Comments on: Alkmaar v Arsenal: the complete preview

By: Cape Gooner

Cape Gooner — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 06:39:46 +0000

Walter, can I ask you about another penalty incident in the second half. RvP had the ball to the right of the goal, on the by-line. He went over. The defender had two hands on Robin’s chest. It was impossible to tell from the TV if he was pushed or if he fell. If the defender puts his hands on the attacker, shouldn’t the attacker be given the benefit of the doubt and a penalty be awarded?

By: walter

walter — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:07:22 +0000

Another good thing is the players realised what went wrong and were angry.
I noticed when Vermaelen came in a tv shot on the pitch after the game he looked very angry with himself and the world. We could do some lipreading over here and I must say that the words that came out had his background written all over it.
If it had happened to us in a game we would say the same thing. And in a way it is good that the players looked angry with them selves. They will learn from this and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Let’s hope it anyway.

By: walter

walter — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:24:06 +0000

I’m going to try to forget that I’m an Arsenal fan for a few minutes now.
Well LRV he was looking rather good for some 88 minutes of the game. Yellow card on RVP was correct. But the yellow on Clichy was very light. But then again there was some contact but it was more Clichy trying to jump out of the way but by doing so he held his hand in the back of Dembele but I didn’t even think it was a foul. But from the angle the ref sees it you can understand his decision.

On the penalty… well Vela was clearly past his man who put his leg between the legs of Vela without touching the ball. The defender even hurt himself and I think he untill now still cant believe his luck. In the end it cost us 2 points so he had a decent game but got the most important decision wrong. If he would have given the penalty he would have had an excellent game.
You can always criticise some little faults in the middel of the field but over all I didn’t have the impression he favoured one or the other team. Except the penalty, if he has seen the pictures by now I can tell you he will blow penalty next time around. Well I would be dissapointed with the decision if it was me on the field.

By: Diceman

Diceman — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:07:52 +0000

I know Walter, those pathetic moaning so called supporters always wait for one reason to bash the team. It really is pathetic when they can’t even say one good thing about these lads.

With one game in hand, we re at the exactly the same position as man u and chelsea who we know spent way more than us on players. And Liverpool? With their 18 mil star right back they re doing fine right?

I really think those people who wait for the moment to attack my club do not deserve to celebrate with us when we win something…it’s a 2 way thing to me

By: LRV

LRV — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:21:05 +0000

This draw leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It feels so very much like a loss.

Hello Walter! How do you rate the referee’s performance?

By: walter

walter — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:16:20 +0000

A win in the next home game in the CL would put us through unless the sky falls on our head.
But for now I really could do with some players coming back from injury. For me it is no coincidence that our game wasn’t as fluent as we know it can be because we didn’t have our little Mozart playing.
With his experience and technique he can make a major difference in those games.
But like I said even this week: one game not won and I already have seen one moaner crawling from under his stone to make the usual garbage talk that we are not good enoug, blah, blah, blah. Pathetic…..

By: diceman1984

diceman1984 — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:19:18 +0000

I didn’t think we played well at all, we switched off for the last 15-20 minutes or so and a draw was not an unfair result, but we could and should have won it. I’d trade a draw like this and with a 1-0 win in the league though, we’ll qualify when we win the next 2 home games anyway hopefully without a hitch.

By: walter

walter — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:03:15 +0000

If you look at some other results we didn’t do it that bad. But could have, should have won it. Blatant penalty not given against Vela. Is there since the Eduardo incident an instruction not to give penalty for Arsenal ? But then again we could have scored more in open play but like Robin said a draw away from home is not a bad result in the CL.

By: Tony Attwood

Tony Attwood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:43:23 +0000

Arsenal Reserves draw with AZ 1-1
Arsenal Reserves Reserves draw 2-2 with Wolverhampton

From the Arsenal site about our two returning first teamers…

Both emerged unscathed from their long-awaited comebacks and Nasri even produced a perfect pass to set up the opening goal for Gilles Sunu.

By: Tony Attwood

Tony Attwood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:43:15 +0000

Reserves team tonight

Lukasz Fabianski
*

Kerrea Gilbert
*

Luke Ayling
*

Kyle Bartley (c)
*

Cedric Evina
*

Craig Eastmond
*

Mark Randall
*

Francis Coquelin
*

Samir Nasri
*

Gilles Sunu
*

Sanchez Watt

* Substitutes

Wojciech Szczesny

Daniel Boateng

Emmanuel Frimpong

Rhys Murphy

By: walter

walter — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:41:47 +0000

If you take out the two oldies then this is impressing. No one is older then 20 ?

By: Tony Attwood

Tony Attwood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:12:48 +0000

TONIGHT’S TEAM

Mannone; Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy; Song; Fabregas, Diaby; Eboue, van Persie, Arshavin.
Subs: Almunia, Vela, Ramsey, Silvestre, Wilshere, Gibbs, Merida.

