The Arsenal and England international star Theo Walcott will be hoping that his latest game on the comeback trail after a year off with injury problems has some similarities with the last time the Gunners went to the Etihad stadium to face Man City.
Walcott was fantastic in that game, scoring twice and causing City all sorts of problems, but the result was not so good as Arsenal suffered a 6-3 defeat which began our terrible run of away defeats against our big Premier League rivals.
Walcott, however, reckons that the Gunners are now in a much better position to end that run, as he feels that we have sorted out the problems in every area of the team, including a better fighting spirit and attitude, which the speedy forward feels was highlighted by the way Arsenal came from behind and nearly won in our home clash with the EPL champions earlier this season.
Theo also told Arsenal Player that our defence is now much more solid, as seen by us keeping clean sheets in the last two games after getting Laurent Koscielny back from injury. Walcott clearly feels that the injury problems have played a huge part in our struggles but he is just one of a few key players like Ozil and Ramsey that are now back for Arsenal and that is why he is so confident about tomorrow’s game and the rest of the season before us.
The England striker said, “Defensively from the front to the back we were very solid [against Stoke]. While at times Stoke passed the ball very well, they didn’t really threaten the goal, so if we do that against Man City there’s no reason why we can’t get a result. It is going to come down to our defensive display – everyone needs to work for each other.
“We were 1-0 down [against Man City in September] and the fightback [showed our character]. In the past, the game might have gone from our grasp, so we know we can mix it with the best.
“We are definitely one of the best teams in the Premier League. With the squad we have and when everyone is fit and consistent, I don’t think many teams can cope with the pace we have and the new signings of Alexis and getting people like Mesut back as well.
“It is only looking bright going into where it matters, at the end of the season. Everyone needs to be 100 per cent focused on Sunday and we should not have a problem.”
Do you agree with Theo or do you think there us more pain in store for Arsenal at Man City?
I had a dream that we smashed City. Just a dream though!!! COYG make the dream a reality.
Dude, malaria can be really terrible.
Not like we can’t beat them (anything can happen), but to use the word “SMASH”??? Meh…
can’t believe what i saw on a website some days ago…..
“I used to sell cigarettes – Arsene wenger”
buahahahahaha…..oh! Now i think i know why we got smokers in the team…. L()L
Well, I think he’s upgraded (needles and stuff). #Justsaying
still waiting for Mert, flamini, ox etc to voice their pre-match feelings….. Noise makers
Every time our players come out and talk bull$hit we get our asses handed to us.
Can’t they just shut up and play.
Agree – I cringe when they wheel them out. Always feel a bit sorry for Ox, he has all the standard footballing lines he trots off everytime – the PR training these players receive is so in your face obvious.
I would like to see:
Bellerin-Nacho-Kos-Gibbs
Ox
Ramsey-Carzola-Sancez
Walcot-Giroud
It seems best with players we have atm, Ozil is not ready yet, etc… I kicked Mert becouse i cannot even imagine him with aguero or dzeko, Flamini- rather Ox for Cdm…
Arsenal players do too much of talking …
@NGIH
I really don’t like when our guys talk so much before a match. They usually fold up on the day…
Yeah, reminds me of the guy called Samuel Peters. Dude bragged he’d beat Klitchko pretty well (Calls himself: the Nigerian Nightmare).
Well, the rest is history. His grown as* got hugely spanked hazy with gigantic punches.
It’s not good to talk so much…
@kickassfan…….. Still remember that episode?……L()L
Talking the talk, but walking the walk?
Still
Man Shitty 1 The Arse 2
1. G-Rude
2. Señor Sanchez
Very thankful for having Alexis and I hope he grabs the winner tomorrow as he should have at the Emirates…
OT: Watching Paulo Dybala of Palermo and I hope to GOD we get him in the summer, the guy is screaming Arsenal material…
@jAmerican i wish we get the kid too because he is just something else
Especially if Podolski ends up leaving permanently. Ideal replacement, heck we should get him regardless… Lol
not if the hapless whippet is in the starting line-up thats for sure….the guy needs to let his feet do the talking but for the moment chamberlain should start ahead of him…wenger has staked the last 5 years on having only 3 clubs vying for 3rd and 4th and scraping in…this year there are realistically 5 clubs in that hunt and with our defensive line up accidents are guaranteed to happen….with toure and kompany out this is a more even contest than last year…but would take a point without hesitation as its difficult to see coq ramsey/rosicky cazorla outplaying fernandinho nasri and silva in the middle….and then hope the idiot frog brings in the two quality defenders that are needed to compete effectively over remainder of season
Nasri is out tomorrow, so that’s one less to worry about.
