The Hits Just Keep On Comin' - Sagna Breaks Leg

^^err probably the same as the arsenal fans who were shouting vile things to adebayor, us to adebayor, spurs fans to judas campbell......do you see a pattern? its what people do at football you moron(right or wrong)

Wishing you a speedy recovery Bac. I thought i would be more worried but I am not. Jenks will just have to step up. Can he do it? Well we are about to find out whether the qualities AW saw in him will come out.

initially I thought he had done his ankle ligaments, which of course can be at least as bad, but irrespective of his injury, I genuinely hope he gets fit soon. you will miss him badly in my opinion.

jlyid - I wish we were mediocre, I genuinely believe as it stands we're worse than mediocre. In 2011 our league form has been nothing short of relegation standards. I keep telling myself I'm just being overly cautious, but the longer this goes on the more we have to consider the possibility. I know some people will think I'm talking ********* and say we're to good to go down (and I do believe that myself), but we've been saying that we'll turn the corner for 8 months now. And I just don't see when it's going to get better.

Rocky - you know, the worrying thing is all the portents suggest we won't turn it around: no cohesion in our team play. offensively or defensively; too many injuries to key players; squad players not good enough; a lack of belief amongst the players. I look at Arsenal under Wenger and honestly it all looks as though it's gone stale. I can't see him turning it around with this set of players and his current philosophy. We look a really ordinary outfit and you just sense we've lost the momentum and real belief that we're a big club with serious ambitions. Sadly, I predict it will get worse, coz I don't see Wenger changing any time soon. Next summer he'll say 'Oh well, last season had exceptional circumstances with Cesc and Nasri leaving and our tough start to the season'. Up until yesterday I genuinely thought we could get 4th place. Now I'm convinced we won't.

Arsenal the pride of london

rocky there is no way you are going down i know you have been poor but you wont and cant go down there will be no NLD and that would be awful we all love that fixture. we played poorly yesterday but there arent many teams going to come to WHL and dominate the midfield for spells like you did yesterday. and i think the 2 results against city and utd are hiding just how good we can be this season so there are positives to take from that game for you. take your arsenal hat off for a moment and forget it was spurs you played yesterday and look at the players on both sides if that was the same players at lpool or utd would you expect to win at there grounds?

damiano_tommassi the difference between the goal we conceded and your goals yesterday was we could go to a plan B to tighten up-Take VDV off you guys have not got a plan B its just knock the ball around in Midfield all day looking pretty but having no end product anymore!! its a sign of the times my friend when we are confident enough to let you overload the midfield against us, and we still create clear cut chances all the game. Prehaps people are right saying Wenger wants to concentrate more on the defensive side??

GV - Jenkinson isn't being blooded at 16, and he is playing well. I don't see a need to criticise the boy because he's been good so far, and early in his career. Playing in a less established and settled side will make it a little harder for him than the side that Cesc grew up in, agreed - but what's your point? That unless we have 10 excellent, established players to play alongside, we shouldn't play young players? Shall we pack it all in and go home? Don't start me on pundits... firstly, they generally talk nonsense and repeat cliches - everything's either the best ever or the worst ever - and if you're talking about two players who had a reputation as part of the greatest defence ever, what do you expect them to say? What exactly do you mean by 'team is not set up defensively'? how well set-up were Spurs when they conceded? how much of a shift was the great VanDerVaart putting in at the time? Which brings me to...

WSE - two problems with your post. Firstly, the goal that Spurs conceded was poor defensively, as no-one got near our central defender as he walzed down the wing to put a cross in, and then there were Arsenal players queued up in the box to score. if thta's your 'Plan B tighten up' then it's not very good. Secondly, "we are confident enough to let you overload the midfield against us"? Did you not drag on Sandro and then Livermore to close things up?

havent you just answered your own post there damiano? you scored so we switched to plan b and brought on the players you mention and our plan b worked we won

Prits - what the Arsenal players and manager choose to do before, during and after the game is their responsibility, so if the team is flooding forward and leaving the defence exposed, they are responsible for that. Whether you put that down to players, manager or both is conjecture but for me it's ultimately the manager's choice whether or not to do that. I can only presume he wants them flooding forward incessantly, where I personally would prefer to hold bodies back a little.

jljyid - not sure we're talking about the same thing. I was trying to point out that all teams concede goals; when Arsenal concede it's 'the worst defending in the world ever, sack 'em all, the manager is rubbish', but the goal that Spurs conceded was very poor too; no-one's saying 'sack harry, he can't organise a defence'. Someone else answered 'yeah but we've got a plan B' - which is irrelevant. Spurs' plan A yesterday included really awful defending.

I did see one or two 'no, after you' moments. Big cause of that, of course, being that we had three of the back four filled by people who were either new, new to each other, or filling-in in an unusual position. And you could apply that to the centre of our midfield too.

Bit early to say that, isn't it Sajit?

Yeah Jenkinson has had dodgy moments but its not every week he will face the likes of Ashley Young or Bale running at him. I think he looks decent personally.

Here's wishing Bac a speedy recovery. The side will miss him and the grit he brings into our defending.

.I do feel we have not been fair to Jenks who is being thrown in at the deep end when he should be an understudy to, at least, 2 RBs. A lot will depend on how much he wants to prove something; he looks a very good lad who is happy just to put on the shirt but may not have the confidence of his team mates, which can be disruptive in defending. He will step up to the plate if he can get one good game. The key questions are what do we do if he cops an injury before Sagna's return? Should we put Coquelin at RB, as a temporary measure? What impact would such a snub have on the morale of Jenks?

Well, based on recent games, I'm doubtful we'll ever see our first eleven again! But you can't expect a team to perform at its best when the best players are unavailable. It's been a couple of years that injuries have impacted our club; consider Ramsey's development (a year lost, in which he could have been getting closer to Cesc's level), Diaby's injury (mock it if you like, but the guy has massive quality), Eduardo's break (an expensive goalscorer with a great record, that we were unable to get anything out of because he was destroyed by some dickhead), and all of the more minor injuries (like Cesc being out for half a season, Rosicky, Walcott, Vermaelen etc).

"We will NOT , repeat will NOT finish top four this season" - such certainty! If I knew you personally I'd ask you to put your money where your mouth is. We didn't lose to Spurs often, no, but the point is that derbys play differently to other games, and unusual stuff can happen.