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LAUREN's Arsenal Thread 2011/2012 - 125 Years of Greatness *sponsored by being BRILLIANT*

goon

By goon,
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Retro

Retro

Posted
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I just came to read this thread and probably am saying something out of context but for me the preferred pair is PM and Kos. PM has been criticised so unfairly and it took as a few (costly, like the FA Cup exit) games to get back on track defensively after his injury.

I wouldn't put anyone ahead of TV, but it's great to have three top class defenders to call upon. Been a long time since we had that.

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chris79

chris79

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While I was watching the last part of the 2nd half I was planning to post something like this:

I know a lot of people will call me crazy for saying this after drawing a game we needed to win but I am really happy with the way we played. There was never any doubt who was the team with more skill, trying to play offensive football. We kept the ball, used fullbacks so often, it was just the old Arsenal from the time we were at least challenging for the title.

Recently, drawing such games meant minutes of pointless passing, poor decisions in attack and shaky defence. This time it was just unlucky.

If we keep this up we will be in top 3.

We won and I think it is a proof this team is really strong now.

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chris79

chris79

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Football's a funny game, isn't it? A lot of people make up their minds based on current league table, last two games, or one kick of the ball from a particular player.

A few weeks ago I was called 'out of my facking mind' for saying I wanted Spurs to lose to Liverpool, even though I made it clear it had nothing to do with North London rivalry. One less point for Spurs wouldn't be so bad now, would it? And who cares about how many points teams like Liverpool, Norwich or WBA have? It is a close fight between them for that prestigious 9th spot, but it's none of our business. Yeah, I was clearly out of my fecking mind back then.

Then there were people asking why we spent so much money on some teenager when Mata was available. Also, it was a very popular belief that Tomas Rosicky belongs to 'dead wood' we need to get rid of asap. I was one of many who expected Gibbs to get injured before he starts to perform at an acceptable level.

Now I do not say we are in a dreamworld and fighting for 3rd place is what Arsenal should be aiming at. We may as well end the season around Liverpool, Ox may prove he's too young to deal with the pressure put on him and Rosicky may be back to his old averageness or just get injured for the decisive part of the season.

I just love how things can turn around especially when I was at least partly expecting it.

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pouncer

pouncer

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So what you're effectively saying is that it's amazing none of us can predict the future?

No, it isn't amazing at all.

It is pretty amazing. Amongst all the doom and gloom a couple of months ago, we were talking about finishing the season not just behind title-winning Tottenham but in sixth and sacking Wenger. Now we're seemingly driving forwards. We're a point behind Spurs and while there's a long way to go... who knows now? You're a wise head Retro: you might have seen it all before, but the magical element of football (for want of a better word) comes from those moments when the game genuinely surprises you. Our last four home results and subsequent charge upwards have been wonderfully surprising - amazing even - compared to the gloomy forecasts a couple of months back!

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chris79

chris79

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So what you're effectively saying is that it's amazing none of us can predict the future?

No, it isn't amazing at all.

No it is not what I am saying and you know that so I don't understand your post.

I was aiming at people who make up their minds too quickly plus at ones who disagreed with me in the past while ignoring my rational arguments (like when I said Liverpool are not rivals for us, Spurs are cause we can catch them - which led to me being called insane; go back to Liv-Spurs game time). I thought it was obvious from the post itself even without knowing what I had been posting before.

If you weren't so biased against me for some reason you could read it all from the first paragraph. I hate when people make up their minds and make general statements after one game or just because their team fell to a bad position in the league. Or say we should change the manager cause we are 10 (15?) points behind local rivals and it hasn't happened in10/20/30 years.

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chris79

chris79

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Gotta love Rosicky's reaction on the bench after TV's goal. Class act. Was shocked when he was subbed for Ramsey.

Gervinho was ****-poor again. Such a bottler.

As a possibly biggest fan of Rosicky in this thread I must say it was a good decision to take him off. He must have been depleted of energy and it was just a question whether to put Ramsey or Chamakh on. A t the time I felt we needed Chamakh more, to free up space for van Persie or maybe get a late winner with a header. Luckily TV did it anyway.

