Ratings and post-match discussion vs Sunderland

[Gurgen]

Nasri was crap.

Maybe golf is more your sport.

 

[Tourbillion]

Nasri was useless. I can't remember a single through ball he's played at Arsenal. Plus he can't beat anyone for pace - so what's the point in his fancy close dribbling? Rosicky was superb, penalty miss aside. Always has his head up to create chances early, has a great burst of pace to move with the ball in-field and thus draw players with him.

 

[fabo]

Yep Rosicky was doing everything I hoped Nasri would. All Nasri can offer right now is ball retention but at the expense of us playing with any urgency.

I was in favour of turfing Rosicky out in the Summer but his form has been good.

 

[va_va_voom]

Don't know why we gave Rosicky the pelanty?

He's by far the worst finisher in our midfield - odd choice.

Still, given all that, a point was a fair result. Shame we got it in the way we did.

Just seen the post match interview with le Boss, apparently Nasri should have taken the penalty but gave the ball to Rosicky :?

Didnt we have a rule about the person winning the penalty cant take it? I thought Denilson should have taken it

No rule, i think that was an Henry superstition. Chamakh for me, couldn't believe it was Rozza.

 

[arsmile]

if nasri and rosicky are gonna play in the same team- nasri should be the central one- neither is excellent on the wings, but nasri is both a better central player and a worse wide one- i think rosicky is experienced/intelligent enough to know how to come inside and get involved- nasri looks lost and bound by the wide right position- compare yesterday to how he plays when he's filling in for cesc. not that rosicky was poor in the middle, but rosicky has put in a couple of good wide performances this season.

 

[dreamLord]

I think Wenger should try Nasri as a deeper player again, like towards the end of 08-09. If Wilshere can play there, why not Nasri?

Oh and how you can give Nasri and Arshavin both a 5 is beyond me fabo, Arshavin was absolutely dog ****. Atleast Nasri helped us keep possession when we were a man down and leading.

 

[MAK 14]

Fabo, did we watch the same game? Apart from both our centre backs I thought Nasri was our best player.

 

[brady_style]

I thought Rosicky was our best player. Did anyone notice how many chances we gave to Bent. How you can think our CB's were good after Bent pissed on both of them for most of the match is beyond me.
It seems peoples' standards have regressed. Yes, they won some bread and butter headers that a fat kid with a limp would be expected to win, but neither of them looked at all comfortable during the game.

Clichy's defending was again absolutely woeful. If you've played football for a half decent Sunday league team you will understand just how bad his defending is. He's always always on the wrong side of his man. It's OK if he does this once but every ****ING game .. it's a joke !

Al's clearances were laughably bad. In the 88th minute he caught a ball from a cross and then tore out to the edge of his box and hoofed the ball straight out of play.

David Seaman would have cleared everyone out of his area. Dropped the ball on the ground , touched it forward a few times and then sailed a ball on to the head of Chamakh. Thus retaining possession and running the clock down at the same time.

The team is so bad defensively that I'm incredibly pissed off. Sunderland are ****e ! We defended ridiculously deep, we didn't press the ball. We allowed cross after cross into our area instead of harrying the player on to this weaker foot.
A decent team are going to have a field day against us.

 

[outlaw_member]

Nasri offered us exactly what he usually does. His influence increased in the second half thanks to the formation change, but most importantly his close control and ball hogging had gained a purpose. Under any other circumstances, he'd have been criticised for his ineffectual play, prolonged dwelling on the ball, and for the short passes which weren't progressive in terms of creating a chance. In the first half, when he was supposed to offer us something tangible up front, he fell short like a number of our players. In the second half, his duty changed and he was expected to slow down play, which just happens to be the one thing he's constantly at fault for, but this time it was actually necessary, and unsurprisingly he didn't fail.

 

[otfgoon]

Be fair outlaw, you can't call his second half performance ineffectual. He set Chamakh through on goal, won a penalty, linked up with Rosicky brilliantly a few times to create openings in general.

