Good morning Afternoon Positivistas, though only just.
A mood of fear was abroad among the Baggies fans on the way to the game, anticipating a bit of a drubbing. “Best football team we played last season” was muttered, through clenched teeth as they thought back to their demolition at the Ems last May. Greying skies as the afternoon wore on, floodlights on, Winter football. They had much to contemplate. We, other other hand, I felt had much to look foward to. Top of the table by 5pm perhaps ? It certainly looked do-able.
And we did not disappoint the locals for the opening half hour. Though our game was not quite its clockwork best we probed and pushed, and penned them back until the inevitable opener. The landslide was on its way. The locals began to head for the meat pie and Bovril counters to avoid the half time rush. Le Coq’s departure was an unpleasant jolt though my first expectation on seeing the incident in real time was for Clattenberg to pull out a red card for our combative Frenchman. A wild tackle with, apparently, unfortunate consequences. Arteta on though, safe pair of hands, or legs anyway.
And then five minutes of nonsense in which we gave away a soft first goal, then contrived to knock in a second own goal in a combination human movement that was bizarre. I shall not dwell. I will give MacLean a tip of my hat as he had a good game and made a couple of chances. There is indeed no purpose in my dwelling because you have seen then far more often than I. I was surprised, the locals were stunned, I kid you not.
I was not however, even for a moment, concerned. We had more than a half of football to retrieve the situation. Immediately we started the second half with more purpose. Mikel was immediately pointing to the bench to be taken off and Mattieu was quickly into the action.
We began to fizz and buzz. We were faster and sharper. Ozil really had his A game in action. WBA fell back, stretched, trembled, relied on the long out ball to relieve pressure temporarily. They did not however break and the equalizer would not come. A very rare Baggies chance saw our goal frame shaken but Clattenburg unmoved on about 70 minutes after which for the last 25 minutes it was solid, relentless Arsenal, attack v defence. Sanchez was tireless, he ran, he turned, he dribbled, he leapt. I cannot recall ever seeing any attacking player put so much energy into a game as the Chilean yesterday.
The home crowd were by this stage on the edge of hysteria, finally raised from their collective stupor, Clattenburg was receiving terrible abuse every time he called a foul of gave a decision in our favour.
And then the penalty, and my goodness it was a deserved penalty (if there is such a thing). The point was at least saved, and with ten minutes to go or more maybe the full set would be pocketed after all. I have exclusive edited 4 whole seconds of footage of what happened next, courtesy of Number One son.
I say edited because after the ball disappeared toward the M6 the next shots are of wildly celebrating locals. You will just hear the start of “Yeee…” I know we have no use for such undignified monkey business.
Undoubtedly any one who watched the game on the TV will have seen a lot more than me. From what I did see we controlled it to the first goal, lost our concentration for five minutes and paid a price. Then faced a durable and motivated home side, who defended well and had a little bit of luck to escape with the win. A good day out in the West Midlands spoiled only by the result of the game.
Word of thanks to Baggies’ fan Sam Foord for providing the seats and the barge trip. Have a Banthams on me.
Positively Arsenal 
I’m glad you enjoyed your day out (despite the result!), as a regular at the hawthorns seeing the albion with less than 30% possession and still scrape a goal from a set piece is very much the norm. I hope the barge was hospitable towards you, and I’m pretty certain that the result against us will be a “blip” for arsenal, they’re a great footballing side and I’m sure the albion fans would have appreciated that after the “defend, defend, defend” tactics of pulis (though boring I can’t complain as the man will hopefully keep us up and provide the odd nice result for us like this weekend). As for the penalty miss and own goal… Sometimes it’s just not your day.
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Cheers Sam – it was a hoot !
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Thanks Andrew.
As the fates would have it a week after scoring his first goal from open play in over twelve months Cazorla who hadn’t missed from the spot (could be wrong) for the Arsenal does his best Chris Waddle impersonation.
A Jenkinson hat-trick today would be nice!
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One of those days, one where we were largely the authors of our own misfortune, but the injury situation is a worry.
