Good Morning Positivistas.
A hard-earned but deserved point earned in Paris last night against a home side who performed better than I anticipated and on the back of a performance from us, over the 94 minutes, that I would give no more than 7/10.
I was not remotely surprised to see David Ospina start. He is a top ‘keeper and needs time on the pitch. I was surprised to see Xhaka on the bench but Le Coq and Santi is evidently AW’s current preferred starting combination.
It appeared that new man Emery had told his lads in blue to get into us from referee Kassai’s first whistle. An understandable tactic and one that clearly paid an immediate dividend with a good run and cross from Aurier, and a great angled header from Cavani. We were barely off our stool when we found ourselves flat on our collective backs in 42 seconds. Ouch!
Thereafter for the next 15 minutes PSG worked with feverish energy to deny every Arsenal player any time and space. We could barely get the ball let alone keep possession and our hosts’ aspirations to be among the genuine CL contenders were amply demonstrated. I imagine this is what the home crowd are used to with so little domestic competition. We were holding on, but only just.
However, after that opening 15-20 minute frantic phase, their pace dropped a notch and gradually, very gradually, we began to get control of the ball. We began to string two or three passes together, we approached their box with just a hint of threat. My view was that the remainder of the first half was 50/50. We had more possession and spent more time in their half. They sat back and relied on a breakaway or error, with Cavani failing to hit the target with one fair chance, and missing the ball altogether eight yards out. £55 million eh – what does it get you nowadays?
The second 45 I thought we began with more pace and energy, and tightened up in midfield. Passing that had been wayward became a little more careful. Defensively the threat of Aurier raiding Nacho’s territory was quelled after a testing first 45 for the Spaniard.
To and fro the game went, a couple of heart-in-mouth moments which Ospina dealt with well. He is a goalkeeper, that is what he does although the apparently incredulous commentators, each time he made a save, did not appear to really ‘get’ that. By full time the collective media narrative had been changed to these Parisian goal scoring chances being “missed” by Cavani and/or Di Maria, with David seemingly a passive bystander.
For us as the half progressed, with Olivier on and Sanchez in his more familiar flank role, we created a couple of half chances for us but without really testing the delightfully named Alphonse Areola.
In the end however the home side cracked, as we knew they must. For one of the few times in the evening we had a lot of players in the box, Iwobi was faster to the ball than the home defenders, his blocked shot hammered back past Areola. One half-chance to Alexis, one goal. Excellent finishing. PSG looked shocked, I don’t know why. These things happen if you are only 1-0 up.
The final 15 minutes whizzed by, chances at both ends. Well done to both teams who went for the result rather than settle for what was, for both, an acceptable point.
Standout for Arsenal on the night was Iwobi, Ospina, Le Coq and Santi. Given he was on an early card Francis definitely deserved a pat on the back. When he did get on for the final 20 minutes I also thought Granit did well. He brought just the correct length and width of steel and at just the right time.
The mainstream media last night was focussed on PSG’s Cavani and Aurier last night, the former as a figure of ridicule in the end, the latter for a good attacking full back effort. I was also much struck by Matuidi who worked well as a wide attacking midfielder. He is big, fast and tough and Hector does not have to face any like that in England.
The red cards? I did not see it. I may look later.
Enjoy your Tuesday. A spare day before the game at Hull on Saturday. I am off to Leeds in a few minutes so I shall be living the dream.
Positively Arsenal 
Fantastic Andy. Set me up for the day that has.
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10 out of 10 report.Toughest job to write the write-up.PA has a great team of writers.
COYG!
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Agree on everything. Media narrative seems to be “awesome PSG rip pathetic Arsenal to shreds in 1-1 draw.” PSG seemed content after the first .45 seconds, and although they did look dangerous going forward I think a lot of it was lack of cohesion on our part in the back line. It’ll come with time. We dominated large portions of the match and controlled the ball after the first 15 minutes. The match official seemed to have a strong dislike of Giroud and did not have a great performance In my opinion. All in all a good point and it’s encouraging that we got better as the match went along. As Arsene would say “We showed good spirit.” It must have been a good team talk at the half because they came out with their tails up after letting their heads drop a bit in the first half.
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Confession of an old fart. When I saw the team sheet and the bench Albert Einstein saying “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” came to mind. That I fear was my reaction seeing Alexis in the middle with young Alex and the Ox on the flanks. The absence of either Mo or Granit was also a trifle disconcerting and when PSG took the lead within the first minute, following Nacho’s inability to close down a cross and Lucas marking fresh air, my hopes of a happy night seemed somewhat delusional. But how many times have I thought that over the years, only to see the lads get things straight?
