Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [30th Mar - 2nd April 2012]

drunkenmaster said:
People have been laughing at the DM theory of "no one has showed up against us", if Liverpool won 7 games except one game against Arsenal in the middle that would be one thing, but they didn't, Liverpool, Spurs, were crap before we played them, crap when we played them and have been crap since we played them. It's not a coincidence they were only crap against us, because they weren't, they've just been crap.

This run of games was, blackburn, Sunderland, Spurs, Liverpool, Newcastle, Everton Villa and now QPR.

We got thrashed in the first game against Milan then went on a winning run, Sunderland weren't in great form, and probably deserved to win and couldn't play Bendtner, Spurs were abysmal simple as that, liverpool was another game we didn't deserve to win and another game that took a very late goal to snatch victory from a team that played better. Newcastle weren't great but took the lead. Everton who are pretty crap we got a narrow victory against, Villa/Blackburn are just woeful and QPR are honestly the only team to have actually played probably anywhere near their full potential against us and beat us relatively easily.

We looked poor all over, defensively all over the place, offensively pretty toothless.

We weren't terrible and HAD improved in the past 6-7 games, confidence or genuine improvement I honestly can't tell, bit of both probably, but we hadn't improved even half as much as people thought we had.

We truly and honestly just got a very lucky run against teams either in awful form or just "those" games where we got lucky with chances(and lucky the opposition strikers were woeful). If we hadn't started the league run with a 7-1 against Blackburn most people would have recognised the other games for mostly tight affairs of which we got extremely lucky in some and lucky to go up against the likes of Spurs woefully out of form.
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still want wenger out?
 
jonneymendoza said:
still want wenger out?
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Sure, he CAN'T sort out a defence, we won't win anything important without a defence, teams like Liverpool being unable to score or Spurs falling to pieces doesn't make Arsenal's defence better, it means our defence wasn't tested(as much we've conceded against teams playing woefully badly on this run multiple times).

The defence for the second QPR goal in particular was SHOCKING, when you see the right camera angle you see the ball go down the right, someone in the middle and 2-3 QPR players suddenly run forward to support..... no Song, no Arteta, there is the back four and a good 30 yards further back at least is Arteta standing still, Song/Arteta/anyone didn't even try to get back and that isn't because it was a quick break, Diakite ran forwards very late, nothing at all would have prevented our midfields getting back first IF they ran.

This is a simple problem Arsenal have had for 7 years, DM's not running back to cover the midfield runners into the box, even when Song is in the box he is ball watching not watching the runs and marking them.

We won't ever win anything meaningful again with Wenger. I won't, and will never base my opinion on how well Arsenal or Wenger are doing based on other teams doing even worse. We're worse than last year, in a worse(easier) league, bought VERY badly and I don't even slightly trust Wenger to improve us in another transfer window.

We've gotten worse for years under Wenger, we will continue to get worse, he hasn't learned a single lesson in the past 10 years in the league, he won't learn any in the next 10, his methods, thinking are NOT working, will not work and will not change. The only way forward is a new manager.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Sure, he CAN'T sort out a defence, we won't win anything important without a defence, teams like Liverpool being unable to score or Spurs falling to pieces doesn't make Arsenal's defence better, it means our defence wasn't tested(as much we've conceded against teams playing woefully badly on this run multiple times).

The defence for the second QPR goal in particular was SHOCKING, when you see the right camera angle you see the ball go down the right, someone in the middle and 2-3 QPR players suddenly run forward to support..... no Song, no Arteta, there is the back four and a good 30 yards further back at least is Arteta standing still, Song/Arteta/anyone didn't even try to get back and that isn't because it was a quick break, Diakite ran forwards very late, nothing at all would have prevented our midfields getting back first IF they ran.

This is a simple problem Arsenal have had for 7 years, DM's not running back to cover the midfield runners into the box, even when Song is in the box he is ball watching not watching the runs and marking them.

We won't ever win anything meaningful again with Wenger. I won't, and will never base my opinion on how well Arsenal or Wenger are doing based on other teams doing even worse. We're worse than last year, in a worse(easier) league, bought VERY badly and I don't even slightly trust Wenger to improve us in another transfer window.

