Re: Chelsea vs Arsenal 2015/16 PL (Preview/Live Thread)

[EL Patron]

Mike Dean

How is Costa still on the pitch

[Twoism]

Costa is the most disgusting player on the planet, a *bleep* disgrace

[EL Patron]

Shocking refereeing, thats the game done

[urbaNRoots]

I wouldn't mind if Mike Dean was shot dead in the tunnel.

[Peccadillo]

DEPORT COSTA. SEND DEAN TO BELIZE.

[RealGunner]

Won't mind UK revising the immigration law to keep absolute twats like Costa out.

[Raptorgunner]

*bleep* disgraceful, I cant believe our luck and this stupid donkey Mike Dean.

[Raptorgunner]

Where is Ozil?

[Twoism]

Nah the game is as good as gone, we're unlucky. Chelsea didnt cover themselves in glory either. It's a shame because I dont think we played that bad til red card. I'm more worried by Coq injury.

[mani88]

The result would have been so different if we have played to their wweakness. Could have easily showed costa the door had we sledged him abit. Like what ox did just before he was substituted.

[RealGunner]

Well, we aren't a club that dives and con referees. Koscielny could have started rolling on the floor after Costa pushed him down, or when he tried to claw his face twice. But didn't.


Can't blame the team today or the manager.

[Peccadillo]

nope. end of the day we've lost away to chelsea. Hopefully Mert comes back asap though as we'll be relying on chambers for a tricky away match at Leicester.

The fact Chelsea had to rely on scum tactics to get the upper hand speaks volumes for how they look on us this season. Really want to get one up on them this season.

[urbaNRoots]

So unlucky today, referee didn't want us to get anything in this game so we might aswell let it slide.

Well done to the team and Wenger, we were playing well until Dean decided the winner.

[mani88]

The way we conceded the first goal is I think the third or fourth time we have conceded in similar fashion this season and 535906538904168th time since I am following arsenal.

[Emaharg]

Not much to say Chelsea got away with robbery.

We are really struggling for goals wouldn't mind seeing a front two at some point of Giroud and Walcott.

[VendettaRed07]

Humilated against a rival once again. There is no joy in watching Arsenal play big matches anymore. They do nothing but disappoint.

[RealGunner]

Thought Walcott looked good upfront. Need to keep him there for now.

Sanchez gave one of the worst performances i've ever seen. Amount of times he lost the ball or had a bad touch or made the wrong decision


Coquelin was a beast till he got injured.

And Wilshere can't come back soon enough. Cazorla needs to be benched.

[EL Patron]

thats the problem at the moment, we have depth but the players challenging for a first team spot are not as good as the one starting. Santi has a poor game, there is no one to replace him to be honest. He is our best CM, likewise with the likes of Sanchez and Coquelin.

[Sina]

typical Alexis big game away performance tbf
but even 11 vs 11 we werent that good and dont have the bottle for decisive moments in big games

not even bothered with ref or at least pretending to!
more bothered that we rotated mid week
winning one would have been better than winning none after all!

[RealGunner]

Santi has been giving deceptive performances. When we really need our CM to perform, he never does. He isn't a CM and trying to make a LAM/CAM into a CM who is tactically naive isn't going to work.

[Sina]

Santi has been giving deceptive performances. When we really need our CM to perform, he never does. He isn't a CM and trying to make a LAM/CAM into a CM who is tactically naive isn't going to work.

thank you RG
THIS is what i have been saying even in that run of results last season
but Coquelin-Ramsey isnt ideal either and Arteta cant be relied upon
Wengers fault leaving us short
no one can defend him any more

[Jay29]

This is another hard game to appraise due to the red cards. I thought, up until the first red, the game was even. Chelsea were having a good spell but we were defending well and carried some threat going forward. Then came that whole farce with the Gabriel red and from then on things were obviously going to be much harder.

Firstly, Gabriel's red: two yellow card offences in a short space of time. He shouldn't have let himself get so riled up by Costa. Regardless of how harmless his little kick out was, you don't do yourself any favours by acting in that way. My biggest gripe, though, is how Costa stayed on the pitch. You can count the number of offences that deserved at least yellow cards - waving the imaginary card, putting his hands in Koscielny's face, squaring up to Koscielny, dissent shown to the ref, the kick out at Chamberlain... it's a total joke he didn't get a red. 10v10 we have a chance. 11v10 you still have a chance but it's more difficult.

Now, onto our own performance. It's one thing to concede in open play with 10 men, but to concede from a set-piece is inexcusable. The organisation on that set-piece was poor; Koscielny is too deep and playing everyone onside. We needed to give ourselves as best a chance of getting something out of the game but poor defending like that destroyed whatever hopes we had left. And from that point we just didn't know what to do - do we focus entirely on defending? do we go for it? We had some opportunities but again, decreased our own chances with poor set-pieces deliveries and giving the ball away. Alexis was terrible in that regard. Ozil, Ramsey and Cazorla were poor as well. Our four best players were poor.

I don't think there was much Wenger could do, but I do think he should have subbed Cazorla off. Not only he was playing poorly, he was clearly tiring after 60 minutes, could barely keep up with Chelsea's players and had a yellow card. His second yellow was stupid, but then he shouldn't have been on the pitch anyway.

We have one of those periods coming up where the character and quality of this squad will be really tested. Spurs in mid-week in the cup without Cazorla or Gabriel, Leicester away in the league after that, Champions League after, Man Utd at home after that. That's not the sort of run you want to be going into with suspensions, injuries and players not playing well. Then again Arsenal always do that.

[RealGunner]

Agreed on the Cazorla bit.

Last paragraph worries me greatly. Chambers-Koscielny is going to be our CB partnerhsip. Debuchy maybe at RB. Coquelin's injury is massive. Arteta/Flamini will be Zagreb all over again.

[Twoism]

Agreed on the Cazorla bit.

Last paragraph worries me greatly. Chambers-Koscielny is going to be our CB partnerhsip. Debuchy maybe at RB. Coquelin's injury is massive. Arteta/Flamini will be Zagreb all over again.

And Wengers and some fans think our squad depth is decent. We have numbers but quality massively drops. I'm a lot more worried by any injury at this point, Le Coq is obvious but despite playing badly believe me if Santi somehow get injured, our midfield will look much much worse.

[EL Patron]

How serious is Coquelin's injury ?

Mert should be back for the league cup so we will be alright on that front. The thing that worries me about Santi is that teams have figured out that he is the best passer of the ball. They know that he sets the tempo of the game in midfield. If he has bad game then going forward the entire team suffers. So they tend to man mark him or target him with an aggressive press like Liverpool did. Chelsea did the same today.

if Jack was fit then we could maybe rotate a little, we could maybe go back to a 4-1-4-1 but Ox is shit at the moment and every time Ramsey plays midfield he sees himself as a striker or something. So we will probably have to hope Santi rediscovers his form because our midfield is very reliant on him.

[Jay29]

I think the initial assessment is that it's a "minor knee injury". Of course, a minor injury for us tends to snowball into a two year lay-off so yeah.

Santi's problem, for me, is that he lacks the athleticism to play CM in a double pivot. He can't cover the ground as well as Coquelin or Ramsey or even Wilshere. So if you mark him out the game or cut off his passing channels he becomes a passenger.

It's not a simple case of taking him out the team, though, because our other CM's don't have his discipline. As pointed out, Ramsey goes forward too much and at wrong times, and I'm not sure we can trust Wilshere or Ox with that role.

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