Wigan vs Arsenal

These substitutions are going to come back to bite us in the ass.

wilshere has been poor in possession

i dont trust this team on a 1 nil lead. We look like conceding so badly

Meshaal wrote:These substitutions are going to come back to bite us in the ass.

This, we've looked awfully disjointed since them. Well, more awfully disjointed.

why is ramsey passing backwards?!?!? just gifting possession back ffs

fuck this is annoying, its like we're pkaying barca right now, we cant even fucking string 5 passes together!

Really poor.

1 more minute fuck!

Playing with 10 men from min 75...

was ugly but we won and that is all that matters! We havent won like that all season

3 points fuck!! Yeah!! 1st time we win 3 in a row since february!! Mind, we played shit mostly but those points are all that matter right now!

Yeah, not great at all, but good enough.

Need to sign a quality striker and a defensive mid-fielder with some physical presence in January. Strootman sounds too much like a ball-playing mid-fielder, any idea if he has much physical presence? As for striker, only Cavani will do. Till then we can make a short-term signing, Ba or Villa.

woah I just saw we're in the top 3 now! Crysis? fuck off!

That was the ugliest of wins, but who cares! A clean sheet and three points are what really matter. We have some momentum now with three League wins in a row. The Ox was our most dangerous attacking player today and we saw fire Jack which was great.

Vanig Bostanian wrote:That was the ugliest of wins, but who cares! A clean sheet and three points are what really matter. We have some momentum now with three League wins in a row. The Ox was our most dangerous attacking player today and we saw fire Jack which was great.

Thought Jack (among others) was actually pretty poor on the ball today. He will always be a fighter and a battler but not great today

He didn't have the best of games, but the fight he showed in such a tough game was great to see. We haven't seen too many fighters in an Arsenal side recently.

Chris Chan wrote:

Vanig Bostanian wrote:That was the ugliest of wins, but who cares! A clean sheet and three points are what really matter. We have some momentum now with three League wins in a row. The Ox was our most dangerous attacking player today and we saw fire Jack which was great.

Thought Jack (among others) was actually pretty poor on the ball today. He will always be a fighter and a battler but not great today

Can't expect him to be that consistant at the moment, in midfield and on the flanks we failed to move the ball with any speed, we literally didnt get Walcott running onto the ball once from midfield and thats just not good enough when he is such an outlet, Chambo was the only person, and that wasnt until the second half who added a change of pace and a different option.

As everyone has said it's a great game to win when not playing well in those conditions against a fired up team. Something we can build on and now we can rest up for the week and maybe get a few bodies back for Newcastle.

But it's a concern that in our 3 game win streak, two of those wins needed penalties as we couldn't score from open play. Reading was the exception to the recent rule going back to the Tottenham game in terms of goals scored and chances created.

But a win's a win and with some continuity in our starting XI you would expect/hope that we find more rhythm and understanding amongst our forward players.

You could also argue that it's a good sign that we are finally starting to get penalties called in our favour - and not just the stonewall ones that refs used to miss, but even questionable ones

http://news.arseblog.com/2012/12/wigan-0-1-arsenal-winning-ugly-by-the-numbers/
Shows you who the better team was, yet we won the game, which is something we don't really know.

Well....another 3 points 3 games on the bounce and a clean sheet!?!!?!?!

Not had a chance to watch the game today as I was under the curse of late Christmas shopping....hopfully get some input tonight.....

And talking of Christmas........



Thanks for your shit result spurs.....hohoho....merry Christmas!!

I'm a bit torn about how to feel about this result. On one hand it is great that we have the three points in what was a pretty poor performance. We finally showed we can win ugly, but there are a number of worries playing on my mind.

We look poor against any side that is "up for it". Obviously if you are getting closed down more, the quality of football is going to drop, but our levels drop alarmingly. At times today (and previously), the players almost looked like they were playing different games. Passing was all over the play, and it wasnt the weight of pass but more the direction was completely different to where the runner was going. Now every so often you get teams like Reading or Southampton who will give you time on the ball and they will get murdered, but for the most part your opposition is going to fight and hassle for every ball. Which team is in their right mind will just lay over and let us play our football? We know we are going to be in a fight most games, but in the first half of the season, we have been out worked and out fought by inferior (quality wise) teams than us and they have basically stopped us creating many clear cut chances.

That leads me on to how few chances we are creating, particularly away from home. I don't know if it is because we are setting up more defensively (less goals conceded away than at home and more clean sheets away) or if there is something wrong with the personnel or the system, but this is a big worry for me especially when we don't have a clinical finisher in the side. I don't even think it is a simple case of buying a striker. Take Wigan today for example, how many clear cut opportunities did we create? I can only remember one really where the Ox got in round the back and pulled it back to Theo, other than that it was nothing more than speculative hits from 20 yards. It wasnt even just this game, Villa, Stoke, Norwich, Chelsea, Utd, Everton, Bradford... all were games when we created very little.

It's ok going away to the bridge or OT, you can't expect too many chances at those places, but Villa, Norwich and Wigan were all in the bottom three when we played them. Once or twice is a poor performance, the regularity at which is happening this season is what is leaving me with an uneasy feeling.

Anyways I don't know what to think really, Mario has summed it up pretty well and I do hope continuity does bring us better results and football going forward, but the issues I've listed above keep nagging at me