By Walter Broeckx
The Arsenal team at the start: Cech, Gabriel, Koscielny, Monreal, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ramsey, Xhaka, Gibbs, Ozil, Alexis, Giroud
On the beach: Ospina, Bellerin, Holding, Coquelin, Iwobi, Walcott, Welbeck
So the Leicester combination of the defence not the Man City defence…. Holding only on the bench.
The ball goes from end to end at the start but not really much danger in front of the goal from both teams. The first real chance is after Kane takes a shot that ends up in front of Alli who heads it wide.
A bit later a cross from the left is deflected in front of Eriksen who manages to miss the target. A corner at the other end and Ramsey has a shot but it is cleared by the defenders.
Ramsey with a curling shot but palmed away by the keeper for a corner. Gibbs with a shot but over. Just before half time Vertonghen with a shot but Cech with a similar save. Lots of pace but not much end product from both teams. 0-0 after 45 minutes.
Wanyama with a shot but a good save from Cech. The resulting corner is put in the sidenet by Son. The Ox wins a corner that is half cleared but the volley from Giroud goes well over. Tottenham attack with a few lucky bounces from Arsenal defenders on the way and Eriksen has a shot that is blocked by Cech but the rebound is put over the line by Ali. 1-0 for Tottenham after 55 minutes. There were enough Arsenal defenders around the ball and the attackers but nobody alert enough to really stop the attack.
Then Kane goes down in the penalty area and as predicted the obligatory penalty against Arsenal is given by the ref. Kane converts. 2-0 after 57 minutes. Kane making sure he stuck out his leg to make contact when going down. Will Arsenal recover from this double blow in 3 minutes?
Giroud tries a shot but right at the keeper. Alexis a bit later but the shot again too central and an easy pick for the keeper. After 64 minutes Xhaka is taken off and Welbeck comes on. Gibbs with a good block when Alderweireld has a header after a free kick. Vertonghen his shot is saved by Cech. Tottenham claim another penalty but the ball hit the arms of Alexis who had his arm in front of his face. Gabriel gets a yellow card for a wild challenge.
Giroud gets a yellow card for using the arm in a duel… Well… the ref knows the laws of the game. Unfortuntaly the ref in our home match didn’t know this rule. Alderweireld gets nothing when he pushes Welbeck after Lorris got the ball when Welbeck couldn’t make enough contact on a cross. After 75 minutes Bellerin comes on for Gabriel. Arsenal players getting carded for every foul. Monreal is next.
Cech with a good save when Kane comes alone in front of him. And another good reaction on the corner after a header. Walcott comes on after 80 minutes for Giroud. Walcott has a shot but straight at the keeper again. Our shooting has been too easy to really worry the keeper.
The penalty killed whatever comeback we were thinking off. And the first goal could have been prevented with some better defending. But that is how it goes when you don’t have your best season. Our passing was too slow for most of the time and that gave the hosts all the time to setup up their defensive line. With the other results we only lost one points towards the team in front of us. But we need to win the remaining matches to get in to the top 4.
The most disgusting thing about Kane dive is the way, while diving, he moves his right leg to make sure it hit Gabriel. That movement, it is the same level of cheating that Aguero tripping himself on purpose last week. Such behaviors can only be the result of hours and hours of diving exercise in training.
Some people call for video technology, but even with the replays, a lot of people (including pundits) still find a way to justify the dives. Referees, medias and football authorities have allowed cheating for so long that nowadays 90% of the people don’t even see it anymore.
It is time that FIFA really grow some balls and start to seriously penalize the cheaters that are killing this sport
A disappointing result.
The spudthugs got away with a lot of pressing to the point (often past the point) of fouling, they put immense energy into this and if we had moved the ball more quickly we would have tired them out. Unfortunately the fake ref allowed the spudthugs to disrupt our play, by physical unfair means and as we tried to cope we were rushed into giving the ball away too often.
Next season we need to put the pretenders away properly!
I believe it is the nature of the FA to cheat. They and the PGMOL would probably cease to exist as a reality if the were force to be just.
