CL: Hamburg vs Arsenal | 13/09/06

[tangoandrew]

Hello from Hamburg.

I congratulate you for your victory about us. This was the first time, that i have seen a complete match from Arsenal London. The speed, the fast passes at all was very impressive! Your players can bridgeover the midfield in a few seconds. Rosickys goal from a distance was amazing. Amazing again^^. Whether he plays for Dortmund or Arsenal - everytime he shoot such a wonder-goal in Hamburg. It is astounding.
It wondering me, why so much write so negative postings about van Persie. The question "was it a foul or not in the 10th minute" interested in a couple of days no one. Ok I knows that Englishmen are differently minded about divers as Germans, but in my eyes has our GK Kirschstein made the failure. His arms should be on his body and not on van Persies right foot. So its normal that van Persie falls down and the referee gives a penalty. The red card was to hard. A yellow card would be adequate.
At this time Arsenal dominates the game. My team tried to come back to the game over the fight, but Arsenal was to clarified. Up to the 85th minute we had a few chances to made a goal, but Arsenal had more and considerably better chances. It is a little wonder, that only Rosicky mades a goal.
For us its good, that we get an honour goal in the last 5 miutes of the game . I read that some critize your defence about that. But in my eyes it is normal, that an offensive opposing-team get some chances. That is about 90 minutes not to avert. And our striker Sanogo is a good goalgetter.
This is our 7th game in order without a victory. I hope that we can avoid a crisis. The headlines from the German newspapers sounds bad. "HSV get a training unit from Arsenal" and "Hamburg are the weakest German Championsleague team ever"^^
Nevertheless, we will see us again in Old Trafford. I hope that both teams will be in best form. Arsenal with Thierry Henry and we are with van der Vaart, Sorin and Atouba. I wish you in our Championsleague group good speed against Abramowitschs russian branch ZSKA Moskau (i dont like this oil milliardaire).

PS: My English is not so good. I hope you can understand my text.

Hruotland, thank you for your post. You were very impressed with the speed, passing and movement of the Arsenal players and thus surprised by so much negative comments in the forum even when Arsenal won away 2-1 in CL game.

You see, the Arsenal fans are spoilt by the high standards set in the previous seasons by a very experienced and matured team that gel together and have loads of luck in that exciting unbeaten 49 games streak. So, the fans are very impatient and critical.

I only hope Arsène Wenger stays after next season and he is the reason why so many talented youngsters are signing with Arsenal. He has the ability to nurture the unique talents of these players according to their abilities. He is unlike so many managers (and critics) who are one-trick ponies. Arsène knows that he will never try to produce a clone-Viera, a clone Bergkamp, a clone-TH14, etc but her will nurture an orginal Fabregas, an original Eboue, orginal RVP, etc.
This is reason why I know for sure Arsène will be able to continue to develop teams that I love watching instead of the no-risk boring square pass, etc.

 

[Nyingmeh]

Was there more directness in our game ? How was the lineup like ? when I suggested Henry be benched after our disappointing draw game against the riverside, I received insults only. Is someone not sure that Henry needs to redefine his influence over this team and make it more positive ? Tell you the truth, I was happy about his injury ( because they said light injury means he misses only this game ). It looks to me like every player in the Arsenal side ( REMEMBER I SAID IT LOOKS TO ME ), abeit Eboue is looking to play " a la Henry " , I mean playing in a way that suites the game of Henry. I am sure if Henry tries a little more directness in his approach of the game and encourage the other dudes to do same, and we start passing more in the midfield and aiming for goal when we pass the midfield, then we can start killing teams. Please kindly explain to me how the game went on though.

 

[Lets Talk About Cesc]

Not seen this game yet.
But the lads well done

on that note does anyone know where i can see the goals from last night ???

 

[NIPOLOPO]

spoilt is completely an appropriate word in this occasion, after the psv game the other night ,most pool supporters were completely happy about coming back home from an away champions league game with a point In the bag. But noo its impossible for some people to be happy about us winning once in a while here. There is always something or someone to whine about, and it really is getting annoying tbh.

