In his press conference before Arsenal host Man City at the Emirates tomorrow, Arsene Wenger declared that he would be sending the Gunners out with every intention of claiming a morale boosting victory over the reigning Premier League champions.
As reported by Arsenal.com, the Frenchman is not really concerned about the league table at this early point in the season. He is more concerned with making sure that Arsenal do not suffer from the same problems against the big teams that we did last season, when many people thought that our failure in those games was the main reason for the title challenge faltering in the latter half of the season.
Arsenal started pretty well last season, with the first two games against top six sides, Tottenham and Liverpool, both ending in home victories. It all went downhill from there, however, with the Gunners winning just one of the remaining eight top six clashes, away to the spuds. And that damaged the belief in the side significantly. Wenger wants that confidence back and thinks it is worth taking a risk and being a bit adventurous in order to restore belief in those big clashes.
Wenger said, “It is a good opportunity to show that we have improved on that front because a year before it was completely the opposite and last year it was like that.
“We have now got the opportunity to show that we have grown as a team, that we are more mature and ready for the fight. Let’s do it.
“I don’t think that this game is very important for us mathematically [just] because we dropped points away from home [at Everton and Leicester]. But it gives us credibility and confidence if we do well.
“It’s a big game and for us it is a home game as well. We had a decent start in the Premier League but of course we dropped some points and we have a good opportunity at home to play against Manchester City and get the three points.
“They [Man City] have the same problem. I think you have to accept your schedule and to deal well with it and adapt. Our game is to accept and adapt and give your best performance.
“The pressure is big in a game like that but you want that, we enjoy that and it’s also an opportunity to show that you can deal with it and that we have the quality to do it.”
I appreciate what the boss is trying to do and admire his courage. However, it was being too gung ho in those away games that led to such heavy defeats. So is Wenger right to really push to make the most of home advantage and risk a point in the hope of a morale boosting win against a big club?
Anything less than 3 points is failure.
#COYG
U say “COYG” and get a dislike?
All my positive posts seem to get one red arrow too.. maybe Nasri is on this site?
If Wenger puts the right players on the field we will not lose
Park the bus formation. 5-4-1
Szczesny
Debuchy.chambers.Koscielny..Mertsacker.monreal
Arteta….diaby….Flamini…Wilshere
Welbeck
Or the opposite 1-4-5 formation. The in your face formation
Szczesny
Mertsacker
Eilshere…Ozil…Cazorla…Rosicky
Podolski…Sanogo…Campbell…Welbeck…Sanchez
LOL funny boy.
Laffed my a*s off there. #InYourFace
I’d rather die than see my beloved Arsenal parking the bus.
We have top technical players who can get the job done. We have pace up front as well. And when Giroud is back, we will have pace + strength which will give us more options to play with our style.
Playing against big teams requires caution. But that doesn’t mean we should park the bus.
COYG
Imagine we are in the Champions League Final against Barcelona (like we were sometime back), we are winning by 1 goal and we have just five minutes till final whistle, u still would rather die than have us pack the bus? No problem, if I were next to u, I’d gladly shoot u dead, we pack de bus and lift the trophy.
Instead of parking the bus and keeping everybody stressed, why not finish the game comfortably? Why not a 2-0 in the first place?
Nawras – I have to disagree. I would absolutely kill to hear the “boring, boring Arsenal” chants to start again – not every match you understand, just the big pressure ones where it really matters. Whilst I have contempt for the man, Mourinho knows exactly beforehand which games he is going all out to try and win and in which his priority is purely trying not to lose. I think AW’s purist philosophy overrides any such consideration. Whilst we may not have the personnel to park any significantly sized bus, we should still be able to crank it down a little and elect to play lower-risk football if needed.
You would absolutely kill to hear that your favorite club plays boring football?
There is a difference between hanging on for 3 points and parking the bus as early as it can be. Chelsea (especially against Liverpool last season) did almost EVERYTHING they could to waste time as early as they can.
We have the ability to play beautiful football and win comfortably, why playing ugly like bunch of chickens saving their seeds?
