PL: Arsenal vs Newcastle United | 14/08/05

[RocktheCasbah]

I've lost interest in anything Jamie Redknapp has to say. I don't even get wound up by it anymore.

Regarding the game; Kolo, Gilberto and Cesc were great, Lauren and Freddie I thought were excellent too. Dennis? Not great, though he hit some good "almost"passes, and Pires was crap. I'm getting a bit sick of this constant need to walk the ball into the net, really. But Hleb and van Persie made the difference for me. Hleb showed some great stuff, he just seems to make so much time on the ball. And van Persie's goal must be a great confidence booster for him, he looked like he was gonna start crying when he scored (to me, anyway).

So, not a great performance, but a patient, and fairly controlled one and the result is all.

Jenas was unlucky but he did scissor Gilberto, they've been given before. And I'm not sure it was a pen, but hey you win some, you lose some.

 

[Anonymous]

we were average today, and only a lucky pen gave us any confidence, we could not break down a newcastle team with 10 men and no strike force.....if we play like that next week, we are not going to win

 

[Gunner4Eva]

Yeah, I agree with all your reactions to player performances RocktheCasbah, but I think Pires did a few good things to warrant something better than a crap rating. I also thought Ashley Cole was very good. By the end of the game, he seemed like another forward, which was expected considering Newcastle were down to 10 men.

I was worried when Jenas got sent off however that it would be a while before we scored. With Highbury being a narrow ground, and Newcastle really sitting back, it was never going to be easy.

I thought Scott Parker was magnificent for Newcastle. He'll definately find himself back in Sven Goran Eriksson's plans in the not too distant future if he continues to battle in the midfield like he did today.

A good way to start off the season though, and now we look forward to Chelsea, who are really struggling against Wigan at the moment.

 

[Ricky_AFC]

We didn't play very well but done the job. Newcastle made it awkward by playing with about 8 men behind the ball but teams will do that to us and we just have to settle for the result when that happens. Good game from Freddie, Kolo and Bert i thought also RvP and Hleb when they came on.

 

[Army of Me]

8-1-1?? just because we didnt have a shot on target doesnt mean we played defensively.

no, the fact you played defensively means you played defensively! seriously, there was barely ever more than 3 newcastle players attacking in that game. fair enough you were a man down, and i'm not saying that the gameplan shouldn't have changed for you, but from a spectators point of view, that was just boring!

 

[goooner]

It was onesided match, and Arsenal deserved to win. Well great preformances from Toure and Senderos and you can see that he's learning on his mistakes today he always yumped 1st on the ball and if he done that against Chelsea Mr. **** wouldnt score that first goal. Can somebody please explain me if AW don'z want to brig new central midfielder not to ruin what he made of Cesc and Flamini then why the f**k :x do we have to watch Bergkamp for 65 minutes who played more in midfield than attack, when we have Van Persie. I don't agree that we need a new attacker yust put out Bergkamp and bring in Persie. Althought Cesc is very talented and a hot prospect i think that Hleb should be on his place and it's vintage to replace Pires with Reyes. That's what I think but who am I by the AW, he knows the best and I hope we will win the premiership. 8)

 

[Arsenal316]

Wasn't thrilled to read that we struggled for so long.....but at least Hleb made a good debut. Good to see Henry and RvP get on the scoreboard.

And again, the defense held up...although Newcastle playing with 10 men probably helped our cause...

 

[ToonFan]

no, the fact you played defensively means you played defensively! seriously, there was barely ever more than 3 newcastle players attacking in that game. fair enough you were a man down, and i'm not saying that the gameplan shouldn't have changed for you, but from a spectators point of view, that was just boring!

From a spectators point of view I found nothing about that match boring, I enjoyed every minute of it. On one side you had a team expecting to challange for the league attacking against a team who finished 14th last term and one player less. At no point did I think we played defenisively, I still seen bowyer and nzgobia trying to get forward towards the latter stages of the game. Problem is if we dont have the ball like we didnt in the second half when the players tired then we could not attack.

 

[sabret00the]

For me this game was a mixed bag of emotions, i dunno what i felt half the time, at times i'd be watching the likes of Pires, Bergkamp and Henry and wondering just what they were doing on the pitch. Dennis for all of the shadow striker in him really isn't halping us, with him and Thierry trying to be shadow strikers we're ****ed because Dennis plays even Deeper. Pires is just showing his age i suppose and Henry's just not showing that goal machine that he was, the predatory instincts seem to have lapsed in favour of making it as a great captain here and i think ultimately that will be his demise whether it's as Captain or as a prolific goal scorer.

