Arsenal vs. Schalke

Theo NOOOOOO

Fuck walcott shoulf havr passed that!! God this team is pissing me off so much these days! our game right now is riddled with deficiancies!! Stupid mistakes, bad defending, shit passing, indecisiveness, lack of composure, lack of confidence... when u combine them all you get what this team has been serving for the past month

We are a very good team but we are STUPID..PLAIN STUPID. United would have won that game by 3-4 goals..

I never expected us to have an easy game, neither did i expect us to dominate, but I really expected us to be a bit mature after having gone 2-0 up. Just keep the fucking ball, pass it around and frustrate the shit out of Schalke FFS

Schalke are a good side. We certainly didn't need to give them a helping hand with their goals like we did tonight.

It wasn't a humiliating performance like last time, the home game representing the real black mark imo. That was the performance that put us in a difficult position, but there are always are a few howlers per season from us so it can't come as a surprise.

Great to see us make the chances count, even when we weren't on top for most of the game. The continual giving away of possession is a worry, that was a lightweight midfield and it showed against some more muscular Schalke players.

On the one hand I think Walcott is worth persevering with up front (after all no-one else is even trying to make runs beyond defences bar him), it just remains to be seen how he does against bus parking teams in the league. Giroud is a strange one, he did OK, nice header for the goal. He wants too much time on the ball pr rushes though, he's obviously not quite got in the groove yet, it's a big step-up. He and to an even greater extent Podolski go missing too much which leaves us with very little to work with.

Even so, the problem was the home match against Schalke not tonight. I hate the shockers. I can live with tonight's game. We're just not good enough to keep Schalke quiet, that's our level at the moment.

The result was a pretty good one all things considered yet I'm also frustrated in how everything played out.

If you said to me before the game or after the first 15mins when we didn't touch the ball that we would get a draw I would have taken it. But then we go 2-0 up and are 30 seconds from half time before we concede. And it was entirely preventable. That's what is annoying, that instead of closing out the half and probably going on to win the game we let them back in. But it's not really surprising.

That said, they didn't deserve to lose and dominated us for large periods of the game and at 2-2 they were more likely to win it whilst we couldn't get the ball and always looked on the brink of gifting them a goal.

But then we have a great chance with the last kick of the game! If Theo had a left foot he could have taken it out wide and given himself more space, or played in Giroud. Gutted we couldn't take it.

I felt throughout the game we had opportunities, either in chances created or having the ball in good areas with the potential to create something better but the final ball/touch let us down. A bit more confidence and maybe we get the 3rd and kill the game. Both teams were vulnerable defensively so both teams will probably be satisfied/irritated with the final result.


Theo Walcott

Outside of the goal I thought he had a very poor game. However... he did score and that's 8 for the season now so he is clearly a threat regardless in how the rest of his game holds up. He needs to improve different parts of his game clearly but whilst he's scoring and occupying the opposition defence then he has to start. Starting Ramsey on the right is clearly not the answer. To anything. Theo is one of our only goal threats right now.

Defensively

The 'Steve Bould effect' didn't last long. I know we still have a relatively good 'goals against' column but that's no good if we look like conceding every time the other team attacks. We were very shaky tonight. Can't expect to be solid whilst we keep making changes every game, enforced or otherwise, and we still need to do more as a team to defend as a unit. Work harder in midfield and up front. But that doesn't excuse individual errors at the back.

Cohesion between the front 6

There isn't much of it right now. Our 3 new players haven't struck up an immediate relationship between each other, which may be expected, but it's hurting us. Podolski assisted Giroud but they rarely link up together and Cazorla has quietened down in the last few games. Which again will be expected coming to a new league and playing so often, so soon. And also because the opposition have rightly identified him as our main guy. And Wilshere is not up to speed yet which again is to be expected. Passes he would normally make when match sharp aren't being executed right now (one to Theo in the 2nd half stands out) and he's tiring and unable to have the full impact on the game that we really need to him to have.

Qualification

If we beat Montpellier then we're more than likely to qualify and obviously if Schalke also beat Olympiakos then both teams go through before the last game. Whether we finish first or second, this Arsenal side is not good enough to win the Champions League or beat any of the top contenders. I know a lot can change in 3/4 months but let's be realistic. We could get lucky and finish top and play Cluj or Braga or Anderlecht but if we do finish top we'll just get Real Madrid. And if we finish 2nd we'll get Barcelona.

But let's just qualify first. If we can't finish above this Olympiakos side, certainly not one of their best compared to previous years, then we don't deserve to be in this competition.

Simply put this team is nowhere near winning anything this season...yet another game of...well to be honest I am not going to go through it all again as i am getting pissed off with saying the same thing over and over....

So much wrong..far more than last season....