Bom Dia Positivistas,
Yesterday’s Trafford Park contest is not one I shall look back with much pleasure. A draw a fair result and given our overall performance probably the best we might have expected. I have a phobia of early 12.30 kick-offs on Saturdays, with painful memory of being out of the game before the clock strikes one tattooed on my psyche.
Of the 90 minutes ? First half I thought we looked like our usual selves, with accurate, quick passing, players finding space and the Mancs backing off. Alexis looked anything but fatigued and Theo tore into the hapless Darmian. On the one moment of controversy I suspect if Valencia had not been so desperate to fling himself to the ground following Monreal’s clumsy challenge that Andre Marriner might have pointed to the spot. At half time I was confident that more of the same and the home side would crack. The second half ? Not nice to watch was it ? Our game is based on possession of the ball and, other than the final frantic minutes, we rarely kept the ball, the few sequences of passes we had went sideways and backwards, the ball never went in the Mancs’ penalty area let alone troubled De Gea. United deservedly went ahead in the 70th minute and although we had plenty of time to get back into the game the next fifteen minutes were excruciating, as we struggled to stem the red horde.
And just as I was beginning to mark it down as one of ‘those days’ we put together our best move of the afternoon. Ox put in his best cross all seaon, Kosc bulldozed Jones out of the way and Giroud, leaping like a salmon to 12 feet in the air ( see above the snap of Olivier and Kosc caught in the moment) POWERED the ball in from five yards. Unstoppable. The weekend took on an altogether more relaxed tone.
Of our brave lads Cech, Mustafi and Kosc put in very, very good performances in my opinion and did not put a foot wrong all afternoon. Cech’s saves in the first half were not exceptional by his standards but ensured we stayed in the game. Carl Jenkinson was marked out as the focus of attention by the United but I thought he responded very well, defended sensibly, never dived in and was decisive in clearing the ball when needed. Clearly a disappointing day for the social media boo-boys. The Le Coq put in his usual hard working and disciplined performance. Francis is really coming to grips with doing his job but not getting booked. He put in seven tackles yesterday and conceded just one foul.
Looking further forward I am hard pushed to find much to pick out. First half we did well as I mentioned with Alexis and Theo looking sharp. Second half I would not criticise the effort put in but it was a long way from the Wengerball I am lucky enough to be used to.
Of the home side ? I like Mata, I have always liked Mata. He is a very good footballer. It is a great pity he has been forced to play for the Portuguese idiot again. Hopefully Mata will not have to put up with the current regime too much longer, as United sink into a scarp for the Europa place with Watford and Everton.
Well that is me done – you all saw the game and our collective dust has no doubt settled compared with the immediate post match blizzard of emotion. While Trafford Park may not have been fun yesterday a point keeps us nicely in touch, with a decent break before PSG and then Bournemouth, both at home. I think the voyage is progressing rather well.
Positively Arsenal 
Good morning all.
Before responding to the Post here is a comment I made at the end of the previous Post.
— I only saw some highlights of the game and it was enough to understand why many were disappointed with the performance.
For me, what registered was the point we got. Listen, we will not win the Premiership in November, or so it has been rightly said on a number of occasions, but equally we will not lose it in November either.
All teams including the Gunners have times, during any season, when they go off the boil, but the aim at the moment is stay in touch and go for the jugular in March. April and May.
So, for Gooners throughout the world who were disappointed with the performance, that’s OK, no one said life was a bed of roses, but we will be there or thereabouts come the Spring and that’s when we will see the difference.
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H only highlights i Anicoll,
I did not see all the game – in fact only highlights – but your summary is both interesting for the partisan but absent Gooner, like me, with your analysis of player performance, and also spot on from what I did see.
It would be nice if in the coming responses someone mentioned how Maureen behaved/mis-behaved as you know how much I like the guy. lol
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Not sure what happened to my greeting to you at 10:35, but ‘Hi Anicoll’ was what I typed and I still would like to say ‘Hi Anicoll’. lol
And I will try and borrow a better computer than the one I have already borrowed. lol
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Morning Henry,
I spotted your final post on the preceding article just before nipping off to breakfast (Mrs N shouting loudly by this point). You saved me moving it !
The balance is between being disappointed that we did not play as well as we can, with the benefit that we still earned a point against a difficult opponent. Me, and I would guess almost every AFC fa, will settled for the poor performance/decent point v. the good performance/ no points.
What is interesting is that yet again we managed to stick in the game and get a very late goal, as at Burnley, against Southampton, against Ludogorets etc.
Giroud and Kosc involved yesterday, as at Turf Moor and against the Saints. As with the game in Sofia it was a late substitution that set up the pass for our final goal.
