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FA: Arsenal vs Manchester United | 03/04/04

sienna

Active Member
So we lost. What makes it worse is we lost to Manure. There's no use in pinning the blame on anyone. We have 3 games coming up in quick succession and now is not the time to feel sorry for ourselves. The team will have to pick themselves up for Chelski and I hope everybody at Highbury cheer the the team on Tuesday. Raise the roof, make it hostile for Chelski and God willing we'll make it through on Tuesday. If you just want to ***** and moan well I guess that's your choice. Enough with the pessimism and doomy outlook. Come on Arsenal!
 

Natnat

Established Member
Trusted ⭐
Im very worried about our injuries, and the games coming up, no real rest for our guys.
 

timberford

Active Member
i'm not sure wenger had a lot of options for choosing who to start up front today. starting aliadiare did make some sense and i don't think his choice was as wild as some people obviously think. ok we didn't win, but he wasn't the one that missed the chances!

playing reyes and bergkamp from the start wouldn't have guaranteed us a result. neither of them are out and out strikers, reyes has been playing mostly left wing in his career so far. these two are not destined to be a great partnership. neither has a great scoring record either.

playing henry from the start. well this comes down to how u perceive the importance of the competition. i don't think wenger would have changed his mind about this, he wants the CL, he's done the fa cup to death. it's time to gamble and i have no problem with it. i want that game vs real more than one vs milwall/sunderland.

and finally the third choice could have been kanu? now i definitely wouldn't have been happy with that. him and bergkamp are definitely not a strike partnership to fear. i can only assume wiltord is still not fit and bentley comes under the same reasons as reyes plus he played in the week for the u21s.

so basically i don't think it was a mistake playing aliadiare. and if a rested henry comes good on tuesday i will definitely have no complaints.
 

Mark

Established Member
I'm devastated. Completely devastated. Nothing hurts me more than to see Arsenal lose especially to those manc bastards. I honestly thought we would win both our games against them and we didn't win either. We could've won both but the finishing touch just wasn't there. Read what I have to say about the whole thing in general in my thread entitled 'No power shift'.
 

sienna

Active Member
Natnat said:
Im very worried about our injuries, and the games coming up, no real rest for our guys.
That dirty asshole Scholes. Bastard! Poor Reyes. He was beginning to gel with the team, playing well and now he's out for 3 weeks. Utterly diabolical act from Scholes. Totally malicious and unnecessary. Our right side of midfield is prettty bare too. I guess Wiltord will play some part in our remaining games. We need Ashley and Parlour to be back too.
 

reggiepaul

Well-Known Member
Ali was very very good today and I commend Wenger on starting him. If the ref didn't spoil our game by stopping every single attack and forcing our players to play less of flowing football the game would have been ours. Bergkamp and Ali looked very good indeed.

The thing is United were playing for their only silverware of the season and they aren't a crap team. They are world class and with some of their
returning players showed that.

Wenger made some good decisions and if we had connected today, game would have been ours. We were playing experienced, talented footballers. Worthy of the accolades they get. They took the game and won. Kudos to them. Still they fouled and took players down - the ref had an unbalanced favouritism to them - but that's football. There is an instinct missing which Sol had today. Sol - my man of the match today, with Reyes and Ali second.
 

JazzG

Established Member
reggiepaul, your in a minority over Ali.

Blaming the ref is a poor excuse, they dug deeper than us so they deserved it.
 

kanooo

Well-Known Member
I am simply pissed. I don't feel like watching the replay as of now (I missed the game due to work).

I still think that the game at Highbury was the one where these Manscum got the physcological advantage. We should haven beaten them then .... and show them we're the boss. But now....

Oh well, what goes around, comes around. Afterall, we were the ones who kicked them out last season in the FA Cup ... and send Beckham to Madrid to weaken their squad - in a way. (Am I making any sense?).

And do I need to add that the game against Chelski has become a MUST win game now??? We must not flop now !!! We MUST beat them.

Like I've just read from the official site, we still have a lot to win. So, it's time to stop whinning and try to win the remaining 2 trophies ... starting on Tuesday.
 

Aussie

Established Member
I belive the team selections Wenger used were not the greatest selections. He must have the game against Chelsea at mind. As soon as Reyes and Henry were brought on we looked quite dangerous. But why take Pires off for Henry. Ali didnt have a great game and never really looked dangerous.

I was looking forward to seeing Ronaldo V Clichy however I thought Ronaldo was great and really took Clichy to the cleaners in the first half. However he is learning and has been great so we cant really fault him.
 

reggiepaul

Well-Known Member
JazzG said:
reggiepaul, your in a minority over Ali.

