i'd love a panic buy spree in january.

he better be, i got him as captain in my FPL.

kanu scores.

so what, will this be another 3-2 for man utd?

meanwhile, man utd is just one more goal away from their 3-2

edit: HAH. well. it's the other way round now.

This post has been edited by Thumpy Ick: Dec 2 2012, 01:54 AM

lol, someone said earlier that when gerv's our ST we played a lot of crosses and when giroud is introduced, we'll start playing passing again. how true is that. i'm not sure myself what went wrong in that game, walcott plays against a young LB, should be able to bully him and put in crosses for giroud to attack.

i cant remember anything from yesterday's match, except santi's occasional potshots. i guess this is our usual december depression.

i'm not taking this seriously anymore, not good for my health.

to their credit, angel rangel is a more than decent fullback. i expected him to cause some problems esp with podolski's stinking form at defending and attacking. but on the right, i FULLY EXPECTED walcott to terrorize the young LB. i am downright confused as to why we didnt see the walcott/giroud combination that has worked wonders for us for the past weeks.

this is the first time since the first mention of it that i am having the slightest thought of replacing wenger. have always been behind him 100%, even when we drew aston villa last week. but this loss to swansea snapped something in me.

i still support him tho. like 99.9%. i like the things he brought to Arsenal, the brilliant transfer moves that brought us henry, rvp, fabregas, pires, ljungberg, and santi cazorla. the way he shrewdly navigates the club in a difficult economical situation.

we have good players, but i think they are over played. i dont think swansea had a bully in their MID, as far as i remember their biggest mid is ki sungyong, but why did we got overrun? we lack quality depth. filler ins such as ramsey and gervinho sometimes are more liability than assets. wenger might be able to remedy the situation if given time and money, and he's running out of time. a big transfer in the winter might buy him some time, as he can run the 'new players need time to gel' excuse again.

we actually dread seeing our backup players. having andre santos on the left feels like playing against cristiano ronaldo.

eventho it was not classy, i liked our style of play a few weeks back when we were doing walcott cross - giroud header. it was direct and effective. it gave us purpose when we attack, so instead of moving the ball endlessly in the center, we focus on walcott and once he gets to the byline he crosses to giroud and he heads. it gave us urgency, it was time efficient, it was straightforward. it's not classy, but it's necessary. especially looking at the stale state of the team's passing. plus, goals tend to open up the game, the opponent will look to attack and leave holes at the back. that's when we utilize passing and counter attacking.

we play a west brom side who's losing momentum at home next. west brom is not that good away, but we're not good at home either. should be a good enough platform to get us 3 points. i dont even want to say "get our season running again", cuz the last time we said that it was after the spurs victory, and look what happened after that.

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Added on December 3, 2012, 7:26 amand i hope wenger sees that there's no point fielding a strong squad in the ECL just to get 1st place, with so many strong 2nd place teams in other groups. i'd just field an experimental squad with rosicky chamberlain arshavin ramsey and possibly chamakh just for the heck of it. and play 442. i dont even want to see arteta santi walcott giroud podolski on the bench, let them sleep the whole day off.

This post has been edited by Thumpy Ick: Dec 3 2012, 07:26 AM

i wonder if the Special One could cope with the nonchalant board and limited transfer funding. might be a challenge for him, if he thinks he's special enough to do it. on the other hand, arsene might get a culture shock with the sudden availability of transfer funds.

i wonder if arsene wenger gives his players the dryer treatment during half time? i saw alex ferguson on the post match interview after the chaotic 3-4 win over reading, and he still looked super pissed off. even i got scared at his facial expression, and i wasnt even a man utd player. i think rafael knows what's coming when he got subbed off, that's why he cried in advance lolol

where would frolaini play? in santi's position? in wilshere's? or even arteta's?

heck if he's coming i'd give him even giroud's position. i heard he's an arsenal fan and has a hatred towards manchester. we could certainly use someone like that.

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Added on December 3, 2012, 7:43 pmto answer my own question earlier:



This post has been edited by Thumpy Ick: Dec 3 2012, 07:43 PM

whoops. here ya go

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/new...d-raged-1470107

looks like i'm not the only who had something 'snapped' in me after the swansea loss

This post has been edited by Thumpy Ick: Dec 3 2012, 07:55 PM

wenger's siding on the players like santi and lukas saying they've been overplayed, while steve is demanding focused training to revitalize the season. very interesting proceedings in the club at the moment. all this, and i've heard not a single thing from the board.

good thing is wenger's going to field a second string team for the CL game. and it remains to be seen how the bouldryer is going to affect the team. hopefully the players take it positively.

i guess podolski's never gonna play in the center is he? even when giroud's out wenger opts for gervinho in the center. i think it's a waste, podolski is an apt finisher. plus he has an explosive left foot which we all know. we havent seen that explosion yet this season, and i think it's downright wasteful. the guy even scored a freekick from range against southampton. i guess wenger's reluctant to let arshavin or gervinho to play on the left, that's why he keeps playing podolski on the left.

what's the deal with arshavin? does wenger not believe in the russian anymore? he didnt even make the bench last time. i am thinking of having an arsha/giroud/walcott attack trio against west brom, cuz you know, our main attack now comes from crossing and arsha/theo are the best crossers we have. if that fails podolski can come on in and do a dzeko

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Added on December 4, 2012, 12:47 pmlooks like we're also linked with strootman, the kid linked with man utd. i think he's gonna go to man utd nevertheless, but i think he's interesting. offers a short pass option, then suddenly launches a long ball towards the forwards. reminds me of xabi alonso. tho i think we need someone like a yaya toure more.

This post has been edited by Thumpy Ick: Dec 4 2012, 12:47 PM

parts of the press conference's transcript can be found here
http://www.sportinglife.com/football/news/...isis-at-arsenal

it's all good. didnt expect a win with second stringers anyway. the most important thing is the main guys are getting enough rest

"WBA is a good team, you see how high they are in the league right now, they even beat Chelsea, Shane Long is a very good striker, we tried to sign him a few years back but we have bendtner so i dont want to cut off the youngster's development, but hey guess what we're in the CL second round, even the league champions man city is not in it, and last year's CL champions chelsea is in big danger of not qualifying, so we are not in crisis, we even have a new signing in tomas rosicky!"

i am kidding of course, but i am definitely kidding myself if i say i dont mean half of that.

on the subject of WBA, they're flying high but their wings are getting tired. it's about time we gun them down.

malaga would be an interesting opposition.

^ kind of true. but that's the beauty of cup competitions. miracles happen.

nevertheless, i'd rather we lose out early and focus on the EPL so that we can get in the CL again next year, rather than lose to barcelona in the final and finishing below spurs in the league, which would also mean no CL next year.

because even with the terrible state that we're in, new players will want to come here to get a taste of champions league. if we dont have that we dont have lots of attractions for new players to come in, aside from getting to play under arsene wenger. he's effectively the only legend in the club now. man utd has sir alex, rvp, rooney, giggs and scholes as theirs. while chelsea and man city have legendary payroll.

i'd wait for a quote from either side before i believe that. but is 8 years not enough to convince him to do things differently?

mind boggling stats to say the least.

i'd probably say, each respective teams had at least one player carrying them. man utd had rvp to bail them out of losing positions, chelsea had hazard/torres early in the season, then mata started taking the lead. for the past few weeks none of them turned up. man city had tevez carry them, and dzeko chips in for a few supersub appearances.

santi and podolski carried us early in the season, then got tired. giroud and walcott then appeared for a few games, but are now fading too.

i believe those two are starting in the game. as always