Jose misbehaving ? Yesterday I saw his technical quality in setting up his side to smother us effectively, and his immature idiocy after the game in front of the cameras.
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A fine effort that Andy. I would wager you actually could make a silk purse from a Sow’s ear.
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Jose setting up a Utd team to defend against Arsenal at home in Old Trafford will not endear him much further with what remains of the old guard in Utd’s board room.
The man is a reactive manager, always has been.
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With you on defence being sound. I also didn’t spot many defensive mistakes from the two deep midfielders. So…what happened out there?
Is it just a case of me having a paranoid (and, alas, not positive) mind with my feeling that we were almost certain to concede, and yet could muster no reaction to try change this, as the second half unfolded, or was that the reality of the game?
Stats suggest it might be less ‘one of those things/days’, more that we’re vulnerable in the second half. 9 of 12 conceded there, 7 between 45 and 70.
On the bright side, it’s a big positive that we are defending so well in the first period, and that we have cut down massively on one goal scaring us into wild attack and quickly becoming two, or three. The benefits of that were shown pretty spectacularly yesterday : if you can just stay in it, a chance may come.
My sense is that the 2nd half blues occur when good teams gain a measure of comfort with our attack, and decide they can up the intensity and numbers in their own attacking.
The quality of our defenders and defensive midfielder/s means we can resist reasonably well but if our attacking threat dies, we’re left with a sort of half bus back there, and that’s likely to be opened up by good players and incisive football.
It’s a headscratcher for me. I once believed that an excellent defensive midfielder, like Coquelin, could cure all ills, certainly with a good defence behind him and some wonderful attackers in front, and I would have said that with another very sound midfielder alongside him, like Elneny, you’d be in the promised land. Defence sorted, platform there for your attack to thrive. Well, I’ve learned there’s a lot more to it than that.
I’m unwilling to accept the answer is Santi, Santi, Santi, much as a I love that player. There has to be a way, in his absence, to create a great team from all the top quality players available. I can’t think of the right balance,though.
I hope it was just one of those days, performance wise, but I think it was more a systematic vulnerability (though only to big teams with good players).
Time will tell. For the moment I’ll gladly take staying in the leading pack and then hoping something really clicks later on (or that man Santi returns)
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A good and well balenced review again Andy.
However when you said “On the one moment of controversy ” I was sure you was going to talk about the darmion sending off and not about the somewhat less contravershall pen incident. Sometimes I think we allow the pundits to tell us which are the moments of the game we should talk about, but what do they know just because they had talent in their legs most don’t have talent in their heads.
The Darmion challenge on Jenks was a sending off in itself, studds showing , foot high, contact high up the ankle. The fact andre failed to even give him a second booking was disgraceful and would have a far bigger impact on the game than the disputed pen. If the first incident was dealt with properly the second would not have occured so to only talk about the second at half time is illogical and shows the anti ARSENAL bias.
As I said yesterday I think Arsene had a major impact on both goals. I know he likes his teams to find thier own solutions but we were struggling second half and changes needed to be made we were given warnings before they scored. When make substitutions its not only about the players coming on but also about those you take off, Yesterday Arsene got this dead right.
Typically Maureen thinks he was unlucky but I suggest he watches the whole game and not just one incident.
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Well done Andy I don’t know how you pick yourself up to find positives even in a dull game like that. Perhaps you’re on better meds than I am.
I’ll just try to look forward to the next game as yesterday was pretty horrible from start to finish, not one result went the way I’d hoped.
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Good to get a point out of not the best performance
Have always thought, and I don’t have the stats to back this up…..that a Wenger team is more vulnerable to the cumulative effects of Interlull disruptions, due mainly to the free form style our manager goes with as opposed to the micro management/coaching of many other managers. Wengers game is incredibly effective when there is momentum, confidence, togetherness, and things go well, but is perhaps more vulnerable to disruption than a game of say a Simeone , Jose in years past at least, or a Pulis, where players are drilled and drilled beforehand for all eventualities. Again, just a gut feeling rather than a statistical analysis.
Cazorla is a loss, hopefully if he is to be out for long, a Xhaka or Ramsey can step in….shame Jack is not around. Also think Bellerin is a big loss with the way we play, Jenks did ok yesterday, but wasn’t yet able to help out in attack in the way Hector does.
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Rich, The Mancs had a lot of success attacking us down their right hand side with Valencia, Mata and Herrera constantly pressing Monreal and Coq. We were coping but struggling. Bringing Rooney on upset our applecart I thought. Hindsight suggests that Aaron could have dropped back to give us three across the middle rather than leaving Elneny and Le Coq to struggle.
