102 comments on “Horses For Courses ?”
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Excellent although I have a strong feeling I’ve read it before.
Isn’t it strange that a palace hit the post in the last seconds and we were considered lucky. The fact that palace wernt in the game until the last 15 minutes plus stoppage time apparently doesn’t come into it. Even on this abismal pitch they still needed the ref to keep them in the game. So if you include the added time we were lucky for 20 minutes yet they were lucky for 70LikeLike
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I had the same thought Shotta
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Spot on foreverheady! I was going to mention Adrian Clarke’s quality analysis the other day. I have to admit that I only started watching them mid November, but now try to watch it after every game. His analysis is always sound, reasonable and interesting – I don’t underestimate how difficult this is to do either considering the millions of different opinions out there. I stopped watching the Monday clock end show because his special guest was John Cross on too many occasions – it was like he was his co-presenter and I can’t stand that hack. I would definitely recommend that all Arsenal fans/armchair critics/wannabe managers check out the Breakdown show on Arsenal Player.
I actually don’t mind David Hillier, Mike Sewell and a few of the other match commentators. The only one I have an issue with is the moaning Martin Hayes, who did yesterday’s game. Sometimes I find that he’s not able to keep up with the game and/or would complain about this or that rather describe the game taking place. He’s sounds like a ‘glass 1/2 empty’ guy on the best of days to be honest.
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Thanks FH
I was watching a stream live, the ref kept them in the game but he didn’t send off Coq when that could have been easy to do.
I don’t know how the team will find a solution to stopping those dangerous crosses into the box very late on in games, it’s cost us a lot of points and we need to stay in the Cups.Van Gall will use it at OT.
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d_c @ 1:25 am: Crosses rain in because our 2 full backs last game aren’t very fast and the supporting midfielders are not overly physical in tracking wide players from the opposing team. Chambers is specially vulnerable and even Bellerin has difficulty. Often the supporting midfielder is Cazorla and big lumps like Bolassie outmatch him. I am sure it keeps Wenger up at nights trying to find a solution.
The Ox is good for us physically but he has to work on his defensive game. It is improving though.LikeLike
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Selections for Weds will be fun. Shame the Ox is out *sobs*, I’m not sure if Welbeck will have enough juice to play so well again considering he’s just returned, considering the recent trend of resting players when possible when they are returning, so a likely start for Walcott.
Kondongbia had an impressive game in the pre-season tournament, but he was opposite the kiddies if I recall. CM will be the key, as always. Cazorla and Coquelin behind Ozil or will we see Ozil leftish, Sanchez rightish and someone else (Rozzamundo? Please?) getting the nod in CM? Interesting times.
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eduardo
February 22, 2015 at 11:07 pmfuck that clown….cant believe the media aint laughing at him and mocking him in all papers ..crybaby …samuel the cunt even says that though one sided he is right…bollocks…fucking moaning twat… arsenal has suffered 20 times more and when we raise a complaint we get shat upon…why not them too? we need to expose them big time…dont knwo about the league title but the game at emirates only one result..victory with a big score and pushing them out the pitch and spitting at them at the end…all 60,000 of us…
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DC/Shotta
There is an argument that says that it is Alexis who has unbalanced the team. Or rather, that it wasn’t anticipated that we would remain so reliant on Giroud as the focal point of attack and that often Alexis would replace him. And so if you have Giroud and Alexis both playing you are then one short of a midfielder who automatically does those defensive duties and cuts out the crosses. And then if either Welbeck or Walcott plays too then we are even shorter of natural defensively minded midfielders, especially as Cazorla and Ozil tend to drift left most naturally. Oxlade has a significant role to play so let’s hope he gets back soon.It would, I suspect, look very different if Debuchy was playing at Right back.
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Thank you for that FH and a formidably sensible review. I was pleased with our performance and we certainly seem yo have come a long way since our trip to Swansea where we allowed an opponent who was beaten back on to their feet to take the three points.
I suspect Coquelin will need to watch his behaviour over the next few games as opponents and referees will have had a look at him on Saturday and his rather fortunate escape.
I am off to the Monaco game this Wednesday, first game for ages, so I am on edge already !
