Who would have thought that Mark Hughes could change Stoke City into a proper football-playing team rather than a bunch of thugs fighting to stay in the Premier League? Well it looks like he has done it, although Shaquiri will not be playing tomorrow the Potters have won their last two games without him.
Another thing in Mark’s favour is that Stoke have also recently beaten both Man United and Man City at home, and whatever team Stoke put out they always manage to give Arsenal a tough game at the Britannia. Hughes is fully expecting his team to get a result although he accepts that Arsenal are rightly the favourites for the League title. “Arsenal are top on merit, and of all of the top teams in the league this season they are the ones who are actually playing like a top, top team,” Hughes said on the official Stoke website.
“To be perfectly honest the rest have slipped away a little bit and have been uncharacteristic in terms of what you would expect from them.
“Arsenal have done really well though, gone about their business superbly and are playing some fantastic stuff at the moment.
“You sense that they see a real opportunity this year, so we are under no illusions as to how difficult the game will be for us on Sunday.
“We always tend to do well against them at home though, the atmosphere is always special – a real crackle to the crowd – and we seem to relish that.”
“We have a good record against them at home, and I am convinced that if we can play to the levels that we are capable of, then we can enjoy another productive afternoon this time round.”
Hughes actually sounds very eloquent and he has been very respectful to us despite our well-documented problems in the past, but I still hope that we go out and murder them on Sunday!
Don’t like the way we leak in goals recently, if we keep a clean sheet we can beat them.
What do you expect ? This has been happening ever since Coquelin’s injury and before anyone mentions Ramsey, Cazorla was on the pitch when we got thrashed by Bayern and he was out injured. Rambo provides the necessary bite for us to outscore the opponent in circumstances like the Liverpool game. And if he had Coquelin by his side like Cazorla did I doubt we would’ve leaked goals like we have been currently so get off his back.
And I re-watched the Liverpool game, their first goal came from Walcott mistake, their second goal was a worldie no defence could stop and the third goal came from Bellerin giving Allen too much space, neither goals had anything to do with Ramsey bombing forward. Oh, and thanks to Ramsey we actually almost won the game, he got the important goal to give us a psychological boost and then an assist which gave us the lead.
Why the thumbs down ? Ramsey’s duty isn’t to defened but provide more attack like a false 9, Wenger uses his midfielders to their strengths, Rambo’s being the runs he makes in the opposition’s box.
My thumb down was due to you missing the point in a B2B player and what a B2B player should be like.
Watch Vieira and then tell Arsenal fans that Ramsey is good enough and it isn’t his job to go from the oppositions BOX back to your own BOX when defending.
Theo at fault?
He had his feet kicked by Can and nearly fell over, could of released ball earlier though.
The goal came from a rebound where Cech could of pushed it wider.
the position where the goal was shot from would of been occupied by Cazorla 9 times out of 10 and as such the shot wouldn’t have happened if Ramsey had of been more disciplined in his role. Team was at fault.
2nd goal was just wow, I agree.
How-ever the player shouldn’t of got the shot off, he did due to swapping the half of the pitch he was on, Flamini was blocking the shot but the player got the acceleration compared to Flamini and got away from him into the spot where Ramsey should of been and then he released his fantastic shot.
Cazorla has more experience and he can curb his attacking desire for the team, Cazorla would of been closer to his holding CM partner when the team was defending.
Ramsey at fault.
Ramsey needs to sit down and watch Vieira and see how a world class B2B player works.
Vieira use to sprint forward in attacks but he would sprint back with equal determination to get that tackle in, Ramsey needs to step up if he wants the CM role.
The problem in recent years is that this is that time of the season when we cave in to pressure & bow out of contention… If we can come out of Stoke with a result, then we can surely consider ourselves true contenders! One thing we definitely need to do is to defend with commonsense & avoid conceding control of midfield play.
The first leg of the tie was one of the best games of the season 2-5.
I don’t think we can stop Stoke scoring. If Sanchez will be fit, I’ll like to see Walcott play up front.
We need to play without any brakes on!
Mate that was leicester city not stoke
Yeap, and why would you take off a proven goals scorer and put Theo on? Giroud has to start.
Stoke do not worry me.
I am comfortable about
Arsenal’s composure
and fighting qualities.
As long as we turn up and play
to our potential I expect at least a point.
Problem is we dont always turn up and play when we need too! Look at west brom and norwich in november, the other teams slip up and we didnt take advantage! And stoke are a far better team then them two teams
And sometimes AW plays a strange team. My worry is that he replaces Joel on the right with Theo when Alexis is fit.
I think Campbell is safe in on the right until Cazorla and Coquelin are fit again and Ramsey has to be squeezed into the team and gets shoved out on the right again…
I’m not against Rambo in the middle. I like his forward dynamic far more than Santi’s from that position actually. I just think someone needs to drag him back into the correct defensive shape. He has the legs and talent to do it.
Think Arsenal have missed a trick with Charlie Austin going to Southampton. What a great EPL player to have even to come of the bench. That boy will help them big time and I like the lad. Now our game well got to play the new boy with Mathew next to him even for just the first half to help him with his nerves. He can’t have a bad start or get booked and worse sent off. Play it smart and bench OG out TW in the centre and play AS even if only for 60 min
please permit me to Laugh at ur comment……… Hahahaha
Permit to laugh? Why coz hes from the championship or coz hes only £4? He got 14league goals last year in a shit qpr side…. Not a bad addition for that price!
I have watched stoke this season and they are really strong during the 1st half usually and fade off during the second. We really need to start this game strongly unlike at Liverpool where it took us 20 minutes to start playing.. Also,Koscielny should give Walters special attention, the guy is quite the goal poacher and often ghosts into the box to score.
how the heck did we muss out on charlie austin
Because he’s NOT Arsenal quality, honestly where have your standards gone ??
how the heck did we miss out on charlie austin?
who is charLie Austin ???
L()L
How do we get to know champions? Dealing with tough games. Stoke is one of them and we’ll definitely come out tops. COYG
Arsenal should hope for some windy balls in the box of Stoke to force them into bad mistakes. Elneny seems like a player with a strong left foot and expect him to test Stoke city. This team was very close to the end on Wednesday as Arsene allowed Liverpool to have the ball and stick with 3-2 which was very fatal to the side by substituting Ozil for Arteta and the fact is a tired Ozil at 90 minute can do more work then Arteta. You have to wonder why a defensively better player in Chambers is not on the pitch instead Arteta is brought on. So Arsenal should expect tough test.
Let’s not dwell on past mistakes. We should just hope such mistakes never happens again. We’re still top of the league, let’s just sustain it. COYG
A point won’t be enough if we’re really serious about being the champs. Who cares if they’ve won all the big teams at home. It’s not like they haven’t lost at home this season and they’ll definitely still loose. Let’s add to their home Loss come Sunday. COYG
IF I repeat IF Stoke get a result Sparky, that’s a laugh for a start, still won’t smile. He be One Miserable git
Watch me whip, watch me el-neny
Stoke 0 – Arsenal 3
Hey………. HaLt guessing!
from now on admin don’t post anymore articles about stoke till teamnews tomorrow. Makes me nervovs everytime i see an article about us n stoke at brittania. Any meaningful rumours? although by now i should know wenger has closed his shop
Hennessey gotta be one of the worst keepers in the EPL…. Gush!
Looks like Pep is willing to wait to take over at Arsenal (other lesser premier league teams are available)!
Source ?? Don’t say Metro…