Premier League 2013-2014

[arcadianagain]

Note to Josie Maureen Ho: there are hard tackles and downright crippling ones, Mikel`s was one of the latter and he was lucky to stay on the pitch. Arsenal must learn to play with the conditions, ie not their usual brand of quick accurate passing, but adopt Chelsea`s plan to kick everything in sight, be it ball or player.( Bring on the howls of protests)
Happy Christmas to all, well nearly all!!!!

[caller]

Heh-heh!

That Mikel challenge certainly divided opinion! Graham Poll reckoned yellow (he did after all get the ball first) and Gary Neville, who dissected it second by second on Sky, put it down to two players, eyes on the ball, fully committed, going in with boots at the same height, with Arteta basically getting there fully, rather than glancing the ball as per Mikel, to win the ball. If that had been Chopper Harris, Arteta wouldn't have got up, yet alone be okay to carry on playing!

There's some really negative stuff about Mourinho in the press today, saying he played for a draw, I thought we played to win and should and would have done had Willian been crisper with his final ball. We created far more than Arsenal. I was actually far happier with this performance than many others. Now if the happy one can somehow blend Oscar and Mata into that 11, and buy a new striker, or get Lukaku back, I'd be really happy!

And Happy Christmas to the Spud army, wiser gooners, the solitary Manc and (near) scouser - as well as all the others that frequent this thread!

[redzonerocker]

I thought the Mikel challenge was a yellow too, but i can't understand how Rosicky & Walcott both got yellows for pretty tame challenges & Mikel didn't

As for chances, chelsk always looked dangerous on the break but apart from the Lampard shot there wasn't much to shout about except a couple of tame efforts.
Giroud had a couple of chances late on & there was one cleared off the line from a corner.
We really should have had a pen in the first half but that's Mike Dean for you

All in all a fair result & a tough game played in atrocious conditions.
I got the sense that both sides were more determined not to lose than to actually go for the win.

I think Mourinho is attracting a lot of flak due to some of his after game comments.
If he's taunting us for overreacting to tough challenges, he needs to look at some of his own players first.
Ramires & Azpilicueta were embarrassing on a couple of occasions.

[Zidane]

A Merry Xmas to all the sports fans on the forum and to native Thai speakers and Scousers,"Melly Clitmutt."

[arcadianagain]

[quote="caller"]Heh-heh!



There's some really negative stuff about Mourinho in the press today, saying he played for a draw, I thought we played to win

Of course he did, taking off his only striker and putting on a defender with a long time still to go

[caller]

Of course he did, taking off his only striker and putting on a defender with a long time still to go

Now now arcadian, have you been overdoing it on the Christmas sherry again?

The happy one swapped like for like twice and then in the 87th minute, replaced Torres with Luiz, so hardly a long time to go - there was 3 minutes of added time. I think at that stage it's worth cutting your losses and Torres was shagged out after running around a lot, not necessarily very much with the ball, but he ran around a lot!

[arcadianagain]

What! no comments on any of the recent matches? Maybe everyone is like me, hoping for the best but fearing the worst. Having said that, so far so good for the Arsenal, and they said it wouldn`t last until the new year. Experts eh?

[caller]

Most of us on here support teams who are now on the up again - Arsenal, Spuds, ManU, Chelsea - so not much to moan about, but I thought BaaBaa might be on here screaming and shouting! Although Southampton have slipped away a bit and the 'Appy 'Ammers are just keeping understandably quiet, this is for them:

[arcadianagain]

Only Ray Winstone could wish a Merry Christmas with menaces.
And another thing, could tv producers please stop showing close-ups of Sam Allardyce`s ugly mug, chewing gum like a thug, and make him do up his tie.

[Terry]

Happy New Year Manure fans........

[dtaai-maai]

As far as the game itself was concerned, it was hardly a classic, though never boring.
Man U looked far the most likely for the first 20 mins, but Spurs were always threatening on the break. Having 2 up front is providing so many more realistic goal-scoring opportunities, and Adebayor had another good game, working really hard.

Spurs 1 up after half an hour, probably against the run of play, but 2 good chances missed to go further ahead before half-time.

Man U seemed to lose interest for the middle half of the game (if you see what I mean...), and Spurs were defending well and generally in control. When they went 2 up after an hour it should have been all over, but careless defending from the restart and a well-taken Wellbeck goal put the Man U tails up.

Still, we managed to hang on. Old Trafford is no longer the fortress it used to be.

Soldado is still not showing any indication of being worth what we paid for him, nor is Lamela, and now I see we're selling Defoe - we're obviously oversupplied with decent strikers who are being hidden from public view... I wonder if there's any more money in the kitty for January?

[Zidane]

Happy New Year Manure fans........

Moyes is obviously keeping his best team under wraps for the games against the big clubs like Olympiakos !
Happy New Year.

[GLCQuantum]

Very happy with the win of course...

Man U players really need to stop diving all over the place trying to con refs. The 'hairdryer' aint there anymore so that tactic's not gonna work that well for them.

...and as for Moyes.

[PeteC]

Arsenal is now in trouble with Bendtner and Giroud out, which brings me to my point if there is a website giving a concise and accurate listing of all injuries by team prior to match day? True, I may have asked this in prior years but can't find any reference. Pete

EDIT: Cancel request. Found it by switching search engines from Bing to Google.

http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_ ... _table.php

[arcadianagain]

[quote="prcscct"]Arsenal is now in trouble with Bendtner and Giroud out,

Arsenal have been "in trouble" since before the season even started. Just wait til we start getting out of trouble