[clenny (Would you be a gooner)]

http://gunnerblog.com/?p=2690 (有影片)
Manchester City park their ￡200m bus

Arsenal 0 - 0 Man City
Highlights | Arsene’s reaction

As Jose Mourinho once put it, Manchester City’s tactics last night
equivocated to “parking the bus”. The thing is that ￡200m is an awful lot
of money to spend on a bus. Even the pimpiest of pimped-out rides would
struggle to reach that pricetag. In fact, you could probably get an
alternative that would do the job, much cheaper.

That’s what frustrates about City. If the extent of your ambition is to put
ten men behind the ball and hope the opposition don’t get the solitary
fortunate ricochet or moment of genius they need to beat you, then you might
aswell use any old footballers. I’ve seen sides from one or two divisions
below us and do what City did. The difference in the result? The width of the
post. City do have good defenders - I’m not denying that - but in this
particular game they were downright lucky to escape defeat.

If this Manchester City team were to win the Premier League, it would be a
bad thing for English football. Their display last night was the most
negative I have ever seen by a top team at the Emirates. Even Mourinho’s
Chelsea teams played with exciting wingers who could break at pace.

And what should shame City most of all is that I’ve seen sides with far less
attacking resource in the their squad - the likes of West Brom - come to
Arsenal, have a go, and win. It would be easier to justify City’s tactics if
they were coming to an impenetrable fortress. But let’s be honest, the
Emirates is far from that. City have no excuse, other than fear. Their
display was plain cowardly.

In many ways, we did ourselves no favours by exacerbating those fears with a
blistering opening ten minutes. Once City staggered, punchdrunk, away from
that early onslaught, almost disbelieving that they were still level, Mancini
’s mind was made up. The handbrake was pulled, and the ignition was switched
off.

Our frustration is tinged with regret. Every Arsenal fan knows that we should
have beaten City last night. That superb start brought with it a couple of
chances that could have forced the opposition to come out and play, opening
themselves up and making the game the sort of contest in which we prosper
best.

The most notable chance of the 90 minutes came in the first 90 seconds. Samir
Nasri swaggered between two defenders and fed Jack Wilshere on the left-hand
side of the box. He seemed caught in two minds about whether to shoot or
square, and the resulting cross-shot just evaded the sliding efforts of Robin
van Persie.

The let-offs continued to come. Van Persie turned and struck the post, then
Walcott spun inside the area and fired agonizingly across goal. Before the
half was out, Cesc had joined Robin in striking a post with a beautifully
placed effort from the edge of the area.

At half-time, City could scarcely believe they were still in the contest.
Mancini issued his default instructions (”Never try and score”) and City
emerged as a more organised, defiant unit. Kolo Toure played well at his
former home, and Joe Hart produced on super save to deny a Van Persie
piledriver.

Arsenal tired and grew frustrated. Andrey Arshavin was thrown on for Theo
Walcott but made no discernible impact - the same goes for Nicklas Bendtner,
who was surprisingly introduced ahead of Marouane Chamakh.

Arsenal’s frustration was manifested most plainly in the silly sending off
of Bacary Sagna, who held his forehead against Zabaleta’s in that odd ‘just
about to kiss’ way that Premier League footballers are inclined to do. It
wasn’t a headbutt, but it wasn’t clever either, and Sagna will now sit out
three games as consequence.

On a night when Chelsea and Spurs were also beaten, Manchester United were
the big winners. Given City’s tendency for conservatism, I suspect United
see Arsenal as their strongest challengers. Winning their game in hand,
however, would take them seven points clear: a healthy margin indeed.

Still, there’s a lot of football to be played, and we mustn’t allow City’s
negativity to infect our assessment of our own performance. Wilshere and Song
were again outstanding, whilst the attacking quartet of Nasri, Fabregas, Van
Persie and Walcott were mesmerising in the first half. It’s hard to talk
about the goalkeeper and defence, as they were barely called upon.

After four games in ten days, we’ve git a bit of a break from our Premier
League campaign now. On Saturday we face Leeds in the FA Cup before going to
Ipswich in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi-final. The squad will be
rotated, but results must remain good. In the short-term, momentum is
important. In the medium-term, a trophy or too would be lovely.

A final note on last night’s game: defensive displays like City’s will
always divide pundits, but when even the miserly Alan Hansen says that we
emerged from the game looking like the most credible challenger to United,
you know we’ve done something right.

Whatever happens in the title race, I can say with absolute confidence that I
am proud of the performances my team put in and the way they try to play the
game.  What’s more, inevitably I enjoy watching them.  They entertain me.
 Which, at the end of the day, is what this is really about.

Good old Arsenal.  Keep doing your thing.  When we do get the break we need,
it’ll be so worth it.


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我懶得逐句翻了 ww
大意是說花兩億英鎊買一台巴士很貴
這輪前段班除了曼聯都掉分了
但以曼城這樣的表現來看
連刻薄的阿蘭漢森也認為
槍手是與曼聯爭奪冠軍最有力的競爭者


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推 ahjay:現在曼聯除非吞第一敗，不然氣勢不會掉(個人認為)
推 higeo:漲停打開就是了?
推 Aqery:阿蘭漢森前幾個星期在節目中之間宣稱：阿森那不會奪冠   XDD
→ flameflash:想不到我們踢爆了垃圾車，卻奈何不了這台公車 = =
推 Nvboy:XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD樓上讓我吐奶                    茶
推 eleec:                              吐奶錯了嗎XD
推 wing2000:曼聯從12月26-1月26,有九場比賽,要追分就是現在了....