By Walter Broeckx
There is no excuse for starting as slow as we did. Southampton did a great job. They were all over us all over the pitch. We didn’t get the chance to start our passing and at the end the players ran and ran with the ball until they lost it and Southampton could counter. This was really not the Arsenal we know.
Now of course when you play bad it doesn’t mean that the ref should assist the other team. I have seen the “foul” from Mertesacker a dozen times now and I really cannot see what was the foul. He cleanly played the ball and then the Southampton player went down. This was never a foul. To ad insult to the injury Southampton scored from the free kick that was given.
And this time there really was a foul. But the ref closed his eyes. Long before the ball arrived at Fonte he was holding his arm in the shoulder/ neck of Monreal so Monreal couldn’t jump. He was using Monreal as a ladder to hold himself in the air. Any decent ref would have given the foul. But this was Mason and we knew what to expect. And he delivered.
We could have had two penalties. One for handball and one when Koscielny was pulled down in the Southampton penalty area. But hey this is Mason and his penalty area fever. How predictable. May I add another moment when the assistant let an offside go for Southampton but lucky Koscielny came to the rescue with a last ditch tackle.
Giroud got a yellow but the cards for Southampton players was kept in the pocket. This was Mason in his typical style. Southampton was the better team in the first half and we needed to do better in the second half.
And we did. It was a bit the reverse of the first half but this time Arsenal well in the driving seat. Sagna nicking the ball away from the Southampton defender and Giroud with a nice flick to set the score level. And minutes later Özil with a pass to Cazorla who put it in the far corner with a lovely turning ball. That was the answer we needed from Arsenal.
But alas we got carried away a bit and a minute later Southampton equalised when our defence didn’t look good.
The game was then a very open game. With chances for both teams but the best came for Monreal who blasted wide when he should have hit the target at least.
Then we have to give credit to Mason. He made a right decision. He gave a red card against Flamini for a two footed tackle. He got the ball but it doesn’t matter. It is a reckless and dangerous tackle and a red card should be given. So no complaints?
Of course I have something to complain. How come the rules for this only apply against Arsenal players? From the back of my head I remember Newcastle not even given a foul. At Manchester City a foul from Touré and again not even given a foul. Why are there two sets of rules? One against Arsenal and for the other teams? Ah, it will even out probably….
Flamini was foolish to go in to the tackle like that. But I think that he got the impression that all could be done with this ref. Sorry Mathieu, you should have read Untold to know that this is not the case. The worst part is that we will now miss him in the next 3 games. So hopefully we will have Jack or Aaron back for those matches as we will need one of them for sure.
Speaking of Jack, Aaron and Rosicky by the way. I think we missed one of them very much today. They are very fit players with a great engine and can pressure the other team. Now with Flamini and Arteta playing we had two holding midfielders and not enough pressure up front and that gave Southampton too much time in that part of the field and gave them the upper hand. But if they are not fit, you cannot play them.
After that it was a case of keeping the one point on board. The Ox was flagged offside by the assistant who missed a big offside for Southampton in the first half and now it looked as if he was level. Just a case of evening things out I think.
But the fact that the ref handed them the first goal was not what they should have got. But oh, wait a minute… wasn’t Southampton hard done by a few weeks ago? No better time to even things out when Arsenal is around I think.
One has to give credit to Southampton for their forward play. The made life difficult for us and I hope they will continue to do this in the remaining fixtures when they play the other top teams.
And for us we should focus on the next match. And do better. I hope this is a good warning sign for the whole team that we should step up.
And in the mean time… we can hope for a little result from that former Middlesex team. A draw would do me nicely.
Glad we got a draw in the end. I am wondering if the team’s late arrival at the ground was a factor in their sluggish start. Their bus was caught in traffic. And then Southampton coming so fast out of the blocks. Yes, let’s hope they play that way against the other teams at the top. But everybody seems to turn it on for us! Despite what everybody says, we’re still the team to beat.
One thing for certain, we have not seen the last of mason this year.
The first half performance was strange, almost as if we were trying to conserve energy or something?
Hope you are right about Ramsey soon back….read he is out for another six weeks after a setback….but did trace that back to goal.com! Please not another long term serious injury this season.
Manchester City also had a draw at Southampton earlier this season. They had a draw at United.
Obviously they play great against top teams….
