[Archived] Arsenal V Blackburn Rovers

[Miker]

Heavy closing down against Arsenal is also a dangerous thing because it means they can easily get past us with their pace, which they showed they could quite easily do.

[hollowsr]

To say this is the worst performance ever is stupid. Up until half time we played ok I thought. We just had to close players down more but with a side like Arsenal that is hard who have probably the best movement in the world.

Andrews can't continue to play for us, for every one half decent thing he does he follows it up with just horrendous passing, closing down etc. The sooner Reid is back the better as he can't be any worse even after all his injury problems.

I can also see why Gamst's contract talks aren't advancing at the moment, probably because he is nothing like the player he was a few years ago, apart from his long throws he offers nothing going forward and was poor at tracking people in defence today.

Diouf looked much better on the left than he did on the right. Poor performance though from him in all today and if we had enough players who were good enough he wouldn't be playing for us.

Robinson made some cracking saves and you couldn't really fault him for any of the goals today, besides maybe Arshavin's which went through him but when you have little protection in front of you not much you can do.

Olsson I thought had one of his better games for the first team, he's got work to do but can see him improving! Nzonzi played well first half but disappeared a bit in second.

Dunn and Di Santo played well I thought and put in good shifts both of them caused Arsenal problems!

Our midfield left the defence wide open in the second half, and we couldn't do anything to stop Arsenal.

Arguably could have had 4 goals ourselves with a bit more luck, the dead on penalty decision that wasn't given and Junior's deflected shot hitting the post.

Chimbonda did ok at CB but you can tell he doesn't play there often.

[Inta Beaver]

We all knew we would lose here today, we were in the game for longer than I expected, defo pen would have made it 3-3, we have played Arsenal when they are at there BEST! Not many teams in Europe could cope with that, get off Sams back and support your team!

Andrews and Pederson were shocking, McCarthy didn't want to come on, look at his body language when he limps on!

[RibbleValleyRover]

Expected a 3 maybe 4-0 but 6-2 is embarrassing.

Yes Arsenal played some beautiful football but our defending at times was shocking, we played five in midfield and couldn't win the midfield battle at any time during the game. Why did we stop pressing and harassing them?

Andrews and Pedersen are garbage.

Just hope this result hasn't given us a huge knock in confidence going into our biggest game of the season. Got to feel sorry for Robbo, england manager there and we concede 6. Though in truth if Robbo hadn't made some outstanding saves it could have been 9 or 10, but people will just look at the result and say he had a bad game.

[sweet]

How the hell have we gone so backwards, in basically just over a season? I know we didnt do great in the second part of the Hughes's last season in charge, but by god - we were never this inept. We lead against arsenal twice and Robinson has a great game, and yet we still conceed 6, what does that really say about the current qualities and future prospects of this team? Its all well and good beating villa, but then when the next game comes around and we get turned over like this, all the confidence must go out of the team. This just seems to be a constant repeated pattern since hughes left, get a decent unexpected result, but then do sh*t for god knows how many games.

[Bobby G]

Until 3-2 we were great. Then the penalty which wasnt given and that was the turning point Id say. At any rate defensively we were rubbish and even if we got the penalty the outcome wouldve been the same. When Allardyce took off Dunn he signalled that the game was up with 32 minutes left.

What can I say? Robinson was world class and he made so many saves which he shouldnt have.

We just fell apart as if there were no leaders left on the pitch when Dunny went off.

Di Santo ran his socks off even at 5-2.

I dont have much to say, except not many teams will survive such an onslaught at the Emirates.

Lets keep things in perspective and look at the first 60 minutes, and not dwell on the rest. We competed against them for 2/3rds of the game. Thats more than we could say about our games against them last season.

[MeanGreenMachine]

If Keith Andrews ever pulls on a rovers shirt again its a disgrace. Pretty much 4/5 of the goals he was there jogging along comfortably not bothering to close down or put a challenge in, add to that he lost the ball pretty much every time he touched it. Pathetic.. id rather have mokoena

I didnt expect much espicially with having such an out of sorts defence, but it could have been 12. Thought the only players to come out of the game with credit would be Di Santo who ran his ###### off, Dunn who was the only one who looked like creating and Robinson who pulled off some great stops.

Though i didnt think Nzonzi and Diouf had bad games either.

[Tom]

Sorry to flag this up but are you serious? That second half performance was worse than woeful, it was unprofessional and we defended like school kids.

I'm not trying to pick on particular players, because everyone apart from Dunn and Robbo were awful but what did Keith Andrews do today? He gave away the ball on numerous occasions and is not good enough for the Premiership, end of.

Oh and I know we were stretched today but never play Chimbonda at centre back again either please Big Sam.

Agree to disagree, there is such thing as being simply outclassed as was the case today.

Andrews was awful though I can agree with that

[beerwins]

Most of there goals were unstoppable which shows how good they were and how good robbo was today, problem was our deffence was woefull and WHY oh WHY did we not close them down, we just stood off them all game, this season is becoming more and more frustrating, i hope im not feeling like this next week.

Next week 3 points is a must regardless of all the hype.

[MarkBRFC71]

id rather have mokoena

Steady on he's not THAT bad!! Still should never play for us again though, along with Pedersen. Not fit to wear the shirt - either of them.

[hollowsr]

If Keith Andrews ever pulls on a rovers shirt again its a disgrace. Pretty much 4/5 of the goals he was there jogging along comfortably not bothering to close down or put a challenge in, add to that he lost the ball pretty much every time he touched it. Pathetic.. id rather have mokoena

I didnt expect much espicially with having such an out of sorts defence, but it could have been 12. Thought the only players to come out of the game with credit would be Di Santo who ran his ###### off, Dunn who was the only one who looked like creating and Robinson who pulled off some great stops.