I thought a few players were fanstastic, Cesc, Ljungberg, Gilberto, Lauren, Cole and Senderos were the players that stood out for me, from my point of view (north bank) they were the only ones that really seemed to want this game and want to win from the get go, Cesc was amazing and this season seems to have grown to the point of negating Bergkamp's influence, i knew that him and Cesc would be a dangerous combo and i was proved more than right today. Senderos seems to have returned home and i'm more than happy about that, thought it could be a different story when the ball's on the ground, in the air he's definately not to be ****ed with and i spend a good minute cracking up at how far back his show rebounded off the defender. Ljungberg never had the game i would've liked him too but he was trying and making the different when he was playing. Gilberto was that Solid rock that we need and i felt comfortable knowing he was playing, Lauren helped to make Freddie's game what it wasl, he played that strong and hard game and i'm grateful for that. Cole was straight up amazing but towards the end simmered down, but he's trying to let his football do the talking in his fight to win over the fans.

Then we approach the substitutes and how they changed the game, i felt they were left a bit late in their introduction, but Hleb and van Persie made that game for us, it made a huge difference to have them here, while with the way that van Persie plays he's not as involved in the game as Bergkamp is, he makes it harder to say that he's having a good or bad game without him scoring but you honestly he had a good game, he was running finding space, drifting, nodding ball's through, i just feawr that in arsenal's spirit of the game and the way it's played, he'll be villianised for not doing enough, which i think it quite sad, i hope he does well and the fans embrace a new form of arsenal attack.

Newcastle played well and in their game never seeme a man down once, they played like very dirty northern bastards though, and in the same vein as that, Henry never deserved to be on the score sheet at all for this game and the audasity of him taking the penner after such a poor showout previous to that game was so ****ing sad, but meh.

 

[Lukazan]

Crap ref I have to say..

Was never a sending off and IMO probably not a penalty either.

Senderos and Carr both should have been in the book for pulling back too..

All in all though can't complain, Newcastle on the first day of the season was always going to be tough so to come out with all 3 points I must say I am very chuffed.

Didn't really like Henry's shouting and complaining at other players though, especially Fabregas who needs encouragement. I love Henry, we all do, but sometimes he is so cold to other players it's horrible.

 

[Army of Me]

but when you play at the very highest level, you have to be tough, fabregas has to know when he makaes a mistake and he did make a few bad pases in that match, all henry did was make sure he understood they were wrong.

 

[koivu]

Just back from the match, was nice to get a result as it didn't look likely for awhile. Was great to see all of the former Arsenal players before the match, got some nice pictures. Happy with the 3 points, some good performances and Van Persie getting on the scoresheet. Bring on Chelsea next Sunday.

I must also say the atmosphere was pretty good today, I was in West Lower near the North Bank.

 

[RocktheCasbah]

Yeah, fair point, Pires did some good things, but I was concerned more about his decision making and passing, which was very Reyes like, maybe he's been watching too much of Jose on the left..

Cole had a great game also, bombing forward like a crazy man. I didn't think Thierry had a good game, but let's wait a few matches before jumping to conclusions on a player who is now sooooo close to that record.

 

[koivu]

One more item of note...the streaker! How on Earth did that guy spend so much time on the pitch? He seemed quite flexible, what with doing the splits and all...

 

[Mark]

Not a great performance, but I think we deserved the win. 10 shots on target to 1 from them. We outplayed them possesion-wise, even if we didn't really look like scoring.

It wasn't a sending off for Jenas, but it was a penalty later. Nicely put away by Henry...getting closer to the record.

Nice finish by RvP, that should be good for his confidence. Hope he can progress from there. Maybe get a start sometime soon as I thought Bergy was pretty ineffective.

Good performances by: Toure, Lauren, Cole, Gilberto, Freddie.
Not so great from: Pires, Bergkamp, Henry.

 

[koivu]

F&^£$% Chelsea......

 

[yonatan]

92.5 minute, I can't ****ing believe it.

 

[jester]

suprised no-one came on to get the streaker!
anyway, great to hear cole being cheered and chanted. no boos.

 

[RocktheCasbah]

Not only are Chelsea ridiculously rich, they're bloody lucky too. Great goal though.

 

[sabret00the]

yeah i wondered why no one came to collect the streaker either.

the referee was the most ****e i've ever seen, ever.

the atmosphere was teh best i've experienced at highbury yet, but it was my first time in north lower so that could've had something to do with it. loved the support that was shown to ash and loved singing to the west lower too