Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger:

“Overall, we could have won it – it was a game of few chances. Our defensive focus was extreme as we conceded so many goals on Saturday.

“In the end, either side could have won 1-0. Manchester United are a good team, so when you go forward they can catch you.

“It is important to recover physically and prepare for the next game as we want to stay in the FA Cup. The title race is absolutely open for many teams.”

I don’t usually start a post with a comment by our manager but I got the feeling that not to lose was the priority last night.

Games between these sides in the last twenty years always had that bit of extra ferocity but overall this was a tame affair.

The game started and within a minute Arteta had an Anfield moment and gave RVP a gilt edge chance which he fluffed and then the game started to even out with misplaced passes by both teams and then we saw a glimpse of magic from Wilshere,threading his way into the box which on another occasion might have been a goal.

Neither team went gung – ho and all in all it was a tame first half.

We certainly started the second half with more momentum but not for the first time on many occasions we took that extra short intricate pass and the move broke down.

Giroud had two or three chances to work de Gea but the nearest we came to scoring was a header from Koscielny which was headed off the line by Valencia. Santi upped his game and at least was trying to test de Gea which he did twice but the keeper was equal to it and in a rare breakaway Szczesny produced a wonderful save from RVP yet for most of the game we were as predictable as ever,and that concerns me, as one can watch the game and nearly always know what the next move will be.

Often stated but where is Plan B? Subbing players like for like doesn’t work against the better teams especially with a squad lacking depth, but there were a few positives for me.

Ozil really showed his class and was forever looking to probe United’s defence but where was the support?

Koscielny was a rock yet again and Szczesny showed how much he has improved.

Gibbs, every time for me, has to play as opposed to Monreal.

Many will argue that an in form Ramsey and Walcott would have made a difference especially against ageing defenders such as Vidic and Ferdinand, but we can only play with the players available.

There is no point in criticising various players though I have said that if Giroud is meant to lead the line and lay the ball off, all well and good, but then he must have support instead of repeatedly being isolated.

Verdict : Two points dropped which may have a significant bearing to the run in as the gap between the top five narrows.

Written by kelsey

Following the howls of derision at Salford FC at full time on Sunday, where the mid table home team conceded a late Fergie time equaliser to bottom of the table Fulham, David Moists’ charges travel to the homeland of their support, London, tonight to put their Europa League qualification campaign back on track.

Having said that the Arsenal themselves have to wipe out the memory of the worst performance of the season so far at Anfield, even though that defeat was the first in the League since the 6-3 reverse to the Northern oilers back in mid December.

Thanks to the Baggies draw with the Southern oilers last night (are cracks appearing in The Specious one’s kingdom?) a win will take us back to the top of the table; further incentive if any were needed.

Our (totally un)worthy opponents have lost three of their last six and scraped two wins and a valiantly gained the aforementioned draw in their last dirty half dozen of games. Injury wise there’s no Jones, Fellaini or Jonny Evans so we face them more or less at full strength but potentially low on confidence.

Temporarily turning away from the unsavoury topic of the opposition and back to the good guys, we all know Theo, Rambo and Vermaelen are injured and Flamini unavailable, together with two more we didn’t expect to see anyway for differing reasons, Diaby and Källström.

A wild card in squad selection is Sanogo, who played 60 minutes for the stiffs last week, and is available even though I suspect it’s doubtful he will play any more than a bit part in the game if any at all.

Going by Moist’s very clever tactic of pumping cross after cross into the area for the giants Hernandez and Shrek to get on the end of, one hopes Wenger has made heading practice a priority for BFG and Kozzer.

Speaking to a ManUre fan of my acquaintance (Hounslow born and bred, of course) recently it was felt if you deny their midfield space, Carrick especially, they’d be unable to play and the front players would be starved of service.

The other facor is the arrival of Mata, nothing would encourage the eye gouger to congratulate himself on his ploy of selling a world class player to a team CSKA Fulham bus stop would no longer play this season.