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chris79

chris79

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I'm saying that it's not amazing that we didn't see all this coming.

It is strange cause I was counting you among the optimists (I would say realists) who'd think we are better than Liverpool or Newcastle and indeed Tottenham.

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Retro

Retro

Posted
Posted
No it is not what I am saying and you know that so I don't understand your post.

I was aiming at people who make up their minds too quickly plus at ones who disagreed with me in the past while ignoring my rational arguments (like when I said Liverpool are not rivals for us, Spurs are cause we can catch them - which led to me being called insane; go back to Liv-Spurs game time). I thought it was obvious from the post itself even without knowing what I had been posting before.

If you weren't so biased against me for some reason you could read it all from the first paragraph. I hate when people make up their minds and make general statements after one game or just because their team fell to a bad position in the league. Or say we should change the manager cause we are 10 (15?) points behind local rivals and it hasn't happened in10/20/30 years.

Biased against you. What are you talking about? I don't really have any opinion about you one way or the other to be honest. The only thing I know about you is that you don't like Ramsey - that's about it. I react to individual posts, so if I have reacted negatively to you in the past it's because I haven't agreed with what you have said in a post... that's how forums work and you'll have to live with it.

As I recall, at the time Spurs played Liverpool, Liverpool were within a few points of us, and Spurs were about 10 or so points ahead of us. Given that our goal at the time was to finish 4th (and still is - we may surpass it but it's still our goal), it wasn't unreasonable to think that a draw might be a good compromise to peg back both teams (which I assume was the counter point being made).

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Retro

Retro

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Posted
It is strange cause I was counting you among the optimists (I would say realists) who'd think we are better than Liverpool or Newcastle and indeed Tottenham.

The table doesn't lie very often and a month ago, we were only a couple of points clear of Liverpool and 10 points behind Spurs. What do you think has happened to Spurs and Liverpool the last few weeks? Do you think they'd been lucky to be where they were a month ago in relation to us, and now their luck has run out? Both clubs have had a drop in form, but lets not forget that we were 2-0 down to Spurs and had we not hit back before half-time we may have struggled to overturn that in the second half. Also we were poor against Liverpool and basically robbed them.

We've come from behind the last four games and while that is admirable and says much about our determination, it could also suggest that our current run has trod a very fine line between amazing success and potential failure. A bit of bad luck the other way and this thread could be a sy13 fest of Wenger out comments and rants.

We are on a good run and for the most part, our performances have been very good lately. What's been most pleasing is the growth in confidence and the attitude the players appear to have. That's the most pleasing thing, but our current position was far from predictable a month ago. It just may have transpired that had Spurs beat Liverpool, at the end of the season we may have got 4th spot one point ahead of Liverpool.

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chris79

chris79

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Football's a funny game, isn't it? A lot of people make up their minds based on current league table, last two games, or one kick of the ball from a particular player.

If, after such post and in the situation we were in you say "So what you're effectively saying is that it's amazing none of us can predict the future?" it means you are pretending you didn't know what I meant. So thje only assumption I can make is that it has personal reasons.

So again: I am glad I was right we should have had hoped Spurs to lose points against everyone and I was right I didn't care back then that Liverpool were accidentally close to us in the table. I am glad I didn't join the 'sack Wenger' choir cause he spent too much money on Ox who is most likely going to be a Prem star for years to come ( the same goes for him signing Santos who I believe to be a very good LB). I was always a fan of Rosicky and thought he was just ineffective on the wing and not always on top of his form while playing, while I was certain that he could still do a great job for the club.

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Retro

Retro

Posted
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Oh okay, it was for personal reasons, if it makes you happy. I really don't care.

And well done for being 'right'. Now you've broadcast it to everyone, we'll all club together and get you a medal. :D

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malikoi

malikoi

Posted
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I don't think Santos is a good left back, I think he's a good left WING back, his defending is shockingly bad and he tried to play his way out of trouble, and 50% of the time that doesn't work, but I think against defensively weak teams he is a decent option to have.

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chris79

chris79

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Oh okay, it was for personal reasons, if it makes you happy. I really don't care.

