CL: Arsenal vs Thun | 14/09/05

[IBL]

Did anyone also catch what Gilberto said to the camera after he scored? He screamed something along the lines of "yeehhh....one nil....come on!". Showed some intense passion in his celebration

 

[goonerwarsh]

Did anyone also catch what Gilberto said to the camera after he scored? He screamed something along the lines of "yeehhh....one nil....come on!". Showed some intense passion in his celebration

Really? I thought he was shouting something like...

"Thank god Cygan's not playing Wooooooooooo!!" :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

alumina - 6 - not much to do.
Lauren - 6 - same old lauren
toure - 6 - looks dogey still, too erractic
Campbell - 6.5 -looks underdone, but will improve.
Cole - 7.5 - great game
Ljungberg - 6 - same old, if he doesnt score, ineffective
Silva - 7 - great second half, needs to be more physical in middle
Cesc - 6.5 - great passer, needs to lift weights
Pires - 6.5 - tried hard, would have scored in his old self
Reyes - 6.5 - still very wasteful of chances he gets
Bergkamp - touch of class with goal.
quincy - looks like, looks solid aswell. can see him and hleb becomine our regulary wingers soon.

 

[MK5]

takes someone very very special to routinely be able to put the ball behind the line when the defense is playing deep and the goalie is descent. Not an easy task my friend believe me.

Again, very true . The only one of our midfields (or defenders for that matter) I could see delivering those balls would be Cesc but I'm not even sure he'd be able to do it. Perhaps that's why AW was interested in Beckham?

 

[non flying dutchman]

I know everyone thought that we should of rolled over thun, but how many of you had ever seen them play before, they were an unknown quantity and they are the hardest teams to play against, I was quite impressed with their play, they did sit behind the ball but they had a few good attacks and also got forward in numbers when they had the chance, which is a lot more than most prem teams do against us.

FFS they knocked out dynamo kiev last round and kiev are at the peak of their season so they are no pushovers!!

Also you've got to take into account that our main concern last night was to not lose, as losing your first match gives you an almighty task to get out the group, so we did that.

Van persies red card was a little harsh as the referee should of seen where RVP face was looking, but you could also argue that if your gonna put your foot up at should height, surely you should know what's around you, the guy needed six stitchs and has a black eye!!!

I thought we played well, no bad performances, no brilliant ones either but it was comfortable and if the ref had given us that penalty for the challenge on reyes or sent off their left back for berts elbow in the eye we'd of come away with more goals.

3 points at the end of it, move onto the next game and improve, that's all you can say...

 

[Natnat]

Robin should not got red card
My youngest before kick off was telling every Thun supporter ''welcome to Highbury''
Near the Marble Hall when he said that a guy took out small Thun penndant and pin badge and gave it to my son.
I was expecting more goals from us.

 

[omdtm]

It's aways hard to score many goals in CL games against FC THUN kind of teams... Unless we get a goal with much time left and they don't get a lucky goal just after it.

 

[qs]

Yes. "We need to be more direct." Why is it that when a few games go wrong we need to be more direct? Were you saying this in the unbeaten season? Why is it that when things don't go our way it's always a big centre-half, a big cente-forward and a goal grabber. Why all this old-English-football crap? I'm sure there's enough Carlisles and Herefords that have players do exactly what you want them to. Arsenal don't play like that. They have a playing style and they try to play it to the best of their ability. Sure people can make their point but it's all the same: Play a long ball! Shoot! Get stuck in! We need a big centre-forward!

I dont agree with everything the people your talkign about say but the lagues changed in the last 2 years. Mourinhos 4-5-1 is the now the plague of the EPL and its defeinitly the best way to play against our style of play. We need to mix it up a bit. Our passing does cause teams trouble but if for every 4 times we played our passing game once we tried a ball over the top for Reyes or Henry to run onto, and then maybe we played wide down the flanks next time we'd give defences alot more to think about than "oh well just dont let them pass into the box". Defences stand off our forwards around 25-30 yards out, they invite teh shot because they know its probably not coming. Ireland did it to France last week, worked brillaintly for most of the game, Zidane didnt know what to do, then Henry too a shot while Richard Dunne stood looking at him and scored. Now if defenders were worring about that they'd move onto us and it'd create space again.

