Arsenal Thread

If you had some pace up front you could have really troubled Dante and Martinez with simple clipped throughballs. I would've struck the Ox up there personally
 
I thought we could have tried more attacking wise from the off in the first half.

Second half was better.

It was hard though we did get lucky with the goal, but bayern were getting away with niggly and not so niggly fouls all night which was very frustrating.

I counted 3 challenges from behind that took our players legs out from under them and nothing was given, I think in the space of 5-10mins. So even when we tried/or were getting a bit of possession Bayern were given free reign to stop it and not get punished.

But anyway we got beaten by a great team, but I still wonder what would have happened if in the first leg we were not a man down......like so many other Champs League campaigns!!!

Now we can concentrate on the League ;)) and FA CUP :DD
 
Yeah, the team played as if the first leg wasn't 0-2. Looking at this match out of the bigger context, it was a fair performance against one of the very best teams in the world. But it would never be enough to overturn the deficit from the 1st leg. The damage had been done there and then, but the team never looked to really turn tables on Bayern.
Even when Bayern switched off, our players were too bureaucratic, trying to play it safe with sideways passing instead of being more direct.
Strangely enough, the players that showed more personality were the younger ones: Gnabry dared to actually shoot on goal, and Ox was very impressive too.
And of course Podolski showed some urgency and intensity to his play, which was good to see.

Unfortunately Cazorla, Giroud, Ozil were too pedestrian in their attitude today. Ozil hobbled off the pitch injured by halftime too…

Robben fucking did his thing AGAIN in the end, didn't he? It's getting really old, but refs fall for that too often.
I'm glad Fabianski saved the penalty, even if it doesn't mean anything.
But looking at these events on this match, I can't help but wish that some Arsenal players started "falling" inside the Bayern area too, just to see what happens. Podolski could have done this once or twice.

I know many people have been lauding Pep's Bayern side as even better than last season's, but if I'm honest I have to say they didn't impress me too much. They beat Arsenal in the first leg largely due to Sczcesny's sending off crippling our team. And now in the 2nd leg they weren't that great, with the added bad impression left by a DIVE FEST.
Shame on those fuckers Robben and Martinez.
 
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No, it's the Carling Cup (or what's its name now?) that doesn't mean a thing. The FA cup is the real deal. I think someone forgot to tell it to Pellegrini! :P
 
I didn't expect Bayer to fall down as easy as they did. I'm glad that was over ! Wenger never brought anyone to get into the next round. I hope we take the FACup serious and the league w'd be a bonus.
 
ZeroTheHero said:
The ref in the Bayern v Arsenal in the 2nd leg CL clash was borderline pathetic as well. I'm not talking about the penalty situations, one of which he handled pretty well, but Bayern were over the top rough against Arsenal counter attempts and got off easy in many yellow card situations where Bayern deliberately fouled Arsenal to prevent counter attacks.
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this... spot on ! I still think Bayer were the better team ,but being the better doesn`t mean you should win. I expect City to be robbed by drama antics too.
 
drekkard said:
It's both things: a foul by Cazorla and an exageration of Robben. To me it could even be yellow for both of them.
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This should happen more.
That was also often the case with Bale when he dived. Yes, he did dive, but often there was a foul (same for me with the Chelsea penalty against Spurs, Eto'o dived but there was contact, maybe yellow for both players and penalty would have been appropriate).

Off-topic: what about Bale and diving in Spain ? In England, Bale = diving and not one of the best players of the world.
From what i read about la liga (and almost never can see matches) he's doing very well with Real Madrid. Is he still diving and is he considered anoutrageous diver ?

I bet he isn't...

About yesterday's match: not a bad result against the team that is considered as the best in the world, but that didn't convince me at all over both matches. This Bayern was there for taking and Arsenal couldn't do it. The red card and the penalty in the first match were important, but apart from the the first 20 minutes in the first match, Arsenal were simply not good enough. This team is not good enough to play the QF's of the CL league... Compare Arsenal to Atletico Madrid, for example...

Sometimes Arsenal made me think about Spurs: dire and without imagination...off course this will haunt me if Arsenal win with a brace against Spurs in the weekend (and they certainly will), but this not the same team as before new year...they are grafting out results in the EPL, which is good...but the brilliance is gone most of the time.
 
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gerd said:
Off-topic: what about Bale and diving in Spain ? In England, Bale = diving and not one of the best players of the world.
From what i read about la liga (and almost never can see matches) he's doing very well with Real Madrid. Is he still diving and is he considered anoutrageous diver ?

