Liverpool vs Arsenal

Key team news to watch out for will be whether we pick Koscielny over the clean sheet-assured partnership of Per and the Verminator. Then there's the matter of who plays, between Gervinho, Theo and the Ox.

Need to get better crosses in for Giroud. I thought that is why we have Jenks plaing .

Cazorla's set up was brilliant, don't know how he spotted poldi's run

I don't know but I feel Oxlade-Chamberlain should be doing more defensively, in support of Jenks, who has held his own today, despite two mis-placed passes and kick-outs.

Diaby; probably our MOTM, today. Al round intelligent play by the Arsenal and even the keeper earned his shirt today. Well, it is another clean sheet for the side, which is good for confidence.

3 successive clean sheets in the first 3 games, first time since 88 years according skysports

MoM Abu vieira great display. Any how did Liverpool not score with Joachim Phoenix in goal??

That's Joaquin Phoenix. That being said Johnny Cash had a good game in goal. Good performance. Just back from boozer and the Liverpool fans there were drooling over Santi and wishing they had a player like him in their ranks. Steve Bould has worked wonders with that defence and they look a lot more solid. Verms was absolutely heroic today, throwing himself in front of every Pool chance he could get too and stopped Suarez getting any clear cut chances on goal. Jenks was also impressive when he came up against Stevie G. Diaby was deservedly the MOTM too IMO and Santi's link up with Poldi for the first goal was almost telepathic. The only unfortunate thing was Giroud not being able to score. I was really willing him on to break his duck and I honestly thought he had scored with that effort that went wide. Imagine how disappointed I was when didnt nestle in the back of Liverpool net. Overall, a good performance and it was nice to secure three points with a clean sheet no less and great to see Poldi and Santi break their scoring ducks (even though Reina's keeping on the latter was shocking. He really has become a liability for them) Just have to maintain that defensive solidarity and keep it going.

Impressive display today. Even Bouldy just sitting on the bench makes us look more secure. Just love watching Carzorla - a little bundle of creative energy. And Arteta had a great match too. (Song who?) Have to also give credit to Diaby after putting the boot in last week. Looks stronger with each game. Personally though, my motm was the Verminator. Kept everything out.

So when is the site going to update the table to the right? Need to see our name in the top 10 for the inter lull.

Lol, Amos. You can't deny the fans a chance at a rant now and them and those concerns still remain. We do lack in some areas but have made up for that in great team spirit and determination from the likes of Jenks. We should live assured that injuries would not mean a collapse; even Wenger admits we will have worries if Diaby returns to the treatment table. I remain a supporter but don't have to be happy when things are cocked up so royally.

Nice one Amos, my thoughts exactly! ;-)

Agree with Naija. Lets hold our horses. Whilst it was a good and confidence boosting performance, the real acid test will come a bit later in the month when we play Citeh and the Chavs back to back. Just hope there are not any frailties which are exposed then. We played a very average Liverpool side today.

Sing when your winning boys don't hold back

United 1-0 behind

first time in 88 years the team hasn’t allowed a goal in its first three matches.

How good was Diaby today? Hopefully he can stay fit. Massive question mark though, especially when we start playing more than one game a week.

Easy on the smugness there Amos, jenks and mannone are only in the team as ches and sagna are injured, if you say martinez and yennaris then fair enough. rosicky and rambo both do a job but neither come anywhere near to santi in terms of creativity. it's a long old season and it seems we'll be mostly having to thrash the hell out of all 3 new signings in every game as the options are very very lean. One more signing to bolster the squad wouldn't have broken anybody. and could well make the difference between 3rd and 4th. or 2nd and 3rd. Time will tell. One things for sure had Wenger not got the fear and persuaded Pat to stay an extra season then we'd have likely avoided the 8-2 horrorshow with Bould in place. So if Wenger got that wrong (which he did) then he could well yet regret remaining inactive once we were mercifully back in profit after the dizzying 35M outlay on the 3 newbies.

That's some ironic irony there Amos. Suggesting that we're ok after one good performance is equally as bad as suggesting we're in trouble after two toothless performances.

It was also a relief not having to witness Laurel and Hardy on the wings today, but knowing we could draw on pace from the bench if needed, definitely the way to go.

Why do we attack AW so much about signings, he can only sign what is availlable and in such a way that it would not affect the Arsenal structure and dressing room. The best players if not right for the team can also be destructive. (ADEBAYOR remember?)! I also agree that Diabi was not only good but exemplified the Arsenal way.

2-1 Saints. Two brilliant headers.

No, we won today because we played well. The thing is we have a weak squad. Our injury record is horrendous, and should we lose just Cazorla and one of Podolski or Giroud (which let's face it is more probable then possible) then we will struggle. We only have two strikers in the club, that is a risky game. And a risky game that doesn't need to be played when we've got more money than most teams in the bank.

