Following the post from anicoll5, here is one from our resident Spud, Yido6061 . Don’t forget to read Andrew’s if this is your first visit today.
You spend half a season moaning about the state of football and then when you actually sit down to try and think of how we, as supporters, can change it, you find yourself staring into space for the best part of a week. It’s easy to complain, far harder to find solutions and I can certainly testify to that, Spurs have a manager we can finally get behind after all these years of griping and grumbling. Arsenal have on their books my favourite player from the World Cup. Manchester United have a compelling maniac in charge and are still going through a period of transition, QPR have gone bonkers. I even enjoyed this week’s Match of the Day for the first time in a long time. Yes, even Alan Shearer. This is going to be a great second half to the season, and hopefully 3 point’s in the eagerly awaited North London Derby. Chelsea are classless in every sense of the word, there’s something hollow about Manchester City and Arsenal are for obvious tribal reasons, never going to feature highly in my ‘support for a day’ stakes.
Arsenal were phenomenal with the high speed passing that bamboozled Aston Villa, I’ve spent years seething at Arsenal, I’ve said it before and I’ll say again, I never got past the inherent arrogance of the so-called Invincibles, and last season the arrival of Mesut Özil, a player I’ve have admired for many seasons now. It’s led to me questioning whether I can summon the required levels of pantomimic hatred for someone I would love to have playing for my team. And if the rumours are to be believed and Jürgen Klopp (another football man who I hugely respect) is Wenger’s natural heir at The Emirates, but the job will come with extremely big shoes to fill, Wenger I cannot think what life would be like with out him. The Premiership would never have seen the genius of Henry, Bergkamp, Fabregas or Pires. The reason Arsenal did so well in the earlier years is because he was ahead of his time. However once the billionaire owners started wanting new toys it was inevitable that he couldn’t sustain the success, but he turned unknown players into world class players and revolutionised the way players train and eat which is now the standard across the Premiership and beyond. His only downfall is his faith in players when everyone else Could see that their time was up, Chamakh, Arshavin, Bendtner, Gervinho etc. etc. Arsene has always said he would never leave the club in a poor position financially and by securing the club’s future he will secure his status as a legend. His legacy has changed the style of that formerly ugly football club forever.
Anyway back to the NLD, In my more immature fantasies, I have become a multi-gazillion-squillionaire. What’s the first thing I do with my new-found imaginary wealth? Buy a football club, of course. But I don’t spend my Monopoly money gobbling up Tottenham Hotspur. Oh no, I’m far more devious than that. I become the majority shareholder at Arsenal and proceed to sell all their prized assets to their rivals up the road. With immediate effect, I announce that the club will now play in blue and white and that the crest will be that of a cockerel crowing abreast a dismantled cannon. I can hear the protests getting more vociferous from my headquarters somewhere on the Seven Sisters road. For one time and one time only, I’m happy to play the big, bad, baddie, as I swivel in my chair and stroke my white cat wrapped as it is in a Spurs scarf. Altogether now: Arsene Wenger’s Blue and White Army!
Seriously the pain from 89 will last my life time. I actually locked myself in my bedroom and stayed there for 5 days after the game. That was the first time I saw Arsenal win the league. Boxing day games at Highbury were always so exciting. There is not the same steel in the team, no Adams to marshal the defence, no Vieira or Gilberto Silva to sit and protect the back four, both teams are more evenly matched these days, but it does depend upon which Spurs team shows up, I hope it will be the attacking, fluent passing side that swept aside Chelsea, but remember one thing…….True satisfaction comes from your team’s achievements, not your enemy’s failings, but if you take a minute to think about it, Chelsea are the true enemy’s COYS
Positively Arsenal 
We needed to match their determination in the middle of the park…..that’s where the game was won….
Yido, enjoy it mate….just to make matters worse my wife is a Spud too…..I need to find a hole in the ground to get over this….
