[Archived] Arsenal Preview

[Mr. E]

Credit to Wenger, he said we would give any world class team a fantastic test. Didn't slate us at all.

easy to say that when they won. You know he would be crying and moaning had they not gotten so lucky.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

easy to say that when they won. You know he would be crying and moaning had they not gotten so lucky.

Plenty of managers have slated us when they've won here to.

[tonyoz]

You can tell just from listening to him that Keef is mates with Ince. You know.

Eh?

[MarkBRFC71]

Went wrong today at half time. First half, we were superb. Pushed Arsenal back, defended in their half, and created some good chances. Big kudos to Sam for the tactics.

However, second half he got it drastically wrong. Firstly with the tactics - they'd obviously been told to sit back, and hit it long more often and we just put ourselves under pressure. Secondly, the subs were odd to say the least - we're 2-1 down and we take our 2 biggest goal threats off?!? Absolutely ridiculous.

We're still very weak in midfield - it says it all really when the best central midfielder in our first 3 games is an 18 year old centre-half!

[Tim Southampton Rover]

You can tell just from listening to him that Keef is mates with Ince. You know.

He seems like a really nice guy. I get the impression that he's proud to play for us and under Big Sam as well as for his country.

Still baffles me why Rovers fans get on his back instead of showing support.

[adopted scouser]

Credit to Wenger, he said we would give any world class team a fantastic test. Didn't slate us at all.

That's his way of referring to Arsenal as a world class team.

[RibbleValleyRover]

He seems like a really nice guy. I get the impression that he's proud to play for us and under Big Sam as well as for his country.

Still baffles me why Rovers fans get on his back instead of showing support.

I thought he came across as a nice guy and pretty level headed. Certainly doesn't deserve some of the stick he gets.

[Dan]

Went wrong today at half time. First half, we were superb. Pushed Arsenal back, defended in their half, and created some good chances. Big kudos to Sam for the tactics.

However, second half he got it drastically wrong. Firstly with the tactics - they'd obviously been told to sit back, and hit it long more often and we just put ourselves under pressure. Secondly, the subs were odd to say the least - we're 2-1 down and we take our 2 biggest goal threats off?!? Absolutely ridiculous.

We're still very weak in midfield - it says it all really when the best central midfielder in our first 3 games is an 18 year old centre-half!

I was very shocked by Sam's tactics in the first half, it was very very unlike Sam to actually go for it and play nice football. The second half he must have woken up and gone back to his usual ###### tactics. Maybe he'll learn a good lesson from today? Most likely blame the officials for the penalty claims.

[Tom]

Can't agree about pedersen RVR another good game today and ran his socks off.

Today we looked a much much better team with him in the attacking midfield role than when Dunn came on.

Dunn looked knackered within minutes and was awful all in all. The only other downpoint as far as individuals go was givet.

We played some great stuff at times today but got beat by a better team, hard to argue with that really.

[Dan]

He seems like a really nice guy. I get the impression that he's proud to play for us and under Big Sam as well as for his country.

Still baffles me why Rovers fans get on his back instead of showing support.

Because he is absolutely rubbish and spends all match pointing instead of actually playing football?

Anyway, lets not derail another thread huh?

[Balwer]

Not sure if people realise this but sometimes substitutions are forced on managers when players who aren't at full match fitness play three games in a week. This is likely the case in Kalinic and certainly the case in Mame.

[Rover Down Under]

A great first half performance but I'm quite gutted we didn't take something from the game, although I didn't expect us to beat them 2 seasons running at home.

The team is looking really solid though, we conceded 2 yes but the first net buster (literally) was class and the second was just a plain lucky bounce of the ball. Defending from the front is brilliant and I think Jones is liking his new role a lot - credit to Sam for finding him a new position rather than rotating Samba-Nelson-Givet-Jones.

We had a lot of chances and made a very good team look very ordinary at times. Things can only get better!

[tonyoz]

What's this all about? At least 5 posters have decided to slag off "Our Keith" as their contribution to the board today. Can't you find something more positive to say? We gave a glimpse of a more exciting future today - and it wasn't half bad in my opinion.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

Good first half performane by Rovers but the game was simply lost in the 2nd half...Arsenal's quality won the day here tbh.

I'm just hoping that if we are taken over we can bring that bit of extra quality player into our side that will make all the differece to games like today's.

