Arsenal Talk/Gossip/Rumours Thread 2015/16 ( Mod Note linked in OP 29/12)

gandalf

....still gutted here!

TBH a draw is a fair result, its just the last minute feckin goal..........bastards!

wonga77

Im probably in the minority here but overall im not too upset with that.
On the plus side, Campbell is improving with every game, works his socks off and has a great eye for a killer pass. We did well to get in front despite going down twice, good play from Giroud, his hold up play was excellent and the turn and finish for his second was sublime.
Monreal continues to go from strength to strength, I wouldnt be as harsh on Gibbs as others but he doesnt look to be close to threatening Nacho for his place and that must be a concern
Negatives was obviously conceding the late goal but these things happen from time to time, im more disapointed with the player that Ox has become or not become (whichever way you want to look at it), patience is wearing thin with him.
Our set up looks completely unbalanced without Coq in the middle, hopefully Elneny hits the ground running whenever the transfer happens.

While conceding late on kinda makes it feel more like a defeat than a draw i will be much more annoyed if we dont beat stoke at the weekend. United only drawing, Chelsea still stuttering, City dropping points at home and Spurs losing, we were only 2 minutes away from it being close to a perfect round of results

emergingstar

Ox is only 20/21 lads need to keep him faith him

Only a squad player now for sure

gandalf

Yeah Campbell is improving the more game time he gets. I think the Ox is past it and if there is any serious offer put on the table for him I would hope that Wenger accepts it.

tayto lover

Not disappointed with the draw either. Would have taken it before the start.
Very unhappy with yet another poor start and poor defending. They could have had 5 and so could we.
The other results went our way too which is good.
Would have left Theo on just to pin them back at the end. We did really invite them to attack.

Lol Spurs! No marking whatsoever for Leicesters goal

Hilarious! Just when you think your bad there is always worse off

Ol' Donie

Oh, Giroud. How did you miss that?

wonga77

Our bench was really lacking any spark though, Gibbs, Gabriel, Chambers, Arteta, Ox, Iwobi and Macey, the last 2 were never going to feature. With the game getting stretched towards the end it was tailor made for the likes of Oxlade to come in and run at defenders but he seems to be lacking confidence and didnt have any impact. Other than himself and Gibbs there was really nothing to bring in that might have made a difference. Has Theo lost his bit of pace too? Doesnt seem to get in the positions to run past players anymore
All in all a point at Anfield isnt bad, they have been hit and miss under Klopp and while we will complain about their third goal, imagine if we had conceded the second goal that they did, absolutely shocking defending.
Firminho's second goal was top class, hard to defend that

Skylinehead

Ol' Donie wrote: »

Oh, Giroud. How did you miss that?

Made up for it!

Ol' Donie

A good night, all in all.

But still....

Jeeesus.

Kirby

Not a good night for either keeper. Some very soft goals in there.

Quazzie

emergingstar wrote: »

Ox is only 20/21 lads need to keep him faith him

Only a squad player now for sure

22

Ol' Donie

Kirby wrote: »

Not a good night for either keeper. Some very soft goals in there.

Fabianski vs Mannone was a 6 goaler too.

Ol' Donie

The Pool play United at the weekend.

Ah, f*ck it...g'wan the pool!

gandalf

Ol' Donie wrote: »

The Pool play United at the weekend.

Ah, f*ck it...g'wan the pool!

Talk about kicking a van Gaal when he's down

Ol' Donie

gandalf wrote: »

Talk about kicking a van Gaal when he's down

Hmm.

Okay, I can talk about that, if you want.

extra gravy

Wenger confirms Elneny. Hopefully he will make the Stoke trip and kick lumps out of Adam, Whelan etc.

Ol' Donie

extra gravy wrote: »

Wenger confirms Elneny. Hopefully he will make the Stoke trip and kick lumps out of Adam, Whelan etc.

Link?

Ol' Donie

Ol' Donie wrote: »

Oh, Giroud. How did you miss that?

He was unlucky in one way he went a fraction too quick as Ian Wright said.

The man has been on fire lately and still Shearer says he needs to score 20+ pl goals to prove himself :rolleyes:

Champions league don't count then Alan?

Ol' Donie

Ol' Donie wrote: »

The Pool play United at the weekend.

Ah, f*ck it...g'wan the pool!

Liverpool will batter them. Could be wrong but I doubt it.

Ol' Donie

Make no mistake, I love the guy.

But he should've knocked that one in.

Ol' Donie

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Liverpool will batter them. Could be wrong but I doubt it.

Bet you a fiver Joe f*ckin Allen doesn't bang one in in injury time.

Grrr...

extra gravy

Ol' Donie wrote: »

Link?

Can't post on phone but it's on Arseblog.

Mr Blobby

After having time to calm and digest everything i'm ok with the draw. Before the game even started i would have taken it.

The good.

- Giroud played out of his skin! He honestly made Sakho look like a 120lb girl out there.
- Campbell was immense again and is showing why he should be starting ahead of Theo/Ox when Sanchez is back.
- As weird as it sound the back 4 were pretty decent even after conceding 3 goals. When you have zero cover from the midfield you're bound to concede.

The bad.

