Mertesacker confident Arsenal are NOT out of title race

To most watching Arsenal fans, the last minute equaliser against Hull was only a slight relief. A point was obviously better than nothing but watching our London neighbours Chelsea move a frightening eleven points clear of us after just eight games has left us in despair.

But our BFG, who some would say was actually guilty in conceding Hull’s second goal, thinks that the belief and “good morale” in this Arsenal side will see them carry on the fight for the title.

“We have to take the responsibility for that, to have dropped points again, but what really makes me confident is the way that we play at the moment, because no matter what happens, we just carry on and have great potential, that just has to come out much more,” said Mertesacker on Sky Sports.

“We started really well and put the pressure on them, did a great job to score that opener and were really confident to keep on going like that, but they came back all of a sudden.

“For me, the decision (to disallow the first goal) was clear, everybody had stopped already because he pulled Mathieu Flamini seriously, but the referee thought it would be his strength which had brought him back into the action.

“Afterwards, we kept on going, even after they had scored the second. With the crowd together, we were able to come back and draw that match.

“We nearly scored a third, which would have been more lovely, but at least we have one point and good morale.”

Okay there is still a long long way to the end of the season, but after five draws in the League already there are very few Gooners believing we could still win the title next June. Yes we have games against “inferior” teams coming up (of which we thought at home to Hull was the first) but to see us go on a massive winning run would be great, but I really can’t see Chelsea or Man City slipping up enough for Arsenal to do anything but get into the usual dogfight for fourth place.

Can you?

Tags Hull Mertesacker

23 Comments

    1. Mert without kossy = Goals in our net or
      Mert – kossy = game lost….kossy does all d job at d back even the work of a DM

  1. Same old same old. Mert has been so poor since he came back from the WORLD CUP…

    He looks even slower, gets turned easily and can’t recover, once he is turned he give up chasing and just walks back while the opposition players run past him and flooding our penalty area.

    Kossy has been doing a 4 man job so far this season, He does Mertesackers job game in game out, he has to cover our so called DM’s, he does his own job, he has to cover our left backs who just keep bombing forward with no sense of danger at the back.

    smh

    1. Bull#h:t
      Your opinion is all based on perception due to kosc agressive nature to attack the offensive move.

      Yes kosceilney will attemp more tackles,blocks,interception per gMe in comparison to per. Whilst maintaining a very good pass accuracy.

      But merts contribution should also be realised. He has a 75% tackle success rate this season that’s 20%more than kosc. He has won 70% arial duels that’s 30% more than kosc. The stats show he is 4x less likely to commit a foul,he makes more clearances, he has won 22% more duels than kosc. He is also better in posession with more forward passes as well

      All these figures are based on their averGes for 90min this season
      #do your homework

      1. Stupid point, of course Kos is more likely to commit a foul, he has to chase after players that Mert has missed.
        Of course Mert’s tackle rate is higher, he doesn’t have the speed to chase an opponent down so takes the easier ones that are coming to him whereas Kos is chasing the players that just ran straight past Mert with no tackle attempted.
        A 6’6″ giant wins more aerier duels than Kos, isn’t that to be expected?

        1. Hight of a player has nothing to do with it chambers,monreal,bellerin have all done better than kosc with heading stats even Hernandez was brilliant in the air

          Most people listen to the media fed scrutinisation of per based on his pace but fail to look at attributes were he excell at.

          Mertasaker 1 vs 1 statistics are better than kosc which also shows opposition are less successful at tacking him on this ids were kosc is more likely to foul a player

          I’m not having a go at kosc just using facts to show u mertesacker is more important than fans like to give him credit for

          1. The reason y kosc commits more is because he thrushes out to meet the attacker whereas the more Xp and slower merts is able to time his tackle more effectively as he sits and read the movement

  2. We are 11 points off. The way Chelsea re playing I doubt they will even drop that many points anytime soon. And its looks like we are only going to drop more points. Lets be honest, title race is only going to involve two teams. Let’s no be delusional, top 4 is our target, but then again, that was probably always the goal.

    1. its worse hearing it from the ones who are making the mistakes also. The only player who has not deserved these bad results is Alexis Sanchez.

  3. WHAT PLANET ARE THESE PEOPLE ON????
    I know players need to be positive but really some arsenal players are as deluded as the manager Wenger.
    NOT OUT OF THE TITLE RACE…….
    1) When you cannot beat mid teams like Hull and Tottenham at home
    2) You have no track record of beating top teams who you should be competing with
    3) You struggle against any decent opposition that decides to play good football and apply themselves tactically
    4) A confused manager with poor tactics, playing players in wrong position, throws a blind eye when a possible solution presents itself (Fabregas) and makes no move or poor moves in the market when he does
    GUYS to be honest we are at risk of losing out on 4th place with a resurgent Man U, fighting Liverpool and decent team like Everton and Southampton.
    PERHAPS THIS WILL BE A BLESSING IN DISGUISE. AS A SUPPORTER I AM DESPERATE FOR CHANGE AND UNSURE I CAN STOMACH THREE YEARS OF WENGERS APPROACH AND RESULTS
    Like I said we currently have a decent squad if we had a manager who knows what he is doing.

