PL: Charlton Athletic vs Arsenal | 26/12/05

[Canadian Gooner]

Anyone notice that Henry played much better once Pires came on? It seems like Henry just has that much more fun with Pires playing. It wasn't Henry's best game, hopefully it was because of the injury.

Reyes played really well in the second half as did most of the team.

In the first half there was so much loss of possesion from everyone it was hard to watch. Cygan, Hleb and Gilberto were the ones that gave it away the most.

All in all, I'm really happy with the win, especially away. Hopefully we can continue winning. Getting Cole or Clichy back will be a big booster too.

 

[Lukazan]

I think Reyes played very well today.

Not only was his attacking play brilliant, but I gained alot of respect for him when he was tracking back and helping out Cygan all through the match.

A little suprised to see him come off but it was a good match for him and a goal under his belt. Hopefully he can build on this performance and start scoring some more goals.

 

[DOUBLE-YOU]

i went to the game and sat in the charlton end, so i had to take a more neutral look at the game. from what i saw it was a decent team performance.

Reyes showed good touches but gave the ball away a lot and slowed down many passing moves. i thought hleb was easy on the eye, although there wasn't always an end product, but he will improve with experience of premier league and knowledge of team mates. i think wenger maybe building a team around him. he was very central and received a lot of ball.
Freddie ran hard and the rest of the midfield done what they had to, to win the game.

once again i felt lauren was very solid , as was toure. campbell made some useful tackles but his distribution is starting to piss me off. he is right footed yet he deliberatley puts the ball on his left and tries to play 40 yard passes. 9 times out of 10 the pass goes awry yet he persists in doing so. there was also an occasion when he took a free kick and every outfiled player was indicating he should pass the ball out wide to lauren who was in acres of space, yet stubbornly, he launched an aimless pass into the area.

Henry was of great interest. at first i thought he had an attitude with reyes, hleb etc but you can see he just wants the team to pass the ball better. he does have attitude but you can see when reyes scored how happy he was for reyes and how much of a team player he is.

on the whole i think this was a game we controlled without playing vintage football. 3 pts and a clean sheet is all you can ask for. (thats how chelsea won the league)

 

[invisibleman18]

We certainly didnt dominate as some people are saying, in fact i thought Charlton were winning the midfield in the first half and perhaps even were the better side. i really couldnt see where a goal was going to come from.

2nd half we played quite well without ever dominating, good to see a game where reyes spends more time with the ball at his feet than he did on his arse. that is a rare occasion. and you could see reyes growing in confidence after the goal and he put together a good 20 minute spell. now if only he could move on from here and do the same for 70 minutes a few games in a row.
another rare event was a shot from hleb, i believe that 1 shot he had in the 2nd half was his first of the season (first ive seen anyway), so fair play to him for attempting one. but again, i though he was poor overall, didnt really offer anything. ljungberg i thought played quite decent despite that awful sitter missed early on and cygan probably had one of his more decent games of the season too.

as for murphy's sending off. well it was certainly very harsh. however, swearing at the ref and throwing the ball down like that is generally regarded as a yellow card offence these days so it was a bit unfortunate for him that he was already on a yellow. i guess the argument of whether a ref should be more lenient to someone already on a yellow comes in here, should the player be given a soft yellow if it would be his 2nd? i dont know, but IMO if its a yellow card offence, then give the card regardless of whether he already has one. charlton can rightly feel agrieved with the ref though, cygan's handball certainly looked to be a clear cut penalty for me. but we have had plenty of games recently where everything has gone against us, and even in the first half in this game we were called back for the free kick when henry was clean through on goal rather than playing advantage, freddie called offside when he was miles on so we didnt have everything go our way. perhaps we were just due a game when a few big ones did.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

Chelsea have won probably 80% of their games playing worse than we did today so don't know why people will be *****in' about today's performance. I think we move the ball very well especially midfield going up. Our defense though does look a bit shaky..they are struggling to keep a straight line for offside time and time again.

The new formation actually does look to be coming well..cos even though we only have henry upfront..it has created more space for reyes, freddie, hleb, cesc to move around and taken some defensive pressures off Cesc and offensive pressures off Henry. He is playing much more like a link man..holding and releasing. We just have to make those runs now..but unfortunately its still Pires/Freddie who seem to find those open spaces to run into and receive the through balls from Henry.

Confidence is crucial and it comes with winning games so lets hope we get another win on wednesday.

 

[Wenger14]

Phew! Relief! Haven't had that feeling in awhile.

Let's start our quest for 4th from here, 3 points, clean sheet and a solid perfomance.

Thought Reyes played really well, Campbell was much improved as was Freddie.

Confidence is vital in the game we play, and the lack of it was really exposed in those missed chances. Freddie's and Pires' in particular. Could have easily been 3-0 on another night.

This was a start to regaining our lost form, and let's take it one game at a time. The Manure game is too early for my liking, and I really can't see us coming out with anything in it. They are playing with a lot of confidence and have put together a winning run.

7th place, 1 up, 3 more to go!

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

We certainly didnt dominate as some people are saying, in fact i thought Charlton were winning the midfield in the first half and perhaps even were the better side. i really couldnt see where a goal was going to come from.

Don't know what game you were watching but Charlton never came close to dominating the midfield. I think you confuse dominating with interrupting play. Charlton rarely kept possession in the middle of the field.They challenged for evey ball that was coming there and disrupted our movement at times but for the majority of the game our midfield orchestrated all moves going forward. It wasn't the long balls from defense. Ball kept moving from left to right back..Just check the times cesc/gilberto/hleb touched the ball today.

I felt we would score..it was just when..we don't have to create chance after chance..but we did stretch them(thanks to Reyes) and there was a lot of space for our guys to run into. A goal was gonna come sooner or later.

