Ratings and post-match discussion vs Sunderland

[redanddread]

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.

Gulp. It's stand up comedy time I see. Seriously, is that how you think about Nasri? I am slighlty flabbergasted. He doesn't have your pace Mr. Walcott but he is no slouch. Surely you remember his delicious lob pass to Fab to score last year (cannot remember the game). Maybe also the position he operates in has soemthing to do with you not seeing as many "through balls" as you would like-he plays wide right.

 

[redanddread]

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

Imagine how the Mancs feel about Rooney. One club goal in 14 matches (something like that). What is Arshavin's record in that correpsonding period.

 

[redanddread]

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.

I thought that myself-they looked a little flat in the 1st half. On closer inspection it was a mixture of that and Sunderland playing a very high temp, pressuring game against us. Sunderland put us udner pressure all over the park and worked our backline mercilessly.

Maybe with all the injuries he felt he had to play what he thought was his best team. If he had played some of the subs and lost you could see him being grilled by the fans-why did you field an understrength side!! Damned if you and admned if you don't. The lads did look off the pace in the 1st half. But what pleased me was how they turned that round after halftime.

A big weekend CL match and a tough away fixture in the North East 3 days later. A remedy for disaster? We may relish this point come May.

 

[giuliob]

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?

Well, at least he had the balls to take the responsibility. Disappointing that the other two did not want to take it.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11827_6390140,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528, ... 40,00.html</a>

 

[outlaw_member]

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

There isn't any. He'll never be better than Cesc or Walcott in their respective positions. His future depends on Fabregas as he'll most likely be the replacement, if El Capitan does eventually leave. Otherwise, he'll end up as a utility attacker who'll just continue to fill in the many attacking positions.