With Arsene Wenger selecting a very makeshift defence of Debuchy and Holding either side of a central midfielder Elneny, as well as three young Gunners in Nelson, Willock and Maitland-Niles it was clear that the Gunners were making the Premier League game away to Everton on Sunday a big priority.
But despite looking reasonably happy to go away with a point from Serbia, Arsenal made it three wins out of three thanks to a cracking late goal scored by Olivier Giroud with one of his improvised specials. Walcott began the move and Wilshere found the big striker with another piece of top quality.
We did have a big helping hand after Red Star Belgrade were reduced to 10 men when Rodic got a second booking for a strong challenge on Coquelin that left him with a tasty lump on the side of his face. Until then chances were pretty scarce for both sides.
Wilshere, Walcott and Nelson had all shown signbs of carrying a goal threat but we were not exactly al over the home team and Cech had to make a few saves as that odd looking defence had some shaky moments. Not a thriller by any means but the perfect result for Arsenal which was lit up by a special Giroud goal.
Bob.
It was a very boring game. Wenger used to be one of the most creative managers in 2000s, how could his team become so dull like this?
Luckily one of Red Star’s players got a red card. Suddenly Wilshere had the guts to make a great turn, clicked with Walcott and Giroud finished the creative movements with a creative finish.
Arsenal really needed Sanchez’s creativity, skills and movements in last few games. Before he leaves, Arsenal have to find another player that has the same level of vision, skills, energy, ambition and habits like him.
great win but why is Laca not even subs bench… Wenger keeps subbing him off in Premier League as he is not strong enough so let him have 20 mins end of europa league and get some easy goals !
he needs confidence and more.minutes !
this is an absolute joke of a team a manager and a club
Thank goodness we are not in the champs league because this win is undeserved
Not undeserved because Arsenal were dominating, but Arsenal players did not have the guts to pass more adventurously. Arsenal should have trained their players better in passing, because most of them do not have the confidence and the skills to pass the ball more creatively.
Arsenal was famous for their passing game in 2000s, but now their players’ passing skills are way below the Invicibles era players’. If you watch Arsenal’s old games, you would see a huge difference in the way they pass the ball.
I wonder what happened with Wenger’s training programme nowadays. Or maybe it was all his old staffs’ works that made Arsenal dominated England in 2000s.
Wenger needs to be careful because if this is how his team plays 8 2 may not be such a distant memory.
Yeah I fear the same…. Man City & spurs yet to come!!! OMG!
We are doing injustice to Alexis.
Let the man be free
a lot of injustice to be exact
great win.
i see us winning europa them dominating the champions league for many years to come.
great time to be a arsenal fan
Arsenal really is a charity club.
Imagine having el neny and giroud playing for you
and you are the 5th richest club in the world and supposed to be title challengers
Any reasonable team in the top 6 of the premier league should really give this team a thumping
That line up almost made me puke. And from all the comments, thank god i didn’t bother watching.
“all the comments” were posted from the same person talking to himself lol. 5 teenagers got minutes and yeah we didnt play well but the goal was out of this world and we got 3 points in a hostile environment.. all these pessimists are wasting their time
Haha see u after the city game
Haha we are good
To be fair Belgrade is
about as good as Millwall.
A good level for Debuchy
and Wilshere to star making it easier to hock them off in January.
Arsenal is through so every “B” “C”+ “D” grade player will get time on the park.
But if we draw Lazio in the round of 32 will these players get selected?
If Wenger really rates Wilshere he will start Jack against Everton.
Sundays selection will tell us.
Of course Jack might conveniently pick up a small knock
before Sunday which will heal in time for Norwich.
Red star should really feel aggrieved and hard done.
They were in control until the red card changed the complexion of the game.
They were the more worthy side for the win
Tottenham fans, funny little bunch. Won nothing for god knows how long and are trying to brag about a CL spot over Arsenal, haha ..funny wee club.
Arsenal fans should donate some money in appreciation for the referee for being our 12th player.
We were getting almost every 50 50 decision
First, I’m glad we won. Winning is important no matter how we do it. I’m surprised we won because that was quite a bad team we had out there. When I saw the lineup I though “holy s***”
2nd Respect goes out to the unlucky Serbs. They really deserved a point. At times they played better than us.
