Re: Arsenal vs. AC Divers Post Match

by Alex Hadjicharalampous Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:42 am

ralph avedikian wrote:The problem is not our squad depth, we have a large squad.. it is the injuries we pick up..way too much and more often than not in the same position.

Exactly, Wenger would have to buy a whole other squad to combat the ridiculous injury situation.

by Vijay Saibola Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:45 am

Well done boys. Made us proud tonite!

ps: Shall think of the RVP chance for a while I gues. What if it had gone in.....?!!! Damn it, forget it...

by John Foxall Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:50 am

ralph avedikian wrote:Oh I thought gervinho was really poor. We needed arshavin today

I can only presume this is sarcasm. Fat, lazy, uninspired Arshavin would have had a myocardial infarction in this game. Arshavin is the antithesis of that first-half performance.

Yes, we fell short. Yes, we're not quite as good as we'd like to be, but at the very least no-one out there could be faulted for effort. We were playing a dangerous game so the work rate was absolutely essential to get back to cut their attacks off at source. Gervinho ran as much as anyone.

I'd have been ashamed to have idle Arshavin out there today.

Gervinho did OK. The truth is that despite our domination in the first half, only one of their back four played really poorly - Mesbah. The other three were never totally overwhelmed, it was just the nature of their split team, what with the three up front doing no tracking back. Our front three on the other hand worked their socks off.

I'm disappointed, but from 60 minutes onwards it started looking less likely. Milan were controlling the game by the final quarter.

I don't blame the ref. He let a lot go, he could've given out more cards to our players. Milan were not diving more than any other European team either.

I hope Wenger went to shake Allegri's hand. That was no time to have a winge to the fourth official.

by janelle.noel Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:55 am

John Foxhall, spot on

by janelle.noel Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:01 am

RVP for me didn't seem his killer self this match, even before The Miss. But as they say, thats football, unfortunately. Song did let us down towards the end I thought, several giveaways and then going for the hollywood passes.

But I say again: fantastic effort all round and I echo the pride of all expressed here tonight cheers

by Assan Touray Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:12 am

Dan Hakim wrote:
Assan Touray wrote:Fantastic performance from the boys, what a comeback that would have been. Wenger got his tactics spot on from the start and Milan just couldn't cope with our pace in the first half. Second half, they organized themselves better but the turning point for me was the Ox's injury and then Walcott's. We lacked the pace and directness we had in the first half and bar Van Persie's miss, we didn't look like scoring again.

Song really pissed me off at the end. We were struggling to get possession of the ball for a long period and when we finally had a chance to break, he tried to play a difficult pass. All he had to do was play Park on the left and we would have had a real counter going, Wenger lost it on the sidelines. The referee got so many decisions wrong today; Sagna's yellow card, not booking Robinho for kicking the ball away and then the Mexes challenge on Vermaelen.

The lack of quality on our bench continues to hurt us, this must be addressed in the summer. It's all well to have a quality starting XI but you need player's on the bench who can come on and make a difference. I don't think anyone expected Chamakh and Park to do that today, or all season really. Hopefully the Ox and Theo aren't out for long, we need them in our fight to finish in the top four.

It's true we don't have an impact sub, though I'm not entirely sure we need to dip into the transfer market too much. Next season we'll have Wilshere coming back from injury, and Miyaichi and Joel Campbell will be returning from loan. We'll need a solid backup for RVP, but not too much more than that.

I'm not suggesting a total overhaul of the squad, far from it. Keep the core players, get rid of the dead weight and I think we are 3-4 quality players away from having a team capable of challenging for trophies. Injuries are a part of the game although ours are just ridiculous at times. Problem is we have too many passengers who can't be relied upon when injuries kick in, look at how United have coped with their's.

by Assan Touray Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:21 am

Also, Rosicky was fantastic again today. Full of energy, did his defensive duties well and was always trying to drive us forward. I know he's made of glass and has been mentioned in the past as one of the players we should get rid of but he has been one of our best players recently. If he keeps his form up till the end of the season, he would have earned himself at least a year long extension.

by Dan Hakim Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:29 am

Assan Touray wrote:Also, Rosicky was fantastic again today. Full of energy, did his defensive duties well and was always trying to drive us forward. I know he's made of glass and has been mentioned in the past as one of the players we should get rid of but he has been one of our best players recently. If he keeps his form up till the end of the season, he would have earned himself at least a year long extension.

Absolutely. I never understood the movement for getting rid of Rosicky. He and Song are the only midfield players that actually try to make passes to cut open a defense, instead of trying to pass around. And when he has the ball and space in front of him, look out.

by John Foxall Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:38 am

Dan Hakim wrote:
Assan Touray wrote:Also, Rosicky was fantastic again today. Full of energy, did his defensive duties well and was always trying to drive us forward. I know he's made of glass and has been mentioned in the past as one of the players we should get rid of but he has been one of our best players recently. If he keeps his form up till the end of the season, he would have earned himself at least a year long extension.

Absolutely. I never understood the movement for getting rid of Rosicky. He and Song are the only midfield players that actually try to make passes to cut open a defense, instead of trying to pass around. And when he has the ball and space in front of him, look out.