I think the main problem though was not the set up but that we just could not keep the ball with our defence on that side getting very little respite and the attacks came in.
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The old fart’s thoughts
Possessing unpleasant memories of post interlull, early kick offs, MFU and in particular the carbuncle that masquerades as Maureenjoe, I can’t plead ignorance of the fact that none of these four seem productive for a top Gooner performance.
Indeed, I thought of making MFU my banker on “I know the score”. This, putting any team as a banker, invariably results in my losing points. I’ve used it several times recently for the spuds. Yesterday I chose Stoke!
And so the game lived up to expectations and without Xhaxa who was surprisingly left on the bench.
Anybody else have the feeling that Alexis may have taken Oz to Chile to carry his bags? Neither could or would have any influence on the game. Mind you much the same may be said of Rambo and to a lesser extent Theo.
But at least Theo was helping Jenks out in defence. And our defence needed a bit of helping; twice Petr made outstanding saves in the first half to keep it at 0-0 as the teams changed ends. Poor Nacho was getting a wee bit of a roasting. This, plus both Theo and Mo Elneny not picking up Mata led to the United goal. Mata was left in yards of space to leave Petr helpless from about 10 yards
It was not looking good but give the team credit, even when not playing well they don’t give up. It was late but the introduction of Olly and the Ox (at right back!) resulted in our late equalizer. A perfect cross from Ox (who redeemed his last performance) gave Olly the chance to head home. What a relief. The carbuncle’s face was a picture, the travelling gooners who frequently outshouted the home fans a much better picture.
Hopefully we’ll be enjoying frog’s legs mid week and a far better performance. Keep the faith.
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Rich, for whatever reason Arsene doesn’t do subs before 70 minute. This cost us dearly in this game, as Mo clearly wasn’t at his best and should have been subbed after half-time at the latest.
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Mo – Mohamed El-Nenny
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I have long wondered why is the 70th minute is somehow a landmark, and how this might affect the game and players. All too often the players seem to almost stop waiting for the subs like a dog waiting for a command.
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The question is though Oleg, if Arsene had made substitutions before the 70th minute ( and the Manc goal) would they have a) stoped the goal and b) would he have brought on the Ox and Giroud ( and hooked Jenks) ? No idea about a) and probably unknowable. As for b) my expectation was that Alexis would go off to try to keep him fresh for PSG with Olivier on to replace him. Three men at the back at 0-0?
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anicoll
Yep. Valencia was a problem yesterday. He was once a very good, very powerful winger and it showed.
I have sympathy with Ramsey in not being able to stop it as the only chance of doing so and substantially helping Monreal would be if Ramsey was positioned deep in his own half the whole time. Simple physics that he cannot make up ground on a rampaging Valencia. There’s no way, against a faster opponent, for a wide player to make sure they offer a good amount in attack while also ensuring they provide near-total cover to their full back . Not unless they commit to defence first and have a real nose for a rare break and the speed to execute it.
No obvious solution to that. The majority of teams don’t need one as they are geared primarily for defence and so the wide midfielder will prioritise defending. Pulis the exemplar, but most teams are similar, against tough opposition at least.
Interesting that you noticed Coquelin was targeted for pressing- I didn’t pick up on that.
Oleg,
I also failed to notice much wrong with Elneny.
For me, it just felt like we had 6 and Cech * trying to hold out against an energetic opponent growing in strength, while our ability to play out and hold onto the ball up the field, let alone attack, had utterly vanished.
*Ramsey and Walcott did come back to help out a fair amount, I think, though it didn’t seem to help much.
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A, my idea was to bring Ox in place of Mo and move Aaron to the center. Alexis was our best player on the day, no one could have replaced him, imo.
I the end Ox introduction proved to be the best decision, i just wish it happened sooner.
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Rich, i think Mo was too sloppy with the ball and couldn’t execute any attacking moves. I clearly remember 3 or four times when he was to slow or inaccurate and could have cost us a goal, the only reason we didn’t concede more is MU impotence.
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Doesn’t anyone else think Aaron is the closest player to Santi we currently have?
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Not really Oleg – he could be but my impression of Aaron is the classic box to box midfielder, creative but with a good tackle, able to take on and beat players and add the odd goal from a run into the box. Santi is much more a string puller, a spider in the middle weaving a web of passes.
The problem I admit with Rambo is it is very difficult to now what he is as between a grim injury record and a highly competitive midfield his chances have been few and far between.
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If anyone is interested there are dozens of tickets on the Exchange for Wednesday night including lower tier tickets ?!? I am already going but I am amazed all these have suddenly popped up.
