A mixture of the goal as well as Cesc being off the pitch meant that we yanked up the handbrake and just kept the ball. We totally eased off the pressure and turned it into a training exercise. We slowed the game down too much to score anymore goals. Stoke were absolutely shameful
Because I am letting Aaron down by not believing in him. Yes I was devastated when he broke his leg. Yes I felt distraught. I even paid money toward a banner in his honour. But a few days later I got up and I walked around and I saw my friends and I lived my life and I forgot about him
Perhaps the young Catalan has been taking strides forward in front of Arsene Wenger during training sessions. He looks very assured on the ball and he gave the defence a nice balance due to his preference to use his left foot. It was very hard to gauge his defensive attributes as he just wasn't tested until the 88th minute but he looks very calm and is certainly an Arsenal defender in the making
Gibbs also had his best game at left back for a while. He looked assured on the ball and I felt there was an air of confidence about him that had been missing from his recent performances. Miquel also looked
We have had the Emirates stadium to hold our hands when mass changes caused our level of performance to drop, this will not be the case this time so the players who are given the chance to play will have to hit the ground running. I would be very surprised if Arsene threw in many of the players from midweek as the game required a huge amount of physical and mental energy and when you look further down the line we have the small matter of Tony Pulis' thugs and then the Carling Cup final against an even bigger collection of thugs. That is actually quite a frightening prospect.
Arsenal allowed their defenders to have the ball and Van Persie dropped back into midfield. Our defenders were pushed up high with the intension of flooding the midfield and not allowing them the space to combine and dominate the game. Barcelona are technically so good that even with a very
The truth is that the Arsenal of 2011, with all its necessary parts in working order, is a well-oiled machine that is capable of beating any team in the world. For all the talk of how we are going to stop Barcelona there is the small matter of how Barcelona are going to stop us and it’s won’t be as easy as press, press, press. Especially not if we are adopting the same tactic, and to good effect as we have
I was also very impressed with Andrey Arshavin. It was fantastic to see the old Shava back again after a few months. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that he had been doing extra fitness work whilst being out of the side because his work rate was as high as I can remember it ever being in the past. He ran more without the ball than he did with it and that hasn't always been the case with Arshavin
I expect Wolves to play with a congested midfield, especially narrowly. The forward passes of Cesc along with the movement of Van Persie and Walcott will be important. When Cesc is on his game then the rest of his team mates are usually on their game because of the captain's influence on the pitch. Without Samir Nasri we are going to need Cesc to take a step forward and find his best form, hopefully the midweek rest will have allowed