Weekend Football Thread 17 - 19 *spoilers*

Loki said:
Never can I remember Liverpool playing such a negative 5 at the back policy to try and contain an inform Darren Bent and Kenwynn Jones. Good strikers in form they are, world class they are not.
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Maybe it was difficult to tell from watching the highlights on Motd but we didn't play 5 at the back. Johnson and Aurelio were very much playing as midfielders with Benayoun behind Babel and Kuyt (more of a 3-4-1-2).

As for Johnson, given our extensive list of problems this season, he's a strange player for you to pick-out. He's been one of our best players this season and I can't think of much he's done wrong for us defensively all season. It's fair to say that he's historically struggled with the defensive side of his game but ever since we've signed him, he's constantly getting singled out both for us and in particular for England when he's genuinely done little wrong (for us at least).

As I said in my last post; our big problem has been in central defense and Masch. I'm not too worried about Masch as he's already shown he's getting back to his best but the cb's are a real worry.
 
BaZ87 said:
As for Johnson, given our extensive list of problems this season, he's a strange player for you to pick-out. He's been one of our best players this season and I can't think of much he's done wrong for us defensively all season.
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Yep. Seems to be getting a lot of stick from supporters of other teams as well as a few pundits. Individually he's not been directly at fault for any of the goals we've conceded this year but he has made the odd mistake along with other players which have lead to goals.

Having said that if you believe the less knowledgeable amongst us he's to blame for Carraghers sudden loss of form for Liverpool, Ferdinands loss of form for England and United, Stephen Gatelys death and world famine.
 
NokkonWud said:
In his so called first "full" season, he played less games than Gabriel Heinze, unless you mean the season after that? Evra decided to not go on holiday, went training every day, bulked up and learned the history of Man Utd, from that point he's been a completely different player, much better offensively and defensively.
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Heinze made two more appearances in total than Evra during the 06/07 season and that was due to appearances in cup ties and meaningless European ties and sub appearances

In terms of the league Evra made more appearances and starts
 
JohnnyG said:
That's not entirely true:)
G|mp's only had about 4 suspensions plus at least 1 permaban so he's not that high on the list really, I can think of quite a few members who've been perma'd plenty of times, a bit earlier in this thread for instance:p
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Makes the 'perma' a bit meaningless, no?
 
The_Judge said:
Liverpool are crap, last year was their chance to win the league and they blew it
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Saying they blew it is a little harsh. They got their highest total in the history of the EPL, lost only two games and scored bags of goals. It's just that Manchester United were better overall.
 
I hope everybody who wrote Arsenal off at the beginning of the season, saying that they were going to drop out of the top four and that even though Liverpool haven't won that much recently they were leagues better overall... are eating their words for the time being. :)
 
I was shocked at some of the comments being directed at Arsenal's way before the season started, journalists and fans alike were getting away with such ignorance, was frustrating as an Arsenal fan :/
 
Just watched MOTD and I missed an awesome weekend :D

Seems like all the big 4 are having problems defending at the moment, hopefully having VDS back will help United's problems (and someone taking Neville out and shooting him)

Sunderland goal was hilarious, fair enough it shouldn't have stood (although I don't remember anyone saying that with the goal against City a few years back) but Sunderland should have had 3 or 4 really, not sure what the hell Rafa was thinking with 3 centre backs.
 
jakeke said:
I was shocked at some of the comments being directed at Arsenal's way before the season started, journalists and fans alike were getting away with such ignorance, was frustrating as an Arsenal fan :/
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Yeah I know what you mean. I know the season is far from over and anything could happen at the moment, but the past few games we've looked good, even in the City game we looked alright, really good in places but still lost. United beat us with a great slice of luck as we outplayed them for big spells although I would have said a draw in that game would have been fair, for Diarrhea to head the ball into our own net was a huge break for Man U. I was surprised at Blackburn the other week, coming from behind to win the game is something that I was not expecting.

