Good morning Positives,
All up early and ready for the kick off ? That’s the ticket.
A good opportunity for us to sit astride the top of the PL this afternoon following our visit to the Stadium of the Damned Light. Let us examine the opportunities, and the pitfalls, together.
The home side are in a terrible state. Just two points in nine games, five defeats in the last six PL games, bereft of confidence, already five points behind 17th place Boro and notional safety. Moyes’ stated virtually from the opening day of the season that they are in a relegation “battle”. I think the Scotsman is wrong. From the games I have seen involving Sunlun there is no “battle” in them. In their heads the players seem to have given up already. Checking the record books just one club with two points after nine games has escaped relegation (in case your interested Saints in 98/98 whose 9th PL game and 2nd point came at Highbury). Ten games and two points and no club has ever recovered to stay up. Yes these are bleak, bleak days for the Mackems, on the footballing abyss.
And yet who knows what just one win for Sunderland, one dramatic fighting performance, in front of the Wearside faithful might do ? The only thing Moyes can do is send his boys out to try to find that spark of resistance, that scintilla of pride, and to get some sort of result – any bloody result for them would do in fact. Could Whatmore be this week’s Barrow or Traore !? There will be a full house at the stadium. I anticipate we shall see a desperation in our opponents that will need to be controlled, extinguished and replied to with our brand of incisive, fast and direct Wengerball.
Of our lads I know we await Arsene’s call on the starting line up and whether Giroud will get back in to start or remain on his seat. He has a good record against Sunlun but my feeling is that the Frenchman won’t start and we will stick with Alexis up front. I see also that having rotated the team successfully for the Reading game two injuries have cropped up, Theo and Nacho, who enjoyed a rest in midweek. Whether either will feature I am not sure as Arsene ended a bit vague yesterday, with both restrictions slight. “Late tests” all round apparently. I would be pleased to see the Ox start after a good performance on Wednesday if Theo remains crocked. On a much more positive note, sit down Alabama, Aaron is back and almost certainly will get some action today. I have missed his quality in the final third and if Santi remains side-lined we will rely on the Welshman’s class to open up spaces in and around the box.
I see we have Mr Atkinson with the whistle today. From byword to refereeing controversy and poor calls, three seasons ago, to one of the best officials on the roster. Because the stakes are very high for the Black Cats I fancy he will be busy today.
As you may gather embark on our trip to the North East with some optimism it will be a productive afternoon. Let us therefore settle down to enjoy the game from 12.30 UK time. I shall be giving the fools on Sky hell. For those of you out and about the game is broadcast on Radio 5 Live.
(In case you think that you have missed a day young Stew is organising a very special birthday today and has been excused duties by The Leader. Remember though, the clocks go back an hour tonight).
Positively Arsenal 
Sunderland might not have played the best football of their season this half but if we’re being fair the gunners have been good!
Big second half for Elneny and Coquelin coming up. A few bumps and bruises, they might not last the full match, we shall see how it goes.
Come on Arsenal!
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GunnerPumpkin 🎃 @gunnerpunner 14m14 minutes ago
Apparently we’ve committed more fouls 🤔
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OptaJoe @OptaJoe 30m30 minutes ago
22 – There were 22 passes before Sanchez’s goal v Sunderland, the most before a goal in the Premier League this season. Move.
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Sunderland in that first half were a bit to literal in their attempts to kick start their season
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WestStandTone @WestStandTone 14m14 minutes ago
Xhaka is serving the 3rd game of a suspension for far less than some of the fouls that Sunderland players have been jumping into today.
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sunderland still kicking lumps out of our players
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Sunderland fans have no one to cheer, so they have decided to boo the arsenal players
oh, and atkinson is a cunt
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I don’t like this
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It’s Sunderland lads
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Chambo had more time there.
Could’ve found a better finish.
Great move though. The combo between Ozil and Chambo was sweet and almost capped with a beautiful goal.
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Chambo again!
Lovely pass to set him free. Mustafi!
He’s getting closer.
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Unreal
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Atki kacki? Moss and Atki separated at birth?
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Fucking ridiculous
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Come on Cech fuck the Mackems off.
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As I suspected, the PGMOL and their masters see Arsenal as placing 3rd/4th this season. They gave them a break after the poor start but the momentum must be stopped. AT ALL COSTS! Deploy their hitman Atkinson and here we go.
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The stadium full of shite.
