There were a few heartstopping moments in Arsenal’s excellent 0-0 draw with Chelsea, like Pedro going one-on-one with Cech only for Koscielny to interfere at the last second, and when Aaron Ramsey somehow skipped past the Chelsea defenders and toe-poked the ball onto the post, but all in all I thought a draw away at the Champions was a fair result, especially after losing on our last five visits to the Bridge.
Arsene Wenger was reasonably happy, but he thinks that we could easily have taken all three points in the end. “I felt it was a game with total intensity,” Le Prof said on Arsenal.com. “Where two teams really went for it and was a battle all over the pitch. We responded well in domains where we were questioned, you know, and I like when the team shows that kind of response.
“Overall I feel it’s a deserved point and with a bit more freedom maybe, less inhibition, we could have really won this game with one or two goals difference. But overall for us it was important at least not to lose today and you could feel that in the team in the last 20 minutes that we played a little bit with that in our mind.”
It was also our first point of the season in an away game, but Wenger thinks we should have won one of those as well. “I believe at Stoke we had a good performance on the football front.” he continued. “We had 77 per cent possession, [could have had] three penalties. We were a bit lucky we didn’t score. I agree, the result was very disappointing but the performance was not so disappointing. When you’re a football player, there’s only one thing that matters – the next game and how you respond to it. That’s what we did today.”
Just think, if we HAD won that game we would have been level on points with Chelsea, and if we had beaten Stoke we would be even closer to the top! Let’s hope that we have now ironed out all our problems and can now go into a winning run against lesser teams like Doncaster, West Brom, BATE Borisov, Brighton, Watford and Red Star before going up to Goodison Park to face Everton. If we win all six we will back up the top and in confident mood again….
Admin
Yes, Arsenal could have beaten Chelsea, but it was apparent that Chelsea was the better team. Cech often could not distribute the ball to the central defenders directly and was forced to use long balls to release himself from Chelsea attackers’ pressure.
This is a sign that Arsenal still cannot handle the opponent’s heavy pressure well. This problem has happened for more than a decade and has never been addressed.
If we compare the way Arsenal control the tempo from the defense area to how Barcelona, Real Madrid, Bayern Muenchen and Manchester City do it, it shows a big level gap. Their defenders and midfielders always try hard to pick the ball from the goalkeeper directly, whereas Arsenal’s players often wait in their area.
If Arsenal cannot dictate the tempo and build the attack from the back, they will not be able to compete with stronger teams in Premier League.
Thank God said “it was apparent that Chelsea was a better side”. In Physics apparent is not real. In reality Arsenal was the better side. Check the minutes the ball was in their half. Chelsea players were even afraid they could lose.
We should have won, but a draw is a very good result for a club with a top 6 mentality. We can’t compete against the big clubs, we simply don’t have the tenacity like tottenham to the managerial prowess. I can’t believe tottenham bought llorente because they desperately needed a back up in case kane got injured, thats the difference between arsenal and them atm. They have a strong mgmt. Inspite of a stadium move they signed aurier for a bargain deal. Albeit they sold walker. Arsenal would have scrambled for a replacement if we were in a similar situation. They signed sanchez as well. I would not tell anyone to support arsenal TBH.
Arsenal have 4 or 5 centre-forwards so I’m not sure what your point is. Ask yourself WHY Tottenham “desperately” needed a backup to Kane. Strong management?
I personally wouldn’t tell YOU to support Arsenal TBH…
There is always one moaner at least Admin.
Where are all our “fans” today that predicted we would get massacred????
My brother I have been looking for one that called me a Muppet for dare wishing my team victory before the match. It can’t be because I wish Wenger to go that I would not wish my team well.
#rememberresourceout
this guy is blatantly a troll, and seemingly a tottenham fan. I swear was posting stupid transfer rumours before to wind people up!?
he’s should stay, but he should just admit he’s tottenham supporter, could be good to hear his honest opinion from time to time.
