Premier League 21-23 November 2015

Honestly Wenger #facepalm

Injuries are killing us again, no surprise there. But when Wenger chose not to buy and go in with so many crocks I have no sympathy for him. If Ozil goes down then we're really in deep trouble.

What a great fans wham have. When you think about it, isis must hate West Ham United, i mean those 3 words alone is enough to hate them.

Great fans though, best in London for sure.

Romford Pele wrote:Honestly Wenger #facepalm

Injuries are killing us again, no surprise there. But when Wenger chose not to buy and go in with so many crocks I have no sympathy for him. If Ozil goes down then we're really in deep trouble.

Classic Arsenal really - season unraveling only for you to win your last 8 to finish 3rd/4th and maybe win the FA Cup?

I have no idea how this season is going to pan out now.

Realistically there can be 3 title winners - City, Arsenal or United.

City should be walking it with the money they have spent. Injuries isn't really an excuse. Their defence is a disgrace.

Arsenal haven't got the bottle or squad to win it IMO.

United could win it purely through their defence. If they aren't conceding then they're always likely to get at least one goal. If they invest in strikers in January they have a chance.

Then the CL places are between Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool, Southampton and Everton.

I'm tempted to throw Leicester in there but all reason and logic suggests they can't keep it up.

Spurs probably have the best chance - settled squad and manager - firepower, good keeper.

Chelsea need to put a run of 5 or 6 wins together now to get back in it but they have the squad to be able to do it.

We need to get our consistency going - we can't win away at Chelsea and City then be losing at home to Palace and Swansea. We have to win our next 3 league games to prove we can be up there.

Southampton and Everton will fall short IMO.

Isco Benny wrote:The media spotlight will be on the usual suspects (Kane for his goal scoring, Alli as the young English hope, Alderwiereld for plugging our leaky defence), but for me the real standout player at Spurs right now is Mousa Dembele. Finally seems to have come through physically from the hip issue and subsequent operation beginning of last season, is now consistently playing the best football of his career. He and Dier are dominating midfields together enabling Alli to link up with Kane and Eriksen to great effect. Fabulous footballer, can beat a man with a simple drop of the shoulder with such ease. up to now just hasn't had much consistency. If he can stay fit and maintain this form, not many midfields are going to wrestle control against us.

You did not just say this, did you. Cant believe it flew over me. On paper it ticks all the boxes, but in reality its subpar at best. I can name a few EPL teams alone.

As for Dier, great name btw, he is also average at best, but I can understand why you love it.

After Bale you wanted something British again to love, so you went for Dier, lived abroad for a long time, yet speaks the same language. But for the rest of the world he is just not good enough.

Basically Bale is like your sister, you grew up with something so flawless, especially for British standards, and Dier is like your American woman, I know you love it, but its not in the same league as Bale and your sister.

Having a hot sister and supporting Spurs, I dont envy you one bit my friend.

Mazzel!

Fey wrote:

Isco Benny wrote:The media spotlight will be on the usual suspects (Kane for his goal scoring, Alli as the young English hope, Alderwiereld for plugging our leaky defence), but for me the real standout player at Spurs right now is Mousa Dembele. Finally seems to have come through physically from the hip issue and subsequent operation beginning of last season, is now consistently playing the best football of his career. He and Dier are dominating midfields together enabling Alli to link up with Kane and Eriksen to great effect. Fabulous footballer, can beat a man with a simple drop of the shoulder with such ease. up to now just hasn't had much consistency. If he can stay fit and maintain this form, not many midfields are going to wrestle control against us.

You did not just say this, did you. Cant believe it flew over me. On paper it ticks all the boxes, but in reality its subpar at best. I can name a few EPL teams alone.

As for Dier, great name btw, he is also average at best, but I can understand why you love it.

After Bale you wanted something British again to love, so you went for Dier, lived abroad for a long time, yet speaks the same language. But for the rest of the world he is just not good enough.

Basically Bale is like your sister, you grew up with something so flawless, especially for British standards, and Dier is like your American woman, I know you love it, but its not in the same league as Bale and your sister.

Having a hot sister and supporting Spurs, I dont envy you one bit my friend.

Mazzel!

I'm not sure what's so strange about that statement.

Aside from a 20 minute spell against Liverpool, 25 minute period against City (both at the start of those games) and 10 minute period at the end of the game against Arsenal, no opposition team this season has over-run us in midfield, something that happened to us frequently last year. Dembele, Dier and Alli have been as good a unit as there has been this year in the PL. Not that I'd expect you to have noticed given the likelihood of you actually bothering to watch more than the few occasional highlights or scores on teletext is pretty low

Incidentally, Dier was raised and schooled in the Portuguese footballing system and highly regarded at Sporting Lisbon, a club not entirely unfamiliar with bright young prospects.

Thus literally everything you've said about him being English etc etc is just pure unadulterated, typical Fey bollocks.

