CS: Arsenal vs Chelsea | 07/08/05

[kanooo]

As I've seen it, I'd say we did quite well.

But, I kept shouting silently during the match (in the first half), shoot, shoot already. We were not afraid to attack but why were we so afraid to shoot and kept on passing? That is a mystery, IMO. There were no clearcut chances but when their defense is packed, I think we should've shot often from a bit further already. I still feel (as I always did) we need somebody to shoot from distance (somebody like Lampard, Scholes or even Ray Parlour) and maybe a striker who would put in scrappy goals.

Despite the 2 goals conceeded, I still feel we did ok in defence. The 2 youngsters also did well in midfield.

Chelsea didn't have many chances although they took theirs well. I wasn't impressed with them in the first half apart from thier goal and the opening 8 minutes. But they looked more solid in defense in the second half and also looked dangerous everytime they counter attacked.

To sum it up, I just hope that we could do better in 2 weeks time at the Bridge. We did ok but we need to improve a lot more if we were to beat them then.

 

[invisibleman18]

But, I kept shouting silently during the match (in the first half), shoot, shoot already.

take out the word silently and there you have me. we had so much possession and plenty of chances to create something but just seemed to want to run the ball into the net rather than shoot. still, decent performance and if anything, we were the better team. was a bit disappointing to see some rather mediocre defending against drogba a couple of times.
lets hope the shield curse continues then and the winner again fails to win the league.

about the lineup, i was a bit disappointed that bentley was not even included on the bench. was rather hoping hed get 15 minutes or so on the pitch.

 

[Chips&CurrySauce]

Personally I was impressed with the performance.. I thought we played all the football and at times Cesc was taking the piss out of Lampard.. Obviously we should have been more clinical in front of goal but that will come.. Chelsea had 2 chances, which both should have been stopped.. The second goal was off side and very lucky.. Toure Cleared the ball which bounces of Gudjohnsens head and lands in thepath of Drogba who was off side.. Despite that I was very pleased and I'm quite optimistic.. Lauren once again was outstanding against Duff.. I find it strange that Duff never gets a kick against Lauren and yet Lauren struggles big time against Ronaldo!!

I thought most of the players did well.. Obviously Senderos struggled against Drogba, and Van Persie looked sluggish, but other than that I feel every player did well and I'm actually feeling quite optimistic for the new season!!

 

[fatalfury]

"Generally, I feel the performance by our team was good and we deserved at least a draw", That's my view as an Arsenal fan.

"We were looking shaky defensively, our attack was the same old, passing and passing and passing and PASSING, we need someone to trouble them from range OR a someone with physical presence in the box!" That's my view as a unbiased football observer. The only good point to note was that we were making light of Viera's departure.

Chelski defensive backline was as settled and composed as ever. Sitting far back and striking on the counter, we weren't dealing effectively with them in the center. The 2 goals gotten by Drogba should NEVER have been conceded. We're still too short across the park to deal with balls over the head I feel.

I'm a little concerned about our "4" centerbacks. Cygan looked so shaky when he came on. Dreadful passing and kept getting caught out of position. What does "Le Boss" see in him I wonder?

It was strange that Bergkamp and Pires perfomed so badly, They were practically nonexistent throughout the game. Perhaps age is creeping up a little on them. Hleb look bright when he came on, I pray that he shines in the premiership. Some dangerous passes and dribbles by him.


Overall, our team looked like the lacked sharpness which was unsuprising as it was preseason. But I hope this loss galvanises our team and Sp**s AW on to shore up some areas in which we are lacking.

Well, I hope the C Shield curse strikes Chelski and may they all bathe in sloth droppings!

My Ratings for the team

Lehman - 6 - Should have dones better in marshalling the defence though he was not at fault for both goals I feel. Drogba left him no chance.

Lauren - 8 - Solid. Kept Duff quiet throughout the game. And he's reaction to Drogba's crazy theatrics was funny as hell.

Kolo - 7- was his usual. Comfortable on the ball. Would have scored if not for a marvellous save from Cech.

