@LaboGoon strides toward the Palace for Sunday lunch
Good morning Positivistas…
Arsenal is making the short trip to Selhurst Park to take on Crystal Palace with hopes of attaining another 3 points, another ‘W’, the business of the day.
The Gunners are purring under Unai Emery and haven’t dropped a single point since the second game of this season. Not only is there notable momentum but also a lot of enthusiasm in and around this team. Having won 11 in-a-row in all competitions, including seven consecutive PL victories… that buzz is understandable.
Trying to derail the streak will be a difficult task for the Eagles considering the clubs’ fortunes are of varying contrasts. Roy Hodgon’s team has won only one of their last eight Premier League games, that was away to Huddersfield on the 15th September and you must go to their opening fixture vs Fulham to find their only other victory. Since the 1st September they have scored two and conceded seven goals. With them goalless at home too the Palace faithful will be looking for an improvement as they are in for a bumpy ride with Chelsea, Spurs and Manutd to follow today’s game.
Scoring goals is the least of Unai’s concerns. In Lacazette and Aubameyang the club possess a one-two punch we’ve been lacking for years; if things don’t work out for the one the other pick up the slack, if both are on fire you end up with an attacking masterclass. If both can’t find the back of the net we have a good spread of goals amongst the rest of the squad for good measure.
What is a concern of Unai are 1) the slow start to games, here he emphasised the need for more urgency and responsibility from the players, and 2) still being too open at the back, with tougher games to follow soon he want us to show some defensive solidity if we want to continue breathing down the necks of the early log leaders. This shows an awareness of the areas which we need to improve on and taking steps to do so.
I’m not going to stick my neck out and say today will be a cakewalk, but the Gunners are in a rather bullish mood of late, so if it all clicks the Eagles could be in for a long afternoon, especially with their issues in front of goal.
PS: Pundits are questioning whether our winning streak against so-called lesser teams is a true reflection of where we are [looking at you Paul Merson]. While that remains subject to opinion, it’s results vs “the farmers” that will ultimately decide where we finish on the log at the end of the season. So today’s game is by no means less important than games vs top 6 opposition… and anybody that think otherwise can go kick rocks.
Positively Arsenal 
Second Half Arsenal.
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andy townsend whinging like the little bitch he is, he really does hate Arsenal, never forget his “get in” comment
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PEA: last six shots =six goals
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sub meyer hits the post with his first bit of action
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we are getting caught out in the right back area in last ten few minutes
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welbeck on for ozil
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Mesut’s worst game for a long while – not surprised he is pissed off
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Need a bit more energy on midfield – get Rambo on
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we need another goal to kill palace off
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welbeck is so uncoordinated
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we;ve not made the most of some promising breakaways, poor control or poor pass has seen us mess it up
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77 minutes PEA off, Ramsey on
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Lichtsteiner booked
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some seriously soft free being given to palace
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Diving bastard
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Right – let’s get the third
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that is zaha making contact with xhaka, and of course atkinson gives the penalty 2-2
all came from lacazette with an awful ball out of the palace area
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COME ON YOU GUNNERS!!!!!!
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atkinson giving every decision to palace
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5 minutes to salvage this game
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into 4 minutes of injury time
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Atkinson 2-2 Arsenal
cheated out of the win, plain and simple, the PGMOL is corrupt to the core.
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2 pens that should not have been given.
You can beat the opposition after a hard week but when they have the ref on their side it’s virtually impossible.
Bellerin injury? Didn’t help either.
Good point away at least.
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Frustrating. Clearly not at their very best, but ultimately undone by a serial diver, and a ref we have history with.
It was clear Atkinson was going to give Palace anything he could, and Xhaka against Saha was always going to provide an opportunity for a ref who seemed to look for just that. And then there was the media outcry over penalties in our last league game.
Still, at least we avoided defeat.
Welcome to the Premier league and PGMOL Emery, everyone knows what Saha is yet there are no shortage of refs willing to oblige him despite this.
More serial divers next weekend, we may need our established full backs to return.
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I said before the game Atkinson would reward Zaha for his dives, we all know how Atkinson is with Arsenal, the history is long, if not pretty.
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My stream went down just before the second Palace goal, so switched to 5 live where they were agreeing that it was a dive by Zaha. Also confirmed the handball assist for Auba’s goal.
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That would have been two goals (possibly three) ruled out by VAR.
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Handball assist for Auba’s goal? these eagle eyes you wisely rely upon missed the copious shirt pulling of Laca’s shirt.
Fix up.