“Walcott feels Arsenal have ALL pieces in place to beat Man City”
I hope the Arsenal defence won’t be in pieces tomorrow 🙁
No way to arsenal gonna beat city,we are too weak in the middle when hardly pressed.
That why we are asking for a beast of holding midfielder to help calm,control and protect our back four but genius Wenger insists we can go on with small lightweight Dm.
This is a simple thing,we are not Barca who had a way of pressing together and could get away with midgets,we don’t take know to press and have a tendency to panic under pressure.
@asssooops
We got it the 1st time dude…
Hey pest… Stay in ya Lane….I dn’t run the system here ……..u think its fun experiencing systematic errors?
In the daily mail
wenger admits they havnt targeted a CB yet
What have the scouts been doing all season
Are we run by morons
Even the AKB must find it hard to support such incompetence
Incompetence is believing the Daily Mail. Yes, if that’s true it is baffling, but I doubt it is.
If people don’t want to listen to Wenger when he says Jan transfers are v.difficult listen to Van Gaal instead. He has money burning a hole in his trouser pockets but ain’t close to getting any defenders yet this window. Who apart from the Eitihad FFP rule-benders have done anything meaningful this Jan thus far? This Jan transfer window has been going for about 12 years now – is a really bollocks idea imo. That SS1 transfer countdown clock does my head in.
At the start of every game you always hear the same thing from the commentators, especially Michael Owen: ‘if I was (opposition striker’s name) I’d put myself right next to Mertesacker and try and get a run on him…’
Professional strikers clearly would think the same, no? I don’t understand why no striker actually does it. It seems so obvious, but I rarely see it happen. Is he just very good at positioning himself so that it doesn’t happen? Are the rest of the team just very good at protecting him from being exposed? Think about it, how many times has a pacey striker played on Mertesacker and got the better of him? Very rarely.
That isn’t to say Mertesacker hasn’t had a bad season, he’s been woeful most of the time and looks lost in some games, but when he does fail in his defensive duties, it’s rarely to do with his pace, it’s mostly been his positioning, bravery and physicality that has let him down.
MTG – Nice comment. I have extreme difficulty recalling any one on one leg races between Merts and a striker. Of course lack of pace can be revealed in different ways; not getting back in to position quickly enough but these instances are harder to pick up on. I have said before that pace is not Mert’s biggest problem, reality is he is not much slower if at all than say Terry, or Hummels for that matter interestingly enough. Cahill is the pace at CB for CFC the same way as Kos is for us. CBs play as a single unit and should be assessed as such. Everyone on Mert’s case are quite happy to say that Kos is 100% of the reason why we are better when they both play and Kos spends his whole game “baling” him out. I think that is crappy analysis. Mert’s “problem” is that he is never injured so we rarely get to see Kos paired with a novice or a LB stand in and see how he goes. Mert’s no doubt has a fair back catalogue of errors in his Youtube howler’s vid – but Kos’s has a decent length vid as well.
Mert’s is decent but we could do better – I have no doubt about it. But I equally reckon that when he plays with Kos he is nowhere near as bad as some would have you believe.
A bad day results wise for us today and I fear for us tomorrow !
Two weeks into the transfer window and all we have done to strengthen in the two areas we are crying out for is buy a school kid !
I’m sure all the AKBs will still judge le fraud in May but with two tough away games ahead and no signings looking like coming in I say let’s judge Wenger next Saturday
We sent playing next Saturday, are we? I thought we were playing Brighton in the FA Cup on Sunday. Our next difficult game would be Spurs in early February, if you see that as a difficult game of course..
Aren’t*
Sorry my schoolboy error hey Wenger might sign me now ! Lol
Got my ticket for the Monaco home game as the way things are going that will be our last champions league home tie for a while.
#wengerout
Maureen has taken two years to build a team that look like winning the league for the chavs,our manager has taken how long ? and is on plan w now ! In Wenger we trust ! Yeah right
Not the toughest of jobs was it? He inherited a UCL winning team with Cech, Courtois, Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpillicueta, Ramires, Oscar, Mikel and Hazard, bought Matic for £21M, a player they previously sold for £1.5M, added Costa (a Jorge Mendez shoe-in deal) and got lucky with Fabregas……………and hasn’t won anything since.
To be fair our scouts find players but Wenger is so stubborn on transfer fees and changes his mind and this indecision allows other clubs to swoop in,hazard,mata and higuian ring a bell
As usual Arsenal players bigging themselves up before the game, Wenger will fk it up as usual, sod all in the transfer market again, except kids, what the hell is going on at our club, Wenger OUT!!!