Arsenal v Liverpool - Wednesday April 2, 7.45pm CL

[awooga83]

I know its been disapointing the way we have dropped recentley but you should never give up hope. Even if the league is practically gone a victory or a high scoring draw on Tue will mean we still have very much to look forward to this season. My word of advice is never rely on Arsenal to do anything and never underestimate them either!

We always do things the hard way, that is in our history, our DNA, which in moments of difficulty gives me a lot of belief.

Believe me I know what you say has an element of truth we love to make things stupidly hard I just don't think this team from all I have seen so far has the resolve and the drive to get the right result. Don't get me wrong I'll still be watching Tuesday by which time my optimism will have climbed again as it does over time and with big games, I just don't have the gut instinct we can do it which strangely I did back in 2006 at least up until the sending off.

 

[RocktheCasbah]

Oh yeah, same old whinge but- why oh why oh why were we trying to thread the ball through the centre of midfield? Ridiculous behaviour.

Because we have nothing on the wing.

Theo didn't look like nothing last night.

 

[famous no 10]

Oh yeah, same old whinge but- why oh why oh why were we trying to thread the ball through the centre of midfield? Ridiculous behaviour.

Because we have nothing on the wing.

Theo didn't look like nothing last night.

True.

 

[Webdesignlab]

quite a good read, though he predicts we will finish the season trophyless.]

Wow he must be the second coming of Nostrademus!

LOL, yeah "No **** sherlock".

 

[Jose_Reyes_2005]

Shame we conceded such an avoidable crucial away goal. It really seemed to have an impact on the players who i think are, like everyone else, seriously over analyzing this whole liverpool reputation in europe. At the end of the day, take out the ref, CL bilboards and ads - and this is effectively a premiership game.

Anyway. I somehow still see us going through. In a normal league game, we would all expect atleast one away goal, and a loss would be absolute worst case scenario. So we are easily capable of beating pool let alone getting a score draw. The only thing that worries me immensly is how tired all our players looked at the end. Ferguson said that he thinks the triple header against pool will take out so much from our players, and with them having a comfortable fixture against roma on wednesday, i fear that 3 days after our trip to anfield we will be in for a real thumping at old trafford.

 

[Feanor]

Is Alonso14 still around? I would just like to know what Liverpool fans think of the non-penalty decision? And if you guys think you're through? Thanks.

 

[bigtimetopbanana]

I spoke to my Liverpool mate last night, and he admitted that we walked all over them, and should have won by 2 clear goals.

Even though Gallas and Senderos completely nullified Babyface, Gerrard played a blinder, and Kuyt played a Ray Parlour like game. Crap player, but 110% effort, and got in everywhere.

I reckon we have a good chance at Liverpool next Tuesday. The scousers will not play totally defensive, it's too risky. We have a fantastic weapon in Theo, we just need to get the ball to him in space (not to his feet), just like the second goal at Milan. That means counter attacking football, not the pressing football with no through ball we played on Wednesday.

I'm confident we can do it.

 

[number_0]

I think bendtner saved the linesmen from looking like a total clueless ****ing idiot that he is, when he cleared that cesc ball of the line, because whe he was called offside, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE TWO ****ING DEFENDERS STANDING ON THE LINE BEHIND HIM KEEPING THE WHOLE ****ING STADIAM ONSIDE!!!!!!

had that gone in, and the flag went up, this forum would have gone into slit wrist adn throat mode.

 

[Gazza Martinez]

Is Alonso14 still around? I would just like to know what Liverpool fans think of the non-penalty decision? And if you guys think you're through? Thanks.

He admitted it was a penalty earlier in the thread. Also admitted that we should've won, and he believes the tie is still up for grabs at Anfield. Yeah, he's one of the honest ones.

 

[tactica442]

I think bendtner saved the linesmen from looking like a total clueless f****g idiot that he is, when he cleared that cesc ball of the line, because whe he was called offside, EVEN THOUGH THEY WERE TWO f****g DEFENDERS STANDING ON THE LINE BEHIND HIM KEEPING THE WHOLE f****g STADIAM ONSIDE!!!!!!

had that gone in, and the flag went up, this forum would have gone into slit wrist adn throat mode.

From what I saw, it looked like an offside. When the shot was made, there was only one acive Liverpool player behind Bendtner. Although Carragher's arm was on the line, his body was practically outside the line.

I would blame Bendtner being greedy. The linesman got the offside call right IMO.

 

[Biggus]

The problem about going on about the "penalty" and Bendtners Clueseauesque attempt to get out of the way, is that they only distract us from the fact that once again while we had the lions share of possession, dominated the game, we produced few clear cut chances and took only one of them. This goes to the heart of the problem that we have had for two years with the Wenger style.

 

[RC8]

The problem about going on about the "penalty" and Bendtners Clueseauesque attempt to get out of the way, is that they only distract us from the fact that once again while we had the lions share of possession, dominated the game, we produced few clear cut chances and took only one of them. This goes to the heart of the problem that we have had for two years with the Wenger style.

Biggus, you can only have so many chances against a team like Liverpool when they are closing down completely. We did well, and had we had a bit of luck we would have won the game.

The real problem was the lack of maturity to defend when we were 1-0 up. That was the real problem in my opinion, and that's what we need to be working on. The team is still too innocent, too naive. We need more experienced players if we are to grind out results instead of depending on heroic efforts every week.

 

[_scorpion_]

The problem about going on about the "penalty" and Bendtners Clueseauesque attempt to get out of the way, is that they only distract us from the fact that once again while we had the lions share of possession, dominated the game, we produced few clear cut chances and took only one of them. This goes to the heart of the problem that we have had for two years with the Wenger style.

