What a waste of time

By Walter Broeckx

Oh the joy but also the sadness at times of being an Arsenal (and more in general) and/or football supporter and in my case a blog writer. Sometimes you can write the victory bulletins and sometimes you have to announce defeat. That is the way it goes. That is the way it always has been (and apart from the invincible era) it always will be. You win some and then suddenly when least expected you lose one.

I think we started good in the first minutes with some good attacks and a first chance…and then it all went horribly wrong. I even said to my son when Wigan started their counter that something was wrong with Arteta and seconds later the ball was in the net for Wigan.  Arteta clearly couldn’t carry on and before Ramsey could get on the field we were 0-2 down. A rather lucky goal as the ball rebounded between Djourou and Vermaelen and fell very kindly for the Wigan player. But that is how it goes sometimes when it isn’t your day.

What then followed was a bit of one way traffic. The Wigan time keeper was in excellent form. Oh I meant goal keeper of course. Or both. Never mind. The header from Benayoun was bound to go in but what a magnificent save. One can but admire it. He couldn’t do anything when Vermaelen headed the Arsenal goal with a powerful header. We had enough chances to equalise in the first half but it didn’t come.

After about half an hour my match commentator started noticing that the Wigan time keeper was taking well rather  a lot of time to bring the ball back in to play each time he had to do it.  And he kept on doing this for the rest of the game. I had noticed it since they went 0-2 up. The ref only noticed it in the 92th minute and then produced a yellow card. I must say that handing out this card cost around more than a minute of stoppage time itself. Which wasn’t added on. But a nice move from the ref to put the match assessors in a comfortable seat and now he can say “he did something about it”. Too little, too late comes to mind.

Now before you start scrolling down the page to the comment section and start telling me that I’m looking for excuses: I’m not. I’m readily to admit that we played not our best game at all. But I really cannot enjoy football being played in that way. I have always hated the Italian football style cattanacio with my whole heart.  Defending with the whole team and then breaking on the counter and trying to win the game. I just cannot stand such football. It is what I saw from Wigan. So forgive me not joining in the “what a great game Wigan played”.  I found it disgusting when the Italians won world titles like that (doesn’t matter against which team) and I really cannot understand that this type of football gets any credit at all. Maybe I am too much a pure football lover that loves to see both teams playing the game. So if you want to blame me for anything: blame me for loving pure and attacking football. I’m in the same opinion as Cruyff is in this. Not that bad a company I think.

I’m not going in to the details but the ref was strange. As if he wanted the game to slow down. Whenever Arsenal wanted to take a quick free kick even deep in their own half for an offside the ref called it back because the ball was one yard away from the place where the foul occurred.  He seemed to be very narrow-minded on that. On the other hand I remember a Wigan player in the second half running about 10 meters with the ball behind his head to take a throw and stealing some 15 meters in total (if not more) and the ref let it go. Wigan almost scored from this situation.

You could clearly see it getting on the nerves of a few Arsenal players the way the ref slowed things down. And the blind eye for the time wasting added to the feeling of a ref that was not really doing what he should be doing. People always like to give credit to a ref when “he keeps the game flowing”. This ref clearly managed to get all the speed out of the game for the whole 90 minutes.

We never really recovered from the loss of Arteta. It affected Song and Rosicky who had a not that good game. In fact it affected the whole team as Arteta is the person who is here and there and everywhere helping out his team mates. this just shows what an important player Arteta has become for Arsenal.

Like I said you lose some, you win some. That is football. It makes me sad when we lose and the way we played left me frustrated. It wasn’t good enough. We can do better. But we played a team that parked the bus once they were 0-2 up and we couldn’t remove the bus in time. (Now that is good one I like to think myself). So after the final whistle I was sad and angry. A bit of a mixture because our bad performance and angry because of the ref not doing his job and do something about the time wasting. Does anyone have access to the stats about how long the ball was actually in play? I sure would like to now. I could check it myself but it will take some time I think.

Now I am on twitter but I am not that much of a twitterer. A few messages at times. A few questions or remarks on the guy from the PGMOL who is on twitter. But being on twitter means that you get to see other messages. And my god what a bunch of twats (can I use that word Tony?) [no sorry Walter, you can’t] are on twitter.

A bunch of twats [yellow card Walter, you have been warned] are determined to drive Ramsey away from Arsenal. They wish him all kinds of diseases and broken legs. How low can you get? Those so called Arsenal fans (residents from LG???) are really despicable. How on earth can you do such things. Well my dear twats [right that’s it once more and you are off] I’m a very peaceful person who doesn’t want anyone to get his leg broken or to get a life threatening disease.  I guess they are young and ignorant and don’t know how such things can affect a person and a human life.

