Crystal Palace Vs Arsenal

Crystal Palace Vs Arsenal
Sunday 13:30 BST
Selhurst park


Time to pick ourselves up

So, last week didn't go exactly to plan then. Arsenal were well and truly beaten by West Ham. Which was quite a surprise and bit of a shock considering how hopeful we were and our expectation levels were off the roof. But it was a good slap in the face. It helped the team remember that the title isn't handed to the team most hyped. Also should be a wakeup call that no team can dream of the title when they act so arrogantly and expect every other team to just falter in their way.

I don't know what kind of reaction I am expecting tomorrow though. Palace are a good team with players who can hurt us. We are obviously better but we were also better than West Ham and that didn't help us. What we need to see is a performance which resembles Arsenal. And not a team whose players have never played together.

We need to be calm and collected. Play our game and our quality will come through.

In terms of Team News we don't have anyone out from the last game. Bellerin is back though and expecting him to start.

The most interesting team selection will be the front 4. Giroud or Walcott? Oxlade or Walcott? Cazorla at LW or CM? Ramsey at CM or RW?

Knowing Wenger, he will play the same team as last week to prove a point. But let's see

Probable Arsenal Team

------------------------Cech------------------------------
Bellerin-------Koscielny------Mertesacker--------Monreal
-----------------Arteta-------Cazorla---------------------
Ramsey-----------------Ozil-----------------------Sanchez
------------------------Walcott-----------------------------

Probable Crystal Palace team

-----------------------McCarthy----------------------------
Ward---------Dann-------Delaney------------Souare
Zaha---------Cabaye----McArthur------------Bolasie
---------------------Mutch-----Murray--------------------


Match Facts (fourFourtwo)

• Crystal Palace have been beaten in each of their last five Premier League encounters with the Gunners.
  
• Arsenal's victories last season in this fixture both came by a 2-1 scoreline, with a goal in the 45th minute both times.
  
• Alan Pardew has won 11/19 Premier League matches in charge of Crystal Palace so far – no Eagles' manager has won more in a single spell at the club in the Premier League.
  
• No player has more Premier League assists in 2015 than Santi Cazorla (.
  
• Mesut Ozil has averaged 3.5 chances created per game in the Premier League in 2015; a higher ratio than any other player.
  
• Yannick Bolasie has hit the woodwork (5) on more occasions than he's scored (4) in the Premier League since the start of 2014-15.
  
• Wilfried Zaha embarked on more dribbles than any other player on MD1 of the 2015-16 Premier League season (10).
  
• Bakary Sako beat his opponent with more dribbles than any other player in the Championship last season (116).
  
• Arsenal have won 16/18 points in their last six Premier League away games (W5 D1).
  
• The Gunners won 20 points from 10 Premier League London derbies last season (W6 D2 L2), while Palace won 11 points (W3 D2 L5).
  

Since Arsene doesn't know his best team, it will be interesting to see how we line up tomorrow. Will Sanchez start ?, will Theo start up top ? who will partner Coquelin in midfield ?

I am expecting a scrappy game tomorrow, Palace is always such a tough place to go and put a dominant performance but if we defend well we have enough quality in our team to get the 3 points.

Really have to win

Just don't care about the tactics and/or the personnel as long as we win so that things get back to normalcy for both the players & the fans.We need to get out of this black hole of negativity and a win can do us wonders.

So,here's hoping for a victory though we need to be careful of their wingers.Thankfully,Bellerin coming back can help us a lot.

I'm staying up until 2.30am in the morning to watch this. We better win and Cazorla better be playing in the middle, otherwise I am going to be cranky all day.

Team news:

Cech; Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin, Ramsey; Alexis, Ozil, Cazorla; Giroud

Subs: Ospina, Gabriel, Debuchy, Gibbs, Arteta, Chamberlain, Walcott

Alexis starting already despite only having 20 mins of competitive football, and could be on the right if Cazorla plays LW again. Ox can feel hard done by not getting another start. Giroud up front again over Theo.

Wilshere in for Cazorla and thats our best team[considering Arteta cant play regularly]
just hope we havent rushed Bellerin/Alexis

COYG

Wilshere better than Cazorla.

Dat twilight zone.

That's a good team.

Great response from the last game...let's keep at it

That was just (G) Ruuuuuude !

GIROUDDDDD

SMH
should be up by 3-4 goals
http://www.fourfourtwo.com/statszone/8-2015/matches/803172/team-stats/3/0_SHOT_01#tabs-wrapper-anchor

Rambo doing well in final 3rd though

Arteta ffs.. mini-heartattacks incoming in 3...2...1..

GET IN THEREEEEEEEEEEEEe


Arteta with a fantastic cameo

3 points

unreal cameo captain Arteta xD

hard fought win but I'm happy with our performance, we dominated actually but couldn't get comfortable in the end.

That was a much needed win, needless to say.

I thought we played very well and deserved the win, but also thought we could very fortunate as well. How Coquelin didn't get sent off I've no idea, Wichkam hit the post and they had a couple more chances that could have resulted in goals on another day.

We made plenty of chances ourselves, though. A sharper Alexis scores at least once, and they had to make a ridiculous number of blocks in the box. We worked the ball a lot better than last week; which is no coincidence as the team set-up today was the same as last season's. Amazing, isn't it?

I was disappointed with Koscielny on their goal. A defender should never turn his back in that situation. If he sticks a leg out he blocks the shot. Otherwise the shot was so well hit and placed that Cech had no chance. We defended okay, but we could have done better to prevent less crosses coming into the box and cleared our lines better. Those are habitual problems, though.

Lost a bit of control towards the end. Need to improve on that.

Ozil man of the match for me. 54/55 passes, 5 created chances, 1 assist, 10 completed crosses.

Ozil MOTM with Cazorla a close 2nd. Monreal was great too.


60% possession and 20 shots today. But just 2 goals.

Something to think about.

Hoooly, didn't know Ozil had such a fantastic game statistically, although his presence in the middle of the park was evident.

This game reminded me of last season's game against Palace. Scrappy end with a lot of nerve-wrecking moments but all the more happier with 3 points in the bag.

We can build on this result

Most of those shots were blocked, though we do need to put more our chances away eventually.

Liverpool next Monday.

So what's going on with Walcott then?

Nothing, Wenger just likes Giroud better.

It was a hard won and necessary win, not exactly a champions performance. Cech had a grest response from last weeks disaster.

on Mesut Ozil…
He had a very good performance. He was important getting out from the back, getting out of tight areas. It is a pleasure to watch the quality of his passing and the intelligence of his passing. What I told you is what I want from him more is a few more goals this season. For the rest of the build-up in the game he was magnificent. He works harder than people thinks he does. He is not spectacular in his defending but he wants to do the job, he wants to help the team. What I liked in his game today was he made many runs without the ball behind the defenders, which is a bit new as he likes to come with the ball. Today he mixed up his game better.

on Santi Cazorla…
Cazorla in important the start of the game when the ball comes from our defenders, because he can pass from deep midfield to high midfield better than everybody and get out of pressure. That’s why I positioned him more central. He is not any more a player on the flanks who can overlap and cross the ball.

Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20150816/the-boss-on-victory-alexis-and-ozil#U9HQhZrhzDOTIQDh.99