Arsenal v Tottenham

I would take a draw to be honest. Is it the first time to face Spurs while we are the underdogs?. Sad times really.

Mohamed Samir wrote:I would take a draw to be honest. Is it the first time to face Spurs while we are the underdogs?. Sad times really.

Maybe, but I don't really think we're underdogs. At least, it's a debate to be had.

Stephen Mitchell wrote:ok, we were shocking last week, but a 3-0 or 4-1 loss at home, esp. when we may have our first choice defence playing (Kos should be back). Where's the precedent for that??

We are in crap form, have a bunch of injuries, and a Spurs side in much better form than us this season have the opportunity to cement their status as the current best side in North London. They have the want and ability to tear us apart if they turn up at the weekend.
Bale and Lennon countering against our glacier quick build up play absolutely terrifies me. Luckily Defoe is a bit pony up top.

I fancy a 2-2 out of this....

Durrell wrote:

Stephen Mitchell wrote:ok, we were shocking last week, but a 3-0 or 4-1 loss at home, esp. when we may have our first choice defence playing (Kos should be back). Where's the precedent for that??

We are in crap form, have a bunch of injuries, and a Spurs side in much better form than us this season have the opportunity to cement their status as the current best side in North London. They have the want and ability to tear us apart if they turn up at the weekend.
Bale and Lennon countering against our glacier quick build up play absolutely terrifies me. Luckily Defoe is a bit pony up top.

We don't have that many injuries. We were awful against Milan, and suffered a hangover from that at Sunderland. Previously, we seemed to be playing quite well. We won our last home game 7-1, and won a very tough game at Sunderland. So I don't buy into the whole "crisis" thing anyway, on the back of two painful games.

Potentially, the team could be:


-------------Szczesny-------------

Sagna------TV------Kos------Gibbs

Song---------Arteta------Ros/Rams

---Gerv--------RVP--------AOC----


With that team, I'm sure we can compete.

this is arsenal football club, our hangovers tend to last months

[quote="Stephen Mitchell"] and suffered a hangover from that at Sunderland. Previously, we seemed to be playing quite well. We won our last home game 7-1, and won a very tough game at Sunderland. So I don't buy into the whole "crisis" thing anyway, on the back of two painful games.
[/quote

The Blackburn and Sunderland wins were our only two in our last 6 Premier League. 7 points from 18 is crap form. Excluding the Man Utd game, we've dropped 8 points against Fulham, newly promoted Swansea and Bolton Wanderers. Without our 7 making Blackburn have the league's worst goals against record, they would still have conceded the third highest amount of goals (and without the goals they scored against us, in the relegation zone).
Add in the tight and scrappy wins against Villa and Leeds; a championship side and the team 15th in the Premiership (who we were 2-0 down to at one point), and it isn't a particularly great run of form in 2012, even before getting thrashed by Milan and Sunderland.
In comparison, Spurs have been held by Wolves, Liverpool and Stevenage, lost 3-2 to Man City controversially, and beaten Newcastle, Wigan, Everton and West Brom in the league, Cheltenham and Watford in the FA Cup.

In our last 6 league games, we've dropped 11 points, they've dropped 7. Factoring in the losses to the Manchester clubs, which were somewhat to be expected, we've dropped 8 from 15, them 4 from 15.

If we lose this game, I honestly think fans will turn against Wenger. I know he has lost the faith of some fans but a defeat against Spurs will turn the majority against him.

Stephen Mitchell wrote:

Durrell wrote:

Stephen Mitchell wrote:ok, we were shocking last week, but a 3-0 or 4-1 loss at home, esp. when we may have our first choice defence playing (Kos should be back). Where's the precedent for that??

We are in crap form, have a bunch of injuries, and a Spurs side in much better form than us this season have the opportunity to cement their status as the current best side in North London. They have the want and ability to tear us apart if they turn up at the weekend.
Bale and Lennon countering against our glacier quick build up play absolutely terrifies me. Luckily Defoe is a bit pony up top.

We don't have that many injuries. We were awful against Milan, and suffered a hangover from that at Sunderland. Previously, we seemed to be playing quite well. We won our last home game 7-1, and won a very tough game at Sunderland. So I don't buy into the whole "crisis" thing anyway, on the back of two painful games.