But such things made me so angry that for the first time in my life I wish something bad to another person. So I can only whish that what they wished that would happen to Aaron Ramsey happens to themselves. May you rot in hell for those remarks aimed at this young man. You are the dirt bags of Arsenal and maybe they were the bin bags protesters?

So taking the defeat on the chin is one thing we must do. And hope that just as against QPR we can come out in the next game and produce a performance like we did against Manchester City.  Let us just beat the system on Saturday and  in unity we should be able to overcome the system.

Victoria Concordia Crescit.

PS: On second thought I will not lower myself to the levels of the twats on twitter. I just wish they would grow a brain cell. Only one.  Would make a big difference for them.  [Right, that’s it Walter, you’re off]

Untold Arsenal

Arsenal History – a twat free zone.

58 Replies to “What a waste of time”

  1. Thanks for the post Walter..Always the best remedy after any game..now the only way is to move forward..

  2. Saw a different game to you, mate. Wigan didn’t park the bus, nor was it ‘one way traffic’ in Arsenal’s favour. The Latics could have had a third with a bit more incision. Totally outplayed Arsenal in large swathes last night.

  3. Let’s face it. Wigan are a relegation threatened team…and the entire world knows that there quality of football is not good enough..so it was obvious that they were not going to play attacking football after they were 2 goals up…they are fighting for survival…they wouldn’t have taken the risk of attacking a team like arsenal and then getting hit on a counter attack…we all know that arsenal are one of the best when it comes to counter attacking football… But they didn’t parked the bus. They were attacking at times…arsenal dominated them in terms of possession and generally played in their half which made them look as if they were parking the bus. The time wasting was there but arsenal still should have won the game. They didn’t created enough…not much chances…
    In addition to that AW and RVP should have shown some respect to the lactic’s by shaking hands. Ok not with Al Habsi but with the rest of them. I can understand the frustration but i don’t think that throughout the game wigan or martinez disrespected the gunners in any way. What i’m saying is that we should give some “Respect” and “credit” to wigan for their game. They faced the music and they resisted it.

  4. Totally agree with you re Ramsey Tweets-bitter,moronic comments from idiots who know nothing about football. Half a dozen players had an off night.

  5. Oh boy my daughter if 2months just would not sleep until 4:20am! Being an Aussie the game started at 4:45am so at 3am when I got up to help the mrs burp my girl (I am best at burping, mind) I contemplated staying up the next 1.5hrs until game started, but wouldn’t be a good idea with work and all.
    I normally get my lucky arsenal sweat wrist band to kiss the badge and smile, but all the other games except QPR (I forgot to do it) it worked, so what happened?
    Anyway, The first goal came from an Arsenal corner (i think) and what I saw Johan do made my eyes go red with anger as he was up for the corner (why? he doesnt score). After the corner pinged in and then pinged out, it ended up on the wigan left side of pitch, that’s when I saw Johan slowly walking back from their goal area. When they beat our attemp to defend against them, Johan started to jog back, then Wigan started screaming up the pitch and that’s when he started sprinting back but it was too late and he was out of place for them to score! Made me sooo angry what was he doing did he think we will win it back and start the next attack and so no urgency to get back? Was he feeling ‘COMPLACENT’ I don’t know but I think we should lose him and get somebody else who understands wat defending is!
    I don’t know just so pissed off. I read somewhere that every game Arteta starts we win and lose the games he don’t!
    Were fucked! Am i just venting? give me a day or two to calm down. I think I will forget about it and play with baby Olivia till next game or try and find out why she didn’t go through with the blessing. She is 2 months old and should no that Arsenal winning means daddy happy and a happy daddy means happy mummy which means gappy baby and household, lol.

  6. Yellow card at the end of the game for the keepr after wasting time from the 9th minute onwards was annoying – the yellow card would have stopped him from wasting any more time if it had been handed out earlier in the game, showing it after the 90 means it has no chance change his behaviour. Wigan defended brilliantly and were dangerous going forward, they played well but I still feel like we were unlucky, the first goal stemmed from Arteta getting injured and Benayoun calling to the bench – two players not fully concentrating on tracking back for Wigans counter, Benayoun recovers but he’s too late. The second goal comes while we’re still down to ten men – 5 minutes where we lost our concentration and we paid the heaviest price. Still, we weren’t good enough, that’s a fact.