- Wenger's entire setup was wrong for me. We're playing 2 in the middle and on every occasion we have Ramsey sprinting up field trying to close down the Liverpool defenders. They just passed it right through us and Flam couldn't do a damn thing about it.

- Walcott again was very poor and was a fault for the first goal by trying to dribble out of his own box and loosing possession.

- Ox... Same old same old.

- The substitutions didn't make sense to me... Gibbs i can understand since he'll defend and give you pace on the counter. But Arteta!! Why??
The entire game Liverpool was closing our players down in midfield and you bring on a player who physically isn't close to being good enough to withstand the pressure. Chambers would have been the smart move.

- Taking off Ozil didn't make sense either. If you think back to the Man City game Yaya Toure was invisible for 75+ mins... Until Ozil came off. The second Ozil was subbed it allowed Yaya to drive forward with having to worry about defending Ozil. Same thing happened today and it cost us.

I honestly believe Wenger underestimated Liverpool tonight and thought with their weakened team we could play pressure football and force them into mistakes. Pressure football is fine if you have the right players for the job. But when your main holding mid is flying up the pitch and leaving only one other mid to hold the fort its a recipe for disaster.

Spanish Johnny

Spanish Johnny wrote: »

You really have to laugh at criticism of us going defensive with a lead. For yonks on here people talked at length how Mourinho used to close out games and go defensive. Why didn't we do the same...bla bla bla. Then he changes his style and now it's the wrong one. Ya we got caught but it's been a while since we got suckered like that and it will happen every now and again.

Liverpool have got a late draw/winner in 5 of these last 13 fixtures apparently. Ye can be sure we were too gung ho for most of them rather than shutting it out. This will happen. Unfortunate but we move on. Think wel take 3 points at Stoke on Sunday.

Its not our tactics. I can't really blame Wenger here tbh. The personnel though that he brought on need a shaking. Arteta I'll forgive but Gibbs and Ox need to buck the **** up and stop feeling sorry for themselves

We're harsh on Wenger tonight. Had we got the win tonight he'd be hailed as a genius who got his tactics spot on.

Ol' Donie

Taking a step back, it's a very good sign that we're expecting to win at Anfield even against a Pool side playing out of their skin.

I'm not gonna say it, but this season is shaping up nicely. That's all I'm saying.

Mr Blobby

Wenger confirmed Elneny is done.
So i'm guessing he'll be in the squad for Stoke along with Sanchez and Rosicky.

greendom

Mr Blobby wrote: »

Wenger confirmed Elneny is done.
So i'm guessing he'll be in the squad for Stoke along with Sanchez and Rosicky.

Hope so. 2 points were lost tonight due to the weakness of our bench. For all the talk of an injury crisis at Liverpool their subs made a much bigger impact on the game than ours did.

Spanish Johnny

Mr Blobby wrote: »

After having time to calm and digest everything i'm ok with the draw. Before the game even started i would have taken it.

The good.

- Giroud played out of his skin! He honestly made Sakho look like a 120lb girl out there.
- Campbell was immense again and is showing why he should be starting ahead of Theo/Ox when Sanchez is back.
- As weird as it sound the back 4 were pretty decent even after conceding 3 goals. When you have zero cover from the midfield you're bound to concede.

The bad.

- Wenger's entire setup was wrong for me. We're playing 2 in the middle and on every occasion we have Ramsey sprinting up field trying to close down the Liverpool defenders. They just passed it right through us and Flam couldn't do a damn thing about it.

- Walcott again was very poor and was a fault for the first goal by trying to dribble out of his own box and loosing possession.

- Ox... Same old same old.

- The substitutions didn't make sense to me... Gibbs i can understand since he'll defend and give you pace on the counter. But Arteta!! Why??
The entire game Liverpool was closing our players down in midfield and you bring on a player who physically isn't close to being good enough to withstand the pressure. Chambers would have been the smart move.

- Taking off Ozil didn't make sense either. If you think back to the Man City game Yaya Toure was invisible for 75+ mins... Until Ozil came off. The second Ozil was subbed it allowed Yaya to drive forward with having to worry about defending Ozil. Same thing happened today and it cost us.

I honestly believe Wenger underestimated Liverpool tonight and thought with their weakened team we could play pressure football and force them into mistakes. Pressure football is fine if you have the right players for the job. But when your main holding mid is flying up the pitch and leaving only one other mid to hold the fort its a recipe for disaster.

Some fair points...but that fact you believer Wenger underestimated Liverpool under Klopp and all his time going to Anfield is quite frankly ridiculous. He knew full well what we were in for.

As regards Ramsey and Flamini how would you have set up our midfield? Arteta from the start despite having an issue with him playing five minutes?

Also Ramsey's forays up the pitch were the reason we scored our first two goals today. I do accept he needs more discipline but hopefully with Coq and Elneny we will have a player more dominant that Flamini.

also just on the subs. these are decisions...they cannot be guaranteed or pre-ordained successes. it's sport...its unpredictable.

Not too many on here were unhappy with Gibbs being brought on against Spurs a few months back.

Arteta is now well away from our first team if we have everyone fit. but we don't and he is still an excellent passer and controller of a game with vast experience. he didn't cost us

If Ozil and Campbell were left on we would have some complaining that they were tired and didn't close down the ball into the box in the first place and we should have had subs on earlier. Chambers over Arteta...meh.