Though i didnt think Nzonzi and Diouf had bad games either.

Woh woh woh don't say anything stupid now, can we just not have either of them

[RoversSG]

I thought our defence and attack did okay but our midfield was totally non-existent!

Diouf was prominent without doing anything, Nzoni did nothing except for the goal, Emo was missing the whole match and Andrews gave one of the worst display i ever seen from him and i think that says a lot!

[Miker]

Woh woh woh don't say anything stupid now, can we just not have either of them

Grella's back next week

[jim mk2]

How the hell have we gone so backwards, in basically just over a season? I know we didnt do great in the second part of the Hughes's last season in charge, but by god - we were never this inept. .

This time last season we were in freefall under Ince.

We also lost 6-2 at the Emirates under Hughes.

Please engage brain before posting.

[jonv]

at 2-2 and even 3-2 i thought we were in the game and giving arsenal problems when we went forward. even at 4-2 we were still in the game. unfortunately arsenals attacking pace and the lack in quality of our defense meant the scoreline got stupid.

it's hard not to be disheartened and you have to walk away with a blow.. but until Dunn went off it was hardly doom and gloom. was entertaining to watch for 50 odd minutes anyway

whether the score was going to be 3-0 or 6-2... this was chalked to be a loss. it was always damage control. the flood gates opened but against weaker opposition we'd be looking decent ourselves.

going to be an INTERESTING game against burnley

[dulwich]

This time last season we were in freefall under Ince.

We also lost 6-2 at the Emirates under Hughes.

Please engage brain before posting.

So where is the improvement from the second half of last season?

[sweet]

This time last season we were in freefall under Ince.

We also lost 6-2 at the Emirates under Hughes.

Please engage brain before posting.

I was speaking of before Ince took charge, hence the reason I put over a season.

Please read post before posting.

[hollowsr]

Grella's back next week

I prefer him to the other two clowns! At least we know he can put challenge in, even if it is a daft one when on a yellow!

Emerton was disappointing today also, but we already knew he wasn't a right winger!

[Maverick]

First half was the best I have seen all year. Dunn back to his best I think. Second half we should have had a penalty that might have put it 3-3. Also unluck with a ball hitting the post. Instead Arsenal got up to 4-2 and the game was more or less over. Maybe Big Sam thought the same, because that is the only reason for resting Dunn that early in the second half. Without Dunn our midfield lost the fighting spirit and the rest of the match Arsenal could do whatever they like.

[Tom]

As predicted the dramatic over reactions start here and now

[grizfoot]

Chimbonda did ok at CB but you can tell he doesn't play there often.

You serious?

It was his fault for two of the goals. Think it was the Arshavin goal (might have been the RVP one can't remember there was that many) where he stupidly ran out of defense to try and head a ball heading straight towards N'Zonzi, in result a gap is left at centreback and Arsenal score. Then for the Fabregas goal he dribbles the ball to our own corner flag and then tries a high-risk ball down the line which goes to a Arsenal player and then thanks to a few lucky deflecitons before it falls for Fabregas Arsenal scoe.

Arsenal did play well, but it was down to the fact that we let them play and kept backing off them instead of closing them down. They have got world-class players in every positon but we let them play a little too much for my liking. Andrews and N'Zonzi should be tight on Fabreags throughout the game but they weren't Fabregas was running the game because he had so much time to spray around his brilliant array of passes.

For me the only outfield player to come out of the game with any credit is David Dunn. Our Man Of The Man was Robinson, which is pretty desperate when you consider your goalkeeper is man of the match after you've lost 6-2. A fairer refleciton of the game would have been about 12-4.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

I don't think Keith Andrews will ever win over fans at Blackburn. He certainly shouldn't be made the stand out bad guy out of this performance against a superb Arsenal today. If we're all going to slate Keith Andrews then we should also slate Givet, Chimbonda for falling to bits at every opportunity when Arsenal played a through ball. I'm not suggesting that Andrews had a good game, he didn't, but nor did the majority of our players out there but to single him out is just a bit silly in my opinion.

[adopted scouser]

At least we didn't go there to defend, one off the post and denied a cast iron penalty. They just went up a gear towards the end.

Robinson was outstanding, wish I could say the same about the defenders to his right - Van Persie must have thought it was his birthday.

[Amo]

I don't think Keith Andrews will ever win over fans at Blackburn. He certainly shouldn't be made the stand out bad guy out of this performance against a superb Arsenal today. If we're all going to slate Keith Andrews then we should also slate Givet, Chimbonda for falling to bits at every opportunity when Arsenal played a through ball. I'm not suggesting that Andrews had a good game, he didn't, but nor did the majority of our players out there but to single him out is just a bit silly in my opinion.

I think the point is we know some of our players could play better.

[Miker]

So where is the improvement from the second half of last season?

Out of the 4 games we lost this season, 3 of them have been Away. One against an expensive Sunderland team that drew 2-2 at Old Trafford this week, one against Everton and one against Arsenal. We also lost at home to City, a team that will be easily challenging the top 4 this season. Two of those games we performed really well.

On the other hand, we dominated a Wolves team 3-1, overcame an in-form Villa 2-1 and (the only negative result in my eyes) settled for a goalless draw with West Ham.

Last season we were struggling to overcome and drawing with relegation bound teams and being absolutely awful in most games. Against Arsenal last season we never even looked like we were likely to create something. So I think it's a decent improvement when we go and challenge a team that was 10/10 today.