We've gotten worse for years under Wenger, we will continue to get worse, he hasn't learned a single lesson in the past 10 years in the league, he won't learn any in the next 10, his methods, thinking are NOT working, will not work and will not change. The only way forward is a new manager.
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well imo i think you are wrong to say liverpool and co never tested out defence.

Part of being a great defensive side is to prevent the other team from not only scoring, but to prevent them from creating chances.

Arsenal for the past few weeks have done that. I just saw the highlights of the match and had vermahlen showed up today, we could have easily won or got a point their because all of there goals were from defensive retarded mistakes. I saw another chance they had where our backline again acted like idiots when they did a gigh through ball down the right side and nearly scoring.

Had we defended as well as we have in past games, QPR would have no chance. they dont have a player capable of creating something from nothing or the flair and ability to create a well crafted team goal.

We lost today because we diddnt defend as well as our past games. We have played and defended well previously not due to the other opponent being crap, but due to us DEFENDING well from the whole pitch.

I can tell u that Liverpool and newcastle for example played MILES better then QPR yet lost. so i disagree with you saying we only won/made our defence look good because those teams played ****.

total rubbish mate.
 
Tummy said:
Preston turned up, time wasted from kick off, defensive and negative football. Horrible. It really annoys me, it's such a bad tactic and it ruins the game.

The referee was absolutely shocking too, far too stop and start. No flow to the game and made some baffling decisions too boot.

As soon as we scored (which was inevitable as we were the only team attacking and playing for the win) the time wasting stopped and they tried to go forward more, too little too late.

Really disappointed with Preston, I know their manager is **** and a **** but meh.

Pleased with the win, I see Sheffield United 'won' :o cheaters.
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Been at work and then town all day, so I haven't seen our penalty... But shurrup anyway. :p
 
jonneymendoza said:
We lost today because we diddnt defend as well as our past games. We have played and defended well previously not due to the other opponent being crap, but due to us DEFENDING well from the whole pitch.

I can tell u that Liverpool and newcastle for example played MILES better then QPR yet lost. so i disagree with you saying we only won/made our defence look good because those teams played ****.

total rubbish mate.
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Do you know how many chances we gave up against Liverpool? chance after chance, only them being utterly unable to finish let us win that game, and yes against Liverpool we created very very little, only RVP with a couple stunning finishes made the difference. Without their strikers away on holiday and without RVP playing better than any other striker in the world we wouldn't have won that game, simple as that.

Spurs, were epically rubbish, and scored two goals, though one from a blatant dive, and they had many more great chances to create a great goal but fluffed it with a bad pass after say a great break that left it 3 on 3 maybe but Bale would hog the ball and ruin the chance. Our defence was rubbish yet again.

The last few games our defence "improved", by playing against, toothless Everton, and ridiculously awful Villa..... surprising that isn't it. Our defence was horrific in the first game against Milan and rubbish in the second leg, Robinho and Ibra barely got a single pass right let alone a shot, and still found themselves missing the goal by inches a couple times and in fantastic positions to shoot many more times than that, our defence wasn't close to good, they just had a particularly awful game upfront.

The only two clean sheets we had were against two pretty awful teams, only Stoke and Wigan have scored less than Villa and Everton, and Wolves have scored the same as villa and one more than Everton, these are the two teams our defence managed to finally not concede in.

The only difference between us winning against Pool and losing against QPR was, QPR took their few really good chances and got a couple goals, Liverpool created chance after chance and couldn't finish us off and a truly world class finish by RVP stunned them. Performance wise our defence was shoddy in both games, our attack not great at all, our midfield did nothing in either game, anyone who thought RVP alone would win us every terrible performance on his own, is mental.
 
KNiVES said:
Arsenal third in the league?! Wenger out :mad:
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Please explain what 3rd has to do with anything? If City don't win the title Mancini is probably gone, and deservedly so, he's created a huge problem with Balotelli, criticising him both before this game and after the game even though he scored two goals and many other people performed much worse than him, his one "outrageous" moment was suggesting a lefty doesn't take a freekick in a position no lefty will ever score.

