There is one slight surprise for Arsenal fans in the starting line up of Arsene Wenger today, although the use of our England international left back Kieran Gibbs in a more advanced role on front of the Spaniard Nacho Monreal has been tried before and with a fair amount of success, although it is normally a move made by the manager to shore things up at the end of a game.
Gibbs certainly has an attacking frame of mind as he showed by getting forard and scoring the equaliser against the spuds in the north London derby a couple of weeks back. As expected the boss has not felt able to rest the dynamic Chilean forward Alexis Sanchez despite him playing the full 90 minutes in both of Chile´s international games.
Wenger has decided to rest our Costa Rican forward Joel Campbell though as the youngster also had international games and long haul flight s and was back even later than Alexis. Wenger clearly feels that Koscielny is in the right frame of mind to play as he starts alongside Mertesacker with Bellerin returning to the right back role.
Cech
Bellerin, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Monreal
Coquelin, Cazorla
Sanchez, Ozil, Gibbs
Giroud
Subs: Ospina, Gabriel, Debuchy, Arteta, Flamini, Reine-Adelaide, Campbell.
Watford have just done Arsenal a big favour by equalising against Man United so hopefully they can hold on and we can win to shift all the pressure top Man City. COYG
Not bad. Nice one, Arsene (Gibbs up there)
Nothing to quarrel about the line-up. 3 points and probably > 2 goals.
Now the worse has happend and LE COQ is out!…… How many of us cried for a backup??????? *pained*
No favour’s done matey,
Deeney equalised from the spot and then goes and scores an OG two minutes later!
I was so excited when Deeney equalised.
I guess we can’t rely on favours. We got to win every week, starting with today
L()L ……. One wonders what was going on in bob’s head when he dropped this clanger
Ospina?
2-0 arsenal!!!…alexis and girouh
pls recheck the Last Line of ur sentence in the post………
.
“watford has just done arsenal a big favour by equalizing against manure…so hopefully they can hold on to shift all the pressure top manciteh”
.
Really?
.
A word of advice…..nothing is ever over until it’s over!
i dont mind wengers’ decision. just need a win to keep up with the pace.
COYG!!!
Watford? What a disappointment…let’s do ourselves a favour and get 3 points.
Listen Baby Please
I like this Line up.
I believe we will come out with a win
COYG
Let’s win our game mate, no favours done….
Get ur 3points, and leave d rest!!!
We Got This…COYG!!!!!!
Sanchez will play every game this season. Lets face it a 40% sanchez is better than no sanchez. Strong lineup tho.
Ah Coquelin injured, well it’s good we got quality on the bench to cover him… oh wait.
And there you have it, Krychowiakks price just went up to $50 million in January
If coquelin is out for a while its going to be a struggle for a couple of weeks, I mean not much we can do about injuries considering we bought cover in the summer and we hardly ever have injured players….
joel campbell out? we will lose this game.
Giroud u beauty!!!!! 1-0 arsenal
Özil with his 11th assists this season! Wonderful cross! WOnderful goal!
Nowadays EVERY TIME ozil has the ball on the right side and facing the left having the ball on his left… i really really face the worst each time… for the opponent 😀
not joking the balls from özil in that exact position are just mouth-watering and who said giroud was a bad striker for özil? özil can cross inch-perfect from the right side now.. and which player would you want on the end of a cross other than giroud? he is probably the best striker in the air right now!
Arteta lost his man.
Sorry not meant for your comment.
Wow, what a nice piece of defending. That free kick was 50 yards away and West Brom player was able to finish it with his foot.
Arteta the pensioner has gifted them a goal
Damn it!
1-1
Bellerin the weak link,who would have thought?
Atteta commits a stupid foul and then compounds it with a shocking display of matador D.
38 minutes of predictable rubbish
WTF?????????
2-1
Hahahahahahahaha Arteta you legend
Arteta is cursed i swear, what happened to flamini
for all those wenger junkies who believe we are winning this thing i have one word…rehab!!!!
we lose le coq an all hell breaks loose..
The ‘Arteta’ effect!
whats that?
the opposite of the lynx effect?!
This team is no diff than any other teams we have had that are ‘close’ to winnin the league! Arteta should have been gone and replaced in the summer and now Coq injured. Season over nj
Ths team is a collection of mental midgets, maybe next year Le Prof
Arsene needs to bring in flamini for arteta in the second half
arteta wrecking ball……….. I want mert out of this team
mert and arteta MUST be released-can’t see anyone stupid enough to buy them
Alexis is very selfish,constantly looking at the ball and,as a result,often late with passing
alexis is the only player able to drive at west brom, teams are better set up to defend against our short passing game, we need someone willing to carry the ball and drag defenders across but when sanchez receives it everyone else is so static
Good shout jt exactly.
Well, Gibbs looks exactly what he is – a leftback playing on the left wing. Too bad we don’t have any other left wingers on the team than Alexis.
Arteta, looks exactly what he is – a pensioner who for some reason was given a contract extension (out of pity I suppose, as usual).
Giroud, although scored, already looks like getting frustrated (anyone remember Zagreb match?). At some point he could be subbed off but then again, how many strikers do we have on the bench?
Let’s see.. we are lacking a CDM and a forward.. CDM and FW.. how long have we been waiting for these players again..?
