By Bulldog Drummond
The joy of having a big squad – a squad of 25 players registered and five more youth players in serious contention – is that there is always choice. Those old days when a player would be risked, and more often than not (or so it seemed) get a worse injury as a result, are now behind us.
The only problem is that each week I end up looking a total mug by getting the team selection wrong.
Some of the choices are nice and simple of course – the keeper is going to be Cech unless he suffers an injury in training in the day before the game, but even the defence now gives us some choice.
We know that in the middle Koscielny and Mustafi are a rock like fixture, superb defenders both at the top of their game, both able to play together, one the captain, one the shouter and organiser. How typical of Wenger to find the player that no one was contemplating as the companion to Kos, and for him to be utterly superb and just what we needed.
But both the regular full backs missed the kickaround in Bulgaria. On the right the issue is simple – if Bellerin is fit he plays. But on the left… I’ve seen some criticism of Gibbs of late, but I don’t really agree with that. I thought he was very good against Sunderland and fine against the Ludo men.
I’m not sure what’s up with Monreal, but he hasn’t looked himself. So on that basis I’d stay with Gibbs – but maybe being dropped has given Monreal a kick up the bum, or maybe he was playing with a minor injury, or a cold or…
In the centre of midfield Ramsey wants to play, Santi Caz is a must if fit, Xhaka could get a bit carried away with all the tackles flying in, Coquelin looks to be getting his lunges more under control and so should play.
I’d hope for a Santi-Caz / Coquelin combination. If not, I’m not sure what Mr Wenger will do. Coquelin / Elneny? Coquelin / Ramsey? Coquelin / Xhaka?
I suspect that if Santi doesn’t play it will be Coquelin / Ramsey in the middle.
If anyone on Arsenal is good at doing the business to spuds, it should be Alexis. Potatoes come from Chile. Although some Peruvians beg to differ on that. Since we don’t have any Peruvians on the squad, I’m sticking with Chile as the source of all things spud. And Alexis should cook them good.
COYG!
Mornin’ Bulldog.
I like the sound of Mustafi shouting and organising. A natural successor to Flamini.
And a word of advice…are you sure you mean Beddington?
Isn’t it Bennington? Unless of course you are deliberately sending Spurs fans on a wild goose-chase to the badlands of Lincs. 😉
Just about to head off to the Ems for my last live game this winter. I’ll be back in March when we are hopefully 10 points ahead of the rest.
This is no walkover with Clatter in the middle. I’m hoping for a quick flowing start so that Arsenal get the upper hand early. I know Wenger is up for it, I hope the team are wide awake & with him.
Lets get our voices ringing in the ears of the opposition.
Goal.com has an eye-opening interview with Mustafi, and he seems to be really sincere and nice guy. His biggest point is thankfulness.
http://www.goal.com/en-gb/news/2896/premier-league/2016/11/05/29226522/meet-the-real-shkodran-mustafi-arsenals-rock-at-the-back?ICID=HP_HN_HP_RI_1_3
Good morning Mr Drummond, and happy Sunday to all Untolders.
I think you’ve said right by saying, ‘if they can avoid being slaughtered’. But in the other hand, I can’t see Spurs avoiding being slaughtered by the Gunners at the Ems today as they are poised already to hit Tottenham Hotspur where it’ll pain them most.
I can see a humiliating defeat dealt to the Spuds by the Gunners on the cards, which will send Tottenham Hotspur into capitulation this afternoon at the Emirates Stadium.
If Chelsea can send Everton into capitulation with a humiliating 5-0 final scoreline defeat at the Bridge yesterday, I see no reason why Arsenal will not take that Chelsea’s huge free goals scoring feast against Everton yesternight as a challenge to make a statement to Chelsea that, Arsenal have in their armoury, the big guns with the capacity to score as much, if not more against the Spuds today’s afternoon to cancel any goals difference advantage Chelsea maybe thinking they’ve gained over Arsenal. And this is despite the fact they will fall behind us on points today at the conclusion of our today’s match against the Spuds.
Mr Drummond, you’ve appeared to have forgotten a rightback cover on your bench. But I agree with you in your starts save I prefer to pair Coquelin and Xhaka together to start the match.
If I may repeat my starts again:
Cech
Bellerin Mustafi Koscielny Gibbs
Coquellan Xhaka
Walcott Ozil Sanchez
Giroud.
My bench:
Ospina Jenkinson Holding Gabriel Oxchambo Ramsey Iwobi.
