It’s been a decent fixture in recent years for the Arsenal. Some of the City players, including their captain, have said that Arsenal are the best team they’ve faced in the PL in recent seasons, and they should know. I’m happy to agree.
In the wider media the same old trolls are trolling the Arsenal fans, as usual: Arteta, no power in midfield, yadda yadda yadda… Arsenal are D**Med. Because they have no D**M. You all know the drill. Which, of course, ignores Arteta’s record in these games (his record overall!) and the speed and control of the Arsenal midfield in the recent super cup/community shield game. It also ignores the comparisons some Old Skool Gooners make between Paul Davis and Arteta, which is interesting fodder for the rest of us who like our football. None of us expect the skipper to play every game, but if he’s fit for the next two Big ‘uns that’d be nice.
It’s Pellegrini vs. Wenger. Two of the best managers in the game with two of the best teams. A game of football that will excite all football fans. Not only do these two giants of the game trade tactics (whatever they might be!) they trade players too (easier to spot those!). Though to be fair to Pellegrini his new club, The Arsenal B Team (even their stadium is a smaller cheaper knock off), have been keen on AFC players for a while. For some reason that the Groaners can’t understand. Perhaps because they are good at football? Maybe, it’s a possibility…
The last league game was the 1-1 in N.London in the Spring. During this game quite a few were having meltdowns because Olivier Giroud is an Arsenal striker. I even heard some S&M fetishists start to cry and groan when OG found some space down the right hand channel when Arsenal were a goal down and scream “What is he doing there! Useless!” as the ball then wound itself around the arc of frustration following an attack set up by the accursed Giroud before arriving at the feet of Flamini for his one and only goal of the season. And what a nice goal it was too. Quite a good celebration too.
City are a dangerous opponent and even with a jaded Toure they’ll be capable of taking advantage of any or too many errors. After that game in the spring meeting City friends all we could do was wish them luck in their title bid at that stage of the season. City over Liverpool or Gazprom-upon-Fulham, all day, every day. And they wished us luck in the cup. All’s well that ends well, I guess.
What scares me is the pace of Navas and one or two others. Who will MP start? That is one question. Dzeko is a good player, but there are not light years between him and Giroud, and he’s not super fast either! An example of the poor punditry we football fans have to put with was the description of Chambers getting beaten for pace when he was simply out thought by the more experienced player.
Does Mertesacker in for Chambers change things for the Arsenal? Is the BFG looking down over his shoulder? Not quite just yet, but it’s good to know he has an apprentice.
Speaking of which will the Master return to continue his duel with Yaya Toure? My money would be on minutes for Rozza back in Dortmund, Wilshere to play today I guess. Cazorla too should start after sitting out Spain’s last game.
In the Super Cup game (what with all their cuts to grass roots footy, etc. I don’t think the FA believe in community) the rookie Sanogo had a fun first half as Arsenal tore through City. Slated by the Arsenal trolls, the new scapegoat for these demented people, this is a young footballer who in his own words arrived at the club “on one leg” following horrific injuries for a young player. A player who was essentially re-learning how to play football last season, to run, shoot, the works. Not hard to understand why. We won’t ask the self-declared redzone experts to acknowledge this, that would be, well, it would be honest, would it not?
In that Super Cup game our young Bambi terrorised two City CBs who have more experience than he does, who are older, and who between them probably cost upwards of £40M! The aforementioned trolls, they will continue to troll the gullible, when all they need to do is listen to what their players and coaches actually have to say for themselves. It’s not rocket science, it’s just anatomy.
I wonder how the new senior striker will get on against the senior CBs for City, will he start or will Sanogo soften them up for a half?
Don’t know about anyone else, but I’m looking forward to this game. The trolls have been ignoring Arsenal’s good record at Home of late, let’s hope they keep it up.
A guest post by Finsbury
Positively Arsenal 
Arsha, forget about Özil running around like Flamini or throwing himself into a tackle like Koscielny. When you analyze his game, take a look at how much space he creates around him. His movement and passing are second to none.
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I had to lie down after that match.
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Ozil had a stinker… he seems to be scared of any physical contact. If we should be playing as a team and Ramsey, Wilshere , Sanchez and Welbeck are getting stuck in, then Mezut should be doing the same. I’m still not convinced.
