Football 16-17

[ThomThomDrum]

Jesus Christ Arsenal!

[eFestivals]

8 minutes ago, ThomThomDrum said:

Jesus Christ Arsenal!

They were superb in the first half. Where's Ramsay been hiding?

They ran out of steam in the 2nd half and that was noticeable before Bayern scored. The lower energy gave Bayern the space, and the sending off gave them more space.

Could have turned out very differently, tho, and I reckon it's harsh to hold too much of that against Wenger. Giroud had some great chances, and a tad more control by Walcott with some of the opportunities he had - and the penalty he probably should have had - could have seen things turn out very differently.

That sending off was comic, too. You can't push someone forwards when your arm is in front of them. Tom Daley would have been proud of that dive (tho to be fair, most players would have taken that opportunity to go down).

[zahidf]

Whilst true, losing 5-1 at home and 10-2 on aggregate cant all be blamed on the ref...

The players arent really elite level, and i think their lack of fight is Arsene's fault. They dont really have a fire under them

Sanchez leaving in the summer wont help

 

[ThomThomDrum]

8 hours ago, zahidf said:

As much as i hate praising them, fair play to man utd

Yep, fair play to em. It has been great seeing more and more of this sort of thing in football over the last 10 years or so, but being the first club to partner directly with Stonewall doesn't really make them the "trailblazers" they would like some to think (Edit - I'm probably being too cynical TBF)  

Sure havent the likes of Brighton being working with the Gay Football Supporters Network for years? Liverpool have supported Gay Pride since 2012. Arsenal set up the first premier league LGBT supporters group a while back and there are loads that have been set up since. Have Utd got one yet as a matter of interest? And sure did the whole Premier League not show support for Stonewall with the rainbow laces thing?

As I say fair play to em, but the wording they use in the tweet (although true) to me is trying to big em selfs up even more (but then again thats probably just my dislike for them attempting to piss on something good they are doing for once!  ) 

Edited March 8, 2017 by ThomThomDrum

[eFestivals]

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

 

Whilst true, losing 5-1 at home and 10-2 on aggregate cant all be blamed on the ref...

 

True. It can be blamed on playing one of the best teams in the world, which Arsenal are short of being - plus some 'bad luck' and some poor reffing.

In any one-off game the weirdest results can happen, and there's defo an element of that about it for last night.

I get why Arsenal fans aren't happy, but getting a win against BM would be beyond most 'top' English teams on most occasions, and with the possibility of a whipping like that too.

If it's time for wenger to go it's time for him to go, but I don't think last night or even the first leg should be the stick to beat him with about it. Those were much more about "just one of those games" than any fatal failing in how the team has been put together.

[ThomThomDrum]

But havent Arsenal got booted out of the CL at this stage about 6/7 times in a row now? Where is the expected progress for all that CL experience? Yeah, BM are one of the best teams in the world and have a great chance of winning this outright, but Arsenal and their supporters with all their experience in Europe should at the very least not expect to loose 10-2 to the potential winners of the competition. Surely they should be better than that!  

 

[zahidf]

1 minute ago, eFestivals said:

True. It can be blamed on playing one of the best teams in the world, which Arsenal are short of being - plus some 'bad luck' and some poor reffing.

In any one-off game the weirdest results can happen, and there's defo an element of that about it for last night.

I get why Arsenal fans aren't happy, but getting a win against BM would be beyond most 'top' English teams on most occasions, and with the possibility of a whipping like that too.

If it's time for wenger to go it's time for him to go, but I don't think last night or even the first leg should be the stick to beat him with about it. Those were much more about "just one of those games" than any fatal failing in how the team has been put together.

I think its more that its happened for the last 5-6 years that they have been knocked out of the last 16. Even by monaco!

 

I was expecting more a 2-0 arsenal win, so it was a 'brave performance' and they could talk about 'mental strength'

I do like Arsene, but if allegeri is available, they should probably take a punt on him

[pink_triangle]

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

True. It can be blamed on playing one of the best teams in the world, which Arsenal are short of being - plus some 'bad luck' and some poor reffing.

In any one-off game the weirdest results can happen, and there's defo an element of that about it for last night.

I get why Arsenal fans aren't happy, but getting a win against BM would be beyond most 'top' English teams on most occasions, and with the possibility of a whipping like that too.

