Liverpool 5 - 1 Arsenal: We drew the second half!

Raptorgunner wrote:We make teams way better than they are, watch Liverpool lose to fulham now and United score 5 against us.

You can safely put me on suicide watch if it happens. What a horrific thought

Raptor, that header is from the Irish Sun, so don't put too much stick into it

If Liverpool can play this way v City and Chelsea then I won't be as pissed. Knock points off them too.

Lex wrote:Raptor, that header is from the Irish Sun, so don't put too much stick into it

lol, I figure, you know Wenger would kill him.

incredible a 'newspaper' can print that shit if it's made up, aren't they going to get sued till they can't walk straight?

Ozil has been the same in Madrid - Not a big game player. Replay some of Madrid's games against Barca - You will notice him frustratingly lose possession in the middle and final third easily. He some times had no clue and simply used run into defenders with the ball. Perhaps it is not a skill problem, but mental as he played well against lesser teams.

You guys will bounce back. We did completely obliterated Spurs and Everton exactly the same way and it was forgotten a week or two later.

Nedved wrote:Ozil has been the same in Madrid - Not a big game player. Replay some of Madrid's games against Barca - You will notice him frustratingly lose possession in the middle and final third easily. He some times had no clue and simply used run into defenders with the ball. Perhaps it is not a skill problem, but mental as he played well against lesser teams.

Yeah sure.
Some of his best games were against Barca.

Now CL, that is a different story.

I missed the first 23 minutes of the match. The rest of the first half was pretty awful. This was certainly one of the worst Arsenal displays I've seen ... couldn't seem to keep the ball at all. Passing was so off.

Özil seems to be one of the scapegoats of the game but I actually thought he was doing pretty well in the first 15 minutes of the second half before he got subbed off. I know he's "lazy" ... though sometimes he's actually moving around very intelligently, he just looks languid so people think he's lazy. Frankly I don't have any plans to write off Özil. He's a great player, I love that we have him, and until he has like a full season or two of playing badly, I'm not going to badmouth him.

Sometimes good teams have shit days. Sometimes great players look bad in a match. That's not an "excuse." There really isn't an excuse here. Just some perspective.

One other note - look, Jack is great, we all love the guy, etc., etc. But with the team's backs up against the wall, I really think he tends to disappoint. It's usually so obvious that he wants to do well for Arsenal, and it's great to see that desire, but it tends to come down to him nitpicking and getting shoved around a lot - sometimes winning fouls, but sometimes just (embarrassingly) getting picked off by Stevie frickin G. You can't be a footballing tough guy and let that happen to you. Maybe in another year or two he'll be better at grabbing games by the scruff of the neck. But so far I've just never seen Jack as "that man."

Frankly, a young English guy who's attitude I like more when the going gets tough is Ox's. Chambo's form may have been up and down over the last 12+ months, but I just love the guy's work ethic - keep your head down, try taking on guys in the box (hey, it wins penalties, which is better than Jack's constantly drawing fouls in the middle of the park), run a lot and run fast, and don't be afraid to pop in with an unexpected shot or something. From what I saw through my bleary, stunned morning eyes, the Ox was the one Arsenal player who could - relatively speaking!!! - hold his head high.

Wednesday - and a shot at redemption - can't come soon enough though.

Not here to gloat, but the early goal definitely put us on the front foot. Definitely helped ourselves with that. Questions to whether it was offside, but there's no cameras to help see if there was.

The FA cup in the Emirates game will be a completely different game.

Three factors will decide it.

1) Will Liverpool have a psychological edge after winning 5-1?

2) Will Liverpool have control of the game at the Emirates? You may have had the better possession, but Liverpool was always in control of this game. Arsenal just looked tired, and rusty. You guys really didn't turn up. The second half was "even" but I think that's because we dropped our intensity after the game was done after 5-0.

3) Will Arsenal take the FA cup seriously? Liverpool definitely will because we're only in two competitions right now, Arsenal still have Europe to think about. You also have a very hard set of fixtures to come up and rotation will be key.

Disappointing day at the office, obviously. But iirc, you guys lost 6-3 to City and then went on a winning streak / found some good form. Let's hope you can do the same, because I, nor do you guys, want to see Chelsea winning the league.   

what u want to see each other winning the league, instead of Chelsea

@Falcao - I am talking about big games in all competitions.

Lex wrote:Seriously, people who prefer Arteta over Flamini as a  defensive midfielder need to wake up and smell the bacon

Lex wrote:Who's the person who said he was glad Flamini was suspended?

If he was on the pitch today, no f*cking way do we concede 5 goals

where was he when we conceded 6 against City..
what he did when we were equally outplayed last game by Southampton...
he would have made some fouls and took an yellow which is the maximum he could have done..
so please get over this we missed Flamini nonsense...

Wenger post match...
on whether they missed Flamini…
Flamini played at Man City. I think overall it's just our team performance on the day was poor.

I wanted Liverpool to win it if we couldn't earlier in the season, but after some of the antics of some people yesterday, it's either us or I don't give a flying f*ck

Flamini can only do so much in his role (which he does very well)

if the rest of the team isn't playing well, can't just pin it on him if we lose

54% of the goals we've conceded this season have come in THREE MATCHES.

