UEFA Champions League/Europa League ** Spoilers ** [13/14/15 September 2016]

Well they aren't showing many replays of it but the first look was Veratti going down then Giroud seemed to just flop over in response, he seemed to block Veratti and push him down to me. In which case, well, you can't just get in someones way then shove them over. No idea what Veratti did, he didn't appear to jump up and do anything to Giroud but very short replay.
 
The only replay they are showing definitely has Giroud stepping across Verratti, not a lot but he knocked him over then very clearly decided it would be a good idea to go down himself to make it look less bad as he just steps backwards then goes down.

If Verratti got a second yellow because the ref bought Giroud's sitting down he will be crazy angry, but maybe he reacted off camera. The commentator only mentioned Marquinhos getting into Giroud's face.

Utterly brain dead of Giroud, first yellow for not shutting up about a fairly obvious foul. He'd already mouthed off both when he thought he should get fouls and when he'd thought he hadn't fouled someone. So he talked himself into the book in the first place then decided to do something braindead in the dying seconds.

Considering the performance the result was fantastic but we should have lost that by 3+ goals on the chances made by both teams.


EDIT:- someone is saying on French tv there has been another replay which shows that Giroud tripped Verratti again after they both got back up..... which makes a much more certain yellow for Giroud but gives zero explanation to why Verratti also got sent off.
 
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opethdisciple said:
The team selection we started with and Sanchez up front. He wanted to rotate. But away to PSG opening champions league fixture is not the right game for rotation.
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I don't think it was rotation, Coq and Cazorla were arguably the best two players against Southampton, so he stuck with them. It's obvious that Sanchez up front was a counter attacking tactic for PSG being at home. I don't really see what the problem is. Was surprised by Cech being left out but he obviously wants to give Ospina games, nothing wrong with that. I don't understand how you would think this wouldn't of been a hard game if the team selection was slightly different, it was always going to be incredibly hard game at Parc des Princes. If this result had been in the knockout stage, it would literally be the perfect result, a scored draw.
 
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I'm not even surprised by the Barca v Celtic result, I predicted 5-0 at kick off. Celtic were a bit lucky that Israeli side didn't knock them out in qualifying.
 
Trusty said:
I don't think it was rotation, Coq and Cazorla were arguably the best two players against Southampton, so he stuck with them. It's obvious that Sanchez up front was a counter attacking tactic for PSG being at home. I don't really see what the problem is. Was surprised by Cech being left out but he obviously wants to give Ospina games, nothing wrong with that. I don't understand how you would think this wouldn't of been a hard game if the team selection was slightly different, it was always going to be incredibly hard game at Parc des Princes. If this result had been in the knockout stage, it would literally be the perfect result, a scored draw.
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I didn't mean it wouldn't be difficult. But I would have liked us to play our best 11. By that I mean more of the team and formation that started against Southampton.

Giroud up front, Sanchez on the left/right, Xhaka/Carzorla midfield etc...

Sanchez up front..... on his own. It's not his best position. Football is a game of attrition. You try and win as many of the little things as you can, and you can start by playing the right players int he right position. This then has knock on effect. More effective going forward, would mean less pressure on the defence etc etc ect.
 
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opethdisciple said:
I didn't mean it wouldn't be difficult. But I would have liked us to play our best 11. By that I mean more of the team and formation that started against Southampton.

Giroud up front, Sanchez on the left/right, Xhaka/Carzorla midfield etc...

Sanchez up front..... on his own. It's not his best position. Football is a game of attrition. You try and win as many of the little things as you can, and you can start by playing the right players int he right position. This then has knock on effect. More effective going forward, would mean less pressure on the defence etc etc ect.
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Coq and Cazorla started against Southampton, i assumed at the weekend Xhaka was being rested for tonights game, but Coq played really well against Southhampton to be fair, he kept his place, he's also a lot quicker across the ground than Xhaka, i can only assume Wenger thought he would be a better defensive option than Xhaka. Sanchez did alright, he's not the best there but he does stop teams from building from the back because of his pace and agility, Giroud can't offer that. We were away to PSG, it's tough place to go and get a result, the counter attacking option was to put Sanchez up front as Walcott isn't available. Nothing was out of the ordinary with that line up, only Cech i thought. With Sanchez and Coq starting in the positions they did, i could see what Wenger's mentality was, hit em on the break, Coq sitting with Caz & Ozil just in front launching balls forward for the pace of Ox, Iwobi and Sanchez. 4-1-2-3 w/ball, 4-1-4-1 wo/ball. Hindsight is a wonderful thing in football.
 
