THE MUTHAFUCCIN Arsenal vs. Fulham, Monday, January 2, 2012 Pre/Dur/Post Match Thread [R]

Why again did Fulham deserve to win?

Two missed penalties and an atrocious second yellow

 

why Szczesny? he took a lot of shots today he shouldn't have.

 

Having no real fullbacks and weak wide play from the midfielders is putting too much pressure on RvP to carry the load. That the team also seems to have no confidence in anyone but RvP to take a shot helps explain why they're struggling to score more than a goal a game lately.

Credit to Fulham though. They took the game over well before Djourou got sent off.

 

Have you seen the previews? Some kind of space-age helmet. It will be the ultimate proof of the flash over substance label we've earned, as we get beat by yet another team with, yes you guessed it --- bigger linemen.

I could in no way be considered conservative, but I do like the uniform to feature at least one of the school colors somewhere in there.

 

They played us off the park for 60 minutes.

Sure, the ref didn't help us. But we are beyond excuses like that. The ref didn't cause Gerv to sky a volley from 5 yards out early on, or shoot 20 yards wide in the 2nd half. The ref didn't make Theo's crosses hit the first man or miss everyone EVERY TIME. The Frankly, the ref let Djourou off before the second yellow - he impeded someone on the touchline a few minutes before, and had play not continued through advantage, he should have been sent off then.

Sorry, I'm so disappointed by the game, I can't blame the ref.

 

To manage to lose a game like that after such a dominant performance in the first half is infuriating. I agree though we definitely need some quality players.
The Squilacci, Djourou and Rosicki have no business playing for Arsenal.

 

Umm, they played better?

Sorry, don't think so. Could possibly have called one of the pens, but never more than about half the time, and Djourou deserved what he got. Should have subbed him when he started holding his groin. We just weren't good enough.

 

I've not seen the previews - should be an interesting contrast to Wisconsin's classic (and perpetual) red and white.

 

he started flapping fabianski style for a couple of balls (one was lucky not to end up in the net, one that did) and was rooted to the spot for the winner. as good as he normally is, he wasn't particularly good tonight.

 

Positives? Coquelin played well. Song was good. Rambo's first half was good. Umm, anything else?

 

Agree with this... He made some good saves but fk up a few times too.

 

One kind of cool thing is that Science Olympiad Nationals were at Wisconsin last May, and I took one of our kids to practice flying his airplane in their indoor practice facility. Right before going in we came to a big wall painted with "The Road to the Rose Bowl Begins Here". And indeed it did.

Just for some on-topic content, at least we have a week now to rest some people and get some energy back (not to mention getting TH12[?] into the lineup). It's been quite a while (4-0 at Wigan?) since we really played well.

 

Wenger lost this match. I harp on this alot but this attack becomes stagnant when AW does his "Rosicky for Walcott" routine after 65 minutes of every match. I really think that people need to appreciate the dimension that Walcott brings to this team even though he lacks polish. Wenger removes the two paciest players on the team in the hopes that they can hold and win with one goal.

I saw this coming from a mile away. AW folded up the tent and turtled the team with 30 minutes left. Did anyone seriously think they were going to hold on and win one - nil? 10 men or not they were dropping points because AW waved the white flag.

Rosicky should just never see the field.

The ref was bad but our manager was worse.

 

Love how the BBC text summary strings together a bunch of tweets from Arsenal fans about how bad we were, deserved what we got, etc., exactly as I feel. Then the post-match quotes from AW are all about the referee. Sigh...

 

Yeah - I was afraid of that. It's not what I want to hear, either. Arsene, face facts - we weren't good enough. And a lot of your boys aren't good enough!

Phew

 

We haven't been good in a while, and skated by on luck for a few weeks and that luck finally ran out. We are going to need 2 additions at the least if we plan to finish in the top 4.

 

Walcott and Gervinho are shite. Id give up both of those guys any day for one Ljungberg in his prime

 

Its sad that when RVP doesnt score, we dont win.... Def need another striker....

 

Walcott brings a lot to the team....When he is playing well. However, when he is stinking the joint like he did today, the manager has no option than to sub him. The problem is that we are pretty thin and don't have any good options coming from the bench.
One can argue that with a decent performance from Theo, we should have won the game. He was abject today (he has been lately).

 

Correct. The sin isn't taking Theo off, it's having only Rosicky to bring in.

 

The ref was crap though so he was not lying. The next culprit was Arsene himself though. I don't think he rotated enough players to start the game and it showed in the second half when everyone ran out of gas. He then compounded the issue with poor substitutions. He basically switched us to a 4-5-1 with no speed and since we could not keep hold of the ball having no speed for a counter attack killed us. Theo was crap and should have come off and even taking off Gervinho was fine but I think he should have pulled Ramsey for OX and gone with basically a 4-4-1-1. This is not because Ramsey was necessarily playing bad, though he did go a bit absent in the second half, but because he is not needed if we are just playing counter attacking to see the game out.

Switching to the 451 with no speed though just kept us under constant pressure. A lot of players were not up to their usual standards though including Szcz, Theo and even RVP to a point but he is in need of a rest mostly. At least we should be able to rest him for almost 2 weeks now and hopefully get in a fullback soon. Coq played well enough but we still need someone else that can cover for the short term at least.

 

Wow, I guess I might be one of the most optimistic gooners around, for most of the game what I saw, I liked as an Arsenal fan, the defense held on well for most of the game, defensively we are back to where, I believe we will not concede too many goals and we have no fullbacks, either way that says something, as long as we don't have our fullbacks around there is no way Walcott and or Gervinho last the whole game, its too much to ask of them. The playing surface did not help, it was a game of attrition and Fulham did not offer much anyway either. Most teams are playing on auto pilot any way, the balance of the team has been affected,but its long season and I feel much more confident this year than I did last year, and that says alot.

 

meh we were ok and shouldve won if we had even decent wing play today...all we had were black holes on the left and right sides of the pitch that ended up in wild shots, weak service, too many touches and lack of/poor decisions. for most the first half we were able to get the ball to the right people in the right places, just couldnt execute and when you miss chances, you will eventually lose regardless of opposition.

 

ref was abject; i have to say. been noticing this a lot lately, but since when did it become ok to stiff-arm the attacker who has his back to you? a lot of players come back for a ball at pace and try to stop quickly, and the defender just needs to give them a slight nudge above the waist, and they'll go over every time. this happened quite a few times, but there was one particularly egregious example when theo stopped the ball on the touchline and i think riise just shoved him right over with no call. i mean let's be clear; a no call implies that the player just fell over right? that can happen i guess, but it's pretty rare. i do feel for the players because there is no consistency with the refereeing standards from game to game. all that said, we were still terrible in the second half, and we really needed to stay ahead of chelsea.

 

Say what?