Arsenal Banter Archive September 26 2016

 

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26 Sep 2016 12:47:19
I was away at the weekend and watched the Chelsea match late last night. Terrific performance. The defence looks so solid with Mustafi, it has enhanced Bellerin as he doesn't have to be on the look out for an opponent getting in behind Mertesacker. Shame that Coquelin was injured, but what a replacement in Xhaka, who is pure class. A great footballer, who plays on his feet. He is strong, tall, athletic and has an excellent left foot.

We even have Elneny in reserve and he is very unfortunate not to be playing regularly. I hope that Wenger is clever with his use of the squad over the season, as we have midweek matches most weeks. I would like to see him use squad in a similar fashion to SAF, who rarely played the same team in consecutive matches. I recall him going over 60 matches without playing the same team, two matches running.

He had a core of players that he simply couldn't not play, but the rest were rotated. The likes of Gibbs, Gabriel, Ospina, Ox, Elneny, Perez and Giroud can all be used for this purpose and we have Ramsey, Welbeck and Mertesacker to return from injury. I'm really looking forward to Wednesday's match and I have a suspicion that we could possibly finish top of our group this season.

Believable3 Unbelievable1

26 Sep 2016 22:31:51
Mustafi and Xhaka are 2 fantastic players and are the 2 players we needed most.

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27 Sep 2016 17:30:39
I will give you your due RG you are tenacious mate :-)
If we do get injuries you could be very useful in the MF at some point :-)

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26 Sep 2016 11:17:47
Hello SY4, Chelsea fan popping over here (be gentle lads) . Just felt like I ought to reply to your comment on how we didn't know what European football was before Roman a bit further down this page.

So are we just going to ignore the Cup Winners' Cup in 1971 and 1998, plus the super cup in 98 as well? There's no need to be bitter about European Cups, you might get one one day! Just remember though, it's the taking part that matters most.

Believable0 Unbelievable0

26 Sep 2016 11:36:10
I guess when you've won 13 league titles,12 FA Cups gone a whole season unbeaten or spent 89 consecutive years in top flight football instead of 26 you won't have to mention just little old Europe. πŸ˜‰.

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26 Sep 2016 12:14:47
Go easy on Saim, he's a good lad 😁.

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26 Sep 2016 14:31:21
When you've not won a league title in over a decade and not beaten your rivals in 9 league matches (or scored in 6) you can celebrate the match on Saturday.

In all fairness you completely dominated us, we were truly shocking! If Zouma and JT were fit I think it might've been a different story, but I guess we'll never know. Hopefully we'll be right up there come the end of the season. I expect City will run away with the title. Top 4 battle will be very interesting with you, Liverpool and Spurs looking very good and obviously United will be up there. If we don't sort things out we will get left behind, though I expect this is just a blip.

Back to my original post. We clearly did have European experience and some massive name players before Roman came in so I'm not really sure where this joke has come from. We had players like Zola, Wise, Poyet, Di Matteo, Weah, Gullit, Vialli, Deschamps, Desailly, Le Bouef, Petrescu, Hasselbaink etc etc, hardly a nothing team!

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26 Sep 2016 14:33:27
Saim 1994 eufa cup look who the winners were.

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26 Sep 2016 16:16:04
It's like boasting how many bronze medals you have won.

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26 Sep 2016 21:15:57
But we've also got the gold medal sanogolovesbentner, only club in London who can say that I believe. And the most recent in England!

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26 Sep 2016 22:56:16
Oh god and here's me thinking your a spurs fan lol.

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27 Sep 2016 00:49:35
How dare you! Haha!

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26 Sep 2016 11:07:45
I'm just watching the game again and that tackle from Bellerin was a peach, the fact his interception was picked up by Xhaka was even better.

He just looked up and pinged a long cross field ball over to Walcott and in a split second we were bearing down on their goal again.

Bellerin and Walcott on that right side has the potential to be an awesome pairing.

