Firstly I have no time for anyone who is so fickle as to suddenly turn on our manager after a short series of poor results, get a grip on reality and try to be objective, I know it's hard sometimes but engage your brain before letting loose with any bitter resentful bile. Secondly well played Swansea, they played some excellent football and their style deserves praise. Anyway onto the match.
A lot of nonsense will be spouted about how terrible we were today and how Swansea deserved the win, this is just easy and lazy in my opinion. It was a great game of football that hinged on a few key moments, some of the problems were of our own making, some not. I am sure Per was far from fully fit today, but our defensive line up has been decimated by a rather unfortunate run of injuries, and this cannot be ignored when looking at today's result, again we played without proper full backs.
We started well and got the early goal, RVP with a great finish when slotted clean through, the angle wasn't easy too. A key moment soon after when Dyer conned the ref in the box, he stamped on Ramsey, dived down and cheated. The useless Oliver had a great view and got it completely wrong, given the great penalty shouts we have been denied in recent weeks it is particularly galling to see such a pathetic decision go against us, at such a key time too, it really changed the game, Swansea were up against it til then, the momentum was given to them by this refereeing error. We need video technology badly.
Swansea had a lot of the ball but didn't create much clear cut for the rest of the half, in fact the better chances fell our way, RVP had a great opportunity with another one on one, Ramsey had a shot cleared off the line. The warning signs were there though in the midfield, there wasn't enough defending going on, Benayoun and Ramsey didn't provide much beef, the full backs looked very exposed at times and this was to tell in the end.
There were too many poor performances today, the midfielders were gradually overwhelmed as the game wore on, the wisdom of sending Frimpong on load has to be questioned. The fact Henry adds a lot from the bench says a lot for the sorry state of our forward department in terms of depth and quality. Arshavin was poor today, Theo was poor as well, we really lack quality in the squad, Oxlade-Chamberlain must start to get some games ahead of the anonymous Russian. Having a midfield three with Benayoun and Ramsey within, combined with a front three who don't do much defending is ridiculous in my opinion, the defense didn't get enough help from elsewhere and the pressure told in the end.
Dyer had far too much space before he blasted home Swansea's second. It was gutting that we managed a good equaliser when Theo finished neatly having been played clean through, only then to see Graham given acres of room as he beat Szczesny from a tricky angle, the young Pole will not be happy with letting that one in. Graham then had another great chance to make the game safe for Swansea.
Still we continued to create some cracking chances and really should have taken at least a draw out of the game. Mertesacker blasted wide from six yards with the goal at his mercy, Rosicky blasted over on the volley, Koscielny blasted a good volley straight at the keeper after a good initial same, there were some other decent half chances. Very very frustrating, it was just a great shame that Henry didn't get an opportunity to show his class.
There are too many issues to go into now without writing a long book, but in summary we are short in several areas of our squad now, especially in forward and defensive areas. I am no fan of the way we play the 4-3-3 formation, we frequently lack defensive grit and the more offensive players regularly fail to do enough in helping us defend as a team, some of our forward players' form has simply not been good enough of late. I would like to see a return to a more robust 4-4-1-1 or 4-4-2 formation now.
The referee was useless, the penalty was an error and he made numerous other more obvious ones, some of his free kicks were just plain ludicrous, one decision at the death not to give a free kick on the edge of the Swansea box for a head high boot was simply inexplicable.
It was a funny old mixture today, we created several of our own problems, we didn't defend well enough and we missed too many good chances at the other end, Swansea played some great football and took their chances, we lost. It was not quite as terrible as some would have you believe though, we created more chances, had more shots on and off target than Swansea, despite out defensive failings with some better finishing we could easily have taken something from this game.
Finally to all the idiots who are now slagging off the manager, players and club left, right and centre, get a grip you absolute braindead morons. Criticism on certain issues is fine but the stupid knee jerk abuse that some indulge in is just beneath contempt, it really is. Hopefully today can be used to fire us into some action in the market, we need depth and quality in certain areas, we are but a couple of injuries away from a massive crisis.
42 comments:
"a short series of poor results" !! ...are you for real
Your point about 'unfortunate injuries' could have been made at anytme over the past 7 years.
Wake up, the facts are that we are declining. It's people like you that will be saying we should be grateful for a top half finish in 5 years time.
