***Official Match Thread - Arsenal Away***

[mcfc1632]

My initial thoughts yesterday was 2 points dropped through another overly boring display - yes I know it was Arsenal at the Emirates - but come on.... no better time to play them

I also thought - shit I hope this is just tactics for this game and not the way he will set us out next season

Since sleeping on it I have been wondering if there might be more sense to the tactics yesterday.

That point might be more important that it looks at first because it really sets us up for a 'play-off' against Spurs in a must win game

It means (because of the goal difference position) that (assuming we can win at West Ham) that we could afford a draw against Villa even if Spurs win their next game (so long as they do not get a cricket score)


Or am I clutching at straws looking for plus points?

[Ted Hughes]

My initial thoughts yesterday was 2 points dropped through another overly boring display - yes I know it was Arsenal at the Emirates - but come on.... no better time to play them

I also thought - shit I hope this is just tactics for this game and not the way he will set us out next season

Since sleeping on it I have been wondering if there might be more sense to the tactics yesterday.

That point might be more important that it looks at first because it really sets us up for a 'play-off' against Spurs in a must win game

It means (because of the goal difference position) that (assuming we can win at West Ham) that we could afford a draw against Villa even if Spurs win their next game (so long as they do not get a cricket score)


Or am I clutching at straws looking for plus points?

I suppose you've got a point regarding the point.

[Spurge]

Those who say a point is useful; it's only useful if Spurs fuck up. They probably won't apart from v us, in which case the point is irrelevent anyway. A win however would have put them under pressure.

It was one of those occasions where the real qualities of a team & manager show through. We didn't have any.

It's certainly a useful point at Arsenal and Spurs fucking up doesn't come into it. If we win our remaining games we finish 4th.

I knew we'd set up to stifle the Arse, it was always going to be the Mancini way and for this game I had no problem with it, however what I really hope is that now we go all out for wins at home against Villa and Spurs (2 cup finals). If we don't end up with 4th spot then we should be abvle to look back at these 2 games and think it least we gave it our all as oppsoed to regretting playing defensive football and getting caught out.

[viking the Odd]

I just don't understand the negative play,even against the scum,we let them play in the middle, a loss would not of mattered,and just imagine the confidence we would of taken from a victory. I can not see Mancini getting us 4th with this style of play,he is trying to save his job, but I think he's loosing it. If the rummours in the press are to be believed,he's lost one or two players, and just when we need things to be on track,it's not. 6th for us .

[Ted Hughes]

Those who say a point is useful; it's only useful if Spurs fuck up. They probably won't apart from v us, in which case the point is irrelevent anyway. A win however would have put them under pressure.

It was one of those occasions where the real qualities of a team & manager show through. We didn't have any.

It's certainly a useful point at Arsenal and Spurs fucking up doesn't come into it. If we win our remaining games we finish 4th.

I knew we'd set up to stifle the Arse, it was always going to be the Mancini way and for this game I had no problem with it, however what I really hope is that now we go all out for wins at home against Villa and Spurs (2 cup finals). If we don't end up with 4th spot then we should be abvle to look back at these 2 games and think it least we gave it our all as oppsoed to regretting playing defensive football and getting caught out.

Well even if we'd lost the Arsenal game & won our remaining games we'd still have finished 4th, so from that point of view it makes no difference whatsoever. It does mean that if we draw with Villa we're still in with a chance of nicking it on goal difference so I suppose it has value from that but I recon if we don't beat Villa we're fucked as Spurs are playing Burnley needing to improve their goal difference. They'll fucking eat them alive so in the real world; a point yesterday was probably the same as a defeat.

Spurs losing gave us a free shot yesterday with nothing to lose but everything to win. If we'd won yesterday we could have lost to Spurs & still finished above them. Also Villa would be out of it making that game less of a problem. Now both they & Liverpool have a lifeline. Arsenal wewre there for the taking & we should have gone all out to grab 4th place. Doing otherwise is not the 'winning mentality' we're supposed to be aiming for. Not at all. It's not what I want to see, now or in the future at our club.

