Although he may not have come out and said it, you just know that Arsene Wenger would absolutely love to have seen his Arsenal side record a first win against his managerial rival Jose Mourinho, even though the Frenchman admitted after the game that all three points would still not have been enough for the Gunners to win the Premier League title this season.
But you can bet that Wenger and the players will feel a little bit better about the next time we face Mourinho and his team, which will hopefully be in the Community Shield at the start of next season. That will mean that Arsenal have retained the FA cup and are ready to push on and really challenge for the title.
We may not have been able to beat Chelsea this season but at least we did not lose today and can claim to have been the better side. And we have beaten all the other big teams to show a real improvement from last season. Wenger spoke about that previous naivety in the big games and suggested that it may have curtailed our attacking potency a little today and I cannot argue with that.
The boss also spoke about how well we defended and that should stand us in good stead for the next encounter. A defeat today would have been damaging but a draw allows us to move on and finish the season strongly, ensuring an improvement in our league position and another trophy to celebrate.
Rome wasn’t built in a day so I think we should appreciate just how far the Gunners and Wenger’s tactics have come this season. As long as the improvement continues then we should be alright, but will next year see an Arsenal that can be strong enough throughout the season to become champions?
Onwards and Upwards!
We played well in the first half, looked like we wanted the ball. 2nd half looked as though we’d been told to sit off at half time. Didn’t do anywhere near enough. If we’d had the same hunger as the first half we might have scored
I just don t get how some here are happy with ramsey playing as RW.The lad is good,he has heart but he is not a RW.Welbeck and Walcot are and we are more dangerous when they play in this position.I fear Wenger will never change and will always try to accomodate his favourites in the team.Today Ozil was useless,replace him by Welbeck and shift Ramsey in the middle,but no it has to be a non favourite Coquelin who bring more than any of them.I doubt Arsenal will win any PL title with Maureeno in charge of Chelshi as he is quite more astute on tactic than Wenger.Oh boy,you may always say runner up is not that bad…..
Two points droped. Wenger should buy Lacazette in the summer window.
Maureen had to have a dig by saying 10 years to win a tittle is boring well Maureen at least we won it in style not playing park the bus football you complete Portuguese c..t!!
don’t tell me you won’t be happy at the moment if you are a chelsea fan … I want my AFC to win the epl and shut up those noisy utd and chelsea fans
10 years – big deal.
Chelsea 99 years (1905-2004) – 1 top division title. 50 year wait for a title twice. Spend £900M = 4 titles in 10 years.
Man City 107 years (1894-2011) – 2 top division titles. 40 year waits twice. Spend £800M = 2 titles in 3 years.
Arsenal 13 top division titles 1913-2004. Max 18 year wait. Zero net spend 2004-2013. No titles.
And they still say money has nothing to do with it.
There’s an improvement from last year, no doubt, but so did Chelsea and utd … we did not win a home game today, so what confidence you mean? title like this make us always the underdog one …
OT: I think Mourinho was right today saying that it’s boring when you wait 10yrs to win the epl “and the count is on”… very annoying but true statement
Going trophyless doesn’t mean we’re boring, that means we weren’t good enough… which we weren’t. And look at Chelsea’s most recent score lines… they got what they needed done in the fall, which is why they have been so boring.
No its not a massive confidence, we only got 1 shot on target in 90 minute, you can’t take confidence from that from an attacking point of view. Full backs were great today. MoTM for has to be Monreal. We drew 0-0 at home last season as well. Since mourinho return Arsenal record vs chelsea is played 5, won 0, drawn 2, lost 3, scored 0 conceded 10.
I agree, it was good performance by us, our defense was solid. But I was very disappointed with our attack. We should have known already from their record that it was going to be difficult to score against Chelsea. However nothing changed tactically with our offense. Courtois is a 10 foot giant who can grab any ball in the air on set pieces/corners – couldn’t we have tried some different plays or crosses to elude him? It was obviously going to be difficult for Giroud to battle Cahill/Terry with aerial duels – couldn’t we have tried other options to get him the ball? And there was no width again and seeing runs made was a rarity – couldn’t we have done that more especially when we know Alexis could definitely beat their back line first to?
I’m not sure but we probably had no more than 3-4 goals on target. I know it’s Chelsea, but that’s sad. And honestly, thats probably the same amount from our last few meetings against them. We knew Chelsea was going to play for a draw – They didn’t even bother to set up for their set pieces at the end. We should’ve put their back line in misery and we should’ve put a ball in the back of their net. If we don’t figure out how to score against Chelsea especially at home, get ready for another 90 minutes of an “improved” disappointment.
