Arsenal v Galatasaray. What the papers don’t say.

Posted on by Tony Attwood

By Bulldog Drummond

Today it is 18 years since Mr Wenger took over Arsenal and immediately started out by confronting a rag-bag bunch of journalists who tried to trick him on his first day.  “He’s only French,” was the watchword, “we can get him, write it up and be down the pub for lunch” was the phrase of the day.   They walked away their tales between their legs and have been after him for revenge ever since.

The full story of Wenger’s first triumph is revealed on the Arsenal History Site.

When asked about his 18 years Mr Wenger said,  “I have no time to look back right now, but it is a great privilege to be in charge of such a big club for such a long time. I just want to meet the expectation level of this club and win the Galatasaray game. Our job is always to win the next game.”

So on to the injuries.  You don’t need me to tell you the list of injuries because the media has made it their main talking point, to the exclusion of all others.  If you dropped in from another planet you would hardly know we are unbeaten in the league – which is why the sentence “Quite amazingly, despite having most of their team wiped out by injuries Arsenal remain unbeaten in the league,” hasn’t actually been printed.  Except here.

But it was ever so.

Instead what we have is the rather odd notion that in order to be “in form” a player must not make a single mistake in a game.  But the reality is that everyone makes mistakes on the pitch, no matter who he plays for.  However if you play for Arsenal then that’s it.  One mistake and you ought to be shot.

Mathieu Flamini is the latest to suffer from this assault, so is now dubbed unsuitable for Arsenal.  And despite his long and cautious return since last spring Abou Diaby is considered too dodgy, while Tomas Rosicky too old, Jack Wilshere too hot headed, and Santi Cazorla too small, while Mesut Ozil was rubbish at the start of the season, and Sanchez has fallen out with Wenger and Wenger has fallen out with Sanchez, and the Ox is not yet ready.  Oh and Lukas Podolski is not interested.

So we have an injury crisis all beautifully manufactured around a mythology of the players.

Here’s a simple solution: play Sanchez on the right, play Oxlade-Chamberlain to play in a central role, behind Ozil.  Just one option among many.

Of course we do have injuries – rather a lot, although I suspect not quite as many as Man U this week.  Arsenal appointed Shad Forsythe last summer as “head of athletic performance enhancement” and one benefit of this flurry of injuries is that he now has a chance to see in action what we suffer.

(Although, and you might have missed this amidst the doom mongering, both Gnabry and Walcott are training, and both join in full first-team squad training next week).

But as Mr Wenger said, “We know a lot more than 18 years ago than when I arrived but still not enough to predict 100 per cent scientifically what happens to everybody…. [But] You need to feel that you trust your body – we sometimes forget that the first quality of a good football player is health.”

He also said that a long list of changes had been implemented and hinted at the obvious point that they will take time to come through.  Although journalists are now chattering about their latest fantasy – that it is the Emirates pitch, the feeling in the club seems to be that this is not the case.

Arsenal are also building a new multimillion-pound upgrade to the training base that includes a new athletic development centre and additional space for offices and analysis, and according to Mr Wenger are making changes “in the way we prepare, in the way we work on prevention for injuries.”

He also added, in relation to one of our most injury prone players,“Kieran looks to me that he’s going into second gear now and he realises that he can trust his body, he can trust his talent. He has such a great potential now if he just lets it go. He can dribble as well. He was a winger.

“I think what doesn’t help is when you’re in and out because of his injuries. You need a consistent presence in the team. We sometimes forget that the first quality of a good player is health.”

So let’s try this line up

Szczesny;

Chambers, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs;

Oxlade-Chamberlain, Flamini;

Sánchez, Özil, Cazorla;

Welbeck.

Lazing around: Ramsey (hamstring), Arteta (calf), Walcott (nearly ready), Gnabry (ditto), Monreal (back after the internationals), Sanogo (ditto), Debuchy (ankle), Giroud (fractured foot).

