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

flipping hell, we peppered the posts today. 

I yelled so loud when ozil hit the post that i think i woke the neighbours!! bahaha

what a results back 3 were immense. Full backs did well. That front 3 is dynamic and the Ramsey /Xhaka combo is perfect - especially when Ozil joins them to help overload the midfield.

Amazing. My favourite of our Cup wins I think. Huge amount of joy in beating them and denying the double. Massive win this

for us. Monreal MOTM for me. Kept Hazard out of it. What a legend Mertesacker is. Colossal at the back on his first start of season. Everyone put in a huge performance.

Get. The. F*ck. In.

That was amazing

What were your guys thoughts on the first goal?

Not sure he could have done a lot about it from point blank range. One of those ball to hand rather than intentional compared to something like Crouch deliberately punching it in the goal the other week.

On the dive, what a cod doing that in the Cup Final LOL. Unforgivable.

Didn't notice, but apparently Chelsea "forgot" to wear the black armbands in the first half.

Also what a legend Ramsey is. Two Cup final winners. Few players have achieved as much in the club's history.

I love the fact that Chelsea fans and players genuinely look like this season has been ruined for them. They must have thought they'd walk this. Terry's face at the end!

Chelsea had a top season and played some great football, they shouldn't be to disheartened. I also believe all Arsenal fans would swap our FA Cup with their EPL

Anyway exciting match and a great result. 

Go back one month, and if all our squad was fit, I believe our first choice back 5 and keeper would probably have been;

                        Cech

Ox-Gabriel-Koscielny-Mustafi-Monreal

Only two of those were available this morning and both played in different roles - in the Ox's case a position he's never played in his life. 

Obviously Mertesacker's first start of the season but he also said he'd never played in a back 3 before!

It's unbelievable that they were able to play so well.

I hope we continue this formation next season. 

I watched the game with a mate who is a big Chelsea fan so we had a good debate on this already :-)

I think there are three things to consider.

1) Was Ramsey interfering? As the commentators pointed out the definition of interfering with play in an offside position isn't clearly defined, so you're left to referees interpretation. Based on similar scenarios I've seen in EPL this year the goal was given thus I don't think this goal should be treated any differently = goal stands.

2) Did Sanchez handball? I haven't seem super detailed replays but with his arms raised it was always a possibility. For me hand ball should be measure by intent, his arms were up for balance, he didn't appear to be reaching for the ball with his hands in an attempt to cheat but we all know how easy it is to brush your arm. For me I'm undecided on this.

3) Chelsea switched off. At all levels of the game you're told to 'play to the whistle'. The Chelsea back line waited for a whistle that didn't come rather than tracking Sanchez, which is ultimately the biggest issue.

Hope that's not too one eyed for ya!

1. No

2. No.

3. Chelsea just thought they had to turn up

What a game. One of my favourite in recent memory - it felt real good to stuff Chelsea and give John Terry the send off he truly deserves.

Absolutely. None of us are any illusion that's it's been a successful season or that this is better than what Chelsea won and we know we've missed out on the CL for the first time in 20 years and there's been a lot of nasty stuff this season. But none of that matters today. This feeling is incredible, and it feels worth going through all heartache and rough times to eventually get days like this. There will be questions as to why we so often fall apart and get thumped in big games against the top sides if we are capable of producing this. Must admit I didn't see this coming at all, I thought we'd get another Bayern type mauling. We absolutely battered them and the scoreline flattered them. Should really have been several goals up before they equalised and I was having nightmares of the 2001 final when similarly we should have been out of sight before Owen stole it at the end.

Even before the first goal we started well and they just seemed off the pace even in the first few minutes. Did they totally not expect it and think "it's Arsenal, we only have to turn up and they'll hand it to us?" Did they spend the week partying too hard after winning the league? Or did we just manage to lift and produce an extra special performance with some players and possibly the manager having their last game for the club?

Mertesacker has to be MOTM - think I said Monreal earlier and he was awesome too, but the BFG was colossal. He'd only played 37 minutes in the last year and never played in a back 3 before. Was a truly astonishing performance and certainly one of the great centre back performances from an Arsenal player in a final. After the crucial goal in the semi final the other year, a goal in the last final and this performance he reaches club legend status for me. As does Ramsey with 2 Cup winning goals. Hope we keep the BFG on for another season as he's still a great leader and clearly can still play a role in this formation.