If it's time for wenger to go it's time for him to go, but I don't think last night or even the first leg should be the stick to beat him with about it. Those were much more about "just one of those games" than any fatal failing in how the team has been put together.

To be honest I would pretty much ignore last nights results when trying to analyse Arsenals season.

Going into a second leg 4 goals behind is not a typical situation and its definitely possible to end up with a heavy loss in trying to overturn the deficit. I think accepting defeat and trying to grind out a 0-0 (not that Arsenal can do that anway!) would be far worse in this situation.

Also when it becomes 1-1 and your down to 10 men the tie is over. Is it really worth expending a lot of energy to keep the score respectable?

[pink_triangle]

1 minute ago, ThomThomDrum said:

But havent Arsenal got booted out of the CL at this stage about 6/7 times in a row now? Where is the expected progress for all that CL experience? Yeah, BM are one of the best teams in the world and have a great chance of winning this outright, but Arsenal and their supporters with all their experience in Europe should at the very least not expect to loose 10-2 to the potential winners of the competition. Surely they should be better than that!  

 

To me the 10-2 is pretty irrelevant, its the 5-1 in the first game which is a killer and Arsenal should expect better. However they arent the only good team to take a walloping from the likes of Barcelona, Madrid, Munich

[ThomThomDrum]

3 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

 its the 5-1 in the first game which is a killer and Arsenal should expect better

100% agree

[eFestivals]

11 minutes ago, ThomThomDrum said:

 

But havent Arsenal got booted out of the CL at this stage about 6/7 times in a row now? Where is the expected progress for all that CL experience?

 

Hmmm. You might as well be slating Bayern for not winning it every single year.

[eFestivals]

12 minutes ago, zahidf said:

I was expecting more a 2-0 arsenal win, so it was a 'brave performance' and they could talk about 'mental strength'

if you watched the game you'll know it could have easily turned out that way.

And while I'd say Arsenal were run out before Bayern scored, when they did score it's not really surprising that Arsenal collapsed as they did, with ten men, and where the chance of turning round the tie had gone.

I don't think the scoreline from last night says very much about where Arsenal are.

[The Nal]

10-2 on aggregate!  

Actually feel sorry for Wenger at this stage. 

[eFestivals]

15 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

To be honest I would pretty much ignore last nights results when trying to analyse Arsenals season.

Going into a second leg 4 goals behind is not a typical situation and its definitely possible to end up with a heavy loss in trying to overturn the deficit. I think accepting defeat and trying to grind out a 0-0 (not that Arsenal can do that anway!) would be far worse in this situation.

Also when it becomes 1-1 and your down to 10 men the tie is over. Is it really worth expending a lot of energy to keep the score respectable?

yep, that's pretty much what I'm thinking.

Arsenal played great in the first half, too. If they'd hit the back of the net a couple more times in that first half - and they might have done, that's not big-dreaming - the 2nd half would have played out differently.

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, The Nal said:

10-2 on aggregate!  

Actually feel sorry for Wenger at this stage. 

yep, me too. I don't think last night should be used to hang him with, even if he's going to be hung (and it looks like he probably is).

But, I suspect, Arsenal fans are going to find out the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

[The Nal]

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

yep, me too. I don't think last night should be used to hang him with, even if he's going to be hung (and it looks like he probably is).

But, I suspect, Arsenal fans are going to find out the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

Thats a possibility yeah. Who comes in?

[mjsell]

48 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

They were superb in the first half. Where's Ramsay been hiding?

They ran out of steam in the 2nd half and that was noticeable before Bayern scored. The lower energy gave Bayern the space, and the sending off gave them more space.

Could have turned out very differently, tho, and I reckon it's harsh to hold too much of that against Wenger. Giroud had some great chances, and a tad more control by Walcott with some of the opportunities he had - and the penalty he probably should have had - could have seen things turn out very differently.

That sending off was comic, too. You can't push someone forwards when your arm is in front of them. Tom Daley would have been proud of that dive (tho to be fair, most players would have taken that opportunity to go down).