We dont need a long ball game, or to always be shooting from 30 yards, or even to always play wide, but if we did all of them every know and then it'd give us more space to do what we do best and it would trouble defences.

 

[Gooner_Girl]

I'm so relieved we won. The problem with our team no one wants to shoot as seen yesterday and even the commentator brought up about why we wanted a centre forward which is why we should have got owen anyways. I couldn't really see a connection between reyes and van persie or i wasn't really focusing on that anyway hopefully he does that against everton then i can see it then. Glad to see campbell finally back in the squad and we scored from a set piece!! Which is why we need him there and gilberto there especially for set pieces. I think our midfield was great and i think we could have smashed fc thun if our players wanted to shoot. We like passing too much i'm sure if we attempted more on shots we could have won like 5-1.

 

[air]

The previous post is exactly what I was talking about.

A centre-forward and players who like to "have a crack". I'm sure there's lots of lower league teams who play just like that.

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

The biggest improvement that I saw yesterday was with our set pieces. We actually did look like we can score from most of the set pieces(corners/direct kicks). Usually its a give away. Hopefully we can continue like that cos we do need to get some goals from that dept.

 

[Anonymous]

Throwing bodies forward does not equal to looking dangerous from a set piece, they are still wasted and would be better served as decoys for an eloberate long pass to shooting opportunity.

As for FC Thun, they played with one aim defense, good for them, what do you expect - yes you can say, there are no truly easy teams in the CL anymore. And yes Van Persie was sent off. But still Arsenal should have seen them off the pitch 3-0.

Unconvincing display by a team without a true physical presence anywhere to be seen.

 

[anomaly]

Here's a few random vids I took from where I was sitting last night. Show a few people who didn't go what the atmosphere was like..

Bergkamp cross, Touré miss (and yes, that is me shouting "****!" at the end )

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jj.ruggieri/arsenal_1.wmv

Celebration after Berkgamp goal: (Sorry for shocking camera work :wink: )

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jj.ruggieri/arsenal_2.wmv

Bergkamp chant:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/jj.ruggieri/arsenal_3.wmv


Here's where I was sitting

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

As for FC Thun, they played with one aim defense, good for them, what do you expect - yes you can say, there are no truly easy teams in the CL anymore. And yes Van Persie was sent off. But still Arsenal should have seen them off the pitch 3-0.

Unconvincing display by a team without a true physical presence anywhere to be seen.

You talk a lot of BS* my friend. A 3-0 result with 10 man!! You ever played this game before? This is not fantasy football.

 

[yoinkster]

you {The West stand} were only clapping when Bergkamp scored ?!?!
oh ... my ... god, i thought the North Bank was going to collapse with excitement/relief when that goal went in ... like when van Persie scored against Soton in injury time to save the game.
how can you have stayed that calm in celebration

 

[Anonymous]

As for FC Thun, they played with one aim defense, good for them, what do you expect - yes you can say, there are no truly easy teams in the CL anymore. And yes Van Persie was sent off. But still Arsenal should have seen them off the pitch 3-0.

Unconvincing display by a team without a true physical presence anywhere to be seen.

You talk a lot of BS* my friend. A 3-0 result with 10 man!! You ever played this game before? This is not fantasy football.

Oh let me guess.. Before the game, you was expect 2-1 before kick off..
You talk to me about BS. I think any other top seed would have beat them by more then one goal. It's easy to be satisfied with the win, because you have to accept it, eitherway.. because they were down to the 10 men, but even then - they were having the lions share of the possession... If a top seed is representative of anything Arsenal should have been looking to do more then simply scrape through.. even down to 10 men, despite it not being easy.


