Another disappointing game for Arsenal fans as the Gunners were completely outclassed at Stanford Bridge and lost 2-0 to Chelsea which effectively ends Arsenal’s title hopes for another season.
The game was over within 25 minutes when Chelsea jumped to a 2-0 lead and they just sat back and let Arsenal have the ball, knowing that the Gunners would have trouble breaking them down. I must say I am a little mystified when Arsene Wenger said after the game:
“It is difficult to swallow a defeat like that when we felt we were the better team,”
Really Arsene you really felt that Arsenal was the better team today?
Arsenal have now played three consecutive games against top Premier League teams and have managed one deflected goal. When RVP and Bendtner both went down injured, I worried about Arsenal’s ability to score goals when it mattered. Yes Arsenal have scored 60 goals this season, equal with Chelsea and one less than Man United. But sometimes it is not the number of goals you score, but when you score them. The last three weeks have highlighted Arsenal’s lack of a physical goal scoring presence up front.
Arshavin is a nice player but he is not a #9. Holding up the ball, with his back to goal is not his strong suit. He is better playing behind a center forward and running at defenders. Why Wenger did not start Bendtner is a mystery to me. He is not my favorite player, but he at least put Terry and Carvelho under some pressure when he was on the pitch.
Not to beat a dead horse, when you don’t have a #9 up front, then wingers become less important because why cross the ball if you are never going to win it in the air. So instead of playing they ball wide and attacking the defence that way, you try to go through the middle, which is what Arsenal tried to do today. One dimensional football that was relatively easy for Chelsea to defend against.
After getting rid to shreds by Manchester United on the counter-attack last week I was stunned to see Chelsea score a similar goal in the first 25 minutes today. Did the Gunners not learn anything from last week? And what was Almunia doing on the goal? If he had stood straight up the ball would have hit him and would probably had been deflected out for a corner.
What worries me is that Arsenal have to pick themselves up after another disappointing performance and play a Liverpool side in midweek that has suddenly started to find its form. Liverpool sit only 5 points behind Arsenal and if they win at the Emirates on Wednesday that gap is reduced to two points and suddenly Arsenal are looking over their shoulder for that fourth Champions League place.
I don’t see that happening as Arsenal’s run in to the end of the season is pretty easy as can be seen below. I would expect that Arsenal get picks up around 33 points from these 13 games, which will be enough to get them Champions League football next season.
Arsenal v Liverpool
Arsenal v Sunderland
Stoke City v Arsenal
Arsenal v Burnley
Hull City v Arsenal
Arsenal v West Ham
Birmingham v Arsenal
Arsenal v Wolves
Tottenham v Arsenal
Wigan Athletic v Arsenal
Arsenal v Man City
Blackburn v Arsenal
Arsenal v Fulham
What did you think of Arsenal’s performance today?
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
not as bad as last week but, despite what aw said, we never really looked like getting back into the game.
and if we had i suspect chelsea had another gear they could have changed up to?
we have too many short and lightweight (if gifted) players in our squad and not enough physical strength and height. and experience. this is something all of us can see bar aw.
if needs be we should sell one or two of our little ‘uns and buy big in the summer.
but we won’t!
I completely agree – why on earth didn’t Bendtner start? Walcott shouldn’t have played at all… Eboue and Bendtner made us a little stronger which is what we needed from the beginning. Before they came on we just look so unphysical it was ridiculous. There was a camera shot of Arshavin up against the Chelsea back four and it was comical – he’s a midget, definitely not a number 9 (sorry I’m repeating you). WHY ON EARTH DID WENGER NOT GET A STRIKER ON LOAN?!??? WE WERE SO CLOSE, YET AGAIN, AND NOW WE’VE GONE AND THROWN IT ALL AWAY… I’M SO PISSED OFF WITH PAYING SO MUCH MONEY TO SEE MY TEAM CONTINUALLY FUCK THINGS UP. Sorry to vent.
oh i think AW can see it and he said himself he would go one more season with his experiment and if it did not work out he would have to change stuff. Well this is that season and he will change stuff next year. I am certain of that.