Southampton did well, it is a big shame we didn’t hang on for longer when we went 2-1 up. The game was at a lightening pace at that stage. If we had weathered the storm for 10 or so minutes i think we would have held on or even extended our lead.
Ramsey has had a setback and is out for another 4 weeks at least. Flamini out for 3 games too. I hope Cazorla’s knock isn’t serious. I just wish we could stay injury free for one season.
Some inconsistent refereeing again. Never a foul for their first goal and Chamberlain was onside when he was played in, and that’s just the start of it. Ok, so now i wish we could stay injury free AND get some good refereeing for one season. Fat chance. We’d do the quadruple!!
All that said, and considering we did go down to 10 men i think that was a good point today. That could be important come the end of the season. Other teams would have lost that game.
Keep the faith.
Walter,
Thanks for the report, you are maybe a bit angry, strange (Noooo,its Mason not at all).
Apart from the refshite, I agree southampton are a really good team, hope they keep on doing this till the end of season, great tactics and great manager, I liked their players and fans since they got promoted. I hopw they get the best this year.
The main reason we play like the first half is the same reason we did last year, and was solved by Ozil transfer, he should be the engine of the team, the Fabregas who set the attack game, but his only problem was he get scared of injury (rightly so), so he doesnt give his all. Dont know what Wenger told him, but second half he was brilliant, second goal was his brilliance, and he started the flowing passes/dribbles that put the southampton team on the back foot on the first goal. He is the heart of our attack, just like Per in the defence.
And yes again on the refshite, those counter attack we lose to fouls, and the other teams counter that kill us, has to stop, its the damn ref job to ( either let us off with the fouls with no yellows, just like the oppnents, or yellow card them).
Can I have a pair of your rose tinted glasses. Hand ball by Kocsielny in the box??
I don’t know since when a breast is part of the hand to be honest.
The foul count showed they had a plan but arsenal to slow to get started m u beat bottom club now media says best team going
For Flamini’s red card,no question abt that bt the referee is entitled to use common sense& since no harm had been done,Flamini would have been cautioned,Lee Mason is unfit for high level and high temple matches & the Manchester boy should be relegated & may b preside over lower league matches,Otherwise he was very poor to night
So it’s true about Ramsey. With Jack injured…for however long, Flam suspended, theo out for the season….Cazorla looking like he had a knock….players are going to have to really step up, but I also suspect we may need some cover. Our injury situation is really getting beyond a joke, we seem to,average seven, eight or nine out,at any given time. Think Pulis will try and dish out a kicking if allowed as well.
Any theories on what is going on with Poldi not playing?
Thought Szcz did well , made a few vital saves
@Mandy Dodd,
He said it ,Podolski, he still doesnt feel much fit, plus Wenger couldnt substitute him in the game earlier due to us being man down.
I dream of Diaby coming back and becoming another hero of this season, and teach people, what is hard work. He deserve it, still trying, what a warrior.
Another dream ia for Giroud, opps, the low conversion rate stupid not good who scored a brilliant goal today Giroud, would score the goal that wins us the league, that would be tasty, ohhh how I loved this man today, he didnt stop, not afraid, what a man, putting his body twice to cover our goal, he deserve more credit than he get, way more.
John Cross tweeting he expects flam,to get four games
https://mobile.twitter.com/johncrossmirror
Don’t know if he is right or not, but as we all know, if they can, they will
Walter,
What are you talkinh about:
“At Manchester City a foul from Touré and again not even given a foul.”
Imagine them giving him a red, and then he cant be city best player and win them our game, and the next 3 games. You know what the rules book say in the first page:
“this rules shall only apply against Arsenal only, any rule to be applied that could help Arsenal win shall send the offender (i.e. referee) to Championship league and have him lose his Career if repeated. The PGMOL has the total right to not allow any referee to ref a certain te (i.e. Moss, Friend) if they feel those refs wont abide to the above mentioned.”
Cause if that above ismt mentioned, I dont know why do people come here to argue the refshite? Total description of incidents,statistics from ref reviews, all types of theories and examlpes, plus the real game to watch. And still they urgue.
What’s with you gooners CONSTANTLY whining about ref decisions. You really need to get a grip and knock it on the head. #sulkybunchokids
Spot on WALTER. very good summation. Mason surely tilted the outcome in favor of the saints. Foul count was sixteen to five for the home side. They were sent out to stop us gaining our rhythm and the referee let them get away with it. I didn’t expect that from a manger like puchatinho. But it’s the referees job to realize that and put a stop to it by warnings and cards if necessary.