 

[qs]

Great game. We controlled it from start to, well nearly finish. Saw some very encouraging performances, most notably Thomas, seems to be settling well.

As happy as I am and as great as it is to actually win a match I wouldnt get too carried away. It was a 10 man Hamburg who were already missing their biggest stars.

We've a very tough trip to OT on Sunday and I just hope the Hoops done enough to tire them out. No Giggs is great news and I believe they dont even have Park to come in and replace him.

 

[IBL]

Just on a side note, Flamini delivered what was probably our best corner kick all season, and considering the amount we've had that's really saying something. Layed the ball on a plate for Gilberto who should have scored.

 

[asajoseph]

It's quite hard to know how I feel about the game yesterday, to be honest. I think the late Hamburg goal deflated me, and considering how much I'd been looking forward to the game all day, the elated feeling I'd been hoping for following another Arsenal away win in Europe never really materialised.

As usual, I'll try to break things down into the positives and negatives, and whilst the former probably outweigh the latter, I'll begin with the things that I'm not so happy with.

It's really beginning to bother me that we're not scoring 'Arsenal' goals - Wenger always used to talk about valueing goals that come from good team-play, strong build up and a neat finish. Usually, these goals were never spectaculr in the finish, but rather the pace of passing and movement that led to them, often leaving a striker only a few yards out, sometimes with the keeper already out of position. This season, the closest we've come to scoring a goal like that was Flamini's, against Dinamo, but other than that, all of our goals have come from headers (Freddie's), fortunate deflection's in the box (Gilberto against Villa), penalties, or Rosicky's fantastic individual strike. Now of course, I'm not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth (or maybe I am!), but I am becoming concerned that none of the goals we've scored so far have come from any great team-play. We're getting closer, I feel, and had RVP tucked away the chance that Adebayor excellently created up for him, instead of tumbling a little easily, that might well have constituted such a goal, but that time of chance is still coming all too infrequently. As a team, we need to learn how to build a goal again, how to create clear chances for our strikers or attacking midfielders from open play, and against a 10-man Hamburg I really felt that we had a chance to do this, yet nothing was forthcoming.

I also feel that we were perhaps a little fortunate with the sending-off. I do feel that van Persie went down far too easily, and despite winning the penalty he really shouldn't have needed to, and should have put that ball away when he was free in front of the keeper.

The fact that neither of our strikers is scoring goals at the moment is also somewhat of a concern - van Persie's finishing just seems to have deserted him for the moment, some of his shots were too tame for a true, international quality striker. We all know he can do it, and he's really working at getting himself into positions to score goals, which is definitely a massive positive, but he's really failing to do the business at the crucial moment. Adebayor played quite well last night, and his run and vision that led to RVP's dive/penalty award (depending on how you see it) was top-drawer. But again, he's another striker who really lacks too many tools to envisage him as a prolific goalscorer any time soon, which, in a team where we're already concerned about how many goals the midfield will/won't score, that's really not what we want.

In midfield, Hleb looked tired, and wasn't nearly as influential as he was against 'Boro last weekend, whilst in defence Eboue's crossing wasted most of the excellent work he did attacking up the wings, whilst both he and Hoyte, when he came on, looked somewhat vulnerable defensively.

However, last night was certainly not without it's positives, and the fact that we can go into European cup-ties away from home against strong teams and expect to win shows just how far we've come in the last 12 months. Whilst playing against 10 men certainly helped, three points away from home against a good German side is certainly nothing to be sniffed at. Yes, their domestic form isn't too hot either, but we all know that what you're doing in the league means little when the Champions League anthem first blares out of the speakers.