But if Gibbs is yet to recovered from the shoulder injury he picked, I’ll have Gabriel who can play leftback to start. And if Walcott isn’t fit to play this game, I have to start Oxchambo at right wing.
As we have a gathering of our supporters club I don’t know if I will be able to put up a full match report shortly after the match.
Being the president of a supporters club brings some obligations, sorry about that
No Cazorla today for us but the level of thuggery in the opponents’ line-up will be reduced due to absence of Dele Alli.
Still, Xhaka will have to be careful as Wanyama, Dier and Dembele will impose a physical game with a lot of kicking and pressing.
Alexis should seize the absence of Toby Alderweireld, arguably the best Spuds defender, and score a goal or two.
Mustafi and Koscielny should do with Kane what they did with Diego Costa.
I think Le Prof doesn’t want to take Sanchez back to the rightwing again, but still keep him to be leading the line for us. That decision must have forced Giroud to start from the bench as a super sub for this game since he can’t play at any of the 2 wings as a winger specialist. And that’s allowed Iwobi to start the game.
Monreal must have recovered fitness fully to be starting ahead of Gibbs who has also must have recovered from a minor shoulder injury but starting from the bench. I think Le Prof has made a no nonsense statement by starting Coquellan and Xhaka at the base to deal ruthlessly with any Spud or Spuds incursion into Arsenal’s half.
Final Score @ Full-Time:
Arsenal 3-0 Tottenham Hotspur.
Or
Arsenal 5-0 Tottenham Hotspur.
Arsenal
33Cech
24Bellerín
20Mustafi
6Koscielny
18Monreal
34Coquelin
29Xhaka
14Walcott
11Özil
17Iwobi
7Sánchez
Substitutes
3Gibbs
5Gabriel
8Ramsey
12Giroud
13Ospina
15Oxlade-Chamberlain
35Elneny
Hear the vulture(pundits) lick their lips at the prospect of Arsenal’s so called “november hiccup” they salivate all over their microphones.
The Sun affecting the viewing of the Gunners in their half?
Concentration lads and dont get distracted by anything other than winning the game.
Spurs are having too much room in the midfield for my liking.
Iwobi has no shot, if he has, he would have scored from that Arsenal team work effort.
A secret Arsenal fan?
yea
At long last we have our goal we’ve been waiting for! We’ll take that goal however it comes.
I missed the first 23 minutes. Great shot by Walcott off the bar. And lovely header by Wimmer (OG)! Probably two players of ours in an offside position though.
Clattenburg should have halted play much earlier on the Walcott/Mustafi collision.
COYG!
Does Mezut get an assist from the own goal?
What a shot from Walcott, it deserved a goal!
Own goal yes, but what a delivery from Ozil ! Kos could have get it if not OG.
Heading for the second one now! COYG!
Spurs fans are furious because Sanchez was in an offside position, twitter is in meltdown.
According to Howard Webb the goal is legitimate as the law stands because Sanchez did not affect the play even though he was in an offside position.
Who cares, we are in front.
Sell i can see already where this one is supposed to go.
seems scripted for the “ultimate” entertainment value.
I’ll give Dembele credit for carrying the ball into the box. But as soon as he got in there, he started to fall all on his own. Wonderful assist by Clattenburg on the Kane penalty.
COYG!
Arsenal Arsenal, come on.
Clattenburg is so obvious.
Match is fixed by refree nothing new
That penalty Clanttenburg gave Spuds is debatable, because Koscielny tackled the ball and not the player who fell over Koscielny’s leg. Another ref would’ve waved play on.
Nice cross by Iwobi!
TSN picked up the NBC Sprots feed, so of course we have to have both network advertising taking up screen space _all the time_! But NBS is inserting ads into the stream as well. Give me a break! Volume on 0 for stupid commentators, so I don’t know just how stupid they are.
COYG!
Monreal has my hat taken off for him for foiling that Kane attempt to score against us. But Spurs have been the better in attack in this 2nd half as they seem to be stronger on the ball than us. However, I am confident Arsenal will find a way to open up the Spurs defend to hit the winner.
It is wonderful that Clattenburg and Tottenham are so concerned for the well being of Rose’s shoe.
Come on Giroud and Ox!
COYG!
Sanchez is not a good passer of the ball under pressure when he is supposed to be. Ramsey should not be wasting our goal scoring chances by shooting miles over the bar in his ordinate ambition to score a spectacular goal.
5 minutes extra time to help Spuds. Joke.
