Pundits View - Sevilla v Arsenal

Might be worth a fiver at 40/1!!!!

i'd go for 13/5.. i got a feeling anybody who comes in is going to grab his chance to prove himself.. be it dudu or bendtner.. and likewise for others like senderos.. traore.. diarra to name a few.. and seeing the fact that sevilla themselves are not exactly running through a great patch of form.. i think we can win this one....

what an annoying ref

*****im refferee gifted them that second one

Senderos 'sigh' ffs, is it a coincidence we find ourselves a bit short defensively on his return !?

when toure leaves we will need more cover for sure

other than that im loving eduardo and bendtner

SENDEROS

our defense was *****e

Is it just me or were the sev crowd a bunch of cnts, all they did was boo and it doe my nut in :(

Another thing...Almunia isn't a bad keeper. He's just not world class. He could be the difference between us making that final leap to champions.

I only hope Senderos isnt seen as a short term replacement for Kolo, surely the thinking was Djourou to do this role, hence getting 6months first team football with the brummies

bert will be fine its defensive cover that was exposed today...we have people crying for starting spots in all positions rightfully coz they would be starters on most teams (e.g. bendtner in front and diarra and bert in the middle) except for defense. other than that to play the young guys in sevilla was a tough ask and the result reflected that but wenger made the right decision this was not a must win. the more i see bendtner the more i like the guy he'll be a superstar in a short time

Yep Senderos wasn't good this evening, but he's a big monster of an engine just like Campbell was, and we all know that big engines require some fine tuning. Remember when Campbell used to come back from injuries he was never great, but given a couple of games he'd soon be back to being the rock.

we missed the fight of billy tonight in my opinion, that man has been a revelation this season

gilberto just signed his contract at Delle Alpi with that performance. Senderos... rock? come January, Wenger should do a "buy 2 get 1 free": Sendo+Gilberto for 10 mil + u get lehmann for free. Djourou HAS to be recalled or we HAVE to get a CB. If Gallas (god forbid) is injured while Toure is away, well we're A TAD thin at the back.

Diarra should definitely have been playing instead of Gilberto.

Now is the best time to play the likes of Barca and Milan. Both are shambles.

G4L, you're right, I'm not scared to face Barca or Real now either. But the knockout stage starts on 19-20 Feb. ACN only ends on 10 Feb. Let's pray Kolo and Eboue (and defence is exactly our weakest link, as you guys say)come back unscathed then. Now I'm even keen to keep Song in the squad. To be honest, I hope Arsene doesn't give him enough games to build up his credentials for a Cameroon call-up. Every defender will be important then.

Sorry G4L, but I honestly beleive that misplaced faith in Senderos will come back and bite us on the arse big time should we let him go. In the unwritten law of defence, he's still 5 years away from even entering peak form and in my eyes, he's a scary enough right now. Add another few years of experience to his game and a beard and f*** me, I wouldn't want to challenge him!!! Okay he's not first team right now but we're better with him than without him.

for once i am not bothered, it was a nothing game, we have already qualified, i am not gonna lose sleep over it.

It's very easy to criticise the coach for picking an understrength team but it was a claculated gamble and a worthwhile one for me. We have ten games in December, seven of which are away from home. Wenger was p[laying the percentages, I'll take finishing second in this group if it means we are still top of the league in January, and I'd rather have lost last night than lost the Villa game, or lost a fatigued player due to injury. The chances of injury increase rapidly with fatigue. We won't see whether this was a correct gamble or not for a good few months yet, but I think it was worth it. Wenger has spoken in the past about letting competitions get away by being too greedy and exhausting his players too early. If you want to win the CL you have to knock out the big sides, and frankly, we're in a title race and if we're gonna get knocked out of Europe, it might as well be in February as April. Of course it hurts to lose, but it's impossible to keep playing game after game without resting players, now was the right time to do it and I'm disappointed to see such a hysterical reaction to one defeat in a game that wasn't overly crucial.

Cesc could be out for a couple of weeks by the looks of things. And some of the reactions to players on this site are at times bordering on the frenzied! The Villa game is of much more importance.

