Arsenal have to rely on other results going their way this weekend after Arsene Wenger’s side drew 3-3 with Norwich at The Emirates earlier this afternoon.
The Gunners got off to a flying start and took a two minute lead through Yossi Benayoun. However, they only managed to stay in front for 10 minutes after Wes Hoolahan passed a tame shot past Wojciech Szczesny.
15 minutes later Norwich surprisingly, though duly, were ahead. The Canaries hit Arsenal on a classic counter. Hoolahan squared the ball to Grant Holt whose shot deflected off Kieran Gibbs’ foot and over the hapless Szczesny.
In fairness, Arsenal were struggling to get their passing game going, though Norwich did well to prevent the home side from getting a foothold in the game.
The second 45 saw a much more urgent Arsenal side take to the field, and rightly so. Their passing was much better and they looked more determined, creating chances at will. They were finally level in the 72nd minute through Robin van Persie. Alex Song delivered a delightful long through ball to the Dutchman, who kept his line, and converted the chance he was given.
With the momentum on their side, Arsenal kept pressing and were looking for the winner. Eight minutes later they were rewarded for their efforts. Robin van Persie sent The Emirates into raptures after several passes outside the Norwich area finally broke to the in-form striker who blasted home The Gunners’ third and his 30th Premier League goal of the season.
With only 10 minutes left to play and the Gunners in control, it seemed conclusive that the north London side were going to bag all three points.
However, there was to be a final twist in the tale. In the 85th minute Steve Morison broke clear of the Arsenal defence and smashed in a low, hard shot into the far post of Szczesny’s goal.
Arsenal looked to have a clear penalty dismissed late on by Anthony Taylor when Van Persie was bundled over in the box by Kyle Naughton.
The result still leaves Arsenal sitting in third position, but will have to depend on others to do their bidding.
Tottenham and Newcastle can both potentially leapfrog the Gunners if they manage to bag victories in their respective games this weekend.
So with that in mind, what FIVE things did we learn from today’s game?
Give us your thoughts
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Five things Arsenal learn i think should be the following;
1. Arsenal need solid left back. Weakest point of Arsenal. If we analyse the game, first goal was cross from left. 2nd n 3rd goal also from left. So Vertoghen is required
2. Keeper sud be more careful with position and always calm.. Still has to learn much..
3. arsenal need strong back up for keeper to challenge him
4. Arsenal missed Walcot, Per Met n Arteta today.Buying goethe besides vertoghen is required for time being..coz Rosicky is growing older…
5. The last one, as usual Arsenal always unlucky despite terrific attacking efforts and bundle of chances.. And as usual Arsenal is not given clear penalty they deserve.
Arsene Wenger bought/brought all of these players.
Arsene Wenger is the manager and is responsible for the players development and motivation.
Arsene Wenger claims that this squad has been so close to winning something for the last 7 years
IN REALITY we have not come close for a long time.
Sczezny showed today that while talented a few seasons as an understudy to a top keeper would have done a lot for him
With the defenders there are only 2 options.
1) – Vermaelen, Koscielny and Mertestacker are not good enough (we know for sure squilachi and djourou are not)
2) Mertesacker and Vermaelen are experienced internationals whose prior quality was shown. Arsene’s inability to coach defensive tactics is destroying decend defenders
The midfield are uncreative and lack any defensive discipline. Song has no competition so why would he improve. Ramsey is sub standard for Arsenal. Maybe he will come good one day but he is not good enough. Diaby is not good enough, Yossi is not good enough.
Then Walcott and Gervinho, neither are good enough for a top club, Arsene needs to take responsibility for Walcott’s development or lack of it. Hopefully Arsene leaves before he destroys the OX and makes him a one dimensional, over intricate through the middle nonsense player
Robin is world class but everyone will have an off day/minor slump and a substitute who knows where the goal is would be good. Chamakh is not good enough, neither is park,
We were a top team, a genuine contender most years. Now we have players who probably couldn’t get into most mid/lower mid table sides.
We need a rebuild around a core of players. Wilshire and Arteta is a good foundation with RVP and Podolski.
What we need is a manager with fresh ideas who doesnt keep ttrotting out the same tired excuses about lacking a cutting edge. Arsene built this team, he built it without the cutting edge and with such a poor mentality that they buckle under pressure each and every time. Everytime we can create a gap or certainty with our position we crumble
We learnt that as well as a centre back and a solid left back that we also now need another right back. with sagna ruled out of the euros and pre season at least we cannot start next season relying on jenkinson coquelin and djourou again.
we also learnt that as bad as our start to the season was it is primarily our finish to the season which is worse (1 win in 6) and most likely to be the reason we will play our european football on thursdays next season. if that is the case i would totally swerve the competition from our first team squad and basically combine uefa cup with carling cup and reserve football picking a completely different squad for those 3 competitions leaving the first team to focus on premier league and fa cup. that way we could have a squad much larger than 25
ie
1st team 25 – premier league & fa cup
2nd 25 – reserve league uefa cup.carling cup
3rd 25 – u18 league. next gen series. fa youth cup
Well, Barcelona Manager is available and Jose might too. Get Arsene to Director of football. And Arsenal board has to support the funding. Simple. Dont blame the players. Its the Manager and the board need to improve first.