That said , the second goal was very cheaply given away. Either MIKEL OR FLAMSTER went to sleep on that one and didn’t trail back with their runner.
@Tublu
If you are expecting Untold Arsenal to represent the average Gooner, I think you made a mistake. There are arsenal sites (supposedly) which will complain about anything and everything. And it is always the fault of management. Nominally this is the AAA. They don’t have a solution other than spend more money. I suspect these are people who like Arsenal, but actually support Chelsea, Tottenham, Man City, Paris St Germain, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Monaco, and others.
Untold Arsenal would like a level playing field. If Flamini goes into a tackle with both feet, he gets a red and 3 games suspension. If Tore at ManCity goes into a tackle with both feet, he gets a red and 3 games suspension.
#idiotwnobrains
WE could have won it despite the ref! But having said that the ref was not even handed. I think the red for Flamini is a bit harsh as the tackle was initiated very close to the player and Flamini was right in front of the player. He was not coming in from behind or from the side and there is clearly no intent to hurt the other player. He was going for the ball 100%. But then Arsenal rarely get anything from the refs.
There should have been a penalty awarded to Arsenal for a foul on Kos.
And the first goal by Southampton was a foul on Monreal.
The first goal by Giroud was top quality. How can people say this guy is not a top striker?
Southhampton played a brilliant first half and ran and ran for 70 of the 90 minutes, if they hadn’t played on sunday they would’ve ran the 90 mins and we would be talkin abt a defeat. Thank you fixture gods for being kind to us for once.
Ref was a known factor , still doesn’t legalise what they tried to do to us !!!!!
But Rodrigez and Lalana ran rings around flamini and Arteta, I cannot remember the number of times atleast one of them was left face down on the ground when trying to do a quick turn in the first half, may be the late coach journey did cost us the first half – players did not assess the pitch conditions properly and took wrong kinda footwear. We were only 1 goal down thanks to their debutant striker and our amazing GK (yes he could’ve done better in preventing the goal , but he did make couple of superb saves to redeem himself)
But we missed Wilshires turn of speed in the match all through, our midfield rotation works best when we have one of the sitting mids make a run in to the box thereby opening space for the front 4. Neither flamini nor arteta made a meaningful fwd run all through the match. Very disappointed with that.
But hey there is maturity in the team , we didn’t try to foolishly go for the winner with 10 men and lose the point like we used to.
BTW did anyone notice arsene struggling for words in the post match presser. ?? wonder what tht is abt, he is not able to contain his rage at the team or at the press or someone else. He took a long time to form a sentence and even longer to spell out answers to questions.
Yeah,Gunners fasten your belts as we enter planet bias the deluded and morons are going to come out hard and its going to be tough for us.Tots,Chel$ea,Man$ity and Everton following each other and expect no mercy.
In between we have Bayern so if we survive that we will be champs but its going to be hard and harder for us if you add on the masons,it will be tough.
We have been on that path before and GOD’s willing we might survive but it wont be easy.Lets keep the fire burning.
Well, those who advised me to avoid watching the game were right. I haven’t seen such an amount of tackles with excessive force in a long time. Santi stayed down for almost a minute there. And how Schneiderlin escaped without a card after tackling Ozil I’ll never know. At no moment he intended to play the ball. That was as cynical a foul as can be. I have no complaints about Flamini’s red card, though this is merely a recent product of those who wanted the game to be played without “excessive force”. In my home country the ref would have needed police protection from the away fans after such a
dismalmalevolent showing. And yes, he might as well have taken the ball and throw it into our net for the first goal – it was written Mason all over it. Jeez!My apologies for the bad markup.
Let me see if I can get it right this time. It was supposed to read:
dismalmalevolent showing. And yes, he might as well have taken the ball and throw it into our net for the first goal – it was written Mason all over it.How it all started – a true story from the files of the Medical Division of UA …
The stupid AAAA went to his doctor, seeking help for his terrible addiction to cigars. The doctor was quite familiar with his very compulsive patient, so recommended an unusual and quite drastic form of aversion therapy.
“When you go to bed tonight, take one of your cigars, unwrap it, and stick it completely up your butt. Then remove it, rewrap it, and place it back with all the others, in such a fashion as you can`t tell which one it is. The aversion is obvious, you won`t dare smoke any of them, not knowing which is the treated cigar.”
