FA Cup 5th Round Draw

B1gbeard · 21 Feb 2011 at 11:30

The criticisms of Song is just mind boggling. Do people actually watch the games? He has been one of our best players for two seasons now. It seems fans expect amazing performances every game!! Yeah he has off days, as does Messi. It is very noticable when he is not there.

As for the rest of the second string. When Arsenal fans look around at other teams, what do they see?

Who else could make 10 changes and still put out a team with that much experience? Probably no one apart from Man City (and they have spent a lot more money to perform no better).

The reality is that every team in the PL, and probably every team in the world, have these players in their second string. Who can afford to have a first 11 with the likes of Rooney, Fabregas, RvP, Drogba, Lampard, Berbatov etc and have able replacements sitting on the bench? Look at the ManU game on Saturday. They were at home. It is expectation gone mad.

What about the Barca bench last week. Imagine if they made 10 changes. They'd struggle.

It is no different at Arsenal as it is anywhere else and if fans think that we can bring in replacements that will do a similar job to the players from the first 11 then football has gone mad. The second string are doing a job at the moment which is keeping the first 11 fit for the PL push, the CC final and CL.

Weebull · 21 Feb 2011 at 11:31

I totally called Miquel playing yesterday too, how awesome am I. :cool:

I like that everyone gets confused by the fact it's a Q in his name and not a G. I only realised it after signing him a few weeks back on Football Manager.

Weebull 1 - 0 ESPN

K1LLSW1TCH · 21 Feb 2011 at 11:39

I'm sorry but Song is dire, gives away stupid free kicks in needless positions, thinks he's an attacking midfielder 90% of the time and the 10% of the time he stays back to defend he lunges from behind, sticks legs out to trip people, gets his legs wrapped around opposition players and generally just makes crap tackles, not dangerous tackles or vicious ones, just crap ones. He makes it so easy for referees to give him yellow cards and he was lucky not to get sent off on Wednesday, he seems to be caught between being a defensive midfielder and an attacking one and he doesn't particularly do well at either. It says a lot when a 19 year old kid who isn't even a natural defensive midfielder can come in on his debut season and do a much, much better job at it than Song. Which of the 3 teams below us would have him? Probably none.

B1gbeard · 21 Feb 2011 at 11:48

I'm not sure what to say really. When one of our best performing players for two seasons is called dire, it makes it clear how far the expectations of Arsenal fans has come. Sheer madness.

No offence, but I honestly cannot believe how anyone could call Song dire overall over the last two seasons. He was consistently brilliant last season and has performed well this season in a role that is new to him (when Arsene was questioned about this earlier in the season he said that he had asked Song to get involved in attack a lot more).

K1LLSW1TCH said:
I'm sorry but Song is dire, gives away stupid free kicks in needless positions, thinks he's an attacking midfielder 90% of the time and the 10% of the time he stays back to defend he lunges from behind, sticks legs out to trip people, gets his legs wrapped around opposition players and generally just makes crap tackles, not dangerous tackles or vicious ones, just crap ones. He makes it so easy for referees to give him yellow cards and he was lucky not to get sent off on Wednesday, he seems to be caught between being a defensive midfielder and an attacking one and he doesn't particularly do well at either. It says a lot when a 19 year old kid who isn't even a natural defensive midfielder can come in on his debut season and do a much, much better job at it than Song. Which of the 3 teams below us would have him? Probably none.

K1LLSW1TCH · 21 Feb 2011 at 12:00

Expectations of winning a trophy once in 6 years, if that's sheer madness then I do apologise, we aren't Birmingham, or Stoke, or Sunderland, or a team that is happy with just being mediocre, we're Arsenal and we should be winning or at least be in contention and come very close to winning year after year, I'm talking being in finals or actually winning trophies, since the golden age with Henry, Vieira, Bergkamp, Pires, Ljundberg, Hleb we haven't REALLY replaced any of those in fairness, and the one that sticks out the most is Vieira. How many times did he win the ball back and then we broke for a counter attack and scored? Too many to mention no doubt, how often do we do that when Song wins the ball back? The guy is a retard, he passes sideways or backwards constantly because he's afraid of losing the ball, that is if he doesn't get called for a foul or is actually too far up the pitch to make a tackle anyway.

Look at the performance against Barca, he was on a yellow card but still thought it was a good idea to make 6, 7, 8 more fouls and after each and every one he threw him arms up in disgust and mouthed off at the ref... the guy's a real bright spark no? There are plenty of defensive minded players who play in our league that I'd have over Song.

