Arsenal supporters from a different era …
The salient points from yesterday’s game, courtesy of Northbank1969:
“I’m still looking on the bright side. We are still only two points from 4th place, the boys can turn this season around. They played some excellent football yesterday and no single player can be blamed for the result. It was just one of those days.
We’ll still finish above United.”
There’s famous old film footage in the Arsenal Museum of what appears to be a pre-war, pre-match game with what is definitely a pre-Payton Supporters’ Club member parading a placard around a packed ground with the words: ”May the best team win”.
Yesterday, the best team did not win.
But it was hardly the fault of Man u or, surprisingly, the ref. Of course, we can point to McNair’s ankle-breaker of a tackle on a wet pitch that went unspotted by the ref – and most others in the stadium, in real time. And Fellaini’s similarly unspotted, unpunished agricultural shove on Gibbs which led to the most unfortunate of deflected goals.
As is the case in every game I’ve watched this season, outcomes would have been so very different had video technology been in use. But it wasn’t in use yesterday so Jack’s assailant got off Scot-free and the simple pre-goal shove that took out two of our defence was legitimised by the honourable willingness of Ches to stagger to his feet rather than stay down injured, an act which in turn helped the ref to turn a blind eye to Fellaini’s rustic tactics moments before.
Our failure to score, having dominated Man u to the point of opening up a multitude of chances was the reason for the defeat. Not United. Not the referee. And certainly not the Arsenal Manager and his supposedly empty tactics book, his failure to by a DM or play with the handbrake on. Or off – or whichever charge is en vogue this particular week. It was hardly tactics that led to a slew of chances landing in De Gea’s hands or over his cross bar.
Like Stew, from yesterday’s post, United are the team against whom I most hate to lose.
Chelsea are a close second, admittedly, but they have a touch too much of the Johnny-come-latelies about them. United are – or certainly, under Red Nose, were – the ultimate visitors from the dark side. But, post-Ferguson, they look a very different prospect and its hard to see them returning to their dominant position in English football anytime soon. Yesterday they were very much there for the taking and once their post-match celebrations have ebbed away, their injury-hit squad’s inadequacies and it’s gaping vulnerability, will be very much apparent to all future opponents. The state of their defence, the fading of van Persie, the going down of the Young. The patchy contributions of their new mega-waged, mega-signings. All must be of immense concern to united followers who, deep down, will recognise the lucky win for what it was.
Today, of course, it’s all about The Arsenal, and the media and fair weather fans are again in inglorious cahoots echoing hideous harmonies rising and falling on our own perceived vulnerabilities. As is now almost traditional for this time of year, they merrily seize on any scrap of ‘evidence’ to justify and re-fuel the current orgy of criticism and abuse against the same club, manager and players they simultaneously still claim to ‘support’.
After yesterday’s result they must be feeling all their Christmases have come at once.
Indeed, so many of the ‘Arsenal ’til I Die‘ mob had left the stadium early to start up their celebration of failure in the bars around Holloway Road and beyond, that shockingly substantial numbers failed to see the extra eight minutes of added time, or witness the worldie from Giroud. They were certainly not present to give their all to support the team that was clearly giving it’s all. But a team that had failed to finish and ultimately was undone by a deflection and a hit-and-run winner as it worked over-anxiously throughout the match for a breakthrough, clearly deserved much more than it got, both from the gods of chance and at the hands of their own fans. Or some of them, at least.
As Northbank rightly says, we played some excellent football yesterday and though the result didn’t go our way, the end of the world is most certainly not upon us, whatever the Goners might have you believe.
The team will work to bring supporters back on side, the injured will continue to return, the squad will be strengthened by continued assimilation of the newbies and, doubtless, one or two January signings will catch the eye. The team will calm down, and will aim, we are told, to become more ‘efficient’ in defence and attack.
As ever, my only real concern is the mental state of some of our supporters but there is little to be done about that.
Had they stayed to the end and given as much as they demanded of their own team, I might have more time for them. I do understand people being upset and very much include myself in that – it was United, after all, and a mis-firing one at that. But before fans get started on complaining about players/manager/tactics going missing, they need to look at themselves and ask why they allowed themselves an early ‘in’ at the bar, to allow the 12th man to disappear with the best part of 15 minutes still to play? Why did they make themselves at least partly culpable? It looks terrible when you see it happening at other clubs; with our record of turning games around in the last few minutes it’s pretty much unforgiveable to bale out before full time is up against any opponent. Let alone Manchester United.
The squad will doubtless be devastated by the result – that much was evident at the final whistle.