If the media had to tell the truth the shock would probably finish them off.
Its clearly Tottenham’s season, after 22 years so lets give them credit where credit is due. Can they catch Chelsea? I hope they do because it would be great to have the Title in East London once again, even if it is on the wrong side:)!
The WOB and the aaa are going to have a field-day and our own plastic fanboys will flood cyberspace with their finger-pointing and moaning about AFC and Wenger. Screw them all, seasons like this happen to every great club but some changes will happen to bring us back top our usual best.
Whether Arsenal win, lose or draw the WOB attempt to have a field day, aided and abetted by the agenda peddling media. As for it being Spurs year – why? Because they look like finishing second.
With a little help from my friends I’ll just find a leg somewhere, I’m not going anywhere but I know exactly where I am going. Citizen Kane, man of the people.
The North London calendar’s Leap Year occurs once every 20 years (not every 4 years).
So this year a leap year. No St Totteringham Day this year. Spurs will surprisingly finish above Arsenal.
Opps ….NORTH london,not East!!!
I am a big admirer of Wenger.
I however think our squad has many good or average players and not enough of the very good and exceptional players.
I think we need to change a few of the players. Our midfield is just about OK but not great. We need better midfielders. We need at least 2 very good central midfielders.
Our defense has the Kosc and Bellerin who are very good, the others are average (Mustafi) and not-up-to-Arsenal-standard (Gibbs and Gabriel).
Our strikers are good but not great (Giroud and Walcott) and not good enough for Arsenal (Sanogo, Welbeck).
Cech was a brilliant keeper but I think he no longer that great anymore. He is now too old (probably).
Ospina despite the fans loving to shout “Oooooospina” is just an average keeper. Arsenal deserves better quality.
I am NOT influenced by the pundits or the media (whom I hate) and I am NOT a Wenger Out Brigrade member.
I am influenced by a desire to see Arsenal have the quality of players we had 15 years or so ago. I am influenced by a desire to win major competitions like the league title.
I am influenced by the knowledge that if Wenger has very good players he delivers.
Welbeck is not good enough for Man United. He was replaced by a teenager from the United reserves. Today that teenager has proven that Welbeck certainly wasn’t good enough for Man United. And if the truth be told, Welbeck isn’t good enough for Arsenal.
Friends, we can blame referees and the FA all we want (and I am one of those who says referees are crap and biased) but Arsenal should help themselves by buying quality players and not just the cheapies like Sanogo and Welbeck.
Sadly, there will be NO St Totteringham Day this season.
Wenger said the reason why we failed to win any league title in the last 12 years was because we were selling our best players and replacing with inferior players.
Therefore if we want to get back to the top of the log, we need to buy top, top quality players in the mould of Dennis Berghampt, Pires, Sol Campbell, Anelka, Kanu, Overmars, etc. Buying cheapies won’t get us back to the top.
Our shareholders need to dip into their pockets for this rebuilding instead of just relying on fans to pay the most expensive season tickets in the world but getting average quality players.
Let’s not kid ourselves. The Spuds deserved to win this one despite some errant refereeing. But tbh if I’d been offered the prospect of only dropping a point on both Manc teams, I’d have taken it.
Cheer on Watford tomorrow and beat the FA (and Rileys rent boy) next week and it’s still in our hands.
We cannot blame the ref for losing this game.
In fact he was pretty tame considering how they sometimes are to Arsenal.
I dare say that anyone who does blame him is really really really deluding themselves.
Wake up and see the real truth(about today’s game) and not keep blaming others.
We lost. On the day they were better. Don’t have to like it, though.
first time in 20 (!?!?!) thms years.
any reason for any lessons?
once a year a stick is a shotgun.
this is just a “bad” year.
so bad that Liverpool fans consider it a GREAT year.
good money on selling a great diver (bale)
enough money to buy some good player
theres no chance that balance in north London will change
The referee didn’t make a difference. Why did he book Giroud just because he booked Kane? Oh Kane used an elbow while Girouds arm was sought after by a cheating spud & the acting was more fake than a nine bob note.