I bet he isn't...
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He's not diving as much as in the Premie, except the occasional play here and there. But I think we must separate diving from exagerating, which are very different things.

You dive when you want to cheat the referee. I call exageration when the opponent makes a foul and the player exagerates because he's uncertain he will be awarded the foul, or wants to make it seem worse than it is. I would show a yellow anyway in both cases as the player is not being honest, but I can tolerate a bit more exageration, specially in matches where the ref is being absolutely inconsistent and erratic, which happens quite a lot in Spain, unfortunately.

Regarding Bale's performances, he's adding firepower to Real Madrid (as if they lacked any...) but he's still underperforming in terms of play, at least in my oppinion. With less interventions in the play than I would expect from him. Though that's only natural in a team where he's not the leader nor the second best option. It's a similar case to Neymar. Both have good numbers, but still haven't found its perfect place in the tactical plan.

Godotelli said:
I think you have to go some way to be considered an outrageous diver in spain
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That's not really true. First of all, there's a big difference between diving and exagerating. There are true occasional divers, of course, like Di Maria, Ronaldo, Neymar, Pepe and Alves. And there's the players who exagerate fouls because most of the time in Spain you won't get a foul if you don't. It's a viced circle. Refs are quite bad and some players have learnt by experience that. Which is sad and unfortunate, but it's tolerated somehow by fans. But, going back to divers, when they dive it is considered outrageous by everyone... except their fans.

And that's the cultural problem in Spain (and you could extend it to most of the south of Europe): there is practically no critic from your own fans. I've never seen the fans booing a player of their team who dived.

I hate it, and I'm one of the 1% that will curse and boo any player who dives, be it of my team or not. But guess what: other fans often give me bad looks for it.

It's not a surprise, though, it happens the same with politics.

To stay on topic:
I spend some time living just in front of the old Highbury stadium at London in the 90s, that's why Arsenal is one of my favorite teams. That was before Wenger made them play a passing game.

I fell in love with the atmosphere of the fans cheering and booing dishonest behaviors, and I wish more fans in Spain were like those.

But at the same time, violent tackles are badly seen in Spain and people would boo any player who does violent tackles, while this hardly happens in the Premier.

It would be perfect if we could have a middle point, and we could punish the same way dishonest behavior be it by violence (excessive aggressiveness in my oppinion is the start of violence) or by cheating, be it diving or exagerating.
 
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Godotelli said:
I think you have to go some way to be considered an outrageous diver in spain
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Exactly! In England you will get the replay over a 100x. In Spain it's not just the dive , but how convincingly you make it look. I watch a lot of la Liga matches even saw Malaga on Monday night. Bale doesn't need to dive as he did w/ Spurs ,he surround by a much better squad.


Edit: I just read Drekkard's post I agreed with his views too! Diving is bad , but taking the piss is worse.
 
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It comes down to the age old 'myth' that contact = foul.

Was Robben touched? Absolutely. Does having your back left calf touched cause your right foot to violently kick off the ground? Absolutely not.

Defenders are allowed to touch attackers. Attackers almost universally reach out and arm and 'push off' defenders. It's supposed to be a physical sport. Watch any corner.

But players like Robben seem to genuinely believe that any contact on any limb justifies them throwing themselves to ground. Imagine if defenders played like that? Anytime an attacker backed into them, they just flopped over. It'd be a joke.

Go watch Maradonna or Georgie Best. Those guys would ride challenges. Part of the beauty was their ability to take what defenders dished out, and keep going to score.

Nowadays 'flair' players prefer to go to ground than to try and keep going.
 
Also last night demonstrated that Pep has a very effective dark side. Bayern exhibited alot of the 'dark arts' that helped Barcelona so much during their peak.

If you watch the way Barca/Bayern press - if they fail to close down immediately, they almost always cynically foul a player. It's how they're able to maintain such a high line, but give themselves time to retreat if their pressing fails. But for some reason, referees almost never card them, so they're able to basically defend by fouling on the halfway line. It happened every time Arsenal tried to counter last night, a Bayern player attempted to kick their legs out. Every single time. When United played Barca in the two finals, we obviously got pwned. But anytime we tried to break, 'nice guy' players like Iniesta or Messi would just lightly knock out our ankles. Concede a free kick in a non-dangerous place, kick the ball away and then retreat into defensive shape.

Of course if you do the same to a Pep coached player, he goes down like Martinez/Busquets/Alves/Robben/Ribery, rolling, crying, flamboyantly gesturing to the ref about how his life is coming to an early end. And you know what? It works.
 
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