But they’ll encouraged, too, by most of the performance and it will be that which is carried forward to the next game.
Positively Arsenal 
Very well behaved game on Saturday I thought, two chunky tackles which cost Jack and Luke Shaw their ankles apart the game was played the right way. A bit of credit for the players not indulging in the usual diving and theatrics, or indeed the rotational fouling we know so well. It would have been a travesty for Dean to have started pulling out cards.
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They only reason Utd couldn’t do the usual rotational fouling was because we had them on the back foot for 80% of the game. When it was gong on – Fellaini et al. it went un-observed by the officials.
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Jack is in a leg brace as a precaution.
His angle scan for serious damage gave an all clear.
These scans have been wrong in the past, of course.
I can’t see how Woj could have picked up too serious an injury.
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*ankle.
Only 5 more weeks before the January transfer window opens, eh folks. Chin up!
Thinks we don’t need – An old school CDM. Another Goal keeper.
Things we do need – an attacking midfielder. A young German midfielder or a young French midfielder with a German name. A Poldi replacement if he leaves (maybe an academy promotion).
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AA, very fair appraisal of the situation. Apropos to the fine tuning, from AW’s comments post match he has remarked on some of the problems of leaving ourselves exposed to these sucker punches. And Julien Laurens made an interesting remark on the ArseAmerica podcast that he thought AW and the coaches were instructing players to keep better defensive shape v. Anderlecht and Swansea from the touch line but the players’ execution wasn’t right. I wasn’t there, but as a near neighbour of AW (I am assuming you sit near the bench?), perhaps you have a view… Obviously it is up to AW to find a way. Our finishing could improve too. I am at least gratified to see more chances created and real Arsenal style play in our first half.
Hopefully it will be a nice tune up for Dortmund, which despite the chances of topping the group being so low, I regard as a key encounter for our confidence ahead of a challenging looking December.
It seems like huge numbers of fans left early v. united, which I think is pretty disgraceful on a Saturday match when your team is down and battling. Ok, a CL match mid week that we are comfortably up–like Galatasaray, it happens. And I was tempted to get little LSG home since it was way past his bed time. But he insisted on staying until the final whistle to cheer his heroes to the last and we hopped a nearly empty bus, so it all worked out nicely. That’s what you hope as you get older–that your kids help you out and do the right thing whenever possible! The support needs to be stronger for Dortmund, and so I am glad I did forgo the United ticket for Dortmund. I’ll be cheering for a big response. As I say, I think this is a very important match for confidence and atmosphere at the ground, as well as making the Galata match irrelevant to qualification.
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DK
Re: Dan Smith.
The bit in the mangers comments about needing your ankles to play football is the important part. Robinson and Essien were just following up in Smith’s wake. If Smith doesn’t like it he should have shown more control and respect at the time. Simple. Not sure if Shotta knows the London slang for “tool” (maybe the slang use originated stateside) but it is a fitting term to describe Smith.
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Random thoughts:
I never thought that Battistuta was a weakling or “injury prone” as they say, but I can completely believe the recent stories that he is in such daily pain after retirement that he considered getting his legs amputated. Batti-goal with no legs? Not a pleasant thought. Poor lad.
Who knows what routine he might have been to get him through who knows what injuries during his career? And that’s just the legal stuff (We do know, if we are interested in looking, that Lauren came during the same era to Arsenal from Serie A with an interesting blood sample).
There are people out there who believe with reason that because Messi wasn’t rested properly through his relatively minor hammy troubles that he will never be the same player again (don’t ask me!).
Safe to say that playing football at the top level is not easy on the body. Vermaelan hasn’t really been the same player since that first big ankle injury. He might never recover, it looks that way at the moment unfortunately for him. Some like GeoffArsenal believe that TV5 had or has inherent flaws in his game, but then, all players have weakness’ of some kind. For me he’d proved himself as a good player. I’ve never seen Tommy exhibit the habit of repetitively pulling down the shorts of opponents who’ve skinned him, like Vertonghan, who doesn’t have the excuse of coming back for long term injuries! I thought last year Vermaelan was almost back, he played well when needed but without the consistent fitness how can he show it? And big big clubs were still after him this summer and in the end they paid up the Wonga (straight swap for Chambers considering the fee). Vermaelan’s two biggest or most high profile errors for me came when he was relatively fit in the very first game against Barcelona, the two-two. Yet it was Barcelona who went out and bought him! When he was in demand. So, safe to say, he’s a good player who’s been struggling after his ankle injuries.