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d_c: Our midfield could not control the game. There was where the game was lost. If you play counter-attacking football you must hold onto the ball when you win it Santi and Coquelin were below the standard they have set.
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awful performance from Arsenal, too many not up for the battle
Ratings
Ospina 6 – some good saves, some very shaky bits, should have done better on first goal
Bellerin 6 – found it very tough, there was far too much free space in front of him
Mertesacker 7 – one of the few up for it today
Koscielny 5 – not at his best, poor on the winner
Monreal 6.5 – good game but should have challenged on the winner
Coquelin 6.5 – worked hard
Ramsey 6.5 – worked hard
Cazorla 5 – very poor game
Welbeck 6 – worked hard, done well on Ozil goal, but wasted too much
Giroud 5 – very poor game, assist for our goal but not sure he meant it
Ozil 7 – extra mark for the goal, but not in the game enough
subs
Rosicky 5 – little impact
Walcott n/a – no impact at all
far too many 50 50 challenges lost, too many players not up for it, and too much wasted possession, especially when we went ahead. What a let down by the players on Wenger’s 700th FAPL game. Just not good enough from the players.
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we wasted far too many good counter attacks, if we had put away a second goal the game would have been over, really let down by the forwards and midfield today.
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We were run over. The sitting back and soaking up attacks tactic is nice and all, but we also need possession.
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I see the boo boys on the twitter and arsenal blog world are out in force targeting Ramsey, it really is amazing how these idiots behave
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Ok let’s enjoy the rugby…..
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I wonder will we get loads of articles about how Ospina was useless, like we would if Szczesny had played and done the exact same performance that Ospina put in. by the way I’m not blaming Ospina for the loss, I’m just pointing out the nonsense that goes on with so many of these whingers who target a small crop of our players.
Ramsey, Ozil and Theo get loads of blame from the idiots so far and we are only a short time since game ended, I’m sure more will be written off before night fall comes.
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Atkinson was a disgrace today, Mason had free reign to kick who and how often as he liked all game long, Arsenal win a challenge and it becomes a foul and a booking, a real home bias from the ref today.
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AW: “We were not very good and the referee was at our level.”
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Spurs were on fire today. They ran from the first to the last minute. If we were poor today it’s because they made us look poor.
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Gains,
It’s unlikely the spuds will be able to play at that intensity when they are back to Thursday nights Europa League games.
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Bugger,
Southampton get an injury time winner, just to make the day worse.
Nevertheless,
If Arsenal bounce back with a home win against Leicester and Tottenham lose at Anfield then it’s back as you were.
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Wenger on the derby and Kane
Arsène Wenger spoke to the media after Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday. Read a full transcript:
on the game…
We defended well. We scored early but I think going forward, we didn’t produce enough. When we went forward, we always looked dangerous to score but were we too focused to defend our goal? I think so. I believe that we made too many technical mistakes compared to our usual level, because of Tottenham in the middle of the park. They put us under pressure and we lost some balls we are not used to losing.
on Harry Kane…
He was good as always. He grows and he has a good determination. He doesn’t stop, he keeps going. The regret I have is that we gave him a cheap goal. It’s worrying that at the back, with five minutes to go, we are always there ready to make the same mistakes. Overall, we defended with solidarity but the biggest regret is that we didn’t have a good day. We can do much better – that is for sure and that is the positive of the day.
on the goals…
They were cheap goals. Tottenham didn’t create so much, but I think we didn’t produce enough.
on Rose’s challenge on Giroud…
I saw it. Not everybody saw it.
on if Rose should have had a greater punishment…
I have made my statement.
on losing…
It leaves us with a big disappointment to swallow first and then to prepare for the next game. We have played two more away games than Spurs, who have played 13 at home and 11 away. We have played 13 away and 11 at home. It’s down to our home form now – we know we can win away from home but it will be a battle until the end. It has been every year with Spurs. We just have to focus on us, because there are many teams fighting to get in there [the top four].
on if it’s good to have another game soon…
Yes it’s good. If you respond well, it’s very good. We play at home against Leicester, a team who fight not to go down. We have to recover from the disappointment and be ready to respond very quickly.
on if teams are fighting for third and fourth…
Four teams at least, certainly.
on if Kane should play for England…
When you have scored the number of goals he has scored, if you don’t put him in there, somebody will give him a passport to another country.