We lost because there was insufficient hunger & we weren’t trying to beat a better team. If we had half of their motivation we could have had a different match. Wenger needs to get his players grafting on the training pitch. They are becoming soft. Welbeck should have have floored the spud that pushed him after he went for a 50/50 ball with their keeper.
Thinking like this is why Arsenal are well behind Spurs this year, and probably should have finished behind them last year as well, Al. At the moment, as hard as this is to write, Tottenham are a very well run and very well coached club. Levy has done a masterful job with fewer resources that Wenger and our board have had available, and Poch has found a balanced side that looks better than us in every aspect.
I’d love to see Wenger stay on in some capacity, but we’re going to continue to lose ground on better run clubs until we begin operating like a modern club. We need far more organization on the pitch, we need a DoF with some separation from the day to day management of the squad, and we need to do a far, far better job of managing our players’ contracts.
Sadly, there’s no real reason to believe that Arsenal will finish above this Tottenham squad next season based on what we’ve seen recently. They’ll likely have most, if not all of this group back. We’ll likely see quite a few players leaving, or entering the final year or their contract before being eligible to leave on a Bosman. Their best players are all in or yet to reach their primes. Many of ours are clearly in the twilight of their career. We’re probably looking at some rebuilding, and while seeing some new blood and fresh faces will certainly be exciting, it’s hard to imagine that we’re less than 2-3 years away from being where the Spurs are right now.
Scuba, there is every reason to believe this is a one off, including one very good one, it’s called Wembley. It would be naive to assume Spurs will keep all these players , now that Brexit has doubled the price of the stadium.
Also, this might focus a few minds in our club, ownership and coaching setup to do things to change things for the better……because, based on 2017, some degree of change and improvement is needed. Some of our performances have been awful this year.
In terms of performances, governance, being so passive with the PGMOL (we are the only top club with a negative penalty balance for starters), I humbly suggest that the club needs a rocket up its collective arse.
Scuba – “we’re less than 2-3 years away from being where the Spurs are right now.” That is so untrue. So because we’re bellow them for one season out of the last 22, we are suddenly 2-3 years beyond them? I guess you’re right.. If you ignore the very minute details of how much the club is worth, size of the fanbase, much better stadium, the kind of players we can attract, better average league position for the past quarter of a century, number of trophies won and annual revenue. But they’re just tiny, inconsequential details, right? They finished above us, once, so all of that means nothing.
I genuinely can’t believe an Arsenal fan would say such a thing. I think you’ve been listening to too much Jamie Redknapp.
Also, Spurs will be going through the process of building the new stadium. They could only pray to do as well as Arsenal did, through those lean years, where we had to sell all of our best players and to direct rivals, no less.
Lots of cheating as usual from the spurs diving display team.Kane,Alli and Min Son have wrongly earned the spuds 9 spot kicks from their blatant deceptions..They are a bang average outfit with a cheating mentality..
Jammy, we’ve got a lot of rebuilding to do. Our two best players are probably gone this summer, regardless of what the manager is saying right now. Our #1 goalkeeper is past his prime, our best centerbacks are declining, our starting left back is declining, our central midfield is poor no matter what combination we use, and Giroud is probably at the tail end of usefulness as well.
Meanwhile, both Spurs have locked up all of their players to cheap deals last summer, and while they might eventually lose some of them, they’ve put themselves in a position to hold onto all of them for at least another year. They’re being run much more efficiently than we are at the moment.
Scuba, our best player has been unavailable since the Ludogrets game in the autumn. We need him back, or to replace him to move on.
Santi Caz is by far our most important player in wengers system, without him, our world class players grind to a halt. our attack is the best form of defence policy flounders. We have nothing to combat presses .
You could argue Wenger should have addressed it by now, have not been so reliant on one great player, or not have let Jack go, but Santi is The Man. Santi is injured and getting on a bit, if Wenger stays and wants to play wengerball, he needs a Santi apprentice, this summer, whatever he costs.
Ozil and Sanchez are playing like they are not interested and do not want to be there.The performance was not good enough.Have you ever heard AW say that the spuds deserved to win!.
