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CL: Chelsea vs Arsenal | 24/03/04

Aussie

Established Member
patrick42uk said:
truly impressed by the way duff was dealt with. lauren has his critics but he was immense last night.

Exactly what i thought. The last few games he has been quite solid.
 

Laxness

Active Member
After seeing Henry & Bergkamp's performances, I wish Reyes played. He was very lively, looked sharp, and was key in Desailly's red card. (!)

I personally want him to play against Man U, even if they mark Henry well, let Jose at their defense!
 

visitor99

Active Member
Congratulations Arsenal on a great result.

Webdesignlab said:
Chelsea will NEVER be that good again

I can see a number of areas where Chelsea can easily improve for the next leg.

The big one is the right back position. The defence of Terry and Desailly in the middle and Gallas on the right has been used only once previously this season that I can recall, and that was against Fulham on the weekend to prepare for this game.

With Johnson's expected return Gallas will go back to his usual position alongside Terry. The defence in the middle looks far better than Terry/Desailly and Johnson offers far more going forward than Gallas did. This has been one of the main attacking avenues in previous games, and it was missing from this game.

Now, I'm the first to admit that Johnson is a long way from the finished article as a defender. With him on the field you will always feel to have an opportunity there, but from what I have seen of the big games where the opposition have obviously targeted him (Lazio, Stuttgart, Besiktas and Liverool where Kewell ran at him all day) he has stood up well and played mistake free. It has been in more relaxed circumstances, like 2-0 up and dominating against Blackburn where he went to sleep and was culpable in conceeding two goals in a couple of minutes, that his problems have surfaced.

The other area is the goalkeeper. You were facing Chelsea's 4th choice keeper behind Cuducini, Macho and Sullivan. Making only his fourth first team appearance. I am not sure if Cuducini will be back for the return leg, but he'll be close. There was a real weakness here that might not be there next game.

Mutu was also quiet. Crespo and Gudjhonsen will probably be a much more dangerous partnership in the return leg.

Looking forward to the next game. Good luck against United on the weekend.
 

Taozhe

Well-Known Member
It will be again a close game in this second leg. Crespo did look good in the short time he play today and I hope he's not going to play in the next leg. Today chelsea had many corners and I wondered ... if hasslebank plays .. would he be taking the corners or in the box ? If he was in the box while duff takes it .. would be a huge threat in my opinion. If he takes the corners .. different story.
 

visitor99

Active Member
Corners and set pieces in general have been a real problem all year.

I sincerely hope that Hasselbaink doesn't get anywhere near the bench, let alone take the field. You would think that with his size and bulk Jimmy would be a handful in these situations, but he just isn't.

Geremi has been the best corner taker, but he has also been inconsistent. Against Birmingham before Christmas I think Chelsea had around 25 corners and never threatened once, and Geremi hit most of them.

Apart from Crespo there is not anyone who is a great header so we don't have great targets. If Desailly is suspended and Johnson doesn't recover in time - so we need a new central defender - Huth will play. Now he IS a great target on set pieces, and he has already scored in the Champions League this season. I'd probably have gone for him ahead of Desailly anyway.
 

Andrew

Well-Known Member
Arsenal316 said:
I've seen bad mistakes by goalkeepers before, but THIS has to be the worse I've EVER seen. You thought Cudicini's goal was bad....this was worse...

n_henry said:
Good God...

This was worse than Cudicini's mistake I think, coz here, there wasn't a great threat... running outside the box! What was he thinking??! :roll:

What the... That Cudicini blunder was perhaps the worse I've seen. Then what about Enckleman last year? Lehmann was really trying to cut out a goalscoring opportunity but failed due to pressure of the attacker. Those other blunders I mentioned should have been routine for the goalkeepers and were far less threatening than the one that Lehmann had to deal with. Lehmann's mistake against Leeds was even worse than this one because, like the other blunders I mentioned, that was out of nothing without even a threat.

You say "running outside the box! What was he thinking??!". Have you ever heard of a sweeper keeper before? Or even watched our games this season? Lehmann constantly runs outside the box to get to loose balls, probably at least once a game. He did it against Bolton as well. You seemed shocked that he ran outside of the box but it's normal for him.

visitor99 said:
Corners and set pieces in general have been a real problem all year.

How have you come to that conclusion? How many goals have we conceeded from corners and set-pieces this year? I think we are twice as good on corners and set pieces than last season. Chelski had about 14 or so corners but never seriously threatened from either one thanks to our good defending.

truly impressed by the way duff was dealt with. lauren has his critics but he was immense last night.

I agree with that too. How Lauren played should be how he plays week in, week out. He really did have a bad patch earlier this season but it seems he has got some things sorted and is playing well like we know he can.
 

visitor99

Active Member
Andrew said:
How have you come to that conclusion? How many goals have we conceeded from corners and set-pieces this year? I think we are twice as good on corners and set pieces than last season. Chelski had about 14 or so corners but never seriously threatened from either one thanks to our good defending.

I was talking about the corners being a problem for Chelsea.

14 or Corners and not one a threat sounds consistent with how they have been all year, regardless of who is defending. Nothing new here.
 

Jasper

Active Member
Kolo Toure! Fantastic, what a revelation! This guy is incredible. He gets better and better every game! Him and Sol are solid as a fortress.

Patrick Vieira vs. Makelele? No contest. Mak looks like some kind of midgit compared to Pat. Pat seemed to have won the ball every time!

