Morning all.
There’s some really odd people in this world but then I expect you all know that but when a fellow Arsenal fan tells you to F**k Off and support Spurs, it’s a bit off really. I guess he/she is one of those who thinks Arsene Wenger is immortal and could still lead us to winning the league once again. Perhaps he could but I’m far from convinced that league would be the Premier League. Needless to say that rude suggestion didn’t make into the comments section and it’s a great shame really that those who do continue to support Arsene Wenger, don’t get involved on places like this and say why they believe he’s the best man for the job still. You never know, those of us who believe his time at the top is long over might just be tempted to have a rethink. No? Ok, no, me neither…
What the Frenchman might yet do though is end the season with a Europa League Cup but first of course he and the team have to make sure they get to Lyon in order to have a chance. Taking a 4-1 lead to Moscow looked like a semi-final place was almost in the bag but having seen Barcelona get knocked out of the Champions League a couple of nights ago after they took the same advantage with them to Italy to play their second leg against Roma, perhaps we shouldn’t be quite so confident. That result in Rome has to be one of the biggest surprises and upsets European football has seen in a long while and it just goes to show what difference an away goal can make. There should have been another last night too but a moment of madness in the final minutes gave Real Madrid the chance to progress. Juve had been great for much of the game, Madrid however were far from being at the top of their game. Michael Oliver made a bold decision to award the home team a penalty and send Buffon off in the aftermath. Szczesny replaced the Italian but despite diving the right way, there was no way he was going to save the Ronaldo spot kick. Lucky lucky Real!!
Onto tonight and CSKA have no other option other than to attack against us. They need goals and judging by how they performed at The Emirates, they don’t know any other way to play in any case. Their defence is awful and they left themselves wide open time and time again.
Our defending is awful too but against a team which plays, or will hopefully again play, as open as CSKA do, our forwards could have another good night. An early away goal would sink CSKA I think as the task would be too great for them but let them in early and they’ll start to believe. So will the thousands of home fans in VEB Arena. It’s not a massive stadium and only holds 30,000 but it’ll be loud, with a hostile atmosphere. Not a place for the faint hearted I’d imagine. What’s going on in world right now will hardly help matters either, neither will the referees if Mr Botox has stuck a few dirty bank notes in their back pockets. I bet you didn’t know that about Mr Putin did you…?
Of course he wouldn’t do such a thing will he, it’ll be a fair and honest contest just as the first leg was and as long as our players don’t give the officials a decision to make, they can’t make it.
Anyway, the team pretty much picks itself these days and it should be the strongest Arsene Wenger has at his disposal although there’s no Xhaka as he has flu and Mkhitaryan is ruled out through injury. There’s nothing to play for in the league which has been the norm now for a number of years so all of Wenger’s eggs are well and truly in this Europa basket. Get the required result tonight in any which way the team can and then wait to see who’s up next.
Hopefully not Atletico Madrid but then saying that, we’d have a better chance of beating them over two legs I think than in just the one match. That’s if they go through of course but with just a two lead going into their return leg, it’s far from being a forgone conclusion.
The other two quarter finals are close too and whoever goes through will probably fancy their chances of winning the big cup.
More than I fancy our chances of winning it, that’s for sure….
Morning all and thank you Rico.
The scenario now is the complete opposite to when the season started………………at the start of the season with all our rivals in CL I wanted us to concentrate on the EPL and play the fringe and youth in EL………….now we it`s the reverse as 6th or 7th doesn`t matter……..we are in EL again unless we can EL !
Think we will get through with ease as someone told me two things !………1) The Russians are just back from winter break and …….2) Their defence is the same defence which played us some 12 years ago !………………..if true they wont be as fit as us and most notably they have an average age older than Potter !
🙂
To answer your question from last post Rico………………….still waiting for results of CT and MRI scans for wife !
I think I`d rather have Atletico in a one off game than over two legs, you know what we are like……..lose to the easy teams and beat the harder ones in a Final !
The teams like Barcelona and Valencia you mean Cocker? ?
Nah mate, I’d take Lazio in the final every day of the week. ?
I’ll tell you what, have a look at our bench tonight, it’s down to the bare bones.
If the club thinks that we can compete with this squad for the EPL over 9 months and maybe even the CL, they must be dreaming.
We’ll have to hope that Mavropanos, Nketiah, Willock and Nelson take a massive growth spurt over the summer because the strength in depth just ain’t there fellas.
