It's just that fans don't like to admit that the teams that they support got outplayed and outcoached, hence resorting to the "they didn't play good, we played badly" fanboy rhetoric.
Sigh. OK, I'll bite.
Look, my love for Arsenal is unconditional and has been since I could walk but that doesn't mean I gloss over our problems. I don't write a huge amount about Arsenal or football in general on TK since the audience for it consists of about 5 people. I do post about football in quite a few places though and I am ruthless when it comes to slamming the team for their shortcomings and the persistent problems we have to endure by the flawed genius of Le Prof (despite that I am not one of the baying mob calling for his head)
Right now we are the third best team in England. It actually hurts to say that. But realistically I have to accept that Chelsea and United are stronger than us right now. Especially in defence.
Tonight's match against Porto was a bit of a horror show for us but I didn't walk in to this match expecting some mind blowing performance either. We have been poor of late and our defensive fragility is sickening at times. I would have probably taken a draw before the game.
We should have bought Shay Given when he moved from Newcastle to Man Shitty. They snapped him up for 8 million which is a steal since I rate him as easily in the top three goalkeepers in the entire country. But if we had gone in to a bidding war with City we would have lost anyway so what to do?
Almunia and Fabianski are both crap. Fabianski was unbelievable tonight. He PUSHED a cross that was going wide in to the goal which even I would have saved and the second goal was just laughable. Sol shouldn't have touched the ball but Fabianski should know better than to pick up the back pass. The subsequent quick free kick was just insane. The ref grabbed the ball from Fabianski before he was in position and some quick thinking from Porto made the second inevitable.
Side note: The ref was a retard for BOTH teams tonight. (not blaming him for the loss though....although we should have had a fucking penalty for the foul on Rosicky and he should of protected Cesc better since he was systematically fouled all night.)
Both of the goals were Fabianski's fault. There were literally no decent clear cut chances from either side. It was like watching a game of pinball.
Arsenal are a team ravaged by injuries and a policy of buying zero cover. We needed to buy a striker as soon as Van Perise was injured. Chelsea have Drogba and United have Rooney. We have Bendtner who is coming off a long injury himself and Eduardo who hasn't been the same player since he came back from his horror tackle. It says a lot that we went in to our major run of games with Arshavin playing as a lone CF.
Fabregas said after the match that our heads dropped after the second goal. Look at how we performed against Villa, United and Chelsea in what we knew would be some of our biggest games of the season. We're not good enough under pressure, and we've heaped a lot of pressure onto ourselves after gifting two stupid goals to a very ordinary side.
Every time we find a new and exciting way to totally shoot ourselves in the foot defensively, I tell myself, "it can't possibly get worse than this", and I try to take comfort from that with this Champions League tie. Porto will have enough trouble scoring against us in the second leg anyway, and surely they won't get another goal like either of the two tonight. We'll also hopefully be boosted by the returns of Song and Arshavin, both badly missed tonight.
So that's why I think we'll go through, but it doesn't change the glaring problems in the team.
FABIANSKI 2-1 ARSENAL
Care for a wager? If Porto go through I will stop posting at TK for a week. If Arsenal go through you do likewise?