We move on

[MarkBRFC71]

Not sure if people realise this but sometimes substitutions are forced on managers when players who aren't at full match fitness play three games in a week. This is likely the case in Kalinic and certainly the case in Mame.

Kalinic didn't play on Wednesday, and Mame looked fine and still going strong. Given that we've now got a 2 week break it's not like we can say we're saving them for the next game. Poor decisions - plain and simple.

Have to give Sam credit though - the first half was very positive and showed we can mix it with anyone in this league playing football. If we'd have played the second half in the same way I think we'd have been celebrating a win.

Oh well, onwards and upwards.

[Exiled in Toronto]

Well, we gave them a game but lost because we don't have a specialist left back; Givet was AWOL for both goals and offers nothing going forwards.

I really liked how we played first half so credit to Sam, but I thought every substitution made us worse to the point where in the last 10 mins we looked like a Rochdale in a cup tie. We lost the midfield after Grella went off. Diouf mkI was causing havoc on the left and switching him into the middle just emphasised his weaknesses. Dunny lumbered about giving them even more space when they had the ball. Taking off both centre forwards was a nonsense. Good finishing is instinctive e.g. Diouf mkII's movement for our goal; Samba can't do that. Samba was always going to be up for the set pieces so I don't see what we could possibly gain by having him there in place of proper forwards for the approach play.

[Balwer]

Kalinic didn't play on Wednesday, and Mame looked fine and still going strong. Given that we've now got a 2 week break it's not like we can say we're saving them for the next game. Poor decisions - plain and simple.

Mame looked dead on his feat, as both Ian and Andy Gray mentioned several times. I am aware that Kalinic didn't play on Wednesday, hence why I said it was maybe the case for him, not definitely.

It's very hard to expect Mame to play three straight games at this level, at the start of the season, when he's never done it before, and not feel some effects. It's not as if he was playing as well when he came off as the first half. Simply calling them poor decisions without perhaps wondering at the reasoning behind them is a little blinkered in my view.

[den]

As usual everything has to be black and white for you. No shades of grey.

It's called clear thinking.

Will Jones finish up as a midfielder? You think he will, I think he wont. We'll see.

[MarkBRFC71]

Simply calling them poor decisions without perhaps wondering at the reasoning behind them is a little blinkered in my view.

Only as blinkered as blindly defending anything and everything the manager does.

Credit to him for the first half, second half the tactics and subs weakened us.

[Commondore]

I was impressed with the front trio of Diouf, Diouf and Kalinic. I think those three can be a menace to a lot of defenses in the PL, even if Kalinic probably would get the most of his capacity out in a more orthodox 4-4-2 striker partnership.

[Exiled_Rover]

That's his way of referring to Arsenal as a world class team.

He's only gracious when they win. He's a shocking loser.

Oh and the next person that says we need another striker needs to be banned. We need a ###### midfielder. We looked quite useful when Grella was on. The second he went off we fell apart completely.

[Balwer]

Only as blinkered as blindly defending anything and everything the manager does.

Credit to him for the first half, second half the tactics and subs weakened us.

Haha, certainly not a Sam apologist. I do think though that if we had Benjani on the bench he'd have come on, I think the Samba thing was a last role of the dice. I actually thought the Dunn substitution was a mistake, clearly not fit and lumbering around whereas Grella was doing ok and more importantly was better defensively. Thought Olsson should have come on earlier and I don't think Jones in midfield is a patch on NZonzi.

[MikeB]

Just got back - mixed feelings.

Plusses - the two Dioufs, the United lad looked our biggest threat today, Salgado (again apart from his two misses) and Samba.

Disappointed that yet again we missed chances - Salgado twice in the 2nd half and Dunn when he should have buried it. Also, thought Jones struggled in that advanced midfield role in first half, improved when he dropped back to where Grella was.

Clearly, we have players not at full match fitness - Grella, Dunn & Kalinic.

Lot of the talk amongst the suits was that JW & Sam have a very hectic 3 days in front of them - the expectation is of AT LEAST one signing.

[Amo]

Again, why are people saying we had no option with the subs, when Hoilett is on the bench? I guess at that point, it was 'up and at 'em' instead of trying to get a foothold on the game.

[Tom]

I think the jones in midfield experiment has to end now Nzonzi is far better in there, strange that he has been dropped.

Midfield should be:

Nzonzi Grella

Pedersen