Ospina, BFG and Cazorla will need replacing for sure, maybe Perez will be be re-integrated into the squad, he’s experienced, can score goals and probably isn’t worth much on the transfer market, may as well use him.
Not sure if any of the other guys will return from their loans and become the next Bellerin or Cole or Coquelin and save us spending – fingers crossed eh Stan….
I’m still having trouble sending a post Rico, I have to hit the send button about 6 times.
I keep getting adverts blocking everything.Can’t see what I am writing although that could be a blessing.
Reckon 1 goal tonight should do it.
My fingers and toes are crossed Lc. Thinking of you and yours…
Kev/Potter. Are you able to say which adverts are blocking your page etc, if so, I can remove them.
It could be the cookies loading for me Rico, I’m not sure what’s slowing it all down.
Sometimes the Highbury House logo covers up what I’m typing if I have my tablet side on, not sure what you can do tbh.
I’m on my phone atm, it’s ok, so all a bit weird.
I blame Wath…
And Adam
I’ll see if there’s a way of clearing the cookies Kev but I’ve no idea really…
Bristol sreet motors at present
Takuma Asano …..just a shirt seller?
Thanks Rico.
CSKA to win the EL anyone ?…………………………500/1 odds last time I looked !
Thanks Potter, I’ll look into getting that one removed..
No chance Lc…. lol
Evening Rico and all. Who knows what might happen tonight? European football has been largely unpredictable this season.
Evening Adam, should be entertaining.. ?
Arsenal starting XI: Cech, Bellerin, Monreal, Mustafi, Koscielny, Elneny, Wilshere, Ramsey, Welbeck, Ozil, Lacazette.
Subs: Macey, Mertesacker , Kolasinac, Holding, Chambers, Nketiah, Iwobi.
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/live#!timeline#EPlkXr8tkPTvuWbb.99
Read more at https://www.arsenal.com/live#!timeline#1GOW47c6oeedjxi2.99
Sloppy
Kos…
Have we managed to string more than three passes together?
This has been a complete lacklustre mess from the fist second. Like most of our away performances.
Garbage, absolute garbage from us. Weak defending and so lacklustre.
It;s in their psyche , Wenger doesn’t fire them up and they are lazy bastards once they get in front they drop a gear and coast. Then when they get caught they can’t raise themselves. Difficult second half comoing.
If Cska get a second, I reckon we’ll be done for.
You’re right Potter, it happens so often instead of killing sides off. They should have been out of the blocks early and get at them. Whilst not letting the defensive work suffer of course..
CSKA are one of the worst teams ever and we are making them look like Brazil
We’re good at doing that Bob. Newcastle will look as good on Sunday no doubt..
Job done, badly…
Night guys..
Elneny puts the others to shame. And to think some people moaned about his new contratc!
Yep, Elneny was the only good thing tonight. Danny, bless him, works his socks off and did well for the goal.
Arsenal can’t defend, so why go there and try defending?
Ozil was a disgrace again imo.
Jack was riubbish again.
I never thought I’d say it, but we missed Xhaka in midfield.
I really thought we were going out tonight, we certainly didn’t deserve to win. Iwobi shite as usual, Ramsey not much better, but redeemed himself with the goal.
Lacazette will be gone this summer.
So would Wenger be if we’d lost tonight. Every cloud…….
Elneny, mom, imo!
A win’s a win. Despite playing abonimably again for 75 minutes!
Wenger out!
Morning Rico and all. It’s hard to imagine that anybody associated with the club can be satisfied with the nonsense that Arsenal are producing on the pitch. There are enormous questions all over the pitch and the season is rolling along to its end. There had better be a succession plan in place because I doubt that another season of this stuff will be a happy one.
Morning Adam and all.
I’m amazed at the depths we sunk to last night. CSKA, as much as they weren’t brilliant, would not have been undeserved had they beaten us and gone through.
I have no idea what Wenger said to his players before kickoff but judging from by the way we played, I’d say nothing. How long did Jack stay on for when he really was awful? Kolasinac could have bought something to our left side and Chambers, although I know it’s ‘making do’, has experience of playing CM, might just have given us more steel in midfield.
If Wenger doesn’t go in the summer, then he must have some kind of hold over the club because no board/owner of sound mind would allow him another season.