Blaming the ref is a poor excuse, they dug deeper than us so they deserved it.

There's always a ratio for every point of view, be it minor or major. Doesn't mean one is better than the other. He had a great game and was fully deserving the start.

I can see why people are upset that Ali started as everyone thinks they can appear right in these circumstances. If we had won the game (we had more chances than them) everyone would be saying, "oh wenger is a master tactician for playing ali, he was so wonderful" - in the present circumstance everyone wants to appear nostradamus by highlighting faults and criticism, as mine is the referee and I stand by that wholly. Anyone can come up with an excuse after a loss for their own benefit only though. It makes them feel at ease thinking they have found some absolution.

For me the referee spoiled our game. Time and time again he let United get away with so much and Vieira and Co were right to argue him in to the case. How many times was our game stopped by the ref? How many times did we get floored by United with late tackles only for us to drop back from our attack? The ref did that. It's not a poor excuse. The ref controls the momentum of the game and if he can't keep up with the pace it will be highlighted in his decisions. His lack of vision and understanding today faltered Arsenals game. We still had more attempts - any of which if not most could have been goals.

For me it was the ref - as a team it was great. If it was Collina as someone said, we would have won easily.
 

Aussie

Established Member
Ali didnt have a great game he never ever looked dangerous and probably shouldnt have started. However Wenger must have faith in him so i do as well.
 

n_henry

Well-Known Member
I'm with the majority on Ali - he was invisible.

But not giving up hope on the boy. He had a few bright chances, showed some good touches. I think it was just too much, too soon for him, after coming back from a long injury...
 

Andrew

Well-Known Member
Beany said:
I'm cerain we'll win the Prem but we'll have to seriously raise our game for Tuesday.

We have two games in 3 days. Our players will be very fatigued. A slip up in either game could be costly. A loss in both games and it's all to play for again. I'm not certain of anything. How our next 3 games go will decide our season IMO.
 

Mark

Established Member
Aliadiere never really stands out when we play him unlike other youngsters particularly Bentley and Clichy. Those two seem to have more confidence than Ali. I don't want to give up on him yet as it was a massive game for him to come into and he was short of match practice. I hope he can stay clear of injuries and play more games and hopefully he will gain some fitness and experience.
 
Do you think Man U carry the Tottenham curse now? I mean whoever has it ends up in the final and ends up loosing i.e. Southampton last year.

then again they are facing Sunderland or Millwall
 

Sammer

Established Member
I´s a bunch of Bullsh*t to blame Wenger or individual players (although I feel that Pires and Edu performed very bad yesterday).

Everything came together: it was too much of a task for Ali, we didn´t score in the first 15 minutes when we should have, the **** had only one chance and scored, we no attacking midfield whatsoever etc etc.

But the team as a whole looked uninspired and not ready to take the **** on.
That kind of makes we worry when I look at Tuesdays game - we have to be the exact opposite: agressive, determined and lethal.

Because the game last night is a sign for Chelski to just continue the way they played against us in the first leg of the CL.

We need to come back - BIG TIME
 

patrick42uk

Established Member
our prbolem yesterday was that we became too hurried due to the circumstances we faced. first we missed a couple of sitters and were duly punished by the man utd goal. in trying to make up for this we found ourselves being too hurried rather than having the patience that would have been needed to break the united defence. Wenger knew this and i believe his descision to bring on kanu was an attempt to keep the ball and slow us down. unfortunately he didnt get on the ball enough and we were left with desparate punts towards reyes bergkamp and henry who are no target men.
 

Jinn

Established Member
Yep. We tended to panic overmuch instead of keeping a steady head. We lacked any obvious chances to threaten their goal from build-up play - credit to Man Utd for harrassing our players into making errors of judgement.

When we realised time was running out, we began to panic. There was no confidence that a goal would come. Man United on the other hand, gained confidence when Arsène brought on Kanu, Henry and Reyes. They knew by that stage that we were getting desperate.

They denied us space and time, and we paid the price for missing our chances.
 

jcurran

Member
worried about Tuesday now.....Viera looks really tired and that worries me greatly. Playing Ali was a strange decision....it was right to rest The King but he shold have played Reyes up front from the beginning. As some have said, if we'd won then it would be Wenger the genius....hes still a genius but just took a big gamble that didnt pay off yesterday. As for the ****.....Scholes is a pig....professional fouls of that severity should be punished with red cards. I think we'll pull through but I am concerned about Chelski and this is the biggest test of the season so far.
 

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