“Thanks doc, I`ll try it.” And he did. But three weeks later he came back and saw the doctor again.
“What? My recommendation didn`t work? It was supposed to be effective even in the most addictive of cases, such as yours is!” answered the doctor.
“Well, it kind of worked, doc. At least I was able to transfer my addiction,” replied the patient.
“What is that supposed to mean?” demanded the doctor.
“Well, I don`t smoke cigars anymore, but now I can`t go to sleep at night unless I have a cigar shoved up my butt.”
( What our files does not include is , if it was lighted !)
This was inspired by this article in the local news …
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/01/29/Family-bliss-up-in-costly-smoke-Jewellery-sold-for-hubbys-Cuban-cigars/
Apart from our bad performance, or maybe Southampton good one Mason was usually crappy, exactly as we used to see him.
First, lets be honest, point is all we deserved here (though, in football not always win team who deserve). But Mason done all he could to prevent us getting more than we deserved.
How come referee on such high level can make game after game such huge mistakes, game changing mistakes. Even in Bosnian Corrupted League someone would put finger on head and concluded he has to be put on waiting list a bit. I sow better referees in game between two local teams in which players had problem to get rid of sheep’s grazing on field, and at half time angry owner of field came and cut pools with chainsaw.
I don’t know was it foul on Koscielny and was it penalty, but handball and foul on Nacho were obvious. But commentator on TV sad after Southampton first goal “Mason didn’t sow, or didn’t want to see”.
Beside it credit to Southampton who made us look average if not bad in first half
The thing that is good about this game is that after such a poor first half we were able to turn the tide.
Was it because arriving late at the ground that the team was not really focused at the start? But whatever happened the players that were poor in the first half stepped it up in the second half and corrected their pale performance.
And that is what is good from this team.
And if we go back one year ago at the same ground we also had a very poor match. Also a draw and also a pale performance. Is there something in the air in the visitors dressing room that makes us sleepy?
Another evidence of Mason`s anti Arsenal bias…what a twat https://twitter.com/_The12thMan/status/428310874559115264
Thanks for the report Walter,just hoping the chickens dont slip up for once in the oil at the Coop.
COYG!
Some sound advice here , may be apt for some.
Undeniable Facts of Life:
1. Don’t educate your children to be rich.
Educate them to be Happy.
So when they grow up they will know the value of things not the price
2. “Eat your food as your medicines.
Otherwise you have to eat medicines as your food”
3. The One who loves you will never leave you
because even if there are 100 reasons to give up he will find one reason to hold on
4. There is a lot of difference between a human being and being human.
A Few understand it.
5. You are loved when you are born.
You will be loved when you die.
In between You have to manage…!
6 If you want to Walk Fast, Walk Alone.
But if you want to Walk Far, Walk Together
The ref’s input or poor performance and its effect on this report is hugely disgraceful and disappointing. It is a major turn-off.
Better hope Gibbs is back asap, Monreal was utterly atrocious. Anyway this was always going to be a tough game, it’s a damn shame we never turned up in the first half otherwise we might have stolen a win.
It’ll be a real blow if Ramsey is out much longer and if Wilshere and Cazorla are missing for too long it’ll be the old fight for fourth again. I hope Wenger’s got a new face or two lined up before January 31.
So one down of my key games and we got a point. Not a disaster but we really need to win four of these six ties, Everton, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manu, Man City and Spurs. Potential champions should be able to do that.
@shakabula
“A major turn-off”
Yes indeed. The refs are not only professionally conspicuously fetid, they are also unpleasant as human beings. Sky subscription cancelled. Enough is enough
Pathetic Display from Arsenal. You are not bothered to be up for a game when you are top of the league and needing to win the next 2 games before you run into big games, how can you be called a professional. Its extremely immature and unprofessional. As fans with additional jobs to sustain out living we are constantly looking into fixture lists and making our own points. For a professional football club with many back room support and with players earning millions, i cannot fathom how can they be so lethargic. No amount of excuse is pardonable. Will the players put up their hand up and say sorry to fans?
Another blunder from Arsene, just look at all games when we had this so called double DM’s, its always been disaster. yet you find our manager going with this tactics and against a lower half of table team.
Flamini for all his so called backbone such immature and childish tackle. Can they ever learn and cut these mistakes. This is second red card for Flamini this season.
Pathetic, i wasted my couple of hours sleep midnight 1 to 3:30 Am to watch this.
