In all my years of watching the Arsenal I have never seen a game like this. 4-0 up after 25mins and looking world class.
But unfortunately for Arsenal a game of football lasts 90mins and we blew it. Early in the 2nd half Djourou came off with an injury and for me THAT was the turning point. Squillaci came on and all the panic came in.
Daiby was stupidly sent off for lashing out on Barton and it was the Alamo as newcastle bombarded us with everything. But 4-0 up we somehow managed to fck it up as the toon came back to draw 4-4.
Yes you can blame the ref Phip Dowd who was very poor and gifted Newcastle a soft pen. But Wenger and the team need to take this on the chin.
But why are you surprised ? Bolton 2003, Birmingham 2008, Wigan 2009, Spurs 2010.
All games we have been winning and looking in control and somehow managed to throw it away.
You can blame the ref all you want, sad fact is that a Championship winning side never loses a 4-0 lead.
A disgraceful show by the players and manager today
Ratings
Szczesny, 8.0 ( Made some fine saves, Not at fault for any of the goals. Let down by weak defending)
Sagna, 6.5 (Set up our 4th goal with a fine run and cross, defensively poor)
Koscielny, 6.0 (Great first half, very poor 2nd. Gave away a very sort pen and then he was all over the place)
Djourou, 7.5 (Scored a great header and was looking good, Limped off just after half time and our defense went to pot)
Clichy, 6.0 (Mr Panic, 2nd half he like the rest of the back 4 were all at sea)
Diaby, 4.0 ( Stupid red card for lashing out on Barton, Yes it was a back tackle by Barton, But you cant raise your hands like that. Down to 10men it was always going to be harder to handle the comeback)
Cesc, 5.5 ( Poor game and a poor show by our captain. You would of liked Cesc to grab a few people at 4-1 or 4-2 and shout at them and tell them to put there finger out. But he didnt. At times like this you need a leader of men. Tony Adams, Vieira.. Cesc was walking around feeling sorry for himself)
Wilshere, 7.0 ( Played well, His best game for a long time, Let down by players behind him)
Walcott, 8.0 (Unplayable for 25mins, Fantastic start to the game, But along with the rest of the team,didnt show for the 2nd half)
Arshavin, 7.5 (Set up the first 2 goals and looked to be playing well. But 2nd half was pretty weak)
Van Persie 7.5 (Scored 2 fine goals but 2nd half had no support)
Subs
Eboue, N/A
Squillaci, 4.0 (Came on and we looked a different side. isnt this guy a experienced international defender? to me he is no better then Senderos or Silvestre, Very poor defensive play)
Rosicky, 5.5 ( Came on and looked weak, But whats new?)
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Choke choke…hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha……..hahahahahahahaha.
It gets a bit tiring to see this misery, time after time. We never learn this. Top Football for 45 minutes. Then a stupid sending off and a goal in the butt and we stop playing. A bunch of psychologists must be engaged and talking to the boys. This is not good enough …
This defies belief and underlines how complacent,mean and shortsighted wenger is.We desperately need defensive reinforcement Squillaci is so underwhelming it is not true and Djourou has always been injury prone,added to which our defensive leader has not played all season.
You can blame,Diaby ,Phil Dowd,Sqillaci and whoever but this side lacks mental strength and leadership and wenger seems unwilling to fix it.Still the balance sheet is strong.
you forgot the referee: 0 and an envelope
Wenger needs to go. Nobody brought in to bolster our weak squad, now relying on Denilson (if fit) to play CDM. Great!! Squallaci is useless, was a 30 yr old ever going to adapt to the Prem? Er, no. Nice one Arsene. We won trophies with George Grahams defenders, when Wenger has had to replace them, he has failed miserably. He needs to go because we will not win anything meaningful (The Mickey Mouse Cup is NOT) with him in charge.
Rosicky was abyssimal.
Brought nothing to control the midfield, caused the 2nd pen (which is a clumsy one to give but seems valid to me) and then brought down again Barton for the FK which led to the 4th goal.
I don’t see any reason to have this kind of player in our payroll anymore. Should have been sold for ages now.
Blame Abou, the ref or the players, but Wenger is responsible for this :
- Risking our MVP (Nasri) in the cup game… doesn’t this guy deserve some rest/special treatment ?
- Not having proper cover for Song
- Not having valids CB (Squillaci is a miss for this season)
You want to make it with a short team, you get short results.
If you cant see we were arse raped by the ref in that half you ain’t no arsenal fan.
