@LaboGoon at the head of an orderly queue
Good day one and all.
Arsenal is travelling to the London Stadium this afternoon to take on West Ham United; after a mini break from Premier League action last weekend as the FA Cup took centerstage.
Ah… West Ham. That 3-1 win against them at the Ems in the reverse fixture started so many good things. Unai Emery’s first win as Arsenal coach. The first in the 22 game unbeaten run. Players previously jeered getting cheered as they seemingly were finally got coached. Gooners full of joy as they sing and danced, “yea, we got our Arsenal back, wooooo”.
But we know what they say about good things right…
Without getting into detail I’ll just say the last two days has been fun and we got our Arsenal twitter and blog-sphere back. Phew!
The Hammers is a bit of a conundrum. History tells they have won just once in the last 23 meetings (in all competitions) between these two teams, yet we never expect them to be pushovers. Which I think is an acknowledge of the quality they always had over the years, they just haven’t always play to their strengths. This is where Manuel Pellegrini is sage.
Following a slow start to the campaign the Hammers are showing reasonably fine form despite a lack of points to show for it. Their summer recruit Felipe Anderson has been one of their standout performers and Arnautovic can single handedly turn games for his team. Throw the experience of Samir Nasri in there and you got a trio that can have a real go at any team that appear to be defensively suspect, especially in front of their own fans.
The Gunners did well to get some confidence back by starting the year with back-to-back wins after a heavy defeat at Anfield, but we know we can’t stop now if we have serious designs on getting back a Champions League spot and the riches it brings, so we need to be leaving our hearts out there as we near the business end of the season. Unai had a few problems in recent weeks most notably defensive injuries, but has been handed a major boost as six players resumed full training and now for the first time this season he has a full compliment of defensive players, bar Rob Holding of course, to select from. Being without a PL away clean sheet all season and an away win in four games (2D 2L), hopefully the right corners will soon get turned.
I suspect Unai’s greatest section headache will be whether to start Ramsey, who has shown good form and confidence, and Özil who we will need battle read with matches against Chelsea, Mancity and Manutd on the horizon.
West Ham are playing good football and look easy on the eye, but they are not a soft touch so we will have to be on top of our game if we want to return to the Emirates with all the points.
This could be a very anxious game of football for both sets of fans as both teams won’t want today to be their first defeat of the new year. However, with both sides possessing players that pose an attacking threat, it would be a surprise to see either keeping a clean sheet and this game could keep up on the edge of seats till the final minutes.
All the makings of a lunchtime classic.
Positively Arsenal 
I’m wasted on here
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Granit is much better with Torreira alongside these days
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Torreira and Ramsey on for Xhaka and Mustafi
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Good spot A5 re Xhaka. COYG!
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kolasinac rightly booked
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Ffs that is the third good chance we have had today
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That wasn’t a good miss
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Ramsey comes on the game changes!
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we’ve finally started to commit to attack
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so really why is Ramsey a sub if he is fully fit? he always add value to the team
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We can’t seem to hit the target
Which I appreciate is really quite difficult
But even so
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Ramsey seems to have helped liven things up a bit
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4 at the back and Ramsey as an AM, Ammers wobbling
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Oh dear, Andy Carroll can have a Charlie Austin , Shane Long type effect on us, does feck all against anyone else, but……
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Bellerin on for AMN
20 minutes left
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COYG! FOYI!
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The Rwandans will want their money back
And they may have grounds
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Could work in their favour, I would much rather Visit Rwanda than watch some of this
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Felipe Anderson the best player on the pitch by some distance today
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Well they could afford him with their free Stadium courtesy of our Tax
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I told you so
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FT: West Ham 1-0 Arsenal
awful first half, fell behind to a soft goal early second half, improved once we brought on Ramsey without ever really testing Fabianski
we are on a very poor run of form
our last 13 BPL games – W5 D5 L3 we’ve taken 20pts from a possible 39,
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If only the Arsenal had a player capable of unlocking a defence with a killer pass.
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It’s that mess Wenger left us with obviously, or it will be.
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starting to think we’ve got a negative head coach in Emery, too conservative in his approach
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The biggest problem we have is the manager. His decisions seem so ridiculous to me. Like playing Guendouzi all the blasted time and leaving our best players on the bench or and left out.
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Bloody frustrating. We didnt seem to raise the game at all after the first fifteen except for a short while when Rambo came on.
