Boro boss Karanka believes Arsenal should’ve lost!

Arsenal hosted Middlesbrough today at the Emirates, but neither side were able to penetrate the goal, and the Boro boss claims they should have won.

The Gunners were forced to make changes in midfield with Santi Cazorla and Granit Xhaka out with injury and suspension, but were mostly unchanged, and would have expected to carry on their winning run.

That was simply not the case, with the visitors showing true grit and character to dismiss their awful run of form to impress in North-London, and the Middlesbrough boss is very happy with the display his side put in.

Aitor Karanka said: “It was an amazing performance from my team. After the last defeat at home especially, it was tough for us.  But we worked hard on the training field and today the plan worked really well.

“For me and for us it is great to come to the Emirates, and for the best Arsenal player to be Petr Cech. I think we should have won the game because we had good chances.

“We knew that we couldn’t park the but they have a lot of quality players. We were organised and our transition play was very good.

“But we have to keep going because today we showed we can compete against the best teams in the Premier League.”

As well as his players, Karanka dedicated the result to the Boro fans.

“I am really pleased because this team and this crowd deserves this,” he said.

“In the Premier League every single game is important. We can enjoy it for a few hours but it is just one point. Tomorrow we start thinking about Bournemouth.”

Were Arsenal lucky to come away with a point?

Pat J

Tags Arsenal Middlesbrough

8 Comments

  1. Middlesbrough did well. They had the clearer chances to score. Well played From them..

    We will improve and we have to do that as we have some tough games in November and December.

    Arsenal are on top of the table ahead of Liverpool on goal difference. We will go into the week on top or we will drop to second if Manc get a point or three today.

    Onward and Upward..

  2. This draw was waiting to happen from long. Fluked a win against Southampton and Sunderland with a scrappy penalty and offside handball goal.
    Walcott is a shit player who flukes goals and has a 5 lucky games a season. Chamberlain is better. We definitely miss Giroud

    1. Am sorry Walcott is not sh@@ he is just an average whippet … And with any average it contains good times and bad times …. Remains a weak spot in challenging for top honours… Their right wing caused our defence more worries yday than Walcott did theirs … Similarly on left back … Endless references on this site to having the best left back in league and calling out those like myself for suggesting Rodriguez should have been brought in over summer .. looking foolish now

  3. @ gunnerup. You call TW shit player because arsenal drew a game? Even the invincibles drew games too. Take it easy mate.

    1. Some fans can be very ridiculous, after a draw with boro ,theo is now sh*** with fluke goals ? Well it shows how well you have a football sense @ gunnerup thank goodness you are not a football manager.. I am sure you can’t even manage a team in FPL.. Well the team might not have played to their best but I think the midweek game took its toll on the team plus we missed Carzola’s creativity a lot at the middle and Girouds presence up front.. I am sure the manager will look into this and work with the lads on out weaknesses.. I still believe in my team and I know we can’t win all matches but we can work more harder and get better result than we got yesterday. COYG

  4. Arsenal played well but they need to understand more teams ll park d bus against them now than in the past thanks to Pep joining EPL… we need to find a way around such teams ASAP

  5. I wont lie, I believe this could have been avoided with a few changes to personnel in midweek. We’ll never know now anyway. Alexis didn’t look himself at all, and I don’t think it was down to Boroughs game plan. Ozil too, but in general he hasn’t been his creative best this season. The movement around them just wasn’t up to scratch. Walcott wasn’t doing his one two work and he came in too close to the centre. Iwobi, Iwobi really has to start learning how to put in a high intensity performance, he drifts about sometimes, and has no worries about us conceding. It’s actually starting to bug me greatly. He should still have plenty in the tank as Arsene’s been protecting him. If Danny returned tomorrow he’d have no trouble gaining a place, and it might force Iwobi to dig deep. If city lose we stay top of the league, a consolation.

  6. Aitor Karanka can say all he want’s about M’Borough winning the game but that wasn’t his first and foremost thought. His main intention was to make sure that they didn’t lose and he done what so many other ill equipped and lesser technical teams do and that’s defend in huge numbers for large amount of the ninety minutes and hope that when they do make the odd foray forward in the form of a counter attack, that it’ll pay off.

    Even if they did manage to score at least one goal against us yesterday as early as within the first fifteen minutes, they would still have spent the other seventy five of them parking the bus and defending and not showing any interest in going forward to score more.

    Karanka’s post match comments are born more out of relief that he managed to come to the Emirates and get away unscathed. To say his side should have one is ridiculous and what he really meant was. Borough came to give an exercise defence, the same exercise we’ve become accustomed to from other lesser teams over the years the Blackburns, Boltons, Stoke and others. You know the drill, work hard to frustrate, everyone sit behind the ball and don’t concede.

    However, being a lesser team, he got the second part of his plan (although he didn’t really believe his team were good enough to execute it) terribly wrong. Yeah he got them to rally round, hunt in packs, close us down to give his side time to form a defensive eight or nine but, whilst they were so busy doing that, they didn’t really have the craft enough to make any worthwhile counter attacks that would actually pay off. The main objective was to not let his borough side lose.

    I’m not sure why Theo Walcott should be singled out for criticism as a result of the stalemate as it takes more than one player in a team of eleven to influence the game. Okay, he didn’t have the same impact on the game as he has had in the last few games, but surely that’s not a failing ? That’s almost like saying that he was just luck in his last few games when we know it wasn’t. He played the game and made his own luck in those matches and as a result of his efforts came good. Okay, we saw some howlers as we sometimes do but we’ve got to positive about his gains rather than his losses.

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