People aren't are stupid as you seem to think Amos, we know that to win anything with the oil rich sugar daddies ruining the league is going to be a tough ask .... but that doesn't mean we should settle for top four.

Were the 49 goals conceded last season also a one-off? Not if you look at the stats.

I know its still early days yet but it feels strange that from the Mancs and Chavs and us we are the only ones who seem to look defensively assured so far (i emphahsise the so far!) that season? Also I hope the strain of having to 'move to a better team' and now carry them doesn't strain RVPricks back too much!

RVP TRYING TO BE WAY TOO CHEEKY

That's probably true Joe-@** we shouldn't be able to win the title with this squad but in order to win the title all we have to do is ensure we buy better squads than City and the Chavs. Indeed it's a terribly poor decision by the Arsenal management not to do that.

No-one knows what a better squad is. If they did City and Chelsea would be buying it every season. All we are asking for is top top top quality cover for our top top top quality first team.

Incredible! Robin has got them out of jail with a hat-trick.

RVP gets his hatrick. All those who wished him well as he packed his bags to head to Utd must be tweeting their congratulations.

Judas cant stop scoring for the scum atm. If only he had hung around 'sigh'

Isn't it awesome how we sold the best player in the league to Manchester United?

If Song had 3 years on his contract and we sold him it's because we were happy to let him go. A decent enough player but I don't see that he was ever a pivotal player for us so I don't know why anyone should be concerned about his going. We've got players who can do the job he did. As a DM Arteta is light years ahead of him. Its a great shame we had to let RvP go sooner than we would have liked just as ManU no doubt were disappointed they had to let Ronaldo go. It may not have been a decision anyone would have wanted to take but it wasn't poor decision making.

Always a poor decision to sell to your immediate rivals. It's not like we needed the money is it?

We are not above them sorry but the rest of my statement still stands and I think we look like a better balanced team.

Our third choice striker is Chamakh which isn't great but we still have better striking options than spuds, Chelsea or Liverpool. Only united and citeh have stockpiled a lot of quality strikers. If there were so many good strikers available then why did the likes of spuds, Chelsea or Liverpool not sign them as well?

we do not have to "buy better squads than City and the Chavs". had we shown some ambition in the last 2-3 years and paid rvp the market rate for his quality, he would have signed. keeping song would not harm the team too. the selling of both players could haunt us yet again that we were just 2-3 players short of winning something - and could achieve that title winning potential by simply not selling

Yes it could go very wrong but even if it does you can surely understand the logic behind his decision. I think we have a decent squad. We could probably do with another defender, midfielder and striker. If the right player is not available now, I'd prefer us to wait until he does as we are not desperately short in any area. Otherwise we could end up with another Squillachi that we can't offload.

Chamakh is such top quality material we can't even loan him out with most of his wages paid. That tells you everything about our plan B, and why he came to us for free.

You asked for examples of competent available and not overly expensive forwards Amos and elbondo provided you with 3. The argument is not will those three players make us better than the mancs and chavs but will they strengthen Arsenal and the answer is a resounding yes. All 3 are infinitely better back ups than the woeful chamakh.

Counting Gervinho and Walcott as strikers I'm not sure that they are better than what we have Niko but as Berbatov didn't want to play back up at ManU why would he sign for us? Is Dempsey looking for a back up role - or Mirallas? Just because we can afford to buy them it doesn't mean we can buy them and if Wenger has his eyes on something else in the next transfer window or the one after that why would he clutter up the squad with bit part players on 4 years contracts? If he could have had any of them on a 1 year loan, if he really rated them as much as you seem to, maybe he would have done so but I don't think that was an option.

Now you're just wriggling elbondo. So we don't need these players in order to challenge the big money teams but we just need them because they're not Gervinho, Walcott or Chamakh???? I'm not kissing Wenger's arse - he doesn't even know I exist - he probably doesn't know you exist either so he's missing out on the entertainment which admittedly he might possibly prefer.

I've seen your video elbondo - I know what a stodgy old fart looks like - too late for you to play the young, wacky, fun loving extrovert now :)

Ouch ha ha got owned a fair bit there elbondo lol :0

Hardly Niko, it just proves that Amos has NO sense of humour.

The important thing is that Walcott and Gervinho are listed as strikers in the Arsenal official squad. Dempsey had a good season last year but his record prior to that doesn't really mark him out as a notably competent striker. Overall his scoring rate over his career is much the same as Gervinho's and Walcott's. But my point was that simply listing names that Wenger might have bought doesn't mean that they could or should have been bought, or that the naturally more superficial judgement on a football forum should condemn the club's decision making as poor. It might well be they've missed a trick here and there. It would be surprising if they didn't but there's clearly a little more thought that has to go into it when you're making such decisions for real.

