Arsenal News 24/7Writer: Rocky7 
Date:Tuesday December 6 2011
Time: 7:48PM
UK time is: 22:13:03
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Team News: Olympiacos vs Arsenal
Arsenal playing Olympiacos.
I`ve literally just finished at the gym so haven`t got time to write any blarb. Last group game, we`ve won it. Yay. Here`s the teams.
Olympiakos
• 42 Megyeri
• 02 Maniatis
• 03 Modesto
• 04 Mellberg
• 21 Papadopoulos
• 23 Marcano
• 35 Torosidis
• 19 Fuster
• 20 Holebas
• 10 Djebbour
• 14 Mirallas
Substitutes
• 17 Costanzo
• 06 Papazoglou
• 92 Potouridis
• 18 Ioannnis
• 31 Orbaiz
• 93 Abdoun
• 09 Pantelic
Arsenal
• 21 Fabianski
• 05 Vermaelen
• 11 Santos
• 18 Squillaci
• 20 Djourou
• 15 Oxlade-Chamberlain
• 23 Arshavin
• 26 Frimpong
• 30 Benayoun
• 39 Coquelin
• 29 Chamakh
Substitutes
• 24 Mannone
• 40 Eastmond
• 49 Miquel
• 07 Rosicky
• 53 Ozyakup
• 56 Yennaris
• 09 Park Chu-Young
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Your Comments
Hilarious stuff.
Sajit
Appart from the Ox it has been truly dissapointing. Why do we have such poor goal keepers. Flabianski and Manone gave away 2 goals
phreddy
Flappy has regressed since his injury last season.. He was on a good run till he got Chesneyed...Now we are back to 2009-10 Flappy.
Sajit
Just started watching to see 2-0 with Fab and Santos out injured? And talk of 'howlers'.....
ajwb
Good goal by Beny, otherwise it has been extremely sloppy. Oly beginning to tire out though.
phreddy
What a shambolic performance. So many misplaced passes (5 yard ones, that too). We are *****ed if Szczesny is injured, neither Fabianski nor Mannone are close to being good enough.
prits
Wenger talked about respecting the competition but not sure how he can claim that having played Arshavin.
Wyn Mills
Marseille finish second afterall :)))
ajwb
I've scraped better showings off my bog bowl. Utter disorganised chaos from back to front from beginning to end. Awfulnal.
nikolaijns
I thought Benayoun was good and Rosicky was decent after he came on, the rest of them were pretty awful tonight, oh well...
BergGunner
Frimpong stunk tonight, tbats for sure.
Wyn Mills
Too many players had poor games. The ones that stood out were Chamberlain, Miquel, Benayoun (to an extent), Vermaelen was ok. The rest were just ***** poor. If this was their chance to prove to Wenger that they could challenge for a 1st team place, they blew it!
prits
Santos was injuried? Why did Wenger play him to begin with?
HKBCCAN
Sloppiness from quite a few players tonight. Even Vermaelen was guilty of a back pass that almost got us into trouble. Throughout we were ****e though. Chamberlain was good enough when on the ball but didn't get it often enough though not entirely his fault. AT least he tried to make things happen. Chamakh will take some stick again but did set up a good chance in the first half and earned an assist in the second. I feel some sympathy for keepers as their errors are cruelly exposed at times but Mannone's cock ups for the 2nd goal were laughable for a professional keeper.
Amos.
Yes they did not play as well as we expected. It was a bit of a rough house but it was a good workout. Frimpong admits he has to improve but not so long ago we had poor song in tears remember? I thought young Miguel played well and the ox was covered by up to six players whenever he got near the ball. TV, ox coquelin and Chamakh played well. Djourou is not a right back in a month of Sundays. Up to their last goal we were in with a shout of winning. Think Olympiaos won the acting performance hands down. (IM)) But the lads kept trying, never dropped their heads.
alwaysgunner
I was watching with a Pool fan and he said (and I agree) the second goal was Squillacis' fault. After the keeper runs out to head the ball the defender should be covering the line, check T*rry at the weekend. Squillaci doesn't seem to have any understanding of the game and I don't know why he played. I would've been happy seeing Miquel play from the start and make those mistakes as he will learn from them, but Squillaci will be gone (I hope) so it just seems pointless.
