Champions League : Roma vs Arsenal, Second Leg. 11/03/09

[-vapour-]

Haha slipped? It was blatently a deliberate pull out of the dive. Good old Almunia haters... gotta love them.

 

[Klaus Daimler]

That's exactly what he did. Slipped my ass.

He did seem to wait to react to the pens instead of guessing

Yeah. I thought he read them well, as opposed to Doni who choosed one side and still failed to keep Walcott's loose penalty out of the net. It was only Totti and Montella who fooled him the wrong way. With a little bit of luck Al would have saved Motta's and Riise's penalties too. He touched both. One thing many don't seem to realise is that most of the penalties last night were very well taken. Normally you always have a couple of players who bottle it early and the fifth round is the decisive one.

 

[Unforgiven]

I think what Al was doing in the penaltys towards the end few was effective, just guessing sometimes just won't work. His use of predicting which way the penalty would be taken would put the penalty taker under pressure to make sure it was unsavable if Al recognized which way it was guessing, thus putting pressure on the striker possible causing them to miss the actual goal which happened in the end.

 

[Klaus Daimler]

Unforgiven: That's indeed what happened. Incidentally there's a quote from Tonetto today which confirms that:

"During the week we practiced penalties, and I always scored them.

"When I approached my kick tonight, I realized that [Manuel] Almunia moved in the direction I was heading at the last moment. Because of this I changed my mind, and made a huge mistake."

 

[Unforgiven]

Unforgiven: That's indeed what happened. Incidentally there's a quote from Tonetto today which confirms that:

"During the week we practiced penalties, and I always scored them.

"When I approached my kick tonight, I realized that [Manuel] Almunia moved in the direction I was heading at the last moment. Because of this I changed my mind, and made a huge mistake."

ahh I see, thanks for showing me that. I guess if you are a left back you do not have the ability to quickly change your mind before you kick it.

 

[Herbert Chapman]

Is it me or is Nasri seriously over weight?

it's you fatty!!!!

 

[Klaus Daimler]

Unforgiven: That's indeed what happened. Incidentally there's a quote from Tonetto today which confirms that:

"During the week we practiced penalties, and I always scored them.

"When I approached my kick tonight, I realized that [Manuel] Almunia moved in the direction I was heading at the last moment. Because of this I changed my mind, and made a huge mistake."

ahh I see, thanks for showing me that. I guess if you are a left back you do not have the ability to quickly change your mind before you kick it.

Yeah, it's always harder when you're up against a keeper who try to read you. Like you said it causes the penalty taker to place it where the keeper have the hardest time getting it. Usually it's high. Italy won the World cup by taking all their penalties that way. Of course when you're hitting it high there's always a risk you'll miss the goal though, even more so if you're stressed. That's what happened to Tonetto last night.

 

[AFCG7]

I thought he did well in the situation - looking back at the shootout it seemed to me the little taunt at Baptista was Al's way of releasing some of the tension rather than a genuine attempt to rile him.

 

[Galahad]

It's kind of funny that Almunia managed to save a penalty while literally sitting on his ass.

He got really really lucky that save. He actually slipped while trying to dive

I think that's a bit harsh I thought he aborted the dive when he saw it coming down the middle and just tried to get anything on it.

Thats exactly how I saw it. I have to say I was quite happy with Almunia, most penaltys Roma took were pretty good, he held what he could have held. And for that penalty you have to admire him...take Doni for example, he just went one direction and never tried to abort the dive to make a save like that.

 

[Gooner_Stu]

Unforgiven: That's indeed what happened. Incidentally there's a quote from Tonetto today which confirms that:

"During the week we practiced penalties, and I always scored them.

"When I approached my kick tonight, I realized that [Manuel] Almunia moved in the direction I was heading at the last moment. Because of this I changed my mind, and made a huge mistake."

Doesnt really matter which direction he was aiming for or where he changed it to, he blazed it over the goal!!
Sounds like an excuse to me, not that im being critical, he's not the 1st player to miss a penalty and wont be the last. Just a nice change for us to win a shootout, i seem to remember more of them that we dont win then do.

And agree with Hackajack, he looked to abort the dive. Worst penalty you'l see in a while i reckon.

 

[Thommybhoy]

anybody had this pic, just wallpaper size?