Wenger has always been an (excellent) Director of football. Never a Manager.
Thats how arsene works. There is more than one way of managing ur personnel. One is the fergie way:where shout ur ass off and sometimes it works but it also has a lasting effect on the players. The other way is by confidence building. You don’t have to always shout at someone. Especially someone like verm. Hes an experienced player and shud knw what to do during any given situation. If it was djourou then i wud expect a different treatment. Jus put tis into picture: if after last years flop show by the kos he was benched for this entire season then none of us wud have seen him hackin almost all the prem league fwds. And mind you fergie has had to resort to such ways himself. Johnny evans. Jus look where he is. He makes mistakes bug fergie still sticks with him. And ur argument that berba is nt played is irrelevant becuz berba is somewhat lazy and does nt play at the same pace as the team does. He jus waits for the ball to come to him. In the arsenal line up there is nt a single player who is like that. Everyone fights for the team but sometimes mistakes happen. If wenger had got his tactics wrong then blame him. But today it was jus some poor defending that screwed our chances of finishin 3rd.
And which of those two managers has more trophies?
How is Djourou different than TV? If anything Djourou is the more experienced defender since he’s been playing in the English league since he was a teenager. Age does not mean experience.
I counter your Kos argument with the Nani argument that Fergie turned Nani into an overrated CR7 wannabe into one of the most dynamic midfielders in the league. Nevermind that he has one of the best assist rates as well as double digit goals.
Nobody plays like Berba at Arsenal? Is that why Arshavin is one of the highest paid players at the club and why he’s been at the club longer than he’s been good? Arshavin sure is a defensive box to box beast isn’t he? His left back sure appreciates when he loses the ball, sets up a lounge chair and reads a magazine until the ball comes forward again.
Once we were up 3-2 with 5 minutes to go why are we playing the same game? Why aren’t we trying to hold what we have instead of trying to rack up the scoreline? It’s still 3 points whether we win 1-0 or 100-0 but no Arsene wants goals goals goals, not wins wins wins
Why are we playing the same game with 5 minutes to go and 3..2 up ? Because Wenger does not do tactics … he never has. And nobody can give him any advice. We go over this over and over again. Expect the same next season.
Do Wenger’s disciples not understand. He had so much success in his earlier years because he inherited a ready made, tough, experienced defence. Perhaps the best defence the English league has ever seen. Since he broke up the 2nd great team … we have never looked like doing it. 7 years and more to come.
1.We have a manager who has completely lost the plot
2.A bunch of overpaid average players
3.A board that are afraid to sack Wenger
4.Arsenal football club are no longer worried about what happens on the pitch only the profits
5.Apathetic fans who do nothing and are allowing the board and manager to get away with it while lining the boards pockets
Wow. Some very myopic and irate (not unlike their manager Wenger!) Arsenal fans on here. Here’s my what we learned today:
1. we learnt that in spite of their complaints, Arsenal still get the better of the refereeing. Two blatant penalties for Norwich missed in the 1st half, both Benayoun and (the quite dreadful) Ramsay could (should!) have been sent off, and still they moan about one apparently missed pen that should never have been given anyway because Gervinho – clearly interfering with play – was offside as the ball came into the box! Get some sense of perspective here – the officials are generally awful and not out to get you specifically, so deal with it!
2. Holt proved again why he should go to the Euros. An absolutely handful for Arsenal all day and now has goals against the Gunners, Liverpool, Man U, Chelsea and Newcastle to his name. Simply has to be picked ahead of so many others both on goals and performances.
3. Arsenal would do worse than to replace Wenger with Lambert… (I hope not though!!)
1) Wenger is stubbornly adamant about using Ramsey. He is only good in jugging around
2) Wenger is better as Director of Sport or Business Manager, not coach
3) Arsenal would fail woefully if they go to Europa
4) Arteta has no subtitute in a team as big as Arsenal – sad
5)Podolski can do nothing if more players are not brought in
maybe its time for wenger to leave … getting top four is not enough but it has been his minimum… whats the excuse if we do not get that? And how sloppy have teams been? Can we expect liverpool to continue to stink, or chelsea to have another nightmare, newcastle and spurs to improve? Missing europe would be a doomsday scenario for us, we would fall far behind our competitors, players might go. Wenger has to take the blame for that, he always says, judge me in may.
Very poor squad … When the players are tired, who do we have to change things? Wenger doesn’t play ox, instead he insists with the same team who fail… they get tired and more susceptible to injury.
1st team not good enough .. We lose cesc and nasri and didn’t replace them. Arteta has been good, but nothing near cesc and with him for most of the season we were still 6-4 for most of it. Song is not a dm, aaron has either been massively over used to point of fatigue or is just not there yet, ros and van has gone of the boil as of late and benny is so so … decent defense but so so clueless at times they make school boy errors.
Standards of referring in this league is atrocious
And what we already know…. we have bottled it once again. Come tomorrow we may be 5th and out of it.
I’m not sure if Wenger has noticed that ever since Liverpool fell out of being in the top four they’ve had very little success getting back in the club and staying in the club.
He’s become complacent and taken top four for granted but the clubs around him are stepping up while he thinks he doesn’t need to