Premier League 2010/11 general thread

[prinnysquad]

Yes, they've fought back well. But still destined to lose, I fear!

[abigsmurf]

Your task has been made slightly easier. Bit of a harsh yellow for that red but I can understand why the ref gave it

[prinnysquad]

Man, Henderson's putting them on a plate for these boys. BARN DOOR.

I still say Song looks like a hoover bag has been emptied on his head. Ridiculous.

[abigsmurf]

How many lifelines do you need?

[prinnysquad]

Lol. You can stick that wristwatch up that wrinkled old arse, Whinger.

[abigsmurf]

Corner was before 94 minutes, a ref isn't going to blow in the middle of a play.

Trying to work out if Sunderland's luck over that match was deserved or not (based on the fluke arsenal goal). However I will say Sunderland at least deserved a goal from their constant attacking.

Arsenal were poor but Sunderland seemed incapable of putting a decent shot on target.

[prinnysquad]

What do you expect? Our front line only cost £23 million and rising.

[abigsmurf]

It wasn't so much the lack of skill as just sloppiness that they should know better about. Too many shots outside the box, not looking when they're running to chase easy crosses (failing to notice the cross was actually going 2-3 metres behind where they were running to).

Still, great attitude, could've parked the bus but didnt, and a good point.

[prinnysquad]

Yeah, Merf can't slag off the bus on this one! But the big question is, will he pull the same line as Old Bollock-With-A-Toupe and grumble about the time? The Arse had plenty of chances to seal it - the penalty the most potent - but didn't defend until the bitter end.

[merf]

Think we got more than we deserved in a point, only just seen highlights but it was another one of our typically low effort away performances and Sunderland had a good go.

Time isn't one of my moans usually, you play till the ref blows and they rarely add enough so fair play to the team that keep going.

Sunderland have sent a few quid on strikers so parking the bus would be a bit odd.

No complaints really, didn't see the pen as got distracted, was it just soft or one of our dirty diving foreigners cheating sunderlands stout band of English honest Yeomen ?

[prinnysquad]

Nah it was a penalty, he clipped his heels. Song's first yellow was weak, the second was a yellow though. His first, however, was after a succession of fouls - not shown on tv.

The highlights on MOTD were ****e, loads of incidents missed out, made Sland look fortuitous and inept, and next to no analysis. Where was the Riveros chance headed off the line? Yet it was top billing. The Mags had about 5 minutes of extra highlights and double the analysis. Typical love-in. Anyone who watched the Arsenal game will know that we were the better team for much of the game. Shearer and Lawrenson cleared only watched the highlights. I've rarely seem such an unbalanced a mis-skewed set of highlights; what a disgrace. Check out these game stats:

http://www.skysports.com/football/match_report/0,19764,11065_3286161,00.html

esp. possession, territorial advantage, and shots.

Don't think we had many Brits in this game! Ferdinand, Bramble, Richardson, Bent, Wellbeck, Henderson. No Twatermole, Gordon or Meyler.

[C']

In real time I thought it looked like a soft penalty but upon watching the replay the ref got it spot on.

Still I thought Sunderland deserved to get at least a point out of the game. Thought it was the poorest performance from Arsenal all season.

[prinnysquad]

http://redlondon.wordpress.com/2010/09/18/fair-point-conceding-late-goals/

This Arsenal fan speaks the truth, not like some of the twats ringing up Talksport.

http://1rico.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/sunderland-a-very-undeserved-point/?

and this one. Yet watching MOTD you'd think Arsenal were the unluckiest team on Earth, and that Sland had no chances due to humping it up to Bent.


Screw you, MOTD.

[abigsmurf]

I can't really remember many chances Arsenal had at all. They seemed to be playing on the counter but lacked any pace or confidence to pull off.

They way to beat Arsenal in recent years has been to close down on them fast, mark them well, don't give them the time and space for them to perform their 'beautiful football'. You don't even have to put many challenges in, just having enough of a presence will put them off. You can even leave them free to pass the ball around the mid field as much as they like so long as your defence is organised enough to close down on them when they attack.

When you see teams get thumped by Arsenal, it's almost always because they're unchallenged. They all back off, too scared to make challenges and Arsenal can pretty much pass the ball into the goal.

They were weird yesterday though. I'm not sure if their lack of possession destroyed morale but they weren't confident even when they had the time and space.

Ultimately they choked, they should've been able to make the game comfortable but just didn't seem to put the work in whereas Sunderland played a strong attacking style all game. If Sunderland had more quality or had been a bit sharper up front they could've easily got 3 points and it wouldn't have been undeserved at all.

[merf]

you see it a lot with Arsenal in recent years away from home, I'd say they choke in the huge games, against teams like Sunderland its not so much choking as a misguided swaggering attitude that turning up is enough to get a win.

my biggest irk with the team & Wenger is that they're a ll a bit soft, not physically (though that too) but we've accepted our lot of perennial top 4 finish and latter rounds of the CL. the truly great teams have a busting desire to win that I just don't see from us when the going is a bti tricky.

I'm sure a lot of clubs would love that problem but until Wenger fixes it can't ever see us pushing on and actually winning anything as somebody else always wants it more than us.