West Ham are a strange club; steeped in history – a working man’s club graced with creative artists. A Football Academy with extreme right wing fans (just a few of them). And today a manager who has changed the club from a side who yo-yo’ed between the leagues to one which is secure in the PL, has European aspirations and are difficult to beat. And play decent football.

Who would have thought that Allardyce could change his football ethos to fit the demands of the West Ham fans? Not Big Raddy. That said, West Ham’s tactics still include a lot of hoof-ball and crosses to the big central striker and they are not afraid to practice the Dark Arts.

Fat Bob used to take me to see WHU, the fact that he had a season ticket at Upton Park showed a mental infirmity – perhaps it is his need for understanding and emotional support which has kept us friends for 30 years.

Right enough of them – if you want to know about tactics and players and that sort of in-depth, well- researched essaying you will have to look elsewhere.

Arsenal:: Ox is injured who gets his place? My first thought was for Rosicky – he is such a great player and in a game which will involve a midfield battle his positivity may win the day but Mr Wenger likes to keep him on the bench as insurance, so which player takes Ox’s place will depend upon whether Mr Wenger wants to push Santi forward or keep him playing alongside Le Coq.

If Santi is pushed forward Ramsey may play. If not, there is space for an extra forward. Welbeck playing central worked at OT but I would bet Terry’s hairpiece that OG will start this afternoon. Will Welbz be benched or take up a role on the wings? If he does, whither Walcott?

Testing Day for David?

Luxury problems aren’t they? I expect to see Ramsey start. In my opinion he is the fulcrum of Arsenal over the next few years. Every team needs a box-to-box dynamic player and Ramsey, for the moment, is ours. He has been unable to re-create the form of last season but who could? Had he not got injured Ramsey may well have propelled us to the title and let us not forget he scored the winning goal in the FAC final. He needs a goal and then we will see his return to his pomp.

My Team.

Ospina

Bellerin      BFG     Koscielny     Monreal

Ramsey    Coquelin

Cazorla     Alexis

Ozil

Giroud

Big game for Ospina, Szczesny has become adept at coming for the long crosses and at Upton Park was superb. Ospina will have to do the same.

Bench is strong and getting stronger. Our squad is so strong that just riding the pine is an honour.

Our form is good, our PL home form very good. I am 58% confident

COYRRG

Written by Big Raddy

No, the title isn’t a suggestion as to what Maureenho should do on one’s finger after this week’s whinge-a-thon. As an aside and to put his behaviour into context here is his reaction to a shin-pad snapping tackle from Obi Mikel on Arteta.

Anyway, I digress.

Recently there have been requests for Wenger to rotate to keep players fresh, while others believe we should just play our best XI in every game regardless. This made me ask some questions, especially ‘how is it that some teams manage to pick the same players each week?’

Chelsea seem to play the same starting XI in the most games, so they seem best to compare against. (Prem appearances only, second column is substitute appearances )

Immediately the disparity between the two squads appearance-wise becomes apparent.

Our 5^th most appearing player is Szczesny on 19 which is the same as Willian who is the chavs 11^th top player.

Ramires is the 12^th player for the chavs with 6 appearances. We have 21 players who have made 6 or more starts!

Once I started looking at these two side by side, I’m starting to think it raises more questions, rather than making the picture clearer.

How can Hazard be the most fouled player in the Premiership but never get injured? Perhaps he learnt how to fall properly when studying judo as a child?

Will the chavs suffer in the latter part of the season because Fabregas runs out of gas in February?

If the elephant man gets an injury, how will Remy or Dogbra cope in his absence?

Sometimes I forget that Matt Debuchy is an Arsenal player.

Finally, the most important question…….

Will Arsenal’s season come to a fitting climax once everyone’s back?

What do you think?

Written by

chas

One of the best things about English football is the fantastic atmosphere during games created by the attending fans. Every team and every stadium has tunes that are readily recognisable as theirs. But what about the Arsenal?

There are times that I am not proud of being one of the Arsenal supporters. This is because we cannot sing to save our lives. We are one of the worst song writers and our chants are one of the poorest out there.

Ok, no chant is worse than Tottenham’s ‘Oh When the Spurs’ in slow motion. How the hell is this to motivate the team? Funeral marches have better tempo. And then on the other side of the spectrum there is Liverpool’s ‘You Never Walk Alone’ which I find hard to listen to without goose pimples. The Scousers can sing it, you have to give it to them. I will never understand how ‘I am forever blowing bubbles’ became a football song?  But it has and everybody that hears it will think of West Ham United. Or one of the best love songs ever – ‘Blue Moon’ becomes Man City’s iconic tune.

The AFC tried to force ‘The Wonder of You’ on us,  but we resisted singing alone to it and thank Dennis this is gone now. It has been replaced by Clash’s ‘London Calling’, but even this great song failed to make the fans sing. Can you hear any joining in?

I was surprised though that Roger Daltrey’s ‘Highbury Highs’ wasn’t adopted by the fans. It was a great song and relatively easy to sing alone to.

Perhaps it didn’t sound the same at the Emirates as it did in intimate, magical Highbury. On the bright side guys we should be grateful that Chas and Dave are not Arsenal supporters, that could have been painful.

What can be done about it? The singing section has failed miserably and we still are without an anthem, except for this

Written by Eddie

Morning all,

Yes still feeling pain, as I am sure many Gooners are but many’s the time we learn from heartaches such as these, and can only put it down to a lesson learnt.

The strategy used yesterday, only dawned on me this morning. At first I felt that the Tottenham pressure was the reason we were hemmed in all game, but the penny dropped when I realised that Ospina very seldomly rolled the ball out to start our attack instead deciding to hoof the ball down the field which nearly always resulted in Tottenham possession and another wave straight back at us.

I have to say that in the past the slow build up from the throw out has always niggled me a bit as we seem to take an age to get out of our own half, but yesterday showed me that it takes time to get your forward players in the positions that can offer you chances, and the slow build up also gives possession time which also frustrates opponents.

Ospina would not have done that off of his own back, so I would assume that this was a tactic that Arsene had worked out prior to the start. I imagine Wenger would have realised that Tottenham at home would do the pressing so start cautiously and see how the game was going before we venture too far up.

Tottenham came unstuck as they pushed, just how we have in the past and at that time had worked in our favour, but after the goal we retreated to our own half and the constant pressure made sure the only rest bite we had was when Ospina cleared long.

Of course with this kind of tactic you have to mix and match, sometimes a slow build up will instil a little bit of composure but how the game panned out, pressure was constant and defending took over more than being adventurous.

We held out well but with no fear factor from us Tottenham were able to press high up and the result was self explanatory. On the day perhaps we could have mixed and matched a bit more but a 2.1 loss was better than some of the high scores from last season..

Written by Steve Palmer