If a Wolves manager gets 3rd, that is epic, if Arsenal or City get third IN THEIR CURRENT SITUATIONS, its not brilliant. 3rd would be a monumentally different level of success depending entirely on the team who got it. Likewise, Arsenal are 3rd currently, its not the end of a season. The position doesn't matter, but the performances and the team, both of which have gotten worse than the previous season, again, for the 7th year in a row.

What you should keep in mind is, if Gervinho hadn't been bought, and Dos Santos, and Mertesacker ,and Benny, and Chamakh, had Theo been played in his position a single time in the past 5 years, if our defence learned to defend...... where would Arsenal be this year. City have fallen apart since before xmas, Utd have frankly played months of appauling football, if Arsenal had improved for the past couple seasons rather than regressed we would have been fighting for the title, not 4th. Arsenal are underachieving, and the team is underperforming while making the same mistakes year after year after year after year. Yes, Wenger should go, 3rd is utterly irrelevant.

TO put it into perspective, around this time last year we were FIVE points off the top, we'd conceded 29 goals in 29 games scored 59 and had 58 points, we ended up finishing 12 points off the title last year.

This year with 31 games played we're 15 points off the top, we've conceded 41 goals in 31 games and scored 62 goals. So we're already 3 points further behind now than we were at the end of the last season. We were also 2nd at this point last season and finished a weak 4th, we've conceded basically 33% MORE goals this season, with essentially the same defensive injury crisis as we had last year, we aren't scoring at a better rate, we are worse than last season on every metric, in a worse league because we've gotten worse, again rather than improved.

That is all that matters, a manager who has let the team get worse year on year needs to go.

EDIT:- we're 15 points off the top having played a game more, we could be 18 points off the top by Monday.
 
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drunkenmaster said:
Lovely Wenger bashing.
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Just tell me please, if Arsenal were to sack Wenger, who do you plan on getting in that will be an improvement? Got to be a reasonable suggestion, someone that might actually be interested in joining. You also have to remember that the manager would be coming in, and would have less to spend than the rivals that he is expected to beat.

Also, Arsenal are not under achieving. If anything, Arsenal have been over achieving for several years while under Wenger, as he has always competed with the top teams, while spending a fraction on new players as those teams do.

P.S: Tummy, Shurrup :p Been playing badminton this morning with my Wednesday mates, and all they've done is call me a cheat :(
 
Just watched Man City on MoTD, they don't look like a title winning team anymore. Their defence hasn't jelled well together however they were able to get away with it most of the season as they were able to control possession and were such an attacking threat. Now that their midfield is not dominating their defensive weaknesses are starting to shine through..

I know that many of he Man City fans are glory hunters(As seen by the massive queues to get season tickets when they got their initial rich owner) however when the fans have spent such a large amount on their ticket, you would atleast expect them to stay the full 90 mins to support the team..

Nice to see Torres get a goal in the prem, he has played very well recently and has done everything right, apart from putting the ball in the net. Hopefully he finally regains form and gets back to his best, because he was fantastic to watch when he was at Liverpool..

I see Aaron Wilbraham scored yesterday, no idea how as he is by far the worst striker in the premier league.. (And one of our most expensive signings..) :confused:
 
Reina, Flanagan, Carragher, Skrtel, Enrique, Gerrard, Spearing, Shelvey, Bellamy, Carroll, Suarez. Subs: Doni, Aurelio, Maxi, Henderson, Coates, Kuyt, Downing.

Team news for us, Nice to see Shelvey getting a game but that defense is terrible only Skrtel i have any faith in stopping Newcastle strikers.

Carrol n Suarez starting good about time but it needs to happen often.

on massive bonus Downing is dropped yay! :D
 
Nice to see Carragher starting again. Our defence has been just as embarrassing as our attack since he came in for Agger and we're now playing deeper to accommodate him and given how easy Gutierrez got past Flanagan last season this could be another defensive mess. Zero confidence in this defence :(
 
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