Eboue starts for Gunners at Tottenham
|Arsène Wenger has made two changes from the team that lost to Barcelona last week.
In defence, Sol Campbell comes in for Mikael Silvestre to play against his former club, while Emmanuel Eboue is handed a start upfront ahead of Theo Walcott who drops to the bench.
Dutch frontman Robin van Persie is also on the bench after returning from long-term injury.
Confirmed Arsenal Starting XI & Subs
Almunia
Sagna – Campbell – Vermaelen – Clichy
Nasri – Denilson – Diaby
Eboue – Bendtner – Rosicky
Subs: Fabianski, Silvestre, Eastmond, Merida, Walcott, Eduardo, van Persie.
66 Comments
expected line-up…lets hope we WONT have to see RVP , for wenger will only use him if we’re down or are level…come on ya gunners!!!lets spank em spuds!!
Why cant we move sagna to cb and eboue to rb is beyond my understanding
come on the arsenal! we need this
i see theyve gone for pav instead of crouch which will be a bigger test to sol!
A lot of firepower on the bench. Hopefully it will not be needed.
cme on u gunners!!!
Truly headline worthy team news I think.
Oh Lord Eboue, he dived for our sins.
6-o to the arsenal bendtner hat trick and goals by rvp rosicky and nasri
eboue with all 6 assists
crap, this is not good, we need vermaelen
Is there anyone more CRAP on the pitch than Diaby??? How much longer can we afford to keep someone who makes it his personal business to give the ball away and be in the worst position possible consistently???
Come on you gunners…
Crap Verrmaelen is injured, luck still deserting us it seem
God, changes needed! :S
Take of denilson he will get a red soon :S And is doing poor, and bring on walcott.. make team like this
almunia
sanga-camp-silve-clichy
eboue-diaby-nasri
walcott-bendt-rosick
then after 60-70 mins ,… rvp on for rosicky
I have told people over and over again. We are simply not good enough. No spirit no aggression nothing. It’s shocking to watch. I’m ashamed to even think we are good enough to win the league. Don’t make me laugh. We have got lucky to be were we are in the league. Simply not good enough. And I’ve had enough of wenger filling us with shit. Major clear out during the summer is needed. Desperatly!!
i agree diaby has been poor for the most games lately and it’s clear we desperately need sum better players come summer…. sol played very well so far and we shouldnt really be losing, we had all the ball but cnt produce a clear chance.
sell almunia! the guy is a pure crap!
i think we’re playing really well..this game reminded me of the 2nd half of the manu bayern game at old trafford….only difference is these bunch of utter cowards aren’t down to 10..what a disgrace!! i think we can still win this!!
WTF happened to Vermaelen, i put the match on and i see mr potato head?!?
Win this. U lot are fucking jokers. All over. We are shit. Wake up.
Game Over. Season Over.
RVP is coming on, hope he and Theo will change the game (but with Silvestre at the back we will concede a few more though)
I think we are the equivalent of footballing retards with the attention span of a firefly.
Sagna shit. Sell him
Diaby Worst player ever. Sell him
A poor performance but imminently predictable.too many passengers in that side without any real leaders.A side containing Almunia-Sylvestre-Denilson-Diaby and Bentner isn’t going to threaten much against well drilled opposition.if Man City carry on winning we won’t even finish 3rd.Perhaps,then,the Board and The manager might be ablew to see beyond their Pockets!
Just like the Chelsea away game….
Wow, Bale and Rose. Who and who? The spuddies will be happy, but they still won’t be getting 4th. We however have biggger issues. Too many players not playing well, stop giving pay rises for winning nothing.
shocking defense again what a blunder from Silvestre again he looked elsewhere than his player.Almunia and Silvestre out..Game over.
Well well well…… Anyone think we have a great team now?
ahh fuck.. season over.
Ending tonight on a plus point. Campbell needs to be given a year contract. End of. And if wenger doesn’t. He is a fucking joke and should be sacked. He was our best player by a mile.
Let the summer sale begin, bye cesc, vanpersie, arshavin, gallas, sagna, song, bendtner.
Well Bendtner is great. Almunia, Nasri, Diaby, Silvestre, Sagna, Walcott, Eboue, Rosicky (unless he still isn’t fit) all have to ask themselves what the hell they are doing.