 

[invisibleman18]

Charlton rarely kept possession in the middle of the field.

i would say the same about us in the first half. in fact, gave the ball away a heck of a lot in our own half, and the commentators made a number of comments to that effect too.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

Charlton rarely kept possession in the middle of the field.

i would say the same about us in the first half. in fact, gave the ball away a heck of a lot in our own half, and the commentators made a number of comments to that effect too.

A lot of the give away was just slopping passing. We had enough possession and time to make better passes but..the passing was erratic.

 

[tbbosa]

I thought Toure was MOM for me. At times I think people watch different matches from what I watch. Sol was O.K. Someone making a single mistake does not mean they have had a bad game. Reyes did well, so did Henry in second half. I thought Gilberto was the worst, Cygan did O.K, given that he is Cygan!!
3 big points, we just need a few more away wins and hopefully our confidence will be back.

 

[USArsenal]

our time of possession in the match was about 65-70%.. i would consider that on the dominating side, even if we didnt score 5 goals...

 

[against_all_odds]

At Least, draw for us... Hopefully we can win this game as we do always.. Reyes will show his price in this game...

So that I was right... LoL..

 

[Anonymous]

The law of averages suggest you will be right every now and again.
See you next spring All_Odds.

 

[Guillermo]

On the whole I was very disappointed with the performance, though we did show glimpses of our former brilliance.

One of the only positives, in my eyes, were the performances of Lehman, Campell and Toure; who, despite a few communication errors, looked pretty solid at the back.

Our main weaknesses defensively were in midfield. Wenger realised this, and thus packed the midfield; though it could be argued with the wrong players. Hleb looked pretty uncomfortable in his position, though it did seem to suit Fabregas who was allowed more freedom going forward. Perhaps the midfield would have seemed more sturdy and robust had Gilberto had a better performance.

Of course, a paragraph on defensive weaknesses would not be complete without the mention of Pascal Cygan; who, to be fair to him, was out of position at left-back again. He really does not suit this position, due to him possessing the pace of a snail, and the turning circle of a bus; many a time he was caught out by the pace and agility of Darren Bent in the first-half.

As for Henry, I feel the new formation suited him in a way. As usual he was the focal point of the offense, orchestrating every attack. This also seemed to work for Reyes and Ljungberg, who found a lot of space cutting in from the wings.

Overall I was not to pleased; the midfield just lacked bite, as it would seem in many of our games. However, three point is three points.

 

[KingReyes]

Thank **** we won that match.

We weren't great but we were the better side. Confidence is at a low at the moment so I wasn't expecting us the batter them however its just great to see us win away from home and show a lot of spirit.

Reyes had one of his better games, the best thing was he didn't try too hard trying ot beat every player in front of him. I just hope he can remain consistent and get into the box more often like he did for the goal.

Kolo was immense yesterday, you can never knock this guy for his effort.

 

[Tegh]

Kolo is a legend, and he's so fast!

 

[Tegh]

Is that for the whole game?

 

[RockyRocastle]

i went to the game and sat in the charlton end, so i had to take a more neutral look at the game. from what i saw it was a decent team performance.

Reyes showed good touches but gave the ball away a lot and slowed down many passing moves. i thought hleb was easy on the eye, although there wasn't always an end product, but he will improve with experience of premier league and knowledge of team mates. i think wenger maybe building a team around him. he was very central and received a lot of ball.
Freddie ran hard and the rest of the midfield done what they had to, to win the game.

once again i felt lauren was very solid , as was toure. campbell made some useful tackles but his distribution is starting to piss me off. he is right footed yet he deliberatley puts the ball on his left and tries to play 40 yard passes. 9 times out of 10 the pass goes awry yet he persists in doing so. there was also an occasion when he took a free kick and every outfiled player was indicating he should pass the ball out wide to lauren who was in acres of space, yet stubbornly, he launched an aimless pass into the area.

Henry was of great interest. at first i thought he had an attitude with reyes, hleb etc but you can see he just wants the team to pass the ball better. he does have attitude but you can see when reyes scored how happy he was for reyes and how much of a team player he is.

on the whole i think this was a game we controlled without playing vintage football. 3 pts and a clean sheet is all you can ask for. (thats how chelsea won the league)

What did you think of our fans mate?

I thought we were the bollocks the other day, I think the longest period I was quiet for was about 5 minutes!

Havent seen the game on TV, but my mates said we came across loud and clear. Makes for a change, and shows what we can do when we can be arsed.

As for the game, I thought we made very hard work of what should have been an easy three points.

Reyes had a good game at last, but it remains to be seen if he can keep it up.

Hleb was ****e again, it really is about time he did something now, he has been here long enough.

 

[asajoseph]

I've been to a fair few games this year, home and away, and I ALWAYS find the away supporters to be much louder, much more vocal, and much more keen to get behind the team. In fact, the further I've travelled to get to a game, the louder the fans seem to get. Every home game I've been to has had practically bloody silent periods for minutes and minutes on end.

 

[RockyRocastle]

I've been to a fair few games this year, home and away, and I ALWAYS find the away supporters to be much louder, much more vocal, and much more keen to get behind the team. In fact, the further I've travelled to get to a game, the louder the fans seem to get. Every home game I've been to has had practically bloody silent periods for minutes and minutes on end.

Our away support has been very up and down so far this year. For games in London - West Ham, Sp**s, Charlton, Chelsea it has been great.

The worst it has been was at Bolton, but I put that down to the total non performance and lack of effort of the players. It wasnt too good at Wigan either, considering there was 5,000+ of us. Probably too many clueless northeners.

Then it was great again at Newcastle, so im not sure the distance has much to do with it, although I see what you are saying.