On the beach: Wilshere, Diaby, Bellerin, Coquelin. Ospina, Rosicky, Zelalem, Podolski
The background points…As for Galatasaray S.K. they have not won a game in England in nine attempts, and their squad is getting a little bit older (but then aren’t we all!)   So Arsenal will run around a lot to wear the old timers out.As you will perhaps have perceived from the review of Arsenal in Europe yesterday, this is a repeat of the 2000 Uefa Cup final when Arsenal lost to the Turkish team in Copenhagen on penalties.   But Arsenal have never lost to Turkish sides over 90 minutes, winning five and drawing four of nine previous games.There’s an index to our anniversaries of the day and the recent articles on the home page.

 

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147 Replies to “Arsenal v Galatasaray. What the papers don’t say.”

  1. WENGER IS A GOOD MANAGER BUT HE SHOULD BUY DEFENDERS AND A STRIKER TO HELP WELBECK.
    I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING Walcott BACK IN ACTION HE IS A TOP PLAYER.

  2. ITS TRUE THAT ARSENAL CLUB WILL BE AFFECTED BY THE GROWING LIST OF INJURED PLAYERS AND IN MY VIEW THE GAME AGAINST GALATASARY WONT BE AN EASY ONE WITHOUT KEY PLAYERS LIKE RAMSEY,WALCOTT AND GIROULD.
    I CANT PREDICT THE RESULT FOR NOW.

  3. Bulldog,

    Zelalem is starting for the U19s, so won’t be on the beach this evening. Full team for the U19s:-
    GK -Huddatt, outfielders – Johnson, Moore, Maitland-Niles, o’Connor, Dobson, Iwobi (Capt), Zelalem, Hinds, Crowley, Willock

    COYG

  4. Good preview for the game! Looking forward to it! I like the lineup, can’t wait for Walcott to get back also, the speed of that attack is going to be amazing. In addition to your injury info, ESPN posted an article stating in the last 12 years Arsenal have had almost 900 injuries (889 to be exact), but of course does not mention possible reasons such as the refs allowing our players to get kicked throughout a game!

  5. Halftime in the U21s – Arsenal 1 Galatassary 0. Zelalem in the 45th minute. A tight game but we have had the better chances and two shots have hit the woodwork. Smart save by Huddart to keep a clean sheet so far.

  8. lets hope the lads are inspired and produce a similar performance tonight as the U19s.

  10. Excellent write-up Bulldog; how ridiculously FUNNY is the MEDIA in their effort to be journalists amazes me!!!

    As for U19’s score (5-1) will do just fine for the seniors this evening…LETS GO GUNNERS!!!

  11. Hello from western Canada. My computer died a month ago, and email just got working again yesterday. I caught the tail end of the commentary of the U19 game at the UEFA.com website. Nice win for the lads. Some stats from that game:

    Arsenal 5 – 1 Galatasary
    Zelalem-45, Hinds-57, Willock-59, Lwobi-66, Crowley-71p
    no cards to Arsenal
    1-4-2-1-2-1
    Field officials from Israel, 4th official from England

    Galatasary in 94th minute

    On Target 9 -6
    Off Target 10 – 2

    2 games played so far, Arsenal has 6 points and Galatasary now has 3
    points. Dortmund and Anderlecht yet to play their second games
    (against each other), neither have any points yet.

    Here is hoping the first team do well today!

    COYG!

  12. Perhaps the youngsters we have and the development within the club isn’t as bad as the doomers would have us believe. Funny that.

  13. Our officials today are from Italy
    Referee Gianluca Rocchi
    Assistants: Gianluca Cariolato, Alessandro Giallantini
    4th: Alessandro Costanzo
    Additional Assistants: Antonio Damato, Paolo Valeri

    Gives us a level playing field and a fair game officials. Please.

    COYG!

