My thoughts on the game...we got three points Thats the only thing that matters! Ugly wins a better than pretty losses/draws!
Charlie15, I agree with your points. Zona, That is what matters. We are now 2 points ahead of last year.
I thought it was a decent game .. Not really an amazing game but watching the Chelsea-Birm. game which was going on too, we did super .. Anyway, i'm impressed with Hleb .. But does playing Hleb in the hole make Cesc seem too silent ?! Sagna impressed me .. He's defensively much better than Eboue .. And i thought Sagna-Eboue worked well, but there was not much creativity from that side .. But finally, 3 points, and that's what matters .. Last season ,we would have drawn the game [didn't we do it anyway ?!] .. A good start, thought it did like a repeat of last season .. PS: Toure rocks .. And so does Gallas .. Oh, what's with Lehmann anyway ?
Reactions... RESULT: For most of the match it seemed like deja vu of early last season at home, but at least this time we toughed out a win against a bottom-half club. Still, makes me a bit nervous. BENDTNER: Liking what I've seen so far. I think we've needed a strong, tall, aerial forward for several years. I'm cautiously optimistic about NB. TOURE: How about that run?! (that drew penalty/equalizer) Then there was the near own-goal. Perhaps we have to forgive Kolo some mistakes if he can produce a few unbridaled offensive forays. HLEB: Playing MUCH better now than end of last season! Great winning strike! If he can just lick the tendency to hold the ball too long & cough it up. JENS: He's seriously lucky we didn't lose b/c of his stupidity. (Can you tell I've never been much of a fan of his) EBOUE: Didn't do so great at RM today but I'd MUCH rather see him there than at RB, so hopefully AW will keep trying him at RM for awhile. CESC: Where was he? HENRY: I didn't miss him a bit (no surprise) and am actually quite optimistic about how we'll do without him.
I agree on all fronts, Jens mistakes like that could, and problem will cost us points, let hope no more of that stupid play (a bit hopeful special when we have probably have 40+ games to play).
Bottom line, we won. A win is a win no matter how it is achieved. Im gonna be a bit more optimistic and say that most of our deficiencies came from the formation played today. As well we must remember it is the first competitive game of the season people. Now i know they all matter and we can not drop points to Fulham at home but still it takes a few games to get into the groove. That combined with our funky formation i think led to a lot of our problems. Overall i saw some promising things today and obviously some troublesome things but i think most of these will get ironed out. Notable players for me were clichy, rosicky, & bendtner. Clichy threw some good balls into the box today and got forward well especially with rosicky drifting into the middle. I like his pace as well. I dont see why some of you are criticizing Rosickys performance today. He was the only one who looked like he wanted to score to pull us level from the start today. He was willing to take the shot and all of them were solid shots with none going astray. He would have had a goal as well if not for the crucial block by the Fulham player. Hleb still hasnt convinced me. I will give credit that his performance today was well above his usual but one game means nothing, he needs to string a few together. I still found myself screaming at the telly today in the first half for him to shoot the f*cking ball. Im really happy and glad that he had the confidence to continue trying and not get down on himself and got the winner. Last season i guarantee you that he would have passed in that situation and we probably would have gone on to tie.
i said it before the ajax game and was snarled at. i still think we need 2 strikers up top with hleb, directly, behind and cesc in a deeper playmaking role. two strikers is a must at home.
Let me start off by saying that I am extremely happy with the three points, but I do have a few points I would like to add in: 1. Wouldn't Cesc be better suited to the hole right behind RvP than Hleb? I'm not a Hleb hater, I just think that Cesc would feed nice little balls in and not give away possesion so quick. 2. Toure should be rated a 7 not a 5 like I have seen. He made some crucials tackles in the box and he pushed forward. On his way to being the best defender in the country IMO. 3. Rosicky played very well I thought. He wasn't afraid to pull from distance and ran at his defenders. No reason for him not to start. 4. I heard a rumor about Arsenal putting in a bid for Morten Gamst Pedersen. That would solve the winger problem. In conclusion, not a bad first weekend of soccer. Tottenham lost, Mancs tied, and Fat Sam actually had a team play soccer for once haha!