I don't see Barcelona 2-FC Thun 1.
I don't see Man USA " " "
I don't see Chelsea " " "
etc.. 10 men or no 10 men.

We got lucky, simple as that. Glad for Bergkamp's effort.. it showed.
But we still got lucky.

 

[anomaly]

The second vid clip is about 2 mins after Bergkamp actually scored...it went crazy when he did, and I finally managed to grab my cam and record some of it.

Thank you for appluading my steady camera work tho

 

[Mbaki Mutahaba]

As for FC Thun, they played with one aim defense, good for them, what do you expect - yes you can say, there are no truly easy teams in the CL anymore. And yes Van Persie was sent off. But still Arsenal should have seen them off the pitch 3-0.

Unconvincing display by a team without a true physical presence anywhere to be seen.

You talk a lot of BS* my friend. A 3-0 result with 10 man!! You ever played this game before? This is not fantasy football.

Oh let me guess.. Before the game, you was expect 2-1 before kick off..
You talk to me about BS. I think any other top seed would have beat them by more then one goal. It's easy to be satisfied with the win, because you have to accept it, eitherway.. because they were down to the 10 men, but even then - they were having the lions share of the possession... If a top seed is representative of anything Arsenal should have been looking to do more then simply scrape through.. even down to 10 men, despite it not being easy.


I don't see Barcelona 2-FC Thun 1.
I don't see Man USA " " "
I don't see Chelsea " " "
etc.. 10 men or no 10 men.

We got lucky, simple as that. Glad for Bergkamp's effort.. it showed.
But we still got lucky.

No point arguing with you. Prepare yourself from more disappointments down the road.

 

[patrick42uk]

i feel i have an idea of why we struggle in europe. i think we are being weighted down by the expectations which are formed from our premiership performance i.e winning isnt enough, but winning in style. wenger himself aggresively pushes this forward as his expectation of the team and unfortunately that isnt revised for european nights. fact is, europeans teams you face in the cl are on another level and have the means to suffocate teams. grinding out results is the order of the day. but i feel that when arsenal grind out a result in europe, there is still a hint of disappointment because we havent played our free-flowing football. i think that impacts on the confidence of the players who begin to question their ability and that lack of confidnece is often evident on cl nights. the solution is that we need to appreciate our victories a lot more irrespective of the entertainment factor because expecting to win in style in europe is unrealistic and happens rarely for any team.

indirectly linked to this is that i feel we need to slightly alter the mentality. i think there is a large imbalance at the moment in terms of priority between attack and defence. i think the focus should shift slightly more to focusing on keeping clean sheets rather than breaking down the opposition defence. i feel that currently we purse the latter too aggressively, often almost obsessively and the quality of the opposition faced means that tends to breed frustration and lack of cocentration upon defensive duties.

 

[Anonymous]

I hear the point, but I don't really think that's the cause.

I simply think that defences win you cl matches.

Average defences are saved by great goalkeepers.. Dida, Buffon, Cassilalal (Real madrid bastage), Van Der Sar,

Average goalkeepers have also been saved by excellent defenders.. Ac Milan, Juventus at one time, Arsenal for a small time..

Ragardless of where exactly the vital click goes in place.. defences have won the Cl 3 times in a row. And all out attack, or reliance on attack is simply no longer the key to european glory, so.. balance is the key.

And Arsenal's methods are not only unchanging, but outdated.

Wenger still thinks that Arsenal will go out there and put in a performance of attacking finese and win the CL in style.. while not having the foresight to really see, that Ac milan played liverpool off the pitch for the first half, and still lost.

As usual, Squad depth is the key to Arsenal dominance.

When Arsenal truly has squad depth in all areas in the pitch.. then people will talk about Arsenal again, and Arsenal will definatly 100% win the CL.