Arsenal vs Chelsea

Only ourselves to blame really. Conceded two very cheap goals which put us under unnecessary pressure.

Cech made two excellent saves and Giroud failed to put away our best chance.

Losing Diaby early did hurt us.

Arteta's mistake (still love him) lead to their second goal.

Jenkinson looked great for most of the game!

There were a lot of hair pulling out moments, yes. I agree.

And there were a few line-up decisions that didn't make sense to me. I'd like to see Giroud and Podolski start, but it doesn't look like Wenger is interested in that. Dropping Per didn't make any sense, and for such a big match, I thought it was strange to start both Ramsey and the Ox.

We could've won that if it wasn't for shit defending by BOTH center backs today. Yes, Koscielny's errors were directly translated into goals by Chelsea, but it was Vermaelen giving away silly fouls both times. Why oh why did Wenger decide to drop Per for the game? Giving Vermaelen the captain's armband was a mistake, he should be the one dropped at times and Koscielny should be the one dropped at other times. Because he is captain, he will not get dropped. Per should play every game as he brings organization to the defense. That said, would love it if we had a quality striker. I'm not saying Giroud is shit, or Gervinho didn't play well, just that we should have a proper striker.

See, I missed the first half and didn't see that Diaby had actually started. Whoops!

Theo did nothing when he came on. He didn't even hustle.

I'm in the an awful mood

It seems like Theo's purposely not going to play well unless his going down the middle.

left absolutly steaming with that result...i could sit here all evening and pull that apart on what went wrong....poor decisions on the starting 11,no end of wasted high balls into the area,big lack of shape throughout the team...where does it end!!!

well its the first loss...lets see how they bounce back..but as for now i am soo fucked off with the whole effort...

Switching your centre-halves round to suit the opposition sounds like a batty idea. There were too many rash challenges today, but once again it comes down to the scoreline. Chasing the game we were always going to offer Chelsea lots of chances on the break and in that situation I don't think Arteta is the holding player you want. He's no spring chicken and as it is I think he's now being overrated by our fans. A good solid player, someone we can regularly depend on, but no superstar. Today under pressure with and without the ball it wasn't a top game from him.

Both Kos and Verm rush out of defence and I think Mannone was a bit slow to react for the Mata free kick goal. Given the trajectory it wasn't going to reach a Chelsea player.

I thought Arteta was one of our best players.

Dan Hakim wrote:It seems like Theo's purposely not going to play well unless his going down the middle.

If only he were good enough to decide whether he was going to play well.

But I think we can stop this debate now and just conclude that if you want anything from this kind of game you can't go behind. After that, if you concede two simple goals then you're toast. You have to build up pressure to score a goal most of the time against Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City etc. Of course there will be unsuccessful crosses into the box etc.

Of course we're not as sharp up front as sides who can afford to buy several stars, but that doesn't stop us from scoring. What it does do is leave us less margin for error. If we'd lost to a pearl from Oscar or Hazard today maybe we could just accept that, but we shot ourselves in the foot. The other thing I thought was worrying today was the lack of street wisdom. When it works playing our way out of trouble looks great, but today it resulted in us giving the ball back too often.

Yup, bad decision not to start Mertesacker today, Imo.
I'm suddenly wondering about our squad depth again, especially when it comes to facing 'top 4' clubs.
Diaby goes off and we are left with Ramsey and Oxlade Chamberlain.
I don't think any one did too poorly, but Ramsey, Ox, Arteta, Poldi, even Cazorla didn't do too much to distinguish themselves today.
Whether it was by Chelsea doing enough to collectively stymie us, or by our individual errors, bad passes etc.
It felt like we didn't have a game breaker in the side today, or even a so called "impact sub ".

I will say if we can play this bad but still be within getting a goal back or anything out of it..it's a small plus..

Granted we had jenks,arteta,gibbs and to be fair gerv.having ok games and its ok at best..
Feels like everybody had an off day...santi's passing a bit off podolski was struggling to find routes through..theo.well i am not even gonna bother with him....

Chelsea did one thing very effective against us sitting back and playin the ball around infont of them with no conviction.....

Michael Schatzky wrote:Yup, bad decision not to start Mertesacker today, Imo.
I'm suddenly wondering about our squad depth again, especially when it comes to facing 'top 4' clubs.
Diaby goes off and we are left with Ramsey and Oxlade Chamberlain.
I don't think any one did too poorly, but Ramsey, Ox, Arteta, Poldi, even Cazorla didn't do too much to distinguish themselves today.
Whether it was by Chelsea doing enough to collectively stymie us, or by our individual errors, bad passes etc.
It felt like we didn't have a game breaker in the side today, or even a so called "impact sub ".

Squad depth is at the very least OK.

We should be more worried about the GK than the midfield. I don't where Arsene finds these muddled young GKs from. For goodness sakes you need at least two good GKs in the squad.

As for the players who you say didn't do too much to distinguish themselves today, they did OK imo. With the scoreline as it was, we made it harder for ourselves. At 0-0 and 1-1 we looked the better side. Cazorla will get tired in his first season in England, I hope the boss manages his game time better than he did with Fabregas.