We have to go for it, we dont have the personnel to play a defensive game. My biggest worry is Per against Aguero, and our light midfield against Fernando, Fernandinho and Yaya. We will see the results of our lopsided transfer window precisely in this game. My only wish is for Ozil to play as CAM if he is going to play, if we are not going to use him in the middle then dont play him. Play Ox, or Campbell, basically somebody who will track back.
I think it’s stupid that Welbeck is supposedly our best striker. The guy hasn’t even played a game for us yet and hasn’t made it at United. Welbeck is unproven and is still only 23. Yes, he can get better, he may even be great in a couple years time, but he’s not good enough right now.
Still very disappointed about how our transfer window ended. We needed a top class striker, we got, let’s not kid ourselves, a Man United reject. We needed a holding midfielder or a centre back, we got no one. I’ll always get behind the team and support the Arsenal even if we’re 6-0 down at Chelsea, but there’s no getting around the fact that we don’t have enough defensive squad depth this year. I have high hopes for Alexis to be a great goalscorer, but at the moment we lack recognised striking quality too.
It just really annoys me because we have a fantastic team and a young team too, one that could grow to dominate for years and compete with the best in Europe. We’re just missing the last two pieces of the jigsaw in my opinion, after that, I think we’d have the best team in the league bar none.
Mick, you are right brother. Welbeck MIGHT become a great striker for us but he IS not one TODAY. And yes he is a Manchester United reject. Wenger was talking about reciprocity, what a load of BS. RVP wanted to leave and wanted to go to MANU and he was our best, heck only striker. Whereas Welbeck was excess to requirements of a line up that includes Falcao, RVP and Rooney. If we had that kind of firepower Welbeck wouldnt make it to the team either. But we have Sanogo so he makes Welbeck look like our Knight in shinning armor.
Jimbeam: Noticed how you take your time to give decent replies.
Kudos to you!
Whilst I can’t disagree entirely with the general sentiment of both yours and MTG’s post I think it a little harsh. LvG is clearly after the quick fix and preserving his reputation – nothing else comes in to the equation – he had to be cruel in his assessment to reinforce the idea that he is not one for making mistakes. If he wanted to be fair to DB he could have mentioned that RvP had a league goal/game ratio almost identical to DB at his age (and as Gooners we have to remember the first 7 years not the last one) and WR wasn’t pulling up trees at that age with a 0.33 ratio. And whilst you are entirely on point when you say DB represents only potential and is nowhere near the finished article I can promise you if he scores a deciding goal for us tomorrow then the debate will snowball, and if he starts knocking a few in for us in the coming months there will be a shed load of revisionist theories being flung around. I suspect playing time and confidence will pay dividends pretty soon. We are talking about a regular international, loads of UCL experience and a PL winner who has been schooled for almost his whole life by SAF – he is not your average underachieving 23 year striker. I know there are a fair number of “ifs” in there but I honestly think there are also a fair few “ifs” flying around the whole striker equation at United as well. RvP is definitely on the wane now – cannot be disguised. Rooney – huge pressure as captain, best form a few seasons behind him and Falcao an admittedly fantastic striker but a hired hit-man nonetheless fresh off an ACL injury – all fast approaching 30. How do you play all 3 of them – none of them are bench players etc etc. The 3 look great on paper but I don’t think it is straightforward by any stretch.
will wenger start with 3 pace forwards ?
will wenger star with welbeck ?
will wenger caryy on playing sonogo ?
will wenger play ozil in his natural position ?
will wenger revert back to the tried and tested formation ?
will wenger drop this 4141 formation ?
will wenger carry on playing rmasey and wilshire together ?
will wenger carry on playing ramsey further up top ?
will wenger carry on play 3 cam at the same time ?
will wenger start rotating his squad?
will wenger use his subs ?
will wenger sub before 65 min for once?
will wenger wait till 80 + min before he decided to sub ?
will wenger ever play campball ?
will wenger use podalski ever ?
will wenger give rosisky a chance ?
will wenger try chamber as dm ?
will wenger be brave and play chambers with koschileny ?