According to Wenger, Jack is “not bad”. Make of that what you want (hint hint AAAs), but it is a reason for optimism that we will have a fit and proper midfield in time for the Crystal Palace’s visit. Which we should be able to win despite all the Mason-Propert-Dean-isms.
According to Wenger, Jack is “not bad”. Make of that what you want (hint hint AAAs), but it is a reason for optimism that we will have a fit and proper midfield in time for the Crystal Palace’s visit. Which we should be able to win despite all the Mason-Probert-Dean-isms.
Madhu,
So watching a game in which we didn’t beat our opponents by 5-0 at their own ground and against the referee who didn’t award us at least 1 penalty and all but pushed the ball into our net for 1 goal was better than sleeping? You must have quite an agitated sleep my man. Oh, amd I’m sure you know a dozen of players that can tackle better than Flamini, run better, and cost a fraction in wages and transfer fees. Which would really be a record since he came in on a free. Share us from your restless wisdom.
Mahdain, now that is an interesting thing.
Reports yesterday from the BBC said that the Arsenal bus was stuck in traffic and was late arriving at the ground.
Now if Arsenal then requested a delay in kick off the ref can grant it or not.
Now if we go back to the reverse tie…
On that day there also was problems in London with traffic. The ref that day was Mark Clattenburg.
The ref allowed the game to start 15 minutes later than planned because of the traffic problems.
Mason didn’t….
can’t believe some on here are moaning the fact that we drew against a pretty good Soton side. One game drawn and all hell break loose. reminder to those we are still in contention. Even if chelsea and ManC win, we won’t be that far away and the way this season is going we might as well nick the PL.
Florian, its never about the result but the intent my friend. Its the means that justifies the end. By the way iam not sharing my wisdom but just my rant, feeling better. Its the same player who will cite ambition and leave the club next year, when we go another season without any honours. Juts my thought, no need to abuse me now.
Also i would have not bothered if we look like beating any of the top 6 teams. We have 2 wins, 3 losses and 1 draw. So all iam saying is that we should have been thinking about winning these games.
@Walter thanks for the clarification.. Question is and it is rhetorical one is if it was the other way arround would Mason said no too? Highly doubt it
Madhu,
If most of your previous posts were positive, please understand that I cannot keep track of everybody to determine if it’s a fluke or a habit. We have enough of our regular sewer rats to deal with already. I guess what I’m really saying is that in your rants you’ve been focusing on one small part of the equation, instead of seeing the bigger picture. There are many more elements involved in a match than just the players’ form or momentary reactions.
Btw, now I’m the one that needs to go to bed, it’s 1 o’clock in the night:) Have a good night everyone. COYG!
Southampton played really well in the first half, closing Arsenal down high up the pitch but they had used a huge amount of energy by doing that.
And so the last 10 mins were going to be crucial in this game as Southampton had to suffer the effects of their high tempo start.
The game looked made for Podolski’s late entrance but Flamini’s poor judgement scuppered Arsenals plans, you simply cannot expect to get away with that type of challenge.
In the end it was a match we could’ve lost, may have won but overall a draw was about as much as we deserved. When you perform below par and don’t win, you must make sure you don’t lose.
Credit to Southampton, they have some good players but in Luke Shaw they have a potentially top class left back.
well the bigger picture is that we may not be on the top of the table tomorrow. Good night mate.
I totally agree with you, Madhu, you should have slept and saved us from your smarty pants stuff.
Everyone going on the Arteta/Flamini thing, first have a damn look at the subs, second it wasnt a tactical reason we were bad, it was mentality, and brilliance from the saints, they have to take credit too. Second half shows its not tactical, and we were the better side then, before the red. Its our first that killed us, or is it the first half goal 😉
@Tasos, totally agree with your assessment, if Flamini had stayed on the pitch, we could have stealed the other 2pts. If we are so sad of a draw, it shows how good our players have done up until now.
The point on delaying the match is a valid one, but to be fair this is a lame excuse for such a poor start. Arsenal should have realised by now that playing the league leaders is like a cup final for the likes of Southampton and I think we just looked a bit complacent. I also thought the Saints were very good!
In addition playing two defensive midfielders was an error as it robbed us of our flow. The second half showed the strength of the team and the manager; I fancy we would have crumbled in a game like this in previous seasons. A point gained in my view rather than two lost when you consider the red card (stupid from Flamini, a ref like Mason was just looking for an excuse to card our players).