As for impact subs I agree, I don't think we have that kind of strength in depth. Certainly I think all sides in the league would benefit from having a Victor Moses or Javier Hernandez coming off the bench.

I think we had two problems today

1- We had too many players off form and not playing well: Ramsey, Arteta, Cazorla, Koscielny, Vermaelen and Gibbs.

2- We did not adapt to the way Chelsea played the game, putting pressure on our defenders and central midfielders in our half.

This is the 2nd time that I've seen Arteta play like that, i.e. running around like a headless chicken and miss-passing a lot. The first time was against Milan when we lost 4-0. This is how bad we were today. A more coherent team would have killed us today.

I am not sure if all the miss-passing was result of Chelsea's pressure though. It seemed that Ramsey, Gibbs and Gervinho were always running into Chelsea players and making very difficult passes to their team mates.

Also, playing Gervinho and Podolski as striker and left winger is not working because Gervinho wants to move into channels a lot, which is the same way Podolski plays. The last goal Podolski scored from open play was with Giroud as striker. I am not sure why we changed the formula with Giroud at the top as a target man and creating chances and space for Podolski and Cazorla to do their thing. I think we should get back to that, especially that Gervinho, who is a great moving off the ball and occupies dangerous places, has very erratic finishing and does not help with the overall play of the team in any way, unlike Giroud.

I really think relying on inconsistent players like Gervinho, Diaby and Walcott could really cost us because even though they are capable of the brilliant, they are more likely to leave you very frustrated. I am also starting to think that Ramsey is not really adapting into our style of play, he keeps the ball for too long and tries too many Hollywood passes. He should try and keep it simple, especially in a game where it was clearly not working out for him. Looks to me like he only thinks about what to do with the ball when it's at his feet, which is not a good thing for a passing side like us.

We also looked like we forgot a lot of the basics today, with Jenkinson and Gibbs attacking and not returning fast enough when we lose the ball. Also, their set pieces looked very dangerous and there are very worrying signs we are returning to the Arsenal of last season.

Must bounce back and get maximum points from our next three league games -

West Ham (Away)
Norwich (Away)
QPR (Home)

7 points should be the minimum acceptable haul from these games, even though 2 of them are derbies.

To be honest the way those 3 are leaking goals 9 points would be acceptable....

After these we have united away then Fulham and spurs at home so 9 points from the next 3 are very important play well and take that to old Trafford and hopefully build on a result there....Fulham are putting in decent stints against teams at the mo and spurs..well you can never bet on that game..anything is possible....

First up is the champions league game at home..a win has to come from this or it could snowball out of control for the fixtures coming...and it would be nice to get the group wrapped up as soon as possible for once and concentrate on the league which I still belive we could have a good shout at...forget chelsea running away with it at the mo..they will run out of steam at some point and have had some simple games....

Dan Hakim wrote:It seems like Theo's purposely not going to play well unless his going down the middle.

Yeah, I'm getting an "I don't give a fuck anymore" vibe from Theo these days...

Firstly, it would have been more than fair if we got an equaliser. We hit the post, and forced 2 good saves.

At times it was frustrating how much passing we were doing without creating chances, and Chelsea looked dangerous in attack.

But overall, we more consistently created chances than Chelsea did. And we kept Oscar and Hazard pretty quiet, especially near their goal.

I am happy for Wenger to rotate, including Giroud-Gervinho-Ramsey-Ox and also Per-Kos-TV. At some stage in the season, we will have injuries and need those players to have had some minutes on the field. But he has timed this poorly. There should have been more rotation in the first few games. Kos is underdone, and not at his best form. Kos and TV had not played together this season yet. Per should have played, no doubt.

I also agree with the above that our attack has better shape with Giroud playing.

Anyone else think Torres grabbing Koscielny and throwing him around like a rag doll for the first goal was a foul? Mata's free kick for the second was perfectly placed, and hard to defend, but maybe if we were a bit higher up, Manone could have had a better run on it.

A lack of belief is all that separates the London rivals

By Gary Neville


If ever a team were in need of a trophy, it would have to be this Arsenal team. Because when you watched them lose 2-1 against Chelsea, there wasn't a difference in quality. But it was as though there was one team who absolutely knew how to win a big game and another team that weren't too sure.

It's that unexplainable edge in sport which is impossible to coach and you can't teach but which makes the crucial difference nonetheless. I don't know whether it is the special togetherness that is forged in the dressing room after a cup win, that feeling of having achieved and battled against the odds together. Or whether it is simply the confidence those wins give you, so that you feel as though you are standing 10 foot rather than six foot tall. Probably it is a combination of both.


But you look around the Chelsea team - at the likes of John Terry and Ashley Cole - you see serial winners, be it the FA Cups or League titles or, now, a Champions League. And whilst some of Arsenal players might have won the French League or the Dutch Cup, they've never won together or in England. And that was what seems to be the difference at the moment.