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brilliant post FH
we could have been 3-0 up if alexis had converted his chance in the second half. so there is nothing like arsenal were lucky.anicoll
cog will be okay. infact he is doing just fine. after all that is exactly the type of player everyone accused us of lacking up untill now. the media and fans alike big up players like matic, ramires, and essien as the reason chelsea is a model club in england. arteta was derided for been too soft and unfit to replace alex song whom they even admitted was not up to the need standarded. so if coq is just playing according to what they ordered, all we call do is support and encourage him. to stand by him even if he gets the odd yellow or red cards. just as maureen has always done for his players.LikeLike
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FH
11:35am
Can’t argue with your assessment.LikeLike
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Anicoll
It’s never mentioned as an excuse, but the rain at Swansea was so torrential that night it meant our players could hardly see the ball in the air, and playing fancy ground football was nigh-on impossible.
Or it was just plain old being out-played by the hungrier team –a bit of both I suspect.
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god damn it ..its too much ..12 points…its only 12 games left. …we need at least 3-4 loses from them and a few draws…..we are talking of a gigantic collapse..the kind of which you never come back from ..and never work anywhere again….
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Le Coq wasn’t fortunate if you take it in context to how the ref was refereeing the game. Joe ledley could have gone several times over and quite frankly you could of used a chain saw and there was every chance the ref would have let it go. It might not be to the letter of the law but that’s how clatts was interpreting the game. The same could be said of tge costs pen claim, letter of the law says pen but more realistically 99% of refs would see that something akin to a shoulder barge and are very reluctant to give anything for it and definitely not in tge area. If that was a foul then I suggest we would of had another 30 FK s every game especially against sides like CP.
As for Maureen I think he believes the PL is going to be tight and he is trying to exert as much pressure on tge refs as possible. He is in a very dodgy position this year and he seems to be crapping it. As much as he has chances for glory he is also facing a very acrimonious sacking which is why he is so jealous of Arsene and is always commenting on his longevity. He is seething green that the professor can do what he wants and the special one keeps getting the sack -
how could they get so far ahead…they are not that good….this sucks….they got good results for 3-4 mos and now have a gap of safety…fuck city, im thinking of us….
whatever curse, spell, voodoo, chinese, muslim, budhist, christian ..whatever techniques …all welcome, all equal, all for the good of humanity and football.
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I’d thought Coquelin had been a little hesitant in the tackle against the Foxes and the tinies Bearing in mind the performance of the officials that was understandable: Mike “I’m ‘avin’ a right ole larf” Jones (he’s actually from…Chesire!) for example.
So it was nice the ref let him off the yellow for a silly but not completely OTT attempt.
Monaco and their Cms will be a good test.
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I think what Coq needs to do is by no means lose the aggression in his play but learn to be subtle with that aggression. Learn to control the referee, play him like a violin.
I am always struck by Lampard and how he got away, and still gets away, with murder on the pitch but rarely picks up a card. Three red cards in his 600 PL appearances is the work of a craftsman.
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Interesting write up and many sensible comments although I’d query the idea that it is easy to play at the Emirates. Aside from the rock hard nature of the playing surface, our own home crowd are notorious for the cacophony of moans and groans the moment a pass goes astray; I’d argue that whilst we do have ‘home advantage’, it is of a somewhat qualified nature and really only kicks in once we have gone one or more goals up in the game. The rock hard pitch surface is unforgiving on soft muscle tissue and is again likely to be more of a shock to our visitors rather than our own team especially as we train on identical surfaces up at Colney week in, week out. Whilst our more cultured players (which is most of them, admittedly!) will appreciate the predictability of ball behaviour at the Emirates, I don’t think it is especially easy for anyone, per se.
Just off shortly to Barnet’s ‘new’ ground at The Hive for the Under 18’s Youth Cup game v Crewe which kicks off at 7 pm North London Time.
My main motive for going is the possibility of a first time appearance for Bielik who is, remarkably, listed as a full first team squad player despite only being 17 years old. I have it on good authority that when he visited the Emirates in the run up to Xmas, before signing in January, the entire stadium went on lockdown for the duration of his visit, such was the sensitivity of his presence there and the club’s clear desire to impress the young man of the seriousness of their interest in him.