[DoomMerchant]

I just don't understand the negative play,even against the scum,we let them play in the middle, a loss would not of mattered,and just imagine the confidence we would of taken from a victory. I can not see Mancini getting us 4th with this style of play,he is trying to save his job, but I think he's loosing it. If the rummours in the press are to be believed,he's lost one or two players, and just when we need things to be on track,it's not. 6th for us .

remember tho if we'd earned the draw against the filth which we deserved we'd be in 4th right now, so i don't think it is ridiculously insane to hope for 2 draws against the 2nd and 3rd teams in the league.

If we were sitting 4th now, how would you have felt.

Razor-thin margins here...i'm ok with where we are and still think we will get it done. Come the fucl on CITY!

cheers

[Ted Hughes]

Those who say a point is useful; it's only useful if Spurs fuck up. They probably won't apart from v us, in which case the point is irrelevent anyway. A win however would have put them under pressure.

It was one of those occasions where the real qualities of a team & manager show through. We didn't have any.

It's certainly a useful point at Arsenal and Spurs fucking up doesn't come into it. If we win our remaining games we finish 4th.

I knew we'd set up to stifle the Arse, it was always going to be the Mancini way and for this game I had no problem with it, however what I really hope is that now we go all out for wins at home against Villa and Spurs (2 cup finals). If we don't end up with 4th spot then we should be abvle to look back at these 2 games and think it least we gave it our all as oppsoed to regretting playing defensive football and getting caught out.

Well even if we'd lost the Arsenal game & won our remaining games we'd still have finished 4th, so from that point of view it makes no difference whatsoever. It does mean that if we draw with Villa we're still in with a chance of nicking it on goal difference so I suppose it has value from that but I recon if we don't beat Villa we're fucked as Spurs are playing Burnley needing to improve their goal difference. They'll fucking eat them alive so in the real world; a point yesterday was probably the same as a defeat.

Spurs losing gave us a free shot yesterday with nothing to lose but everything to win. Also Villa would be out of it making that game less of a problem. Now both they & Liverpool have a lifeline. Arsenal wewre there for the taking & we should have gone all out to grab 4th place. Doing otherwise is not the 'winning mentality' we're supposed to be aiming for. Not at all. It's not what I want to see, now or in the future at our club.

Edit. I don't want to be critical of Mancini because I want him to stay & win us the title (which I think he can) but he's wrong to take us down this negative road. He can succeed without doing that. If he takes the wrong route he'll end up unpopular & sacked & we will have wasted a year. He has the ability to win with style & abandon this negative attitude.

[Beefymcfc]

Those who say a point is useful; it's only useful if Spurs fuck up. They probably won't apart from v us, in which case the point is irrelevent anyway. A win however would have put them under pressure.

It was one of those occasions where the real qualities of a team & manager show through. We didn't have any.

It's certainly a useful point at Arsenal and Spurs fucking up doesn't come into it. If we win our remaining games we finish 4th.

I knew we'd set up to stifle the Arse, it was always going to be the Mancini way and for this game I had no problem with it, however what I really hope is that now we go all out for wins at home against Villa and Spurs (2 cup finals). If we don't end up with 4th spot then we should be abvle to look back at these 2 games and think it least we gave it our all as oppsoed to regretting playing defensive football and getting caught out.

Well even if we'd lost the Arsenal game & won our remaining games we'd still have finished 4th, so from that point of view it makes no difference whatsoever. It does mean that if we draw with Villa we're still in with a chance of nicking it on goal difference so I suppose it has value from that but I recon if we don't beat Villa we're fucked as Spurs are playing Burnley needing to improve their goal difference. They'll fucking eat them alive so in the real world; a point yesterday was probably the same as a defeat.

Spurs losing gave us a free shot yesterday with nothing to lose but everything to win. Also Villa would be out of it making that game less of a problem. Now both they & Liverpool have a lifeline. Arsenal wewre there for the taking & we should have gone all out to grab 4th place. Doing otherwise is not the 'winning mentality' we're supposed to be aiming for. Not at all. It's not what I want to see, now or in the future at our club.

Edit. I don't want to be critical of Mancini because I want him to stay & win us the title (which I think he can) but he's wrong to take us down this negative road. He can succeed without doing that. If he takes the wrong route he'll end up unpopular & sacked & we will have wasted a year. He has the ability to win with style & abandon this negative attitude.

