Arsenal v Bolton

A must win game on Saturday for Arsenal at home against Bolton

With their rivals Aston Villa facing on paper an easier home fixture agains West Brom

Its crucial for Arsene Wengers side not to drop any points in this match against Wanderers.

Despite losing their last game at home to Wigan the away side havent been doing to badly
at all in the premier league under Gary Megson and they might just fancy their chances.......

How do you see this game going?

A tricky tie nonetheless. What tie isn't tricky for us?

We beat them at the Reebok pretty convincingly. This time we won't be as fluent but I'm confident we have enough out there to get a good win.

van Persie is coming into some better form these days and with Touré and Denílson returning we should reshuffle accordingly to suit this type of game.

i wonder whether Diaby will perform another sickening lunge that gets glossed over while a bolton player lunges in but wins the ball and creates hell from arsenal's people...

Intriguing.

Rebook game! what a game of football that was! Arsenal were like Attack! Attack!! and Attack!!! and what a convincing win! Superb!

Hope to see such treat in this game too.

i imagine so ...

Hopefully...

Diaby needs to start showing more of his physical strengths.

I'm not saying he should lunge at players, but the big guy needs to start throwing himself about a bit more. If he plays, this will be the perfect kind of game to do so.

LOL!

Bolton are the masters of flintstonian football geezer and you know it. After Diaby's broken ankle got "glossed over" i think he has every right to fight fire with fire. Seems Arsenal can't win with some people ,if they complain about over physical play they are soft ,if they give what they get they are dirty!

Steely was dangling his hook just above you there.

On the topic, I think this could be another chance for Eboué to redeem himself if he starts. He was very good in the return game at the Reebok last time around despite switching to the left IIRC.

I suspect he and Nasri will play the wide positions with Denílson and Diaby in the middle? A backline of Sagna, Touré, Djourou and Clichy. van Persie and Adebayor up front? Should be another 3 points at home.

Exactly.

Hence my Hopefully

Bolton aren't the same bogey team to Arsenal as they used to be - I'd expect the gooners to win quite convincingly.















(...yes I do hope I've tempted fate!)

Actually i think it gives the "fans" the chance to redeem themselves to Eboue,he was good up until the last 8 minutes of the game he was ridiculously booed. He was good in every game after that and he was good today,so i think the benefit of the doubt goes to Eboue rather than to those cowards in the stands.

Just when i was about to slate Bendtner for blowing chances and given the ball away on nearly every pass he tried to make ,he puts in an almost impossible goal. Just as well he did because i think it could have been the beginning of a nasty affair in the dressing room for that boy. Much needed win though to the disappointment of Setanta who had nothing positive to say about Arsenal the entire game ,which i find typical really.

An interesting note and would like someone to justify this o me. Kevin Davies committed four fouls in the first half 1 and never got a yellow , Riga comes on, clips an Arsenal player who goes past him which was identical to one of Davies' fouls and gets a yellow straight away. Now i have always believed that there are certain players for whatever reason get away with certain levels of conduct ,but this is about as blatant as an example of that you will find.The better team won today
no thanks to the ref who acted more like the 12th man for Bolton at times.

1-0 to the Arsenal!

Again. Two clean sheets in a row, I'm bemused! I suppose it's only Bolton but they usually do give us a good game and scored first in the last game.

Bendtner and Eboué did well at the Reebok and it sounds like one played well and one made the difference in the end. So that's good. Two highly criticised players in the Arsenal squad. I couldn't watch the game as I was at work and was quite worried that I got no goal texts from my mate, but we stole in at the end.

Setanta are usually foolish with their analysis and bias. But actually I've always thought they've given us a fair chance even in the most difficult times. I think any kind of winning performance from Arsenal should be credible. They moan when we play beautiful football and drop points, but moan when we win and don't play so fashionable.