  14. About our referee:

    Started doing Serie A sometime in the 2003-2010 timeframe, exclusively Serie A in 2010. Became a UEFA and FIFA referee in 2008. He is not afaid to give out yellows, with a 7 (2-5) in April of this year among recent games. Not many reds or penalties, but he has given 2 red cards to a single team last November (Argentina U17).

    COYG!

  15. @ Gord – was wondering what had happened to you . The thought occurred to me that since there’s not really very much happening in Canada , you probably were hibernating in you man cave !
    Is the sun out ? Are the Salmon spawning ? Are the polar bears frisky ?
    Is it hockey season yet ? Go Maple Leaves !
    My nephew who is a newly qualified vet from Portland just loves them .
    So much to catch up on .
    Bye for now , and don’t forget to write !
    Goodnight .

  16. It is probably misguided to read too much into the Arsenal injury list without a deep analysis of the injury situation in all PL clubs.

    Do not forget that many managers use the expedience of saying a certain player is not included in the team due to injury when this is not the case.

    How can Costa have a hamstring injury and yet play 2/3 games a week, when we all know that the recovery period more often than not is 6 weeks. Who is kidding who?

  17. @bob mac
    October 1, 2014 at 6:08 pm

    I, as a sprinter (years gone buy with 10:46 under my belt for the 100m) can tell you a hamstring strain alone is 3-4 weeks…the worse the tare the longer you can be OUT for!! 😉

  18. footballers are just as likely to have a serious hamstring tare because whilst they may be running at tempo during most of the game, those sudden bursts of acceleration, twist in turn to change direction with acceleration or whilst in sprint reaching up high with a leg to collect/control a delivered ball (see Ramsey) can cause a decent tare!

  19. Apo thats fast!, I could only just get 11.57.(was 15 at the time)Good stuff mate!

  20. Thanks Kenneth…I wouldn’t risk it now over 100m…the hamstrings would be bouncing off in front of my eyes at 50 odd that I am 🙂

  21. @Brickfields

    Yes, forced leave from Untold. My province (Alberta) has had an early snowfall already, which has caused a lot of consternation in the farming community. But, that snow only stayed a few days, and I think most of the farmers now have their crops off. Some parts of Alberta are expecting snow today. Most deciduous trees are changing colours and losing leaves. I have a red and a yellow apple tree at the farm, the yellow tree dropped all its apples on the ground on the last really windy day (3 weeks ago?), and now most of the red apples are on the ground too. Soon, we should start seeing dead birds around the farm (flying into windows and trees after getting drunk on fermented apples and berries). I wonder if we could get the AAA to do that? 🙂

    Sorry, I don’t support any sports team from the center of the universe (Toronto).

    I was kind of dismayed to read some of the articles on Untold lately, with the trolling and crap. I can see that Walter and Tony are trying.

    A couple of years ago, Arsenal went into a Champion’s League game with a bunch of defensive injuries, and I think Wenger mused about fielding a team with 8 forwards. It would be nice to see the injury list go down. It would be nicer to see one of the twisted one’s ( 😈 Mike Riley’s PGMOL) admit that decisions they made on the field led to Arsenal players getting injured.

    COYG!

  22. @apo Armani

    I know of a guy who at 51 or 52, was still beating 20 somethings in sprints in football. I was regularly doing it at 35 (and I was probably 225-240 pounds at the time). Not today, too much sitting on my butt.

    Well, I just waded through the BBC daily commentary of all things sport, and was surprised to not see any of the BBC dweebs sharpening up their knives to take a dig at Arsenal in the now 10.5 hours of babbling in that commentary. Maybe the BBC will be fair today? I still can’t see any of them mentioning mistakes by officials, should that happen. But honest punditry (idiocy?) would be nice.

    COYG!

  23. From the BBC, we have the starting

    > Arsenal XI: Szczesny, Chambers, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Gibbs, Flamini, Cazorla, Ozil, Sanchez, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Welbeck.

