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

Bottom of the league at home sounds a good time to rest one of Kos or Per and try him. Expect the same as the weekend with Sanchez in for Welbeck, which is probably our best lineup currently.

3 points.....we were very scrappy. Alexis and Rambo injured isnt great either heading into a busy period. Ozil Santi and Per were great i thought.

Risking permanent ban from this thread  but the Chq Book Chumps have spent so much fudgeing money to play such awful fudgeing football I'd take the Cocks over them for 4th any day.

The only thing I wish for the cocks is that they are first against the wall when the revolution comes. Any desire for them to achieve anything other than dismal failure at anything they attempt is questionably treasonous.

I want to 'this' both the last two posts but that would seem somewhat contradictory...

7 points between 5th and 2nd. Good results this morning. Everton almost did everyone a favour but alas Barry got himself sent off!

On a light hearted note, Giroud has been voted hottest player in the league by a panel of American women. Other interesting results from the study include:

http://www.teamtalk.com/news/2483/9710020/Arsenal-...

I'm sure Marouanne is really gutted about that one.

So with Ramsey out and Jack on his way back, do you drop Flamini, Rosicky, or Ozil in with Coquellin & Cazorla? Flamini is prudent, defensive, and doesn't offer any drive. Rosicky offers drive and energy, but while puts in a mean tackle, doesn't track as well as a Flamini/Ramsey type. Ozil would offer even more creativity, allowing both of our speedsters plus Welbs or Giroud to make up a very attacking front three.

Personally I'd like to see Rosicky given a crack to see if he can play that role, especially as Cazorla has stepped his game up in the defensive department.

Oh and in other news Ramsey's latest injury is bringing out the 'antiquated arsenal training methods' brigade. Do you think there's a problem there?

Quite clearly when you look at how many muscle injuries we get compared to everyone else. Ramsey's hamstrings seem to explode every time he comes back. We also always seem to overplay and break people. Apparently Ramsey was limping even when warming up the other day so he never should have been brought on. And as important as Sanchez is, we shouldn't have needed to start him at home against bottom of the league. He should have been rested from that one and possibly from the weekend too given we're at home against a lower division side. He should have at least been taken off as soon as he suffered the knock, or at the very latest at half time. It just wasn't worth the risk at home against the bottom side when we were 2-0 up. 

Ozil never had injuries before he came here. In his last 5 seasons (3 at Real Madrid and 2 at Werder Bremen) he made 52, 52, 53, 44 and 47 appearances. At Arsenal he's missed about half of both seasons and it feels a bit like he's barely played for us. Fabregas was plagued by muscle injuries in his last 2 or 3 seasons here and they magically disappeared at Barcelona. Diego Costa seems to have permanent hamstring issues but somehow he's never out.

Sham Fraudsythe was brought in to fix all this and if anything it only seems to be getting worse. Keep hearing mentions of "selection issues" when everyone is fit, particularly in the midfield. But the reality is there is never any occasion when they all are. Wilshere returning won't create any issue because now Ramsey is out and probably someone else will be too so he'll have to come straight into the side anyway.

.Also, gave me a little chuckle but Wojcech Szczesny has been voted Brentford Goalkeeper of the decade.

Rightfully so. A number of Bee's fans I know from the UK Bass Player sites alwYs waxed lyrical about WS

Quote from the Arsene presser this morning saying they've accepted there is something systemic with Ramsey and his hammys. Either bio-mechanic or medical. Hardly a ground breaking realisation but good to come out publicly and admit something more is at play than just bad luck.

Going to Boro on Sunday, haven't been in over a year so very much looking forward to it.

Gabriel debut. Flam in for Coq

Looks like 4-2-3-1 without the ball and 4-1-41 with it. 

Bradford up over Sundeland.

you are all over us..hope to keep it scoreless till halftime. Any Boro response will be on counter.  Only watching to halftime.

Did watch the whole game but great goals from Giroud. Really hoping Liver and Man u get each other in one of the 1/4 finals :P

go Preston Ripthejacka

Welbeck, Cazorla, Sanchez, Ozil, Giroud all started this morn, with Walcott and Rosicky off the bench, and Ramsey, Wilshere and Oxlade-Chamberlain all to return to injury.

