City v Arsenal FA Cup semi Final

Wembley has come a calling for Arsenal this Sunday with their semi final against Man City.

Wembley somehow cost over £300m more to build than the Emirates even though they were built around the same time.

However Wembley is looking quite cheap when you consider the fact that City have spent over £105 m to buy the best British defender and attacking midfielder of the current generation ... but found they got Stones and Stirling instead


Arsenal have a good record at Wembley whereas City handed Wigan the FA Cup around 4 years ago.

Our record at Wembley is NOT up for discussion so please stay on topic when responding to this thread...or else

City have given me my greatest FA Cup memory back in 1981 when Ricky Villa scored THAT winner.
They also gave me my worse FA Cup memory back in 2004, when we were 3 up at ht and Joey Barton got himself sent off after the half time whistle was blown and we introduced the world to the term "spursy" as we went on to lose 4-3 to their 10 men

Gooners everywhere pissed themselves so forgive me if I take this opportunity to say "FECK YOU ALL ... MO FO BASTARDS"...but I'm over it now!

If City win, the media Pep love in will become near pornographic and if Arsenal win, Ty will drink the Thames dry in celebration.

In keeping with the spirit of Easter, City striker Jesus is in contention after making a miraculous recovery from injury.

The tactics for this game will be difficult to call as both managers have been experimenting recently.

What is certain however is that Navas will continuously cross the ball to the first defender, Bravo will continue in his quest to become the greatest keeper (who doesn't use his hands) the world has ever seen, Stones will continue with his piss poor Bobby Moore impression and Stirling will run really really fast...until knocked over by a sudden breeze.
There are rumours that City are after Sanchez ... and are offering him an extra £20,000 per day on his contract if he flips Wenger the bird and slaps Ozil for being a lazy bitch and kicks the Ox in the balls for walking around with that fecking hair cut.

Arsenal have a keeper that their fans have actually heard of again.
They will pass the ball around until Sanchez scream abuse in Spanish at them for being ****e.
Ozil looks like he has remembered that he is allowed to actually run towards his own penalty box when the opposition have the ball and the team as a whole seem to have realised that they will be publicly castrated with blunt scissors and a rusty bolt cutters on tv during a live televised match if they dare play as badly as they did v palace again.

Finally if Spurs win their semi final I won't mind who we play in the final...however if we lose (after losing 2nil in the Carling Cup final and 5-1 to them in our last fa cup semi final I am not optimistic) I will cry on my daughter's shoulder all the way home from wembley but as I am seated where the arsenal fans are the next day I will ensure that I will piss all over the seats around me before we leave...my daughter may never live down the shame but it'll be a small crumb of comfort

 

You really should do match threads for all PL teams

 

Might as well just pm me if he's doing one for City

 

Another gem of a match thread.

 

A win against City and another FA cup final will be a real fillip for everybody involved at Arsenal. If we can go on to win the FA cup and finish in the top 4, then it will be a good end to what has been a rubbish season, because at the moment nobody expects us to do either.

 

It certainly would be our toughest challenge to date. We are underdogs for getting either. We probably have a better chance in the FA cup purely as it's a knockout tournament. But to win it we have to beat the best teams in the league, first City then one of Chelsea or Spurs. It would take a truly inspired Arsenal to get it, something I've not seen all season.

As for the league we have Spurs away, Man U home and Everton home, as our toughest fixtures, but there is a potential of dropping points somewhere in between (Southampton and Stoke away are tough games). Spurs could conceivably end our top 4 aspirations. They are flying high and probably on par or just below Chelsea as the best team in the league. I can also see Mourinho doing a number on us at the Emirates, he is just light years ahead of Wenger in terms of tactics. Therefore the league is very unlikely, as i can see us losing against Spurs and Man U in a row and who knows what the confidence of the team will be like then?

Talking of power shifts, this could be the game to confirm it. I suppose it had to happen sooner or later, the warning signs were there for quite some time but the management failed to act on it.

 

If an FA cup win meant Wenger staying another two years, would anyone take that trade-off?

 

I'd take us winning the FA Cup and Wenger staying on for 2 more years

 

Will we actually have any say in it? My answer would be no.

 

City 2
arsenal 1

aguero
aterling
sanchez

i am going so we are bound to lose sorry

 

Same XI as against Middlesbrough - very brave of Wenger to keep the same formation as I didn't really think it worked that well against Middlesbrough. I'm not worried about Kos or Holding, but Gabriel does concern me because he's the weakest link in that defence. He never seems confident when he has the ball at his feet.

If you're going to play wing-backs, they need to be quick and I think we're going to miss Bellerin's speed if we persist with this formation. Walcott's also given City a torrid time in the past, you'd have thought he should be starting this one.

Ramsey and Xhaka are going to have to cover a lot of ground if they want to dominate the midfield. Can they do it? Don't think so, personally.

Giroud starting is a mystery as well. City will press higher up the pitch and squeeze us in the middle of the park because they know Giroud hasn't got the pace to get in behind. It means we're going to be under the cosh a lot and will find it hard to break away on the counter.

Overall, as you can tell, I'm not that happy with the team we have. Think it'd have been worth reverting to the standard 4-2-3-1 formation.

 

Well as promised I pissed all over the seats and sobbed like a baby all the way home and am now cheering on the blues...god I hate football so am prayi g you lots will cheer me up

 

I agree I'm finding it strange that Wenger would experiment in the Semi final of the FA Cup. Better keeping it in the PL. Anyways it should be a very good game against two that are not far apart in terms of quality and attacking sense.

 

Not far apart in terms of quality? You could drive a truck through the gulf in class! I am expecting a huge loss today, we rode our luck in the game v them a few weeks ago!

 

You are doing better than we did at this stage

 

Giroud is limping

 

I don't think City have been that great as a team unit to be honest, they might have the players but are vulnerable, which we can exploit.

 

Harsh yellow imho

 

Defensive midfield really needs to be addressed this Summer.

They have soo much space in front of our back four.

 

So Wenger's latest tactical masterplan is to pretend that you're Burnley?