So we ended up losing 2-1 at Old Trafford Saturday afternoon, a score-line which pretty much flattered us, as we never turned up.
But perhaps the most memorable incident of the game came at the end of the first 45.
Despite having a howler at left-back and getting caught out of position on a number of occasions, Andre Santos went over to goal-scorer Robin van Persie and asked for his shirt – a move which left many Arsenal fans and Jamie Redknapp in the Sky Sports studio bewildered, as well as a certain former Gunner fuming.
When asked what he thought about the shirt swap as it happened, Ray Parlour said:
‘I wouldn’t have that, that is a joke’
‘I mean, at half-time? You can do it after the game if you want. But at half-time swapping shirts? He should be concentrating more on his game. It sounds like he’s having an absolute nightmare at the moment
‘I don’t know if Arsene Wenger will look at that situation and maybe bring Koscielny and put Vermaelen at left-back, maybe making them a little more solid.
‘But Santos, he can’t play in the back four, he really can’t. He gets caught out of position so many times. But swapping shirts at half-time is a joke, seriously.’
Personally, I didn’t get it.
Santos was having a mare at the time and to ask for the Dutchman’s shirt at half-time is, like Parlour said, a joke, and disrespectful towards Arsenal and the fans in my book.
Judging by his recent performances and off-field antics, I don’t think he is a player fit to wear the Arsenal shirt, and really hope to see Wenger address the left back issue ahead of the crucial trip to Germany on Tuesday.
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He probably thought he wasn’t coming on for the second half.
I wonder how many Arsenal fans at Old Trafford spotted Santos sucking up to Van Persie.Not many i think,or they would have slaughtered him ,total disrespect for the shirt,and the fans watching the latest debacle in our sinking club.
Thats the result of employing natural loosers like, the bunch of arsenal’s present squad starting with wenger, are all looser. Natural loosers!.
a bit like not being able to spell the word loser!
DUDE IF WANT TO JOIN A SPELLING CONTEST YOU ARE ON THE WRONG BLOG!! WHAT THE F^&K?
Arsenal players are lacking wisdom i think they are sabotaging their Coach . Wenger must go then a tough coach like Gudy will take us somewhere?
You can argue about the shirt swapping – seemed a bit ridiculous but apparently it happens off-camera all the time – but he really wasn’t THAT bad in defence. He let himself be beaten ridiculously easily a couple of times, but overall wasn’t so terrible. The option of replacing him with Vermaelen is nuts though imo. He was far worse on the day and has shown himself to be unreliable in previous games already. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a *good* defender, but he goes through bad patches like this and he can’t be the one undroppable defender out of himself, Kos and Mertesacker – he’s the worst of the 3 if you take the past 2 seasons. Based on this game, do we really consider TV a more reliable option? If it weren’t for the captaincy I’d recommend bringing in Coquelin at LB and Koscielny in for Vermaelen, but unfortunately the decision to make TV captain makes that extremely unlikely and we’re wasting our best defender (easily) from last season.
Trust me if you saw Koscielny in the game against Reading you would think again, simply awful even Djourou looked better than Kos.Once again, like every other year before, for the past three years we have big problems in defense.
“Based on this game, do we really consider TV a more reliable option *than Santos*?”
Even TV made Santos look good. Just like Arsenal made Manu look good.
Arsenal are nowhere as a contender for the top four now, that admittance, and even from the manager himself, shows what “AMBITIONS, THE PROFESSOR” has got as inside his heart (FYI: we are not the Title Contenders anymore). It sucks and frustrate now, that he is running the club for only and only financial reasons, rather than pure footballing reasons.
Arsenal is a club that is known to the world for footballing reasons and not as a money making machine. He is an economist, yet fails to get a simple enough logic in his head right, that when you have the best players at your disposal and with the wining mentality, and also wining trophies every year, money is there anyways. He wants to take the club to a position, where fans out of their desperation ask for Wenger head and he just says, “ IM NOT ABLE TO DELIVER SO I QUIT”, so he quits easily leaving his maters with a healthy bank balances, and the FANS with SCRATCHING HEADS over the Arsenal future.
There is something SERIOUSLY WRONG at Arsenal at the moment, and it is going to explode and may turn the club into a disaster. No spirit among the players, no mentality to win, no desire to do well, it’s not what we are used to looking at Arsenal players in the past. In fact I would like to say that players are so CONFUSED in their HEADS or MADE CONFUSED, that they seems to act on the pitch like there is no reason why they are on the pitch, like there are too much opines and they could not make up their mind.
IT’S TIME TO SPEAK UP OR IT’LL BE TOO LATE
I repeat, I find Parlour’s comments laughable as he was quite simply a third rate palyer. And as much as Arsenal fans may have enjoyed the tough tackling Parlour, he really was little more than that, a ‘tackler’ and I am being generous. Parlour would have had to really defend in today’s game and truth be told, he wasn’t very good. He stopped players by hacking at them time and time again. The rules allowed the Parlour’s of the world to survive in yesterdays game. Today’s rules would have found Parlour and I’m afraid many other English defenders, wanting.
Parlour won the premier league……..
You don’t have a clue do you? Parlour was a key part of the invincible squad! you mug. You have no football knowledge at all. For starters you clearly think that he was a defender. By the time you have read this comment and Google’d him! you will obviously come back saying you never thought that but we can all see that you did. Jog on you ignorant mug! COYG!!!!
Richard are you joking? Parlour a third rate player? Really, that’s why he won so many trophies with the club and scored that beauty in the FA Cup final in 2003. You don’t have a clue mate.
Dude we are talking about Ray Parlour, this is a legend. Do you even know what you are talking about???
Richared = dickhead.
He might have thought the game was over.And who could blame him? Arsenal were outplayed and outclassed.
just look at the dross wenger has bought gerouh £14 million, gervineo £12milion, arshavin £16 million,santos £5million,then you have the rest of the crap, chamack, squillachi,djourou, ramsey,diaby, and beyond that his infalable judgment of goal keepers ALMUNIA ,FABIANSKI need I go on. HE quanders money on second rate DROSS but is answerable it seems to nobody
Firstly, learn to spell the players names. Is Santi Cazorla ‘dross’? He snapped him up for nearly half the price that the cheats payed for hazard! Diaby is one of our best players, I know this because I watch reserve games and unlike you I actually go to our matches. I hate people like you that sit around watching football on the Internet and think you’re some sort of important fan! You ARE NOT! We (the game goers) don’t want or need you, you contribute nothing to the club apart from some comments on a blog. COYG!
1) if you are truly attending matches, you are currently part of the problem. Changes, drastic changes are needed, from Kronke on down.
2) Diaby is one of our best players??, tells me you must be diaby’s boyfriend or you know nothing, or having a brain seizure. The squad is pants, not Arsenal quality, but then you wouldn’t know anyway.