The next few games will hopefully be very different
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“lost our concentration for five minutes and paid a price.”
about sums up our season so far, especially our BPL season. Once again its self inflicted or avoidable damage, 7 defeats out of our 19 games, five of the defeats have been against what would be termed lesser sides – West Ham, Zagreb, Olympiacos, Sheffield Wednesday, West Brom – 12 goals conceded in those five defeats. Wenger has himself called our defending in these games such things as, “hopeless”, “awful”, “not of the standard required”, “forgetable”, and “very very poor”, he once again yesterday pointed out, as did anicoll in this thread, the loss of concentration by the team. Well we are unlikely to win the league with players who so regularly lose concentration or as Wenger so often also points out, “lacks focus”, this is our biggest problem, there is no lack of skill within the team and the wider squad, but far too often, again to quote Wenger, “we make it easy for our opponents”, very avoidable goals let in, good chances missed, costing us points.
Will getting all or most of our squad fit or injury free cure this problem, I don’t know, but I have my doubts, it may help with improving our taking of good chances, but will it stop the brain farts we so often suffer from on the defensive side, I doubt it cos by and large we have had our first choice GK, back 4 and DM available all season so far and our first choice back ups for them too. Yes having more midfield and attacking options may see us score more and so hopefully this will offset and overcome the self inflicted “losing concentration” and “lack of focus” in our defending.
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I can only imagine how deep one hv to dig to give us a match report after a game one want to put out of our minds – for a moment I thought the PA streets too. Thanks Andrew, you are a brave man.
Yesterday’s game answered 1/2 uncomfortable questions. On Stew excellent post yesterday – somehow my comment disappeared in moderation then – he said “We’ve all seen the insane over reactions and complete lack of perspective exhibited on the internet by those who can’t keep a lid on their obsessions”. An inter-lull that felt like an eternity are truly over. Arsenal twatter is back.
I’m looking fwd to Tuesday’s nights CL game and despite my own feelings on how I want Arsenal to focus all on PL title chase, a victory vs Zagreb will do us all the world of good.
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Well done Andrew, glad you had a nice day out hope the offspring enjoyed themselves/himself too. You don’t win football matches by missing open goals and penalties. Other than saying that I can see no reason for paragraphs of naval gazing self harm. Luckily for us City lost too so it wasn’t the blow it may have been.
On the down side we have no hope of winning anything if we lose two players every game injured. And that’s not pessimism just a bald statement of fact. No one could cope with the injuries we’ve had, no one. And what sticks in the craw is it isn’t anything anyone can prepare for, plan for nor do anything about it’s just appalling bad luck.
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Hi Labo – for some unfashionable reason your comment yesterday went into moderation and it was not approved until I looked at the controls of the starship this morning.
To be honest it was not a game I want to put out of my mind – there was plenty we did well yesterday. Alexis, Ozil were superb – whisper it quietly but Flamini did a really good job when he came on.
The result on the other hand – yep that I could erase happily
And give it a few weeks and I will have consigned that score to the heap of small details, while the memory of Sanchez weaving through three Baggies defenders will remain fresh
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MD, the worrying thing about our next few games is that so far this season its against the lesser sides that we have fucked up the most, and its all lesser sides we face till Man City just before Christmas.
Of our 7 defeats only 2 – Chelsea(Dean done us) and Bayern Munich – have been against the big sides, yes we were less than inspiring at home to LFC and Spurs but hung on in both games till we in both cases could say we were unlucky not to win both.
The teams confidence seems very brittle, and once we let in a goal we cough up more good opportunities, even in games where we are playing well overall and went on to win, like v Palace, Leicester and Everton.
I would have thought that back to back FAC wins would have given the team much more confidence in our ability to win in all sorts of circumstances and to have more confidence in our defense.
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What is slightly disquieting Eddy is our tendency to suddenly, inexplicably, allow not just one goal in but two.
Every side everywhere will ship the occasional goal, caused by a bit of unexpected skill by the opposition, or a mistake, or bad block or combinations of all three.
The Lightning for us seems to strike on pairs – one goal goes in and the panic threshold is crossed, the previously docile opponents (as yesterday) are encouraged to try their hands as raging tigers
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quote stew
“No one could cope with the injuries we’ve had, no one. And what sticks in the craw is it isn’t anything anyone can prepare for, plan for nor do anything about it’s just appalling bad luck.”
