Manchester United v Arsenal

Kraftwerker said:
Nah, the Chamakh one was very clumsy. The ball came a long way, he misjudged it and ended up playing it with his hand. Penalty for me.

Clichy's was from too close, so I don't think it's as clear-cut. The only thing you can say is that he's stopping Nani getting one on one with his hand.

All considered I don't think you can have many complaints about the ref. It's one of those games where each team is annoyed with the ref.

I was livid he didn't clamp down on Arsenal preventing our breaks.
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Well fair enough, I didn't think either was a penalty, but I respect your view on it.

And I bet you weren't livid when Fletcher kept breaking down our attacks last year. Nine fouls if I recall correctly? Not sure anyone's mentioned it on this site before.
 
alastair said:
Yes, it transpired that the penalty gave us a boost, but it remains the case that on 90% of occasions, we'd have been 2-0 down and out of the game due to a shocking decision. I'd still rather he hadn't given the penalty.

I admitted we were poor - it's more frustrating this defeat than any other, because I don't believe it was tactical as such. Your goal wasn't from a counter attack, it was just a deflected cross and a good header. I'm undecided still whether that was entirely deliberate, but whatever, it went in.

If you look at the two games we've played against United and Chelsea this season, we may have lost both, but they haven't been similar to previous games. No goal we conceded was due to defensive frailty of naivity, it was down to a cracking finish, which in games like this, matter. It's often said that we struggle defensively, but in the two biggest games this season, we've struggled in front of goal. That was the downfall tonight - I wouldn't read too much into RVP and Cesc though, they weren't fit at all.
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I do.

Your pretty football was nullified, yet again.

You just can't admit it.
 
peterstorey said:
Don't bother, you're gonna need a new one in a few hours.
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How about this one?

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alastair said:
What you say is true, and you did play admirably off the ball - in the last ten minutes, we could barely create a chance, which spoke volumes about how well you defended. I personally thought Fletcher has had better games on the ball, but yeh, off the ball he was fine.

The thing is, these games are marginal. I thought we defended well as a team - your goal was caused by a decent block by Clichy, and a fortunate/wonderful header by Park. It was unfortunate on our part, because I don't think we were vastly inferior to you lot in an organisational sense, until we started chasing the game, which clearly leaves gaps.
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You created one chance in the whole 90 minutes, and that was comfortably saved by VDS and cleared by Vidic.

Second half you had the most possession, but did little with it.

United had 4 or 5 good chances, including the penalty, which would have put the game far out of reach.

How you can have a pop at the Ref, I don't know. First half Arsenal did everything they could to break up play. He was very lenient, and it was actually the Linesman that gave the penalty.

Anything other than a United win tonight would have been a travesty.
 
Nice to see the anti-football of Arsenal get nothing out of the game

Hopefully will put to bed all that crap peterstorey has been feeding us about Fletcher
 
TheReligion said:
You created one chance in the whole 90 minutes, and that was comfortably saved by VDS and cleared by Vidic.

Second half you had the most possession, but did little with it.

United had 4 or 5 good chances, including the penalty, which would have put the game far out of reach.

How you can have a pop at the Ref, I don't know. First half Arsenal did everything they could to break up play. He was very lenient, and it was actually the Linesman that gave the penalty.

Anything other than a United win tonight would have been a travesty.
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When I had a pop at Webb, that's just shorthand for his entire officiating team. They were all shite. When Rio almost kills Sagna and isn't even penalised, you know you're wasting your time.

You were wasteful with the chances you had. That's not anyone's fault but your own. When we play games and have 100 shots and lose 1-0, that's our lookout. You've got to stick away your chances, and fortunately for you, you manged to put perhaps your least presentable opportunity away this evening.
 
Plan M said:
...and if my aunty had balls, she'd be my uncle.
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What I'm saying is, we didn't bottle it, you scored a great goal. You can lose a game but not bottle it. You lost to Barcelona comfortably in the CL two years back, it could have been a right hammering, but you didn't bottle it.
 
alastair said:
When I had a pop at Webb, that's just shorthand for his entire officiating team. They were all shite. When Rio almost kills Sagna and isn't even penalised, you know you're wasting your time.

You were wasteful with the chances you had. That's not anyone's fault but your own. When we play games and have 100 shots and lose 1-0, that's our lookout. You've got to stick away your chances, and fortunately for you, you manged to put perhaps your least presentable opportunity away this evening.
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Yes, we were wasteful, I haven't denied that, but what I am saying is you made one chance over the whole 90. That was it. Simply not good enough.

We will come to The Emirates and create alot more than that. Mark my words.
 
Can any Arsenal fan say that result wasn't thoroughly deserved? the better team comfortably on the night won the match but for some horrendous misses (Rooney,Nani) and a top save from Anderson that could have been 4-0 tonight and Arsenal didn't threaten at all.

Arsenal fan on sky sports phone in show right now saying Arsenal need a player like Fletcher....just for you Peter ;)
 
alastair said:
How was our football pretty? It's a media myth that you've bought in to. It wasn't remotely pretty this evening.
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It refers to your brand of footbAll. The difference between the two teams today was firstly, that we were more ballsy i.e came out on top in the midfield battle, and secondly, we actually looked like scoring. ArsenAL have always been better at possession retention but we've always been better and doing the business. For me that is a flaw of the football philosophy.
 
alastair said:
When I had a pop at Webb, that's just shorthand for his entire officiating team. They were all shite. When Rio almost kills Sagna and isn't even penalised, you know you're wasting your time.

You were wasteful with the chances you had. That's not anyone's fault but your own. When we play games and have 100 shots and lose 1-0, that's our lookout. You've got to stick away your chances, and fortunately for you, you manged to put perhaps your least presentable opportunity away this evening.
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Drama queen much?