No 10
Arshavin has to go. He is no inspiration to teh juniors. Oly are tired this is the time to take over. Miquel has been impressive.
phreddy
Having criticised Arsenal, a lot of credit to Olympiakos - they pressed from the 1st minute (to the 70th approx), put pressure on Arsenal when they didnt have the ball, and won it back quick. Chamberlain had 5 players on him when he was attacking, and there was no one around him to pass and relieve the pressure from him. Olympiakos deserved the win, but we made it a lot easier for them with simple mistakes that cost the game.
prits
Well said Prits. @No 10, agree with you Squillaci should be giving the keeper cover and a shout; rather, he was watching in hope that nothing would go wrong. Easy to blame Mannone, but it isn't implausible to lose your bearings after running out of the box to make a clearance. The older players let us down and were not inspiring the kids enough; which was the role Wenger expected them to play. Having said that, credit to Olympiakos who showed they wanted it more; their closing down game was superb and burnt them out by the 2nd half. We had no answer to it as our more experienced players were absent. We will have to prepare for more of such pressing down play by our opponents as it would seem to be the pattern adopted by our more recent Europe opponents (Dortmund did the same to us at the Emirates and but for some poor marksmanship, would have hurt us on the break, after dispossessing our midfielders). Work to be done.
Naijagunner
I'm all for giving players the benefit of the doubt but considering it plausible that Mannone lost his bearings as a keeper and hanging his cock up on Squillaci is over compensating a little too much. There's no excuse for him losing his bearings if he is to have any claim to be a professional keeper at any level of the game. Spatial awareness is a basic requirement surely. He must know what penalty area markings look like. If not you could hardly blame Squillaci for thinking that he should do.
Amos.
But regardless of what Mannone does the defender should be acting as cover and know where the danger is, once again see T*rrys' recent goal line clearance. The shot was savable by Mannone and yes he should take flack for not knowing his box, but the shot could have easily been over him or out of his reach and had Squillaci covered properly by retreating to the goal line he would've been in a much better position to cover all possible outcomes....including a bizarre karate style kick (and miss) from the keeper.
No 10
Disagree; there was no need or time for either centre-back (TV being level with Squid at the time) to rush back to the line. Keeper's fault.
damiano_tommassi
I'm not Mannone's biggest fan, but I can see how that can happen when you haven't played a professional game for 6 months. When you play, those instinctive decisions that you have a fraction of a second to make are automatic. Trying to keep an eye on an incoming ball and your area markings simultaneously whilst suffering excessive ring rust is an explanation though, rather than a mitigation. I think we saw why those players needed to play, a lot of rust in there and it's better they get rid of some of it in a meaningless game like that. Chamakh works hard but we just don't really play his game. He isn't a lone striker looking to run onto through balls, which is how we're geared to play with RvP. (RvP isn't set up to hold up long balls or win headers in the box like Chamakh is either, but we don't play that way). I don't really know what to say about Arshavin though. It's hard to say he was rusty. He has more minutes than Benayoun and Rosicky- both of whom looked far more dynamic than he did.
Little Dutch
Arsh is a mystery, and a shame. Such a talented guy - and he seems like a nice fella too, certainly popular within the squad. What's wrong with him?
damiano_tommassi
Amos, while I appreciate your views and will not make an excuse for the keeper for such comedic goal keeping, consider how anxious he must have been on his first game (LD called it ring rust, correctly so) in a while in the Cauldron that is the Olympiakos arena, then it may just be plausible to lose your way while trying too hard not to make a mistake. The same rustiness must have dulled Squillaci's defensive instincts as I feel he could have made the move to give cover. This is what CBs do instinctively; your keeper comes out to clear with his head, you make a dash towards his goal line so you can be behind him in the event he clears it to an opponent who will return it aiming for the upright. We agree the team just had a bad day, all round, in any case.
Naijagunner
...I just made an excuse there. Lol.
Naijagunner
I've been waiting and waiting for Arshavin to come out of his poor form, but that doesn't look like happening. Like Chamakh, at some point, the time will come to let him go. Sometime in January, if Arshavin doesn't improve.
prits
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