With those options available and given the performances of the starting XI on Saturday team selection may not be as straight forward as in the past, however Wenger tends to send players who had a bad game out to make amends on the pitch so I am going with Wenger’s selection to be:

Personally I would have Tomáš Rockin’ Rosický in place of Arteta and maybe Podolski given a rare start so Özzy can come on later, although not necessarily as late as 65 minutes.

A hugely important factor in tonight’s performance is the help the crowd can give to the players from the off. Groans and squeals if a few early passes go astray will not help so we need the crowd to unite behind one common factor that will bind the home support together, namely this “person”:

An understated goal celebration.

Yes, this man and his deranged, eye-bulging rabid celebration after scoring against us at old Toilet, should remind us just what our opponents are all about and why I hate them so much.

What did he say when he sold his soul for 30 pieces of silver?

“I always listen to the little boy inside of me in these situations – when you have to make the harder decisions in life. What does he want? That boy was screaming for Man United.”

Of course the little boy inside would say that, yet what would this little boy have said?

Fast forward to 2011 and we get this from Bouchra’s husband:

“The bottom line is that I want to win trophies with Arsenal, not with anybody else. I know you can win trophies in many countries and in many ways, but I want to do that in our way and in an Arsenal shirt.

“I’m sure I could win things at another team in another country, but would it feel like our trophy, my trophy? I’m not sure it would. Anything we win here will come from the heart and that’s what I want.

So proof positive, the little boy inside has no heart and if any of the Surrey glory hunters are still with me at this point (and if so why are you still with me? Just bugger off already!)and accuse me of being bitter my answer is:

“Yes I am…next!”

Bitter, but happy to see the grey haired turncoat returning to the perma crock we knew so well from his extended spells on our treatment tables whenever we needed him to be fit. I suggest his Christmas time injury spell was due to a sulk-induced overly protruding lower lip.

Every kick he takes should be met by our disapproval coming in any form possible; I believe every gooner should make every second he is on our turf a painful experience.

What’s that I hear about crossing the lines of what’s banter or not? We all know which are the teams whose fans love to sing “that” song about Wenger and one of those are our opponents tonight.

A spiky, vociferous home support is what is needed to give the good guys that extra push; and making the away fans match day experience as miserable as possible is every gooners duty, go ahead and goad with whatever you can come up with, here are a few suggestions:

“Show us your oyster cards!”

“Is he still the chosen one?”

“Europa cup, you’re having a laugh!”

Send them back to Caterham, Redhill and Carshalton heads bowed in defeat.

We need a big show from the crowd and the team need you tonight more than ever.

UTA !

By ChärybdÏß1966 (on Twitter @charybdis1966)

It’s becoming a familiar pattern, isn’t it?

Stage One: the team is over-achieving in a way we never imagined at the start of the season; we supporters are beginning to dream; we face a “big test” against a good team; we get thrashed.

At which point we segue into Stage Two: the manager says that “what we do on the pitch now is what matters”; the fans are miserable; some are very angry; scapegoats are identified and pilloried; the media writes us off again.

This week’s scapegoats seem to be primarily Arteta, Ozil and, as always, Arsene Wenger.

Personally I think people are judging Arteta and Ozil too harshly. Mikel has not been playing well for a few games but the rush to write him off as being over the hill is premature.  All players (regardless of age) go through bad phases and to consign last year’s player of the season to the scrapheap for three bad performances – one of which was a disastrous effort from the whole team – is unfair.

As for Mesut, he was poor against Liverpool, but no worse than several other players including Santi Cazorla, Olivier Giroud and the likes of Rosicky and Podolski when they came on.

Which is not to say I don’t understand the anger and the desire to point fingers. But the defeat happened: we were awful and Liverpool played as well as they can play.

It’s one game, three points lost and a result that will only attain a greater significance if we let it. If we win our next three league games, this defeat will be quickly forgotten.

We can start on Wednesday against Manchester United by demonstrating that we are capable of putting it behind us.

