r u blind or what? yesterday is attracting as usual with short n sleek passes. r u sure u watched arsenal game yesterday?

if you had watched the whole match you will notice almost all the player's passes are identical the whole match until vela comes on and Le Boss change the game plan a bit. it was boring until towards the end when arsenal starts attacking with style.

on another note i am surprised to see nasri playing deeper in the central midfielder role, with denilson even ahead of him... i thought should be the opposite?

OMG Possession Arsenal 77% - 24% Bolton

I can't even achieve anything close to that in computer games.

Muamba is disgracing himself and the Arsenal youth academy by playing for Gary Megson.

This post has been edited by BaboonZ: Jan 11 2009, 10:31 AM

lol , i did indeed watched the arsenal game.

but compared to last season and the season before this season the passing seem abit off..

and also losing ball quite often in the first half. So in conclusion the first half was rather boring.

for me only i guess... dun get me wrong though , i still support them =)

the game was quite boring really... very frustrating... sideways passing is not a fun thing to see at all...esp as we're passing without any threat at all.. bolton were so happy to let us keep the ball.. since we're not going to do anything with it anyways... not as if we're gonna attack... look we're driving forward!! .... then they pass back... oh sideways... then back to the defense.. then sideways... then... repeat... that sort of passing would "pass you to death" but in a different kind of way i must admit this time =P

Even as a fan (as biase as i am im not blind =P ) i would admit that this season we're not as exciting or playing the kind of free flowing football that we have been playing with swagger for 3 quarters of last season. (although not entirely bad as we do play some brilliant football in patches) I think we can all see in the players and the whole atmosphere around the club is one of "toiling" . We're not enjoying our football as much anymore.. last season we really enjoyed it, the players enjoyed it. This season came in patchesl. But it's ok, i think for the future of the club and its values/philosophy we need results now first and foremost - to ensure (CL placing, money, players , ambition bla bla bla) so we can see more of the beautiful game. We are spoiled by the brilliant football. And as a fan, i'll faithfully wait till i see the wonderful football again, thinking of the much older fans who lived to see the 1-0 to the arsenal classics. AW being stubborn as he is.. will want to see this out.. winning trophies in brilliant style, in an record breaking/unimaginable fashion. It may sound crazy... but it has been done... cue 49 invincibles! And now , his ambition is to win with kids in a climate of 30mil pound signings. he wants to build a squad less than 30mil pounds and take on the big guns. Although his project may be doomed to failure .. i still believe this man is still the right man to bring success and brilliant football together at this club.

As bad as we are.. least we're not hoofing it all the time.. like a certain merseyside club who did that all game when they came to emirates.. i was there.. and it was that bad.. might as well field 3 players.. defender, striker, keeper.. even if we were quite dour ourselves, that was just... ugh... "classic english route 1? " =/ .. give me triangles any day pls =P (triangles = the passing that is..)

This post has been edited by chronic_blade: Jan 11 2009, 11:32 AM

exactly what i meant over there! at least someone who is actually watching the match!

we were keeping the ball , yes. But we are not making anything out of it! jussi was tested a maximum 2 times in the first half? how frustrating was that? apart from that glichy's try from outside the box. Our main threat is only rvp with adebayor not in the box most of the time due to his free role duties..

i just curious, Nasri playing better in the middle. He is playmaker..

yea, put diaby back to left wing is also an option to be considered? =/

sell diaby.. get Nzogbia... then we'll have :-

Nzogbia/Vela-Denilson-Nasri-Bendtner/Nzogbia midfield for the moment...

i think that's one hell of a pacey midfield!

good stuffs yesterday. After the goal, the team didn't let up. everybody was back defending and occasional attacks.

