There is a debate going on as to whether Arsenal were lucky to beat Reading and reach the FA Cup Final or not, and you could maybe have said the same thing after last year’s semifinal win over Wigan, but the fact is we DID win the game and we ARE going to be in the Final.
Even Aaron Ramsey, who was our Cup Final hero last season, seems to be relieved that we pulled through. He said to the FA: “We knew it was going to be a tough game, they showed great character to come back into it and we were on the ropes at times,”
“Obviously we had a bit of luck in the last goal but we’re delighted to be going through to another Wembley final.
“Reading made us work for it but we got through in the end. It doesn’t matter how, we’re in another final.”
Arsene Wenger was also simply very happy to have booked our place in the Final. He said on the Official Arsenal website: “It’s fantastic, – We have reached another final!
“We now want to put every effort in to win it, but we’re happy to be there and it’s another opportunity to share that with our fans and we want to keep the trophy and do everything we can do to it.
“It was a test of nerves because it was tense, it was difficult. We suffered a lot on the commitment front from the commitment of Reading and we needed a piece of luck.
“Overall we had a lot of possession but they were very organised and we struggled to find our goals.
“We didn’t panic when we went back to 1-1. We were maybe lucky when Pogrebnyak went through at 1-1, but Koscielny had an outstanding game and saved us from that opportunity.”
We all kno that we would much prefer to see Arsenal playing freeflowing beautiful football, but sometimes (or ALL the time!) it is the end result that matters, so if we have to suffer the occasional bad game – but still win – then C’est La Vie!
I think in a few years when Giroud gets older and past it, Benteke would be the ideal replacement.
Benteke? To replace G-rude? No thank you, we can get a fantastic replacement than Benteke a better Striker!
Arsenal vs Aston Villa in the FA Cup final! Not going to be easy! Come on Arsenal!!
Happy Birthday Slippy G!!
We just need a repeat of our match against villa.
I would prefer Liverpool in the final rather then Astonvilla.
We hit the post 3 times,now that’s what we call unlucky
lucky? lucky to me is winning on an OG, or a nasty deflection, or on a bad pk call…. but when your striker clearly aims for a shot between the legs of a goalie, thats not luck if it squeaks thru, especially when you had 70% pocession, merts shot, gabriels shot both were unlucky not to score!
And had it been Reading scoring the kind of goals we did, hitting the bar 3 times, and our GK shedding those tears, would anybody be saying Reading were lucky? No ! Truth is mistakes were made by both keepers, Arsenal had more chances without playing as well as they should, with Reading seldom in our half, Shezesny hardly troubled and not required to pull off heroic saves like his opposite number, none of which describes this win as lucky. The better team won, the only blip the game going into extra-time.
Luck played no part as we are led to beleive.
villa!!!!!!!!!!
this is a public service announcement…
all those who can troll micheal owens twitter…
Is m owen with the bbc aswell, listening to Murphy who is as boring as Shearer also little dumber if such a thing was excruciating. When Yakubu came on for Pog Murphy says now hear is a guy who can score his goal stats are absolutely phenominal, guy beside him paused long pause then said Yakubu has one reading goal to his name… and then says he might double it, Murphy says yeah he might well do. If it was me i would of had the players stats with me and not be think of ten years ago or more when i played against him at eve.
Youd think bbc learned their lessons with Hanson and Lineker, atleast they got Keown but these days surely there is plenty big name ex players who have charisma and wit… footballers generally are supposed to excel at banter.
Yeah villa, we want you on may 30
Come On Villa!!!
Can’t see Liverpool winning this unless they drag it to extra time.
I just don’t want to get Liverpool in the final, it will be Stevie G’s birthdays and last ever game for Liverpool it would just be written in the stars for him.
Gerrard is not that much a lucky Man anymore. If we play Liverpool and Gerrard plays, I would not be surprised if he scores an own goal or make a nasty back pass to win it for Arsenal.
Villa
The reason I don’t want liverpool is that it’s a setup for a Gerrard final celebration hurrah.
Also if Wenger decides not to play players like Ospina, Giroud, Walcott, Bellerin, Monreal like yesterday we could be in big trouble against Liverpool who has a lot of quality. Actually even against Villa we would have a lot of trouble with a weaker team like we did with Reading, United and Brighton.
