The Arsenal boys have an opportunity to get over their ill-faited trip to Portugal with the visit of Sunderland to The Emirates.
Alex Song and Manuel Almunia are available again, while Abou Diaby is disappointingly omitted having sustained a medial knee ligament injury against Porto. He joins William Gallas, Andrey Arshavin and Eduardo and the long-termers on the injury table.
While Song will undoubtedly return to the starting team the manager has a difficult decision to make regarding Almunia. Should he come straight in or should Lukasz Fabianski, who had an absolute shocker against Porto, be given another chance to prove himself. The suggestion is that Almunia’s hand is not yet at 100% so there’s still a decent chance it will be Fabianski.
The rest of the team picks itself, although I would like to see Aaron Ramsey play in place of Denilson and perhaps Emmanuel Eboue, who appears to be in decent form of late, to come in on the right side of attack. His pace would be a welcome change to the less speedy Samir Nasri and Tomas Rosicky and assuming the Czech’s body is holding up OK I think Nasri should be the one who makes way.
Sunderland have not won in 12 games and we should beat them tonight. Three points are vital to keep our chase on Chelsea and Manchester United going and I can’t really see a good reason why we shouldn’t win the match.
Come on you GOOONERS!
Thoughts?
Have your say on Arsenal’s clash with Sunderland by leaving a comment.
I think Wenger said a few days ago that if Almunia is fit, he’ll play.
Since AW is the Manager and has confidence on his players, he knows how to make corrections from the mistake at Portugal on Wednesday and win today’s match against Sunderland.
It’s a dilemma on the ‘keeper situation. Both Almunia and Fabianski seem like nice guys and all. But neither has put in any kind of performance this season that actually won us a match (like Mannone did against Fulham away, but I’m not advocating going to him at this point in the season.).
Both will have AW’s support until the end of the season though because they’re wearing the shirt. He’s not going to publicly abandon a player. What else can Arsene do?
What else can we do? As Gooners, we’re just going to have to do what the team are doing – grit our teeth and say a few prayers that at least one of Almunia/Fabianski finds some kind of form to see us through the run in and CL matches.
I think we need to go back to the 4-4-2, with Bendtner Vela upfront wide left Walcott middle Cesc Denilson, Denilson quickens arsenals passing rate increasing the chances of creating free space. Wide right Rosicky, back 4 as they were and in goal lets give Fabiansky a chance because Almunia has had his even though he has never proved worth.
The keeper was crap and WENGER took so long to bring on Eboue and co.
BENTNER let me down, WENGER kept him on for so long.
Why didn’t we utilize WALCOTT more…that guy’s an asset anytime. Make him run and others start getting cards.
Only FABs was making them get the cards.
Why can’t this problem settle? Let’s just face it, Fabianski is suckish and doesn’t deserved a second chance. If you keep giving him chances he’ll only make the team worse!
If Denilson is in the first lineup,I hope he will not pass the ball to the opponent players.He committed this errors in every matches he had played.
A new club motto for Arsenal:
“Tempestatem proxima semper tenemus”
(We’ve always got next season)
up gunners
we are goin to enjoy this. fabianski deserves another chance wherein almunia isnt 100% fit. stop this thing bout denilson, he was good against porto.
denilson ws alright in porto, fabianski needs more matches.he’s a gud keeper.
Every game like this is a must win now so there can’t be any experimentation or not hurting the feelings of one of the keepers by dropping him rubbish. Arsenal has to use Almunia for the rest of the season. Mannone would definitely be my second choice. If there’s more keeper stuff ups, Blunderland could be right in the hunt.
I sincerely hope the keeper problem is sorted out at the end of the season because that’s been our achillies heel for the past year or so.
its difficult becos if aliminium isnt fit uv got to risk fabianskis future confidence by dropping him,also uv got to wonder wot mannone is thinking on the bench becos id be wondering, ‘if i cant get a game with these two bozos playin the way they are il never get the number 1 spot’……its like this, if it wer ferguson u cud be sure mannone wud start….he dropped foster and brought in kushchak,(3rd choice at utd but better than all our keepers), when foster blundered.you hav to hav standards……again il point to their game tues nite when they scored he absolutely went berserk at johnny evans cos he was havin a mare….YOU GOT TO HAV STANDARDS….and sometimes players need to fear for their places to perform to their maximum….i dont wanna keep on at nasri but this may be one of his problems when he has played so many anonymous mediocre games this season he has usually played 90mins!!!!maybe he needs to be dropped to come back all guns blazing
come on you gunners
EVERY player makes mistakes. It’s just unfortunate that a keepers mistakes get punished the most.
