection wouldn’t it?
I think we’ll finish the season where we are now Kev..
Three match ban for Wenger then… I suspect that’ll increase after Tuesday.
That might be for what he said to Dean in the refs dressing room, but we’ll see, I hope he keeps on criticising the PGMOL etc
Yep, that was for Dean but I bet he gets a further ban after his Taylor comments in his press conference..
Barkley move to Chelsea confirmed…
I’m not sure that Wenger is too fussed about a ban or the fine, I hope he carries on bringing the inconsistency of our referees under the spotlight.
Isn’t this years World Cup the first time there’s not been any English officials invited?
Remember we are the only country in Europe, along with Italy, to have full time professional referees…
All on your watch Mike Riley, you tosser….
I don’t think he is either Kev, I think he’s had enough and is saying what he thinks.
£15 million is quite a good price Rico, I wonder if Arsenal were interested?
I doubt it Kev, we have loads of midfielders. Not very good ones, but loads… ?
Catch up tomorrow guys…
Night all..
Rico, he’s at a stage of his career where he doesn’t care anymore, what can the FA really do?
He’s probably felt that Arsenal have been stitched up for years and many of us have suspected as much, he’s long overdue having a rant about it.
£ 15 million when he was up for double that last window. I think the mayor of Liverpool is launching a stewards against the agents.
I will be writing to .@premierleague & .@FA calling for investigation into the circumstances around the transfer of Ross Barkley between Everton and Chelsea. Agent pulls transfer on deadline day of £35 million doesn’t play again transfer 4 months later £20 million slashed off price. Joe Anderson Mayor.
Barkley is out of contract this summer, hence the price, I guess.
puts our lot into perspective then.. For years we have paid through the nose and now the club is gambling all of the money we have overpaid to them.
According to Phillipe Auclair Hazard told him that he dived and grabbed his shin to exaggerate his case for a penalty. The F.A have said that they will not take retrospective action.
It’s a good job that we have the second largest cash reserves in world football then, doesn’t it!????
And as for the Hazard remarks the outcome signals all that is wrong with the administration of justice, or rather the
Ack of it, by the powers that be. They should be ashamed of themselves, in that their lack of action is shameful! It’s time for a clear out. Shall we start with….?
If that’s true, he should face the FA Potter.
Morning guys..
New post up now..