Believable4 Unbelievable0

26 Sep 2016 22:34:58
I think the key to bringing out the best in Walcott is to play football at a fast pace.

When we play slow his positional play is pretty poor, but when we adopt a high tempo game, he gets into decent positions.

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27 Sep 2016 01:12:43
The key to walcot is playing games of football.

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27 Sep 2016 07:52:36
I also think Walcott has now got the fact that he needs to defend as much as attack, which is a big plus.

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{Ed025's Note - one swallow does not make a summer though red dog, yes he was very good on saturday but he has to put in performances like that every week if he is to be taken seriously mate..

27 Sep 2016 08:25:56
Totally agree ed, was just going to post something about him, at 27 you'd like to think the penny had finally dropped with him.

He is not the greatest player but clearly has the ability to form a decent part of the squad.

It's like the pundits say, will we return to the same old Arsenal, will Walcott return to the same old Walcott.

We have been here many times before on both fronts but Wenger mentioned we played with steel and style. let's hope the steel is now a permanent fixture mate.

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{Ed025's Note - it would be nice to think so red dog, i like theo and think he has a lot to offer but what he done on saturday he needs to do every week, have you seen how hard liverpool forwards work?(ed spits on floor), they hassle an hurry defenders into mistakes and that seems to be the benchmark now, lets hope he gets a good run as he could break into the england side and make himself a few bob with all the fiddles thats going on.. :)

27 Sep 2016 08:54:24
Yes mate, they are top of the league in miles run, Theo was doing just that and with his pace it should be even better.

You couldn't make up that Allardyce stuff, what a plank. πŸ˜‚πŸ˜‚.

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{Ed025's Note - harry redknap.s dog is now favourite for the england job as his finances are all in order mate.. :)

27 Sep 2016 09:12:33
What with Venables, Redknapp, Hoddle and now Allardyce it seems like all England managers like dropping themselves in it.

Harry's dog couldn't be any worse than Allardyce.

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27 Sep 2016 12:35:03
Possibly why Liverpool initially wanted Sanchez ed as he epitomises the type of striker who pressures defenders into making mistakes - such as nicking the ball of Cahill. Although maybe that's no great achievement to be fair, that's two in two weeks now where Cahill has been pickpocketed (albeit that the Leroy Fer one was an assault) .

When Wenger speaks about Walcott recently, he says he sees a different player and that he is 50/ 50 nowadays instead of 90/ 10% attack to defence minded - that's probably a little exaggerated but hey ho, it shows you that even the manager thinks he's changed his whole attitude and mindset instead of it being a case of one swallow making a summer or whatever the phrase is ed. I personally think Walcott is a clever footballer, he interviews well (great collection of football cliches in his vocabulary) and knows where he needs to improve, it's just his attitude and workrate to make those improvements has been pretty poor in the past.

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{Ed025's Note - i just hope he keeps it up TPG because he will definitely be an asset to the team, he has been a bit of a liability if im honest but i always knew he had it in him mate..we will wit with baited breath to see how it turns out for him..

26 Sep 2016 07:05:12
Has the Giroud era come to an end? I for one definitely hope so. Yes, we still developing team chemistry with the current setup, But we are definitely more lethal upfront. Nothing like some good old fashioned pace upfront. First and third goals were reliant on having a pacey forward upfront.

Believable3 Unbelievable1

26 Sep 2016 08:20:07
62 has been a big advocate of playing your best 11, if that no longer includes Giroud then that's the way it should be.

His lack of game time was apparent in his cameo he was pretty woeful and actually put us in trouble giving the ball away a couple of times.

I think a lot will depend on how Perez fairs and a fit Welbeck would have been another factor.

It would probably mean like Mertesacker, Giroud may play a much smaller part this season.

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26 Sep 2016 10:29:48
I'd forgotten all about Danny Red, we could well see Olly leave in January if Danny is available by then especially if Perez comes up to scratch.

