(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 1)

lol

gotta love the haters LOL we have played well over the 8years but just never won

speaking of great goals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0L0WIK2Ync&feature=youtu.be

Not to put a dampener on things but we've had injury setbacks for walcott and diaby. Walcott pushed out by a cupla weeks, diaby needed further keyhole surgery on his knee and now won't be ready til March. Not sure what's happening with Sanogo, I've taken him off the list altogether now that bendnter is looking solid as the 2nd choice striker (thought he looked quite sharp at the weekend actually). Sanogo's a young fringe player so he doesn't get mentioned in the press conferences. The quotes from wenger in this article suggest we shouldn't expect to see him in the first team much this season: https://www.london24.com/sport/arsenal/wenger_explains_why_arsenal_moved_for_yaya_sanogo_1_2883423

Flamini - possibly available for Dortmund at home (Oct 22)

Walcott - possibly available for Liverpool at home (Nov 2)

Podolski - possibly available for Liverpool at home (Nov 2)

Zelalem - possibly available for Liverpool at home (Nov 2)

Oxlade-Chamberlain - possibly available for Southampton at home (Nov 23)

Diaby - available approx March

Good shout on Bendtner. I'm looking forward to watching more detailed highlights tonight, but it would be good to see him give Giroud some rests.

In terms of fit midfielders we have:

Frimpong/Wilshere/Ramsey/Arteta/Ozil/Cazorla/Rosicky...

In terms of fit wingers we have:

Gnabry

Given id' trust all of those midfielders bar Arteta and Frimpong to cover our wide players I think we should be OK over the next 6 games. All of players back in time for Christmas? That'd be smashing. (bar Diaby, but I'm resigned to him not playing for ages).

I think we can probably assume that wide-left will be cazorla's permanent position. He's played in that position for basically all of 2013 - rosicky went into the 10 role at the back end of last season, and ozil the beginning of this one. We're nice and balanced when walcott is on the other side with his pace, but we're doing ok at the moment playing with shedloads of midfielders everywhere! 

If we try and name two players for every position we can see where the obvious holes are:

Szczesny, Fabianski

Sagna, Jenkinson

Mertesacker, ????

Koscielny, Vermaelen

Gibbs, Monreal

Flamini, Arteta 

Ramsey, Wilshere

Walcott, Oxlade-Chamberlain

Ozil, Rosicky

Cazorla, Podolski

Giroud, Bendtner

And left out altogether;

Viviano, Diaby, Frimpong, Zelalem, Gnabry, Miyaichi, Sanogo

So we need a solution at CB, which could be re-signing Sagna and signing another RB, or just signing a CB. If this young guy we bought recently is the goods then he might get promoted to the first team soon instead. 

And then striker, a high calibre replacement to come in for bendtner I guess. Although you never know with Nicklas... he looks hungry right now and has a couple more months to show us what he can do before the transfer window opens...

Bendtner hunger will be two fold. It will either earn him an extension on his contract and a chance to shine, or it will earn us more money than we would have got in the off season.

CB has been the problem all along. This is where Song was such a versatile addition, would be good if Frimpong had the same discipline to go down that road too.

Agree, I'd be happy with one more centre back/left back cover for any inevitable injury. I think we will be fine up front, when the Ox, Theo and Podolski come back, alongside Bendtner, Giroud, Sanogo, and whichever of our CM's we force out wide, just an overload of attacking options, love it.

Two other observations for you lads from the game...

1) Ozil's first goal was spectacular. He had to sprint from within his own half to get into that position. Not a bad effort.

2) Reddy had a superb day and wasn't at fault for any of the goals scored. 

agree wholeheartedly on those points. Watched parts of it again last night and ozil saw what was going on when we were still in our own half, he looked at his marker and just started sprinting, never letting up, he was always going to get lost and the defender even threw an elbow into his back to try and put him off the header

Loving this sound bite, it's just the crowd for the wilshere goal. After they announce it and replay it on the screen you can hear the crowd gasp at the flicks and stand up to applaud. Amazing. Arsenal were you there? 

https://soundcloud.com/arseblog/jack-wilshere-goal-v-norwich

Yeah I was there, upper Clock End so the goal was down my end too!

i look back on the two arsenal games I have been to and think of how it would've been so different if we were in this kind of form when i was there... very jealous

The more times I watched Wilshere's goal, the better it got. Absolutely amazing.

