Stoke vs Arsenal 8/5/2011, 14:05GMT

[dyeruz]

Walcott square peg round hole, Vela square peg round hole, Bendtner...pattern?

 

[Gunner_JT]

Djourou had an absolute 'mare. His marking at set pieces leaves a lot to be desired, very poor letting Jones get goalside.

 

[Freagle]

Thanks for the answers Herbas.

Thanks Big Poppa, top post. Around 6 posts only in 22 pages summarized the match for me. Didn't watch it and even though we lost, I still wanted to watch it.

I am relatively sure you don't even watch 50% of Arsenal games. Why?

Yeah, unfortunately I have class at the same time of our Arsenal games since February. It's been annoying but only three more weeks to go (that's when the season ends, bah).

 

[lee1001]

Didn't watch the game thank god, but just saw the 1st goal. Wow, just wow, the opposition don't even have to use their heads to attack a corner.

The coaching is **** and the players are ****. This will not change unless we get new management I fear.

 

[alboots101]

P**s poor..i lost a days pittance for our shower of shyte.

Top job by RvP though.

 

[redwhiteAustrian]

"I feel certainly a little bit, but I feel it is more about the size of our whole team in some games like Stoke," he replied.

"When you go out of the back three, after that we are quite short, especially when Abou Diaby wasn't there for big games. When you have the defence plus Diaby and Alex Song, and you go to places like that, you can of course fight.

"Sometimes we're one or two men short."

Well, I don't disagree at all, but the bolded part couldn't be more wrong.
Just a couple of days ago, he blamed (rightfully) our defending for Stoke's first goal, and admitted, that Jones didn't even have to jump to reach the ball.
And now he blames the size of the team (which is an issue, no question) on that matter.

He's right to an extent, though. We often miss out on second balls, because of the size of our midfield and defending the second ball is almost as important as the set piece itself, but the first Stoke-goal (and only the first one was a case of defending a set piece), size clearly wasn't the problem.
Neither was it at WBA, nor Bolton (we conceded three goals from corners there).

 

[truth_hurts]

The wat this very same Stoke team didn't look a threat against City. We need a stronger spine because De Jong and Toure bullied them off the pitch and in an equal measure dictated the play.