By: Foon

Foon — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:33:08 +0000

I just want to sign the Alex Song before i visit the Mirror article to see what it says. Song is my man at the moment he should have won club’s player of the month of September. His work rate and tactic on defending has blossomed. His ability to change from defence to attack is getting better every game. There isn’t a game that he has not shown a rare skill. He gives confidence to the team. I agree like Makekele. I just hope he does not gain too much weight. Him and Varminator have added something to the team that was not there last term. Watch when Var or Gallas is out of position how Song fills in. Go African boy.

By: Darius Stone

Darius Stone — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:08:24 +0000

LRV.

I will try and get more time to do some analytical posts for my blog. For now, I still enjoy reading others and commenting as and when I can. Thanks for your compliments.

By: Tony Attwood

Tony Attwood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:54:09 +0000

The official line on Rosicky is

Tomas will miss Tuesday’s trip to Alkmaar with a knee injury. However, he is expected to be fit “in a few days” said Arsène Wenger.

Nasri plays tonight for the reserves.

There is an article about Liverpool on the Guardian site today which includes this statement

“There has been a tendency to fritter money away, with Ryan Babel and Andrea Dossena coming in at a combined cost of £18.5m.

To his credit, Dirk Kuyt has shown his worth as a hard-working player on the flanks, but he was supposed to be a regular goalscorer. As it is, the dependence on Torres and Steven Gerrard continues to be inescapable. On occasion, the shallowness of the resources is astonishing.”

Compare that with how we now feel about the depth of squad that Arsenal has with the coming of age of our youngsters. It was only a year ago that we had the endless complaints about our squad – the Lightweight Denilson argument, Song will never make it, Van Persie is too fragile, Bendtner is never going to come good…

And what Wenger has done is bought two players, and the others have matured.

Just imagine where we would be if we had followed the Liverpool route.

By: christianjimmy

christianjimmy — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:39:13 +0000

T00farg0ne I believe Rosicky is injured, (deja vu anyone? Please God not!!) But he should be back soon.
I’d like to see Vela start myself, I must admit to a certain mystification as to the lack of minutes for him and Jack W thus far – but lets face it Lord Wenger knows what he’s doing when it comes to blooding new players. I really think the key Wenger difference is the way players develop under his tutelage, look at the entire match squad and count how many players have made their big strides as players under him… (I make it 14 out of the 18 Phil lists) If the bench really is as Phil predicts then it’ll be a fantastic vindication of AW’s reluctance to spend!

By: LRV

LRV — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:52:20 +0000

Very good piece Phil.

Darius Stone, I have always enjoyed your reasoning in your Arsenal write-ups and your comment up there is absolutely spot-on. You must do a lot more analytical write-ups. You have a knack for it. Very good view expressed excellently.

“Road Map” Alkmaar may yet (inspite of their troubles) give us as stern a test as Olympiakos did, if not sterner. They will be very eager to stem their spiralling misfortune. Despite the possibility of some of our boys being a bit tired and possibly carrying some almost dead legs, we should still be able to put a 2 goal distance between us and them.

By: T00farg0ne

T00farg0ne — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:34:50 +0000

No Rosicky? Not even on the bench?
Also, I think Almunia will start. At present with six points in the bag, three points tonight is much less important than three points on Saturday. Sticking with Vito on Saturday was the safe thing to do. Almunia will be brought back into the eleven at some point and with the Carling cup game soon Vito will probably get a game then so tonight seems a good night to bring back Manuel and if he screws up Vito is back in for West Ham.

By: Phil Gregory

Phil Gregory — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:09:44 +0000

Haho: fair criticism on the Dembele point. My wording isn’t ideal as it gives the impression he is their primary goalscorer, so a fair point from you. I think we can all agree, however, that there will be more goals from the young Belgian this season. Interesting quotes from Koeman – is he trying to heap pressure on RvP?
very much agree with your criticisms of Benitez. I remember during the (I think) summer of 06 he spent a fortune on an array of foreign talent as the academy was lacking, and he is now realising you can’t just buy class. Their depth is dire, and with the upward pressure from City and Tottenham, they are going to have to pull the chequebook out in January for a midfield playmaker.

Darius: agree on your points: we throw more men forward and leave ourselves vulnerable on the counter. This contrasts nicely to say, Chelsea, who don’t commit men as freely (particularly the centrebacks), yet concede easy goals freely anyway (match of the day on saturday night brutally highlighted some of Carvalho’s errors).

Anonynous: I can understand Wenger not wanting to throw Jack into a hostile away tie, but he should definitely get some gametime. With Vela’s expierence from the Mexico team, he can handle the pressure and could well be involved. If I was a betting man however, my money would be on Eboue to start.

By: AnonynousGun

AnonynousGun — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:04:37 +0000

I really hope that either Vela or Jack will get to start tonite for Bendtner.. Eboue can be sub in if needed.

But reality and this season’s history says its gonna be Eboue.