Manchester United-Arsenal Game Thread
By: travis | April 29th, 2009There are a number of liveblogs going on around these parts, but sadly neither Martin nor I can join them. I’ll be taking in the game from a local pub and am stoked about doing such. It’s a huge game for Arsenal today as they look to win the Champions League for the first time in history. Only three more matches stand between them and the trophy — easier said than done. I dearly wish that Andrey the giant could be out on the pitch today, but this is what we’re stuck with:
Manchester United: Van der Sar, Evra, O’Shea, Ferdinand, Vidic, Fletcher, Carrick, Anderson, Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez.
Subs: Foster, Berbatov, Giggs, Scholes, Park, Rafael, Evans.
Arsenal: Almunia, Sagna, Gibbs, Silvestre, Toure, Diaby, Song, Fabregas, Nasri, Walcott, Adebayor.
Subs: Fabianski, Eduardo, Denilson, Ramsey, Djourou, Bendtner, Eboue.
My hands are shaking typing this out. Leave all comments before, during and after the game below.
Come on Arsenal.
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Comments
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I left this comment on an earlier thread. But I don’t like seeing Silvestre in the lineup. And I don’t like a single striker either. With the road goals rule in place, I don’t think that’s the way to start out.
Posted from
United States
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Ugh. Pathetic. The reality is, we’re just not good enough. Too many average players. We’ve looked nice against inferior opponents for a while. But against Chelsea, and now against MU, you could just see the quality isn’t there. The announcers kept saying Arsenal could take heart in a 1-0 loss on the road, and still have good hopes going back home. Whatever. When you take heart in losing 1-0 on the road, when road goals mean what they do, then your team is vastly inferior. I don’t see any way we get past MU at this point. Not sure I can bring myself to watch next week, although I guess I’ll still do it. Is there really a chance we keep a clean sheet and get at least a goal? I just don’t see it at all. Ugh. The backups are such rubbish that Arsenal simply can’t suffer any injuries. When RVP goes down, there’s not another striker to pair with Ade. When Djourou and Gallas go down, Silvestre sucks. When Almunia goes down, Fabianski sucks. On and on. Sorry for the rant, but it’s another season with no trophies, and I’m not happy with it.
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I don’t understand the faith Wenger puts into Bendtner. He clearly doesn’t have the form of a premiership striker. So we loan out Simpson and keep this guy!???!???
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Diaby is utter shite. Stop losing the ball. Should have just played Fabregas deeper and paired Eduardo with Ade.
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United States -
Well that wasn’t very fun to watch.
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United States -
I want to be and I am feeling optimistic about the champions league, robin will be back, and hopefully wenger uses a 4-4-2 formation. its a good thing that we only allowed 1 goal, and it is so doable to to go through to the champions league final. u remember the tie we played with Roma we killed them in the first leg but they came back at home, and hopefully we’ll come back stronger
Please gunners lets win the CL league
GUNNERS4LIFE
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Almunia: out-fucking-standing.
Gibbs: got overmatched by Ronaldo, and his youth really showed, but is it just me, or is he the best crosser of the ball we have? A couple times I was reminded of…oh I can’t be sure…a recent CL goal that he crossed in. Love the aggression, he’s a good sub. But I can’t wait for Clichy to come back.
Sagna: totally reverse. Poor crossing, just one time it didn’t hit a defender and that one was damn close. Defense wasn’t mind-blowing.
Toure: love those runs forward, he tried. Defensively, I’m still not loving it.
Sylvestre: I’ m REALLY not loving his defense, and his passing was pretty poor. Sucks to be reduced to him, we all expected this kind of performance from him after repeated play. Overall, we need to overhaul our defense, bring in a specialist to drill, drill, drill, or something. If we concede another from a piss-poor clearance…
Diaby: pass the ball. PASS IT. He’s was the most insufferable player on the pitch with all his dicking around with the ball. For a stretch, it seemed every attack ended with him, and I can’t believe Walcott came off for Bendtner (instead of shifting Fabregas into the mid; but Wenger had some good reasons). He should concentrate on defense and really being a proper Vieira, because for all of his terrible, terrible passes, he started a lot of attacks with his tackles.
Song: Very good, I thought. Definitely a bright spot. However, I thought that he had something like the easiest job: doesn’t need to make a massive attacking impact, but doesn’t have too many fingers pointed at him when the defense breaks down (really, our defense has been too bad this year). On the other hand, he was all pass and move, pass and move. But, they were all short passes…that’s his job. The problem with the team was it was too many short passes and no long passes. But that’s off topic: Song was very good.
Walcott: invisible, absolutely invisible. Surprised initially to see him taken off, but I thought for a minute, and I think it was definitely justified. If he wants to keep his number he needs to pick it up in the big games.
Nasri: not too hot and not too cold. But his creativity was lacking. With Walcott invisible, Nasri had to be more astute and daring with his passes, and he was not. There was one amazing pass in the second half that broke the field apart for Adebayor on the left, but my memory fails me: perhaps that was Fabregas.
Fabregas: the captain in title and in play. He played with great confidence, and he was the only one making long passes. But it wasn’t enough. I’m loving his role as a kind of second striker, though, because he’s getting a lot more chances. He should’ve taken them like he did against Boro. Perhaps he should’ve done more, but playing Man U at Old Trafford is very difficult and he outplayed his match up through most of the match.
Adebayor: Good passing today in attack, and he deserved some go’s that weren’t given. Didn’t really have a chance to be wasteful, so he doesn’t lose points for that. Or maybe he was? A lot of balls came to his head, but they were almost all from the midfield, with his back to goal, which really isn’t his game. Still, maybe he should’ve done better with those, because we weren’t penetrating, and those Route 1 chances might’ve been the better ones throughout. But I liked him today: since he didn’t have chances, he was playing more with the team, and his awareness was above what I expected of him.
Overall, we had a better-than-expected showing against a very formidable team in a formidable stadium. To give up one goal, and from a corner conceded by our worst defender essentially, was the absolute minimum I expected us to lose by if we lost, and I’m glad it ended at that. After a rough opening, Arsenal really came into their own and came to dictate the play sometimes. But for their possession, they need to be faster, and they need to be more audacious. Ironic, isn’t it? They weren’t audacious enough, but unlike Chelsea, they were audacious enough to not park the bus against a good side at home.
I HATE CHELSEA, THE SCUMMY COWARDS.
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Quickly on subs…
Bendtner: in defense of him, he showed, at least in the Boro game, that he can really fit into the system in deeper phases of the game. He showed flashes of that today, also. But he also shows himself to be a dud. Refer to that moment he was back in Sagna’s position, way under pressure, and only JUST managed to clear it up the field? A, why don’t you just pass it out and play it safe? B, if he’s matched up against an attacker, and he’s a striker, shouldn’t he be able to turn his man quicker than that? The guy worries me too much.
Eduardo: He wasn’t on long, but did he get a single touch on the ball? He fouled a guy. He’s a step away from Rosicky, and though he’ll be here next season, we ought to sell him and his knees.
Posted from
United States -
This site needs to get laid.
Posted from
Australia
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