The most openly biased refereeing performance I’ve seen in thirty years of watchig football.
SO WHAT, WE WERE 4-0 UP AFTER 45 MINS AND END UP LUCKY NOT TO LOSE. IN ARSENE WE TRUST!!
How is it possible????? We learned NOTHING from the spurs-game:/ Did we acually won any headers in the 2nd half??:/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/7339302/Did-referee-Phil-Dowd-cost-Aston-Villa-the-Carling-Cup.html
in there pocket!!!
Arsene substitutions were crap again today. We lost the height of Diaby and Song and wenger didn’t react to that at all!!! Bentdner and chamakh should have come on to give us more height defending set plays. Rosicky, Eboue, Almunia, Squallaci out!!!! Do we always have to have one abysmal french defender? It’s become traditional.
sure we should have imposed ourselves better in the second half but i have never been so curious about the intentions referee. diaby letting his frustration out was understandable (remeber sunderland) but highly innapropriate i agree but nolan got involved too. raised his hands. it was clear that newcastles game plan was to rattle us like barton and many others did. but how did the referee not put a stop to it before diaby got sent off. and then it continued afterword. the only booking they got came in the dying seconds of the game. and since when does being on the receiving end of a kevin nolan headlock warrant a red card? and it seemed like anything wouldve compelled dowd to point at our penalty spot.
i know we should have won and killed the game off and it is worrying that we couldnt but the helping hand that newcastle got was undeniable and i have never felt more strongly that there has to be an agenda against us.
Rather than analyse again why things went wrong today you hit the nail on the head when you said that you weren’t surprised. Nor are any of us. This team is very brittle and Wenger has done nothing to add a bit of backbone to it. So get used to it cause it ain’t going to change any day soon.
Clearly I wrote my last comment as a joke and directed squarely at all those with their heads up their arse for the past few years (I’m obviously referring to the IAWT brigade). We’ve suffered this time and time before and we will unfortunately suffer again. Arsene has lost the plot – sorry, he did so many years ago when deciding that a football team only required 6 decent forward players and no defence. We will struggle to qualify for next season’s Champions League- mark my words.
your probably being kind by giving rosicky a 5.5 and squillaci a 4, they could not have been worse.
I notice you didn’t rate Rosicky ….. He was a nightmare !! ok the second penalty against him was a joke, but he was all over the place, giving the ball away in dangerous areas …. so so bad. I know it’s not ALL his fault as I put most of the blame on Diaby (although understand why he was angry). Something that should be said on here though, to balance things out is that Newcastle to a man wanted it and showed guts and passion that we could not match. I don’t like Barton as he is a nasty piece of work, but he and Nolan drove them all on. The two leaders we have in the squad, who put their foot in and get stuck in are both injured, Vermantor and Song …. the only one who looked like they were up for the fight today was Jack W, the youngster of the side. It was a bad display of captaincy by Cesc today, maybe he should stop shouting at ref’s in the tunnel and start shouting at his team mates ! Having said all that, it’s a point and could so easily been nothing – time to draw a line and move on and hope they learn from this, the biggest lead given away that I can remember in all my years supporting them ….
Regardless of the ref being utterly poor as usual, as was the ref agaist everton we lack ambition and fight to hold onto a lead, wenger does not see that squid is a very poor defender but we cant blame wenger he is not a defensive coach at all, after all he did inherit the mighty toy adams and lee evans lookalike, i dont think any other team in the premier league would drop a 4-0 lead except for arsenal they have done it before and will do it again which was proven today everyone knows not to give up against us. Reinforcements were need yet again in january in the defensive are but we failed to secure a signing of any kind, our injury list is looking rather worrying and if manure win today i myself as a die hard arsenal fan and season ticket holder cannot see us winning the league this season.
Injury list is as follows :- verminator,nasri,djourou,fabianski,song 4 vey crucial players missing such a shame.
i quite agree with you that we had a very disappointing second half. I still could not believe the result at full time. Diaby did not behave like a pro footballer, he fell for the old trickn and this cost us the game. Phil Dowd should be sent to league 2 to ref,very very poor officiating remember the spurs game at home. I think we are being purnished for Fabregas comment. The odds are very much against us now. i do not see us being given a fair officiating for the rest of the season. Any 50-50 call will be given against us that is why we have to be very proffessional and take our chances.Man united is almost out of reach so we should concentrate on winning the Carling cup
I hope our not buying a cb in the January transfer window will not come back and haunt us.Now that Djouruo is injured, the pairing of kos and squi concedes goal easily as evident in the 2nd half of this game. It is quite difficult to be optimistic now.We should take each game as it comes and i dont want see any of players blabbing their mouth like van persie did a few days,pls Let your action on the field of play do the talking for you
fucking english refs are french-hating cunts. nuff said. stop calling it the barclays premier league. it’s the english premier league – if you’re not english, you can’t win it, ain’t it? fucking cunts.
