Lacklustre Arsenal lose at home against Newcastle
A lacklustre performance from Arsenal saw Newcastle come away from the Emirates Stadium with all three points on Sunday afternoon.
Magpies ‘keeper Tim Krul pulled off a couple of top drawer saves, the best of which was a full length dive to stop a Samir Nasri drive. Lukasz Fabianski at the other end dropped another clanger as he came for a ball he was never going to win and saw Andy Carroll barge his way in for the winning goal.
Fabianski
Sagna – Squillaci – Koscielny – Clichy
Fabregas – Song – Wilshere
Walcott – Chamakh – Nasri
Arsenal had limited chances with the aforementioned Nasri strike in the first half well saved by Krul, while a Fabregas free-kick, also in the first half, hit the cross bar. But that was really as close as Arsenal came to scoring. All in all it was a very frustrating home game for Arsenal, who simply couldn’t get passed the very well organised defence and midfield of Newcastle.
The strikers too, of Carroll, Ameobi and Ranger worked their socks off. They often didn’t have much support in the box and had to come deep to receive the ball as well as moving out wide, but they didn’t stop working, and also helped in defence.
Capello sat in the stands, watching the Englishmen on show closely. Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott, Joey Barton, Kevin Nolan and Andy Carroll in particular played well, and with Capello looking for different, new players to break into his squad of national failures, they all have a chance.
Arsene Wenger’s side will be hoping to bounce back with a win over Wolverhampton Wanderers on Wednesday.
“It was a case of some players coming back from injury, some having played in midweek and also playing against a good team,” Wenger said after the game.
Awful game, but a Fabianski clanger? I don’t think so; the defense left Carroll unmarked and there was no chance at all for Fabianski.
so here we are once again. frustrating perfomance by arsenal.u guys dont u think it is becoming just too easy to beat arsenal even when it plays wiyh its main players???????. yeah !!!! u just score a goal & sit back defensively. + arsenal dsnt have any plan B to retaliate. !!!!!!
The performance was a disgrace, nothing more. To actually believe Arsenal can win anything this season with that kind of performance, is beyond me. When United won with an aweful match yesterday, one can easily see what we’re missing…
No desire.
I av said it many many times that you cant win the league cos you guys are jus a shameful loser! period. I am really happy that i changed to the red devils wen the season starts. i am happy with my decision and am even more happy that you guy can see why i switched from this chronic losers to a real grind hard manchester united!!!! who knows how to win andgrind out results anytime anyday. Title is btw the chavs and my red devils period! You guys will never mature and it is so sad. wat a shameful losers! smh..am outta here
We played badly, deserved nothing. Some of the substitution is a bit off too.
@damstar, why then do you still visit Arsenal sites?
Brief and spot-on, Gooner Chris.
I’m as pissed off as anyone:
Duck, don’t waste your time with that Mother Fucker!
To all you people who have defended good ol Flappy what do you say now? Glad I went today to see us get beat by another championship side. Terrible performance, should have been 0-0 though, but another gift from our Teflon coated keeper. Cesc looks injured and I honestly think bringing Bendtner on for Jack was a mistake.
From my seat the free kick wasn’t a foul anyway, right? Cmon Arsene please buy a keeper or play Chesney!
That’s it, blame Fabianski! The man we have been heaping praise on recently! Yes he shouldn’t have come for it but at least he attempted to challenge Carroll whilst everyone else just watched! The performance was awful and didn’t even deserve a point! Fabregas was rubbish today and you have to question whether he was even fit enough to play? This performance showed we lack the fighting spirit which is essential to win the league! I hope to be proved wrong when I say this but I think the challenge for the title is over. I just hope a stronger team is played in the Carling Cup as that’s the only trophy we have any real chance of winning!
i dont argue with these bunch of losers over here. i am a winner. i kno how to win any time any day! up red devils! another end of ur title dream i guess? lol. so terrible and shameful…Losers!
Danny, I’ve never praised Flappy. He’s toilet. As for trying to challenge for the ball what’s the point if your not positive enough? Krul did it successfully several times. Unless we get a keeper to earn us, instead of lose us points we will not win a thing! Fabregas doesn’t look match fit, I refuse to believe he’s not up for it.
@thomas: Exactly what I thought. They look like a bunch of girls who believe that everything will be all right in the end. You have to enter and fight for every ball. The movement and fit the pace was ridiculous today. The balls barely reached its addressee. It can only get better. 🙂
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Yet again wenger gets the physical side of his team wrong. Arsenal looked weak like against Chelsea and west brom. There were no excuses after resting many players in the week… The team just doesn’t have enough physical power. Men against boys again! Weak on crosses when attacking corners and a goalkeeper who will keep showing his true colours. Truly awful today.