Weebull · 21 Feb 2011 at 12:43

That's weird. I could have sworn we're currently "in contention" to win four trophies this season.

EDIT: Also, slating a defensive midfield player for passing sideways or backwards whilst previously bemoaning how he gets forward and often tries to make assists. I believe the word the kids use here is lol.

K1LLSW1TCH · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:02

Weebull said:
That's weird. I could have sworn we're currently "in contention" to win four trophies this season.

EDIT: Also, slating a defensive midfield player for passing sideways or backwards whilst previously bemoaning how he gets forward and often tries to make assists. I believe the word the kids use here is lol.

Where did I say we weren't in contention? OH YEAH! Nowhere. Are all your 10,000 posts like this? Or do you occasionally ya know... make a point?

Weebull · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:12

K1LLSW1TCH said:
Expectations of winning a trophy once in 6 years, if that's sheer madness then I do apologise, we aren't Birmingham, or Stoke, or Sunderland, or a team that is happy with just being mediocre, we're Arsenal and we should be winning or at least be in contention and come very close to winning year after year, I'm talking being in finals or actually winning trophies, since the golden age with Henry, Vieira, Bergkamp, Pires, Ljundberg, Hleb we haven't REALLY replaced any of those in fairness, and the one that sticks out the most is Vieira. How many times did he win the ball back and then we broke for a counter attack and scored? Too many to mention no doubt, how often do we do that when Song wins the ball back? The guy is a retard, he passes sideways or backwards constantly because he's afraid of losing the ball, that is if he doesn't get called for a foul or is actually too far up the pitch to make a tackle anyway.

Funny, I was certain that's what you were implying here. Otherwise, why did you mention it?

CliffyBiro · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:13

K1LLSW1TCH said:
year after year

/= One year

G|mp · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:14

K1LLSW1TCH said:
Expectations of winning a trophy once in 6 years, if that's sheer madness then I do apologise, we aren't Birmingham, or Stoke, or Sunderland, or a team that is happy with just being mediocre, we're Arsenal and we should be winning or at least be in contention and come very close to winning year after year.......

That pretty much says you don't think you're in contention for anything.

Weebull · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:19

skippi90 said:
/= One year

So it's the current team's fault that they weren't competing well enough last season, despite the fact they're doing it now?

K1LLSW1TCH · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:20

No I mean in the seasons since we actually won anything, not the current season, he said that the fans expectations have become sheer madness, which is when I said how is it sheer madness to expect a trophy now and then when we have waited 6 years. Also, about Song, he gets forward and adds pretty much nothing, he doesn't defend well. In his entire career playing for Bastia, Arsenal and Cameroon he's got a grand total of 8 assists which for someone who is on the edge of the box or IN the box for the majority of the time is quite bad. My point was that we have a 19 year old kid who in his debut season has gone into a position that he wouldn't call his natural position and has performed better than our established "defensive" midfielder.

I don't think it's a ridiculous expectation to expect Arsenal to actually win something in 6 years.

Weebull · 21 Feb 2011 at 13:54

K1LLSW1TCH said:
I don't think it's a ridiculous expectation to expect Arsenal to actually win something in 6 years.

Hahaha, really? I do.

You can hope for a trophy all you want. You can even feel quietly confident about your chances of getting one. But to "expect" it? Sorry, but that's just ridiculously arrogrant. I don't think any club has a god-given right to expect trophies, even in a two-team league like Spain or Scotland. Never mind a league like the Premiership, where, despite all the moaning about the disparity between top and bottom, upsets still happen regularly.

Even without trophies, this last five years has still been more consistent than various other points in our history. I doubt we've finished in the top 4 as regularly as this since the thirties. And we have been in contention for various trophies over the last few years. To compare us to Stoke et al is ludicrous.

I'm not saying you don't have a right to criticise. I mean sure, there are flaws in the team, and we're not perfect, but it's not like Wenger hasn't tried to fix things. We needed a new keeper, he's brought in Chesney and promoted Fabianski and they've both done brilliantly. We needed new defenders, so he's nutured Djourou back to fitness, looks like he might promote Miquel, and bought two more, one of whom has worked out. Was he supposed to be psychic in knowing that Squillaci would be a flop? We needed another defensive midfielder, so he's changed the shape of the team slightly, pushed Wilshere back there, and been rewarded with some fine performances by him. Yet everyone moans that he should be playing further up the pitch, despite how we already have Cesc and Nasri for that area.

