A hard-fought 3 points or what?
I saw people complaining that it was a poor performance. Really? Was it?
I don’t know what people were expecting, but the pitch was painfully slow and uneven. That’s not the sort of pitch that allows a quick passing game to be played.
Palace gave everything, running themselves to a standstill, almost.
I can’t understand why it’s a crime to credit the opposition for their effort and endeavour, rather than blaming our own players .
The deadlock was broken just after half-time when a bit of skill by Gnabry brought about a spot-kick. Of course, everyone blamed the defender and ignored the skill of the attacker.
Mikel lashed in the penalty and it looked like it would be a comfortable second half as we began to make more openings.
Not to be though. A hopeful punt up the field arrived at Chamakh’s feet. Mikel challenged for it and, as far as I could see, Marouane veered across Mikel’s path causing a tangle of legs. Never a red card in a month of Sundays.
So, down to ten men, the tactically inept Arséne Wenger made some changes. On came Jack for the substitute Gnarby.
Jack took up the position at which he played his full debut season. This was worrying for me because he had a dreadful night on Tuesday and could not find a teammate with the simplest of passes.
Naturally, Jack proved me an idiot as he was superb .
Its was a great defensive performance by everyone concerned. Not least by our young goalkeeper, who pulled off two magnificent saves within seconds of each other. He is going from strength to strength.
We wrapped it up close to full time with a beautiful link up between Aaron and our other goal and assist machine; Giroud.
Some other points of note were; Santi was average, Sagna was magnificent and Monreal is the unluckiest player in the league that he does not get starts.
Positively Arsenal 
Don’t expect such a detailed analysis of every game.
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It was a professional and effective away performance, exactly the type that wins things, and Arsenal never hit the high gears. I admire Crystal Palace, not only do they not drop heads, they play in an organized fashion, they have one or two eccentric players, and they play to score. Well done.
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Monreal is such a gem; Gnabry is amongst the most exciting teen players I have seen for a some time; Jack was threatening, and Chewie showed how the EPL is won, or rather reminded that never has any team won without a keeper making “those saves”.
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Thanks George.
Santi’s recent dip in form is a worry, but a player of his class will soon come back to his best.
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It will be so much fun watching Hansen on next Saturday’s MOTD when his beloved are spanked by the Arse and he has to explain how it happened.
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After such a detailed analysis George, I am sure there will be a storm of responses.
in the cold light of day this was an excellent 3 points on the road, no less. If this was United, the press and blogs would be wanking about stuff of champions, grinding out victories etc. Unlike United we had no favorable referees. Rather we had the adversity of losing a key player early and down to 10 men after 60 minutes. Yet we prevailed.
If we had blown them away by the first half the resuts would have been dismissed as beating up on poor, bottom-of-the-table Palace. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
We have one week to rest key players and prepare for red hot Liverpool.
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The pitch was slow and small, palace worked hard and we had to be patient but it wasn’t a professional performance and just as Tuesday game could have been a draw so could have this, football has small margins. I’m not a doomer but also there is no reason to say when you’re most technical player has a bad game ( I havn’t read other blogs so I can imagine their not just saying that and going over the top ). Unfortunately both Santi and Ozil were poor, although their poor is not the same as most players but you judge players by their own standards. The way we have been caught out in the last two games is worrying whether Flamini’s absence is a coincidence I don’t know and the last ten games of last year suggest it just over confidence and everyone wanting to join in the fun.
If cham hadn’t flipped over with art and centred the ball the last twenty minutes would have been so difficult. hanson is horrible and never gives us any credit but on this occasion he was right so although there were plenty of ways to describe the many positives the game produced professional definitely wasn’t on of them.
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Who called it professional?
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ZP called it professional, I wasn’t having a go at you George i’m only angry at you for telling me it was going to be an early post only for me to wait 4/5 hrs 10 isn’t early how dare you have a lie in or have something else to do with your life my wife will be out of bed soon and ill have work to do ! …….moan over
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arsene to pull ozil;s ear and remind him that flamboyant play is for when we are 4-0 ahead and not just 1-0 with ten men. ourteta ….what a stupid ref..however mikel is expereinced and could have just satyed with him, lift arms ( to show he aint going for the foul , just contain him) and simply outrun chmkaha… iwant to thank giroud, aaron sagna and vettel, especially vettel was immence with them saves. bravo boy. import the best nuru masseuse for mathieu …liverpool , rodgers and sturidge are annoying me big time….and also hughes youre a mug …ruined my weekend. …im off to buy guitar and write songs for bendtner.
