Team News: Arsenal vs Sunderland

Awwwwww yeah! It's back. Love it love it love it. COME ON YOU REDS!!!

Am I right assuming Arteta will play DM with Diaby the box to box player?

I thinks so 10. I hope Diaby has a great game. He deserves some good luck.

Jenkinson has been bloody awful in the attacking third

Another frustrating attacking performance. Picking up where we left off last year. Arsene should think about tinkering with the formation.

We didn't have much choice with RVP really. I didn't think it was a bad performance, the usual story, created a lot of chances but didn't finish any of them. Gervinho and Diaby both had good games, Cazorla looked good also. Both Podolski and Giroud looked rusty, especially Giroud with that glaring miss. First game of the season, lot of new players to bed in and a few missing through injuries. Not a bad performance all things considered. Arshavin was rubbish when he came, making lazy passes, really needs to be shipped off. Hopefully get rid of Song and sort out his replacement soon also. Still fairly optimistic about our season, maybe I'm deluded tho!

While I expected a better result, it is the first game of the season against a team playing for the draw and with a reputation for making it difficult for us. Not too bad; but stil a lot of work to be done.

defensively more solid, offensively more blunt. not a conclusion though as it was just the first game. nevertheless, i think the structure of play when we were not in possession has changed and there was less opportunity for opponent to hit us with counter attack. this could be due to bould's coaching. i think podolski & giroud should learn to adapt their game to drop deeper when they were man marked (what rvp used to do). staying in the box all the time is very predictable and will not work against teams playing 2 layers of defence. moving away in on and off disorients the opponent's defence and makes space of others. bear in mind, over 2/3 of teams in pl park the bus against us. podolski & giroud should play the forward role instead of old fashioned striker because such role does not work in a 4-5-1 system

Liverpool result makes me feel better and the Song transfer timing is strange. Obviously, this wasn't the worst result for Arsenal. Besides a couple of chances in the first 20mins, Sunderland never looked like scoring. I just worry about our attack. Even with RvP, I thought we were lethargic last season. Not the flowing Arsenal of years past.

Song deal to barca confirmed then http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/8001348/

Apparantly we only got 15 million for the dutch judas, that rises to 20+ if we've assisted them in winning the league.

"United will pay £22.5m, with a further £1.5m one-off bonus to follow if they win a Premier League or Champions League title in the next four years." http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/19179833

Watching the Tots at Tyneside, are you then, Niko:-) Great goal indeed; that boy is ripe for the big league.

yeah naija...bollix the midget just spaffed it in.

I agree Naija Gervinho look really selfish today, it really *****ed me off actually. He needs to start releasing the ball much earlier. He is good at going passed people but he is no Ronaldo.

citeh have bought Austria No 10.

Nice Niko

Didn't see the match so will need to catch highlights on MOTD (even though that means having to listen to Hansen, Lawrenson and Shearer talk utter tripe and endure their anti arsenal brigade) but I hear it was a pretty unremarkable display though Santi had a good debut. Would have been nice if Giroud buried that chance and even a 1-0 win would have been a good start. But hey at least we didn't lose. Lol at Spuds and Liverpool. Hopefully Sahin was watching the Liverpool game.

Mick (AKA Merlin) I can tolerate because he comes out with the odd witty quip every now and again. 'Ol twitchy scrote face' on the other hand, I cannot stand. Thank ***** for the mute button.

@GaryLineker cannot confirm or deny that they have brought a Land Rover into the studio for 'Arry to give his thought from.

I've just realised how nice it was to not have freekicks given away in dangerous areas, especially towards the end of the match. I've always been a big fan of Song's but I will not miss that aspect of his game.

I don't think Walcott had a bad game. Playing against a team set up to defend is never going to let us see Walcott at his best but he did use his pace to get passed people and to good effect. Had Poldi known his play better he would've moved earlier and probably scored.

About the game On the whole I think we looked good. Santi is world class and you can see that. The defense looked solid especially Per and TV5. Not too critical of Carl - he's still raw. And Arteta was my MOTM. What a fantastic performance. Here's my issue with Diaby. He is too slow in build up play to cause any real threat. And he is too dumb to properly get into positions when the opposition counterattacks. Well, this is nothing new. But thats Diaby for you. Hes neither a proper attacking player nor a proper DM. Gervinho and Theo were trying hard.. But our problems have been more or less the same except for last season I guess. we build our attacks far too slowly. Thats fine, if like Barca, we had 3 worldclass players upfront who can telepathically read each others movements - but we dont. Personally, I feel Lukasz cannot play upfront alone. He would be far better served with a striking partner. And not too fussed about the Giroud miss. I liked his movement. On the whole, Im happy. Its just starting. Sunderland parked the bus and Im pretty sure if we had a couple more dribblers we could have broken the banks of defenders. At the moment the only player who can run at defenders look like Cazorla and Gerv.. Throwing the Ox into the mix could help. Shava simply has to get more involved this season. Without RvP, he is a senior pro and needs to take more responsibilty. Roll on next weekend.

I've only watched the 2min Hightlight on Arsenal Player. How different we all would have felt if Giroud had scored! But a point, is better than Spuds, or Liverpool managed, nor did we get beat 5 nil like QPR or Norwich. Come on The Arsenal!!

I wouldn't be too harsh on Theo for the same reason - just come back from injury and looked rusty. He didn't have the confidence to run past his full back. Sunderland parking the bus didn't help his cause.

Theo and Kieran Richardson usually have something of a duel whenever the teams meet, which would have made things a bit more harder for the former yesterday. Theo, when faced with such situations must vary his play and positioning to leave his marker stranded. I do hope he wasn't weighed down by his contract extension talks (we need to sort that before the window closes, I think or he walks on a free); not that he didn't do well but, as one of our senior players, a little more would have to be demanded/expected of him.

Oh come on, Theo had similar performances last season when RvP was in the team. Don't think his contract situation had anything to do with it.