I think that at the moment we are free scoring and Wenger's attention now needs to be set at the defense, or possibly more cover for the holding midfield. We should have bought Viera in my opinion. He would have loved to come back and play for us and then who knows, stayed on for a coaching role even. Song could have learned a lot from a player like him and he would have been great cover too. The interest in Marouane Chamakh will be intriguing to follow, his contract is up in the summer I think, so he could leave on a free, although at the moment we have no problem scoring goals so he isn't really needed. We need to loan out a few players to get them some decent experience, Vela is one. He just seems to be sitting on the bench, or being unused apart from in the Carling Cup. I'd like to see him getting more appearances against teams like Burnley, Portsmouth and Stoke.

Anyway, those are my thoughts and I'm hoping that we can get at least second in the league and the final of the Champions League, although I don't see the Champions League happening this season I can always be pleasantly surprised.
 
K1LLSW1TCH said:
I hope everybody who wrote Arsenal off at the beginning of the season, saying that they were going to drop out of the top four and that even though Liverpool haven't won that much recently they were leagues better overall... are eating their words for the time being. :)
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Why would they be? Unless you're talking about the ones who said you wouldn't finish in the top 4? Arsenal are going exactly how I expected, looking good against the teams in and around them but sometimes coming up short. I do like Arsenal and hope they prove a lot of the people who said they were behind the likes of Manchester City and Tottenham.

Or do you mean the ones who wrote you off as title contenders?

I think it takes a lot of luck at times to get through bad periods and despite winning the title last year I don't think we did have a lot of luck when it could have helped, goals came more from constant work ethic than anything. This year however has been a different matter, a lot of luck has painted over the cracks of our side. We're 9 games into the season but no one seems to have mentions the THREE own goals that have gone against opposition but more importantly, every one of them has resulted in important points. Arsenal and Bolton were decisive match winners, the one against Sunderland netted us the draw!
 
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NokkonWud said:
Why would they be? Unless you're talking about the ones who said you wouldn't finish in the top 4? Arsenal are going exactly how I expected, looking good against the teams in and around them but sometimes coming up short. I do like Arsenal and hope they prove a lot of the people who said they were behind the likes of Manchester City and Tottenham.

Or do you mean the ones who wrote you off as title contenders?
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Not the people who've written us off as title contenders, because at this moment in time even though we're playing well up front we still have defensive frailties and I think we'll come up short this year.

I'm just annoyed at the naysayers who put Tottenham, City and Villa above us in the pecking order, saying we are going to struggle to hang on to 4th place. I don't think we've struggled much so far in all fairness. :)
 
K1LLSW1TCH said:
Not the people who've written us off as title contenders, because at this moment in time even though we're playing well up front we still have defensive frailties and I think we'll come up short this year.

I'm just annoyed at the naysayers who put Tottenham, City and Villa above us in the pecking order, saying we are going to struggle to hang on to 4th place. I don't think we've struggled much so far in all fairness. :)
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I think Arsenal will get 4th place with absolutely no competition for it from Spurs.



We'll be 3rd for the rest of the season. :p






I am of course, joking.

Or am I?....


Yeah.

Or am I?...
 
K1LLSW1TCH said:
I'm just annoyed at the naysayers who put Tottenham, City and Villa above us in the pecking order, saying we are going to struggle to hang on to 4th place. I don't think we've struggled much so far in all fairness. :)
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Ah, then fair enough, you get these people every year. I saw a few supposed professional sports journalists not just drop Arsenal out of the top 4, but Manchester United too because we don't have Tevez or Ronaldo. These are the same journalists who put Manchester City to win the league and Real Madrid as their tip to win the Champions League.

It's amazing these people get paid for that.
 
Getting annoyed with all the Tottenham, Man City talk regards to breaking the top 4 and nothing about Villa, We've had a couple of blips but then so has everybody else. We've beaten 2 out of 2 playing the usual top 4 and generally we are performing well. Will be interesting watching the rest of the season.
 
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