The squad is rotten from the top down.
weve conceeded the most goals by any team in the EPL
thats a disgrace. he should go on that fact alone
well finish 6 RVP will leave
It's not a knee jerk response to criticise the manager. How many years have we have the same problems for now?? Wenger needs to go as he cannot seem to fix the problems he has created. Sentiment has no place in this. Look how long he kept almunia for, denilson, diaby, bendtner, vela, djouro, squillaci, arshavin all clearly not good enough. These are the reasons why we are not competing. He needs to go. He can't exactly be enjoying being an arsenal manager as we are not winning anything and getting further behind. We have been patient enough, given enough benefit of the doubt. Let someone else have a go in charge.
Are you doing PR for the hapless Mr.Wenger.A few bad results,have you been watching much ???
agree Alan ...we been treading watere for the last 6 years, now we are definately going backwards...Time for a new direction.
Kneejerk lol,this has been going on for years.Do you really think this result will make any difference in tne Jan window?I doubt it very much.Our transfer policy has been pretty ropey for years.
Wenger's on now complaining about the penalty. Nothing about Arshavin giving the ball away in the lead up to the pen, Ramsey/Arshavin for Swansea's second or conceding less than a minute after equalising.
HEAD BURIED SAND. It's that shite that stops us cutting out the sloppy/naive errors we should be learning from. Constantly giving players an excuse.
A measured response. . .but looks like your comments section has been taken over by the same lot currently chucking their toys out of their prams over at Red London.
It's not great right now, but the sky's not falling either. Let's hope we get a boost when Jack, TV5, Santos, Sagna and co return.
And let's hand it to Swansea, they were superb.
If Wenger is still here in 2015(God forbid) he will celebrate 10 years without winning a trophy and he will probably loan Henry from Al-sadr footballeurs in iraq.
What excuse will he have when the Mancs spanks our asses ????
After 6 years of steady decline I'm not sure criticism can be defined as 'kneejerk'. People aren't reacting to this result of even the recent few results in isolation, it's part of a much bigger trend where now top 4 is looking pretty unlikely. And it's not like no one has seen this coming, it's been heading towards us for a long time. The manager hasn't arrested this decline and isn't showing any inclination to do so. He just 'keeps the faith' with the squad and his methods, no matter how many players are missing or performing poorly. He's not proactive.
It is not knee jerk on today but from the last 3 years
We are very average and The Arsenal I love aspired to be more than that
How can you not see we need major change
Net spend of MINUS 6m pounds EVERY year for the last 5 years is starting to tell. Wenger is the greatest manager on earth to have kept us where we've been. Blame the board THEIR greed is now paying its inevitable reward. Saddest thing is that we will either totally collapse when AW goes or the money given to his replacement will be unlikely to match what wenger could have done with that same cash. Shame on the board, don't blame the great man who's worst sin was loyalty to these money grabbing men at the top.
firstly well played Swansea nice to see a side prepared to play the passing game and entertain
did u hear pardew say 1 shot on goal at home he doesnt care as long as you win.(lucky for him all the thick geordies dont understand)
did you clowns find out today that this is the worst squad under wenger? yossi lightweight not good enough for chelski
arsavin aint paid enough to run
walcott only paid to run(took his goal well though)
derooooo no more a premier player than most of us boy just got lucky to play so often for a former top side(must be on low wages or swallows)
miquel the lad tried hard wont slag him off as out of postion
ramsey look at his stats gives the ball away too often works hard and at least trys but just not good enough
ro sicky always plays like we are 4 nil up
big german trys but all too quick for him
van p top man but who would blame him if he left?
TH still better than Chamak
i could go on but bored already as the yank that owns us just in it for the money and we all know that we wont buy any quality this window or the next
just in case it stops the development of all the above
oxo kid looks top drawer maybe we should send him out on loan as he has no chance of playing ahead of wengers favorites
What are you talking about mate! You have not got a clue. Don't blame the manager who the f#### should we blame. The years of under investing in the squad and buying players on the cheap and letting worldclass players leave has left us nothing but an average team. Scums have spent and spent and kept hold of the class players and look at them now. We have conceded the most goals in the EPL disgraceful. We got the worst medical team in the world. All the long term sicknotes get rid of Gibbs and diaby.
Oh dear oh dear.
Some of you are fulfulling my prophecy perfectly.