The man is not stupid just very stubborn and he wants his kids to succeed.
I hope you are right. I am not saying that he should throw everything out and start over. He just needs to add maybe 3 players with experience
that game was completely AWs fault….how can he NOT start bendtner!! walcott is shite! yes he might have the potential or needs games or whatever, but why risk him in a game like this?? i was gutted as soon as i saw the team sheet and knew the inevitable! bendtner coming on did change the game, we had many more chances and he won the freekick that fabregas took which was our most dangerous chance, and could have had a penalty given in his favor too! im not, like many arsenal fans out there, the biggest fan of bendtner, but surely this is a must play game for him!! AW didnt buy a striker cause bendtner was back, so why not play him!?! poor poor choice and one tht cost us the game!
Totally agree. Why did Bendtner start play the whole game
The “DREAM” was over two and a half months ago when our forward line was decimated before the Sunderland game.The simple facts are though we were the better side and without Drogba would they have scored 2 goals from 3 on target.Make no mistake about it ladies at the highest level you need strikers………..lets just hope that Wenger has now realised this.Good game though.
I am very sorry to say this but Wenger has lost touch with Modern Football, the last time we won a trophy, we had Ljunberg, Henry, Viera, Bergkamp and so on.Today we have Denilson, Walcot, nasri and so on.When do we expect to win a trophy?Except d likes of Man Utd,Chelsea and barca are scrapped from football..I hate wenger with a passion cos he is toying with the hearts of we arsenal fans…
I would not got that far, but this is a really important off season for Arsenal. Need to see some improvement to the squad
Very dissapointed. No goalkeeper and no Strikers. Firstly Wenger states that Bendtners return means we dnt need a new striker, then why leave him on the bench and play arshavin in that role? Bid for sorensen on last day of the window, what happened to all the other days? The last three matches has shown us our quality, as it has always been billed a true test. People need to take responsibility for the squads shortcomings. Compare Cech to Almunia out there today. Enough said
Exactly. Almunia is the weakest goalkeeper of any team in the top half of the table.
If you make positive remarks you`re a fool, if you make critical remarks you`re being negative, hard to win, so let`s just try the truth. Everywhere you look we have weak spots. We do`t have a Rooney or a Drogba, even with van Persie (who is too injury prone) we don`t have a striker to match them, point one. Point two there`s an obvious weakness in our defence, at full back and in goal. Three, we don`t have another mid-fielder of world class to partner Cesc Fabregas. Four, we don`t have effective and specialized wingers . Having said that we can only look forward to the closed season when, hopefully, things will be corrected. Lose against Liverpool and we`ll be stuggling to make fourth spot.
I thought one of the excuses wenger gave 4 not signing a striker was because of bendtner’s fittness and now he stays on the bench. From my own point of view i think the team’s problem is d coach. He is no longer out to win trophies but to make profit from selling the team’s stars.
Two things happen at the bridge you crosses it or get thrown out of the bridge. 39 points left so let see wat happens at emirate on wed 9t.
r u still hoping? don’t hope anymore… you will hurt more. our dream is effectively over. As to the article it is ridicolous to say that we have relatively easy games. NO GAME IS EASY IN THE PREMIERSHIP.