The "movement for getting rid of Rosicky" was based on a) fans' stupidity, b) people forgetting how good he looked in the first 18 months before 18 more months out injured and c) making generalizations about the Hlebyness of the players Wenger had brought in to play the passing game.

He's been very good of late. Excellent news.

by Evan Mullins Wed Mar 07, 2012 10:58 am

I'm shocked that people are making such a big deal out of RvP's "miss". To me it wasn't a miss at all, he did the right thing. If he tries to power that in, he's literally about 2 feet away from a spread out Abbiati. It was a good second save from Abbiati. Possibly he could have tried to take a small touch around him to the left but its hard to say.

by John Foxall Wed Mar 07, 2012 11:33 am

Evan Mullins wrote:I'm shocked that people are making such a big deal out of RvP's "miss". To me it wasn't a miss at all, he did the right thing. If he tries to power that in, he's literally about 2 feet away from a spread out Abbiati. It was a good second save from Abbiati. Possibly he could have tried to take a small touch around him to the left but its hard to say.

I agree, who are we to question the messiah RvP.

Having said that though Abbiati is off balance still getting up and Robin could have placed it elsewhere. Perhaps in the end it was a little too telegraphed or just too clever. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.

No point talking about it now anyway.

by Joey Schwab Wed Mar 07, 2012 12:01 pm

Fantastic performance, fantastic performance, and I'm thoroughly proud of the Arsenal tonight. Shame that we had to bow out to those cheating cunt bags.

How about that first half though? Holy shite.

by Zaid Derweesh Wed Mar 07, 2012 12:29 pm

So proud. Hope the players realize that they put in a hell of a performance, and instead of feeling down, take that pride into the coming games.

We beat the best Tottenham team in 50 years, unbeaten Liverpool at Anfield, and the famous Milan in just over a week, two of those victories by a 3 goal margin. This Arsenal team has outdone expectations, and Wenger must take credit, just as he was taking the flak when they were screwing up. Lots of character, lots of character.

As for the RVP miss, it looked really bad - like him or Gervinho should've scored. But RVP has brought us this far, he is above any criticism whatsoever.

by Sami Rockfeller Wed Mar 07, 2012 3:10 pm

Wenger deserves total credit for this. He had a depleted side, he could have played a weaker side but no, he fully justified why he deserves to be in the CL and why he'll come back next year.

The Ox was immense, he's got a bright bright future ahead of him.

Criticizing Gervinho is a bit harsh, granted he wasn't very effective on the attacking front(mainly first half) but we wouldn't have kept a clean sheet if it weren't for him running his ass off covering the holes left behind by Gibbs.

by ChippyBrady Wed Mar 07, 2012 7:43 pm

My voice is fucked. What support from the fans and a superb performance to boot. Too bad we tired in the second half. And too bad all we had on the bench was Park and bloody Chamakh. We made Milan look ordinary and I think we absolutely deserved a fourth. Just couldn't find it.
The ref was pathetic. Simply not good enough for this level.
Even with his 27 assistants.
The OX is the real deal. I'm salivating at the idea of a midfield with him, Jack and a fully fit and functioning Ramsey.
The future is indeed bright.

Oh and another Man of The Match performance from Rosicky.

Superb.

by **Sue Lee** Wed Mar 07, 2012 8:27 pm

i'm feeling so drained this morning after that match last night!!!

great performance but just can't shake that feeling of being let down so much in the 1st leg, if only they'd given half of that performance the proved they were capable of last night!

by Steve Dawson Wed Mar 07, 2012 9:26 pm

With different luck we could've easily gone through in this tie. Milan got that dodgy pen in the first leg, and Robin missing that sitter last night. If those two things had had different outcomes, we would have done it. Very frustrating but damn am I proud to call myself an Arsenal fan today. What an effort!

by **Chris Chan** Wed Mar 07, 2012 11:13 pm

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid761333525001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAAAnV5Z0~,xyoxShbYDLGSh2yu4XruBQh1N8XmHpc9&bctid=1492871034001

sums up the emotions each individual went through yesterday pretty well

by Jenks1981 Wed Mar 07, 2012 11:38 pm

Chris thats class, made me laugh and very similar to me and my mate jumping around my front room!

by **Sue Lee** Wed Mar 07, 2012 11:53 pm

after the 3rd goal i was physically shaking, once they came out at half time the annoyance set in as i knew that this was going to be it and my hopes had been raised just to be dashed again Sad

all in all a quality night, these last couple of weeks have just been a pleasure!!

by Hisham El Mawan Thu Mar 08, 2012 9:18 am

Ibrahimovic is right up there with Ronaldo and Bale in terms of diving.

by Zaid Derweesh Thu Mar 08, 2012 11:40 am

Any news on injuries?

by **Chris Chan** Thu Mar 08, 2012 12:01 pm

Walcott was a dead leg and The Ox had the flu, both should hopefully be back for Newcastle

by vyom.chaudhary Thu Mar 08, 2012 6:16 pm

Chris Chan wrote:Walcott was a dead leg and The Ox had the flu, both should hopefully be back for Newcastle

It looked like ox's hammy was gone.

by **Chris Chan** Thu Mar 08, 2012 6:27 pm

When it looked like he had done his hammy, he was running pretty freely a few mins later (unlikely to be a hammy injury)

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