UEFA Champions League/Europa League 6/7/8 November *** Spoilers ***

To be fair to City, there were 2 bad decisions there with the offside call and the penalty(which couldn't) be more blatant. They do look poor in defense though.
 
The offside was offside. The rule is that if any part of the body you could play the ball with is beyond the line, you're offside. Kolarov's foot was off, so he is. And the penalty wasn't. Balotelli had hold of the defender as much as the defender did of him.
 
manic111 said:
The offside was offside. The rule is that if any part of the body you could play the ball with is beyond the line, you're offside. Kolarov's foot was off, so he is. And the penalty wasn't. Balotelli had hold of the defender as much as the defender did of him.
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Possibly on the offside Decision, I only saw it once on my phone, but the pen was a cert for me.
 
City can't claim bad luck for being in the sitation they are. The other teams in their group are simply a class apart. They are 4th because they are the 4th best team in their group of 4 ;)
 
FoxEye said:
City can't claim bad luck for being in the sitation they are. The other teams in their group are simply a class apart. They are 4th because they are the 4th best team in their group of 4 ;)
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In europe I would agree dortmoud have surprised really good attractive side to watch
 
Well, there was other football played tonight outside of the European Champions League!

Sheffield Wednesday went down by two goals to nil against a very slick Blackpool. Make no mistake, Wednesday were embarrassingly poor. Not a single player came out of that game looking good, horrible performance.

Blackpool were good, but in all honesty they didn't have to be good tonight.
 
Azza said:
Andre Santos comes on for the last few seconds. Will look to keep close to Huntelaar... so he can claim his jersey at the end.

:D :D :D



Stolen from Conor McNamara. :o
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Came on for Podolski, meaning he'd be the new inside left.....
Presumably we just told him to do his normal impression of a leftback and it'd work out about right positionally.
 
Tummy said:
To be fair to Santos, swapping shirts at half time is common in South America is it not?
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I honestly have no idea what the deal is with the shirt swapping as in, why anyone remotely cares about it. I care about Arsenal fans paying more than anyone else, then having the club spend 7mil on a completely inept player who gets 60-70k a week to be as absolutely awful as he is. What do I care what shirt he gets, what he does pre/post match doesn't interest me.

I only cared about his performance in that game and this season, he's been abysmal, and he wasn't good last season(though better than this season in general).

In terms of his professionalism, the driving badly and running from the police is inexcusable, his absolute lack of fitness is inexcusable(well it is, if he has cancer or something, but barring some kinda illness he's the least fit player in the league at the moment). I was angry about his performances, why the press/fans have made it about a shirt I don't know, I do know that if he's scored a hattrick and Arsenal had won, no one would have mentioned the shirt once.... which means the shirt doesn't matter.
 
Bit gutted we threw it away but to be fair to Schalke they didn't deserve to lose. That goal just before half time knocked us out of our stride. Normally stick up for Mertesacker but he was shocking last night, he just stepped up as if playing for offside with no idea where his team mates or the opposition were on a few occasions. Overall our defending has been shocking recently all the way along the back. Attacking wise we are far better, it's clear that our best front 6 were playing last night although we lost momentum second half. 2 goals should have been enough to win really.

Do wish people would stop the Theo bashing, he has been our most productive midfielder for the last 2 seasons and has got 8 goals and 4 assists already this season. Other than Arshavin he's the only person with pace who can take a man on and cause problems. As for moaning about him missing that last chance, he had 3 men around him (pretty sure 1 was in front) and the ball was under his feet. I wouldn't expect many people to trouble the goalkeeper from there.
 
CliffyG said:
Bit gutted we threw it away but to be fair to Schalke they didn't deserve to lose. That goal just before half time knocked us out of our stride. Normally stick up for Mertesacker but he was shocking last night, he just stepped up as if playing for offside with no idea where his team mates or the opposition were on a few occasions. Overall our defending has been shocking recently all the way along the back. Attacking wise we are far better, it's clear that our best front 6 were playing last night although we lost momentum second half. 2 goals should have been enough to win really.

Do wish people would stop the Theo bashing, he has been our most productive midfielder for the last 2 seasons and has got 8 goals and 4 assists already this season. Other than Arshavin he's the only person with pace who can take a man on and cause problems. As for moaning about him missing that last chance, he had 3 men around him (pretty sure 1 was in front) and the ball was under his feet. I wouldn't expect many people to trouble the goalkeeper from there.
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Our defending has been shocking since the first game of preseason, not being punished by Sunderland(woeful this season), Stoke(never could score) and Liverpool(Suarez can't hit a barn door) doesn't mean our defence was good. Same problems last night, the past month were things that happened in the first 5 games as well... difference is the strikers we played against, nothing more, nothing less.