I must disagree with you that its not something that can be prepared for, nor do anything about.
Is anyone really surprised that Rosicky, Wilshere, Walcott, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Arteta are among our list of injured players, each and everyone of them have poor to very poor injury records, almost all of them have missed large chunks of every season they have been with us. (Arteta the exception, last season was his first badly hit season)
We knew before the transfer window closed that Rosicky, Wilshere and Welbeck were out long term(Christmas at the earliest for any of them), we also knew that Arteta was coming back from missing most of last season, only playing in 7 league games, 11 games in total, Arteta admitted during the summer that he had concerns himself about his long term fitness.
Knowing all this we still left 3 places unfilled in our 25 man squad.
Surely if you know you have four or five players with poor injury records, and another couple with injury doubts, and of course 3 long term injured, then you “can be prepared for” it, in fact should we not have expected it.
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yes anicoll this tendency we have to let in a second or third goal once we let in one, is something I have mentioned on here many times. There is no doubt that our opponents have spotted this too, and as you say once they score one they really are encouraged that they can get another.
Even when we are on a run of clean sheets, as soon as we do concede a goal panic, brain freeze, brain fart, or whatever we want to call it, sets in, and it usually is a short lived thing, ten to fifteen minutes, if we get by that after letting in a goal, we usually become solid again, but as we have seen in nearly all of the 7 defeats so far this season, we have been unable to hold out that needed 15 minutes till the storm passes.
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maybe its just cos they are fresh in the memory, but I do fell that a lot of the goals we have let in this season have been from downright awful defending and even comical at times, far more so on both counts than I can remember happening for many a long season.
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Reasons for forgetting A5 is the self-inflicted, somewhat comedy manner in which it happened. As Stew said in his 1:39 – “I can see no reason for paragraphs of naval gazing self harm.”
One of those things that happens to all quality teams. Coquelin’s injury is a worry, thankfully Ramsey, Ox, Theo and Jack (mid Dec) are all coming back. I also don’t think the DM situation is as bad as many make it out to be. I hv a crazy solution – Just put Gabby in there. I know it sound wild, but just imagine.
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I have to say Alexis drives me to distraction.
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I can’t help wondering what the obsession with defensive midfielders which seems ablaze on Arsesocialmedia has to do with yesterday or a number of our losses this season
We had a long long time to equalise yesterday and purloin the winner but just could not get that second goal – not one damn thing to do with our DM but with our efficiency in slotting away the hatful of chances we created
I could say something similar about our unexpected defeats in Greece and in Zagreb although in the latter down to 10 men we were pushing a heavier rock up the hill
More goals required – more efficiency in finishing
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73% possession and only 4 shots on target is a problem, 11 shots in total is also a problem, too many times our players just will not take the responsibility to have a shot, this is one aspect of our game where the loss of Ramsey is most felt. Cazorla has not scored a goal for us this season and not scored from play in a year, that is an awful stat for such an attack minded and skilled player.
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an interesting stat from the WBA game, Mert and Kos attempted no tackles, and Bellerin and Monreal only made a combined total of 6. by the way Debuchy made 9 v spurs.
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“too many times our players just will not take the responsibility to have a shot”
I laugh at this, because two games back, and people will start complaining Aaron is being selfish and shooting on sight. Glory hunting, they’ll say.
This just supports my contention that whatever/whoever we don’t have at the moment, people think would be the magic bullet to fix everything. When that person returns and we fail to destroy every team we play, they’ll turn on them and whine about someone else we don’t have. Today’s moan is DM again, despite the fact, as A5 pointed out, the loss of Coquelin really was not our problem yesterday.
Oh goody…I see Harry Kane has scored…
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As far as I’m concerned there is one hell of a perspective to be had by the moaners in that the oilers were humiliated yesterday. The WOB logic is that if you spend, spend, spend and spend a bit more you would never suffer a humiliating defeat….well?
