We saw against City and Chelsea that we could outplay them when we moved the ball quickly and decisively. But in those games our sloppy start cost us both times. We put that right from the start against West Ham and were rewarded with a 5-1 victory, 70% of the possession and 23 shots on goal. I said it a while ago, but for me this was the single most important thing that we needed to get right, to start games with urgency, press the play, move the ball forward and make the opposition work, rather than allowing them to dictate the game to us. Hopefully this will help us really kick on for the rest of the season.
Whatever Wenger is saying at half-time is working. He just now needs to try and get that sort of form out of his team from the first whistle.
Ive said a few times that I thought Ramsey had done enough to start and I wanted to see him and Wilshere in CM. Ramseys workrate is one of the highest in the team so it will always help. He dropped back into defence, made a nuisance of himself and worked for the team when we had the ball, often providing an outlet so we didnt lose the ball or being the first to pressure it when we lost it. Great performance and for me he should start at Brighton, if he does well then I think he could claim a starting place.
Maybe he's threatening to lock under performers in a darkened room with Bouldy? I know that would scare me into a performance.
He threatened to get Hazard to boot them in the ribs if they didn't score again. (I know this happened before Hazard booted the ball boy, but my joke doesn't work without it )
Yeah it's true we looked FAR better in the second half of our last three games. Today we played with an intensity that we've rarely seen this Season. For me it was our best 45 mins of the Season. The worrying thing with this Arsenal team though is whenever we put in a good performance it's immediately followed by another lacklustre one. The team obviously lacks leadership.
Well, its a good thing we play a team in which a lackluster Arsenal performance can still equal a win.
The next game will be a good test of whether we can build some consistency. Wilshere looks like a leader for Arsenal too.
Podolski in particular always seems to follow up every good performance with a poor one, lets hope this is the start of a good run for him
On a good note, at least his poor game will be against Brighton, then he can be good again for the Liverpool game.
He was immense tonight, I'm hoping that it's just the tonic he needs to kick start the rest of his season.
Been here before false dawn again me thinks on a brighter note fat Sam the pikey got spanked up the runners
All depends on how we approach the next game. I think they'll be one or two changes for the Brighton game. Agree about Fat Sam though
We need to be more consistent. We're letting too many winnable games get away from us. Someone needs to take charge. We need a leader For me Wilshire fits the bill.
Wilshere is a natural leader and if it wasn't for him being injured for the whole of last season, then I think he would have been made captain instead of Vermaelen. I think Jack's time will come for the armband eventually though and deservedly so, he is the one player in our team who will grab the game by the scruff of it's neck and try to force the issue. I think Jenkinson and Szczesny are other players with a similar mentality, but they don't have the ability to affect the game in the same way as Wilshere. What was encouraging about last night though, was that we applied what we'd learned in the second half of City and Chelsea and taken it into our next game, against West Ham. Instead of playing well, losing the games and letting it affect our confidence, we seemed to use it to fire us up for this game instead, so I'm hoping that this win will act as the springboard for the next game too
