Match Day Thread Arsenal vs. Stoke City 2016/17 Official Match Thread

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Venue: Emirates Stadium
Saturday, December 10th 2016
KO Time: 15.00 BST

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Head to Head Against Stoke City:
Played: 96
Wins: 49
Draws: 22
Losses: 15
Goals For: 152
Goals Against: 89
Goal Difference: 63

Last 6 Meetings:
Stoke City 0-0 Arsenal
Arsenal 2-0 Stoke City
Arsenal 3-0 Stoke City
Stoke City 3-2 Arsenal
Stoke City 1-0 Arsenal
Arsenal 3-1 Stoke City​

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Arsène Wenger has revealed the latest team news ahead of Saturday’s Premier League clash with Stoke City at Emirates Stadium.

on team news…
From Tuesday night we have no injuries, I hope. Everyone looks to have recovered well. Coming back into the squad, we have Coquelin who was of course suspended and maybe Bellerin who has a test today.

on Danny Welbeck and Per Mertesacker…
They are recovering well but they are a few weeks away from joining in again.

on Santi Cazorla's surgery…
It’s a difficult way to say the surgery is ‘perfect’, but you can say it was needed and it went well. Afterwards we have to see how he recovers.​

 

I, for one, thoroughly despise Stoke. Crap town, crap fans and crap manger. Just saying.

 

Our record against them at home is good, even when Pulis was there. Never know after a champions league game with us though

 

We're on good form, at home and have the Sanchez and Giroud who have scored against them on our recent wins.

 

Stokes view:

(From ArsenalFanTv).

Didn't realize stoke were in a good form and playing a Chelsea formation.

 

[QUOTE="winifred122, post: 999374

 

Not trying to be funny, but what exactly is there to be bitter about when it comes to Stoke?

And in fairness, he was right about the town - Stoke is an absolutely dreadful place, definitely one of the worst places I've ever been to in the U.K.

 

On a serious note, Stoke always seem to roll over for us when they come to The Emirates and with them moving away from a defensive, physical style of football, I don't expect that trend to change this time around.

We never really seem to batter them, but we do enough to get the job done. Should be a straightforward 2-0 win IMO.

 

I don't know how you can say that when you live in London. A place full of kebab shops, betting shops and knee deep in litter. I could understand you ripping into stoke if you yourselves lived in a nice area.

 

I don't know how you can say that when you live in London. A place full of kebab shops, betting shops and knee deep in litter. I could understand you ripping into stoke if you yourselves lived in a nice area.

 

What? Londons huge mate. There's every kind of Neighbourhood in this City.

 

I know mate and I've worked in every part. Don't get me wrong there are some nice parts but lets not be fooled 90% of London isn't too pleasant on the eye. Anyway back to the game here's to a good game and may the best team win

 

How? There's the bubbling West End, relaxing by the Thames, wonderful theatre shows, all different types of cuisine, diversity, mixture of cultures from all over the world, world-class universities, art galleries and museums, historical artefacts, in addition to the creative side of Shoreditch and Brick Lane to the tranquility of Richmond Park. And many more.

Obviously there's a lot of problems with gentrification, prices skyrocketing and a general rise in poverty which absolutely need to be tackled, but in terms of opportunities and the general vibes you get from being here, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. And this is coming from someone who was born in The Midlands and has family who all live in the North!

 

I ****ing hate Stoke, but I'm even more hacked off with our home form this season. Stoke lead against the run of play, but it was such a stupid elbow from Xhaka.

It's almost like our energy is drained as soon as we concede first.

 

Walcott! 1-1! Excellent team-goal, identical to our second goal we scored in the 3-0 win against Chelsea. Now let's ****ing beat these ****s.

 

HT. 1-1.

We've been the better side overall, but Stoke have typically looked sharp on the counter with Arnautouvic and Shaqiri providing a huge threat on the flanks with their speed and guile. We ended the half better, but Stoke haven't been afraid to take the game to us. Martins-Indi has been pretty impressive. To be fair to Stoke, they've been quite well-organised and it's easy to see why they've not been conceding many goals in recent matches.

I'm concerned about how deep Sanchez drops because no-one is taking over the space he vacates up front and it gives Stoke time to re-group when we're attacking but have no focal point. Ozil has been trying to pull the strings but to no avail. Xhaka has been decent, bar that stupid elbow on Allen.

Overall, we've not actually played too badly. We just need to be more clinical and be wary of the threat they pose on the counter because that's what they're going to be looking to do the whole game.

 

Koscielny did excellently against Arnautovic there

 

Good start to the second half, it's been all one-way traffic, but we need to get a third goal and kill this off. 2-1 is always a dangerous scoreline.

 

Crouch coming on. You just know he's going to score...

 

And he nearly does How the hell do you leave him unmarked from a corner? Pure idiocy.