I'll be going to the return leg at the Emirates - my brother and dad are both Arsenal fans so I got us tickets for their birthdays which are coming up.
Ergo I am also quite pleased with this result as it means that the second leg should be interesting.
And from all accounts (didn't catch it but listened to the radio and read a couple of MBMs) it was a thoroughly deserved victory. Or maybe a dreadful Arsenal performance. Or both. Who cares really? I think the only concrete thing I can glean from the match is that Arshavin is most definitely on his way down.
Why would Arsenal fans need to post excuses when there are still 90 minutes left in the tie?
Enjoy your night, but don't get too far ahead of yourself Ratherton. Like Matt said this makes the return leg far more interesting than it might have been had tonight's result been different- but a place in the final is still well up for grabs. Ipswich haven't pulled it off yet.
Yeah, I would be much more worried if that was the away leg and Arsenal had an away goals disadvantage going into the 2nd leg. Lately, it's been a decent performance followed by a very poor one, then a display of what the team is actually capable of when they are firing on all cylinders.
To be honest with you, Denilson and Arshavin need to it together...and I wouldn't be exactly crushed at this point if Cesc left in the summer. His heart and passion doesn't show through as it did in past seasons and I feel he's starting to wear his frustrations with the team on his sleeve. 50M would go a long way in buying some replacements, assuming we'd actually spend money on someone established vs. promoting youth hoping it'll just work itself out.
The fact is that any team in England's FA can beat any other, which is the whole purpose of tournaments like these. I'm a huge Arsenal supporter but I also think it's displays like that that shows you the small gap between the BPL teams and other Championship teams. I'm glad that teams like Blackpool can beat teams like Liverpool because the league is that more much unpredictable. I did like watching La Liga a couple years back but now it's just a duopoly with no end in sight.
Given the way we've been playing this season, I was really concerned we'd get done by 4 or 5 at home.
However, caretaker manager Charlie MacParland got the tactics spot on and the players were magnificent. The weak spot was the defence who simply couldn't deal with diagonal balls over the top. The should be thankful it was only Priskin up front rather than Wickham.
Arsenal had way more possession but we created more chances. We were also a lot more under strength than Francenal too.
The comments by Fabregas and Wenger are just what I'd expected - they are sore losers.
I'm under no illusions that it will be incredibly tough at the Library but if we get to half time and its still 0-0, you never know. We've got something to defend.
This will be the 3rd time I've seen Ipswich in the semi final of this cup. I'll be there to see the 2nd leg and hopefully, it'll be another memorable night. We haven't had many in the last 10 years.
ajc wrote:Why would Arsenal fans need to post excuses when there are still 90 minutes left in the tie?
Just wondered if fans wanted to follow the lead of the manager and captain.
Haha fair enough. It'll be an interesting one at the "Library" we can agree on that. Arsenal have been so inconsistent you never know what could happen. The tie could end 5-1 Arsenal or it could be 1 or 2 nil for Ipswich. Likely it'll be somewhere in between, but anything is possible.
Errr the score today was 3-1... (I'm assuming you were referencing 2-1 as the score line from today's match? Van Persie nodded in a header to seal it near the end)
Arsenal have looked much better the past few games since the first leg of this semi-final. I wonder how strong a side Wenger will put out. I hope Van Persie starts just to be on the safe side. He looks like he's capable of putting together quite a finish to the season if he can stay healthy.
But my biggest hope for the side is for Arshavin to not even appear on the bench. He's been absolute garbage lately. You saw today Nasri sprinting to win back possession when he gave it away or when someone else did and he performed his defensive duties responsibly whenever Leeds were breaking on a counter; whereas Arshavin gave the ball away plenty of times and then walked around hardly paying attention to the continuing play. As of late his efforts do not warrant him any playing time.
I know what it means lol I guess I misinterpreted what Ratherton was saying. Since he quoted a post that had to do with the FA cup I thought he was referencing Arsenal's scoreline today and saying that he would accept that same score line (2-1) when Ipswich come to the Emirates as it would take his tractorboys through.
I thought he had turned off today's match vs Leeds early or something. Sorry for my mistake in intrepretation it's been a long stressful week of work and classes!!! And it's only Wednesday goddammit
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