  7. im with you walter the Ramsey hate really made me boil with anger..how could these bunch of twats(sorry Tony ) even call themselves Arsenal fans?how can you wish your own player has a leg break again and that he suffers dangerous diseases?how can you tell him to go commit suicide? I was so disgusted yesterday. here is a young guy who lost a whole year of his career due to a thuggish twat and in his first full season he gets a bunch of idiots throwing him vile abuse,sickening death threats and telling him to commit suicide..how do you think Ramsey feels when he sees that?will you blame him if he wanted to leave to a place where he is appreciated? People seem to forget how great he was prior to that cnut shawcross intentionally broke his leg..i wont be suprised to see Jack become the victim of the same abuse from the same idiots when he is back and doesnt play well

  8. Wigan did a lot of time wasting but from their point of view it was the ONLY way to get something from this game. Yeah, we weren’t at our best but I think substituting Yossi was a bad move. Yossi had been very good for us in the first and the same in the second half but Gervinho didn’t do enough for me. Substituting Ramsey cost us an attacking player because I feel that If we were still down and had one more substitution left, we could have had Chamakh on the pitch.
    If we beat Chelsea this Saturday, let’s hope barca takes out all the energy from their bodies and they can barely compete after just 2 days rest, I think that 3rd place is still very much in our hand. With Totts in free fall and Newcastle having really tough games with Man C and everton, Chelsea might be able to nick the fourth spot.

  9. Walter I was at the game last night and from almost the very first minute the Wigan keeper, Al Habsi, wasted time. I do not blame him or the Wigan team for this tactic, they are fighting to stay in this League and held a two goal lead due to some sloppy Arsenal play. Its down to the Referee to implement the rules.

    After some 30 mins the Ref, Andre Marriner, gestured towards the Wigan keeper asking him to speed-up his goal-kicks but incredibly it was not until the 92nd minute that Marriner decided to book Al Habsi for wasting time.

    Finally Walter, I do not share your condemnation of Wigan. Wigan deserve respect and praise for their recent form. Last night they did not hoof the ball, in fact they played with a bit of style and have some decent players too. Roberto Martinez has his team in fantastic physical condition this late in the season and his Wigan side more than matched Arsenal in many areas of the field, well played Wigan.

  10. After hearing what has been going on twitter about Ramsey, I feel quite happy that I am not on twitter.
    Does anybody have information about whether Arteta will be available on Saturday or not ?

  11. We need to strengthen this team with quality. The whole team should not be weakened by the loss of one player. Also Song should be told that he holds to the ball for too long and puts the whole team in jeopardy when he inevitably loses it.

  12. I would not pay the trolls much heed, a lot of posts by a small number of bitter spuds, and a certain Pakistan based man u supporter has been known to indulge in this sort of thing under his two hundred ids. I am not saying there are not arsenal supporting idiots out there, there clearly are but they represent a small minority of our supporters. The problem with twitter and the like, any idiot has a voice, and any idiot can be any one, or two hundred people.
    What used to annoy me was so called arsenal sites, some would regularly moderate out say my comments but would allow a free reign to spuds trolls thay myself and others had already outed….with ease. I do not bother with them any more suffice to say.
    These twitter types are often just part of a wider aim to destabilise the club, and should be seen as nothing more. After all, a five one defeat at the weekend does not do much for a sad lonely individual with a lot of time on his or her hands…..
    Let’s just get this season out of the way, with a place in the Cl and move on

  13. I don’t blame Wigan for how they played. I thought they did a good job. It was just very annoying all the time wasting and kicking away the ball, and pretending to be injured that they were doing, and being allowed to do. This was such a frustrating match to watch. I don’t know how much of that was because we didn’t create much in the second half, and how much of that was because we weren’t being allowed to by a referee who seemed determined to slow things down (and not call a foul the one time Walcott got behind the defense), but more likely it was the combination of both. We made it tougher on ourselves with the two stupid goals conceded. We should have been looking to cover for Arteta’s absence, and we got sloppy. Sagna had one of his worst games in an Arsenal shirt. It was just..frustrating to watch.

    But I think most of the frustration should be directed towards our own team rather than the referee. We know refs wont help us when we’re not playing well. So we can’t afford those type of mistakes. Also, we let the referee get to us this time. We lost our focus on attacking because of the way the referee allowed play to be broken up. We need to be better than that. Easier said than done, but still. That’s how it is.

    However, I don’t understand this non-handshake thing. When the final whistle was blown, the camera immediately went to Martinez who moved towards his own bench and spent 2 mins hugging each and every member of his backroom staff. I didn’t see Wenger refuse his hand, and I don’t think Wenger should stand around waiting for it if the other manager doesn’t seem like he’s interested. RVP put out his hand to Caldwell although grudgingly and only as a sort of ‘high five’, but Caldwell demanded that RVP shake his hand in a formal handshake. He was doing this ONLY as a wind up and not as a show of respect and friendliness. Why the fuck should Robin be obliged to follow his instructions. Good on Robin for not doing it. Those who want to criticise Arsenal for poor behaviour obviously don’t watch how other teams behave. Fuck them.

