It is all about getting into the Champions League for Arsenal now, although hopefully there will be some serious work being done on the transfer front behind the scenes as well. But for the players and fans, it is absolutely vital for the Gunners to beat Besiktas on Wednesday and book our regular place among the elite of Europe.
Those plans have been hampered somewhat by the re3d card shown to Aaron Ramsey and the ankle knock picked up by Olivier Giroud, but Arsenal do not seem to be too worried about this and they have good reason, as Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain explained to Sky Sports this week.
He didn’t actually blame the state of the pitch in Istanbul, but he did talk about Arsenal being able to show our technical superiority at the Emirates, which amounts to the same thing really. As long as we can match the physical efforts and determination of the Turkish side, the Ox reckons the game is ours.
He said, “We have to have confidence in ourselves to come through this test.
“Besiktas are a quality side, and it is not going to be easy at all, they will fancy their chances as well, which will make it a good game.
“But I am confident in our team, if we approach the game in the right way, match them physically and competitively, then hopefully our technical side of our game will come through at the Emirates and we will be able to come away with a win.”
And that will to win that we will need against a typically battling Slaven Bilic team, was in clear evidence at Goodison Park on Saturday. And Jack Wilshere thinks the way the Gunners refused to accept defeat and managed to come back, just like in the FA cup final, will give the players the belief to make sure we are in the draw again.
Wilshere told Arsenal Player, “This was a fantastic point and now we have a big game on Wednesday and this will give us great confidence going into that.
“We have got great character, great togetherness and some leaders out there that keep us going. We also have great players to go with that.
“We never give up and at this level that is massive. We have always shown over the years that Arsenal are going to battle like mad right until the end.
“There have been a few games where we have been behind right until the end but have kept going.”
So with a great team spirit and better players, should we really doubt that Arsenal will do the business against Besiktas?
Wilshere CM
Ozil CAM
Sanchez ST
Sorted.
why does wenger not strengthen? why always be on the borderline? why not buy MORE than you need just to be on the safe side??? why buy the minimal always?
i get the feeling that if everyone says we should buy DM and ST,
then wenger, to prove he’s smarter than the rest of us, would never do it.
sure there’s a chance we could win or come 2nd with the current set of players,
but that chance would be significantly improved with a worldclass striker & DM.
and i cant believe the BS he’s spouting that other teams havent got a worldclass striker this season: Suarez, di Maria, Balotelli, Costa…
then he spouts BS that they wont come unless we have CL: but then why is MU getting shaw, di Maria?
all lies.
Wenger does NOT ” overload” for 2 reasons.
1 As we saw with TV and now with missing out on the Greek guy, top players do NOT want to sit on the bench, unless, you are willing to pay Chelsea/Cty wages.
2 We have some very promising Young guns, and, they will be ready soon to replace our older players, BFG, Arteta, Flamini, Rosicky. Buying players we do NOT actually need, just as a safeguard, will not only put back those young players progress, but also mean, in a few years we will have the problem of moving those players on, and, will have to pay them top dollar just to warm the bench in the meantime.
Mirror linking us with a move for Gustavo. Reus also linked.
The Mirror? Lol good one.
mirror mirror on the wall , only used to wipe my balls
I wish.
Shez
Debuchy-Kosc-Mert-Monreal
Wilshere-Flamini
Campbell-Ozil-OX
Sanchez
Although Sanchez did bad against Everton, we still should try him as striker, otherwise I don’t know where he’ll play once walcott comes back. Campbell deserves his chance, and Although Chambers have been very impressive lately we need our Mert Kos duo. NO F*cking up boys this is for real now!
No Ramsy (Red Card)
No Arteta (injury)
No Poldi (Wenger choice)
No Rosicky (Wenger choice)
believe me This is the end of Wenger
If we switch back to a 4-2-3-1, we will beat Besiktas.
What is Kos status for Wednesday?
I am concerned by Kos’s series of or recurring injuries for this season.
He appears to have a recurring problem and if he is overplayed it may break him for some time.
We need reinforcements in defense to allow the boys to recover from knocks and rotate the team.
It’s okay, Wenger will find someone in the transfer window from the scraps that are left. I hope he doesn’t get an injured one. That was well embarrassing last time.
Although I wasn’t a huge fan of starting Sanchez alone up front on Saturday, Besiktas is a different opponent and I agree with some of you saying he she start as our striker. Typically European defenses are less physical than Premier League defenses and Sanchez can exploit that big time in this game. I also think Ozil NEEDS to start at CAM. If we start with Sanchez at striker, Campbell and OX of the wings, and Ozil at CAM then we may win this game pretty convincingly because that front four would give any team in the world headaches. I would also not be against starting Chambers at DM for this game; he has earned a spot in the starting 11 but if Koscielny and Mertesacker are both fit to play they should take their starting jobs back; starting Chambers at DM will give him good experience in the role and with our preferred CB pairing behind him he won’t have to worry about being perfect in that role. The only issue I see with this is Wilshere. He will start at CM, but compared to Ramsey he doesn’t quite have the engine or defensive discipline and may leave Chambers stranded at times, so I think Flamini will start alongside Wilshere in the middle, with Ozil in front of them, and a front three of Ox, Sanchez, and Campbell. Cazorla could also be an option to start, but I would prefer him on one of the wings (even though he is better at CAM) only because he is better on the wings than Ozil and someone has to fill those spots.