To me I think Wenger has lost it! There’s no reason for him to still be in charge of this darling club of us. Does he know how many he got sick with his stubbornness and hardheadedness. Arsenal needs changes and to sustain this we the fans have to boycott the stadium to show our grievances. Honestly, we are tired of Wenger’s regime. His refusal not to buy top class players is making life so difficult for us. Wenger must go…
THE PROBLEM IS OUR FORMATION ,451 AND 433 ARE BAD I DONT KNOW HOW U CANT SEE THIS AFER 2 SEASONS 1 OF BOTH =this is george the g man we changed our formation when we were strong always at 442 just had wrong mentality and aproach and not as strong squad (after invincibles).now we have been playing stupid 451 s which ruins all end of last season cup chances any one can see if they look at it and consider it ,against weak clubs maybe but any half decent ones no ,since these messed up formations every week week out we look vulnerable and we never did with 442 we were only caught by one goal if ever did we lose and they would just sitback and try to defend and as i said due mentality inexperience and aproach and squad we sometimes could not break them down but now we know what to do and with 442 we will domininate if we see 442 you will see ,and so after this ludicrus 451 we went too another experiment 433 much better and effective anything better than that 451 but i still saw the vulnerability in it even in the everton game and all of them i s have been screaming this since i saw us with that joke 451 and have still to this day just not as much with the 433 as i thought maybe since we looked good and won even though looking vulnerable but now my fears are more clear if not certain ,dont get me wrong i think we could pull it off with any formation if anyone can its arsenal .we never looked vulnerable or like conceding with 442 and now we do since these crazy formations in my opinion we were surgicaly dismatled by man city because of this as with these two formations is no balance 433 weakness in defence leads to weakness in attack and 451 vice versa to me this is clear to see as i am a great very talanted footballer and have experince in formations so with this 433 we our very defensively weak especialy on the break with the 442 we will have harmony invinceable defence midfield and attack surely some one must agree does anyone agree,only with strong tall and creative engine players in midfield wud we pull it off barca pull it off but this is in the spanish league which is nothing compared to the premiership eccept barca ,real and they have messi who in there games comes back to win the ball and is always back until they have the ball and then he gets forward
No formation, no tactics, no line-up would have made any difference today(including rvp). Chelsea went about their business and we went about ours, the result was determined in advance.
Just keep buying your tickets, merchandise, watching the tellie, and believing all the nonsense spouting from wenger and the board, good luck with that.
Well things have fallen apart a bit but to tell you the truth we have most of the players we just need time… If I had my way this would be the transfer window.
Day 1
To Arsenal:
Chamakh Free
Yaya Toure 8m
Tasci 12m
Szczesny into first team, Gibbs into first team,
Starting lineup:
Szczesny
Sagna Tasci Vermaelen Gibbs
Song Fabregas Diaby
Rosicky Chamakh Van Persie
Someone?
Eboue
Djourou
Yaya Toure
Ramsey
Nasri
Arshavin
Bendtner
Walcott
(haha bench too big but thats a good thing)
Interesting stuff Phillip. Would you really go with Szczesny next season, or would you not prefer a more experienced GK for 2-3 seasons until Szczesny gets some more experience.
Adding Chamakh up front I think is really going to be a big addition to the squad
Then I would like to see Arshavin waste all those chances. He is playing bad and nobody can stop him because Arsene wont sub him.
At times I feel bad for Arshavin as he is being forced to play out of position. He is at his best running at defenders not getting the ball with his back to goal.
agreed david. i can see he’s trying, esp at the start of games, but it’s too much for him to outmuscle the big boys for 90 mins. he plays with speed, nimbleness and a lot of intelligence. he needs to be running at them. i can understand tt after a while, his body just gets too battered to do more. just like cesc. diaby looked very powerful though. he could shake off 2 or 3 of them. getting good that boy.
wenger needs a rest, we need a new couch with new ideas, plus half of the team needs to be go. if i were the couch these would b the only players i would leave on my team,
fabregas, bendtner, song , galas, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Arshavin, nasri, van persie and im not saying there the best but with them their is room for improvement. And am not saying that all these would be in the first team. some of them would have to be on the bench. the new inclusion with height, skills and strength would have to fill some of their positions.
when we had the likes of wiltord,henry,ljunburg,tony adams,bergkamp,viera and the likes. football was at its best. they had strength, reasonable height and skills.
nowdays wenger is tired, old and living comfortable as opposed to when he had just joined the team and had to prove that he was good enough to contend for silver wear in the english football. His time has past!
He thinks he has changed football at arsenal, won some trophies and can dictate on what is good for both the funs and the team.
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