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What a great match report, which along with the highlights I saw on the Arsenal player this morning made everything seem sort of OK again. I wasn’t anywhere near a commentary (or a stream) yesterday apart from what I could glimpse on Twitter (first half) and then the aftermath I had a very lop-sided view of it. As Stew says, missing an open goal and a penalty doesn’t help – but at least it shows we were at the races.
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Looks like a good weekend for the two darlings of the media, guess it will be another stick to beat Wenger with for her majesties press corps
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If I can extend on what GP said re Arsenal and the oilers. Most of the sins laid at Arsène’s feet are:
• He didn’t buy any out-field players.
• His training methods are outdated and causes injury upon injury.
• He should’ve had cover for Coquelin and other injury prone players.
• You can’t expect to lead the PL if you sit on £200m
Well…
• The oilers bought outfield players.
• The 2 Manc clubs injury numbers and “injury prone” players are just as bad Arsenal’s.
• The didn’t find the world-class players available to stock up their squads with even some nice-to-have luxury players.
Last but not least…
• Leicester City are busting all the myths all PL should’ve done to top the PL log after 13 games.
Arsenal aren’t worst off than any of our rivals. The same arguments made after we lose games can be said about any of the other top teams. Our players are mere mortals that need the proverbial kick up the butt at times too.
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FOR ME what is painful is that we can just really do better than that… Campbell took that same type of goal against Swansea well… a little calm needed from him… he has the stuff to do the bees nees though so lets see how tues goes.. i hope he plays cos he shows a lot of urgency we need to be ore efficient in front of goal, cos we actually did create chances, just didn’t score them! we could so easily be 2 points clear at the top… spurs and now this both just look like 5 points dropped
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alabama you will not see me complain at Ramsey shooting, I have many times explained how important he is in our gameplan, and not just that he shoots, but that he is the one midfielder we have who is very willing to get beyond the forwards, he makes runs into the box without the ball, we don’t have any other midfielder who does this, Cazorla, Rosicky, Wilshere, Ox, will mostly only go in either with the ball or as part of a one two,
We had 73% possession yesterday, and registered just 11 shots, 4 on target, so I really don’t see how you can argue that we took enough shots, especially seeing as we were behind for 45 minutes of the game, a 45 minutes that we had 80% possession. Its not very often that we score without actually having a shot, that seems to only happen to our opponents
as for whatever player that is missing being the answer, I don’t go along with that, as for me even if all our players were fit only two of those that were missing yesterday would actually make our first choice starting 11, Ramsey and maybe Walcott. Where we miss the others is having game changers on the bench and having more rotation options
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Labo…apparently, it is not the Mancs we have to worry about, it is Spurs and Liverpool, must be true, it’s in the mainstream media !
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You may say DM was not a problem yesterday, but that is to overlook that Arteta gave away the freekick for their first goal, scored the second and went off injured which restricted our sub options.
And from what I’ve seen most complaining about the DM situation is that if Coquelin is now out, as reported, for anything from three to six months, Arteta out too, that leaves us with Flamini as the main option. Very few complain that Coqeulin is not good enough, but the big gripe is that the back up options are not good enough or reliable fitness wise.
Labo_Goon the points you make are distorted and are ignoring valid points. You counter the point that we should be able to afford better back up than Flamini, with Man City not having WORLD CLASS back up in every position. That is distorting a valid point. We are not talking about us needing world class back up, now are we.
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Arsenal have confirmed the signing of 16-year-old Portugal goalkeeper Joao Virginia by adding him to Arsenal’s UEFA Youth League squad and allocating him no. 82.
the lad has been training with the Club since early summer but could not confirm the signing till he turned 16, which he did last month.
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Eddy – So are you saying a) if le Coq had been on the pitch he would not have given away a free kick for the first goal ?
And b) if Le Coq had been on the pitch the ball crossed in by MacLean which Cech pushed out would not have ricocheted off his hand into the Arsenal net for West Brom’s winner ?
Once you have knocked out the answer to those questions could you replace the “Le Coq” with the name of whoever you say should have been playing either instead of Le Coq or have replaced the Frenchman instead of Arteta ?
