Closed Arsenal 1-0 Chelsea

[cosmicway 1,333]

Failure against a packed defense.

Not that they are the sorts who could n't come back again had we equalized, but they played a park the bus system all the time I watched.

Also the sunshine makes tv viewing impossible. They should never play so early, especially a charity shield match.

The injuries of Diego Costa begin to worry me and Falcao ... As I said it's going to be birds or eggs with Falcao.

[tawee75 39]

He's so won us three of our last four titles; won the champions league twice with two clubs who should have never had a chance and is considered by pretty much everyone the best manager in the world. Stop whining. Jesus.

Whining? I am just being honest, rather than jumping on Jose bandwagon. How did our past two seasons CL campaign go? If you like what you see on the pitch whenever we play then i am sorry to say that you are not football fun.

[Iggy Doonican 4,186]

The most worrying thing for me is our crossing. Absolutely piss poor. Got to say Willian was excellent and is really starting to impress in every game he plays.

[Special Juan 28,133]

The most worrying thing for me is our crossing. Absolutely piss poor. Got to say Willian was excellent and is really starting to impress in every game he plays.

Ivanovic was shocking at his delivery once again today, rinse and repeat every single time he got it.

[The Chels 2,502]

Ivanovic was shocking at his delivery once again today, rinse and repeat every single time he got it.

Having two offensively challenged fullbacks is never a good recipe against a top side sitting deep.

[Viper22 2,418]

As things stand, Is anyone here highly optimistic going into the new season? If so why.

Me.

I have faith in Mourinho because he's a serial winner. I have faith that the board will see sense and buy us the 2/3 players we need. I have faith that the managers of all of the other top teams still don't know how to correctly set up their teams for big games and so will keep losing to both each other and us. I know we've got the best big game manager in the league, we've got the best GK, the best CB and the best player. Remember aswell that our team is pretty settled and other teams are hoping for their new signings to gel quite quickly, I think this may be an issue. We'll just have to wait and see. If after 6 games we've got 14+ points i'll be pretty happy. Any less than 10 and I will start getting worried, but until then i'm pretty happy.

I still expect us to win the league next season and then possibly one of the 2 domestic cups. CL will be out of our reach barring 2012-esque magic and luck but that's not that much of a problem atm.

I'd take us winning the league ATM which for me is more than good enough, so yeah, i'm pretty optimistic.

[Laylabelle 9,534]

Couldn't get tickets as my uncle was on holiday n been ill today so wouldn't been able to go..worked out in a way especially as it was a loss anyway so didn't miss to much in a way

Much to improve on going into next season but it's a long many months.We only lost by one which was nice but been nice to start things with a trophy even if seen a little.Onto next week..

[xPetrCechx 13,570]

Also the sunshine makes tv viewing impossible. They should never play so early, especially a charity shield match.

True!

[cosmicway 1,333]

The most worrying thing for me is our crossing. Absolutely piss poor. Got to say Willian was excellent and is really starting to impress in every game he plays.

You have to be lucky, like Barcelona equalizer. If that failed you were going to say "what a poor effort".

With crosses the trick is to be as near the goal line as possible. In 1978 world cup BBC made a series of demonstrations with Malcolm Allison in the role of the professor. If you cross from the middle of the park it's 90% failure. Sometimes goals happen that way too, but apart from everything else the defense can play you off side when you do that.

[yuvala 2,167]

The most worrying thing for me is our crossing. Absolutely piss poor. Got to say Willian was excellent and is really starting to impress in every game he plays.

This was always the case.. we barely ever score from crosses.

Should really stop this BS pass to Iva and he will put in a low cross that will lead to nothing thing..

[xPetrCechx 13,570]

Iva's Crosses!

[11Drogba 2,000]

Is that an insult? La Liga has the best teams in the world.

La Liga teams don't go to Newcastle in winter, they go to Valencia instead. Let's see how many of the Arsenal players will spend the winter injured again.

[Magic Lamps 11,692]

Well at least this season we will get to see some youth players play since we haven't signed anyone.... Oh wait

lol. I think before we see a youth player fielded regularly we will see one of our 19(!) senior player collapsing from fatigue.

[Viper22 2,418]

Now if this happens, then my faith will grow massively. But as it stands, nope. No one here can convince me we are gonna win the double let alone winning the league comfortably.

We need new players. If the preseason's performances and results don't tell you anything, then I don't know what will. And don't give me that, "It's preseason! Of course we are supposed to play like shit!" I mean that's a very good indicator that we'll smash the league right?

Well even if we don't and we just sign Baba I still feel like we have the strength to retain the league. We don't need to win the league comfortably. We don't need to win the double. Retaining the league is and should always be our no.1 priority.

As for pre-season. The results seriously do mean nothing dude.

2004-05 we won 2 and lost 2. We won the league.

2005-06 we won 2 and drew 1. We won the league.

2008-09 we won 4 and drew 2. We finished 3rd in the league.

2009-10 we won 4 and drew 1. We won the league.

2010-11 we beat Palace 1-0 then lost to Ajax, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Man Utd in the CS. We finished 2nd in the league.

2011-12 we won 7/7 pre season games and won the Barclay's Asia trophy. We finished 6th in the league.

2012-13 we won 1, drew 1 and lost 3 pre season games. We finished 3rd in the league.

2013-14 we won 7 and lost 1. We finished 3rd in the league.

2014-15 we won 7, drew 1 and lost 2. We won the league.

2015-16 we have drawn 2 (technically won 2 if you count penalties) and lost 2.

There is no real pattern that I can see there. Our worst pre season was 10-11 when we finished 2nd and our best was 11-12 when we finished 6th.

[OneMoSalah 8,885]

Arsenal did to us what we've been doing to them for years. Soaking up pressure, not being particularly good and winning. We need a top LB to push Azpi and also another central midfielder, big fan of Ramires but think its time he goes or plays less frequently. Selling Filipe Luis, a Brazilian international and top left back and looking to sign some 20 year old Ghanian who had one decent season in the Bundesliga is so stupid its unbelievable. Azpi was poor today but if we had another guy like Luis, who is a top player, he could of replaced him. Cech had a good game but still not as worried about selling him as much as Luis. Verdicts still out on Falcao.

People can say it was a glorified friendly or not but at the end of the day its another trophy and I would of preferred we won it and not them. Simple as that.