The Weekend Football Thread *spoilers*

HangTime said:
First and foremost, Arsenal have a hectic schedule, playing FIVE matches between 27th December and 9th January inclusive - that's 5 matches in less than 2 weeks. Coupled with the major injuries already suffered (Fabregas, RvP, Clichy, Gibbs, Walcott, Denilson, Bendtner, Djourou etc) and Song and Eboue going to the ACoN, Wenger probably feels that he can't put his first choice XI out every week for risk of burnout. Heck, when he risked Fabregas on a rescue mission he did his hamstring in less than half an hour of play.

So, then it's a question of prioritising. The league is far more important than the FA Cup, because:

1) Securing a top 4, and preferably top 2 spot is essential for CL qualification, which is required to pay the wage bill.
2) You get an extra half a million quid for every place in the league, far more than you get for progressing to the 4th round of the FA Cup.

If anything I was surprised to see Wenger field such a strong defence.

Anyway, regarding the match I thought that was the best performance I've seen from Green in claret&blue. He only flapped once, he's certainly a lot better than a year or two ago when he looked a liability to me, like a Liverpool-era David James.
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What I found interesting is that after the match Wenger was questioned on transfers and he actually sounded like he was going to get someone in. Normally he goes on about having the a team with potential to fill the gaps with all the games.

Wilshere didnt have the best of games although you cant knock his work rate.

Diaby seems to be keeping his performances coming along nicely. Made a great impression when he came on. Im sure he was still poor in DM's eyes though. :rolleyes:
 
Just noticed tottenham vs leeds is to be on TV saturday the 23rd, excellent, that's every single one of Leeds FA cup games that will have been aired live in some form -all 5 of them including the tottenham game :D (all on TV except round one which was live online on the FA cup website)

I think Leeds have been on TV this season more than any other team in the championship and league 1 combined, probably more than most premier league teams!
 
bloodline76 said:
What I found interesting is that after the match Wenger was questioned on transfers and he actually sounded like he was going to get someone in. Normally he goes on about having the a team with potential to fill the gaps with all the games.

Wilshere didnt have the best of games although you cant knock his work rate.

Diaby seems to be keeping his performances coming along nicely. Made a great impression when he came on. Im sure he was still poor in DM's eyes though. :rolleyes:
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Wilshire's workrate was fairly poor, he barely moved, the poor kid looked shattered after 10 minutes though. Hardly surprising, has he been on the bench for most of our league games so far, yet he's had a grand total of 7 minutes in the leage and 4 starts spread out very thin over the entire season so far. he's simply not match fit, he's learning nothing not playing, playing weekly in the reserves would be getting him far more experience than sitting on the bench. Its poor the amount of times he's been on the bench, we've been several goals up and he's still not been given a chance.

Diaby wasn't terrible, he wasn't great either, I think had Diaby/Nasri started and it was Merida/Wilshire that came on they'd have been as effective, we brought on two somewhat pacey players against a very tired west ham late in the game. The most effective thing was Nasri, we finally had someone repeatedly run down the wing, who was a real threat and he dragged several players out there with him the whole time he was on. More players out wide, players moving over to fill the space = FAR more space in the middle. For 60 odd minutes we barely had any width at all, we were bunching up around the middle outside the box not finding any space. Nasri came on and we had space all over the place because the defence was spread far wider, which also let Vela get far more involved in the game on the left and Ramsey came to life in the middle with a little space.

A quick list of who Diaby has scored against, 2 against Pompie, when Pompie were really bad, Hull, Birmingham before they were very good and before they learned to score, Villa after they were shattered and Fabregas had knocked the stuffing out of them and then Alkmarr in the CL, who we spanked every which way. A single assist so far, 10 awful performances, a few fairly annonymous performances even in the games he scored, and maybe 2 good performances this year.

Whoopdedoo, again I'll say he has potential, he'll have 2-3 great games a year, but he's shown consistantly over 4 years that he won't even have more than 2-3 great games a year, he's completely useless and infact scores own goals against anyone half decent, he very rarely scores against anyone outside of the bottom 3.

