Barbara

Subtle Iva Absolutely a beast today and even when he was owing Sanchez's ass, he still presented himself well in the attack again. It's a joy to watch this man and after his best defensive performance of the season, I guess Ivanobeast is on full throttle. Unstoppable!

more gifs. Sorry, Dion, haven't come across Oscar's tackle yet. LOSER!!! SPECIALIST IN FAILURE YOU ARE!!!! Costa taking the piss... lol edit: lately the MOTM polls here are coming late... What happened?

you never post links of them, so really, doesn't matter which one you do... gifs:

We were absolutely brilliant. Cesc was immense and so was Oscar. I'll go with Cesc for MOTM for the assist (SEVEN) and to take the piss with Arses, lol. Our defense was amazing through and through and the fact they couldn't have one shot on goal is also because we reduced their spaces to finish. We were absolutely resolute, compact and smart defending, pressing and we absolutely owned them. Yes, they could do it well for 25 minutes until Hazard made his genius move and we scored, but they wouldn't last either way. You don't school the master in their specialty. Our attack was good, I think Costa was IMMENSE and AMAZING, not only for the goal, but also about how he annoyed their CBs the whole match, always between them, always pressing their goalie (I refuse to try to spell it). Our midfield also dominated their. Cesc not only assisted AGAIN, hahahaha, but also marked, pressed and made their lives hell. I really have no complaint about this. And it was funny (although also infuriating) to see the specialist in failure losing his head and shoving Mourinho around. He totally lost it and I hope he faces a ban.... Great result, great match played by us, we completely dominated them.

*orgasmic Cesc-Costa*

FUCK YEAH

Oscar is destroying Arsenal's chance ahead of the box.

well, that foul was hard to ignore.... seemingly they have to break Oscar in two for them to call it.

Cesc has been immense. He's been everywhere, doing everything, annoying every cunt from the ugly shirt. And Hazard's talent and balls got this for us. He's been amazing in his genius little moment... and then the class taking the penalty.

is there a new rule Oscar can be fouled? Second time he was clearly fouled and nothing was called.

so much class to take a penalty... I can't even!!!!!!

HAZARD!!!!

Useless Schurrle... useless

I have a bad feeling about this match for a while. UGH, just hope we win this

fuckers, game delayed because the fuckers can't handle it.

Actually we have a secret Mourinho cult. Don't let anyone know about it. I'll let you in. shhhh

lol

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11668/9502541/premier-league-jose-mourinho-insists-cesc-fabregas-made-the-right-decision-joining-chelsea edit: more complete version on Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/oct/03/jose-mourinho-cesc-fabregas-perfect-addition-chelsea-arsenal Mourinho twisting the knife on their guts. love our boss

It doesn't really matter much. He wasn't obliged to come to Chelsea. He made a decision. We have among our own, fans saying Lamps could have said 'no' to another English team if he wanted. Cesc could have said 'no' to us... He didn't. Many Arsenal fans don't care if Arsenal wanted/needed/ could have had him or not, the problem for them is Cesc wearing royal blue. Actually that's the problem most of the fans I came across have. They don't give a shit if he tried to go to Arsenal before or not. They're disgusted and gutted to see him here. I think you're putting a lot of weight on how professional athletes deal with club loyalty. This isn't that much common anymore, they're professionals, they make their decisions based on what's good or better for them, they don't give an actual fuck about what fans from other teams will say. So even if he felt like he would look like a disloyal cunt towards Arsenal, it won't influence his decisions because although it's nice to have the respect he has from Arse fans, it's too abstract, too linked to fantasy world. He wants to play in a team where he's valued, he wants to really compete for titles, he wants what's best for his family. That's Chelsea, not Arsenal. He knows that better than anyone. He's been praising Chelsea and Mourinho since he's here. He said all kind of amazing words about Mourinho just last week. Actually ever since his first interview as a Chelsea player he's been clear that what made his decision easy was talking to Mourinho. If he was interested in looking good for fans that really don't make a difference for him anymore (in a practical and pragmatic way) he wouldn't have praised Mourinho's approach. If that was really important he wouldn't have joined us... Maybe he's trying to avoid extra judgment from Chelsea fans. You know there a lot of fans that haven't come around to seeing him here. Some let their residual dislike of him as a consequence of him being Arse's captain and symbol for so long. He'd always represented everything Arsenal, he'd made many things to enrage Chelsea fans in the past. He knew there would be some part of the fans that would take a long time to warm up to him. Maybe that's reason enough for him to lie or tell half truths that could be up to interpretation, but he's said with all words that Arsenal will always be special to him, that everything he is as a football player he owes it to Arsenal. That's not the easiest to make fans who spent so many years hating him to suddenly warm up. He could have done a much better job at pleasing both his old fans and his current fans, he seems diplomatic most time, which makes me believe he's mostly telling the truth. He could be worried about pleasing one side or the other, or not trying to upset too much any of the two sides, but he's said things to enrage both sides and to please both sides. At the end of the day, as you said, it doesn't matter when, how or why the decision was made. He's here, Arsene could have stopped it from happening and that's the difference between the Voyeur and Mourinho. If Mourinho was at Arsenal and even if looked to his squad and saw that he didn't necessarily need Cesc, he still would have never allowed him to join a title contender, a rival. If he has the power to stop a rival from being stronger, he'll just do it, fuck the consequences or he'd deal with the consequences later. He would have brought Cesc there and would have found a way to make him work with both Ozil and Ramsey in the team. It's not like Ramsey doesn't miss tons of matches every season because of injuries... Mourinho doesn't think only about strengthening his teams, he also thinks about strengthening a team that could lead his rivals to drop points, but not his side (through loans) and also about now allowing his players to strengthen other teams (remember how he didn't want to keep Ba, but kept him because the only team really interested was Arsenal and he wouldn't strengthen them? And that's Ba who we're talking about here... not even marginally, comparable to Cesc's boots, let alone his value and quality as a player). Cesc was all but an Arsenal player because of the buy-back clause. Mourinho would have never allowed him to join a rival in those circumstances, even if he didn't have many plans for Cesc or if he had to sacrifice Ozil and Ramsey a little bit to make room for Cesc.