But how do we avoid this sort of situation and performance happening again?

To me the answer is obvious: we have a wonderful blueprint for what the squad needs to do to be successful between now and the end of May.

Better still, it’s a blueprint that has already been tried and tested by the manager and by most of the players currently in our first team squad.

I refer to the way we played last season after losing in the league game at the N17 Public Convenience.

After that defeat – when our defence was all too easily pulled apart by Totteringham and we were ridiculed by dumber and dumberer on Match of the Day – we refocused and went on to win eight and draw two of our remaining 10 games – a run that powered us into the Champions League spots against all expectation.

I remember those games well. Very few were easy victories. In most games we ground out results by being hard to beat. We started every game with the mentality of “let’s not concede soft goals, then see what happens.”

It was incredibly effective and the platform of confidence it gave the squad has been there for all to see this season.

Contrast that with how we approached the game at Anfield on Saturday. If we had taken to the field thinking “OK, Liverpool are flying at the moment and are at home: they’re going to come at us hard so let’s make sure we are really tight at the back and take the wind out of their sails for the first 20 minutes,” we would not have had the debacle we all witnessed.

For a start the first goal would not have happened because Sagna would not have been miles up the field channeling his inner Theo when Liverpool broke; in which case The BFG would not have had to fill in at right back and find himself in a speed race with Luis Suarez; and if that hadn’t happened he would not have had to foul Suarez, there would have been no free kick and that ugly bloke would never have got his porcelain bonce on the ball in our six yard box.

Instead we started that game as if we thought we were Manchester City: “we won’t worry about defending – we’ll just showboat a bit and we’ll probably score five or six.”

We got what we deserved.

It’s like we started to believe that because we’re top of the table we’re so absolutely fabulous that we don’t need to concern ourselves with the boring, workaday bits of the job.

The table doesn’t lie, but sometimes it tells jokes. And on the evidence of Saturday, us being the best team in the country is straight out of Les Dawson’s pocket book.

Now it’s time to put aside any ideas of grandeur and start thinking like we did in the last 10 games of last season.

Constant hard work; relentless pressing of the opposition when they have the ball; total concentration; playing for your team and your team mates… we have done all of this and more before so we can do it again. We know how to do it.

If Arsene Wenger and Steve Bould can put the players back into that mindset we’ll be fine.

And I want to see it starting on Wednesday against ManUre. Despite Saturday’s humiliation I do not want to see us charging at United like the Seventh Cavalry.

Let’s start with a safety first approach, gradually take control of midfield then wait for the goalscoring chances that will inevitably follow.

It’s not as if we don’t know how to do it.

Of course, following the defeat at the Tiny Totts last year Arsene made some selection changes,  including dropping Szczesny and Vermaelen.

Perhaps he’ll do the same this time round, although it’s less likely because (a) we are limited by injuries and (b) the players who failed so badly on Saturday have all being doing well for the most part.

Roll on Wednesday. We need to get back in the saddle…

RockyLives

Liverpool 5  Arsenal 1

Skrtel (1 & 10)

Sterling (17 & 52)

Sturridge (20)

Arteta (69 pen)

Stats:

Shots On 12 v 6

Shots Off 9 v 1

Corners. 6 v 6

Possession (%) 43 v 57

Passing Accuracy (%) 79 v 87

Managers thoughts:-

……. on whether he was shocked by that result…

What is important is that we respond to the result, especially that we respond with a different performance because our performance overall was poor today – on the concentration level and on the pace. Our defensive stability was very poor, we looked always vulnerable defensively. Congratulations to Liverpool, they were the better team today and we were very poor today. Only our fans were good for 90 minutes, that’s all.

……on explaining the first 20 minutes…

We conceded two early goals on set pieces and then we are always in a position where you have to come out but we knew that you need to be better focused in that kind of level. Overall our performance was just not good enough. Maybe it’s better if I don’t talk too much, go home and respond well on Wednesday night because I include myself in that performance. It raises the questions that we have to answer on Wednesday night.

