@LaboGoon times his visit to Brighton for an early Sunday lunch
Good morning one and all.
Arsenal travel to the city of Brighton this afternoon to play their pride at the Amex. I can tell you one thing ….. for everyone’s sanity this is a game each of our players and the boss want to win at all cost.
Brighton has come a long way since we last played them. Currently they are playing like a team belonging in the Premier League, and not exactly with a style that one would describe as “attractive”, but what they had produced over the last few weeks is their own brand of cold, hard steel. They are in the midst of a purple patch too; unbeaten in their last 6, including 2 wins in their last 2 home fixtures and they have also scored 8 goals in their last 3 PL games. So with that bit of caution… what a time for a us to visit them eh, especially with our away form?
That said, I think the one and only thing of importance for us today is that we respond well after recent results, to get back on the proverbial bike. We need that to soften the tone of the baying mob.
Fixtures are coming thick and fast and judging from the boss’ comments winning this game is more important than getting ahead of ourselves. We need something to kick on from and a win here today would do just that. We all know the quality of our players, all they need is just something to get out of this funk and get the confidence going again on the field, especially our new boys who are still settling in to a new environment.
Team news: besides Monreal and Lacazette no new injuries, though Danny is a concern, but with Jack back I’d say we can expect a strong line-up from the available players, because now is not the time to be taking anything for granted.
Good luck to the boss and the players for today. Fingers crossed that our travelling fans have a lot to cheer about at the final whistle because boy do they need it… [whispers softly] which means all of us.
Positively Arsenal 
Brighton rocking
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TBF good advantage and he gave the yellow afterwards that time.
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another brigthon player booked, and rightly so, it was a poor tackle
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Brighton player looks seriously hurt after clash with Kolasinac, the Brighton players doing their best to get him sent off
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Brighton don’t like it up ’em?
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oddly no replay being shown of the incident
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That was no different to Aguero on Mustafi!
Wink wink wink
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Eds the director was holding out for the red card
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looked like a booking to me, shoulder into the face, although looked without malice
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They’ll have a few counters now.
Hopefully they’ll continue to be greedy and mess it up!
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iwobi off, Welbeck on
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about 15 minutes to stop this becoming our 10th BPL defeat in 29 games
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murray rightly booked for late tackle on wilshere
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Come on Gunners
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Bellerin and Nketiah on for Chambers and Mkhitaryan
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brighton goal rightly ruled out for offside
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7 minutes of injury time to save this game, come on you gooners
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FT: Brighton 2-1 Arsenal
loads of possession, but no cut and thrust, awful at the back, especially our keeper, one paced in midfield and too sideways and backways by the forwards
10 league defeats so far this season, and 14 in total, 4 losses in a row (can’t recall that ever happening under Wenger before.
in is now EL or bust
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When one feels this low it’s best to keep quiet…
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It’s been Europa or bust since Stoke Away, for all the obvious reasons (including the football!) but that won’t stop the “narrative”
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Lost for words.
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Well, I thought Wilshere and Xhaka were pretty good. Not much else to say.
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Beginning to consider ditching the scooter over Beachy Head.
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Think I’m gonna go play some football…
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regardless of Wenger staying or going this summer, half these players need shipping out.
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Another day, another loss. We tried but ultimately not hard enough. On to the next. #Coyg
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Completely devoid of confidence, predictable in attack, and without a defensive stability to fall back upon. Very very disappointing. At this point, we’re hoping for a miracle to be able to turn up and beat Milan.
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Tried our best in the second half,,but, again, calamitous defending let’s us down. There is either a lack of confidence, or maybe the leaks are correct,,and a lack of coaching going on?
It will be sad, at the beginning of the season, I was hoping things would pan out in a way Wenger might even get an extension, but despite the fact the owner has always backed him, that is not going to happen. There are certainly mitigating factors, he has been let down by players, and maybe others, but see this going only one way in the coming weeks.
Our form really is not good enough, especially in 2018, the leaks, the changes, the lack of confidence, the defending, not scoring enough, unless Wenger beats him to it.
only pointing in one direction, with I assume Josh Kroenke applying the coup de grace.
