while i'm in posting happy mode, check out this awful challenge by the Rangers player tonight....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdkT1e4-Vt4

Arsenal
Ajax
Dinamo Zagreb
Granada
Man Utd
Roma
Slavia Prague
Villarreal



Weve got a real chance now. If we could avoid united, Roma or Ajax in Fridays draw we have a real opportunity

As inconsistent as we are, Arteta has proved that he knows how to get the players to perform against good teams. He has beaten Man City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd, Tottenham and Leicester, with a couple of the wins ranking as our best performances under him. There is definitely quality in sides like Man Utd, Roma and Villarreal, but we can beat them all if we turn up.

“I don't think it's fitness, tactics or lack of confidence, we're just a shower of cun.ts”

After winning in Athens it should have been a walk over at home looked that it is almost impossible not to progress to the next round. But not with our team we can manage to make our supporters blood going sky high.
I have the feeling from what I could see and read after the game that some of the our players had the attitude that it is enough just to turn up it is all over let get paid and go home.
We were dreadful all over the pitch –I don’t want to mention names but our midfield was completely off the pace.and our forward line was just as bad.
Olympyakos isn’t the type of team who will just give up without a fight we should have learned from last years result
I know I should not say but I will. I am sick of listening about stories of Aubameyang My question is only does he want to play for Arsenal? With last night showing it felt like why did he bothered to turn up at all..Unfortunately he is not the only player with problems.
I did not like to read some of Leno’s dressing room comments..
We have some problems and unless Artea will stop talking and do something positive we will go nowhere.
I am sure my late son Steve would share my sentiment.

There's a fair few pages but here's the end of the Zagreb thread....

https://thefightingcock.co.uk/forum/thr ... 6/page-110

"Like someone else said, i'm still getting over the Spam game & the Arse game and now this."

There's a small minority turning on Kane as well. Lol.

It's been a while since I've seen so much lazy defending than the sperz team defense. Second, now I understand why Bale was on the outs at RM. He's mentally uncommitted. Whatever he is going through its coming through on the pitch. Maybe the pressure cooker that is RM, maybe its just his character, whatever it is, he's fried, done, stick a fork in him.

Do you think the DVD ‘Miracle in Zagreb’ will be a big seller in at least one part of North London.

We are in a good position to get to at least the semis. I'm not as optimistic as others as to our chances. We are the 2nd biggest club of all the clubs left. Ajax has a better European pedigree but in terms of following we're much bigger globally and I'd even say in Europe.

That said, I don't think we are visibly much better than some of the clubs. We should be able to beat Zagreb, Villareal, Roma, Prague and even Ajax. Granada is the only club I feel very confident about. And I don't think we'll beat Man Utd over two legs. (if its two legs next, not sure, too bothered to look it up).

So, "should" beat the teams mentioned but its going to be tough. I think are marginally better over 2 legs going by our season thus far. We've been fortunate. We really haven't played any very tough sides.

Hoping for the best but not expecting us to win it. I'd love for us to. I've not seen us win a European trophy yet.

Agree with you 100%

I love seeing the kids play and would love to see Mikel using them more. No-one should be bigger than our club.

The interesting thing for Spurs now is what happens to Kane and Son. I’m amazed teams haven’t really tested Spurs resolve before. When you think Real Madrid signed Hazard when they could have got Son for the same money.
Spurs have a huge stadium to pay off. A years worth of covid massively impacting their earnings and now a team unlikely to make it in the CL and massively reduced earnings from this years foray in Europe. Their wage bill has also really caught up with the other big 6 teams. On top of that they have a manager who demands more money and spending and will cost £35m to sack.
But hyphen have spurs missed the boat to seriously cash in on Kane? Why go for Kane when Haaland is available for potentially less money. And which clubs even have the sort of money Spurs will demand for Kane and Son. If either decide they want to move on I think spurs are going to have to accept reduced fees or force them to stay. It is similar to what happened to us, when players ask to leave it immediately knocks millions off their price.
To think Spurs sacked their best manager in 50 years to get in bed with the devil.

