There is no way that Arsene Wenger and the Arsenal players should be taking anything for granted when the Gunners head to Wembley on May 30th for the FA cup final. Last season’s near things against Wigan in the semis and Hull City in the final, as well as the weekend’s lucky escape against Reading will have taught them that.
Having said that, if you asked anyone concerned with Arsenal whether they would have preferred to face Liverpool or Aston Villa in the final, the result would be a landslide. So we all owe a big thanks to the Birmingham club and a special mention should go to the linesman who gave Mario Baloteli offside in the final minutes of their semi-final, when the Italian was clearly on before slotting past Given.
Anything can happen in a cup final as we know and Villa are no mugs, but even if they have their injured players back and have the morale boost of avoiding relegation, Arsenal will be huge favourites to retain the trophy and become the most successful club ever in the competition.
You can imagine that the Villa players will find it hard to forget the fact that we have done the double over them this season, putting three past them at Villa Park and five at the Emirates, while they have failed to score against us once.
An added bonus for Arsenal will hopefully be the negative knock-on effect this loss will have on Liverpool in their remaining Premier League games as they attempt to get back into the top four. It was certainly a good weekend for the Gunners.
ive watched them last few games
with agbonlahor effectively partnering an in form benteke, grealish an delph pullin the strings…
this will be tougher than a hull missing there strikers last year
question is when the pressure is really on, will we show what were made of?
its our time! COYG
And we are a team missing Alexis last year
@ muff
I was thinking the same thing. I am actually worried about facing villa. With there pace and power up front plus delphs driving runs they can hurt us
Benteke is firing again, massive threat as the guy is class. Will def be the hardest Wembley outing of the last 2 years for us so performance needed.
Nice to see the Liverpool arrogance clipped. Maybe people will realise it’s not all about money with Sterling, why stay at that mess? Would like to see us buy him if only to assert our dominance over them. Still not forgiven the “what are they smoking” bs.
I’m starting to wonder (or maybe realize) that it’s not about the money with sterling. He sees even after investing £100m (?) how average the players are that make up his team. Are the going to invest another £100m? Probably not so sterling doesn’t see how he is going to progress as a player not playing in the CL and not playing with quality players. Look how much the ox has raised his game with Sanchez around
I’m sure he has an eye on making top dollar, but he has every right to not fancy staying there out of ambition. They sold Suarez (Lambert and Balo) and Agger (Lovren), Sturridge is a spectator, and Gerrard’s off end of year.
Only genuinely good player they have is Coutinho but vs Arsenal I bet Sterling just had a look about and thought Ozil/Alexis/Giroud/Rambo/Cazorla, different gravy altogether. I genuinely think he’d be terrific in our team, but we rarely get linked with a player and he ends up at the club. Just worth noting I don’t think you can put it down to money with Sterling in his situation, Liverpool are pony.
we already have several players at sterling level:in summer we need to do only 2 buys (too many upsets chemistry) and they should be at a level higher than what we have now at that position.
He’d be our first choice RW at present so I don’t agree at all with the idea we have several at his level. There’s also no magic number of buys we “need” to make, we simply need to evolve as a team and try and be better whatever transfer activity that requires.
I think we should get a DM and a false forward that can go straight into the first 11. Ox is good but should not be first choice RW, and isn’t even a winger longer term anyway.
Looks like I am in a minority here but I prefer Villa to Liverpool hands down, all day every day. If we were having this discussion 3 or 4 weeks ago the opinion would be completely different. Bottom line is we have a better record against Villa, Wenger has only lost 5 of his 40 matches against them and OK they are on a run but the 0-3 and 0-5 maulings this year must be on their minds.
But the biggest reason is this; I think the match build-up, coverage and aftermath would have been unbearable for us Gooners with all the birthday boy, farewell, legend media sh**te surrounding Gerrard. And when I say unbearable I mean it – it would be unwatchable. Anyway the non-tribal altruistic side of me doesn’t begrudge a decent, historic team like Villa having a day in the sun.
We are a top club and shouldn’t be worried about whos in the final against us..Even it would have been Liverpool we must have the confidence to beat them…We are ARSENAL..we are not Swansea or Everton..No hard feelings or disrespect intented..
with that mentality we lost trophies to birmingham, bradford , an almost twice in last years fa cup. no team has a divine right…especially in this competition.
jus ask chelsea an man city
being top club is irrelevant its on the day, thats it. who wants it more?
@muffdiver
RealTalk MuffD…
well said!
Boost? What the fsck are you talking about. Liverpool was easier to beat than Villa.
I’m glad I’m not alone in thinking this, haha! Liverpool really aren’t that good. Villa love to play on counters and we hate to defend counters. Usually we beat Villa in the league though, but anything can happen in finals.
