Birmingham v Arsenal 12.45pm Saturday 23rd February 2008

[gunnerGH]

Hopefully few consecutive wins will bring ease some pain.

Villa next in league at home, only beaten once in last 9

 

[banduan]

After what happened to Eduardo I don't blame them. Focus must have been elsewhere and it showed.

Poor excuse for some of our mistakes but absolutely true right till the end.

 

[Asterix]

You're all a bunch of tits talking about collapse and whatnot.

Fact is we showed tremendous character in the second half after witnessing an assasination attempt on our striker's career in the first. We were in complete control, should have had a pen when Ade's shirt was tugged in the box, but instead of that the ref gives a penalty to them, while Clichy, I repeat, PLAYED THE BALL. There is no-one to blame for this, except one man - the referee. The free kick they scored from in the first half wasn't a foul either.

We're 6 points ahead, but nooo, let's roll over and die. Gallas didn't react like that because something was 'broken' inside of him, but because we were robbed of 2 points. We will come back stronger.

Defeatist plonkers, the lot of you. All I can say if thank fk you people don't play football for the Arse, because with this attitude we would have been relegated by now.

You should be posted a gift.

Completly agree with Gurgen's post. He got it spot on.

great post gurgen.. thought first 20 mins of the second half was the best we played since villa in december!!!

makes it even harder to swallow as we should never have drawn that game!!!
arrgh!!!

wish we had a game midweek to let it out!!

Great post Gurgen.

We have a week to prepare till our next game and lets hope we show everyone what we're all about. I hope we give Villa a good hiding.

Clichy should never, ever have put himself in the position where he needed to make that tackle and give the ref a chance to be a home crowd hero. It was extremely poor defending and a horrible lapse in concentration.

Gallas showed great emotion but did not act like a captain in public. Let's hope in private during the week he does, and that the squad galvanises itself. We've got a big few weeks coming up, and we've made it just that bit more difficult by dropping those points.

 

[bojed]

The fact that we played against a 17th placed 10 men team for 87+ minutes and came away with a 2-2 draw made my brain go nuts.

 

[sabret00the]

All this talk about playing the ball or the man is **** really. none of it matters. We ultimately suffered from the same problem we've had for a while name which is the inability to finish off teams. We need to learn how to win games with a clear three or four goal divide and our players that cross the ball, need to learn how to pick out men. These are the problems that allowed a lapse of concentration and/or a referee to rob us off two points. FACT!

 

[goonerwarsh]

All this talk about playing the ball or the man is s**t really. none of it matters. We ultimately suffered from the same problem we've had for a while name which is the inability to finish off teams. We need to learn how to win games with a clear three or four goal divide and our players that cross the ball, need to learn how to pick out men. These are the problems that allowed a lapse of concentration and/or a referee to rob us off two points. FACT!

QFT Sabre

I cannot get Saturday out of my system, so angry and upset for so many reasons. They should never of had the chance to come back into it, we should have finished it off long before the equaliser. If you think back to how many games this has happned this year we would have been well clear and the title well on it's way to being won by now.

 

[Christofaux]

Sorry to bring the thread back up but just wanted to add my two cents to it. My thoughts are only based on highlights as i was away and wasn't able to watch the game live.

It lookedl ike we had plenty of opportunities to win the game. Numerous Adebayor chances a few good shots from hleb and fabregas as well as bendtner. There was one clear cut penalty when a birmingham player pulled adebayor back. clichy also got the ball 100% it was a pathetic call by the referee who was in prime position to see it. If he didnt get the ball the b all wouldnt of shot off as it did. We can easily say we were robbed 2 points here and the race for the title just got 10 times harder. Definately no room for error now, however seeing the players taking the shots they did against Brum gives me hope we can keep on pushing.

 

[qs]

Time for the villa thread lads

 

[Zico]

Something struck me in the two games we played against Brum and Milan. Our playing style seems to have changed completely.

At the beginning of the season, we tended to rely on a variety of short to midrange passes backwards, forwards and sideways, until we could create an opening. We often brough the fullbacks in at the tail end of a move to vary play with crosses if necessary.

Now, the team seems to have two primary options - 1) long ball and 2) wing play by the fullbacks concluding with a cross. We've advanced these approaches in favour of our trademark style, particularly at the beginning of matches.