The transfer window is over so he can’t wind us up any more. He’s a miserable git but he’s still an Arsenal fan (I think!)
i’m not sure the overall evidence of team performance could have chelsea the better team not by a country mile and not even after they played trump card hazard we were a right handful for chelski. we don’t have the resources those teams you mentioned but we show desire and will to win which qualities it seems we had lost. we have given ourselves hope, belief and a lifeline and trust that we will improve.
Yes even me at one point during the match I thought we were going to win even though I was not100% confident before the match because I was not sure how Wenger will position players (you know him by now).
I am not missing the Ox at all only what am missing about him is that the money gotten from his sale was not used to buy a better player and it will end up in America.
woulda, coulda, shoulda it hardly matters now – what counts is that the arsenal left the bridge with our good reputation of being a fantastic footballing side in tact. we were often first to every 50/50 ball we played wonderful angles to go from defence into attack and we managed to frustrated the champions on their home-turf. even ramsey – who i tend to slate – is finding something of the form he showed 3 years ago which resulted in him being lauded by team you know who? we turned up.
I think I was the only one
on JustArsenal who correctly
predicted a close game.
I said a draw would be possible.
I realised Chelsea would have
to back up 6 starters from mid week whereas Arsenal had not one starter back up.
A few weeks back I actually predicted top of the league by Dec 31 for Arsenal.
This is by courtesy of our playing in the weak Europa league
allowing us to use our “B” team mid week and save our “A” team for League games.
Our mid week opponents Koln just lost their 4th game on the bounce
setting a record for the worst ever start in the Bundeslga .
Remember the last 2 two teams to win the PL had no ECL
in fact Leicester and Chelsea had no European football at all.
Chelsea finished 10th and Leicester 14th the season before they won the League.
Getting 5th last season may well be a huge stroke of good fortune.
I must admit before the match I thought we’d lose but was really happy with the performance, especially as we could have nicked it!
Danny Murphy even praised us ? said he could have picked 6 for MOTM!! Bloody hell!! So we did do well
The tactics worked against Chelsea, we were coming from a 4-0 defeat to Liverpool, away to Chelsea, Sanchez not firing from all cylinders, Wenger not realistic, the pundits finishing any chances we could have. And Chelsea believing that will do the job easily. Not using Ozil was good to stop Chelsea having their way, but it didn’t help us create a lot. Everyone saying not using Ozil was good but he was very good when we beat them twice last season. So I think Wenger is the main problem we have. If he can find a way to make his players work harder and himself giving better thoughts to his general defensive approach to every game, then we might have a chance.
Arsen went for a draw with five back defending and that’s what is needed in the away games to top five clubs in the EPL, draw your away games and win your home games and the title is yours
My Top of the week are;
-Manchester City for thrashing Watford
– Napoli for their 6-0
-David Luiz for his great performance against
Arsenal
– AC Milan for defeating Udinese by 2goals to 1
– Arsenal for playing draw against Chelsea
My flops are – Crystal Palace, Watford, Gatafe
and David Luiz for the hard tackle.
Tell me your Tops and Flops.
Top’s=
1/ Being a Arsenal supporter i’m in no way a Rooney fan but it was great to see Man-U fans giving Rooney a great reception back to the old traford
2/ Arsenals great performance as a team against Chelsea
Flops=
1/ seeing yet another player celebrating over the top for scoring a goal against his former club a club and supporters who didn’t want him to leave, yes Romelu Lukaku your in my peace of shi7 book next to RVPrat
Tas, we agree on many things but not the RVP rat thing. He didn’t celebrate over the top against us and he took his last chance as a player in his prime to win the PL and he did, in fact, he was probably the main reason Man U won the title.
Did you want him to go forgo his only chance at a major title he had left for the sake of Wenger’s unambitious project?
He WAS the main reason they won the league. If he’d stayed with us & scored that many goals we’d have won the league
He did score that many goals for us and we didn’t win the league.