As those of you who bothered to read my piece, I have no problem with criticism of the manager, I criticise the manager plenty myself!
In my piece today I was just making it clear that it is the OTT bile and absue that is unacceptable.
It is also the knee jerk 'sack the manager' stuff, it is utterly fickle, stupid and thoughtless.
The squad is being sorted, this summer gone was the first step.
It will take a while to get rid of the dross, the likes of Diaby/Squillaci/Rosicky/Arshavin/Chamakh/Bendtner/Denilson et al need to be replaced, there is too much useless dead wood around but it cannot be done overnight, some will not leave until their contracts are up.
It will take time and we need to be a little more patient sometimes.
Arsene has admitted his project youth has failed dismally and will continue putting things right, just give him a bit of time and less of the bile.
1979gooner
"don't blame the manager who should we blame?" I just said blame the board!!! Greedy and self serving. The plan originally was to pay off the debt over 25 years. They saw that they could take advantage of AWs skills and make themselves a packet. And this is what's happened. Do you think wenger bought Park for example? His utter lack of playing time speaks its own stories. So he plays Arshavin. Who has clearly utterly lost the plot. Who else are we supposed to play? We have minus 6m a year to spend!!! The board are raping the team, the manager and the fans. It's so clear to me, I cannot understand how they've got away with it.
why is it that our medical staff can't properly diagnose injuries. a simple knock seems to always turn out into a two or 3 month thing(eg gibbs injury which they said was a two weeks). we have a poor bench to fill in for the first team(eg chamackh,park,englehart aka squillaci and diaby who is always injured) no one else to blame 4 that apart from wenger.
Dear all
As I stated in the original piece, it is rather pathetic that some of you cannot make your points without resorting to abuse of various people.
Abusive posts will be removed, I don't like doing it and rarely have to, however if you are going to behave like kids then you will have to be treated like kids.
Critise the manager, the players, me, fine but do it without being abusive.
The truth must be told,wenger as completely lost it.Infact he knows not what else.He's the bigest problem facing the club and is high time for him to leave
We have to be honest now,those fortunate enough to be able to go to games,home and away pay a small fortune,yet for every one,two or three that give up they'll be another ten thousand that will take their place,so why does anyone expect the board to care,they're making money no matter what happens,wenger would spend if he could but he's got nothing to spend,rvp will go and I fear the rest of our better players will,but we'll still be gooners
untill santos comes back,wenger is banking on gibbs..hahaha..what a joke..when was the last time gibbs played seven or so games without injury??...yet he refuses to make a move in the transer window.i'm sick of wenger's lame excuses..he tries to distract attention by raging on about t.v affecting fixture lists() and reffs adressing the real issues.
What was the possession? Who has done that to arsenal lately? Give Swansea credit when its due.
Great credit to Swansea agree. However we pretend to be a top European side
Don't fret about Europa League issues we won't qualify for that as you need to finish 5 th to do so and we are mid table quality
The fans need to make their views heard after the loss to Manure
Wenger said their keeper kept them in it!! He must have been watching a different game as he barely had a save to make it the 2 nd half
We had 3 chances all made by their errors not our creativity as we have non because the players apart from RVP are not good enough!!
What i fail to understand is why he does not promote competition for places in the squad.
Ramsey has been poor for more than half of this season but he will still start in the next game, Arshavin the same, Walcott same for over a month.
This kills the players waiting in the wings to be promoted to the 1st team.
I agree.
The Ox must start to get games ahead of Arshavin.
Strange that Frimpong went on loan just as we needed him!
1979gooner
Oh dear, what a terribly one-eyed immature review of the game. You'd swear Arsenal had never been granted a dubious penalty. To have a go at the ref is ridiculous, it looked clear cut and it certainly wasn't a dive, only super slo-mo replay cast any doubt. For the last five mins of normal time and then extra time the ref did everything in his power to allow Arsenal the opportunity to equalise, the high foot incident aside. He gave clear fouls on Swansea players as free kicks against and still Arsenal could not pull their act to together. Face facts, the better side on the day deservedly won.
Well said here AAB! There's a lot of people who are Arsenal fans because they liked the brand in and around 2000. Some of these people do not understand the club, it's traditions or our motto. If I say "the Arsenal way" to them they are quizzical. What I am getting at here is that these people need to go away and follow Chelsea or Manure. There is nothing Arsenal about them. Criticism is fine but the vast majority of what they spout is utter rot.