Going back to the ref, ESPN detailed that Southampton committed 11 fouls to Arsenals 4, yet we had one yellow and one red to their one yellow. This means that they statistically could commit 10 fouls to our 2 without a card. IMO there were no poor challenges in the game apart from Flam. I also counted that Southampton committed two hand balls that were not given, we should have also had a penalty and their first goal was a foul on Monreal (even the BBC noted that!!).
I really try to watch games without my Arsenal Glasses on and be as objective as possible, but the above speaks for itself. For the record I have also noted the poor decisions other teams have had, especially offsides against Man City (Liverpool, Spuds and us suffered here).
Interesting figures about the fouls Brad. Bearing out once again what Untold says about the refereeing.
@Mahdain
Thanks for the link about Arsene Wenger asking for a fifteen minute delay so the players could warm up after the late arrival due to traffic and Mason not giving it.
Also, Arsene Wenger mentioned the two wrong refereeing decisions in the lead up to the first goal in his press conference.
Again and again it becomes clear that Arsenal are performing miracles to be top of the league.
One has to wonder why Wenger ever picks Flamini and Arteta together. Never a good combination if we want to win. The team looked lacklustre at times and is sorely in need of some pace, too much pointless passing and slow movement and far too many stray passes as well.
We’re not going to win every game but we surely don’t need to put in as nondescript a performance as we did in the first half. We really need to beat some of our rivals to stand any chance of winning the league.
The unreformed zoological specimen from the underworld seem happy this morning.
I see some of the sewer rats have turned up again…predicting doom and gloom. We will only be trailing by a point and I know we will bounce back again! Not a bad result overall…and of course Mason is SHIT!
Come on, we have to be real, Arsenal did not play at all, considering what is at stake. OK the ref was not brilliant(are they ever?), but we should have won that game. I really do not know what happened to the players. OK, the fact that we could not warm up, seems to be reason for the slow slow start, as so much damage could be done going into the game “cold”.
Anyway, i can see that AW is furious and there will be some fire thrown at the players and at the officialdom.
But with all the injuries we have, it is clear that this team against SOU was not as effective as we would have liked. Flamini and Arteta does not go well together i think, but with injuries we had no choice really. SOU played like Arsenal do, (or used to do), in fact i have noticed that many teams have started to play like Arsenal did, and now we are in the process of developing another way of playing, that they will copy in the next times too.
So, very disappointed, BUT, because of the games we have coming up, i hope that this is a reality shock and spurns the players on even more.
Feb is now our new “tough” month, and the pundits will be looking for us to fail, but i know we can make them eat their words, even though it will be tough, and as long as we don’t get any more injuries.
Keep on trucking Arsenal.
Is it just me or did we see a glimpse of another product of the Southampton assembly line of great players last night? Get Sam Gallagher, Arsene!
It is the accuracy of the refwatch previews that is so, um, interesting 😉
To be fair, the late offside call against Chambo was only slightly transparent. Heh. What, only a meter or so onside? A difficult call. They’re ‘avin a larf! Or perhaps the thought of an Arsenal corner was too much at that late point in the game! In truth I thought they’d try to be, you know, a bit more subtle with the offsides call. now Arsenal have lost Walcott.
The PGMOB’s ‘offside rack’, as they like to say, appears strange and unnatural to our docile eyes because as we all know “99%” of such calls are correct 😉
So why so many off colour offside calls in Arsenal (& other) games of late? It’s a fair question given the PGMOB’s own stats on such calls: “99% accuracy” *coughs*. So, the number of incorrect calls against Theo Walcott in December/January was unusally high. But then for someone without a football brain he has become quite good at turning the last man…I’d have been worried too.
Arteta and Flamini do not seem to play well together. Also thought Arteta was very poor in terms of giving away possession – sometimes in dangerous places – and deserved a b*llocking for not tracking Lallana for their 2nd (you can see Lallana run past him in midfield as the ball sailed over Sagna). Having said that, it was his first game back and he was probably short of match fitness.
But we had none of the usuals available for the box-to-box position: Wilshere, Ramsey and Diaby are all injured. The Ox is not match fit yet either (and would probably have struggled in that position). No Rosicky either.
