Good afternoon Positive Arsenal fans,
Top performance and a 5-1 result that accurately reflected our dominance in the midday match. It barely seems credible to me that a few months ago the prospect of a game ‘on the road’ even against clubs around the bottom of the PL seemed to fill the players, the fans ( and me) with the jitters. From the start there was a disciplined approach from our lads, with concentration good and the ball rarely squandered. Our performance today was by no means faultless but we did far more well and right, with the error(s) few and far between. Toward the end I thought there was a brio in our play, a sense that every time we moved over the half way line a goal was 50/50, that I have has seen for a while.
Goals win matches and all five of our strikes were at least good, and with one in the good going on exceptional bracket. Ramsey’s goal was a thing of clockwork precision and, as it brought us a two goal cushion over the home side, decisive. Hector’s back heel flick was sublime, Aaron’s clever diversion into the corner of the net quite beautiful. To that point, 67 minutes gone, our opponents were still in the match. Afterward it was a matter of how many we would win by.
Laca and then Auba’s movement was too sharp for Fulham all afternoon. Allow either to take a position on the 6 yard line with the ball at his feet and his back to goal and you, my defensive friend, have trouble. Alex Iwobi put in another creative performance, the main spring of our left sided raiders. He improves week to week in picking the right pass in and around the opposition box. Nacho, despite his culpability for the Fulham equaliser, put in a fine attacking display all afternoon. I thought Holding and Shkodran held the line well against a Fulham side who do indeed look like “they have goals in them” to quote the excruciating Robbie Savage.
My man of the match though ? Well he comes from Uruguay, and he’s only five foot five. Competent, combative and Torreira seemed to be running as hard in the 93rd minute as he was in the 3rd minute.
The home side ? They have a bit of football quality about them in midfield and up front. Schurrle, Seri, Sessegnon all possess a good touch and, particularly the German, a football brain. FFC are better than the Cardiff and Toon sides we beat. At the back though ……..If they don’t learn how to lock the back door then it will be a brief return to he top flight.
Finally peruse the Premier League table with me. We sit, briefly though it may be, in third spot;
I think I would have probably settled for that, if anyone had asked me in August.
Anyway, roller skates on. It is all kicking off at St Mary’s.
Positively Arsenal 
a dominant performance from start to finish mostly, the difference in the second half was we brought on a couple of better finishers, and Ramsey’s goal was delightful, I must also mention that the 5th from PEA was Emeryball, it was started with our keeper, it was played around at the back, to Xhaka over and over again, then a quick ball through the lines and Aubameyang was in and oh what a finish.
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That was a real treat. Every one of those goals was very aesthetically pleasing and one of them was just off the charts beautiful.
A lot to enjoy. The goals, some cracking football first half which should have seen us a couple ahead, the tension while game in balance (which can be enjoyed in retrospect if you win), then the near total control, lovely crisp passing aplenty, once result was secured.
My note of caution is that the ridiculous level of control at end and the enjoyment of it, is only possible when a game is won, and that message from their goal.
Maybe it’s the prem now- with even struggling teams often possessing players who can really hurt you, especially on break. Maybe it’s us or inherent risks of playing from back full stop . Anyway, you can be playing great and not giving opposition much, and things will remain precarious with no more than a 1 goal lead.
Right now though I just feel good,good, good. A proper treat.
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oh yeah forgot to add
Captain Xhaka today
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CFC currently top of the table
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I’m welling up, I really am;
https://twitter.com/GrimandiTweets/status/1048912429965611009
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so has Holding done enough to keep his place in the starting 11 over Sokratis
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Well. Well. I suppose Guardiola and Klopp cant wait to puncture the gunners winning run. I say bring them on. I am more confident that the gunners can hold their own
against these 2 sides provided the guys in black are 100% impartial,no ifs
and buts.
You only have to see last seasons MC s win to see an os goal was given. Arsenal
have been at the receiving end of some biased decision s stretching back
to rfs’ time.
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spurs best ever start to a BPL season and Arsenal are above them in the table. Power shift
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ozil missed out on today’s game due to a back injury, was unable to train yesterday.
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Last season we saw two or three four or five goal beatings of opponents at home before games in the Europa league, those matches were over at half time, 4-0 on two occasions at HT I think, and the arsenal players kept some juice in the tank of those second halves for the upcoming contests.
Difference today was of course the timing, after the midweek game, and a final exorcism for last season’s away form (if you were looking to the “defensive coaching” to explain that form, then you were looking in the wrong place!).
Aaron Ramsey eh. The new gaffer really enjoyed that goal and the late flurry. Contrary to the bollocks, pardon me, being pumped out by our discredited and embarrassing blaggers, the new gaffer, like the players, will obviously want to keep the best footballers in his football squad as he finishes off the rebuilding/transitional phase of this new football team over the next period.
