Stoke City 2 - Arsenal 1

The starting 11 said a lot about the mindset of Wenger & Arsenal. Of the 4 shots on target, 2 were tame shots straight at the goalie, and should not count as real chances. Pretty poor stats where it really mattered.

Today was a good day, wouldn't you say? Ooooh, don't be bitter! I'm so happy, don't spoil it. Before you try and put me down, don't bother. NOTHING will upset me today. Spurs beat the 'pool and Ar5ena1 lost to Stoke.... I am Laughing My Frikkin' Ar5e Off!!!

We're moving up, and you're moving down. You've lost RvP for a few games, Theo for a few more, Adeboyer, Clichy and Sanga maybe for 1-2 and Stoke beat you. And you have Man U next. Yup, things aren't so bad. Oh, and we won. Did I mention that already? :D

Enjoy it while you can, it'll be 9 points off the top after the Man U game and we will be at most, 7 points off a Uefa place after our Man City game. We have 5 points from 9 against three of the top 4 - two of those points away draws. I'll take that - for now.

Stats mean ****** all when you lose, its our time to take the *****s,just beaten the league leaders,i dont know football eh!!!!!

I didn't "raise us up" pre-season, check the Vital archives if you can and you'll see my posts. I never wanted Ramos at Spurs, always wanted Jol to stay and was soooo happy when he went. But that's history and now I'm 'appy 'Arry is 'ere. And we will beat Man City. Excuse me, I'm off. I'm still smiling and it's starting to hurt!

yahdy yahdy yahdy dah...***** up yid singer, enjoy your win, but it wont last long....if you think you can beat citeh just bcause you beat liverpool, think again.

yid singer part of me thinks your being naive and if yyou were slagging of another team then id have a right go at you. but considering theres been a laugh at spurs party on vital arsenal so far this season they really do deserve you. COYS

u smelly no fans woolwich comical scummy little club death 2 fairy gas

I admire Wenger for all he has done in developing the club in all round aspects. I believe had he compromise his football philosophy just a little i.e. playing to win rather than playing to entertain, we would have won a lot more titles. We wasted our ‘golden generation’, when we had the likes of Henry, Bergkamp, Pires, Vieira etc, all the world’s best players in their respective position, where we should have achieved much more had we learnt how to win ugly when things were not going our way. Fast forward, these players are now replaced with Ade, RvP, Nasri and Fab. Except for Nasri whom I would reserve my judgement, these players are simply not world beaters. I know I would be criticised for not placing Fab in the same class as Vieira but seriously, except for his exceptional vision which is comparable to the legend, what else he is better than him? His physical presence? His tackles? His athleticism? His headers? His leadership? Unfortunately, none of them. Vieira was a ‘stand alone player’ whereas Fab needs someone to do the donkey job for him. A manager of Wenger’s stature should have known better. Why didn’t he just pay Flamini the extra £5k he demanded and made him stay? It is now obvious that we are not going to win anything either with plan A; Walcott, Denilson, Fab, Nasri or Plan B; Denilson, Song, Fab, Diaby. Let us review the chronicle of our decline. It all started when MU ended our 49 matches unbeaten run. Then words were out that we could not cope with physical play. Subsequently, teams like Blackburn and Bolton stated to kick us off the park and we started dropping points to unfancied teams which lack technical skills. SAF were spreading the words on how to beat us. I remember when West Ham and Wigan beat us sometime ago their managers were quoted to thank SAF for his tips prior to the matches. Then Fat Sam discovered something new. Since Bolton relied a lot on set pieces then, he realised that as long as he could make it very compact in the final third and play a lot of long balls and set pieces, Arsenal could hardly cope. Bolton has since become our bogey team and words spread again. After the departure of Flamini, teams have found another weakness in us. They knew that no one would harass them outside of the box and they could always take their time to fine tune their long range attempts. I am sure words have been spreading again since the Hull match. The conundrum of why we had not rectified our inherent weaknesses from the past 3 or 4 seasons and have regress to the current state where we are even scare to play teams like Stoke really mystifies me. I love Wenger and want him to stay as long as he can with the club, but please play to win and solve our defensive problem. Get some players with grit and passion like Parlour. Get more physical players. I don’t care if we revert to those Vieira-Petit times where we had the worst disciplinary record as long as we win. The end justifies the means.

Joe_** I wanted to rip into your comments but I cant because they seem to ring true. We do seem to have lost that fight to the finish we had, I'm hoping that this spell will be over soon. The talent is there I truly believe that and the Boss will bring it to the fore; just hope he does it soon before the malaise really sets in. I wont give up on them no matter what, when going gets tough Arsenal will respond and get tough too.

What happened to Walcott?? Is he fine?? He looked badly injured!

Why are people still mentioning us in the same breath as the 'title race'? Sorry lads, but it's over... at least the atmos at the emirates is getting better eh, might open a book as to when will we not be able to fill it with day trippers.

WHAT HAPPENED TO WALCOTT, YOU CERTS?

14 attempts one goal.. dont seem right.

play yer kids cant do any worse

I think all Spurs fan - and count me as one - need to get a grip. The gooners are far from finished and we are far from safe. Note: the last three Spurs manager all had a fantastic honeymoon period. How long will Spurs players keep performing like this? However, it is a bit of a laff winding up the scum

you need a long throw catergory when Stoke play!

Dont bother, LD. I've heard some spurs fans comment that they are only 7 pts behind a UEFA Cup spot. Its only a matter of time before reality hits them, again !