That he was the player to have been responsible for the lockdown was only apparently made known following our successful signing of the hugely sought after starlet. Whilst the high profile signings of Ozil, Welbeck and Sanchez have understandably attracted the majority of the fans’ attentions, Krystian Bielik is, from what I can gather, as exciting a prospect as a certain Hector Bellerin was – someone I first wrote about in the aftermath of the Fabregas transfer – incredibly, almost four years ago.
If he does play I’ll be sure to share with PA my thoughts on the guy, regardless of the result. It’s nights like tonight that are for me as exciting as anything else in football; the chance to watch one of the potential world stars of tomorrow. It’s something I’m only really truly aware happens for The Arsenal and yet another reason why I find all aspects of the club’s work truly mesmerising.
Who knows, maybe Arsene will be around …
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Arsenal get planning permission to upgrade London Colney
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refs announced for our next two league games
2.05pm Arsenal v Everton
Referee: Andre Marriner
Assistants: S Ledger, D Cann
Fourth Official: R MadleyQueens Park Rangers v Arsenal
Referee: Kevin Friend
Assistants: M Mullarkey, M McDonough
Fourth Official: L ProbertLikeLike
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Arsenal Under-18s to play Crewe in FA Youth Cup: Huddart, Smith, O’Connor, Dobson, Robinson, Maitland-Niles, Zelalem, Eyoma, Crowley, Willock, Mavididi
Under-18s subs: Keto, Bola, Wright, Sheaf, Donovan.LikeLike
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What’s happening with Bielik?, or not as the case is.
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Absolutely excruciating Eddy – it is beige !
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Fingers crossed on Bielik – footballers of any age need to play football. Football fans of any age need to see new players of any age playing football.
I don’t care if it is the youth team of the first team.
I trust we will not have another Theo situation where he joined in January and was told to take the rest of the season off.
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puma will be changing all our kits each season, and the training kit twice a season, its what they pay the big bucks for, so I’m sure we will see some awful kits over the length of the contract.
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for fucks sake, the U18’s are already behind v Crewe, 7 minutes in, a team with 3 players who have played for our first team should not be falling behind against lower league teams
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Crewe comes close to getting a second goal
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ha ha ha, Burnley fans pick Ashley Barnes as their man of the match v Chelsea, with 60% of the votes
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Crewe go close again
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These so called designers though – do you think they get paid to produce this shower of shite ?
Beige Ffs ? BEIGE ?!?!
And the other one has brown sleeves and some sort of pink/purple paisley design
Is it a competition to produce the most ridiculous arsenal kit or do you reckon these designers go round dressed in pink and purple paisley with brown sleeves ?
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nearly 30 minutes gone, crewe go close again
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the yellow/gold kit is said to be based on the kit Arsenal had in the 1950 cup final
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Arsenal finally getting some shots on the Crewe goal
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Crewe’s early goal tonight is the 12th game and 14th goal an Arsenal Academy team (U18, U19 and U21) have let in in the first 10 minutes of a game
U21 1 game, 1 goal concede
U19 4 games, 4 goals conceded
U18 7 games, 9 goals concededcertainly a bit of a trend for our young teams to start games slowly, especially in regards to defense
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Arsenal FC @Arsenal · 3m 3 minutes ago
Half-time: @Arsenal Under-18s 0-1 @crewealexfc Under-18sLikeLike
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Arsenal FC @Arsenal · 3m 3 minutes ago
Goal for @crewealexfc. Huddart parries Brown’s powerful strike into O’Connor and the ball bounces into the net (48) 0-2LikeLike
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Mavididi makes it 1-2 but a minute later crewe score again, 1-3, 67 minutes
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2-3 last ten could be interesting
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Bola made it 2-3 with ten minutes to go, now into four added minutes
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crap were out FT
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Arsenal FC @Arsenal · 34s 35 seconds ago
Full-time: @Arsenal Under-18s 2-3 @crewealexfc Under-18sjust not good enough from our young players
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Eduardo, jumping the gun!
“. should the S106 legal agreement not be completed by 3rd March 2015, the Managers of Planning and Building Control be given delegated powers, if considered appropriate, to refuse the planning application for the reason set out below:”
the proposed development by reason of its use, scale, height and bulk, is not considered appropriate
Mr R Marshall, must marshal his ingenuity to enable the development of the London Colney Training Ground, to be approved by the Managers of the Planning and Building Control.