Yep.. if the referee decided to give it. He had been illegally brought down in the preseason before and yesterday too, so no doubt his runs will cause defenders no end of trouble. Bendtner played well even if he came on for the last few minutes. Much better than Walcott imo. It would be interesting to see him starting a game for us soon Anyone knows what happened to Diaby/Denilson?
pleased as i feel it's a game we would only have drawn last season. but yer, like many have said, a win is a win so we can't complain. have just seen lawrie sanchez interview though, he's pretty bitter!! dunno if anyone has seen/commented on it already? But, my god!! Hleb's was 100% a penalty, as was Toure's. However, Sanchez seems to think Davis was tripped but it actually looks like he tripped himself up. Funny how he thinks only the Fulham one was a pen. Mind you, i only thought the Arsenal ones wer pens!! never mind, 2-1. end of, Sparta next......
I wrote an article about this match. It also contains videos that are not copyright claimed, at least not until now http://www.fcfootballblog.com/arsenal-2-1-fulham-highlights/ Have fun!
Well I didn't think I had much to say about the game, but I am surprised to see how much negative reaction there is here... Getting 3 points is the bottom line, the top line, the only line that matters in the end. Doing so when Jens gives up a silly, random unlucky goal... and when the opposing keeper is on fantastic form... and when two or three starters are missing? Well that's even better news. I think we were all set to be disappointed. About 75 or 80 minutes, it was feeling like a very familiar story. The difference was that the Gunners found a way to get past that. It's only one game, but I'd much rather see that particular demon exorcised, if only for a week, rather than reinforce it yet again. Other positives? I very much liked what I saw out of Sagna. He's not as attack-minded as Eboue but I think that's a good thing, and his play going forward wasn't bad either. I'm glad to see Hleb playing central, as it's clear he doesn't do as well on the wings, and of course it really paid off. Bendtner looked very good in his short time, he's got some different abilities that could be very useful. And we got a win without heroics from Cesc or van Persie -- it's good to get a win without relying on their heroics. So in the end, it was a nerve-wracking 80 minutes, but a very gutty and deserved three points. And... the Gunners are back in action! What more do you want?!
I don't think Cesc had a bad game. I just think he had a different game. Instead of playing his normal "point guard" distribution role, he sat back and clogged up the middle of the field. I'd heard people say Steven Davis shut him down... well Fulham had NOTHING through the middle of the park, and that was largely due to the presence of Cesc and Flamini. And yet...when the time arose to get the winner, who put the perfect ball in the box for Hleb? Cesc ain't gonna be Zidane every game. Hell Zidane wasn't Zidane every game. But he still played a huge part in the win.
i thought martin samuel from the times summed us up well in his first paragraph It is going to take a lot more than the sale of Thierry Henry to change the modus operandi of Arsenal. Time of first goal scored, inexplicably, by the visiting side at the Emirates Stadium: 57 seconds. Time of first accusation of diving by opposition manager: ten minutes. Time of first moment of breathtaking invention by the home side, somehow not rewarded with a goal: 12 minutes. Time of first supporter sighted banging his head against metal object, in impotent rage at perceived unnecessary intricacy in front of goal: 18minutes. Time of heroic fightback: 83-90 minutes. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premiership/article2246588.ece
i dont think we played negatively yesterday. fulham played well for fulham, and arsenal look good for the most part with their usual passing game. i think bendtner made the difference. he broke up arsenals usual rhythm of great passing build up and then passing themselve right out of shooting opportunity. he added a bit of urgency to make that push towards goal. cesc may have seemed a bit quiet, but he was sitting deeper since gilberto is sitting out a few weeks to rest. he still had some good distribution, and we will see more from him when gilberto is back in the lineup. jens, well, what a poor mistake. but since it was in the first minute of the first game of the season, i saw it as sort of comical. its good to get the blunder out of the way now and settle down for the rest of the season. i thought it was great to see arsenal stick with their game plan, and pull it out in the final few minutes. i just want to see that urgency of the last 7 minutes or so throughout the entire match, then i think we can have an awesome season.