I just think its slightly boggling how you can "expect" a trophy, and yet not appreciate that these things are won and lost on a knife-edge. We're not miles away from any of them, yet fate could determine we don't get any. Such is life. I won't get hot under the collar about it, and I suggest you don't either.

K1LLSW1TCH · 21 Feb 2011 at 14:08

Weebull said:
I just think its slightly boggling how you can "expect" a trophy, and yet not appreciate that these things are won and lost on a knife-edge. We're not miles away from any of them, yet fate could determine we don't get any. Such is life. I won't get hot under the collar about it, and I suggest you don't either.

I expect a club like ours to at least be in finals consistently, if you're happy with just being in the top four then fine, but I'm not and I actually care about the club so much that I want and expect a squad as talented as ours to be doing slightly better. If you don't then that's your business. This season we have so far done tremendously, I'm not disputing that, are you saying that you don't expect us to win the Carling Cup? and AT LEAST put in a very strong challenge for the league? I don't "expect" us to win the league but if we can at least take this to the last weekend then great.

I can see what you're saying and what your point of view is and we have vastly different viewpoints, you might think I'm being unreasonable and maybe it is arrogant to just assume that we should win title/cup X every year, but the way I see it is we have a great club with amazing foundations and vast resources, we spend wisely on the whole but for the last few years something has happened and things haven't gone how they SHOULD go. We shouldn't be losing to Utd and Chelsea year on year, this season we are on the brink of something special, any Arsenal fan can see that but if we walk away with no trophies at all will you sit back at the end of the season and be pleased?

B1gbeard · 21 Feb 2011 at 14:15

The thing with golden ages is that they come and go and you remember them because they were something special. Our last golden age before that was roughly 65 years ago. I don't really class the Graham era as golden personally.

I don't think a six year wait is too long for a club like ours to win a trophy. Clubs a lot more financially well off than us have waited a lot longer and teams who regularly won the old first division have never won a Premier League. And also, we have on the whole been in contention some of the time over the last 5-6 seasons. Considering we have gone for lot longer periods without winning a trophy, you seem to be basing all of your expectations on the Wenger era otherwise you would not expect a trophy in a six year period.

I also don't think that you can compare Wenger's early period with now either. Money more than ever dominates the game. Wenger had a knack for picking out young foreign talent when he first arrived but now any player with great potential goes for tens of millions. The game has completely changed in ten years.

Its a real shame that people feel this way about someone like Song. At 23, it is very noticable when he is not playing to our detriment. Think of the player he will be next year and the year after that. Jack doesn't fill in in anyway. His energy makes up for some of his inexperience but he is an attacking player through and through. His tackling is quite frankly shocking.

K1LLSW1TCH said:
Expectations of winning a trophy once in 6 years, if that's sheer madness then I do apologise, we aren't Birmingham, or Stoke, or Sunderland, or a team that is happy with just being mediocre, we're Arsenal and we should be winning or at least be in contention and come very close to winning year after year, I'm talking being in finals or actually winning trophies, since the golden age with Henry, Vieira, Bergkamp, Pires, Ljundberg, Hleb we haven't REALLY replaced any of those in fairness, and the one that sticks out the most is Vieira. How many times did he win the ball back and then we broke for a counter attack and scored? Too many to mention no doubt, how often do we do that when Song wins the ball back? The guy is a retard, he passes sideways or backwards constantly because he's afraid of losing the ball, that is if he doesn't get called for a foul or is actually too far up the pitch to make a tackle anyway.

Look at the performance against Barca, he was on a yellow card but still thought it was a good idea to make 6, 7, 8 more fouls and after each and every one he threw him arms up in disgust and mouthed off at the ref... the guy's a real bright spark no? There are plenty of defensive minded players who play in our league that I'd have over Song.

K1LLSW1TCH · 21 Feb 2011 at 14:19

We will never see eye to eye on Song unless he starts being more consistent, a good game followed by a bad one is not good enough. This conversation is starting to drag on now.

G|mp · 21 Feb 2011 at 15:34

To 'expect' to be winning trophies is slightly "up your own arse" to be honest.

K1LLSW1TCH · 21 Feb 2011 at 15:41

G|mp said:
To 'expect' to be winning trophies is slightly "up your own arse" to be honest.

Not really.

G|mp · 21 Feb 2011 at 15:44

Well it is, you shouldn't expect to be winning trophies, you should be happy you're even competing for the first time in god knows how many years.

K1LLSW1TCH · 21 Feb 2011 at 15:50

Hmm. I am happy we're competing but that doesn't make the **** last few years any better, and when did Song turn into some kind of demi-god? :confused: