Good morning all Positives,
The NLD matched my expectations yesterday. 94 minutes of sporting combat, two good teams playing football, trying to win the game, every loose ball, every tackle, every header contested. Both sides coming into the game after a hard week’s football. By the end the game was always going to be matter of who had the stamina to endure. That is the way football should be played. No buses, no clawing at the opponent’s eyes, no shrieking when you are touched.
The opening ten minutes I thought we started well, but having huffed and puffed we had not managed to even rattle the windows of the Spuds house. Somewhat relieved they got back into the contest, began to knock the ball about with a bit of purpose and took the game to us. We seemed to shrink a little, Santi apparently “dizzy” (?). Sanchez and Campbell worked hard but with no end product. Not often you see a player as limited genetically as Kyle Walker have a good game when facing a player with the quality of Alexis. Olivier was locked out by Alderweild and Vertonghen. Not able to get boot to ball.
The goal came and, given the balance of play overall in the first half probably, a deserved lead. More disappointing was the lack of a single effort on target or Lloris required to make single proper save in the first half. Fair play to the visitors they were blocking every through ball, that we managed. On the few occasions we got to the edge of the box no one shot. As toothless as I can recall from us for a long time. Most odd.
A shrewd and seemingly necessary substitution brought the Flamster into the contest We immediately set about getting back into the game with more energy and that little bit of serrated Gallic steel the player has in his boots. Chances were created at both ends, Cech again saving well from Kane and Alderweild, Olivier centimetres out on three occasions.
No idea whether it was pure chance or shrewd tactics on the part of Arsene and his players but the moment we started putting in the high ball and putting the Spuds central defence under pressure they cracked. No reason it should have worked, as we are hardly kings of the high ball, but from being confident and in control at the back Tottenham lapsed into hysteria.
75 minutes gone and I was beginning to feel a little uneasy, with a second and probably decisive goal for Spuds looking as likely as an equalizer ! The introduction of Kieran Gibbs I admit did not quell the butterfly that was hatching. One glimmer of light was that Spuds were beginning to tire.
Fool that I am , you all saw Kieran put away what was a slightly scruffy finish. Walker nowhere to be seen. Scruffy counts just the same though. That I could have doubted for a MOMENT.
And for the final 17 minutes we had ‘em under the hammer, pressing forward against an increasingly desperate defence. Sanchez suddenly much more effectively playing inside. Mikel stroking the ball as only he can. Only one winner possible during that final phase but……… Our visitors mightily relieved when Atkinson below for the end. Even with multiple injuries we endured better than they did.
Fair result, both sides did enough to win so a point apiece the right result.
Good on our side ? Debuchy showed the quality he has, match sharp at last even if he ran out of gas a little short. Flamini again spoiled Spuds day, great effort from Giroud, never gave up.
For them ? I was impressed with Lamela – ridiculous I know but every dog has his day. Dembele was also a smooth, impressive operator.
Since the last international break we have played seven games, four wins, the draw yesterday and two defeats. Not perfect but pretty damn good.
Positively Arsenal 
Yes, a fair result – can’t really claim we did enough to win.
I seem to be alone in my experience of the first 30 minutes being boring as hell – Spurs looking like they would be happy with 0-0 and us lacking passion and energy. Maybe I’m getting more detached in me old age – maybe it’s me lacking passion and energy (for football anyway).
Life is a projection.
Hopefully, as AW said, we get more back after the interlull than we lose.
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I certainly thought we did very little in the first 30 of note Dk and until Kane scored Spuds had only a few excursions over the halfway line. The game was however still hard and fast.
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Thanks for that write up Andrew, unable to watch or follow the game and mercifully Twitter free for the duration, have to admit I’d have taken a draw following the draining mid-week encounter.
For once the interlull has come at a decent point for us and we remain extremely handily placed in the League which I venture to suggest remains our most pressing priority for the season.
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Next two or three rounds of matches should be interesting. On paper we have the easiest run of the top 5.
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Mostly agree with A5’s report. Being a derby as boring as the first 30 minutes may have been for neutrals, i was on the edge of my seat hoping for the first goal.
My only issue is overlooking Mesut’s contribution. I will repeat my earlier post:
OptaJoe on Twitter:
Mesut Ozil covered more ground (10.5 km) than any other Arsenal player against Tottenham. Energy.
My NBC feed with Arlo White, Lee Dixon and Graeme LeSaux spent long periods telling viewers that Mesut was not working hard enough. How much more convincing do we need that the media lies to suit a narrative? They do it brazenly, even when covering a live event, by selectively highlight episodes and ignoring the facts.
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Equalising when you have been under the cosh and then finishing strongly always feels like some kind of success, and it was good to be reminded of the fact that there was a time not so very long ago when some of us regarded Gibbs as one of our brighter stars. When he came on for Campbell it seemed to me a forlorn and hopeless move by the manager: just why would you bring on a defender for an attacker when you’re a goal down? For him to then score with just about his first kick was tremendous, and the most delicious thing of all was the way it shut the punditry up. Those young Tottenham legs buckled, and all the talk of lack of desire and spine went out of the window.
Some funny old results over the weekend, and AWs words of a few seasons back that the moneyed clubs would perhaps have less of an advantage as there were a lot more good players available these days beginning to prove correct I think. We struggle when both Ramsey and Wilshere are unavailable: their absence means too much work needed from Cazorla, Alexis and Ozil. Those three have been tremendous for the last few weeks and have kept us in a really strong position. A bit of R and R for at least two of them is now in order.
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Reading the mainstream media this morning the story is that Arsenal ‘failed’ to take advantage of Citeh’s result at Villa Park.
Seems to me the club with the easier job yesterday afternoon were the Mancunians against a Villa side who had lost seven games in a row.
Had we been sitting two points behind Citeh going in to the break then it would have been a setback, as matters turned out is the contest remains on the knife edge.
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I see what you mean about the next three fixtures Dk with the Baggies, Norwich and Sunlun.
Be interesting to see how Citeh begin their games sequence of games with Jurgen’s Liverpool, Saints and Stoke though with the first two at home
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When the biggest story after the weekend is that Arsenal have “failed” when Chelsea and Liverpool lost, and City only drawn against the bottom club you can tell the desperation of the press. And I see the lack of depth argument coming up again, though some would say that the fighting point was a good effort with ten on the easy list. Flamini showed depth. Gibbs showed depth, as did Debauchery and Campbell. And a nice little cameo from Mikel reminded me that he still has his part to play in the depth stakes.
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Great match report A5. Fair result at the end of the day and no one should have any gripes about that. I’d differ with some commenters and say the game weren’t boring at all. I felt that North London derby anxiety through out, because for the most part the result could’ve gone either way.
After Bayern kicked our asses midweek a lesser team would’ve folded going into the HT 1-0 down against a quality team, being as drained with energy as we were. Kudos to the team for playing for the 3 points right to the final whistle. At no point were they looking to settle for a draw.
If ever our players and the moaning twatter mob needed a 2 week R&R, it couldn’t had come at a better time. The run since the start of September had seen our boys having a turn-around of 3-4 days between games going on 2 months.
Here’s to having a bigger pool of players after the break.
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The old fart’s thoughts
Lots of fizz but no pop from both sides for the first 15 minutes or so. Loris not troubled though at their end and warning signals at our end when Dier was allowed to stroll in on the blind side and head wide. Our inability to watch the man off the ball costs us plenty over a season and really should be addressed by Bouldy and AW. We looked a bit livelier than the spuds in this period and it was good to see Debuchy looking more with it than he has in the previous games. Though not as dynamic as young Hector in attack he was willing to try. That though was partly responsible for the spuds taking the lead when Rose put Kane through down our right hand side and Kos misjudged his attempt to catch him offside. Pity that this game wasn’t played earlier in the season when Kane was having a banjo, cow’s arse time of scoring. No problems with this one.
We weren’t looking good and seemed to go into sleep mode as our midfield was overrun. A part explanation for this came when Santi was hooked at half time complaining of dizziness. Flamster coming on in his place. At half time it’s fair to say that they deserved their lead.
