The Only way is Up? - The Gooners match thread

[BWFC_Insane]

It's still to early to judge whether we are in Sammy Lee territory yet.

What I do know is going to Arsenal without your best midfield player, best defender and then your striker goes off after 20 mins....I'd say it wouldn't matter who you have in charge, you are fooked unless you have signed a few hundred million worth of players!

Season starts after Chelsea. It will be clear in 4 or 5 weeks time how good or bad we are. End of the day Coyle is a bright young manager. He needs to keep us up as much as we need him to otherwise his career is dead. For that reason I'd back him to turn it round!

[chaddy_bwfc]

yeah i'm really hoping that coyle dropping SKD is a step in the right direction and that he doesn't stop there when someone's having a horrible time, like robinson. I hope he puts Gardner at left back for the next game because there can't possibly be any more crosses coming in from that side than what's been getting put in so far.

i was being highly repetative in blaming petrov for not doing enough work.

that he didnt play midweek and they won were a big "this might be the problem" alarm .

that and muamba getting subbed all the time, then losing by more goals once he's not on.

its pop idol football we arent good enough for.

ah ok, yeah i want to see someone compete with petrov for that left wing like taylor did last year, maybe try eagles on the left again?
Once holden gets back to full fitness i think it will help boost moral a bit, him and muamba central mid, be like the good old times

[TANGODANCER]

I'll edit as there may be evidence and i could look a tit...my guess was cahill bottled it. Spineless; like they all were at wembley...am i wrong?

the myth of owen coyle....havent seen us pass thr ball since qpr...

He and his Mrs had a baby this week. Six weeks premature. Probably some worry and a few sleepless nights might contribute to him not feeling at his best?

[thebish]

I'll edit as there may be evidence and i could look a tit...my guess was cahill bottled it. Spineless; like they all were at wembley...am i wrong?

the myth of owen coyle....havent seen us pass thr ball since qpr...

He and his Mrs had a baby this week. Six weeks premature. Probably some worry and a few sleepless nights might contribute to him not feeling at his best?

hmmm... that's right! IIRC - the start of Nolly's serious downturn in form began when he and his missus had their first baby....

[TANGODANCER]

Been too gutted to post up to now. Ten men against Arsenal away, N'gog injured early on and Clattenburg refereeing. Doesn't take much explaining why we lost. Davies is to blame for nothing. He accepted not starting, came on and was a solitary figure without any support whatsoever in sight. Thought the idea was to play him with a striker, not be a one-man attack force. He gets slated for being responsible for one of their goals; what was he doing in his own box? It's simple really; the rest of the side spent almost all the second period in our own half chasing shadows. We had one clear cut chance all game and even then,once Eagles was forced wide it was never on. Arsenal even showed us how to play; man marking and hassling, not playing catch me if you can in favour of zonal nonesense.

The Davies game is over, the referees and whinging managers playing mind games with refs have seen to that. Unless he can be found a role other than playing Billy no mates in opponents halves he may as well not play at all. Two nil down and we bring Mark Davies on, why not Tuncay? If all we're going to do is leather the ball towardsthe opponents box,at least have somebody there. We're way too slow in build-ups, and keep sending the ball backwards is as fruitless as a meat pie. We got a lesson that, but for Jussi would have been a humiliation.

Oh, and Van Persie touched eyebrows with Pratley, why did he not walk? Again, simple, because our players don't cheat. If Pratley had gone down Clattenburg would probably have booked him for diving.

Rant over. Bring on Chelsea....

[Lofthouse Lower]

You call that a rant?

[Harry Genshaw]

A big thing in Coyle's favour has always been his ability to motivate players. LIke most have said on here, we had next to no chance of getting anything from our previous games other than Norwich. Under lesser managers, the team would be too flat and not pick up points in the forthcoimg 'easier' games. Coyle will ensure we do. We'll be reet.

[Choppers]

You can be the best full back in the world, but if you are in a formation that is basically 4-2-4 with no support from the wingers defensively, you're gonna get savaged over and over, and crosses will rain in.

Attack is the best form of defence? Yeah, if you want a game that ends with scorelines like 8-6 or 5-7.

If you don't have a balanced squad then you are fecked. You either accept that Petrov and Eagles can't defend, and play 4-3-3 to remove the defensive duties, and have a more defensive midfield, or you accept you will be under extreme pressure down the flanks every time the opposition get the ball.

So we switch to a 4-5-1...

Coyle is fannying around with the team that he had a whole pre-season to sort out. Mark Davies in, then out, Pratley in - and presumably out again. No chemistry, no understanding.

Our players AND manager need to toughen up. Stop all this nicey nicey bullshit with other players and managers, and act like we want to win. Coyle is so busy playing friends with everyone else, he's forgotten he's the boss. Crack some heads, remind them what it means to play for the club.

As it stands, there will be ENORMOUS pressure on Stuart Holden's return to the first team.

That said, let's hope we can get out of Chelsea with our heads held high and restart our season - that'd be nice!

[a1]

Its' Sammy Lee time if you ask me, we are facing the same problems, on paper we look good but on the field we are utter shite, big time shite!
Coyle does not look like a man for this type of situation don't forget Burnley were on their way out when we poached Coyle and that hardly bodes well given our current problems THIS IS MORE OR LESS COYLES SQUAD AND HIS TINKERING ABOUT AIN'T WORKING!
Couple more results like this and it must be time for Coyle out! and that ain't no knee jerk either its evidence of own eyes.

megson out !