    Not a very defensive lineup there. We could see a bunch of goals out of Arsenal tonight!

    COYG!

  24. Tony talks about the merseyside teams bring presents to the Emirates. The Daily Mail has this:

    > Matt Barlow: Galatasaray’s fans seem to be bringing pride and passion, smoke bombs, flares and traffic chaos to the streets of north London.

    The stewards might have their hands full with the visiting crowd tonight. Hopefully problems don’t end up on the field.

    Mind you, Barlow demonstrates a lack of ability to understand prose inthinking Wenger has a carrot addiction.

    Subs reported as:

    > Ospina, Coquelin, Bellerin, Rosicky, Wilshere, Campbell, Podolski

    COYG!

  25. Oops, I failed to notice that Bulldog nailed the starting lineup! What I get for configuring postfix while the pregame is on.

    COYG!

  26. What’s with the kit color. Purpul and red…soon we’ll have red vs red.

    Go gunners

  29. Ox and Ozil having a very good game albeit Silently

    Santi playing good from the deep too……

  38. Off side??.. But the last touch was from the defender wasn’t it.

    Red red red red….melo red melo red

  47. How was that not a red?!!!! Ramsey and Debuchy got sent off for doing nothing. This is a complete joke.

  52. Neither the BBC or Daily Mail mentioned anything about a hint of offside on that second goal, the Daily Mail did say it has been 1 year (less a day) since Welbeck has scored in Champions League.

    So much for getting a fair game from the officials. I hope Sanchez isn’t injured, all I see is “game is delayed” in the commentaries.

    The Daily Mail showed pictures from early in the match, of a flare getting onto the pitch.

    COYG!

  54. Dzemali’s kick on Sanchez was worse than Rooneys at the weekend. Alexis is being targeted

  57. The defender headed the ball back, like Gérard did against Uruguay in the WC, so no offside.

  58. I think Flamini does it when he sees the other team is being heavy handed without getting punished. Good idea, unfortunately it doesn’t work when you play for Arsenal, as you’ll get punished.

  60. good half.COYG!Aha and Amen!
    AL wheres your avatar gone?Always liked that pic of the lads…

  63. Flamini may be doing it to send a message to the other team but his lunge in was from directly behind the Galatasaray player. He’s got to pick his spots a bit better.

  64. Kenneth
    I’ll bring it back. For some reason the site started silently dropping all my posts (probably some AAA turd was trying to hijack my id 🙂 ), so I changed my email address. Just need to tie my avatar to this second email address.

  73. Keep the pressure on Gunners! GD may become important.

    Come on Mesut, Santi and Ox, get on the score sheet. And I don’t mean assists.

    COYG!

  79. Oh oh. But we’ll be fine, just need to use the counter effectively, can even nick a goal or two more…

  88. Yeah.. He gets good reception you idiot because he played his arse out.

    Stupid commentator…

  90. The commentary is sickening, best not to listen to it. I know it kills the atmosphere, but keeps the blood pressure down

  91. yeah cunts are annoying, oh galatasaray are poor made us look good, yeah go suck a monkeys nipple

  97. This stupid ref, glad we put daylight between us and gala or he’d be costing us this game….

  98. Goals are going to be important. Dortmund are +3 on the evening (3-0). We could sure use another tonight, and it sure would be nice to see Anderlecht get 1.

    COYG!

  99. Ospina has played well…dollars to doughnuts nobody gives Wenger credit for buying him.

  100. There was absolutely no reason for the Galatasaray striker to follow through into Ospina…the ball was going to the corner flag

  107. Congratulations Arsenal! Good game, too bad the referee spent too much time talking to Mike Riley 😈 before game time.

    The Daily Mail showed a picture with Sanchez icing his foot. The caption suggests this was precautionary. I am hoping it is.

    COYG!