The thing is that Spurs are still crap, so what does that say about us? With so much time to rest and prepare it’s stupid to get beaten by a team full of Spurs second rate players.
they play sh*t for the last 3 games and get a fluke goal against arsenal…I bloody h8 tottenham. why the hell are they even trying for fourth place…they wont even get into the knock out stages of the CL
@Angry fan: You still insisting on it, are you ? Do you realize we have like 4 or 5 key players out injured ? No Song, no Cesc, no Arshavin, no Gallas and now no Vermaelen. With those five players in the team we would have kicked their ass.
We lacked invention and penetration in the match today. Nasri and Rosicky playing too wide while Denilson and Diaby were too deep. RVP show a glimpse of his skills but still not enough to save us. Theo had some pace but was clearly frustrated. Their Gk were fantastic in the final minutes and their first goal was pure luck + a little bit of skill because Almunia was pushing up and Sagna blocked his way back. The biggest disappointment of today was Diaby, he was supposed to be our creative midfielder yet he did nothing but dallied on the ball and keep losing it over and over, it was just frustrating to watch.
I think we have no chance of winning the title now. All we should try to do is to go for the 2nd place and seat on Man Ure face. In summer I think we desperately should try bringing in a new defender and maybe a good striker to share the fire with RVP and Bendtner, Eduardo just can’t cut it anymore.
@arsenal4ever: dont you bloody start arsenal4ever. sick of you and your bloody….like, propoganda talk xD. just shut it, the seasons definetly over now…although to be fair, chelsea aint gonna slip up now but we can still go for second at least, finish the season on high and if we grab second we have a good chance of keeping our players
lol players will go im sure
@Ken: yes m8, wot we were missing was a player with a work rate. But to concede a fluke goal like that from someone who will dissappear in the next few games for tottenham just drives me insane
@ken. Injuries is no excuse. All teams have players out at any one time. It’s a squad game and ours is no where near good enough. Some of those players should be ashamed to pull that great arsenal shirt on. It makes me sick that I see some of those losers bottle it. Time an time again. Just admit it. We ain’t good enough. The excuse of being a young team don’t wash anymore. Change is needed. From top to bottom.
On another point I think wenger needs a new assistant. Keown or bergcamp someone of that stature.
1 swallow don’t make a summer . Fairweather bunch of arseholes some of you. You should be ashamed of yourselves. Glory hunting fuckers
@arsenal4ever:…I hope you go
@Afc kings: ino, tw*ts. makes me sick.
@arc kings. Go look in the mirror and say arsenal are a team full of winners and champions…. Without laughing and crying at the same time. We are shit. End of. Don’t kid urself. Don’t do a wenger and believe in something that will never happen.
You need some of this lot in the trenches with u I don’t think. Fucking never been to a game half of em. Hope they all fuck off a nd support the chavs
Clichy was our only player that tried tonight! i f**ckin hate Diaby, he’s useless, he dwells on the ball, dont know wat to do, then delays delays delays, everyone is picked up wen he finally decides to pass. not got a clue wat Denilson does in this team?? Nasri and Rosicky was shocking tonight. Now we got Silvestre and Campbell to last the season?? Wenger knew the squad was too thin but he did f**k all as usual, he has to sort this team out now in the summer coz if not, we’ll never challenge chelsea and man utd. does he not know how much it hurts us to see us not doing anything??
i thought we played well considering the amount of injuries we had. van persie was awesome, imagine if we had him fit all season. if chelsea were without drogba and united without rooney they would have struggled too.
ok, so our keeper is rubbish, bendtner is poor, and we need a backup centreback, apart from that i think we will be fine next season. We have improved so much already. i cant wait for the chamach and rvp combo.
as for you glory hunters, go support chelsea, i can’t stand these ppl!
ohh, and the last thing, i have been critical of campbell lately, but he was excellent tonight, so props to him. wenger needs to sign him on for another year.