Vermaelan is also a player who tackles hard. But he also shows respect for his fellow pros in how he goes about it. It’s a choice. It’s a choice I respect. Doesn’t mean he can’t pull off a modern equivalent of a “reducer” either. And sometimes players will get it wrong. Even Diaby himself has got it wrong. One pre-season wallop during that two year spell where AFC had Song and Diaby in CM once took out Snjeider for six months. Maybe he only did it because RVP asked him? But he only gave him a thwack, in the end it was a strain. He went in late, overcommitted, the usual. We’ve all done it *coughs*. And also as usual in a game of football the player did not hack his opponent down with excessive over the top force. Otherwise the injury would’ve been much worse. If kids can learn how to make rugby tackles without breaking their own necks in the process…you can see where I’m going with this I hope
There’s a reason why the legend of the demi-god athlete crippled by an injury to their one weakness, their Achilles ankle, has been a popular tale for at least three thousand years. It’s a good story.
“To play football you need your ankle”
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*Shush! it’s a secret that doesn’t match Groaners’ narrative. Two big six foot plus CMs in the same eleven? For years? Blimey! It never happened. Mum’s the word.
*taps nose*
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Fellaini definitely got away with a yellow, only near the end, for repetive fouling. By everey convention it was due, unless he was playing for the Home team…*IBSF*
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Poldi replcamenets?
You have the classic young up and coming players waiting in the wings or on the wing-
Campbell: Either he’s under some kind of training programme (stamina was one obvious weakness during the WC) or he is being put through some kind of anti-Bendtner test as he is forced to wait for the hundred cap WC winner to sort himself out or move on? Who knows. But there’s a cheeky glint in the gaffers eye when answering questions on the player. We shall see. An interesting situation.
Akpom: CHUBA! Maybe a little bit too young to play in this new Era at Arsenal (since Chambo arrived to mark the beginning of this new Era and squad/team nineteen seems to be the minimum)
&
Welbeck!
He’s always played well on the flanks. It’s why he never got the minutes he wanted in the centre. He’s also prepared to put in some minutes there at AFC, no doubt about it. Because he also gets to play CF (and they can swap about during games too). It’ll have been a consideration when signing him, an option that allows them to keep both Giroud and Welbeck sharp when not playing two up every game.
Chamberlain if Walcott is starting on the right?
Plus others. Lots of options.
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The danger to our club now is not using the past to inspire new achievement. It’s the 10th year anniversary of the Invincibles and all the commemoration will threaten to turn us into Liverpool if a way forward isn’t devised soon. Forget Clough analogies–it’s not just the manager but our club, its board, our supporter culture that’s at stake.
A case in point, One thing very disturbing to me was all the early departures on Saturday with the team down a goal or two–is that the time to walk out on the players, the team? We are demanding better from everyone involved but forgetting a basic supporter principle: at your home ground, cheer your team, boo the opposition and harass the ref. I’m not talking about curtailing your displeasure with the board or manager but the basic role of cheering the players when they are fighting to get back in the match. That’s visceral, fundamental stuff! It wasn’t midweek and up 3 or down 4, you know. I am going now to Dortmund because it is important we do better as a team and as support frankly. Dortmund have amazing support and it will be an embarrassment if they so outdo us at this moment. I hope we win and that it is a proper atmosphere. If we go down, we need to show some bottle. We can debrief at the pub or on the blogs but should be strong and in numbers at the Emirates at least.
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I know people here would go much further than me, but I do feel that the commenter above who talked about extraordinary support had an important point. Generally I think our support has actually been quite decent overall compared to other top clubs but deserting the team in such a game really rankles me. Regardless of how we have become divided as a fan base, we ought to manage much better than that.
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Perhaps I am just reacting too much to all the nostalgia and its unwholesome used as well as all the attemps to interpret everything as a referendum on the manager. It gets tiresome. There’s more to Arsenal than this incessant polemic, surely?
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Ok, Fins and I are officially each talking to ourselves in two corners of the room! Sorry for the noise!
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Whats that noise?
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No noise I can hear, Limey is making perfect sense to me! The comment at 1.17 sums up what Frank would write about. Much of our support is now unfortunately not better then Utd’s (I include my evil but nice Manc brother-in-law there who was born around the corner from Danny Boy, heh!) and I’m happy to quote a (nice) friend of the disingenuous chief Groaner there. So people can quote me quoting him on that if they like.
The most dissapointing moment during the Anderlecht game for me, as a fan inside the ground, was being out sung by the Anderlecht fans when the Arsenal were still comfortably winning. To make it worse the Belgium fans were singing in English. No matter what the result was going to be they were determined to have a good time.
