How Do We Approach The Rest Of The Season?

It's amazing what one football game can do, eh? Before today, our trophy campaign looked bleak. Four points from top in the league and battles with juggernauts followed. Virtually out of the Champions League bar a resurrection that would make Lazarus himself green with envy and while everyone chirped that the FA cup was our most realistic trophy, the reality of facing City in a cup final was a fate worse than death. The blueprint was for City to demolish Wigan, destroy whoever in the semis and batter us in the final

Uwe Rosler took one look at that blueprint and promptly wiped his arse with it, encouraging Wigan to wipe the floor with City

Suddenly, the FA cup went from being a boot camp drill session of survival, to a leisurely stroll through the park with two nasty bees in our ways. With all due respect to the teams left in it, they're not Manchester City and, therefore, do not evoke the same sort of fear and dread in teams when coming up against them. I'm willing to bet everyone here breathed an enormous sigh of relief when the final whistle blew today, knowing the toughest team in the comp were finally out.

The trouble with that is, though, where do our priorities lie now? Do we throw everything we have at the FA Cup, while sacrificing league form? Winning the FA cup would be amazing, ending a 9+ curse and shutting up the critics, but would it be worth it if we finished 5th in the league? Do we attempt to weather the oncoming league storm and risk having key players out when 12th of April swings round? Do we bother for a comeback in Germany and try to salvage our Champions League campaign?

Where do we go from here?

Forget CL, but must show some pride at Germany.

I dont want to play playoffs, 3rd place is a must.

FA Cup is ours to lose, we have the team and are mature this time around.

We need to be cool, confident, and realize that the only thing at stake is absolutely everything. That our future, status and direction for the next half decade can be heavily influenced by the results of the next couple of months. No pressure.

lol, you're picking your brain whether to 'throw everything at the FA cup, sacrificing league form'?
Are you kidding me, it's a team from the second division, I know that can be tough too, but ffs don't overthink this, what with resting players etc   .

All this 'trophyless' bullshit talk has really messed with your head guys, it's funny to see but I can't watch you guys doing that to yourselves!
You need to relax, it's not the 'future of the club' at stake. Just win against Wigan you know, and if not, worst case scenario, you're no better than City. Big deal.

Never mind all that mental blockade crap, or fearing what the press or other fans will think of you, 'trophyless years'. Doesn't mean shit.

We heard it all the time "Bayern are bottlers","always choking","Lahm and Schweini no leadership material" etc pp bla bla.
Then a year later it's all "favourites to win everyting", "experienced leaders and winners", "expected to defend the treble" lol gtfo.
I don't give a *bleep* what people think, and neither should you.

The Next game is most important one
that's how we must approach it

with full concentration without letting other things get into players heads we can still do our best in the league and hopefully lift the cup

its no longer about prioritizing

we can Do this
COYG

I hate admitting Hans is right but he is to an extent.

We need to shed this mentality that we can't have our cake and eat it too. We can win the FA Cup and stay in the top 4.

If we beat Swansea at home then we're 9 points clear of 5th, then a victory over Spurs would put us even further off. We don't play Wigan until next month so there's no reason or compulsion to have to prioritize anything over anything.

Wenger will go all out against Bayern, as he should. No reason to rest players when our next league match should be winnable.

But the FA Cup is too far away to have to prioritize yet.

I understand though! But we shouldn't falter in our pursuits of the league and FA Cup just because it looks good for us trophy-wise, finally.

It would be disastrous to go into the FA Cup matches thinking they're won. But at the same time, it would be horrific if we don't secure this trophy. Prioritizing victory here shouldn't take up too many resources though.

As for the league, I think we simply have to maintain pressure. One match at a time; no more unimportant matches. Make a respectable show of it on the PL-side of Deathrun2, and we'll all come out sitting pretty. Chelsea & Man City are tough, tough matches ... but they're not guaranteed losses. They're games that Arsenal pretty much have had to get good results from if they want to win the title, one way or the other (including a freak loss at Stoke, or not).

Bayern is probably going to be a lost cause. They might crush us tomorrow - and as long as our guys put up a fight, there's no shame in that. But at the same time, Arsenal are in that tiny set of clubs that can go to the Allianz Arena and face this Bayern team and have some kind of justified confidence about an upset. They did it not so long ago, after all.

I only wish Ramsey & Walcott were fit. Rambo's return can't come soon enough ... it'll probably take a while for him to regain form too.

we just need to make sure mertesacker, ozil and oxlade dont get injured. they are our KEY players for this season, they need to stay fit no matter what.

Basically, we just need to ensure we keep key players fit for the remainder of the season and see where it takes us. I think most would consider a top three finish not too far behind the eventual winners plus the FA Cup a good, progressive season, and I think we're on course to achieve that.

If we keep everyone as fit as possible then we'll have the resources to cope with a title challenge and the FA Cup. We've got a deep enough squad and the opposition in the cup aren't top sides, so we should be able to beat them even if we have to use some squad players.