MESUT OZIL
dear fans,
after the international break last weekend the Premier League continues and the current champions Manchester City await us in the domestic Emirates Stadium. last season I didn’t lose a home game with Arsenal in the #bpl – which I hope to continue. we can also go into the game with self-confidence thanks to the victory in the Community Shield before the start of the season.
after the injury of Olivier it was important that we were able to win again with the offensive quality of Danny. in a few weeks, we hope that Theo can help us with his speed once more. there is not much time to train as many of us had a long World Cup and most of my teammates were on the road again representing their national teams.
I was previously injured and in the upcoming weeks there will be many national and international games taking place.
in the games to come, it is very important for us to find a good way to maintain our winning streak. in order to achieve this we must get the running and passing lines of new players as perfectly coherent as possible! I believe we have a great team spirit and together with our coach Wenger, we can achieve success.
COME ON YOU GUNNERS!
Seriously, will Ozil ever play central attacking midfielder. I know he plays wibg for Germany but that position isn’t great for him. Also, hope we don’t play 4-3-3
Like what? Hell yeah! Coyg!
Debuchy_____Chambers______Koscielny____Monreal
Flamini________ Ramsey
Carzola_______________Rosicky
Sanchez__________________Welbeck
My prediction: 2_1, in favour of Arsenal
video advertising has driven away the fans from this site now seems like a ghost town
Well said!
i don’t get it with video advertising.
How many people used to slip in for a quick read while at the office, now the voices, music etc on the videos makes that impossible: punters lost!
Also the constant “the page at justarsenal.com wants you to blah blah blah” when on mobile and the invasive ads on an already small smartphone screen.
FFS I know we are all trying to make some mula but driving people away isn’t going to achieve that.
Wenger is quite right to concentrate on defeating the top four and looking at the potential Man.United have in the front five I`d say he needs every bit of that concentration.
Midfield is going to be a battle tomorrow… City will have Yaya, Fernandinho, Silva and Nasri…
All those player I have mentioned play hard and will chase that ball, once they get hold of it they will keep it for long periods of the game..
I would like to see Rosicky, Sanchez, Welbeck, Campbell, Flamini / Arteta then Wilshere/The Ox in if Ramsey is not fit..
We don’t want no passengers in starting 11 tomorrow After noon… All the players
All the players I have mentioned are grafters, fighters. I won’t mind Cazorla as long as he puts in performances like he did against Besiktas, he was all over the pitch.. Those are the performances he put in in his first season at Arsenal. But he has dropped off since last season.
We need our attacking players to track back if needed too.. No more excuses about some players are not good at tracking back or defending so they should be let off, no way. Against City and the other Top 5 clubs we will get mashed again.
So what I say is that of some players can’t conjure up any fight in their body then they should be benched and played against the smaller lower clubs…
Hey Goonster you’ve missed out your main man Mesut!!! See you busily trying to shoehorn SC or TR in to his slot – why would you do that if you are after graft and defensive ability? MO covers more ground per match than either, second normally to only AR15, loses less tackles than either over the 90mins, wins more duels and fouls less – and all the time being better in the possession stakes and creating more. I must admit though he does look pretty unruffled compared to the huffing and puffing going on around him. Aren’t you confusing effort with effect?
All I hope for over the next week is that the squad is rotated and players play in their best positions. I’m tired of seeing CAMs on the wings and wingers playing down the middle.
Whatever the outcome I just hope we go at them and we work hard. This includes ozils movement that will hopefully be in field at #10. Talksport today were discussing ozil and his performances v his price tag. I can’t wait for him to start feeding our pacey runners and prove any doubters wrong. Got a feeling it’s going to be one hell of a battle tomorrow! Coyg….
@gamer. You’re right what’s that all about with pop up videos annoying as hell!
Just a thought, we should sell ozil and get the 42mil back, cant believe wenger passed on cesc to get this pi$s of sh@t.