COYG!
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This team does not need a lot of players in, we have seen what this team can do. The talent is in house. The manger at present is clueless. I guess he needs time but this is past a joke.
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Unlocking the defence ? What – as in putting the strikers in front of the keeper with the ball at their feet unlocking – or another type of unlocking !
We had four good chances and on not one of them was Fabianski required to save the ball. For ten minutes after we went behind we played in the way we can, after that we were flat.
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Absolute bag of shite.
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Teams always miss chances, but that does not excuse playing no creative players in the mid. What tactics is he playing where Ozil cannot get a game?
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Fair point Andy but it still seemed so sterile and blunt. Not having an aerial threat makes a difference too. We can only ever turn to 2D in a 3D world.
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Desperately poor, a kind of compilation of our faults in the last year or so, especially away, perhaps even beyond the last year. That was tired, lacking creativity and playing into the hands of a decent but far from world class opponent. I remember not so long ago an Arsenal team would be peppering the opponents goal right to the final whistle if points were at stake. Only my own perception, but have a nagging doubt something left the club that fateful day at home to ludogrets that has never been adequately replaced, not just a player, but a philosophy, spirit and a confidence.
The manager will take a lot of stick for that starting formation, apart from the Ramsey spell, very little creativity. Will be very interesting to hear what he says about Ozil, he may be injured or unwell, but if this is about some sort of power play by the club or manager, it is costing us points.
But it is also only fair to say that the manager has info we do not, and it is not him missing sitters or making silly mistakes at the back.
There is still a lot to play for, but top four rivals don’t in general make the defensive mistakes we do at the moment, they have bigger squads , or at least players they will pick, bigger resources, and they don’t seem to get the Arsenal funks, Utd did, but no longer, or at least not those funks that last. I would say at the moment, Europe looks our best hope for what we are told is Emerys prime requirement, perhaps he suspects that himself.
Perhaps those Autumn early winter months reflected a new manager bounce. If so, it appears officially over. Think we need to brace ourselves for another tough season, you don’t get that much change with limited resources to put all right over night.
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If you don’t play the right players who else to blame?
Why not play Ozil or Ramsey for full 90 minutes instead of Guendozi and make an attacking threat rather start with a defensive mind set.
Torreira should have played the full 90 minutes as well.
UE not learning from Wenger.
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Made notes for first time for last 35 or so
Balls played forward to marked players; Give up wide channels in defence; Don’t really use long ball; Don’t knock long to compete in air; Still don’t switch into true defence mode actions (Xhaka header); prob more worrying than Pool; not big air threat from crosses; carte blanche to foul as we move ball out of defensive third; Iwobi dangerous;
rAMSEY GOOD FROM OFF; 3RD FAVS FOR 4TH; Fuck!! Carroll!!!
At least interesting (our future)- and without bad mouthing off Wenger (painful)
Ramsey providing thrust; Carroll not hit anyone 1st 5!; 77-Carroll finally gets change to elbow; phhhh; what are we exactly?; rICE GOOD; Hate Carroll; phhhh; Our best today?- Iwobi??’ Was Kola off? Yep; 85-urgh; where could we definitely improve?; any weak links?; no real signs of fightback; don’t really deserve point let alone 3; no big dop from away games last year
88-balls; 5/10 performance? even Ramsey threat died; off? Yep
Balls
Fuck
Piss Bollocks
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There’ve been a few beers but not my worst analysis I don’t think
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Emery messed up this game big time. It seems to me like he is trying to get a predominantly offensive team to play defensively and that kind of process will often lead to games like this where we lose our attacking edge and concede a silly goal and lose. Maybe Ozil is not up to pace yet and they are not risking him otherwise his absence is killing our offense and am pretty sure Emery himself can see that.
That was a poor loss in every way imaginable but am not going to lose faith in Emery just yet. We dust ourselves off and move on to the next game. UTA
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Your fractured phrasing matched AFCs performance in the final stages perfectly Rich. The disjointed stop-start lay out is spot on.
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I’d like to say WH played well, or pulled something that I was not expecting out of the hat. No, it was what I expected though, to their credit, they made no serious errors at the back.
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Outstanding hypocrisy from Morgan, Arseblog, Le Git,etc on twatter (and no doubt the rest of the Wobs later) and Emerys getting his bollocks mashed by generation aftv.