On paper we’ve got a good chance against any of those teams left. Man U would be the only ones who would be favourites if we drew them. The trouble is that there really are some good teams. Roma, Ajax easily better than what we’ve faced. Watching Zagreb as well, some of their one touch interplay was wonderful last night.
If we play like we did last night against any of them we’d have more of a mountain to climb.

Partly left out of the Ghana squad due to the covid restrictions he’d face having to quarantine. Good news for us.

I fully agree. If we get Manchester United in the next round they will be favourites to reach the semifinal, although we are more than capable of beating them. We would, and I think should, start as favourites against any or all of the others including Roma and Ajax. Avoid all of those three and it’s a kind draw for us even though at our worst, if that was last night, we could struggle against anyone.

EDIT: But at our best, I think we’d beat all of them except Manchester United. Them at their best would probably beat us at our best. But them falling short of their best, and by that I don’t even mean worst, and us at anywhere near our best, and I don’t necessarily mean at our very best, then I’d fancy us to beat them.

Unfortunately, last night's diabolical performance is just so typical of Arsenal in recent seasons. On our day we can beat anyone but so too can we produce the kind of inspid, lacklustre performance we saw last night.

Olympiacos are a mediocre side yet we did our best to allow then to remain competitive in a tie that should have been over after the first leg.

We literally could not string two passes together until Ødegaard came on and he's not even our player.

I think we have to face facts with Pépé, he's never going to be the worldbeater we hoped for. Too many times he gets the ball in promising positions only to miscontrol the ball, misplace his pass or take the easy option back to Bellerin. Yes, he can produce moments of absolute brilliance but the consistency is not there. I just don't think he possesses the footballing brain to take full advantage of his undoubted technical skills. Last night should have been a game for him to shine in and dominate.

Bellerin just seems a very average RB these days, not the pacy, dynamic fullback he once was, even though I do think that before his injury he was a little overrated. If PSG want him for £25m then I'd snap their hands off.

I am not sure David Luiz is the answer at CB if we want to win the competition. Too many lapses that will be punished by better opponents.

Overall, I think out inconsistency will be our downfall in the Europa League, as it is the the PL.

Hi Rich,

Every team left in the competition is flawed in some way or they would be in the CL. However, we shouldn't underestimate teams just because they play in a lesser league or we haven't seen much of them play. We are as flawed as anyone else, capable of finding a way to lose any game on any given day. Look at last night.

Hi John. I’m pretty sure that Steve would have plenty to say about the current situation.

Last night was a really bad performance, but I think too many are judging it in isolation. The second leg of a cup tie will always depend on what happened in the first leg, and with us winning 3-1 away there was a mountain to climb for Olympiakos. It doesn't matter how well the players prepare or how much they get paid, that fact will be in the back of their minds. We saw what happened to Tottenham and Milan who had good results in the first leg, and didn't show the right hunger and energy last night. Had the first leg ended in a defeat, you would've seen a different Arsenal, I'm sure of that.

I understand your point but my problem is that the team appear to have a superiority complex when they play teams lower down the league like Burnley . They just think they have to turn up. The same cruise attitude displayed last night. We have to change this culture if we want to compete. I would have thought Aubameyang would have run himself into the ground just to redeem himself after theNLD. He is part of the problem not the solution.

Hi Haz,

That would be the glass half-full way of looking at it. Conversely, the glass half-empty viewpoint would suggest it was just another one of a significant number of bad performances this season.

Hi Gaz,

Aubameyang is an enigma. There are few players in the world you would have wanted on the end of those chances more than him last night but when he doesn't take chances he brings little else to the party, especially out wide.

I quite like Ødegaard, he has a lightness of touch reminiscent of Özil but works far, far harder.

I think keeping him will be difficult because (if Real would even be prepared to let him go) we would have to spunk a huge amount on him and maybe that money would be better spent across a few positions rather than on one player.

I don't think we should pay any attention to last night's poor performance.

Aubameyang will be back.

Teams that have good leads from first legs are always stuck between stick or twist. Its hard not to be cagey and unless you have a team that is expert at getting clean sheets, that is massively dangerous, as Spurs demonstrated last night.

