CL 15/16 Match Day 3: Arsenal FC vs FC Bayern München Preview

One more downside (or is it?): after this perfomance, big clubs are going to try and raid some of our best players. If they keep performing during the season.

I hope the club is in a strong enough position to deny them unlike the banter era Arsenal.

GoonerJay29 wrote:That central unit plays better when we sit deep, though. I agree that playing that way is risky against teams as good as Bayern - I said as much after the United game - but at the same time this way suits us better at the moment because we haven't mastered the high press yet. It's not a tactic we use consistently, so it's best not to use it in such a big game. We at least had success playing this way before.

Btw, are Bayern fans sick of Petr Cech by now?

Yep, your defense is funnily really great at sitting back and absorbing pressure. Contrary to what is alwys claimed
Vividly remember that Tottenham away game couple of years ago, when Rosicky scored after 40 seconds or so, and then Tottenham waltzed all through you until the edge of the box where they couldn't get anything on Merte and Koscielny.

About Cech, always one of only four Chelsea players (Cech, Lampard, Essien, Drogba) who I didn't begrudge for the CL win and who earned it. Great player who I can't help but like.
Keepers like De Gea have a long way to go to get close to him.

GoonerJay29 wrote:Just to sober us up a bit: Ramsey likely to be out for another few weeks after doing his hammy yet again. Right when he was showing signs of getting his goalscoring form back, too (typically).

On the brighter side: Ozil. Fantastic effort from him. Don't want anyone accusing him of being lazy ever again.

Yeah, I was just thinking about Ramsey. This means Ox on the right against Everton - not sure how balanced that'd be, but let's hope Ramsey makes it back soon.

My GL jinxing earlier in the thread worked wonders for Özil

Anyway.

Terrible idea to make a troll match thread.

Sitting deep like that, of course, means the defence has better protection from the midfield. Centre backs magically look better when they have central midfielders five yards in front of them instead of 10 or 15. Fullbacks like Monreal are better when he can defend in a set position for most of the game and not chase back towards his own goal all game, like Bellerin had to do.

Games like these also show what a great partnership Mert and Kos are, and have been since 2012. Their "backs to the wall" defending is amazing.


Looking at the group situation now, we can lose to Bayern and still qualify if we beat Olympiakos and Zagreb, provided neither of those teams pick up any points against Bayern. If Olympiakos beat Zagreb again they'll go onto 9 points; if Zagreb beat Olympiakos they'll both have six. The latter is better for us, because even if those two did manage to get points against Bayern, we can all finish on 9 points, so it'll come down to head-to-head.

It'll get clearer after the next matchday, but we've given ourselves a chance of recovering from that god awful start.

Brilliant win, I liked how well we were organised and how hard we worked without the ball even thought we sat a little too deep and suffered a bit. Cech is surely the man of the match tonight, best goal keeping performance from an Arsenal keeper in a long time. Monreal was pretty good as well, din't put a foot wrong all night. Hat off to Bellerin on the assist for Ozil's goal, Ozil might not done much offensively today but his work rate was amazing and he got rewarded with the goal.

What can you say about Giroud, apart from the goal. He did what he should do more often. Get a bit more physical with the CB's. It's a shame he doesn't do it much more often, he can be a handful if learns how to channels all the boos and criticism he receives on the pitch into an aggressive performance.

I hope Ramsey is not out for too long, he is very important to us and offers us much balance in midfield. This win will surely inject much needed confidence, we need to build on this.

Saw the first half live but had to wait until this evening to watch the second half. Really strong performance IMO.

urbaNRoots wrote:One more downside (or is it?): after this perfomance, big clubs are going to try and raid some of our best players. If they keep performing during the season.

I hope the club is in a strong enough position to deny them unlike the banter era Arsenal.

If we can get top 2 in the league (difficult but doable) and/or if we can miraculously salvage a knockout run in the CL, I don't think there should be any kind of a collapse that will see our best players raided. Only a handful of teams out there will pay better, and in some cases (e.g. Ozil from RM, Alexis from Barca) those players already left from those teams. Only one I'm really worried about right now is the remarkable Bellerin, but even then I suspect he's willing to stay for a while still, and even if some other club lured him away, it'd be for big bucks, and the prospect of Debuchy/Jenkinson/Chambers is still pretty damn decent ...

Bets are off if we fall out of Europe and perform poorly in the league.

Its always been the case barcelonas and bayerns start to run out of fuel after an hour. Pep did relace his midfield but it back fired. Arsenal grew in confidence at that moment. Giroud was hungry for goals his determination paid off.

El Gunner wrote:

srigooner wrote:Before someone mentions Giroud being a supersub: he scores as a substitute when Arsenal tire the opposition out in the first 60-75 minutes with all the possession. Today, it has been Arsenal chasing the shadows.

srigooner wrote:When Wilshere is fit, he should start against bigger teams instead of Özil, who goes MIA. #rant

Never fails

Cut him some slack guys.It was me & Sri who were advocating for us to have a go at Bayern & look how it turned out.