Incidentally, speaking of average players, let's see how Jordie Clasie's career at Southampton pans out before you adopt the tired old Puro-esque line about British players being overrated shall we

Luis wrote:

Romford Pele wrote:Honestly Wenger #facepalm

Injuries are killing us again, no surprise there. But when Wenger chose not to buy and go in with so many crocks I have no sympathy for him. If Ozil goes down then we're really in deep trouble.

Classic Arsenal really - season unraveling only for you to win your last 8 to finish 3rd/4th and maybe win the FA Cup?

I have no idea how this season is going to pan out now.

Realistically there can be 3 title winners - City, Arsenal or United.

City should be walking it with the money they have spent. Injuries isn't really an excuse. Their defence is a disgrace.

Arsenal haven't got the bottle or squad to win it IMO.

United could win it purely through their defence. If they aren't conceding then they're always likely to get at least one goal. If they invest in strikers in January they have a chance.

Then the CL places are between Spurs, Chelsea, Liverpool, Southampton and Everton.

I'm tempted to throw Leicester in there but all reason and logic suggests they can't keep it up.

Spurs probably have the best chance - settled squad and manager - firepower, good keeper.

Chelsea need to put a run of 5 or 6 wins together now to get back in it but they have the squad to be able to do it.

We need to get our consistency going - we can't win away at Chelsea and City then be losing at home to Palace and Swansea. We have to win our next 3 league games to prove we can be up there.

Southampton and Everton will fall short IMO.

Heard someone on the radio saying if you combined Spurs' defence and Liverpool's attack you'd probably have a team capable of challenging for the league.

Maybe, maybe not, but seemed an interesting observation.

There are clear similarities in the way Liverpool and Spurs play - both high intensity, utilizing youthful energy. Does raise the question of whether both clubs will endure burn out quicker than those sides who have not adopted such a frenzied pressing approach. Personally believe Liverpool have a deeper squad than we do and so whilst not as settled currently, I do think they will cope better with the rigours across the season. That's the difference between spending 100+ million and 30 million in the summer.

Everton without Europa are also dark horses for that 4th spot, absolutely no doubt.

Isco Benny wrote:

There are clear similarities in the way Liverpool and Spurs play - both high intensity, utilizing youthful energy. Does raise the question of whether both clubs will endure burn out quicker than those sides who have not adopted such a frenzied pressing approach. Personally believe Liverpool have a deeper squad than we do and so whilst not as settled currently, I do think they will cope better with the rigours across the season. That's the difference between spending 100+ million and 30 million in the summer.

Maybe it's true, but on the other side Spurs players and Pochettino had a full preseason (2nd in row with the same manager) for this kind of style and Liverpool didn't. Klopp demands higher intensity than Rodgers, but are players able to keep energy level for the rest of the season? Lack of winter break and Europe League dates mean Klopp either has to make extra fitness sessions during the midweek or just hope preseason with Rodgers was enough.

It's not really about lack of bottle. Problem with Arsenal is that we have always have a bunch of injury-prone players. At the moment it's the British core. That means that our best players like Ozil, Alexis, Cazorla all get run into the ground. You'd like to see what Arsenal would be like with a full strength team for like 3 months straight. Look what happened when we had Alexis, Ozil, Theo, Cazorla and Ramsey all playing for a stretch. Blew United away with ease and were scoring goals for fun.

Then there's the issue of Wenger's slow approach to squad building. Everyone implored him to sign an additional DM and he gambled against it and it's now backfired. Coquelin is so so important to Arsenal. If we can make it to Jan within touching distance and sign someone then we'll still have a chance. Because of money in this league everyone is competitive but there isn't a standout side like Barca/Bayern. Anything is possible though it looks bleak for us right now for sure.

You're not the only one Ray, spurs fans are feeling good now, but we were a depressed bunch when the window closed, Dier's worked out brilliantly at DM, but it was a big gamble and we had nobody else who could play that role consistently.

Then there's the Kane issue. He is our only recognised CF, and he constantly looks knackered in the last 15 minutes of matches; you'd sub him but there's no other striker to replace him with. Everybody else who could play down the middle is totally unproven, the only guy I'd trust to deputise for Kane is Chadli and he's injured. The Club tried to dress HM Son up as a new striker - they even changed his registration from midfielder to striker on the club website, when it became apparent that we were going to get nowhere with Berahino.

EPL teams have been guilty of terrible squad building for years, which is why everybody has holes, aside from Chelsea/City, but I think that the managers are a problem there (for different reasons).

TS, yeah things generally change very quickly in football. A lot of Arsenal fans were in meltdown after Saturday's defeat but we could easily be top again by next weekend so I wouldn't be panicking yet, despite our huge injury crisis.

Dier has looked good as a DM thus far, much credit should go to Poch for the way he gutted the squad and disposed of bad eggs. I'm hoping we might be able to do something similar with Calum Chambers now Coquelin is out for a stretch. Might be wishful thinking.