What do we do all week on the training ground.Some of the players need moving on.Too many I believe.Inept.
How old is Santi Cazorla?
If Arsenal depends on Santi to achieve Top 4 then we are deep shit.
Mandy is however right that we need some major changes at the end of the season.
The simple reality is we have a weak midfield and poor strikers compared to the great Arsenal teams that Wenger built 15 or so years ago. I don’t compare Arsenal to the current Spuds team … I don’t set our bar so low (even though this current Spurs team is undoubtedly better than the current Arsenal team. Sanchez might be the only one of our players who could walk into the current Spurs team …. It hurts so bad to admit this).
I hope in the off-season this wonderful blog (Untold) won’t be celebrating when Arsenal doesn’t buy known quality players and only to buy cheap unknown players.
Arsenal fans who pay the biggest season ticket prizes deserve better. Arsenal fans suffer by paying big ticket prices to sustain the club yet the owners pay NOTHING AT ALL towards the building of the stadium or buying of players. Instead the owners have been taking the occasional £2m or £3m from the club on an annual basis.
Ref Michael Oliver was not to blame for this result. Spuds were better, period. He’s one of the better refs IMO – ask Angel Di Maria.
I quote from Zuruvi:
”Instead the owners have been taking the occasional £2m or £3m from the club on an annual basis.”
If English is not your first language, then you are forgiven.
If English is your mother tongue then please tell us ‘Occasionally or annually?
We have the strongest squad in the division. Not the best 11 players but the strongest squad. And yet most weeks this season, and indeed last, we have been well under par. Now I absolutely support the bent refereeing angle – it just happens to us too often to be accidental- but the rest of the blame falls on both board and manager; The manager for simply failing to move with the times, having faith in players who quite simply should never have been bought such as Walcott, absence of any form of defensive drilling and match plan; The board for allowing the manager to continue way beyond his sell by date. I don’t mind losing a given match but lack
of organisation and planning are obvious every week and that’s the easy bit. You can break football down into a myriad of interlinking parts. I would posit that the basic 3, the most important factors, are fitness, organisation and talent. More and more teams have caught up and indeed surpassed us on the first 2, which are the easiest to develop and now we seem to rely solely on talent. Managers like Pocchetino and Klopp get far more out of less by working hard and building on the first 2 factors. I can’t help think we only beat City last week because Guardiola has the same approach as Wenger.
I know of 2 fans, lifelong fans in their 50’s mind, not Johnny Come Lately glory hunters, guys who’ve been going since the mid 1970s, who are giving up their season tickets because they just can’t stand it any more. I’m beginning to consider doing the same. After all, if the manager can’t be arsed to prepare the team properly, why the hell should I spend thousands every year to watch?
Two goals in quick succession did knock out the stuffing in us. Not that we had too much stuffing to start off with!
We were out fought most of the time . I really couldn’t’ complain as we were outplayed by them.
We’ll get the good next season .
Now to try and win the rest of our games .
Up the Gunners !
Arsene Wenger has pointed out that once the confidence goes, it takes a while to get it back. Add to that that players like Danny Welbeck have been injured which knocks your confidence as well. Add to that that when we get physical we get punished and when the opponent gets physical he gets off with it.
It is pretty hard to constantly combat all these factors and yesterday we didn’t manage it. Luckily we still have a top class goalkeeper.
Spurs is an energetic team which plays a physical game. In other words they foul and play act a lot and get off with it. I can’t understand why that makes them a better team than ours in the eyes of some of the people commenting above.
Anyway, no one better than Arsene Wenger to find a way to win the next game.
ClockEndRider…have to endorse all you say in the main, but must take issue with you and others who look to refereeing bias as a convenient excuse. An earlier post referred to Arsenal being the only team in the division with a ‘negative penalty’ count. Might this not be because we defend so poorly at times that defenders are forced into rash challenges which result in penalties against us? Gabriel was a prime example yesterday…the video replay clearly shows Gabriel’s boot landing on Kane’s foot and although Kane exaggerated his fall by straightening his leg theatrically it was a rash challenge and a foul. Similarly we spend so much of our game passing the ball sideways outside the penalty area it makes it rather difficult for penalties to be given in our favour. Perhaps if we had more attacking penetration inside the box the for/against count might be different?