  14. totally agree with your sentiments re websites such as LG and it’s followers.There is no need for many of our detractors within the media to spend so much time trying to destabalise our club when we have “fans” within the organisation who will try to do their job for them.A large section of the crowd at The Emirates now offer nothing positive until things are going right,which isn’t support.

  15. I was a bit frustrated with Aaron but I would never subject one of our brightest prospects to such hate. These twitter morons forget his game winning goals and only concentrate on the negatives. Ramsey will shut these idiots up in the future. What’s next? Attacking RvP for his one goal in 4-5 games “dry” spell. Those twitter morons are not fit to wear the Arsenal Jersey…The replica that is 🙂

  16. Just watched the highlights Shard. You are absolutely right about the handshakes.
    The two early goals made things very hard. Still, we did have at least three good shots on goal that required very good saves from Ali Al Habsi. If even one of them had gone in, things could have been different.
    Al Habsi is a very good goalkeeper but I did lose respect for him for all that time wasting, even though it is true the ref let him get off with it in an unforgiveable way.
    I was at the match. Everyone got very angry when Theo was not given that free kick late on.
    I don’t think there’s anything to be gained myself by picking on individual players to criticise. Szcezny made a mistake for the second goal but made a great save later. Djourou made mistakes but nearly scored a goal. I agree with Arsene, win as a team, lose as a team. It is interesting that he put the weaknesses in the second half down to a lack of team play and people trying to do the job as individuals.

  17. Aaron had his legged smashed to pieces by a compltete thug with a past history for such actions.He then had to put up with some sections of our disgusting media,somehow managing to turn the story round and place a large portion of the blame on Arsenal and Arsene’s shoulders.Finally and most shamefully he has to put up with morons from our club wishing him ill on Twitter…what on earth is wrong with these people?

  18. Eddy,
    How is it knowable that the TT’s (twitter-twats) who spew hatred on Ramsey are really from our club?

  19. I fully believe that every fan has the right to criticise a player. We pay their wages after all. However, malicious and wishing hurt on somebody has no place in football or in any walk of life. I hope comments like that are reported to police. This poor young man knows he isn’t performing well and will be no doubt feeling the pressure, what he doesn’t need is to begin fearing for his safety.
    Of course if Ramsey does have enough of these venomous ‘fans’ and leave the club and become a star elsewhere then these ‘fans’ will blame mismanagement from Wenger.

  20. Ramsey needs to step up is all. No dithering on the ball, no fancy passes, no selfishness. He should just do the basics, try and look up sometimes to give passes. That Catalan did only the basics and he was adored before he sold out. That’s all Ramsey needs to do. Right now he’s pulling the team down. Fact.

    Someone should tell Song that those designer passes will not work out all the time, he needs to give simple passes to the next available teammate occasionaly and release the ball more quickly too.

    Someone called Djourou Dojuru yesterday, in my language, that means Tangled or Confused, sounded funny then but on hind sight he looked confused at times.

    We better have a response on Saturday!

  21. I like the title of the article….my wife and I are avid arsenal fans…we felt that Wenger wasted too much time bringing on a substitute. Arteta was visibly uncomfortable running back to defend on wigan break on which they scored. Sub should have come on immediately!! We were playing with 10 men when they scored their 2nd!!! Why bring on Ramsey when we could have dropped yossi back and played gervino or ox on the wing!!!

  22. GOod write up Walter.

    Time wasting is irritating – but it’s Wigan’s job to do what they can to win games, so unless the referees sort it out we’ve just got to get on with it, irritating as it is. What would be interesting is how the refs would react if we tried to do it, perhaps late on if we’re leading in the upcoming Chelsea game?

  23. Walter, All,
    How does anyone know WHO is bashing Ramsey? If someone wanted to de-stabilize our team, then it’s an easy way: pretend you are an angry Arsenal fan and start to threaten our players.
    That is terrible; but perhaps we should not be playing into that activity and attention by assuming – with no evidence – that these
    people are actually Arsenal fans of any stripe. And if we do, then not only is Aaron going to be undermined, but the fans once again polarized at the very time that only UNITY will see us through.