RE strikers, it's hard. There's next to no quality on the market which is probably why you'd find yourself paying over the odds for mediocre talent. Berahino wasn't worth what WBA valued him at so I don't blame Levy in baulking at the price. Maybe I have been used to Wenger for too long but you do find people piss a lot of money down the drain. Chelsea, for example, are so inefficient with their spending. Buy Cuadrado in Jan for nearly £30m and decide 6 months later he isn't what they want. Can send him out on loan. And they've done that a few times to be honest. While we have more money now, we can't afford to be reckless with it. We only seemed to have eyes for Benzema this summer but considering Madrid themselves are not awash with depth at that position, always seemed more of a punt than anything else.

Not signing a DM on our part was retarded. Even if Wenger thought Coquelin was a good first choice, the back-ups certainly aren't. Arteta's legs went a while ago, even though he does bring a calming presence to the team. And since Flamini started hanging around with Ozil, it seems like he now views himself as a #10. Relying on Coquelin to play 60 games in a season was stupidity at its finest considering his body has never been pushed that far. Now he's broken down we could properly struggle again. I have no sympathy with Wenger though. He's happy running around telling people how strong the squad is and how we can cope so he better find a solution to deal with it.

Agree on most teams having holes in it. Despite the increase in money across the board for PL teams, you could highlight a lot of flaws in most clubs, even Chelsea & City despite their seemingly endless pot of gold. City, despite their squad, routinely look poor in Europe, and both their title wins have been fortuitous. Not so sure why Chelsea have collapsed so badly this season. Maybe complacency and the Eva factor.

If Arsenal lose it because of the squad it would be the biggest and most unforgivable failure of Wenger. This summer people finally felt confident that Arsenal were growing in stature and two titles in a row help to bulk up the loser mentality Arsenal has had for so long. All he had to do was shore up the squad and he refuses. His self-belief would be admirable if he hadn't been such a failure in terms of winning something big for the last 10 years. Times like that the higher ups have to overrule him and simply buy what is needed in January.

Yep. His arrogance at times is astounding. When he says he can't find better on the market than what he currently has you have to laugh. Nobody better than Arteta/Flamini? Nobody better than L'Oreal (Giroud)? People won't sympathise with him if he fails because he created this scenario himself. There's that and then the endless list of injuries which he seems to put down to bad luck. How he does that I'll never know considering it happens EVERY season without fail. So it's either he's buying injury-prone players or his training methods are making players susceptible to injury. Take Ozil for example. He had basically never been injured in his career but in his first two seasons at Arsenal has missed a substantial amount of games.

Yeah the injury proneness to Arsenal players is baffling. definitely seems unique/extreme versus the rest.

TS is right, we are a Harry Kane injury away from potentially being in real trouble as we have no specialist alternative at centre forward. We would probably have to rely on Son despite that not being his natural position. Rumors are we are lining up a January bid for Alexandre Pato which probably has something to do with the stupid amount of money West Brom want for Berahino.

For that reason I'm still not convinced we are top 4, I have considerable concerns about the toll of Europa plus winter fixture congestion on this squad being also amplified by Poch's rigorous training requirements. The fact that there are 5 teams with deeper squads (City, Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Chelsea) means it's going to require some considerable praying to the Gods that the majority of our first team remains fit and healthy for as long as possible. This weekend merely proves the difficulties of playing both Europa and having to align with the Premier Leagues TV commitments - travel out to play late Thursday night in Baku, 6 hour journey back to rest for less than 48hrs before playing Chelsea Sunday midday. No matter how young the team there will come a point this season when the tank will be running on empty and squad will become critical, exposing some of the limitations we currently have.

I don't think you can claim Arsenal are the only team that suffer from injuries all the time.

We all know about the problems we've had with Sturridge over the years but this season we've had on the injury list:

Flanagan (been injured for a year now)
Gomez (started the season well and could have been useful cover at full back or centre back - out for the season)
Ings (was in great form - out for the season)
Henderson (yet to play under Klopp - our captain and best midfielder)
Allen (missed a good month)
Lovren (missed a good month)
Sakho (out for at least a month - our best centre back)
Sturridge (a luxury player now)
Benteke (missed several games - still not fully fit)


That's a pretty ridiculous list.

I'd argue that Sturridge, Henderson, Sakho and Ings would all be definite starters under Klopp - maybe Flanagan/Gomez as well.

Yes but Arsenal's injury list is literally EVERY season. And it's always key players. As of now:

Arteta
Coquelin
Welbeck
Wilshere
Rosicky
Oxlade-Chamberlain
Theo

Half of those are wide players and having them available would allow us to take Alexis out of the firing line a bit more. We don't really have a natural replacement for Ozil. We'd probably have to change the formation if he got injured. Ozil is life. 3 goals, 11 assists so far this season