Senderos - 5 - I feel he should have dealt with Drogba better. I hope he performs better when the league starts or there will be hell to pay

A.Cole - 6 - normal. Nothing too eyecatching from him.

Pires - 5 - Was he even there? Totally non existent

Flamini - 7 - Tireless midfielder. Great engine room but needs to improve on technique to command a place in the first team.

Cesc - 8 - Great passing and vision as usual. Was our most threatening player on the whole.

Ljunberg - 7- Well, I saw more of him than Pires. Ran himself to the ground as usual.

Bergkamp - 5 - Another non existent player. What was he doing? Have a feeling age might be atching up to him.

Henry - 7 - Well. He's Henry. No comment. Not one of he's better performances though. Was too tightly marked.

Substitutes
Gilberto - 7 - provided defensive cover once again and was decent going forward.
RvP - 5 - Stabbed the ball wide from a half chance. Kept falling over and was generally unimpressive. Is this really our first choice striker?
Hleb - 7 - We've signed a gem I feel. Was all over the pitch at times. Very comfortable on the ball and some great passing from him. Nice pace as well.
Reyes - 7 - 3 Monster throw ins. Came on too late to make any sort of impact.
Hoyte - 6 - well, I didn't see him at all as I was watching on the TV.
Cygan - 4 - Dreadful if you consider him a Gunner. 6 if he played for any other team.

 

[invisibleman18]

Pretty fair ratings i think, fatalfury although reyes probably didnt warrant as high as a 7. seemed a bit of his usual self, lost the ball a few times, took an easy tumble or 2 and didnt have any shots. i cant pass any judgement on hleb until ive seen him for a decent period. this game was the first time id ever seen him play and he produced maybe 3 or 4 nice touches and a couple of decent passes, his run and set up for rvp down the right shouldve ended better than it did so that was one good chance he created. but i dont wanna make any judgement on the guy until ive seen a fair amount of him. all ive seen is 1 half of a pre-season game of him now.
i feel there has been a bit too much judgements being passed on how great he is going to be, by people who have only read about him rather than seen much of him at all. much of his high praise has come from those who do actually follow german football and have seen a lot of him so those are fair judgements on him. but i feel a lot of what has been said about him has come from those who have never really seen him play.
lol that was a bit of a rant, apologies. only wanted to say ive got no opinion on the new guy yet as i havent seen him play at all.

and yeah pires and bergkamp were next to non-existent. pretty good performance i thought from lauren and cesc had a strong game. ill certainly be hoping for a bit more from henry, and no doubt it ill come. not a poor game, but not a particularly good one. looks like shooting/finishing could be worked on this week in training, as it did seem as though they wanted to pass or even run the ball into the net.

fair comment on the unbiased opinion too.

 

[yonatan]

I gotta say that Henry didn't play well at all and I think that it's because he isn't fit. Did you see when he kicked the ball past Ferreira and wasn't quick enough to get to it first? I think this was definitely a sign of him not being fit enough.

 

[Legend#1]

I gotta say that Henry didn't play well at all and I think that it's because he isn't fit. Did you see when he kicked the ball past Ferreira and wasn't quick enough to get to it first? I think this was definitely a sign of him not being fit enough.

That worried me too..

 

[kel varnsen]

why? he kicked the ball way too long and ferreira was 7-8 yards close to the ball. henry is one of the quickest footballers out there, but ferreira is quick and henry isn't superman... he just had a bad touch.

 

[yonatan]

Do you really think that if he was fit he couldn't have gotten there before Ferreira?

 

[kamikaze80]

Even if Wenger brings someone in, it wouldn't be to beef up our defense. He's pretty happy with that department.

Is Wenger blind or just ignorant ? The thing is with a decent CB and MF we would be good to go. Oh and a goal keeper too - surely we can get that !

