CL| Napoli v Arsenal, 11/12, 7.45pm, SS1

[Rain Dance]

Should have rested Giroud, and play Theo upfront.. oh well, its all done and dusted anyway

 

[jones]

It was a three year extension, no need to make **** up now. Seriously, if Wenger 'hated' Walcott (what a silly concept, do you think Wenger is a 14yo schoolboy?) he would have either let his contract run down or ditched his ass last summer.

My bad, 2.5 years (it was extended in January). Of which a year is gone now. So he has 1.5 yrs left.

As I said before, that's incorrect. His contract isn't up until summer 2016, it was everywhere in the news really last winter. Not taking part in your other 'discussion' as it's all baseless speculation really.

 

[VAVAVOOM 14]

I'm vexed and aghast about how events transpired.

Even Thierry Henry was befuddled enough to ask Wenger why Walcott wasn't starting, but to not play him at all is unforgivable given the circumstances and really makes me question whether Wenger has any common sense.

We're playing a team desperate for goals, why not play the fastest player in world football to hit them on the counter attack?

He's on the bench you say, why not bring him on sometime during the game to achieve the same effect?

I'm honestly at a loss for words, Wenger's logic was remedial tonight.

He set us up to play for a draw yet he kept Özil - who has virtually no defensive attributes - on the pitch for 90 exhausting minutes. Why not keep him fresh for the City game and instead utilize a player who would better serve our stupid gameplan of trying to avoid defeat without going for victory?

We're starting to look how we did during the early stages of last season when we had zero penetration and couldn't carve out anything resembling a chance.

What the hell has happened to Gnabry?

He's a winger with pace who would stretch defenders and offer us something other than our redundant exchanges in midfield with no probing or direction, we're completely stagnant.

Starting to really worry about our midfield, its looked genius at times this season but it's gotten stale now. We have the personnel and talent available which would give us another dimension yet Wenger for some deranged reason refuses to use them.

I'm stunned and extremely worried, our season could start to unravel very swiftly.

 

[RUS arsenal]

Some bribing going on in Marseille? Looks suspicious as f**k.

No kidding! Instead of a stonewall penalty the Marseille player got sent off for diving :shock:

And that goal at the end? Some funny business it seems....

 

[redwhiteAustrian]

**** performance, **** result, **** outcome and possibly a **** draw as well.

Bad luck, but we still played a good group stage, even though finishing second makes it look worse than it is.

 

[HollandGooner]

I was not happy with Özil playing another 90th minutes.

 

[a_fourteen]

team selection was right. wenger went for control in the middle of the park, not for hitting them on the counter. no matter, a loss is a loss and we move on. but i will say this, the next time an italian side comes to london we need to treat them like shlt. we are all nice and hospitable and they treat our players and fans like crap.

 

[Big Poppa]

Yup, Podolski and Walcott are certain starters for me when they're fit, had enough of Rosicky and Cazorla out wide, we're too easy to nullify.

Podolski's injury is causing everyone to think he is much better than he is. The guy was behind Ox for Villa and isn't the player we need starting for us in every game, anyway there isn't room for him.

I think we will see Walcott start on Saturday.

Isn't Sagna back on the weekend?

No, back for Chelsea

Why are you always on Podolski's back, then riding Ox in the next sentence? Ox has done little or nothing since he joined. Who cares that he started one game, Podolski is effective while Ox is just hype at this point.

Hmmm to be honest I think the truth is somewhere in between. Both of them have quality. People were talking about Ox the way they are talking about Ross Barkley now. Same for Podolski when he was that age. The truth is Form and injuries matter, and both of them can offer pace in the final third, plus a decent shot. We are lacking that right now.

 

[Big Poppa]

team selection was right. wenger went for control in the middle of the park, not for hitting them on the counter. no matter, a loss is a loss and we move on. but i will say this, the next time an italian side comes to london we need to treat them like shlt. we are all nice and hospitable and they treat our players and fans like crap.

This Napoli team have been leaking goals left right and centre. They leave huge gaps in defence and were missing Inler in an area of the pitch where we were already superior to them. Controlling the midfield is important to a degree but you need a threat at the end of it and we had none.

 

[The_Playmaker]

I'm sick of the pessimism. We finished second, so what? If you really fear these teams so much why would you want to go out later on in the competition to the same teams?

The way I see it is when the PSG, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletico Madrid and Bayern Munich look at the draw they will all want to avoid City and Arsenal.

Seriously if you are so gutted about the draw, it shows you have no belief in this team or a genuine fear of competition. We are in the Champions League. Playing the best is what it is all about. If you hadn't noticed we beat last years finalists in the group stage. We came out of a group people said we would struggle in from the get go. We are now through to the next round.

Every team that we could possibly meet are offensive teams bar Athletico Madrid, which means that we will have a chance against all of them, because we will get opportunities to score.

How people can fear a team is beyond me. Do you think the players have that mentality, they want to play against the best. They want to test themselves.

 

[el57]

How people can fear a team is beyond me. Do you think the players have that mentality, they want to play against the best. They want to test themselves.

I totally get fans wanting the easier and better draws in order to go further, I really do. But I agree with The_Playmaker here: I personally prefer getting the toughest best draws because I don't view the CL as a very winnable competition unless we get lucky like Chelsea, but I view it as an awesome competition where the best teams face off. I want Barcelona or Bayern coming to the Emirates. I want 2-0 in Munich. I want to be the first English club to win in Dortmund or the Bernabeu etc. Sorry but I prefer those to going to Olympiakos (again!) or going to frigid north to play the racists Zenit. Or Leverkusen, which is basically where every traffic jam in West Germany happens.