Copyright 2015 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source
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Atletico Madrid beat Real Madrid 4-0 today
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Will the FA charge Rose for his challenge on Giroud, seeing as the Ref ignored it today, as he did Betaleb kicking Ramsey in the chest, and all the Mason fouls too.
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Eduardo @ 6:04 pm – are you crazy? Who would think that Rose nearly broke Girouds’s foot with his studs planted on his lower leg? Not the FA.
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when was the last time you seen such a one sided performance from a ref in an Arsenal game, and when if ever did you see a ref give Arsenal that sort of bias reffing, why is it always against us, do we refuse to pay them off or something.
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I really have to share this comment from another arsenal site, about the ref, despite the poster saying the ref was one sided against AFC, he still comes out with this bull that we should have known Atkinson would have been like that and we should have overcome it, it really is laughable that this sort of bull is still spouted by so many gooners,
We seen today that the ref was looking to book Arsenal players, we had 5 bookings today, Rose, Bentaleb and Mason should all have been sent off, and of the 3 Rose did not even get booked and Mason only booked after about 8 fouls. If we had been doing what tottnum midfield was doing we would have had two or three sent off. We have seen this for nearly two decades now, totally one sided reffing, yet Gooners pretend that it has no real effect on a game, and its our own fault if we lose. Crazy, stupid logic.
the quote
Atkinson was as expected just Atkinson, Others may put the blame on him but the way I see it the blame lies in not making allowances for him in the first place . We should have planned for his style and seeing that we were losing any midfield control should have made the changes earlier to try and break up their building momentum. His refereeing was one sided and poor but when he referees The Arsenal that’s the way he does his job.
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Llew Davies @NoCLlew · 42m 42 minutes ago
Post-loss Arsenal Twitter – the home of exaggeration and knee-jerk beliefs. (Probably true for most fan bases, but more pertinent for ours.)
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http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/424408/Arsene-OUT-Arsenal-fans-call-for-Wenger-s-head-following-Tottenham-defeat
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I remind myself I do not have to watch the Merseyside derby
It is so grimly awful it makes compulsive viewing
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Will Benn @WengerBoy1 · 4h 4 hours ago
Must uplifting moment of the game: Lamela elbowing Monreal in the face and handballing it at the same time, referee ignoring both
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There must be grounds for denying both Everton and Liverpool any points from this shocking waste of time. Come on FA – you know it makes sense.
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Too funny, anicoll. What a boring game
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for Tuesday’s game I go with a team of
Szczesny
Bellerin Mertesacker Gabriel Monreal
Coquelin Ramsey
Walcott Ozil Welbeck
Giroud
subs
Ospina, Chambers, Gibbs,Cazorla, Alexis, Rosicky, Akpom
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Rose studs from behind on Giroud was particularly nasty I thought but don’t think our loss was down to the ref. We lost the battle in the middle of the park which doesn’t happen too often to us. Kudos to them they executed we didnt
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0-0 thank gawd that’s over
As for Atkinson he was poor but, as Arsene said, so were we
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Really disappointing result. I didn’t see the game so I can’t say any more than that. Unlike some I’m not blaming the players, the manager or the referee. I told my friends that I was meeting for lunch that I blame them entirely as the last time I met them for lunch it was that disaster at man city last season! They are complete jinxes and if they don’t buck up their ideas they could soon find themselves ex friends of mine!
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I would lay any blame today on the referee. He effectively ceded them momentum. Why he did so is a question that probably won’t be asked.
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more of the anti arsenal agenda in the media
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/arsenals-mesut-ozil-buys-shisha-5124005?