We had 1 shot on target
and I can think of at least 3 they had…. damn.
Yeah i know but it was more than we had at Stamford Bridge.
It’s partly why I think Henry’s so critical of us. It’s kind of a damning indictment that over 180 minutes this season vs Chelsea we had 1 shot on target. We had more possession but we honestly never looked like scoring. In either match.
We had plenty of good chances which were either screwed wide, or given away in the penalty area. I could forgive it from Mertesacker, but Cazorla ?!?? When I saw it as his feet, I really thought it was going to be in the back of the net.
We only seemed to cotton onto the fact that people needed to get into the penalty area to disrupt their structure, in the last 15 minutes. We had more chances after that, rather than trying to pick out the single player in the area (usually Giroud) with a cross.
The best and worst I can say about us yesterday was that we played a bit like Chelsea – if the teams swapped shirts you wouldn’t be able to tell which team was which. Both cagey, both good defensively imo, both lacklustre and uncommitted in attack.
‘At the same time I told him also this is not Premier League, this is not the best league in the world, this is football from the 19th century’
This is what he said last year after their game against West Ham last year..!!
what a foking loser!
sorry to say if sczesny was d one that committed that foul on oscar, every Goober would’ve buried him today.
Well, that’s because Szczesny has a *history*. Ospina doesn’t have one yet at the moment.
I don’t think that was a penalty, what was the keeper to do not challenge for a 50/50 ball? Also Bellerin for me is the man of the match. Alexis is becoming too predictable and people will work him out soon. Ozil I don’t know why people think he is that good, I really don’t.
We should be cautious what we say I know we would love to win the EPL but we don’t know the resources that Wenger as to work with and we can all agree that he had to build a team and its still considered a work in progress. I believe next season we will be a much better and stronger team and title contenders. I also don’t think maurinho is that good of a coach he has done well at clubs that as the financial will to buy the best but do you think he would do well at crystal palace and qpr I doubt!! it do you think he would stay at a club and build a team? I strongly doubt it. Both managers have different targets and different resources at there disposal.
I can’t stop talking about our deadwood players
Sonogo- words can’t discribe how poor of a player he is
Podolski- needs to go
Flamini- Needs to go
Arteta – Needs to go
Diaby- I would keep him for one more season since he as finally regain his fitness.
OT: I’m not for sure what he said, but what do folks think about Henry’s comments on Ozil and Giroud?
Spot on!!!
what did he say?
Ozil not doing enough against top 4 and you’ll never win league with just Giroud
Ozil didn’t have a bad game though
Na he didn’t have a bad game, nobody had a bad game. For me personally though I would liked to have seen Alexis and Ozil a lot more effective then they were
You can bet your life had we been the team parking the bus holding onto a draw the likes of Hazard/Costa and Oscar would have created more chances and that my friends is the difference
Henry said on Sky Sports: “I think
they need to buy four players –
they need that spine. They need a
goalkeeper, they still need a
centre-back, they still need a
holding midfielder and, I’m afraid,
they need a top, top quality striker
to win this league again.
“You had the best example with
Chelsea here today. They were
struggling last season to win the
league. They went on to buy
Cortouis, Matic, Cesc and Costa.”
“For me, that speaks volumes
andy you saw it today – a team
didn’t and a team did, and they
are about to win the league again.
“He [Wenger] has to do it. You
need to have this competitive thing
within the group – to win the
league, that has to happen.”
He said: “Players need to perform,
also. I will single out Mesut Ozil.
Against a top four team, that was
his eighth game today – zero goals
and two assists.
“That is not enough. Overall, since
he has been at Arsenal, he has
14 assists. You look at Cesc
Fabregas, he has 16 assists in
one season. Players at one point
need to perform.”
On Giroud, Henry said: “I think
Giroud is doing extremely well. But
can you win the league with him?
I wouldn’t think so.
“He does a job, and he does it
ever so well, but you can’t win
the league.
“Arsenal were at the top of the
league last season, but everyone
was saying they are not going win
the league.
“If I’m a player there, I would be:
‘Hang on a minute, I’m at the top
of the league right now.’ But
people were still saying it. Players
need to step their game up.”
Henry said Arsenal had a “record”
number of injuries every season
and that it was down to “more
than bad luck”.
“A lot of them are hamstring. I
am not in the camp to know how
they are training but there is
something there that needs to be
rectified.
“Every time it is a record. And
that is a record you do not want
to have. You need people available
to perform.”
Very hard to hear that comin from Henry. Hurts.
The lot of us are sat in pub . Bit deflated.
Hes right.
Henry says those sort of things when he gets frustrated. His heart is in the right place but his mind hasn’t caught up yet.