 

[TheLoneFalcon]

I prefer staying in Pot 1. There's optimism and then there's naivety.

 

[SiMamu]

If we get a tough draw again, can we lose the first one again and win the second? Beating Milan and Bayern gave us lifts in the last two seasons as we proved our quality. Losing to Barcelona knocked our confidence and sent us into a slump as we felt like bottlers.

 

[albakos]

That was a shocking performance and I am truly shocked at how our team set out to play. To say we deserved to lose is an understatement. Napoli wiped the floor with us on second half.

It's obvious our team are looking exhausted. So why not utilize some players who are fresher, Theo, Nacho...

But on bigger picture, we got ourselves to blame for failing to get first spot. The loss to Dortmund was very avoidable (even Arsène admitted it) and the non-chalant display against Marseille at Emirates cost us dearly. We coudl have easily scored 3-4 more goals that night, only for us to sit and enjoy our one-two, by trying to score more perfect Wilshere/Norwich goals.

As for draw, as many times on similar, I think we'll get Real Madrid so Özil gets to play against his old team.

I would like to play PSG, although they have Ibra/Cavani.

 

[Anzac]

IIRC the CL seedings update after this season, and the year that drops off is our last Q/F.
Since then we've finished 2nd in the Group 3 of 4 years as top seeds and failed to progress beyond R16.

If we fail to advance to the Q/F this season we are likely to lose our seeding - that is potentially both the real 'cost' of this defeat today,
and the size of the task before us.

 

[CurryFlavoured]

IIRC the CL seedings update after this season, and the year that drops off is our last Q/F.
Since then we've finished 2nd in the Group 3 of 4 years as top seeds and failed to progress beyond R16.

If we fail to advance to the Q/F this season we are likely to lose our seeding - that is potentially both the real 'cost' of this defeat today,
and the size of the task before us.

I was thinking that myself a while back, but then again we've still consistently made the last 16 when Porto and Benfica haven't. Each of them have only got out of the group once out of the last 3 years, so they have to be #1 and #2 contenders to drop out of the top seed group. Dortmund have could move to pot 1 if they have another good run, maybe PSG as well if they go even further but I don't see who else could. I'm not too worried about this yet.

 

[Big Poppa]

I'm sick of the pessimism. We finished second, so what? If you really fear these teams so much why would you want to go out later on in the competition to the same teams?

The way I see it is when the PSG, Real Madrid, Barcelona, Athletico Madrid and Bayern Munich look at the draw they will all want to avoid City and Arsenal.

Seriously if you are so gutted about the draw, it shows you have no belief in this team or a genuine fear of competition. We are in the Champions League. Playing the best is what it is all about. If you hadn't noticed we beat last years finalists in the group stage. We came out of a group people said we would struggle in from the get go. We are now through to the next round.

Every team that we could possibly meet are offensive teams bar Athletico Madrid, which means that we will have a chance against all of them, because we will get opportunities to score.

How people can fear a team is beyond me. Do you think the players have that mentality, they want to play against the best. They want to test themselves.

This is cute and everything, but we are not in an "Any Given Sunday" movie. The worst Chelsea team in 10 years won the CL by avoiding all the best teams, building up momentum, and defending for their lives at the very end. At this stage of the competition, teams still play largely without pressure the degree of progression affects two key things in particular:

TV revenue (~£50m for reaching the final v £27m we earned for reaching the last 16)
UEFA coefficients (Last chance this year to retain our pot 1 group status)

Between 2007 - 2011, the best German, Spanish and Italian teams (aside from Barcelona) were all going through motions while in England Man U, City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Sp**s were all very strong. Not so any more.

This is not pessimism, it's reality. You have a better chance of beating a weaker opponent. As an individual and a sportsman, yes you want to test yourself as the best, so that you can measure your progress and develop but you also want to win trophies, and until we do that, we will struggle to keep our best players out of the clutches of teams that do.

We were unprofessional against Napoli. A draw would have been enough to win our group, but the Italians saw little to fear after we passed the ball around for 60 minutes and decided to just go for it. Our vulnerability on the wings was exposed when Insigne came on just as we began to tire - why could we not do the same to them with Walcott?

Anyway, it's done.

 

[Penn_]

Would hurt less if we could at least say we rested Özil for City but no yet another 90 minutes for him when we never really wanted to score.

But we did almost do it, had Sagna be playing I doubt Insigne would of had so much of an effect on the game. Gibbs was also awful on the other side.

Also none of the teams we could get are unbeatable, Bayern are probably the toughest, but every one of those teams has weaknesses. All we need is to have our first choice defence available.

 

[eye4goal]

I'm sick of the pessimism. We finished second, so what? If you really fear these teams so much why would you want to go out later on in the competition to the same teams?

More upset about losing 2-0 to an average team. Dortmund can't believe they've won the group. We were by far the best team in the group with Dortmund going through some sort of crisis, but we've let ourselves down.

 

[tap-in]

We qualified from the toughest group, so its not all doom and gloom but I just don't understand persisting with Giroud for 90 mins. A goal on the break would have been possible with a fast CF. There was one occasion when the goalkeeper came way out and beat Giroud to the ball. The commentator even said "another yard quicker and Giroud would have got there!" There were other occasions when Giroud just didn't have the legs/speed to get to the ball first. If we are playing with a loan striker against top teams, he has to be fast.

It was all very well playing for a draw but once we lost Arteta it became much harder. Anyway we are capable of beating any team when we are at our best, so bring on the draw