Arsenal 4 - 1 Everton: Insert song about Wembley here

It's just the semi-finals of the FA Cup, but going to Wembley is always a special occasion for any club and in a couple of weeks time, we'll be heading down the road in North London to that famous ground to play one of City, Wigan, Hull, Sunderland, Charlton or Sheffield Wednesday.

Before that, we've got some huge games coming up, and this victory will give the team a great lift ahead of those games. The mood was negative after that disappointing performance and defeat at Stoke, but a good display today, a victory rounded off in style and progression in a cup we can very much win will do wonders for morale.

The game, as a whole, was excellent. The previous round saw us play an open, physical game against Liverpool, whereas this round saw us play a more cultured, patient game against a dangerous Everton side. Throughout the game, both sides took turns in trying to sit deep and attract the opposition onto them, then hit them on the counter. In the first half, Everton mainly deployed this strategy and they caused us problems. Whenever our attacks broke down, they pounced on the ball quickly and flew forward, usually with Ross Barkley, using his excellent close control to evade challenges, leading the way with Mirallas and Lukaku supporting.

They started the game the better side, but we caught them on the break, albeit a bit fortuitously. Chamberlain's pass into Cazorla should have been cut out by McCarthy, but he slipped, allowing Cazorla space and time to run at Everton's back line. He slipped in Ozil, and the German produced a tidy first-time finish to open the scoring. Ozil, much maligned recently for failing to show up during the big occasions, answered his critics in the perfect way.

The game evened out after that and while we were playing well, we could have played better. At times, there were moments of sloppiness, particularly with a few loose passes that were cut out by Everton. When they countered, we had some difficulty in trying to win the ball back and dived in on a few challenges. We managed a few half chances, but didn't look like we were going to score another in the first half. Everton, carrying a goal threat, countered us again, with Barkley rolling Flamini too easily and charging up the pitch. Flamini, already on a yellow card for a rash tackle, couldn't dive in on Barkley, and that allowed him the opportunity to play the ball across the box to Mirallas. His shot was scuffed, but it fell kindly for Lukaku to put into an empty net.

In the second half, the roles were revered. Arsenal sat deeper and Everton had more of the ball in our half. For the most part, we dealt with them well enough, but they should have took the lead when Vermaelen failed to clear the ball and lost it near his penalty area. Lukaku would go on to set-up Barkley, but he put his shot over when he should have scored.

That miss turned out to be critical for Everton, as we went up the other end with Chamberlain, played in by Ozil, and won a penalty. Arteta calmly put it away in Joel's bottom right corner, but were ordered to retake it due to Giroud encroaching. Did Arteta care, though? Not a bit, as he once again calmly put the penalty away, this time in Joel's top left. Say what you want about Arteta as a player, he is at least very reliable for the penalty spot, now having converted his last six penalties for us.

Giroud, who had come on earlier for Sanogo, would then benefit from some excellent service. His first goal, and the goal that killed whatever fight Everton had, was made by some great play from Sagna. With the ball on the byline, he waited until an opening appeared before finding Giroud, who really couldn't miss. It was good play by Giroud, too, who remained patient with his movement. The fourth goal, and ultimately one that perhaps flattered us a little, was an excellent Arsenal counter, started by Cazorla, who found Rosicky on the flank. Rosicky would find Ozil's run, and Ozil, showing the sort of awareness that a player of his calibre has, played in Giroud to round off the scoring.

If Ozil, Cazorla and Chamberlain is going to be our attacking midfield three for the remainder of the season, then today's game was greatly encouraging. All three performed very well, with Cazorla and Ozil frequently linking up and Chamberlain offering a more direct three. Each of them is comfortable on either flank and centrally, which allows them interchange. This was, perhaps, the first game that Cazorla and Ozil linked-up to such good effect, and interestingly, it was mainly Cazorla coming from a central position and Ozil receiving the ball on the left hand side.

Today's man of the match, Mesut Ozil, had one of this best games in an Arsenal shirt. A goal and an assist, several created chances and industry going forwards and backwards; these are the sorts of performances we need from him now.

Today also showed why we can't rely on Sanogo at this moment in time, and any thought that he should replace Giroud for the remainder of the season is knee-jerking. Sanogo struggled to keep hold of the ball and hard difficulty getting involved, while Giroud came on, kept the ball up front and scored twice. At this moment time, Giroud is simply the better player and should be starting.

Gibbs, too, was excellent, and Vermaelen did okay bar his error in the second half.

I must give credit to Everton, too, for once again giving us a tough match.

That was a great start to DEATHRUN2. Hopefully we can come out of the Bayern game on Wednesday with our pride intact, and then we can really tackle those games against Spurs, Chelsea and City with earnest. If the likes of Ozil, Cazorla and Chamberlain perform as well as they did today, and if Ramsey can hit the ground running when he returns, we may well do better than we all think.

WEMBLEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYyy

Fantastic game. This was Arsenal playing their proper game. Quick passing, 1-2s, great movement at times. Was a really good performance.

Shame about the goal we conceded and that is probably the negative point of the match. Sagna was a bit too slow for Mirallas while Flamini got outmuscled vs Barkley.