Potentially, the team could be:


-------------Szczesny-------------

Sagna------TV------Kos------Gibbs

Song---------Arteta------Ros/Rams

---Gerv--------RVP--------AOC----


With that team, I'm sure we can compete.

I agree with this team. Hopefully Kos will be okay to play. I hope Wenger doesnt start Theo. He needs to be benched. Gerv & AOC outwide.
Ramsey needs to step up.

Stephen Mitchell wrote:

We don't have that many injuries.

I'm not sure that is a fair assessment of the team at the moment. We had Mertersacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Coquelin, Djourou and even Squillaci all get injured in 3 games! Add Wilshere and a couple of others. We have the most injuries in the league again, as we usually do somehow.

Sure, nearly our best team should be back for this game. But most are just back. Idealy, you bring players who have been out for a while back into a stable team. But as it stands, half the team is coming back from injury.

This is going to hurt.

Would happily take a draw!

I'll be working which im actually relieved about.

Posted these clips on the Arsenal group, may as well post them here too -


Best North London derby moment?

- Winning the league at WHL in 1971? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdALY2fLvq4
- Beating them 5-0 with this Liam Brady wonder goal? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLkrRdTB8K4
- The 1987 2nd leg of the League Cup when the Spurs announcer announced at half time how to pick up Wembley tickets, only for Arsenal to win the game in the 2nd half and go to the final? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geJbTwOQoQU
- Beating them 1-0 with a Tony Adams goal in the FA Cup semi? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toKReg2dgTw
- The 3-1 win with this goal from Adams https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcTO-YxRe7k and this one from Bergkamp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOvaxECYrrw&feature=related ?
- Coming from behind and beating them 2-1 in the 2001 FA Cup semis? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-awtBdo6MQ
- How about Lauren's last minute penalty to win 2-1 and go on to win the title in 2002? ( I can't find a video of this but this is in my top 3)
- Thierry Henry from his own half? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJspFsCTqgI
- Winning the league at WHL for a 2nd time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrgixaKP7oA
- Tottenham 4-5 Arsenal? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5DVox8gyMo
- Bendtner winning the game with his first touch? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JmNc5ysXOk
- 3-1 at the Lane? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAHHrlO0jY
- Cesc scoring seconds after going 1-0 up? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fYWSbiyr30

Just watched the whole lot of clips...let's hope another can be added by Sunday evening...

Irrelavent to the game, but this summer is going to be the most nail biting transfer window to date. Hiding my face just thinking about it. As for this weekend, I'll ignore anything football until 4pm Sunday.

Come Sunday evening I hope we have beaten spurs...it could give us a timely boost to finish 4 even take 3rd from them.....and talking about that point how would the media see it if we did finish 3rd? As a personal point it would be a relief that we were ahead of spurs at the end of the season and if we have had a bad season then they must have had one monumental fuck up to finish below us....

But no doubt it will just be called..........


lucky.

Watching those clips...geez Spurs have been poor over the years!

In the least surprising news ever, Redknapp says Adebayor and Modric 'will hopefully be ok'. Van der Vaart and Ekotto have been training this week and should be fine.

Thierry Henry has challenged his old Arsenal team-mates to kick-start their season with victory over arch-rivals Tottenham at Emirates Stadium on Sunday.

The 34-year-old Frenchman has now returned to the United States to link up again with the New York Red Bulls following the end of his short loan spell back with the Gunners.

Henry's final match was the 4-0 defeat to AC Milan which left Arsenal's Champions League hopes in tatters before they then crashed out of the FA Cup at Sunderland - where Henry had netted a dramatic late winner in the Barclays Premier League the week before.

Arsene Wenger's men will be aiming to consolidate fourth place ahead of Chelsea, who host Bolton tomorrow, with what would be a morale-boosting victory over their fierce rivals, who by contrast are enjoying a fine season under Harry Redknapp.

Henry, though, feels a win on Sunday could be the start of a positive end to what has so far been a wayward campaign.

"For years we have been used to being on top of Tottenham, by a mile, and now it is the opposite. But this is the derby, which you don't want to lose, and we need those three points massively," Henry told Arsenal Player.

"Hopefully it will be the derby that can spark the players, the fans, everybody at Arsenal. We'll see.

"The league is going to be very difficult but the top four is in Arsenal's hands.

"They have the squad, there is a long way to go, they have to play Chelsea at home, Tottenham at home, Newcastle at home, Man City at home... it is not impossible."