Said it before but really like Monreal in the LCB performance and he was outstanding against Hazard today. He's not someone you instantly think of as a leader but is always one of our most vocal and passionate players on the pitch. The bear hug and celebration with Ospina after the late save from Costa was probably my favourite moment from the game. A particularly loud and drunk Arsenal fan in front of me at Four Kings got down on the floor and replicated it immediately. Monreal is not a player I've particularly rated that highly in his time here but have become a big fan over the last little while and he's a real unsung hero.

Loved Gabriel's celebrations on one leg, and seeing Cazorla up there grinning was awesome. Cech running straight to Ospina to celebrate was special too and shows the true class of the guy.

Also, send that humble pie my way Paul. Massive performance from Xhaka. Difficult to think of many big games in recent years where every single one of our players has come up with a special performance.

Agree with that, Mertesacker was unbelievable, I think Keown is right when he's suggested it should be remembered as the Mertesacker final. Per has a history at Wembley too, with a few goals for us before this, and also a winner for Germany. 

Mate we're starting to agree a bit these days, I'm concerned haha!

As much as I wanted to be at 4 Kings, I ended up watching this at my girlfriend of 18 months place in New Plymouth. I don't think she's ever heard me swear so much in a 90 minute period. I can't repeat what I yelled at Victor Moses. Looking back now, I really enjoyed the final and think we just wanted it more. It really did look like Chelsea had been partying all week or had replaced "It's only Ray Parlour" with "It's only Arsenal"

Like ajc28 said, I thought it was going to be like 2001 again after Welbecks header against the post and Ozil's shot that was cleared off the line. I had a complete meltdown when Chelsea equalized which was then replaced with joyous shouting and fist pumping when Rambo scored.

If only we'd played like this all year.

Oh, and by us winning the FA Cup, we have prevented Spurs from being in the Community Shield hahahaha

Brumbys Season Review.

Recruitment - 6/10

We had one of our largest spends bringing in Perez, Mustafi, Xhaka, and Holding for first team impact.

Perez was a small disaster. He's played well when called upon, suffered typical Arsenal injuries when pushing for a spot, and now must be angling for a return to Spain and first team action.

Mustafi reminds me of Koscielny in his first season. Some promise combined with some madness. Next season is when I'm expecting to see more of his best as he will be pushing to challenge Kosc as our best centre back.

Xhaka has really come into his own second half of the season. A couple of screaming goals, a couple of unnecessary red cards, and a wet dream of passing range. Great purchase.

Holding, he's better than Canavaro you know. The bloke has consistently nailed every challenge put in front of him, including getting under Costa's skin in an FA Cup final. As Wenger said to the press 'Sorry that he's English and only cost $2m'.

EPL - 3/10

It just wasn't good enough. While we took more points than last season it's simply highlighted how badly we failed last year when Leicster took the title. This year we started with promise pumping Chelsea 3-0 and looking dynamic with Sanchez leading the line. Then it fell apart and for far too long. That Wenger was able to solve the problem with a formation change is box encouraging and disappointing; as it leaves the question of why we didn't make the change sooner.

ECL - 5/10

F*cking Bayern Munich. We won a difficult group including some great games against PSG for one of our better group ECL appearances in recent memory only to get Bayern R16 after Bayern had one of their worst groups from recent memory. We know the tie with Bayern and the mauling we took. The interesting stats for me in those games was that we basically shat the bed the moment Kosc left the field in both games. I think it highlighted that Koscielny was single handedly covering the defensive cracks of our playing style. Now a year without ECL and it will be nice to know that we won't have play Bayern or Barca for the 10000th year in a row.

FA Cup - 11/10

I don't need to write much on this. We pumped Chelsea. Rob Holding made Costa his b*tch. Ramsey got another match winner. Ozil actually did a slide tackle. Terry was sad.