I was the first person to mention he's great running with the ball, is pacey, has the ability to keep the ball and might be great in the future, unfortunately for someone who recently has had so much of the ball he's still had next to no end product, creates almost no chances for anyone, never looks up when running with the ball, focuses on getting through a player with no thought on what to do next. Nothings changed in 4 years, come back and say I'm wrong when he manages more than a very very small handful of decent performances in a season, and please point out the next time he manages to perform against a top half team. Remember till his goal against Villa diaby was useless, absolutely useless, had Cesc not come on, gotten 2 and stretched Villa who went looking hard for goals late in the game he'd simply never have scored in a million years. He can't and doesn't changes games on his own, he's yet to score a winner or important game changing goal for us. You'll notice every single one of his 6 goals was in a comftable victory, surprise suprise, and when a games tight and might be won by a single goal he's entirely no where to be seen, except maybe scoring that goal at the wrong end.
 
mrbios said:
Just noticed tottenham vs leeds is to be on TV saturday the 23rd, excellent, that's every single one of Leeds FA cup games that will have been aired live in some form -all 5 of them including the tottenham game :D (all on TV except round one which was live online on the FA cup website)

I think Leeds have been on TV this season more than any other team in the championship and league 1 combined, probably more than most premier league teams!
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And it'll be the last too. :p
 
drunkenmaster said:
Wilshire's workrate was fairly poor, he barely moved, the poor kid looked shattered after 10 minutes though. Hardly surprising, has he been on the bench for most of our league games so far, yet he's had a grand total of 7 minutes in the leage and 4 starts spread out very thin over the entire season so far. he's simply not match fit, he's learning nothing not playing, playing weekly in the reserves would be getting him far more experience than sitting on the bench. Its poor the amount of times he's been on the bench, we've been several goals up and he's still not been given a chance.
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Hmmm.

You know the Reserves only played twice in December? Reserve team games are not week in week out. In fact Arsenal have only played 9 reserve games so far this season, and one was a friendly.

He needs to go out on loan.
 
mrbios said:
I think Leeds have been on TV this season more than any other team in the championship and league 1 combined, probably more than most premier league teams!
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What ****ing planet do you live on?

Newcastle have had a stupid number of games on telly this year. The BBC got to show some Championship games this year and most of those include Newcastle.

Leeds on Sky more then Manchester United? or Chelsea or Arsenal or Liverpool?
 
Slightly unrelated but regarding tv. ITV have shifted our FA Cup fixture with Stoke to Sunday from Saturday. We're due to play Villa away the following Wednesday.

Out of neccessity it probably now means that we'll play an under strength side again. Think ITV have shot themselves in the foot there a bit.
 
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Greenlizard0 said:
Slightly unrelated but regarding tv. ITV have shifted our FA Cup fixture with Stoke to Sunday from Saturday. We're due to play Villa away the following Wednesday.

Out of neccessity it probably now means that we'll play an under strength side again. Think ITV have shot themselves in the foot there a bit.
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Stoke are due to play Man City on the Tuesday. We may play a weakend side as well. :p
 
Tummy said:
What ****ing planet do you live on?

Newcastle have had a stupid number of games on telly this year. The BBC got to show some Championship games this year and most of those include Newcastle.

Leeds on Sky more then Manchester United? or Chelsea or Arsenal or Liverpool?
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Ok, calm down, wasn't showing off or anything just pointing it out.....

/pedantic mode on

"this year" we're only 5 days into it ;)

/pedantic mode off

EDIT: just trying to think of when we've been on TV this season:

norwich - League
watford - League cup
liverpool - League cup
man utd - FA CUP
oldham - FA CUP - live online
kettering - FA CUP
kettering - FA CUP replay
Darlington - JPT
another JPT game which i cant remember, accrington might have been on TV if i remember rightly
Tottenham (to come) - FA CUP

Possibly missed one but i think that's about it, can many other teams claim to have, all of them wins except for liverpool
 
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