Chris says:
February 5, 2011 at 5:58 pm : my response to you.
Who in you great knowledge of the game would replace Arsene. However I will give you a lead: That individual has to have vision not shorttermism ( Not mourinho), must be able to carry the mission and ethos of the board of directors, ( not mourinho and also has a willingness to bring young players through( not mourinho)… Pray tell
We did not lose the game today, we draw. yes we were 4-0 up, but we were down to ten men, lost our height, and Johan was taken off. We had a bad second half. My team are not robots. Yes i am disappointed but this is a game, and it does not stop at half time.
oh yeah, diaby’s a cunt too…fucking fairy
once i knew fat phil dowd had this game i feared the worse.perhaps a bigger c**t than howard- webb & that takes some doing-time after time we’re up against it with these biased,homer arsenal hating refs-i’m seriously considering not bothering anymore after supporting the lads for more than 45years,it’s so predictable-if ferguson had these decisions continually go against manure he ‘d be calling for a public enqiury & heads to roll-all that being said,if you pay peanuts you get monkeys & the squid is i’m afraid in that bracket .bad luck he had to come on.now for “dough brain diaby”words faill me-set us up for the fall is the kindest thing i can say….
Agree totally, Simon. Phil Dowd should hang his head in shame. A key part of hiis job is to ensure fair play, not give a free license for animals (both on and off the pitch in his case) like Barton to go out and maim people. While Diaby was wrong to react in the way he did, his response was perfectly understandable – regardless of the scoreline at the time. And if he deserved a red card, then surely so did Nolan when he bundled Szczesny over after the first penalty. That penalty was slightly dubious but the second was an absolute joke. If that warranted a spot-kick, there should be a dozen or more in every game that is played. Free-kick that led to the equaliser was soft too, but by that stage its awarding had become both predicatble and inevitable. Dowd was that bad.
I have watched Arsenal for over 40 years. This is the frist team to make me ashamed of the club. Its time everyone woke up to reality. The past 5 years have been the worst periond in the clubs modern history. Worse than the decline of Grahams team,. Worse even than Don Howe’s team – at least they had potential. So screw the cowards on the pitch that bring utter disgrace to the red and white. Screw the cowardly non-transfer policy and vile lie that self sufficiency is anything other than a means for an American gangster to make money off our backs. Screw the extortionate ticket prices. Screw the Emirates stadium, an empty bowl of nothingness that is the nest for this crowd of gutless crap – we have not been the real Arsenal since we left Highbury. And most of all screw the coward that is heh most overrated paniciking clown of a manager in history that has destroyed my club.
This is not just about todays 4 – 4. It is about the 3-2 loss to the scum. Its about the 3-2 loss to Wigan last year. Its about the 4-4 draw with the scum two years ago. We were a club built on grit. We are now snivelling cowards and that is something none of us should be prepared to live with. The so called good football is a lie – we have become a team that cannot be safe in any game, no matter what the score – WE WILL NEVER WIN ANYTHING AS LONG AS THE FRENCH LOSER POLLUTES OUR GREAT CLUB
In the name of everything decent, since the money grabbing board will not sack you, I appeal to you Wenger, Do the only decent, dignified thing and F$(£$£ the hell off and destroy the history of some other club.
FAIL!!!!! Enjoy MOTD scummers!
I dont believe what I’m reading – blame the Ref!!!!!! Are you people afraid to face up to it? This is not a once off.. FFS, even when the second penalty was awarded we were still a goal up with 7 minutes lleft!! Loosing the 4th goal was only inevitable because this is Arsenes Arsenal A group of chickenshit players corrupted by our chickenshit managers lack of tactical nous. This is not the referees fault. It is Wengers.
All this blaming Dowd is just fodder to the papers that will be reading these blogs to keep the Arsenal baiting in next weeks rags. We threw away the points today because we are not hard nosed enough when we get in front. There is no excuse for Diaby and looking for parity was not going to happen. As soon as Djourou went off we lost our central defence and with Diaby gone we lost the midfield as well.That’s why we only drew after being 4 – 0 up. Not the ref ( although he did not help ) but because of our own failures.