@Tim Bridges: totally agree, it was a mistake made by our defender. Not fabiansky’s fault…
Ok – only one thing to be said here. 180 minutes against West Hame and Newcastle at the Emirates and our account has 1 goal scored. Nothing more to be said. Teams give up soft goals all the time but scoring goals covers that up.
Goals change games and we are not making goals. Crossbars, great saves – it doesn’t matter. There’s a hundred million dollars of talent in the Red Shirt and there are no goals.
Everyone in the league is happy turning a 90 minute game on 115 meters of pitch into a 65 minute game played almost entirely within 40 meters of their goal AS LONG AS WE DON”T SCORE, and score first.
Last point – agreed on Fabianski’s misplay of the free kick, But Teams committed – absolutely committed to not giving up goals – have 2, 3 or 4 players retreating onto the goal line as soon as the keeper comes out to protect the soft ball from going in.
So much work to do and I worry about our captain – he has not been near his full level since August.
@Roy: It was one mistake by him. C’mon. He has done quite well otherwise. Chesney might have done better, but lets not start Fabs sucks chanting right now. Defense should’ve done better as well.
To me, it just looks like Wenger didn’t want to sub Fabregas even though he wasn’t really playing well (or some may suggest injured).
1. Why did he take out Nasri? He didn’t have the balls to sub Fab out and put Nasri in the middle. Fabregas was clearly frustrated with his own performance and was lucky to escape a second yellow card.
2. Replacing Chamakh with RVP, and still continue to pump in crosses to RVP? When was the last time RVP scored a header. IMHO, RVP wasn’t match fit and is clearly rusty too.
3. Arshavin’s passing was rubbish and at times held on to the ball for too long.
4. It seems like we do have problem with a physical midfield who match Arsenal in speed. We are not addressing the DM problem. Song is again playing a bit too high!
5. Don’t blame Fabianski for the goal. There were 3 Arsenal defenders there who jumped half heartedly.
6. Was AW distracted by his personal matters? Trust me, if you have problems at home, you don’t really perform 100% at work. I hope he sorts it out well and soon. However, thats that.. i’m not going to discuss matter. My question is whether he was distracted.
Cesc was the worst today. I am tired of people telling me it was his injury. Why did he bother playing if he wasn’t 100%? We had arsh, bendtner, rosicky on the bench. I bet they wouldve better. If u r not 80%, dont play Cesc! Keep on playing like this and we dont have to worry abt Barca, because i highly doubt they would even want you! lol ok that was harsh, but damn, wth was that from him.
@duck: Yeah I am dumbfounded too abt taking Narsi. I know he took a hit, but he was up and running. But I think you were little to harsh on Arshavin, he wasn’t all together too bad. And yes lets not blame Fabs for this one.
We are dearly going to miss Kosc in next game.
Ok, seriously… damstar, you’re a clown mate. 🙂 Actually I enjoy reading your twat comments, I love how you keep on reminding us that you’re a sellout and that you’re proud of it. Go for it, maybe some day you’ll get a spine… 😉
I for one was not suprised at this result you can only blame one man Wenger who failed to buy a quality keeper and bought in in experiences CB 10 million on kolchelny who has looked dodgy everytime he has played when another million or two would have bought an experience3d premiership defender.
Also Wenger still not replaced vierra.
How much more of this wenger crap can anyone take out tactilcly wited by so many managers and what is the point of pat Rice.
Arsenal going backwards under wenger
Could see it coming, after our abysmal performance during the week, i have said befor,that if you put a weak team out as we did on Wednesday, a game that should have been relativly easy, the bad feeling goes throughout the squad as you said lacklustre and a feeling of defeatism, with a team full of fit strikers its pathetic that we had, i think one shot on target, is there a prise for how many passes you can have without a shot, thats one cup we would win.
at least some good news ….chelsea are losing…wenger needs to spend real money in january….i still think we need a real world class goal scorer!!!
Problem was when a team packs the midfield like Newcastle did we never have an answer. Gifting them a goal made it next to impossible to win. You got the feeling at HT that it was all over.
Gotta find the solution if we are ever going to progress.
we really need chelsea to loose then we are still in with a shout. also i think when january comes we need a world class striker that will score goals a world class CB and a world class GK.
at what point do people actually start to question Wenger ?
now or in 4 years time ? the mind boggles
We fail to win because we can’t do it ugly..we were tired and seccond best to the break .Hugely disapointing…it wouLd be wrong to blame oKeeperw however he clearly isn’t a champion keeper.