Wenger and we are lucky. Wasn’t a good lineup and wasn’t impressed with Giroud or Walcott to be honest. I certainly don’t think Giroud has done enough to take lacazette spot. Also, Theo should not take Welbeck’s position.
Even though we won and we did not play a lot of our starters, I would say our away form is still quite bad.
Funnily we are 2-0-0 away in Europa league
but 0-3-1 away in Premier League
We are going to have a tough time away against Everton.
Good to see Debuchy come through 90 minutes. I think he could still have a role to play in the first team. 90 minutes or thereabouts will do the likes of William, Nelson and Maitland-Niles a world of good. Another 90 unscathed minutes for Jack and a stunner by Giroud. The performance wasn’t great but enough pluses to make it a satisfactory night.
I don’t think I will get thumbed down like this when abject Everton score 3 past us without reply on sunday
From this performance you can see why our best players fled in the past.They saw no substance to continue playing for wenger
We have enough resources to be like PSG but this is what we are like
What do you mean, if we abandoned (by we I mean us not you) our self sufficient/reliant motto and allowed Kroenke to poor his money into the club, by that you mean we are capable of PSG. Well no because that is exactly why we are not capable of it.
I am totally with you tatgooner
he has fair points.
I don’t feel uplifted as a fan despite the win because of the terrible performance
What a performance! It was a tight game but a thrilling one nonetheless. Is it worth risking key players like Giroud and Walcott in the EL? May be not but we have a manager that is brave.
Great day to be a gooner
Great sarcasm, mate!
All of you complained before kick off, now the team you were writing off won the game, you are just searching for reasons to further insult Wenger. To you all, are young graduates not allowed to feature for Arsenal? Give credit where its due, because the boys won the game. You act like a bunch of kids.
Best comment so far. Thanks
Everyone says worst line up ever. How dare he….
Then, we win.
People still complain.
The manager believed in his players, u did not.
They paid him back for the trust.
There’s a reason why he’s a top coach for three decades, n we r not.
RESPECT that, atleast.
tatgooner acting like wenger fondled his missus
and he probably did 🙂
ONE ARSENE WENGERRRRRRRR
LOL, you actually think he has a missus!
Yeah missus with out cojoines
Boring with one moment of magic sums up it up! hope wilshere keeps it up it’s his last last last last chance!
Lol ..I literally fell asleep watching this game…woke up when it was over.
Wenger kroenke gazidis out…no more aob or akb.its wneger kroenke gazidis out brigade
Guys….you are more than welcome to go support Spuds ….massive spending in the last 4 years yet zero trophies.
9 points in three games good one, top d table good one, our first 11 rest for Everton game good one, Wilshire showing positive sign good one, d team we wrote off won d game good one, we r through to d next round good one. Up gunners
That’s the spirit
If this was Mourinho people could be talking of tactic well executed
I would love to hear Arsene for once in his miserable managerial life embrace the reality that
the premier league title race is over for Arsenal and concentrate on winning the Europa League.
I think Arsenal can win the damn thing if they do the
following In January…
Offer Sanchez to PSG for Moura or Draxler
Sell Ozil to whoever is willing to spend the $20M
on his petulant, mercurial ass
Sell Walcott to Southampton for a pack of cigarettes.
Offer $30M to LC for Mahrez
Buy Jonathen Ta from Leverkusen for $30M
This team would take a little time to gel in January but dangerous in the Europa knockout stages.
Laca
Draxler….Jack W…Mahrez
Coquelin…Ramsey (Santi if healthy)
Saed….Mustafi…Tah(Boss)…Bellerin
Cech
Manager: Tuechel
The future should be now for AFC
Arsenal lost some fans complain, we win yet they complain, pls wat do dey want
they want d team to show consistency in winning,not winning against small teams and loose when it matters most.
they want Arsenal to show character.they want Arsenal to seriously challenge for the tittle,not celebrating unimpressive win against a team like red star Belgrade.
that’s what they want Adeyemi.
So right Chuks
Believe it or not….we have just scored another wonderful team goal. It is called Arsenal…those aggrieved that a young team has won another away game can feel free to go support Everton or Spurs…..(massive spending -zero trophies). They should remember to strike off Koeman from the list of Arsenal future coaches….uhh!