…… on the run of games coming up testing the teams credentials…

Yes I understand with you completely but it’s not about what people say, it’s how we respond that matters. I can completely understand that people will raise questions. We only have one way to respond answer that – which is on Wednesday night.

…..on whether Arsenal can still win the title…

Of course because, no matter what happens, it will be mathematically possible. It’s always what you make of the defeats that decides your future and tonight we have a lot to answer for and a lot of answers to find.

….. on taking positives from the response after the City defeat…

It was a similar situation against City, Saturday morning, 12.45 and early goals. We have to analyse well what happened, why it happened but we didn’t look sharp physically as well.

…… on taking 20 points from 24 after the City game…

If we do that in the next games it’s OK but let’s respond well on Wednesday night. We are of course very disappointed today but [we must not] lose our confidence and our belief that we can still do it.

….. on Wilshere’s fitness…

He didn’t look more short than any other player on the pitch. At half-time I could have taken a lot of people off. I just think the whole team failed to turn up with the right performance.

….. on whether they missed Flamini…

Flamini played at Man City. I think overall it’s just our team performance on the day was poor.

Players thoughts:

Szscesny – that was f**king embarrassing. Apologies to anyone who sat through 90 minutes of that game.

Mertersacker – sorry guys, this a bad day for the whole team. Now we have to stand together in defeat and get our heads sorted again.

Giroud – was a really poor performance from me today. We have to face our responsibilities and bounce back v United. So disappointed but keep the head up!

Player Ratings:-

Szscesny – actually made some good saves. Not too much he could do on the goals. Felt sorry for him 7

Sagna – was one of the few who tried throughout the 90 minutes 5

Mertersacker – one of the few times this season his pace has been exposed 3

Koscielny – was more tea lady than boss. Even he couldn’t keep up with Sturridge and Sterling 5

Monreal – was so scared of getting done for pace that he backed off far too much 3

Arteta – pretty woeful first half and should’ve been doing more to rally the team. Better 2nd half and scored the pen 4

Wilshere – another who was awful for the first 45. At least showed some spirit in the second half 4

Özil – was missing for most of the game. Not one who’s needed when the chips are down. Is he a luxury we can’t afford? No, but still poor 3

Ox – only one who tried to harass the opposition and was our best outfield player by a mile. Won the penalty 7

Cazorla – nothing came off for him. One of many who disappeared at 2 down 4

Giroud – wasn’t given a sniff really, but his touch was way off when played to feet and kept running into traffic 3

Subs:-

Gibbs – tried hard and got into some useful positions 5

Rosicky – didn’t see much of him when he came on 4

Podolski – another sub who was disappointing 4

Away Fans – MOTM – players didn’t deserve them yesterday. In some ways I wish it was at home so they could feel exactly how pissed off we were 10

Things that stood out for me were:-

* How poorly our senior players responded to going 2-0 down. We were still in the game at that point and a more experienced team would’ve sat in for 10-15 minutes and settled the ship, then come out swinging for the rest of the game.

* The hole in midfield. I don’t want to pick on individuals but the drop in level of Arteta from last season compared to this is a big worry. Playing Özil and Wilshere alongside did not help. JW cannot do the same level of work Ramsey does, and that’s what we are missing to give us the right balance.

* The lack of pace was a problem but it’s not every week we play the likes of Sterling and Sturridge. We still need to add some though both in attack and DM.

* We have been pretty average for a few weeks now and can’t seem to put a full 90 minute shift in. The starts have been awful too. Is it fatigue, injuries, complacency? I’m not sure.

* This was only 1 game, and as frustrating as it was to watch, it still only equates to 3 points. The players need to come out firing on Wednesday and who better to hammer than Man U. The first goal is going to be vital. We are still 2nd after City’s shocker yesterday and only 1 point behind the leaders. I’d have taken this in August, so still all to play for, as long as we don’t play like we did yesterday ever again!

Written by FatGingerGooner