Still overall it’s been good support in the ground over the last season and a half except for certain areas in my admittedly limited experience (limited by my hearing!), if a little quiet for my tastes. The only way that will change now is with a change of demographic and the only way that will change is with the government reintroducing safe standing…but they don’t care about football fans so…I can’t blame the club for that!
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It may be the sound of Gazza throwing wine over Usmanov then falling off the roof ?
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“No matter what the result was going to be they were determined to have a good time.”
Bastards
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I know!
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Back to players and injuries:
http://northlondonisred.co.uk/the-ballad-of-paul-vaessen-remembering-the-hero-of-turin/
Young player struggles with injury, in that era it was even harder to recover. Fans heckle player coz they is experts innit. With the combination of it all player struggles to return or rehab himself etc.
Fans have less excuses for such behaviour these days. Especially self-declared Redzone experts etc.
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Fins, btw, you had asked if I was going to Dortmund a while back–now I am! Let me know if you want to chat some Arsenal or wintry winds this Wednesday evening!
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Sorry I forgot to reply!
I’ve got to meet a friend for food before the game, can’t wiggle out of that because he has my ticket. But I’ll try and get your email off George, let’s see…
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No worries, Fins, either way. Btw, I heard OG isn’t eligible for CL group. I think he came back so early. Shame! Is Theo registered? Might be worth playing him. Maybe Sanchez will need a rest too. That might be George’s move!
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Theo is available LG
Our Group stage players are;
http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/season=2015/clubs/club=52280/index.html
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Excellent! And thanks for the info, Anicoll. Maybe he is ready to play. He’s a good finisher. Dortmund like to press. If we can beat it and find some through balls, Theo may find space behind them along with Welbeck and Sanchez. Time to unveil, perhaps, the quickest forward line around.
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If there is some rest for those who played in the internationals and on Saturday we could see Campbell and others come in.
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We need a point at least on Wednesday –
We don’t was to be relying on a result in Istanbul to get through.
However – if Anderlecht fail to win either of their last 2 games we are default 2nd in the group without kicking a ball.
Other unlikely permutations could see us yet top the group.
And Giroud IS ELIGABLE for the BvB game.
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Your saying its a “Must Draw”, or a “Must NOT Lose” game then DC ??
Bollocks – lets wipe the floor with them ( banned axe waving figure)
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DC where did you pick up the news that OG is eligable, as everything Im reading says opposite. Sure hope he is!
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He seems to be on the longer squad list on UEFA.com
Giroud’s already played in the qualifier against Besiktas.
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Thanks DC!
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There is a CL qualifier list for player registered to play in the pre group stages
A CL group stage list of players eligible to play – I posted the link earlier
And a knock out stage CL player registration list that is relevant early next year
Simple innit ?
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I hate Man U as much as anyone. And, obviously, it’s disappointing at best.
But, I can’t help but actually feel encouraged. We absolutely dominated them. Yeah, they won. But I don’t think anyone would say they didn’t ride their luck a bit.
To go back to something Wenger said recently (I’ll paraphrase as I have a terrible memory) “we just need that extra degree to make the water boil”. He’s not far off with that.
I have absolutely no doubt that we’re due to give someone a pasting soon. And if there’s ever a time to kick a team when they’re down, Dortmund must be one of the top candidates right now. In relegation positions, and have just lost reus for ages. If we play anywhere near as well against Klopps team, as we did vs Utd, we could even be the straw that breaks the camels back and their confidence (just enough to see them lose vs anderlecht in the last game, would do me).
I’m hopeful again.
All I need is to watch good football to be happy. And we’re definitely showing signs of getting that back in the armoury. About time too.
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Interestingly the Daily Mail was the media outlet running the “story” that OG wasnt eligable, who are directly connected with,yep LG.Small world.
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Darren Berry AFC @DBerry1974 · 6h 6 hours ago
Such irony that some who label “AKB’s” as a “cult” seem so insistent that everybody should subscribe to their views. Almost “cultist”, that
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Eduardo what’s funny is that the same small clique of “proper arsenal” weirdos have been using that line for years. (Proper Arsenal that ignore the words directed towards them by the likes of Pat Rice, Bob Wilson, Paul Davis etc. etc. etc.)?
It was a follow up to the made up infantile AKB vs. WOB construct which they had to invent in order to justify their own venal stupidity
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But according to Anicoll’s link, OG isn’t eligible for the group stages–even if he played in our qualifier/playoff match. He will be for the knockouts, should we qualify, of course. Perhaps there is some other source of info?
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Has there ever been a MUST DRAW match it football? That would be an interesting scenario!
