It should be business as usual for Arsenal in their Champions League playoff round
Arsenal, one of the this season’s Premier League title contenders, kick start their Champions League campaign, ahead of their rivals, against Besiktas in the playoff round starting tonight. The first leg of this two-legged tie is at the Ataturk Olympic Stadium in Turkey.
The buzz and concern surrounding this game, from Arsenal’s perspective, is rather funny. Demba Ba sounds confident of what his new side can achieve against the Premier League heavyweights come tonight. Arsene Wenger was quoted saying ‘no matter what it costs’, which was a tad strange, when asked of Arsenal’s clash against the Turkish outfit. I mean no disrespect to Besiktas and what they might offer, but Arsenal should win this easy over two legs.
Yes, the sequence of away and home legs in this playoff tie can be a bit tricky, more so if you don’t score in the first leg of the tie, which, in Arsenal’s case, would be away. And this is where Arsenal’s defence needs to hold out and make sure that they don’t concede cheap goals. If they can keep their rearguard closed and impenetrable, it would be half the job done for the Gunners, as they should have ‘too much’ for their Turkish opponents, in an attacking sense.
The only real concern for Wenger, if at all any, should be the team he wants to put out for tonight’s game. He will be well aware of the Everton clash in the Premier League this weekend, and ideally, you wouldn’t want your best players playing 3 games within a week. It would be suicidal to not start with your best team, however, considering the consequence you are up against. But that is why it is so important for Arsenal, in a defensive sense, to hold out and keep a clean sheet. It will, in anyway, do Arsenal a world of good. They can, then, start with their first choice XI, try to score in the first period and then rest some of the key personnel for this weekend.
If I was Wenger, I’d place immense significance on the defence playing up to scratch and keeping a clean sheet. Other than that, over two legs, Arsenal shouldn’t have a problem to score more goals than their Turkish opponents and seal their place in this year’s UEFA Champions League group stages.
Singing I smell upset in the air ~
Enough about your personal life. How do you think arsenal are going to do?
arsene wenger made a mistake letting CESC go to Chelsea , we could have sold diaby and make room for CESC.
I agree. Last night Fabregas was involved in ALL 3 goals. Whats great about Fabregas is that he can create opportunities for others and also score himself.
Oh well, lets hope Ozil has a better season.
Making room in the squad wasn’t the issue. Guaranteed first team football was the main practical consideration – who should we have dropped/sold to make way for him when he came crawling back from Barca – Ramsey or Ozil?
And the sad thing is you would just love it wouldn’t you?
More importantly we must score and get an away goal,a 0-0 result is never a good result for the away team!
besiktas say they will give us nitemare oh o im nervous 🙁 🙁 🙁
Honestly the german guys should be summoned back to london to start training ahead of the everton game, good luck arsenal against besiktas
they already started last week…….
Sorry to be so negative on this lovely morning but I don’t see Arsene Wenger ‘s recruitment drive being up to scratch. To me, apart from Sanchez he’s still shopping at Tesco ‘s and not Harrows,3rd or4th rotten all over our campaign.
Wenger shopping at Tesco?
Not on £8 mill p/y.
Don’t think you will see
a 42 p can of beans in his shopping cart 🙂
Did you say he should shop at Harrows?
I thought they played Rugby at Harrow?
Sanchez is a reinforcement while the others are replacements,once we confirm champions league qualification Wenger will make more reinforcements like he said from the 15th to 30th August it will be a busy time in the window!
Wenger confirms Gibbs & Sanogo both have hamstring injuries & haven’t travelled to Turkey. Koscielny is fit
vargas set 2 join qpr on loan
This is good. Kos playing with Chambers should be ok tonight. Monreal on left and Debuchy on right. The rest does not really matters because from midfield up we are better than them. Giroud himself is better than Ba.
Gibbs is always injured I’m worried about him,we can’t put our faith in a player who spends more time on the injury table!
Gibbs has been injured on average 2 times a season since playing in the first team regularly for us from 2009, all of which (bar 2 injuries in 2011/2012 which made him miss 17 & 11 games respectively) have been very minor where he has missed at most a handful of games. I think we can handle Monreal getting 5-10 games per season, chill out.
Wenger will announce
3 new signings tomorrow.
CB, CAM and LW.
Hint they are all German 🙂
per mertasacker / ozil & podolski yup
Rumours that Kostas Manolas currently ownly earns €400k a year (£6k a week). while le coq earns around 20k/w myachi 10k/w contributions from them ZERO/NIL amazing
U4got Diaby 60 k p/w. 🙂
diaby if fit would have been an asset not to forget johan djorou 40k/w , bendntner 50k/w denislon 40k/w
Chelsea tried getting scared last nite, wenger do something, or we could end 4th again, real talk!!!
C’mon. I have seen the game. Burnley should have stayed in Championship. Is not like they played like Newcastle against City.