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Don’t know about anyone else but the 70 odd minute mark average for a sub in a week where there are three matches is not a mystery to me.
Neither is it a mystery why Alexis the Loon started when he should’ve been resting with France’s no.1 striker coming in as not exactly poor cover.
I’m hoping Alexis will be forced to sit on the bench for the next match but one other reason that didn’t happen yesterday is that he doesn’t have Giroud’s admirable focus when coming off the bench. In fact he gets even more haywire and loco then usual!
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Rambo gets more freedom with Wales but the partnership with Arteta showed he can play both roles for club and country without scrambling his own circuits – my hunch is that it’s harder to do that when rebuilding fitness and form on the return from injury, plus we’ve seen it takes him a run or handful of games to simplify his own game and find his efficiency, alongside full match fitness.
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Anyway, sorry for venting, it was the first game i watched sober in a while and counted on boys matching my sacrifice :). I’m just happy that the team responded well and we have more options in midfield than usual. Theo said that we could have lost this kind of game in previous years and that gives me hope the season would be a success.
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well if John Cross it to be believed – on Match of the day 2 – Arsenal must be in a total mess and need almost total rebuilding, as he claimed Man Utd totally outplayed us, but that they need to sign 2 central defenders, a midfielder and a world class striker, if they are to challenge for the title.
It really is a laugh when you see every jouno and pundit advise several major signings in the cure for all ills, or even any dropped point.
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Eddy to be me fair Steve Coogan satirised the average petty plundit, beyond satire, with the debut of Alan Partridge in the Day Today twenty years ago.
The there was Ron Manager. A personal favourite.
I wouldn’t worry for what the plunditocracy have to say. These clowns will write any old shite if they think they can make a quick buck. More often then not the gullible prove them right.
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Mr Cross may wish to reflect on the fact that in yesterday’s match the central defensive pairing that failed at the CRUCIAL moment and allowed two points to slip away was not Mustafi and Kosc but Jones and Rojo.
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anicol Cross was saying it was utd who needed two CB’s, a midfielder and a world class striker, and this after gleefully saying utd had totally outclassed Arsenal. So my point it, if he feels utd need four more top class players, I do wonder what he thinks AFC need.
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Ah-ha ! Perhaps if I’d read what you wrote it may have helped.
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If we’re talking about Arsenal related expertise we note how the early season target Oxlade-Chamberlain for the Expert Arsenal Sado-masochist/Expert in PR and online advertising revenues has, with intermittent appearances, clocked up five odd goals and five odd assists this season so far.
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now back to the game, as I said yesterday, I’ve seen us lose enough games we have dominated for me to turn my nose up at us taking a point after a poor performance. And it was a poor performance, solid enough in defense, worked hard in midfield, but the passing was off, the attack was blunt.
I see the malcontents and uber bloggers have of course convinced themselves that Wenger’s inaction in regards to subs, cost us the game, this indeed is what we have come to expect from them, after all if they do not blame him for this then they would have to actually give him credit for getting his subs right, after all, the outrageous decision to put Oxlade-Chamberlain on at right back was a major factor in us getting the goal, and I would bet a pound to a penny, that not one of the malcontents even remotely suggested such a move should be made before hand, and I would also wager that none of them thought it a good idea when it was done either. No Wenger should have taken Ramsey, Elneny and Walcott off, and brought on Xhaka, Ox and Giroud, this should have been done and we would have won cos twitter experts think its that simple.
Its great to see our fight and never say die attitude of this season continue, resilience the sign of champions. Well maybe, but my concern is that we are having to see this resilience far too much so far this season. We are not playing consistently well, and are far from our best form, we are currently on a one win in 4 BPL games, with 0, 1 & 1 goals scored in the 3 drawn games, the goals we are scoring are by and large of a very high quality, our defense is looking as mean as it has for many a good season. We are only missing Cazorla from our midfield options, but this alone seems to have affected us more than it should. After all we still have Coquelin, Ramsey, Xhaka, Elneny to pick from, and we still have Alexis, Ozil, Theo, Ox, Iwobi and Giroud to play in attack.
Resilience is great and all that, but its something we should be relying on a lot less frequently, as Wenger said yesterday, we want to be about style and steel, but we were lacking style. The good thing so far this season is that in the games we have been lacking style, at least we have showed some steel. But we all await the return of our style on a consistent basis. Lets hope we see it return v PSG
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“Football Commentator: Well, Ron Manager, once again the pace and the tempo of that first half totally dictated by the boy wonder, Ryan Giggs.
