EPL – Fulham vs Arsenal – 5:30pm - 02/01/12

[Vela]

Squillaci was Arsenal's 29th player to used in the Premier League already this season.

 

[dpt49]

7 points from our last 5 games:

Man City - 0.
Aston Villa - 3
Wolves - 1
QPR - 3
Fulham - 0

We need to start a winning run.

Not scoring many goals either, an average of a goal a game.

We should be getting more than 4 points and 3 goals in our last 3 games. Two home games against relegation teams like Wolves and QPR and a mid table team like Fulham.

If Wenger thinks Henry and Bridge are going to get us out of this mess then we might as well say goodbye to CL football.

As for our bench today, what a joke. These sort of players are bringing the club down to a level that is a joke.

Why are Chamakh, Squillaci and Almunia still here?
What other club would tolerate such dross?

 

[DK Gooner]

Even this doesn't cheer me up:

Wenger has obviously built this team in his own image:

Managed to put the first away, but spurned several chances for the second before conceding defeat.

 

[mo50]

Why are Chamakh, Squillaci and Almunia still here?
What other club would tolerate such dross?

This is one issue I have with Wenger. Holding on to players who clearly won't contribute any longer. Maybe its a matter of no one wanting to buy them, but in an ideal world they should be removed from the match day squad altogether. Chamakh doesn't look likely to ever score a goal, so why not give Park a try? Squillaci is a big joke, so why not bring on Miquel, who is hungry to impress?

Where is Chamberlain? Why the **** do the likes of Rosicky/Arshavin have to be on the bench every game? Why isn't Wenger ruthless anymore? He didn't hesitate letting go of the invincibles when their time was up, why isn't he as ruthless with this lot?

 

[WengerFaithful]

My order of reasons for this defeat are:-

1. Fatique Factor - not enough changes from the QPR game (Arshavin & the forced change of Conquelin the only 2 in a 48hr turn around.
2. Poor Finishing
3. Poor referring
4. The tactic for the MF to sit deeper from the 2nd half.

 

[kofigunner]

We've run out of gas, pure and simple. If Wenger can't trust some of the bench to start some games(other than those forced to do so through injury) then we're going to struggle mightily for a while until injured reinforcements or new buys come in. It's no coincidence that players like RVP and Arteta look a little off pace. I have to say that all the players looked like there were putting in their shift so it's not a lack of effort. The gas tank has just run dry. Either Wenger trusts players like Oxo to take some of the load off or he buys experienced ones.

 

[DK Gooner]

Missed the first half hour, but after that was not impressed by Arsenal.

Saw a replay of the penalty appeal and on first viewing I thought Gervinho had just miscontrolled the ball. Only on the replay could I tell for certain it was a penalty so can understand why it wasn't given. On Djourou's red card, I also thought it was an understandable decision given his unpunished take out of a player with the ball only a couple of minutes earlier. He wasn't helped by some hos fellow defenders, but he has to take the blame for putting himself in a precarious position as a result of his earlier transgressions. Overall, I thought the referee could have handled things better, but did not overly influence the course of the game with bad decisions.

As for our team's performance, it was the culmination of a lot of small errors that led to a fairly comfortable position being turned into a hart to take defeat. Our lack of cutting edge over this busy period has really caught up with us alongside our clear lack of balanced options on the bench to prevent against the overuse of certain players.

It would be unfair to expect too much of Gervinho so early on into his Arsenal career, but his promotion to a starting berth so soon is costing us. He is far too unreliable in the final third and he does fade terribly in impact in the 2nd half of games. He has had a positive impact in certain areas of the pitch, but is not yet good enough to capitalise on the good work he does do. There is no guarantee that he will become more reliable next season and beyond, but hopefully his match fitness should improve. He is the kind of player we need as a back-up on the subs bench rather than entrusting so much to him from the start.

