After a somewhat cautious and nervous start to the game today, Arsenal scored two good goals through Mesut Ozil and the Ox and so a lot of Arsenal fans were looking forward to more of the same after the break. It had been seven years since the Gunners failed to score for the Premier League games in a row so I thought this was the perfect chance to make amends and fill our boots.
I think that Arsene Wenger was thinking the same way, although he would also have told his players at halftime that they had to stay solid and not let Bournemouth back into the match. And perhaps the fact that the home team had almost scored just before the break made the Arsenal players more cautious.
Whatever the reason, the second half saw us defending a lot more than we hoped and creating fewer chances at the other end. The boss even changed his mind about bringing Theo Walcott on to hit them on the counter after asking the England forward to warm up. Instead he brought on an extra defensive midfielder in Coquelin and then made another defensive change with Gibbs for Alexis Sanchez.
In his post match comments on the Arsenal website the boss admitted that our performance suffered because of the pressure to win.
Wenger said, “We had a strong start and we were 2-0 in front with a good convincing performance. After that we were weak in some periods and we suffered a bit more. It was important for us to not concede a goal. In the end the second half was about keeping the result than continuing our flow in the game. It was an important three points for us.
“[Winning was important] for two reasons, we hadn’t won in a while, we had gone four games without a win and when you play at the top it is a long period so your confidence drops a bit. Leicester were running away and us playing them next week makes the game very interesting.”
Do you agree that today was all about the points and the performance was secondary?
Well if we had adequate back up we wouldn’t have to worry about getting points because we could’ve been 5 points ahead of Leicester in addition to having a higher GD.
those weeks when coq was out and other players just ran thru our defensive midfield area. does le prof not see that? senile coot.
Next Fixtures: Leicester (H), Hull (FA Cup), Barca (Champions league, 1st leg), Manu (A)…
March: Swansea (H), Tottenham (A), West Brom (H), Barca (Champions league, 2nd leg), Everton (A).
Some crucial games there….We have to start well @ home against Leicester. Hoping we smile this weekend.. Interesting to see where we’ll be in April…
It’s not over yet but we have to believe and play better in our remaining fixtures and get maximum points where necessary.
Arsenal all the Way!
Leicester is a must win. 5 point gap and Leicester won’t be having difficult games until the very end.
Hull City we will beat with easy I reckon. Barcelona? Well as long as we don’t get butt-f****d then I’m happy. CL is not for us, not with this team.
Title or no title i.e. Ucl
Bt i get a feeling dat barca will be knocked out by arsenal
and then we’ll lose the PL bc we’ll lose to swansea.
arsenal have more ability than they show every weekend. they have a higher gear that the players go into when necessary. wenger not able to convince them that 3 pts versus b*fk teams is same as versus manc.
It ain’t hard to tell, I excel then prevail
The mic is contacted, I attract clientele
My mic check is life or death, breathing a sniper’s breath
I exhale the yellow smoke of buddha through righteous steps
Deep like the Shining, sparkle like a diamond
Sneak a Uzi on the island in my army jacket lining
Hit the Earth like a comet – invasion!
Nas is like the Afrocentric Asian, half-man, half-amazing
WTF muff…you must be high sniffing Girouds ARSEnal!
That donkey has only scored twice in 10 games and his daddy wenger still expecting us to win the race with his beloved son upfront!
seeing costa and mahrez skip around defenders and score: thats what we dont have in our center with le lampadaire giroud.
Would you give props for putting the ball on a plate for Ozil this week and last?
Kante of Leicester is not earning much but we will see how he is going to run his socks off against us. His work rate is more than those joke of defensive midfield of ours. If they win ,, i will be happy .if we also win, i will be happy.
if leicester wins, i wont be happy at all.
i’ll be even happier if i see our players shutting down shooters, if coq replaces flam, if we don’t overpass, if walcott tries, if ramsey does b2b properly, if giroud doesnt shoot straight at GK.