I was impressed with Sagna, too. I think he is a great addition. And he looks cool out there with his hairdo. Not that that really matters.
I'm very excited about Bendtner. I know Wenger described him as "raw" and I don't expect him to start a lot (for the first half of the season, at least), but he is a great option to have on the bench. He brings something very different to the Arsenal attack when we need to changed things up a bit. I was really disappointed that Diaby didn't play yesterday, as I'm not a fan of the Cesc-Flamini partnership. I like Flamini, as he tends to step up in big games (his goals against Liverpool and Chelsea last season come to mind), but when he is playing, Cesc doesn't seem to shine as bright. All that to say, despite yesterday's performance, I still think we'll have a hell of a good season!
2-1 has become a very popular scoreline for us. 2007/2008 Premier League Stats: Arsenal: P 38, W 38, L 0, D0, GF 76, GA 38 Points: 114
Not necessarily. Its a different proposition. Hleb gets forward much faster to support than Cesc. Additionally, Hleb can play off strikers checking back and continue the run to goal. Hleb can take people on and get to the end line from deep in a way that Cesc cannot. Cesc doesnt' have the burst going forward that Hleb does. They just have different strengths coming out of midfield. So if we play with one forward, Hleb makes much more sense behind the forward than Cesc as we saw for the most part against Fulham. He was a menace throughout. Also, to play two upfront with Hleb withdrawn and Cesc in the midfield makes for a strange midfield without balance. Then we either play without wingers, which is not seen often at Arsenal or we play without a DM, which is not wise in the Prem. Cesc and Hleb are many things, but defensive jugernauts they are not.
I think we could get away with out playing with "wingers". RVP and Eduardo are both wide players, and perhaps they could alternate dropping a little deeper when needed, and have the other move more into the center. For example we keep rotating based on which flank we are attacking, while encouraging Sagna and Clichy to get forward as much as possible: Code: ----------RVP ---------Eduardo Dudu-----Hleb ----------Hleb------RVP -----Cesc-----Rosicky -----Rosicky---Cesc ---------Gilberto ----------Gilberto
I love Rosicky as well. He may have been the only one who looked like he wanted to score, but that's kind of my major beef with him, cause he didn't score. He only scored like three times last year. The guy has a cannon of a shot, but he can't seem to hit the net with long range or short range efforts...
Phew, what a win. Thoughts: 1) Dont drink lager, bitter, champagne, chardonnay, and Rose on an empty stomach till 2am, and expect to feel fine the following day to go to football. (Thanks go to my wonderful girlfriend for looking after me.) 2) No longer expect Arsenal to ever do it the easy way when I'm struggling with a stomach that feels like its on spin cycle. 3) Realise that however annoyed I am at Lehmann, the big bloke with the ginger hair about 3 rows back and to the left should not be allowed to use firearms.ever. 4) Wonder whether the 2 minutes of going absolutely mental and was worth the 88 minutes of growing depression 5) Realise that it probably was. 6) Eating chips in bed at quarter past 2 in the afternoon after the game is wonderful!! 7) finding out later that we're already 4 points better off against Manu compared to last season is a good thing. We played ok really. There's definitely a changing in the style. Certainly more shots, and more variation, and unlike previous games when the last 30 mins is 'eye of the needle' stuff trying to thread balls through the middle, there were differing approaches and genuine use of width. Fulham played pretty well to be fair, they'll do ok if they keep that up. but what we should have got is a keeper not being an arse, and an early penalty, and then we'd have probably won it 3 or 4-1. Without Gilberto, Diaby or Denilson, Eduardo and Adebayor, we still created enough, I thought. What worries is me, is how effective Bendtner is. The guy just about wins everything in the air. How tempting will long ball be with him up front ? Still I guess we can sell him to Newcastle in a season for £20 mill.