So if I had my way our lineup would look something like:
Sczcezny
Debuchy – Mertesacker – Koscielny – Monreal
Chambers – Wilshere
Ozil
Oxlade-Chamberlain Campbell
Sanchez
But I think Wenger will choose:
Sczcezny
Debuchy – Mertesacker – Koscielny – Monreal
Flamini – Wilshere
Ozil
Oxlade-Chamberlain Cazorla
Sanchez
Either way I think as long as we don’t take this team too lightly that we will win this going away. After the win hopefully we can wrap up some final transfers.
why doesn’t wenger try out campball as the lone striker i mean he has the build and height for it so why not give him a chance there he could be the better version of giroud we all been crying out for
Wenger said he wouldn’t be surprised if Giroud scored 25 goals this season… Guess we ain’t signing a new striker then… Nor playing Alexis upfront… Yepp, another season getting frustrated with Giroud.
Wenger is stupid and uncaring. What does it take to sign a quality striker. If we are not spending
40-50 m on Cavani/Falcao then why cant we sign a 20m plus player? Sanogo is not ready and Giroud has no competition.
Yeah no, you’re right Wengers stupid. That’s why he’s called Arsene Wenger and manager of Arsenal and you’re called rock88 and commenting on an arsenal forum.
Wenger is stupid because he hasn’t signed the players needed at Arsenal despite having
big transfer funds. Our problem for the last 2 seasons top quality striker since V.Persie
replaced by Giroud and no competition for him. Result we cant score against big teams
and we are 4th club.
Wenger hasn’t replaced Gilberto/Vieira/Petit and we don’t have a strong CDM who can protect the back 4. Result we are bullied physically by other teams and we are getting hammered by big teams.
Wenger also said “All our opponents have been looking for strikers as well and nobody has found a world-class one available better than the one they have.”
This is the biggest load of BS to come out of his mouth in a long time. You mean Chelsea buying Costa was not a good example? Barca buying Suarez? Liverpool buying Balotelli?
Atletico buying Mandzukic? All much better players than Giroud by the way. Mancity and Manu do not ned forwards as they have 4 each so what the hell is he talking about?
And why do journalists let him get away with it??
Im starting to think wenger will only buy one cheap defender and make us mad.
ill watch the game wearin my new arsenal jacket and cheer for giroud 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀
shiroud is injured…aint sure if hes playing
Didn’t you even read the title of the article?
Arsenal not worried about missing giroud or Ramsey!!!! I AM
Besiktas wil be tuff
but Arsenal will
be the Beskt 🙂
What’s the reason behind your avatar? Just curious…
I just change it according
to the article.
We are talking about Besiktas
so I put up a Besiktas Shield 🙂
utd dont need to qualify champ league and they are still able to sign top players shaw, rojo , di maria….
wenger is juz full of excuses
True but it cost them £110M – they have been well and truly mugged.
THEY, have also had to pay hugely inflated transfer fee for all of them, and, apart fro Di Maria, Utd are a big step up from their previous clubs, and, will get a huge hike up in wages.
I would like to see this line up
Sczcezny
Debuchy – Mertesacker – Koscielny – Monreal
Chambers – Diaby
Ozil
OX Campbell
Sanchez
We are a team! So when we have injuries the rest of the team should step up, and do arsenal proud! We shouldnt be a one or two man team! Coyg!
Im very worried because Wenger hasn’t yet addressed our weakness for the last 5 years.
CDM and ST.
Actually for the last 100 years.
I am very worried tooo
no Striker no DM for last 3 years
Should have had a world class DM at the start of the season. How long do we arsenal fans keep saying it but AW can’t see it’s a real prob. Then we need to replace tom? Still not done and now LP on his way out. So that needs to be sorted but what he will say is we keep looking but it’s ok as my team is good??????? Sanago what ever his name is can’t play EPL yet so loan him out to Leeds and Campbell why won’t he play the boy?
That’s why I call Wenger stupid, uncaring, clueless and over confident.
Really wish we would start with a front 3 of Campbell, Alexis and Chamberlin, especially since Giroud is now out. Also it’s ironic how we need a DM and Arteta gets injured and we need a ST a now Giroud gets injured. If that’s not a sign for reinforcements I don’t know what is…
Those little passes Wilshere tries to make in the box, so ridiculous to watch that shit fails, it never works against good defence.
time for Wenger to go….
Wenger out!!!
hafiz in!
Are we going to play Ozil out of position again? We need someone to provide through passes to whoever plays ST. Which brings me to my next point, Campbell needs to get the nod as a lone ST with sanchez on the right and OX to the left (ozil through the middle)
We need to qualify to get the players we want.
Drop Santi and field Campbell. Santi will get in later in the game and we need him at Leicester too.