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26 Sep 2016 11:09:13
I had to a degree too 62 and hadn't even realised Elneny didn't even make the bench against the Chavs.

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26 Sep 2016 11:46:00
Serious competition for places can only be a very good thing for the club mate, with everyone knowing that if they lose thier place they will struggle to get it back can only lead to more committed and consistent performances from everyone who starts each game.

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26 Sep 2016 12:54:41
It depends who we are playing. On Saturday, we looked fabulous in the first half, with such a quick, technical performance. However, we lacked height, which wasn't exploited by Chelsea. In the second half Xhaka and Giroud came on to add height.

I noticed that whenever Cech was forced to launch the ball forward under pressure, we lost possession as we had no height in the forward positions. On Weds in the CL at home, we can play without Giroud, but away at Burnley it might be sensible to play him, as they are more likely to put us under pressure from set plays and his height would be an asset. Also, we can't expect the same players to play 3 matches a week.

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26 Sep 2016 14:37:48
Yes we have the forgotten welbeck to come back. Could do a job if he gets his fitness back quick.

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26 Sep 2016 14:39:12
Chelsea used least players in 14/ 15 and won the title, league cup and went the furthest in the CL then last season liecester used the least players and also won the league RG.
Rotation v Best 11 every game? Best 11 wins trophies while rotatation keeps squad players happy but short of big medals.

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26 Sep 2016 16:46:17
Banbury has said before that we have a very good group of I think 15 or 16 players, he'll tell me if I'm wrong, but that has just been increased with the additions of Mustafi and Xhaka.

With that group and minimal disruption from injury we should almost be able to swap like for like in minimal rotation. The back 5 along with Cazorla, Sanchez and Ozil should be 1st names on the team sheet and keeping them fit is a must.

To think we then have Iwobi, Ramsey, Walcott, Xhaka, Elneny, The Ox, Welbeck, Giroud, Perez and Coquelin makes a good core of 18 players without mentioning Gibbs, Debuchy, Mertesacker, Holding, Ospina and the youngsters.

The group just have to maintain focus and turn up week in week out.

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27 Sep 2016 01:01:56
I would say our squad is stronger than the team. What the team and the squad lacks is top class variation. That can be a minus or a plus. Leicester last season had hardly any variation in the team or squad. They didn't have many injuries so it ddidn't affect them in that way either. We are arsenal and we always get injuries, I think that is one of the reasons we have ended up with a biggish squad.

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26 Sep 2016 06:47:48
Hey lads. Really enjoyed the victory over the chavs. Was nice to excorcize that ghost and hopefully we will kick on strongly from here. My favourite oal was the second one. The way Ozil turned Kante and left him for dead and galloped across the field and linked up with Sanchez was just fantastic. Seems Ozil has more wheels on him than we thought :-)

Believable0 Unbelievable0

26 Sep 2016 07:51:47
That was the 3rd goal.

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26 Sep 2016 08:10:05
That was the 4th goal :-)

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26 Sep 2016 09:30:42
My bad, third goal lol.

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26 Sep 2016 01:28:48
This is a terrible thing to say but I'd like to see Spurs thrash City on the weekend.
If we are going to win the title City are the side that has to be stopped. Spurs, we all know, will shoot themselves in the foot at some point.
Guardiola needs to be shown that winning this title is not as easy as La Liga with Messi or the Bundesliga with no effective competition.

So come on you Spurs (for one game only) .

Believable0 Unbelievable2

26 Sep 2016 06:49:08
Wouldn't a draw just be fine Melbourne? No need for the Spurs to have all 3 points.

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26 Sep 2016 09:30:31
No, because I think there is a greater need to dent the confidence at City. Hence I want Spurs to thrash them.

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26 Sep 2016 10:46:22
I'm still thinking a draw, don't give the spuds any confidence boost and we just do the business against City. That'd be my preference Melbourne.

If we have any notions of winning anything then beating the best has to happen.

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