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anicol it is impossible to know exactly what would have happened if A) coquelin had not got injured, B) been replaced by someone else, lets say Flamini, but it is almost certain under the laws of probability that neither that particular freekick nor the og would have happened, as the chances of any other player being in exactly the same place as MA was and also doing exactly what he did, are minute. Just as any single different choice or action made by any player changes everything that happens from that point on.
If coq had not got injured there is not way of knowing if he would have done something to cost us a goal or two or three, or that he could have won us the game with an assist or even his first goal of the season.
but what we do know is that Arteta did give away the freekick for the first goal, he did score an og, and he did get injured meaning we used up another sub, restricting our options. So we know there are no ifs or maybes over his impact on the game. We can also only speculate as to what the outcome of the game would have been if joel or santi had taken their chances, yes either scoring would have massively improved our odds on not losing. We also know that if Joel had scored then everything from that point on in the game changes, we may have still got a penalty, but it would not have been the one Santi took. Its the laws of quantum physics
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If you play ifs and buts you can’t be selective you have to factor in all the other things that might have been different too. It’s pathetic and pointless.
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stew I’m not being selective, I have stated that every single changed choice or decision that has an impact in a game changes everything from that point on, all that can be factored is probabilities, but that is nothing anything like an exact science, so of course ifs and buts are ultimately pointless. and on that point, isn’t at least 99% of all views, debates and discussions on football,
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One of the ifs, buts and maybes would be Mikel on the pitch in the 83rd minute rippling the netting with a perfectly placed penalty past a scrambling Myhill
Fantasy I know I know
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Three pending games – Zagreb, Nawridge and Sunlun
It maaaayyyy just be me but I don’t think any of these games I am worrying about a defensive midfield player or that, if we decide we have to play with a ball winner, it is Matty Flamini.
We need goals, we need to start on the front foot, not worry about clinging on to a 1-0 win.
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I agree anicol that we should be less worried about having an out and out DM for our next three or four games, I see no reason why, if fit, Ramsey in CM would not be a great option, let him play his box to box role. If we are ahead near the end and want to defend the lead, then Flamini can be brought on. Maybe Chambers will be used too as a DM while coq is out, he played CM for Southampton at youth level.
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If Coq and Arteta are out for a stretch of time, we do indeed have problems in a critical area. Not insurmountable but all of the solutions seem to me to be a weakening of the team. It’s no secret what a difference Coq has made, Flamini blows hot and cold; Aaron will need time to get up to speed and we risk bringing him back too early. He’s injury-prone and also has a tendency to be drawn upfield, leaving a hole in front of the back four. Chambers could possible fill the position but he’s inexperienced at this level and it’s a big ask. Gabriel played a variety of positions for Villareal, rumour has it, so maybe he would be a strong candidate – however, he’s our first choice backup CB, so it’s also a risk.
I’m toying with the idea that we could bring in Debuchy at right-back and moving Hector into DM but that will no doubt meet howls of rage, so I’ll forget it.
For now.
As anicoll5 says, the next three games can be covered by the Flamster, barring injury of course.
We’re stuttering at a time when we need to be moving on strongly, but it’s not surprising considering the injury list. Fortunately, all our rivals are stuttering too.
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well didn’t debuchy used to be a DM in his younger days, and Gibbs was a central midfielder before being switched to left back for the first team. And Ox wants to play CM
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I sometimes change my mind about what I most like about following this club, but in recent years it has been the vulnerability set against the genius. The sublime descending all too soon into the gor blimey – and, of course, vice versa.
But it is also the civilised debate here that makes such a difference, and makes the good and the not so good times rock and roll for me.
A word to Mandy D: it is worth the one game in 20 when we conform to the stereotypical meme to enjoy the nineteen when we gloriously don’t. And of course I share your frustration, of course I do.
And to Ed: we can’t afford to replace all those injury prone top players with similar ability. If they all stayed fit we would win just about everything, but as you rightly point out they can’t, don’t and perhaps never will. But while they might we have maybe a better chance of better than top 4 – and that to me is the gamble that AW is taking. If he only needed to do a Spurs he without doubt could, but what is a life without a dream?
