(The not-so-temporary quite-official) Gooner Thread (Part 2)

I have to say, that West Ham side were very good. The Bilic effect; which normally wears off after about half a season.

We played like we had the weight of the world on our shoulders already, which is not a good sign.

Cech, while a good signing, always had asterisks next to his name. i.e. *Possibly on decline, *why would Chelsea sell him if they didn't think he was past his best etc.

Not to mention the fact that he isn't a modern sweeper keeper which doesn't gel with our high line.

Ah well, onwards and upwards.

that was terrible, we had no drive in the middle of the park. It just seemed like the boys thought we were going to win by turning up. We all know how awesome Ozil is but games like this he really needs to stand up. was expecting a bit more impact from theo as well. I couldnt believe we put sanchez on, he's about 2 weeks away from being match fit and he needs a break.

There is also i few times we could have passed and set someone up in a good position but we shot.....looked a bit weird  

Agreed OX is/was/will be a great outlet but i get very worried when tries to run it out from the back.

Nacho looked pumped and got well forward i thought.....even skinned them a few times

Debuchy vs Hector fight for starting RB spot is going to be great.....Hector has adv at the moment

also it didnt take long for out with Wenger and Giroud to start LOL Pretty shark way to start the season but there is 37 games of this roller coaster to go lads

Must say I was massively surprised with the performance this morning. Pre-season is only that but I thought we had built on last year and thought last weekends result would have given us plenty of confidence. However West Ham looked pretty good and their power players in midfield showed us what we are missing.

Not having Sanchez playing was hugely significant as he's our only top front 3 player, Cech was at fault but will still save us points through the season.

I don't know how you can blame Cech for the first. Yes he got it wrong up coming out, but if he doesn't they've got a free header on the penalty spot anyway.

Surely the blame is on the three players ruining what would otherwise be a great offside line?

I think it's pretty obvious the line was set waaaaay too high. Not sure if that was the fault of Cech or Mertesacker, but probably one of those two are tasked with that. 

Despite that, coming for it and not getting there will always make you look bad as a keeper. Regardless of the free header he still would've had a better chance of saving if he'd stayed on his line. 

I think Wenger said it best when looking for who to blame;

“I haven’t spoken to Cech. But I can’t see many convincing individual performances today. It’s difficult to single one player out. “It’s not only him (Cech), we have enough experience at the back. If you look at our backline, the youngest one is 30. We are maybe guilty at 0-0 to give them a goal as soft as that.

“It was a defensive lapse. A collective lapse. There are many things to say about that. I knew that if the delivery was good, we would be in trouble, even before the free-kick was taken. “The concentration maybe was not completely there on the set-piece, the organisation was not perfect. The positional play, we were too far from our goal. We gave him too much distance to run into. We killed ourselves."

Rest of the team should have followed suit.

Stayed behind doing sprints apparently. Ridiculous that we were in a position where we had to bring him on when he should be a few weeks away.

Always feel sorry for the keeper, being one myself. It was a poor effort but possibly was a bit far out for him to go for it. I guess if he stays on his line it's a free header so if it's a goal then everyone is saying he should have come for the ball. It's a fine line but I like that he backs himself to go for the ball. He looked solid and composed last week so happy to write this one off as a bad day at the office. Shame it had to be in the season opener though.

Sanchez' first couple of touches, i thought man this guy is underdone. Slow from a standing start and rusty with the ball (for him). 

To then go on and create probably our two best chances, I mean f*ck, what a player. 

Now this sh*t about training after the game???

That guy. 

I'm in love.

I think it spoke to our absolute desperation that Sanchez was used at all. So much for easing him in.

I thought Ozil showed a real lack of fight out there. He's the antithesis of Sanchez at times.

Rosicky is injured. But I get your drift.

So our injured list is currently Welbeck, Rosicky, and Wilshere?

Loaning out Gnabry & Akpom might not have been the best...