Yeah pretty much agree with all of this. And Ramsey has been hiding in a more holding midfield role to accommodate Ozil, makes a difference having a player that can press high up the pitch in the first half didnt it? Balance of the team was far far better until people like Ramsey begun to tire (he has been out injured for while so sort of understandable) - but then that's where Wenger is slack as a manager, he is never proactive in his tactical changes or substitutions and instead waits until things go wrong to change things - and the changes he did make last night were probably the worst he could have done at that stage of the game - no coincidence that Ozil came on at 2-1 and suddenly spaces began opening up all over the place, that and Perez for Giroud left us with a complete inability to hold the ball on any occassion  - and yes I understand it was a doomed situation anyway but it didnt help things.

Didnt think the tackle on Walcott (who was a real stand out for me - was giving Alaba all sorts of problems) was a penalty, and I did think Bayern's was, but no chance should that have been a red, especially the way it was handled.

Xhaka can piss off as well. He has been an unmitigated disaster in my opinion - even in the first half, he was the only player that wasn't/couldn't engage in the pressing style that was working. Its a shame the game ended that way as the positives were abudantly clear but the game will now be seen as a disater and probably impact the players quite heavily. yes we go out of the CL at this stage every year, but we normally use the 'glorious defeat' in the second leg to push on for the rest of the season - might be different this year.

 

[mjsell]

28 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

yep, me too. I don't think last night should be used to hang him with, even if he's going to be hung (and it looks like he probably is).

But, I suspect, Arsenal fans are going to find out the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

I desperately hope we win the FA cup this season, to at least give him some sort of success to cling to and leave on a small high (will also give him the most FA cup wins by any manager which would be nice) - Hopefully another non-league side can be put back into the draw for the semis to help us out again

[pink_triangle]

14 minutes ago, mjsell said:

I desperately hope we win the FA cup this season, to at least give him some sort of success to cling to and leave on a small high (will also give him the most FA cup wins by any manager which would be nice) - Hopefully another non-league side can be put back into the draw for the semis to help us out again

The nightmare is surely a final loss to spurs to finish off his reign!

[mjsell]

8 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

The nightmare is surely a final loss to spurs to finish off his reign!

Ha yeah, I'd rather play them in the semi. Problem we have got is that we are running out of rounds where other teams can get rid of difficult opponents for us...

I'm please I'm leaving the country for a while in the summer, just in case we do lose to spurs in the final.

[eFestivals]

55 minutes ago, mjsell said:

Didnt think the tackle on Walcott (who was a real stand out for me - was giving Alaba all sorts of problems) was a penalty, and I did think Bayern's was, but no chance should that have been a red, especially the way it was handled.

In both cases there was about equal reason to give a penalty to reasons for why not.

Walcott's standing foot was taken out, but he'd lost control of the ball with his touch a moment before.

And there's no way that Kolshelny pushed Lew forwards when his arm and shoulder were in front of him - but most refs would fall for that one most of the time, so it's no surprise it was given. Defo a dive, tho.

[eFestivals]

41 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

The nightmare is surely a final loss to spurs to finish off his reign!

Hmmmm.... just about a home match for Spurs, too, if that happens. 

Shouldn't be allowed.

[ThomThomDrum]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

Hmmm. You might as well be slating Bayern for not winning it every single year.

Not the same thing IMO, by a long way. BM have got to the final 3 times in the last 7 years, winning it once and going out in the semis 3 of the other years. No top club expects to win it every year in reality, but to get to the semis 6 out of the last 7 years would be viewed as achieving expectations IMO.

Arsenal going out in the last 16 every year for the last 7 has got to hurt. Qualifying for it every year but coming up with the same result for such a protracted period of time must be infuriating.  Its this stagnation that infuriates I suppose. And Wenger gets the blame for that. Same in the PL. Had Arsenal had a couple of years were they were really shit, didnt qualify but then got back to the last 16 it may be viewed very differently even if overall the club did worse over those years. 

Gooners are getting bored with their level of success. And in ways I dont blame them

[mjsell]

7 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Hmmmm.... just about a home match for Spurs, too, if that happens. 

Shouldn't be allowed.

I would rather play Spurs at Wembley than WHL or the Emirates. They have won 1 game from their last 7 (5 losses, 1 draw)

[zahidf]

7 potential new arsenal managers

http://www.football365.com/news/studying-seven-potential-new-arsenal-managers