Tattooed or whatever you call yourself give it a rest pls you don’t deserve to be an arsenal fan, you need a reality check, your moaning is childish, we just won away in Europe
I think the best thing we can say right now with accuracy was it was nice to see us win away albeit against a weak side and that Wilshire looked quite good.
If u hate loosing n winning, I believe want nothing
I absolutely hate losing and hate to see my team lose easily winnable games (Stoke/Watford for example).
It is good when we win but sorry but I cannot go do cartwheels when we win against poor opposition. Those that don’t keep things in context are really dumb.
When England win against rubbish teams thick people in this country bang on about how good England are and how they are going to win the World Cup and they are just as dumb.
What an insane defense selection. Is Wenger trying to weaken our side by playing so many players out of their position?? Thx god we won! Imagines we would have lost this game. We would be in crisis.
I am glad we won, but I still have so much concern because I CARE. I want Arsenal to compete at the top level competition again. Europa League doesn’t seem like a proper competition for us to improve to that level.
I agree that all the youngsters deserve first team experience, but I don’t know if they tried hard enough. They tried to play too safe, which won’t help much if you want to get better.
As for senior players, I am glad to see Debuchy back in action. He helped Bellerin rest, and who knows, he can challenge Bellerin. Jack was good, MOTM for me. Coquelin, decent, Giroud scored a good goal, but that’s about it. Walcott was very poor. I just can’t understand why he is still with us.
Wenger. He is just beyond my understanding. He wanted to rest most of the players for Everton game. OK, I understand that. But 3 out of 4 midfielders are juniors and they still can’t create the game nor handle the burden. Wenger played 3 seniors upfront, but there was little service from our midfield, which made them very frusrated. And Elneny was played as CB, obviously out of position. Why did Wenger sell Gabriel when we knew we lack defenders in the first place?
So, here’s my point: all the decisions made by Wenger seem to me that he wants to destroy our players and the team. There’s got be an intention, vision, meaning, prospect or hope in the team selection for each game, but especially last night, I saw none. It was as if he played available players randomly and wished for the best. And luckily, he got the best result. Thank you, Cech.
Great outcome overall. Top of the group by some distance now. Great team goal! Awesome finish by Giroud! Wilshere, A M-N, & Nelson all played well. So I’m very happy with this, despite…
Crazy selections at center back. Seriously, WTF?! Fortunately we got lucky when things got dicey and it didn’t bite us.
Poor and uninspired execution for much of the match. But a good bit of that is credit to Red Star.
Finally, Wow great work by the Red Star fans! The whole stadium was rocking for like 30 minutes straight, and even when many of them finally sat down they kept the noise level up. I know things are not great for Arsenal fans now, but also some perspective that there are teams out there where losing a fighting game 1-0 to mostly Arsenal youngsters can nevertheless be somewhat legendary locally. Good for them for making the most of their resources and opportunities!
Before the game, it was the worst line up in footballing history.
The man believed in his team. They paid back the trust.
Most beautiful arsenal performance? No way.
If this was Maurinho, people would be praising him for grinding it out even when the going gets tough.
You don’t stay in the top flight for thirty years through luck.
There are moments like this, when you dare to trust what you have seen in training, n just follow your gut instincts.
It worked!
We won.
I know people want to spend.
When was the last time spurs,Liverpool won anything?
They have been spending. Go support them.
Just a quick point here that when people say we should write off EPL and try to win Europa I respectfully disagree. We should try to get the best result in both, and going with young and broad rotation early on makes sense, but later we won’t be able to mess about. There seems to be this assumption that winning Europa might/should somehow be a bit easier that I think is realistic. There are already some very serious and capable teams in there, and it’s looking like some of the third place dropouts from Champions League could include sides like Dortmund or Atletico (or if not, perhaps comparable). Hardly a cakewalk!
Reading some comments here one gets the impression that some “fans” were desperate for an Arsenal loss, so that they can go on their Wenger out nonsense. The defense they labelled the worst managed to keep a clean sheet and the team won. That is what matters for a manager, put the team that will give you the result you are looking for. Its not like a draw was a bad result either, and the Red Star team appeared to be playing for such.
Out of this game we get a rested starting 11 for the league game, 3 more points in EL, more exposure for Nelson, Willock, and Nailes; a debut for Sheaf, Maguine getting game time. Wilshire continues to get playing time under less intense conditions. Overall everything was good for Arsenal.
Jack’s back!