  109. Well done boys.
    Welbeck…his performance today reminded me of one in our recent past…..whose name shall escape me for now…so as not to put undue pressure on him.
    Alexis……another goal, hope his ankle ok after that red card tackle.
    The Ox played well, so did the Osp when he got into the game.
    The ref was the usual awayer we get in our home games. Gave us absolutely nothing. Good preparation for the pgmols Mr Chelsea at the weekend then.
    Sky commentators…..wankers as per usual.

  110. I remember all the AAA asked for fellipe Melo that sack of shit of a player would have got 38 red cards in one season

  112. @Arsenal 13 🙂

    —

    In other news, we need to point out what a genius Brendan Rogers is. Basel win 1-0. Or as the BBC puts it:

    > That’s Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool all beaten by Basel in recent times.

    COYG!

  113. Exactlt Va Cong, whats the difference between that and ours? my take on ours, their players didnt have the ball, so no red, just yellow.
    Still waiting Walter assessment.

  114. A word on Gibbs.

    How has he grown. Before our eyes. One of the most consistent performers in the team.

    Our silent hero…

  115. Yes Gord, things not going so well for the media annointed….and self appointed managerial genius of the people.

  117. ARSENAL 13
    the only one English leftback in CL
    and i think the best as well

    but chambers thats who the real gold is.
    and Kos is just brilliant as usual
    MU go sack LVG tit for selling Denny to ars

  118. Hmmmm….and no ones telling us that we should’ve scored 5 or 6.

    Where are all the ‘should’ve’ pundits??…

  119. I am here so don’t come out with shot like I only come here to gloat when arsenal have a bad day at the office. I am delighted with the result and was furious with the idiot commentator bias toward ozil. He played well and those clowns were saying he had a bad gam? Pre ordained agenda.

  120. Credit where it’s due. We played superbly, definitely our best performance of the season. Now for chelsea. Please for the love of God beat that ego centric maniac.

  121. From the BBC:
    > 21:47 Player reaction

    > Arsenal striker and hat-trick hero Danny Welbeck: “I forgot the matchball! I’ll get it after.

    > “My last hat-trick was for Manchester United’s reserves and I’m trying to score goals. I am getting into positions and it is paying off.”

    —

    Welbeck seems to be working for the team so hard, he forgot to get his trophy! I hope he recovers that ball.

    Congratulations Arsenal! 5-1 to the U19 and 4-1 to the first team. 9-2 on aggregate.

    COYG!

  122. A most gratifying performance up to 63mins or so and then a very good rearguard performance.

    Really pleased for Wellbeck and indeed the team going forward looked really co-ordinated. We played some excellent football tonight – despite the ref.

    I thought the ref was very poor, allowed unpenalised fouls against Arsenal but penalized Arsenal at every opportunity. The foul on Sanchez by Melo was despicable and should have been a red.

    NB how did the Galatasaray fans get flares into the ground – indeed how come they could carry them around London?

  124. Andrew, that maniac is just going to park the bus on the weekend. Anyone got a M-1 Abrams tank that we can run that bus over with? 🙂

    COYG!

  125. @Andrew,
    Hope so, I will be so happy of we destroy that ego centric maniac, as u called him.
    Come on Dany, we need a hattrick there!!!

  126. Szczesny did exactly what he had to do and he is blameless but Paul Merson and the rest of the media shit-talkers are going restart their campaign of calumny against the Pole.

    Arsene Wenger, the man who really matter, already debunked the notion that he could have done anything else but that is never enough anyway. The truth is the that Szczesny was certain to get the ball before the Gala attacker changed the direction of the ball. I have no idea what else he could have done in that situation.

    All the talk about loss of concentration is nothing but bullshit.

  127. I was shocked at Tony Gales attempts to rain on our parade. Worst of all was his nonsense about Ozill, he was on his back the whole game.

    Can someone here please explain to me why so many pundits have it in for us because I do not understand it.

  128. Thats my point, Bootoomee,
    He changed the direction, and kept going the other way. Plus he was not in control of the ball. How can that be a red if the player was not controlling the ball.

