Rival Watch

That Chelsea team is much than our 10-11 though, defensively and offensively.

Yup.. they are either on par or better in every area to our 10-11 squad.

Now that they have signed Remy, they are a pretty flawless squad tbh.

Found this, thought it was amusing:

Cringeworthy pic comes back to haunt them

Well, they're at the 50% mark... but then they've only had 2 seasons to work on it so give them time to catch up.

Dortmund will apparently be without Gundogan, Sahin, Kirch, Reus, Kuba and Ji for their game against us. Also possibly without Hummels, who misses their game against Freiburg this weekend. Piszczek, Mikhitaryan and Immobile are fine, however.

GoonerJay29 wrote:Dortmund will apparently be without Gundogan, Sahin, Kirch, Reus, Kuba and Ji for their game against us. Also possibly without Hummels, who misses their game against Freiburg this weekend. Piszczek, Mikhitaryan and Immobile are fine, however.

It's a pity. I am hoping to be at Signal Iduna and was hoping for a really good game. Even without those players, BVB are a solid team and esp at home.

Arsenal have collected a meagre 26 points out of 90 against Premier League.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2753241/Arsenal-collected-meagre-26-points-90-against-Premier-League-big-boys-five-years.html#ixzz3D6dKpwpc

United get stomped 5-3 by Leicester, with whom we drew 1-1.

Spurs lose at home 1-0 to West Brom. We've got them next at the Emirates.

And Liverpool lost 3-1 to West Ham last night.

City vs Chelsea coming up.

Our top 3 rivals all dropping points is very nice, just need Everton to complete it.

Could do with more weekends like this.

What a terrific set of results. I like (and from a purely Arsenal POV I am slightly worried by) how certain lesser teams are not rolling over for the 6-8 big clubs. I've been impressed by Leicester so far this year. Allardyce's West Ham looked shockingly decent & fluid at times yesterday.

It's funny what a difference a week can make.

I haven't been on GL as much the last few weeks mainly because I've been busy, but secondarily because I could only take so much online kneejerk moaning after Dortmund, especially. It was a bad performance, yes. Worrying, sure.

But Man City and Chelsea didn't sparkle against German opposition that week either. Anyway Dortmund away was always going to be the hardest group stage match for us, now it's over, and crappy as the display was, we can and should move on!

Now, five league matches in, Arsenal are fourth in the table, ahead of every CL rival except Chelsea, we've played Everton & Man City and not lost at least, and also--along with Chelsea--we're the only undefeated side in the PL. Theo's coming back from injury soon. And it looks like maybe the 4-2-3-1 has returned, too. It's early in the campaign, yes, obviously it would be dumb to read too much into any of this. But that's precisely my point. Kneejerk gloom and doom this early in season, is just soul-crushing and unnecessary. Especially when, on an objective level, things aren't nearly that bad.

Top post, Chumlum.

Unfortunately Chelsea got the result they needed. Cant see past them this season.

Good post Chumlum.. I love how when Utd/City/Chelsea lose or draw to weaker opposition its touted as the upset of the century. Yet when we lose or draw it's crisis time, Wenger out/Arsenal old problems return/wouldawonwithcarvalho.

All the naysayers seem to think every bad day in the office justifies their feelings on Wenger and/or lack of appropriate signings. Is there any manager in the PL that is subject to the same scrutiny?

I agree on the above points and also deplore all the kneejerk doom and gloom.

However, people would be less kneejerky if the same problems didn't repeat themselves over and over and over and over and over in the last few seasons. Off the top of my head, my biggest gripes repetitively are:

* AW's stubborness in sticking with things which aren't working. It took a disaster at Dortmund to revert back to a formula which worked well last season and I wouldn't put it past him to go back to 4-1-4-1 in the very next game. And let's not pretend that away at Dortmund was a tough game - it was our best chance to beat them and we were completely outclassed by a team with a bigger injury list than us. There is no excuse for having 4 shots compared to 24 after 84'. I was there and it burned.

* Man management. If someone's having a bad game, why wait till the 80th to make changes? AW does it ever so often - not every game, but with alarming regularity none the less.

* Transfer market - I will probably never understand why we are playing with 6 proper defenders this season. Oh wait, one of them is already out for this year.

When the same issues repeat over and over, I can't really blame some of the fans for being pissed. Not saying I am one of the WOB lot, but at the risk of being the Devil's advocate, I can see where it stems from.

It's the manner in which Arsenal lost against Dortmund that lead to all the doom and gloom. If Arsenal play well and only lose narrowly then you have a much less-disappointed fan base but being beaten so convincingly, and in a way which highlighted flaws we've known about for ages, lead to an over-reaction. Throw in the draws against Everton, Leicester and City and average to poor performances and you can understand why enthusiasm would be dampened a bit.

