Arsenal v Middlesbrough - Saturday March 15, 5.15pm

[number_0]

Wenger is suprisngly quiet about the ref today.
I cant imagine fergie being quiet had it been united, and i noticed if affected ther ref of his next game.

 

[RockyRocastle]

The thing that has pissed me off during the last few league games is the gutless performances and how the players seem half arsed and sleep walk through games.

We were so close to the league, but have just run of the quality. Look at the money spent by the other three and it is to be expected. Utd win the league and spend 40 million. Liverpool sign world class players like Torres and Mascherano. And obviously we all know about Chelsea.

If we had shown a bit more ambition in the transfer market maybe we could have kicked on a kept our lead.

As it stands we are just going to fall further and further behind. These next six games are going to take so much out of us mentally and physically and I dont think the players that we have can cope.

I fancy us to beat Liverpool but at the expense of the league, and then I can see Chelsea over powering us in the semis.

It's all so depressing right now.

 

[Herbert Chapman]

We might have scored two goals yesterday, unfortunately only one of them counted. You don't get points for goals that don't count in this league.

Did I say different?

Human error is a fact of sport, you can moan about the ref not doing his job properly, it's not going to change anything that happened yesterday.

Did I say different?

We could talk about Eboue diving in the penalty area- again- when he could have stayed on his feet and had a shot, or attempted to cross the ball. We could talk about an Arsenal player being put through one on one and putting the ball down the keeper's throat- again. We could even talk about the depressing sight of us losing the ball on the edge of the Boro box again and again and again and again and again. But that won't change anything either.

Did I say different?

Anyway, we could go round and round with this, you think we deserved to win. I don't, so I think it's probably best to leave it here.

But if you believe both of the goals we scored are legitimate, you also must think we deserved to win (unless you are being irrational).

Its a petty, pointless argument, but I assure you that you cannot believe that the score if the ref had done his job was 2-1 or 2-0, and at the same time believe we didn't deserve to win, unless you believe it is RIGHT that the referee made a mistake/is biased.

But what if we had scored in the dying seconds and won the game but he still felt we didn't deserve it................

:shock: tell you what, I haven't got a clue wether we deserved it or not now :roll:

thanks for eroding my judgement of the game so much that I am now once again convinced we are going to do the double.

 

[bojed]

I tell you what.

We deserve to win this and every other game if we outscore our opponents every now and then.

I prefer that option by a mile.

 

[patrick42uk]

The diving yesterday was strange. Hleb, Cesc and RVP as well. They were all at it. It looked desparate and was quite frankly embarrassing.

 

[ArsenalwithoutVieira]

i dont think the players are putting in half hearted displays, more that the opponents are starting to learn how to close down arsenal and that we have reverted back to trying and pass the ball in.

 

[thegame24]

i just saw highlights for the first time.

WE WERE ROBBED!!!

ades goal was a goal FULL STOP

Aliadiere was offside FULL STOP

bollocks refs.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

I disagree creating four shots at goal per game is neither good enough nor title worthy.

A title worthy team is judged from 38 games..not 1, 2, or 5 games. Creating 4 shots..is definitely acceptable. We are only 1 goal behind Manure. Try to look at bigger pictures it helps.

Yes four shots at goal per game is not good..but we are not shooters..and even when we were winning and on a role..the shots per goal were not that high either. We dont score much from shots. I think we should take more of them..but we dont take em for a reason. We are not good at taking them. Period. Either you got it or you dont.

At the moment, at least RvP is back..so he will help in that departments.

You also have to remember once confidence ebbs away, those who are not naturally shooters will take even less of em..its just how it works.

 

[sabret00the]

do I reply to mbaki with;
"over specialise and you breed in weakness!"

or

"variety is the spice of life!"

 

[arsenalfc0719]

Van Persie, Rosicky, Fabregas are all good shooters, we have good shooters in the team, so its not like we don't take shoots because we don't have good shooters.

We don't take the shoot very often because either there is no space to take the shoot, or we don't want to because we want to pass our way into our opponents goal, which is not a problem, in my opinion.

I think our main problem at the moment is not taking the chances that we create.

We had enough chances to have won the game on Sunday, but we didn't take them,and thats why we didn't win.

 

[Anzac]

do I reply to mbaki with;
"over specialise and you breed in weakness!"

or

"variety is the spice of life!"

ROFLMAO

 

[banduan]

I took some time off A-M to avoid posting deranged nonsense. Upon reflection, and reviewing some replays:

1. We made too few chances, our midfield was off. Hleb had his poorest performance this season. The fact that Cesc and Flams had a decent game shows how important Hleb's performances are to our team.

2. We are an attacking team, but the way Gallas and Toure stay upfront for prolonged periods is a massive gamble and one that backfires way too often.