@Nothing Changed, yes we do agree on most things but you must of been watching different game’s that first season, i ask you to look at his celebration’s home and away goals against us where he jumped in the arms of SIR ALEX FERGUSON almost french kissed him right next to AW,
HE IS A TURD, we put up with his six and a half years out of eight injured and when we needed him the most and also offer’d to pay him handsomely for his services salary which anyone in the EPL would of been happy with (apart from Rooney and one or two others) he turned his back on us, i can take him wanting to leave but not his celebrating,
you should hear what they say about him in turkey punters, supporters and club Fenerbahce they hate him, hate him, even opposition supporters like Galatasaray supporters are even say his disgraceful
I stand corrected if he celebrated his first goal he scored against us a bit over the top. And everyone is free to hate who they want to label them rat.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with players making decisions that are in their best interest. Clubs do the same. We ditched Vieira and other over the years and most recently Perez and Gabriel, simply because Wenger thought it was in the best interest of the club.
No player want’s get injured whether RVP, Diaby, Ramsey, Wilshire or any other injury prone player. (Let’s hope Welbeck is not one of them.) and I don’t see a reason to hold that against them. In fact, I have been a proponent of ditching our injury prone players because it is bad business IMO to hold a spot for a player who is not going to further your cause.
Besides RVP had a big hand in keeping us in the top 4 before he left and to me, that is worth something.
I don’t blame Sanchez and Ozil for not wanting to sign new contracts either. To me, it is the player’s job to convince a club to sign him and it is the clubs job to convince the player they match his ambition.
It is not always about money. It was not for RVP, it was not for Neymar it was not for Cesc or Nasri or for Ox. Just because a club offers you a great salary doesn’t mean you have the obligation to accept it IMO.
Big players want to play for the big clubs and compete for the big trophies. You want to attract and keep the big layers? Act like a big club and compete for the big trophies.
Is there anyone on here who doubts Lemar would have accepted our offer if we had just won the PL?
RVP happens to be the rat who was injured for 7 years, causing all our top playmakers to leave in frustation at having no striker to finish off the chances they created and having ONE good eighth year and asking to leave so as to ‘win trophies’. Did he expect the other players to come and hand him a winner’s medal in the physio room?
Wenger should have thrown him out on his crutches in the 3rd or 4th year and I shouldn’t have wasted my precious two minutes typing a comment about him…..
Up Gunners!!!
I think this week also showed that there is life after Sanchez and Ozil, where many feared there wasn’t.
A team of 11 players working together is always going to be stronger than individuals.
They are obviously going to need replacing with quality but their replacements will hopefully understand the importance of team work.
True, team effort is what makes champions. Every impressive result we have had in the last 12 months was when we played as a team and IMO most importantly when we pressed as a team not giving Chelsea, City etc a real chance to control the game, never letting them settle into to a comfortable rhythm.
Pro : Good to see the glimpse of Ramsey’s old 1st half of 2013-14 season’s form again. Hope it gets better!
Con : Lacazette was supposedly bought & preferred over Giroud coz he’s more mobile, more robust & much faster… But to be out-muscled & out run by Luiz & Cahill who are in their 30s every-time?? sigh.
It was the performance that gave me hope, the result was secondary to me. Of course I wish we would have won because we could have.
But what makes me love this team and respect them is if we put in 100% effort and press as a team. That makes us difficult to play against. However, our problem is always that we find it hard to replicate these type of efforts week-after-week which is required for a PL challenge.
I also hope this will give Wenger confidence to be tough on players that don’t perform because I can’t help but believe that some of the quality of the performance was related to the fact that didn’t have Ozil on the pitch who finds it harder to participate in the of the ball pressing game consistently.
This team, if it plays like this every week, can make it back into the top 4. Now, guys, please show the fans you can reproduce this level of intensity and pressing every game!!!
It really is IMO the only way to unite the fan base.
We all love you when you give it your all and when you are disciplined for the whole game and when you play for the team.
Its all about team work, not Ozil or Sanchez Arsenal FC. They are bad influence to the team. But by all means, I would keep Sanchez because he plays football with his heart and should. By not putting in effort he will drop his value and no team will want him. Sanchez should ask Ozil, because no team wants him as he does put in effort