  24. Oxford United fan here…i’m an admirer of how both The Arsenal and Wigan like to play football so was really looking forward to the game, but i have to say i think you Gooners got stitched up last night. Wigan’s basic tactics were good against a side taking possession, defend hard, press hard, and counter fast and in numbers. But they were well aware that it can’t be done for a whole football match, so they had to employ a ‘bit’ of gamesmanship so the match would only last an hour or so, by timewasting, creating freekicks by dropping to the deck, cozying up to the ref (Caldwell was having a lovely little chat with him in the tunnel at half time!) so he would play along and give them those underdog decisions etc…essentially not playing within the rules of the game. You may not have been at the top of your game but the spirit was certainly there, and if you had played a full length football match with fair refereeing you would have mustered at least an equaliser. I lost a bit of respect for Martinez last night, but on reflection today Wigan are fighting to stay up which is paramount to them, it is up to the ref to keep tactics within the laws of the game, and from my seat down in League Two, Marriner didn’t. I felt short changed after that match which is why i am paying you all a quick visit to give my outsiders opinion, we get plenty of it going on at the Kassam too. You must have been so frustrated (the players looked like they were!), especially when the ref killed added time by allowing over a minute of further timewasting, taking his time to book the goalie 80 minutes too late, and then only adding 24 seconds on at the end. If i remember correctly, wasn’t he the ref who made a pigs ear of that Liverpool match, your seemingly winning penalty in the 4th of 4 added minutes, then gifted them a penalty 8 minutes later?! Get behind your team on Saturday, they deserve it, and coz no one likes Chelsea!

  25. p.s. meant to write “not be playing into that activity and INTENTION…” (not attention)

  26. I have a pretty good seat at the Emirates, close to halfway line and in the 2nd row. You get to see some interesting things from that position.

    One interesting incident yesterday was after Vermaelen shouted at the ref to do something about the time wasting, Marriner turned to him with a look of ‘don’t you dare question me’. Immediately after, a loose ball was contested in the midfield and Marriner awarded a free kick to Wigan. He then turned to Vermaelen and smiled.

  27. Coyy, thanks for the comment.

    I think you gave a fair reflection of the game.
    Always like to read balanced comments from supporters of other teams.And you come close to the actual game time. If you are interested come back in the next days where we will try to analyze the lost time in a game.

  28. COYY. I was at the game last night and think you called it right. Wigan were time wasting from the first goal kick. To give Al Habsi a booking for time wasting in the 92nd minute and waste more time is a joke. Marriner took every opportunity to disrupt what little flow Arsenal managed to create and the decision not to award Theo a free kick towards the end of the game was inexplicable. I also thought the Wigan defender was the last man and should have had a red card. Having said that we were undone in the few minutes Arteta was injured and we were down to ten men and had more than enough chances to win the game on another day.

  29. Good stuff Walter.

    I know it’s never nice to experience a defeat but you cant be too hard on the team. Wigan are one of the form teams right now, fighting for their lives (if they get relegated, that could spark a downward spiral for the club in general), have beated Man U, would have beaten Chelsea were it not for a couple of off-side goals. It wasn’t the ideal time for us to play them. So a bit of perspective is needed. No team wins all their games (not even the Invincables did!).

    Also, got to get off the backs of certain players and stop deriding them. Ramseys a good player who will keep getting better. Remember his progress was hampered by a certain Mr Shawcross, and even though he’s physically recovered, he’s still getting back to his best.

    If the idiot brigade (aka the AAA) keep treating their players like this then I’m putting cash bets that they’ll start doing the same with Jack next season when he returns. Or Diaby. Or anyone who’s put their body on the line player for the Arsenal.

    Time for some to grow up a bit me thinks!

  30. I would not worry about Rambo, he has been through far worse than can be dished out by a sad kid in a room (when they get reported, thats all most of the trolls are).
    He will come good, he just looks a bit knackered, like Jack did this time last year, and unfortunately, RVP does now, understandable really.

    I would have had Kos as my non Robin player of the year but coming games are going to prove just how important Arteta has been. Have a feeling the likes of Benny and Rosicky are going to be very important in coming games……..

  31. @Mandy

    I agree..But I’d like to add. Coquelin. When Arteta went off, I was wishing that Coquelin was fit. He seems to me to be the closest replacement for Arteta, even if he’s much less experienced. Hopefully, him and Diaby can come back fit quickly. We need them. Benayoun can’t play against Mike Dean next week.

  32. forgot about Benny vs Chelsea, shame. Agree on Le Coq, he must be nearing fitness, if not match sharpness. I know AOC sees himself in there but seems a bit raw at the minute
    Diaby, as much as I would love to see it, just, well cannot see it at the moment, but you never know.

  33. Just watched some highlights – is it just me, or did Chesney have 2 hands on the ball for their second? In that case that goal should never have stood.
    But guess this is Marriner, wasnt he an assistant just a few yards away when Ballotellis assault on Song went unpunished?

