Arsenal's title credentials...

Il Prete Rosso

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Dumbstar said:
So far my predictions for Arsenal seem to be coming true, starting with Dortmund:

Dortmund - strong team but lose
Chelsea - second XI and lose
Liverpool - first team (barring injuries), rested, and win
Dortmund - first team (barring injuries), tired, will lose
Man Utd - first team (barring injuries), knackered, will lose

IF the above bears fruit Arsenal would have come away from their 'first real testing period' with only three league points to show from it. Could Wenger have done anything more? Well yes. He should have concentrated on the Carling Cup game and used the weekend against Pool to rest key players (Ozil, Mert, Ramsay, Giroud). Would then be fresh going into Dortmund Part II.

This is all a BIG IF, just how I'm seeing it. Obviously, Arsenal could defy all that and win every single game. There's no denying Arsenal's first XI is the best in the country on current form.
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Rubbish! Even though they haven't won any silverware within the past few years, winning the League Cup does absolutely nothing for them in the transfer market or getting them into the Champions League. Their squad is paper thin at the moment and you're suggesting he focus on a lesser tournament when they're top of the league and full of confidence? That's not wise my friend. And for arguments sake, let's say they did focus on the League Cup, win it and because of their thin squad, eventually came 5th in the league and got knocked out of the Champions League. What good does the League Cup do for them if Wenger needs to buy another top player in the transfer window...Nothing.

And their loss vs Dortmund was hardly a blow out. It was an even game and they deserved a point.
 

jem

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It's hard not to admire the team Wenger has assembled. If we don't win it, then I'd have no problem with Arsenal taking it.
 

Sphaero

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alastair said:
I'd rather we rested a couple in Dortmund if it meant we could go to United and smash them off the park and plant our flag on the half way line.
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So, you are ready to leave the points in Dortmund before the game has even started? This may sound arrogant, but there is not a single team in Europe that can afford to rest players vs. us and at the same expect to take something back from there. Our home form is impeccable and we are traditionally very strong on our own pitch on the International stage.

Wenger will obviously field his strongest XI on Wednesday, because a loss would have at least as much if not more consequenses than a loss at Old Trafford. It would very likely transform the last group game in Neapel into a knock out match they can´t afford to lose. This is a very hard game in itself surrounded by games vs. Everton and City in December. It would also likely mean that you will advance as 2nd from the group behind Dortmund, which would automatically mean a very strong opponent in the round of 16 (as of right now one of Bayern, Atletico, Real, Barca and Paris) and if I look at the dates (first game after United and second game between Swansee and Spurs), this does not look so pretty either.

The game on Wednesday has a pretty big significance for both teams so no team will hold back in any form.
 

alastair

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Sphaero said:
So, you are ready to leave the points in Dortmund before the game has even started? This may sound arrogant, but there is not a single team in Europe that can afford to rest players vs. us and at the same expect to take something back from there. Our home form is impeccable and we are traditionally very strong on our own pitch on the International stage.

Wenger will obviously field his strongest XI on Wednesday, because a loss would have at least as much if not more consequenses than a loss at Old Trafford. It would very likely transform the last group game in Neapel into a knock out match they can´t afford to lose. This is a very hard game in itself surrounded by games vs. Everton and City in December. It would also likely mean that you will advance as 2nd from the group behind Dortmund, which would automatically mean a very strong opponent in the round of 16 (as of right now one of Bayern, Atletico, Real, Barca and Paris) and if I look at the dates (first game after United and second game between Swansee and Spurs), this does not look so pretty either.

The game on Wednesday has a pretty big significance for both teams so no team will hold back in any form.
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I'm not actually suggesting we rest players - I'm just worried that Wenger will not be able to pick certain players at United if he plays them in Dortmund.

At the end of the day, we're going to struggle to win the CL. We're not the best team in the competition. If we finish 2nd, it means little to me. That fight will be between us and Napoli on the last day, I'd imagine.

It should be a wonderful game. I actually think we'll cause you more trouble than we did at home because we play better away on the counter attack. Still, a tall order to go and win there.
 

Dumbstar

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Il Prete Rosso said:
Rubbish! Even though they haven't won any silverware within the past few years, winning the League Cup does absolutely nothing for them in the transfer market or getting them into the Champions League. Their squad is paper thin at the moment and you're suggesting he focus on a lesser tournament when they're top of the league and full of confidence? That's not wise my friend. And for arguments sake, let's say they did focus on the League Cup, win it and because of their thin squad, eventually came 5th in the league and got knocked out of the Champions League. What good does the League Cup do for them if Wenger needs to buy another top player in the transfer window...Nothing.