3. Both Ade's goal and Jeremy's aren't offside. That said, Ade needs to take a serious look at why he is persistently in an offside position. Why is it, that when the ball is so deep in our own half is he always caught out by a very simple, not particularly well-sprung offside trap? Why does he not have the awareness that he is in off-side territory?

4. Eboue had a better game than usual, but the diving and overacting must stop. He has already acquired a reputation and it will not help when we do actually get a penalty.

5. Replacing Sagna (as opposed to Eboue) for Walcott was actually a great decision by Wenger. I'm assuming RVP was replaced because he is not 100%.

6. The misses by Cesc, RVP and Ade are awful. No excuses. Iw ould have said we seem to have gone back to being the Arsenal of last season, but we created few chances too.

Having said all of that, it is still that time of the season that we simply have to be behind the team all the way. The crowd was not great and I love Flams for firing up the crowd but he should not be having to do that.

 

[Anzac]

Good points all.

I've mentioned earlier that IMO we were also tactically inept (yet again), both on the pitch and from the technical area.

 

[Christofaux]

Eboue seemed to play quite well. Has played decently in his recent games, United aside.

 

[tactica442]

Eboue seemed to play quite well. Has played decently in his recent games, United aside.

It seems Eboue's reputation is coming back to haunt him.

On his "recent" games, before the Boro game it has been quite some time since his last involvement in the league. On Saturday, he picked another caution after the final whistle was blown. I don't know what he was protesting about but I don't like the look of it. Before the red card in OT, Eboue must have gotten a few cautions before that. If his lastest caution means his accumulated yellow cards amount to five. Then hurray, another match ban on the horizon. I know Eboue had been fouled by Boro players quite a few times but his excessive protest would hardly help.

On his Eboue's efficiency on the wing, if one looks at his stat this season and compares it to Theo's, it is quite obvious Eboue's final deliveries are not necessarily better than Theo given both players' time on the pitch.
http://www.arsenal.com/teamstats.asp?thisNav=First+Team
Eboue scored NONE and the number of his assists is miserably few. I think it's three or four assists from him this season if I am not mistaken.

TBH my patience with Eboue is wearing thin now. On Saturday, to his credit, he was one of the few lively Arsenal players on the pitch. But watching him decided giving up the duet and falling in the box really really annoyed me. That was never a penalty. Pogatez was about losing his balance and if Eboue insisted staying on his feet he could've created another chance. I know Pogathez is a c*nt but Eboue also looked like a diving one.

 

[Biggus]

Ask the people leaving with 20 minutes left if they thought we did enough to win yesterday.

Why should we give a damn about what people who left 20 minutes early think........ They're not real Arsenal supporters and they're just taking up real supporters places. :wink:

 

[Biggus]

i just saw highlights for the first time.

WE WERE ROBBED!!!

ades goal was a goal FULL STOP

Aliadiere was offside FULL STOP

bollocks refs.

Yes,against Boro it was the ref......
Against Wigan it was the pitch.......
Against Villa it was the effects of the Brum game......
And Against Birmingham it was Eduardo........

Christ.........

 

[Clrnc]

i just saw highlights for the first time.

WE WERE ROBBED!!!

ades goal was a goal FULL STOP

Aliadiere was offside FULL STOP

bollocks refs.

Yes but were we robbed the 3 previous games we failed to win?
Those 3 points you make weren't the only reasons we drew, the team has bigger issues.

biggus...

we were robbed at birmingham as well...

 

[tactica442]

i just saw highlights for the first time.

WE WERE ROBBED!!!

ades goal was a goal FULL STOP

Aliadiere was offside FULL STOP

bollocks refs.

Yes but were we robbed the 3 previous games we failed to win?
Those 3 points you make weren't the only reasons we drew, the team has bigger issues.

Before the Boro game, I was a bit baffled by Wenger's comment on the team's title chance. He said he believe the team will win 'something'. On the other hand, Hleb said in another interview that the team can win anything. Maybe it's the choice of language but I reckon Wenger has spotted some problems within the team. It's not just the injury problem and Eduardo's horror. Wenger knows where the problems are but, given the way the team's been playing, only the players themselves can solve these.

Or, maybe I just read into it too much. :wink:

 

[Biggus]

Before the Boro game, I was a bit baffled by Wenger's comment on the team's title chance. He said he believe the team will win 'something'. On the other hand, Hleb said in another interview that the team can win anything. Maybe it's the choice of language but I reckon Wenger has spotted some problems within the team. It's not just the injury problem and Eduardo's horror. Wenger knows where the problems are but, given the way the team's been playing, only the players themselves can solve these.

Or, maybe I just read into it too much. :wink:

I don't know Tactica, first we had Ade v Bendtner then Gallas v ad hoardings, then if reports are to be believed the second half against Boro was delayed because of a Gallas v Cesc bust up, It has been noticed by other posters too that Hleb is angry and shouts more.......ahem but that's not necessarily a bad thing. :wink: