Official teams and preview of Arsenal v West Ham

The big surprise for me in the Arsenal line up selected by Arsene Wenger today is the absence of Theo Walcott. I was half expecting the manager to start with our regular centre forward Olivier Giroud but even so I thought that our England international speed merchant would get one of the other forward roles.

Instead the manager has selected Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey and Cazorla and two of those will play in the wide areas, although which two is still unclear. I personally would hope to see Ramsey in the box to box role with Cazorla out wide, even though the Spaniard has been great in the middle. The fact is that he is better on the flanks than the Welshman and Rambo´s dfriving runs and scoring ability could be crucial in the middle.

The other slight surprise is the preference of Debuchy to Bellerin at right back, with the youngster not even making the bench. I wonder if there is a problem and I really hope not or that if there is it is only a minor one. We still have Chambers as back up though and he is part of a strong looking bench.

Cech
Debuchy, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal
Coquelin, Ramsey
Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, Cazorla
Giroud

Subs: Ospina, Gibbs, Chambers, Gabriel, Arteta, Walcott, Sanchez.

Hopefully we will not need to risk Alexis Sanchez after he only just returned to training and of course we all hope that we carry on the perfect pre-season preparations with a thumping win. COYG

Tags Debuchy Giroud Walcott

240 Comments

    1. Its wrong to criticise Just Petr, that defensive unit is terrible today, i dare someone to mention that metersacker and koscielny havent been found out!

      1. The whole team was horrible, minus chamberlain and sanchez. Sadly, season openings dont surprise me anymore

      2. per is a liability. His presence does not allow kolcieny the license to express himself .
        Kolcieny is easily a 5 goal a season defender. But he always has to babysit meertesacker and clean up after him . Also the fact that we defend too deeply is to prevent meertesacker’ s lack of pace from being exposed and exploited

  1. LOL, Sanchez has had 2 practices and he’s already on the pitch. How bad are we without him?

    Coquelin and Debuchy off, we need to be careful we don’t lose 0-3 or 0-4.

  2. Hahahahahahaha..Karma b*tches.Ospina had a near flawless last season but most AFC fans here made him out to be a flop when Cech was bought.If someone wasnt following last season you would have been lead to believe that Ospina was dismal last season when in fact he was one of our best players.Take that you Cech kiss A**es

    1. No doubt Ospina would of saved 2nd goal, first goal I think he is quick enough to get there, Chech too slow.

  3. Just heard Coquelin didn’t win a single tackle before he was taken off. Well that’s alright, we have Flamini and Arteta to replace him!

    1. That mythical HOLD UP PLAY is going to win us the league.

      As if he holds the ball better than Rooney ,Aguero ,Costa
      Watch Aguero hold up the ball while running at you and turning you inside out at the same time .
      Ramsey = 1 good game,1 average game , 3 mediocre games .
      Ramsey’s postion is in serious need of a DM
      meertesacker: Nothing to say

    1. OG on wings ffs, what use is he there?

      Nect week Mert will be ST and Chech CAM, Ozil CB.

  4. Ok I expected lack of goals. Wins of 1-0.
    Buy was this the guy obsessed with clean sheets?????
    Wtf is happening…
    ( I am not watching just opened and saw the score)

    1. I feel like Wenger outfoxed himself, always trying to pack our attack with midfielders, always one winger too short.

  5. Yeah OG injured get him off.

    Just as well play with 10 men atleast he cant slow us down.

    1. Heat? Uhm no, wishing someone to break his leg is over the top. Besides don’t act like a tough guy as in the the end you are both just plain keyboard warriors who shiver when confronted in real life.

      1. You will never know without trying your luck uihisilmi. Its not over the top if that means that the bonehead is forced to go out and buy. 3 facking years.

  6. Nobody want to hate the players, is Wenger put them there to make us hate them. WENGER KNOW BEST!!!!!

  7. Bunch of losers except Sanchez. Only winner in the team and will probably leave end of season.

  8. On the positive , this shit performance and a loss may make AW spend some money..

    West Ham comfortably win in our house in the 1st game of the season.

    Promising, real promising.

    #sameOldSameOld

  9. Loooool

    I’m enjoying this.

    Yet more sore offering for the AKB brigade.

    What’s your next line of defense now?

    League contender my foot.

    Wenger out!!!!
    Chase the bunch of french failures out of our club. Nonsense!

  10. Wenger can only blame himself.

    We lower than Spurs after game 1.

    Palace next week, hmm dont expect a win.

