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

That was a fantastic performance, a breath of fresh air after what we've been dishing up lately. We were at them for the full 90 and really shoulda racked up more goals. 

It looks to me that we're playing a mobile forward line, with Walcott, Sanchez and Welbeck together, making constant runs, and a trio of good passers from deep in Elneny, Xhaka and Ozil (who is sitting noticeably deeper most of the time, compared to earlier in the season). Sanchez is also dropping a lot more than before and being more creative, rather than getting on the end of things. For that type of game Welbeck is definitely better suited than Giroud. If Lucas weren't injured he might be the one getting starts given his relative strengths. Giroud is a great bench player as well so it must make it an easy decision for Wenger. 

Xhaka, Gabriel, Bellerin, Ozil and Walcott were the stand-outs for me this morning, and Elneny had a good game as well. 

Ref was really bad. Two obvious penos, including what should have been a red for a foul on Monreal. He let a ton of fouls go for both sides too. Abysmal. 

Obviously later he became our captain and a great leader, but not in his first season, he wasn't required to. He played awesomely but he wasn't required to take charge of the team in any way, we already had successful leaders. There was very little pressure on the team compared to right now, the Manager wasn't under pressure to be sacked, and Vieira didn't even get a red card until his second season, so didn't have that personal pressure either (yet, that would come, thankfully when he had more EPL experience under his belt). 

I can definitely see Xhaka becoming a leader for us. He's combative, he likes to dictate games from deep, and I think he'll start to express himself more vocally next season having this year under his belt. 

Just dodged the 300 pound fine!!!

Any club in breach of this rule is liable to pay a penalty of £300 for a first breach. The fine is doubled to £600 for a second breach and doubled again, to £1,200, for a third.

Koscielny, who reportedly commands a salary of £75,000-a-week at Arsenal, would earn enough to pay the fine in approximately 40 minutes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premie...

Too little too late but nice to be back to winning ways, and we even managed to get through a game against Andy Carroll without gifting him 2 or 3 free headers in front of goal which made a pleasant change. Ridiculous refereeing.

I did not expect this but it does seem so.

Although it could be that gabriel plays the left side better. He did seem more comfortable there, and I can't remember Per ever playing on that side?

We've got plenty of decent CBs on the books at the moment. Holding looks extremely promising to me, and Chambers did well at Boro until he was injured recently. 

I think Per is just done as a PL standard player. 

I wouldn't write him off yet. He hasn't played all season but during pre-season he looked good, and AW's comments about him indicate his in great shape - I'm sure he's aware he's playing his last seasons at top flight and doing all he can to keep up while his body allows.

He's been contracted for next year, while he's been injured, so Wenger and the medical team must think he's up to it. 

He's getting on in age and has been out for a while, so it's an easy assumption to make to say that he is finished, and could well be true, but we really don't know until we see him play again. 

I think he's a good person to have around the squad; but even before he got injured his powers were faltering.

Terrible results for us in the weekend.

Pressure is on for tomorrow, must win. Any which way.

I don't think the results changed anything TBH, we simply have to win all of our games on the run in. We have max 2 FA cup matches, and 9 league matches. Win all 11 of them and we've bagged another FA Cup trophy and likely landed champions league for next year finishing 4th, perhaps even 3rd depending on other results.

If we're aiming for anything less it's not acceptable.

Would love to see the Elneny, Xhaka, Ozil triangle again tomorrow, seems like a combination that could work well going forward, especially with a fast front 3. Wouldn't be surprised to see Giroud come back in for Welbeck, Welbz match sharpness/finishing isn't great at the moment (air shot anyone?!).

The sad thing is that if Chelsea, Spurs, City, Liverpool or United were away to Palace, you'd expect them to win every time. With us, I'm not that confident. It shouldn't be that way.

I'm not confident because they are playing a lot better now, and they just beat Chelsea, at Stamford Bridge.

However historical results suggest we should be confident. We've won every game at their ground since they were promoted. 

Have always thought that without Santi, Elneny and Xhaka are our best combination.  Elneny makes up for Xhaka's lack of mobility, though neither are that defensively strong.

I'd love to see Lucas up top in that formation brumbys, but I think he's still injured.

Walcott/Lucas/Sanchez across the front would be absolute lightning, and all very good finishers.

For any old timers like me who grew up during the David Rocastle and Ian Wright era, you will love this. 

Is this 5 games in a row up front without a shot on target for Welbeck now?

fml

So we might find out what it's like to finish 7th.