We have some serious attacking firepower these days.

Giroud with some quality this morn - most underrated striker in the prem?

Ozil was excellent again, he has looked great since he came back. 

My understanding is Ozil, Cazorla, and Flamini made up the middle 3, how did that go?

Great to get the result, hoping to see Preston get up tomorrow and make the draw that much easier.

3 more wins and the cup is ours.

Oh and did you see Arsene's quote about the FA Cup? He's won it 5 times so far, no other team has won it more in that time period than Arsenal. Good one to throw back at the trophy drought haters.

Solid win and probably should have been more than 2-0 but for some good saves from their keeper. Bit surprised Sanchez started after the knock the other day. Would have thought he'd be rested at home against a lower division side after that but thankfully he seemed ok. Bit hard to tell much about Gabriel as we didn't really have to do much defending. Seemed comfortable on the ball but the few times I noticed him in defence he lost the one header he had to compete for in the first half, but did recover to make a clearance, got a yellow card in the second then gave away an unnecessary corner and started punching himself in the head. Did make one good tackle in the box in the second half.

I really want this cup again. That morning at the Backbencher was one the best things I've ever experienced. Bet we get United away. When is the draw?

Edit: Draw is 8.30am tomorrow our time.

Thought our first goal was beautiful at the time and turns out all 11 players touched it in the build up. Wasn't one of those 1000 touch moves with 995 touches across the back 4 either.

They were decent. 

I didn't pay enough attention to how they were sitting with and without the ball but it almost felt like everyone had a roving commission out there. I noticed Flamini getting forward on occasion, Cazorla was absolutely everywhere all day, and Ozil was doing his usual thing from the central role - drifting out to each flank to receive, he does that so well. You wonder where he is and then he'll get it in a whole bunch of space. He was magical this morning I thought, along with Cazorla again.

Ozil also seems to be shooting a lot more, and getting himself into really good scoring positions. Nearly bagged one again this morning to add to the ones he's got since coming back.

I think that midfield is ok against the likes of Boro but when we play better sides with more physical midfielders we need someone bigger than Cazorla in there.

Yeah was going to say that about Ozil shooting. Seems to be very keen to shoot since coming back from the latest injury which is not something we'd seen from him previously. I do like an attacking midfielder who will sometimes just take a shot from just outside the box.

He has a good shot too, good power, bit of swerve, and obviously he knows how to place one with his level of passing accuracy - most of his goals for us have been placed beautifully. 

Saturday - Crystal Palace away

Wednesday - Monaco home

Sunday - Everton home

Wednesday - QPR away

Saturday - FA Cup 1/4 final

Massive 5 games that set us up for an amazing or horrific end of the season.

Edit for formatting

Was sat in the second tier for the first time yesterday so got a different perspective on things. Noticeable for me was how deep Cazorla played in the first half, was usually the guy going back and picking up the ball from the back 4 and going forward with it. Gabriel seemed very assured the couple of times he had to do anything, made a very good challenge at one point in the second half. Felt like Sanchez and Ozil both had a roving commission and moved about a lot. Welbeck stuck largely to his flank.

Good performance, not that we were particularly tested but we still had to put them away. Boro fans were class.

Nice one Bopman

Are you going to the Monaco game?

No, couldn't quite justify the 60 quid.

Am going to the West Ham game in the middle of March.

Sharke  Preston or Manure!

Lads, back in NZ for a few weeks. Is the Monaco game going to be on espn here?

#NailedIt

Could still be Preston ;-)

Was always going to be United away. Can see Wenger not wanting to risk key players being kicked off the field by them ahead of the Monaco second leg. There is a week before our next game after this though so hope we play our strongest team and go for it. Be a good one to finally win up there.

Bloody hell. Preston 1-0 up. 40 minutes to go though.

The scum it is. Still if they keep playing like this there is no reason we could be scared of them.

even when they are playing shark we have really struggled to beat them in the last 6-7 seasons.