Edu, great tackles but lousy passing!

Freddie, It was funny how he was leaning on Makelele during one corner.
Too bad Freddie was almost absent from the game. Didn't make to many runs or passes.

Henry was real quite. Teams are starting to close him down.

Bergkamp, I think we should have started Reyes. Reyes is familiar with Chelsea and it could have been an advantage.

Henry and Bergy weren't clicking today. They were no where close to each other and passes were incomplete. Was the whole team playing too deep? Maybe it was Wenger's plan to defend rather than attack.

It is amazing how Duff when playing adds a new dimension to Chelsea's game plan. Not too bad of a job containing him.

At first I was relieved when Gilberto came on because we needed a tigher defense, but was he even useful in making passes or counter attacking?

I think the weak link today was Pat's partner. If Edu completed his passes it could have been a more open game. Also could have been Bergkamp. He plays a deep forward role but this role just did not work today with Henry. So many Blue shirts around the box and closing down.

Lehmann? Well lets just say it was not his day!
 

Soler

Established Member
I've seen bad mistakes by goalkeepers before, but THIS has to be the worse I've EVER seen. You thought Cudicini's goal was bad....this was worse...

Shay Given at Molineux this season did a similar thing ... and Enckleman's was far worse. As was Ian Walker's against Bolton.
 

Arsenal316

Well-Known Member
The only reason why I'm not totally dumping on Jens is because he made up for his mistake by making two brilliant saves to keep it 1-0. He started the counter-attack that led to the equalizer.

I know Jens likes to come out a lot and play the ball. But he should know that sooner or later, that aggressive style can end up backfiring in your face.

Hopefully, he'll learn from his misjudgement and have a better game against them in two weeks.
 

KoLo28

Well-Known Member
Lehmanns mistake wasn't a blunder, he was just unlucky! The game is a bit of a blur for me, I was up doing homework till kick off at 3:45, the first half didn't really have much and I was close to falling asleep although the 2nd half was a different story. Good finish by eidur and then a great header by bobby! Toure awesome, lauren good, pires good! Good result, now lets thrash em at highbury!
 

Sammer

Established Member
patrick42uk said:
truly impressed by the way duff was dealt with. lauren has his critics but he was immense last night.

Spot on, patrick ! I thought he had an excellent game, even his tackling was superb.
 

Senght

Active Member
Lehmann really ahs to chnage his style of playing. His way of charging out of the goalmouth is really heartstopping and dangerous ala Barthez. AW really needs to sort that out. Apart from that, he is brilliant.

Toure was outstanding today. Lauren really kept Duff quiet. Howveer he was robbed of the ball in defence once, should really take note of that. Viera and Edu were dominating in midfield as usual but Bergie have a poor game imo. Pires no doubt the MOTM, saved us with a HEADER! Hero for today. A draw is a finereline although Chelsea deserved better from the many chances they haev created. Anybody noticed how Chelsea create so many chances, obviously playing better than us, but still couldn't beat us, relying on Lehmann's blunder and a lucky deflection to earn a draw. Mark of true champs. Bring on Man U next!
 

Sammer

Established Member
USArsenal said:
i can overlook Lehmann's mistake because it didnt cost us a match.... the difference between now and last year is that Seamo's mistakes left us in big trouble... and out team is more resolute this year not to lose...

im telling you, more than people realize, Lehmann is a big part of why our defence is much better this year.. his presence and his direction out there to our defenders are helping them out... i shudder to think if Seamo was still in goal this year where we would be right now... :shock:

And as Allyboy (truely) said: Gudjohnssons goal was a wake up call that we needed.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Good result and a solid professional performance.

But I was very dissapionted with our attack. We had noting upfront and all our attacks seemed to break down. I expected more from Henry and the really big stage.

Chelsea played well, but I thought so did we. Edu and Pat were excellent, and so was our defence. Lauren and Kolo in particular played really well. We were just lacking upfront.

We have the advantage now. We are good enough to beat Chelsea at home. Last night was their best chance to beat us and they didnt.

I cant believe though how crap our support was. It was the quater final of the CL and I was surrounded by moaning spolied idiots. We had little groups of supporters that tried their best, but when we were under pressure and needing support was there any? No. Disgrace imo.
The prawn sarnies were only too happy to sing when we scored and at the end of game, but that was not good enough Arsenal.
 

Aussie

Established Member
I also on the tv did not hear our supporters even once. Did we boo Gilberto when he came on or was that the chelski fans. Also Henry will have to do better than that if we are to progress.
 

lewdikris

Established Member
About the attack:

When Chelsea played Gallas, Desailly and Terry along the back last season, they were virtually impossible to break down - it was largely for this reason that Gallas played right back last night, to nullify the threat of Henry and Pires as only a top class defender can. But with Melchiot and Johnson, proper right backs, in place next time, the advantage switches to us - Gallas didn't have any responsibility for getting forward last night, so there was never any space for Henry to exploit. Melchiot or Johnson would go forward, space opens up ... advantage Henry.
 

Adam

Established Member
Marcel is a better CB than Gallas for me, so this will always help.

It's my opinion that Gallas is weak, and not even as quick as some propose - Kolo is quicker and stronger. His commitment and reading of the game does not compare with his experience counterpart either.

This is a positive.
 

patrick42uk

Established Member
if gallas was the weak link in our defence, i'd be celebrating. his handling of henry yesterday added to his reputation as one of the top defenders.
 
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