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Arsenal v. Sunderland [League - 21 Feb 2009 15:00]

kamikaze80

Established Member
i see no one's opened the matchday thread yet. so here goes:

yeah, we're playing sunderland at home in the league. apparently, on saturday afternoon. really, i'm just repeating information that's already in the thread title.

how about some analysis, you say? well, sunderland is kinda crap but they have jones up top, who i'm pretty sure will score if toure's playing. he's much taller than kolo, you see. we have a CL match on tues, which might be a distraction for our teenage players with short attention spans. hopefully, they stay focused on their task at hand, which is to not let the black cats make unmarked runs from midfield into our box. denilson and song, i'm looking at you.

on our side, it's a must-win match and may be a first start for our new signing, andrey arshavin. you might have heard of him - he's sort of a big deal. with some luck, he'll get off to as good of a start as eduardo.

if we lose, we can kiss 4th place good bye. we cannot afford to let the gap between us and villa grow to double digits with only 12 matches remaining after this one.
 

Gunner4life09

Well-Known Member
I expect this game to have a similar result as the one against Cardiff City, we might not win by a four goal margin but I expect the game to be comfortable with Eduardo to put in another excellent performance.

I would love to see Arshavin start but I don't think its Arsène style to immediately start a player especially after Cardiff game, I do expect him to bring on Arshavin at a later stage in the game.
 

Feet

Active Member
Arsharvin has been an Arsenal player for 2 weeks, he's had time to get himself reasonably fit in training and it's time to finally see him in action and I would start him since he should be able to mamage atleast 60 minutes. I'll stick him in the left midfeild position now but since we've never seen him play under Wenger yet I really have no idea which position he'll fill.

Al
Sagna Gallas Toure Clichy
Nasri Denilson Song Arsharvin
RvP Bendtner

Eduardo to come on at 60 minutes since the game should be done and dusted by then.

I'm gonna go for atleast 3 - 0 to the Arsenal.
 

Unforgiven

Established Member
This game is definitely a must win and I think it is up to Wenger to play the right team. We have to consider that Sunderland are extremely good at defending for the 0-0 draw when they play away to top clubs. If we are not getting a result towards the end of the game we should start piling on the strikers.

I would like to see:

Sagna--------Gallas---------Toure---------Clichy

Nasri---------Song-------Denilson----------Arshavin

--------------Eduardo-----------RVP-------

There is a lot of attacking power there. I think we will be able to make some chances, enough to win. Put on Bendtner later on if we are stilling drawing.

I am predicting a 2-0 win for us.
 

M+D

Established Member
Feet said:
Al
Sagna Gallas Touré Clichy
Nasri Denilson Song Arsharvin
RvP Bendtner


I think that team is about right as well, seeing as I doubt Eduardo will start 2 games in a row straight after coming back from injury. But I'd prefer to see Djourou next to Gallas to deal with Kenwyne Jones tbh.

Will be good to see the likes of him and Vela come on in the second half though to hopefully finish the game off.
 

Feet

Active Member
Yeah I don't really know if Djourou is available after his illness, otherwise I'd prefer him to Toure as well.
 

TomasCR

Established Member
Feet´s line-up is what I would go with too. Does it mean that Nasri will have to play on the right everytime Arshavin is in the starting line-up though?

Not exactly the biggest problem but still, don´t know if it´s good to throw him from left to right week after week. He should be good enough to manage it both on the left and right wing though.

Think we´ll win this one by a large goal difference. 3/4:0 to Arsenal is my guess.
 

AnthonyG

Arse Emeritus
TomasCR said:
Feet´s line-up is what I would go with too. Does it mean that Nasri will have to play on the right everytime Arshavin is in the starting line-up though?
And Vela. He was good there. The question is more for when Walcott comes back. Good times ahead, eh Tomas?

As for the game, nothing new in what we need: a win. It would be nice to dazzle, but a 1-0 grind will do fine. Cisse and Jones have both done well this year for Sunderland and will need to be watched. Sunderland have had a tendency to not score in an EPL game this season (9 times), so I hope it's one of those.
 