Nasri was playing Cesc's role. Even with Cesc-Denilson partnership, Cesc always come deep to distribute ball...
Last night, Diaby was the weakest performer...
Toure slightly improved after 1st half.
Bendtner always is our super-sub but can't perform well with starting role.

feck,after the goal...bolton almost equalize in an instant

Arsenal are poised to increase their bid for Andrei Arshavin to £12million after Zenit St Petersburg rejected their initial £10m offer.

i think there's still something in diaby.. i still like him you know.. i hope wenger keeps him. dun give up on him just yet. we all and even wenger has not seen the best of diaby yet.

his individual skill is good but his passing is not good enough, can't read game well.

Robin's slowly getting his form back, but we need him to put away those chances. I've always maintained the opinion that Robin offers us something that other players don't, and that is his unique style of play. He's nowhere like Titi who drifts on the sidelines and feeds on through passes and blitzkrieg, he's not like Ade who runs into spaces with his physique and pace, he's not like Dennis who uses his vision and passing to split defences open (despite his reputation as Dennis' successor). In fact I can't put a word on how he plays - previously I've always thought of him as a player who's best at cutting in from the right and smashing the ball with his left, but now that he's improved his chocolate leg he's even more unpredictable.

I still think Robin would benefit from having a regular partner along his side despite the notion (or misconception) that he doesn't play with other strikers. With Ade out of form, the easy way out would be to field Vela while waiting for Dudu to be fully fit. My gut feeling says that Dudu would be a perfect foil for Robin, and Vela seems to be a miniature version of our Croazillian for now. Nicky's still best used as an impact sub hehe...

Triangles FTW !! When Tommy was fit, the Hleb-Fabs-Tommy triangle was superb. And I don't need to remind everyone about Cashley-Bobby-Thierry.

The square passing is indeed boring and unpenetrative, but when teams don't even want to come for the ball and rather sit in front of their goal it's really hard to pass anywhere else. Teams will still be using this negative tactics against us, and we have to figure a way out to break them down.

Like you I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to revive Wengerball soon. We have the personnel with great technical abilities, it's just that our lads can't seem to reproduce it on a regular basis.

I'm not going to say too much about the "merseyside" club... boring they might be at times, but there's a reason why they are on the summit for now and I don't think anyone can say they don't deserve it.

Still unconvinced about N'Zogbia as we've got Traore coming back at the end of the season.

If Arshavin comes then it's likely he'll take LW with Nasri taking the centre stage for the remaining of the season. I did mention about the possibility of having Nasri on the LW with Arshavin taking the AM position, but Nas seems to be more dangerous with a free role and with Arshavin's immediate efficacy not guaranteed, the first option might be more feasible.

Fingers crossed for the Arshavin deal... it'll be a mental boost for the team as the youngsters will have someone experienced to learn from with having competition for the spots, while the opponents will have something to be cautious of due to the Russian's reputation.

individual skill = potential

as long as he has the potential i believe he can fix the rest...

Nice win against Bolton "Park Bus" Wanderers!

Anyway, since I'm so into transfers, I thought you guys might be interested in this piece of news.

Gunning for Battaglia

Ok, no quotes whatsoever, but the price and his achievement (just only voted as Boca Juniors' Player of the Year in December 2008) might be something Wenger might consider. However, the downside of Battaglia's only European experience was that he was at Villarreal for a while and flopped.

It is known that Battaglia is a hardman defensive midfielder (I haven't really seen him play so all information are based on websites and opinions from other people), which is just in the correct range of age. Therefore he's clearly an experienced player and could help our young DMs too.

if he fail at Villarreal when he was younger, how will he be better at EPL and older...?

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Added on January 11, 2009, 1:30 pmhe is good when we thrashed derby.c like 6-0 or 5-0 last time...
im sure many of us have seen enough of him frankly

This post has been edited by Meis: Jan 11 2009, 01:30 PM

henry was a flop for juve , look at his record after he came to epl =)

Well, La Liga is very technical. It's very different from EPL. Some La Liga players won't be able to fit into EPL and some EPL players won't be able to fit into La Liga. It's a matter of adaptability though. Remember, Forlan was a flop at Man Utd but he flourished in La Liga. So Battaglia might come good in EPL if he can adapt.