Its good to have some of the reserve players given a go. I agree with Wenger's decision, coz it cost us last season. Seville outplayed us, and they were the better side, no shame in losing to such a side. The defence was sloppy overall, but not that bad for us to start getting really worried. I've backed Senderos in the past but he should start eliminating his mistakes. My patience is wearing thin with him.

You can see why Arsene took the gamble. A win away at Villa would mean more than winning this game. Still, disappointing that the defence under-performed as it did. It was a make-shift group, but Hoyte was out-classed and Senderos singularly failed to cover himself in glory (again). If we keep our league form up though then I can live with not winning the Champs League.

Don't get too despondent people, remember when the team were still gelling - we still beat Real and Juve, so all's not over till lampard sings! We had to lose sooner or later - sometimes losing is a good motivator. I'd rather lose a game that doesn't mean as much then lose a prem game, and am glad that most of the first team are more rested. Remember, Arsene knows, he keeps proving that!

LD, I don't see any hysterical reactions to that result at all. If you mean some people are disappointed because we lost, then fair enough, but just because others view of Wenger's decision is different from yours I wouldn't call that hysterical. As for talking about the Villa game as if we had already got a result is some what presumptuous. Just because Arsene rested players yesterday it doesn't mean we will automatically go to Villa Park & win or draw. Anyway, my reaction is not only based on last nights result. I believe Wenger should have played his strongest team against Prague in a game we would have won, that would have meant we could still finish top despite losing in Seville which was always a real prospect no matter which players Arsene selected, (obviously it would also have depended on us not losing by 4 goals, which was unlikely). After the Prague game we weren't playing Reading until the monday night so there was plenty of time for players to recover. Arsene gets very little wrong, but he has screwed this one up, if you win your first 3 group stage games you should go on to win the group. He knows he messed it up, which is why he lost it on the sidelines & got himself sent off.

AG, in your logic, even if AW played best 11 in Prague doesn't mean we'd win. Especially in those conditions. He hasn't screwed anything up as we are sitting pretty in all competitions.

G4L Sendoras has more exp in the prem than Toure?????????

R7, AC Milan will win their group so Sevilla wont draw them. If we finish 2nd in the group then Wenger has messed it up, our only hope of then getting an easier draw is to hope marseille or porto win Liverpool's group. However should Liverpool do their usual & come through to win it, then our choices will be limited to AC Milan, Inter Milan, Barcelona or Real Madrid. Anyone saying they don't care where we finish the group is so short sighted its unbelievable. Why do you think we have been in the top seeds each season?? Should we get knocked out in the next round (which would be consecutive seasons) we stand every chance of being in the second pot of seeds next season, meaning a harder group. Its also funny how the people that are on here saying how we have to play hard teams at some point so why not play them now, are exactly the same people that whine & moan when we draw a premier league team in the early rounds of the league or fa cup. Surely the principle would be exactly the same!!............R7, maybe you should do a poll & see which trophy the fans would rather win, the league or the champions league because I would rather win the CL & be in with the elite clubs rather than consistently be known as an also-ran!! I reckon it would come out near to 50-50!!

There is a distict lack of bell ends / spuds here telling us we are on the way down etc etc etc... regardless, we have already qualified so I could care less who we get next, we need to beat a top team at some point so why not sooner rather than later? And besides, I want the premiership title, the CL is secondary in my opinion

AG, what I'm saying is that we won't see whether this gamble will pay off or not until around Feb or March time. It's impossible to say he's screwed it up, just like it's impossible to say he got it right. The fact is, this defeat might lose us our momentum and confidence and we lose at Villa. But it might be that the rested players have more of an edge and beat Villa, it's a calculable risk, what I'm saying is that I can see the logic behind it, totally. We've achieved our objective and qualified, of course I want to finish top, but I'd rather be top of the Prem in the new year. The question of momentum is offset as we are *****ing in the wind if we think we're not going to drop points in December, ourselves Chelsea, United and Liverpool will all drop points somewhere. The month ends with away matches at Pompey and Everton, two of the hardest games you could wish for in a busy time of year, and if the players are slightly fresher for it and we can limit the amount of points we drop over December, then I'm all for it. It might yet blow up in our faces, but I know that Wenger has made mistakes in the past by going all guns blazing for everything. Like I say he's playing the percentages, we're also going to definitely lose players to injury over December, if we can limit the prospect of those players being Clichy, Adebayor and Gallas then I'll go for it. As you point out, it's no certainty that they won't get injured in the next game anyway, it comes back to those percentages again. I think Wenger's made an informed decision and I totally understand it.

