Arsenal’s work-rate (and Koscielny!) won us the points

As was made clear in the previous article, Arsenal beat Newcastle despite playing badly and managing to win ‘ugly’ for a change. Arsene Wenger admitted that he had to feel sorry for Steve McLaren’s team but he was more than happy with the Gunners mental strength to take the points.

Theo Walcott believes that it was the team’s dedication and work-rate that kept Arsenal in the game, and he pinpointed the performance of Laurent Koscielny as an example of their new never-say-die attitude. “He joked that he only scores against Newcastle, but he does produce massive goals at massive moments,” Theo said after the game.

“There was a sense that he just lifted his game in the last 30 minutes. I could tell how hard he was working and how much he wanted the team to win. The fact that he goes forward on every corner shows how much of a massive threat he is. He got the goal he deserved and then we managed to hold on with our back four, so it’s another clean sheet for Petr.

“A lot of games have been like that this season. The Premier League is starting to open up a little bit and a lot of teams are ready for the battle this year. The performance wasn’t there to be honest, but the work rate is always there and when you have work rate you always get the success that you need, want and deserve.”

We certainly needed the work-rate from the players, because the skill seemed to be missing all over the pitch, especially in the front three of Oxlade-Chamberlain, Giroud and Walcott himself. If it was ever obvious how much we need Alexis Sanchez to return to the team, then this was a prime example. Thank our lucky stars that we have defenders like Koscielny, Bellerin and Monreal around to do the attacking for us……

Tags Koscielny Walcott

17 Comments

  1. when all arsenal players are out of injury the starting 11 should be something like this
    cech
    bellerin kos gab monreal
    coq cazorla
    wilshere ozil sanchez
    walcott
    subs campbell ramsey welbeck mertz chambers gibbs flamini

    1. Still not strong enough to win titles, I suppose … Maybe something like :
      cech
      bellerin kos gab monreal
      coq cazorla
      Mane/Aubameyang/Reus/Griezmann ozil sanchez
      Lukaku/Aubameyang/Kane
      “/” means “or” not “and” 🙂

    2. very very good of u starting wilshere on the wings over an inform Giroud! ………

      Weldone mate…

      Give him (goonthinker) a round of applause fellas!

  2. IMO Ramsey was the reason we played bad yesterday. He is way too reckless in the middle and keeps giving the ball away meaning there is never any rhythm.

    Personally I would just prefer Chambers and Flamini there as at least Chambers can deliver the ball to another Arsenal player.

    1. Lool, that takes the biscuit. Ozil has a shocker ..blame Ram. Walcott goes missing ..because Ram cant find him. Defenders lose their markers ..whos fault ..why Rams of course.

      1. Right these “fans” should stop using Ramsey as the scapegoat, it was thanks to him we kept threatening the opposition, he’s the only midfielder that was constantly making runs in the box even more than Walcott and Chambo, yet somehow it’s his fault we play bad? Smfh.. and our inability to keep possession has nothing to do with Ramsey, whenever we’ve missed Coquelin we’ve struggled, even with Cazorla on the pitch that’s a fact. With a proper DM by his side Ramsey would be scoring goals for fun.

  3. Great news for Arsenal fans – Arsene Wenger wants two January signings to strengthen the Gunners’ push for the Premier League title.

    “I want to talk about them and hopefully we are capable of doing something in the next 10 days,” he told reporters. “It’s more about quality than quantity because our players will not stay out injured forever. Francis Coquelin is starting to run, Santi Cazorla will be back in mid-February, and Mikel Arteta is back now ARE you kidding us with the injury INFO Mr Wenger? this is not enough to win the EPl, Do you understand once and for all? Get a Dm now and decent ST otherwise forget it.This is Now Or Never to win this eluded title.NO BETTER CHANCE..you can not rely on those time table injuries then flopped and come at the end of the season with the same LAME excuse as every single year for 12 NOW.If we do not show AMBITION..we will lose Ozil and Sanchez next season as there is no moving forward for them..they are TOP STARS who helped us to be noticed now we need to be known again.

    1. Don’t get tooooo excited mate ??
      One of the signings, you already know about!
      And the other one is probably going to be a youth player, in name of Chilwell, who is a LB.

  4. Let’s not fool ourselves here. We were lucky to get the three points. I love the result, I can’t ask for more. Playing badly and win the game is something positive but allowing so many chances and defending so poor is something worrying. Should Newcastle had a better finisher probably we would say again that we are out of race by now. Instead, we weather our annual injury crisis pretty well I must say. Team is probably stronger mentally than in the last 2-3 years and that is what makes a bit of difference. I am worried about Ramsey. He did not had to even finish that huge chances, all he had to do is to actually let Campbell do it and burry the game. I am a fan of Ramsey but it really worries me now the fact that he’s back in the middle and he still makes poor decisions. Campbell frustration is very understandable. Ramsey must take a lesson of unselfishnes from Ozil. Being an assist player is the same as a scorer in my book. Let’s enjoy the win but as I said earlier the season is far of being over. We won nothing so far and we can’t keep ride our luck for long time. Time to wake up and smell the blood otherwise it won’t be pretty. I hope they do just that.

    1. There are two huge pennies waiting to drop at Emirates. One is for Ramsey to curb his attacking instincts slightly and two is for Wilshire to stop trying to dribble through entire teams. I for one am convinced it’s a matter of when not if.

  5. Workrate? ? Walcott is having a laugh ?
    I think that Cech and Koscielny were the only ones that were sober! ??
    The rest were either half cut or completely lagging!!

    Even Wenger was still wearing his Arsenal pajamas
    ??

  6. these guys drunk alot during xmas n new years nights that can only explain our horrible performances after those two festivities. Otherwise i do not understand why they were tired while their opponents seemed too strong for them.

  7. and what work rate is theo talking about? they run around the pitch like headless chickens without putting in a chalange. it’s as if they don’t learn how the other teams take the ball off them. of what use it is if u r just running around without putting a foot in to get the ball. opoonents can easily get balls into our box and it’s frustrating.

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