 

[morpho]

anyone else feel Almuina was a disgrace the way he acted in the penalty shootout? NOT something i want Arsenal to be associated with

obviously just me then...
i was refeering to his atempt to manipulate the opponent by walking forward, taking the ball, shouting at them before their penalties. Just not good sportsmanship, thats all... stupid to ignore those things when you all yelled everytime the roma players dived during the game. For me its all about the same. Play football fair and square!

 

[progman07]

anyone else feel Almuina was a disgrace the way he acted in the penalty shootout? NOT something i want Arsenal to be associated with

obviously just me then...
i was refeering to his atempt to manipulate the opponent by walking forward, taking the ball, shouting at them before their penalties. Just not good sportsmanship, thats all... stupid to ignore those things when you all yelled everytime the roma players dived during the game. For me its all about the same. Play football fair and square!

Man, you must have hated Lehmann seriously...

Almunia did brilliantly in the game, yes he didn't save too many penalties but it's not how the keeper saves, it's always up to the shooters. The important thing is that he helped us reach the Extra Time...

 

[GunnerPL]

anyone else feel Almuina was a disgrace the way he acted in the penalty shootout? NOT something i want Arsenal to be associated with

obviously just me then...
i was refeering to his atempt to manipulate the opponent by walking forward, taking the ball, shouting at them before their penalties. Just not good sportsmanship, thats all... stupid to ignore those things when you all yelled everytime the roma players dived during the game. For me its all about the same. Play football fair and square!

I actually loved that part about him, and it is in fact what a lot of keepers do. A lot of the top keepers, especially Ricardo like to get into the opponent's heads before they take their kicks. And Almunia didn't do it to every player, Baptista had a horrible game and his confidence level must have been low, I thought it was a good decision by Al' to try and get into his head before the kick.

It's one of those things where if a keeper did it to us and we missed, it would frustrate the hell out of you but because it works, but you only have the kick taker to blame. Whether it be yelling or doing Dudek's little dance along the line, I think keeper's should have all the right to try and put the kick takers off just like the kick takers can do their "cute" little run ups to try and fool the keeper.

That being said I can see where you're coming from, I just always liked players that played for our side that had a little bit of a ****'ish attitude.

As for the game, I don't think it has to be said anymore that we did not play well, Almunia is the only player I give any credit too and to a lesser extent I thought Toure and Gallas played fairly well after that first goal went in.

There's no point in pointing out all the mistakes a single player made because they all played pretty bad, and everything that needed to be said was already said.

I hate watching my own team in a penalty shootout though, I thought my heart would drop each time one of our players bar Eduardo and Van Persie walked up to the spot, just like many others I thought Eduardo would score that penalty. Despite the performance we have to give our team credit where it's due, may have not been up against the most skillful keeper in the world but they put them away and that's what counts.

As for the quarter-finals, I don't really care who we get, if we play at a top level like we know we can we should be able to beat anybody, if we play like we did yesterday then we can't simply expect to beat Porto or Villareal just because they look to be poorer teams than we are, they are in the Champion's League quarter-finals just like we are.

I would like to see us knock Liverpool or Barcelona out of the tournament though, we owe them one.

 

[hoyden]

anybody had this pic, just wallpaper size?

I only found a few HQ pics from other angles:


credit to Mauro@footyarts

 

[nazo]

Those pictures make it look like Clichy doesn't know what the **** was going on Seriously what the heck was wrong with him yesterday.

 

[Clrnc]

I wonder when will our guys ever repay the faith of Arsène and grow up. We need these kids to be world class soon. I believe these Rome experience will really be beneficial to them, different kind of experience from the Milan one though.

They will learn from all these great european nights. Hopefully we will have 5 more of these coming up

 

[Clrnc]

Those pictures make it look like Clichy doesn't know what the f**k was going on Seriously what the heck was wrong with him yesterday.

I just saw it.

Seriously wtf was Clichy thinking of. He looked so blur.

The reactions of our other boys was fantastic. Great to see

 

[TomasCR]

Going through this thread, can I just say that I found it very hard to believe that immediately after the game, some of us/you managed to come with comments like "I´m dissapointed with how this or that player played" and so on. That´s for real? I mean, who gives a ****ing damn?

****ing hell, came to have a good fun, but as soon as I saw this complaining-no-matter-how-it-ended, I had to leave it, unbelievable.

 

[Thommybhoy]

Gooners in Rome + CroGooners flag