Fabianskis decisions WILL get better with the more games he plays.
To drop him now because of this would harm his confidence. He needs to ‘get back in the saddle’ so to speak. Good luck Lukas.
An Arsenal win 4-1 today.
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By the way, Arsene has said he blames the ref for our defeat against Porto, not the keeper. So why should he drop him?
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i’l like to see ramsey start in place of diaby’almunia should return to duty since fabianski put up a woeful performance the last match.almunia-sagna,campbell,vermaleen,clichy-song,fab,ramsey-nasri,bendtner,eboue. should be the preferred starting XI,then probably rosicky,denilson,walcott,mannone,vela,traore on the bench.I’m being positive for the three points provided everybody plays well.up gunners
arsene can say wot he likes but the ref didnt kick the ball in the net
But what’s wrong with Mannone anyway? I thought he was better than Moonia and Flabanski anyway when he came in earlier in the season. Why can’t we play him? Moonia on the bench.
I am sori if I have harsh words for fabianski and weak ones but, this can’t keep on happening, before the porto match was been played I saw the team list and wrote oshit fabianski and denilson is playing on the blog and I stand correct.Ever game fabianski plays he plays like he just learnt the game yesterday, he continues to make errors and your guys protect him when he makes a save that was not that diffcult to handle and now you believe he deserves another chance to play ahead of mannone, I can’t believe how low we have become, this isn’t a burnley or west brom this is arsenal and arsenal is a top 4 team.The people who I feel sori for is chelsea reserve goalie hilario he is such a brillant goalie but he must play second fiddle to cech, if you think about it he woud be saying damn I woud die to play for arsenal as the 2ndchoice goalie, thats the problem we have chelsea can depend on hilario to put a satisfactory perform but we already know how fabianski is going to let us down, it’s been tried and tested and still failed, and that the truth.
I still trying to figure out why nasri was bought, okay he scores a few goal that were important, but I haven’t seen him play quick ball 1-2 and it seem when there is a counterattack he runs with the ball and then turn back and the counterattack has faded becoz the oppenents has return to defend, what is the purpose of having a midfield who can’t create and attack?
come on everton!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!hold on for 10 mins
ahahahahaha 3 – 1 to everton ….
gotta hand it to everton….they literally bulldozed chelsea and manutd
Eboue took a shot and Bendtner got an assist
one can see that Arsenal are woundable, in front of the goal too long hesitaiting, the known weaknesses I would say, of course, they are dominating but against better sides they will struggle I fear, sorry I’m a bit in a pessimism mood……. 😉
you had to shiver a bit don’t you? 😉
good win,made hard work of it but great to banish midweeks display!!!
2 pts off united but once again chelsea hav got a result where they shudnt hav,i heard wolves outplayed them but drogba once again shows hes worth every penny
hopefully we can find a winning sequence of games now and turn up the heat
ice,
great result for the hammers,coming good when i said they wud….carlton cole 2 in 2 since returning,its looking good for ye
Happy for time being with 2-0 win. But any body who has watched the games will have know that we outplayed Sunderland but should have and cutting edge should have killed the game in the first half. But there are still some question unanswered how good our ST are and how good the GK is. I still think our ST(Exception RVP) and Gk (1st abd 2nd choice) are not good enough to be in TOP 3 team. For me the performance was not good enough to challenge for title. Still Something missing for me
We made heavy weather of it but we won! First penalty for Arsenal in like ages. Go Gunners!
And a clean sheet too 🙂
This match made it crystal clear for me that not one single non-injured Arsenal striker right now can finish off a match like a top club should.
i must admit dat nasri lifted up his weight 2day, um happy. we r still wide open at the back tho. eboue did exactly wot i said is missing from our wide players, attacking fullbacks. gud win today.
1) One clean sheet
2) Two goals
3) Three points
Forget the inquests enjoy the victory.