Arsenal has goal line technology why no replays
The Tiny Totts – saved by the Clattenburg.
Good game, little rough? but expected.
Now on to the real(well 2nd) enemy, manu.
fair penalty but
how Wanyama managed to stay on the pitch with 2 elbows and two clear yellow carв fouls.
I see Rose hurt his shoe again in the second half. Maybe his shoe ends up on the injury list? I see young Winks got his debut.
Ozil seemed to be everywhere.
Arsenal 1 – PGMO 1
Bleech!
Arsenal had the better of play in the first half Spurs were better in the second. Lots of chances, though. Take the point and move on.
I’ll disagree with the penalty being fair. Koscielny moved for the ball, and the spud was already falling in that direction all on his own.
I don’t think Ox deserved so many fouls so close together, at least one was phantom.
Arsenal’s goal was clean and Spuds penalty looked correct after one look. Will check on both later.
But how the hell were Wanyama and Wimmer not sent off.. Wanyama two elbows on Theo, Wimmer with two reckless challenges.
No wonder the medjia licks the gel of Clattenburgs head
Usama – mostly agree although Clattenburg pointed to the spot awfully quickly. It wasn’t that obvious. As i wrote previously, he’s become like Dean and Webb – they think that they are the show, not the players. Calls too much attention to himself in my opinion.
The ref strikes again!!
Look forward to Walter’s report and Clatt was a disgrace.
I am perplex! But if anything, I warned Arsenal to avoid giving the Spuds a draw. Because they won’t mind getting one from us if we give them the chance. To them, it’s like they’ve won the match because they’ve succeeded in stopping us to go top. And to us, it’s like we’ve lost the game because we didn’t achieve our aim to go top for the 2nd time of asking. These 2 missed opportunities to go top have put our PL title credentials under serious examination to see if we can pass the Exam with ‘E’ i.e. Excellent and win the Title.
If we can’t win this kind of big game at home, I don’t think the current 2 big strikers of Sanchez & Giroud we have, can put their hands on their chests to say, they are confident they’ll lead us to the Promised Land again after we’ve being forced away from there.
I am saying all these because as a die hard Arsenal supporter for life, I want Arsenal to win the big title of the Premier League for us this season haven missed out on it by our underperforming performance last season. If after Le Prof has bought Xhaka, Perez & Mustafi, all we can managed to do is getting only 1 point at home against Spurs, 3 against Chelsea and 0 against Liverpool, 4 points out of 9 collectible maximum points is not a show of championship credentials which leaves us with much to be desired.
I think Le Prof may have to open his cheque book in January to sign it if he finds a top striker who can be trustworthy to deliver the goods for us.
BT Sport making a big deal of the “offside” even after Webb explained it wasn’t….Wrighty is getting very annoying when he is a pundit on Arsenal games
The commentators on replays say the Arsenal goal even though it was an own goal but some of the Arsenal players was in the offside position before the ball was kicked, which affect play and lead to the own goal, therefore should have been ruled out. The penalty was unfortunately a penalty, Kos put a leg out and didn’t connect the ball but tripped the Spurs player in the penalty area, risky move that didn’t pay off.
The team played well in the first half but after getting the first goal the team seem to lose focus at the start of the second half. Not sure whether it’s my observation but a lot of time in big games when Arsenal score the first goal the team seem to lose focus and many times allow the opposition to get back into the match.
Anyway disappointed for the team not winning but at least we didn’t lose. Can’t wait for the next match against ManU.
I am not so sure the Spuds penalty was correct – Clattenberg “missed” the shirt pulling foul by Dembele on (I think) Coquelin in the build up – but I am not surprised at the selective vision of any PGMO bandit.
Clattenberg used to be one of the best refs – but regrettably has deteriorated to the Dean/Atkinson level of bias and incompetence.
What happened to Walker that he needed to go off? Phantom shoe problem like Rose?
What happened to Cech on that one clearance? Turf problem?
That one free kick that came off our post, I don’t think anyone touched it on the way to the post. Or did someone?
BTSprot is wrong. It is not a foul to be in an offside position. Wimmer played the ball into his own net, and none of the players who were in an offside position at the time he did this were interfering with his play.
It was not a penalty. Clattenberg is a cheat & did the bidding of Riley & others.
There were far worse fouls by Spuds that he ignored. We have to win despite the blind mice pgmol supply.
