The Only way is Up? - The Gooners match thread

[bedwetter2]

Everyone realises Tuncay and Kakuta aren't centre forwards right...

Kakuta has played up front for France U21s and for his previous club occasionally although it appears that Chelsea signed him as a winger. Tuncay has been pretty versatile and his position is ideally to play just behind a striker to link up play and get amongst the goals himself from time to time. You may have noticed that Davies is basically static (I don't want to call him a stump, but he is now) and offers very little apart from being a foul magnet.

There is a lot of truth in the saying "attack is the best form of defence". It gives the opposition something to think about and stops them pushing you back into your own half for most of the game as happened today and much too often recently.
We invite the oppostion to attack us; helped of course by lumping it up to Davies who promptly loses it. Stand up the guilty Jussi and Knight.

[hi there, i'm chris]

3-0

Confidence must be back at rock bottom now

It's not just confidence though, is it?
There needs to be a complete review by Coyle of his individual game tactics, training methods and the people running the training, selection policy (meaning whether players merit being picked continually when they have performed poorly) and, the lack of fight (which may have something to do with lack of confidence).
I don't trust him to really be objective as he reverted to type for this game when it would have been far better to select as many of those who played against Villa as possible (obviously excluding Cahill, if he is ill).

Or...

We can wait til we have a run of games against teams that ain't title contenders before having a complete overhaul of the club. Jesus Christ.

norwich and arsenal aren't title contenders.

To be fair though 1 win and it's going to be a completely different story. If we can grind out a draw at chelsea (at the moment seems an impossible task but you never know) then we will have a bit of confidence going into the wigan game. Holden will play against chelsea though, he could be our saviour

But Norwich and Arsenal were stuck right in the middle of those run of games, and regardless of Arsenal's start, they're still a very good side at home and there ain't many harder games.

We should have won against Norwich. That would have took the pressure off, but because of the tough start we have been given, confidence was low and Norwich capitalized on it. {eople are overreacting in a big way. Anyone bar Man Utd and Man City would have struggled with the start we have been given. I've seen enough in the QPR, City and today's game to show that once we pick up a couple of wins we will be just fine.

[Whookam]

he is, lest we forget, the same manager who had the team playing so magnificently at the beginning of the season,

Last season you mean?

[wanderers_on_tour]

What on earth did we do in around March time to anger the footballing gods so? No luck, no pace, no leadership, no confidence, very little hope. Things HAVE TO change, and now.

Go on...what exactly would you do, fire Owen???

You hit the nail in the head right at the start, we have no luck! Ten men, away, against Arsenal and with our main attacking outlet, N'Gog taken off with concussion in the first half. A first half where all things considered we didn't perform half bad. All we were missing is options up front and for that you can blame Koscielny for giving David N'Gog a good ol whack or Klasnic for being a silly bugger and thinking he's mr hard man.

Of course I wouldn't. You misunderstand my point. I have every faith in Coyle; he is, lest we forget, the same manager who had the team playing so magnificently at the beginning of the season, which means he has the potential to get us there again.

What I mean is more of a general hope that our luck will suddenly reverse. But I do agree with some posters, insomuch that Robinson, Knight and Jussi need to start taking more of a back seat, as does Davies, if at all possible. We're lacking pace at the back, and lacking confidence in several key members of our back line. I'd give Bogdan half a chance; play Gardner at left back; and play Wheater (or Boyata, now that the former is suspended) alongside Cahill when Gaz isn't throwing his guts up. We're currently in one hell of a rut, even if you are taking this season in isolation, and not sticking in our horrible run at the end of last season as well. Confidence will be absolutely shot, and I think we need someone like Reo-Coker to take this team by the scruff of the neck, and have our Martin Luther King moment of inspiration now, rather than allowing this run to stagnate on and on.