Toral & Akpom got their loan debuts off to goal scoring starts:

Akpom - https://gfycat.com/NiftyConcreteEnglishsetter

Toral - https://gfycat.com/DearestUnsungHermitcrab

That Akpom finish is lovely.

Good arseblog today

https://arseblog.com/2015/08/silence-is-golden-in-a...

Would you rather go into the season with our current midfield crop, or with Alex Song back in the mix?

Barca are struggling to sell Song, we don't seem to be buying competition for Coquellin, could he be a good plan b?

Dimitri Billong can suck my Dong.

Not the worst option yes, but I'm still bitter. 

and Darxler :) Benzema links everyday as well but i can't see us getting him, Madrid would need to sign another top line striker if they were going to sell him

Call back Sanogo. Scored a hatty in a friendly against a quatari side this morning ;)

Akpom scored for Hull too.

Ronald de Boer on Sanogo:

Cheap laugh at ESPN - Managers Panini album

Cool - Wenger and Pooch

Special Needs -  LVG

Shocking Bowl - Koeman. It's amazing.

thank you foal30

amazing

here it is for all

https://www.espnfc.com/blog/the-toe-poke/65/post/25...

Some great stuff on arseblog news this morning;

"As is the custom at many clubs, new signings are expected to perform a song in front of their new teammates as a kind of initiation.

Mesut Ozil did 99 Red Balloons, Alexis Sanchez performed Chilean rockers ‘La Mentiras’ big hit ‘Chupame Mama’, and according to Theo Walcott and Kieran Gibbs, Petr Cech performed a rap.

Freestyling off the top of his dome, he included players and the manager in his lyrical rhymes and that.

“It was the best initiation song I’ve ever seen at Arsenal,” Walcott told Complex.com.

“Petr basically went round each table and did a rap, involving each of the players sitting at the table – and he included the boss – it was amazing.

“There is a video of it but I don’t think it’ll ever go out…”

There was also this amusing coda to question about the biggest ‘bromance’ at the club.

Gibbs: Yeah, Calum and Alex are tight…but nothing beats Mesut and Mathieu. They do everything together, they do gym sessions together, sauna together, eat together…

Walcott: Yeah, we actually call them Flamzil (laughs)."

Well for all the oxford/westham talk, they're 2-0 down at home to Leicester, and the kid got yanked at half time.

This better be putting some sh*t into perspective for our lads. Last week was atrocious. They better turn up big time tomorrow night. 

Apparently Coquelin having a fitness test, this highlights if he's injured/suspended we have a gaping hole!

Tough win today.

Cracking goal from Giroud and Özil absolutely bossed the game. 

Given Wenger's quotes about his professionalism and training during his break I'm not surprised he's back so soon.

Sanchez is back baby. 

Very happy with that this morning. We looked like we wanted it, compared to last week.

Interesting to see the changes on the pitch, with Cazorla back in midfield with Coquelin. I think there's a couple of reasons - Ramsey is more suited to starting on the right when Bellerin is there. Bellerin is slightly more attacking and stays really high up the pitch a lot, allowing Ramsey to stay inside and play between the lines - especially saw him creating havoc in the first 20 minutes like that. 

Also allows Sanchez to play on the left, in his favoured position. 

We definitely looked a lot more fluent than last week, if not quite hitting full stride. Palace are a good side, I don't think that many teams will get 3 points there this season.

Broken record, but... if we want to compete to win the league we must get a good holding mid ASAP (January will be too late).

Also, I'd be happier if we also got a decent striker (on a par or better than Giroud).

Yes, that is ridiculous.

Thought the Palace game was great; end to end stuff for much of it - Palace are a very good side and will give a lot of teams trouble this season so I knew it would be close.

Ozil really stood up, especially in that first half. We should've had a couple of early goals, really. Alexis missed some really big chances.

Still worried about Cech, though. He's so slow to get down. I don't see how he is an improvement on Sneezy.

- Slow to get down

- Slow to come out as a sweeper; doesn't usually come out at all

- Flapped at a couple of high balls; palmed them out instead of catching

- Not great with his feet - poor distribution most of the game