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Looks like OG wasnt registered after all…according to most media outlets(including FIFA).
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“Has there ever been a MUST DRAW match it football?”
In Serie A, at the end of the season, it can be a convention *coughs* or even a tradition, so I’ve heard, that both teams can agree to draw a game. I don’t know if that makes it a MUST, but it’s pretty close?
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imagine calling yourself an Arsenal supporter and calling Wenger a paedo, just seen a few do this on twitter,
On a similar note I seen one well known fan on twitter actually claim that those still defending Wenger will be the first to have a go at any new manager. For me it will be the very opposite, I fully expect those who constantly attack everything Arsenal, including Wenger, will do the very same to whoever is our next manager as soon as results do not go the way they want. Of course some will not blame a new manager no matter how bad things are, they will still blame Wenger for leaving such a mess.
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Excellent, Fins! Very nice.
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Eduardo, The politics (or should I say theologies?) of Arsenal support is turning people in to nutters.
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finsbury – still think you’re being hard on Dan Smith. Youngster, trying too hard for his team, mistimed tackle, not malicious. Didn’t feel like that at the time of course 🙂
We’re all allowed to make mistakes – that was (one of) his.
Wins against Dortmund and West Brom and everything will look entirely different.
COYG
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Usmanov never learns.
Just STFU.
Fat and Ugly Holdings
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Oi, dkgÖÖner, What’s wrong with being fat and ugly — and tall to boot?
[Gonna form me a ‘Big, Fat and Ugly’ party to fight back against the short, skinny handsome fraternity. One day we will rule the World – the Universe – and North of Watford.]
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So the final small business refusing to sell up to Tottingham and leave its existing site in order that our neighbours can get on with their ground development finds its premises burned out this morning.
Now there is a co-incidence.
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I have previously confessed on here to being a blog flitter — [erm, to clarify – that is not the same as a ‘bog fitter’ – not that there’s anything wrong with that.]
In summary, my view has been that we played some of the best football I have seen for a while, over the first 60 minutes of the game against Manure.
To be candid, on the distaff side we did not capitalise on our attacking supremacy, and if Welly and Jack had put away a couple of chances, all the moaning and whining over the past few days would not have occurred.
In addition, the outrage and shock the players no doubt felt about going down to a farcical goal, that should have been ruled out on two counts [(a) – Fellatio was off-side, -(b) -Fellatio pushed Gibbsy into the PIG – causing injury and leading to the deflected score] probably resulted in their desire to right the wrong and sadly leave themselves open at the back.
From what I have gleaned in my ‘flitting’, it was all Mr Wenger’s fault.
It was all his fault for everything, including not foreseeing the Fellatio fouls that led to their flukey goal, and he should have stopped the team attacking.
And most of all, his greatest fault was being the Arsenal manager, because he is allegedly clueless and a ‘moron’.
Personally, I do not object to people having different views to me, and there is a case, justified or not, for saying we lost our concentration a bit and simply attacking with both Mertesecker and Monreal being in the Manure half, at times.
But it is the other personalised abuse Arsene gets that is so upsetting, because it is both puerile and depressing. [downturned mouth thingy]
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Isn’t the term blog-trotter H ?
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Depends on my mood, anicoll.
A ‘trotter’ has the whiff of a heavy footed plodder, who has not changed his socks this year – whilst a ‘flitter’ is someone who lightly descends on myriad blogs and sups of the available nectar of blog wisdom, or stupidity, and of necessity this role is perfect for someone, like me, of limited intellect, and with an attention timespan akin to that of a goldfish. [Apologies to any goldfish bloggers out there!]
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Yeah, the abuse is not at all to my taste. Poor for conversation too. Have some respect, show some dignity.
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DK
If Diaby had been trying to play a hook shot against a bouncer aimed at his face I’d say fair enough, if his opponent inflicted a bad injury. It happens
Footballers don’t wear helmets and body armour like cricketers do. Football is not about the one-one duels like cricket, players don’t always have their focus on someone coming in to tackle from their blindside therefore it is fairly simple to state that the obligation responsibility and duty is on the players to respect each other. If they don’t, fair comment!
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Get well soon Phil Hughes. A good player. Sad news, fortunately he was taken quickly to the hospital and the doctors were on hand. I hope he can recover ok, but it could be a long road back even if it’s just a relatively light concussion (relative to poor old Bianchi).
And congratulations to someone I think might be an Arsenal fan. He came to watch them play in the last six months and unlike our wannabe celebrity fans* he showed his support to the dressing room (even if he’s not a fan!): Lewis Hamilton. He’s no Groaner!
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