Fair fair, my bad for mis understanding. Going down to ten men really did ruin our whole shape and system, until then Robinson/Petrov had done a really good job on Walcott and keeping him quiet. After the Man Utd game I was whole heartedly in the 'drop Jussi' camp but he wasn't half bad against Norwich and made some quality saves today and bossed the box well to stop the game becoming 5 or 6-0 in the second half.

[wanderers_on_tour]

Everyone realises Tuncay and Kakuta aren't centre forwards right...

Kakuta has played up front for France U21s and for his previous club occasionally although it appears that Chelsea signed him as a winger. Tuncay has been pretty versatile and his position is ideally to play just behind a striker to link up play and get amongst the goals himself from time to time. You may have noticed that Davies is basically static (I don't want to call him a stump, but he is now) and offers very little apart from being a foul magnet.

There is a lot of truth in the saying "attack is the best form of defence". It gives the opposition something to think about and stops them pushing you back into your own half for most of the game as happened today and much too often recently.
We invite the oppostion to attack us; helped of course by lumping it up to Davies who promptly loses it. Stand up the guilty Jussi and Knight.

Ayee, but hasn't this usually been playing just off the striker not leading the charge himself. Just don't see him as being strong enough to hold up the ball and bring other players into the game.

Your right about Davies in him playing as a lone striker but as he showed with Elmander/Sturridge last year he can be great when played with a mobile striker in an attacking 2. I expect us to line up 4-2-3-1 again against Chelsea but wouldn't be against a 4-4-2 with Davo/N'Gog

[Montreal Wanderer]

First after the first game and last after the last. It is a diabolical schedule we got landed with but we should have done more against Norwich. All very depressing. Still I'm going to watch the Canadiens play Ottawa tonight so there could be a ray of sunshine somewhere today.

[officer_dibble]

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...

[thebish]

missed the whole thing due to conducting a wedding - and it looks like that was just as well

presumably the Ngog injury and the sending off buggered up any idea of a new shape we might have had? any news on how ill Cahill is?

[bedwetter2]

3-0

Confidence must be back at rock bottom now

It's not just confidence though, is it?
There needs to be a complete review by Coyle of his individual game tactics, training methods and the people running the training, selection policy (meaning whether players merit being picked continually when they have performed poorly) and, the lack of fight (which may have something to do with lack of confidence).
I don't trust him to really be objective as he reverted to type for this game when it would have been far better to select as many of those who played against Villa as possible (obviously excluding Cahill, if he is ill).

Or...

We can wait til we have a run of games against teams that ain't title contenders before having a complete overhaul of the club. Jesus Christ.

norwich and arsenal aren't title contenders.

To be fair though 1 win and it's going to be a completely different story. If we can grind out a draw at chelsea (at the moment seems an impossible task but you never know) then we will have a bit of confidence going into the wigan game. Holden will play against chelsea though, he could be our saviour

But Norwich and Arsenal were stuck right in the middle of those run of games, and regardless of Arsenal's start, they're still a very good side at home and there ain't many harder games.

We should have won against Norwich. That would have took the pressure off, but because of the tough start we have been given, confidence was low and Norwich capitalized on it. {eople are overreacting in a big way. Anyone bar Man Utd and Man City would have struggled with the start we have been given. I've seen enough in the QPR, City and today's game to show that once we pick up a couple of wins we will be just fine.

Jesus Christ? Are you advocating that we don't try until someone easy comes along? It ain't going to happen lad. None of them are easy and you may realise at some point that you must shake things up to get out of a hole. Your attitude sounds complacent and I don't like that.

[thebish]

general notice:

the Knee-Jerk thread remains at your service!

[bedwetter2]

general notice:

the Knee-Jerk thread remains at your service!

No. I want a hanging thread!

[Prufrock]

Mark Clattenburg can f*ck off. Just not a foul, ever. Ran alongside Wheater and fell over, the diving little shit. Hope his hamstring is fecked, coz without pace he's shite.

