Here we go fine fellow Gooners. Time to play at our very best and get back into the champion’s groove!
The BFG returns to control and the defense, Coquelin to firm up the midfield, Alexis and the Ox on the flanks with Ollie on top. Let the battle begin!
Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, BFG, Koz, Nacho, Le Coq, Rambo, The Ox, Das Ozil, Sexy Alexis and Giroud.
Come on You Rip Roaring Gunners!!
Join us on the live blog.
By TotalArsenal.
Arsenal: Cech, Bellerin, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal ,Coquelin, Ramsey, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Ozil, Alexis, Giroud
Arsenal substitutes: Ospina, Chambers, Flamini, Elneny, Campbell, Walcott, Welbeck
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160214/team-news-welbeck-on-the-bench#L5E2fyDs0FVGihFi.99
Gabriel has a knock…
Good to see Coquelin back in situ…
Good to see Danny back in the mix
COYG!!! Bright start to the game by Arsenal and Alexis!
Leicester just keep making small fouls to disrupt us, but good energetic start by the Gunners
I don’t have any confidence, whatsoever, in Martin Atkinson…
‘Morning boys…
Wow…Great play by both keepers… Vardy behind the lines a bit too easily…
Supe save by Petr.
Morning 17
Hi, TA…
That offside call was tight…like the earlier one for Okazaki…
Linesman will not give us benefit of doubt today
Good open game
Morning 17
Listening to the radio, sure sounds an end to end game…
Koz and Nacho working hard but final pass too rushed at times
How good has Ollie already been?
We started the brighter, I think, but their threat on the counter is very, very evident…
Oooh….Great pullback for Alexis but blocked… Good corner but Huth does enough and Giroud can only head over…
Morning Kev, you working this morning?
Atkinson is infuriating, what a cock!
Hi, AK… There are a lot of very quick players–for both teams–and it seems all very high risk, esp. trying to play the ball out of the back…
Giroud puts it in their net but flagged offside…
Hi Total, no mate, at home…
Almost by Ollie, lovely ball by Mesut
Ah no Sky then Kev?
17, it sounds like a classic EPL game, you attack and then we’ll attack…
We need a big game by Alexis
Yellow for Coq…late on Mahrez as he tapped it away on the break…
Le coq on yellow for a simple foul… Fecking unbelievable
Alexis is shaking off rust it seems
No mate, or BT…
Atkinson happy to book Coquelin, but seemingly ignores Leicester transgressions…
Business as usual from Atkinson
We’re winning corners… Huth grabbing Giroud’s kit on that one… Just need to get one in the net…
They move it very nicely from one end to the other…Cech forced to give them their first corner…
Alexis intricate playing it out but we get it done…
Yes Kev, disgraceful
First half flying by… Indeed it doesn’t seem we’ll get any favors from the refs/linesmen…
Oh my… Penalty on Nacho…
1-nil Leicester… Vardy…
Replay shows that Vardy got the touch but could easily have avoided the contact… Dodgy, IMO…
Just had a look at our penalty shout, to me Kante moved his arm towards the ball.
Penalty to me…
Can we just give a MoTM to Atkinson and move forward? That cretin is doing us every bloody time.
At the start of their move Morgan climbed all over Ozil…No call… Kos took out Kante (got yellow) Vardy made his own contact, Pen…
Now Ramsey gets a yellow… The ref is against us, but we’re late quite a bit too…
Kante handball is obvious but a call that you only get if the ref likes you…
Half time…
Yes Admir couldn’t agree more. What an absolute twat Atkinson is. Should have been Agee kick to us on the edge of their box. Before the twat penalty .
Important we keep our heads now. Is it three of our players booked?
When the twat realises what he has done,, hopefully he will feel a tiny bit guilty and give us something in return
Thierry Henry is my top man, but he has just gone down a notch in my opinion
Just seen their penalty, Monreal maybe shouldn’t have stuck his leg out, but Vardy just ran into him and fell over, no penalty to me…
Atkinson is a serial cheat…
Very tight game both of us in it, but Leicester gave that little bit extra to win the penalty. Extra mental strength when it counts. Lets hope we can show that next half.
Whether a foul or not you carry on and keep your focus. Easier said than done though with the refs form playing on our minds also perhaps.
I would replace Le Coq with Elneny. We need balls forward.
I don’t mind so much about their penalty but the fact Ozil had been fouled before that.
Come on, boys, turn this around!
Kos off. Chambers on as the 2nd half kicks off…
Mahrez wants another pen but,this it’s not given…
this time… I meant…
Wow… Finally we break their lines and we’ve gotten both their FBs on yellow…
Argh, Giroud heads over…
Simpson gets 2nd yellow… LC down to 10… Grabbed Giroud’s arm…not very smart…
That was never a sending off it Atkinson feeling guilty for being a twat
Kante now avoids yellow…but then gives it… Just no control of the match at all… Mahrez sacrificed, with Le Coq giving him a shove for taking his time…
One hour done… Now Okazaki off for Gray…And Theo on for Le Coq…
This is wacky stuff now but we’ve got to get balls in their net…
Good to see the Arsenal crowd pressurising the officials, the kind of pressure we’re on the receiving end of at Anfield, Stoke, etc…
Not happening…yet… Theo breaks through but nobody to get on the end of it… Now, Alexis off side… C’mon boys!!!