As for Theo you're fundamentally wrong, he's not our most productive midfielder, he's by absolutely ridiculous, massive, insane margins our least productive midfielder, tackles, work rate, crosses, passes, defending, marking, runs, closing down and half a dozen other things. He shoots, thats it, he had from what I recall, 2 crosses last night, one went about 20 yards over the bar and was horrific, the other landed what, 15-20 yards beyond the goal and no where near an Arsenal player.

He is a horrendous and absolutely UN-productive midfielder, his work ONLY comes in the box and 99% of the time only when behind the defenders. The problem is, as always that the goals he scores, Chamakh, Bendtner, Squillaci, Djourou and you and me could score. Anyone can ignore their entire game, spend no effort and run in and take advantage, a good footballer does that AND makes the game easier by doing the rest as well.

Being good for 89 mins and not scoring would do more for the team as a whole, than the odd goal.

Again though, while I am bashing Theo, he's not a winger, or a midfielder, or much of a footballer, he has a bit of pace and completely average finishing, add those two things to running in behind and you have effectiveness.... but he's been asked to play on the wing. Wenger is a complete tool for playing him on the wing, he's incapable there. But Theo is massively to blame also, Bendtner is slower, you would argue less fit(its rare ickle guys tire out as easily as huge dudes), and yet Bendtner pushed out to the wing offered a hell of a lot more, never stopped trying, got back to help defend and still got forward for every attack.

Wenger's to blame for playing an inept player in a position he is entirely incapable of, Theo is to blame for putting in no effort, for being the laziest player in the league, and for spending more time writing kids books than staying after training to practice crossing. Many players have had their position changed and put in many magnitudes more work and effort than Theo does.

Bendtner, Vela, Eduardo, Wiltord, Reyes(debateable he's a winger really now but came to Arsenal looking more of a striker), Podolski(afaik he played more as a striker than winger for a couple years, but its not an unfamiliar role), even Gervinho(inept and lazy defensively but certainly tries harder than Walcott) have almost all been switched from out and out strikers to wingers and put in 10 times the effort that Walcott does, and improve their all around game. But for Gervinho, they all can cross, defend, close down, work hard better than Walcott. They all got asked to adapt, rightly or wrongly, and they tried, they put in as much work as any other winger. Walcott, is a lazy little **** who has decided that being paid 60-70k a week, that he's a striker and he doesn't really have to do what every other player does.
 
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Nope there has been a drastic change in our defence recently, silly mistakes and bad decisions with positioning weren't present at the start of the season. We didn't look panicked when teams attack whereas now we do, even when under no pressure (e.g. Vermaelan against United).

I can guarantee you he has scored many goals which you, I or any of the other players mentioned could not score. His finishing is generally quite tidy, far far greater than the player you would want to replace him with whose shooting has been appauling for ages now (Arshavin). I actually can't be bothered to break down every point as you are pretty much wrong on all of them.
 
No Scholes or Fletcher for us tonight, Smalling will 'play a part' although Fergie has said he will probably start with the same back 4 as has played the majority of games recently. He's also said he will change things up front although that could just mean the midfield. With that in mind I'd like to see....

-------------De Gea-------------
Rafael---Evans---Ferdinand---Evra
Nani----Carrick---Anderson---Welbeck
-------------Rooney
--------------Hernandez

Subs: Lindegaard, Smalling, Wootton, Giggs, Valencia, Young, RVP

RVP could probably do with sitting this one out to keep him fresh for Villa on Saturday
 
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City have been poor in Europe generally and cannot blame anybody but themselves, but this is no surprise given Mancini's track record is it?
 
Well last night was very disappointing, we looked really slow, lethargic and Ajax made us pay. Conceding those two goals completely shot the confidence to pieces so to come back into it in the second half was at least encouraging.
We started the best players we could in our usual formation and employed our usual tactics so its clear that there is a problem in Europe with them, we just need to work out the way to change it.

At any level the defending for the corners was horrendous and I just cannot understand how our defense can go from being the best in the league in consecutive years to being like amateurs. Its a good job we have Hart who as Souness I think said is doing far too much work considering the players in front of him.

Whether a 352/532 may be the best option to go in Europe to change it up I don't know, it hasn't worked when we implement it during games but when we start with it we do a lot better see the Community Shield game.

Also can't believe the comments on here about what Mancini did, like Fergie or Wenger wouldn't have done the same if they were in this situation. Fergie screams at the fourth official when he doesn't get a free kick in the prem never mind a penalty in the last minute in a game you have to win in a CL match.
 
Not saying it hasn't happened but I cant remember Fergie ever walking onto the pitch to confront a ref before (cant remember him ever waiting for the ref on the touch line at half or full time either). He usually just gives the 4th official an ear full and tears the ref to pieces in his post match interviews :p
 
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