Looking forward: next few matches

8 points from 4 games is a solid start. Looking at that fixture list before the games, I would've expected wins against S'land and Soton, and draws against Stoke and Pool. It didn't work out that way, but 8 points is still good and solid. I felt bad for Soton, as I lived there for three years and grew fond of the place, but they look a decent outfit and have plenty of time to recover.

Looking forward, our next 4 PL games look like this:

Man City (A)
Chelsea (H)
West Ham (A)
Norwich (A)

Man City away will be difficult. Their form isn't stellar right now but it's not exactly bad. They are beatable, but they are an extremely tough proposition at home. I think a loss is the most likely result, with a draw being a reasonable result.

Chelsea are beatable I feel. While their summer buying has been strong, I'm not convinced that their team is any better than last year. Drogba and Merieles were good players, and I don't think the manager is utilizing his team correctly. I think this is very winnable. A draw wouldn't be a bad result considering we are away from home, but we should go for the win.

West Ham away may be tricky. I don't know much about this current West Ham side, but it's Fat Sam (no, not that one! ). He knows how to make our lives difficult. Will the Donkey be fit? We could lose this one, but a draw might be the most likely result. Still, would be disappointed with anything less than a win.

Finally Norwich away. Tricky game, difficult game, but winnable. A win should be a must.


I look at those fixtures and see a tricky run of games. Optimistically, I think we can get 10 points out of them (D,W,W,W), but I feel it's unlikely, because those games are punctuated by CL games, League Cup games, and an international break. That makes it difficult to predict who will be fit, and how our form will change over that time. Nevertheless, I would be happy with 7 points over that period (L,W,D,W). I think the minimum expectation should be 4 points.

City haven't been convincing this year yet, so I think we can cause a little shock and grab a win there although a draw would also be good. Chelsea at home we should win it, but west ham away i think we'll draw/lose.

I predict 8 points, and I don't if everyone noticed but we are currently on a 8 game unbeaten run, hope it stays intact after the next 4!

I think we will get 7 ot 8 points. Anything less than 7 is not good enough 7/8 are OK, 9 and above are great. Hope we can get a win against Fat Sam. Man I hate that man.

Tough to look so far ahead as we don't know who we will have available to play what games etc as you say, but I will be disappointed with anything less than 7 or 8 points. I can't wait to see how our defence stacks up against City and Chelski, while I'm certainly not buying into the title contention debate just yet, if our defence holds firm in those two fixtures I will get mightily excited. I think we've been a little lucky to not concede until now so personally I still think we aren't quite in the same league as the Manchester clubs, yet.

If we keep improving as the season wears on and continue to get as much out of players like Diaby and Cazorla who knows, we may be a serious title contender come the new year.

Will be tough to see what results we can pull from these given we have a champions league game up first...hopefully no injuries and no stupid self destructiveness and we take some good results into the next 4...

I don't know why but I fancy us to take points from both man city and chelsea...
And to be honest we really could do with beating both city and chelsea to signal an attempt at the league this season...we have had in the past quite patchy results where we have sat after the game and thought.."yer could have a shot at it this year" but this year is feeling and looking promising...get two wins out of those two and two draws and its going to start looking so much better...even tho it already is...

But as I said all well and good as long as the CL game goes without any hiccups
Hopefully no injuries....

And just to add jack is back in full training....

Speaking of the CL, what does everyone expect from Montpellier?

Their domestic form has been pretty poor but as we all know away in the CL is a different level. We managed some good form during our start last year so obviously league form isn't the be all and end all. We are expected to win but wouldn't be at all surprised with a draw, 1-1.

I fully expect our boys to win.

Right, Montpellier out of the way, onwards and upwards.

Early signs are that everyone is ok injury wise, so fatigue should be the only issue this week. Tuesday to Sunday is a pretty good break so I expect Wenger will have full list to choose from bar the long termers, who are now no longer long termers, which is a nice thought.

We need a win against one of City or Chelsea, still going with 7 or 8 points as my expected outcome.

I feel Man City (and Tottenham) is one of the few top teams that Arsenal has had the edge over in recent years, so I'm fairly confident. Nothing to be scared of IMO.

Agreed, I will be very disappointed with a loss, obviously. I think this is a real 50-50 fixture, with a draw the most likely outcome. If it were at home I would fully expect us to win.

I fancy us to win. They will be low on confidence after that hard fought loss (LOL) to Real.

Well as I said in q previous comment i am expecting us to pick up a result from city....

They crashed at the end against a team they thought would have given up if that's any plus to take into this game also city will be without na$ri after he picked up a hamstring Injurie..

Going for a flat 2-0 win to us.....I am more then confident we can turn them over,

Podolski & Cazorla to net.....win this and confidence will be sky high for the chelsea game..
But on a side where to much confidence to soon could be a bad price.....