Arsenal and Tottenham have issued a joint statement warning fans anti-social behaviour during Sunday's north London derby will not be tolerated.

Spurs' former Arsenal striker Emmanuel Adebayor is the biggest concern - he was the target of abuse during the first meeting between the sides at White Hart Lane in October.

The statement read: "A north London derby is always a special occasion and we hope this game will be remembered for both the action on the pitch as well as the positive support for both teams off it.

"All fans should be aware that breaches of ground regulations - including anti-social behaviour - will not be tolerated."

The Gunners may only be a place behind Tottenham in the league table - but there is a 10-point gap.

Defender Johan Djourou claims the Gunners need to forget about that and "go to war".

He told www.Arsenal.com: "When you play them, you forget the table; it is a battle and the best team will win.

"They are in great shape this season, they have been playing a lot better than before, but you have to forget about that and go to war.

"It is up to us to show that we are the kings of London."

Swiss international Djourou could again be asked to play at centre-back should Laurent Koscielny not have recovered from the knee problem which saw him hobble off in Milan and then miss the FA Cup tie at Sunderland.

Full-back Carl Jenkinson played for the first time since November for the reserves in midweek in their 5-0 win at Norwich, where Andrey Arshavin scored twice and South Korea forward Park Ju-young was also on target.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/thierry-henry-hopes-derby-can-spark-arsenal-players-7440290.html

This is probably the first match I am going to which I'd probably prefer to watch on the television. It could end up a brilliant day like beating Chelsea when no-one expected it, or it could end up a disaster. Never know with Arsenal.

Could Djourou find form again if partnered with Kos or TV for a couple of games? Probably not relevant for this game, where if he plays, we just hope he doesn't stuff up..

Any other alternative to Rosicky in the middle, with Ramsey out? Benayoun? Arshavin? I don't want to sound too harsh on Rosicky as he has been better than the rest these last few weeks but I can't remember the last time Rosicky took control of, a made a difference in, a 'big' game. And with Tottenham's midfield their strong point it's worrying.

Going to go 3-1 Spurs

This will be the first time in nearly 20 years they have done the double over us !! sad times. Lets not pretend this Arsenal team are going to be able to produce anything on Sunday - I think the only thing we will produce is excuses from our frail manager. Can you believe the idiot Wenger said last week that finishing 4th is like silverware..? Seriously Arsene dont be so insulting to your paying public !! this kind of attitude should not be tolerated at a club our size !! its darn right rude ! haha can you imagine if Wenger commentates on the Olympics for French TV this summer he will be cumming in his pants when someone finishes 4th in the 100ms ... Gold ? Silver ? Bronze ? er... no the fourth place should get a copper medal with wengers idiotic Mug embroided all over it ...

Back to the game and have to say Spurs look stronger in every position on the pitch ... maybe aside from RVP... they will dominate the middle of the park and our defence looks like being DJ v Adebayor - what fun that will be.

Still we deserve no less ... you can always tell the way things are going at a club when we award perhaos one of our worst defenders under wenger a new 2yr contract ... I bet Wigan and Wolves were gutted when they heard DJ signed on the dotted line

Anyway 3-1 Spurs , but hey dont fear nearly the Euros and hopefully the back of Wenger for another season

McCarthyofcourse!! wrote:Going to go 3-1 Spurs

This will be the first time in nearly 20 years they have done the double over us !! sad times. Lets not pretend this Arsenal team are going to be able to produce anything on Sunday

Oh, did the game happen already? Because I could've sworn that they were going to play on Sunday morning. But I guess Dan can see the future, right?

Hisham El Mawan wrote:

McCarthyofcourse!! wrote:Going to go 3-1 Spurs

This will be the first time in nearly 20 years they have done the double over us !! sad times. Lets not pretend this Arsenal team are going to be able to produce anything on Sunday

Oh, did the game happen already? Because I could've sworn that they were going to play on Sunday morning. But I guess Dan can see the future, right?

No I would sat he cannot I am sure if he could picking 6 correct numbers on the lottery would be a priority to Dan,

But in all fairness what he is saying is almost right...I would say unless we turn up and say bollocks to spurs it's gonna be a close one if not a loss...sad to say but I am too not holding much hope for this game...

Just like Dan I am sure we both hope otherwise...