never said anything related to any of this. Just that people forgot the last two goals he's scored... which is true. His fault at City's goal has nothing to do with the goal he's scored. We aren't discussing his work-rate and ability to defend. We're discussing how people have short memory. He was awful last season, then a hero after the WC, then a hero starting the season, then now he's absolutely useless, a squad player that should be behind Willian in the pecking order. That's fickle. I don't get it either. Mourinho criticized Hazard, Oscar, Ramires, Etoo, Schurrle and probably others I can't remember to the media this year... That's something he normally didn't do and I don't know why he's been doing it lately. I don't like it.

Mourinho and Costa had no qualms admitting they negotiated and had a verbal agreement as early as january... Cesc admitted he only decided about leaving Barça at April. Maybe Barça decided it earlier, but the player made the decision only in April. If Mourinho had no problem admitting he negotiated a player with a team he faced later in UCL, if Costa had no problem admitting it was weird to score against his future club, what could possible be reason enough for Mourinho AND Cesc come up with a total different story? I'm not saying Mourinho doesn't lie, he's lied many times before. It's just that this is such a non-issue that makes no sense to lie about it. The only one interested to make things look different from the truth is Arsene as his team is clearly struggling in midfield... His interview is contradictory. He says Cesc wanted to go back to Arsenal, he says Cesc decided to go to Chelsea before he even spoke to Arsenal. Both quotes from the same interview. Am I the only one to think one contradicts the other? How come he wanted to come back to Arsenal if he's made a decision about Chelsea before he contacted Arsenal? As I said, he's the one who has to save face and therefore have reasons to lie. Mourinho did nothing wrong by contacting Barça, Cesc did nothing wrong by deciding to go to Chelsea. Time will tell if Arsenal didn't make a mistake by letting Fabregas go (right now they'd need him, they know they have a bunch of players prone to injuries...). Clubs negotiate with players' agents while they're still under contract all the time. Actually that's what happens most of the time, it's rare for a (long) contract to run out and then the player move on a free transfer, like Lewa to Bayern. So of course conversations start during the season... Also, I don't think Barcelona, Cesc and anyone else involved see Chelsea as the enemy. Maybe the bitter fans yes, but not to the extend they'd be offended by Cesc coming here. You said it yourself many, many times that neither Barcelona nor the fans were happy with Fabregas there. Why would any of them care if he came here? I think they wouldn't even care much if he transferred to another team in Spain, let alone in England. After one of the many Cesc interviews I pointed out that he's never said he contacted Arsenal because he wanted to go there. It was always something along the lines 'they had a decision to make', 'I had to go through them first'. He never said he looked the club to come back there, but just that he went to them to get the authorization he needed to transfer somewhere else. As they had the buy-back clause regardless where he wanted to go, he had to know if Arsenal would make use of the clause or not... It's been very clear to me he didn't want to come back, that he wanted to go somewhere more competitive. Maybe that's why Arsene is convinced he wanted to go to Chelsea. Everyone knows winning titles at Arsenal is once in a blue moon...

Everybody already forgot his amazing run to score the goal against City, even though that was only 10 days ago...

Fabregas told a Spanish journo that he sent texts for Arsene's birthdays and for his 1000th match ahead of Arsenal and that he's never received any from Arsene. The only conclusion I can come from that is that Arsene isn't very close to his ex-players. He says he believes the deal was done a long time ago. That makes no sense. José didn't hide from anyone he had a striker in mind in January. Diego Costa had the stirring interview where he was taken out of context but he did say he felt somewhat bad for scoring against us in the UCL SF when he knew he was coming here in a couple of months. Why would Cesc and Mourinho lie about when they talked? Mourinho wouldn't have a problem, it's been widely known that Barcelona didn't want to keep Cesc and Cesc admitted he made the decision to leave Barcelona earlier in the year (is in the same Spanish interview he said he sent texts to Arsene and never received any). I think Arsene is making assumptions - he's even using words that support conjecturing instead of facts and I particularly wouldn't trust him. I think bottom line is that Cesc wanted to go back to Arsenal, they rejected him and now Arsene is trying to save face saying this decision has been taken by Cesc a long time ago, as if when he approached Arsenal it was more about getting them to release him from the buy back clause rather than check if they were interested or not. Whatever his reasons are, he's conjecturing, the chosen words support this as what he thinks happened. For us, it may even be one more thing to rile gooners up if we assume Cesc has always wanted us. But I don't feel that's what happened, and like Arsene, I'm conjecturing too, except he has much more information than I do. edit: Also the Guardian interview (I assume both articles were made based on quotes from the same press conference), implies exactly the opposite, although they also use the same 'early in 2014 decision' part: Arsène Wenger: Cesc Fàbregas wanted to rejoin Arsenal before Chelsea move

I've read complaints and compliments, nothing new... but he's adapting, so I think it's part of the package... many of my friends who watch Bundesliga aren't that impressed with him though.

seems so little money if we think that's our main sponsor...