West Brom loss a setback not a knockout blow for Arsenal by Sam P
I am not going to try and sugar coat the performance or result for Arsenal away to West Brom yesterday. It was poor and it was definitely a setback in our attempts to regain the Premier League trophy that has been missing from north London for over a decade.
But I also do not think that it is time for Arsenal fans to panic or give up the ghost and think that the Gunners are going to blow it again. There are three major factors behind my belief that this is not a knockout blow but merely a bad day at the office that Arsenal can come back from.
1. It was one of those days and every club has them. Have you ever seen Cazorla miss a penalty like that? No and you probably never will again and that just highlighted the fact that pretty much nothing went our way all day. The good thing is that the current Arsenal team have shown a number of times that they can bounce back from these things instead of being sent into a downward spiral.
2. Man City and their thumping at the hands of Liverpool really let us off the hook. I still believe that Pellegrini´s side are the biggest obstacle to Arsenal winning the title and unlike our result, theirs was not down to bad luck but was caused by them being comprehensively outplayed and only Bayern Munich have done that to us. It definitely gives us reason to be confident ahead of our crunch meeting just before christmas.
3. While the injury situation is bad at the moment, Arsene Wenger is soon going to have the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott and the Ox back. And if Coquelin´s problem is a long term one, at least the winter transfer window is just over a month away.
Cheer up Gooners, we can do this thing.
first point is bit hit an miss cos yes everyone has bad day at the office but until le coq went off we were looking good for the win, replacing one player should not equal bad day at the office.
point 2 is true but city r not our only rivals now united with poor performances r grinding out victories, others r getting mojo back
point 3 is absolute bs ..cos we look disjointed an weak without le coq .he now has serious knee injury.an how many games do we have till window opens??
and you know wenger.. what suddenly gonna spend 25 mill on khrychowiak in jan…oh yeah lol
how can u be such a competent manager an not be thorough when it comes to squad depth.
all this talk of bad luck. so not once have our players injuries been caused thru being overplayed due to lack of rotation.
yeah ok mate
and they say its not about buying players that will make arsenal title contenders……… Oh we are good enough huh?….. But imagine what we would look like if we had 3-5 quality additions to this squad….. Wouldn’t we just be shredding this league to pieces by now?
Why? To keep them on the bench? Who in their right minds will join a team to sit on the bench? You making it sounds too easy, I think you should be the manager.
I can’t agree with that. Take Schneiderlin for instance. No argument he would have been a huge step up from Arteta or Flamini, he can also play the Santi role freeing up Santi when we have injuries elsewhere or when we need a bit more bite in the middle. He has stated he wanted to come here, he wasn’t too expensive. This for me was a massive fail for Arsene.
I like Arsene but his transfer policy, particularly over the past 2 summers is inexplicable. We crashed and burned last season for 2 reasons, we didn’t start with a real DM (again) and despite knowing we were going to lose 2 experienced CB options before the previous season ended, we failed to replace either. The predicable injury crisis that ensued cost us any chance of a title run. Sadly it looks like we will quite possibly have the same problem again this season regarding the DM position. Keeping both Arteta and Flamini was madness to me, we knew already that neither are really capable of being our DM, one would have been ok in an emergency, not both.
hahaha muff!
I’m not looking at excuses but we had a good momentum going and then an international break. We had players that have to travel then come back and try to reconnect with their team mates. I wish that players would be available to participate in other competitions only after their commitment to their club.
You cannot console me. Give 1,001 reasons I’ll still panic. Are we not thinking of winning the league? We are running short of players to fight for the title and you know Arsene does’t buy easily and you say I should not panic?
I give you another reason to panic. .. Coquelin is out for at least 3 month’s! ?
Reason we panic and lose hope is this happens season after season… how can any fan be optimistic when we all saw the signs before the window closed on 2nd Sep, we needed strengthening no matter what players we had. Flopped against monaco in UCL
Finished 15points behind Champions
Positive from last season:
3rd instead of 4th and retained FA Cup. Not that big a deal but add to that wouldve made this team close to completion! This season UCL is a worse campaign than last and the season is going to be a disaster with all of these injuries dont care whos back LeCoq cant be replaced like for like by anyone at the club! If we had signed a couple of players rotation would also save our injurie list!
Yes our players are back but how long before they are match fit? Maybe a few more set backs?
Very worrying atm. Utd picking up points playing awful what if they click very soon. Chelsea will catch up with us if we keep going the wy we are, spurs gave us a right fight the other week also not just Bayern!
This is why I reserve my judgement after Boxing Day football. If we are there then there is a chance. Don’t forget that Arsenal always kicks in in March. We have to be in a good position by then. If we can, if not then we are fscked.
There are two aspects to yesterday’s defeat and people are mixing both of them.
1. Players let us down: Yes. This is true. Joel missed a sitter, Caz missed a penalty, one shot hit the woodwork and conceded an own goal. All these are not Wenger’s fault and some other day these things would have clicked, we would have won 3-2 and we would be singing praises and be jubilant. Players let Arsenal and Wenger down.
2. Wenger will let us down: Now going forward, with the amount of the injuries we have and most glaringly the injury to Le Coq will destroy us, at least in the short term. And the points dropped in the near future (its inevitable) will effectively end our title challenge. And this is where Wenger is to blame for not signing a suitable cover for CDM position and one forward. And going by the history i don’t expect any signing in January either. So most probably our season will end fighting for 2nd/3rd place.
