EPL | Chelsea v Arsenal | Sun October 3rd 2010 16:00 | SS2

[Y va marquer]

Clrnc

I do fault Song for that actually - yes it's a natural instinct to dodge something coming at you at that sort of speed but standing in a defensive wall falls within the remit of what he's employed and well paid to do.

Though maybe I'm being a little too harsh on him?

How fast was that ball travelling?

 

[TheEconomist]

60 odd mph

 

[Humble Rex]

He should have stood his ground. Do you think Terry would have turned away? Or Tony Adams?

 

[TheEconomist]

does anyone have a link to the goal? from what i remember, it was actually malouda who stood in our wall and then moved away at the last second ? song didnt get near enough to it

 

[jerome2158]

from what i remember kav, you're right, because i remember seeing it and wondering if they'd intended to do that because it worked so perfectly.

malouda filled in a little gap in our wall, and as the shot was taken, he dodged out of the way allowing the ball to pass through the narrowest of gaps, and by that point it was bending away from fabianski, who couldn't have had eyes on the ball for more than a millisecond. The fact that he got as close to it as he did is a wonder. Had he somehow tipped it around the post or over, it would have without question been one of the greatest saves i've ever seen.

 

[Humble Rex]

Had Song stood his ground the ball would have hit him. You know, the whole purpose of him being there. He turned away because he wasn´t willing to put his body in there.

 

[sabret00the]

I'm up late, but thought I'd check the new posts before I hit the hay and it was right for a chuckle. @ suggesting it's ok for players in the wall to move out the way if it's struck well enough.

 

[Burnwinter]

Yeah, absolutely absurd. Admittedly standing up to that strike would scare the living **** out of me but I'm not a professional player.

But in the defence of everyone involved - not just Song who happened to be in its path - it was a great free kick.

Ruined the match for me, because before that I would've been willing to say we'd matched them fairly well, but we don't really have a player who can do that.

 

[Biggus]

Yeah, absolutely absurd. Admittedly standing up to that strike would scare the living **** out of me

You're not paid 50k a week and forced to drive expensive cars and date models.

but we don't really have a player who can do that.

And thats what makes the difference.

 

[Burnwinter]

It certainly does make the difference.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

If this was our 3rd game of the season i would have taken the result very positively. We played well and a lot of fans here will keep trying to push the point that chelsea didnt try to play after going ahead though chelsea themselves admit they had a hard time playing their game and it wasnt out of their choice but based on how we played.

We did enough to deserve a point today. Its not the same old story because in some games against Chelsea we didnt do enough to deserve a point. But today we did well, the performance was fine..and in the middle with Song/Wilshere/Diaby we matched Chelsea very well.

 

[DOUBLE-YOU]

We did enough to deserve a point today. Its not the same old story because in some games against Chelsea we didnt do enough to deserve a point. But today we did well, the performance was fine..and in the middle with Song/Wilshere/Diaby we matched Chelsea very well.

If yesterday was the first time i ever watched Arsenal v Chelsea, i would agree with you, but previous meetings leads me to know better. For the last 5 seasons i have seen Arsenal dominate possession against chelsea and not win. It is their game plan. They know they can't play football against us, so they stick numbers behind the ball and let us have it in areas we wont hurt them. We wont beat them in the air, so the allow us to cross the ball, but we face a brick wall trying to play through the centre. They done the same against barca 2 seasons ago. Chelsea aren't concerned with possession unless they are chasing the game.

 

[Arshavinslittlelegs]

2 things:

1) Our full backs must, MUST, contribute offensively in our system otherwise we become narrow and easily kept out - which is what happened and why Wenger was flapping away in the sidelines trying to get our wide players to stretch the Chavs.

Honestly when was the last time Clichy made any sort of positive contribution going forward?!! Contrast that to Ashley Cole....or simply to the clichy of 2 years ago. NOT GOOD ENOUGH

2) We need a 15+ striker capable of creating something out of nothing. RVP may or may not be that player but he is to busy entertaining himself in the physio room to prove it. We need an Ageuro, a Dzeko, an Eto


Also looks like Wenger decision not to buy an additional midfelder in the summer will come back to bite him on the proverbial given Frimpongs injury and Song's seemingly extended summer holiday.

 

[marco]

Same old same old.
We go there play well dominate possesion but end up losing! normally the same old story..
we dont take our chances they take theirs and a thunderbolt from Alex.
arshavin chamaklh and rosicky have to do better with their chances in a game of this magnitude
chelsea werent particularly impressive but they are such a strong team there is no way through them.
they wont be losing to west brom at home or conceding last min goals away at sunderland

 

[goonerwarsh]

Same old same old.
We go there play well dominate possesion but end up losing! normally the same old story..
we dont take our chances they take theirs and a thunderbolt from Alex.
arshavin chamaklh and rosicky have to do better with their chances in a game of this magnitude
chelsea werent particularly impressive but they are such a strong team there is no way through them.
they wont be losing to west brom at home or conceding last min goals away at sunderland

Exactly the same outcome. It's like watching the same game over and over again.