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But if you know he’s a diving bastard why would any self respecting official be so quick to blow for the foul without conferring with your Lino who had the better view?
You can dress up a donkey with bells and indeed even a whistle…
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And the ripping of Holdings shirt previously
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So many times there is no hesitation whatever to give them, it’s like Riley is ion the headset saying Bingo!
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Mike cheating cunt Riley is in charge of the refs, so what do any of you expect from his refs, they are not there to enforce the rules, they are there to game manage as instructed. PGMOL is not fit for purpose.
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Lots of highly effective divers coming up, Salah, Mane, Kane, Alli, I am sure Jose will have a trick up his sleeve when we meet as well.
Do hope Mike Dean keeps a lid on such tactics when we play Spurs
Xhaka has coped manfully, but we will need specialist backs against that lot.
Atkinson did absolutely nothing about shirt pulling that was going on right in front of him
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Not my ‘eagle eyes’ APO, the 5 Live commenters opinions.
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Bitter, bitter way to lose precious points, softened slightly by fact our own 2nd goal shouldn’t have stood.
Was back to bad old days where I’m terrified when opposition in our box more for pen threat than goal threat.
Is there any way defenders can cope with the modern day pen hunters? Task is basically not just avoiding making fouls, but avoiding actions which opposition can create foul-like scenarios from.
That is very tough and if you could do it successfully it would come at a cost of having to stand off attackers more, be cautious about attacking ball even when no attacker in view,etc.
I have no hope our version of VAR will be much use dealing with the issue, despite some promising signs at world cup, such as the Neymar one which, I think, was overturned on review.
When Mustafi moves there’s no foul, and yet without him doing anything, and with it being impossible to stop once he’s moved, it becomes a foul because the Palace player inserts himself in Mustafi’s path. Hate those pens/fouls.
Haha just doing what he does. Get very close, turn, ignore ball, hone in on opponent leg/body, collapse with little spring from feet. Fucking hate it
And they’d already given it a damn good go beforehand with Ayew.
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Of course it’s the old wavey hands and get up gesture if it’s an Arsenal player genuinely being fouled in the box. Sickens me. Some of these Refs should be retired.
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That’s a good enough point given the week we’ve had, the pitch, the dives, the injuries to just about every left back, the everything. And the slightly strange decision to bring on Welbecj before Ramsey. And the even stranger decision to play a game (where heaven alone knows some sort of control in midfield was going to be quite useful but hard to come by) with your most mobile midfielder on the bench.
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‘But Zaha knew that if he ran at Xhaka he would unsettle him and maybe even panic him and that is what happened. You will never worry someone with a square pass but you will if you get on your toes and as Zaha drew the challenge from the Arsenal player he went to ground and Atkinson was always going to give the penalty from which Milivojevic scored.
There was not a huge amount of contact from Xhaka and Zaha could possibly have tried to stay upright. But things work differently at full pace and Xhaka’s movement towards his opponent was enough to unbalance him and the penalty was the right call.’
So little chance of the dive thing improving when one-eyed hacks so happy to say this stuff when it suits them.
Possibly try stay upright? Possibly try not collapsing his legs and throwing himself over more like
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Getting close to believing if you can’t beat em join em, I’m afraid. Too big a handicap as it stands.
We know Wenger was too good for that but will have to see with Emery over time and with any new attacking players
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Pen for Utd on cue
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So people moaning about ref and the pigmob now Didn’t I mentioned at the start of the season it will be the same old same old Pigmob to fix up Arsenal as they have been screwing us since Wenger years. Be ready PAs for more of this biased refreeing…..
People will realise someday the greatness of Wenger who fought out with this Pigmob for 2 decades.
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Hoping, possibly against hope that there will be a raft of Riley’s “special” refs retiring once VAR comes in , they cannot carry on forever.
I am sure Palace did their homework on Atkinson refereeing Arsenal.
Liverpool will have watched that with great interest.
Kind of agree with the concept, if you can’t beat them, join em, but would rather the refs got it right in the first place, with every assistant possible, and that the media were stronger on serial divers , of which Saha is one of the worst
The club are very different now in terms of senior staff, but it remains to be seen how Raul and co will act should they face the shit show that Wenger and co had to put up with, I suspect in that event, Raul would be on the phone to his good friend Mr Infantino.
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http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/topErhalteneElfmeter/wettbewerb/GB1
It’s early in the season, but Bournemouth , in the EPL have been awarded 6 penalties, we have been awarded a grand total of 0.
Sitting with a nice penalty balance deficit already , as we have for a fair amount of Riley’s tenure
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New post up
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