Arsenal v West Brom [25/09/2010]

[Gaffer]

Saturday, 25 September 2010
Barclays Premier League
Arsenal v West Brom, 15:00

[Craigie]

Don't know what happened at first goal, I blame Song for second and we were stupidly caught on the third, but the common theme is once again goalkeeping.

Yes, there were massive failures up the pitch which lead to exposure of the keeper, but with a proper goalkeeper even though we played badly goals #2 and #3 would not have gone in, and in that case we would've got 3 points instead of 0.

Really don't see why we don't give Szczesny the chance. He wants it, what's the worst that could happen? I could see him being 4th choice behind Gomes, Cudicini and Pletikosa, but come on this is Almunia and Fabianski. If we put either of them up for sale no premiership side would bid.

[Nasri_ftw]

3 chances for WBA, 3 goals, same old Arsenal. Don't bother to buy a keeper, AW, this is just fine

[turbocanuck]

Apart from Nasri , Song and maybe Arshavin, everyone else was a waste of time. Almunia went from Zero to Hero to Zero in a span of 30 minutes. Jeez ........we need a a Contender, NOT a pretender as a Goalie.......Stupid Asses!

[turbocanuck]

today's Line-up and performance.
Nasri gets a 10, Arshavin, Song and Chamakh get a 7.5-8.0 everyone else would get a 3 and i'm being generous

Almunia: The Perpetual GOAT
Sagna : tried to look intelligent
Koscielny : KoKo the Clown. need i say more
Vela : not enough time. Damage was done
Clichy : Headless chicken
Squillaci : A big DUMMY
Eboue : not a starter
Diaby : not bad...probably still in pain
Rosicky : Not enough time
Nasri....now there's a Stalwart
Song : Gave it all
Arshavin : For the first time, didnt look lazy or tired
Chamakh : Gave it all..worked hard

[Sp1r0r]

A bad result, considering we had the chance to close the gap on Chelsea. Everyone played badly especially the defence and the goalkeeper. Only one wanting to win was Nasri and he scored both goals.

Arshavin is below par and so was Clichy. But the defence, what went on for the first goal ? Sagna was fooled and then there was noone picking the West Brom striker up.

2nd goal was the killer. Yes although the defence backed off, but how can Almunia be beaten by a shot straight at him ? it wasn't a great shot, it wasn't one that went in off the post, it just came straight at him and it went in off his legs.

3rd goal the whole defence went to sleep. How can the ball get cut back from one side to the other side with noone cutting it out ? And Almunia should have just cleared the ball for a corner.

Miserable weekend. Only thing to help it is if Bolton beat Man Utd.

[Sinbad]

This week Arsenal told the world that the club has made a record profit yet again — £56million

And our accountant “sorry” manager said “I can’t believe people criticise me for making profit for Arsenal”

Well, Mr Wenger the reason why people criticise you is because you are too stubborn to see that players like Almunia, Eboue, Song and Diaby are NOT good enough!!!

EVERYBODY in world football knew that a goalkeeper was a must for Arsenal this summer if we wanted to win the league, but know you made a crazy £2m bid for a 38 year old keeper.

Wenger only seems to care about making money for money’s sake. Why dont you Spend it FFS Wenger?

I said at the end of last season that we needed a New keeper, A powerful CB and a quality midfield dominator. But what did we do this summer? Trimmed the squad right down and losing more players then we signed, balanced the books “as wenger” always seems to do.

So today’s game, I’m struggling to think who pissed me off more.Almunia, Diaby, Eboue ,Song or Wenger…IT WAS A BLOODY CIRCUS!

Today was just awful. Poor passing, Poor crossing, Poor defending, Poor keeper. Wenger got everything wrong, from his starting 11 & tactically.

Alex Song’s job is to sit just in front of the back 4 and protect them. Instead he surges forward thinking he is Cesc and leaves us open to the counter attack. Do your f**king job man.

Koscielny our £8.5m CB was just clueless!!!

Eboue is a very good RB, HE IS NOT A WINGER!! Why is Wenger playing him on the wings in a 4-5-1?

Arshavin again was poor!

And as for Almunia? You can see why the young Keeper Szczesny is so frustrated that Wenger thinks that this clown and Fabianski are “WORLD CLASS” as mistake after mistake!