And well done for being 'right'. Now you've broadcast it to everyone, we'll all club together and get you a medal. :D

Really don't get what you mean, ofc I was happily pointing out that dj's attack on me here (while it may have looked sensible back then cause it was based on media hyping Spurs and the table alone), was silly as proved by later results (pretty predictable tbh). What should I do then? Say 'oh dear, how naive I was to expect Spurs and Liverpool to drop points and somehow it turned out to be true'?

Instead, I say again that making judgements on how the table looks in December or how we play in one game is silly and it is what I thought you would agree with. I don't know how the season will end but the fact Sy and others who wanted Wenger sacked are somehow quiet gives me a lot of satisfaction. I just believe that the quality of our team is at least top 4.

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Sy13

Sy13

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Really don't get what you mean, ofc I was happily pointing out that dj's attack on me here (while it may have looked sensible back then cause it was based on media hyping Spurs and the table alone), was silly as proved by later results (pretty predictable tbh). What should I do then? Say 'oh dear, how naive I was to expect Spurs and Liverpool to drop points and somehow it turned out to be true'?

Instead, I say again that making judgements on how the table looks in December or how we play in one game is silly and it is what I thought you would agree with. I don't know how the season will end but the fact Sy and others who wanted Wenger sacked are somehow quiet gives me a lot of satisfaction. I just believe that the quality of our team is at least top 4.

I'm not quiet, my opinion hasn't changed in the slightest.

Look, Arsenal have played well recently (Anfield excluded) and deserved results. But I've said this before: what we are seeing now is what Gooners should expect as a minimum from their team.... desire, commitment, spirit, fight, never say die. I haven't seen any of that until the last few weeks and it's so lovely to see the team actually can do it. The squad still isn't good enough to lift a trophy though, no way. If Wenger does stay then he has to sign 3 or 4 super players to make us competitive - a token Podolski will be a step backwards if RvP leaves. We need to bring in names like Goetze, M'vila, Cavani, Llorente, Hazard, Verthongen - any 2 or 3 like this will turn us into challengers. I don't want to hear we were in for these players but lost out, that means nothing to me. I want them in an Arsenal shirt end of story.

So, to sum up, the last few weeks we have seen a glimpse of what we could achieve every week if we had the super quality to bolster our better players at the squad. Assuming we can offload the dead wood like Diaby, Chamakh etc then it's very doable.

Rosicky last night btw, immense. Absolutely superb (finally) from a player that has frustrated me so much over the years.

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djvandyke

djvandyke

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This season has been a massive failure because Wenger failed to prepare a competitive squad for the start of season then left us horrendously exposed without fullbacks and refused to sign a forward capable of assisting Van Persie with goals.

His tactics are stale and predictable, we have glaring weaknesses in the composition of the squad and waste a horrific amount of money on dire championship quality footballers. None of this has changed.

The last couple of weeks have been fantastic because our side has shown the right spirit at last and we got most of our first XI fit and were a bit lucky but I simply don't believe Wenger has any intention of strengthening the squad.

As soon as we get an injury to a key player we will be back to square one.

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Retro

Retro

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Posted
Really don't get what you mean, ofc I was happily pointing out that dj's attack on me here (while it may have looked sensible back then cause it was based on media hyping Spurs and the table alone), was silly as proved by later results (pretty predictable tbh). What should I do then? Say 'oh dear, how naive I was to expect Spurs and Liverpool to drop points and somehow it turned out to be true'?

Instead, I say again that making judgements on how the table looks in December or how we play in one game is silly and it is what I thought you would agree with. I don't know how the season will end but the fact Sy and others who wanted Wenger sacked are somehow quiet gives me a lot of satisfaction. I just believe that the quality of our team is at least top 4.

I don't particularly have a problem with people reacting to the current situation. Obviously I don't share the same attitude as sy and djvd, but I don't object to people getting frustrated or angry at the team's performance or even the manager. When you're passionate about something it can make you see things in a different way. You only have to look at the way fans behave during matches to realise that being thoughtful and considered pretty much goes out of the window. It's not necessarily because they're morons - it's because they care.

Now of course, there are some fans who take it to extremes, and are even so deluded as to believe they're better or more passionate fans because of it... but hey, they're morons so who cares?