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I thought it just looked like a tremendous game of football and, discounting the limitless funds available to the Mancs, great credit should go to both teams for making it that way. Draw was a very fair result although from watching from pitchside alone, it felt the Mancs were the more nervous of the two inasfar as they seemed to need to recourse to fouling more than we did.
Hopefully Debuchy recovers quickly though it looked a horrible moment. This team will clearly get better and better and a cracking season lies ahead of us.
As I write, Loserpool not having things their own way, trailing 1-0 at home to Villa – someone remind me how much they spent last summer on new players? Will they end up this season’s Spuds in terms of the inverse relationship between money spent and disappointnent generated? Time will tell.
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Özil improved in the second half. I thought he looked increasingly menacing. He will improve.
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AN5, sorry I couldn’t make it to the George. Good idea, Andrew, about having a meet-up. The next Saturday 3pm kick-off is Hull City on 18 October. Alternatively, there is the NLD in a couple of weeks (a Saturday 5.30pm kick-off) – I think DC and Sensational Arsenal may be around for that one.
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First proper game after his delayed pre-season and a niggle, Özil looked less leggy then I feared before kick off. Probably left on to run through the ninety to help get him fully up to speed or an example of the rotation some outside of PA were demanding. Looking forward to seeing him settle into the season now.
For Özil a reference could be Pires. Very different, one a goal scoring wide forward type of genius, the other a playmaking genius midfielder who’s come to Arsenal to improve his game (goals etc.) but they have similar styles, or personalties, and also for me they physically similar. The 2-0 run to the top last autumn was in part led by Özil’s hard graft.
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Without Suarez, Sturridge and Sterling the Scousers look toothless. Balotelli is looking less and less like as Brendan’s great bargain as the fawning press tried to convince us. Sterling must come on soon.
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Out for a Corner
Sensational Arsenal, are you sure? Is he coming over from India?
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It didn’t take a genius for Brendan to sub Lallana with Sterling.
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Seeing Villa simply punt the ball aimlessly once it is in their defensive 3rd simply raises my appreciation of how we play our way out from under pressure and maintain possession. At this rate Villa will be lucky not to concede.
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It was so great to have PL football back today. I wonder if ZimPaul was watching? I thought of him on the way to the game when I saw someone with “Zimgunner” on the back of his shirt! Keep on fighting the good fight my friend!
On to the game – I saw Arsene’s post match comment – I was thinking the exact same thing about the rotational fouling by shitty – Clattenburg just stood there and let it happen. How they ended the match with 11 players and only 1 yellow card is beyond me. I just hope Mark enjoys his villa in the sun when he retires. He earned every penny of his bonus today. Of course it’s just a coincidence that the richest team in the PL get away with their defenders taking out Welbeck to prevent him getting into the box to be on the end of Ozil’s break away.
It was a good match – both teams had their moments of dominance. If only that Welbeck chance had hit the post and gone in instead of out, who knows what would have been. He had a reasonable start for his first game, but I can’t help feeling that Sanogo would have worked their CB’s more with his unpredictability.
Arsenal need to be more clinical – chunky thighs spent most of the match in Kos’s pocket. The difference is that when he got one chance, he took it. I really thought we could have won that game. Unfortunately Debuchy’s injury disrupted our flow just when we were in the ascendancy and another lapse of concentration gave them a soft equalizer. Szczesny worries me sometimes – he ball watches too much and doesn’t always anticipate problems or intervene to support his defence. He really needs to up his consistency and his distribution because I see Ospina as a real threat to his spot in the team.
MoTM contenders for me – Koscielny was excellent today as were Jack and Alexis. Not just for their goals, but for their all round performances. I loved how defensively aware Alexis is and he made some significant contributions to help out in all parts of the pitch. Ramsey was not up to his usual standard today, Flamini seemed to tire badly and I’m still waiting for Ozil to really take off. I thought he was a little too casual at times today. Still, we remain undefeated, but it’s getting to the point where we need a good win and to cut out the silly defensive mistakes that are currently costing us points.
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Not saying a word about events at Anfield until the final whistle.
Fingers crossed.
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Well played Swiss Tony
Let’s hope he remembers his duty next week.