  11. Wenger: no worry, with our cohesion, we will win the remaining games and the title.

    Our invincible season just gone in the 1st match, at least Chelsea still can do it.

    1. In all honesty guys we should just shut our mouths when it comes to title ambitions now were not ready… to the giroud lovers i hope you witnessed the guy get manhandled and misplaced by a 16 year old debutant to the extent he started drifting out wide when he was a lone striker… f*cking hell that was bad…

      1. @admin
        Should have kept Afobe…IJS
        Just goes to show you, any team can beat you when you don’t show up and fkn fight…
        We really needed Gabe in this match, because Kos is just humpin too hard on his own…

  12. Looking forward to part 2 of Chris Hudson’s interview on ArsenalFanTV. Aston Villa 3-1 at “HOME” on opening day all over again. I thought last season was our best chance of winning the league in a long while but we had one of our worst starts in history. Glad I’m on vacation and not actually watching with my own eyes.

  13. Embarrassed by WH, take my Arsenal shirt off before I go out, what an embarrassment.

    Totally out classed today.

  14. all the plastic fans and wengerouts incoming.

    yeah, we ALL (esp. the fans) were overconfident. so get behind the team, i think this is a one off.

    chamberlain, with all his potential, i saw him lose the ball vs everton in preseason. exactly the same mistake today. not all his fault, we were passing sloppily and just not on form. need to do better, don’t despair guys, don’t change your views 100% now. be a true fan

  15. Don’t worry arsenal now got money to buy player cos the match is fixed so money coming in.

    FA should look into this game, cos we are the title contender, we can’t lost to WH in our own grounds.

  16. The fault of this disaster lies on the Fans that give WENGER and the OWNERS a free pass by still believing this team can be a contender……WENGER and GIROUD OUT enough is enough

  17. At least people will shutup about us winning the title! Wake up gooners, we are far from good enough and I’ve been saying that all summer. Just Cech is not good enough AT ALL. Giroud continues to be an embarrasment and players are just not showing up anymore. Players let AW down today honestly. No guts.

  18. Every player needs to look in the mirror to see who was at fault. Not worthy of wearing the shirt today. Disgraceful performance all round

  19. West Ham deserved every bit of their victory! Well done to them. Now for Wenger to have a rethink on his tactic or even his position. I feel he has become a figure head rather than a tactician! Throughly disappointed as we are now in catchup mode. It’s not going to be easy away at Crystal Palace I can tell you that now for nothing! Idiots!!!!

  20. All last month i stayed away from this site becouse i know this site is full of akb licker who love more arsen than the club.i new cos we won few pre season micky mouse trophy they will think we will win the world cup.youve been crying out for world class striker n dm midfielder since hendry left.but does he fix the problen no.but them akb lickers will still defend him cos they dont care about the club they only care abt there loards wenger job.

    1. Totally agree!

      Big funds in the bank, holes in the team (as always) and excuses for not signing anyone (apart from cech)- ‘cohesion’.

  21. We need a striker and DM.
    This is a song we’ve been singing for a long while now.
    I know every team has its off days…but today was WAY OFF.

    1. bc now lecoq isn’tgood enough? one shitt game, everyone was bad. hate fans like you, who use a one- off to justify something. yeah we need a dm and a cf perhaps, but the bottom line is we played shit , any team we put out should deal with westham

      1. The only idiots are those who put coq in to the world class league after a decent 3 months of football .. Wenger said he was a 40 m pound player … This is simply unserious talk ….

  22. we failed miserably, but now all of a sudden cech is a terrible keeper, giroud is worse than akpom (so says our admin), coquelin is not good enough?

    GTFO and get behind your team. ok slag them off, they were sh’t today, but don’t be such plastic fans ffs. likely that this is a one off.

    nevertheless, we need to up it mentally!! we thought we had won it before the game started. bilic is smart, like a gary monk or pardew. i think we will be turned on next week.. ffs

    1. we can turn it around but not win title. Not with the players we have. Top 4 once more. Every year its the same nonsense coming from pundits and fans that we can win league but its not true. Too many flaws in this team.

    2. I know what your saying mate, but we were the home team. We need to be bossing and winning these types of games. But we couldn’t break West Ham down once. They had men behind the ball over the whole 90 mins. Fair play West Ham.
      But arsenal were shocking.