  129. If Mourinhow 🙂 has balls he should send his lot against us to play football not bus stop 🙂

  130. Match report already up.
    And I am in a good mood so sing along:

    En van je hoempa hoempa hoempa tataraa tataraa tataraaa…. 🙂

  131. Bootoomee
    Nice to hear from you 🙂 I won’t blame Sczesney at all, the gala player was just a little clever to draw a foul, and he left his right leg trailing to ensure contact with the keeper. He basically cheated, cleverly though. I just find refs are too harsh with us. Technically it’s a sending off as he was the last man, but it seems the full letter of the law is only applied in our case. That tackle by melo was a straight red all day long. It was a more cast iron red than our keeper’s I’d think; two footed, in the air, no control of the body, missed all of the ball. .. hope Sanchez is ok.

    Proudkev
    They want to knock our best players so we’re not as effective. Look at it this way, and I don’t mean any offence to anyone, but who do you think the opposition would rather have on poor form out of Ozil or Flamini, Chamberlain, Rosicky, etc? They know an on fire Ozil can destroy you – the others, while very important and key players, aren’t the sort that can change a game on their own or out of nothing usually – so they would rather knock his confidence so he doesn’t performto the best of his ability. Imagine they still say he was rubbish after that slide rule pass for Sanchez’s goal. If fabregas does that at the weekend we will be hearing about it for many months to come. I know one person they’re waiting to pounce on is Sanchez, but it looks like he will keep them waiting for a long long time 🙂

  133. Yassin,

    This is where “agenda” comes in isn’t it? The red card was harsh especially after the ref’s terrible decision to only issue a yellow for a 2 footed assault that could have ended Alexis’ season.

    Why you and I can see this and the paid pundits can’t is something that I find baffling. Paul Merson, in my opinion, was being deliberately stupid. Shit like that just piss me off.

  134. AL,

    Thanks man. I have mostly been lurking these days. I have a lot going on at the moment and there is very little time to tackle the mouth-breathers who come over to moan about Arsene Wenger on probably the most pro-Wenger (by admission) website on the entire Internet.

    The ref’s decision on Melo is utterly ridiculous but by the letter of the law, he must send Szczseny off. I am just mad at the idiots blaming the poor guy.

  135. It sounds like all of you were watching Sky. The BBC coverage got talking about whether you could boil an egg in 3 minutes. One of the announcers is supposedly going to look into this tonight.

    But, in case you are interested:

    —

    There is a web site devoted to calculating how long it takes to boil an egg. At sealevel, a medium egg should be around 3:26 (egg starting at 18C I believe). As this duration is more than 3 minutes, we want to decrease the time, so we want altitudes lower than sealevel.

    Medium egg into already boiling water
    Altitude Time
    0m 3:26
    -1000m 3:05
    -1225m 3:00

    The barometric pressure at a depression of 1225m should be 1.191 bars (or 120.703 kPa). Which is an increase of 19.378 kPa over atmospheric pressure.

    I then found another website, which calculates the pressure under a given depth of seawater (0 depth corresponds to 1 standard atmosphere, or 101.325 kPa). A depth of 1.9278m should be required.

    In other words, we setup a box with a diaphram on top, to contain our pot of boiling water into which we place our egg. On top of the diaphram, is a tube that is 1.9278m long (or longer), into which we pour seawater. The diaphram will deflect downwards, increasing the pressure in the egg boiling part of the equipment. We only place 1.9278m of seawater into the tube.

    One of the BBC readers thought the answer was going to be several thousand meters below sealevel.

  136. Very very nice first half performance – reminded me of the early 2000 teams in the way we moved the ball around. Of course it was only because Galatasaray are rubbish and could not even compete in non league football in this country (well according to the TV ‘experts’ anyway… not much of an agenda there heh?). Please for Welbeck and once again Ozil looked superb in the first half (though our esteemed TV experts reported of course that his rubbish lazy and not interested). Sanchez also superb and scoring in most games he plays in… he is not at the same level as Costa though who is a god, as is Falcao and of course Rooney.

