Arsenal v Man U CL 2nd Leg May 05, 2009, 19:45

[Captain]

second half VanPersie was very much playing as a striker.

 

[hackajack]

Difficult to see through the tears. The 4231 morphs into something approaching 442 if you play a striker in the hole and he pushes up (Chelsea away is the one that springs to mind). I still think you've got the CM pair playing deeper and the 'wingers' narrower and higher than 442.

 

[sabret00the]

Disgracefully, unbeleivably idiotic comments. You total cretins. This guy is a f*cking football manager. Its a sport. Trying to extend some sort of responsibility to him for some nutter killing himself is completely out of order. Idiots.

My point was that it's time for Wenger to wake up, sadly football has some fans that are overtly obsessive and those fans will sadly end up being made an example of in the same way that the Hillborough victims death has lead to revolutions in football. Wenger seems to believe that his decision making is in a world of it's own and that it doesn't effect the fans. The fans are expected to just sit up, take whatever we can find and be happy with that, the fans are shown so little respect that it's a joke and it's been a snowball effect that's lead up here. From interview that are in French only, to doing things like crossbar challenger and team mates for french tv, the legacy supporters are taken for granted and on a wider scale so are all fans. I mean where was the apology for playing a centre mid at left wing in an FA Cup semi final? It's **** like this that is ludicrous and it's harmful. I'm sorry that you find it offensive but i feel like i'm in a battle for the club with our own manager and all i really want is some acknowledgement and a promise to try his best to win trophies rather than produce world class talent.

 

[hackajack]

Didn't you see Wenger last night? I'd say 'gutted' hardly covers it. He's one of the world's worst losers and he's been publicly humiliated

 

[General]

and for the eight minutes or so we were playing 4-5-1 we looked to have more attacking verve and a higher tempo than we had at any other point in the tie.

You think so? We looked porous and easily pressed. Ronaldo and Park were able to push forward and pressurise us into mistakes. I can't remember ever having a shot on target in those eight minutes. We looked more fluent once Robin went forward and Nasri wide, but then the damage had already being done.

And Hack - You know this formation thing is always open to interpretation. Fact of the matter is Robin joined Ade upfront when before he was playing as a wide man, making it a more straight 4-4-2.

 

[Clrnc]

Guys, shut the f**k up. If you were so smart to know that wenger's so dumb that he would use the wrong tactics, and that the players were so bad that we would lose, then why are you surprised, disappointed, or acting like a *****? And then we dare call the players kids. Chill the f**k out. It's a CL semi loss without our best players. We need some minor changes at the club in terms of players, but that's for another day. We should all be looking forward.

Wenger's tactics were totally * and cowardly as always when it really matters, but I agree with you in general.

This loss is extremely painful but some perspective is needed. We're in the top 4 of Europe, we lost to the best team on the planet with our best attacker and best defender missing and a clueless Eminem-clone in goal. Most clubs can only dream about where we are.

What I am surprised is that in the first leg, Wenger put out a defensive team and got blamed. In the 2nd leg he put out the dream team you guys wanted and so many want his head now.

 

[Clrnc]

We collapsed mentally. There is a gulf in quality but it's not as big as yesterday's game made it out to be.

I agree. The gulf in skill is not immense, certainly not insurmountable. But we're mentally fragile with no real leadership on the pitch. The first goal was a shock, freak slip out of the blue -but teams like United get up, get back on their feet and drive on - like they did in the Sp**s game. We seem very frail mentally.

It wasnt lack of ability cost us last season - it was a collapse in confidence. We were demoloishing teams until the Eduardo/Birmingham incident where we lost a player in horrific circumstances and concided a dubious penalty in the last minutes. It should have spuured the team on, but we just never got it going after that.

Even this year, on paper last night when seen both teams announced, first thought was - this is do-able! Then we concede early and proceed to act like headless chickens

Ok, if that 2-0 really happened to other teams, it would be hard for them to come back too. I totally agree with Wenger post-match conference and felt really sorry for him. Did you see how devastated Wenger was last night? That was the first time I saw him kept on covering his face and couldn't bear to watch. He gave so much faith and belief to his players only for them to repay him in this way.

Like I said, if we continued like how we started and didn't make those 2 silly mistakes, we could have nick it. Its not like Manure dominated

 

[Unforgiven]

United were barely the better team. All they did was the superb 3rd goal and I think 2 descent shots on target. We were unlucky with Gibbs slipping. We played **** yes but any other team in the world would have still lost that game from the first 2 goals (maybe played more eagerly afterward though).