Love Arsenal but that was a very heartless and pathetic performance.Only Sol Campbell played with any heart and Van Persie showed his class when he came on.
why couldn’t almunia catch that ball (not taking anything away from that strike but if it were Cech, Van der sar, Given, Reina it would be a simple catch) my goodness our midfield today were all in the wrong positions, everytime we made an attack it was 3 or for arsenal players vs 6 or 7 spuds we really miss our top player and we need to strengthen of bench to avoid playing these crap guys like silvestre, denilson, even rosicky who i think should be sold this year, anyways i really admired Van persie and walcott’s impact, brought out some nice saves out of hurellio. IT REALLY WAS A QUITE THRILLING GAME…. COME ON GUNNERS
It was a good game, we had more than enough possession but couldn’t brake them down enough, when Van Persie came on it was an instant lift and we made a lot more chances. The first goal was such a fluke, he tried smashing and curling it on the outside of his foot, but he got it wrong. I think Almunia got a good punch and top marks for it, but he slipped when he landed and struggled to get up and then Sagna was in the way when he tried getting back to the line, also I’m not to sure why who ever was on the line came off it when the ball was going straight to a Tottenham player who was going to hit the ball straight back into the box. Also, as soon as they scored they’re second goal, all they did then was time waste, I’ve never seen such a petulant performance by a team of professional football players, and the fans were pathetic as well, spurs fans need to grow up, every time Campbell touched the ball they would boo him, i know its a derby match, but, come on… when ever the ball went out for a throw for Arsenal, they would throw the ball further back into the crowd, when ever the ball went out for a throw for Tottenham, the players would have the ball in they’re hand and throw it away to swap it. It was absolutely terrible, we should have had a corner, and last time I remember, added time is just a minimum amount to be added on, they’re was well over a minute wasted during stoppage time, it was such a childish attitude to such a high stake game! I’m not just trying to make excuses but, over the course of the game there was a lot of time wasted, that wasn’t made up for which could have been crucial.
Bendtner may miss chances, but at least he can score. Apart from him, there are no goals in this team (bizarre to say).
A power shift requires more than one victory over the course of 10 years!
Meanwhile,can someone explain why the Manager managed to wait until time had virtually run out on our season before bringing on the only player we had left in our squad capable of getting the two goals back against a resolute Spurs defence.
I’m laughing at the people who can’t see anything but negatives in this team right now. We’ve gone half a decade without silverware, as the Spurs twat above says, yet people still want to ignore what is so obvious: without spending a certain amount of money on a top player or two, we’re going nowhere at best and backwards at worst. Anyone who doesn’t find that infuriating has got to be over-medicated or senile in the extreme.
@Joel: Unless you havent had access to the internet, TV, Radio and Media for the past 6 months, you should know that Van Persie has been injured since mid November,or have you just suddenly decided to take an interest in football?
who we need in the summer…..GK: manuel neur, cb: zapata and gregory van der wiel and sell sagna, sylvestre and gallas….keep sol…. midfield: sell denilson and buy melo….forward: get chamakh and sell eduardo…i know many will not like this but i will say it…sell walcott and buy balasz dudjsak of psv….loan vela out…
To Michael-Thanks for the history lesson- but I was referring to the fact that he looked capable of playing for more than the last 20 minutes-You might have noticed that he came on to the pitch in the latter half of the game tonight and managed to get Gomes hopping around during that time!
Nothing comes as a suprise to be honest.
The only question I ask after watching the full 98mins was:
“Did Tottenham find this game easy?”
Answer: YES.
Case Closed.
ManUtd found it easy, so did Chelsea, so did ManCity at Eastlands.
Did Barcelona find it easy? Maybe not so much.
2nd question: How many shots on target before RvP came in?
No need to say more really. Pls don’t blame the players. They are only playing to instruction.
It was a disapointing performance and it’s ended our season but one positive we can take from the game is that Van Persie looks sharp. He was quality when he came on!
But onto the bigger picture;
Throughout the season we’ve been torn apart by United, Chelsea, Man City and Barca which were all embarrasing times for us and we can all say “We need to strengthen”, but I think we need a change internally. The 4-5-1 system that we’re using is ineffective and slow. We pass the ball across the 18-yard box far too much and any team with a bit of sense will be able to deal with that all day. At the start of the season, we played a more direct 4-3-3, which work wonders. The wide players used the flanks well, Van Persie was excelling in the “Lone-Striker” role and our midfield were PRESSING THE BALL. We dont do that anymore! We walk back, we take a stroll and hope the defence can deal with it and it’s insulting. We don’t look like we want the ball back and thats a shame.