I don’t quite get what you are on about here. Yes, Chelsea won against Burnley (promoted from championship) so, how does that scare you? Only one game played and a “fan” is already talking of how we will end up fourth. Some of us have supported this team through thick and thin at more challenging times in the past…Any way I am among the few who thick that Chelsea will actually not win the league
So for some reason everyone is swinging on fabregas’s c0*k just because he helped chelsea in their 3 goals…wooooo so scary… ffs stop being like balles tw*ts please… i am an arsenal fan and i do think ozil is better than fabregas and i am not delusional in thinking that. anyone who doesnt think that can go jump on chelsea and mous pr*ck… learn how to have faith… some of you lot are exactly like a bush…when the wind blows from one side you bend over the other.. stop bending over and stand straight felloow gooners!
@Hardave_90.
You spend too much time
thinking about other mens
dicks bruv.
It may be your predeliction and
may reflect your bent proclivity
but leave the rest of us out of it.
If we had sold/released
Ryo Coquelin Diaby
who are useless or injured
we could have got
3 players in on loan.
A LW a CDM and a CB.
he will sell them, dont worry….he already did it with rvp as requested by fans
Diaby may save you few games this season. Same for Coquelin. I would have added Miquel in the squad as well. Ryo can pack his bags as far as I am concerned.
Ryo is an enigma, rarely plays and mostly injured,
Coquelin is not that bad although his poor loan stint last season really worried me. He can cover the right back position now that Jenks is out and Calum looks cut for other positions
I will blame Diaby’s woes squarely on that thug Dan smith. May be he should get a pay per play deal 60 K per week is just too much either way.
The only sources I trust are arsenal.com, skysports.com and leo
Especially leo who’s missed absolutely on each transfer he talked about. Got to love the man. Never give up. Eventually he will be right.
There’s no reason why our team should not win in Turkey tonight. The Gunners should have too much ammunition for Besiktas. Obviously they should not be casual about it and consider it a walk in the park, but a shrewd team selection that will not compromise the team too much ahead of the Everton game, is entirely possible. The DM position remains a concern, and it’s time that Wenger agrees terms with either Bender, Khedira or Carvalho. Once that’s done, the squad is just about complete.
I’ll have to presume that Chamberlain will get more playing time tonight. If so, expect him to have a decisive impact.
It’s more important we score tonight rather than a clean sheet!
I remember the last time I mentioned we needed some soughting out on the left hand side I got a good number of thumbs down. Gibbs is okay in that position but he is too injury prone (really sad case for the lad) and Monereal has a mistake in him waiting to happen each game. Going forward Carzola is not the best playing at LW (CAM is his best position) and Poldi is either nursing an injury or not just in the game. Wenger needs to find a solution to this asap, either play Campbell / Ox / or Sanchez there consistently or better still buy a natural left winger (I was quiet hurt we were not in for Grienzman). As for LB if need be lets buy a proper LB, we still have room to ship out some players and replace them with quality (Ryo / Coq / Poldi / and Monereal if need be). We are a few players from nailing down a good challenge at all fronts. And what’s the hold up on replacing Verm and buying a DM we desperately need.
Campbell should be in that starting 11
Sanogo is injured so he might well be.
this is a clean 3-0 or 3-1 to the arsenal..be optimistic guys in this early days
I believe its the cl qualification that is holding up transfers, players waiting to see if we qualify before coming to us. Arsenal team you’ve got to deliver tonight, no peessure then!
Yeah Yeah..Here I am, the CESC fan boy 🙂 lol. I think you all know that by now, I am not ashamed to admit it ;-)…
I will say it again, allowing Cesc to move to Chelski will come back to haunt us, I understand that you are all Ozil fan boys which I don’t have a problem with, everyone has their favourite player.
What I keep saying is that Cesc bring more to a team, he tackles, tracks back, defends and is a leader.. Offensively I don’t need to say any more as his goals, assists, midfield mastery stats show…
Signing a player of Cescs calibre would not hurt any team, but according to you guys it would have hurt Arsenal, as the likes of, Wilshere, Zalalem, The Ox, Rosicky, Diaby, Flamini, Arteta etc would not get enough games..
smh..
The practical problem wasn’t game time for our second string players it was that Ramsey and Ozil occupy his best positions. Only Real Madrid would buy a WC £30M player to bench or rotate with 2 other £30-40M players.
one game in to the season and we already have injuries pilling up, talk about must win games, wenger bitching about something beyond his control, unfilled gaps in squad that are now 3 or 4 years old, some of our best players ever in other teams shirts….its all too f****** depressingly familiar…we should be going to some hapless turkish teams ground and talking about how many we can put passed them instead its all about not conceding ….. where’s the fresh start we were hearing about…two weeks to go and its again about what might we do on deadline day…wheres the ambition????
I hope you don’t overreact this much in real life
shit..i thought this was real life!!!!!
The “fresh start” has largely dissipated through Tommy-Tantrums like you cacking their pants and wailing one game in to the season. A hamstring to our LB, no games lost and transfer window still open. You need to calm down because if this is how you are now god help us, and you, when we do lose and the wheels actually come off.
I think we will win tonight. This isn’t just from my heart but I think the players will be up for Champions League football and want to win. Also, I believe we will be too strong for Besiktas.
I know we are playing in their back yard but we can still not only win but win well.
3-1 but hoping for a clean sheet