Ron Manager: Cor, Ryan Giggs, you know? Giggsy, isn’t it? Mmm? Giggsy-wiggsy? Mmm? Oh! Ryan-y Giggsy-wiggsy. Isn’t it? You know, marvellous.
Tommy: Is he the new George Best?
Ron Manager: Is George Best the old Ryan Giggs? But Giggsy-wiggsy. Precocious talent, isn’t he? Mmm? Ooh, got it all, you know? Speed, acceleration, sweet left foot, all the tricks – the dummy, the drop of the shoulder, the shimmy, nutmeg, jiggery-pokery, hocus pocus, abracadabra, I wanna reach out and grab ya. Steve Miller Band? Spin Doctors? Ooh, very similar.
Football Commentator: Thank you, Ron. Now, Tommy, it’s interesting to see the diamond formation being used again.
Ron Manager: Diamond formation? Does anyone really know what that is? I mean, at least you knew where you were with Alf Ramsey’s wingless wonders. You know? 4-4-2, 4-2-4, 4-3-3… 0898 654000, freephone double glazing?
Football Commentator: But, Tommy, do we need structure? Look at the Brazilians.
Ron Manager: Oh, those Brazilians, you know? Circa 1970? Broke the mould. Theory out the window. Free expression of football. Uncategorisable. Is that a word? It is now! You know? Far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts. Rush goalie. Two at the back, three in the middle, four up front, one’s gone home for his tea. Beans on toast? Possibly, don’t quote me on that. Marvellous.
–
Ron Manager: Self belief. I can do it. I can do it. I can do it, I can do it, I can really move from my head right down to my blue suede shoes. Isn’t it? Rubettes, 1973? Marvellous.”
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I see Theo Walcott has said it was his fault for the utd goal, that he should have tracked Mata’s run, but but but wasn’t it Jenkinson’s fault, or at the very least Monreal’s fault, or if not it had to be Elneny’s fault, how very dare Theo take the blame.
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It would’ve been interesting to see Giroud and Ibrahimovic start yesterday.
We’d have been able to compare an overrated cart horse with a world class Target man (lump), one who won league 1 in France for Qatar and the other who lead Montpellier above the said Qatari charitable foundation in the same league (just sayin’! Not an opinion but an observation…).
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Eduardo, that was a very interesting comment indeed. Taking one for the team, i’d say.
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Chambo:
Apps: 16
Goals: 5
Assists: 4
Sterling:
Apps: 17
Goals: 5
Assists: 7
Funny old game innit?
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fins have you the stats re games started and sub
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Not sure Eddy but as with yesterday’s match and he opener against Liverpool safe to say Chambo has had less minutes on the pitch then his agents other pawn/client
– I don’t have any worries over Chamberlain’s form or ability, my only concern is his agent getting itchy fingers and briefing his business partners in the media, including Arsenal podcasters, to help ease the players’ path to a new Rooney or Sterling style bungle/contract at a willing club/laundrette.
The hope is that Chambo’s father has and has had some kind of vague stabilising influence upon the kind of bloodthirsty desperate sharks that have been circling around Sterling since he was a kid (not very flattering stories!) Nevermind the Football!
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The underlining desire of le groan et al is to have found themselves as the agent of Sterling etc. That’s their vision, their dream, of Football.
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Chambers playing RCB has found a regular berth in Karanka’s XI all the more impressive given how well his squad mates at CB played in N5 when they came.
Worth watching the Gazprom match just to see how he gets on. And watching Traore waltz past the likes of Matic etc proving that Monreal has not suddenly become crap (whilst earning caps for the impressive Spain that we saw against England last week).
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OlegYch, that you think Alexis was our best player, voids all comments. Perhaps you need to watch it pissed?
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George, who else then? Kostafi was great, but it was easy against impotent MU
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He was poor. Worse than poor.
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Pedro, the Spanish Theo, proving once again that though he has a slightly more consistent technique he’ll never be as proficient a finisher as Our Wally.
And again…
Yesterday was one of Walcott’s poorer efforts for the season, but now that he’s had a full recovery season (last year) safe to say he is playing better then any of his peers in his immediate age group in the PL.
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Hey. He was tired!
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I agree with george, Alexis was awful yesterday, he actually was getting in the way of ozil and ramsey, and he kept losing the ball very easily. But he is alexis, and so is beyond criticism, if only theo, rambo, ox and giroud got the same leeway.
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George, look, even if he was poor (by his own standards), he still was the best.
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With Arsenals midfield being absent through Mo inability to pass the ball, Alexis was the only one eager to retrieve the ball by himself and carry it into dangerous areas. Theo couldn’t do it, Mesut wasn’t willing to, Aaron and Coq were busy with other tasks.
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