Truly speechless was looking forward to relaxing tonight but will trawl through the arsenal blogs to find like minded gooners who are sharing my anxiety and dispair about another 2 points thrown away. It’s lucky we didn’t totally f@ck it up and lose the game. I’m still in shock.
1. Diaby – I mean come on WTF is going on. Everyone on the footballing world knows what Barton is like, and Yes he did try to seriously injure Diaby with a reckless challenge but the only way those idiots were going to get into the game was if we self distructed….and boy did we distruct! Diaby the “holding” midfielder left our midfeild exposed as well as our front 3. Diaby reacting stupidly now sees him miss a further 3 games!
2. The ref was joke he gave everything to Newcastle. Was this a backlash to Wengers comments about referees on Tuesday? Or simply the Geordie crowd getting on top of the referee demanding more and more cheap free kicks? The Barton challenge on Diaby was shocking he went through our player to get the ball if Diaby lays on the floor we get the free kick at least and maybe Barton a yellow card! It was a leg breaker we’ve seen it before and I can understand Diaby’s reaction because he’s been injured like that far too many times in his short career. There was a huge lack of protection for our players from the ref and his assistants. He also failed to punish Nolan for literally throttling Szczney after they scored the 1st pen. To make matters worse I think we picked up some crazy bookings.
3. Jose Enrique the left full back was disgraceful constantly tugging the shirt he must’ve committed at least 10 yellow card offences and ironically gets booked when it doesn’t even matter for taking down Wilshire deep into stoppage time.
4. Shut up shop doesn’t seem to exist in this squad. We’ve all done it on a Sunday morning you’re cruising in the game just keep them at bay by launching the ball into corners and getting your fast/young wingers to chase it down. Or keep possession in their half.
5. Mental strength – at 4-0 up it takes more mental strength to keep the opposing team chasing shadows and not conceding than going all out attack. We lacked it massively today.
6. No nasri/song and djourou (for the 2nd half) and it showed. Squillachi isn’t the answer, diaby is too complacent. Arshavin did really well setting up 2 goals and wasn’t to blame. Where’s the depth on out squad?
The only positive about today’s game is that we didn’t lose? But there are so many negatives it’s unreal. We can’t rely on referees protecting our lads that’s never gonna happen. The players coming back have to hit the ground running players like Vermaelen, Ramsey and Almunia. the lack of activity plus the players out on loan leaves our squad really thin.
Let’s hope man u lose!
3. Two dodgy
I am at loss of words, but i can only say that Diaby acted like is not a proffessional. I swear if he is so much scared to play ball, please Wenger Get the guy off the pitch please bcoz he is going to be seeing those tackles now en again, that is how English football is played. We lost because of him, sincerely speaking the guy saw our defender going off and he knows it very well that the defender coming on was no good and he fails to act as a proffessional. i am really so disappointed very very much and i can tell you if we continue with guys like Diaby who dnt know English football we are losing out on the cup. Please guys you very well saw how Viera played. You hit him he keeps quiet en finds you on his own time and revenges.
Normally I would be upset but I’m not really that upset. The referring is shocking. Coming off of last week were a player 6 yards offside scores and is allowed to score the level of incompetency, bias, monetary pay off?? is suspicious. From the time Van Persie was up ended and the foul was called the other way I had a feeling this was going to be a clanger. Firstly, I agree Diaby should have been sent off. But Diaby’s sending off is like when your in school and the victim of the bully explodes and takes matters into his own hands and is then suspended by the Principal while the bully goes unpunished. Technical players suffer from the English thugs who are defended by the media and referee decisions. It’s really sad state. For me the second penalty was very, very soft and Barton dramatically over embellished the free kick on the last goal. Whilst, I am not dissolving our team of responsibility because our defending once Djourou went off was woeful. Kos had no business going threw the back of the Newcastle player and Clichy’s defensive heading was once again exposed. At the end of the day this may cost us the league. Oh well. At least we have integrity I guess.
Wow. Can’t believe there are arsenal fans on this site campaigning to get rid of wenger. He’s a genius and managed to set your club up to be stable for a long time. I guess you can’t keep some fans happy unless they win everything all the time. Try cm 2011 instead.
YES MAN U HAVE LOST!!!!!!
THAT HAS CHEERED ME UP!
INIVINCIBLES! YOU’RE HAVING A LARF!!!!
