Stoke 2-1 Arsenal – 01/11/08 – (Premier League) 2 November, 2008

We must beat Stoke in a week to forget – lasagnechef

“This game at Stoke has come at a perfect time. They will be difficult to beat and it will take some spirit, which is exactly what we need to show right now.”

“I don’t think the players will be down in the dumps. I think they will be really up for this one and keen to prove a point. Stoke should be worried, we will be angry.”

“I’m really interested to see how we play tomorrow. The players will know the fans are upset with them and they will know we will be looking for a reaction.”

Well I got my answer. A heap load of fucking shite.

I, along with a lot of other people were looking towards this game expecting something from the team, and the manager. Were we going to fight on, give everything to go for this title like they keep talking about or were they just going to carry on with that same attitude. Well if you saw the game, it was well and truly the latter.

Gallas didn’t start the game, but if anything we learned yesterday that we can still be shit and spiritless without him. Arsene started with an odd team which had me worried from the start:

Almunia
Sagna – Toure (c) – Silvestre – Clichy
Denilson – Fabregas – Song – Diaby
Adebayor – Bendtner

You know the team were bad when I had to just double-check that starting 11. They were that anonymous. They created fuck all throughout the game and defended like amateurs.

I was expecting a reaction from Arsene Wenger, he was angry after the Spurs game so I was looking towards the starting 11 to see a reflection of that. But no, it was the same old bollocks.

I mean, what kind of a midfield is that? Obviously Cesc starts, but what the hell is that around him? How can Cesc play his best game when he has those three to work with.

Song – shows potential but not good enough. Denilson – not good enough yet, a piss-poor and frankly lazy replacement for Flamini. And, Diaby – played well since his comeback but he is not a fucking left-winger, poor game for him yesterday.

So with that around him, Cesc had a poor game too. You cant just expect Fabregas to play his very best week-in week-out and everything will be fine. That’s the impression I’m getting from Wenger at the moment. We’re heavily relying on Cesc at the moment. He needs support. Wenger has let so many midfielders go without replacing them, we all saw it happening, now this is the result of that.

Wenger isn’t stupid, he would’ve known there was a problem. However he just chose not to replace them. It was very frustrating to watch him simply make that decision. Ok, I know we’re not rolling in cash at the moment but the board clearly said that if we needed a player fund would be made available. AND WE CLEARLY NEEDED A FUCKING PLAYER.

We went 1-0 down after 11 from the first long-throw of the game. Delap lobbed it in towards the far post and Toure just let the ball go over his head and Fuller got the slightest of touches to send it in. Terrible, terrible defending from Toure. He made no attempt to win the header, you could see the fear on his face when that ball was coming in and concentrated too much on trying to keep to his man. Awful goal to concede.

These long throws from Delap are fucking lethal, but we would’ve know about them and practiced for them (Or at least we should have done). We didn’t look organized at all and conceded the goal.

There was no reaction from Arsenal. No urgency to get up the other end and pull it level.

We couldn’t create anything. Our best chances were shots blazed over the bar. Frustrating and depressing to watch, not so long ago we could’ve been 4-0 up against a side like this, what has happened to us?

So half time came and something needed to be done. We weren’t working, we needed changes. The most obvious one was Theo Walcott, Stoke were slow and narrow-minded so a player like Walcott would’ve caused havoc.

So what did Wenger do? Fucking nothing. He just did his usual thing of, ‘oh, it’ll be alright, the players will do something I’m sure. No need to panic.’

BOLLOCKS!! We’re fucking 1-0 down to Stoke, being outplayed and creating nothing. How can you just carry on with that shite??!

So inevitably we carried on in the second half with Wenger just standing there. We did have more of the ball in the second half we there was still no inspiration, no penetration.

After an hour Wenger finally called upon Walcott taking off Sagna, moving Toure to right back and Song alongside Silvestre. I thought, ‘right, here we go, come on Theo!’ I hoped Walcott’s energy might inspire the team to get forward and create something. Theo’s pure determination is infectious so at this point I was optimistic.

5 minutes later the hopeless Denilson was taken off and Robin van Persie was brought on and we moved to a 4-3-3. And in the 73rd minute Wenger was forced to bring on Vela for Adebayor when he fucked up his ankle. I wasn’t really fussed, Ade wasn’t great again and Vela would probably do a better job.

Seconds later we’d conceded again. Exactly the same as the first. It was quite incredible really. I thought about switching off at this point because there was no way we were going to come back the way we were playing. But I didn’t, I wanted to see if this side had any spirit whatsoever.

Finally, there was a bit of urgency. So it takes us being 2-0 down to Stoke fucking City with 15 minutes to go for us to show some bloody urgency. Yesterday Hull went 1-0 down to Man United but did they roll over and die? No, they got stuck in, showed some much needed urgency and got themselves back in it.

I’m glad I did stick around though. Long enough to see van Persie get sent off for a fucking stupid challenge. The boy is fucking selfish; we all knew what Robin felt there when he bundled Sorensen over for time-wasting, but you just don’t do it. You show some restraint, hurry him up then get back in position.

He did not care about being sent off. He did not fucking care. That was his ticket out of here, and his way out of the Man United humiliation next weekend.

To add insult to injury. Walcott popped his shoulder again in injury time meaning we had to play the rest of the game with 9 men. Fantastic. He was down for some time so you know it’s not good.

From the resulting free kick we scored a consolation goal. Fabregas took the free-kick and confused everyone squaring it to Clichy outside the box who drove it low into the bottom corner.

I’ve been waiting a long fucking time for Gael Clichy’s first goal and I feel sorry for him that, that was the way he had to score it. That was my only highlight from yesterday, shame we didn’t get to celebrate it properly.

So, there’s a lot to be sorted out at this football club. And January will be a telling time. With Man United, Chelsea, Villa and Man City yet to come this could be a very depressing month.

Next up it’s Fenerbahce in the Champions League. Thanks for reading.