We needed to get faster to the tackle and cover more space and it didn’t take long for the Flamster to get among ‘em and we looked a great deal better all round even if both Alexis and Olly weren’t at their sharpest. Joel Campbell had a nice try only to see it finger tipped around the post. I think that was the first shot we had saved? Petr saved us from going two down with a reflex save and at last we started to look more controlled.
Olly spurned several chances that recently he’d been putting away with nonchalance. That didn’t help our cause one little bit but the Oz carried on creating and at last the least likely scorer on the park, Kieran Gibbs, on for Joel (strange substitution on the face of it) latched onto his inch perfect cross and scrambled our equalizer with about 15 minutes to go.
That was the time for us to “moider the bums” and unsurprisingly they tired and it was all one way traffic but with no reward. Our third favorite referee next to Dean and Taylor, ignored an earlier Vertonghen attack on Olly, just perhaps both he and the linesman didn’t see the offence as the ball was some distance away, but his control/bias hurt us in the last 10 minutes and prevented our snatching a victory from what had looked to be a very painful defeat.
Now the bloody internationals are back again so two weeks to get some of the injured back. Sad to say we’re just not as potent when they’re missing.
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The lack of cards definitely obstructed our flow and allowed their midfield and defence to clatter in to us at any sign of quick passing movements.
I know their are a few football dinosaurs who say that’s what Derby’s need but realistically football is played differently nowadays.
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I decided to iron some shirts on Sunday morning with the Sunday Supplement on in the background.
Oliver Holt criticized Arsene for the lack of outfield player purchases over the summer. He linked that to our lack of squad depth and the reason why we are struggling’ at the moment.
Another hack,whose name I could not be bothered to confirm, then added that our injury woes must be down to Arsene’s training techniques.
No body then deduced from those two comments that buying new players would not have made any difference if it is Arsene training methods that are decimating our squad.
Well, the international break is welcome if we can expect Ramsey and a speedster back after the lull…
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At this moment in time I cannot see Joel Campbell remaining an Arsenal player beyond the end of next summer….
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Get out while you can Joel. He was better than Sanchez mind.
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as others have already pointed out, all sections of the media approached the game and reported the game with an already defined narrative, best demonstrated by the coverage on Match of the Day last night. The same programme whose analysis of Chelsea’s 7th defeat from 12 league games was “lets not dwell on Chelsea’s problems”, but when it comes to an injury ravaged Arsenal the story is so different.
Arsenal sit second, just goal difference off top spot, and all we got from the commentator, I assume it was Jonathon Pierce, was basically everything Arsenal bad, everything spurs brilliant, he also took every opportunity to mentioned our Bayern Munich defeat, but no mention that we were on a run of 5 BPL wins in a row.
Of course Ozil’s work rate was questioned, he even came close to begging for Giroud to be sent off, the heightened excitement when ever spurs ventured forward contrasted starkly with the condemnation of any Arsenal chance not taken.
Then we moved on to the analysis, and again nothing but negative for Arsenal, and so the pre-defined agenda was met, Arsenal grabbing a comeback point against their nearest neighbors was a missed opportunity and a clear sign that they are not good enough to win the title. Whilst man city failing to score at bottom of the table man city was a hard fought point gained on one of those days. The sign of champions.
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Flamini has never lost a BPL game at the Emirates, P50 W34 D16
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Squad depth eh ? Citeh without Aguero and Bony off injured – laughable and Sterling’s and golden boy De Bruyne’s what might be very loosely called “finishing” truly awful at Villa Park.
As Arry used to say “My Sandra would have put that chance away”
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Nice one Andrew5.
Arsenal have played 6 home games so far:
West Ham – L
Liverpool – D (with back line injury chaos)
Stoke City – W
Man Utd – W
Everton – W
Tottenham – D (their Cup Final)
To be second on GD behind City in the table is no mean achievement, and only by 4 goals too. Roll-on the Bournemouth’s, Villa’s, Norwich’s, Sunderland’s and Co. to the slaughter at the Emirates. Then we can look at the GD.