Clrnc

Established Member
Trusted ⭐

Player:Tomiyasu
Very excited about this match. I think we will win this by a large goal difference, with the inclusion of Arshavin and our previous good match
 

Total Football

Active Member
They nearly held Man Utd to a nil-nil draw by sticking ten men behind the ball, so I believe we really need an early goal to prevent an afternoon of utter frustration. Technically, their midfield is quite good, and have improved recently, so we must be wary of their counter attacks, because players like Malbranque and Reid can pick out passes to the likes of Cisse and Jones, who are extremely fast. However, with the confidence gained from the Cardiff win, I expect us to win fairly comfortably. It's a cliche, but an early goal is vital, especially against a team like Sunderland, as it will force them to change their style.
 

General

Established Member
We took a 2-0 lead against them last season and stupidly gifted them 2 cheap goals. If not for Robin, it would’ve been terminal. I’m with Kami here. Toure must quite simply be benched for this one else Jones will have a field day. Together with Senderos, they couldn’t deal with him last season and the second goal is the sort of problem he’d give us if we don’t bring in Djourou. Playing Song in midfield would go some way to easing the issue but two short center backs would still be a risk.

-----------------------Almunia---------

Sagna--------Gallas--------Djourou---------Clichy

Nasri---------Song-------Denilson----------Arshavin

--------------Eduardo----------Robin-------

Anything less than a win and we certainly can kiss 4th place good bye.
 

hesham

Established Member
With Vela having a good game from the wings and Arshavin now eligible/ready to play. If Eboue starts on the wing I might just top myself
 

Shadow Moses

Established Member
Al

Sagna-Gallas-Djourou-Clichy

Nasri-Song-Denilson-Vela

Arshavin/Eddie-Robin

But we all know Nick is going to start and Vela will be on the bench.

hesham said:
With Vela having a good game from the wings and Arshavin now eligible/ready to play. If Eboue starts on the wing I might just top myself


If I see Eboue on the wing with Vela & Arshavin available to play I will personally lynch Wenger.
 

hesham

Established Member
I sometimes think he plays him out of loyalty on the wing, as Sagna was brought in when Eboue was doing OK at RB. AW probably told him, don't worry your a winger now and he is trying to stick to that promise but no more, please...


Wouldn't mind seeing a Vela/RvP partnership up front with Nasri/Arshavin on the wings. Edu to come on 2nd half.
 

otfgoon

Established Member
I dont think it really matters which side Nasri/Arshavin play.

If Eduardo doenst start I hope Vela does, would really like to see how he does upfront with the first team.

But yeah, cant wait for this game. Not only for the Arshavin debut but also looking forward to see if the positive vibes from monday carry over.
 

sabret00the

Established Member
kamikaze80 said:
i see no one's opened the matchday thread yet. so here goes:

yeah, we're playing sunderland at home in the league. apparently, on saturday afternoon. really, i'm just repeating information that's already in the thread title.

how about some analysis, you say? well, sunderland is kinda crap but they have jones up top, who i'm pretty sure will score if Touré's playing. he's much taller than kolo, you see. we have a CL match on tues, which might be a distraction for our teenage players with short attention spans. hopefully, they stay focused on their task at hand, which is to not let the black cats make unmarked runs from midfield into our box. denilson and song, i'm looking at you.

on our side, it's a must-win match and may be a first start for our new signing, andrey arshavin. you might have heard of him - he's sort of a big deal. with some luck, he'll get off to as good of a start as eduardo.

if we lose, we can kiss 4th place good bye. we cannot afford to let the gap between us and villa grow to double digits with only 12 matches remaining after this one.
nice work. i like this!
 

Gooner_Stu

Established Member
should be starting Arshavin seeing as he cant play in midweek.

Hopefully everyone is bouyed from Eduardo's 2nd debut and is up for this. If we get an early goal and dont let them init like last year, we could be scoring freely.
 

Klaus Daimler

Established Member
Almunia
Sagna - Touré - Gallas - Clichy
Nasri - ? - Arshavin - Vela
van Persie - Eduardo

Either Song or Denilson instead of ? is fine with me.
 

Unforgiven

Established Member
I really hope wenger does the correct desicions today.

I don't want him putting Bendtner on with 10 mins to go.

He needs to play Vela, Eduardo, Bendter by the second half if we are not winning. We cannot afford to leave it late with the team we started if we cannot score a goal.

This game is so important that we win, especially when villa and Chelsea are playing each other too. Time to play some catch up.
 

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