In both the Milan and Brum games we were at our best when we went with our favored approach early in the 2nd half of those games. Maybe the players have heard the criticism about over-elaboration and decided to favour route 1. I just wish they focused on our trademark style until it proved unproductive in a game.

 

[arsenalfc0719]

Something struck me in the two games we played against Brum and Milan. Our playing style seems to have changed completely.

At the beginning of the season, we tended to rely on a variety of short to midrange passes backwards, forwards and sideways, until we could create an opening. We often brough the fullbacks in at the tail end of a move to vary play with crosses if necessary.

Now, the team seems to have two primary options - 1) long ball and 2) wing play by the fullbacks concluding with a cross. We've advanced these approaches in favour of our trademark style, particularly at the beginning of matches.

In both the Milan and Brum games we were at our best when we went with our favored approach early in the 2nd half of those games. Maybe the players have heard the criticism about over-elaboration and decided to favour route 1. I just wish they focused on our trademark style until it proved unproductive in a game.

I don't think you can blame all the players for this change in style, which obviously doesn't work for us, since we do much better when we play how we should be playing.

Hleb is always true to our style, as is Rosicky, Flamini, Gallas, van Persie and a couple of other players who are also true to our style but just to a lesser extent.

Then theres Clichy, who seems to have spent way too much time with Beckham, Fabregas and Toure, who are the main people responsible for this long ball and crosses approach.

I know Wenger likes to let the players to what they want to do when playing, but he really should talk to some of our players about this.

 

[ibby]

Then theres Clichy, who seems to have spent way too much time with Beckham, Fabregas and Touré, who are the main people responsible for this long ball and crosses approach.

I know Wenger likes to let the players to what they want to do when playing, but he really should talk to some of our players about this.

What? Suddenly from being a player that can't cross now has become one that crosses too much? Against Milan, it was obvious he got told to hit the ball long regularly, as did numerous players in our team.

 

[arsenalfc0719]

Then theres Clichy, who seems to have spent way too much time with Beckham, Fabregas and Touré, who are the main people responsible for this long ball and crosses approach.

I know Wenger likes to let the players to what they want to do when playing, but he really should talk to some of our players about this.

What? Suddenly from being a player that can't cross now has become one that crosses too much? Against Milan, it was obvious he got told to hit the ball long regularly, as did numerous players in our team.

I don't think so. I think Clichy just got nervous, as did Fabregas.

 

[Macho]

Then theres Clichy, who seems to have spent way too much time with Beckham, Fabregas and Touré, who are the main people responsible for this long ball and crosses approach.

I know Wenger likes to let the players to what they want to do when playing, but he really should talk to some of our players about this.

What? Suddenly from being a player that can't cross now has become one that crosses too much? Against Milan, it was obvious he got told to hit the ball long regularly, as did numerous players in our team.

I said this somewhere else aswell, after cussing of course.
The way he repeatedly hoofed the ball without looking must have been from instruction- or maybe nerves like suggested.
I didn't see any other reason.
Wierd if that is the case considering we were playing 4-5-1. Ade was expecting to win the ball against that back 4?

 

[arsenalfc0719]

Then theres Clichy, who seems to have spent way too much time with Beckham, Fabregas and Touré, who are the main people responsible for this long ball and crosses approach.

I know Wenger likes to let the players to what they want to do when playing, but he really should talk to some of our players about this.

What? Suddenly from being a player that can't cross now has become one that crosses too much? Against Milan, it was obvious he got told to hit the ball long regularly, as did numerous players in our team.

I said this somewhere else aswell, after cussing of course.
The way he repeatedly hoofed the ball without looking must have been from instruction- or maybe nerves like suggested.
I didn't see any other reason.
Wierd if that is the case considering we were playing 4-5-1. Ade was expecting to win the ball against that back 4?

The whole idea of playing 4-5-1 is to give you more options to pass the ball to in the middle of the field, making it easier to keep possession of the ball by passing it around.

It makes no sense that Wenger would instruct Clichy to hoof the ball without looking every time he got it, that was clearly nerves. Young and unexperienced players tend to get nervous in big games, Clichy was no exception.

Anyways, my initial point was that you cant blame the team or Wenger for this long ball/crosses approach when it is clearly down to certain players,Clichy, Fabregas and Toure.