I think most people are aware that I have always backed the manager. I've questioned him at times for sure, but not his right to remain as manager of our club or the belief that he deserves the chance to put things right. But there have been times this season when I have been despondent and fearful that things could go very bad. As I said before, even in this last few weeks we've trodden a fine line between success and failure - but we've managed for various reasons to stay on the success side for the most part. Spurs have trodden the same line but have landed on the failure side for the most part. That's how things can go - it's unpredictable.

It's unreasonable to expect fans to always remain positive in the hope that things might turn around as they have for us recently. Even when I am despondent, I hope we can turn it around, but that doesn't mean I can't fear that we won't. Support runs the full gamut of emotions - that's what it's all about, and sometimes it does only take a couple of results to get that sick feeling. We could lose our next 3 matches and the mood will change again.

We've had a roller coaster season - I'm not at all surprised that there's been some changeable attitudes in here.

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chris79

chris79

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@Retro, talking about passionate reactions, i took your post as personal thing, which was probably wrong, so apologies.

However I still think that when making general judgements on how the club is run or who is our rival for a top-4 place fans could use some broader perspective than last Saturday's result or mid-January league table. We have better players than Liverpool or Newcastle and we always had a realistic chance of catching Spurs.

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dagoonerfan

dagoonerfan

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Watching the goal thank God that TV got their before Gervinho, it would have been a totally diffrent outcome.

Also Gervinho isn't in the right state of mind, shown by the sitter last night and general play. I'm not saying he should go but he should not be in the squad untill he has mentally recovered after his peno miss in the ACON.

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Eugster

Eugster

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Gervinho is going to be dirt for the rest of the season. He should be back to his usual self next season, whether that's much of an improvement remains to be seen.

He is unfairly criticized by some parts of the media who'll happily call Gervinho a failure but will refuse to do so with Downing who is half the player at best. I think he'll be much better next season and if things go to plan he'll be used in rotation. Wouldn't it be nice to have players like Theo, Gerv and even Ramsey used for rotation purposes, if we keep the core here and add a few like Podolski, Vertonghen and perhaps Bellhanda (or someone similar) then we'll have a real nice squad and one which should be capable of challenging for the League and perhaps winning a God damn trophy.

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JEinchy

JEinchy

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How is Cesc doing at Barcelona actually btw? I know he's obviously loving life being with Xavi/Messi etc but I've not heard much about him really after the first few weeks of the season.

15 goals, 17 assists. Had some difficulties adapting to their system but is now benfitting greatly playing with the likes of Messi.

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Retro

Retro

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You could see he was a different class when he was 16. Never seen any young player like him in all my life, before or since. Wilshere and Ox are both incredible talents but even they pale in comparison to how good he was when he broke into the first team.

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dfgrigg

dfgrigg

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Yeah, I'd agree with that. You get players who are brilliant technically at that age, or who are really physically powerful, but I don't think I've ever seen a 16 year old who could read the game like Fab could. His understanding of space and the flow of play was different class.

Having said that, it might be much more common in a country like Spain or Holland where kids are trained to think tactically from the very beginning. I've no idea how good Xavi or Bergkamp were at 16, for example.

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Retro

Retro

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Your description of him in the first paragraph is exactly what I thought. Mentally he played liked he was 10 years older than he actually was.

I don't watch enough Spanish or Dutch football to know how he compares to the top youngsters there, so that's a good point. It does say a lot about how we develop our own kids though doesn't it?

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chris79

chris79

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Probably still better than traditional Polish way of coaching youngsters. "Hoof it clear ffs! Now run!!".

Reserves squad for today:

Arsenal team in full: Martinez, Jenkinson, Djourou, Miquel, Santos, Yennaris, Ozyakup, Aneke, Gnabry, Chamakh, Park.

The defence could well be a first choice for League Cup. Or the league, in case of a few injuries/suspensions.

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Henry_14

Henry_14

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Shame to hear that. Selfish of me but I always want players who leave Arsenal to do badly.

i kind of have the same feelings not because i dont want Cesc to do well but because i didn't want Barca to benefit from having him. because of the way they behaved.

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