@RSH
“Le Coq” Lives to defend on the counter…
Ever since Le Coq stepped up I’ve never been afraid of which team we’d face. The only thing I’m afraid of is the team’s mentality when they know they can win, i.e : Monaco game
Szczesny must be sold he’s proven time and again that he’ll never be world class like Courtois or De Gea,his distribution is terrible and his arrogance is his downfall which is why he’s so error prone
not sure! both keepers had made a costly mistake, but if you watch, both have the ball go through the defenders legs.
the one with schez, it goes through gibbs legs and even looks like a slight deflection. seeing the ball from just a couple of yards out really messes up your bearings.. just to put their mistakes into context.
for federici: it went through two players before he saw it again…
Yea but one keeper plays for Championship side Reading while the other plays for Arsenal…..I’m thinking they shouldn’t be comparable.
And if Monreal was playing the Reading player would not have had the time to shoot,Gibbs was slow to defend and slow in stoping crosses I don’t know how Gibbs has dropped in standard,we need a left back that will challenge for his place on merit. CB
Pleased that the Scousers got beaten, was getting tired of hearing Rodgers droning on about how important FA Cup was to them + all the stuff about how it was destined to be Stevie G’s going away present!!
To be honest, Villa are in better form than Liverpool with Benteke, Vlaar and Delph back and playing well. But we will not underestimate them, and just need to take our A game to Wembley.
For me AW should play Ospina in final, with Monreal at LB, and Gabriel at CB, Olivier as ST, and Welbeck in place of Rambo.
COYG
villa has been in tremendous form since sherwood takes charge. We shouldn’t take anything for granted it’s a cup final anything can happen.
Thumbs up for ospina bellerin monreal giroud instead of sczczcny debuchy/chambers gibbs and welbeck on May 30th.
I agree with everyone but Debuchy
Debuchy could return to form by then but if not then definitely Bellerin
I totally agree though with Ospina, Giroud and Monreal though so will give thumbs up
I think Liverpool in the final would have been a far more easier game for Arsenal than this rejuvenated Villa team under Tim Sheerwood….Anyway I hope we can bring on our A-game come 30th May
The fact that we have beaten them twice is what scares me most. We beat Birmingham twice in EPL before losing to them last time. I know its a different team now but having gotten 8goals past them this season does not automatically say we will win. We need to play well and hope we are not unlucky.
I also fear the fact that this win will put us on record as the most successful Club in the competition. I hope Arsene and the Guys dont mind the pressure from everywhere.
Yeah right, Reading were so easy eh?
The cup is TOTALLY different to the league!
Hahahaha!! Serves you right Mr Brendan Rodgers for suggesting more than once that Liverpool is superior to Arsenal. Now you may be effectively out of the big four race, definitely out of the FA cup, don’t a slightest chance for any trophy and must now learn to cope with the fear of losing Raheem Sterling. As for my beloved Arsenal, We are in the FA finals and still have a huge chance to be first Runners up of the premier league. Great feeling tonight!!!!!
Walcott must play against Chelsea, if we want to get a good result.
All our past few victories we have had against chelski, Walcott was a major influence.
he looks rusty.
takin a risk in such a big match playin him
why? so we weaken our defense on the right hand side? seriously what nonsense, “must play”. noone must play. i prefer welbz, he tracks back and plays his heart out
The last two FA cup we lifted before the 2014 winning, we had beating Manu on the road and in the finals respectively. Did we beat Manu on the road to 2015 finals? YES. So expect arsenal to 2015 FA cup.
Boost? Utter nonsense. I think I would have preferred pool. Pool aren’t playing great and villa ar on the up under sherwood, they will play with no fear or expectation and we as the hholders abd favourites may feel the pressure. The key thing for me is which cb should partner kos if all options are fit? Gabriel to clunter the pace of abonglahor, weiman, delph etc or per’s height to help combat benteke? Gabi all day for me, remember the first day of last season at the Emirates? 🙁
@Ronny331
We should go with Gabe. He’s stronger, quicker and better in the air than Per. He’s more than a defensive match for Bentke as Per would get run over by the Belgian…
Lets not lie to each other, we shal run over Aston Villar like truck over tarmac.,we beat Villa twice in the league this season ( comfortably ) i dont expect them to beat us all of a sudden in a final. But i agree that Liverpool would have been an easier task than Villa
league and cup aren’t the same deal. otherwise we wouldn’t need to play.
THAT’S WHY WE HAVE WC PLAYERS!!
everyone slagging off Ozil. If he is in this form next season, with off season and a rest, we’re going to be harder than most to stop. really, that’s the difference: that split second moment of genius that opened up the defense. telepathic almost the way him and sanchez clicked, and alexis has the calm to pull the ball back, look up and nutmeg the keeper. great.
second goal özil to sanchez again… a bit of luck, went through 2 defenders legs, bamboozled the keeper. but you miss every chance you don’t shoot, right?
and besides, their goal was also a keeper error and went between gibbs legs. we had more chances. it was deserved.