Quite right to point out that we played with a weakened side. And of course things don't gel when six or seven from Arsene's prefered line-up are missing.
But hey, that's the circumstances that our manager has to deal with. And he doesn't!
I believe that sometimes a manager has to ACT in a situation like this - to show us, the supporters, that at least he is TRYING to sort things out. And if that means he has to sign someone who is not number one on his list, then be it. Even signing Wayne Bridge would be better than doing nothing, because at least he is a genuine full back. But instead, Arsene just tells us that he doesn't like the january transfer window!!!
Also, I think Arsene's stubbornness is getting more and more pathetic. Sometimes it seems that he makes a principle of going his own way and not listening to anyone else. So when thousands of Gooners makes it clear that they want Oxlade-Chamberlain in the starting line-up instead of Arshavin or Theo, what does The Professor do? He keeps Oxlade-Chamberlain on the bench until the 77. minute!
And look what happened, when the Ox finally came on: He played with so much heart, he was everywhere and he was dangerous. In his 15 minutes on the pitch he made more tackles than Arshavin did during his 63 minutes - and he made more direct runs into the box than Theo did for the entire game. That's the spirit the team needs in a game like this - and that's the spirit we supporters need to keep faith in our team.
What was the point in moving from highbury to grove when they were planning to take this club to mid table. It all started with the toddler feeding policy since we moved stadium. At least the club was a properly run club before. And we are still in search for some club rejects,bargains or some guy from second division to help the club out from this situation. I was never in sack wenger brigade but I am shattered to see my club being raped by 2 mid table teams in fulham and Swansea.
Very good write up 1979. I agree with you.
It wasn't a penalty but I think the ref had a very tough decision to make. In real time it looked a pen, only the super slo-mo showed it wasn't. We are due a soft pen or two in our direction, so maybe we will get one on Sunday against Man U.
Also, their second and third goals were horrendous defending by us. As you say, our midfield was lightweight all day.
However, I do agree with some of the comments above that the form of Arshavin and Walcott is very poor. Both of them try quite hard, on occassion, but neither of them deliver consistent quality.
I also think that people need to actually think about how it is that Swansea have such a good home record. And it has nothing to do with spending lots of money on over rated foreign players every time there is a bad result happens.
They work hard, use the ball efficiently and are well drilled at the back. None of which applies to us.
Swansea also have a good set of fans who actually support their team, unlike us most of the time.
Good read thankyou.
Disappointing day at Swansea but I'd just like to say we are all in the same boat and fans such as those having a go at Henry are nothing less then disgraceful and clearly spurs fans in disguise.
Some of AW's decisions do seem baffling i.e. not giving Oxlade-Chamberlain a start and letting Frimpong go on loan, also this injury thing seems to have been going on for seasons, are our medical team up to it......
We are below Totteham,
yes Tottenham ...
stop with the excuses.
YOU HAVE NO AMBITION.
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As a Swans fan living here in Gower, who watched the match live on Sky, I have to agree with much of what the blogger here has said. Swans could just as easily have lost, had we not hit back with Grahams goal immediately, and had the german defender scored the hard to miss chance, and had the ref not given the Dyer penalty. The Swans crowd were fantastic throughout, and at times Swansea did pass sideways once too often here and there, when going forward or shooting even, would have been wiser. Hey, let us enjoy our moment in the sun. I worked in Holloway Road and stayed at Archway in late 80's, as a dispatch courier rider, and feel I understand the Arsenal fans psyche, you are a great club, with many lifelong fans in Swansea. I do think Wenger, who I respected, let you Gooners down by failing to be statesmanlike and magnanimous in defeat at a small club which was bottom of the whole 92 in 2003, and which has gone bust or into administration so many times since we did the double on the gunners in 81/82. Let us Swansea Jacks enjoy our well deserved moment of quality, class, and, yes, ok, a little luck too.
Brendan Rogers for the next Arsenal Manager anyone? If we must lose him soon, let's lose him to a great club, with a great reputation in world football, such as Arsenal, and he can continue the great tradition, whilst being more likeable than the grumpy Victor Meldrew which Wenger is becoming. Give Wenger a presidential role, he surely has already done his bit for Arsenal.
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