Ratings!

Almunia 3/10 ( I never wanna see this Muppet play for us again )
Sagna 3/10 ( Still cant cross a ball, But apparently a very good defender? Roasted by Thomas )
Koscielny 4/10 ( We paid £8.5m for this? )
Squillaci 5/10 ( Looked slow )
Clichy 6/10 ( Tried to get forward and make something happen )
Eboue 4/10 ( Please Wenger stop playing him as a winger )
Diaby 4/10 ( Looked off the pace, With Diaby he is fantastic 1 week and crap for the next 5 weeks )
Nasri 8/10 ( Fantastic, MOTM, The only player who really looked up for it )
Song 3/10 ( A headless chicken, Clumsy, wasteful, Slow )
Arshavin 4/10 ( Looks like a player that doesn’t want to be at the club )
Chamakh 6/10 ( Up top on his own with no support, needs to play in a 4/4/2 )

So it looks like we will be fighting it out for 4th again this season? Won nothing since 2005, But who cares, we make a profit… Right Mr Wenger?

[Craigie]

IMO if Kos was on the pitch he would'nt have let the third goal go so easily across our box. I don't blame Sagna for first goal, no player is perfect sometimes a defender is going to get done by any attacker, but everyone else just seemed to end up in the wrong place after that.

Second goal was entirely Song. Don't see why people blamed Clichy, he went to his man, Song was ball watching and let the runner go completely unopposed. How can the DM of ARSENAL not be aware of how that very simple mechanic works. He sees it happen 30 times a game. Almunia obviously a complete joke.

Third goal wasn't an amazing counter attack as we had men up the pitch, it was an average attack. The ball came to a position where all Almunia should have dived for it, but he didn't want to get kicked in the face and you can see him backing up. Once again off his line, back to his line, completely indecisive. This for me is the final straw. If you have absolutely no talent the very LEAST you could have is some bravery. He showed as well as being a shit goalkeeper he is a panzy. Rest of the defence was all over the place too but it shouldn't have got that far, it was a simple run out and grab the ball and he failed.

[stevedon]

I was there and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. The first half was a shocker - no urgency, no creativity and WBA looked far more dangerous. I told my 14 year old daughter, who was at the Emirates for only her second time, that it would be ok because we can't play that badly again and anyway Wenger will put Wilshere on and give them a bollocking in his team talk.

Turns out we came out even more asleep and before I knew what was happening we were 2-0 down. Then 3-0. I thought Almunia did quite well so far this season but what a shocking mess he made of goals 2 & 3. The first goal was a combination of Arshavin (and others) standing around and not tracking back, with Sagna's dodgy defending.

My overall impression, from my perch high up in the North Bank, was that:
(a) the goalie had a shocker
(b) so did Sagna, Clichy & Kos (Kos kept giving the ball away but he was not alone in that)
(c) our central midfielders lacked penetration and gave the ball away, but some credit should go to WBA for that....however Cesc would have made a big difference as did Wilshere when he came on
(d) no leadership at all
(e) Arshavin was poor and even though he had the odd good touch/pass it did not make up for the crapness
(f) we really are totally shite at taking corners
(g) we didn't wake up until we were 3-0 down, after which Nasri did great - why couldn't they have that directness and urgency from the start?!
(h) I didn't think Song had such a bad game - believe me we would have been in even more trouble without some of his blocks, last ditch tackles/fouls and headers - he is one of the few players we have with a defensive instinct in midfield
(i) Chamakh did not have a good game IMO - a bit easily brushed aside by defenders, worked hard but hardly terrified the opposition. At least he's not lazy.
(j) so few shots on target....
(k) the ref was crap - we were through on goal in the first half and he stopped the game to give a foul in our favour - why not play advantage?
(l) WBA look quite good at the moment, well done to them

and at the end of that I still had a good day out, saw 2 great goals by Nasri and we are still 2nd in the league. Surely every team has a stinker once in a season and this must have been ours. We can't do anything about addressing the keeper situation until January - I'd like to see how Wenger can justify not bringing in somebody decent in the Summer. Now both Almunia and Fabianski have no confidence at all, so it will be interesting to see what AW does.

[Reddaz]

We were shit. End of. It was a shambles