Which brings us back to our appalling record with injuries….
you cannot control refree’s decision making, unless you are Fergie i guess. So you can concentrate on what you can control which your own team, play and decision making ability. The thing that was apparent was that even with Flam-Arteta axis we were out of shape whenever sou moved forward. Its probably the firts time in the season when we have conceded right after we have scored, which was quite often last season. In a match where you are under the cosh for the first half and gain 2-1 lead right after second half, conceding a goal immediately points out to relaxing/concentration loss. Watch the Lallana run and you can see Arteta lazily tracking him.
In view of their knowledge and insight, should Arsenal ask Sperez and Rupert to replace Wenger and Bould?
Why not also invite Piers Morgan to replace Ivan Gazidis?
And we could add Lief to the training staff also. We would win the quadruple each season…
Prediction: If we come out of the May 3 game (the next-to-last) with a lead, even if it’s just one point over City and/or Chelsea, the referee for our last game will be either Lee Mason, Phil Dowd or Mike Dean.
As Paul Ashworth would say, “Bet you any money you like!”
Hello Untold!
I haven’t been on here in a while, busy busy, and was hoping to see what the status is with your ref reviews. I recall last time I was here there was talk of shutting up shop, is that still the case? If it is still going on I have found a site that could help:
http://livefootballvideo.com/fullmatch
No downloads, no waiting (but I would suggest downloading a browser extension called AdBlock, otherwise the video will stop every now and then for an ad. All the best!
I just can’t believe the Whingers on here.
I mean do they really think we can come out in every game, no matter what the circumstances, and play at our best? Spurs, Liverpool, Chelsea and even City have bad days at the office. As do I, as probably do most of you if you are honest. It will be nothing to do with how much you are paid. It will be nothing to do with how professional you. It will be down to the fact you are HUMAN. And human beings are not Robots.
So come on get real. It was a bad day at the office. One, may I add, yet again not helped by a poor refereeing performance, that we still managed to squeeze a point out of. As I recall whenever United played Shite and squeezed something out of a bad day (usually with the aid of a dodgy pen or Fergie time) we was told ‘that’s what wins titles’ !
But no, we’re supposed to play our best every single time or it’s a disgrace. Give it a rest !!
Oh, and talking about the ref, I’m sat here watching SKY summarizing all the games with Gallagher and Parlour and of course every decision Mason made was correct. How fucking predictable. COME ON RAY YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE A GUNNER. HAVE SOME BALLS SON !!!
Finally on the late coach saga, you can rest assured if United/Fergie had requested a delay they’d of got it, and if they hadn’t it would of been all over Utd TV, oops sorry, SKY TV this morning, especially with the fact it was delayed at the Em’s in the corresponding fixture for the very same reason.
SKY……I pay a fortune for there biased bullshit.
Spot on jambug. Some people must be really sad in their lives. In fact, more like weirdos than sad. The very little things they credit the likes of utd, city, etc for, they use them to beat us with. City had a terrible first half against Watford, at home, having had all the time to warm up, etc, but you don’t hear how bad they were then. We, on the other hand, got stuck in traffic, didn’t have time to warm up, at a ground where most of the big sides came away from with nothing, gave a good account of ourselves despite a bent ref and playing last 15 mins or so with 10men. And you have these individuals bleating continuously about how rubbish we were, shaking my head.
Having said this there are individuals whose comments I don’t bother reading at all anymore. They have nothing positive to say about the team. They’re always waiting to.pounce at the slightest hint of a stumble. I don’t wish to be associated with such people, all they see is gloom and doom. I’d be worried if that kind of person was my neighbour, honestly.
AL
The thing that pisses me off is that the ‘Mantra’ for want of a better word, of this site is clearly displayed. So why do they come here?
I’m not saying that you cant criticise, but criticism is different to that of the trolls on here that do nothing but moan and bleat about EVERYTHING.
It’s not as if there isn’t other sites for them to go and vent there spleens about there hatred of Wenger and all things Arsenal.
I never have, and wouldn’t dream of visiting one of those sites. What’s the point? They have there view and nothing I say will change it so why go there? Well if I want to ‘troll’ that would be the only reason.
I wish I could totally ignore them when they do come a trolling but alas human nature depicts that that is easier said than done. It’s a natural instinct to respond to someone who you feel is talking utter crap. And my God do some of these ‘Trolls’ talk some crap !!
I know it’s difficult to ignore them, and once in a while I scan their comments and respond at times. But you’re quite right that they’re trolls, as it would make more sense for them to go and post their negativity where it’ll be appreciated.