City have played the following schmucks at the Emptyhad:
Chelsea – W
Watford – W
West Ham – L (same as us)
Newcastle Utd – W
Bournemouth – W
Norwich – W (a fortunate win)
A glance at the full league table wound indicate that their task has been a bit easier than our lad’s has been, so far. Let’s see if a few pairs of fresher legs after the international break will set Arsenal up on a nice run of games coming up to Xmas.
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Wenger said that Ramsey and Ox should be back “right after the international break”
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Rosicky and Arteta are already back in training, both are wonderful footballers with experience and intelligence. Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain Hector should be back after the break.
Theo – maybe by the end of November.
Danny and Jack ? Only God knows.
http://www.arsenal.com/team-news#injury16614
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DC where did you see the news that Rosicky is back in training, all reports said he would not be back till Jan, as its the same injury and timescale as Welbeck.
Ox started light training last week, and Jack is out of the protective boot.
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The msm do seem to like Spurs, not sure what that is all about, but ultimately, I dont think the media bigging them up at any opportunity does them any favours, because they never live up to some of the hype. Have a feeling they will put in a couple good performances against the better teams, then burn out like last season, though Chelsea’s demise must provide for some hope to them, and others.
As for us, we were very poor, for understandable reasons for much of the game, but even at quite a low ebb, we still avoided defeat, and may well have won against a team, who, if the media are to be believed…are some sort of unearthly force about to sweep all before them……either that, or just do what they do and finish 5th/6th
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Thank you Andrew.
I’m amazed at the amount of you lot saw Gibbs as a strange sub. The young man is an instinctively attacking player (started his career at LW) very often used on the left wing by Arsene in recent months. It allowed Sanchez to switch flanks and rest young Joel who had run himself out. Alexis got more joy over there and Kieran attacked with his usual vim.
Is it because you still see him as only a left back in some sort of 1950s defensive throwback mould?
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If the power shift was not so much in North London (as so many are apt to predict) but from West to North London then I wouldn’t be at all sad. To me there’s only a point in having a rivalry if its essentially an equal one. Imagine the fun if we were to win the title with them second.
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Thanks Andrew.
I think there were one or two dives from Rose, as usual.
Then there’s the pant pulling bollock pinching Vertonghan.
These two awful players are serial cheats that’s why they are awful – they are also just average players, in spit of their goal I think Davis is the better LB, Ozil set up the Arsenal goal from the Arsenal right.
These two players stink out any and every ground but otherwise I agree th game was played in a good competitive spirit
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“He was better then Sanchez mind…”
Heyyyy. (IBSF)
To be fair in this game I think we saw a player blowing even harder then J.Campbell (who ran his socks off and that’s why he came off for Gibbo) and that was Sanchez. He was almost on his haunches at KO at the start of the second half and that was a reasonable indication that he was a little bit tired. Exhausted!
If the Chile manager plays a tired player for 180 minutes in two friendlies I won’t be impressed.
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Sorry Fins but Chile v Colombia and Uruguay v Chile are both World Cup qualifiers – Alexis will be hard at it
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Stew: I think the confusion initially was because Campbell had been playing on the right, and being no great chess player hadn’t factored in switching Alexis there so that Gibbs could play left wing. And because I had forgotten. And because, unlike the manager, I don’t do tactics.
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Great news for the AAA and WOB today, Moyes has been sacked, so one of their main choice is free to replace Wenger, all they need now is a board mad enough to do it. No wonder the hate Kroenke, Sir chips and Gazidis so much
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The are holding out for Garry Monk Eddy – dont be daft
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well if reports are accurate Monk will be a free agent any day now. And talking about free agents, I see Swansea have paid off one season wonder Michu.
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Thanks, I’d been told they were friendlies. A non-friendly against Uruguay? Yikes!
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afcstuff @afcstuff 19h19 hours ago
Arsenal players on international duty: Giroud, Koscielny, Joel Campbell, Alexis, Cazorla, Gibbs, Chambers, Gabriel, Cech, Ospina.
