All New Summer 2008 Transfer Merry Go Round/Rumour Mill

NokkonWud said:
Anelka?
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That was a no brainer though with the amount of profit to be made, but yeah that is one. Can't think of any recently myself though.

Arsenal did have some defensive problems I agree, but just look at the results from before and after the Birmingham game. I think the injury to Eduardo affected the team on a whole and the injuries to RvP and Rosicky coupled with this more or less got rid of all their left sided players.

Due to this people like Diaby sometimes had to play out there or the system had to be rejiggled, putting Hleb on the left and playing (the abysmal) Eboue on the right for far too many games than I'd have liked.
 
BFCTom said:
Arsenal did have some defensive problems I agree, but just look at the results from before and after the Birmingham game. I think the injury to Eduardo affected the team on a whole and the injuries to RvP and Rosicky coupled with this more or less got rid of all their left sided players.
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I think the Eduardo incident was a convenient excuse. He wasn't first choice before the injury and wasn't doing that well before the injury but got a lot of praise from one performance (against Blackburn IIRC).
I believe the players were already tired and they looked to have a few holes before that game anyway; a game they'd have won had Clichy not made his major blunder of the season and given a penalty away. I think due to strength in depth the players became tired.
 
I would agree that the injury to Eduardo wasn't the sole reason Arsenal bottled it, but surely you can understand that seeing that happen to one of your team mates will have some effect on the players. His versatility to play on the left or up front would have been extremely handy during the run in and we all know he can stick the ball away (something that Ade didn't do at the tail end of the season).

Like I said before, I think this along with the fact that their were no natural left sided players left (or strikers apart from Ade and Bendtner) cost Arsenal in a big way.

The Clichy blunder was a bad one too, but I would argue that it should never have been a penalty. Referee desicions were also horrific towards the end of the seasons, Arsenal were incredibly unlucky in that respect.

Another point of the down fall for me was the simple fact that the squad players were (are) no were near as good as those of Man Utd and Chelsea.

So yeah I wouldn't just put it down to Arsenal's injuries, but I must say I feel it had a massive factor on the way the league panned out last year.
 
Ripper said:
You lost to us 4-0 immediately before the Birmingham game, that was when Arsenal began to bottle it.
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Eh? We won 2-1 at Anfield on that day ;) (listened to the game in question on the radio on the way back though :()

But yeah, that would also back up my point that the Arsenal squad players couldn't compete with Man Utd's.

It wasn't exactly the priority of either manager though to be fair, but it was still Arsenal vs. Man Utd.
 
BFCTom said:
The Clichy blunder was a bad one too, but I would argue that it should never have been a penalty. Referee desicions were also horrific towards the end of the seasons, Arsenal were incredibly unlucky in that respect.
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We had Kuszczak suspended, a penalty conceded and knocked out of the FA Cup on a bad penalty decision. We got knocked out because Baros jumped up, kneed Kuzy in the noggin and threw himself to the floor. Without that happening we'd have repeated the treble :(.
 
I don't think Arsenal bottled it as such. There problems were more down to a lack of strength in depth and reliance of Adebayor and Fabregas. When those 2 didn't perform Arsenal struggled. Had one or both of them had any serious problem earlier in the season then they wouldn't have come close to challenging for the title.
 
NokkonWud said:
We had Kuszczak suspended, a penalty conceded and knocked out of the FA Cup on a bad penalty decision. We got knocked out because Baros jumped up, kneed Kuzy in the noggin and threw himself to the floor. Without that happening we'd have repeated the treble :(.
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:confused:

That was a penalty though.
 
NokkonWud said:
We had Kuszczak suspended, a penalty conceded and knocked out of the FA Cup on a bad penalty decision. We got knocked out because Baros jumped up, kneed Kuzy in the noggin and threw himself to the floor. Without that happening we'd have repeated the treble :(.
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See I thought that was a pen :p

Arsenal had more go against them than Man U though. For instance the farce that was the CL tie against Liverpool, I've never seen as many decisions go against one team over two legs in my entire life.

Oh infact maybe the CL tie previous that Liverpool were involved in against Inter, that was a joke as well.
 
BFCTom said:
For instance the farce that was the CL tie against Liverpool, I've never seen as many decisions go against one team over two legs in my entire life.

Oh infact maybe the CL tie previous that Liverpool were involved in against Inter, that was a joke as well.
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1 penalty decision went for us vs Arsenal. Wasn't much mention of the Flamini's potential leg-breaker on Kuyt which should have been a red though.

As for the Inter games; the red card in the first leg was harsh but we had a clear pen turned down. The 2nd leg was just a joke of a ref, gave countless soft yellows and it was just unlucky for Burdisso to get called up twice (although he could have gone for the first tackle alone).
 
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Kuszczak challenged for the ball, didn't get it, resulting in Baros having to hurdle the challenge. As we were told after the Gerrard/Sheffield Utd and Ronaldo/Boro incidents, if the defender's challenge impedes the attacking player then it's still a foul regardless of any contact.
 
BaZ87 said:
Kuszczak challenged for the ball, didn't get it, resulting in Baros having to hurdle the challenge. As we were told after the Gerrard/Sheffield Utd and Ronaldo/Boro incidents, if the defender's challenge impedes the attacking player then it's still a foul regardless of any contact.
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Baros wasn't impeded. Kuszczak was in front of him (as all keepers should be), then Baros jumped and kneed him in the head. Baros could have easily gone around but he clearly dived, them kneed him.
 
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