I think Emery has tried to get a big squad going so he rotated as much as possible and tried to be a real threat, which now seems a bit shaky. And the injuries havent helped. Since Rob got injured its been difficult for us. But some of the lads are on the way back or back.Just need a couple of good results? Weird thing is, its not like hes not a good manager.
Trouble is we dont really know what going on inside the club,
Finding a single culprit doesnt work as lifes not like that, but today will remain inexplicable as why should these players not click and get something going? Its the strangest part of football itself.
But trying to be level headed after that isnt so easy though. Unfortunately we live in a time of the instant click, and football teams aren’t made that way. And all the lads and Emery will be hurting as much as us.
COYG!
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Definitely feel we are 3rd favourites for 4th spot. Yikes. Could be we’ll abandon 3 at back after that and, if everyone stays fit, play Xhaka Torreira together in centre again? Start Ramsey.
If back to 4 though, raises questions about Kola in back 4. Also Ozil Ramsey issues, and still not completely sorted how to use Laca Auba.
Soooo…Lot to ponder for Emery.
Some retrospective thinking going on, but maybe not that much. Starting line up and performance looked to me that of team who are probably 6th best in prem.
Might not sound like it, but not same sort of agonies for me as bad results etc under Wenger- then I had double thing of not going as I hope for team, and the various pains of it not going as I want for us under Wenger.
I’m intrigued as to what the future holds for us, or maybe just a bit drunk.
We may need to really fucking hope a couple of the promising youngsters are seriously good.
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Suspect Torreira is either slightly injured, jaded, or being preserved with a demanding schedule , especially with the way he plays and not being used to our winter schedule.
Ozil, they really need to explain that one, unless there really is something we don’t know about, it’s baffling, especially with Mik injured.
On the manager , if you look at PSG, he had the luxury of something not so far off Wengerball. At other clubs, notably Seville, his tactics were, (as far as this limited observer can tell ,more from what I have read than what I have seen) variable, complex and often pragmatic, perhaps quite different to Wenger and what many of these players are used to. I suspect, in tandem with having to learn a new league, and make some mistakes in doing so, emery is a manager who will take time to put systems closest to him in practice, whether he is given that time is another matter. Arteta may have been a much closer fit to most of this squad, but without the pedigree of emery and a big risk, and allegedly wanted more say, and perhaps more money for transfers.
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And , it January, aren’t we traditionally shit in Jan/Feb ?
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Emery saying pretty much that Ozil didn’t play, because the players that did play deserved to play…..hmm
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Mandy
Remember Wengers Arsenal drew both at home and away to UEs PSG when PSG has Thiago Silva Mrquinhos Di Maria Cavani a much superior side.
As George tweeted a few days back Wenger would have extracted much more from the current Arsenal squad.
UE need to learn from Wenger and play an attacking game rather than prioritizing defence and stop playing from the back.
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A5 & Positivitas
Dont want to sound pessimistic but I warned you people earlier that we will lose our way in the winters but you people did not give weight to my fears.
It happened every year during Wenger’s regime but we did not went below 4th by 31St December mostly. Also Wenger had the expertise to give a final surge at the end of the campaign when the players worked hard for the boss and kept us in the top4 during 2009- 2013.
After we bought Cazorla Ozil & Sanchez we were never under fear of losing top4 however.
I hope UE can spin some magic and we keep our tradition of a late surge and finish above our rivals.
He need to play our best plaayers
Xaka Torriera Ramsey Ozil Auba Laca together on front foot & play an attacking game rather play from the back.
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Fuck me. The talk about betting yesterday. Know nothing about it apart from roulette wheel, and even then, but feel a smart operator could do well betting on Liverpool pens between now and seasons end.
Think it’s four in four. Said a few weeks back, just before start of that run, I expected them to do increasingly well so long as hunting title. Just like Leicester, and Pool’s last push when they came 2nd.
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What’s the use of playing Auba and Laca without proper service. Iwobi cannot match the skill of Ozil & even. MIKKHI.
We should have beaten Brighton and atleast drawn West Ham with Ozil and or Ramsey/Mikki.
Should have focused on beating smaller opposition rather saving Player energies for the bigger teams.
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Any arsenal formation that put either laca or auba on the wing can certainly not be our strongest 11. Any attempt to play them together should see the two in the middle. Non of them is good ball player like Alexis or even gervinho.
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I would hope at the very least someone might take the time to explain the offside rule to Kolasinac.
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