Rico. I agree. I don’t know about anyone else but I find that watching Arsenal lately is painful and depressing. Yes, we’ve had a good run of results but the lack of motivation, professionalism and pride is excruciating. Even our traditionally consistent players are serving up total negative rubbish. Kos has been good for seasons after season. Occasionally really good. But I think that he gave the ball away with each of his first 6 passes last night and looking at him and Nacho I do wonder what is left in them for the future. Because it’s next season that must surely be exercising the minds of those who are in a position to alter the course of the club. Every game I am left wondering if players like Hector and Mustafi or Iwobi and worryingly Cech are as bad as they are playing. Could a new manager actually raise their game? Cech is old now and there is going to need to be a realistic look at his position I know. But, looking through the team and the performances, there are so many questions. In fact there are more than I believe Wenger can possibly answer. Lacazette, Chambers, Xhaka? Do they have a future in a top PL club? I really don’t know.
Imagining the various scenarios that could play out at the end of the season I simply can’t believe that The powers that be, who need to seriously up their own game, can possibly entertain the idea of another season of this total rubbish.
Watching some of the football that I have seen lately from top teams, we are way, way off in just about every department. If the owner and board cannot see that then what hope there is.
I’m even fed up moaning about it. 🙂
I too find watching Arsenal depressing and boring Adam.
Results have been good, but as we all keep saying on here, the performances are really average to poor. Agree too that we are so far behind those in England who are above us in the table as far as the way we play goes, let alone in Europe. For me, commenting on our players own performances is hard to do because I can’t see past Wenger, the coaching and approach to the game.
In all honesty, I don’t think all of them are bad, just badly managed, badly prepared and like us, are fed up with the same old garbage.
Apparently Wenger said his players were complacent last night. Well who the hell is responsible for that? Seriously, the bloke needs putting out of his misery…
Rico. He’d been spouting off about complacency being our enemy all week before the game too. Are the players just not listening?
Not that I could really blame them. 🙂
Test.
Adam, in all honesty, I don’t think they’re listening to him at all, nor are they playing for him. He’s lost it big time imo…
New post up
I said last night that there is a kind of lazy arrogance about the whole squad.. It’s as if they believe that they don’t have to work to prove their superiority and once they go ahead they just revert to playing the ball around.
Unless we get lucky from a corner and Mustafi & co get a header most of our goals come from a 5 a side type passing movement with the ball slid into the goal . There is no real power in our attacks and when you couple that with a midfield that has no bite or aggression that just wants to play the way it always does you have a team that going forward can match virtually anyone but if the other team knocks them out of their rhythm they do not know what to do and eventually panic lose concentration and we know the rest.
We all know that the standard of the Europa League is not particularly great . It is a competition for the best of the rest and we are in with a shout of winning it but doing so and qualifying for Champions league by the back door will not paper the cracks in the club.
How do we change things to improve ?
Not by buying superstars ,we need workers Ray Parlour , Kevin Richardson Rakatic even Robbie Savage in the middle to do the work and allow the others to play . Even Barcelona have these players to supplement their talented players but we don’t. Maybe sorting the middle will help the defence but something needs to be done there , once again with the ball coming toward them there is little problem but one of the problems of the zonal marking system is that you are coached to cover your space not react to things outside your zone . Too often we are caught flat footed when the ball rebounds or moves quickly in our box. Cite both goals last night , both rebounds from Cech and the forwards were on to the ball to score with our defenders standing still . It’s the someone elses problem syndrome and that needs curing if we are to stop giving away set piece goals .
Is Cech past it ? well Emiliano Martínez has just had his contract extended until 2022 , so there appears to be forward planning but if his loan at Getafe had been more productive he might be ready to step in but as usual he has been used as back up and not had many games.
Cech needs replacing but so does Ospina which means we need something more there and Monreal , Mustfi and Koscielny are reaching the hill if not going over it.
The next transfer window needs to be looking at our defence , going forward we can look after ourselves but defending has always been Wengers Achilles heel , for some reason the list of liabilities he has bought is quite extensive and his record of developing and organising those he already has is poor.. Look at Kolasinac a man that was player of the season in the Bundesliga , joins us and looks like little boy lost in a team with no organisation and sits on the bench. Silvestre , Squillaci , Djourou , Senderos ,Garde, Upson , Vivas, Grondin ,Luzhny ,Stepanovs .Tavlaridis , Cygan , Vermaelen , Almunia , Santos …
He sure can pick them.
Sorry this is almost a post on it’s own.