Just Arsenal News

As the season comes to a close, I feel it may be time to give your Arsenal player ratings for the season (I don’t want to think about tomorrow’s game to be honest!) It’s been a funny old season, with some players starting poorly and improving, some just not performing and some playing very well. Others have been wildly inconsistent.

Anyway, feel free to disagree, but here are my ratings for the season. Unless someone bangs in two hat-tricks for the Gunners in the last games, I doubt they will change. .......Read the full article here

Tottenham nabbed a last minute winner against Stoke yesterday to keep themselves in with a chance of nicking the last Champions League position from Arsenal, and believe that Wigan are in the perfect frame of mind to cause an upset at the Emirates tomorrow evening.

Wigan may have won the FA Cup, but now they are fighting for their Premiership survival, and the Spurs boss Andre Villas-Boas thinks that they are primed and ready for tomorrow. AVB said: “Obviously there is great emotion and motivation going through the Wigan players’ heads at the moment, and we saw the message from Dave Whelan saying they are absolutely focused.” .......Read the full article here

To borrow a phrase from the retiring Alex Ferguson, it really is squeaky bum time for Arsenal. Tottenham got yet another result they barely deserved at Stoke today, which means that the Gunners are now sitting outside the Champions League places in fifth position.

Spurs now have 69 points, two more than Arsenal, so we absolutely must beat Wigan Athletic at the Emirates on Tuesday. It will definitely go to the last day of the season, whatever the result against Wigan. The Gunners have an away game at Newcastle, while their North East rivals Sunderland travel to White Hart Lane. Both of those teams could need a result to guarantee their Premier League safety, depending on how they do today and how Wigan do on Tuesday. .......Read the full article here

Wigan won the FA Cup for the first time in their history yesterday (take that Ca$hri!) but their manager, Roberto Martinez, will not allow the players to celebrate just yet as they have another Cup Final coming up on Tuesday against Arsenal. Nothing less than three points will be enough to save the Latics from relegation, and Martinez is making sure his team stays focused by ordering to turn up for an iced bath tomorrow morning!

Martinez said: “From a physical point of view I don’t know how quickly we can recover from this. We are playing on Tuesday against Arsenal with a squad where we have six or seven players missing through injury. .......Read the full article here

So in the end, as our goalkeeping seer Wojciech Szczesny predicted, the Spuds didn’t have the quality to overcome a Chelsea side at Stamford Bridge for the first time in 23 years – although a few Arsenal hearts must have been beating extra fast when Bale, who had been kept quiet for most of the match, lined up to take that edge-of-the-box free kick deep into injury time. But there was to be no late Bale-Out on this occasion.

The result puts Arsenal’s fate back into our own hands with only two games remaining, but realistically rules out any chance of snatching third spot, barring a Chelsea collapse. .......Read the full article here

For once a game has produced the result that gives Arsenal the advantage in the race for the Top Four, and may even give us the chance of nicking Third Place back from Chelsea as well.

Chelsea totally dominated Bale FC in the first half and Oscar’s opening goal seemed inevitable, but the Blues missed an amazing amount of chances to put the game beyond Spurs reach. When Adebayor pulled an equalizer out of nowhere it looked like it could be Tottenham’s lucky night. .......Read the full article here

Sunderland and Stoke draw is good news for Arsenal by FD

This is a particularly unpredictable end of season at the bottom of the Premiership. Recent results have dragged teams who probably considered themselves out of danger only a few weeks ago back into relegation contention, and tonight’s share of the points between Sunderland and Stoke City didn’t help to make the situation any clearer.

But at least this result is in Arsenal’s favour, and is some consolation for the couple of results that didn’t go our way at the weekend. .......Read the full article here

It is an often used adage in the world of football that goalkeepers have to be a little bit crazy, and the Arsenal keeper Wojciech Szczesny can certainly tick that box on his c.v. You have to love him, though, because he often comes out with things that most other players would not dream of saying, whether they think it or not.

Another reason we Gooners like the Polish international is because he really feels for the club. He joined the club as a boy and has been a Gunner for seven years now, often declaring that he would like to stay at Arsenal for the whole of his career. He backed Arsene Wenger and the club ahead of his own father recently, after Szczesny senior cticised them when the keeper was dropped. .......Read the full article here

If Arsenal finish 5th….what should happen? by NS

I’m a glass half full kind of chap (honestly!) and I feel we still have a good chance of making top 4, but what if we fail?

Wenger has, to his credit, always got us in the top 4. It does seem that the club’s priorities have changed from winning titles to getting top Four (Wenger trophy!).

Personally, I’m a Wenger fan but even I admit that 5th should be curtains for him.

Why? Well, 5th was on the cards when you sell your only experienced defensive midfield player and fail to replace him. .......Read the full article here

Scoring too early Cost Us by Dan S

While watching Arsenal’s game with QPR I was amazed at the criticism the team was receiving from Gooners on Twitter and Facebook. Such was the extent of negativity that many seemed less confident of us finishing in the top 4 then they were before the game kicked off at Loftus Road.

Given QPR’S problems this season clearly many assumed a convincing win once Theo Walcott opened the scoring after just 20 seconds. But if anything it was too early for the Gunners to score. With the home side already relegated the biggest danger we faced yesterday was taking our opponents lightly, scoring so early, guaranteeing almost no atmosphere around the ground meant that’s exactly what happened. It almost became too easy for our players which meant we lost concentration and took our foot off the pedal, something which has been our achilles heel this year. .......Read the full article here

It seems that things are conspiring against Arsenal and their challenge for a top four finish in the Premier League. The Gunners are doing their bit, with six wins and two draws from the last eight league games, but results elsewhere keep going against us and we are running out of time.

Tottenham have got seven points from the last three games, when it looked like they would get nothing out of any of them for most of the games. They are now sitting just two points behind Arsenal but they have a game in hand. That game in hand, against our other Champions League rivals Chelsea, is played at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday. The outcome could be crucial as to which two teams gran the last two spots. .......Read the full article here

In the second half of the season, many Arsenal fans were clamouring for Lukas Podolski to be given more time on the pitch, then when he was finally reinstated to the starting XI, the calls started for him to be given the chance to replace Giroud as the out-and-out centre-forward.

Now the fans have finally got what they want but, but after two matches as the main striker, suddenly Podolski is making Giroud seem like he is a natural goalscorer! So the experiment doesn’t seem to have worked and Arsenal are struggling to score goals again. Many pundits have been trying to excyuse Podolski with the rumours that he is set to have some surgery on his ankle in the close season, but Wenger denies that and has vowed to give Podolski time to develop in the central role. .......Read the full article here