The thing to keep in mind is that there are is no mid-week fixture between Everton (a) and the semi-final unless we somehow knock out Bayern tomorrow, so I don't see a need to prioritise here. In this sense, going out the Champions League would be a blessing, as much as I want us to have a deep run in that competition as well.

I don't think our top four status is under threat, nor do I think we're out the title race just yet. A lot depends on these next three games, but if we come out of those still in touch with the league leaders then there's simply no reason why we shouldn't give our all to win the league.

I said a long time ago - top 3 and FA Cup, I'd grab your hands off. Now, that chance has opened up.

We simply can't miss this opportunity.

Ozil out for three weeks = every other team

Ozil out for the rest of the season = Arsenal

REWB wrote:we just need to make sure mertesacker, ozil and oxlade dont get injured. they are our KEY players for this season, they need to stay fit no matter what.

Jinxed it didn't you.

Decent Goal.com editorial on why 3rd place and the FA Cup would be a very good season for Arsenal, not like we don't already know. But investments and some luck injury-wise are clearly needed to make us a top top European side once more.

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editorial/2014/03/12/4678508/will-arsenal-make-up-for-being-outclassed-in-the-champions?ICID=HP_BN_1

We don't need to sacrifice anything to win the FA cup. We're only in two competitions now, so we can afford to play our strongest sides in every game we have, with slight rotation here and there. Win every game - that needs to be our approach.

This should be pretty routine for us now. Chase 4th as we are the masters of it

While also try for the FA Cup which I am not confident about anymore but yea. That's how we approach it from now

-win the FA cup

-finish top four

Prioritize in that order. Don't care about top four. Will mean nothing to me if we don't win the cup

Surely you want to finish in the top 4 instead of winning FA and finishing 5th?

Considering the 8 point gap to 5th. I wouldn't be worried about it, Ade, they'll finish fourth unless they lose all of their remaining games basically.

Top 3 and FA Cup would have been a brilliant season from the beginning and it still is.

Arsenal have been punching above their weight, until we overcome our annual injury crisis, sign a couple more players to complete our squad then we won't be able to seriously compete on multiple fronts. Especially if we can't even draw with City, Chelsea and United.

No offense to United but the fact that we took 1/6 points off them says it all about our mental 'strength'

Meh. Mental strength is overrated. Wenger simply put in a retarded lineup. I commented once the lineups were out how weak that looked. Arteta isn't the greatest quality to begin with at this point of time. Then you put in a 20 year old winger alongside him in central midfield + 2 AMs + 2 strikers against a Mourinho team away from home? And then you wonder that your AMs drop in zones where they don't want to be because they have to help out the overrun Arteta-Chamberlain central midfield and that they keep losing the ball there? Maradona 2010-esque tactics from Wenger.

Stayed away from the computer after the game not knowing how to post anything that could describe the disappointment and frustration. We lost the match for the same reasons we lost them against city and pool.
Our players are not the top quality that we want them to be and our manager seems to have lost it. Unfortunately, he lost it many years ago and we stuck with him.
The only way to chase the season in my opinion is to once again fight for the Arsenal only fourth place trophy. Hopefully, qualify for CL and have Wenger as graceful as possible move away from the club. Not upstairs, away! Then stop giving players new contracts unless they are ending.

It is time to move on. We need a new manger bringing in a new mentality, new leadership and new tactics. Someone that will not be handicapped with wenger's players but someone that will have the ability to evaluate the personal and make the changes that they feel is necessary to advance the club. Not a manager that is hand picked by wenger. We actually need stanley to put some effort in and hopefully find a Top class manager that has the ability to move us forward. Someone with the charisma to get the best out of the players that are here along with bring in the players that we need. Someone with the tactical awareness to change formation and players to suit the competition and not sit back delusional and thinking that we can beat everyone with one style of play. We need someone that will understand that we can not win the league playing playing AMs in every position. We need wingers, strikers, a DM or two probably a RB and then a formation.

We need the club hierarchy to bring forth a winning mentality and be willing to make changes.

That's that, then. Since we're going to lose next week, today was a must win and we ballsed it up oh so nicely. A 90th minute own goal is like the police showing up at the end of the film just after the bad guy is killed and the day is saved. You say to yourself "HA!!! As if!!! Stuff like that doesn't happen in real life loooooool"

But you have to ask yourself.....what is life?

Stoke and Swansea were our aces in the hole, the games where we could build up the points lost vs Liverpool, City and Chelsea. We failed to even do that. We lost the games we're supposed to win and got thrashed in the games we're meant to lose. That leaves us closer to slipping out of the top 4 than anywhere near the title.

Time to admit defeat, forget about the title and try to maintain 4th while throwing full focus on the FA Cup. The league is gone, need to focus on winning some FA Cup silverware

And God help the club if we can't even do that.......

It's all about 4th and FA Cup now, we can do the double

at this point realistic target for league is to just compete with Arsenal of 12/13 and better our total points tally of 73

7 games to go
and with the remaining fixtures i expect around 78-80 pts
5 wins atleast
any pts from next 2 matches feels like bonus,cant believe am saying that....sigh

What is with this man.

Either we start the year out crap, but then have a strong finish.. Or we start strong and finish like crap. ffs