And though I’m old enough to know that while most reams fade I’m not so old as to wish for lobotomised sleep.
And also, just in case you misunderstand, I value Ed’s comments more than he will ever know. And all of the rest of you.
And I apologise for the hubristic way I woke up the gods of chance just before the game yesterday. Santi to score from the spot: JC to grab a brace. 3 nil and top of the table.
What a twat: have I learnt nothing?
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Some great points Foreverheady. Ultimately, more concerned by the injuries…..and specifically Coq and his apparent lack of backup than the performance but guess we shall just have to wait and see what Wenger has up his sleeve, whether it be internal or external options. But yes, a very frustrating day
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forever I do not advocate replacing all of our injury prone players, I don’t even advocate that any of them should have been dumped in the summer, all I say is that with us knowing their injury records, why, as you put it, is Arsene Wenger taking this gamble at all, we left 3 unused spots in our 25 man squad. We have large funds, we know a whole host of our midfielders are injury prone, and we gamble that “it’ll be alright in the end”. Which is the bigger gamble, paying over the odds, or keeping our money and hoping we can do without.
Is it better to have someone we don’t need(if our top players don’t get injured) or need someone we don’t have(cos we gambled our top players would not get injured)
I have for some time felt that Arsenal were so restricted by our lack of funds during that 6 or 7 year period, that it somewhat had a lasting effect on the mindset of Wenger and co, and that even now with so much more funds available, there is a real reluctance to pay over the odds, especially for the less than top quality player. Its a bit like the pensioner who scrimps and saves every penny for the rainy day, and then they get a windfall, but just add it to the rest for the rainy day.
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Mandy, well for the next six weeks or so, we have no other option but for it to be an internal solution.
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one other thing foreverheady, yes it is all your fault, you fucking jinxed us yesterday,
foreverheady out, the clueless, tight, outdated, old (french) fool.
thanks for the memories foreverheady
but its time to go
before you tarnish your legacy and our great club anymore than you already have
by the way its not my job to say who should replace foreverheady, that is anicol(sir chips) and george’s(gazidis) job
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Well if it has to be like that.
😓
But I’d have settled for a bottle of scotch and the service revolver.
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you’d only drink the scotch and shoot the revolver like santi’s penalty shot yesterday, and nothing would have changed, except we’d be missing a bottle of scotch.
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Leicester City are top of the BPL, but will they even be in the top 4 in six games time.
Man Utd (H)
Swansea (A)
Chelsea (H)
Everton (A)
Liverpool (A)
Man City (H)
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Well, we put five past the best team in the league…..we have beaten Bayern, Chelsea in the CS, utd and Leicester this season, who says we can’t beat the big boys
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Foreverheady, I just spoke to Jimmy Stripling and he said dont be hard on yourself, it could have easily gone the way of your predicition!
Unwards and Opwards!
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It was never a FK. Awful.
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The old fart’s thoughts:
Can I really improve on AW’s comment? …“It was a very bad afternoon for us,” said Wenger. “We had 70% possession, scored an own goal, missed a penalty, gave away a goal on a set piece and missed open goal chances – that’s perfect to make the afternoon a nightmare.”
Well I suppose he could have said it was possession, with no reward, again. Penalty; Post; Plonker; Problem; Pestilence and Plague….all of those Ps summarized in one word by Phuck. The attachment says what we all felt.
Still missing more than a few regulars, it did seem a bit hard that some of the players who’d had a 2 week rest were a bit less impressive than those who’d been away. To add to that, the loss (short term we hope) of Le Coq after just 11 minutes had a major negative effect which certainly didn’t help.
Despite that Oz and Nacho were certainly up for it and Oz’s cross to Olly was a great heart warmer especially as it appeared that West Brom were being given a bit too much space on our right flank.
We’ve enjoyed more than our fair share of luck at the Hawthorns over recent years…this time the lady turned and bit our bums. Two bad bits of defending to go with a wrongly awarded (imho) free kick 40 odd yards out on our left hand side rang alarm bells with me (maybe my memory is better than the defenders) and once again we paid for it. And then of course, Arteta’s major contribution.
Truly a bad day at the office but as always…Keep the faith
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