But 4-1 was a satisfying result in the end.

AW: "Physically, Ozil looked regenerated. He did a lot of dirty work."

Wembley   

How refreshing is it to see a team actually come to the Emirates and have a go. It was a fantastic game end to end stuff with lots of chances. Sanogo did alright, he worked hard and put himself about, the problem was technically he was struggling a bit.

Ox was very good, he takes risk in the final third instead of all the tiki taka around the box. Ozil, Santi and Ox complement each other very well. There is balance to it instead of having 3 tiki taka players in there who all want to pass the ball to each other.

If the draw is kind to us then I fancy us winning the thing no matter who we get. The pressure will be on City as well because they are expected to win, if we turn up and play well then anything can happen

Get in there lads

showed we have learnt our bits from that draw in league with team selection and approach

our 3 attackers all had excellent games
Mesut yet again performing vs Everton:

Another game everton get nothing out of as they aint ruthless or clinical enough

thankfully we took advantage this time

Yaya was little bit intimidated by Distin

Vermaelen bar that moment had a good game for player coming off a 2 months injury lay off

Arteta showing great mental strength

but in the end chambo showing how he can be difference maker yet again well done lad

rather city in semis than cup final,erm you?

I'd rather not draw Citeh in the semis. If we have any luck, we'll get Charlton and Citeh will get knocked out somehow before the final.

Wondeful match, best in a long while. Ozil can be a monster when he's rested. Giroud with another brace. l like Sanogo but Girouds gotta start all the big matches for the rest of the season. He just has to.

And as for the next round. Lets be real everyone.. We all already know we are drawing City. What has the universe done lately to make us believe our luck would bring anything different

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-58V24pIPadQ/UxtPANMo-eI/AAAAAAAAABk/eR9R9CKRtnw/w500-h224-no/Untitled-1.gif

Be it the semi-final or the final, chances are we're going to have to beat Man City to win the FA Cup. So does it really matter when we draw them?

The semi-final will be played on either the 12th or 13th or April. That means our orginally scheduled game against West Ham will be played on another date, meaning we'll have another game in hand on our rivals.

IF Wigan somehow beat City tomorrow.

Pressure will be too much lol

GoonerJay29 wrote:Be it the semi-final or the final, chances are we're going to have to beat Man City to win the FA Cup. So  does it really matter when we draw them?

The semi-final will be played on either the 12th or 13th or April. That means our orginally scheduled game against West Ham will be played on another date, meaning we'll have another game in hand on our rivals.

The problem is this team has big game jitters, If we get City in the semi final I can see them freezing and bottling it. I rather we just get them in the final then everyone gives everything and with a bit of luck we win.

I Think the exact opposite

City team has already experienced cup success this season

what have our players achieved together?

this would be closest we come to success and we dont have  tools to perform big games
and our mentality can be questioned until we win it as well

even more pressure in final and they have more individuals to decide games on their own

so at least for the sake of us fans rather it be in semis  

Got to give Wenger credit, not only did his subs have a huge impact in the result - he changed the approach of our game in the 2nd half and we looked a lot more solid defensively.

The ref was a c*nt all game.

Everything about our top performers has been said already, Chambo, Özil, Cazorla, Giroud, Gibbs all were awesome.

Also the first goal we scored was typical shit defending from Coleman, a player who's supposed to replace Sagna, just watch him individually in the build up for the goal and say he can replace Sagna or even improve on him. Farcical defending.

I hope we make some changes against Bayern, we're going to do a lot of chasing so resting some of the players who are supposed to start against Spurs wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

Fantastic win, really needed this big win. Cazorla bossed the midfield for us, from here on we have to beat every team put in front of us.

It's the others who need to make runs off the ball, Özil does them all the time - he does some of the hardest work off the ball. I find it embarrassing that our most creative player is forced to make runs when the others are supposed to make runs for him (well when Walcott, Chambo, Ramsey aren't playing).

Btw, it would be great if, at any point, we could start scoring from corners again. We got more than 15 yesterday and made nothing of them lol.

We miss Walcott's corners, he has an excellent swinger

Jeez the guy went from being a one trick pony (circa 2008) to being a clinical finisher, a great set piece taker, tracks back to defend, sets other people up

Hurry back ffs

WE'RE GOING TO WEMBLEY!!

Sorry. I'm late in this thread. Been a very busy weekend.

Well, what a result. At both the Emirates AND the Etihad.

Slightly flattering result, but Ozil was fantastic, Chamberlain excellent, Giroud superb off the bench and Vermaelen put in another decent showing - remember how hard it must be in his situation.

1-0: Great play from Cazorla, neat finish from Ozil
1-1: Flamini just couldn't bring down Barkley, given he was on that yellow card, but Barkley did very well, poor marking the back post though.
2-1: Arteta, cool as a cucumber, twice putting away the penalty. Great play from OX to win it.
3-1: Intelligent ball from Ozil, fine assist from Sagna and finish from Giroud
4-1: A fifa goal, quite simply. Amazing move, easy finish from Giroud.

Now time for Bayern (though i'm focused on Spurs to be honest).

COME ON ARSENAL!