He is right about the injuries but as far as I can see we have turned a corner.
Last year was an opportunity. A missed opportunity really but it was only an opportunity because others were weak and before injuries hit we were the best of a bad bunch.
We have since moved on. We have improved. I thought from the beginning of the season we needed to get to the top and create a buffer. Without that we wouldn’t feel the confidence to win.
There are areas where we can improve. Not because we came sort but because all teams need to find improvements.
Two positions, DM and attacking world class player or talent.
Not a new spine. We need confidence. Chelsea is the only team we need to find form to beat. We have the beating of the others.
Henry is my all time fav Arsenal player but have a feeling the love will be chipped away at with his punditry. He had a torrid time in recent weeks for being too laid back, fence-sitting and generally being uninteresting – especially after his Hernandez/Ronaldo comments. Sky probably pulled him to one side and said the easiest way to get ratings up will be for you to slag your old club/manager off. IMO his comments were cheap-shot throwaway shit-chat that falls in line with the standard media line with Arsenal. Last week he was s**king on Le Coq’s d**k and called him the “policeman” – this week he needs replacing for reasons not offered. Ditch Ospina – all well and good but not one pundit has set out exactly what Ospina has done wrong or why it is undeniably the case that he will fail and never be top class. Then Gab was indirectly disrespected with the glib assumption he is not going to be any sort of answer to our “problems”. Then he kicked off the old Cesc saga again – quite unecessarily imo – FFS when will people accept this as water under the bridge. He would have had Cesc back in heartbeat, bench Ozil and pass on Alexis.
Simple-minded thinking like this is why the likes of Henry and Adams will be Arsenal legends forever but would be best advised to steer clear of any allusions to football management.
Mind you when it comes to proper moronic punditry Carragher’s comments will take some beating. According to him Arsenal need 3 players; Cech, Godin and Pogba. OK, fair enough, putting aside the £120M+ needed – no explanation as to the problems of taking a world class keeper off a rival who hates us, nicking the defensive lynchpin from the current La Liga champions and securing the services of probably the world’s most in demand player.
And where is all the money going to come from?
How much for a top, top centre forward, £30, £40 £50+ million then add on however much for a GK, CB and holding defender your looking at £100 million +.
Every year we hear the “war chest” is around £50 million, so the likes of TH can say what they like, but it’s not going to happen, this is real life, not a computer game I’m afraid folks.
Hard to disagree with him to be honest. Whatever permutation it takes Ozil has had little impact vs the top 4 in each season, 0 goals and zero assists. Henry’s view is he’s good but not good enough.
Giroud has a similar record scoring I think 3 times between this season and last vs the top 4, twice in losses…all against Manchester clubs, Giroud has never scored against Chelsea.
Henry’s view again is that they are good but don’t produce enough to propel Arsenal to a genuine title push from start to finish
Just an edit here, zero goals 2 assists for Ozil
The Problem is not really Ozil. Ozil has improved so much . to be honest he use to be worst than this. The problem is that when we play the best teams with this set up we lack balance. Ozil cazorla and rambo out wide is just wrong. has the manager got the balls to bench one of them in this sort of games. For me rambo is the box to box midfielder and he has a great engine so he must play. between ozil and cazorla unfortunately we must keep one on the bench.
Ramsey was our best player but he should never have played out wide especially against a good defence like Chelsea. I know Ozil and Cazorla are big names but one of them will have to sit it out and we go with proper pace on the right.
Its a shame Ox is out injured. Oure injury record needs to get better next season.
‘At the same time I told him also this is not Premier League, this is not the best league in the world, this is football from the 19th century’
This is what he said last year after their game against West Ham..!!
what a foking loser!
At least we didn’t lose…
Thats good enough for me.
Very disappointed to hear u say that bro
@muffdiver
I hear ya Bro, But a loss would have played on our psyches. We can’t afford that right now…
@nygunner. I agree a draw
v the Champions is a
good result.
Not the best
but a home loss would have reopened
huge doubt in the teams credentials to become Premiers.
Man U loss to Everton pushes them all the way back to
qualifying position now. Arsenal still have a tight hold on 2nd.
@davidnz
There it is…
WHAT?!!!
0-0 at home gives us ‘massive’ confidence for the future?! Is it a future where we settle for the 4th fnish and UCL R!6? or is it the one where we genuinely compete for the title?
I knew ozil haters will be back in full voice after he had a poor game… but the most surprising thing was that i thought ozil had a good game barring the 90th min miss…
I guess being selfish is the only way to get appreciation these days… *Cough* sanchez
We are 4 players away from the title. To do that we need to release some players: Podolski/rosicky/diaby and flamini. Then we need to go out and buy a GK/CB/DM/ST, if we do this we can win this league next season so its time for the board to open up their pocketbooks.