  4. Mr Per Snail Mertasucker should Stop talking trash and do the action on the pitch.
    He is good at reading games as Some of us say I used to disagree but now I agree. Infact on and off the pitch he is a game reader.
    He knew he lost his place in the germany squad because he wasn’t injured when he was sat on bench,he read the game that IF I SHOULD CONTINUE PLAYING FOR GERMANY MY PLAYING TIME WILL BE REDUCED OR MAY NOT EVEN BE INVITED AND IT WILL AFFECT MY ARSENAL STARTING PLACE TOO……then he decided to quit the national team, not For him to focus on arsenAl. Don’t be deceived

  5. Wenger, Coquelin, Diaby, Rosick, Mert, Monreal, Pod, Arteta, Flamini and Giroud needs to go……

    We need to bring in quality players to replace them…

    1. Giroud has scored 40 goals in 2 seasons . You don’t even think that’s good enough for the bench over Sanogoals?

    2. Rosicky? Really?

      Agree on wenger, this man has to gtfo out of the club next summer.

      Let’s stop this useless talk, we Have to take actions against Darth Wenger and his f*ing empire, first step is making some noise on the arsenal twitter account, let the old fart know that he’s no longer welcome here.

      Arsenal IS not WENGER, remember that wenger WORKS FOR Arsenal, ARSENAL=FANS, WE ARE THE REAL BOSS ON HERE, Wenger WORKS for US, WE PAY HIS SALARY so there it goes. Le parasite has to go, he was a legend but he decided to destroy his own legacy . Gooners Have to stick together to show wenger the door. Future IS BRIGHT, slowly more and more people are starting to 2+2 and realize that we are FAR BETTER without wenger.

  6. Hear the moron talking trash, “everybody had stopped because it was a clear foul on flamini” ….he is too stupid to follow one of the basic education in football which says PLAY TO THE WHISTLE.
    If I had my way I would come to the dressing room and beat the hell out of you and your fooliSh flaminimum.

    1. one foul and the whole team is destroy?

      gosh its not like the foul is done on the 89min….

      if the team is strong and good enough…..we could have come back and wack them hard…

  7. NOT REALLY what i wanted to hear from you mert, not the ridiculous manager type of speech, a point was not good enough, stopping because you taught the referee would blow for a foul,losing, blowing off their second goal as if you were not one of the major culprits, just not good enough.

    You and flamini should be admitting your errors, and trying to correct them, instead of shifting the blame and down playing the lost of major points.

    Wenger, Mert and Flamini, Please take note Chelsea will drop points but not many, why, they have a fear factor going, whether its due to media and sports fans hype, star studded players, or the BIG MOUTH MANAGER teams fear them so basically are gifted a lot of points by various teams before a ball has been kicked.

    However in the case of arsenal teams feel they can beat us , because of our image. it does not frighten teams, not to say we doo not have the fire power , i feel we do but with a defensive midfield and defense in shambles i fear all teams will have that idea

  8. The truth is we hav a very gud team of technical players, all we need to add r fighters nt passers we need FIGHTERS lik YAYA, MATIC, etc nd nt to forget a new Football Manager nt a Director of Football lik WENGER. Gud nite all.

    1. exactly”! even Cesc looks more aggresive now tan when at Barca and here…

      i remember Aime Jaquet saying to Pires during the wc 1998 at a “back stage” DVD they did for that wc. Pires was still at Marseille. He said “muscle ton jeu, Robert, muscle ton jeu, sinon, tu vas voir…”

      we need to muscle up our game, look at the result from that advice from Jacquet in our legend Bobby

  9. fed up! fed up! for last 9 years.. Now I can’t bare to see Arsenal are at the level of Mid-table Teams like New Castle, Tottenham, Hull,.. blah blah… We are not good enough defensively. Per is one more idiot who says “we are not out of Title race”. He must be joking or had a dream that we finally won the EPL…. We cannot compete until we dont have ample defenders who can cope with free-kicks, tackles… How many times we have seen Per loosing the balls and ending way behind the opposition strikers when chasing… I am sick and I don’t have guts to see Arsenal giving away points to smaller teams. I thin Europa League is ready for us in the next season. Need to see change in management. bring in Martinez/Simeone/Pep…

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