@ Samual, calm down the team didn’t lose, yes it’s disappointing we didn’t get the 3 points but worse case is we will be 2 points behind the leader if Liverpool win. I don’t mind drawing the big games as long as the team win against all the smaller teams. It’s a long way to go and all the contention teams will drop points. Keep the faith.
Gord – spot on offside is only when team mate lays the ball forward. Wimmers header could hit any Arsenal player & the official should not call off side. He scored it beautifully. One could say Clattenberg scored for spurs with total disgrace.
Wow, Liverpool leading 3-0 and it’s only the first half against Watford, that’s ruthless. Liverpool top of the league who would have thought that? The pundits are probably creaming their pants.
I think a draw was a fair result.We had the better of the first half and spurs had the better of the second.Some of you do yours3lves no favours constantly blaming the referee who i thout was ok.Some of you show yourselves up and have o idea about the game of football in this country.Especially the racist menace .The sooner you bugger off back to goa the better.
With us looking to go top from 2nd at the start of today’s proceedings, we are now likely to drop to 4th at the end of the day. This is unacceptable! We MUST stop fluffing our table topping lines whenever next the opportunity presents itself to us to go top.
If Le Prof had started this match with:
Cech
Bellerin Mustafi Monreal Koscielny Coquellan Xhaka
Walcott Ozil Sanchez
Giroud, would we have won? It isn’t an after thought by me because those were my starts for this match.
I think Sanchez had an underwhelming performance for us today as he didn’t make any impact in the game for us. Perhaps if Le Prof had started him at the LW and Olivier Giroud centrally, Arsenal might have won this game. And of course Le Prof can always replace Sanchez with 1 of Oxchambo or Iwobi as the game progresses.
I think both goals were clear.
Wanyama not getting at least a yellow card is a farce.
All-in-all, I was happier with our performance in this fixture last season. We didn’t look firm at the back where Mustafi makes mistakes (which is probably a consequence of being managed by Gary Neville last season) that, fortunately, haven’t cost us a defeat yet. Still, we haven’t lost in the league for 10 games, we haven’t lost in the last 16 matches in all competitions and we have lost just once in the last 21 games. Not bad.
There is a problem with our performances at the Emirates in the league though. That’s something we need to fix in order to maintain in the title race that is going to be a really exhausting one.
Is Walcott trying to tell us the Gunners are not prepared for any other playing formation employed against them by the opposition team and deal with it? Other than the 4-2-3-1 playing formation which the Gunners have adopted as there are own playing formation, is there no other formation they can play and deal with it if the opposition plays it against them?
But Le Prof has refuted Walcott’s claims in this regard. However, if Arsenal have not learnt how to play the treading 3-4-3 playing formation and mastered how to play it very well, so that they can successfully deal with it whenever the opposition team employs it against us, I think it will be better if the Gunners too can play it. So that they will know how to counter it and defuse it if they are confronted with it by any opposition team. The earlier the Gunners do this the better it will be for us.
The whole build up in the commentary was projecting the air of wanting Arsenal to slip up with their comments like:
“This seems like a good opportunity for Arsenal to slip”.
Did anyone hear an Arsenal player being praised?
Spuds were praised for their fouls..
Hey what am i doing?
You all know this already.
The ref tried his best.
His best to not let Arsenal run away with the game.
I now know why the refs rough house tactics are used.
Because Arsenal would run away with everything if left to play fairly. 🙂
Arsenal are now carefully applying their own tactics against these ruffians as well.
Last words:
Arsenal will take the crown at xmas and never look back, mark my words…
I see Wenger used the C word today. I guess that means at least a week of the media yacking about Cazorla being the only player who is creative.
The Ladies play their last game versus Liverpool!!! today. Good luck Ladies!
Is Walcott trying to tell us the Gunners are not prepared for any other playing formation employed against them by the opposition team and deal with it other than the 4-2-3-1 playing formation which the Gunners have adopted as there are own playing formation, is there no other formation they can play and deal with it if the opposition plays it against them?
But Le Prof has refuted Walcott’s claims in this regard. However, if Arsenal have not learnt how to play the treading 3-4-3 playing formation and mastered how to play it very well, so that they can successfully deal with it whenever the opposition team employs it against us, I think it will be better if the Gunners too can play it. So that they will know how to counter it and defuse it if they are confronted with it by any opposition team. The earlier the Gunners do this the better it will be for us.
Kiss my Arse n al lizzie!!
Finally could do my match report even though it is more a view on the match than a real match report
Menace is no racist Lizzy and you need to go to spec savers