Ted, I've read and understand your points but taking everything into consideration I can't understand what we could've done differently. Yes, I believed that Ade should've been on from the start and I think he had a massive impact when he came on but if you look at it from an objective point of view we couldn't have done much different. Bridge had to be subbed early and with the exit of Shay left us with little options but to play the game out. You also say that they had a far inferior team yet the one that I saw on the pitch looked like many of the other Arsenal ones that we see week in/week out:

Arsenal

21 Fabianski
03 Sagna
18 Silvestre
22 Clichy
31 Campbell
02 Diaby
07 Rosicky (Eboue 68)
08 Nasri
14 Walcott (Bendtner 68)
17 Song Billong
11 Van Persie

Let's take another thing into consideration, our lack of an attacking midfielder. We've had this problem for most of the season and yeaterday it really showed. We tried to play like we did against Chelsea and hit them on the break, however Wenger took the same approach and didn't want to lose either because he knows they are still not safe in 3rd:

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger:

"I am not used to games like this.

"We created very little chances. Man City did not create anything, were highly focused on defending and gave us no space.

"We could not find an opener. It was a locked game of very few chances. But we did not throw everything forwards blindly, because we knew we could not afford to lose.

"However, we are nearly there (Champions League) It is 90% now, but not yet 100."

Due to not having that attacking midfielder it means we have to play with 2 separate entities, a defence and an attack with no real join in the middle. Paddy could've been that bloke 10 years ago, but not now, and we all know we tried to address this problem to no avail.

Although, I suppose we could've gone there with a very gung-ho attitude and pushed forward willy-nilly in order to win the match, but at the same time I'm sure Wenger's men would've picked us off, especially considering that our passing and first touches weren't actually upto that much yesterday.

As I've mentioned, that point could become vital at the end of the season, due to the fact that we still have to play Spurs and Villa next. If you look at the games remaining, then it is still possible to draw with Villa and make 4th:

City - Villa (H), Spurs (H), W Ham (A)

Spurs - Bolton (H), Us (A), Burnley (A)

Villa - Brum (H), Us (A), Blackburn (H)

If we make 7 points from those 3 games by beating Spurs and 1 other, then I reckon 4th is ours and for a change, it's in our hands and not relying on Spurs or Villa to lose to other teams. If we don't, then Europa here we come.

[brite blu sky]

i was dismayed when both the teams were announced.. both with 5 man midfields.. Wenger set out to stifle the game as much as Mancini imo.. the emphasis clearly on not losing. It would have been possibly a bit dangerous to have gone gung-ho by Bobby. These games always seem inclined to be like this until someone get a goal and it opens up. The derby was similar even though we were 442. It could have been different if either team had grabbed a goal, but all things considered not conceding and getting a point was not so bad.
Both the derby and this game do show a cautiousness that one hand is not unexpected, but as many people point out is perhaps shackling this teams ability to play terrific football and score against anyone.. but it is a tight call when playing the likes of the rags and Arse at this stage of the season with so much at stake. Note that the draw for Arsenal has ended their remote chance of the title, so you could look at it in the way that we stopped Arsenals final shot at staying in the race, which is no mean feat at their place in front of their own fans. The rags and Arsenal are not Birmingham after all.

We will have to up it in the 2 home games to come thats for sure, but that doesn't look out of our capacity to do. I suspect we will see the difference in quality between Villa and the rags or Arsenal.

[Dameerto]

i was dismayed when both the teams were announced.. both with 5 man midfields.. Wenger set out to stifle the game as much as Mancini imo.. the emphasis clearly on not losing. It would have been possibly a bit dangerous to have gone gung-ho by Bobby. These games always seem inclined to be like this until someone get a goal and it opens up. The derby was similar even though we were 442. It could have been different if either team had grabbed a goal, but all things considered not conceding and getting a point was not so bad.
Both the derby and this game do show a cautiousness that one hand is not unexpected, but as many people point out is perhaps shackling this teams ability to play terrific football and score against anyone.. but it is a tight call when playing the likes of the rags and Arse at this stage of the season with so much at stake. Note that the draw for Arsenal has ended their remote chance of the title, so you could look at it in the way that we stopped Arsenals final shot at staying in the race, which is no mean feat at their place in front of their own fans. The rags and Arsenal are not Birmingham after all.

We will have to up it in the 2 home games to come thats for sure, but that doesn't look out of our capacity to do. I suspect we will see the difference in quality between Villa and the rags or Arsenal.