There were some very strong individual performances - Gilberto bossed the middle excellently, Gallas' experience showed, whilst Djourou is getting better with every game (now despite what you Pascal fans may say, that's what I call a fourth choice centre-back!), Cesc was his usual influential self and Rosicky really reminded us how much we missed truly effective, goalscoring wingers last season. Van Persie, up front, made himself available excellently, and despite the fact that he REALLY needs to improve on his finishing, he continues to look like he's been working on the flaws in his game that we all saw last season. We panicked a little at the end, but nothing too serious, so we should definitely take the positives away from last night, and keep our confidence high when we go to Old Ratford on Sunday.

 

[kheldorin]

I think our weaknesses are that we are reliant on a counter-attack to create chances for goals. Hamburg gave alot of chances for that to happen so in a way, that weakness is not tested. We are also poor when the opponent scores first. Similarly, Hamburg didn't test us on that aspect either. Furthermore, they were 1-man down very early on. So, although we had won, I don't think this match is a good judge on whether we had improved. None of our weaknesses had been tested.

 

[kel varnsen]

so i'm not the only one who got that feeling.

anyway, yes its 3 points but IMO it was a worrying performance. great strike from rosicky but i think its worrying that we depended on that to be the winner. defensively we lost concentration (again) in the first and second half. offensively, we dont even look a force. we still havent scored a proper goal post zagreb which makes you wonder what exactly we are doing in training. this game was set up perfectly to justify why we play the way we do. we are supposed to be an ofensive passing team yet we depend on a low% 25 yarder to win a game? plan a is failing us spectacularly.

What exactly where you expecting in this game? We got a goal early, they went down to 10 men. We controlled the tempo of the game..adn didn't look like we wanted to burn too much energy adn rigthly so. We do have a game on Sunday. These guys chased and chased.come second half they were tired bar the last 5 minutes. Are you suggesting we should only be scoring those 2 yard tapins?

does it not concern you that our passing gam isnt being prodcutive against a ten man team who actually came out and attacked us? so what hope is there of it being productive against negative teams like boro and villa. i hate the way people bury their heads in the sand and only want to recognise problems when we lose.

we won.. what more needs to be said.. we dominated play, passed it around nice, scored 2 goals and got 3 points in Europe and are tops in the group (for now)... after our EPL matches lately, this is more than we got out of them.. and we were without Henry, Toure (for most of the match), Freddie, etc...

i consider this match a positive step...

it was a decent match, but in no ways any better than for example the city game. in fact, i think we played better against man city; especially in the first half. not to mention, we played against ten players for most of the match last night.

 

[raphael_as]

i guess it depends what your definition of 'opportunities' is. for instance against boro i recall one opportunity, hlebs chance which was saved. the rest were hopeful punts and not clear cut chances.

Wow, perceptions a funny thing - I thought Schwarzer (and to a lesser extent Woodgate) had an excellent match and that if he'd been a little off his game we'd have scored 3 or 4.

Henry had a good chance early on which Schwarzer made a decent (not great, but decent) save on, the save from Hleb's shot was class, RvP should have done better from a couple of Eboue's cut-backs and had a decent free-kick punched over the bar, Henry also had a couple of pretty decent free-kicks and Cesc had a couple of decent efforts on goal, one of which Schwarzer had to put round his post.

I think the stats say that we had 24 shots with 12 of them on goal - OKay not all of them were good shots, but saying that only one of them was a clear cut opportunity is IMO taking it too far the other way.

 

[invisibleman18]

Just seen the highlights, and I have to say that was a dive from Van Persie, plain and simple, and I don't like to see that. Although what bewilders me more, is why he didn't just score. He received the ball on his favoured left foot, one on one, he's got a sitter. Why not just pass it into the far corner for a simple goal? Why the need to round the keeper and walk the ball into the net? Do we really want to walk the ball into the net everytime?
Cracker from Rosicky, and great to see someone just put their foot through the ball. Although it's still worrying that for all our passing and possession, we seem incapable of creating reasonable chances inside the box.

Still 3 points is 3 points, and I suppose this was the sort of CL match that 2 or 3 years ago we would have lost.