Straight? Possibly the wrong word as only Ooosp plus some incredibly poor finishing kept us alive for most of the first half. Le Coq and Hector at least were doing what the rest should have. In fairness though, we did start getting it more together towards the latter part of the half and to get to half time only one down was encouraging at least. Surely Mesut and Santi would do better and Olly would be brought on sooner rather than later?
From the start of the second half, we looked far more impressive and built up more than a head of steam. Young Alex was trying hard and Santi was far more prominent…but, as we saw on Saturday, when we pour forward we do tend to leave ourselves open to break aways and Ooosp really earned his money with a string of good and brave stops…one when it looked as though he would be rounded and the ball tapped home was outstanding.
And so we came to substituting Olly for the Ox and the effect was almost immediate. We looked sharper (everywhere that is but in Olly’s brain) and our equalizer came shortly after when young Alex’s fierce shot was stopped by the keeper and the ball ran free for Alexis to score from about 12 yards.
To their credit both sides went for the win and it really was anybody’s game up to the final whistle. A creditable draw if a trifle fortunate.
And so to Hull where we have a pleasing record. May that continue. Keep the faith
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Were the same plundits trying to convince everyone that the Colombian keeper was no good were the same Experts who told us Hart was the best keeper in the land?
Says here that Hart was Torino’s second choice as they failed to land former AFC reserve keeper Viviano.
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Hey Andy – you think you have it tough my wife has just returned from two days in Stoke. Very well seen and summed up. The red card should have been a second yellow rather than straight red as far as I’m concerned otherwise, meh.
Funny how commentators spent years bemoaning our lack of ‘depth’ and yet now we have it and *gasp* use it, that is also wrong. Why oh why did we spend a gazillion squids on Granit only to play Coquelin. He didn’t cost enough he should be in the bin, they cry.
Numpties. Thank God for PA.
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Spot on with the write up Andy Nic and enjoyed gf (‘old fart’s) take on the game as well.
Aside from a key away point at the home of the French Champions, we are evidently grinding out the results as we polish up our post-summer rustiness. This, as we are always told when Manure and the like play badly, but scab a win/draw, is the hallmark of the potential champion.
I was delighted for Ospina, a thoroughly decent display, well played him, confounding all the ‘experts’ and half our own fans from the stupid side of the street. Cavani though, eh? Imagine if Olly G had squandered a fraction of his chances, he’d never have made it out of Paris. C’est la vie.
Assuming the north dries out in time, a more comfortable win against Hull on Saturday (and yet another of those old-fashioned 3 pm kick offs) will see the re-emergence of the Arsenal feel-good factor and hopefully the start of a pre-Xmas run that lasts all the way up to, well Xmas I guess. And then beyond.
And this year we really do look like having the squad to make that a reality.
Rock and roll on!
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As accurate and honest account as one will see, I believe. Good stuff
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A slightly more subtle media narrative can be even more irritating. The Guardian outdoes even its own patronising self with a headline describing a point earned at PSG as “not bad” – and an article woven round the notion that we should clearly have beaten them now they no longer have whatsisname.
I only saw the second half, where the perspective was largely dominated by Arsenal, a well-earned and executed goal and a few PSG breakaways ably thwarted by Ospina et al.
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i really don’t know how anyone can say in all honesty that Ospina had a good game v PSG, after all he dropped a high ball into his own net v Olympiacos last season.
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Squawka News @SquawkaNews 14h14 hours ago
Arsene Wenger on picking David Opsina: “I have an advantage because I see him and Petr Cech in training every day.”
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Well done AndyNic. Incredible how you whip out these reports in record time. I doff my hat. Apart from the sensationalism that Ospina could really be a good keeper, there were a couple of other examples of emotionalism that had me shaking my head.
Arsenal twitter tearing into Giroud when he was red carded. Apart from the fact that on tv it was totally unclear what had transpired, we had some of the big accounts psycho-analyzing that he was angry and distracted and not into the game. Yet upon review Giroud was subject to opposition trickery and the victim of a card happy ref. The Mirror gave a good feel of what transpired:
http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/olivier-giroud-slams-marco-verratti-8830938?
Another observation I made was professional pundits and our emotion-driven keyboard experts deciding after our first champions league game whether Arsenal will go far in this competition. How can such conclusions be formed after the first 5 competitive games of the season? Any objective person would at least hedge their bets by observing that Arsenal is gradually getting up to speed; testing Alexis as a CF, integrating new combinations and generally not able to sustain 90 minutes of top class football. Instead I had to sit through the stupidity of Danny Higginbottom (sp) deciding before the conclusion of their 2nd game that the combination of Mustafi and Koscielny isn’t working.
Thank heavens for data.
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If I was their manager I would send Giroud, Veratti and Marquinhos to their room with no supper.