[Lord Kangana]

We knew these first seven games would be tough. Surprisingly enough it has been.

We've been beaten by 4 teams who've spent more this year than we have ever. And a newly promoted Norwich. Which was a bit shit.

I'm not losing any sleep just yet.

[hisroyalgingerness]

I'm sure we'll be able to turn on the clean sheets, game plan, passion and flair just as soon as we've got passed Chelsea. Click of the fingers and bam, chins will be up. We'll see.

[Lord Kangana]

Well nobody got carried away after a tremendous away win at a pretty much full strength Villa. So why start now?

[hisroyalgingerness]

And why should they? It ultimately counts for nothing when in the day job there's only 3 points on the board and 19 teams ahead of us in the league

[Lord Kangana]

And the last time we garnered three points away to Arsenal or Liverpool was?

[Wandering Willy]

4 points off 8th place.

It's September. We've had a tough run, much tougher than most.

Been here before. It'll be reet.

[hisroyalgingerness]

That's not the point. The point is 5 straight losses. And 5 straight losses at the Fortress Reebok. The point is one win in 11.

No matter who the opponents a run of results like this is going to hurt. Fingers get pointed. Tensions start. Loyalty and respect of the coaching staff begins to wane. We can't assume these things will just be replaced once we've ticked the Chelsea box off the advent calendar.

Not when against Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal there are so few positives to actually take.

[Tals-biggest-fan]

Has anybody else noticed that when a team or player is doing poorly they seem to shine against us! Arsenal today, Liverpool this season, Robbie Keane for liverpool and im sure theres more out there I can't think of!

[Lord Kangana]

Duncan Ferguson (was it a hat trick?). Alan Shearer. Robbie Fowler...

[bedwetter2]

Been too gutted to post up to now. Ten men against Arsenal away, N'gog injured early on and Clattenburg refereeing. Doesn't take much explaining why we lost. Davies is to blame for nothing. He accepted not starting, came on and was a solitary figure without any support whatsoever in sight. Thought the idea was to play him with a striker, not be a one-man attack force. He gets slated for being responsible for one of their goals; what was he doing in his own box? It's simple really; the rest of the side spent almost all the second period in our own half chasing shadows. We had one clear cut chance all game and even then,once Eagles was forced wide it was never on. Arsenal even showed us how to play; man marking and hassling, not playing catch me if you can in favour of zonal nonesense.

The Davies game is over, the referees and whinging managers playing mind games with refs have seen to that. Unless he can be found a role other than playing Billy no mates in opponents halves he may as well not play at all. Two nil down and we bring Mark Davies on, why not Tuncay? If all we're going to do is leather the ball towardsthe opponents box,at least have somebody there. We're way too slow in build-ups, and keep sending the ball backwards is as fruitless as a meat pie. We got a lesson that, but for Jussi would have been a humiliation.

Oh, and Van Persie touched eyebrows with Pratley, why did he not walk? Again, simple, because our players don't cheat. If Pratley had gone down Clattenburg would probably have booked him for diving.

Rant over. Bring on Chelsea....

I agree with much of that, apart from the Jussi bit.
The thing is, if we are really honest, a lot of supporters have known that the Davies game is up for some time because he is a marked man by opposition defences and referees. His modus operandi cannot possibly be effective and really hasn't been for a year or two. It's one of those riddles which does appear to have no answer. Why does Coyle keep picking him when the evidence clearly shows that he has declining physical powers, defences who know how to handle him (literally at times) and no sympathy from referees.
Any striker is ineffective without support never mind the other handicaps which Davies suffers from. There is no defence for the team selection or pecking order of subs. It is unbalanced and naive.

[bedwetter2]

You can be the best full back in the world, but if you are in a formation that is basically 4-2-4 with no support from the wingers defensively, you're gonna get savaged over and over, and crosses will rain in.

Attack is the best form of defence? Yeah, if you want a game that ends with scorelines like 8-6 or 5-7.

If you don't have a balanced squad then you are fecked. You either accept that Petrov and Eagles can't defend, and play 4-3-3 to remove the defensive duties, and have a more defensive midfield, or you accept you will be under extreme pressure down the flanks every time the opposition get the ball.

So we switch to a 4-5-1...

Coyle is fannying around with the team that he had a whole pre-season to sort out. Mark Davies in, then out, Pratley in - and presumably out again. No chemistry, no understanding.

Our players AND manager need to toughen up. Stop all this nicey nicey bullshit with other players and managers, and act like we want to win. Coyle is so busy playing friends with everyone else, he's forgotten he's the boss. Crack some heads, remind them what it means to play for the club.

As it stands, there will be ENORMOUS pressure on Stuart Holden's return to the first team.

That said, let's hope we can get out of Chelsea with our heads held high and restart our season - that'd be nice!

I agree with a lot of this as well. We are as soft as shi'te and the team selection is awful. My comment about attack being the best form of defence is logical provided we play a balanced team. In the case of today, second half involved being in our half for most of the time with no outlet apart from Davies. Pointless.
Coyle certainly needs to man up. I'm not sure it's in his nature.
We will not get anything from Chelsea unless you are talking about a few nebulous Sammy Lee type positives. Our season will start after Sunderland - too late, I'm afraid.