Think about that though. A top forward alone is gonnaa cost you at least 30 mil. The same for a DM and unfortunately all the top forwards are very pricey as they’re young. Someoner like Dybala or Lacazette is GOING to cost some serious cash.
As far as serious GKs go Arsenal should really try to get Cech. Tried and proven GK, that’s won just about everything at club level but then you’re talking about a summer of 50 + mill spending and I’m not sure if we’d embark on that.
CB isn’t as pressing an issue.
In order it would probably be ST/GK/CB/DM
I understand the need for positive reactions from the game but I’m not entirely sure I’d agree.
Chelsea played the 1st half without a striker and had the better chances objectively speaking and the second half they played with a near 40 year old striker and apart from one specific instance we didn’t look like scoring. Had it been Costa or Remy who had been on the end of Fabregas’ pass it might have been different.
Progress over the season yes but vs Chelsea no. They allowed us to play where they wanted us to knowing when we crossed it was Giroud vs Terry, Cahill, Matic and Ivanovic. Moreover we never really took any risks and it looked like we were ok with a point which doesn’t sit well with me as we had nothing to lose and SO MUCH to gain.
As for the big game context I tend to view things outside of a vacuum. We beat Liverpool in style at te Emirates but we’ve not had trouble beating them there, we’ve only lost once at the Emirates to Liverpool since 2001. But we drew them away.
We beat Southampton at home but when they were on form and at the time top 4 contenders (big match) we lost away, the same vs Spurs, we inexplicably lost to United at the Emirates, but we did beat City away as well as United (non league) and we haven’t scored vs Chelsea in 2 seasons and mustered 1 shot on target over 180 minutes. So we’ve sorta re allocated points, progress in some but regression in others.
In the top 7 mini league we have just 3 wins, 4 draws and 4 losses.
Or 13 points from 33 which is not good enough.
Chelsea have 4 wins 6 draws and 1 loss or 18 from 33.
United have 6 wins 2 draws and 3 losses or 20 from 33.
City have 4 wins 3 draws and 3 losses or 15 from 30.
So we still have work to do. As you can see if we could sharpen up our consistency vs top higher teams as ell as keep our general consistency it would account for the gap in points we see now.
Chelsea have 4 wins but crucially they’ve made sure they haven’t lost. 3 of those 4 wins have come at home. They drew all of their tough away fixtures except they Liverpool where tgey won away and Spurs where they lost.
So progress yes but still work to be done. Few signings, tactical tweaks and a bit more game awareness and we’re there but we need to start taking more away from big matches. We need to let go of the idea that possession is dominance.
We had more possession today but Chelsea controlled where we played, they ended up getting the result they wanted while we ran out of ideas. This must improve.
Let’s finish the season strongly, 2nd place and FA Cup winners and start 2016 with a bang.
COYG!!!
this 0-0 draw told only 1 story.
Wenger is an incopetant manager incapable of managing against the top teams. He is tactically naive makes senseless and biased team selections. Why does he not give theo a chance instead of playing ramsey out of his position?!
and where the f**k is rosicky?!
his substitutions make no sense!
Why would you take out coq and leave yourself exposed for the rest of the match?!
Why did he bring in welbeck?! he is SHITTTTT
Wenger almost cost us the fa cup final last week by his brilliant decisions to bring back long term injuries in a semi-final.
#wengerOUT
I don’t agree with all you said but, u are spot on on rosicky. the game had little mozart written all over it !!!
Mr Wenger please Listen to King Henry
If not the whole spine, then some of it. Top DM and Top Striker at the very least.
Why are people still raving about a new CDM?? From where im standing Le Coq is the best defensive mid in the league in terms of interceptions, distribution and positional knowledge
Yeah, I’m sorry but I don’t agree. Coquelin has been immense for us this season but his inclusion thus far hasn’t come with the same dominance Matic offers Chelsea nor has it come over the same period.
Coquelin has been very good in tackling and interceptions, his positional astuteness has been very solid as well but his passing range and distribution leave much to be desired which is crucial for a DM. Moreover Coquelin gets lured into the forward movement when Arsenal drift forward. He was too far up the pitch vs Monaco and gets dragged out of position sometimes.
Coquelin has been excellent but Matic has been better over the coirse of the season
How can you say his positional astuteness has been very solid then go on to say he gets dragged out of position sometimes??
In addition, Matic does not have anything in his locker in terms of passing that Le coq doesn’t have.