 

[Beany]

We collapsed mentally. There is a gulf in quality but it's not as big as yesterday's game made it out to be.

I agree. The gulf in skill is not immense, certainly not insurmountable. But we're mentally fragile with no real leadership on the pitch. The first goal was a shock, freak slip out of the blue -but teams like United get up, get back on their feet and drive on - like they did in the Sp**s game. We seem very frail mentally.

It wasnt lack of ability cost us last season - it was a collapse in confidence. We were demoloishing teams until the Eduardo/Birmingham incident where we lost a player in horrific circumstances and concided a dubious penalty in the last minutes. It should have spuured the team on, but we just never got it going after that.

Even this year, on paper last night when seen both teams announced, first thought was - this is do-able! Then we concede early and proceed to act like headless chickens

Ok, if that 2-0 really happened to other teams, it would be hard for them to come back too. I totally agree with Wenger post-match conference and felt really sorry for him. Did you see how devastated Wenger was last night? That was the first time I saw him kept on covering his face and couldn't bear to watch. He gave so much faith and belief to his players only for them to repay him in this way.

Like I said, if we continued like how we started and didn't make those 2 silly mistakes, we could have nick it. Its not like Manure dominated

We started ok, nothing special and limited purpose. It was all speed and limited intelligence. We needed to score the first goal, if we had I'm pretty sure Manure would have scored at some point in the game but it would have given us a platform. However, we were dominated, this was a cup game and Manure easily did what they needed to win. If they had put their foot on the gas, as Barca did against Bayern in the quarters, they might have scored six. We were shot once they scored and the truth is wwe could have playd till hell froze over and not scored 3 goals, let alone 5. We needed a slightly dubious penalty to get even 1!

 

[Clrnc]

No? They played well because we gave them the room, we didn;t had confidence and wasn't on the right mentality after 2-0. It was hard for the players to come back after those circumstances. If we had continue to press they would have to defend. Mind you, Manure didn't create any single chance nor touch the ball before their first attack yielded a goal.

 

[j'nuh]

Disgracefully, unbeleivably idiotic comments. You total cretins. This guy is a f*cking football manager. Its a sport. Trying to extend some sort of responsibility to him for some nutter killing himself is completely out of order. Idiots.

My point was that it's time for Wenger to wake up, sadly football has some fans that are overtly obsessive and those fans will sadly end up being made an example of in the same way that the Hillborough victims death has lead to revolutions in football. Wenger seems to believe that his decision making is in a world of it's own and that it doesn't effect the fans. The fans are expected to just sit up, take whatever we can find and be happy with that, the fans are shown so little respect that it's a joke and it's been a snowball effect that's lead up here. From interview that are in French only, to doing things like crossbar challenger and team mates for french tv, the legacy supporters are taken for granted and on a wider scale so are all fans. I mean where was the apology for playing a centre mid at left wing in an FA Cup semi final? It's s**t like this that is ludicrous and it's harmful. I'm sorry that you find it offensive but i feel like i'm in a battle for the club with our own manager and all i really want is some acknowledgement and a promise to try his best to win trophies rather than produce world class talent.

Unbeleiveable.

 

[Beany]

No? They played well because we gave them the room, we didn;t had confidence and wasn't on the right mentality after 2-0. It was hard for the players to come back after those circumstances. If we had continue to press they would have to defend. Mind you, Manure didn't create any single chance nor touch the ball before their first attack yielded a goal.

I don't disagree, to the extent it was impossible for us to come back, we were shot and they largely played out the game, save for their third (excellent) goal on the counter.

Fact is we played a very poor away leg, we got lucky with help from Almunia and they were confident that if they played the same game, we couldn't be that lucky again. And they were right. Across the two legs there really wasn't a moment where we were the better team. We didn't threaten, didn't hit the bar or pepper their goal. Can't blame dirty fouls or dodgy referees. Just the team and Wenger's tactics.

 

[kel varnsen]

and for the eight minutes or so we were playing 4-5-1 we looked to have more attacking verve and a higher tempo than we had at any other point in the tie.

true, but we still didn't create a single goal chance. the right attitude was there from start, but probably not the quality.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

We collapsed mentally. There is a gulf in quality but it's not as big as yesterday's game made it out to be.

