Good morning Positives,
An interesting afternoon at the Ems I am sure you will agree, and once my pulse had slowed to a respectable rate courtesy of Mr Dean’s final whistle, supplemented a bout of traditional self medication using the traditional method, a game to look back on as genuinely entertaining.I shall take the point.
Needless to say I set myself up for a bumpy afternoon quoting the OneBoro website on Friday concerning the best expectation of the visitors was a good “do-ing”, as their correspondent so succinctly put it. Fool that I am, listening to football bloggers. I was not the only one though. The bookmakers had Boro at 12/1 before kick-off yesterday. In fact the Tees-side club were by no means done. While I guess Karanka and his boys went home thoroughly satisfied on another day, with a keeper facing them less sharp than Cech, it could have been their famous victory. Another clean sheet, four so far, and if he keeps up his average it will be another set of Golden Gloves come May.
Of the game itself ? In spite of the result I thought we played well as a team. As you all saw we faced a well organised side who defended deep and denied Sanchez any space to do his work in the final third all afternoon. Every time we got into the final third we faced a wall of nine blue shirts, a bank of five behind a bank of four, as well as Valdes all day. With our Chilean tiger mostly leashed, and only one scramble and one late burst that got him in on goal, we relied on the players behind him to come through, in both senses. The players behind Alexis I think stepped up, tried to create, tried to take on the Boro defenders and make space and time when very little was available. Iwobi, Theo and Ozil can all take credit for their contribution. My only criticism of them was they perhaps could have tried to get more into the box themselves as targets. I felt that when Perez and the Ox came on we shifted the gear up a notch and for the first time had numbers in the box and the MFC back line wobbled.
The base of our midfield Le Coq and Elneny worked hard and again I did not see much wrong there. We missed the eye of Santi but I would not put down our lack of a goal to his absence, it would be too simple. We did not solve the Middlesbrough puzzle.
Of the visitors ? Adama Traore was a name that rang a bell although even the Arsenal website had no picture of him. I remember him coming on for the final five minutes in our game at Villa last season, by which point we were home and hosed, and him running past Nacho twice. I remember (honest) puzzling why they had not put the youngster on earlier as he looked deadly. So it proved yesterday, with the boy beating Kosc and Bellerin for speed – THAT DOES NOT HAPPEN! (the only man to beat Hector for speed once was Neymar as far as I know). Bizarrely, until his start yesterday Traore had played only twice, from the bench, for Boro since his arrival in August. A great display of strong, very fast attacking football. And just 20 – I hear the rustling of football agents in the undergrowth!
Teams are accused of “parking the bus”. It is a term of abuse apparently, invented by that Portuguese clown. Accordingly I am not sure what the term means. Boro are not Barca or Bayern. I could see that if they turned up at the Ems, played one man up, held on and celebrated with their fans a 0-0 draw they could be accused of failing to play the football they were capable of, and spoiling a potentially entertaining spectacle. However I don’t really see a team in the position that our visitors are in the PL, with the players they have, rolling up at the Emirates, doing other than they did yesterday.
So as the ashes of one PL game smoulder and gently fades away we have but a short break before Tuesday and Reading. In the meantime enjoy your day of rest and the fresh air of a mild Autumn day.
Positively Arsenal 
Diaby-that guy could scythe through the opposition,what a fabulous player,a massive physical presence,and great vision, I loved his passing ability,the master of the through ball.Its a tragedy for football what happened to him.
Jealousy, what a turd it is in peoples minds that they cant see what theyve got and have to destroy other people rather than making the best of themselves and appreciating others,Im no hippy,but taking out a player to destroy his career is horse shit for the football community. Id rather all teams attempting Wengerball that Pullis/Mou balls -up.
The missed timed tackle through poor intelligence and judgement in the millionth of a second is different from the shit that was told by his steak and kidney on the buses boss to nobble player x.
Perhaps if you deliberately destroy a players career then you should also be booted out?
The Diaby narrative is such a frustrating one as he was still showing his greatness till the end.we can only guess at his emotions, to be blessed with such talent and to have to had put up with all that.
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a_o_b the think that fucks me off about the AST is how they never miss an opportunity to word their questions in a sly or nasty way. they have a couple of well known front men who seem more concerned in keeping their high profile than in what is right for Arsenal.
Take a couple of their questions for today, one concerns the make up of the board, where they willfully lie, as they claim the make up of the board has not changed, but they know a younger man was added to the board – josh kroenke. They also know that it has never been the Arsenal way to just dump a board member to make room for someone new.
Then there is their question about safe standing area, again despite admitting that Arsenal have already stated support for it, they still make it sound like AFC are opposed to it.
by the way here are their questions, just look at the way they worded them, intentionally confrontational. For me no other reason for that, than they are seeking to be confrontational. I really hope Sir Chips and Ivan treat them with as much contempt as the AST clearly show for the club.