Well I also went to the Villa game so it's all swings and roundabouts...

Flamini definitely out for Dortmund through concussion, should be back for Crystal Palace...

Possible line up?

           Szy

Sagna Kosc Mert Gibbs

       Ramsey Arteta

Rosicky Ozil   Cazorla

              Giroud

Bench: Fabianski, Jenkinson, Vermaelen, Wilshere, Gnabry, Bendtner, Frimpong

Injured: Walcott, Podolski, Flamini, Oxlaide-Chamberlain, Sanogo, Zelalem, Diaby

EDIT: I also imagine at least half of that bench will start at Crystal Palace to rotate the squad a bit more. Chelsea and United coming up, got to go into it fresh as possible.

The way Palace are playing right now I think our youth squad would destroy them.

I'd play Jack and Cazorla on the wings, other than that I agree. 

Something in me votes we still need to protect Jack, and keep Rosicky in form with game time. Arsene always knows though.

I'm still keen for Gnabry to be getting some time out wide. With 3 of your 'traditional' wingers out this is the time to use him.

cant see Wenger using him tomorrow but could get a run against palace

our game is live on epsn tomorrow, all our champ league games have been live so far :). A win would set us up nicely

Reckon Gnabry and Rosicky could both play against Palace at the weekend. For dortmund tomorrow I'd put Ramsey in for Flamini but otherwise un-changed from the norwich game. 

Without flamini i like having jack on one flank as he brings defensive tenacity and good tracking back to that role - rosicky would put in just as much effort, no doubt, but jack is a better tackler and adds some real bite. These dortmund mids are quality, we'll need to shut em down hard.

this is the game i have been looking forward to the most since the draw came out

big loss with flamini out, but i think we can cover him. 

and after the weekends performance im pumped for this.

3-1 to us

Picking a 1-1 result

An open game possibly mistakes due to fatigue...

still need the win

draw is only OK if we get the same result over there. Important to win the group. 

Cazorla not starting, i wonder if ozil will be rested for palace, hence resting cazorla today?

Anyhow, starting team;

                     Szczesny

Sagna-Mertesacker-Koscielny-Gibbs

                Arteta-Ramsey

           Rosicky-Ozil-Wilshere

                      Giroud

And dortmund;

Weidenfeller – Großkreutz, Subotic, Hummels, Schmelzer, Bender, Sahin,Blaszczykowski, Mkhitaryan, Reus, Lewandowski

OK first half, but Rambo had a mare in that moment to loose possesion.

https://www.101greatgoals.com/blog/ex-gunner-cesc-fabregas-liked-a-picture-of-pizza-put-on-instagram-by-arseblog/

Thought this might make you smile!

C'mon you gooners!

missed the game but heard their goals were against the run of play, we will need to beat either dortmund or Napoli away which will be tough. was really hoping we would have the group wrapped up earlier. Tough run of games coming up

thought the teams  were evenly matched, they hit us with a nice goal on the counter just when i thought we were starting to push on. Pretty gutting but we probably needed a return to reality!

We had our moments but things didn't quite click

Ramsey's error was terrible for their first goal, hopefully the lad bounces back and learns from that

Disappointing to lose our first test against a big team this season.

i thought spurs and then napoli were huge tests to be fair

But yes this was the new biggest test of the season

playing them away will up the ante yet again

decent assessment

https://www.football365.com/f365-says/8986395/F365-Says

having wally and poli for the away legs will make a difference i reckon

gotta love their BVB fans

Didn't Theo get an extension to his injury? Sounds like it's going to be a niggly recurring one so I wouldn't be surprised to see him out for a while yet.

arsene's quote was 'at least two weeks' - so could be longer. Going by that quote I put him at 'possibly' available for liverpool on nov 2 (UK time)

gutted for the late goal loss, but i thought we look good in the 2nd half.

We will bounce back against Palace this weekend

I have 1 membership but need a couple more to get tickets for when my folks are over in the UK over Nov and Dec. if anyone has a couple of memberships that I can borrow to get tickets to games before they go on general sale, please drop me an email at stevenjones_6@hotmail.com

Ta

what track are those lyrics from?