You should know that the higher the expectations and hopes are, the stronger the backlash tends to be when the team performs below them. Patience is a virtue that's long since disappeared in football so the fact that there's still 40 to 45 games left to play isn't taken into consideration. Just the way it is these days. It doesn't help seeing Chelsea start so well and looking like clear title favourites, with their two best players being two new signings. This is the standard we all want to setting but for whatever reason can't, and that just annoys people even more.

But in reality, Arsenal's start has been quite reasonable when you compare it other team's in the league. Our main rivals for the top four have made worse starts than we have: Liverpool have lost 3 of their first five, including a home loss to Villa and a bad loss to West Ham back to back; Spurs just lost at home to West Brom and got destroyed by Liverpool; Everton just lost at home to Crystal Palace, got smashed by Chelsea and have the worst defensive record in the league; and United have had a very reasonable opening set of fixtures and have won only one of them.

We dropped points against Leicester and should've beaten City, but at least we're still unbeaten and haven't suffered any major embarrassments in the league so far (we do play Chelsea soon...).

Of course, it's still very early in the season and things don't start taking shape until about 15 games in, and even then you've still got plenty of time to turn things around if they aren't going well.

I completely agree with Jay here, mirrors my thoughts as well. On one hand, we have to deal with the (lack of) patience and this is only exacerbated by the (social & print) media sensationalism.

Wrt Chelsea's start - good for them, but I have been saying this for weeks now - a good start is not enough to win the league. The best example from recent times was that season when United had a crazy start, only for City to catch up and clinch the title.

But coming to our position again: It's early, we are trying to get everyone fit into a system which would serve us best the whole season, we haven't been helped by injuries and a shortened preseason, we have had some avoidable draws and a horrible European night. When you compare it with the other 'Top 4/5/6' rivals, the impact is moderated ever so slightly. However, it doesn't take away the fact that we could and should be doing a bit better.

If we take a point at the Bridge with a respectable performance, I would feel a tinge more optimistic. More so if we laid the ghosts from last season to rest.

We have three games at home coming up : Soton, NLD and Gala. 3 good performances and convincing wins would set us up nice and confident for the game at the Bridge.

*Liverpool have lost only one of their last 15 Merseyside derbies in the Barclays Premier League.

*The Toffees have not won away at Liverpool in the league since September 1999 (L7 D7 since).

*Liverpool have kept only one clean sheet in their last 11 Premier League games.

My prediction:3-2 to LFC
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*Manchester United's total of five points from five games is their worst haul at this stage since 1989-90.

*Manchester United have taken 31 points from their last 11 Barclays Premier League games against West Ham.

*West Ham have netted a league-high four goals from outside the box this season

*Manchester United have conceded six penalties in their last 15 Premier League games; before this run, they hadn't conceded one in 85 PL matches.

*Man Utd have lost 10 of their last 25 Premier League home games. The previous 10 defeats came across a period of 148 games.

2-1 to Utd
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*Chelsea have scored 27 goals in their last seven Barclays Premier League home games against Aston Villa

*10 of the 13 points (from nine games) that Jose Mourinho has taken against Aston Villa in the Barclays Premier League have come at Stamford Bridge.

*Chelsea have kept only one clean sheet in their last six Premier League games.

3-0 Chelsea
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*Nikica Jelavic has scored three goals in his last four Premier League appearances, after scoring three times in the previous 13.

*Frank Lampard has now scored in 18 consecutive Premier League seasons.

*Manchester City have eight points from five games; the last time they had fewer was in 2006-07 (4).

0-2 Man City
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*Three of Leonardo Ulloa's five Premier League goals this season have come within two minutes of the opposition scoring.

*After conceding only one set-piece goal under Tony Pulis, Palace have already let in five this season (excl. penalties).

0-1 Leicester

It's back

Next 4 League fixtures


Chelsea
Palaca(A)
Man Utd(A)
QPR(H)
Liverpool(A)

Man City
Spurs(H)
West Ham(A)
Man Utd(H)
QPR(A)

Man Utd
West Brom(A)
Chelsea (H)
Man City(A)
Palace(H)

Liverpool
QPR(A)
Hull(H)
Newcastle(A)
Chelsea(H)

a lot of direct clashes between them 4
we need to take full advantage pls

Anything less than 12 points in the next 4 games and we can forget about this season already.

we should be really beating this Man Utd side @Home but probably wont,argh

I have got to say the way United didn't fold against Chelsea (unlike us), we are going to lose against them unless we hurry up and get our act together.

silver wrote:I have got to say the way United didn't fold against Chelsea (unlike us), we are going to lose against them unless we hurry up and get our act together.

But but but, we lose to them anyway. Even when they were managed by almighty David Moyes.

silver wrote:I have got to say the way United didn't fold against Chelsea (unlike us), we are going to lose against them unless we hurry up and get our act together.

We couldnt even beat the Spuds at home, United will be tough and I dont think we can beat them. I dont think we can beat any top 10 teams.