re: Arsenal 2013/2014 Season Long Thread

if we didn't concede the second leg last year, we won't this year. we could have gotten a result if not for the red IMO. clear red, though. no complaints. they were much more in control of the situation than barca was yesterday after city went down to ten.

FA Cup is our only real shot at silverware. at least sanogo has shown he can give Giroud a breather. hugely important to get 3pts this weekend. i think Ozil and Ox will get a breather this weekend and Santi and Gnabry will start.

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Still pissed at Mesut

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meh

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And Arsene for playing for a draw against Napoli...I had given up on CL before today...Pleased with Sanogo's development. Hope we can win FA Cup... and make a title run

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Agree on all points. Defeating a City side in the final could be tough. Need Ramsey to get healthy fast, and also hope Glass Gibbs isn't out too long.

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Soooo hold out hope for FA and League titles?

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We got no favors in the FA Cup draw. If we go all the way it looks like nothing but EPL teams on the way to Wembley.

Before the red, I was super impressed with our performance.

At full strength I think we can take Bayern at home. Missed Walcott and Ramsey in the worst way. Bayern are good but we were so wasteful again and again in the opening frame. We score early the game opens up. Oh well. At least getting knocked out of the CL ensures us a top four spot, in all likelihood.

best recent development: sanogo looks really promising and is already pretty good.

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best recent development: sanogo looks really promising and is already pretty good.

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For a young player of his stature he has really good control. It will only get better. And yes, of course he is French and was free.....

i pretty strongly disagree. i thought he was very good to start, then down a bit after the PK. he was playing very well again until the red card. afterwards, he was playing LW (LWB would be more correct) and he isn't good defensively. not to mention being forced to stay wide severely hampers his offensive ability because much of his movement is negated (which is why i disagreed with the idea of he wide and santi centrally). he was bad in the second half, but he wasn't put in a situation to succeed.

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Y'all think Santi should have stayed in?

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it's a tough call. honestly, hindsight being 20/20, i'd have withdrawn sanogo. we couldn't get him involved at all. ozil could have played the false 9 and been given more space to work with and minimal defensive duties. if wenger's thought was to keep our best offensive player on the pitch, that would have probably been the best method. otherwise, yeah he probably should have come off. gibbs' injury hurt a lot. i bet we would have doubled up on the left with he and monreal had there not been an injury earlier.

Mesut was awesome early, minus the missed PK.

I'm most disappointed for Jack. He was on the verge of a stellar performance before the red card.

The result today wasn't terrible considering the context. Not terrible at all.

Talking with a buddy today, and truth is, we're a couple years away. We need Theo and Ramsey healthy and on top form. We need Ox and Jack to continue to improve. We need to keep our defense intact and find the replacement to Arteta.

If/when those things happen, we can compete for a CL title. We're not far off. You can see the positive steps being taken.

We are and aren't that far from being one of the top teams in Europe.

If we buy 3 to 5 players, our young players continue to develop, and Walcott can recover his earlier form, we have a chance. The game was really even before the red card, and with a more clinical player in front of goal we could have scored two goals. It is what it is. Bayern didn't press all that intensely, and when they did we dealt with it well. The difference between last year and this year was absolutely stark. Hopefully we can recover.

That's not a bust-up. Ozil was clearly frustrated. He's been frustrated many times this season. He's a player that came from one of the top clubs in the world to a team that is still (and seems to perpetually be) a project. I hope we match his ambition in the summer, as I can easily see him leaving us for another team if we don't match his vision.