It doesn’t look like we would win this match. We could scrap to a draw at max.
Forget about the goal that Arteta didn’t defend for their first and then scoring heir second, his first 3 touches were played backwards with no penetration. We must find a player that runs at defenders upon every touch. Where is Jack?
Jack is where he always spends 33-70% of the season, playing PlayStation at the medical room with the usual suspects Welbeck, Rosicky and OX.
Unfortunately, you are spot on with that.
WE ALL SAID WE NEEDED A DM , WE NEED COVER FOR LE COQ
sigh,
The midfield is limp without hard Coq!
thats what she said
No one blame arteta its the boss to be blamed for keeping low standard pkayer like him in the team
Arteta & Giroud the speedy gonzales will win it for us!
Arsene Wenger needs to be taught game management why bring on arteta when you Flamini in the subs. I clearly see Wenger losing another title challenge along with losing the battle with ozil and Sanchez on contract negotiations. I have to say the chances you get at Arsenal is big that you can score 10 own goals and still have a chance to fight another day.
hmmmm. our season is about to start…
Hahaha Now you know why I have been moaning all Xxxxing week!! ???
Why the xxxx did The deluded one bring on Fartbetter! ?
Surely Flamini was the better option!
chillax guys, I know arteta goofed and I’ve never been his fan.but I feel this is gonna test our mental strength I’d like to see how we respond.I just hope arteta leaves this Summer.all the same even if we lose we are still in d race and thats what matters.we can’t win all the games can we?…….now c.o.y.g!!!!!!!
If arsenal can fight back and win this match than I will say yes arsenal is better than last season, Wenger is great if not is just usual wenger 4th spot team.
chillax guys, I know arteta goofed and I’ve never been his fan.but I feel this is gonna test our mental strength I’d like to see how we respond.I just hope arteta leaves this Summer.all the same even if we lose we are still in d race and thats what matters.we can’t win all the games can we?…….now c.o.y.g!!!!!!! yea goals from Sanchez and carzola
ARTETA 2 ARSENAL 1
Arteta off injured now!! Jesus christ
His pulled a sicky…. I can’t blame him for that ?
Nice one Wenger ? ? Now he brings on Flamindowski
Arteta is out, thank God, he should be released at the end of the season
Well Wenger why the f. dont you use that f. money to prevent situation like these.
Back in the day…
He used to shovel ? and talk money!
Now he is shoveling money and talking ?
Because hes a bumbling twit that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge the transparent deficiencies of his team.
What good is spending money on Cech, when the team in front of him finished twelve points off the Championship pace last year and is riddled with glass shoes that spend more time in the treatment room than on the pitch.
Ozil
Sanchez
Boss
Nacho
Bellerin
Cech
The rest are bench players @ best and consistently are not fit enough or good enough to bring EPL or Champions League silverware vto the Emirates.
Coquelin???
Good player but give me Krychowiak any day of the week.
We will not win a major competition with Wenger in charge of this club. He has awful decision making!
Sanchez, ozil, cazorla and coquelin are all going to burn out over Xmas and we will be screwed, and on top of that be playing Thursday night football in Euro cup which will burn the rest of the team out.
All we can hope is that arteta and mertesacker get injured for the rest of the season, so wenger might buy in January.
I chance for Campbell to become the unlikely hero!
Come on boy! You can do it! !!!!!
Typical. .. presented with a golden opportunity and he xxxxs it up big time!
?
Lose this and we are 4th. Back to normal i guess
Lol 4th ad usual.
Wenger out, can’t blame poor players, blame person for choosing poor players.
If im offered mega cash to do something im not good at of course I will do it.
when you guys come out of the woodworks, you know there was a slipup
campbell, if you are going to wear bentners boots, then you are gonna shoot like him, miserable
I don’t care what anyone says, Campbell is not anywhere near good enough, despite what a lot of his fanboys on here say.
Font worry the 4th place junkies on this site have about as much understanding of football as they do of the origins of the universe!!
cmon santi!,,
unfreaking believable…………
This team is terrible, chance to get a draw and they bottle it
back where we belong
fourth
pathetic
Ok to$$ers I suppose that’s Wengers fault as well!!
Never understood why the guy who scores the least is the one taking the pk.
Joel campbell our savior
seems every year we have extra long key injuries, messi gets his ACL reconstructed and he is fit to play 8 weeks later… i think theo misses 60% of every season, I dont get it, too many players injured again going into a busy schedule,
Absolute rubbish!! We will not win the league with all these injuries. Ffs what the F@#k is going on at the club on that department!
This is what happens when expectations dont meet reality.
The expectations are that we can go win the league.
The reality is that we are not and have not been good enough.
Not strengthening an obviously (12 points off) weak team is ALL Wenger’s fault.
Fracking Vidal was available, Draxler was available, just these two players would have made a difference in our season. Instead of those two we had Arteta and Campbell today.
You play with mediocre players and expect 1st class results. It aint gonna happen.
What a week back to 4th and more than likly out of champions league! Wenger well done.
As per usual we sure know how to mess up a good run of form.
hmmmm.. our season just got started.. this is arsenal…wake up and stop …telling me wenger can do it.. if you believe that.. I got 1000 pounds up for bet…smh