Yes amazing how fit the Spurs players are, I mean Wenger has a reputation for being behind the times with sports science, maybe Spuds have consulted that Spanish Doctor
Arsenal players on the rise get kicked out of the game. can someone do some digging why? It does not seem to happen to other teams more often. Am I missing something? Am talking about Cazorla, Walcott, Eduardo, Wilshere, Ramsey, Diaby, Van Persie. A good patch is always damaged by taking out key player. looks funny doesn’t it?
English is my 3rd language.
Sorry for mistakes.
I try my best. I think most people got the gist of my message.
I’m sorry for making a big mistake when communicating in your great language.
Will you and the Queen please forgive me?
Yes. We have strong squad of players in number terms.
We have many good but not great players.
We have too few brilliant players (maybe just Sanchez and Kosc and occasionally Ozil).
Additionally we have too many players who shouldn’t be at a top club like Arsenal because they are not good enough (Sanogo, Welbeck, Gibb, the two right-backs one from Charlton and other from Newcastle, Elneny, Walcott, Gabriel). That’s at least 8 players who are not good enough to be at Arsenal. There are more!!!
ClockEndRider
You’re kidding yourself if you think we’ve got the strongest squad in the league. We’re not even close. We have a handful of players that could get into a really top side (Sanchez, Ozil, Cazorla, Kos, maybe Cech and Bellerin), and then a bunch of guys that are entirely replaceable. Our midfield (Santi aside) consists of a bunch of guys who do something very well, but have major holes in their game. Our most creative attacking force offers nothing at all when we’re not in possession, meaning the other central midfielders really have to be exceptional. Our defense is left exposed far too often for anyone’s liking, and unless they’re truly exceptional (Kos), our players tend to look atrocious because of it.
At the same time that I’m criticizing the quality of the squad, I’ve got to acknowledge that you’re 100% spot on that the problems come from the top. Arsene and the board have seemingly prioritized finding players with attacking potential at a reasonable price over finding squad players whose talents really cover for what our core players do well. I think it’s great that we’re finally seeing guys like Kante really recognized for what they’re bringing to the table, because with a few players like him, I think we’d be able to really see what Alexis and Ozil can bring to the table without focusing on the warts they have. At the moment, though, we aren’t mismanaging those sorts of players, we just don’t have them.
Hi Berry, the only analysis I know of (without doing new research) that relates to your sideways comment is of passes per shot, and in that Arsenal were 10th in the league, exactly half way down. I think if you are going to set out a thesis on this, you need to have some evidence.
Cech had a good game yesterday, but he is VERY slow on his feet. Perhaps it’s time to bring SZCZ back into the fold and challenge him to get the number one spot back.
Scuba,
Who has a stronger squad – 1-25? I’d love to know.
A “strong” 25 would be looking at an average across the league. A higher 1-25 average doesn’t translate into success on the pitch – you can’t play all 25 in any one match, and a lot of rotation means you don’t have players that gel on the pitch. I’ll take more MEN on the top end with higher quality over 25 average guys any day.
Also… I get a sense of some heads buried in the sand. This season isn’t a one off. It’s been coming for a while and to think next year is really going to be better while holding on the to the same players, manager, board and system is bordering on delusional. Blaming the refs every match won’t work either.
And… attacking someone on here for their grammar is ridiculous. The Arsenal have fans across the globe and their voices are equally important. Attacking them for not communicating in perfect English is stupid.
And when your players get injured, what then? This is the point of saying we have the strongest squad. What we are lacking us strong direction from both manager and board. Most of the players are internationals. Blaming guys, many of whom are first choice picks for their countries, and who regularly perform for them. I suggest that this shows that the bulk of the problem us not with the players but with the manager and coaching set up.