Also bear in mind he did all that with limited support as it was basically him, Rosicky and Chamakh doing any attacking which not only meant he was being marked by more than one player but his passing options were very limited.

 

[TomasCR]

It was a sh*t penalty. Whatever you do dont miss the bloody target.

It's kindergarden stuff, really. The first thing you'll learn is that there's less risk of missing a penalty by putting it under the goal than putting it over the bar. If you're not comfortable from the spotkick you never go high. And you don't hit it with the outside of the foot like that. It was a complete bottlejob from someone who should know better.

Exactly, I still can't get over his penalty personally. I mean, it's no bad thing to miss it, much better players than Rosicky missed and will miss penalties but I absolutely hated the way he took it. He has taken a lot of penalties in his career but never did this "let's hit it as hard as possible and see what happens" thing. On the contrary, he has always choosen one of the corners and put it right there.

Sure he was the captain and if Nasri didn't want to take that it was probably only up to him considering the other players that were on the pitch but for such an experienced head (even a nervous one), he should have done much better. A bit shame for him too, could have made himself a good name and got his confidence back, he had quite a good game too I thought. Still, missing penalty is one thing, conceding a goal in 95th minute another one - reminds me a bit of last season.

 

[TomasCR]

By the way, in an iterview Rosicky gave today, he said that Fabregas or Arshavin would have normally taken it if they had been on the pitch and also talked to Chamakh and Nasri before he took it but nobody of them was up for it so decide to go for it himself. Never again please! Just out of curiosity now, do you think he'll be the captain if Cesc is injured or why the armband wasn't given to Almunia?

 

[qs]

Almunia - 7

Sagna - 7
Koscileny - 8
Squillaci - 7
Clichy - 5

Wilshere - 5
Fabregas - 6
Song - 5

Nasri - 6
Chamakh - 7
Arshavin - 4

Subs:
Rosicky - 6
Denilson - 6

 

[est]

Nasri was useless. I can't remember a single through ball he's played at Arsenal.

Hilarious stuff!

Actually watching the games might help you...

 

[ricky1985]

Nasri played in Chamakh for his one-on-one chance, played a brilliant little ball over the the top for Chamakh to run onto and cross for Arshavin's easy-ish chance, he played Arshavin in for his left foot shot that went wide, he also won the penalty.

Basically whenever he came central he looked to be incisive with his passing. Some of his touches, dribbles and combinations/one-twos were absolutely exquisite. He went up massively in my books in the second half.

As a side note, We have got to find a role in this team that gets the best from him.

 

[asajoseph]

Nasri was one of the more guilty players in the first half, I felt, of failing to allow us to get the ball down and play. Didn't help that most of Sagna's passes to him were completely hopeless though. Got much, much better in the second half.

Almunia's continued to impress me this season, with how well he's dealt with the pressure.

 

[ricky1985]

I said at the time and I still believe it, it's very harsh to single anyone out for that first half performance. There are a million and one reasons why we couldn't string two passes together that go beyond the performance of any one player.

 

[asajoseph]

Not singling him out.

Nevertheless, he was poor for half the match, along with quite a few other players.

 

[qs]

I think bar Chamakh the entire midfield and front line were far too lazy in the first half. Wenger has to take some responsibility for that too, he should have realised they were fatigued from Wednesdays game and freshened it up with a couple of changes.

No thanks to the league either giving us the shortest break of all the CL teams, United had 2 days more than us before their game.

 

[irishgunnerz]

Didnt think Nasri was useless. Like the rest of the midfield he just failed to get consistently "stuck in" in the first half an hour but even then he was one of the few non-defensive players to show flashes of quality in that period of the game.

His close control, ball retention and his improving ability to pick a pass (as demonstrated by his pass to put Chamakh through) makes him a very dangerous player.

I'm not really concerned overly much about him to be honest - but Andrey's finishing over the past few games has to be an issue. His movement and timing are exquisite but whether it's a confidence thing or just a poor spell in front of goal, he seems to snatch at it lately