Walcott was very poor and has looked rubbish for the last 2-3 games. Poor decision-making and even poorer execution has not helped his team one bit. However, I do think we would have been better off keeping him on the pitch and replacing Gervinho if a change had to be made. His pace is still a threat and once we went down to 10, the Fulham defence were able to push up as RVP tired and the likes of Benayoun and Rosicky were introduced. Maybe it is easy to say in hindsight, but Wenger did not get the team to adapt to the change in circumstances anywhere near well enough. Our defence has usually been solid and pretty much was for most of the game, but the constant Fulham pressure in the did not give them much of a chance to hold out.

Ordinarily, I would have treated this result as one those that does happen from time to time for every club, but our results over the last month, particularly the manner in which they were achieved, has made this result more conspicuous. The last three games have showcased our lack of prowess in front of goal and especially with this defeat, I hope that not too much pressure is put on Henry on his return

 

[AnthonyG]

Saw a replay of the penalty appeal and on first viewing I thought Gervinho had just miscontrolled the ball. Only on the replay could I tell for certain it was a penalty so can understand why it wasn't given. On Djourou's red card, I also thought it was an understandable decision given his unpunished take out of a player with the ball only a couple of minutes earlier. He wasn't helped by some hos fellow defenders, but he has to take the blame for putting himself in a precarious position as a result of his earlier transgressions. Overall, I thought the referee could have handled things better, but did not overly influence the course of the game with bad decisions.

It was a clear penalty and an absurd red card, both bookings. Not going to bother arguing how much that influenced the game, but those two things stand.

 

[DJ_Markstar]

Even this doesn't cheer me up:

Wenger has obviously built this team in his own image:

Managed to put the first away, but spurned several chances for the second before conceding defeat.

I just fell off my chair.

Early front runner for post of the year.

 

[eye4goal]

Anyone got any idea as to how many players have played how many games for the top6???
Just thinking that so far as fatigue goes it's perhaps not the last 2 games that is the issue,
but moreso the lack of rotation before hand???

No one has looked sharp of late to be fair, but we've definitely played 5 more games in average over Sp**s at least I'd say(Qualifiers + 5CL games). RVP is on 23 starts if we exclude tonight compared to Aguero 19, Rooney 18, Suarez 19 and Adebayor 16. We've got no option but to fully rotate our team in the FA Cup

 

[Vinci]

Wenger never wanted to put his right hand in the pocket; something was itching.

 

[USArsenal]

why are people talking about our second game in less than 48 hours? wasnt it Fulhams second game in less than 48 hours too?

 

[Yaya]

why are people talking about our second game in less than 48 hours? wasnt it Fulhams second game in less than 48 hours too?

Yep, they played away to Norwich, really not an excuse.

 

[progman07]

My order of reasons for this defeat are:-

1. Fatique Factor - not enough changes from the QPR game (Arshavin & the forced change of Conquelin the only 2 in a 48hr turn around.
2. Poor Finishing
3. Poor referring
4. The tactic for the MF to sit deeper from the 2nd half.

Fatique Factor is only as much of an issue as Fulham's, they have also played on 31th with almost the same lineup as today's (check it, I counted 2 changes). Difference is they played away at Norwitch, not at home against a team close to relegation.

Refereeing is the usual excuse, but even with 11 men Fulham was attacking a lot. We were lucky not to concede that as a penalty anyways.

Also, if that is a tactic to sit deep and let them control the game, I'm amazed. Nothing like Wenger.


This, along with the usual rubbish like 'this game will decide our season' before the match, and 'maybe this loss will make Wenger sign players' after the game justified my decision not to bother about the forum... :|

 

[Armor for Sleep]

why are people talking about our second game in less than 48 hours? wasnt it Fulhams second game in less than 48 hours too?

Absof*ckinlutely. Its irrelevant and anyone saying "but but United get 3 days, Liverpool get 4" are fighting the wrong battle.