Dempsey aint a striker either really he's an offensive MF. Only time will tell if judgement has been misplaced here (same as last season where no judas would've likely equalled arsegeddon, but we rode our luck and the vanilla ice haired traitor defied tradition and stayed fit for the seasons entirety) If our first team stays fit we should have enough in our locker to maintain the holy grail of fourth now that city have permenantly displaced liverpoo and main rivals for the 4th place in newcastle & spurs will have ltd squads stretched by europah pointlessness. If we succumb to what should be by now the anticipated plague of injury concerns then we may well live to regret our reluctance to strengthen. That is the concern of most gooners I'd imagine not lashing cash mindlessly in liverpudlian glee to attempt to buy silverware success.

Was that you being humorous again elbondo? you crazy fella you!

Trouble is Niko that squad sizes are limited to 25 'senior' players so cover for each position is limited. I guess there's still space for one or two more but probably not for stop gaps on 4 year contracts. The remarkable thing about the invincible season was that we had very relatively few injuries and could put out our first 11 or something near it pretty regularly. On such twists of fortune, as much as what can and can't be done in the transfer market, success or failure can be determined.

Can we save the personal insults for any visiting trolls please gents? We can all disagree without lowering to the kind of barking and baying we normally associate with the mentally challenged neighbours :)

In an obvious dig at Fergie, Wenger said he has no intention of managing 'into my 70s' so assuming he retires or moves upstairs at the end of next season (I think that's when his contract is up) I can see the logic of not saddling the next manager with lots of deadwood- any deadwood by the look of things. That said, we're in a spot if we have to rely on Gervinho and Walcott as our strikers at any point in the season, so I'd hardly call buying another striker stopgap, and you do know Amos that a 4 year contract is not mandated by any labour laws although that seems to be your recurring mantra. Surely an older player like Berbatov would get plenty of playing time in the league and the cups with Arsenal and wouldn't demand a 4 year contract. Maybe he wouldn't want to come here due to his respect for the Spuds (ha), but surely there are others in his situation we could have got? Wait a sec, this just in: Berbatov signed a TWO year contract with Fulham. So, good fee, probably high-ish wages, but reliable back-up and his contract ends the same time as Wenger's meaning he's not the next manager's deadwood. Win-win.

Apparantly Pardew has stated that we made a last day 'enquiry' on both Cabaye and Tiote. I get the feeling that call (probably by some Arsenal work experience kid) was only made as we know how big Pardews gob is and that he'd love to flap that out thereby making it look to our support like we were serious about reinforcements.

On an unrelated note, RvP's goals are directly responsible for Man United having six points rather than one. 1) did he expect to be carrying them on his shoulders- I thought he was tired of that, and 2) how long before the English media start calling them a one-man-team? What's that you say, no and never?

If f.:-;k all was available then we would sign f;/(:k all . Internet slows the transfer market down so we should be here talking about ripping Scousers apart than keeping van persie, signing billy big knob and tapping up tommy jizz tits

On a separate note I couldn't count the number of times I've seen RvP go down inside and outside the box in exactly the same way he did in the Southampton game without winning a penalty or free kick when wearing an Arsenal shirt.

He is much better in an attacking side where he has got good attacking players to help him out which is what he had at Dortmund which is why he shone there. Linking up with the likes of Santi, Poldi, Ox and Art may have brought out the best in him. Ergo I think he would have been a lot more effective had he joined us so it is a shame it didn't happen, but whatever ***** happens.

Great, Hansens on MOTD2 *rubs hands with glee*

Arteta was bloody fantastic too. The man just does not give the ball away.

I am looking to see the media go on about how Arsenal are the only top team still to concede as they were quick to show we "can't score without ....". And indeed United are now a One man team.