Exactly - Arse are masters at quick counter attacks with a seasoned squad (even their second and third choice players) that know their strategy inside out, if we had gone for it from the whistle in the first half they would have sat back and waited for an opportunity then thrown a cavalry charge at Shay - we would have probably been a goal or more down at halftime and cursing the manager. Two injuries during the match didnt really help or we might have seen more of a reaction from the Don later in the second half.

[Spurge]

Those who say a point is useful; it's only useful if Spurs fuck up. They probably won't apart from v us, in which case the point is irrelevent anyway. A win however would have put them under pressure.

It was one of those occasions where the real qualities of a team & manager show through. We didn't have any.

It's certainly a useful point at Arsenal and Spurs fucking up doesn't come into it. If we win our remaining games we finish 4th.

I knew we'd set up to stifle the Arse, it was always going to be the Mancini way and for this game I had no problem with it, however what I really hope is that now we go all out for wins at home against Villa and Spurs (2 cup finals). If we don't end up with 4th spot then we should be abvle to look back at these 2 games and think it least we gave it our all as oppsoed to regretting playing defensive football and getting caught out.

Well even if we'd lost the Arsenal game & won our remaining games we'd still have finished 4th, so from that point of view it makes no difference whatsoever. It does mean that if we draw with Villa we're still in with a chance of nicking it on goal difference so I suppose it has value from that but I recon if we don't beat Villa we're fucked as Spurs are playing Burnley needing to improve their goal difference. They'll fucking eat them alive so in the real world; a point yesterday was probably the same as a defeat.

Spurs losing gave us a free shot yesterday with nothing to lose but everything to win. If we'd won yesterday we could have lost to Spurs & still finished above them. Also Villa would be out of it making that game less of a problem. Now both they & Liverpool have a lifeline. Arsenal wewre there for the taking & we should have gone all out to grab 4th place. Doing otherwise is not the 'winning mentality' we're supposed to be aiming for. Not at all. It's not what I want to see, now or in the future at our club.

I understand what you are saying but had we have lost yesterday it would have been 2 defeats in a row and less than ideal preperation for Villa and Spurs. We've taken a point from a top 4 team who tend not to give too many points away at home - psychologically good preparation for the 2 biggest games of our season.

[Ted Hughes]

By drawing we've given Villa something to play for & taken the pressure off Spurs.

Beefy, what we could have done differently is tried to win the game. That doesn't automatically mean we would have lost if it didn't work, we could just as easily have lost to a shot anyway if Arsenal hadn't been completely shit.

I said before this game & the Utd one that I didn't mind us being cautious provided our plan was that we were looking to break & score at every opportunity when we got posession. Instead our plan was to keep almost everyone behind the ball & just whack the ball forward to a few isolated players. That's not clever tactical genius stuff, it's Mick McCarthy, Tony Pulis stuff. Everton played so much better there against a stronger more confident Arsenal side; it's shameful. They looked a class above us.

I think it's sad that we have so much skill & pace but can't even dare to throw a few people forward on the break especially when we've done it successfully before. I don't want to watch football like that.

[Spurge]

By drawing we've given Villa something to play for & taken the pressure off Spurs.

Beefy, what we could have done differently is tried to win the game. That doesn't automatically mean we would have lost if it didn't work, we could just as easily have lost to a shot anyway if Arsenal hadn't been completely shit.

I said before this game & the Utd one that I didn't mind us being cautious provided our plan was that we were looking to break & score at every opportunity when we got posession. Instead our plan was to keep almost everyone behind the ball & just whack the ball forward to a few isolated players. That's not clever tactical genius stuff, it's Mick McCarthy, Tony Pulis stuff. Everton played so much better there against a stronger more confident Arsenal side; it's shameful. They looked a class above us.

I think it's sad that we have so much skill & pace but can't even dare to throw a few people forward on the break especially when we've done it successfully before. I don't want to watch football like that.

I don't think us drawing made any difference to Villa, they had a sniff of 4th whatever the result for us at the Arse added to that it was local derby for them. Infact the stakes were the same for them today as they were for us at home to the rags last week - we should have gone for it then for sure, but I believe going for a point at Arsenal under the circumstances was acceptable.