Okay, Wenger doesn’t have a control pad whilst sitting in the dugout, but it was his choice of bringing Arteta on instead of Flamini that totally changed the game.
As for the penalty miss, yes, ? happens but Why did Cazorla take it? when Sanchez and Giroud were our normal penalty takers!
We won’t win the league without upgrading our squad,
Its always the same reasons for our failure, yet the difference this season is that we are losing to teams that haven’t beaten us for ten years. .. West ham and now west brom… I am just glad that there isn’t any other teams with West in their names lol.
How bout this one,, if Arteta was in he would have taken it. Let the players who are shooting on goal each and every game take them.
Cazorla is the 2nd in line taking penalties, that’s why. Arteta was 1st choice. But we don’t have to worry about this anymore, Arteta will not play this season anymore.
Wrong, he is to blame for everything. Campbell, Rosicky, Arteta and Flamini should’ve been replaced with TOP QUALITY players these last 2 seasons.
Maybe Kallstrom will be available in January again. Very serious concern with Coq banged up. He is one of 4 I believe our title chances rest on.
Coq, ozil, Sanchez, and Bellerin are irreplaceable. Ramsey, Wilshire, Walcott, ox and others out not too big a deal. We get on without them.
Scary part is who are the backups for the main 4 I mentioned? That is my concern going forward
How can you think that after watching our powers dwindle on the right wing. Ramsey and Walcott are big losses. Personally I think Ramsey is a very underrated player.
Wrong, our midfield lost it’s resilience ever since Ramsey got injured. It’s not a coincidence our bad form started when he could no longer play.
Listen Baby Please
Manchester City’s loss didn’t really let us off the hook. United are good enough to win the Title and they have gone ahead of us.
United may also buy big in January
We can’t focus on other teams “letting us of the hook”. We should not place ourselves on the hook to begin with
Really hoping for Bielik to do a Coquelin slash Bellerin. He has good strength height and a good passing range, but can or will he learn to smell danger before snuffing it out. Bielik really needs to look at this being a gift, a great opportunity.
We should not be depending on the other teams having bad days . It is easy seen that we, Arsenal, do not have the strength in depth. Wenger is happy with a top 4 finish which is mighty frustrating for fellow Arsenal supporters.
7 reasons to panic baby please
1. No Coquelin
2. No Ramsey
3. No Walcott
4. No Welbeck
5. No Rosicky
6. No Wilshere
7. No Ox
Welbeck, Rosicky, Ox are not regular starters anyway. And the amount of stick Ramsey got on this very site makes you all deserve this. Because until you really got hurt, you people will keep spitting on your very own players and the cry and moan of how much you missed them. This is karma right there for you.
I suppose you can also say that the fans fear of Coquelin getting injured totally jinxed him?… his out for 3 month’s!
Oh yes, you sold him before he was recalled. Then rode the bandwagon fueled by his good play. None of you (and that includes Wenger) deserve to take credit for his performances. I am the only one wanting him back from Freiburg once our midfield got thinner and we had to rely on a guy called Kim. Bleah, so fed up with this $hit.
the idea that walcott ramsey and ox will take us the next level just defies football gravity…they simply aint good enough bounce…would keep ramsey as a utility player and sell the other two along with mert arteta flamini and probably gibbs (only wenger would play him as a winger when he actually has a couple on the bench..it failed) … this aint goin to happen in january at most we might get a backup CDM given the disaster he has now imposed on the team…so the chances that spuds will finish above us are increasing.. young eager squad and manager beginning to reproduce form he had as shampton..lpool will benefit from the klop factor and chelski will eventually crawl their way back to somewhere near contention for 4th place…this is the weakest EPL i can remember and we are in our usual position… to me that adds up to a decade of football failure from the complaining one…hope for the best but prepare for a difficult winter
Honestly as much as I like wenger is still the problem of arsenal… I dnt know why he keep starting martesacker we don’t need that old expired man jhor… We want Paulista not him…
I wouldn’t sell Walcott just yet but I agree with the rest of your comments.
The winter transfer window?? Really? When does Monsieur Wenger EVER sign anyone of note in that window? He is so obsessed with winning the league on a prayer and a promise he wouldn’t sign anyone then just to prove that point…
Not forgetting….(paraphrase) ‘…there is not much quality available in the January window….’
So we can’t find players better than Flamini or Arteta? Really????
This is getting beyond a joke, half our first team are permanently crocked. SORT IT OUT!
Look guys. In the last fifteen years in the Premier League there wasn’t a winning team that had more then six defeats to their account by the end of the season. We are six games away from the half term, but we already have half of the season’s allowed defeats. And to make matters worse, there are two extremely difficult games at hand: Man City home and Soton away. Those two games are make it or break it for Arsenal, considering they don’t drop points against lesser sides(Norwich, Bornemouth, Sunderland and Aston Villa). If they lose a single game before January, I’d say that’s it for the season. Especially without a proper DMF until at least 2nd of January, which means the business needs to be done as we speak.
It’s time for the old geezer to step up and repair the damages his stubbornness has brought upon us.