  23. Fantastic. We will win the league! Yah! We will win the league. Giroud is better than Walcott, right? Exactly. The last time he led the line towards the end of last season, we went on a winless streak. Walcott comes in and we start scoring again. Lets ignore all these facts and keep hating on Walcott and benching him. We will win the league doing just that. Well done Wenger. Keep benching our most dangerous attacker in favor of a guy that has had three full seasons upfront and still cannot justifying that fortune.

      1. @admin

        Surely this is abuse!??????

        @vince, tough guy! Stop spouting your nonsense and name calling people.

        This is a forum for ‘All’ AFC fans and if they happen to think differently to you it doesn’t give you the right to start abusing them.

        #wengerBrownShirt

      1. Why call someone a moron for speaking/writing out their mind? Just be sure that cap doesn’t fit!

    1. The guy was on for 30 m and did jack shit lost the ball a few times and a couple of hapless shots … We need to buy benzema and griezman and bender if we are to have a shot at top 4 this year

  24. Cech will not have games like this, this was really a one-off. The rest of the team sucked as well

  25. What the F*ck did I just watch?…….
    As per usual more possession.
    And sweet F*ck all to show for it.
    Hhahaha unbelievable

  26. Is Wenger having a laugh 2-0 in our back garden. Wenger said he does not need any new signings in this windows he said he has the team to win the Championship. BIG JOKE. Arsenal should have got rid of him long ago he past his sell by date he is holding Arsenal Back. He seems happy with being an also ran team. 4 place and the odd Cup .

  27. I hate watching Arsenal get bitch slapped by a mid table team and all the hyperbolic doom and gloom rhetoric from the plastic Gunner fans out there but sadly losses like these will not be the exception to the Wenger rule this year and if monunental changes to the team set up as well as heavy investment arent made in the next few weeks IMHO Arsenal will be out of Europe for the first time in nearly 20 years.

    What has to happen

    Sign Benzema or Higuian. Why OG was given a pay raise and extended contract Ill never know but he CANT be the CF to lead Arsenal to EPL or Champions League glory

    Bench or sell Ramsey while you can. Regardless of form he is not better than Santi, or Ozil and forcing him into the midfield to placate his ego makes Arsenal predictable and easy to defend. Sometimes unpopular and difficult decisions need to be made for the betterment of the team, this is one.

    I do rate Le Coq and think he had a off day with his distribution today but if Bender, Krychowiak Carvalho are truly available spend the GD money and provide competition or a possible upgrade. Again clubs that genuinely possess championship ambition ruthlessly make tough decisions, this could be another.

    Its time for either Chambers or Gabs baptism by fire. Its over 4 BFG, quite frankly has been for a while. Arsenal and the fans deserve better.

    Against CP next week

    Benz
    Sanchez…….Ozil…..Theo
    Le Coq……Santi
    Nacho…..Boss….Chambers…..Bellerin(if fit)
    Cech

    1. Big Al, on point as always apart from AR IMO.

      He is class but like many today was off the boil.

      However management/teaM selection lost is the game.

      @arseneWenger: team rotation is allowed and all midfielders do not need to play at the same time so that you sacrifice having proper wingers.

      #impotentBarcaSyndrome

  28. U people are hot then cold about any particular player depending on the immediate circumstance. Cech cant be criticized so heavily, Ox shouldnt dribble in Arsenal’s third of the DAM pitch. The fact is and I’ve been saying this with help from a couple smart people on here, the squad needs a competent striker. Walcott came on and offer absolutely nothing.
    As for the game, it is evident Cazorla must play the CM role, he is creative wen not getting too much attention from markers, not wen he plays CAM.
    Ramsey had success on the wing in the latter part of last season, stay the hell there. Ramsey had a chance to play in Debuchy and she chose to shoot at 0-0. Ozil must play CAM and shoot more often. Thats my piece on what happened.

  29. The fact is and I’ve been saying this with help from a couple smart people on here, the squad needs a competent striker. Walcott came on and offer absolutely nothing.
    As for the game, U people are hot then cold about any particular player depending on the immediate circumstance. Cech cant be criticized so heavily, Ox shouldnt dribble in Arsenal’s third of the DAM pitch. It is evident Cazorla must play the CM role, he is creative wen not getting too much attention from markers, not wen he plays CAM.
    Ramsey had success on the wing in the latter part of last season, stay the hell there. Ramsey had a chance to play in Debuchy and she chose to shoot at 0-0. Ozil must play CAM and shoot more often. Thats my piece on what happened.

  30. The team might come back to winning ways but will never win the title without getting better players. Not sure why we paid 42 mil for Ozil, Payet looks a better player. We could not hold composure after the first goal.

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