We've been ripped apart by City, Liverpool, stunned by Villa, lost away to United and yet we're 1 point behind 1st. Says a lot. There's only 13 matches to go and if we take it game to game we can still do this.

If we're within 3 points of the top with 5 matches to go, I think we'll win it.

I prefer Arteta over Flamini...

I said a few days ago against southhampton the team was set up the wrong way and it happens again yesterdat. WEnger is to blame for tactics not the team. ARsenal lost becoz the tactics were not good not bcoz arsenal had a bad game.

[Whoops, sorry, posted in the wrong thread.]

Lex wrote:Who's the person who said he was glad Flamini was suspended?

If he was on the pitch today, no f*cking way do we concede 5 goals

Like against Man City right? Oh waittttt.... and he was partnered by Aaron Ramsey

Pls Lex.

It's ok though, Arteta will be rotated against Man Utd or Buyern and we'll see Flamini and Wilshere partnered (unless Wenger sees the light and starts Chambo in midfield), and we'll see how the great Flamini will do. The combination of Flamini the headless chicken he can be and Wilshere's defensive ineptitude, oh dear....

boyzis wrote:I said a few days ago against southhampton the team was set up the wrong way and it happens again yesterdat. WEnger is to blame for tactics not the team. ARsenal lost becoz the tactics were not good not bcoz arsenal had a bad game.

Agree, I just wonder if we have the players to change the tactics at all. We don't have wingers to play through the wings. We only have the ability to play a 4-5-1 with a striker that it is not good enough and a 5 that are not disciplined enough to keep proper spacing. There is a complete lack of team speed, Most obvious to me at CF with Giroud and DM with Artetta. I am not sure that Giroud even has the pace to get by Artetta who does not have the pace to keep up with many. Then we have Arsene who obviously thinks that these are the proper tactics combined with the proper players since we have played the same tactics and players all year.

6unner wrote:

boyzis wrote:I said a few days ago against southhampton the team was set up the wrong way and it happens again yesterdat. WEnger is to blame for tactics not the team. ARsenal lost becoz the tactics were not good not bcoz arsenal had a bad game.

Agree, I just wonder if we have the players to change the tactics at all. We don't have wingers to play through the wings. We only have the ability to play a 4-5-1 with a striker that it is not good enough and a 5 that are not disciplined enough to keep proper spacing. There is a complete lack of team speed, Most obvious to me at CF with Giroud and DM with Artetta. I am not sure that Giroud even has the pace to get by Artetta who does not have the pace to keep up with many. Then we have Arsene who obviously thinks that these are the proper tactics combined with the proper players since we have played the same tactics and players all year.

Wait... So the team didn't play bad and it was all Wenger's fault? 

6unner wrote:

boyzis wrote:I said a few days ago against southhampton the team was set up the wrong way and it happens again yesterdat. WEnger is to blame for tactics not the team. ARsenal lost becoz the tactics were not good not bcoz arsenal had a bad game.

Agree, I just wonder if we have the players to change the tactics at all. We don't have wingers to play through the wings. We only have the ability to play a 4-5-1 with a striker that it is not good enough and a 5 that are not disciplined enough to keep proper spacing. There is a complete lack of team speed, Most obvious to me at CF with Giroud and DM with Artetta. I am not sure that Giroud even has the pace to get by Artetta who does not have the pace to keep up with many. Then we have Arsene who obviously thinks that these are the proper tactics combined with the proper players since we have played the same tactics and players all year.

this is the problem and i bet any money that we will not be able to break man utd down, they are just going to do what every other big team does, flood the middle and wait for cazorla or wilshere to give the ball away cheaply and hit us on the counter. *bleep* easy.

we need special player, we need a player that can atleast do shit with the ball instead of just pass. that is why someone like draxler was so important, or at least a competent pacey striker. we got none of these and thats why we wont win anything this season again. its too easy for top teams to stop us.

Coincidentally, I was saying something similar on Twitter last night after watching Bale and Jese for Madrid and Hazard for Chelsea. Unless we play quick passes with runners we can't break teams down. If we happen to not be playing that well, we just end up passing in front of the opposition until we finally make a break-through, leading to the usual 1-0 or 2-0 win.

It would benefit the team hugely to have someone who can run with the ball at pace and unbalance defenders. I hope Chamberlain and Gnabry can develop into that sort of player. Failing that, I hope we can get a striker that can do that sort of thing and, naturally, produce at the end of the run.

Giroud is worse than Chamakha, I really dont know Wenger sees in him anymore. Giroud is not our only problem, but he is the biggest one though. Lack of pace, lack of ability to run at or behind defenders, lack of desire to track back and defend, this is another big problem.
Tracking back should be everyones responsibility and many players did not do that last game.  

Rosicky should start in big games, drop ozil and Giroud.

I think Wenger should try a combination of arteta cazorla wilshere in the mid field but this means ozil moves to the left and ox/gnabry stay on the right. Now wilshere will have play a box to box role like Ramsey was doing in the second half last season not rush forward like ramsey this season. Basically you have a pviot which can retain possession in oppents half something which arsenal didn't do in Southampton or liverpool