That out of the way, there were a lot more positives from that than the last few weeks. We were comfortable first half, Knight, Robinson and Steinsson were good, Wheater excellent. Muamba and Reo Coker did very well too. Nice to see that dropping Davies when he isn't playing well is now a thing. We played well first half, but N'Gog's injury meant Davies was the only option (Kakuta, up front on his own? Feck off back to FIFA). Davo was shit on the ground, and won everything in the air, mainly coz Koscielny is wank. Very impotent once N'Gog went off though. Eagles is never a premiership player. Oh well, at least Torres can't score against us. Just the old boys. Gulp.

Get pea-head back for Wigan, we'll be reet. Though he'll probably do his knee on their shit pitch.

[hi there, i'm chris]

Or...

We can wait til we have a run of games against teams that ain't title contenders before having a complete overhaul of the club. Jesus Christ.

norwich and arsenal aren't title contenders.

To be fair though 1 win and it's going to be a completely different story. If we can grind out a draw at chelsea (at the moment seems an impossible task but you never know) then we will have a bit of confidence going into the wigan game. Holden will play against chelsea though, he could be our saviour

But Norwich and Arsenal were stuck right in the middle of those run of games, and regardless of Arsenal's start, they're still a very good side at home and there ain't many harder games.

We should have won against Norwich. That would have took the pressure off, but because of the tough start we have been given, confidence was low and Norwich capitalized on it. {eople are overreacting in a big way. Anyone bar Man Utd and Man City would have struggled with the start we have been given. I've seen enough in the QPR, City and today's game to show that once we pick up a couple of wins we will be just fine.

Jesus Christ? Are you advocating that we don't try until someone easy comes along? It ain't going to happen lad. None of them are easy and you may realise at some point that you must shake things up to get out of a hole. Your attitude sounds complacent and I don't like that.

Don't be ridiculous. You sound like you expected us to be in a decent position. Reality check, we were always going to struggle. Until we play matches that we are expected to get results then nothing needs 'shaking'.

If we had the same start against teams like Swansea, West Brom, Blackburn, Wigan then yeah, I would be much more worried. But as it stands, we would have been expected to have had a win against Norwich and perhaps a draw at a difficult opening game fixture at QPR. We tonked them, but put in a poor performance against Norwich.

I'm disappointed that we didn't show more against Liverpool and Man Utd, but Man Utd are in a whole different class to anyone else at the moment, and we never do anything at Anfield. Even today, up until the soft sending off we were very much in the game and given a bit of luck we could have walked away with a point.

If we're in the same position after we've had our run of Wigan, Sunderland, Swansea, Stoke and West Brom, then I'll be worried. At the moment, I'm cursing the bad run of fixtures we've been given.

[thebish]

Mark Clattenburg can f*ck off. Just not a foul, ever. Ran alongside Wheater and fell over, the diving little shit. Hope his hamstring is fecked, coz without pace he's shite.

That out of the way, there were a lot more positives from that than the last few weeks. We were comfortable first half, Knight, Robinson and Steinsson were good, Wheater excellent. Muamba and Reo Coker did very well too. Nice to see that dropping Davies when he isn't playing well is now a thing. We played well first half, but N'Gog's injury meant Davies was the only option (Kakuta, up front on his own? Feck off back to FIFA). Davo was shit on the ground, and won everything in the air, mainly coz Koscielny is wank. Very impotent once N'Gog went off though. Eagles is never a premiership player. Oh well, at least Torres can't score against us. Just the old boys. Gulp.

Get pea-head back for Wigan, we'll be reet. Though he'll probably do his knee on their shit pitch.

Pru - you're a breath of fresh air! (are you on medication?)

[chaddy_bwfc]

http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodispl ... -15451339/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Going back to the red card, this probably doesn't show the best angle, but I still can't see where he makes him go down :S

[hi there, i'm chris]

Wheater was excellent in the first half, and the red was very soft. Was always going to go once Walcott went down. Feel for the lad as this was his chance.