Glad you cleared that one up there AG. We'll get Barce, it'll happen. And We'll win, cos we're Ar-senal

hey if you ask any other team out there who they would hate to meet in the second round!!! i bet you 9/10 times its arsenal (coccky but true). if we end up second, everyone who lands top will be sheeting themselves... i hope we meet italian teams coz we seem to run them into oblivion...bring on AC Milan next this is a cup competition not a league for me its all or nothing so i dont care who we meet...i just want to win the CL not get to the semis, quarters or anything like that so i wouldn't care less

AG - AC Milan was obviously an example, I think you know that. My point is that we can draw anyone, no matter where we finish. And we have a massive amount of games coming up and players need to be rotated. I don't think Wenger made a mistake in Prague, the team he sent out should have easily been able to win, it's the players, if anybody, who were at fault.

and to my knowledge, last year we had a great draw (PSV), played the first away, 2nd home and lost. CL is a competition where you just play whoever comes next and you try to beat them. Our young squad is bound to be more motivated, pumped up and ready to deliver when they play Barca, Milan, etc. rather than Porto. And LD is absolutely spot on with the assessment on the decisions to rest players. We had Pool and ManYoo then coming up, now we have a couple of tough away games against an in-form Villa side and against a struggling Newcastle, managed by one of our favourites.

We are arsenal with a good run with injuries we can beat anyone Senderos needs to go he shouldnt be wearing that shirt back up CB in january is of utmost importance

AG, u can find a hole in every argument. The argument of finishing first in the group so we can get an easier draw doesn't wash either since, as I said, we had a relatively 'easy' draw last year and we still screwed up.

AG, I won't be moaning about anything, let alone a 'massive european team' in the group stages. As far as I'm concerned, CL is a competition which ALMOST everyone with decent quality can win it, regardless of their opponents in the qualifying, group, or knock-out stages. Compared to the powerhouses of Europe there have been relatively average sides who have won it (Liverpool and Porto as such) or on the brink of winning it (Monaco, Leverkusen). Since it is here and now as you say, and since you have no crystal ball that can tell you where we will finish in the group (1st or 2nd), who we will draw and how will we fair against that mystery team, I suggest we draw this one to a close.

Early days with the poll AG, but far more fans want the Premiership than the CL ;). Lets see if that turns around in a few days.

G4L, your comment re the CL is not sound at all. I will come on & make a public apology to you if Arsenal win our champions league group, however I don't need a crystal ball to know that won't happen, so its not speculation. As for my comment that we were rubbish last season, its easy for you to pick out one period of time we were doing ok, however seen as we were as great as you have professed we were, then tell me how many trophies we picked up?? Or why don't you tell me how close we came to winning the title?? Its also strange why you didn't pick the period of last season when we lost to Man City, Fulham, Sheff Utd, Everton, Bolton or the time we took a hammering at Anfield!! My point is that anyone can pick out a fact to distort an argument. Using your logic, arsenal must be one big pile of s*** right now, because if AC Milan & Barcelona are 'dross', yet both are leading their CL groups (& both are in much more difficult groups than us) infact in Barca's case they are undefeated in the competition, so what does all that make arsenal?? Of course though your not referring to the CL, you must be claiming they are dross on their league form even though Barca are only 2 points off top place. So assuming you are basing it on their league form, then you have just contradicted yourself. I can't be bothered to explain how or why because this whole discussion is boring me now. If you do need to know though I suggest you re-read your last comment & in particular the bit about arsenal & last season!!