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Coquelin’s replacement is indeed very exciting, looks like he has the full complement of skills going forward in addition to his battling skills, which is what the Experts were so critical of with our previous D**Mer on the pitch, so a long interregnum but eventually the club found a good replacement/upgrade to complement the quality of the two shiny great strikers that came in last season.
Hopefully he’ll get just a little bit more protection for the backs of those ankles going forwards as there’s only so many of those you over ninety minutes in a game before the odds load up and snap the tension in the tendon and an injury is picked up.
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What a game. I’m so happy I don’t what this day to end. With 9 on the bounce I think we are mentally prepared for all comers, and if we can keep knocking over teams outside the top 6 we may find ourselves back in the CL next season.
Lots of opposition look at our team and are getting worried… so are the pundits. As Mandy mentioned in previous thread, one of favs are in possible danger of getting knocked down to Europa next season. So they might crank up their agenda against us.
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Aaron Ramsey’s goal today means he is now tied with Liam Brady on 59 goals for Arsenal, the most goals by a midfielder for Arsenal.
by the way in his 8 BPL games for us so far this season Ramsey has 1 goal and 3 assists
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Crank up the agenda, is that even technically possible from their current posture/coverage?
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What a brilliant win that was!!! Enjoyed that immensely. I actually don’t think we’re doing anything that much different from what we were doing last season; difference this time round is the officiating is more balanced, unlike last season. We have seen these kinds of performances and runs in the past either at the beginning of the season when we haven’t yet become title contenders or at the end when the title is already beyond our reach.
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well fins Arsenal win 5-1 away from home and what angle does former Arsenal player, now pundit go with, — well no surprise that he chooses to make it about ozil missing the game, – he really has not forgiven Mesut for pointing out that our so called legends don’t support our players or the club when needed.
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Ivor Cannon
@ivorcannon
10m10 minutes ago
🎶We’re by far the greatest team the world has ever seen🎶
Apart from:
Monreal who’s “bang average”
Ramsey who’s “over-rated”
Aubameyang who “isn’t all that”
Bellerin who “can’t defend”
Xhaka who’s “shit”
Iwobi who’s “fucking shit”
Comments in the last week alone incl today 😠
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Chelsea’s shiny new keeper with an outstanding save, second in a few minutes to keep out the saints as the game reaches it’s end, Certainly if an Arsenal keeper had to work so hard late on in relatively comfortable game the “coverage” would be very different. We also know why! (Ask Danny Murphy or his sporting agency if unsure).
–
As Rich describes so well, there are no easy games in the current post BT deal league, it’s more similar to the mid eighties?
to demoralise an opponent you really have to earn it as we saw in those enjoyable last five minutes against Watford, repeated this week! Not like one of Ferguson’s Utd teams playing against a team managed by Brucie or Sparky.
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saxon71
@stuafc71
11m11 minutes ago
Replying to @ivorcannon @IngGooner
The arsenal back chants pissed me off
If you are a gunner the club never left
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Eds,
Özil clearly has the wrong agent.
One who will stand up for his employer and in that instance his employer’s employer, as opposed to screenshots of deleted tweets from another player’s agent I mention no names, who has the likes of Giggs and Jenas and Bleeding Ears Murphy and all the Billy Big Blaggers all saying what he needs in order to get the biggest commission in his career as an agent. Same “Sports Communications” technique witnessed with Chambo etc.
Yep. I like Özil’s agent. Not too sure about Rambo’s just yet (I’m holding out till 31st January!)
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fins there might not be any easy games, but results so far in the league suggest that at the end of the games the difference between the top clubs and the rest is as big if not bigger than ever.
Arsenal just gone 6 BPL wins in a row, spurs have six wins from 8 too, city, lfc and cfc all unbeaten so far.
where are all these results that show the gap is narrowing, there might be more quality in the smaller clubs than before, but the bigger clubs are by and large still clearly a level above the rest.
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CFC win 3-0 and are currently top, city can go back top with a draw or better, lfc can go top with a win
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Quite brilliant in the second half, credit to all concerned.
Certainly seem to be attacking at speed, and causing teams real problems.
Hope, possibly against hope, there are a few second thoughts around the Ramsey situation.
That looked to me like Emeryball with a very respectful nod to wengerball
Bet those players will be itching to get back after the break and hopefully carry on this fantastic run
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FT: Hoffenheim 1 – 2 Eintracht Frankfurt
Nelson got the Hoffenheim goal
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Emeryball?
This is Kroenkeball. No coincidence in my view that since Stan saw off the Uzbek and put AST in their place the football has picked up.
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we have two great strikers who want the best for each other despite being in contentiion for the same position. i hope they keep it up.
i hope ramsey sign his contract in the end. i have lost taste of football a bit in resent days since the bad news stated came in. please someone should just do the right thing!