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foreverheady I would say that the refs performance or should I say his siding with tottnum allowed for all this bull “they wanted it more”, the refs performance let their players know that they could kick and foul AFC players and no card would come, they know when AFC won a 50 50 that atkinson would not only give tottnum a free kick, he would hand out a yellow card to the Arsenal player too, Atkinson set the tone with his one sided performance, once again ref standards in the English game needs to be questioned, and the question should be – is it just inept or is it bias or even corrupt – but that question will never be asked in the media.
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oh my God, just oh my God, the nonsense is beyond belief
AFCPressWatch™ @AFCPressWatch · 3h 3 hours ago
It’s all good fielding foreign players, but in a game of this magnitude, preference should have given to homegrown player. That’s my opinion
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Atkinson was useless in enforcing the rules but that is to be expected but that is not why we lost. Spurs were better than us.
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Yes. Spurs were better than us because they were playing with an advantage that the officiating granted them. Watch the whole game back and shed tears for the death of a corruption free EPL.
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I wish I could explain our inability to respond to the pressure Spurs put on us in midfield. They won that battle. It seemed to me that we were still confident that our delicate, technical abilities would begin to deliver. But they didn’t. They had a few more Coquelins in their team whilst we had just the one.
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I read the match report on Arsenal.com before seeing Mesut’s goal. I can’t understand how they described Olivier’s pass to him as a miss hit? Knowing how good he is at those little touches it looked to me like a deliberate assist worthy of anything Mesut himself could have produced.
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Didn’t see the match and don’t have time to watch highlights so no comment.
Just have to pick ourselves up and get on with it. It’s only a another game for me – I don’t subscribe to all this stuff about it being more important than any other match.
Still ample time to get up to third – second maybe, but winning is almost certainly beyond us this season, I think.
Onward and upward.
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Man City are in trouble, I don’t think they will remain 2nd.
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the defeat has all been explained to me by a combination of AAA and WOB, it seems the defeat is down to the following reasons
Cazorla playing shite cos its all Ramsey’s fault
Cazorla playing shite cos he was played out of position
Cazorla playing shite cos it was wrong formation
cazorla playing shite cos Rosicky was not in the team
Bellerin playing shite cos its all Ramsey’s fault
Bellerin giving Rose acres of space cos he was covering for Mert
Bellerin giving Rose too much space cos Theo is shite and should be sold if we can get £10M for him, Welbeck is far better and does so much good defending(funny how Rose had all that space then)
Mert and Kos playing shite cos its Ramsey’s fault
Despite Atkinson being totally bias and one sided, and booking Arsenal players for fun and not booking tottnum players for some awful challenges, the ref had no effect on the game what so ever – yeah really
Its all Ramsey’s fault
Ozil played left wing cos Ramsey is in the team
Ospina pushed shots back out into dangerous positions( leading to their first goal) is down to Wenger’s bad tactics, partly due to him keeping his love child Ramsey in the team
Players tired cos Wenger has run them into the ground, all in the red zone, especially Cazorla, Kos, Mert and Ramsey
well its clear that even in defeat there is always a silver lining from Arsenal, as this defeat allows the AAA and WOB to do what they love to do the most, whinge, talk bollocks and act like stupid spoilt children
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Sola. @Fattcheeked · 10h 10 hours ago
Ha, isn’t it “weird” that Ospina made errors in a game where the team made too many errors in midfield and defence?
Maybe it’s the defenders that make goalkeepers nervous after all and not the other way round.
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One thing I seen today that really surprised me was several articles on Arsenal blogs about yesterday’s game and the one thing they had in common apart from the articles being very negative was the line “I did not see the match but from all reports”,
Can anyone explain to me how anyone could dare to write an opinion piece about the game, when admitting that they had not seen the game, what insight can they reveal when not having seen the game, I suppose its almost as bad as composing their drivel from watching Match of the Day highlights and analysis(and I use the term in its loosest form),
A question for anyone who watched MOTD last night, did they show or mention Rose’s stamp on Giroud’s ankle, or the elbow on Monreal, or Bentaleb’s kick to Ramsey’s ribs and chest, was Atkinson’s performance mentioned at all.