  34. aaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh!!!!!!!

    yeah i just ignore them. im on twitter too, last year sometime to see what the fuss was about. never use it. i use to go on le spud to get a rounded view, but unless you are really dense their agenda becomes apparent. there is no way on earth they are gooners. they might be now, but im certain they were the spud glory hunters that crossed over when things were good.

    as for yesterday. kudos wigan. they had a plan and it worked. i could care less about them wasting time cos when we did have the ball we were sloppy and lazy. i shouldnt be cursing at my screen for players to chase and not jog or play a simple pass instead of getting all hollywood. the last thing we should be seeing is players with there arms out wide cos theres no one to pass to. passing is what we do!! a little too much sometimes.

    if rob is calling for the ball give it him! ramsey needs his confidence back and quickly. its like he’s so afraid of doing badly by turning over possession he’s reluctant to play those forward passes unless rob has loads of space. cesc use to do it and sometimes id think why are you passing to someone who is so heavily marked? well i think he just understands that football is quite similar to chess. on the other hand maybe ramsey does know and is fearful of the challenges that tactics attracts?

    all round tho the effort was to sporadic for me. lets get 6 from chelski.

    up the arse.

  35. Walter,

    I absolutely agree with you, I had exactly the same thoughts after the game, I was very sad when Wigan went 2 nil up after just 8 minutes, because I just knew that they will park the bus straight away and that’s exactly what I said to the people who were watching the game with me. I was really angry about the time wasting, but the thing which made me both angry and upset is that when I went on the official Arsenal facebook page to see some people’s thoughts about the game, I’ve discovered that 99.9% of people there were just SCUM, I am so ashamed that such a unique, wonderful and traditional team like Arsenal has so many idiots who dare to call themselves “die hard Arsenal supporters”. Some of them were even shouting for Wenger’s head because the “french idiot” how they expressed it has left Koscielny and Arteta out of the starting 11, I mean how dumb do you have to be to not know that Arteta got injured and Koscielny suspended? I am full of anger, because I really don’t understand these pathetic fans, I am only 25, young and still inexperienced and how come I don’t run around shouting abuse at everything related to Arsenal only because they had a very poor game. I really do think that Untold and some other Arsenal threads are the only places on the internet were you can actually go and read some structured and fair opinions about a poor result. So glad that the footballing world is not completely overrun by idiots only. Can’t wait for the ref review because I am curious about the moment where Walcott was held back in the box with an outstretched arm. Keep up the good work people of Untold Arsenal! Walter you’re an inspiration!

  36. I watched the Qpr goals a few weeks back and thought they had nothing to do with TVM as oddly both Song and Arteta never tracked back you could see them clearly in picture to far up the field.
    Last night was more basic defending issues when the corner was taken and the ball broke on the left there was no one out front and centre marking the wigan player that scored, surely when we take a corner and the big lads Djorouh and TVM go up the smaller players Walcott and Sagna should be moving outside the box altogether and picking up the marking and waiting for any loose balls spilling out to drive them back in.

    Arsenal seem to work harder and communicate better against some teams more than others.

    Its still in our own hands so thats good and where we finish for me isnt a dissaster be it 3rd/4th/5th.

    The bigger issue for me is the summer we say once we are competing for trophies its enough and I agree with that also. But competing for a trophy to me is either been in the first 2 in the EPL or Cup semi finals we seem aways away from that right now.
    Another scary thought is if we were tired from all the midweek matches we would be further adrift of the top 2 teams.

    We need a plan for how to cope going forward both in doing the fundementals right defensively every game and not half of them and how to balance better youth and experience benayoun and arteta have been a huge help but we need a little more experience.
    Rant over 4 to play and fingers crossed we will get enough points to qualify for the 15th year.

  37. @Mandy Dodd, I thought the same thing about Chesney’s hands as soon as I saw the replay. The same thing happened to me once as a keeper, a striker kicked the ball out of my hands and was allowed to score. I was furious.

    @Shard, regarding the handshake “incident,” Caldwell was being an annoying, insufferable prig. RvP made friendly contact with Caldwell’s hand before Caldwell started grabbing at him aggressively. Once RvP walked off, the assistant ref came up to Caldwell and gave him a bit of a telling off, which lets anyone watching know that Caldwell was looking to quarrel. And yet the papers and discussion forums are full of condemnations of van Persie, who I though handled himself pretty well, given the circumstances.

  38. @El Gringo

    But you forget, Wigan represent the little guy showing ‘spirit’, Arsenal are just a whiny club filled with johnny Foreigners.. It’s the media’s version of the always hilarious “Same old Arsenal, always cheating” chant.