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i miss theo
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and im sick of all these little teams raising their game for arsenal and the fucking cunt ref always favouring them …. ivan you have work to do…… watch the godfather and learn a few things please.
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so do I think hes back next week might even get a seat on the bench Tuesday
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come on hull city !!! do them!!
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konscielny needs to destroy sturidge’s confidence from minute 1.
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Hunter
All better now?
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Good morning all. Next weeks game against pool starting to look very important indeed. They look to have been hitting a higher gear and steamrolled wba. We need to do a job on them . As for now some days of rest and recuperation in order. I heard flamster will be out two to three weeks. We could possibly try to overturn the red for MIKEL as it was a bogus call anyways. I think I’ll checkout the games this morning to see how the rivals are doing . Lets hope for some favorable results.
UP WITH THE GUNNERS!!!!!!
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WOJO was on his game. Well done…
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double canister October 27, 2013 at 11:49 am
no man ..fuck the nhs…lol
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this is th emost ridiculous thing ive ever expereinced…no gps on saturdays and sundays? wtf ?
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Chin up HUNTER mate. This to shall pass. GWS
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This crystal palace team would fit pulis perfectly. Great result considering the performance. Only a few players maintained their usual standard. Wenger says he was not surprised by the long grass. He says we will soon have a pitch with long grass ready for the team to train on before away games. Now that bourinho is back he might want to keep a muddy one too. Unbelievable that clubs at this level resort to this kind of tactics.
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There should be a limit to the length of grass allowed .And fines for bad surfaces.
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Succinct and on the money, PG.
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Maybe same rules could be applied to chamakhs haircut? Very distracting.
Seriously thou, even if you don’t consider that fans will be robbed of good football with a bad pitch, surely there should be concerns about players health.
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Get well soon hunter. Arsenal need you. Wenger pointing at you.
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Same for small pitches if we are truly moving away from old style kick and rush football the minimum size should be reviewed, anything to encourage proper entertaining Wengerball should be mandatory
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Fair play to Monreal – with Gibbs in possession of the left back slot he is clearly re-inventing himself as a tricky winger ! He had a couple of great dribbling runs yesterday
More more !
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I have to insist, that was a professional and effective performance. Not top notch, no, but effective enough to win 2-0 with a man overboard. Simple. The manner the team switched to 4-4-1. The role of Nacho. The counter-attacks.
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Arse or Brain: “Unfortunately both Santi and Ozil were poor, although their poor is not the same as most players but you judge players by their own standards.”
I’d say they weren’t poor as much as they were marked very well by Palace. Also, Ramsey seems to have been a bit off his game and the team missed their engine.
With regards to that MOTD analysis about our being exposed on set pieces, did you notice how Hanson used the Pienaar goal from like three seasons’s back in order to make his point? Against Villa we were caught out because we were made to chase the game thanks to a very altruistic referee. Yesterday, Arteta was covering and there were players getting back, so this idea that we’re a shambles at defending after we take a corner is not true.
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Arse or brain, you may not be a doomer, but I think you are being unrealistic in your expectations. Over the course of a long, hard season, there are going to be good, games, bad games and downright indifferent games. It’s impossible for the players to always be at the top of their game. The timing of this game on the back of the Dortmund defeat, facing highly motivated opponents, a little mental/physical weariness and the levelling impact of a poor pitch may all have contributed to a less than stellar performance. Arsene said that Ozil had a virus in the week, so he may still be feeling the effects of that and Santi is just feeling his way back after 7 weeks out. If they play like this on a regular basis that is a different matter, but the odd game here or there is to be expected. Just be glad we got out with the 3 points. Isn’t that what ‘champions’ like chelski and manure do all the time? Why should Arsenal be held to a ridiculously higher standard? I think we are still paying the price for the invincibles, who drew 12 games that season lest we forget.
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Oh well. The results not exactly what we wanted and expected but the good news is neither chelski nor shitty are impressive . At least they didn’t impress me much. We will have to do the business ourselves when we play them just as we did against the spudniks. But first the pool. We must step on that pitch with intent and purpose and play a very smart game against them. If we can’t overturn the red on MIKEL and can’t have THE FLAMSTER back in time I personally wouldn’t mind seeing TV deployed in their place. I think he has what it takes to do the job there. He might be a bit rusty so maybe he can train in that position during the week as preparation. We wait and see.