The like of Olympiacos, Benfica, Zagreb, Molde and Slavia Prague are not top notch. But as Leicester and Spuds have discovered to their cost and our amusement, they are not pushovers either.

We've been good enough against this sort of team. I'm confident we can up our game against the likes of United if need be.

Even so, I'm sure the glass half-empty viewpoint would be very attractive to the bereaved Tottenham faithful this morning.



Hopefully the wheels will fall off completely now and they'll end up outside the top 7.

I really like him too. Sometimes players just seem to fit well irrespective of individual ability. Last night showed the importance of having him or Smith-Rowe in that No.10 role. Although I've said before I think the traditional No.10 role is pretty much gone, so much more is expected of the player in that position, they need to work as hard as box-to-box midfielders, be excellent in the high press and be able to drift in to wider positions as well as run past the striker. They can't just be that player who 'just' plays the final pass but has no responsibility for the defensive side of the team.

I think our best chance with Ødegaard is another year on loan - especially if Real Madrid do their usual trick of wanting shiny new signings rather than growing what they already have. Signing him permanently might be difficult even if Madrid want that shiny new player because they'll need to raise some significant fees.

Ceballos also is not the answer. If you look at his two years critically you could count his really influential performances and moments on 1 hand. Even for £15m I wouldn't make Ceballos a permanent signing.

Last night showed us where the problems are in the squad. Central midfield needs an overhaul. Ceballos and Elneny are not the answer. We need to be able to control games better in the middle of the pitch.
When we play Bellerin/Pépé on the right it just seems like a combination that never works. Both work better with other partners

At the end of the day though, Olympiakos needed three goals and they were never really close to scoring two. In fact, 4-1 could be argued as a result more reflective on the game than 0-2 with the chances we missed. So I'm prepared to cut the team some slack for last night, considering the job was done. A good performance and win against West Ham, and they could sort of argue they were right to conserve a bit of energy.

We are way, way too inconsistent to think a tie is over, no matter the first result. My fear is we get a decent size, play them away to a draw or even a win and think its over.

I don't get the level of optimism by some fans based on our season. I am far more sober minded about our chances. Of course, on the day, I'll be hoping (and praying) and thinking we can do it, no matter who, even Man Utd, but as of now, I don't see us winning it. I think we'll get lucky to get to a final if our inconsistency remains.

Last years 2 final FA cup wins were totally unexpected. The football gods smiled kindly on us. We need to put a squad in who is going to do the hard work, the grafting, the running without the ball, filling gaps, pressuring the man with the ball. It's going to take that and to do it the rest of the competition while still trying to win every league match to move up.

It's a huge ask and a huge task that a few of us think is easier than I see it from where I sit, but maybe I'm too pessimistic?

As of now, I'll give Liverpool the edge over RM. Just my gut. No statistical reason, purely gut instinct. All else will say RM, I just see Liverpool doing something here. Winner of the BM vs PSG will end up against City in the final I'm guessing. BM may be better tactically, but I'm rooting for PSG...with my nose held. City should go through, they got lucky.

Europa League draw:

Granada vs Manchester United
Arsenal vs Slavia Prague
Ajax vs Roma
Dinamo Zagreb vs Villarreal

Granada/Man U vs Ajax/Roma
Dinamo/Villarreal vs Arsenal/Slavia Prague

Not a bad draw that. Not that any game is easy for us.

It's a great draw. We should get to the final and with a bit of luck Man Utd could go out in the semis

If we meet Villarreal in the semifinals then we would come up against Unai Emery.

Indeed. We shall have two good ebenings.

As good a draw as we could have hoped for. Avoiding Man U until the final where I think we'll have a much better chance of beating them in a one off game than over two legs. Also avoiding Roma and Ajax from our half of the draw.
No easy games but we've avoided the tougher ones I'd say. No reason to believe we'd be anything other than favourites to get to the final

Delighted with that draw!!
Definitely prefer our side than utd side of the draw.
Skavia Prague no pushover though.
Hopefully Utd can get knocked out by Roma or ajax if they get past Granada.
Surely if we are focused we should get to the final

If we are focused. Hmmm.