We have played poorly in our last three big games at Wembley and have not won any in normal time. In all of those games the other team has not had an actual threat on our goal like Aston Villa will.
We could anihalate Villa if we played well. What concerns me is that the last three times at Wembley, we haven’t.
I would have taken LFC over Villa without a second thought. LFC’s whole thing last year was hard pressing at the start to control a game. They have been figured out now and are being done in exactly that way and it is so easy. We could have wiped the floor with them.
Arsenal close in on
the FA Cup.
Chelsea close in on
the Premier League.
I know which title I would prefer.
Yes, you would choose the same as every other Gooner in the known universe. Real thought provoking stuff there.
Every game has it’s own complexion. And that is a statement of fact. So, no one should doubt that fact. It is too early for us to be indulging into speculating on who and who should start for Arsenal in the FA Cup final. As the complexion of the Aston Villa Application Data Game Plan is not yet known. Even Tim Shewood doesn’t know it yet as the game is weeks away from kickoff. I think our happiness of Arsenal making it to Cup final is driving us to become overcealose to start making the Gunners starters for the Cup final. I can understand that. But I have good news for us as the Blues’ Locked Application Game Data Plan against the Gunners at the Emirates Stadium, along with the Unlocking Key to unlock their game data plan are now available for revealing to the boss, the Gunners and us, through this justarsenal.com website. But revealing it will be delayed until later in the week. I beg to offend the Gooners to distance myself from been happy on the referee’s decision to dubiously ruled Balotelli’s goal offside when it is not. That dubious referee’s decision has rendered the game between Villa and Liverpool a mockery status of the FA Cup semi final game at Wembley. Arsenal are not afraid of playing against Liverpool in the final. So, why did the referee assistant flaged Balotelli off side is left for him to explain. I am genuine Gooner since 1971 and I am still one today and for live. But don’t get me wrong Gooners if I say, I want Liverpool to bounce back into contention for a Champions League top 4 finish. A Liverpool bounce back for a 4th place finish could help us at the Bridge, when they go there to engage the Blue, could it not if they are still in contention for that 4th place finish?
@davidnz. Yes I hear you. Shame wenger only stumbled on the benefit of coquelin so late in the season leading to us being more organised and less naive in games. Also shame all our sqaud injuries only improved late on. I’m really excited for next season providing wenger isnow convinced about the significance of a quality dm player or two, a few top quality signings are made in the summer and our medical teamccontinue to manage player strength and susceptibility to injuries. For this season I’d gladly take 2nd and two cups.
Every game has it’s own complexion. And that is a statement of fact. So, no one should doubt that fact. It is too early for us to be indulging into speculating on who and who should start for Arsenal in the FA Cup final. As the complexion of the Aston Villa Application Data Game Plan is not yet known. Even Tim Shewood doesn’t know it yet as the game is weeks away from kickoff. I think our happiness of Arsenal making it to Cup final is driving us to become overcealose to start making the Gunners starters for the Cup final. I can understand that. But I have good news for us as the Blues’ Locked Application Game Data Plan against the Gunners at the Emirates Stadium, along with the Unlocking Key to unlock their game data plan are now available for revealing to the boss, the Gunners and us, through this justarsenal.com website. But revealing it will be delayed until later in the week. I beg to offend the Gooners to distance myself from been happy on the referee’s decision to dubiously ruled Balotelli’s goal offside when it is not. That dubious referee’s decision has rendered the game between Villa and Liverpool a mockery status of the FA Cup semi final game at Wembley. Arsenal are not afraid of playing against Liverpool in the final. So, why did the referee assistant flaged Balotelli off side is left for him to explain. I am a genuine Gooner since 1971 and I am still one today and for live. But don’t get me wrong Gooners if I say, I want Liverpool to bounce back into contention for a Champions League top 4th finish. A Liverpool bounce back for a 4th place finish could help us at the Bridge, when they go there to engage the Blues, could it not if they are still in contention for that 4th place finish?
OT, what happened to the little boy and his trophies.
How many trophies did he win leaving us? Looks like we will be finishing above them this season too .Good thing he left our club, we are winning trophies now
To be honest,he won the epl trophy, he is earning 250k a week so I don’t think he really cares what’s happening in Arsenal.get over it man, it’s been three years.
was it just me that was nervous everytime reading were attacking it made me realise how confident ospina makes me feel i hope he plays final
ramsey on wing isnt as effective against lesser opposition we needed pace out wide (as when theo came on he caused problems)
giroud has developed into a world class forward on his day the team was lifted when was on
alexis is a life saver
win vs chelsea break the wenger-mourinho hoodoo, 2nd in prem and fa cup will be a fantastic season
COYG
Looks like Sherwood has already started regurgitating his edition of “Football Management for Dummies” with “all the pressure is on Arsenal” chat. I get the impression he is just a quick temporary fix cheerleader sort of manager – gets an initial reaction but clueless over time. He did well at Spuds for a few months then got found out.