All this "i will only buy players who will improve the team" bolllocks is starting to get on my nerves - we need some serious backup and time is fast running out.

right, and tell me, was our first-choice CB pairing on the pitch when chelsea scored their two goals? cos it seems to me that the problem, then, lies there, and not in our lack of "serious backup."

anyway, im not denying that we could use some more cover in the spine of our defence, but the way you are presenting your arguments is really annoying, as usual.

wenger obviously sees our need, but he's not gonna destroy big phil's confidence by saying wow, our defence is really weak, we need to bring someone in. esp since theres a good chance he wouldnt be able to acquire a CB before the window closes, anyway. not to mention, there are rumours that sol is upset by his being supplanted by big phil; who knows how he would react if we brought in yet another central defender. what would happen to our precious english team spirit then?

my point is that there is more to these decisions than your FM2005 footballing mind may appreciate, and when you accuse wenger of being blind or ignorant, it just makes you look like a douchebag.

 

[chachacallis]

we are suppose to be arsenal supporters but all a see here is people slagging off the team and the manager, i think that the team played a good game yesterday, and only if we had someone to finish off most of those moves, we wouldnt have people saying how crap certain people in the team are. chelsea were lucky with both goals and a way from that the didnt really created that much.
at least wait until we have played a few more games before you start *****ing about the team and the manager.

 

[Feanor]

I was pleased with our overall performance if not with the result and some individual performances. The defence looked pretty solid except for a few occassion when Big Phil didn't do his job on headers. I don't know if it was the sun in his eyes or something but he seemed to have a lot of problems with headers in the first half, did much better in the second half before going off. Given my avatar, this will be painfull to say but what the hell is wrong with DB10? We controlled the ball very well so didn't have that last touch, it seemed we just had an off-pass or bad first touch near their box. It could be due to the fact they had everyone including the team bus in their own half but not sure. I was very surprised with *****-yo's team and tacticts. He played his best squad and kept them on for 60 minutes without changes. They played like they were the under-dogs in a the CL final instead of the favorites in a friendly game??? You could tell how much it meant for them to beat us and *****-yo in particular. Overall, given the performance of the team I feel very good about this season, we played very well and got suck-punched a couple of times, I think they only had 3-4 shots on goal the whole game so I wouldn't be too worried about them. There's no way they're going to keep that goals-to-shots up for the entire season.

I must admit it was tough reading the internet this morning, according to the media, Chelsea are god and we have no chance to touch them. I have saved the articles so I can send them their authors at the end of the season.

 

[wongnow]

we are suppose to be arsenal supporters but all a see here is people slagging off the team and the manager, i think that the team played a good game yesterday, and only if we had someone to finish off most of those moves, we wouldnt have people saying how crap certain people in the team are. chelsea were lucky with both goals and a way from that the didnt really created that much.
at least wait until we have played a few more games before you start *****ing about the team and the manager.

Well said.

 

[Beany]

I felt the quality was there for us yesterday and frankly, over the 90 minutes, we didn't miss Vieira. It is tempting to say we played the better football though in truth, Chel$ki did whjat Bayern, Valencia et al have been doing in Europe for some time. They held the line and hit us big time on the break. Our style may well be the beautiful game but it's also a little naieve and we still lack a plan 'B'.

Also and whilst our style (if that's to be the template for the season) will tear a good number of teams apart, we will continue to be frustrated by the likes of Bolton. We will risk losing to teams like Liverpool, Everton & even Spuds, who will all be strong on the counter. And I think we will continue to have real problems against the new even more improved Chel$ki and Manure, who despite the Cup Final, seem to have the hex over us of late.

The plain fact is that our immediate rivals have more options in terms of style than us up front, plus and of course they have serious strength in depth.

We can obviously win the title but in order to do that all our key players have to stay fit. We do need, as a matter of fact to find a top class attacking midfielder, as if we didn't already know that, or buy Jenas (who has the potential) and allow Cesk freedom in that role, though I prefer the former option. We will have a new goalkeeper (and by all accounts Viera looks pretty damn good) but we definately also need a central defender.