And their loss vs Dortmund was hardly a blow out. It was an even game and they deserved a point.
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I think you're jumping too many pages ahead with that statement. Maybe you should spoiler it. ;) Dropping 3 points against Liverpool would not have been a disaster for a manager who I can't remember ever finishing out of CL places. Strategically though, the Liverpool game was the best place and date to rest players (and not the Tuesday prior against Chelsea). But that's my opinion.

I think Dortmund and Man Utd (who are finding their verve finally) will beat Arsenal. And the only place key Arsenal players would have had a rest was....yep the Carling Cup game many moons ago.
 

Mister Ed

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I don't think Arsenal will win the title. Not because it is Arsenal, but because they lack squad depth and because they also lack quality players. Right now everything is running like clockwork for them, they got an amazing boost with Ozil (similar like we got a boost with RVP, great players do that to a team), they have a solid team that plays well together, they have the luck that we, city and chelsea all changed managers and are going through a tough transition period and that they got a very easy start to the season so they could pick up alot of points. However the season is still very long and alot of that can change.

First of all we, City and Chelsea will all significantly improve, i can't imagine this transition period to keep on going until the end of the season. I still believe that we, City and Chelsea have more quality players and more squad depth than Arsenal aswell and that will start showing at some point. Arsenal will get more difficult games and altho they will have high confidence to go into these games, it will be alot harder to get the points everytime, we'll see how they cope. I also think it is inevitable that at some point they will run into a bad form, or will have to go through a period of bad luck (also possibly injurries to key players). At that time you need consistency and squad depth to help you through it, and i don't believe Arsenal have enough of that to win the title. I also don't think Wenger will strenghten come January, but i can see us and City and Chelsea do so (defiantly if the league situation hasn't changed).

I think City and Chelsea have the best chance to win the league, they have the best players and once both managers have established themselves at their teams i can see them overtaking Arsenal at some point, once that happens i think Arsenal won't be able to bounce back and will fall back to their usual position in the league. I think United can also overtake Arsenal, but only if Moyes manages to do significantly improve the performance and only when we strenghten in January in the midfield and defence, else i think it will be a difficult season for us.
 

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alastair said:
I'd rather we rested a couple in Dortmund if it meant we could go to United and smash them off the park and plant our flag on the half way line.

If we can make it through this next week, the vast majority of the players should get rests for the next fortnight.
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Same here. For me the league is finally a realistic target and so should be the priority. CL is always a bonus but I'm quite sure we can't win the thing and we aren't as dependent on the money as we were before. I'd take not making the knockout stages if it meant we had a strong, well-rested squad for the League and the FA Cup. Despite the FA Cup not being that big a deal, I still love it and winning it always means something for the fans.
 

cesc's_mullet

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Grinner said:
Same here. For me the league is finally a realistic target and so should be the priority. CL is always a bonus but I'm quite sure we can't win the thing and we aren't as dependent on the money as we were before. I'd take not making the knockout stages if it meant we had a strong, well-rested squad for the League and the FA Cup. Despite the FA Cup not being that big a deal, I still love it and winning it always means something for the fans.
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I agree with you... The league and FA Cup are realistic targets that we should focus on.
 

RedRonaldo

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NoArroJusBeta said:
I don't think Arsenal will win the title. Not because it is Arsenal, but because they lack squad depth and because they also lack quality players. Right now everything is running like clockwork for them, they got an amazing boost with Ozil (similar like we got a boost with RVP, great players do that to a team), they have a solid team that plays well together, they have the luck that we, city and chelsea all changed managers and are going through a tough transition period and that they got a very easy start to the season so they could pick up alot of points. However the season is still very long and alot of that can change.

First of all we, City and Chelsea will all significantly improve, i can't imagine this transition period to keep on going until the end of the season. I still believe that we, City and Chelsea have more quality players and more squad depth than Arsenal aswell and that will start showing at some point. Arsenal will get more difficult games and altho they will have high confidence to go into these games, it will be alot harder to get the points everytime, we'll see how they cope. I also think it is inevitable that at some point they will run into a bad form, or will have to go through a period of bad luck (also possibly injurries to key players). At that time you need consistency and squad depth to help you through it, and i don't believe Arsenal have enough of that to win the title. I also don't think Wenger will strenghten come January, but i can see us and City and Chelsea do so (defiantly if the league situation hasn't changed).