This win like several others recently was too easy for Spurs and I don’t accept that they are anything more than a good strong side with 2 or 3 Really good players who will punish you if you give them room. However what is more apparent is how much we have dropped since the start of the season., How poor we are in central midfield and defensively uncompetitive- how weak we have become.- its just not acceptable – there has to be some accountsbility for this drop in standsrds.
Make no mistake this group of players has underperformed and not by a little.
The style of play, tactics, and motivation and confidence are seriously lacking- and I believe we need a new approach- I’d love to see a return to the ingredients that led to success in 1997-more strength, more structure and power in midfield- a return to defensive discipline.Needs a change in personnel, a change in tactics, training, maybe fitness follows from this. Wenger has done this once- why can’t he do it again?
Wenger has had how many years to get back to his earlier years? Yes, there were things like a new stadium and I’m grateful for everything he’s done. But we’ve been told that we have the resources now to go after top players. Why hasn’t that happened?
You can say the Sp*rs win was too easy and I agree. But we made it easy. We also have a habit of making our easy matches a lot harder than they need to be. That is on the players and the manager.
Clockend… Yes, good players can get hurt. Any team would be screwed by that happening and there is an element of luck involved. But a team with the highest overall average is almost never going to be a team that will push for the title or cups. I agree the manager is a problem. Certainly the board as well. But there is also little sign of the players playing for any type of pride, even if it were only personal pride.
Spurs was the better team, they were quicker and they played without fear. Our squad is aging and need some tweaking. If the club is not willing to spend big money on top class players, then at least start bringing in some of the under 23 players and substitute them on later in the remaining matches just to give them the experience and also plan for the future.
I believe Chelsea has the best squad depth, they have so many players who would be regular starters in other clubs sitting on their bench, players such as Willian, Cesc, Batshuayi, Zouma, Terry, Begovic,
Clock ender
I get it why you are suggesting that Arsenal have the strongest squad but quite simply that is not reality
Of course at its heart your squad has some top players but just having numbers in a squad which in Arsenals case is around 28 doesn’t make it the best squad.
Most of your players would find a berth at another PL club but how many of them would first be regular starters at clubs who currently occupy the top four positions ?
I look at Arsenals squad and would love to see Sanchez at Chelsea , maybe Oxlaide Camberlain , Kos and Giroud ( as a second striker) but from that point based on age , how they have performed this season and their injury record I really don’t see who would add anything extra to our squad. Ozil should be in that list but he would be a luxury and personally I am far from sure that the PL is his best home in playing terms.
At Man Utd and Man City again I suspect they too would happily take Sanchez but again the number of Arsenals players who would add to their squads is limited
Chelseas squad for me isn’t the best, but it’s up there. Come to that nor are Spurs , Liverpool or even Man Utd for me the best squad is Man City’s. Their manager however has made a series of strange calls such as letting Hart go out on loan for one and not adapting his approach as games progressed but from that squad I could see 4 or 5 being regular starters at Chelsea and there is no doubt another 2 or 3 added to that number would greatly enhance our squad
But as we all know having the best squad counts for nothing if you don’t win things
Spurs had more I the ball but their only chances before the 1st goal came from deflected cross-shots, away from home against a high pressing (fouling) team was about all that could be expected, we finished the first half strongly and would have looked to push on second half (much like the semi against City), but a poorly defended goal and a gift of a penalty took the game and game plan away from us.
All the crying and blasting against a side that has dropped 4 points at home is like our match, pointless…
I hoped for a result but wasn’t expecting one, the bonus was City and Utd dropping points.
Tony, passes per shot does not address the issue. My point, without specific research, I admit, is from the evidence of what I see time and time again and that is a reluctance for Arsenal to put opposition defences under the kind of pressure we often find ourselves in by moving the ball quickly from defence to attack and catching them out somewhat thin at the back, thus creating the situation where rash tackles might be made and penalties awarded accordingly. On the contrary, Arsenal’s play tends, in most games, to be slow and in the main resulting in defences being able to set themselves with ease which then results in the sideways/backwards passing movement outside the box. Domination of possession contributes to this with opposition teams being camped in their own half which similarly restricts the space available to our players to put defenders into last ditch tackling mode which increases the liklihood of a foul being committed.