What we certainly can't do is play a flatr bank of three in the middle, with almost everyone else presing in or at the edge of the penalty area and allow every damn team to soak it up then knock it over the top for Drogba/Crouch/vNistleroy, or whoever, to go on a goal chase.

 

[Kum_Arsenal]

I'm not worried about the result of comm. shield.

Arsenal lost the match but it was only the preview for the real match that will be played in 2 weeks time.

without viera the defence was weak and a few mistakes by sendaros made us week. But he will learn.

Arsenal needs time to get back their real shape and form.

But a lot of +ves to take from this game. I'm confident Arsenal will be a better team when the season starts.

Of course Wenger is in the process of re-developing the team again.

So i will be patient to see the Good Old Arsenal again.

 

[lars2006]

No Comment...

 

[Tony Montana]

The media are just like fashion critics. Just as clothes and styles go in and out of favour, football teams go in and out of favour. Now, everyone's dissing Arsenal in the papers. Chelsea are now the new team to suck. I don't have a link unfortunately but in the mirror this week they said Wenger ate his words about Drogba and the 24m price tag. What? As if he's now world class because of two goals. They were talking about how crap Senderos was as if he can't have a bad game. Harsh phrases like, 'he was poor in every sense.' They said their strength in depth was better than ours which is true but we cannot just go and buy anyone. The mirror also said we needed to make a quantum leap to beat chelsea in the league as a kind of dig. What about the other teams? They need to cross a flippin universe! Fans stay loyal but the media just follow whoever is on top and are not always right.

Just thought i could get something off my chest.

 

[Beany]

We were all happy to suck up the glory when we were the "invincibles."

You have to accept that the media glory in setting up football teams, cricketers, celebrities, Royalty & pretty much everyone else for a fall. The only way to avoid the pain is not to compete, and that's hardly an option.

Critisism of our performance on Sunday has been unfair. The only analogy I can draw is with with the Dutch national team, circa 1974; total football but no trophy. So that makes Chel$ki are the new Germany. Honestly, who would you rather be?

Anyway one day the Roman Empire will once again fall. :twisted:

 

[leongsh]

In the previous version of the Arsenal-Mania forums (pre October 2003), there were a number of people unhappy with Arsène Wenger and the team after the 2003 Community Shield. Arsenal drew with Manchester United 1-1 but Manchester United won on penalties 4-3 then. However, Ruud van Nistelrooy's penalty miss was the highlight for the Gooners and they were scathing of Francis Jeffers with him being sent-off. The defense looked promising with a young player by the name of Kolo Toure playing defense alongside Sol Campbell.

Anyway, read the following extract from the BBC report on the game:

The result showed that title favourites United and Arsenal will be as hard as ever to separate when the new Premiership season begins.

...

There was still more than a little flair in the Community, with both sides keen to lay down their title credentials.

But it was Arsenal's defensive frailties that were once again highlighted by United's opener.

Arsène Wenger's brittle back line ultimately cost Arsenal the title last season - and a new look rearguard showed a familiar fragility.

Kolo Toure, employed by Wenger as a makeshift centre-back alongside Sol Campbell, was handed an early lesson in the art of man-marking.

The Ivory Coast international left Silvestre completely unmarked from a Ryan Giggs corner and when Roy Keane flicked on the Frenchman could hardly fail with a free header.

Link to BBC Sport article

Easy to rant now after the 2005 Community Shield. But look at how the game was played and how well the Arsenal team is coming along in its preparations. Then have a look back at the 2003 Community Shield and season 2003/2004 that followed thereafter - anything can happen. It's early. The season has not started yet. There are 38 EPL games yet to be played by Arsenal for season 2005/2006. Anything can happen.

EDIT:
Hit "Submit" instead of "Preview" ops:

 

[yonatan]

Heh, you just gave me an idea to keep all the newspaper articles of these stupid asshole reporters here who have no idea what they're talking about and then show them to them at end of the season.

One reporter here in Israel called Senderos "elegant". I mean, WTF?