Biggus, you can only have so many chances against a team like Liverpool when they are closing down completely. We did well, and had we had a bit of luck we would have won the game.

The real problem was the lack of maturity to defend when we were 1-0 up. That was the real problem in my opinion, and that's what we need to be working on. The team is still too innocent, too naive. We need more experienced players if we are to grind out results instead of depending on heroic efforts every week.

Completely agree with what your saying - in particular the items in bold.

However, we are not talking about an inexperienced team at the moment. There are players in the side who's performances have been quite rubbish of late. Kolo Toure is one of those. I love the guy, love his attitude and application - but lately his performances have been crap. However, I'm willing to blame it on fatigue and therefore the blame lays squarely on Arsène for not building a SQUAD.

Players like Hleb, Flamini, Gallas and Cesc have gone through spells aswell. These are typically strong players - but they have been exposed in a tough long season with very little reinforcements.

Granted Eduardo and RVP (arguably) absences could not be forseen, the squad is lacking that extra 2-3 players in key positions that will allow us to challenge to the death. At the moment, were about a 80 - 85% squad. That equates to a 'great season, but no cigar'.

 

[Captain]

That bit in bold had nothing to do with Maturity; Flamini messed up one tackle and that was it.

Everyone knows we will score at Anfield, even Liverpool supporters and as soon as we do the advantage swings massively back to us based upon what Liverpool have produced both times that we have played them this season.

 

[Biggus]

The problem about going on about the "penalty" and Bendtners Clueseauesque attempt to get out of the way, is that they only distract us from the fact that once again while we had the lions share of possession, dominated the game, we produced few clear cut chances and took only one of them. This goes to the heart of the problem that we have had for two years with the Wenger style.

Biggus, you can only have so many chances against a team like Liverpool when they are closing down completely. We did well, and had we had a bit of luck we would have won the game.

The real problem was the lack of maturity to defend when we were 1-0 up. That was the real problem in my opinion, and that's what we need to be working on. The team is still too innocent, too naive. We need more experienced players if we are to grind out results instead of depending on heroic efforts every week.

I agree about our inability to keep a clean sheet, and lack of maturity, especially in the CL you have to be very clever. Wenger sets his teams up to attack at all costs, defence is only an afterthought, so we know we have to outscore the opposition as we will nearly always concede. I would love it if we were set up another way, but we all know we won't be...... I know chances against Liverpool will be few and far between........but Wigan?

 

[number_0]

The sad thing is that 0-0 is enough for them at anfield, and rafa knows it.
i dont know how we will get past that big bus they are going to park at anfield.

actually i do, riena is a crap keeper, we should look to cross at every oportunity, no supriuse we scored from our first (and last) decent cross of the game.

 

[asajoseph]

The problem about going on about the "penalty" and Bendtners Clueseauesque attempt to get out of the way, is that they only distract us from the fact that once again while we had the lions share of possession, dominated the game, we produced few clear cut chances and took only one of them. This goes to the heart of the problem that we have had for two years with the Wenger style.

Biggus, you can only have so many chances against a team like Liverpool when they are closing down completely. We did well, and had we had a bit of luck we would have won the game.

The real problem was the lack of maturity to defend when we were 1-0 up. That was the real problem in my opinion, and that's what we need to be working on. The team is still too innocent, too naive. We need more experienced players if we are to grind out results instead of depending on heroic efforts every week.

I agree about our inability to keep a clean sheet, and lack of maturity, especially in the CL you have to be very clever. Wenger sets his teams up to attack at all costs, defence is only an afterthought, so we know we have to outscore the opposition as we will nearly always concede. I would love it if we were set up another way, but we all know we won't be...... I know chances against Liverpool will be few and far between........but Wigan?

I have no problem with Wenger's all out attack strategy as a whole.

It's just that recently, for the last couple of months, we really haven't excecuted it well enough. And if we can't score, we have to be able to fall back on a solid defence - and again, we haven't been able to do that.

 

[Macho]

Im at Uni right now- using the **** computers. Just had a heated argument.
Many people (also Arsenal fans) here are convinced that we are already eliminated.
I tried to argue against, but I fear they are right. This is exactly what Liverpool wanted.
Weve got a hell of a job on our hands.

 

[sesquioxide]

The real problem was the lack of maturity to defend when we were 1-0 up. That was the real problem in my opinion, and that's what we need to be working on. The team is still too innocent, too naive. We need more experienced players if we are to grind out results instead of depending on heroic efforts every week.

I agree that we have a lack of maturity, but I don't think it's for lack of "experienced players" in defense that we have a problem. Between Senderos, Gallas, and Toure we have players who have played in loads of Champions League games (up to the semi-finals and in Toure's case, a final) and World Cup games (Gallas went to a final and Senderos was part of a defense that didn't concede a single goal). These players cannot claim they haven't played enough "big games". If they all fail to apply what they should have learned in these games then it's likely a problem of the team and we seem likely to still have problems even if we buy "experienced" defenders.

I wonder if, sometimes, the balance of our training is too heavily devoted to the physical development of the players rather than to having the players gell together. Besides our defensive frailty, we also have problems, for instance, in a team of such high technical and physical abilities that so few players are able to do a good free kick at goal. It's almost as if we never even tried to get anyone asides from van Persie to do a good shot.

 

[Gurgen]

I don't think we played that well to be honest. As Hiddink correctly pointed out, we were far too narrow. There was a lot of space to be exploited down the flanks but Eboue and Hleb came inside constantly. All our play went down the middle, which is the story of our season really. How hard is it to just stand on the line when a central midfielder has the ball?