I think City and Chelsea have the best chance to win the league, they have the best players and once both managers have established themselves at their teams i can see them overtaking Arsenal at some point, once that happens i think Arsenal won't be able to bounce back and will fall back to their usual position in the league. I think United can also overtake Arsenal, but only if Moyes manages to do significantly improve the performance and only when we strenghten in January in the midfield and defence, else i think it will be a difficult season for us.
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My guess is Chelsea would win the league this season, but much depends on our result against Arsenal next week. If we loss we will be 11 points behind and it's not even Christmas yet, and that would give them a big psychological boost that could prove to be a catalyst for them to go all the way this season. However if we win that would leave the league wide open again.
 

crappycraperson

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RedRonaldo said:
My guess is Chelsea would win the league this season, but much depends on our result against Arsenal next week. If we loss we will be 11 points behind and it's not even Christmas yet, and that would give them a big psychological boost that could prove to be a catalyst for them to go all the way this season. However if we win that would leave the league wide open again.
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Chelsea could still be only 5 points behind even if Arsenal beat us. I think Chelsea will be there at the end. Both us and City need to go on a run starting now. We can't afford to fall back too much.
 

Wibble

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I predict a top three that you would expect with Arsenal 4th and Liverpool 5th.
 

Balu

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I still don't understand why so many call Arsenal's squad thin. United is at least as dependent on Carrick staying fit as Arsenal is on Giroud, if not more. And if one of Evra or Rafael misses a game, United really struggles in the build-up from defense, even if Carrick is playing and so far it doesn't look like there's a single decent backup available for one of them and playing a centerback out of position didn't really work for quite a while, so an injury to Evra or Rafael would also be a big problem. Is that really a better squad, more balanced and with more depth in key positions? Arsenal also has quite a few versatile players who can perform on a very good level in several positions, which is always a great sign for squad depth, there's Rooney who fits that description, but other than him it's questionable how many versatile players are at United.

What's in my opinion the most interesting about Arsenal this season is, they look like the only English topclub that really wants to include some of the things that made Barca, Bayern and Dortmund so successful in recent years. It's probably still too early to compare them with United, Chelsea and City because Wenger clearly started implementing this idea of football a while ago and just added a few missing pieces in the summer while the other top teams have new managers, but so far Pellegrini and Mourinho look like they try to build teams like they always did in the past and I'm not sure if that'll lead to a tactical advantage anymore if we look at recent performances in Europe and I've honestly no idea in which direction Moyes is going with United. Maybe Arsenal won't win the title, maybe this idea of football isn't suited to English football and won't get as many good results as it would in other leagues, maybe Wenger again fails to find a way to grind out a few results in which Arsenal isn't playing good, which is necessary to win the league. But there's so much improvement in Arsenal's squad compared to the last 3 or 4 years while all the other top teams have still a bit unbalanced squads that don't suit their manager's ideas perfectly, that I find it strange that so many on here still expect that the season will play out as it always did in the past, I really don't understand that.
 

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Balu said:
I still don't understand why so many call Arsenal's squad thin. United is at least as dependent on Carrick staying fit as Arsenal is on Giroud, if not more. And if one of Evra or Rafael misses a game, United really struggles in the build-up from defense, even if Carrick is playing and so far it doesn't look like there's a single decent backup available for one of them and playing a centerback out of position didn't really work for quite a while, so an injury to Evra or Rafael would also be a big problem. Is that really a better squad, more balanced and with more depth in key positions? Arsenal also has quite a few versatile players who can perform on a very good level in several positions, which is always a great sign for squad depth, there's Rooney who fits that description, but other than him it's questionable how many versatile players are at United.

What's in my opinion the most interesting about Arsenal this season is, they look like the only English topclub that really wants to include some of the things that made Barca, Bayern and Dortmund so successful in recent years. It's probably still too early to compare them with United, Chelsea and City because Wenger clearly started implementing this idea of football a while ago and just added a few missing pieces in the summer while the other top teams have new managers, but so far Pellegrini and Mourinho look like they try to build teams like they always did in the past and I'm not sure if that'll lead to a tactical advantage anymore if we look at recent performances in Europe and I've honestly no idea in which direction Moyes is going with United. Maybe Arsenal won't win the title, maybe this idea of football isn't suited to English football and won't get as many good results as it would in other leagues, maybe Wenger again fails to find a way to grind out a few results in which Arsenal isn't playing good, which is necessary to win the league. But there's so much improvement in Arsenal's squad compared to the last 3 or 4 years while all the other top teams have still a bit unbalanced squads that don't suit their manager's ideas perfectly, that I find it strange that so many on here still expect that the season will play out as it always did in the past, I really don't understand that.
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Great post!!
 