Overall - 6.5/10

Ultimately the FA Cup is the only thing that's saved this season for us. Wenger has showed his managerial capabilities after it all fell apart in the EPL and ECL. Does this warrant further time at the club? My gut says "yes..but". Yes he should get another contract, but on the condition he get's a Sporting Director (or equivalent) to be his right hand man in running the club. Scouting, recruitment, and youth systems all need a good look at this summer - that's too much for one man to do while trying to mount a 3 way challenge for the EPL, Europa, and the FA Cup.

Just thought I'd share some comparisons I thought up between the 2002 and 2017 Cup Finals

Arsenal and Chelsea played in both finals.....obviously

In both finals, one team was going for the Double. Arsenal in 2002 and Chelsea in 2017

Chelsea were managed by an Italian in both finals, Ranieri in 2002 and Conte in 2017

Chelsea had ex Arsenal Player Emmanuel Petit in their team in 2002 and Cesc Fabregas in 2017

Both Arsenals 2nd goals of the finals were score by #8. Ljungberg in 2002 and Ramsey in 2017

John Terry was on the bench in 2002 and 2017

Good stuff Gooner and imo quite interesting.

Some of the celebrations:

Awesome seeing Rosicky and Keown there. Enjoyed seeing Cazorla loving it too.

espnfc reporting that Arsene will sign a 2 year contract

http://www.espnfc.com.au/arsenal/story/3135734/ars...

Just reminiscing about the game... sounds crazy but I felt like I knew we were going to win when this happened;

http://arsenalist.com/f/2016-17/arsenal-vs-chelsea...

Just seeing all 3 of our CBs go in like that, last ditch to prevent the shot, you just knew we had the desire to win that game. We haven't seen that kind of thing enough this season, or last. 

Or for the last 10 years really.

Apparently he met Kroenke today ahead of board meeting to decide future. Sounds like it's conditional on additional support for him - which I think is a good thing.

Financial support i.e. signings? I hope so. 

What a win on the weekend, for me Mertesacker was our best - incredible performance given he hadn't started a match in 392 days. Refreshing to see such a committed and well-structured performance. .

Hoping now that Wenger leaves on a high, I'd see it as the perfect reminder of where he once had us. No amount of money or support will change the next two years otherwise.

I'd still like to see Wenger win the league and give the crowd + camera the finger.

What blew my mind was this:

http://news.arseblog.com/2017/05/side-by-side-rams...

History repeating itself when the underdog was brought back to 1-1 only to go up again from the restart. They have a video of it and it's incredibly similar.

Mahrez leaving Leicester, rumours that he's keen on us. 40m the rumoured price.

I'd have him. 

He's an interesting one, where does he play in a 3-4-3? Assuming in that front 3? If so does he offer more than Walcott or Perez in that position? This year scored 6 and set up 3 in the prem, compared to last years 17 and 11. This year Walcott was 10 and 2, previous year 5 & 2. However Mahrez has started 30+ games each season, Theo 23 and 15 respectively.

Key for me is a long term Santi replacement and a 20+ a season 6ft+ striker.

So Arsenal.com ran the player of the season poll.

Alexis was first (unsurprising)

The Ox was second (not really my top 5)

Koscielny was third (definitely top 5)

Sanchez and Koscielny are no brainers. Ox was one of our best performers over the last couple of months with the formation change so I guess people tend to remember what’s happened most recently with these things, but across the season that’s wrong. Would have Cech and Monreal up there personally, but I may also be mainly thinking back to recent form! Holding undoubtedly young player of the year.

Actually tough to say who would be the players of the season. Sanchez and Koscielny definitely up there.

But if you've got Ox in there, then a bunch of other guys have also had similarly good patches form e.g. Cech, Mustafi, Holding, Bellerin, Xhaka, Ozil, Giroud... 

Ox is boss?

Re: Mahrez

He would best suit one of the roles that Ozil and Sanchez currently occupy. So he'd either be a back-up there, or Sanchez would move back to striker to pull him into the starting lineup.

Re: Cazorla

I too saw a replacement for him as a priority, but with our new formation, I actually think Ramsey (and even Wilshere) are better suited to start in midfield than Cazorla even... just due to having bigger engines, and the need for the person in that role to get up and down, it's really a true box to box role now, which I'm not sure Cazorla is suited to. I think he'd be best suited as a back-up to Ozil in the new formation...