This afternoon The Arsenal play the once great Nottingham Forest in the biggest domestic cup competition in the world. The fact that the mighty Arsenal have won this competition three times in just four years should not make us blase towards it. Think about the joy we all felt at the final whistle of those finals, then tell me that wasn’t one of your great memories of your supporting life. From the fight back against Hull, to the artistry against Villa and the defying of the odds against Chelsea. Great times, Truly great times, I want more.
Forest are currently sitting 14th in The Championship and should be no problem for a team sitting 6th in The Premier League, but it’s never going to be that simple, We simply wont be fielding anything like the Premier League team, due to our hectic schedule and quite extensive injury list, I suspect the team will be the weakest we have put out this season. However, there isn’t a player in our squad that isn’t a very good play and we should have enough if the attitude is right.
I honestly couldn’t even begin to predict the line up, so I wont bother . All I can say is I’m looking forward to it and expect us be win. I think it will be a very hard fought win all the same.
Enjoy your day my friends
Up The Arsenal
Positively Arsenal 
65 minutes played and AFC have had one shot on target, AW record of never losing a 3rd round game is in serious danger
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Nketiah goes close, keeper saves
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Third soft pen in a row, but we have not really been at the races as yet
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20 minutes left and we are still way off the pace required to turn this around
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Oh no, nothing wrong with the Refs. Clearly a directive from on high
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At least it will turn back into a big trophy after
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ah somebody take responsibility to make something happen,
very disappointed that Iwobi, Welbeck and Theo have been so poor. They are the closest to the first team spots and they have been meh
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Welbeckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
goalie makes a mistake, and the ball is at danny’s feet and he rolls it into the empty net from 8 yards
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10 minutes left, come on you gooners
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forrest time wasting?
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ha ha ha, moss hands forrest another penalty, debuchy wins the ball, but traore goes down and moss only too happy to oblige
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Drebuchy got the ball first. No penalty.
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They’re goading Wenger plain and simple. Letting him know who’s boss. Moss is a cunt
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4-2, forrest player slips as he takes it and ball goes in, he might have double touched it but goal is given anyway. t
there is not agenda against arsenal, jokes
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I agree marky, they are making it clear to Arsenal and Wenger, we do what we like and you can say what you like, it will not change us.
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akpom on.
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so what the fuck was the discussion with the linesman for if it was not to rule out the goal for two touches.
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my God, 4 minutes of injury time, after all the stoppages, all the time wasting that even Jon Moss pointed out he had spotted, and all the subs,
these Refs don’t give two fucks how obvious their bias is. And why should they, as they will not be called on it by the media. You only have to listen to the commentators today, despite all the “amazing” decisions, not a word of criticism for Moss, no its all a laugh, its all “what will Wenger say about this”.
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Arsenal need to send Bould to do the presser and let him go to town about the ref.
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Mertersaker won us the FA cup against Chelsea and lost us this game against Notts Forest.
We were woeful, deserved to lose. Too many youngsters that are technically very gifted but decision making just short of ready.
Walcott played as though he didn’t care.
We lost because of mistakes. However, a proper midfield would have overcome that problem. Elneny was alone, nobody on either side of him. How many attempts on goal..3?
Shocking stuff….
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Firstly, we were shocking at times.if Wenger cannot or will not organise a defence better than that, he really needs to delegate to someone who can, whatever his principals. Defending like that negates everything else the team tries to do.
That performance was not acceptable.
Now, the PGMOL, today was wengers real punishment, not the fine or the ban. I suspect there is more to come as well. The PGMOL are either corrupt , or their refs are shit, and unable to follow the laws of the game
Wenger should make as much a fuss as he can , even if it means he has to leave this summer, which I increasingly suspect may be on his mind anyway. I cannot remember a team giving away four soft pens in three games at this level.
The club and their powerful CEO need to expose this for what it is, and Wenger really needs to work on the teams defending
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Well, PIGMOB clearly believe they are immune and that there is no concrete evidence out there.
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FT: Forrest 2, Moss 2, (4) – 2 Arsenal
a poor, flat performance by Arsenal, but my God these refs are beyond a joke now. Moss basically bit his thumb at us today.