  39. I had a bad feeling yesterday before the match so it didnt surprise me much when we were 2-0 down after 10 minutes, but the surprise of the day was that Sagna was our worst player on the pitch by far. I have never seen him beeing this bad, this is a player that have hold his own against Barca for crying out loud! Is he really as slow as it seems or is that guy Moses even quicker than Theo ? Isnt it strange that in our last 3 games our two best defenders have cost us 6 points, first Vermaelen had a shocker against QPR and now Sagna against Wigan. Lets only hope they learn from it, Vermaelen seems to have because he’s been great the 2 games after the QPR game. And considering that Sagna’s goal against Spurs is for me the moment that turned our season, and Verms injury time goal against Newcastle helped as well, i will not complain too much. But there are no margin for error now, we will need at least 1 point against Chelsea on saturday, all 3 would really put presure on spuds before their only hard game left of the season (away at QPR)…

  40. I am completely agree with Paul! Facebook Arsenal fans are idiots! Never should listen to their talks. That would be a real waste of time and energy!

  41. @Shard,

    Silly me. How could I forget such obvious truths? Dear knows what’s next. I might do something daft and find myself calling the sky yellow or even criticizing the refs.

  42. Paul, rest assured the majority are not arsenal fans, I have outed more than a few of these types as closet spuds, I do not bother any more, as with these types, I just assume the worst

  43. @Mandy Dodd

    If that’s true then they are more stupid than I thought. They do us more good than harm I reckon. Their vile outbursts wont really have an effect. But them being subscribed to Arsenal’s Facebook and twitter will just increase the number we’ll be able to show to sponsors as a ready market base for them. More funds for us because of those Spurs supporters. Can we find more?

  44. I think we have to stop looking to blame the ref and opposing team for poor officiating and gamesmanship every time we loose. It’s like we’re going paranoid with every refereeing decision against us. The team had an off day yesterday and I think it’s because they assumed they would run Wigan over at the Emirates. Sadly, two early goals shocked our system we never recovered enuff. It didn’t help that our best defensive pairing was not on show as well. That Swiss guy lacks the presence of the Vermanator and tenacity of Kos.

    Time wasting is also very frustrating, but a flimsy excuse for not creating enuff opportunities to have troubled Al Habsi in the second half of the game when we were supposed to be up for it. We did that in the first half then became disjointed in the second half. Wigan had chances to bury us but for the heroics of our amazing keeper. We lacked initiative in the midfield meaning Ramsey should be given time to develop and not be vilified for the teams poor showing. He is a courageous man, deciding to have a go at football again after his horrendous injury and my prayer is he succeeds and leads Arsenal to many trophy winning seasons.
    On the whole, what we need are for the players to be up for every game and not deride the opposition as being inferior with our performances. This was implicit in our performance yesterday. Chelsea’s next, we can’t afford to slip up. I want to stick one to them for the sake of Cashley.

  45. They are not clever shard. I have been on a few sites with these types , just say a word against the spuds and they reveal themselves in their droves. As tony says, they usually tell us how long they have supported arsenal….and as much as it pains me to say it….followed by praise of all things Lilly white…..ok twitter has limited characters but they are all over arsenal blogs, especially the aaa blogs, any immune to moderation as the arsenal supporting aaa are nearer them than they are you or I.
    One thing to remember, many have tens or maybe hundreds of ids. They are buoyed by the fact the media and under tens seem to buy into their foolishness. But the biggest giveaway, they can never back up anything they say….except with abuse.
    Guess we cast a very big shadow. Although strangely, they are not all spuds, a few manure amongst them as well

  46. Whats glory if you don’t get to rub it in people’s noses right? Some people are just sad.

  47. I went on Facebook after the match to see what people were saying and hoping to offer some support to the team. Never again – it was full of verbal vomit; unpleasant as that sounds, it was an accurate description. If a lot of “fans” are trolls it explains a lot.

    As for Ramsey, I wish him nothing but the best, just to make up for some of the more obnoxious comments. There are usually too many things that go wrong in a losing match (or in other bigger disasters) for it to be put down to one person. I hope that he does wonderfully well in future because he tries so hard and has a lot of heart. It is a fond wish of mine that the nay-sayers might be left with egg on their faces, just like some who wanted to get rid of RvP when he was injured, and complained that Arteta was not good enough. Pffft!

    Even if the team did not play at their best, I’m not going to even try and guess why – not being a professional footballer in a very demanding league, and also being totally devoid of psychic powers. I’m totally with Southern Gunner “So a bit of perspective is needed. No team wins all their games (not even the Invincables did!).”