COTG
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Footy Land @FootyLand · 7h 7 hours ago
Chelsea signed T Hazard for €500k on 24/7/12. He spent 37 days at Stamford Bridge, played once (for U21s). Sold for €8m today, 1500% markupLikeLike
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Comments are closed.
Positively Arsenal 
A guest post from @foreverheady
I really don’t like games that start at 3 on a Saturday: they are so last century, and we certainly got a last century pitch to play on yesterday. Three o’clock means of course you only get to see the game if you actually go, and yesterday only 24,721 lucky punters were able to do that. I’m not sure how many away supporters found tickets but I’m guessing not many. For the rest of us in the UK you had to rely on dodgy streams, a private showing at the Emirates, the audio commentary on the Arsenal player or snippets on Radio 5. It was so far back in time the only surprise was not finding a copy of the Saturday Pink through the letter box to be consumed on route to the Dog and Duck for a pint of mild and bitter and cribbage and dominoes with Ernest and Albert. Even Arsene in his pre-match presser suggested that Selhurst Park was a bit like Highbury, and it was easy to see just what he meant, with the crowd on top of the players and vocal support relentless. I doubt somehow that the Palace authorities are too fussed about safe standing.
And safe standing was certainly a problem for the players too, the pitch ironically prepared to produce a level playing field. It certainly didn’t appear to suit our technicians, and it was no great surprise that Welbeck, almost alone, seemed to relish the conditions. Not that he lacks technical ability, but his forceful, powerful and direct approach certainly seemed to fit. I wondered after the game whether Arsene needs to pick very different teams for some of our away matches. Playing at the Emirates is easy if you have the skill to do it. A large pitch perfectly prepared allows for intricate one touch play, and we are at our best when we zip the ball around. It is no coincidence that our home form is so good, the underfoot conditions seemingly being more important to us than whatever atmosphere is generated by the Emirates crowd. But away from home is very different against some of the more robust sides on pitches that are less than perfect. I’m not going down the Arsenal are soft route here – far from it – but suggesting that maybe some players are better suited to certain types of game than others. I think this is why we so often hear the call for a physical midfielder, and yesterday would have suited Ramsey and Oxlade more than Cazorla and Ozil I suspect.
But this is largely conjecture, because the commentary on the Arsenal Player is absolutely hopeless if you want to get an idea of how the game is unfolding. In fact it is worse than hopeless and I would say is negatively misleading. The pattern seems to be that any time Arsenal have hold of the ball the commentary team talk about anything and everything bar the action: memories are polished, emails are read, even when those emails are critical of team selection and players. Once we have lost the ball the commentary restarts so you get an impression that at no stage do we ever have any possession at all. It is a really depressing experience. I was quite surprised to see the highlights this morning to see that there were moments when we were allowed to play a bit ourselves. If I had one wish it would be that the club has a serious look at what it does with the matches it broadcasts. Not all can go to the game, not all have access to live coverage, but most can find a way to tune into the clubs own service. As such it is an important outlet and needs to be treated as such. The excellent Adrian Clarke was good at half time, and I am looking forward to his analysis of the match tomorrow.
So what of the game itself? A truly excellent result and a heart in the mouth last few minutes. Top play by Welbeck to win the penalty and provide the assist for Giroud. I hear he was outside the box when fouled but it didn’t look that way to me on the replay and offside for the second, although there didn’t seem much protest at the time. How wonderful to get a decision go our way for a change and the three points won yesterday makes up a little for the points lost when they haven’t. I don’t think these things even up over the course of a season but we deserved a bit of payback. Before the game I saw a couple of articles that suggested that Van Gaal was right to let him go and that he wasn’t up to Arsenal standard, so I was pleased that he so quickly proved himself. I have no doubt whatsoever that he will become a major Arsenal figure and suspect that more than many he will benefit from working closely with the manager. After all Arsene Wenger seems to have done a pretty good job with Giroud, who was on hand again to score what proved to be the winning goal. And beyond that I can’t comment as I haven’t seen the game properly at all, but what I do have is a satisfied and slightly smug smirk on my face as I listen to the moans and groans of the media, Mourinhos and Rooneys of this world. We are third now, have a Champions League home fixture to look forward to, before preparing to face Everton next Sunday. And Jack is back. What’s not to like?