Thank you Petr Cech for winning us the points
Truth be ToLd………. A half decent side could have buried all those cherry chances(all due respect to bournemouth)….then the 3 vital points could have been questionable
with flame and rambo bossing our midfield….. U can count on it being extra sh*****
and giroud is back…..he’s back to his donkey ways of Life
something is definitely wrong with this team(and yea, i knw exactly what that is)……they just don’t cut it like champions-to-be
besides the odd suicidal tackle, if u watch closely, flam is very active, but gets turned inside-out frequently. i miss the pre-injury coq tackles where he just stopped their midfield attack cold.
gab is less effective now than when he joined arsenal: probably wenger’s nervousness has got to him too. still, prefer him to mert. we have midweek games coming so everyone should get their chance if AW rotates properly and doesnt overplay his favourites.
i swear, we are going to lose against leicester if wenger start flamini and as i am seeing this situation i think wenger is planning to start him against barcelona
wenger’s lost it. he also has oppositional defiant disorder [he’s also cheap & delusional]
With the way i saw Wenger shifted Ramsey to the right,i think we are going to play with two DM(flam+coq) with ramsey in right flank.
Am convinced wenger will not play into their counter attacking game which did cost City.
I’d love to see what Coquelin and Elneny could do in the middle with Ramsey on the right. Equally interested to see if Ramsey is more effective paired with Coquelin. Just please no more Flamini and Ramsey. I’m tired of seeing out box2box ahead of our central striker but behind our DM!
Ramsey on the right … Some people never learn … recall plenty of idiots saying that Willian not as good as Campbell Ramsey or the whippet in that position … Can’t make this level of stupidity up .. If we had him I’d be a bit more hopeful right now
be great to have a decent RW. theo could be given a run as CF in FA cup.
if he scores, he can keep the role. otherwise, bench.
Wanna bet?
I don’t think we should start our game defending against Lcfc.
We should hit them hard from the start and wish them welcome to Emirates with couple of fast goals.
Let’s show them that we are Champion material!!
COYG
LCFC players are v.hard working. u see 11 of them defending when we’re attacking and then when we’re defending, u’ll see 6 of them in our final third. we’ll need our players to be in their third but also get back to our third.
if we play flam i’m sure he’ll get a red or concede. its going to happen one of these times. hope wenger starts coq. b2b is a toss between ramsey and elneny. scorers get playing time so ox keeps the RW.
they said they were going to the vitality stadium to get d vital points
but thank your stars……and thank petr cech
ur A***** were saved today!
Prepare to meet the foxes:..
Cech = MOTM for me
But respect to Ozil and Ox for the goals
Giroud and Ramsey for the assists
and the defense
You cannot underestimate any team in this league, we have seen weaker team beat ‘stronger’ teams on a continual basis. A win is a f****** win, let’s push forward and knock Leicester off the top.
Can Admin explain why certain posts are deleted, no swearing or personal comments but they get deleted, if you don’t want fans on here have the balls to say
I think lestster will run away with the EPL. They have a very good manager. They are due a lost but that won’t Change a thing they will piss it. Look at there run in its easy for them and TBH they have a game a week. If they do win I will clap tbem because it says you don’t need to spend millions to win. Other side to it I think they will go down next season because they will lose some of ther good players because other teams will buy and they can’t stop that. It happen years ago with Blackburn Rovers. We have no chance as long as AW is here because the big names won’t come in and I think from any player wanting to play for me AW they now don’t
i dont want leicester to win. even tho we dont deserve it, i want us to win [and wenger then to announce his resignation]. arsenalkid, ur right. players prob dont want to come to afc bc they see wenger wont do all he can to win PL (or they think he thinks he can PL by just getting by; which is also delusional)
Can’t believe the OX scored, WOW.
His first away goal for us.. in 5 seasons. That’s a shocking stat to be honest..
good for him. he’s hit the bar a few times this season. at least his attitude is better than walcott’s.
he should set himself a personal goal: to not lose the ball in midfield , for an entire game.
im happy for him. hope he scores a lot more.
HUGE win from the gooners. 3points was required whatever the score and was achieved, now let this game go and onto the training ground tomorrow morning for a top of the table fight with the leaders Leicester in a weeks time! Could be 2points behind with 12games to go (36pts) for no1 spot on the table, a win at home v the foxes and we well could go on a run to lift the title! Could actually lift the title vs City on the 2nd last day of the season, now that would be pretty sweet.