My apologies on the wording. Coquelin is good at maintaining the shape of the team when out of possession. It’s when we’re in possession that he creeps forward not adjusting his possession. Coquelin has been superb against teams without a clear counter attacking threat. But it is when Arsenal have swathes of possession his deficiecies come to the fore.
Moreover, as I’ve said before, interceptions, excellent but distribution wise Coquelin doesn’t help the transition game of Arsenal which means Arsenal are vulnerable after he wins the ball back or if he loses it.
If you want an example of what I’m talking about check the Monaco game, or the game at Spurs.
Coquelin is a great player but Matic is a much more complete defensive midfielder.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree
He’s is good, but what happens when he get’s injured …. Flamini?
Competition is always a good thing as well…
We needed a win and if we had kept pressing we would have gotten it. The boys are always nervous against Chelsea, they play good but mess the final passes. It sad coz a win today would have removed that nervousness in their system and would be ready to take them on next season with confidence. Hope we make the right enforcements.
YEAH the team played well but it was the same old story, do all the playing but make woeful attempts to score. I don’t know when some players in the team will or want to mature. the team needed some brilliance and magic in the box from the players but none of them offered it. the manager took the risk, put two offensive subs in only the two ddn’t play the part. so what more risk again could the manager hav taken?. caszola has all the capabilites to go thru middle, disorganise the organised defenc, dat smday
Why make 2 passes near the penalty area tten shoot when u can make 59 passes and lose the ball rather shoot.. That was back to the old Arsenal playing on a chess board.
This manager won’t beat the Greater Portuguese Gob as long as he has a hole up is ar**e.Roll on the end of his contract.
can
To Jose,
You many have won the battle but you haven’t won the war. With a few great signings over the summer you might just see the invincibles mk2.
err he did win battle an war.
he beat us this season an beat us to the league.
he will just laugh at what we ‘might do’
err watch us next season. GOYG
lol
Now you are just being sarcastic lol
Buying player won’t solve Arsenal’s problems. What’s the point when there’s little rotation, players are played out of position and substitutions almost never come before the 70th of the game???
We just need a great CF, LW and a CB. With those signings our scoring will go up and we will not play so narrow and we will let in less goals.
Wenger out!
Be careful what you wish for you might just have us scraping for 6 or 7 place.
SO much negativity on here. Geez, you’d have thought we’d have just had a bore draw against West Brom…
Chelsea played for the draw and were not really looking to break us down. Their best attacks came from counters where our defense (koscielny) screwed up. They spent most of the game defending or playing keep ball without an attempt to play for a win. Yes they probed but they didn’t rip into us, they were playing defence. A team of that quality is very hard to break down and we very almost did. Man Utd last week only managed 2 shots on target and got beat 1-0 by the same Chelsea side with the same tactic. I think there are positives to take that we got that point because it means we’re a point better off then United for it.
We should have won today, yes. Can we identify reasons we didn’t win? Not enough eagerness to get into the box. Poor key passes. A lucky hand. Welbeck and Mertesacker missing sitters. Cazorla slashing the ball wide. Having no width and crosses while Giroud is on the pitch and then putting in crosses to Welbeck instead. Lack of adventure from the manager to go for the win? Nah, He took off Coquelin at the right time and pushed us into a 4-2-3-1 and went for it. I think we just got defended and didn’t get those little bits of luck you sometimes need.
All in all, there are positives there and some negatives. The main thing is this is 1 more game down and only 2 points dropped when we’ve now got a game in hand on City, and 2 points on United. City have to plays Spurs AND Southampton in their last 4 games which are definitely going to test them. United have us. If we win our games (maybe draw against United) then we finish second and have our best finish in years with a great chance to bolster in summer and mount a charge for the premiership next year. We lost this league by November – this match was just evidence that Chelsea saw us as A. Rivals B. Someone they had to just hold out against and C. Their biggest threats. They’ll be scared next year and this game has proven we have zero to fear from them.
Goodnight all. There is an old saying you can only beat whats in front of you. Thats hard when it’s a wall. Chelsea are reminding me of us when we were called boring boring Arsenal.
Well this game today, although brave effort by the team overall, just points out that to win the EPL, Arsenal is going to need to invest a little more to bring in one or two special players who can “Unlock” the door. The fact that Arsenal has not beaten Chelsea in the last 15 games just illustrates that point.
Win will be a bonus but is it hard for Arsenal player to win with a organized defensive Chelsea. At least Arsenal Wenger didn’t lose, organize our def superbly credit to Steve, well balance in attackand defense, even your so call lazy ozil defence like Coquelin also, Looking forward to next season with improvement. CYOG Arsenal