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As I suspected we failed to score a second goal and allowed an entirely useless Sundered side back into the game.
Fucking poor – 25 minutes to put it right
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Tbf the ref has been Sunderland’s best player
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COYG!!
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Giirrrrrrrrroood!
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Get the fuck in
And get another one eh ?
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fuck of you Mackems! King Larry!
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First touch for the big man with a great first touch!
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C O Y G!
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Darth Moyes game plan: kick the crepe out of Arsenal.
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Ouch!
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The Last of the Slurgussians
(Steve Bruce is nice and therefore not included in that shower)
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Larry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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They don’t like it up ’em.
Stick the big man up there.
Get in the mixer!
‘Ave it!
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Now that is title winning football
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fins-LOL!!!
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BYE BYE KITTY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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No mercy for these black cats, And the big lump has just dropped a house upon the evil witch in the middle.
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We’ve all just seen what we missed last Saturday.
Welcome back Ollie. You remain the main man Arsenal attack.
GET IN!!!!!!!!!!
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I told you guys we have too much fire-power for this lot despite Atkinson’s best attempts to screw us over.
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Some great football, and did what was required of a team with plans to win the PL
Sunlun down – empty stadium- awful
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Well played, Arsenal. Had me sweating for a few minutes though.
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…from the Roker roar to the stadium of Shite mew. Its going to be a smooth write up tomorrow A5!
On to the Ludosweats…
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Right Mr Pulis – over to you
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ok then.. top pf the league… can the chasing pack kindly draw?
thanks
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//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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There was a picture in that tweet I was hoping to share. Fail.
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Said it would be “twitchy” but we should win. I was not being a seer, just stating the facts.
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Well, I suspect that before the game we all felt this should be a pretty good shout for a cool, calm win – but after last week’s disappointment – the equaliser from the penalty, given by a desperately poor ref, was worrying – but our squad shows it has great depth and quality and perhaps the ref goaded us into bam, bam, thank you ma’am.
What quality it gives to my life to get three points – and then to be amused at the cynical back-tracking of those who still doubt our players and manager.
A double whammy. lol
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WENGER ON THE WIN, CHARACTER, THE BENCH
Arsène Wenger saw his side go top of the table with a fine 4-1 victory against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on Saturday.
Afterwards, he faced the media and discussed his delight at the performance and the squad depth he has at his disposal.
on being satisfied with the result…
I am happy with the performance, with the result. At some stage we were questioned with our spirit as well, because we missed many chances. At 1-1 you think you have the chance to lose a game that should be over, but we kept going again and had another go. In the end we won in a comfortable way. Overall I feel it was important for us to win today, because we had won six [in a row] and then drew at home last weekend, which was disappointing. So to have another game without a win would maybe have created some uncertainty so it was important to win the game.
on the team’s resolve at 1-1…
I would have signed for a 2-1 at that time, but the last 10 minutes were relaxing. The first two balls Giroud touched were goals, and that shows you when you have quality on the bench, it’s easy to make good decisions. With Giroud back, Ramsey back, Xhaka not suspended anymore, overall I think we are in a good position.
on the team’s approach…
We wanted not to let them gain confidence and to dictate the game from the start on. We know that they lack a bit of confidence, so it was important for us to dominate the game, and that’s what we did.
on what it means to see Arsenal go top…
That’s where everybody wants to be, so I will not complain. But it’s too early and it’s too tight as well. There are so many good teams in the league. We go game after game and it’s a good feeling when you play first and you win. At least you have one good day!
Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20161029/wenger-on-the-win-character-the-bench#hODVTbLkFtQ8GYqQ.99
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why am I singing this all afternoon
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Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 2h2 hours ago Blackburn, England
Arsene should go ape-shit about that refereeing performance,
Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 2h2 hours ago Blackburn, England
We should not excuse the awful performance from the Ref. We won despite his best efforts.
If I’m not mistaken george, earlier in the week when I posted that Atkinson had been picked to ref us today, you asked “is there a ref Arsenal fans would not complain about”. Well George, do you still think Atkinson is a ref we should not complain about.
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The 12th 🎃 @_The12thMan 38m38 minutes ago
Phil Thompson on SSN:
“Ref is giving Spurs everything today, they must have had 20 free kicks in this half, andddd oh my it’s a penalty”
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Eddie Nketiah @EddieNketiah9 59m59 minutes ago
1-0 win vs Norwich, happy to get another goal ⚽️🙏🏾
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