Since the opening game of the season Arsenal have been unbeaten in the League and the Champions League, but there are still people waiting in the wings to find anything to complain about and to tell the players where they are going wrong, despite the evidence to the contrary. Witness the derogatory comments when our reserves lost in the League Cup to Southampton!
Arsene Wenger is aware that in this modern age of social media- and hundreds of TV pundits all over the world, you cannot stop the avalanche of opinions, but he wants his players to try and ignore their influence and concentrate on their own form and confidence. “You want to focus on how you want to play and how you want to win the games, and we live in a society today where everybody has an opinion and we have to live with that. It has to not influence us at all.
“We just have to do what we believe is right. Real competition is competition with yourself. That means us together, going as far as we can. After that, I have enough experience to know no matter what you do, we have always people who question what you do – that’s normal.
“We know we are not perfect and I tell you even more, we have a lot of room for improvement. But what we need is everybody putting his quality at the service of the team and having the individual desire to progress.
“I think Oxlade-Chamberlain, Walcott, they have made strides up… Xhaka, in every game that you see he is on the way up. As well, Lucas came in and scored three goals so we need the help of everybody to achieve what we want to achieve but you have as well to be conscious.”
Certainly the Ox and Walcott are the two players that were most criticised last season, and they were maybe influenced by all the negative comments every single week. It is bound to knock your confidence at some point. Maybe this is why Wenger brought in the new psychologist to teach the players to think positive things no matter what other people are saying. And Wenger is trying to reinforce those thoughts with this little pep talk?
Whatever is going on, It certainly seems to be working!
Onwards and Upwards!
OT: As much as I love and respect Ospina if the decision was up to me I would ask him to sit out the Bayern game and ask for Cech to guard our goal.
“They already told me we always play Bayern in the @ChampionsLeague… Look forward to meeting my @DFB_Team mates! #FCBARS #UCLDraw #sm20” MustafiOfficial
Even our players are getting tired of this fixture, can someone give me the number of whoever fixtures these draws, maybe I can talk to Dangote and Usmanov to also send him that brown envelope they are getting from Perez and the likes. I can even send him an original piece from me lol.
i think the draw should be with “asbestos” gloves so not to burn or frost bite the hands of drawers with the hot and cold balls and only then we might get someone different like Real 🙂
True. Not so long ago TH14 did participate in one of these days so if something is up I bet people at the top are aware that something is brewing. Football is just a business now, us the fans have less influence its all about what brings in more money.
i for one am looking forward to it, if anything to see if we have and can improve on the 5-1 thrashing we go last time we was there, im sure we will do much better i hope
I agree – this is a real test to see if we have improved or not. If we are lucky enough to have a full squad and play smart football, like defending well with a compact midfield and fast forwards in the away game, I think this Arsenal squad is almost as good as the Munich squad if not better.
A healthy squad + a smart Wenger + luck on our side, is it too much to ask?
Imagine the lift the team will have if we eliminate Bayern Munich. And if we loose at least we can concentrate on the league.
In Germany bayern will be scared to conceded an away goal so we can defend and play for counterattack or a draw. Then destroy them at home!
Adrian Durham and Jason Cundy from talkSPORT seem to have a personal vendetta against Arsenal. They seem to be hell bent on using the power of the airwaves to destabilise our club by exaggerating any faults and not giving us any credit for any small triumphs. I personally am not annoyed with them however what annoys me is the weak minded Arsenal fans who are ‘brainwashed’ by their propaganda and ring up the radio show to validate their lies.
Why do you listen to them on them on the radio?
You don’t become a good player in a short period after many years of bad performances.
If we don’t win against Bayern this year, it shows how bad Wenger will be, not being able to overcome an opponent over two legs in many attempts. Also compared to recent years Bayern are different team under Ancelotti, they lost twice in group stage, and where as previous season they would runaway with the title it is not so this season. Ancelotti is under pressure.
We played with Sanogo and out of form Ox last time against them in the knockout stage. Arsenal should have the upper hand this time. But then thats what I thought before we played AC Milan and got beat 4-0.
You could have staked your life on us drawing Munich or Real Madrid lol
That’s destiny for you. Anyways, if we’re ever going to win the champions league we will have to beat the best at some point but knowing our luck even if we get pass Munich, we will probably get Real Madrid or Barcelona next.
We should not be terrified of FCB at this time. Respectful of the opponent, but not fearful. We are not the same side that we were in previous defeats, our spine was not as strong. Our movement was not a quick and dangerous. Everyone in the team is hungry.
This game feels closer for me than it has in recent years, so with a little bit of luck, organization, and swift counters we can prevail.
My inital opinion:
GK – Neuer > Ospina but both can be scored on
RB – Bellerin > Lahm because of age and athleticism at this point
CB — Hummels/Boateng > Kostafi, but not by much for me.
LB — Alaba >Monreal I’m not sure on this one.
DM/CM — LeCoq/Santi (Xhaka) = Alonso (Vidal)/Thiago (kimmich)
10 – Mesut > Muller
Wingers — Ribery (Douglas Costa) & Robben > Theo (Lucas) & Ox/Iwobi
9 — Alexis = Lewagoalski – just based on current form. Both very valuable to their teams
Arsene Wenger > Carlos Ancelotti
…
Big ups to the psychologist ?? it’s obviously working.
Hopefully the days of ‘The Bottlers’ are long gone.??
Seems that there is no point of us being in the Champions League as so many of our fans have no belief that we can beat anyone decent. Drawing a big team is inevitable so if it happens in the round of 16 we need to get on with it and believe in the team. Considering that we have performed admirably against Bayern with a fairly inferior team in previous seasons, we have reason to be optimistic about getting a result. Mustafi and Koscielny have not lost a single game yet as a centre-back pair – considering Mertersacker with his at best jogging top speed is what we had before we can definitely say that is an improvement. Diego Costa was absolutely silenced by Bostafi so I don’t see why we cannot do the same for Lewandowski. Bellerin has improved enough to silence Douglas Costa and we will have to rely on a good game from our strike force to score goals (why not – we have some world-class talent). COYG!!
Also the second game will be at the Emirates for a change. So if we can get a good score 8n Germany like a draw or close loss we are still on with a good chance back home. The pressure is on bayern coz no one expects us to win. They could be in for a surprise. ..
Fair point, however I would say that any of City, Chelsea, even Liverpool, Spuds and Utd were to draw Bayern (ignoring the fact that some aren’t in the CL) they would have belief that they could get a result, more than most of our fans do even though we are (IMO) better or as good as all of them. Typically our unbeaten form has been largely disregarded by the media etc. which (you are right) could help us in regards to pressure when playing Bayern.