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Manchester City's postponed match against Borussia Monchengladbach has been rescheduled to tonight at 19:45 BST.
 
Very pleased with the result but we were in real danger of being out of touch really early on. PSG should have been 3 up really before we scored. I just don't understand the selections though.

Coquelin, he's ok but continously out of position meaning Cazorla is always too far back. He's supposed to be the specialist DM but was quite often our most forward player. Xhaka is far more disciplined and so much more comfortable on tbe ball and would allow Cazorla to get forward a little more.

The Ox, I don't get him. If anyone has any stats for uncompleted passes / dribbles / crosses I would love to see them. He literally gets everything wrong, even 2 yard give and go's. Should never be near the squad and Campbell should be in his place.

I was going to say Iwobi was too inexperienced but he actually turned it round when we had a proper team out in the second half. Quite dangerous at times.

So for seasons now Arsenal fans have been asking for a second striker, we finally get one and both sit on the bench and we play our best winger up front. Sanchez is wasted there and so much more dangerous when not the last man.

Giroud is brain dead.

I don't understand Wenger, winning this game would have set us up to win the group yet he didn't pick a team to do it. So frustrating watching Arsenal these days. So pedestrian and sloppy.
 
Anyone else off to Wembley tonight?

Sad that we're not playing our Champions League games at WHL but taking 75,000+ fans to Wembley should be pretty special in its own way.
 
From what I read, he played Sanchez up front so to stop PSG from playing from the back ie start their attacks from their defenders. That's what Wenger said when asked about Sanchez playing up top.

Stupid of Wenger to leave Xhaka out, probably thought that because Coq and Cazorla did well against Soton that instead of changing keep it.

Both Ox and Walcott need to be booted out, the sooner the better. Both unbelievably stupid and brain dead footballers who no longer have any future with us. But we all know Wenger has a hard on for the pair of them.
 
Surely that should be Perez's job?

Did well? We were awful that game and if not for Shane Long and the ref we'd have lost.

Walcott has actually shown improvement this season, I'd keep him on the right. Ox is pointless.
 
It's a brain dead excuse because what can Sanchez do that Giroud or Perez can't. Sanchez is faster, but then you're saying it's one player on his own running down the ball which is both completely pointless and tires the player out making him less useful for counter attacks. If Wenger really said that is why he played Sanchez upfront, I've lost the tiny little bit of hope I had left for him changing his ways. As in, in the past couple of years he finally showed some change, willing to play slightly differently against City for instance which is something he didn't do for the previous 15 years, but then he makes a change like this and it's just stupid, completely stupid. You're talking about pressing high, Giroud/Perez can do that, pace isn't relevant, it's just work rate and if the players aren't very good that pressing is fairly useless as it mostly was yesterday. Anyway, that higher pressing with the wrong line up is also part of the reason we were so freaking vulnerable on the counter because his very tactic is what was leaving massive space between our lines and spreading us out. bad tactic done badly with the wrong line up was heavily responsible for how easy they found it to break through our defence.

As with CliffyG, but for Long having a bad game infront of goal and a frankly awful decision to not stop the game for Kos being kicked in the face or the obvious foul on Long and then give a penalty for what I saw as maybe more Giroud holding the defender than the other way around. We definitely shouldn't have won that game off that penalty, but if Long had scored any of his best chances we would have lost.


Ox, still utterly utterly pointless, will always score one special goal in preseason, 1-2 goals in the year spread out and probably against the bottom three in a game the goals make no difference.... and he'll probably be at fault for the other team to score anyway. No brain at all, Walcott, honestly the improvement was probably more than anything him trying through the transfer window as per usual. But he's 27 and turning 28 this season, he's now playing at the level he should have stepped up to at 18-19. He played at the level he was when he joined us, which wasn't good enough, for a decade. He still makes constant mistakes, he still steps on the ball or gets it caught between his legs while running in a way that stands out as completely embarrassing as it happens so often. Ox is Walcott mk 2. Slightly different style of play, but all about pace, Ox just has work rate and no finishing at all, Walcott had no work rate and limited finishing. Should have sold both after a couple of years each as they showed embarrassingly slow/little progression without being anywhere near good enough.

We loaned out Campbell and kept these two idiots :(
 
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