 

[Warship]

Even this doesn't cheer me up:

Wenger has obviously built this team in his own image:

Managed to put the first away, but spurned several chances for the second before conceding defeat.

Brilliant !

 

[AnthonyG]

why are people talking about our second game in less than 48 hours? wasnt it Fulhams second game in less than 48 hours too?

Of course and they had a UEFA game sandwiched in earlier in December. It's a game we would have wanted to win, just like ManC would have wanted to beat Sunderland and ManU Blackburn. Everyone is tired this time of year (I think the congestion is a joke personally, but that's another topic of discussion). Our away form is worrying full stop. Quite a reverse from last season.

 

[GOONER1991]

I'm finding myself getting quite frustrated at Van Persie in the past few games, as I feel as if he is forcing things way too much, which in turn is breaking down our attacks. I commented on it after the Wolves game, and Wenger himself confirmed what I was thinking http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/wenger-relaxation-helped-van-persie, and again we saw Van Persie waste several good chances against QPR.

I've felt that over the past few games, Van Persie has been quite greedy. Several times I've seen Van Persie pick up the ball in a great area, and have a runner in space, but instead of playing the ball, try to take on two defenders, and running into a cul de sack, missing a great opportunity to score. We saw that again today, when Walcott got frustrated at Van Persie. Walcott, standing in all the space in the world, in the box, however Van Persie chose to dribble the ball into pressure, and hit a shot at a pack of defenders.

My question is, why is this? I thought originally that Van Persie was simply being greedy, wanting to score the goals and get his record, which is understandable. However today, I thought that it might actually be our captain losing faith in Walcott and Gervinho's ability to actually score the goals, and choosing instead to take responsibility onto himself. We've seen Gervinho miss countless great opportunities this season, and Walcott hasn't been scoring this season either, with an absolutely awful finish when through at goal against QPR. It's only human for Van Persie to become frustrated watching his teammates spurn chance after chance, and for us to consistently rely on him to put chances away for us.

 

[DK Gooner]

Saw a replay of the penalty appeal and on first viewing I thought Gervinho had just miscontrolled the ball. Only on the replay could I tell for certain it was a penalty so can understand why it wasn't given. On Djourou's red card, I also thought it was an understandable decision given his unpunished take out of a player with the ball only a couple of minutes earlier. He wasn't helped by some of his fellow defenders, but he has to take the blame for putting himself in a precarious position as a result of his earlier transgressions. Overall, I thought the referee could have handled things better, but did not overly influence the course of the game with bad decisions.

It was a clear penalty and an absurd red card, both bookings. Not going to bother arguing how much that influenced the game, but those two things stand.

It was a penalty and the replay made that clear, but when I first saw the incident in real-time (when shown at half-time), I wasn't sure how much contact, if any, was actually made. Compared to the one that Wigan got at the weekend, maybe we should feel hard done by, but I thought it wasn't so obvious and being away from home, I'm not sure many referees would have given it. Harsh definitely, but I think understandable.

As for Djourou's 2 yellows, I'm not sure that a Fulham player doing similar challenges at the Emirates would have avoided the same fate. Djourou was a bit unlucky with the 2nd yellow. Poor play from Per left Djourou in a difficult position. Had it been inside the box, I think the ref would not have given a penalty, but outside the box, those kind of challenges are 50:50 as to whether the ref calls a foul. Once the ref decided it was, because the Fulham player was driving into the box, it made the offence a more bookable transgression when taken with the earlier incident probably fresh in the referee's mind.

I still think we should have been able to hold out for a point, but our inability to hold onto the ball cost us this game, more than IMO the influence of the ref. No team has come through this christmas/new year period unscathed this time round, so I'm not overly disappointed at the result. I was more angry at the dropped points against Wolves than losing today.

 

[AFC-Phil]

Even this doesn't cheer me up:

Wenger has obviously built this team in his own image:

Managed to put the first away, but spurned several chances for the second before conceding defeat.