It was a foul, sure. Rio's not a dirty player though, and his eyes were on the ball.
 
Allforone said:
Can any Arsenal fan say that result wasn't thoroughly deserved? the better team comfortably on the night won the match but for some horrendous misses (Rooney,Nani) and a top save from Anderson that could have been 4-0 tonight and Arsenal didn't threaten at all.

Arsenal fan on sky sports phone in show right now saying Arsenal need a player like Fletcher....just for you Peter ;)
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By that logic, we should have beaten Blackpool 25-4. Every team misses chances. We played poorly, and whilst I thought we could perhaps have got a draw, we paid the price of playing about half as well as we can.

And one thing is for certain, we do not need a Fletcher. And we never ever will.
 
alastair said:
By that logic, we should have beaten Blackpool 25-4. Every team misses chances. We played poorly, and whilst I thought we could perhaps have got a draw, we paid the price of playing about half as well as we can.

And one thing is for certain, we do not need a Fletcher. And we never ever will.
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Do you contest the better team by far won on the night? Arsenal didn't create a single meaningful chance all evening, United missed half a dozen as well as scored.
 
alastair said:
By that logic, we should have beaten Blackpool 25-4. Every team misses chances. We played poorly, and whilst I thought we could perhaps have got a draw, we paid the price of playing about half as well as we can.

And one thing is for certain, we do not need a Fletcher. And we never ever will.
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What chances did you create to warrant a draw?
 
peterstorey said:
Eh, Fletcher was crap warmed up as usual.
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Come on pete, the way ye were playing lately and how we have been inconsistent, Fletcher deserves credit as part of a midfield that gave Nasri, Arshavin and Rosicky nothing. Arsenals strength is without doubt the attacking midfield, which was not visible at all tonight. To denigrate Fletcher is only to further accuse the Arsenal of impotency.
 
If we had taken some of those chances we would have made Arsenal look even worse. We didn't play great at all and still managed to hold on to a 1-0. Wenger needs to review his squad because once again they've proved they are still 2-3 players away from being a major threat.
 
The Guardian leads with

"Manchester United became leaders of the Premier League while once again raising doubts about the capacity of Arsenal to meet the great challenges."

Manchester United 1-0 Arsenal | Premier League match report | Football | The Guardian


and football365 says

"For Arsenal, the sorry statistic of a fifth reverse concealed a desperately disappointing performance which did not get that much better even after Arsene Wenger had thrown his star man Cesc Fabregas on in a last desperate bid to secure a share of the spoils. "
 
Allforone said:
Do you contest the better team by far won on the night? Arsenal didn't create a single meaningful chance all evening, United missed half a dozen as well as scored.
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Yeh, I said in my first post that we deserved what we got - we were the poorer of two sides who didn't play to their potential. My point was just that if you don't put away your chances, it's somewhat irrelevant to what you deserve in the game - you can have loads of shots, but it's your fault if you don't put them in the net.

The reason I said we could perhaps have got a draw out of it is because your goal was one that you might say was a tad fortunate. Deflected cross, and otherwise, we were impressive defensively this evening. But we barely merited one.
 
Neo_Mufc said:
If we had taken some of those chances we would have made Arsenal look even worse. We didn't play great at all and still managed to hold on to a 1-0. Wenger needs to review his squad because once again they've proved they are still 2-3 players away from being a major threat.
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It's cliche o'clock.
 
alastair said:
By that logic, we should have beaten Blackpool 25-4. Every team misses chances. We played poorly, and whilst I thought we could perhaps have got a draw, we paid the price of playing about half as well as we can.

And one thing is for certain, we do not need a Fletcher. And we never ever will.
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Carrick could do wonders for you.

He can play, and provides a screen to the defence.

His reading of the game and interceptions in midfield are second to none.
 
alastair said:
Yeh, I said in my first post that we deserved what we got - we were the poorer of two sides who didn't play to their potential. My point was just that if you don't put away your chances, it's somewhat irrelevant to what you deserve in the game - you can have loads of shots, but it's your fault if you don't put them in the net.

The reason I said we could perhaps have got a draw out of it is because your goal was one that you might say was a tad fortunate. Deflected cross, and otherwise, we were impressive defensively this evening. But we barely merited one.
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I will say you seemed to have covered counter attacks better today. We still got a couple(and should have scored at least one), but usually you had enough men back.
 
alastair said:
Yeh, I said in my first post that we deserved what we got - we were the poorer of two sides who didn't play to their potential. My point was just that if you don't put away your chances, it's somewhat irrelevant to what you deserve in the game - you can have loads of shots, but it's your fault if you don't put them in the net.

The reason I said we could perhaps have got a draw out of it is because your goal was one that you might say was a tad fortunate. Deflected cross, and otherwise, we were impressive defensively this evening. But we barely merited one.
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I thought luck didn't exist alastair? :smirk:

Last I checked fortune is luck.
 
alastair said:
Yeh, I said in my first post that we deserved what we got - we were the poorer of two sides who didn't play to their potential. My point was just that if you don't put away your chances, it's somewhat irrelevant to what you deserve in the game - you can have loads of shots, but it's your fault if you don't put them in the net.

The reason I said we could perhaps have got a draw out of it is because your goal was one that you might say was a tad fortunate. Deflected cross, and otherwise, we were impressive defensively this evening. But we barely merited one.
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The goal will either be described as a brilliant piece of improvisation or a bit of luck depending on what side of the fence you sit, to be fair Park looked like he meant everything there the way he arched his back and twisted aiming the header towards the exact area of the goal it went, either way the result was clearly a fair one only one side looked like scoring tonight.

I must say i was very unimpressed by Nasri, for someone in the form hes been in i expected him to at least do something tonight.
 
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