 

[asajoseph]

Just seen the highlights, and I have to say that was a dive from Van Persie, plain and simple, and I don't like to see that. Although what bewilders me more, is why he didn't just score. He received the ball on his favoured left foot, one on one, he's got a sitter. Why not just pass it into the far corner for a simple goal? Why the need to round the keeper and walk the ball into the net? Do we really want to walk the ball into the net everytime?
Cracker from Rosicky, and great to see someone just put their foot through the ball. Although it's still worrying that for all our passing and possession, we seem incapable of creating reasonable chances inside the box.

Still 3 points is 3 points, and I suppose this was the sort of CL match that 2 or 3 years ago we would have lost.

Exactly. That's pretty much the short way to say what I just said - maybe I should limit myself to 200 words in future...

 

[sabret00the]

Just seen the highlights, and I have to say that was a dive from Van Persie, plain and simple, and I don't like to see that. Although what bewilders me more, is why he didn't just score. He received the ball on his favoured left foot, one on one, he's got a sitter. Why not just pass it into the far corner for a simple goal? Why the need to round the keeper and walk the ball into the net? Do we really want to walk the ball into the net everytime?
Cracker from Rosicky, and great to see someone just put their foot through the ball. Although it's still worrying that for all our passing and possession, we seem incapable of creating reasonable chances inside the box.

Still 3 points is 3 points, and I suppose this was the sort of CL match that 2 or 3 years ago we would have lost.

honestly, i can only come up with it being a confidence issue.

 

[James]

Just seen the highlights, and I have to say that was a dive from Van Persie, plain and simple, and I don't like to see that. Although what bewilders me more, is why he didn't just score. He received the ball on his favoured left foot, one on one, he's got a sitter. Why not just pass it into the far corner for a simple goal?

His first touch was a shocker.

I was surprised he didnt take the penalty too. Although Bert slotted it away very nicely.

 

[RandomHero84]

Rosicky is going to prove to be arsenals best signing since TH14.

 

[cesc18]

still havent watched the entire match but good to know we have got 3 points and rosicky getting his first goal
hope this is the confidence builder ahead of the game against manure

 

[Gurgen]

Just seen the highlights, and I have to say that was a dive from Van Persie, plain and simple, and I don't like to see that. Although what bewilders me more, is why he didn't just score. He received the ball on his favoured left foot, one on one, he's got a sitter. Why not just pass it into the far corner for a simple goal?

His first touch was a shocker.

That's pretty much the case, I don't see the need for any wild theories.

Like he said in his interview, he wanted to shoot immediately but had to do something different because of his poor first touch.

About the dive, well, he 'bought' the foul as they say. Like Henry did vs. Portugal. No big reactions on here then.

 

[Goonergirl]

I thought the team had a good match, espcially considering that we were away and Hamburg are a very tough team even with ten men.
We passed well, dominated posistion and took shots more than usual.

About the penalty felt sorry for Hamburg's keeper but thats karma for you, V.Persie didn't dive the keeper had caught him.
Felt the whole team played good football espically Lehman, Eboue, Hleb, Gilberto, Fabregas and Rosicky.
Altough the lack of concentration in the last minutes worried me, thats how Hamburgs goal came I hope this is sorted out.

Was it just me, or are Rosicky and Hleb playing more wider?
And lastly I don't understand all this Hoyte bashing, I know he isn't good enough to play for Arsenal espcially at this level but he's young and a RB playing LB personally I thought he had a decent game today well at least an improvement from the previous games.
So we have 3 points thats what matters and we beat them away, I really think as a team we are improving with every match so hopefully we can get something at Man Utd.

 

[Army of Me]

why?

he is s**t, and he is also english.

Are you ever happy? There was no need to insult the guy like that.

if you're going to reply at least get your facts straight. i didn't originally say anything about hoyte, i was defending the guy who did though.

and for the record, i'm happy all the time, can't help it if i didn't agree with everyone saying "we were just amazy" yesterday can I?

wasn't a great performance but i'm happy with the result.

 

[GoonerGurjit]

The result is what matters most in the group stages. The win alone will increase the players confidence.