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dc: You are a scaredy cat. Pool look toothless without Sturridge and Sterling. Their best shot on target was in the 80ish minute when Coutinho’s shot rebounded off the bar. Thats not good enough for a team that spent so heavily over the summer.
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Look at this bollocks, how do these twats find their mouths to eat?
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ljb 19m
HA HA,Haydn is top notch,he is like Kos was?HA HA HA you kill me rodent.Hadyn a kid and Kos had played a year in the French league.Don’t tell me ,you watched the u21s beat villa the other night,the u 21s who ARE IN LEAGUE ” WITH FUCKIN WOLVES BECAUSE THEY GOT RELEGATED.Jesus wept.Not even playing against the top u21 sides yet you want to throw him in at the deep end.YOU WONT ADMIT WANKER GOT IT ALL WRONG.And your favourite players are Ozil and Arteta,ha ha trust you to like the shite ones.The day is coming when Wenger is gone,you can feel it in the air around the ground,people are fed up of same old same old. DIDN’T sign CESC COZ OF FUCKING OZIL.We are going to start booing OZIL,stop Wenger playing him the frog eyed cunt.”
These people can say what they want, they in no way meet the criteria of supporter.
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“The day is coming when Wenger is gone,you can feel it in the air around the ground,people are fed up of same old same old”
He clearly doesn’t go to games because that is not my feeling around the stadium. Today I got talking to an old school gooner who had some reasonable questions about tactics but totally respects AW (recognises that he has changed the game in England) and certainly does not agree with the overly negative criticisms of some of the groaners.
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Comments by these morons always tells more about them and their mental state than anything about the club.
Someone should call a doctor.
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Dead right Passenal – atmosphere at the Ems was first class throughout today.
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Or a vet Andrew. Nothing an overdose of Ketamine wouldn’t sort out.
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Well I can’t say I enjoyed the game but in retrospect I thoroughly enjoyed the performance. I had to go out straight after the game but saw a few Twitter comments and was incredulous. To my eyes we were so much better than we were last season, and if we keep playing like that we will do pretty OK. It was a great shame about the injury, but worth remembering that that doesn’t mean we have to play with 10 men for however long it takes. I’m guessing (and hoping) that for most of the games we play this season we will be needing right backs for attacking rather than defensive reasons and if someone like Aaron Ramsey needs to play there against a top side with Diaby filling in his spot in midfield then so be it.
It was always a certainty that Chelsea would start well and that Costa and Fabregas would excel. If they are still doing so in December then I applaud them, but I sense that one way or another it will be a longer season than most of the pond life seem to think it will be.
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Foreverheady, I don’t get how people don’t get that good players will play well. But also forget that chelski have not really come up against anyone of note yet. They have had an extremely easy start, which of course makes them look good. If they are still there when they have had some tougher fixtures as well as played a few CL games (although somehow they have the easiest passage of all PL teams in that competition as well!) then they deserve the praise. At the moment it is just a honeymoon period and a load of hype. A few key injuries and let’s see how they fare.
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Do I have to do the report?
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You can all come out of hiding now, I’ve done it
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Passenal, Fernandinho got away with the same type of fouls against Chile and Colombia this summer. I don’t know how refs let him foul sound without booking him.
By the way, the only player they were missing was Yaya. We were missing Arteta, Giroud and Theo.
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Their off the ball movement seemed better than ours today. I thought we were a little bit static. But considering the circumstances – post international break – we did not do too badly. It feels like we need a run of games with our best XI to get us firing. We are close, but not really clicking yet. You’re right Gains, they basically had their best team bar Toure, but with everyone fit and available, I wonder if Arsene would have selected some different options today?
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George I said last night (8.38) I would craft a poetic piece/bash out a match report Sunday morning
It will be with you at 10
Honest !
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Admittedly two match reports may have the edge – one written by someone who knows what went on, and the other from the Man in Block 100, row 22, seat 268 who has a fairly sketchy impression of what on earth happened – strong impressions though
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Good stuff. mine is nowt more than a rant at the moaners .
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I shall weave a garment by 10
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G-P at 6:46 pm. No, I’m wrong. A case of mistaken identity!
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Yeah, GP, not coming over anytime soon
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New post is up.http://wp.me/37nXa
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