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rumors of Rodgers to replace joe say at CFC, would be good, as it would make it easier to keep on hating them.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/brendan-rodgers-spotted-london-rumours-6800163
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On the Campbell point I think his performances have been ok to good however in our last two games when Keiran has come on and Alexis switched to the right we have looked a more balanced side and it has improved Alexis potency. We have seen balanced sides over the years progress much better when more talented individuals are discarded.
I think Joal is suffering from this a little at the moment so he, in a way, is being let down by the awkwardness of the rest of the team. Of course it has only been a couple of games so it could be just the gel factor and I’m over thinking things.
The other reason could be, as pointed out here the other day, he is a striker for Costa Rica and he is just learning his new position.
We will find out against west brom how much faith Arsene has in him as the returning players will not be match fit that early.
Personally I like him and think he has done well, in games you wouldn’t necessarily choose to enter the first team fray. It will make our squad even stronger when the wounded return.
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PG, I will stand in for Frank!
Leave Joel Campbell alone, he is an Arsenal player and we know he is learning the business.
End of story.
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if ox and ramsey are fit for our next game I can’t see Campbell getting a start, it would likely be Ramsey, with Ox coming on when fatigue hits rambo, Joel it has to be remembered is probably our sixth or seventh choice for wide right, Ramsey, Ox, Theo, Jack, Welbeck and maybe even Rosicky all ahead of him when fit.
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Eddy
Report mentioned light training, I was hoping for too much.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3306703/Arsenal-midfielder-Tomas-Rosicky-cleared-start-running-knee-surgery.html
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I was going to make the point about the Gibbs substitution, but Stew beat me to it. I was expecting it, given how thin our bench was, however, I was thinking he would come on for Sanchez, who was really struggling on Sunday. I’ve never seen him looking so tired, but somehow he got a second wind when switched to the right. Kieran started his football life as a winger and I still remember his first outing in the first team at left back away against Sheffield Utd in the Carling Cup, when we first saw the goal scoring quality of the original Eduardo. I can still picture them dressed all in white with hooped socks!
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Can’t believe Alexis is playing 2 bloody WC qualifiers,I think Arsene’s gonna have to manage him carefully after the interlull,the little fellas in the road rage red zone.
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I will be somewhat aggravated if Alex Iwobi comes back damaged from his Nigerian call up to play Swaziland
I admit he is the first Gooner I ever heard of taking on the Swazilanders (?)
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I see the media are making excuses for spurs fans smashing up the toilets at the Emirates, something they have done every time, but because AFC fans ripped down some signs at shite hart lane after the coc game, the media are saying the smashing up of the toilets is revenge.
I really don’t know why Arsenal tolerate this vandalism from spurs fans every time, surely either security/cops should be in there, or cctv with cops arresting anyone who damages property.
As I understand it, AFC bill THFC for the repairs but that is letting idiot fans get away with it,
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Well it is eddy, and it isn’t, the fans may get away with it, but not THFC.
The slight difficulty for Tottingham is that they are, and for several months, have been trying to persuade Wembley, and/or any other stadium that might have them, to rent them their ground while the Lane is rebuilt for one or two seasons.
Now no sane stadium owner is going to entertain renting to a club which is followed by a gang of toilet terrorists, the ISIS of the Izal. And if they are prepared to allow THFC to share their facilities then the rental price has just gone way up, by ££££ thousands a week.
Keep it up Spuddie dickheads – at this rate even Milton Keynes wont have you.
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the state of some Arsenal fans, complaining that Wenger won BPL manager of the Month for October despite losing in the COC and CL, its not like Barclays Premier League Manager of the Month is in the name of it, and AFC won all BPL games in Oct.
The usual WOB and AAA showing themselves up as is their want. I even seen one say on twitter than its certain AW won’t win it for November after “the debacle” v spurs.
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Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 18h18 hours ago North West, England
For all the talk of young progressive managers I see Pellegrini. Wenger, Ranieri and LVG are leading the way. How fucking annoying for some?
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Arsenal’s PL results in October:
Arsenal 3-0 Man United
Watford 0-3 Arsenal
Arsenal 2-1 Everton
Swansea 0-3 Arsenal
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WELCOME
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TO
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THE
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