Damstar, you sound like a man united fan .I am pleased for you.you can change to Chelsea then Liverpool but you’ll allways be a tosser.
the sooner verminator comes bak da betta im nt fully convinced on squilacci
What’s up Wenger? The game was over when nasri and wilsher were out, Walcott is a little selfish, he doesn’t link well with chamakh for some reason, anyways good think Chelsea lost today, we have another important game this wed, so let’s concentrate on that. I will think if we played arshavin at the beginning instead of fabregas, the game could have changed dramatically. Go arsenal
We simply ain’t good enough. Today proves all that we need to know. Always nearly whilst we believe in sub standard players
I dunno why some ppl even mention Kosh negatively… he’s one of the best tacklers in the prem right now.. and his positioning is usually flawless. He’s an excellent buy! Just been really unlucky lately. The ref was also giving everything to Newcastle on the day… Barton’s charge on Wilshere went unpunished but very soft tackles from Arsenal was punished. I’m not even sure who we can blame for the loss… maybe we really do need a Torres in our team as the missing factor… or change formation back to 4-4-2. We really need to be able to play differently against different teams… we’ve become a very predictable side much like barca without messi.
I hurt So bad but We aren’t far off, with Chelski losing to Liverpool, but we should not depend on other team’s performances. Now Wolfs game is a must win other wise we out before December.To be honest we haven’t had a better team since 2006. After Henry , Vieira, Freddie, Pires, Toure, Campbell, Cole, Beckamp, Lehmann, Gilberto and Lauren left most of these current players are always injured, to be honest I have not seen a full Arsenal strength Squared since 2006, before Henry left for Barcelona. Maybe The Emirates is Cursed, I don’t know…but still I love my Team, I love The Arsenal.
It was an awful performance. I wouldn’t be so disappointed if we had 10 clear-cut chances and newcastle rode their luck but it wasn’t so at all. We didn’t have one single clear-cut chance and all we made was based on individual quality with no movement in the final third. Fabregas was our worst player but he could have made an assist in the 94th minute and be a hero so I kinda understand why he was given the whole game.
Anyways, Fabianski is not good enough mentally and people tend to forget that part of a player when it comes to the defenders and the goalie, and it’s equally, if not more important than the talent itself. I think we have a better goalie in Szczesny, and we absolutely don’t need to find talent elsewhere. The thing that bothers me are Wenger’s lies. He wanted credit when Fabianski went into a good three game run, he said we should trust his judgment. What judgment??? He went for Reina and Schwarzer just to begin with. Last year he went for Yaya Toure, Inler, Melo and Alonso (the year before) and he still mantains that we don’t need a DM, and we don’t need a goalie. If we really don’t need them, why did he want to splash 20 million quids on Reina? For fun? To muscle up the reserves? He is a clown, Wenger and I hope he resigns, because this is not his Arsenal, this is the fans’ Arsenal and he should for once, trust our judgment.
@Me: I feel your pain, But for him to resign is another statement, I also wish things should change, the fact that we have not won a silver ware for 5 yrs says it all and it’s the longest run for like over 25 years, that shows what a big club Arsenal is. The current squad we have had for the past 4 seasons is too light weight and in-superior to big clubs and the ones that are more determined,{ ala west brom and newcastle united}. We lost now we should move on starting with the Wolfs game.
@Me: There are serious finance issues with the club POLICY. Money is there, but the club’s policy is to quickly pay off the debts. I’m not saying we splurge up to 60mil on transfers. but AFC would not pay anything big for players. I’m not even suggesting crazy prices. Just look at what was spent and how it was spent. On the other hand, the board of directors are just happy to keep the club in CL and also clear as much debts as possible every year. The question is, how long will this policy be allowed to continue? There is a huge difference in spending wisely and stingy.
Lose to wba, struggle badly to beat west ham who we’re rock bottom of the legaue & lose against newcastle who are another promoted team & all at our own ground.
Now say what you like but this is not stuff of champions! Next is wolves away & if these lot cannot lift themselves up for a home game infront of 60 thousand gooners then i have no hope of them being up for a trip to a cold night at the home of wolves.
@duck: yeah but if you offer 20 million for Reina, that means you can spend 20 million without putting the debt repayment in jeopardize. So, if it’s clear he went for at least two goalkeepers, why didn’t he buy one? He obviously sees the need to buy but he is too stubborn, and the money is not the problem, the problem is Wenger and his need to be confirmed as a magician, a god or something. Mourinho was right all the time, Wenger is currently bigger than Arsenal because the fans aren’t demanding more. I don’t say that Reina or Y. Toure would bring us the title, but the money is there and to work with these players is solely Wenger’s decision. Everton was also contacted about Jagielka so to get Squillaci instead is a huge difference.