Having said all that about the ref and his assistants, that was awful from our team, Iwobi, Welbeck and Theo were downright awful, Per found it touch, Holding tougher still. Eleney and Willcok lacked any creative spark, Nelson still needs to add strength if he is to step up to this level. AMN good on the ball, poor defending. Some of our defending was awful, but our attacking was not good.
Debuchy gets the ball but Moss couldn’t wait to give it, the lad double kicks the ball, the linesman calls the ref, but its still given.
then to cap it off, only 4 minutes of injury time, 3 minutes of which is for subs on. so despite ref showing he knew about time wasting, by calling forrest captain over about it, still only adds 1 minute. And we had injury stoppages and a sending off,
The refs in this country are a disgrace, and have full backing of the media to continue to screw us over.
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Hope after 2 penalties today people can see refs have a clear agenda to screw Arsenal full time.
What a joke the Pigmob are turning out to be.
RILEY OUT…
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3 wrong penalty calls against us in only 8 days, nothing strange about that at all, nothing I tell you
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Sorry chaps, the penalty shouts were correct. Perhaps, the Debuchy pen was a bit harsh but in real time can understand why it was given.
We were poor. Mertersaker had a shocker, Holding struggled. They deserved it. The score could have been much worse and we hardly threatened….
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It’s compounded by the fact we never get them
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How can moss get away with over ruling his linesman on a double kicked pen?
We have been hit by the establishment refs in recent games, Taylor, moss, Dean, they have all done us, think Atkinson is up next?
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GP we were shite, but that does not excuse the Debuchy penalty call, and the fact linesman called him over for something he seen wrong with it, and how was there only 4 minutes of stoppage time – 6 subs cover 3 minutes of it. We had stoppages for injuries, a sending off, the penalty discussion, and 3 goal celebrations. and Moss even warned the Forrest captain about their time wasting, 4 minutes your having a laugh. Iv’e seen the same ref give 6 minutes at the Emirates when we were winning and no injury stoppages
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We lost fair enough. But refs can at least hide their bias better, today it was too obvious. I would be more upset but the way that game was officiated left me speechless. How he added 4 minutes at the end of that game is beyond me.
This shows that Arsene has indeed raffles up a few feathers. This is may get worse in coming weeks.
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Eddy
I agree about time added on but we were awful and we did not deserve to win. Jermaine Jeanus has summarised it for me. We were outfought all over the pitch.
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Terrible play. We deserved to lose. I really don’t get the point of Welbeck. It’s like we don’t have an attack at all with him.
4 mins stoppage is a joke. Though even if we had another 90 today I don’t we would have won that. That 18yr old forward of theirs owned Per and Holding. Awful game from an Arsenal point of view.
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Don’t let the Ref’s disgraceful performance hide the fact Arsenal were woeful today
but also
Don’t let Arsenal’s disgraceful performance hide the fact the Ref was woeful today
I know which angle the media and AFC bloggers will go with though
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GP I have yet to see one Arsenal supporter even suggest we were anything other than shite for most of that game, to argue otherwise would be foolish, but that should in no way mean we ignore what we have seen from Moss.
on our performance,
none of our players played their way in to the first choice team, not even close, some might have played their way out of the club, well that is if their abject performance has not put off interested clubs,
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I just want to get this off my chest. Today we were poor. Much poorer than I’ve seen in some while, but that is no reason why we should be getting the special treatment from Riley’s boys. I will continue to follow and support this club no matter what the PGMOL, mainstream media (the glee in their voices was so obvious on BT sports) and the WOBs do, and long after our illustrious manager hangs his coat. Bring on the next game.
Keep the faith fellow positives. The season is only halfway through.
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GP, what I think is happening, apart from the fact this was a cup game which are always weighted towards the underdogs, is that every time a manager comes out strong against refs he puts them in an impossible position. As with Mourinho in his second Chelsea stint he’s forcing them to favour the opposition in marginal decisions to show that they’re not going to be influenced by the criticism. The best thing to do is not say anything, and lodge complaints in private.
