The positives
1) Steve Bould’s defensive work is producing successful results. Bould has worked extremely hard with the likes of Jenkinson, Vermaelen, Mertesacker and Gibbs to ensure that our team isn’t weak at defending from set pieces and when facing more physically imposing teams. We are yet to concede a goal this season. In my opinion, having Mertesacker in the team has made a big difference. Per may be slightly slower than Koscielny (he still has good pace, but he somewhat lacks in acceleration) but that doesn’t matter. He does his job really well and is will no doubt challenge for Laurent’s place in the starting line-up. Maybe Wenger should choose who he plays alongside Vermaelen based on the opposition rather than playing the same team each week?
2) Olivier Giroud is coming out of his shell and the goals will come. He needs to work on his finishing (-that could just be down to confidence!), but his movement off the ball is fantastic and his hold-up play is excellent. He was unlucky not to score with a long-range effort from the left channel with only a few minutes to go. Rest assured. The goals will come. Lukas Podolski looked sharp and I am not too worried that we didn’t score in the first two games.
The Negatives
3) The Stoke fans should be ashamed of their behavior during the game. Firstly, wearing anti-Wenger t-shirts and masks etc is just childish. Maybe they should spend more time supporting their team and not worrying about others teams/managers. Secondly, booing Aaron Ramsey was unnecessary and uncalled-for. Apparently the justification for booing is that Ramsey wouldn’t accept an apology from Ryan Shawcross, but I think that it is more because Aaron is an easy target.
4) Abou Diaby needs to move more in order to really influence the play by offering some attacking support. Diaby’s movement was rather static and he only ventured forward on occasion. He slowed down the play and made everything look a lot more difficult than it should be.
5) Arsenal still don’t threaten from set pieces. We had 11 corners and several free-kicks from decent positions, but nothing came from any of them. We had a relatively big team on the pitch (Mertesacker, Giroud and Diaby are all 6 foot 2 +), but that didn’t seem to make much of a difference. The corners were poor, the free-kicks straight at the wall. This is something that we really need to work on in training.
The animosity must stop . It’s getting boring. However Wenger likes to stoke the fire with his rugby team comments. Aaron Ramsey is childish too . He walked off without shaking hands with anyone . Take a look at how Stoke and Sunderland dealt with Rory Delap breaking his leg in his first game for Stoke. There could be some valuable lessons there ?
Everything about stoke is a joke! They show no interest in playing football, they have a goalkeeper wasting time from the 5th minute onwards but the biggest disgrace is the way that every stoke player goes in for tackles. That is why wenger moans, we boo and ramsey wont shake hands, because everybody is just waiting for the next player to be injured via a tackle more suited to the UFC. The fact that they boo ramsey and wenger is more testament to the Jeremy Kyle upbringing they received!
arsenal our coach is confess he need buy player at once so that the will blend together from what is harping he made mistake of selling song, football is continuity every year arsenal will come out what story’s that small will not tell if the meet all the big team they will pay for it
What ? 60446
‘every player’ … Mmmm … You really do have it bad don’t you ? I would love to chat with you but my sister is in labour ( with my baby ) and I really need to punch a random member of the public
You didn’t have to write with your baby, I assumed as such! come on, stoke players have no interest in tackling within in the laws of the game. I also saw on sunday how Pulis jumped out his pram slightest hint of a tackle by an arsenal player. Can dish it out but cant take it?
Side note, good luck to your sister with her (and yours) pregnancy
We have got to move on from the constant criticism of each others players, fans managers, which is fed by the media who love to have a game to hype up.
Stoke fans are not all Neanderthal thugs, in the same way that Arsenal are not all Southern softies, but it sells papers to paint both sets of supporters in such a way.
The teams have different philosophies, determined by the managers and lauded by the fans of the teams. Good – that’s what makes football interesting. The game on sunday saw 9 fouls for each side, so that puts the top hat on one side being ‘dirtier’ than the other. Stoke had two bookings this time – both sides have had players sent off in the past – RVP and Shawcross … other games have bookings and sendings off .. its a feature of the game.
I’ve come to really dislike this particular fixture – not because of the opponents, but because of the hype. There is no need for masks – but some people can see the profit in it I suppose, and biting sarcasm has always been around, it just seems to be jacked up for this one.
It was ever such – and I’ve been watching these games since the early 70′s.
Maybe it’s time to wind things down a bit and let the football – however it’s played – take centre stage.