Anyways,awesome victory.Feels as good as dat victory vs. Barcelona.And for people saying Bayern were unlucky,I guess we've been unlucky enough right from draws to injuries.Further,I guess this victory as a vindication of getting our tactics spot on.

AW tried something similar vs. Spuds last season but we got steamrolled.This time there was more cohesion in the compactness between midfield and the defence.The defence was rock solid in the D and the midfielders right outside the box to snuff out attacks occasionally and start attacks.Looked good on eyes but we're still to perfect it as could be seen with passing between the lines & in being compact we afforded to much time to the Bayern players,which we shouldn't.The opponents could've punished us on any other day.

And I guess no FB is gonna come good against Costa.Has got a bag full of tricks with which he can beat almost anyone 1v1.It's how we snuff out what he does after beating his man matters and we were spot on with that yesterday.

For people saying that If Lewa hadn't missed his chances,if Costa hadn't moved to the left blah blah,if Lord had scored that goal vs Barca @ Camp Nou,we would have qualified for the next round.Heck,we could've won the CL if mad Jens hadn't been sent off.There are no IFs in football.

P.S. I know I may not be making sense but I hope you people understand.

urbaNRoots wrote:One more downside (or is it?): after this perfomance, big clubs are going to try and raid some of our best players. If they keep performing during the season.

I hope the club is in a strong enough position to deny them unlike the banter era Arsenal.

I guess we've not got a whole lot of players that'd be preferred by European heayweights.They prefer flashier toys while the solid but unspectacular like Nacho.

Bellerin is the most threatened imo.Barca will start their "Come Home Belle" campaign soon.

Other than Belle,I guess Ramsey is the next most threatened player,especially after he declared he'd love to play for Barca.

Only these two and maybe just maybe Kosc.Other than these 2/3,I'm sure no other player is gonna interest the other big clubs.

BTW does anyone else feel Chambo has to improve his decision making in the final third?

Seemed to make all the wrong decision every single time last night.Not only in yesterday's match but his decision making has been a big letdown.I hope he understands his poor decision making is what is making AW use a CM as a makeshift RW instead of using him,an out and out winger.

Now that Ramsey is out,I hope regular game time can help Chambo improve his decision making.

El Gunner wrote:

srigooner wrote:Before someone mentions Giroud being a supersub: he scores as a substitute when Arsenal tire the opposition out in the first 60-75 minutes with all the possession. Today, it has been Arsenal chasing the shadows.

srigooner wrote:When Wilshere is fit, he should start against bigger teams instead of Özil, who goes MIA. #rant

Never fails

You noticed

T-Mach wrote:

El Gunner wrote:

srigooner wrote:Before someone mentions Giroud being a supersub: he scores as a substitute when Arsenal tire the opposition out in the first 60-75 minutes with all the possession. Today, it has been Arsenal chasing the shadows.

srigooner wrote:When Wilshere is fit, he should start against bigger teams instead of Özil, who goes MIA. #rant

Never fails

Cut him some slack guys.It was me & Sri who were advocating for us to have a go at Bayern & look how it turned out.

T-Man

I was desperately trying to reverse all the efforts Hans put into the early pages of the thread to jinx us out of the game.

T-Mach wrote:
For people saying that If Lewa hadn't missed his chances,if Costa hadn't moved to the left blah blah,if Lord had scored that goal vs Barca @ Camp Nou,we would have qualified for the next round.Heck,we could've won the CL if mad Jens hadn't been sent off.There are no IFs in football.

P.S. I know I may not be making sense but I hope you people understand.

FFS you make perfect sense!

I still cry myself to sleep every once in a while thinking of 2006. Then there was Birmingham in the League Cup final. Those hurt more than 8-2s and 6-0s ever did

The last two FA Cups went a fair bit in mellowing the pain though

Ox is generally low on confidence.

I facepalmed so hard when he skied that chance last night, I can still see the aftermath on my face this morning. :/

I don't think we have to worry so much about players leaving. Koscielny's 30 and past the age of buying for a big club, Ramsey I don't believe is consistent enough yet for a Barca/Madrid/Bayern, and Ozil and Alexis have both done the super club thing. Bellerin is the only one that should concern us.

http://news.arseblog.com/2015/10/arsenal-2-0-bayern-munich-by-the-numbers/

Just putting it there

Özil heat map

So proud of my team, so much joy.  I woke up today and felt like I had a threesome.

We put 2 past the best GK in the world, well deserved victory. We love playing under pressure, I think the more pressure the better we play. Every game is a Cup game.

In Munich we must do better job on Costa, really destroyed Bellerin and Ramsey didn't help at all. Its shame losing Ramsey, hope he gets better soon.

ffs it is so unnatural to see positive posts from Raptor.

I have to rediscover my cynicism soon and restore balance in the Force.

srigooner wrote:ffs it is so unnatural to see positive posts from Raptor.

I have to rediscover my cynicism soon and restore balance in the Force.

That was a good one.

no