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very good anicol, on the subject of ast and the take over, after all their bluster, how they were going to get one more AGM, how they would make KSE pay their legal fees, etc etc they were very very silent on the completion of the buyout. Also what will Piers Mogan do now that he can’t be described as an AFC shareholder to legitimize his stupids opinions on all things AFC.
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Dreadful game at Anfield – we could beat the best 11 out of these two.
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Fins, one way to crank up the already over the top against Arsenal would be for the them to pull the “if you have anything good to say about José or Poch then rather say nothing or talk about Arsenal”.
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I wish Ramsey and the Club would sort it out.. really want him to stay… Please Rambo… I know U want to, So please Arsenal, sort it out!
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Poor Steve Claridge it was as if he’d swallowed a porcupine after that goal!
Mikhi’s swivel pass was the highly for me, the balance and poise, right on the money brilliantly executed
We have also missed the killer instincts of a pure goal scorer, now we have two in Auba and Lacazette. The four goals they scored were eerily similar and just showed their natural predatory instincts. Much of this and I expect us to be featuring in National Geographic
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Kroenkeball! Now there’s a thing. But it could stabilise the club, the Kroenke Usmanov thing seemed to bring out a lot of negativity, and maybe harmful press leakings.
Any murmurings from champion of the people, Troopz et al I wonder?
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Steve Claridge is a complete tool, surely the media can do better than him
There are intelligent, articulate ex players out there, why don’t we see and hear more of them.
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currently Arsenal teams all sit near top of their divisions
First team 3rd – 2pts off top
U23’s 2nd – goal difference off top
U18’s 2nd – 1pt off top
Women 1st – level on pts but with a game in hand
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well mandy when AST, Ian Wright, Jim White and others all done Usmanov’s bidding there was always going to be negativity surrounding AFC
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Mandy if we had intelligent pundits it would spoil the soundbite that football is the working class game, that the players are just like the fans, and lets not forget the real idiotic one, the game is all about opinions and talking points.
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True Ed, but just hoping for a slightly more enlightened age.
Wonder if French, German, Spanish, or US pundits are as plainly stupid, and apparently biased?
Jim White, don’t even mention that gob for hire charlatan. Didn’t listen to him after we beat his newly beloved Everton Ambition, but can guess what he would have been .
saying
Seems that Jim White is to Usmanov, and the Everton owner, what Duncan Castles is to Jose and his agent friend
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mandy you will find that jim used to be a “special guest” of mr usmanov at AFC games, he even had the use of his box at some games the pay master did not attend. Ian Wright had the same privileges as mr white. now what else they got from mr usmanov to spout his PR I don’t know
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Unbelievable not just Aaron’s game but the fact Andy hasn’t changed a bit (apart from the hair obviously).
Aaron’s goal was so good from the start to the end me and my lads shouted oh, oh, oh getting higher pitched with every pass, flick and trick until we exploded with GOOOOALLLLL at the end.
Basically ARSENAL score the greatest goals and no-one comes near us, goal of the season in Europe on October 7th not bad.
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Two points off the top and improving every week. I’ll take that.
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Anicoll
Is that a photo of you when lived at Ashgate Avenue?
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I have to say it’s a good time to have a positive blog.
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It is said in some quarters, we’ve got our Arsenal back??
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Kroneke’s other big sports club, the LA Rams, with another win, 5 from 5, not sure how this is possible as the usmanov mouthpieces say Stan runs his clubs into the ground.
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Good win. But mind you it was only Fulham and they played an open game allowing Arsenal to play at will so the score line looks flattering.
I am still not sure we can get past the big clubs as they won’t allow you any such freedom like we got yesterday.
We are in top 4 now on goal difference let’s see if we can remain there with difficult games to come .
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Lighten up mate!
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Can only see positives from that game, yes, could be better at the back at times, but love the way Torriera is integrating into the team, and being of big assistance to our skipper for the day,Xhaka.
The goals were superb, the speed of transition to attack , thrilling, almost reminded me of one or two real stellar players from the Wenger era.
We lost a lot of these type of away games last season, not because the players or manager were terrible at their jobs, but I am sure partly because of confidence issues, uncertainty and negativity around the club stilling onto the pitch, alongside defensive issues which are still on show sometimes.
But anything that improves confidence and lifts that negativity is a good thing, at least in my little world.
We have already played two of the biggest teams, as for the others, the team can cross those bridges when they come to them, Spurs are gaining points, but don’t look too great to me, Utd, let’s wait and see where they are when we play them.
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Delusional Rich
@ILoveWengerball
35m35 minutes ago
Unai Emery has really sh@t on the pretenders who think #Arsenal need a leader.
We’ve had over 5 match captains in the last 9 games and won them all.
Confidence is key. #COYG
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