This match is what makes Chelsea fans and West ham fans jealous...not of spurs and not of arsenal but of not having a true rival. We lose to West ham or Chelsea and it's forgotten about an hour later ... we lose to you lot and I want go all Reservoir Dogs ... you know...the bit with Mr White, the knife and the ear!!!! This match is everything from after the previous one ends to when the next one starts. I feel sick just thinking about the match...I will feel sick during it...and if you mo fos win I will feel sick after it...no other game does that and it's something all football fans love and it's something all West ham and Chelsea fans wish they had. Oh...and feck the lot of yet
True.Its clearly the best rivalry in the league. Most interesting and seems to produce the best games.
5-4, 2-2 (3 times), 5-2 (twice), 4 all, 3 all, 5-1, 3-2....these included 5 games where a eam came from 2 goals down (spurs 3 times, Arsenal two)...that is all in 14 years...almost 1 great game a year...I can not remember the last decent Merseyside, Glasgow, Manchester, Bitmingham or Sheffield derby let alone the last great one.
Cech Bellerin Koscielny Mustafi Monreal Elneny Xhaka Wilshere Özil Mkhitaryan Aubameyang (Ramsey injured)
I like the addition of Wilshere he has the right mentality in these big NLD games. My main worry is Xhaka and Elneny playing together. Do they know how to? I would tell them to say deep and keep it simple. No crazy long ball passes or surging runs. We have enough attacking flair to create.
0-0. HT. After quite a frantic opening 10 minutes, the game petered out in an attacking sense. Both sides are being very tactical and trying not to play into each other's hands. Understandably so. Even though Aubameyang hasn't been that involved, Spurs defence are aware of the pace he possesses and aren't pressing as high up the pitch. This is a big advantage. Our final ball needs to be so much better, though. We've got into some extremely promising positions, especially on the counter-attack, and the right ball hasn't been played. Mkhitaryan in particular has been culpable of some shocking balls in the final third. We need to get Ozil into the game more because, barring the last 5 minutes, he's been fairly anonymous. Trippier is getting acres of space on left-hand side. He needs to be closed down quicker. They're bypassing our midfield quite easily (though we expected this), and have won a lot of second balls, but we have recovered well. Defensively, we've been stronger than I anticipated. Good news is that we've kept Kane, Alli and Son relatively quiet. He had that one header that glanced over the bar, which is a warning sign that we need to track his movement a lot better. Wilshere, Elneny and the back four have been good. Need to see more from the front 3 in the second half, though. A very competitive game played at a good tempo
It's not about 'learning' though is it. I can't get a three legged 20 year old knacker of a horse and just try and get it to 'learn' to be a race horse. We've got a bottom half of the table central midfield and they're capable of very little.
We've been absolutely horrendous this half. Spurs could easily be 4 or 5 goals up. They have been all over us and made us look like a pub side. Complete contrast to the first half. Any time we concede a goal, the whole team completely disintegrates. I've never seen such a mentally weak team in my years of supporting Arsenal. It's remarkable.
We could have nicked a point at the end, Lacazette with two very poor misses. You can tell he's got no confidence at the moment. But to be honest, it would have been a point we didn't deserve. Spurs were the better side by a country mile. We couldn't get near them in the second half. I hate losing in any game, but some losses are easier to take than others. When I know that we've been such a physically/mentally weak side in the match and have lost due to being gutless, that's what infuriates me more than anything. To compound matters, Spurs have started to do really well in these big games - that's 7 points they've taken from United, Liverpool and us. That's the sort of big-game mentality we can only dream of having right now. Oh, and that's our 8th league defeat. 8 FFS.
Best team won. Top 4 is gone for sure. Yet Wenger insists that PL is the way to CL football. I wish Wenger just accepts it is over and play youngsters like Maitland Niles in the middle.