Brophs

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It's pretty unusual for us to be going into a game against Arsenal thinking that they can, if not put us out of the title race, leave us with such a massive amount of ground to make up that it would be extremely difficult to see us closing the gap.
 

Ole's_toe_poke

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When was the last time we went into a match with Arsenal as underdogs. It's been a long time.

Maybe we can get Phil Neville to play and do a man marking job on Ozil ala Reyes.
 

The Mitcher

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Ole's_toe_poke said:
When was the last time we went into a match with Arsenal as underdogs. It's been a long time.

Maybe we can get Phil Neville to play and do a man marking job on Ozil ala Reyes.
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We have won here at OT against them for a while, its just abu's and arsenal are the new love in for the press. We aren't going to lose the way Liverpool did (even if it was away, they should have played better).
 

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Dumbstar said:
So far my predictions for Arsenal seem to be coming true, starting with Dortmund:

Dortmund - strong team but lose
Chelsea - second XI and lose
Liverpool - first team (barring injuries), rested, and win
Dortmund - first team (barring injuries), tired, will lose
Man Utd - first team (barring injuries), knackered, will lose

IF the above bears fruit Arsenal would have come away from their 'first real testing period' with only three league points to show from it. Could Wenger have done anything more? Well yes. He should have concentrated on the Carling Cup game and used the weekend against Pool to rest key players (Ozil, Mert, Ramsay, Giroud). Would then be fresh going into Dortmund Part II.

This is all a BIG IF, just how I'm seeing it. Obviously, Arsenal could defy all that and win every single game. There's no denying Arsenal's first XI is the best in the country on current form.
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What the feck is this shit? Out of 6 league points, they've taken 2, gone out of a carling cup which will save them from additional matches in the season and one they generally can't give a shit. Rest the players against Liverpool in the league to play in Carling cup. What are you smoking man?
 

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Ole's_toe_poke said:
When was the last time we went into a match with Arsenal as underdogs. It's been a long time.

Maybe we can get Phil Neville to play and do a man marking job on Ozil ala Reyes.
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Man marking? Man fouling. Man hacking. Man criminal acting.

You're not underdogs. It's an even game. I don't know what tactics you'll employ though - if you lose, 11 points will be really difficult to make up. A draw would at least keep you in it. It'll be interesting to see what happens after 70 minutes. We'd happily take a point.
 

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It's set up for us to tear them apart I believe. First 20 minutes of the Fulham game gave us a climpse of what we should be expecting this season. If Moyes gets the tactics right, I wouldn't be worried at all.
 

alastair

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Jacob said:
It's set up for us to tear them apart I believe. First 20 minutes of the Fulham game gave us a climpse of what we should be expecting this season. If Moyes gets the tactics right, I wouldn't be worried at all.
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Fulham have the worst defence in the country. This will be a different challenge.
 

gasmanc

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alastair said:
Fulham have the worst defence in the country. This will be a different challenge.
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I think both sides face a very different challenge, it's going to be tense from my point of view (as a united fan) oddly different from the overconfidence I felt prior to our City game.
Not felt like the underdog against Wengers men in years but Sunday I will, wish you lot had your wish and had him sacked TBH.
 

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It's funny, only last season we dominated them at Old Trafford and got a 1-1 draw at the Emirates despite being hungover. Now they are going to destroy us, apparently.
 

alastair

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gasmanc said:
I think both sides face a very different challenge, it's going to be tense from my point of view (as a united fan) oddly different from the overconfidence I felt prior to our City game.
Not felt like the underdog against Wengers men in years but Sunday I will, wish you lot had your wish and had him sacked TBH.
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Well that's a rewrite of history.

People didn't want Wenger sacked, on the whole. They wanted Wenger to change.
 

cesc's_mullet

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Wibble said:
Based on Arsenal always fade. And I said predict not prove anyway.
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I'm not talking up or chances here, but the last two seasons we have absolutely stormed home.

Obviously we were in a different situation then and we had no choice but to finish strong. It will be a different feeling around the club this time and it's a different kind of pressure. But still, the last two seasons we have finished extremely strong.
 
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