    Also hats off to COYY; it’s always interesting to get a perspective from thoughtful fans who support other teams. One of my oldest friends supports Wigan, and we emailed back and forth last night – and we are still the best of friends. Funny old thing football – I have ended up despising many Gunners’ “fans” and liking some of the opposition’s.
    COYBG

  48. El Capitan, it is just that we are waiting for things to even out. Riley is telling us it does. SAF is telling us it does. The media is telling us it does.
    But what are they waiting for? Only a handful of games to go and we still should get a few ghost penalties, we owe a few offside goals all in our favour. 😉
    I really can’t get it why they haven’t start things to even out?

  49. I agree with El Capitan in regards that we had an off day yesterday. I mean, the team has only just started to gel and are bound to make mistakes along the way. If we keep the players we want, we have a good opportunity to hit the ground running next season. I don’t blame officiating errors for the loss, it’s just football and losses happen (most seasons). I agree, I am also waiting for things to even out in the end but we all know it wont happen.

  50. Stuart, are you telling us that Santa Claus does not exist? 😉

    By the way I agree that the main reason for our loss was the fact that we didn’t act as a team in the second half but as 11 individuals who all tried to do it themselves on their own. Too much running with the ball and not enough passing of the ball.

    But then again, against a compact defensive team with all people behind the ball apart from a counter now and then you sometimes need the bounce of the ball to score a goal.

    They got the lucky bounce with their second goal. In the second half the ball just didn’t fall kindly for us at times.

    But the time wasting/lost time didn’t do us any favours.

  51. @ WALTER AND I WISH YOU READ MY COMMENT and i couldn’t NOT to write you how much i respected you before and after this article you made me fly high because i can’t find the exact word for it :
    1- Finally someone wrote about the weird throw in when Wigan player almost ran the whole pitch while Ref was slowing us a lott while playing our offside on our area quickly to slow us down.
    and I want to share exactly the same thought about Ramsey and what you were saying to those who call themselves fans .Right now Arteta is out and Ramsey is the possible replacement for him i guess this is where Fans should start supporting , baking and motivating our Ramsey to give his best during these critical and most important games we still have . i can’t understand fans who criticize this good lad who really show he is doing his best even if he isn’t at his best form and some people wish he get injured again …. what a horrible wishes . thank you walter for supporting Ramsey even if he wasn’t at his best and i ask every True Gunner to support each and every player and especially the most inconsistent players this year even water boys we need them now. Passion was the key which earned us the 3rd place now we need it again to tighten our position .
    Last thing i hate Italian style as well and this defending silly games and especially the teams now like Real madrid who after yesterday game against Bayern made me feel with Barcelona because this is not football this is wrestling .

  52. Dan T,

    It’s statements like your one that I don’t understand:-

    “I fully believe that every fan has the right to criticise a player. We pay their wages after all”

    How does paying your money give you the right to boo & mock the team you claim to support??? What about the rights of all the other paying fans who wish to cheer and motivate the team to do better?? With negative fans like this we don’t need the opposition.

    The thing is, you have a choice and like with going to a restaurant, if you don’t like what is being served up, don’t go back there!!! Simple as. I wish you non supporting fans would give up your season tickets so I can move further up the list.

  53. Walter,
    Here’s how things will even out at the end of THIS season:
    Behold, 19 is an odd number.
    Add 1 and you get 20, an even number.
    In Roman numbers, that would be XX.
    Things have evened out and the scales of justice are balanced.
    Fairness has been returned to the pitch. And the Hives of Riley are golden with honey.
    The (sir)reality of the Rednose XX dawns upon the land.
    Good even-ing…

  54. @Walter i have talked for a while about our opponents getting their yellow cards in the 90th minutes(If you check in the archives)and our yellow cards coming in early. The time wasting was a pain in the ass and as an Arsenal fan i always have doubts when we play last WE ALWAYS GET UNFAIR TREATMENT. The Reftwat what was he discussing with the Wigan coach before(first half) and after the game? I think Riley is making himself be heard especially after untold had made him naked for all to see his dirty tricks.Walter we have lost almost all matches Arteta have not participated in what are our chances if he is not back earlier on! I do think Varmaleen can be a midfielder i wonder if the boss have seen that already. Coquelin can come and help on Ramsey as Ramsey might be a bit tired, the guy has played a lot of games this season. Who is in charge of the Chelsea game we just need to be careful. But all in all we will be in the Champions league come next year. Lets go GUNNERS.

  55. Kampala gun, Dean (yes I’m not joking) is in charge of the Chelsea game…. once again…

  56. Walter wot the fuck!! Dean hmmm its unbelievable, but nothing is to be done as we have been condemned but lets do our best and let him swallow his antics as we did with Spurs.

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