Listening to the tv commentary, and even the post-match analysis, I was sure i was just being a homer because apparently Liverpool dominated the game. But of course I have my own mind and know what I saw, and what I saw was a brilliant game plan that played to the strength of the squad. And lack of a plan B beyond pass pass pass and walk it into the net? (a media stereotype, not my own observation). We passed the ball around alot (A), but also played a lot of long balls (B), and Diaby (twice I think) and Vermaelen bypassed the long ball to the same effect with 50-60 yard runs that totally perplexed the hapless Scousers (C). A few things stuck out for me. The understanding between Cazorla and Podolski in three games looks like an understanding between players that have been together for years. Giroud has not scored yet, but he is better with back to goal than Chamakh or Bendtner, and goes for more aerial balls than those two and RvP combined, and will come good. What for years has impressed me about Podloski was less his scoring than his work effort, and his willingness to track back has lead to Gibbs being more confident going forward, and subsequently less panic when he is forward. Podolski is the perfect player for Arsene's new vision. After some terrible passes giving away possession in the first 15 minutes when Liverpool were on top, Jenkinson settled down and pretty much stifled Sterling, who at 17 looks a great player. Vermaelen looked immense and the BFG was tidy and effective after a slightly nervy start. The Ox had a decent game, helped out Jenkinson more that being an attacking threat, but he's a good one and his inclusion in the squad over Walcott was justified- I hope Theo got the wake-up call. Vito did okay- he was too timid in dealing with traffic in the area but he kept a clean sheet so no complaints. I just hope when Szczesny is back the defenders play with the same resolve - I've seen it many times when the defenders play extra carefully when they have an unheralded keeper and then get back to their sloppy ways when the number one is back. But I'm sure Steve Bould will make sure that won't happen. And then there's Vassiriki- damn, if today's performance is typical of what he can do when he is healthy, I understand why Wenger never gave up on him. The guy is a beast who can do it all - tackle, dribble, run, pass, shoot. I was never one of those who put Diaby on the 'get rid' list, I thought he had potential but his development was marred by injury. I've seen him score some great goals and dither on the ball a lot, but I have never seen him dominate a match like he did today. 35 more of those please! Even Ramsey was better than usual, probably because he knows he will have to earn his spot in the team. Wilshere back in a month, Rosicky back one of these days, it's a pretty solid squad. Sure, I would like to have seen another striker brought in, but Wenger doesn't get much wrong. Chamakh was pretty good when he first came and was forced to lead the attack due to another RvP injury, maybe he can do it again if put in that position. That said, the current Arsenal first team is pretty exciting, and by the time Sagna is back Jenks will have had enough game time under his belt to be an experienced sub and not somebody whose name we dread to see on team sheet (admit it - most of you would have preferred Coquelin there - me too, but I was wrong and Wenger was right, again). Two weeks until the next one, let's hope nobody gets injured in what are actually meaningful international games. Arteta gets the time off, not sure about Santi, but aside from those two I think Jenkinson and Vito the only players who will not be called up to his respective national team. I like this new look team- will they win the league or Champions League? Probably not this season. Will they win a domestic cup? Looking at the squad available and replacements if there are injuries, I will say yeah, Wenger's Arsenal Mk IV arguably has less talent than Mk III but have bigger balls than Mk III with talented pretty boys like Cesc and Nasri and RvP. Will Arsenal win the league again under Arsene's watch? Unlikely given the oil money factor. Will he finally win the Champions League? Yes, in May 2014 as his last game in charge.

Superb away game performance from the Arsenal. Our defensive organisation when not in possession of the ball is the primary difference between the Arsenal of the last few seasons and this Wenger Generation 4 team. The excellent shape that Podolski, Diaby, Arteta and Chamberlain lined up in when not in possession and the controlled pressing that all of them displayed was very impressive. Diaby - take a bow, what a superb performance. The whole team really clicked and the great part is that playing together longer will hopefully lead to even better coordination and performances. Onwards and upwards.

To wade in slightly, I think this piece by Julian Harris sums up perfectly what I feel about the end of our transfer window http://gingers4limpar.com/?p=2135. If finding players is really such a horrifically difficult undertaking, perhaps we shouldn't be as generous in letting them go? It certainly shouldn't be beyond the gift of a manager that pockets more than any player of his playing staff to find an available striker better than Chamakh, whom Wenger rates so highly that even after losing van Persie and culling Bendtner and Park, still can't even find a place for him on the bench this season.

That's nice piece from gingers but it works only on that superficial level of so many supporters in imagining that there's only one roll of the dice and it can all better be accomplished in one window. Was a better back up striker available in this window that didn't mean committing millions for some years that might be better spent on someone that could be available in the winter or next summers transfer window. It probably seemed worth 'pool spending £35m of the Torres money and apparently another £20m in wages and fees over 4 years or so. I imagine they wish they'd pocketed the Torres money and taken a little more time over it now though. It's only in financial bubble that football supporters inhabit that committing to spending £10s of millions or even £10m is something to be taken lightly.

I'm sure Chelsea are too busy polishing the European Cup to worry about how much they've spent on Torres. Amos, we’re not in the 80s anymore. When you have TV income worth billions £35m is not the obscene amount it once seemed (not that I am advocating that's what we should be spending). However Arsenal are in the fortunate position of having the 2nd highest income in the league, which you would think would give the club some leeway to speculate. But we don't even seem to be doing that these days. Something must badly wrong if we can’t afford to at least delay RVP from going to Utd when its in the club’s best interests to do so. What does it say about the ambition of our club that it allows this to happen?