How the hell is he a genius? He is the manager of one of the worlds biggest clubs and yet he has hardly threatened to win anything in 5 years, in the process turning a club built on its courage and tenacity into a support group for whimpering childern. He is a nothing but a lacky for an American businessman
I am beginning to suspect that this ‘WEeger is a miracle worker’ lobby is the result of a campaign by fans of other clubs who want Arsenal to remain as pathetically unambitous and cowardly as this current rabble.
I reiterate any so called fans that have slagged the team off before seeing this should hang their heads. It was the most blatantly and outrageously biased refereeing I’ve ever seen. It will undoubtedly galvanise the team and were now a point closer to Man U who can shove their unbeaten run up their arse.
Saving grace we actually gained a point on man u. Amazing! Although on the flipside we could gained 2 more points on them!
Wenger was right about Man u. In a far better mood now!
@ Andygooner.
I couldn’t agree more. I’m of similar age to you and couldn’t agree more!
This bunch, and I include the manager in this, are not worthy of representing the Arsenal.
Remember what we did when Don Howe was in charge? The time is now! Let’s get it done!
Even at 4-4 the raping didn’t stop. Arsenal showed incredible resilience to go and get a terrific 5th only for it to be incorrectly ruled out for offside despite RVP clearly being level. I still feel like the rubber dick is up our arse now
Oh get a life. We are a team which now habitually throws away 2 goals leads. We all know it. No Arsenal fan is ever comfortable with a 2 goal lead anymore, no matter who we are playing and that is a shocking shocking sentence to write. Its is absolutely nothing to to with the refereeing. It is what this clown has done to our club. We have committed the worst humiliation in the history of the club and of the albeit short-lived permier league. It is not down to referees becaue we all knew this rubbish was capable of such an embarrassment. It is down to a clown at the helm who is, at the very best, a formerly great manger who is now nothing but a liability. Get rid. I want to see Arsenal rise again in my lifetime and that isnt going to happen under this fool.
Andy. Take gooner out of your name. You ain’t one
Simon. That tepid response says more about you than me. Typical response from someone who either supports someone else or is just besotted with Wenger. What kind of an ass says that im not a gooner just because I think the manager is a moronic looser? I love Arsenal. I think the manager is a clown. End of. And Assuming you are English, did that make you less a fan of the national team if you wanted rid of McClaren a few years ago?
Of course not. He was making a mess and somebody had to say so.
It is my opinion that the current Arsenal manager is a liability. It is lazy and weak to make a statement like yours. Lazy and weak, Yup, your’e an Aresene fan, not an arsenal fan all right.
Squilachi makes koz look rubbish!!! Title over if he plays!!! Can’t believe that phil dowd wasn’t ant n dec in disguise!!! How is joey Barton allowed to play football! I want to kick everyone at work but if I do i’l lose my job n go jail!!!!
andy. What? Wenger is a liability? You’re a joke mate. 4 points off the top and ahead of two clubs who’ve spent half a billion on thier squads. We can do without your “support”. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
the ref was terrible!!!!! but at 4-0 up, even with a bad ref, its emberssing!!! reason to blame for this happening?
!. the team!!!!!!! not arsene, the team is 4 up and u blame him??? thats the players fault!!
2. Diaby!! stupid reaction!!!!!
3. The refs!!!!! neither was a penalty!!! and the on the fourth goal!! it was not a faul!!
SIMON
blind support for the manager is no support for the club.
you know bloody well wengers refusal to buy, and his loyalty to certain players is the reason arsenal have won nothing in the past 5 years
Nice to see you show up after ages of silence since we’ve been playing pretty well on the whole. One baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad result and you come back screaming. Awesome.
the pen meant feck im a gooner i was there and as soon as it went 4 1 i knew what was comming. once again wenger didnt change tatics diaby over reacted. and you quite simply can not throw away 4 goal leads
i reckon the joyless suicide brigade wouldn’t actually celebrate even if we win the title.
Wow is this really an arsenal site? Andygooner and the rest of u doomsters what do you know? Have any of you actually achieved anything significant? I have and I know how hard it really is .. as you have to deal with people, reality, life, competitors, people who stab u in the back (even own supporters), finance, legal, bullies the list is endless… Our manager has achieved, so so much… Stadium, invinciibles blah blah… It’s a long list…. And your whining is so misplaced it’s worthless, it’s negative and has no value to anyone in this world, nobody is listening to you – or me for that matter, the Newcastle and Leeds fans were heard alright though, gettit?
simon and all you other akbs. Fuck off out of my club and take your clown of a senile old prick with you!!
One does not need to speak one’s Mind “Arsene Knows”