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draw was a fair result.
i guess arsene expected psg to dominate the game in the first half so wanted to play on the counter. that might have been the reason Alexis started. one could immediately see the impact of giroud when he came on, he was more than a handful for their defense. his presence led to our goal.
the other result in the group made the result even better. this may be the season we top our group.
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the referee was a fault on giroud second yellow. he didn’t need to give the card as both players were on yellow. happily, we play our next game at home so no problem. hope the absence of veratti hurt them more.
i read arsene saying he told both giroud and veratti to go back to the referee. can he reverse himself? that will mean admitting he was wrong.
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kevin kilbane done analysis of the psg v afc game for tv3 here in ireland, and his conclusion was that giroud played a vital role in our goal, he highlighted that he first occupied the psg cb’s leaving room for iwobi and then he blocked off thiago when alexis shot.
his analysis of the psg goal showed how fruit tile punditary really is. the BT sport pundits had claimed that Mustafi should have moved out to the left and covered behind Monreal and in so doing stopped the attack. While KK said Mustafi made a mistake firstly trying to go out to cover and when realizing he could not make it he went back to the center but could not get to Cavani.
Both sets of pundits did agree that Kos made the biggest mistake trying to get to the ball in their half, leaving Monreal and Mustafi stranded.
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The guy commentating on my feed was praising PSG for their pressing and general play in the first half and then he was quiet when we got on top of them in the second half and played them off the park. I was waiting for him to start crying when we scored.
As far as Ospina, I saw more than one of our fans confuse him with a shit keeper. If all the super fans who slate him would bother to watch the CONMEBOL qualifiers, they’d know he’s bang on form at the minute. I hope Gary Lineker feels like a dumb ass today for saying that Wenger has a good sense of humor for playing him.
Who decided that Le Coq is a shit player? I’m getting sick and tired of people going after Franny despite him being one of the best holding midfielders in the league. The kid has a better pass accuracy rate than both El-Neny and Xhaka and he’s much better than both defensively. Last night he had another amazing game.
I must say I’m very disappointed with the Ox. Last night he was on his heels quite a lot, he was slow on the press and he gave the ball away in dangerous areas. I know he’s a young player, but he needs to get his head straight. I truly hope he emerges from this dodgy patch and plays the way most of us thought he would. I would love to see him do an Iwobi.
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layksite, i would suggest that the ref took instruction from one of the other officials, as he was shown on replays to not be looking at the incident, so ref can in his report say having reviewed incident it was not yellows.
by the way has it been cleared up yet if giroud got second yellow or was it a straight red.
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gains, I think it time to stop with the excuse that ox is young, he is 23, had over 100 BPL games, over 200 career games, including 25 England caps, we all know he has enormous talent, its time for him to perform at his best more often. He has been poor so far this season.
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as for coquelin it really is funny to see the uber bloggers and twittertwatti so contradict themselves over him.
its all
we need a DM who does more than just sit back in our half and win the ball and give it to cazorla to do something with. To play in Arsenal’s midfield you have to be able to more than that.
and then
what the fuck is coquelin doing joining up with the attack, and trying to make things happen, he even is going on dribbling runs, what the fuck does he think he is doing, why can’t he just sit back tackle and give the ball to cazorla.
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you really got to love the paddy power twitter
Paddy Power @paddypower 3h3 hours ago
Tickets for last night’s postponed Man City match will remain valid tonight, which should come as a relief to dozens.
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The ref had a yellow out but was walking towards veratti then got the red out when he got to Giroud so I think it was yellow than red but he just had his hands full.
Our CBs do press high when we are pressing from the front so Kos might not of been at fault, I think Nacho was just simply beaten for pace and the other two were caught out of position cos it was so early n the game.
The main thing is although cavani did have chances after that we, in the main, recovered our composure.
Oh great write up Andy by the way.
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just seen a clip from another angle and Giroud did get a second yellow, so a one game ban, it might actually be a good thing to accept it, and not have a suspension hanging over him later in tournament.
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Eds
If you factor in injury which was huge and the subsequent niggles and number of games he has strung together for his longest runs of fitness and apps. then he is still young.
You can’t ignore or dismiss what a year out does for an athlete.
Fact is he has done more in those England caps (many of them sub appearances) then his peers in an England shirt in some cases substantially less minutes. Which means he is one of England’s best young talents. Let’s be clear: he’s proven that there is no doubt in that. We wish him luck in fulfilling his potential.
