Everyone connected with Arsenal will be desperate for the Gunners to continue our little winning streak on Sunday, but we also know that the chances of Arsenal beating a top Premier League rival are not great, especially away from home, so there is not a great deal of confidence flowing though the Arsenal fans ahead of our trip to face Man City at the Etihad stadium this weekend.
Allow me to cheer you up then Gooners, with this amazing stat which suggests that Arsenal actually have good reason to be confident of coming away with a result, as even a draw would not be too bad away to the EPL champions. The records show that, almost unbelievably, Man City have not won a single Premier League game since last April when Yaya Toure was not playing.
And if you did not know, the Ivorian international is away on African Cup of Nations duty with the Ivory Coast at the moment. City could only manage a draw with Everton in their first game without him, despite taking the lead and the last time Toure was missing, City let a two goal lead slip against Burnley.
Add to this the fact that Aguero and Dzeko will not be fully match fit if they are available and that Arsenal could have Gibbs, Ramsey, Walcott, Ozil and Welbeck all back in contention and there is plenty of reason to hope that we can overcome our dreadful recent record against the big boys.
Feeling a bit more confident now Gooners?
Not really. Since when did we win against a big team?
Our only hope is to out score Man City because they will definitely score against us.
Outscoring is always a reliable way of getting a win.
Knowing us… We will be the first team to be Beaten by city without toure…
Games are not won on paper.
If our team starts the game confidently instead of being nervous like they tend to be against the big teams, we can certainly trouble the Man City defence.
OT: Thierry Henry will be in the Sky Sports studio for that game.
I know Toure is a big big loose for city but I think they still have good players that can replace him and still do a job against us. We need to eliminate the fear of playing against big teams and believe we can also beat them.
Am sure Frank and Milner (there work horse) will have some role in this game as these guys know how to turn it up when playing against us.
All in all which ever team they put out, we must also put out one that can match and beat them.
He is a huge loose!!! Now we have the chances, we must accept them!!! Also we must purchase Morgan Scnheiderlain
I believe we can beat City, I really do… I am just nervous about our flanks… Navas could really give Monreal a run-around, and we all know how Bellerin likes to go forward! Thank goodness he has the pace to get back…
Our mid-field is going to have to work over-time to help out in those areas! Especially the likes of Ox, he has the legs to get back in defence… I won’t even mention Sanchez, he will obviously track back!
I feel that if Kozza has a good game (which naturally makes Per play/look better) they will struggle to get through the middle, unless Silva is on fire!
He didn’t play against us in the Emirates, did we win?
@No OG, and they don’t win either, so the stat still works!
yes they didn’t make it without him… But home game, remember … we supposed to win
With Welbeck matchfit again, meaning he will most probably play – I dont feel comfortable at all. We’ll see what Giroud, Sanchez, Özil and Cazorla can pull out of their magic hats
I think game like this Welbeck is much more useful than Giroud, given that it’s away game and we won’t have much of possession … need good runners for the counter
good runners, like sanchez and walcott!
Good runners who can chip in defensively as well……….Sanchez and Welbeck. These are exactly the sort of games where Wenger has to reel in his attacking instincts and sacrifice something in the attack for the greater good of the team. People can slate Welbeck however they want but only Sanchez will cover more more ground and put in more work than him in the front 5.
Honestly and for the first time, I think we have a great chance to beat City on Sunday !!!!
And mark it, if we beat them it will be a fulcrum on which the rest parts of our season stand.
Prediction!
City 2- 4Arsenal
I like your optimism, but it seems like just feelings and not reality … let’s go for the draw and we might get a win … go for win, means your back line might open up again, wide as usual …
Podolski loaned out
Sanogo loaned out
Afobe sold to wolves
Welbeck injured
Walcott not at top level
Cavani left out of PSG squad for last 3 games
I think we can put 2 and 2 together.
it means nothing … not in your dream, get real mate
I would play a front three of Sanchez-giroud-welbeck. This because city play out from the back and these three are the best pressers we have in our team at the moment. Carzola just in behind them, use ramsey and coqueline as the midfield pivot/workhorse, they both have the engines with ramsey supporting the attack occassionally.
SANCHEZ GIROUD OX/WELBECK
S. CAZORLA
RAMSEY. COQUELINE
GIBBS/MONREAL KOS. PER. BELLERIN/CHAMBERS
Let’s not underrate d work of chamberlain
Well, it would be great to win against them, but i am not eager to see Chelsea winning the leuage. City all the way ( nly bec we suck).
I hate to see Chelsea winning the league too … yes we suck big time
This game could go either way and is dependant on which sides big players turn it on. We have our best chsnce for a while to do it with players coming back, if we bring the confidence anf game we had against stoke who knows. Coyg!!
I’m hoping Chelski lose as well.
Obviously, I want us to win but winning will also stretch Chelski’s lead over Shitty
Chelski losing in addition to us winning would be awesome because we get closer to the top and Chelski doesn’t increase its lead over Shitty
I would prefer Shitty to win league over Chelski
But again first and foremost we must try hard to win ourselves
If Lars Bender is the target Wegner sought after for a couple transfer windows. Go out and overpay for the player. We have lacked toughness in the middle of the park since Viera left, its time we invest into the position.
The same should be done with the CB position. Per should be a backup at this moment in his career. Adding a world class cb and dm will work wonders for this Arsenal squad. The last step would be to go and purchase a striker but that business can wait till the summer.
Although toure will not play a part in the game, it still wouldn’t be a “cake walk”! But we are arsenal! Best of gunners! Coyg!
I think we have a real chance this weekend.
Wenger is playing a dangerous game, I think he’s waiting as long as possible in the window, in order to get a low price, but the fool should realise then clubs don’t have time to replace so they won’t sell
That’s the wenger for ya, won’t learn from past mistakes…
Not sure what he’s up to, he went early in the Summer window and suprised us all!
Maybe he’s waiting for the clubs to get their replacements in before he can take his target/s, simmilar situation to Janmatt and Debuchy.
I personally am watching the other clubs to see which of them buy CB’s or DM players.
I thought Reid was a done deal when WH bought a CB, he may still be but we are haggling over the odd £.
Not sure why we’d be after Reid though, I’m not overly familliar with him but a few people have said Per is slightly better than him, Fook NO! really?? 🙁
I don’t rate Reid so much but those who said Per is better than him are completely bias … Arsenal defense is all about Kos while Per is just a number beside him … That’s one of the reason we got exposed against big teams … Kos can’t handle big teams only by himself …
Lets not over enjoy about beating Stoke City… It is a team we should be beating, they have been in the EPL for less than 7 seasons and we have got £42 million and £35 million players in our squad etc, we are worth like £1 billion, we have something like 100 million fans around the world etc…..
Lets go for City, Chelsea and United then we can see if we are good enough… We have not had that many problems beating smaller teams in our EPL history so winning against Stoke at Home is not the gauge of our brilliance.
Lets go for City, Chelsea, United etc then we can celebrate properly if we win against them…
Its about time we got a big win against a top team. 3-1. Sanchez Walcott and Ollie. COYG.
Lets get Tomas Rosicky in on the mix. He has played bmany big games in his Arsenal career.