On Eboué, I can't really fault the guy even despite all his dramatic antics in the past. He's an emotional character and seemingly not the brightest spark at the Club, but you can't deny his effort and his attitude to keep on going. The fickle Arsenal fans gave him quite a bit of abuse, and it's not easy for a young, highly criticised footballer at such a top level to take such abuse from the very people who he relies on for support. Credit to him for sticking by his guns and taking strength from the nightmare he must have went through. I don't know how well he played today or didn't, but he certainly hasn't been as bad as people make out and at the best of times this season he's been one of our better performers - some might screw their faces up at that, but his consistency has been hampered by injuries and positional competition. As a player I still think he has a lot of potential - he himself admits that he's just adapting to this Midfield role but feels more at home this season, and you can see that on the pitch. He wasn't rated much last season and since 06 at RB he hasn't really progressed because of the transition to Midfield. He's come on though and I think he has a lot of ability just waiting to be honed and chiselled. The fact that Inter Milan want to buy him and that Wenger puts so much faith in him, he must be something good. The last time I was at the Emirates (long time ago unfortunately) he was the most impressive athlete on the park.

Was Eboue booed again today then?

What a sorry mob of fans you guys have at the Emirates.......

ok i'm gonna write something about everyone who played:
Almunia didn't have much to do, but his lack of communication with toure could easily have led to a goal
Toure had another solid game as did djourou
clichy played the ball to van persie which set up our goal and he was defensively sound
Sagna is a bloody machine. nobody can get outside him, he's a strong tackler, and he helps out in attack alot, providing nice crosses. Probably our player of the season so far
Diaby probably had his worst game this season. he kept giving up possession cheaply, and although he has great dribbling skills, he was too greedy
Denilson had a solid unspectacular game
Nasri played pretty well as usual without playing brilliantly
Eboue was always a threat
Adebayor had a quiet game, but should have scored with our 1st real opportunity after a great pass by nasri found him in space, but he took too long and his shot was blocked
Van Persie was a threat all game, was unlucky to not score
Vela wasn't involved much, had one good chance that was well blocked by Jaaskelainen
Bendtner played absolutely shite, whenever we broke away he'd turn over possession cheaply. having said that, he scored which makes up for it i guess
Ramsey wasn't on long enough for me to make a judgement

crucial win, and good to see us playing pretty well without fabregas, although the lack of clearcut chances until the last half hour were very worrying

I have nothing to do with arsenal fans whatsoever ,trust me.

Eboue wasn't booed thankfully ,a smattering of applause in appreciation when he was subbed ,but still not convinced they respect the player as he should be.
Bendtner was garbage up until the goal ,his energy coming of the bench was good and i think his overall effort was good ,but he blew a lot of plays straight off the bat.
We can forget all the negatives for the time being because Arsenal and the better football won today.

Concerning Setanta and their obvious dislike of Arsenal. I just think it's a shame that they can be blatantly so bias without
fear or recourse. It says a lot about the failings of society when a network that are supposed to show no preference to either team can do so for the sake of entertainment and money. Being one of the older guard posting here i can understand why some don't agree with my opinion, but if you do so because of your loyalty to your own team then it doesn't help.
What you get is a foundation built on falsehoods and a national team that will forever think the are good enough to challenge the likes of Brazil,Argentina and the other giants consistently.

Crap game.

Crap football.

Arsenal the great entertainers.

Correct.

That's how the WORLD see's us.

And we still did it without, Fabregas, Gallas, Walcott, Eduardo, Rosicky, Silvestre.












How's the relegation battle going?

Seriously now I think that Arsenal need someone creative other than Fabregas in the mid field.

There was plenty of respect for Eboue yesterday. He didn't do anything in the match worth mentioning and he's obviously not a fan favorite, so you can't expect the crowd to go mad-wild in applause for him.

It was quite a frustrating match as Bolton parked 10 men behind the ball and just stayed there. And with our lack of creative midfielders it was worse and the lack of wingers (Walcott) to get behind the defense, it was just pass around pass around and pass some more. In the first half Nasri gave up the opportunity to set Clichy free down the sideline and opted to turn the ball inside which played right into Bolton's hands. Unfortunately he did this a few times which didn't help us any. I'm not sure what's Wenger's fascination with Denilson, but Nasri should be in the middle (while Fabregas is out) and play Vela on the left wing.

What changed the game was when Vela came on. He injected some pace and more creativity. Then Bendtner came on for Eboue (and honestly, the majority of us weren't too happy); but then again, it was Arsenal/Wenger getting desperate throwing on every striker we had. In the end Bendtner pulled through and got the goal after it seemed that nothing was going to hit the back of the net after hitting the post and Jaaskelainen making a great save a bit after.