2-0 away at City? Optimism! I think maybe 2-1 or 1-0

Van Roy Bostanian wrote:2-0 away at City? Optimism! I think maybe 2-1 or 1-0

Well you know me...hahaha!!!

In all fairness if they had had a result out of the Real game I would have said a draw maybe a loss with them thinking
'right we turned over real arsenal should be simpler' well they got shafted in the end so confidence won't be as high...
That said we could get the backlash....but I don't think it will happen having played and turned over Liverpool already we should go into this with the thoughts of if we can do Liverpool at anfield then we can do man city and I think we will...

We need to set out a strong team physically...diaby needs to pull his head out of his arse after the dallying he was guilty of in the montipeller game...he still needs a little time to find consistency and having a good game at man city could just be the confidence and stepping stone his game needs...we will need someone with his strenght in the mid to handle the likes of toure and silva...

I would like at least to see some pace down the wings for this too probably all going well in the last half hour or so really start stretching them with tired legs hanging about...

As said I am full of confidence with this game.....

Come on you gunners!

Van Roy Bostanian wrote:I fancy us to win. They will be low on confidence after that hard fought loss (LOL) to Real.

If only it worked like that. Not every side is as fragile after a loss as we've been over the years.

They'll be straight back up and at us in a flash. I'd take a good solid draw 0-0 or 1-1. Proving we're not a pushover is just as important as trying to show off how nice and frilly our build-up play is. Happy as I am to see how well Cazorla and Podolski in particular have settled in, we did play slightly like mugs in the Montpellier game. To convince ourselves that we can stay up at the top of the league with the big boys, we have to produce a solid performance in this game, not go out with an unrealistic game plan. You have to earn the right to play away at the Champions to try to win. We need a solid base, perhaps to show a bit of pragmatism compared to previous years.

"Man City away will be difficult. Their form isn't stellar right now but it's not exactly bad. They are beatable, but they are an extremely tough proposition at home. I think a loss is the most likely result, with a draw being a reasonable result."

A draw it was, a good result (considering last season they won 17 and drew 1...), but more importantly another hugely encouraging performance.

I said a draw VS Chelsea at home wouldn't be the worst result, but frankly I think we really have what it takes to win. On paper their attack should have us shitting bricks: Hazard, Mata, Oscar, Torres. WTF. And Oscar has looked the part, Hazard too. But I still think we should be able to win, particularly since their midfield and defence is not great atm. I still think their weakest link is Di Matteo. Until he goes, I think Chelsea will underachieve. So, a win it ought to be.

Mata is more important to them than Hazard from what I saw this weekend (I didn't watch the other Chelsea games where Hazard got 4-5 assists). They have quite a good attack on paper, but it seems that they are yet to gel and they don't know where the other is. I think Poldi and Santi already have better understanding than any of the Chelsea players with each other. We cn win that and a draw wouldn't be too bad. A defeat would be terrible both in terms of points and in terms of osing our mini unbeaten streak.

Nothing less than a win vs chelsea would satisfy me... I am pretty confident we will win too but I am really scared that it turns out to be the type of day where the ball just won't go in and they'll score from a deflection.

If we continue this form, I am 100% confident we can get 3 points against Chelsea. They haven't really been good either (0-0 draw with QPR, 1-0 win against Stoke).

Hazard looked faded off. Torres still hasn't found his scoring boots yet.

Next five matches:

Chelsea - H
West Ham - A
Norwich - A
QPR - H
Man Utd - A

I'm expecting 10-13 from those next five games. We should be able to easily deal with West Ham, Norwich, and QPR, and I doubt we'll do worse than a draw against Chelsea at the Emirates. However, I don't see us winning at Old Trafford. But the boys still have four weeks to improve my optimism.

Fucking away games, seems we've been playing an awful lot lately and looking at that we've got a few coming up, looking forward to the good run of home games that must eventually come our way.

Tough little stretch really bookended by Chelsea and Man Utd, I would bite your hand off for 10 right now.

Hisham El Mawan wrote:Next five matches:

Chelsea - H
West Ham - A
Norwich - A
QPR - H
Man Utd - A

I'm expecting 10-13 from those next five games. We should be able to easily deal with West Ham, Norwich, and QPR, and I doubt we'll do worse than a draw against Chelsea at the Emirates. However, I don't see us winning at Old Trafford. But the boys still have four weeks to improve my optimism.

I think an expectation of 13 is too high. That's 4 wins in a draw out of 3 away games, against Fat Sam and Alex Ferguson to boot. QPR also seem to have a good team on paper that may well click against us. And, well, Chelsea won 6-0 yesterday, so we can't write them off. I think 10 would be quite decent. 13 would be excellent.