From Arsenal.com: Arsène Wenger will look at himself more than his players for the reasons behind Saturday’s shock 2-1 defeat at home to Hull City.
On a dramatic, unpredictable afternoon at Emirates Stadium, the aptly-named Tigers came from behind to inflict only Arsenal’s second defeat in more than two seasons at their ‘new’ home.
Wenger is a football obsessive who has been known to stay up into the early hours to review that day’s victory. He once admitted that during his early career in France he had to stop the team bus to be physically sick after one bad loss. Therefore you can only imagine his reaction to the deep disappointment of Saturday.
“I always look first at myself after defeats,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. We do that with all the staff.
“You think about the game and, if you can watch it, you watch it again.
“But there were certainly enough ingredients in the game to make me physically sick again.
“We had an opportunity to go top of the League and in that situation you have to be right in your intensity and in your concentration level. That ‘electric level’ in our head was not high enough.
“I don’t know if we can’t afford to lose again but what we delivered today was not good enough. We know that. So the important thing now is not how many games we can lose this season but preparing well for Tuesday night.”
I'm hoping we haven't blown our load and gotten too cocky because we beat the Blades 6-0, or Blackburn or Bolton. Arsenal needs to take this loss very seriously since Hull has been at this point the highest ranking Premier League team we've met this season which we underestimated. We've yet to face the likeness of Liverpool, or Chelsea. We need to take this as a lesson and get back to playing proper football like this:
(May 26, 1989 at Anfield, Championship decider...Thank you, Michael Thomas!)
Arsène Wenger has confirmed his side will be without Samir Nasri against Hull on Saturday after the 21-year-old failed to recover from his knee problem.
The Frenchman picked up the injury whilst on international duty earlier this month and remains on the sidelines with long-term absentees Tomas Rosicky, Abou Diaby and Eduardo.
We hope he recovers soon and gets back to playing like this:
Arsenal.com says Gael Clichy will be ready to play at Emirates against Hull City this Saturday. After tests, they confirmed that he only suffered a bruised shin. He has missed training all week but returned on Thursday. His new French teammate, Mikael Silvestre, will also be available for the first time following his move from Manchester United.
Asked who he would like to win the title this season, if not United, Fergie said: “I would prefer Arsenal to win it rather than some other clubs i could mention.”
United and Chelsea have shared the title for the past four years but Ferguson believes the clash with Arsenal is still the bigger game because of their histories.
Ferguson said: “If you look back over the last 12 or 13 years, who has it been? Arsenal v Manchester United, Manchester United v Arsenal.
“Of course we’ve got Chelsea at the moment — that’s without question.
“But the history of Arsenal against Manchester United means that you’re not just talking about winning a football match — you’re talking about your history against the other team’s history.”
Fergie, quoted in The Sun, added: “There’s a dominance attached to that. You want to be the dominant team and they want to be the dominant team — we’ve had some volatile matches because of that.
“But you can’t beat the history and the quality that both teams believe in, and the way they want to play has never changed.”
NIKEiD: Winning Boot Designs for Arsenal vs. Man Utd.
Earlier in the season, Nike and Sky Sports offered the chance to design match-day boots for your favourite player when Arsenal face Man Utd on the 8th November, on Sky Sports.
Take a good look at the winning designs, you'll be seeing a whole lot of them on 8th November. I think most are pretty ugly, but there are a few nice entries.
Wayne Rooney T90 Laser II/ designed by Phillip Mektiev:
Rio Ferdinand T90/ designed by Jonathan Bechthold:
Carlos Tevez Tiempo/ designed by Joshua Rodger:
Cesc Fabregas Tiempo/ designed by Jan Szabala:
William Gallas Mercurial/ designed by Tony Brown:
Theo Walcott Mercurial/ designed by Ben Pritchard:
Samir Nasri picked up a knee injury on international duty earlier this month while Abou Diaby (thigh) has not featured since the Emirates Cup. Mikael Silvestre (muscular problem) has yet to make his Arsenal debut and all three players will have to wait a little longer for first-team action.
"The good news from last night is that nobody has come back with any knock or severe injury," said Wenger. "We have no injuries from last night and we have no-one coming back as well, so the group will be stable.
"For Diaby, I would say two more weeks [until he is fit], Silvestre and Nasri should be available for Hull [at Emirates Stadium on September 27]."
"The referee should have sent off the left-back three times at least because he destroyed Walcott," Wenger said.
"I wanted to understand how we had only three minutes of injury time, and then only played one minute," he said.
"Every referee looks to have a different computer to calculate the injury time and still I do not know and really understand how it works.
"It looks like it is through the inspiration of the referee and he could not explain it. He just said it was enough."
On the upcoming match at Bolton, Wenger added: "The game is a mixture of frustration and relief.
"We are in a good momentum and it was important to at least come back from Ukraine with a point, even if it should have been three.
"The game should be over at half-time because we had clear chances in the first half, but it is a relief because with three minutes to go we were 1-0 down.
"I felt our level dropped in the second half and we did not create as many chances as we would have liked to. We feel we have lost two points."
From Sky Sports: Arsenal will be without Samir Nasri and Mikael Silvestre for their UEFA Champions League opener on Wednesday.
The duo have failed to shake off injuries in time to join their team-mates on a tricky trip to face Dynamo Kiev.
Nasri sat out the Gunners' weekend win at Blackburn with a knee problem, while Silvestre is yet to recover from a thigh strain which has prevented him from making his debut for the club.
While Arsene Wenger will be forced to cope without the guile and experience of his French duo, he has been bolstered by the news that Gael Clichy and Emmanuel Eboue are both fit for the European encounter.
The pair had been doubts ahead of the journey to the Ukrainian capital, but have been included in Wenger's travelling party.
That means the Gunners have made just one change to the squad which secured a comprehensive 4-0 success at Ewood Park on Saturday, with Mexican striker Carlos Vela taking the place of youngster Kieran Gibbs.
