A little bit late to this thread, but I have to say I was really thrilled by how we turned around a sucky start, and owned the game in the end. And I'm equally thrilled that all the goals we scored made practically irrelevant the mistake that led to the goal we allowed. What I mean is... what in the hell was Mertesacker doing when Diame came barrelling toward him and the keeper? He basically stepped up/away and gave Diame a bigger channel to operate. Hello?! And Per even glanced around to see if anyone else was near or threatening... they weren't... and he still just gave the attacker an open door. I was puzzled as to why this wasn't discussed by the match commentators or analysts, from what I heard. Am I the only one who thought this was a major lapse in defensive judgment?? p.s. Ramsey's "swing and a miss" directly before that, I wrote off as just bad execution/luck... it happens sometimes, but at least he tried to stop the guy!
It was a brilliant piece of skill by Diame. I think Per was just playing the percentages. It's not often you see a player nutmeg his man then hit a pitch perfect curling strike into the top far corner. He probably assumed from that position he was going to look for a cross. Instead he scored an absolute cracker of a goal. Sometimes you just have to nod your head to a professional footballer who absolutely nailed it.
I havnt seen many people praising our luck in that game. Sure they should have been down to 10 men and we had (another) decent penalty claim ignored but WH really should have score at least 2 more with the chances they had. On another day this could have been a typicaly disappointing away day for us to Big Sam. Im not completely comfortable with the performance but we showed good tenacity and Giroud was a huge plus
Great strike indeed it was! But before that... Per saw Diame meg Ramsey and immediately he glanced to his left to see if there was another hammer nearby to receive a pass... there wasn't. That's why I think Per just made a bad split-second decision that otherwise might've stopped the goal. But perhaps I'm largely alone in that feeling.
i think he was playing for the cross, as that was such a tight angle, and would take a great shot to beat Don Vito... it was, and he did. That's football..
Yes I would agree if there was anybody near Per that he could've crossed to... but there wasn't. Anyway, lucky for us that it never really mattered, except in the GD category, and we did OK that day with a +2. So we move on and like Arsene always says about climbing up the table... "it's down to our consistency"
From my experience playing as a defender, you cannot spot every opposition player in proximity, simply by taking a quick glance back. These EPL players are speedy as hell, and have run into positions before you know it. OR maybe Per watched Crespo's goal against us at Highbury, and wasn't taking any chances on players appearing off the sidelines.
There was a guy to Diame's right, who would have had a better angle had Per closed down on Diame. I think Per was gambling on the pass and cheating so he could close down on that guy faster.
Haha, no, probably not. But Santi has been here 5 minutes, so I think it's a little early to deem him superior at this point and to diminish what Cesc brought to this club for years.
Here's a nice highlight courtesy of Cesc... The way he defended the ball getting the take away from Arsenal was fantastic, he completely baited them and got a nice assist.
Well, Per would have seen Diame between Ramsey and Jenks so the main danger would have been him slipping a cut back or cross through. It looked like Jenks pulled back a bit once he saw ramsey in good position to avoid tripping diame in the box. A little poor defending and a little bad luck for ramsey, but he has to bear most of the weight for that one IMO.
We get unlucky all the time. Def moreso than lucky IMO. I think we played well and def deserved to win.
I watched that replay and you're right... I stand corrected. There was a trailing player who I hadn't really noticed before. Per was indeed playing the %'s between those 2 attackers, anticipating a possible cross/cutback... and unfortunately his gamble didn't quite pay off. Onward to Norwich... I could get used to these 3-1 results.
I don't have any problem with Mertesacker's positioning on this play. The easier play to make for Diame to make would have been to slide it across goal. Instead he went for the Hollywood shot, and he made it. Great play on his part. It's kind of like the midweek game vs Olympiakos where Vermaelen and Koscielny were on either side of Mitroglu. Yeah, both could have been a little tighter on him, but they were both covering him, they knew he was there and he great header on a fine cross. We're not playing baseball or football here, where everything resets every couple of seconds. The ball is pretty much in motion constantly and we played a pretty decent West Ham side and the champions of Greek soccer. There's going to be moments of brilliance...
Amen. The biggest positive for me, about this whole week, was we played tough, well organized teams, we conceded the first goal in both games (and they were great goals) and we fought back, took control and won going away. It was a really good week to be an Arsenal fan.
Anybody else feel like Podolski is not involved enough on the wing, when Giroud starts the match? Seems like he is too isolated at times, IMO would be nice to try him up front like the German NT has done in his last 2 matches for them.
they did for the last 20 min of friendlies and it didn't really work for DFB. don't think it would work for us either. he is perfect for the left because he always drifts in centrally and gives gibbs room to overlap. if you watch, anytime gibbs gets the ball on the left, podolski goes toward him and offers as a passing option. he never chooses to overlap. so he is already basically playing like a second striker (that everyone seems to want him to play). but defensively he protects the left, and is quick to break on the counter.
Gervinho is playing out of his skin through the middle. Why try to fix something that ain't broken at the moment? Throw in Giroud when we need to mix it up. Leave Podolski on the left to hustle and pounce.