Arsenal Team Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread

Beau x1

Frisbee wrote: »

Bendtner is a good player having a bad game.
The same way Fab is a world class player having a bad game

I agree Fabregas had a bad game and is usually very good, but jesus christ Bendtener is terrible; hands down. I have not seen him have one good game this season. He just doesn't flow with the team, and I agree he's far too physical. His reactions are absolutely terrible, the whole pace slows down once he's given the ball.

A disappointing night to say the least.

OPENROAD

Beau x1 wrote: »

I agree Fabregas had a bad game and is usually very good, but jesus christ Bendtener is terrible; hands down. I have not seen him have one good game this season. He just doesn't flow with the team, and I agree he's far too physical. His reactions are absolutely terrible, the whole pace slows down once he's given the ball.

A disappointing night to say the least.

Cesc has been quite poor this season imo hopefully his form will pick up soon, Spains run in the euro championships and his injury have not helped,to be fair to Bendtner how many games has he actually started, even though we had quite a few players out tonight, I'm starting to worry a bit about our form.

wandatowell

so how did the gunners play tonight? An improvement on the dire display on saturday I would hope!!!

Frisbee

Denilson really isn't the answer to our CM problem. Fabregas needs someone who he knows will sit back to shield the defense while he goes forward. He's half the player he was last season without Flamini to complement him.
Best player tonight was Kolo

Beau x1

Frisbee wrote: »

Best player tonight was Kolo

Agreed, for sure.

tony1kenobi

Beau x1 wrote: »

Agreed, for sure.

With bells on.....he took the captaincy and stood by it.

Arsenal1986

any1 else impressed by Djourou tonight? Great in the air good hard tackling physical presence as seen by his shouldering guiza off the ball

Arsenal1986

Arsenal1986 wrote: »

any1 else impressed by Djourou tonight? Great in the air good hard tackling physical presence as seen by his shouldering guiza off the ball

guys i honestly don't think we've conceded a goal when djourou has been on the pitch this season, that said he must have only played 3 or 4 times. yet wenger wont take a chance on him. can anyone confirm that for me

Evil_Clown

I agree with the Djourou stuff, he did the basics right last night and was solid
Semih should have seen red for that elbow on Silvestre, cynical and dirty
I though we missed Walcott most of all last night, we lacked pace and proper width all night, Nasri was poor and Ramsey is more of a central player and tends to wonder into the middle alot
Hope walcott is back for the Utd game

Frisbee

Arsenal1986 wrote: »

any1 else impressed by Djourou tonight? Great in the air good hard tackling physical presence as seen by his shouldering guiza off the ball

Yeah very impressed. I thought he took his chance to Impress Wenger and did it very well. Exactly the kind of hard tackling no-nonsense defender we need.

As to whether or not we've not conceded with him on the pitch I cant confirm.
I know he played in the 1-0 win over WBA aswell. And he got 45 minutes against Bolton aswell. Didnt concede in either if I remember correctly...

ibh

Frisbee wrote: »

Denilson really isn't the answer to our CM problem. Fabregas needs someone who he knows will sit back to shield the defense while he goes forward. He's half the player he was last season without Flamini to complement him.
Best player tonight was Kolo

Liverpool fan here, so I’m probably talking through my hoop. But would Toure not be a viable option in CM?? I’m pretty sure he played there at first for Arsenal and I even remember seeing him on the wing. If they can cover his moving from CB I think it would be a good move. A good defensive CM is not easy to find / buy so maybe Arsene would try it?? Think with Silvestre and Djourou to battle for a CB slot it could free Toure up.

yahoo_moe

We haven't conceded while Djourou's been on but it's only been:

(1) against West Brom first game
(2) second half against Bolton (they scored first half)
(3) Carling Cup against Sheffield Utd
(4) last night.

So not a lot of football - and against fairly meh opposition. Plus the goals scored by Geovanni and Bentley, say, could hardly be blamed on any of the defenders playing at the time so it's not always a fair measure.

He's looked good at times so there's room for optimism - but he's also been less good at other times despite the clean sheets so I wouldn't get too worked up yet on that front. His positioning, for me, still isn't great on occasion.

Frisbee

ibh wrote: »

Liverpool fan here, so I’m probably talking through my hoop. But would Toure not be a viable option in CM?? I’m pretty sure he played there at first for Arsenal and I even remember seeing him on the wing. If they can cover his moving from CB I think it would be a good move. A good defensive CM is not easy to find / buy so maybe Arsene would try it?? Think with Silvestre and Djourou to battle for a CB slot it could free Toure up.

Yeah he started out at left midfield.
People have been suggesting this for ages now but to be honest I don't think he would have the head for playing in midfield. Still too much of the headless chicken about him..

yahoo_moe

Frisbee wrote: »

Still too much of the headless chicken about him..

