Match Day Thread Swansea vs Arsenal Matchday Thread

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Venue: Liberty Stadium
Date: Saturday 14th January 2017
KO Time: 15:00pm

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Head to Head:

Wins: 11
Draws: 3
Losses: 8
GF: 31
GA: 25
GD: 6+

Arsenal's form (all competitions):

LWWDW

Swansea's form all competition:

LLLWL

Team news:

Record signing Mesut Ozil should be back in contention after recovering from an illness that has kept him out for the last two weeks, while Hector Bellerin and Kieran Gibbs are also set to mark their return.

The Gunners continue to be without midfielders Santi Cazorla and Francis Coquelin through injury, while Mohamed Elneny is on international duty with Egypt for the African Cup of Nations.

Aaron Ramsey and Granit Xhaka are likely to be the central midfielders yet again for Wenger as he knows his side cannot afford to lose any more points if they wish keep their faint title hopes alive.

The game will come too soon for Ecuadorian international Jefferson Montero who remains on the sidelines with a hamstring injury.

Paul Clement in his first Premier League game in charge of the Swans could welcome the return of left-back Neil Taylor, after he suffered a rib injury in the 2-1 win away at Crystal Palace.





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Taylor has fractured his cheekbone!

 

Watch or listen guide: http://www.livesoccertv.com/

If you have something like Kodi, the game is live on NBCSN or NBC Live Sport

 

Swansea: Fabianski, Naughton, Fernandez, Mawson, Kingsley, Ki, Cork, Dyer, Sigurdsson, Routledge, Llorente

Arsenal: Cech, Gabriel, Koscielny, Mustafi, Monreal, Ramsey, Xhaka, Sanchez, Ozil, Iwobi, Giroud

 

Is Bellerin injured? Damn, that's not encouraging. And why has Perez been dropped? Doesn't seem like a fair decision based on his contributions when he's played.

Not looking forward to seeing Gabriel up against Routledge, so I hope he gets plenty of cover from Iwobi, who doesn't always track back enough.

Llorente will make mincemeat of Mustafi and Koscielny in the air, so I hope we try and stop the service to him.

This could very easily be a banana skin, so I hope we can get the job done...

 

Don't wanna get on his back early on, but that was such a poor pass from Ramsey. Had he kept that simple, we could have potentially created a chance. He didn't need to pass it so urgently, he had time and space.

 

Swansea have been pressing us on the ball very well.

 

Terrible header from Koscielny, which thankfully Mustafi dealt with otherwise Sigurdsson would have been in.

 

Boring opening 25 minutes. Passing it around with no penetration at all, we've not created a single chance yet. Swansea have set up well, but they've not created much either, albeit they look more threatening than us. Anonymous from Sanchez and Ozil thus far.

 

Strong, powerful shot from Sanchez (finally).

And Ramsey thwarts another counter-attack .

The central midfield pairing of Xhaka and Ramsey just isn't mobile enough.

 

Sigh. Monreal is always out of position. No wonder they keep targeting that side of the field to attack us!

 

Giroooud! 1-0!

Although he seems to have injured himself in the process.

 

Ki dives for a penalty and rightly gets booked. Fair play to Mike Jones because on first glance, it looked like a penalty. Cheating prick.

 

The guys on Sky can't agree - Le Tissier says it was a dive: Stelling says contact on Ki's ankle.

 

0-1. HT.

Mediocre performance all round, neither team has been that impressive. A few loose passes have gifted Swansea some half-chances, but aside from that Naughton shot in the first 15 minutes, Cech hasn't really been troubled. We struggled to cope with their pressing to begin with, but they eased off us as the half wore on and left spaces available which we exploited on the counter, which we thankfully took advantage of with one of our very few chances of the game.

When Ki went down and Jones blew the whistle, I was thinking "Not another penalty ffs!" but on second glance, it was a manipulative dive as Koscielny pulls out of the challenge and Ki tumbles over. Very difficult to see in real time, so the ref deserves credit for spotting that.

 

Penalty to Swansea?
Swansea 0-1 Arsenal

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Chris Sutton

Ex-Chelsea striker on Final Score

Posted at15:51
It's a huge call, and I think Mike Jones has got it wrong - Laurent Koscielny dangled a leg out and gave the referee a decision to make. Arsenal have got away with it.

Martin Keown: I think from two different angles it looks like two different things and Mike Jones makes the call from the angle he sees. I think Ki left his leg in there and went over easily.

 

Just because there's contact, it doesn't mean it's a penalty. Koscielny clearly pulls out of the challenge and Ki deliberately bangs his foot into Koscielny's when the ball runs away from him.

Utterly cowardly.

 

He's no Delli Ali

 

Great - we agree on something

Let's hope for a decent second half!

 

The thing that annoys me about that penalty incident is Ki's reaction. The ****er acted like it was a stonewall penalty and he was hard done by . You tried to con the ref, you mug!