ArsenalTV will make for some humorous viewing after this

Haven't seen it but apparently when the players went to clap the fans they were booed, had the fingers pulled at them, told to f*ck off, etc etc. 

As bad as it gets.

Europa League all but confirmed (unless we are overtaken by WBA as well!), finishing below Spurs for the first time in Wenger's reign for sure, 2 best players out of contract and sounding like they could leave, we are at the lowest of the low. 

It's time to move on from Wenger now. I made a post here 3 years ago or so saying that he has brilliantly pulled us through the building of the stadium, and managed to keep us in the top 4 with limited finances, what a great job, but now that is done. We are through it, we have money, it is time to make our mark as a big club, finally. I said he should have a pass on no league title since 2004 at that point, but now he needs to challenge. We're primed, cashed up, good young squad, lets go. 

And since then he has not delivered. Yes two FA Cups were nice, but we should have won the league last year, no questions asked. And now this, a total collapse. 

I know we're talking overhauls and players not good enough etc etc but I don't buy that - this squad is as good as any going around for me. We have depth in every position. We have a good smattering of world class players. We are experienced enough. We have shown in individual performances that we can beat anybody. All the ingredients are there and have been there for the past 2-3 seasons. But we can't do it, not under Wenger. The mentality is not there. 

I'm very saddened as I love the great man, but he just cannot continue. 

You sure put the hex on them

"Arsenal have now conceded 17 goals in the last 9 games... .that's 5 more than Middlesbrough, 3 more than Sunderland, 2 more than Swansea"

The way Townsend won that penalty was proper salt in the wound stuff, silly from the keeper to come out like he did but still flagrant simulation. 

I remember seeing bits of the 3-3 game you guys had away to Bournemouth, none of that fight seemed evident today.

You've got to credit Allardyce, I remember thinking that his late charge act might not work this time but that Palace side has all the ingredients on paper and he's turned their situation around.

Martinez was actually the shining light for me, didn't seem to put a foot wrong and the penalty was simulation - although you could argue he potentially shouldn't have enable the situation to occur.

Not much to say about that one.

This is perhaps the worst run of form I've seen for the last decade? Can anyone point out differently?

It's really sad as there was nothing that I wanted to see more than for Wenger to win it one last time; but he really should have gone when we won the FA Cup.

Would that be the 04/05 final?  :)

The worst thing is the consistency. I see most of the statistics being produced to show how bad we are, are ignoring the Westham game at the weekend (even Carragher saying we've conceded 3+ in our last 4 games or whatever, crucially failing to insert the word "away").

The Westham performance was our best since we battered Chelsea in September, and yet we back it up with this dross??? 

Seriously broken mentalities in the squad.

Change must be inevitable, on the managerial front first and foremost. No point in talking about a player overhaul when a new Manager could surely do much better with the same personnel, provided he is of sufficient quality.

Hah! Touche. Wonder where we'd be if that happened.

My view on Wenger is that he did a terrific job when we had no money to spend; but now we do have money, he's really not delivered. He's stuck in 2010.

What's just dawning on me is we're fast approaching United territory without changing our long term manager.

You are well past that already.

I'll feel oddly relaxed about it all. Think I mentally checked out about the same time the players stopped playing for the manager. Or if I'm honest, I don't think I ever recovered from the way the United and Swansea defeats broke me after the win over Leicester last season. 

After 100 million net spend last summer and our worst season in 20+ years Wenger will gleefully say something like "see, I told you spending was never the right to do." Live in hope missing CL might finally be the thing that forces the board to make a change. In the end though we'll only get Gazidis saying "CL is not the be all and end all and we have planned for the possibility of not being in it. Arsene has already built the club once and he's the right man to do it again." 

I actually wouldn't mind trying to win the Europa tbh. I struggle to understand why we're supposed to turn our noses up at trophies like the League Cup or Europa and believe they don't count. Anyone would think we're drowning in silverware, and why do Chelsea, City and United keep winning the League Cup if the cups don't matter? I won't miss getting humiliated by Bayern again, although I imagine even if we do end up in the Europa UEFA will find some way to change the rules so we still have to play them. We've already anticipated this by arranging the annual pasting in pre-season too.

Allegri and Dybala in to replace Wenger and Sanchez would be just fine thanks. 

The much more likely scenario is Wenger signing a 2 year contract and Sanchez going to Chelsea.

Sheesh ajc, you love the doom and gloom like no other!

Hard not to agree with you most of the time at the moment though, to be fair hahaahahahahaha