I just hope class and dignity prevails whatever happens, this is our greatest ever manager.
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Anyone know why Ramsey didn’t start btw, before I go into the realms of conspiracy theories?
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Umm maybe because he’s recently had injury problems and the Europa league is more important.
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Is it my imagination but do we usually do badly in the early games? It looks like our next few games are all at 1.30 on a Sunday.
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mandy, AW said Ramsey was left out as a precaution with AC Milan game in mind.
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Mandy you say the players have let Wenger down again, this is something many of us have said many times, my question is, if AW stays on for next season, will he dump those that have let him down this season.
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a few too many of these from Cech
Petr Cech
Verified account @PetrCech
8m8 minutes ago
If you want to win a game away of home in the best league in the world your GK can’t concede 2 goals like I did today … it’s simply not possible … The team fought back but the damage was done .
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Fair enough on the Ramsey situation, makes perfect sense i guess.
Just cannot see wenger here next year to dump anyone, sadly, always easier to replace a mAnager than an expensive group of players. I am sure there are many facets to this and some may well involve the manager but cannot escape the impression he is being badly let down
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well then Mandy, should any new manager dump their sorry asses too, should he keep guys who let AW down so often.
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Sorry, I need to externalise this thought…the sale of Giroud is proving to be extreme folly…
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Damn, even a draw would have been welcome today.
We were much improved from just before half time on, could well have found a second, but it wasn’t to be.
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New post up
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A very good question Ed, i suspect we would see very different performances under a new manager, new manager bounce i think they call it.
A shame but looks to me like some are not playing for the man for whatever reason.
But yes, a hard case to make for some players
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I refuse to throw the players under the bus. I’m sick to death of people doing that. That’s no better than throwing AW under it. They did try, desperately. And desperation shows. Even the simplest thing becomes hard. I don’t know how to fix it. But I want so much for them to be able to figure it out. And I refuse to pile on. Everyone else can do what they like, I guess.
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I’m not enveloped by the sort of gloom I was in last two games and other times this year, probably because the hardest stuff was in first part of game and there was improvement after.
Felt it allowed me to think more clearly than those times.
First thing to consider is that we have not taken the approach nearly all teams do when in bad form or after painful defeats: batten down the hatches and go more defensive.
Or we have previously, very much, in going with the three centre backs, but even then not so much in terms of the overall plan of how to play, i.e. we’ve not looked like the intention is to stop the opposition first and take it from there.
The only times I’ve ever seen us make a serious attempt at something like that have been when playing very good teams.
Almost always we make the choice, as we did today, to go for the three attacking midfielders instead of the three deeper midfielders. That is a crystal clear signal that our hope and our plan is not to place emphasis on keeping the opposition out, but rather in going at them.
So that’s surely the aim, for our main area of strength to be in that part of the pitch, their final third. With the hope that it will provide overloads of quality; players who can retain possession and pick passes if opposition sit deep, punish them on counters if they advance and leave space.
It entails direct and obvious risk, but it is how we want to play, and, surely, is considered the best use of our resources.
Evidently, it hasn’t worked well enough this year, and didn’t again today. It feels scarily easy at times for more modest teams to put their efforts into blocking the effectiveness of that area of hoped-for strength, while having real conviction that they can strike very directly into our own defence.
At worst it makes it look a downright bizarre idea to place those extra resources higher up the pitch, given the enormous pressure it puts on the two behind them to provide a supply line while also trying to stop opposition attacks.
All this in the face of heavy pressure being put on the two suppliers once past halfway, and the path for the further three typically being heavily blocked.
I actually thought there was quite a lot of quality and plenty of hard work in our game today from just before our goal onwards. Wilshere alone made five or more little runs of serious quality, beating a man or three with true skill, the prob was that there was still a well marshalled defence behind.
I thought our season may have been defined by how well we could navigate those sorts of issues, beating packed defences. It hasn’t been primarily because our own defensive structure or play has undone us before it can come to that.
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