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Perhaps the salient fact about this performance was that Spurs played best not in the half when “One of our Own” supplied all the magic, but in the prior 45 minutes when the Gunners took the lead. Last year Spurs drew once and lost eight times to the Top Four, this season, against those same side, we have achieved all three possible results twice, and if we expand the table to include the next three, Southampton, West Ham and Man United, you can add two more wins and a draw. It’s not a mirage, in fact it’s based on extremely hard work, the acceptance and adherence of Mauricio Pochettino’s philosophy, the two fullbacks and holding midfielders kept Arsenal at bay. All four played brilliantly, blame Rose for letting Welbeck loose on the burst which led to Ozil’s goal, but for the remainder of the 90 minutes Danny was brilliant in both directions, nearly scoring twice from repeated forays down the left wing, Walker was nearly as precocious in attack and flawless on defense, and the Academy boys shone in demonstrating a crucial difference between this side and all the recent others, Mason and Bentaleb fight for the ball, reverse the play and occasionally , as with Nabil’s diagonal ball to Kane for the winner, they can strike in attack. So Mason had a few ill-advised passes, it’s worth it. Just as Erik Lemela and Mousa Dembele’s faults, the former botched a volley or two and the latter stopped just as he was about to create a chance on multiple occasions, are acceptable if they fight for and gain possession. Lloris and the two center halfs were solid as usual, Eriksen was flitting around causing concern, just because Arsenal held him at bay doesn’t reduce his value, for the point is, all of that is part of the deal when you have a ruthless goalscorer at the ready. What more can be said about Harry except this, he is fast becoming THE story of the Premier League this season, and one of the best stories in all of world sport, let alone football. Where I come from if you said a 21 yr old, previously consigned to the minor leagues, who was born and bred to be a player on our team, he has had one amazing performance after another, and yesterday, poaching the first as all great goalscorers do, and brilliantly heading home the second. he’s one of our own…
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The referee wasn’t to blame for this loss. It wasn’t the referee who caused us to mis-hit passes out of the back for most of the game, it wasn’t the referee who suffocated our midfield to the point where we couldn’t get out of our own half for huge spells and it wasn’t the referee who allowed Bentaleb to deliver a peach of a cross to Harry Kane in the eighty fifth minute. Let’s face it, Spurs executed their game plan flawlessly and they beat us fair and square. And you know why they did it? Because they’re perhaps the hardest team to beat at home at the moment and confidence is coursing through their team.
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Still lower than a snakes belly
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It’s only two days to Leicester and a chance to put in a proper evening’s work.
Watching our next CL opponents losing at the mighty Guingamp – time added on and Monaco frantically trying to get an equaliser
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gainsburourg I must disagree on at least one of your points, it was the actions of the ref that allowed their midfield to suffocate our midfield, bentalab and mason were given free reign to kick lumps out of our midfield, while over and over when we won a challenge not only did the ref give a free against us but was also inclined to book one of our players, yes we were a bit off our game, but please don’t ignore the refs performance as one of the reasons for this.
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It’s disappointing because those 3 points were very important to our ambitions for this season, but they are gone now and no amount of navel gazing and recrimination will bring them back. The players just need to dust themselves off and focus on the next 3 points. Things are getting tight now, and it’s such a shame that the feelgood factor has been rubbed off thanks to that result, but it’s not over yet, so where there’s life there’s hope and that is all we can hang onto for now.
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It is strange how few times we are given Clattenberg for a game, compared to the unholy alliance of Dean, Atkinson and Taylor.
It must be just me and my tin foil hat.
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We have 8 home games and 6 away games left to play, Spurs have the opposite ratio, so their 1 point position above us is a bit skewed right now, no mater how painful it is to view.
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