Advantage being poorly applied by Atkinson…
THEO!!!!!! 1-1
GREAT knockdown by Giroud…
Gooooooooooaaaaaallllll theo
Oooh…Replay shows Drinkwater put a leg-breaker on Ramsey…
Flying shot by Giroud comes off another Leicester arm but Ramsey has to do better from the rebound…
Not a good finish by Alexis there… Good movement from Ozil to set him up…
LC still present danger on the counter… Kante well wide after 4 defenders converge on Vardy…
Geezus… Alexis whiffs a shot…
Rambo curler wide… C’mon fellas…
Final changes… Ox off, Welbeck on…
Last Chance…
WELBECK!!!!
2-1 Arsenal
Full time…
YEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What a gem of a pass from Ozil
Top drawer and well hard earned 3 points.
I need to get my sleep first, so good night here.
Cheers,
Jk
Phew!
Match report
Atkinson screws up big time
Half time Atkinson realises everyone knows he has over done it and feels a little guilty
Second half Atkinson books everyone in a blue shirt and evens things up
Oh there was a football game as well.. Wenger making quality substituons
Just ‘wow!’.
Season saved.
Again, working this morning here in HouTXUSA, DVRing the match and following your running commentary 17HT.
Can’t wait to queue it up and watch shortly!
Thx again.
jw1
Danny Welbeck, super sub extraordinaire 😃
Wow, I almost gave up hope. Well deserved and what a necessary boost to the team!
Its hard to take for Lester fans, hard blow for them, but well, gap cut to 2 points and we have to take it into our hands.
Thanks HT for the commentary! 🙂
“Extra mental strength when it counts. Lets hope we can show that next half.” Tick. 😀
A bit too early out here for good commentary JW…
Geez, we left that late…Really, really late…
But, in the end, we did it…and survive to fight another day… 😀
Atkinson was an absolute disgrace. I am not angry often at a game but he made me scare both wife and daughter. The sending off was soft and indeed a leveller, but the boys played until the end.
Yes Retsub, the subs were spot on.
T A. It’s been a long time since I got so animated. If he had given the Mahrez penalty I think something might have been thrown at the T V. If Alexis had been on his game today, I think we would have ripped them to pieces
Fully agreed on rusty Alexis, Retsub. He wanted it badly but it was not his day. What a strike force we had at the end though!
17, thanks for the commentary. I had to leave the living room and watch on IPad so could not blog at the same time.
Great work 17…
Cheese in a bucket Total…
Lata
That doesn’t sound good, TA, but it was quite a spectacle how Atkinson lost control of things… To me it seems to happen in a lot of English games–too much desire to keep play going, no matter what… If he makes that call at the start of their move which leads to the pen it’s a completely different (and better) game…Then, at half time, he must have looked at the replay and contrived a way to even things out…
JW1 🙂
Am jealous of you. You can watch a brilliant thriller whilst knowing the good outcome- enjoy!
Something in a bucket, Kev. 🙂
Yes 17HT, it was not good. 😦
Catch you all around the Citeh game. Maybe do another live blog then as it is another crucial game for us.
Yep T A and we are going to need it. As well as taking all the points, we have given Leicester confidence a good kicking. Am pleased that Chambers looked solid. Last time I saw him he was awful.
Just goes to show how important a little bit of luck (or dodgy inept ref) can play.
We probably just need to be extremely thankful that, at the very end, we were able to claim the full points. Because of the reffing, there’s not all that much we can take from the game, however…
That said, our MF, even if we started brightly and moved the ball pretty well, reverted towards more dribbling (and less passing) quite quickly, I thought. Maybe it’s just that Ox, Alexis and Ramsey all seem to like those extra touches whereas I prefer to see the ball doing more of the work… Late on, with Ozil dropping deeper we looked better, but still lots and lots of trying to run through defenders w/the ball…
Just my impressions, so I’m keen to hear others…
Sturridge gives Pool a lead at Villa…
I really don’t like wishing for draws, but I think that will be the best City v Spurs result. Lots of red card and injuries (not serious) will do nicely
Happy Valentine all..
Happy extraordinary Valentine Gunners..
Firstly, kudos to Wenger for making the right calls. Big impact from all three substitutions. (I do think that it’s too early to expect Danny’s firework despite well-taken goal though).
Secondly, Atkinson was crap. He should have given a free-kick for Arsenal before their penalty. That means a penalty and three yellow cards for our players shouldn’t have happened. Also, he was weak. Once our players applied pressure on him to give (deserved) yellow cards to Simpson, he made calls he should have made at the first place.
Alexis’ finishing was poor but he worked his bottom off. Ox also gave a positive performance.
Full-backs, as I predicted, played a key role in the final third.
Big victory. 🙂
New Post 🙂
Agreed with a lot there, Admir, which is reflected in the new post 🙂