One of the reasons that Arsenal found it so hard to win at home to Southampton on Saturday was the complacent attitude of some of our players. It appeared to me that a lot of the Gunners out there on the pitch almost believed they only had to turn up to claim the points.
That will certainly not be the case tomorrow, when a probably much changed Arsenal side run out at the Parc Des Princes in Paris to open our Champions League campaign with what is likely to be the hardest game of all, away to the French Ligue 1 champions PSG.
The attitude of every Arsenal player should be much more fully focused and concentrated for this UCL clash, even though the Gunners have a proud and remarkable record of getting out of the group stage. It will be especially so for the new signing Shkodran Mustafi, as before last season with Valencia, who did not do too well and finished behind Zenit and Genk, he had just one Europa League appearance as a sub to his name.
In an Evening Standard report the German declared that he was not too bothered about this or what may happen in the future, but was thinking only about Tuesday night and performing against PSG.
Mustafi said, “I don’t think too much about the past and I don’t think too much about the future,” he told Standard Sport.
“The most important thing is to concentrate on the present and be prepared for the game. It’s not going to be easy in Paris because all the teams in the Champions League are big teams, with big players.
“It’s important that we play our game and try to get the three points.”
That souns like the perfect way of thinking to me, but will it be shared by his Arsenal team mates? And will the Gunners get the right result to set us on the road to finally winning a group?
Bob.
But Isn’t that Wenger’s job to get the player’s focused and motivated?
He doesn’t stop banging on about it, the focus and stability blah blah blah, well it would be nice to see it now and then.?
Get real Fatboy…can’t expect him to do everything on measly £8m salary!
PSG hmm.
I really rate our chances against them.
They strong enough to not take for granted, but they not Barca or Bayern.
So yeah, think we got this.
It’s going to be a tough game for sure, but totally doable. All depends on how mentally strong our guys are. If they go into the game thinking they will beat them, then they will. Having said that, I’m cautiously optimistic and don’t want to get my hopes up too much ahead of time. For me, the game is going to be won/lost on the flanks. Monreal/Bellerin will have to keep their wingers at bay (DiMaria is always a handful); and Sanchez/Theo will have to put in a perfect shift.
When I look to our squad all I can think of is that its almost there, finally almost there. All we need is a goal scorer. Someone who just knows where the goal is, someone who instills fear in the opposition, Zlatan, Costa, Aguero are all able to do that. We dont have that at the moment, Giroud is not it and I dont think Perez is either.
A real 30+ goals a season striker would be the the golden tip of the spear. I know they are not easy to find and cost a lot but its been 5 seasons since RVP left. Thats enough transfer windows to find that gem, without it I am afraid we are always going to come a little short.
Would rather have 4 15 goal scorers. Sanchez, Perez, Giroud and either Walcott/Ozil. When you have just 1 goal scorer every ball in the box is meant for that player.
every team has a bunch of 10-15 goal scorers but very few teams have the one that can score 30 a season.