Questions posed for the Arsenal Board at the AGM:
1. The Government are shortly publishing updated standards for governance in sport which will call for greater independence and diversity on Boards. Despite saying at previous AGMs that change in the Boardroom to secure greater diversity and independence is seen as a priority, nothing has happened at Arsenal. When will action be taken on this?
2. In the 2015-16 financial year the salary and bonus package paid to Chief Executive Ivan Gazidis increased considerably to £2.6m, including a bonus of more than £1m. In light of this last year being one in which Arsenal won no trophies and commercial revenue was flat, can the Board provide explanation as to what specific performance targets the CEO achieved to warrant a 40% increase in his bonus to £1.1m?
3. The previous support of Ivan Gazidis and Arsene Wenger for safe standing is welcome. There is now a debate within English football about the merits of introducing Rail Seating like that seen at Celtic Park and in Germany into the Premier League, allowing supporters to stand safely at games. Many clubs have gone on record to support this. Can Arsenal confirm their continued support for the principle of safe standing and tell us their views of the Rail Seating installed at Celtic, which they have been to see?
4. Chelsea’s new shirt sponsorship and kit deals are reportedly worth close to a combined £100m per annum, almost double our agreements, suggesting that compared to our peers we are losing significant ground. When will our deals be up for renegotiation and are the Board confident we can achieve deals comparable to our rivals?
5. The number of empty seats during home games remains a big issue. Clearly further improvements to the Ticket Exchange are needed but the fundamental issue is many fans have tickets they don’t use and they don’t put them on the exchange. This makes the need for a home credit system paramount. The club have acknowledged this previously and said it is a work in progress. Please can they explain when it will be introduced so that we can get closer to a regularly full stadium, which will benefit more fans and help the team by creating a better atmosphere?
6. With property development at Arsenal almost over, what is the reason for keeping over £50m of free cash in the property side of the business?
7. Like most season ticket holders I am nervous about the delay in getting Ozil and Sanchez signed to new contracts….. as well as Bellerin. We can’t be back to the scenario we faced with Nasri and RVP & Cesc. Can the board please confirm they are doing all in their power to get these 3 talismanic players resigned asap
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arse_or_brain
October 24, 2016 at 9:44 am
Fins did you say they are having a larf or perhaps a scarf
spot on, the AST and the blackscarf mob are so interlinked it is hard to know where one stops and the other starts. Both a shower of cunts.
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A Spurs fan walked into a pub, and says “oh youre the new landlord here,youve only just moved in a fortnight ago?”, the Gooner Landlord says “yes Ive made a few changes, weve got opening night tonight,going to be a big night really busy, sandwiches laid on, weve got pool we got snooker,new fitted carpet, all Arsenal games on big screen TV,going to be an Arsenal theme pub-we’ve spent a few quid here”.
So the Spurs fan says said “look pal, dont get too busy Ive come in here for twenty five years,we’ve always had snuff on the counter,you get some snuff on that counter,its a good tip for yer,I’ll be back myself in a couple of hours-and good luck with the opening night, all the best,even if you are a Gooner”.
The Gooner landlord thinks, “where the bloody hell am I going to get snuff at this time of night?” So he goes out and scrapes some dog cr*p off the pavement, and goes inside and dries it to a fine powder and then puts it into a shiny silver box and places it on the bar.
The Spurs came back a few hours later and upon seeing the snuff says “now youre talking!The lads will appreciate this”and proceeds to have a few good snorts on the snuff, “you have no (sniff) idea what (sniff) this will mean to the (sniff) lads in here”, and then taking another nip of snuff the Spurs fan said to the Gooner landlord, “phoar, can can you smell dog sh*t in here?” and then checked the bottom of both his shoes.
The Gooner Landlord said ” theres no dog cr*p in this pub,my wife’s been cleaning for the last two weeks”.
“Well I can smell it” said the Spurs fan checking both soles of his shoes again.”its getting worse and all, it reeks in here!”.
At that point a Chelsea fan walked through the door,and the Spurs fan said to him, as he reached the bar,”Listen pal, can you smell dog cr*p in here?” “No” said the Chelsea fan sniffing the air of the pub,”well I can smell it anyway” mumbled the Spurs fan and goes back to his drink,and checks the bottom of his shoes for a third time.
Having ordered his drink the Chelsea fan sees the silver box filled with snuff on the bar, and takes a good pinch and snorts some up and then after a few moments turns to the Spurs fan and says “Phew,I tell you what pal, that snuff really clears your head, I can smell that dog cr*p now!”
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parking the bus is always legitimate. football is a sport, and all sport is about competition. all is fair in love and war, and it’s about getting what’s right to achieve a goal. Boro don’t have the quality that we do, so they WILL park the bus. Should they be expected to just lose and not put up a fight? the onus is on US to try and break them down. And we really know this, since SOOOOO many teams WILL do it, since they know we’re a technical/sexy football team. Fans who bemoan about other teams coming to us and parking the bus really don’t know much about football, or frankly what sport/competition and being competitive is all about.
we weren’t that clinical vs. Boro, but it was one of those days I guess.
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