Stoke vs Arsenal

thanks god for Cech

AW settling for the point. Great.

Cech motm lol

blow the damn whistle.

cant watch this shite more

Elneny better be god combo of Zidane & makelele cause otherwise we're pooped

we were missing 3 of our best players tbf

If Elneny is half of Viera, we'll walk the league this year.

But you know, that's when he'll bust his knee and spend 12 months out injured, attending language courses and pub crawling with Wilshere.

RealGunner wrote:we were missing 3 of our best players tbf

Alibi.

What's the point of having a deep squad if the guys can't step it up? And these guys are not coming out of the wilderness - this is 3 weeks of crap performances now.

Meh, back on top of the league.

Thought we defended really well throughout the game, but missed key players in attack. No Cazorla, Ozil or Alexis - no surprise the attack looked stunted. Even then, Giroud had two good chances that needed two good saves to keep out

Don't think this is as bad as being made out based on that. Yes, we should win these games, but tbh if we don't win the league I'm not going to look back at this game and think "yeah, that's where we messed up".

Chelsea at home next is another huge game despite their form. Fingers crossed we'll have Ozil and Alexis back for that one.

srigooner wrote:

RealGunner wrote:we were missing 3 of our best players tbf

Alibi.

What's the point of having a deep squad if the guys can't step it up? And these guys are not coming out of the wilderness - this is 3 weeks of crap performances now.

Doesn't matter how much depth you have, you're going to struggle to replace the creativity of players like Cazorla and Ozil. Losing those two fundamentally changes how the team plays.

Not a bad result as long as we win next 2 games at home

still top

more worried about wenger lying about player's fitness tbh

GoonerJay29 wrote:

srigooner wrote:

RealGunner wrote:we were missing 3 of our best players tbf

Alibi.

What's the point of having a deep squad if the guys can't step it up? And these guys are not coming out of the wilderness - this is 3 weeks of crap performances now.

Doesn't matter how much depth you have, you're going to struggle to replace the creativity of players like Cazorla and Ozil. Losing those two fundamentally changes how the team plays.

I don't buy into that argument at all. Players like Theo and Ox need to be doing much better. They're the squad players. Of course they are not going to replicate the magic of Santi, Mesut and Alexis - that would be unrealistic to ask for. However, if they can't even make straight forward decisions in the final third, then their place in the squad needs to be reevaluated.

Flamini and Ramsey - playing together for weeks. Still can't address the same issues of Ramsey leaving Flamini alone to mind shop. A good squad knows the relative strengths and weaknesses of the individuals and strives to play together to work around them, or at least paper over the cracks. That's clearly not the case with our midfield, even though these two have had the baton for a couple of months since Santi/Coquelin got knackered.

And then, with Mesut injured (pretty sure its correlated to him being overplayed), we decide to switch to a 433 with Ox and Ramsey both ahead of Flamini.

Of course there will be insane amounts of space for the oppositions to knock the ball around in.

Watching Theo, Ox and Ramsey failing some of the most basic things is what frustrating me. Close control, decision making and when to pass the damn ball, all happened too many times for me. I'm pretty sure Wenger did not instruct all attacking players to overlap with Bellerin as our main threat in 2nd half, that kinda shown how stuck we're really were & how Theo lost every damn ball when players decided to pass to him.

Flamini & Joel did fine so I would say we only missing Ozil for the most part.

Looking at the team we had out there today, I am not surprised that we struggled to create to be honest. The players we had out there, are more suited to playing on the transition or the counter attack. The only creative moment i can remember from open play was Joel, playing Giroud on apart from that. Nothing from open play, having No Ozil in the team today didn't help either. We are already suffering in midfield without Santi and Coquelin, taking Ozil out is just a step too far.

I am less disappointed about this result than the Liverpool one.   Top teams rarely go to Stoke and breeze past them. When you play them it's a scrap not a game of football. Last year we were 3 goals down in less than 10 mins, we fought well and dealt with there physical approach. It's the lack of creativity going forward that hurt us more than anything. The Chelsea game looks like a must win now after these two draws. I really hope Ozil and Alexis are fit for that one.

Been a huge critic of Giroud but man i love his fight this season. Was closing down all match today and against Liverpool. Fighting for everything.

Hope he keeps this up all season and shut me up.

Im not too annoyed that we had a draw. Against a stoke side who have come away with points from city pool and chelski.

Cech brillant again. Dont know how to address ox and walcott. Maybe they need to go to footballing class and watch videos of past arsenal teams and see how they played. I swear these two have no clue what to do anymore. And have forgotten the basics even.

Had to miss the match - sounds like the end result was disappointing but not dire, given the circumstances?

Is it worth catching up with the match later, knowing the score?

nah wouldnt say so. Not a memorable match. Showed our gritty side more and barely any flair