I agree. The gulf in skill is not immense, certainly not insurmountable. But we're mentally fragile with no real leadership on the pitch. The first goal was a shock, freak slip out of the blue -but teams like United get up, get back on their feet and drive on - like they did in the Sp**s game. We seem very frail mentally.

It wasnt lack of ability cost us last season - it was a collapse in confidence. We were demoloishing teams until the Eduardo/Birmingham incident where we lost a player in horrific circumstances and concided a dubious penalty in the last minutes. It should have spuured the team on, but we just never got it going after that.

Even this year, on paper last night when seen both teams announced, first thought was - this is do-able! Then we concede early and proceed to act like headless chickens

Ok, if that 2-0 really happened to other teams, it would be hard for them to come back too. I totally agree with Wenger post-match conference and felt really sorry for him. Did you see how devastated Wenger was last night? That was the first time I saw him kept on covering his face and couldn't bear to watch. He gave so much faith and belief to his players only for them to repay him in this way.

Like I said, if we continued like how we started and didn't make those 2 silly mistakes, we could have nick it. Its not like Manure dominated

Thats my point. We started well and we were on the ascendancy until the two goal blitz. But we had the belief, the manager had it, the team had it and the fans had it. We all somehows believed this set of players that started the game could have pulled it off and it would not have been a miracle. Even the hurt/pain we all feel now is because of disappointment of failing to achieve what we all believed was probable.

And that my friends says something about your own belief regarding the quality of the team. We cant all be smokin* ****. There is something we see in our team that gives us that believe that when they play to their level, they can match any team. For the case of yesterday, we got screwed by the mistakes, mistakes that completely nullified any kind of effort that team could have put after the 12th minute.

 

[Cruisio]

In fairness Mbaki, I remember a fair few of us coming out before the game saying that really, this team didnt have the quality to win the champions league. Our belief comes from the fact that stranger things have happened though and the champions league, being the cup competition that it is, sometimes you can get lucky. The league is where true quality tells but sometimes you can get lucky in the cup competitions. Also, when we're on song, we can beat anybody, but we've been on song about two times during the entire season, so its no longer something to put your faith into

 

[Captain]

and for the eight minutes or so we were playing 4-5-1 we looked to have more attacking verve and a higher tempo than we had at any other point in the tie.

true, but we still didn't create a single goal chance. the right attitude was there from start, but probably not the quality.

There was one moment where we had built an attack and overloaded the box with Gibbs free down the left; he fudged his cross, they cleared and that was more or less it.

Not contradicting what you said as it wasn't an actual chance but around that sort of time we were in control and ManU were struggling to impose anything on us.

Suppose it is a bit meaningless as it lasted only eight minutes.

 

[sabret00the]

Disgracefully, unbeleivably idiotic comments. You total cretins. This guy is a f*cking football manager. Its a sport. Trying to extend some sort of responsibility to him for some nutter killing himself is completely out of order. Idiots.

My point was that it's time for Wenger to wake up, sadly football has some fans that are overtly obsessive and those fans will sadly end up being made an example of in the same way that the Hillborough victims death has lead to revolutions in football. Wenger seems to believe that his decision making is in a world of it's own and that it doesn't effect the fans. The fans are expected to just sit up, take whatever we can find and be happy with that, the fans are shown so little respect that it's a joke and it's been a snowball effect that's lead up here. From interview that are in French only, to doing things like crossbar challenger and team mates for french tv, the legacy supporters are taken for granted and on a wider scale so are all fans. I mean where was the apology for playing a centre mid at left wing in an FA Cup semi final? It's s**t like this that is ludicrous and it's harmful. I'm sorry that you find it offensive but i feel like i'm in a battle for the club with our own manager and all i really want is some acknowledgement and a promise to try his best to win trophies rather than produce world class talent.

Unbeleiveable.

Yup. the fact that fans feel the need to believe in such politics in order to communicate with the club is unbelievable.

 

[AnthonyG]

Quit it Sabre you are making a fool out of yourself. Seriously, please stop.

 

[sabret00the]

Quit it Sabre you are making a fool out of yourself. Seriously, please stop.

Cheers for that Anthony, you font of knowledge all things correct you. I'm more than done, there's nothing more to add.

 

[AnthonyG]

Glad to help Sabre. Times New Roman perhaps?