Not givin us a sniff vs Barca if we set out to defend instead of having a good go at them with nothing to lose, nobody thinkn we have a chance so pressure is off in UCL no matter what happens tbh.
FA Cup vs Hull we should be okay there also. Concentrate on the league the rest will fall into place
Pretty optimistic to say at least my friend , but hey I like it THAT’S THE SPIRIT!
COYG!!
pragmatically, it’d be best for our PL/FA cup chances if we get kicked out of CL. sad to say, but that’s reality until grandpa wenger buys some players that can do it week in , week out.
I hope that Sanchez inner true self will wake up soon and give us a push for the crown.
What i noticed in our game play is that we lack a player who knows how to go for a wallk with the ball. You know it must be not messi or something, but a player like hleb would be fantastic.
Our game is often to slow and the never ending back passess drive me nuts at times.
We will beat L.City that i am sure, but i am afraid of the smaller teams.
Let’s get real…
We have a chance if our manager can motivate his team team team he bought, and selected.
We do have a chance stil,l even though we have wasted games and opportunities.
I have no faith in Wenger, but let’s hope the players he puts out make a fist if it and are made of the right stuff..
I think that Flamini has moved in with Wenger ?
Now that would explain why he is starting regularly ?
Dont forget Giroud too!
Hahahaha yes and Gabriel is on his way LOL
Wengers got the full house.
flam has sold shares in his new energy company to wenger.
giroud & wenger? admin will block me if i say what i think.
Well Bob, at the end it looks like it was the case.
Was the right thing to do? No!
Let’s just put a side selection of the players I don’t like (Gab,Ox,Flam), we should use today’s game and advantage we gained – to practice defending counter attacks, cause we are going to need that against Lcfc on sunday.
That means that we should attack and go for more goals today to increase our GD which will be needed at the end of the season….also maybe Alexis would score,Girou too…it would help with their self confidence.
every player is going to need to run himself into ground and be active for 90min . lcfc players are v.active. vardy can run by defenders: our CF and RW cant do that (only ozil,sanchez can).
saw lcfc vs manc: they all defend and they all get up the field very quick too . i’ve noticed that when we’re attacking, ramsey nowadays doesnt participate. he’s been caught out w/o getting back and wenger’s told him to just stay back. but w coq back there, i think ramsey should be a tad more adventurous. oh also: keep shooting! no over-passing!
And another thing about selection and changes…I mean…As I remember we bought one player in january,right?So where the heck is he?Which club does that anyway (buy a player and do not play him….c’mon Wenger you do not need to hide him from the reporters anymore,it is official L nany has joined the club already)
..I mean L nany know how is to play in BPL same as me.
Then, I don’t like this captain situation in our team…
I mean, (not that I would love to see Arteta playing…and ok there’s new option preparing for Merte) but I think we need a new captain and fast, cause captain shoud be leading team, captain should be on the pitch and playing!@
elneny’s wife gave birth shortly before the game.
wenger should put cech as captain.
I used to think that Wenger has been playing cautious football all this while but I was wrong. The man is afraid. How can you be stubborn and still be afraid at the same….only one manager can do that…wenger! You had your players score two early goals and you decided to lock shop after that? The man is a coward. Can somebody remind me why we have the same points with spurs and still 3rd?
he’s learned from prev seasons where we were 2:0 up and lost 2:3. i prefer it the way it is now.
our players too lazy to do both attack and defend so we’re not going to get 3:0’s . once we are 2 up, if we keep attacking, our players wont get back to defend and we’ll draw or lose. so until wenger is able to make them try hard for 90min, this is how its going to be. [also, until we get a clinical CF that can run around players, we can have all the buildups we want, but few will result in goals]
Unless Wenger unleashes the players to start fighting for every ball, it is this fearful approach to games that will make us not win the league. Top 4 is our trophy as always. I could not believe bournemouth could boss us in midfield winning 70% of the 50-50 duels. Its a shame really for a side who wants to win the league and I hope we don’t play this way against Leicester. But guys, if Flamini plays, don’t raise your hopes too much.