We need to play our best possible team. Forget loyalty and being kind. We need to be ruthless even with our own players.
Weaker team against United? Did you watch the game???
Lets make it back to back fa cup wins! Coyg!
Yeah, and we would be FA cup Kings. We can only dominate what is put in front us.. which is all clubs.
arsenal vs villa!!! coyg!!!
It’s Villa and I see a repeat. Not underestimating that club but we will see a lot of the ball and we will take advantage.
very impressed with grealish, benteke an delph.
when he took delph an grealish off they were poor.
its gonna b tough-but we can do it.
what a turnaround from villa,
Haha Michael Owen you little weasel.
Wonder if the press will lay into Liverpool or call Villa lucky?
Its Villa v ArsenalI hope we don’t get complacent like we did against Reading yesterday.
Its arsenal vs aston villa may 30th! Come on gunners lets take care of business and win this!
Now thatls what we call LUCK, Balotteli goal flagged for offside, and that will get the media defending Liverpool.
Villa it is, COYG! A bit of bad luck for Liverpool on the offside call, but who cares. Hopefully we are ready to go from the first minute this time and dont have to claw our way back like last season. Anyways, lets focus on prem now, finish well there and then get some silverware 🙂
And Arsenal are FA Cup Champions for the second year running..lets not kid ourselves..we will run over Villa the way a tunker does over debris..coygs
You have to make your own luck. We did make the best out of it so we deserved to win. But then we (arsenal fans) should also be consistent with our opinions because when other teams grind the results and win we term them lucky.Let us not be hypocrite
guys i feels amazing that we on our way to another fa cup final…
but we should give credits to reading for giving thier ALL against us, it must have been heart break for them as it was a good chance slipping away for them to get to fa cup fianl for the first time…..
i really feels bad for federichi, lad done every thing right until that goal..
now all we need is beat villa at final, it would be dissapointing breaking reading fan n players heart just to lose to villa in the final…..
I’m very happy for AL Us GOONERS
But there is something I need to stress.
The FA Cup is not ours yet and there is no guarantee especially after watching Readings attempts to knock us out
There are parallels between this final and the League Cup final.
1. Playing a team from Birmingham
2. Both teams facing relegation. Birmingham City was relegated same year.
My point is our manager and players MUST take this more seriously then the semi-final. Wenger should also remind the team what happened a few years ago.
If Reading can nearly beat us Villa can beat us.
All I ask is two things
1. Wenger puts out our BEST possible team.
2. Players MUST perform better. The only players who played well were Ozil, Alexis, Coquelin and Koscielny.
If we show Villa respect, that is to say respect that they have some quality players and respect that they will work hard and desperately want to win. Respect the fact that they could win if all we do is just turn up and not take then seriously, then we can beat them. I think that’s the key.
Reading should be a wake up call to both Wenger and players.
I say play Ospina, Giroud and Monreal at the very least. Those changes will help us
Also players need to perform better.
Was Arsenal lucky to win the game? To this one can say that all games are won by luck. Without it you cannot win anything. On the other hand luck complements hard work and talent. It doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Anyone who watched yesterday’s game between Arsenal and Reading cannot say that Arsenal did not deserve to win the game. In fact it is surprising that Arsenal did not score more goals. However for the final I hope Arsene Wenger will select a team based on performance rather than sympathy for some players. I don’t think keeping with Szcezsney in goal for the final will be a good idea. Similarly leaving Giroud on the bench may not yield the best results. I would advise the manager to prioritise winning the FA cup over pleasing some individual players especially those who have had a blip in form. The only way to please them should be to include them in the squad so that they can get medals but not to risk our chances of winning the trophy by including those players who haven’t been on good form. Once one gets a winners’ medal it is a good enough consolation even if one doesn’t actually play that day. Don’t we all remember Germany bringing Per Mertesacker for only the last five minutes in the world cup final? Did that stop him getting the medal? Anyone who has participated in the competition since January deserves recognition but for the final we need to select our strongest team which we are sure will secure us the trophy. Hence appeasement of individual players should be completely discarded. The Aston Villa team which beat Liverpool today is a very formidable one and if Wenger selects a sloppy team they will beat us. We should learn our lesson from Liverpool. Forewarned is forearmed!