I agree - his positional sense is nowhere near good enough.

At CB his athleticism lets him recover when someone's trying to control a through ball, take it forward and then deal with a keeper but in a midfield area, players like Deco, Scholes, Modric, etc. would have given him the slip and got themselves enough time to play the pass they want.

Galvasean

Didn't see the game last night. Did Fabianski have a good game or did he have anything to do?

I see the nominees for Arsenal goal of the month are up;
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/october-goal-of-the-month
Strangely no Ramsey v Fenerbache.

Frisbee

Galvasean wrote: »

Didn't see the game last night. Did Fabianski have a good game or did he have anything to do?

He really had very little to do.
He made one very questionable decision where a through ball was played through and he could have reached it a country mile before the striker who was barely past the halfway line. He decided to stay on his line though.
Couldn't understand it...

Galvasean

Frisbee wrote: »

He really had very little to do.
He made one very questionable decision where a through ball was played through and he could have reached it a country mile before the striker who was barely past the halfway line. He decided to stay on his line though.
Couldn't understand it...

Same old so. From what I've seen of him his agility and reflexes are great but his decision making and command of the area are poor. Hopefully its just jitters and these two latter traits will improve with experience.

DenMan

Well I for one thought Fabianski played very well last night. Didn't have an awful lot to do but made some very good stops and commanded his defense very well. He is very vocal and after spending time with Dudek, Zaluska and Boruc has definitely improved imo.

On another note I am very pleased that Manuel has recovered from that nasty sickness he picked up all of a sudden. Let's hope it's not contagious and he (and others) are in contention for the big one on Sat.

Green Hornet

Manuel will be back in goal on Saturday apparently. Must have genuinely been sick after all.

Not convinced about Fabianski but then again I guess he gets very little match action and goalkeepers need that to build the confidence.

DenMan

Just read on the BBC website that there is only 10,000 fans at the San Siro tonight for the AC Milan/Braga UEFA cup tie. Shocking stuff. Both Senderos and Flamini started from ko.

Galvasean

Green Hornet wrote: »

Manuel will be back in goal on Saturday apparently. Must have genuinely been sick after all.

Doubt it. Managers make up sicknote stories all the time when dropping key players to avoid media frenzy.

Green Hornet

Galvasean wrote: »

Doubt it. Managers make up sicknote stories all the time when dropping key players to avoid media frenzy.

Thats what I thought too when I heard it originally. Its pretty much exactly what he did when dropping Lehmann with a "hand injury".

I think I'd rather see Almunia in the team for Saturday though. He's had a couple of bad games but overall his performances have been very solid. Not sure if this game is too big to throw in Fabianski.

Galvasean

Green Hornet wrote: »

I think I'd rather see Almunia in the team for Saturday though. He's had a couple of bad games but overall his performances have been very solid. Not sure if this game is too big to throw in Fabianski.

I agree. If Almunia is anything like Lehmann he will kop onto himself and regain form when reintroduced to the team. Perhaps that is Wenger's plan?

Green Hornet

Maybe! The fear with Almunia though is that he seems to be very much confidence driven. More so than Lehmann. You always knew Lehmann would pretty much pick himself up straight away after a bad performance because he thought he was great. Almunia might be more inclined to take it to heart?

OPENROAD

Just watching Lee Dixon on the Arsenal phone in, what a legend the guy is, was a great great defender for us and talks so much sense, the best football pundit out there, love it when he is on Match of the Day.

OPENROAD

A couple of clips to get us in the mood


http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=BDPzRpvkMvY



http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QYyvLDkcFzU&feature=related

yahoo_moe

Jesus forgot about the Van Nistelrooy game... that was so incredibly stressful - cheers for the reminder

L'prof

Genuinely worried about tomorrow, nothing but a win will do and I think we will get anything but!

Love to eat my words by the way!

Royale with Cheese

What's the team going to be then? I'm gonna assume the worst, and that everyone who's rated as a doubt, is out.

---

Almunia

---

Toure

---

Djourou

---

Silvestre

---

Clichy

---

Nasri

---

Denilson

---

Fabregas

---

Diaby

---

---

Bendtner

---

Vela

---

Either that or drop Vela for Ramsey and play Diaby in behind Bendtner and Ramsey on the wing.

If it wasn't such a big game do you think Wilshere might have got a start? Very young I know but it's better than playing centre mids on the wing.

L'prof

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

If it wasn't such a big game do you think Wilshere might have got a start? Very young I know but it's better than playing centre mids on the wing.

If you meant early FA Cup or Carling Cup games, then yes. Otherwise, I'm afraid not...as much as I'd like to see him get some more time in the first team, I think he's quite some time off his first league start...although the way things are going, that can't last too long!