I wasn't really paying much attention when we went 2-0 down, but Boyata seemed to be decent enough at center back too.

Robinson needs to be dropped though. I like him, and he doesn't do an awful lot wrong, but every goal seem to come from the left, and he doesn't have the pace to stop crosses from coming in. Give Ricky a chance at left back when fit I say.

[chaddy_bwfc]

Wheater was excellent in the first half, and the red was very soft. Was always going to go once Walcott went down. Feel for the lad as this was his chance.

I wasn't really paying much attention when we went 2-0 down, but Boyata seemed to be decent enough at center back too.

Robinson needs to be dropped though. I like him, and he doesn't do an awful lot wrong, but every goal seem to come from the left, and he doesn't have the pace to stop crosses from coming in. Give Ricky a chance at left back when fit I say.

He doesn't do a lot wrong, apart from defending crosses....isn't that his job?

[hi there, i'm chris]

Wheater was excellent in the first half, and the red was very soft. Was always going to go once Walcott went down. Feel for the lad as this was his chance.

I wasn't really paying much attention when we went 2-0 down, but Boyata seemed to be decent enough at center back too.

Robinson needs to be dropped though. I like him, and he doesn't do an awful lot wrong, but every goal seem to come from the left, and he doesn't have the pace to stop crosses from coming in. Give Ricky a chance at left back when fit I say.

He doesn't do a lot wrong, apart from defending crosses....isn't that his job?

And that's why he should be dropped.

[bedwetter2]

Mark Clattenburg can f*ck off. Just not a foul, ever. Ran alongside Wheater and fell over, the diving little shit. Hope his hamstring is fecked, coz without pace he's shite.

That out of the way, there were a lot more positives from that than the last few weeks. We were comfortable first half, Knight, Robinson and Steinsson were good, Wheater excellent. Muamba and Reo Coker did very well too. Nice to see that dropping Davies when he isn't playing well is now a thing. We played well first half, but N'Gog's injury meant Davies was the only option (Kakuta, up front on his own? Feck off back to FIFA). Davo was shit on the ground, and won everything in the air, mainly coz Koscielny is wank. Very impotent once N'Gog went off though. Eagles is never a premiership player. Oh well, at least Torres can't score against us. Just the old boys. Gulp.

Get pea-head back for Wigan, we'll be reet. Though he'll probably do his knee on their shit pitch.

I don't dispute that the first half was ok, apart from putting Davies on when N'gog was injured. Two things happened to us - we lost N'gogs movement and then Wheater was sent off. Unfortunately, it wasn't just about us. I believe Arsenal were given a kick up the arse at half time and stepped up a gear in the second. We should have countered that by putting on some attacking pace. Putting on Davies was tantamount to saying "we give up". I don't agree that Robinson had a good game and Jussi's positioning again was suspect.

As to your comment about Kakuta and Tuncay, get out of here, it ain't been tried by us and you have no idea whether it would be better than the "only option" who provide the square root of nothing.

[Sponge]

Mark Clattenburg can f*ck off. Just not a foul, ever. Ran alongside Wheater and fell over, the diving little shit. Hope his hamstring is fecked, coz without pace he's shite.

That out of the way, there were a lot more positives from that than the last few weeks. We were comfortable first half, Knight, Robinson and Steinsson were good, Wheater excellent. Muamba and Reo Coker did very well too. Nice to see that dropping Davies when he isn't playing well is now a thing. We played well first half, but N'Gog's injury meant Davies was the only option (Kakuta, up front on his own? Feck off back to FIFA). Davo was shit on the ground, and won everything in the air, mainly coz Koscielny is wank. Very impotent once N'Gog went off though. Eagles is never a premiership player. Oh well, at least Torres can't score against us. Just the old boys. Gulp.

Get pea-head back for Wigan, we'll be reet. Though he'll probably do his knee on their shit pitch.