Yet again, we've gone into a season not having the correct balance and power, pace and intelligence

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

We did enough to deserve a point today. Its not the same old story because in some games against Chelsea we didnt do enough to deserve a point. But today we did well, the performance was fine..and in the middle with Song/Wilshere/Diaby we matched Chelsea very well.

If yesterday was the first time i ever watched Arsenal v Chelsea, i would agree with you, but previous meetings leads me to know better. For the last 5 seasons i have seen Arsenal dominate possession against chelsea and not win. It is their game plan. They know they can't play football against us, so they stick numbers behind the ball and let us have it in areas we wont hurt them. We wont beat them in the air, so the allow us to cross the ball, but we face a brick wall trying to play through the centre. They done the same against barca 2 seasons ago. Chelsea aren't concerned with possession unless they are chasing the game.

It is not their game plan but their inability to hold on to the ball against teams that can do that much better. The effort to keep the ball form there was there. The success wasnt there. The myth about teams letting us keep the ball is the same you hear all the time when a team like that wins without having majority of the ball. But when that very same team goes down by a goal they struggle more to get back in the game. I was very confident that if we had nicked one today, we would have been the more likely team to get the second one. Dont get me wrong, Chelsea is a damn good team with experience and they can defend well against any any any top team in this world. They also have good strikers who can clearly make a difference without getting the the killer pass. We created enough chances (its all you can get against a team like chelsea) to get a goal with their tight defense. The openings they had were mostly our own self-inflictions and we dont play a tight ship as they do. But we did enough to get a point. Unfortunately, i agree once again with Wenger, in these big games it comes down to the execution of the little chances you get while not making mistakes at the back. They did that better than us.

btw, its sad seeing guys giving Chamakh stick. He is a top buy and I am sure he will go a looong way to getting us to the next level. Had a bad day today but it was comforting to see him win headers left and right against the big guys.

all in all gutted with the loss

 

[Burnwinter]

There is no way that when we dominated possession for the first quarter hour of the second half they were letting us have the ball.

And if they had been it would have been a stupid strategy, not some kind of anti-Arsenal masterstroke.

It's not that they let us have the ball - it's that they have the quality players to punish us badly with sparse chances. Which is more or less what happened last season at the Emirates, I'm just glad that this time around Cole was only involved in one of the goals.

 

[justinmitchell]

Can't see us winning to be honest. We'll lose by 2 goals. Especially being at Stamford.
Arsène likely to start with

fabianski
sagna squillaci koscielny clichy
diaby song
nasri
rosicky arshavin
chamakh

Would be very surprised if wilshere starts going by previous tactical decisions by wenger

result was par for course, entirely expected in my opinion. The 2-1 against Chelsea several seasons back was an anomaly. Would love to see it happen again but it's not going to with this team.

I don't think wenger has a clue against continental and Italian style teams - sure we flog the lesser likes putting Porto and the likes to the sword but always struggle against a defensive mindset. We almost always lose to chelsea and Liverpool and have started losing to man city, teams we should be beating but can't.

We're chelseas and man utds *****es unfortunately, and while kindergarten is still in full swing it won't be changing. I say this with respect because you're old enough if you're good enough; wilshere, Gibbs and Ramsey are definitely good enough. I would love to see us win something, anything, but the team doesn't had the motivation, cohesiveness and ruthless efficiency to win crucial matches. Not since 2007 anyway. I still remember when wenger said we could win the league with a team of kids. enoughs enough really.

I guess ripping the guts out of a great team and replacing them with teenagers doesn't help.

 

[Kain]

There is no way that when we dominated possession for the first quarter hour of the second half they were letting us have the ball.

And if they had been it would have been a stupid strategy, not some kind of anti-Arsenal masterstroke.

It's not that they let us have the ball - it's that they have the quality players to punish us badly with sparse chances. Which is more or less what happened last season at the Emirates, I'm just glad that this time around Cole was only involved in one of the goals.

Of course they did they've played this game so many time's before, read the book, seen the film & own the damn T shirt.

How many more time's do you have to watch Chelsea and United soak up everything we throw at them and shrug it off before you realise "hmmm maybe that is quite effective afterall!"

They loved it, it went perfect for Chelsea, they executed their gameplan flawlessly.

Arsenal playing Chelsea in that fashion is like water on rock, it's akin to when we play a teams like Porto whos back line gets exposed and there midfield is 50 yards further up the pitch the result and rampage to follow is inevitable.

The only stupid strategy deployed yesterday certainly didn't come from the team in blue.

 

[Sannei]

[quote="justinmitchell]
I guess ripping the guts out of a great team and replacing them with teenagers doesn't help.[/quote]
The quality of the teenagers is the problem itself. Years down the line, out of the many young players we gave free rein in our team, only Cesc has risen to the high standard necessary to challenge or win trophies and that's just a poor ratio.

There are a number of players not good enough clogging up the team.