And the way to do that is to give managers the option of skipping a set number of press conferences a season. Because of course they’re going to sound off when emotions are running high 15 minutes after a match has ended.
This match couldn’t have come at a worse time. A young side like ours today was always in danger of slipping to a tough lower league team. But there’s no way I’d have risked any of the first-teamers after the Christmas period.
And tbh, we’ve got to give everything to getting back in touch with the top four.
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AW On the result
Overall, I can congratulate Forest for an outstanding performance. They deserved to win, simple as that.
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Pretty gutted. If that was our first team playing like that, I’d despair, but it certainly wasn’t.
No way around it, we gambled big time with the line-up. To me, it was a league cup or early Europa selection.
But I’ll cancel any complaints, as i don’t know injury situation, know we have an intense schedule, and have to try stick to my guns about playing youngsters, when it matters, when it’s risky.
Still (oh go on then) I genuinely don’t know what the plan was for protecting the defence reasonably well. Did anyone ignore instructions? Is there some belief that Theo or Danny or Iwobi would offer more than they did in that sense? I don’t see where that could come from. Willock has done some tidy defensive work previously, but today was a huge step into unknown : away to championship side in Fa Cup. Shelf Wednesday mauling still relatively fresh
It was truly one to feast upon for those who believe we don’t do defence.
Anyway, move on quick, get away from all your electrical devices, hope the experiences for youngsters prove valuable.
I’ll leave ref stuff mostly for others this time. Injury time was absurd, but that’s guaranteed in that situation.
The pen looked a sound enough claim on first view (though if the ref was well positioned obviously shouldn’t have given it), but over time, if they always go one way, near enough, that’ll hurt you badly. Today it didn’t make us lose it just took away our late chance to rescue it.
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more from AW
Were you disappointed in your players
No, I would’t say that. We were not good enough anywhere. Not at the front, middle or back. They looked sharper, missed chances. That’s all I can say.
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and
Wenger on his team selection
We had very difficult schedule, many players on the edge. We play again on Wednesday. I understand the selection is questioned, but it’s also a bit of an excuse.
We had eight or nine internationals on the pitch.
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Wenger on his senior players letting him down
I wouldn’t like to talk about individual performances today. It’s disappointing we lost the game, Forest were better than us.
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Wenger on if the defeat hurts
It hurts very much. We won it three times in the last four years.
I knew before coming here it would be a tricky place to go.
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I sincerely hope AW has some proper evidence up his sleeve and can get it published somehow. This goes right back to Bennett Durkin Dunn Poll Etc. In fact ever since AW won the double in his first full season after the red nosed bully said what does a Frenchman know about English football. I have a good bottle of champagne to open when he chokes on his gum.
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Wenger on sitting in the stands
Bad. I hate it.
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Can only conclude, for whatever reason, we don’t do defence.
But we didn’t do much else today.
Need to improve, end of
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Wenger on signing Jonny Evans
No. I can’t give you any news on any transfer because we are not close to signing anyone.
We signed a Greek boy, who looks quite good in training. But apart from that we are not on anything.
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Birdkamp
You are a very wise man. I always appreciate your comments.
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The injury time thing should be a relatively easy one to calmly enquire about.
I remember using the old pause once after West Ham defeat couple years back and, conservatively, we were due another four.
There were two long injury stoppages and they added up to only 30 secs less than total given, in a game with full complement of subs, two goals, and absolutely outrageous time wasting from West Ham (throw ins taking 20-30 secs each time, a free kick taking 45 secs; 20-30 secs between ball going out and goal kicks every time. It was an absolute nightmare watching it real time as our small chances were reduced dramatically by the endless long breaks in play)
How can it happen? What reason can you offer for a ref choosing to play a few minutes less than he knows is correct?
I literally can’t imagine how pgmol/ FA or whoever could respond to a simple short letter or email on that point.
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Ever, Greatest@FaithInWenger
2h2 hours ago
3 games in a row conceding a penalty the ref would absolutely never give us up the other end. Unreal form by the officials
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seemingly wenger refused to discuss the penalty decision in his presser
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