Next up Stoke City away, prepare for ariel bombardment from Delap’s long throws.
Eboue is in great form. While I do love Sagna, Eboue seems much better at driving into the box from the flanks. Just has to remember to always pass instead of shoot…he is terrible at shooting.
Arsenal should have won about 4-0 today. Finally we got a penalty!
I think Nasri is coming under a bit of over the top criticism – He is a class player who, we have to remember, broke his leg early in the season. Once he is 100%, he will be unstoppable. Good communication with Cesc.
I think Fabianski should be given arun in the side as i think he ‘s more than an half decent keeper, but without a run in the side how is he going to get any experience. With the present system as it is, without going out on loan there is no way that keepers are getting the necessary games. For example so far this season, when not selected for the first team Fabianski has played 2 reserve games, and Manonne 3. So lets not blame them when they make mistakes.
Arsenal won 2-0 against Sunderland. Man U lost-This is big news. Chelsea won. The race is on. Fabianski needs Wenger to crawl up his butt and straighten this clown out. Yet, the loss could have been worse. 2-1 I can live with. Bad and stupid play I can’t.
Shambo, was that really us today, we looked a different team, even showed some class moves. Arsenal are still lacking a striker and i think Campbell should start if Galas is injured. I only watched games on MOTD tonight. How did Theo perform, he seemed to show good speed. Eboue looked quite good to.Far from convinced with your boys though.
the sloppy play is annoying. a win is a win but lets get it together. we have to beat someone when it counts. it’s been an embarresing month so far…chelsea, man u, porto…terrible.
There’s a lot I could have a moan about but seeing as we won I’ll just say well done Gunners.
…Oh, and Arsene, please buy Carlton Cole at end of the season. Straight away. before some other f*cker buys him up. Please, man, look at it. If we’d had a direct-type striker in this match we’d have creamed them.
@icehammer – I watched the Hammers game on a Sky replay this morning. I love the way they play – so much energy and a real battling quality. If Arsenal could harness that kind of hunger to their skill they’d be unstoppable.
@heynonney, good shout. Its quite clear to me that if wenger purchased a similar player to carlton yr boys would get so many more goals. Look at Everton play with that same energy but with more bite than us. They are getting the balance right. They are starting to play like Manure and the kids have good senior players to learn from. Look at their final goal, really direct. I still think if Wenger plays Theo in that role he can produce with that fucking speed he has. How many times would Fabs put im through per game, surely he would score at least 1 every other game. At moment Bendty looks heavy legged. If only he had a little bit of what Eboue has, other than the shooting that is.
by the way boys… who ever watched match of the day last night and this morn (sunday) what did u think about Wengers comments. He said something about what ever happends at the end of the season he is happy as long as the boys have given everything. Shambo was saying something about standards a while back, i not sure Arsene’s is as high as ours, or am i asking for to much. Comments pls.
@hey nonny I agree carlton cole would be a great buy. I also agree with the comments about Everton’s direct approach, a lot of the time we just fanny around with the ball and try to walk it into the net when a blast at goal would be the best bet. We did win and now we need the same against Stoke next week. I think everytime Stoke get a throw we stand someone directly infront of Delap, that would fuck up his trajectory big style!
Theo should be given special shooting and crossing lessons. If he could get that going he’d be dynamite.
Bendtner – I like but he’s a bit flippin’ lacadaisical isn’t he? I don’t mind players playing with a smile on their face but he acts like he’s on drugs. Chewing gum and chuckling to himself. He needs to get stuck in more. A good example of what I was talking about re: the west ham players.
Nasri was much better this game. Eboue was great and…let’s admit it – moonyer had a good game!
@Ian – nobody stands in front of Delap’s throws and I don’t know why? I’ve thought about that before too. Surely it would put him off, jump up just as he’s throwing it. maybe no one wants to get in the way?! 😯
Next up we’ve got Stoke city away… t same place wher our slide actually strtd… Hope we giv them a sound thrashin this time around….
Chelsea hav Man city @ home so lets pray for man city to force a draw or take an unlikely win… also hope somebody breaks drogba’s legs so tat he’s injured n unavailable 4 t rest of chelsea’s campaign….