Anyways, I think we’ll probably be taken over in the summer, hopefully Lady Nina will sell her shares to Kroenke and he can inject some capital into the club. Although it’s boring for me to hear people complaining about strengthening the squad it does need doing and in key areas aswell. We need a new Goalie in my opinion and Joe Hart exudes confidence and looks like a top shot stopper. We’ll need at least one Centre-Back, possibly Subotic or Hangeland or even Carragher who I think is out of contract, plus he’s said that he would leave Liverpool. Campbell deserves another year I think, Gallas should get two but this injury could be the last of him. We need a midfielder aswell and I would love to see Yaya Toure at the Emirates. If not, maybe Melo or even Flamini. I think we need another wide player and a foward. Chamakh will come in and I like the look of James Milner who can play on the right or in the middle.
Keep the faith?
@Jack: The transfer kitty for Wenger is always abundant every year. The fact is that he never spend more than half or 3/4 of it. Anyone sitting here hope that Wenger will splash like 30-40m is probably dreaming. Wenger has made countless of astute signings in his reign but a lot of them are also laughable (Silvestre is the worst transfer in history of Arsenal, trust me). I also have no clue why the injury plague keep ravaging our squad from one year to another. It’s not like we have no depth within the squad but the injuries make us feel like so. If Arsenal is any other team I would say that our squad is big enough but this is Arsenal so no, no matter how many players we have we would end up at only around 20 of them available toward the later half of the season.
@Ken: You say the transfer kitty is always abundant but that is only if you believe what Hillwood says. We hear that Wenger will have all the resources he needs, then the next week we’ll hear that we don’t have the resources to buy players. It’s a fucking merry go round and it needs sorting.
Title over….’til next season, last for AW???, last for Cesc & others???
@Jack : dont listen to them, study what you can see with your own eyes. united, chelsea, liverpool got money to spend even with lots of debts on them but arsenal are well and truly not so heavy on debts. we are one of the richest club in the world according to the reputable Forbes. at the very least, a mighty name such as arsenal sure could conjure up money from the banks to strengthen the team. the main problem here is that wenger is in control of everything at the club. its a good thing if he is a great leader but he is not. dont forget that he has a degree if im not mistaken in business, so its natural that while he is a football team manager, he will always use his skill in the business world to run the club.
yes, its a good thing to save money and make profit but at times in football, you need those 2 or 3 special players with superb mentality and star status to up the team efforts around them and spark that magic moment in a game. they dont have to be 30M above in price. im sure theres some very good players around the 15M-20M mark that will improve the team significantly and more importantly, have the balls to keep fighting for a win all the time.
example, arshavin. when he came here, he saved arsenals second half of last season. he was a star, he had the mentality, the guts to take shots and do things when the team counted on him. do you think bendtner can score 4 goals in an away game? but now the team is pumped out, no new faces, same old strategy that even the little russian looked like he has given up. the others are just passengers since they are wengers lil kids and must obey their daddy all the time.
we need new faces, with bigger balls and stronger heads with great team spirit and communication, always fighting for the team till the end, every single game, week in week out.
My Heart hurts like hell but I love this Football Club, more than anything in the world. Win or lose I am Still behind the mighty Arsenal, I wouldn’t have minded had we lost to any club but spurs, there goes our record against them but then for how long, it had to be broken sometime but it happened at a crucial moment, I am sure they shall cherish that moment for as long as they live, but above all they are not in our level, we have achieved many achievement more than them. Viva Le gunners.
you lot need to man up ffs, if you look at last night we had no cesc, arshavin, gallas, song, veramelen and rvp for a majority of the match. that is 6 players who would be straight in the starting line up. i’d like to see man u and chelsea manage that, the fact is we got beat by a wondergoal, a defensive lapse and some great saves from their keeper. what is the use going sell him sell him, get rid of wenger when you can see they have put every ounce of effort in to get us in the title race, we were expected to finish outside the top 4 instead we are going to finish 3rd, maybe 2nd so stop your moaning and get behind the team you twats.
Spot on Harrison.
No. It’s not spot on Harrison. The team has 22 players and Wenger is responsible for the replacements when we have to deal with injuries. He brought Silvestre, and that cost us the season
That was the only solution we had on that day, remember we have 5 centre backs and three are injured so Silvestre was the last solution.
@Me (damn you for calling yourself like that,make me look like i’m replying to myself): Our 5 injuries occur only after the winter window so how in the world should Wenger know that ? And don’t tell me Wenger should buy just for the sake of having a super big squad because that is just ridiculous.