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thot mikel was out for only one game? that would be chelsea
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I do think this was a below par performance from the Arsenal team. There were examples of individual excellence like Sczcesny, Sagna, Giroud and a few others. But, as a team, it left me disappointed.
1. It seemed like Deja Vu that we slowly build up the attack with short passes, only for the opponent to sit deep and break the attack with a single intercept. After having played against this kind of tactic, one would think we would learn how to break it or at least to have a plan B.
2. Inspite of the pitch being slow and Palace crowding their own box, there was a slowness in our movements too. Never saw a single lung bursting run from our players, as if they didn’t have the hunger. You can’t stop giving 100% just because the opponent is a lower team.
3. Related to hunger – I expected the team to go all out and dominate the game, to come back from the loss at home to BVB Dortmund but the game was so slow and it felt like the players just looked for an easy win. A midfield trio of Cazorla, Ozil and Ramsey should have scared the opponent shitless, but they dealt with us comfortably with their negative tactics. We badly needed to turn it up a notch and we didn’t. Even more surprisingly, we were the same in the second half. The trend off lat,e has been that we always play better in the second half after starting slow because Arsene Wenger makes sure we do (I imagine angry half time hollering). Inspite of knowing Palace’s game plan, there were no major changes in the way we played in 2nd half.
4. My main issue is that we weren’t playing with the trademark Arsenal style. No quick passing, majority of our passes in our opponent’s half were intercepted. And Ozil has been ghosting since two straight games.
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GK Arteta is suspended for one game, according to Arsene and that will be the COC tie on Tuesday which he would not have played in even if available (again according to AW )
We have no plans at all to appeal the card
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“I don’t know what people were expecting, but the pitch was painfully slow and uneven. That’s not the sort of pitch that allows a quick passing game to be played.”
anshumansanghvi.which part of that paragraph are you struggling to understand ?
If you think Arsene shouts at half time ,then you understand so little I cant help you.
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Who the fuck approved that comment?
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No point appealing.
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As the weeks pass and the games rack up the form of Szcz is causing me profound concern
How much more can this young man improve ?
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Thanks TS & COLL.
didn’t know L. cup games counted .
No worries then.
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Other than a small lapse for the red card incident I think “professional” is a fair way to describe our performance. And it was a small lapse; Chamakh was allowed too much room on the flank to run into but he did not have the pace or ability to make the most of the opportunity and he knew it, which is why he engineered contact with Arteta to try to buy a foul as he was never going to get away from the Spaniard. And Foy obliged him. Arteta would have recovered the situation with little fuss if he had not been fouled, either winning the ball back off Chamakh’s poor first touch or shepherding him towards the corner flag until support arrived. It was not as dangerous a situation as it has been made out to be, in my opinion. Koscielny was returning at pace as was Cazorla and another midfielder (not clear who on the replay) to ensure Palace wouldn’t have a numerical advantage on that quick break.
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“Who the fuck approved that comment?”
You’re not slacking off are you George?
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Is Joe Hart on the take?
Really.
Orr else he is a total fucking tool who is let off over and over again for non-stop howlers.
He cost the last manager his job, looks like he is dong it again.
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EVERY team puts both CB’s up for corners.
It’s normal to have one FB and a fast Mid on the halfway line for cover.
Arsenal sometimes get caught on a quick counter, but considering how many Goal scoring opportunities Kos, Per and Bac make it’s worth the gamble. Statistically at least.
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LeoS
Arteta was done because he has a track record of taking players down as the last midfielder. He has picked up dozens of yellows for us.
Not that I have a problem with it, cynical and gamesmanship like that it is.
Foy assumed the worse of him, without conclusive evidence he actually made any foul.
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I have just had a eurika moment
I think that losers are the most likely to demand that their team do their winning for them
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8:13pm
There was another team on the pitch.
And the pitch.
0-2 to us, what more do you want?
Some day it’s Champagne football, some days it’s cheap cider.
job done, as far as I’m concerned.
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PG
Exactly.
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Two more pathetic scouse imbeciles on MOTD2 tonight.
The Liverpool broadcasting Corporation.
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@DC
Arteta’s very good at making those cynical fouls that avert danger. I’m not sure about “dozens of yellows” though, I think he’s been pretty good at getting away scot-free! Just 6 bookings last season from 74 fouls, refs tend to give him an easy time. Probably because he doesn’t look the type, all swarthy and placid. But that was coming from Foy, he was letting the Palace players and crowd do his job for him all game.
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