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as i said fins, it is clear ox has massive talent, as you say he has shown it for england, and that is my point, he has the game time, all be it disrupted by injury, but he has not yet shown any sort of consistency, and five games into this season, and he has been poor enough. We know he has the talent, but he has yet to prove he has what it takes to fulfill that talent and potential. He rarely scores, and even more rarely assists. He has done lots of wonderful things for us, but we would expect that from any player who has played over 150 times for us. How long are we going to play the young card
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I know people like to wonder why this player or that player were selected, but it’s ultimately futile as we don’t see them in training and have no idea of their fitness etc. Arsene said that Xhaka came back with a little niggle after the internationals, so it’s no surprise to me that he has been used sparingly. Also, bearing in mind there is a new centre back pairing, it makes complete sense to partner Coquelin and Santi who are used to playing together in the middle rather than introduce another new player in a key position. I also suspect he is using Giroud sparingly knowing how important he is to our overall play. We cannot afford to lose him to a long injury. Hopefully Ramsey will be back and we can use Mesut a bit sparingly as he has not really sparkled yet this season. There are enough games for all our favourites to get their opportunity when the time is right, so people need to chill.
As for Ospina, he is a fine goalkeeper especially when he has had a run of games. He makes no more mistakes than Cech, but he didn’t cost enough or have a big enough name to get away with it. Had he conceded that own goal on Saturday, we would not be hearing the end of it. Personally I’m glad that all the rumours about him leaving in the summer were unfounded and that he is still with us.
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I bet spurs will get less grief over losing a home tie v monaco than Arsenal got for an away draw with PSG
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JB™ @gunnerpunner 2h2 hours ago
Remember it would’ve been unacceptable for Arsenal to lose away at PSG but whatever Spurs do tonight is a valiant effort #Narrative
Tottenham HotspurVerified account
@SpursOfficial
FULL-TIME: Tottenham Hotspur 1-2 Monaco. A valiant second-half performance is not enough to rescue a point.
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Plucky effort from the Totties – a lack of nous unfortunately on the night. Trip to Moscow next (banned smiley)
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It is the 200,000 Spurs fans who will claim they were there tonight who have my sympathy too.
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Blimey.
Just found myself on a sweaty train full of glum Tottenham fans.
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Eddy at 9.20pm
Easy money
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“It takes longer to get to Wembley…”
Heh.
Heh.
Heh.
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*must bite lip before I give myself away here*
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Eds the longest run of games Chambo has had after the big knack is around about five or six?
took Bale around about seven games into his first proper run with the tiny neighbours before the average person thought that he was not completely hopeless, he’d had a poor record prior.
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Ed @ 9.40, completely agree, let’s compared media/WOB reactions to the Spurs arsenal defeats in London to Monaco. I am sure the valiant unlucky Spurs thing will come into play.
Arsenal will get far more grief for a draw in Paris than Spurs losing in London, especially on the WOB forums
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If anyone’s interested here’s a ref report via UA of the match in Paris, inc. .gif’s of incidents. It’s certainly the way I saw things unfold, and most importantly, provides Context:
http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/56092#comment-891439
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I am surprised UA think Veratti and Giroud should have been sent off but such are the risks of antagonising a referee late into a game with childish behaviour. Olivier I thought looked very sheepish as he exited the stage and under Arsene’s irritated gaze, as well he might.
I shall be interested to see whether the Ox starts at Hull. He has played plenty of football and looked a little out of sorts on Tuesday. Subject to Theo being fit I think Alex may be rested and back for Forest.
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Obviously I should qualify that comment by acknowledging the UA view that it was obviously the referee’s fault that Giroud was sent off and despite his top ranking in FIFA and UEFA he is a “very poor referee”.
The comment about Arsene’s quite baleful stare at our bearded striker stands though.
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“baleful” That’s another word going into my back pocket vocabulary book.
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Andy – ‘top ranking’ is entirely dependent upon who is doing the ranking. See Ofsted.
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Another much underused word George
Language eh ? I am having a row about my use of the word “re-orient” and the insistence that the correct word should be “re-orientate”.
And I am getting paid for it.
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We are ranked “Outstanding” by Ofsted Stew – the fools
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Obviously there was a lot of diving and time wasting during the last inspection
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A5 -( re Orient/Orientate),one that’s been on my mind for ages hearing the two different versions:
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/do-you-orient-yourself-or-orientate-yourself/
…was much better when the O’s were Orient and not Leyton Orient though..especially when the Arsenal beat them in that thar semi many moons afore…
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I KNEW IT Mills !!
Having traded e mails on the orient v orientate I gathered the three points with a late run and a glancing ” Well, I’m not changing it” and poked my bottom lip out – never fails.
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LOL!!!
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AFCPressWatch© @AFCPressWatch 2h2 hours ago
Cazorla’s last 7 PL goals have been from the spot – one more will create a new record. He’s currently tied with Murphy, Molby & Arteta.
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Bollockocrasy:
Seeing how you’re dealing with words, here’s one I made up earlier.
And it’s Mine.
(according to the footballing bollockocrasy) (c) (crappywrite) (smileyface) (gonna get banned if I keep this up).
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FT: Feyenoord 1 – 0 Manchester United
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