    Shame about the second half – apart from Welbeck’s well taken third. Wenger said, rightly – in his post match interview that we lost concentration. This is something the team need to work on as it happens a lot. Need to stay focused for the entire game, no exceptions, especially in the big matches.

    Onwards to West London – a big test approaches…

  137. Yeah, the way UA had been flooded by the bleating halfwits lately was so bad it almost made one lose the will to live. Hopefully this will keep them quiet for a while.

  138. Szczesny could have stayed on his feet and stayed on the pitch. I do not blame him for going for it as it was a 50/50 ball there to be won though he is certainly not blameless as he mistimed the tackle and committed the foul.Disgrace that Melo was not shown a red for the tackle on Alexis.

    Great performance from the lads.

  139. Bootoomee Merson is a Chelsea fan and that is not the only example of his bad judgement. He also abused drinks and drugs. Yet he’s trsTed as a role model and an Arsebal fan, neither of which are true. He is actually a bit thick

  141. InitialsBB,

    “Szczesny could have stayed on his feet and stayed on the pitch”

    Yeah right! Had he done that, stood there looking and let the ball in that he was clearly favoured to save (but for the Gala attacker SUDDENLY CHANGING the direction of the ball) you would be here blaming him for not making the save. Szczesny was clearly poised to get the ball. The Gala attacker went looking for a penalty and got it but I still don’t know any other thing that our keeper could have done differently in that situation.

    I agree that it was a penalty but that does not mean that the goalkeeper “lacked concentration”, was a “hothead” or any of the other stupid terms that the pundits have been throwing around. He did what he had to do and that is good enough for me.

  142. Arsenal.com has an article about Diaby, in the context of the defensive midfielder (Diaby is the DM ?). What Diaby says seems quite well thought out.

    http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20141001/diaby-i-m-open-to-deep-lying-role

    —

    From the Boss’s interview, it looks like Sanchez did not get injured by that thunder-tackle of Melo, and was unhappy to later be asked to come off. Wenger was disappointed to be asked questions about facing that bus parking team on the weekend. Some dork at the interview also brough up Szczesny’s ability to concentrate. I think we should send Bootoomee to go beat him up, philosophically of course.

  143. Bootoomee,

    How dare you tell me what I would or would not have said when you have no idea. For the record I think he should have stayed on his feet, but at the same time understand what he did with a 50/50 in the heat of the game.

    He most certainly could have stayed on his feet, made himself bigger and pushed the attacker wide, and any dimwit who ever kicked a ball knows this. This is what his coaches from the age of 7 would have taught him.

  145. Hi Rantetta.

    Other than having to waste time rebuilding my computer, things are fine. I have never used Gentoo Linux before, so I decided to try that.

    —

    There were news articles early in the game, which suggested LOTS of empty seats. Attendence reported by the Camden New Journal is 60,007 (nominally sold out?). For those of you who were there, were there empty seats?

    Incidentally, I have found that Camden New Journal actually has a pretty reasonable writeup about all things Arsenal. Which I suppose is expected, as I believe it is located close to Ashburton Grove.

    —

    Had Szczesny not been sent off, I think it would have been nice to see Campbell and/or Podolski come on as a sub.

  146. @Bootoomee
    October 1, 2014 at 11:09 pm

    “…being deliberately stupid…”

    I think he is genetically stupid actually!!

    No red for the tackle on Sanchez we ask?? of course not…how can Arsenal get through a game and not have at least 1 major decision go against us!

  147. Also who does Jamie Caragher (spelling who cares) think he is giving ‘expert’ advise on defending?? who remembers him defending for Liverpoo?? was he not the OWN GOAL specialist?? FFS!

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