CL: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal | 17/09/08

[Beany]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

I just staggered out of Claridges bar, my take is a point is a good result for what, on paper is our toughest game in the group.

From here we should qualify and frankly that's all that matters...

..

 

[lee1001]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

They say you need to win your home games and draw your away games. Anything else is a bonus. Job done, despite the performance.

 

[raidersoftheark]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

I am not kidding guys. I have only missed 2 Arsenal matches so far. This was one. Fulham was the other.

I think I'm Arsenal's good luck charm.

 

[AliBabaBrewer]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

I've been watching the replay of the goals, having missed the game.

Does no one else feel that their penalty was a little suspect?

 

[AnthonyG]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

I've been watching the replay of the goals, having missed the game.

Does no one else feel that their penalty was a little suspect?

Plenty do. See above.

 

[hujja]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

Just watched their penalty. More than a little overacting. Bordering on blatant dive but Bacary should've known better than to hustle him like that.

 

[scruzgooner]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

the penalty was a ****ing joke. he put his arm behind bac and fell to the ground, bringing bac down on top of hims...boo ****ing hoo.

lame ref today, couldn't make fire with a lit match.

 

[arsenalfc0719]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

What a terrible performance. No creativity, no flow to our game, no ideas and no cutting edge.

I'm not disappointed, because I wasn't really expecting much from our team, our current crop of players don't inspire me too. Actually I think one point is very good after the way the match went about.

The lack of quality is ever so present. We had zero ideas, all we could muster up were aimless crosses and hoofs into the box. We never looked like scoring.

This is the worst Arsenal squad I have seen in years.

 

[kanooo]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

Yes. Once again, as usual, we find that Adebayor doesn't want to score easy goals.

I think Wenger's comments were right about the penalty. I do think that Sagna was pulled down by their player instead of Sagna pinning him down.

But at least it's not so bad that we got a point in the end.

Watched the highlights of the other game and it seems Porto will not be too easy to break down at the Emirates. But it seems that Fernerbache's defense is terrible and it will be ripped to shreds if they play like that against us (yes, even if it takes Adebayor 5 chances to score a goal).

 

[KingReyes]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

We should have had that in the bag long before Kiev scored. Once again making life hard for ourselves.

 

[patrick42uk]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

That dive for the pen is one of the best i'v seen. Bac had his hands on him, but there was no pushing or force on the player. However, the guy backed into Sagna, grabbed him, through himself to the floor and brought Sagna down with him. Very easy, given these circumstances, for it to look like Bac fouled him. Ref fell for it but that is not necessarily his fault. He only gets one view and my first impression too was that it was a pen. The only thing that caused doubt was that Sagna rarely ever makes mistakes and that was proved right.

 

[kanooo]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

That dive for the pen is one of the best i'v seen. Bac had his hands on him, but there was no pushing or force on the player. However, the guy backed into Sagna, grabbed him, through himself to the floor and brought Sagna down with him. Very easy, given these circumstances, for it to look like Bac fouled him. Ref fell for it but that is not necessarily his fault. He only gets one view and my first impression too was that it was a pen. The only thing that caused doubt was that Sagna rarely ever makes mistakes and that was proved right.

To give the benefit of the doubt, maybe their player wasn't trying to get a pentaly and was grabbing Sagna with instinct only. Anyway, it might have looked bad from the Ref's point of view I guess.

 

[General]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

s***e performance that only warranted a draw.

Some of their players were championship or even lower quality, Bangoura was awful, times are bad when you cant beat times like that.

Exactly my thoughts. Kyiv were average at best with a striker happy to shoot from the moon. Had we lost, it would’ve been a tactical horror show by Wenger. We should’ve changed things much earlier but once again he went into reactive mode, only ringing the changes once we’d gone one nil down. It should’ve been obvious to him after half an hour that the defensive formation was unnecessary and only allowed the opposition to build up more confidence. FC Twente looked technically superior to this lot but our attacking formation came through in the end. In hindsight, we didn’t need the extra man in midfield and it worried me the way Song kept launching forward leaving big holes between the midfield and defence. In terms of positional awareness, he was all over the place for a DM. Cesc was largely on the fringes; RVP looked wasted out wide, Denilson’s passing was wayward, Gallas – I refuse to give any credit because he was at fault for the goal and looked to be having a nightmare before his goal, Sagna and Clichy did ok, Ade’s movement was good but he should’ve taken that chance; Clichy played with too much restraint till the last half hour and Theo was one of the positive performers. Perhaps Wenger was worried about our pathetic record there and this affected the players

A point was the least we deserved because Kyiv didn’t impress me at all. We just went and made a mediocre team look like world beaters and you could’ve easily mistaken us for Liverpool.

 

[Anzac]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

So I presume we played the 4141 version of the 451, and that both RVP & Walcott were playing from the LM/RM positions as opposed to the AML/R as in a 4321????

 

[General]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

So I presume we played the 4141 version of the 451, and that both RVP & Walcott were playing from the LM/RM positions as opposed to the AML/R as in a 4321????

Effectively yes. 4-1-4-1. It works very well when you have a Gilberto or Makalele type player sitting in front of the back four. I don’t want to criticise Song too much but I don’t think he understood his role yesterday. Wenger could’ve changed things much earlier as it became obvious after half an hour Kyiv neither had the quality nor creative edge to break us down. Our defensive formation only gave them more impetus.

 

[N!]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

Not terribley surpised at the draw. To be fair we never looked like scoring from what i saw. We played too flat, with too little creativity and too little energy.

The penalty was cheap to give away, i would have thought that a defender of Sagna's calibre would have known better than to be put in such a position.. but then again, our defense isn't known for it's intelligence.

Overall a pretty poor game.

edit: Was it just me or does Bangoura look WAY too feminine? I swear to God that he was wearing blusher.

 

[qs]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

So I presume we played the 4141 version of the 451, and that both RVP & Walcott were playing from the LM/RM positions as opposed to the AML/R as in a 4321????

Effectively yes. 4-1-4-1. It works very well when you have a Gilberto or Makalele type player sitting in front of the back four. I don’t want to criticise Song too much but I don’t think he understood his role yesterday. Wenger could’ve changed things much earlier as it became obvious after half an hour Kyiv neither had the quality nor creative edge to break us down. Our defensive formation only gave them more impetus.

I thought Song did pretty well, a couple fo bad passes aside he did his job and made a big difference. You could see how much we missed him asfter he was taken off.

 

[RocktheCasbah]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

Not terribley surpised at the draw. To be fair we never looked like scoring from what i saw. We played too flat, with too little creativity and too little energy.

The penalty was cheap to give away, i would have thought that a defender of Sagna's calibre would have known better than to be put in such a position.. but then again, our defense isn't known for it's intelligence.

Overall a pretty poor game.

edit: Was it just me or does Bangoura look WAY too feminine? I swear to God that he was wearing blusher.

Oh I get it, it's Sagna's fault the guy grabbed him and pulled him to the floor...

 

[James]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

Anyone else see the highlights of Porto - Fenerbache? Fenerbache were a shambles at the back. Nowhere near as organised as Kiev looked.

 

[asajoseph]

Re: UEFA Champions League: Dynamo Kyiv v Arsenal| 17-09-08 19:45

To be fair to N!, I think that you do have to be a bit smart in these situations in these ties - it was an excellent dive, if you can even say such a thing, but players will usually go down in the box if given half a chance.

I don't think you can totally lay into Sagna for it, but perhaps Eboue does have a lot to learn...