Arsenal weren't bad at the Emirates on Saturday. In many ways they continued their encouraging start to the season. But at important times, and in crucial areas, they were second best. I understand that Arsene Wenger talked about a lack of personality and authority in his team and that sums it up perfectly.

Whether it's a figure such as Steve Bruce, as I had at Manchester United, or Terry, as Chelsea have now, you need players in your team who you can look to and know that they've been in these situations before and have come through to win.

This is a new team for Arsenal, almost a new start. If they could get that winning feeling in one of the cups this season, then perhaps they might see games like this going their way. They're not far away at the moment - but after another important defeat, that won't be much consolation.


Arsenal report card

Defence

Arsenal have improved but they would still crave a figure like Tony Adams: someone to take responsibility. As they set up to defend those two free-kicks from which they conceded goals on Saturday, I didn't get that sense anyone was taking on that role.

When you watched Adams defend a set-piece, he would pull up his shorts and throw out his arms and start organising. Only then would he worry about himself.

I understand why they picked Laurent Koscielny, who is faster than Per Mertesacker, for this game. But I wonder whether Mertesacker is becoming the kind of personality Arsenal need in defence - and whether they missed him on Saturday.

Attack

Arsenal still haven't got over the departure of Robin van Persie. There are more options in attack now with Gervinho, Lukas Podolski, Olivier Giroud and the possibility of Theo Walcott. But no one has made that central striking role their own.

Playing up top on your own is the hardest position in football - other than goalkeeper - and none of those players have convinced. Perhaps Arsene Wenger might consider playing two up front, as he did with Dennis Bergkamp and Thierry Henry. He has the players to do it and two strikers might just replace the goals that van Persie scored last season.

Title credentials

Just one trophy could make all the difference to these players, to make them believe they can do it.

It's possible they would be best off playing their strongest team in the Capital One Cup. Jose Mourinho targeted that cup when he went to Chelsea, precisely because he had a dressing room that hadn't won much together and he wanted to create that winning feeling.

You just feel that a cup win could likewise provide the missing link for Arsenal.

Long term

Financial figures are never as interesting as winning football matches but Arsenal fans should be proud that their club announced a £32.3million profit last week. And we should be lauding them.

They will come back and win trophies. This seven-year drought is just a moment in time. This is a well-run club with history, tradition, a long-term strategy and a great manager. They have everything in place for the decade to come especially if UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules are implemented.


Chelsea report card

Defence

Where Arsenal lacked leadership, Chelsea had John Terry. With him, Ashley Cole and Petr Cech in your defence, there is just a feeling of solidity.

There is a good mix to Chelsea at the moment. They've introduced more stylish players up front but in Terry, David Luiz and Branislav Ivanovic, along with John Obi Mikel, they've kept that strength that was such a feature of their game. They were organised and efficient in dealing with Arsenal's possession game and hard to get past. And whenever they were beaten, Cech was there to save them.

Attack

Chelsea have started the season weaker than before because they are without Didier Drogba.

Fernando Torres did well on Saturday with a wonderful goal. But they are now heavily reliant on him. There's only Daniel Sturridge in reserve, who's injured and inexperienced in the position.


With quality team-mates around Torres in Juan Mata, Eden Hazard and Oscar, he should do well this season. But Chelsea are lacking in this department.

Title credentials

They look very strong and will go close. The change in their style of play is beginning to work well but it's difficult to see a side winning the title with just one striking option. Perhaps they'll be tempted to buy again in January - but it's difficult to get quality then.

Saturday's result is an excellent one but the big test will come when they play the Manchester clubs in October and November. We'll know a little more then.

Long term

This is where Arsenal have the edge. Chelsea are fighting very hard to meet UEFA's Financial Fair Play rules but they lost £68million last season.

Clearly clubs that are funded by benefactors are going to suffer more under the news rules than clubs such as Arsenal that make a profit.

If UEFA president Michel Platini is to have any credibility, he has to make these rules on Financial Fair Play effective. And if he does, then the balance over the next 10 years will swing towards clubs such as Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2210556/Gary-Neville-Arsenal-Chelsea-separated-belief.html#ixzz27wQCStxr

Yep, I think Per is the closest thing we have to a defensive organiser, even if he's not as vocal as the description given. Also, this was our third different CB combination in three league games. With Kos and Verm both rushing out and Arteta giving away a few fouls around the box, we gave them promising positions from nothing.

Personally, I thought for the Torres goal Koscielny was just all at sea. For a guy who normally attacks the ball so well he didn't even seem to know where it was, much more concerned with getting a hold of the man. It's a shame as Torres is harmless these days, we normally take of him with ease. Later in the game Arteta (I think) gave away a foul) on him when he was going nowhere.

Surely as Our Captain and 1st choice CB Vermalean should be organising our defence and being vocal, I also think that some of this is about the keeper organising and shouting at defenders.
The first goal for me was down to the Ox he had just come on and sort of wonders off when the ball comes in leaving Kos with more than one player to deal with.